We are suffering from the most well-funded thought-control experiment in history, more sophisticated and deadly by many orders of magnitude than anything contrived by Kim Jong Il … . It is our empathy that is under attack, because if it is aroused to a point where Iraqis or Afghans or even our own imperial soldiers become real people (and not a yellow-ribbon magnet), the jig is up. So here is a simple reminder. This war is wanton cruelty in our name; there is no rationalization that can mitigate or excuse it; “we” will not win it and somehow transmogrify a swine into a swan … and it is not over.

Stan Goff: Reflecting on Rumsfeld

Bill Maher offers President Bush the best possible advice:

It’s time to do what you’ve always done best: lose interest, and walk away.

Real Time, August 26, 2005

Everyone seems to be pondering the “problem” of how to withdraw from Iraq. Here’s how you do it: you give the order.

Cease fire immediately.

The people on the ground are military personnel. They don’t say, Gee, I’m not sure. They say, Yes, sir. The brass says Jump, and they say, How high? The brass should say:

Cease fire immediately.

Obviously there are criteria according to which this solution is less than optimal. But those considerations are secondary to fact that our armed forces are over there, right now, killing people. We sent them there to kill people. That was wrong. It was among the worst things this nation has ever done. And we know that now, but we’re still doing it. We must call our forces back, right now, before anyone else is killed. The longer we wait, the more people die. We must stop. Right. Now.

Getting the men out is not the problem. That they are there is the problem; getting them out is the solution. People are dying over there. We must stop killing. It’s that simple! Stop killing! — not according to some schedule, but now!

Everyone’s asking how should we handle or schedule or organize or justify the pullout. That is bullshit. The war is something we’re doing, and we have to stop doing it. There is no how! Just stop! We notice what we’re doing, and that it is terrible, and we stop. Give the order, not some day, not even today, but right now. Say something like this. Translate it into militarese if you want to, but do it now.

Do not kill one more person. Do not fire another fucking shot. Stop fighting, right now. Pack up your things, starting now.

Come home.

Commanders, I challenge you. How many troops can you reach today, before the sun goes down? Close this browser window and get started. Thank you.

From the New York Times:

BAGHDAD, Oct. 10 — A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war here.

A New Estimate of Civilian Deaths The figure breaks down to about 15,000 violent deaths a month, a number that is quadruple the one for July given by Iraqi government hospitals and the morgue in Baghdad and published last month in a United Nations report in Iraq. That month was the highest for Iraqi civilian deaths since the American invasion.

But it is an estimate and not a precise count, and researchers acknowledged a margin of error that ranged from 426,369 to 793,663 deaths.

If we had 250 billion dollars to spend on regime change in Iraq, we could have given every single one of the 25 million residents of Iraq ten thousand dollars. I bet they wouldn’t “hate our freedoms” then!