Fresh Loaf

Afghanistan’s 2nd presidential election of the War On Terror™ era is Thursday.

Should you care?

Yes. The U.S. has occupied Afghanistan since 2001.

Out of the goodness of my heart, I wrote two columns on the subject. That’s how strong my love is.

The first is about President Hamid Karzai and the election’s main issues.

The second is about the opposition and features a picture of donkey genitals.

Really, what more could you ask for?

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(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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COLLAPSE?

>> Palin’s daughter has more sense than her mom, which is really not a difficult feat. Bristol 2016!

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>> On the verge of foreclosure? Prepare for stimulation!

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>> People probably shouldn’t keep 200-pound chimps as pets. This is why. In related news …

>> ‘PLEASE EXPLAIN TO THE NON-AMERICANS?’: Worst. Cartoon. Ever. Read the comments for the best (saddest) parts.

>> Finally, a Facebook group was created that actually managed to affect change. So, FB doesn’t own you. For now.

>> CHANGE WE CAN’T BELIEVE IN: Obama administration war policies are looking scarily familiar.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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With just a few pages remaining on our “countdown to a president who can actually pronounce the word ‘nuclear’ and who doesn’t look or act like he sprouted from the egg of a dim-witted chimpanzee fertilized by the irradiated sperm of Roy Rogers” page-a-day calendars, George W. Bush has already given up even pretending he’s president.

Instead, Dubya is in ex-president mode, focusing his energy on legacy-management.

Roughly half the White House home page is now occupied by links to documents that attempt to spin a positive, alternate history of the Bush years.

The most obnoxious is the 40-pager titled, “100 Things You May Not Know About The Bush Presidency.”

In the “every day is opposite day” dream-world from which the document emanates, Bush actually boasts about his economic leadership.

“[S]ix years of uninterrupted economic growth and 52 consecutive months of job growth,” says one bullet point. Conveniently missing are the bits about how he steered the economy into its deepest hole since the Great Depression.

Even more asinine is this bullet-point boast, appearing under the header “Kept America Safe”: “For more than seven years after September 11, 2001, prevented another attack on our homeland.”

Excuse me? Um, George, you were actually president on 9/11. It was the deadliest ever foreign attack on U.S. soil, and unless Wikipedia is lying to me again, the deadliest violent event in the U.S. since the Civil War’s Battle of Antietam.

“We haven’t had an attack while I was President except for that huge one that happened while I was President,” isn’t much of a boast.

It’s a bit like your wife standing up at your 10th wedding anniversary dinner and toasting you with “Honey, I just want you to know I haven’t been unfaithful to you since that weekend seven years ago when I snuck off to Vegas to star in Gangbang Party 14: Under the Milfy Way. Other than that, honey, totally faithful.” (more…)

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Lashkar-e-Taiba sounds like the name of a perky, South Asian ice-dancing duo. “Taiba’s triple lutz was the crowd pleaser, but it was Lashkar’s flawless camel spin that really wowed the judges.”

But don’t let the cute moniker fool you. Lashkar-e-Taiba is a terrorist group headquartered in Pakistan. It’s a very, very, (very!) dangerous organization.

Audience shouts: “How dangerous is it?

It’s soooo dangerous, when she steps on a talking scale, the scale says “ouch.”

I’m sorry. That’s how fat your mama is.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is soooo dangerous, it very nearly started a nuclear war.

In December 2001, LeT attacked India’s parliament in New Delhi. The assault left 12 dead and 22 injured. Naturally, India was furious. LeT operated freely and openly in Pakistan. India warned Pakistan: if you don’t crack down on LeT, we will.

To show it was serious, India ordered a massive troop build-up along its border with Pakistan. By mid-2002, India had roughly 700,000 troops — and nuclear weapons — ready to hit Pakistan. In response, Pakistan pointed 300,000 troops — and its own nuclear arsenal — at India.

It’s the closest the world has come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis. (more…)

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Last week, in a column correctly described as the best newspaper column I wrote last week, I noted that the focus of the War On Terror™ has shifted from the Middle East to South Asia.

Public discussion of this shift tends to dwell on Afghanistan – where American talking-heads are hoping former Surgin’ Gen. David Petraeus will be able to produce a successful sequel to his Iraq success. Call it Surgin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.

But anyone pinning their hopes on an Iraqi-style surge succeeding in Afghanistan is missing half the story. Afghanistan can’t be improved, and certainly can’t be fixed, without also addressing the serious problems plaguing its neighbor, Pakistan.

Like Danny and Sandy might have said had they been senior fellows at the Council on Foreign Relations instead of senior classmen at fictional Rydell High School: Afghanistan and Pakistan go together, like rama lama lama ke ding a de ding a dong.

(Read mo’)

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JIM MARTIN: Soundly defeats Vernon Jones to win the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate; will face Saxby Chambliss in November.

TED JACKSON: There’s a new (Democratic nominee for) sheriff in town.

CLAYTON: Kem Kimbrough beats controversy-prone Sheriff Victor Hill for the Democratic nomination.

DEKALB CEO: Burrell Ellis beats Stan Watson and, with no Republican contender in the race, is the new CEO.

EX-BIN LADEN DRIVER: Found guilty today in the first Guantanamo war crimes trial.

SEA TURTLE NESTS: A record number have been found in Georgia this year.

ARBORING A GRUDGE: The New York Times reports on former Atlanta senior arborist Tom Coffin, who was fired July 29 for pointing out to his bosses the under- or nonenforcement of the tree ordinance in certain parts of the city.

WILLIE B.: The subject of a new documentary produced by Andrew Young.

UGA: Named by Sports Illustrated as the magazine’s preseason No. 1 and featured on one of five regional covers this week.

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Doug Teper, the prankster with a cue-ball cranium renowned for the passion he brought to the Georgia General Assembly as a state representative from DeKalb County, is in the belly of the beast and bringing the message of freedom, Jaw-juh style, to the people of northern Iraq.

From the rabblerousers at InsiderAdvantage (scroll down):

It’s OK: Teper’s On The Job

Former Democratic State Rep. Doug Teper of Atlanta has turned up in – of all places – Kurdish Iraq. Here’s what he said in a recent e-mail:

“I am consulting with a nonprofit organization called the National Democratic Institute For International Affairs. NDI provides practical assistance to civic and political leaders advancing democratic values, practices and institutions worldwide. At critical moments of transition, NDI’s method is to introduce experts-political party leaders, civic organizers, election officials, and legislators- to those in need of information, guidance and encouragement. I am working with the Political Party Development group training Iraqi political parties in political campaign election organizing.”

Teper said he’s living in a secured compound that has a recreation facility (”tv, darts and, yes, even a self-stocked bar.”) The gig lasts six weeks but could be extended.

He served in the Legislature through 2004.

If you’ve ever been witness to The Wonder That Is Teper, his addition to a warzone would strike you as bizarrely fascinating, although not entirely unexpected. This appears to be Teper’s dormant blog, which is a little glimpse into the mind of the man.

(Photo courtesy of state House of Representatives)

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Yo, America.

American casualties in Iraq are up for the third straight month.

If you insist on focusing your attention on the idiotic ramblings of a narcissistic, ill-tempered religious figure, how about focusing it on one whose ramblings mean life-or-death for thousands of Americans and Iraqis.

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Last night, President Bush released excerpts of the speech he’s going to give today about Iraq on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war.

As expected, it’s a collage of lies and spin:

“In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network.”

Osama bin Laden doesn’t now, nor has he ever controlled Iraq. Bush is conflating the Iraq war with the man responsible for 9/11.

The only reason Iraqis have the had the opportunity to turn against al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq is because we created the chaos that allowed them to operate.

It’s true that many Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq have turned against extremists in Iraq like al Qaeda, but Bush is taking credit for Iraqis tackling a problem that his invasion created.

“The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around — it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror,”

That’s like chopping off a man’s arms and calling yourself a doctor because you brought him paper towels and Bactine.

The troop escalation, known as the surge, has been a skillful refinement of tactics. But even its architect, Gen. David Petraeus, acknowledges it’s a strategic failure so far because Iraqi leaders will not reconcile.

The declared purpose of the escalation was to slow violence enough to facilitate political progress in Iraq. No such progress has been made.

“The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable,”

Millions of Iraqis have fled since the invasion. Millions more were forced from their homes and live as refugees in their own country.

The lowest estimate of Iraqi war dead is 81,000. Iraq is 1/12 the size of the U.S. A similarly deadly war in this country would leave 1 million people dead.

Undeniable success.

(Illustration by Jeremy Fuerst)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) – A police plan to map out Muslim communities, a proposal that civil rights groups sharply criticized as racial and religious profiling, has been shelved, a police spokeswoman said Wednesday.

I guess they’ll have to revert to plan B:

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“The Internet is the new Afghanistan,” says NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

But I thought it was a series of tubes.

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