It seems that the mainstream press couldn’t any more info on Michael or the missing girl in Aruba and decided to tackle this whole Downing Street issue. A story has finally appeared on CNN where it seems that the Democratic Forum has gotten enough coverage of the topic to warrant a story.

Interestingly, near the end they mention another Sunday Times article, writing:

The Sunday Times also reported on an eight-page briefing paper prepared for Blair which concludes that the U.S. military has given “little thought” to the aftermath of a war in Iraq.

The briefing paper of July 21, 2002 says that a postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise and that “as already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden.”

I’m glad to see that finally some Americans will get to hear some semblance of the truth about our reigning despot, the boy king.

In a past post, I pointed out Amazon’s secret porn stash. I encourage you to read that post, or this one may not mean much.

Us Llama’s are nothing if not diligent. We have uncovered yet another stash of adult products.

So here is your SpittingLlamas challenge. Let’s find as much porn on Amazon and create a list here in our post comments. After we get a good list, I’ll create a SpittingLlamas Listmania Amazon List so this stash will be hidden no longer.

It’s not being reported in the American press for reasons that any conspiracy theorist would love to debate. I’d rather say that I just cannot explain why this story doesn’t simply trump all the runaway bride and Michael Jackson blather that is on the air and in the papers.

I’m talking about the fact that Tony Blair and the US administration planned for the Iraq war nearly 8 months before we went to war. His administration even says that the US was going to fix the evidence and facts to fit the policy. The decision was already made 8 months before the war started. Yet, the British and the Americans governments continued to make a false case for the war simply to implement the plan they had already created.

All of these claims are based on the London Times report of a document which contains the minutes of a high-level secret meeting which Tony Blair attended and discussed these and more damning items. This document contains such gems as:

• Military action was now seen as inevitable.
• Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
• There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
• The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun “spikes of activity” to put pressure on the regime. (Note that this is July 23, 2002).
• It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.
• We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
• The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult.

How can this information be ignored by the journalists of the US? This information sends me into an absolute outrage, yet somehow the Bush administration has created an environment where no one in the press (at least, mainstream press) is willing to cover this story in any more powerful way than as a roadbump in Tony Blair’s reelection bid.

I recently saw Tom Smothers speak. He was not talking about this particular incident, but he did discuss the greater culture of silence that seems to have pervaded both the press and the public compared to the fairly repressive times in which his TV show was canceled for its anti-war and anti-administration content. He told the audience, “I don’t want to be a good German.” It’s inflammatory and provocative, as a good speech should be, but I don’t think he’s too far from reality.

What Bush is complicit in here is a criminal attack on another sovereign nation and he should be impeached and put to face the highest of all punishments for this crime.

Some 30 foreign United Nations staff in the west region of Darfur have withdrawn due to threats from the Janjaweed militia, who are accused of killing and raping villagers and driving two million people from their homes. Here’s hoping the president, who claims “Hotel Rwanda” is his favorite movie and that such a thing “wouldn’t occur on his watch,” is paying attention. Just a reminder: In the last 18 months, the UN estimates at least 180,000 people have died in Darfur of illness and malnutrition.

In case you missed it, last year the Department of State released its annual Trafficking in Persons report. Though often limited to episodes of “Law and Order” and the occasional report on an American who travels abroad to ‘tour’ child sex slaves, human trafficking and slavery is relatively common.

Across the United States alone, more than 10,000 people are forced to work against their will. According to a report by Free The Slaves, a Washington, D.C-based organization, and the Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley, modern day slavery is concentrated in large cities and on farms, usually in sex trades, agriculture, or domestic service jobs. Despite the enacting of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, human trafficking crimes continue to increase. In fact, it’s now a $9 billion a year global industry.

I was waiting for it to happen, the first picture of the first Tsunami wave as it comes ashore.

Apparently, the above image is the first wave as it rolls in. Tsunami’s do not take place Hollywood style, with a single, mammoth wave blocking out the sun. But rather, a Tsunami is actually a group of waves that build up and drive deeper ashore with each one, then tapers off.

I would imagine no one in this image is still alive, despite the fact they are running like hell.

I predict that there will be more and more video released as well. With a swath of destruction so vast, and beaches so full of hotels, security camera footage is just around the corner as the ratings hungry media continues their Tsunami of exploitation.

That is the part that saddens me the most now. The media is now trying to find the next worst horror story to deliver it on nightly news. Interviews with a six year old that lost both parents; the mother that had to let go of one of her children to save the other; the elderly couple that was swept away for lack of strength to hang on as the rescue boat approached. And we are eating it up.

What Tsunami swept away our souls and how do we get them back?

One week ago, the U.S. Defense Department quiety released a report highly critical of the Bush administration’s war on terror and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Produced by the Defense Science Board, an advisory committee established to give the Secretary of Defense independent advice, the report says the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have served to unite previously divided Muslim extremists and raise the stature of terrorists organizations like Al Qaeda.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, the document also reports that “Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies.” Piling on the limited number of news stories and coverage of this critical document, Al Jazeera added that the report also claims the U.S. is failing “to promote its policies to Muslims wary of American intentions and hypocrisy.” This latter statement is, of course, no surprise to Americans who still don’t understand the administrations policies and intentions.

Since the recent round of kidnapping and beheadings by the Islamic extremists, and the media seemingly runing out of every other angle in which to play the story, they are now presenting a new twist.

The US press is now flooding the airwaves with Quran experts debating if beheading is permitted.

Let’s think about this a second. And let’s look back into America’s past when we were inflicted with Christian extremist.

The KKK was a Christian extremist group, just like Al-Quida. The KKK sited religious reasons why blacks and whites should not mix or inter-marry.

Did people in the early 1900s look into the Bible to see if hanging was permitted? I doubt it. And I’m guessing it’s because when someone mentions the KKK, it’s clearly understood that they are/were an extremist group not associated with normal, rational thinking.

Yet each time an “expert” is presented on TV, radio or print, stipulating on whether or not the Quran permits beheading, it is presented as if the behavior of these extremists is somehow associated with Islamic law.

When did we, as a country, get so damn stupid?

The cognoscenti among us know that it’s all TV’s fault. If there were no TV and and no way for any of the cocksuckers in the middle east or the asshats in the US administration to get their message to your typical dumbfuck American, this would be a moot point. Killing one person would mean nothing because the flag-flying soccer mom in the Dodge Caravan wouldn’t even be able to bitch about with her bleeding gash country club cooze clutch.

Everyone knows that the country is getting dumber and poorer. The birth rate increases in reverse exponential proportion to an increase in economic and education success. Americans are literally breeding themselves stupid and poor. This is why the “all men are equal” forefathers of this country were only giving lip service to such magnanimous ideas. They enjoyed being the elite and they realized that it was imperative for the country to have an elite from which to draw its rulers. Knowing that a massive mob mentality among the dumb and poor would eventually drown out the more knowing and intelligent debate across the country, they built in laws and rules to protect the country.

Unfortunately, those laws and rules are being eroded, not, as you may think, by the liberal left and their socially open policies, but by the religious right which is infesting the intellectual elite with self-righteous, ignorant sycophants whose only goal is to suck at the teat of the American populace. The very people who should represent the educated, concerned, and compassionate “thought leaders” are pushed aside by antiquated, close-minded notions of moral justification that resembles some claim of divine jurisprudence by a President who seems to have coronated himself as the “Son King.”

In the end, what the majority clamor for is twisted into one more layer of bureaucratic insulation for the diseased ruling elite. It’s one more way for the current administration and the millions of NASCAR fans who love it to protect themselves from being superseded by the millions of us whose ideas more closely adhere to the principles and foundations of this country.

So, what we need to do is remove the reasons they hate us, because though extreme, the facts about our society that they hate so much are facts about our society that we should try to amend with equal fervor.

In case you are keeping score along with us, three countries are now pulling out of Iraq:

Spain
Honduras
Dominican Republic

Add to the mix that Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Why shouldn’t we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?”

He then said that restoring compulsory military service would force “our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face.”

You know what would have helped us “understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face”?

The Truth. Pretty simple. If you hadn’t lied to us before the war about the reasons for going to war, maybe you’d have a more sympathetic country supporting you.

“Those who are serving today and dying today are the middle class and lower middle class,” Senator Hagel pointed out. Yes, that’s right. Because rich people don’t go to war, right Dubbya? And they still won’t go to war if there is a draft, because we saw how many son’s of millionaries fought Vietnam.