BuzzFlash presents Barbara's Daily BuzzFlash Minute
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A collection of insightful ruminations, reflections, and rants on the events of the day (with the exception of the weekend). Come visit each weekday to see what's pushing Barbara's buttons.

December 7 , 2005

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Much discussion and finger pointing as to who's to blame for the mistakes made in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina---and it all starts with the fact that Louisiana did not have enough National Guard troops to handle this most disastrous of natural disasters, and all because the National Guard was fighting a war in Iraq!  Seeing an opportunity for a power grab and in the process make a Democratic governor look bad and cover up their responsibility for the missing National Guard troops, FEMA and the Bush administration entirely for political reasons did not respond immediately to requests!  My recollection is Governor Blanco, Mayor Nagin and the people of New Orleans were pleading for help, while George Bush was finishing up his vacation and attempting to look presidential during a “fly-over” of this horror!  When Bush says “there’s blame to go around,” I would say, how about taking a look in the mirror and beginning right there?

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How would you like it if you were told “it’s a war zone, and mistakes do happen” after having been shot?  How would you like it if you were told you were a “mistake”?  It’s no wonder the U.S. isn’t winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people!  It’s no wonder, on a rare occasion, we, here in America, hear an Iraqi say---“We thought [the Americans] would bring freedom.  They got rid of Saddam,” Hattab said.  “Now it’s going on three years and what?  Where is this freedom?”  We have got to hold this administration accountable; the Bush administration is responsible for making the world in which we live a more dangerous place!  The irony of it all is the Bushies proclaim the chaos and confusion, the death and destruction, is all about “freedom and democracy”!

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"BLITZER: And this footnote on this sensitive issue of the use of poison gas against the Kurds in Halabja in March, 1988. Ramsey Clark referred to a "New York Times" article published in 2003 by Stephen Pelletier, who had served as a CIA political analyst during that controversial period. Pelletier concluded that the Iraqis did use poison gas at Halabja, but he says they had aimed that gas against Iranian military forces. He says the Kurds were killed, and he says this, with a quote, 'the Kurds who were killed had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange.' Pelletier says they were not Saddam's, quote, 'main target.' Kurds and other historians, on the other hand, sharply disagree with that analysis." If this is true, if the Kurds were mistakenly “gassed” during the Iranian conflict, (remembering that famous hand-shake by none other than Rumsfeld himself, a conflict in which the U.S. fully supported Saddam Hussein) and if the gas had been supplied by the United States, don’t you think it’s beneficial for this administration to say Saddam did it with purpose, with malice and forethought, thus absolving the U.S. from any blame?   If indeed Stephen Pelletier’s analysis is correct and in fact, Saddam Hussein is convicted and executed for an unintentional “collateral damage,” the deaths of innocent civilians, where oh where does that leave George Bush?

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I am always amazed when TV anchors and right-leaning pundits try to reframe the discussion and blame the Democrats for the mess George Bush has made---anytime there is any talk about Iraq and what to do about the chaos and confusion, the blow-hards are right there to say the “Democrats haven’t offered up any solutions”!  It’s all just some more double talk to cover-up the facts that their boy Bush along with their help has made the world a more dangerous place, that innocent people are dying on a daily basis and all because a moron wanted to prove himself a better man than his father!  We the people are paying a really big price for George’s insecurities---it’s our children dying, our safety and security at risk, and our tax dollars being spent, while Bush doesn’t have a plan, he doesn’t have the answers, he doesn’t know how to rectify his wrongs!

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Another example of some compassionate conservative Christians at work, spreading the Word!  “University of Kansas religious studies professor Paul Mirecki said the men referred to the class [Mirecki planned to offer a spring course called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies"]  when they beat him on the head, shoulders and back with their fists, and possibly a metal object, the Lawrence Journal-World reported.”

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Oh, those Repuglican webs, they are so intricately woven!  Seems the man heading up Scooter Libby’s defense fund has a long history of association with all the goings on we see today---“Sembler backed Cheney as the Republican nominee for president in 1996, but Cheney dropped out of that race.  In 2000, Sembler said in an interview that he felt vindicated and ‘ecstatic’ when George W. Bush made Cheney his running mate.  Sembler was one of the chief fundraisers in the 1988 campaign of former President Bush, who then appointed him ambassador to Australia.  He later became finance chairman for the national Republican Party, and the current President Bush named him ambassador to Italy.”  One could ask, was Mr. Sembler the Ambassador to Italy when the forged Niger documents that started this whole bamboozle came to light?  And the answer is YES HE WAS!   The next question would be does he have more than just a little compassionate invested interest in Libby’s defense?  That answer is yet to be determined!

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