Somewhat different song-and-dance : SRF Heavy Industries

Somewhat different song-and-dance

And now, a stylized form of homoerotic performance art made popular in Japan:

Mongolian-born sumo grand champion Hakuho

From personal experience, I know what the backside of one of these looks like. There are some people in the audience back there gettin’ a good look. Look at them, craning their necks like that.

I dunno, man.

General Vang Pao Meanwhile, our belabored US Attorney General’s office has decided to prosecute nine or ten people for plotting to overthrow the Communist government in Laos.

Talk about mixed messages.

This guy over here on the right is General Vang Pao, who, back in the mid seventies, got CIA-backing to do this exact thing. Although in the seventies, he was a Loatian general, in Laos, and was fighting against Communist guerillas. Problem was he lost, they won, and we just “normalized” relations with Laos in 2005. So the Feds picked him up.

You can almost hear Laos Foreign Minister Yong Chanhthalansy snickering as he tells Reuters the following: “We hope the United States will prosecute them strictly under the Patriot Act and punish the violators of the law severely…. I am sure that such vigorous investigation will lead to the uprooting of the network of the villains who have caused the most difficulty in bilateral relations between the Lao and Thai governments.”

Chanhthalansy can’t be serious, right? Because, you know, the Patriot Act is for catching and punishing US collaborators conspiring with foreign terrorists fighting insurgencies against governments we’ve installed versus catching and punishing US collaborators conspiring with foreign terrorists fighting insurgencies against governments we’ve failed to topple and now merely tolerate. It’s like he doesn’t even know what Patriot means!

And, although Nancy Pelosi said impeachment for Bush was off the table, we have this wonderful list compiled by David Swanson:

Cities and towns that have backed impeachment by resolution, public vote, or both: 79.
Largest cities: Detroit, home of the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and San Francisco, home of the Speaker of the House.
Earliest and most frequent city: Santa Cruz beginning in 2003.
States where impeachment has been introduced into the legislature at least once: 10 (California, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, Vermont).
State legislative bodies that have voted on impeachment: 3 (Vermont Senate, Vermont House, New Mexico Senate).
State legislative bodies that have passed impeachment resolutions: 1 (Vermont Senate).
National political parties backing impeachment: 1 (Green).
Non-Democratic state political parties backing impeachment: 2 (Vermont Progressives, California Greens).
Democrats Abroad Chapters backing impeachment: 1.
Local political party organizations that have backed impeachment: 32.
Labor unions backing impeachment: 1.

(Updated list with extra details available here.)

We all know that articles of impeachment against Cheney have been drafted by Dennis Kucinich. Articles against Bush have been drafted by wacky and lovable Cynthia McKinney, who is basically a neighbor of mine.

And back in Guantanamo, a US military judge has already thrown out charges against a Canadian man accused of killing a US soldier in Afghanistan with a grenade and the famous Yemeni who has been accused of being Osama bin Laden’s driver. The reason for this is that they are designated as “enemy combatants”. Fine, says the judge. Soldiers fight enemy combatants all the time. We call them “enemies”. We kill them or capture them as the situation warrants, and if they survive we send them home. We do not put them on trial. If they were “unlawful enemy combatants”, on the other hand, then we could have some show of legal proceedings.

Amazing.

As of ten minutes ago there were exactly zero detainees at Guantanamo that were designated as unlawful enemy combatants. We’ll see what that number looks like tomorrow.

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June 5, 2007 · by xalieri · Posted in Everything Else

Comments

2 Responses to “Somewhat different song-and-dance”

CHUECHIA on June 10th, 2007 9:09 am

Please do not state on your page mixed or untrue information such as:

“This guy over here on the right is General Vang Pao, who, back in the mid seventies, got CIA-backing to do this exact thing. Although in the seventies, he was a Loatian general, in Laos, and was fighting against Communist guerillas. Problem was he lost, they won, and we just â€œnormalizedâ€ relations with Laos in 2005. So the Feds picked him up.”

General Vang Pao did not “get” the CIA to back him up with overthrowing the Lao communist government; it was the CIA along with the United States military who recruited General Vang Pao and his people. General Vang Pao and his people were asked to help fight alongside with the United States military because the US soldiers had little knowledge about the lands of mountains and forests. In return for their help, the CIA promised a “better life”. A “better life” was coming to America, or migrating to refugees in Thailand that were organized by Thai and American officials.

If you care to know more about the TRUTH, visit this website http://www.jefflindsay.com/Hmong_tragedy.html

Where did you get all of these false information?
vidicon on June 10th, 2007 11:21 am

Man. It’s hard to hear your points over the sounds of ax-grinding. I got the news from the same place I got the picture, the BBC. And if you actually read what I wrote, I mention that he “got CIA backing”, as in, “he received CIA backing”, not “he solicited backing from the CIA”. It’s an idiomatic thing. If that wasn’t particularly clear, you have my apologies.

My whole point with this segment in my article is actually parallel to your own–that once this was an approved action with US backing, and now he’s treated like a criminal. That sort of ironic inconsistency is a hallmark of the current political administration. And a number of others, historically.

As for TRUTH, I don’t believe in truth with capital letters. Have the Hmong been getting a raw deal for the past seventy years? Undoubtedly. Are the good general’s hand’s clean? And by that I mean is he seeking the benefit of all people who live in the country he’d be taking over, and not just his tribe of Hmong? That’s in question, and no amount of TRUTH sites are going to settle that question. I’d prefer to interview him in order to find that out. I am certainly willing to do so if you know how to get in touch with him.

TRUTH is invariably some angry person’s opinion, which may or may not be factual.

The root of evil is treating human beings like objects. Like votes. Like wallets. Like statistics. Like raw resources for accomplishing a goal. Treating the Hmong like that, either by the USA or by their own supposed protectors, is reprehensible, whether that’s the USA’s above-board administration, the CIA, or General Vang Pao.

If you know the truth, I’d love to hear it. If you have nothing to offer me but TRUTH, well, I’ll read that too out of curiosity because there’s sometimes truth in it. But leave your ax and your grindstone at home.

I’ve been to Appleton and I’ve visited a small museum there dedicated to Hmong arts, in particular textile arts, and it was something I’ll remember forever. I’m happy that some of the various tribes of Hmong can find refuge in the US.

If I could personally apologize to every tribe of people ever used by the CIA to achieve short term goals that do not particularly have the tribe’s best interests at heart, I would do so. Forgive me if I do not automatically absolve the administrators who thought doing business with the CIA was a great idea.

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