White House spokesmodel Dana Perino (image via Memestream)

President Bush smeared a fellow American while traveling abroad, accusing Barack Obama of trying to appease America’s enemies, just as many attempted to appease Hitler before World War II:

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)

It was a ridiculous attempt to discredit Obama, for four reasons:

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Dr Binayak Sen has devoted his life to caring for the people of India’s poorest region. He’s been outspoken about the suffering of his patients and the neglect that the government has shown them, citing the fact that 40% of the people in the area are malnourished.

That’s made Dr. Sen a target, and he’s spent the last year in prison because of a trumped-up charge that he has links to local Maoist rebels.

You have to wonder how popular Maoism would be in that region if the government focused on making sure everyone has enough to eat, rather than on imprisoning the local doctors.

Judge rules school must permit gay pride shirts.

Lab technician admits to sexually abusing the corpse of a 92-year-old woman.

Five years ago, McCain said that we’d win a quick, easy victory in Iraq. Now, he’s saying that he’ll have the war won within four years.

McCain: U.S. can win Iraq war within four years

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Thursday he believes the Iraq war can be won within four years, leaving a functioning democracy there and allowing most U.S. troops to come home. It was the first time the Arizona senator has put a date on when U.S. troops could be withdrawn from Iraq.

“By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom,” McCain said in a speech in Columbus, Ohio. “The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced,” McCain said.

(For a long time, I’ve said that Bush has moved the goalposts so far that he could kick the ball backward and still claim success. McCain is doing the same thing by laying out victory conditions that had already been achieved back in January of 2005. –g)

Maliki Stalls US Plan to Frame Iran

Early this month, the George W. Bush administration’s plan to create a new crescendo of accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shiite militias in Iraq encountered not just one but two setbacks.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to endorse US charges of Iranian involvement in arms smuggling to the Mahdi Army, and a plan to show off a huge collection of Iranian arms captured in and around Karbala had to be called off after it was discovered that none of the arms were of Iranian origin.

The news media’s failure to report that the arms captured from Shiite militiamen in Karbala did not include a single Iranian weapon shielded the US military from a much bigger blow to its anti-Iran strategy.

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Skeptics Penn and Teller show how magicians slice and reassemble bodies. I think that the key to this illusion comes right near the beginning: while Penn Gillette carries a box containing Teller’s torso, Teller waves from inside with his tie.

Guys from “The Chaser” offer a free gullibility test outside a Scientology center

Czar Nicholas II, Nouri al-Maliki’s role model

Iraqi PM visits Mosul to review anti-Qaida campaign

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday to supervise a military offensive against al-Qaida in Iraq, a defense ministry spokesman said.

Al-Maliki’s flight to northern Iraq mirrors a similar trip he took almost two months ago to the southern city of Basra, where government troops fought radical Shiite militias. That fighting spread to the Shiite slum of Sadr City in Baghdad, where a cease-fire to end the fighting was reached on Monday.

(Not long ago, Maliki went to Basra to oversee his failed operation there, just as Nicholas II went to the front during WWI to rally his troops against the German invasion. So far, Maliki and Nicholas have gotten similar results from their efforts. –g)

Iran shifts attention to brokering peace in Iraq

Iran’s role in helping broker a cease-fire in Baghdad’s Sadr City may be the first sign that it is acting to fulfill recent promises to stop arming Iraq’s militias and help stem their attacks.

While the deal inked Monday was tested Tuesday as militants in Moqtada al-Sadr’s Baghdad stronghold launched overnight attacks on US forces, Iraqi officials say that Iranian influence was key to reaching the deal with the anti-American cleric aimed at ending weeks of deadly fighting.

Iran’s intervention comes as previously undisclosed details are emerging of a secret meeting between Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, other senior Iraqi officials, and the commander of Iran’s Qods Force, Brig. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in April, after clashes with Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Basra. In that meeting, General Soleimani “was deeply concerned” and “promised to stop arming groups in Iraq and to ensure that groups halt activities against US forces,” according to a description given by a US official to the Monitor.

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A bar in suburban Atlanta is now selling the t-shirt depicting Barack Obama as a monkey. Of course, the bar’s owner swears that he’s not at all racist:

The T-shirts are being peddled by Marietta bar owner Mike Norman at his Mulligan’s Bar and Grill in Cobb County. They show a picture of Curious Georgie peeling a banana, with the words “Obama ‘08″ underneath.

Norman has said he got the T-shirts from someone in Arkansas. He started selling them at his bar — known for the provocative, ultra-conservative political slogans often posted on signs out front — in April but said he has no plans to mass market them. Norman acknowledged the imagery’s Jim Crow roots but said he sees nothing wrong with depicting a prominent African-American as a monkey.

His defenders are just as resolute. Mulligan’s is a refuge, they say, in an otherwise hypersensitive world. Smoking isn’t only allowed at the bar, it’s expected.

“This place is a diamond in the rough,” said Gene McKinley, a Woodstock engineer among the patrons Tuesday. “People here are genuine and honest. It’s the one place I can go without having to worry if I’m offending someone.”

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Boy, oh, boy! doesn’t time just darned well fly when you’re having fun?

(We hope Gordo will forgive us for shirking for so long.)

It’s already over a fortnight yesterday since we arrived here in Fethiye, Mugla, right on southern Turkey’s beautiful Mediterranean coast - and the tan’s coming along quite nicely thank you.

Biggest bits of international news we’ve been made aware of over here - merely verbally, since we’re studiously avoiding all contact with any sort of MSM while away from it all - are as follows:

(a) Britain’s recent local elections saw New labour being battered and beaten into THIRD place nationally, by both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. This was the greatest British political slaughter of a socialist party for over four decades. Talk about sending Gordon Brown Co a strong signal, eh?

(b) Hilary Clinton’s still stone cold dead & buried (presidentially speaking) but for the life of her, the lady still won’t lie down.

(c) Although it may not seem much to none Brits, the Conservative party’s professional buffoon Boris Johnson has beaten Ken Livingstone in the latest poll for the position of Mayor of London. Our bewildered minds are still in a state of bogglement.

Okay, now if any one’s at all interested in what’s happening locally here in Fethiye (one of the jewels in the crown of this particular region’s famous ‘Land of Lights’ area), here’s what’s grabbed our attention over the last fortnight.

Three US senators whose names escape us (a quick google should help) have been visiting this lovely, hot-spot for foreign tourists — as has an official representative of the US’s ‘NASA’. And, yep, you read that right - ‘NASA’.

(Don’t even ask us.)

Once again, maybe good old Google can enlighten anyone curious enough to want to find out out more.

More big news here is that although the tourist trade is still (just) managing to stay out of reverse gear, as it were, not to put too fine a point on it the Turkish economy (like many others) is getting pretty close to falling flat on it’s arse.

The one exception is the housing/construction sector. This is due largely to the increasing numbers of foreigners (like my brother), wanting their personal sunny spot in ‘Paradise’ — while they’re still alive (and well heeled) enough to enjoy it.

However … the Government have just placed restrictions on the number of future homes which are being allowed to be bought by foreigners.

Hmm.

We wonder if the obvious upcoming supply and demand ‘opportunities’ this situation seems bound to present is in any way connected with the recent official American interest being shown?

Well, right now your guess is as good as ours.

As for NASA … like we said earlier … don’t even ask.

Oh, by the way, as elsewhere across the globe the price of rice has suddenly rocketed. That’s bigger news than you may imagine, as it’s the Turks ’staple’ - especially for the regular man, woman and family in the street. In one month it’s price has doubled.

Also, after being close to claiming the undisputed, outright title for for quite a while now — Turkey is now the dearest place in the world in which to buy petrol.

What a weird old world we’re living in today, eh?

Especially since Turkey has borders with both Iraq and Iran.

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And now, be it considered either a pleasure or a punishment, we’re trying to make amends for our (sort of) unauthorised absence by offering a double dose of Old Brit postings at absolutely no cost to anyone.

All heart, ain’t we?

Abject Apologies For Unauthorised Absence … Well, Sort Of … Merhaba, from Turkey!

Just to let everyone know we’re still in the land of the living, and to take the opportunity to thank to Gordo for doing such a great job of keeping the old blog going. Not forgetting yourselves of course, for carrying on reading.

We appreciate you all. Really.

First off, my brother in Afghanistan is okay.

Secondly, my brother in Turkey is fine too. I positively can vouch for that, as I’m temporarily living right next door to him for a little while.

We’ve already been here a week but have spent that week completely resting from all and every method of communication — very deliberately. Isn’t old age awful?

Anyway, we’ll be catching up with civilisation again shortly - via ‘the media’ - for what it’s worth. Once we have some idea of what we’ve been missing - for better or worse - we’ll be putting our two penneth of big boots back in - like it or not.

By the way, we wish you all could be here. The travel industry doesn’t call Turkey “Paradise” for nothing.

Believe us.

Stay tuned. And we mean that most sincerley

I’m no fan of the Bush administration, but I have to give them credit for insisting that administration officials avoid loaded terminology like “jihadi”, “Islamic terrorist”, and “Islamofascist.” It was the right thing to do, given the fact that there are a lot of patriotic Americans who are also Muslims. It was also an obvious call, given the fact that an effective war on terror requires the support of Muslim nations. But Bush got a lot of obvious calls wrong, so it’s worth mentioning that he got this one right.

But Republican lawmakers rebelled when they found out that Bush had done something smart:

The leak of Bush administration guidelines urging U.S. officials to avoid using terms such as “jihadi” or “Islamic terrorists” to refer to al Qaeda and similar groups has exposed a fault line in Republican thinking about the U.S. war on terrorism. On Friday, every Republican member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence voted for an amendment to an intelligence bill that would have banned the use of federal cash to produce documents like the terminology guidelines from the U.S. National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC) that recently were leaked and posted online.

The NCTC guidelines say such shorthand “reinforces the ‘U.S. vs. Islam’ framework that [al Qaeda] promotes.”

The amendment, authored by Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the panel’s ranking Republican, was defeated on a party-line vote. Mr. Hoekstra called it “sad that as we approach the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we are still debating how to define our enemy.” His amendment aimed to end what he called “McCarthyism in reverse” and “speech codes that encumber accurately describing the radical jihadist terrorists that attacked America.”

Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona will continue to use the term “Islamic” terrorists in talking about al Qaeda, an aide told The Washington Times recently.

McCarthyism in reverse? Wha? Is that when they Communists start blacklisting writers for being too conservative? Or is it when Fascists start un-blacklisting liberals? And what’s it got to do with these guidelines?

And in case you’re wondering why using terms like “jihadis” is a bad idea, officials from the State Department spell it out for you:

“The use of the word ‘Islamic’ before the word terrorist is heard by Muslims in the U.S. and elsewhere as a lack of nuance, which may incorrectly suggest that all Muslims are terrorists or that we are at war with Islam to the extent it is heard that way it is not in our interests to use it,” an official said.

The NCTC guide says “Never use the terms ‘jihadist.’ In Arabic, jihad means ’striving in the path of God’ and is used in many contexts beyond warfare. Calling our enemies jihadis and their movement a global jihad unintentionally legitimizes their actions.”

So if an American official says, “we used enhanced interrogation on a jihadist”, Arabs hear, “we tortured a man for striving in the path of God.” And Pete Hoekstra and John McCain think that would be a good thing.