A confession about my current state of mind

if i've learned one thing over my many years, it's that states of mind are fluid, so pardon me while i unload about my current one...

it's early morning here in kabul... i woke up about 2:30 and tossed and turned until nearly 5 at which point i grabbed a bit more fitful sleep and got up a little after 6, a bit later than usual... after a little breakfast and coffee, i settled down here at the computer to do my regular morning catch-up on the news... one of the first things that caught my eye was this...

Hayden: Syrian site could have produced fuel for 2 weapons

CIA Director Michael Hayden said Monday that the alleged Syrian nuclear reactor destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in September would have produced enough plutonium for one or two bombs within a year of becoming operational.

U.S. intelligence and administration officials publicly disclosed last week their assessment that Syria was building a covert nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance. They said it was modeled on the shuttered North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, which produced a small amount of plutonium. The Syrian site, they said, was within weeks or months of being operational.

and this...

Farrakhan's Pennsylvania Admirer

Recall last week's ABC debate in Philadelphia and the way Clinton managed to link Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to Obama.

No Clinton mistake there. Wright and Farrakhan are toxic to many voters. Suggesting that Obama and the two men are as close as pages in a book virtually seals the Illinois senator's fate with large voting blocs.

and this...

Former Guantanamo prosecutor says trials tainted

The former chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals testified on Monday that the tribunals were tainted by political influence and evidence obtained through prisoner abuse.

Air Force Col. Moe Davis, who quit the war court last year, said political appointees and higher-ranking officers pushed prosecutors to file charges before trial rules were even written.

A supposedly impartial legal adviser demanded they pursue cases where the defendant "had blood on his hands" because those would excite the public more than mundane cases against document forgers and al Qaeda facilitators, Davis said.

He said the pressure ramped up after "high-value" prisoners with alleged ties to the September 11 plot were moved to Guantanamo from secret CIA custody shortly before the 2006 U.S. congressional elections and amid the ongoing U.S. presidential campaigns.

and those are just random samples... i haven't even started digging yet...

i'm totally sick of this shit, folks... i'm sitting less than two blocks from where two members of the afghan parliament and a ten year-old boy were shot to death two days ago at the beginning of an event to celebrate a country's independence, and what is the news i'm reading from my own country...?

- more accusations and deliberate, belligerent incitement toward YET ANOTHER country that chooses not to toe the u.s. line

- a continuing, coordinated effort to smear a presidential candidate via guilt by association and innuendo, in a presidential campaign increasingly divorced from any sense of reality, reinforced by a news media totally devoid of any journalistic ethics

- a reminder that my country has thrown away all pretense of holding on to its prized tradition of human rights and due process under law...

i'm not only sick of this shit, i'm deathly tired of posting about it... while ignoring it certainly won't make it go away, my temptation at the moment is to take a comfortable plunge into denial...

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