#210 That Other Health-Care Vote--IrAfPak

And speaking of St. Dennis of Cleveland, here's the Mother Teresa of anti-war protesters, Cindy Sheehan, in her most iconic photo-shoot at an earlier demonsration. It could just as well have been taken yesterday, the Seventh Anniversary of the War In Iraq, where she got martyred in just the same way. Yes, St. Cindy (hyperbole, but NO sarcasm intended) and eight of her acolytes were arrested for "crossing" something or other (read: cops) as they were donating their flag-draped coffin-replicas outside the White House fence as usual once again. Not-arrested were THOUSANDS of others--GLAD TO REPORT-- similarly protesting the needless loss of American lives in the Middle East. (AP here)

All this--while at the Capitol a few blocks away Tea-Baggers and other toxic Dregs and Lees of Society were protesting a bill that would help stop the needless loss of American lives under our current health-care system. (HP here). Priorities, ah priorities.

Now on yet another anniversary of the unjustified and wasteful war in Iraq, the protesters can add Afghanistan Redux, whatever the cause of its earlier beginnings. Soon, our ground troops will follow the robot bombs dropping on Pakistan, and already contingency plans have been laid for intervention in Iran, Yemen, and Syria. Not to mention an old favorite, North Korea. "TOMORROW'S WARS ... that could tie up American troops for decades," said one meshugga Pentagon official with undisguised self-satisfaction (see THAT whole megilla in DM #179-180).

I've blogged and flogged, but America IS war-crazy, and I'm just not sure how we're going to get out of it. Well, "war-crazy" at the top, anyway. Neurobiological Science has discovered that, since WWII, American Presidents--whether Republican or Democrat--have undergone some sort of malign mutation that makes them want to kill foreigners. Hasn't fully affected the commoners yet--they're always in the majority against--but most of Congress seems always genetically inclined. With its permission, implicitly or otherwise, our Commanders in Chief over the last three decades have INVADED and/or BOMBED:

--Grenada
--Haiti
--Panama
--IRAQ
--Somalia
--Serbia
--Bosnia
--AFGHANISTAN
--IRAQ
--AFGHANISTAN
--Pakistan

So it's lucky we've got our own CRAZY PEOPLE out there to be on the side of REASON. Borderline lunatics like Ralph Nader and Cindy Sheehan (who lost a son killing foreigners) can be counted on--yesterday, in fact--to take up the cause. Nader maintained that Obama has essentially followed the policies of the Bush administration: "He's kept Guantanamo open ... continued to use indefinite detention," and so on. But I much prefer St. Cindy's less cerebral, more in-your-face, 60's style of protest. As she was being cuffed and led away, she gestured toward the White House and shouted:

Arrest THAT war criminal!

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