The following article represents my own opinions, and those opinions are not necessarily shared by my business partners, friends, family or cat.  If you keep reading, and get pissed off, it's your own fault- but I want you to stay focused.   Don't get pissed off at anybody but me.  Ok?

I've gotten a little flack about the "idiot in chief" comment in my July 14 blog post.

If you don't want to read about my political views, I recommend that you move on.  Now.

You'll get no apologies from me.

You can add "murderer," "traitor," and "war profiteer" to the mix, too.  Common criminal. 

Some of my readers seem to be able to differentiate between middle-east human beings and north american human beings.

I can't do that.  We're all God's children.  The children who lay bleeding and broken in the rocky streets of Baghdad are just as precious as my own kids.  They're not animals.  They're not monsters.  They're people just like you and me. 

Through the years, our government and the business interests that buy and sell them, has managed to convince the populace that Mexicans, Indians, Germans, Italians, Japanese, Chinese, Iraqi and Iranians are all sub-human monsters that deserve whatever atrocity we lay on them.  The populace runs through the streets:  "kill the huns," "kill the commies,"  "kill the rag-heads."

Stop it.

It was bullshit then.  It's bullshit now.

The only thing the Iraqi populace did to deserve the bombs that rained down on them was have a bad governor they couldn't get rid of.  I hope the rest of the world doesn't buy into that rationale, or we're in big trouble.  We're in big trouble, anyway.

Here's a mind exercise for you.  Imagine you're sitting in your comfortable home and bombs start tearing through your neighborhood because China wants to take out your leader.  Of course, the leader is in a bunker.  Your children, your friends, and your neighbors are lacerated and lay bleeding in the rubble of their homes.  Later, the Chinese bring land troops to your home town, and that is the law of the land.  If you can't understand their orders (in Chinese) they shoot you.  You hide inside your house, where there is no electricity, no water, and no food- and the troops come door to door.  Kicking in doors and hauling off the young men of military age.  They're never seen again.

What would you do?

If you've got any balls at all, you'll be able to understand how the world, and the U.S., looks to the middle east.

That brings us to the current "executive privilege" situation that congress and the executive branch are enjoying right now.

The president says, in a nutshell, "yea, we broke laws.  We burned Val Plame for political reasons.  We've lied, stolen and cheated, and we're going to put it behind us."

Move on.  Nothing to see here.

My position is that the president is just another citizen, and the laws apply to him, and his staff, as strictly as they do to the poorest crack-head who knocks over a 7-11 to get a fix.  Imagine the crack-head standing in front of a judge, and saying, "yea, I broke the law.  I shot the clerk and stole the money.  But, we're going to put that behind us now." 

Same law.  Equal under the law.  Executive privilege, commutation, and pardoning powers were not given to the president so that he and his staff would be above the law.  Same deal with the attorney general- his job is to enforce the law, not manipulate it to protect his boss.

Perhaps we all need to sit down and read the Declaration of Independence again.  And the Bill of Rights. 

Anyway, last night, as I listened to that young woman from Iran talk about her internet business, and what tools she used to create e-books, and how patient and encouraging she was to the others on the call... and then got up this morning and read about how our military wants to drop bombs on her... 

Don't think you know anything about the situation in Iraq or Iran.  We already know that everything we were led to believe about the rationale for invading Iraq was bullshit.  Every single thing they told us was created out of thin air to manipulate us to let them go on their killing spree.

Why?  I don't know. 

Was it oil?  Was it some kind of blood-lust?  Was it because the bombs looked like firecrackers?  Was it as banal as the fact that the people who make the decision to drop the bombs own stock in the companies that make the bombs?

I don't know, but I want it stopped.   Now.