Tom Tomorrow, Bush, and Watergate

Tom Tomorrow, one of the nation's finest political cartoonists, showed how much the nation has changed with this brilliant comic about Watergate and Bush (click for full size)(thanks to Dailykos):



The LA Times is reporting that Congressional Republicans are going after the International Red Cross for not serving American interests. Actually, the Red Cross serves American interests, assuming that American interests include democracy, freedom, forward vision, and a better world for everyone. But perhaps the Republicans make different assumptions than those.

Tom Dispatch, always a good source, offers us The Actually Existing Occupation by Tom Engelhardt and Jonathan Schell, on the ongoing defeat in Iraq (via Anti-War.com):

Meanwhile, in Iraq, the American officers fighting the war and their troops tell another story to reporters. Senior officials now claim not-so-privately "that there is no long-term military solution to an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis and more than 1,300 U.S. troops during the past two years." Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, commented to reporter Tom Lasseter of Knight Ridder, "I think the more accurate way to approach this right now is to concede that … this insurgency is not going to be settled, the terrorists and the terrorism in Iraq is not going to be settled, through military options or military operations." Lt. Col. Frederick P. Wellman, who works with the task force overseeing the training of Iraqi security troops, told Lasseter (a fine reporter, by the way) that "the insurgency doesn't seem to be running out of new recruits, a dynamic fueled by tribal members seeking revenge for relatives killed in fighting. 'We can't kill them all,' Wellman said. 'When I kill one I create three.'" Gen. George W. Casey, top U.S. commander in Iraq, "called the military's efforts 'the Pillsbury Doughboy idea' – pressing the insurgency in one area only causes it to rise elsewhere."

*sigh* And the Pentagon says Guantanamo critics are ignorant. Quite true. We'd love to be enlightened on what the prisoners have done, why they are being held, when they will be let free, and whether the government will apologize to the world and compensate the prisoners for its illegal and immoral behavior.

And the US launched another Vietnam-style raid-n-run into northern Iraq today, along the Syrian border, Operation Spear. Did we learn nothing from defeat in Vietnam?