Least We Not Forget ... Seven Years In Iraq

Today was the 7th Anniversary, when our Court-Appointed President, The Commander Guy, fully embraced the NeoNitWit's, marching us off to invade and occupy the country of Iraq.

Seven-years, and we are still there.

The editorial staff over at Truthout posted an Editorial to mark the dubious occasion

George Vanity of Vanities: The Iraq War Seven Years Later

We are still shocked. We were never awed. We have not adjusted. The senseless waste of our blood and treasure, our honor and our reputation continue. Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom - the latter unleashed seven years ago today - have morphed into a single Operation Enduring Occupation, set to bankrupt this country financially as well as morally, to destroy our own security as it has that of the over 31 million people who populate Iraq and 32 million people of Afghanistan.

[snip]

And as Benjamin Franklin might have agreed ("They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." {notes for a proposition at the Pennsylvania Assembly, 1775}), perhaps we deserve what has happened to us for allowing ourselves to be cowed into colluding in the ultimate crime against humanity, one which the Nuremberg tribunal powerfully condemned: "To initiate a war of aggression ... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

[snip]

Surely, the Iraq war's only obvious "successes" - the enrichment of the military industrial complex at the expense of ordinary citizens, the implementation of an ever more pervasive and intrusive "security" regime at home and the insurance of a second Bush term - could have been achieved without dragging the long-suffering people of Iraq into it. People - it may still need to be pointed out - who had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 and harbored no weapons of mass destruction.

Obama doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get us out of there, and, he's even less-so motivated to bring the war criminals who perpetrated this to justice.

That deserves a damning editorial, as well.

A Dubious Anniversary

Unfortunately, it can't be said that it was the inspiration for the movie 'Slapshot', as the incident took place two-years after the movie was made.

Perhaps, it was the movie that inspired the real players.



Dave Seminara, in today's NYT marks the 30th anniversary of when "the players went into the stands", a game between the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers, at Madison Square Garden.

Over the Glass and Into Hockey Lore

Thirty years ago, on Dec. 23, 1979, Bruins defenseman Mike Milbury whacked John Kaptain, a Rangers fan from New Jersey, with a shoe during a bizarre altercation in which all but one Bruins player went over the glass and into the stands at Madison Square Garden. The incident, after a 4-3 Bruins victory, resulted in three players being suspended, lawsuits and the installation of higher glass in the arena. It remains one of the most memorable fan-athlete confrontations in sports.

[snip]

As a scrum of players exchanged words, Kaptain, who was 30 and owned an executive recruitment firm, reportedly reached over the low glass panel and hit Stan Jonathan, the Bruins’ enforcer, with a rolled-up program, drawing blood beneath Jonathan’s eyes. He then made off with Jonathan’s stick.

[snip]

O’Reilly insisted that he had entered the stands merely to “detain” Kaptain.

“There was no way he was going to strike one of my teammates and steal his stick, wield it like a weapon and then disappear into the crowd and go to a local bar with a souvenir and a great story,” O’Reilly said. “As soon as I got him into a bearhug, I felt like I was being pummeled by multiple people. All I could do was cover up.”

[snip]

Eighteen Bruins went into the stands. Milbury said, “If you watch the tape — and I can freely throw my teammates under the bus now after 30 years — people were throwing some serious shots down below us that were obscured by the fact that everybody was focusing on the idiot highest up in the stands hitting somebody with a shoe."

As they say on the Sports show, "Let's go to the tape!" (It is the original local, Boston-hometown broadcast, and, it is obvious, the film, or videotape, didn't remain in good health)

1979 bruins invade MSG stands



Well, if you miss that kind of "Old School Hockey', and have, exhaustively, poured over all the YouTube entries of the fisticuffs, and still want more, you can always rent 'Rollerball'.

Or watch 'Slapshot', over-and-over.

Paging the Hanson Brothers...

The Garlic Celebrates 2nd Anniversary!

Well, it seems that we have survived the first two years, reasonably intact.

On one hand, I didn't know if I would keep this going this long. And on the other, it seems like yesterday and there's so much more to accomplish.

But rather than prattle on about one's self, I want to use this occasion to thank all of The Garlic's subscribers, readers, peekers, glancers and readers-on-the-fly, for taking to the time to visit and, when the moment has spurred you, to pass along praise or scorn, whichever befit the moment.

With such a bountiful of riches as The Garlic heads into Year Three, stay tuned. I will endeavor to continue to present the days' best offerings in the most entertaining manner I can muster.

Thank you again for reading and supporting The Garlic.


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