Fairness ...

I've been saying this for years (don't have enough room on the page to link to all my posts on this subject), and the wonderful TRex says it far better than I ever could:

As you might expect (and as Taylor pointed out earlier) the Wingnut crowd is not reacting well to the notion of the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine. I don't know why anyone's surprised. The Right Wing's whole stock in trade is peddling mendacious bullshit to the masses, so naturally the concept of media reform to them is like throwing water on the Wicked Witch of the West. ("MEEEELLLL-ting! MEELLLLLLL-ting! Oh, what a world! All my beautiful WICKEDNESS...MELLLLL-tiiiiiiiiiiing...!")

...

You can see the results of this kind of thinking played out on a grand scale in Iraq, Afghanistan, and New Orleans these days. And frankly, that's not particularly pretty. Pox News and the Right Wing robber barons it enables on a daily basis are taking full advantage of one of the salient truths of Hermann Goering and the Nazi party:

...

If a network or program touts itself as 'news', they should be forced to tell the truth or be held accountable. Roger Ailes and the News Corp bunch should be doing jail time, or at least be sued into bankruptcy or non-existence. This is still America and we all have the right of free-speech, but a supposedly objective news organization spreading outright lies, supposition, and propaganda disguised in the veil of truth should be held accountable for the damage they do and the crimes they abet. The airwaves belong to us or have you forgotten that?

Our news media (not just Fox, but the others in varying degrees), thanks to the 'corporate' nature of the business nowadays, will not police themselves. Most news divisions at the networks are now under control of their entertainment divisions. When the news is forced to 'get ratings' to justify their existence, this mess is what you get. A good chunk of Americans don't even believe what they see on network news shows anymore. They come to us now.

It's also time for a crackdown on churches (and other congregations who enjoy tax exempt status) that are also de facto propaganda arms of the American Right. It's time for them to pay their fare share to support the war they helped get us into. Not only that, I want jail time for the preachers who exploit their position to control their ignorant, gullible flocks and meddle in affairs of state.

And we, as a people are gullible. We are lazy and greedy. Do you think you'd get all those African email schemes cluttering up your Inbox if we weren't? Do you think all these get-rich-quick schemes you see on late-night TV would proliferate? Do you think we would have elected the Chimp twice if Americans would ask as many questions and dig for the truth the way lefty bloggers do? Do you think anyone would have agreed to the Chimp's tax cuts (how's that $300 woking out for ya now) if they didn't believe the bullshit that it will 'all trickle down'? The middle class is disappearing and the gullible public is hastening the fall; their own fall.

Very soon, we'll all have to pay more taxes. It's a fact of life in order to pay this nation's obligations. If you're greedy and ignorant enough to believe we don't have to, or can defer them forever, you'd better get a grip soon because the new reality, the real reality, is gonna come as a shock. Times are a-changing. The Republicans and their henchmen (the preachers and corporate news) told you what you wanted to hear and you didn't question it. Well, I hope you had fun swimming in your denial for the past 6 years but the bills are coming due.

Whether it be higher taxes, loss of stature in the world community, and maybe even attacks on our homeland, we'll be paying soon enough. It's refreshing to see so many of you open your eyes in the past year ... finally, but as we move back to reality, you're going to be confronted with some painful truths. The spin meisters of the Right Wing Noise Machine will be out in force, to cast blame anywhere but the place it belongs. Hopefully, you people will keep your eyes open when the shit hits the fan and remember who got us into this mess in the first place.

The same people who do not want reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine.

Casting Call ...

[This'll be on top for a couple days. New posts begin below ~ F.]

So, I've been debating this for a while now, since I got back from vacation in October anyway. I've let on how crazy my real world life has been lately and I've been wondering how I'm going to blog with even more coming down the pike, namely beginning contruction on the house in a couple weeks (I do all the work myself) and finishing a book I've been trying to write for 10 years that's now 6 months late (writing novels and blogging don't mix, due to the fact I haven't written anything worth a damn, novel-wise, for the 2 1/2 years since I started blogging, though I've tried). That, plus today the Angry Old Broad informed me she will be taking an indeterminate leave of absence to deal with family matters, brings me to the point where I'll need to make an addition to the team here at the Brain.

Since I started this blog, I've approached people whom I've wanted to come aboard and begged asked them. I harassed approached people whose work I was familiar with and thought would add a unique flavor to a blog run by a couple of crusty old vets (some a bit older and crustier than others ... heh). This time I'm gonna do it a little differently.

I'm gonna open it up to you folks, readers and fellow bloggers alike. I'm looking for somebody* who can post several times a day, preferably with a military background (but not a requirement) and a political tilt (well maybe more of a steep incline) to the left (if you're already a blogger, send me your URL so we can check out your stuff). I'm looking for somebody to take up my slack while I get my more pressing shit done over the next few months and remain a permanent member of the team once I (and hopefully AOB) return.

If you're interested in joining the staff here at the Brain or have any questions, email me; Gord and I will discuss it and get back to you. I'll leave this up top for a few days. I'm looking to do the hiatus thing by the end of January so I'd like to get this squared away before then.

I'd also like to take this time to thank the Angry Old Broad for her contribution to the Brain and pray she'll return when she gets everything squared away. She's our 'mom' and our conscience. We love ya, honey. The door is always open and we'll keep your chair warm.

*The Alternate Brain is an equal opportunity blog. We don't give a shit if you're a man, woman, red, black, white, brown, green, gay, straight, bi, transgender, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or Spaghetti Monster worshipper. Well, if you're a Rethug you're going to the back of the bus, but other than that ...

No talking!

Seems the Iranians wanted to help us straighten out the mess in Iraq:

Iran offered the US a package of concessions in 2003, but it was rejected, a senior former US official has told the BBC's Newsnight programme.

Tehran proposed ending support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups and helping to stabilise Iraq following the US-led invasion.

Offers, including making its nuclear programme more transparent, were conditional on the US ending hostility.

But Vice-President Dick Cheney's office rejected the plan, the official said.

...

But heaven forbid we actually made a friend over there. You never know when another enemy might come in handy to distract the American public, like now. A diplomatic initiative like this one could form a basis for understanding between two hostile nations. But understanding is the last thing this administration wants.

Great thanks to Larisa Alexandrovna for the link.

Growing a set

Sen Pat Leahy of Vermont:

Leahy: "We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn't be tortured. He'd be held and he'd be investigated. We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured."

C & L has the video, of course, and they also have Feingold reaming Alberto 'Abu Ghraib' Gonzalez .060 over:

Feingold: Oh, well it's nice that you didn't have us "in your mind" when making those accusations, but given that you and the President were running around the country accusing people of opposing eavesdropping on terrorists in the middle of an election, the fact that you didn't have Congressional Democrats in "mind" isn't significant. Your intent was to make people think that anyone who opposed the "TSP" did not want to eavesdrop on terrorists, even though that was false. No Democrats oppose eavesdropping on terrorists.

Like Gord says, pass the popcorn.

"...all we can change is the speed of our defeat."

Antiwar.com

One way to look at the situation in Iraq is to try to identify variables, elements that could change. Without change, the war is likely to end with troops having to fight their way out, if they can*.

The military situation in Iraq is not a variable. All that can change is the speed of our defeat. Some actions might slow it, although the time for such actions, such as adopting an "ink blot" strategy instead of "capture or kill," passed long ago.

Other actions could speed our defeat, an attack on Iran chief among them. It now looks as if the Bush administration may have realized that an out-of-the-blue, Pearl Harbor-style air and missile attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is politically infeasible. Instead, the White House will order a series of small "border incidents," pinpricks similar to last week's raid on an Iranian mission in Kurdistan, intended to provoke Iranian retaliation. That retaliation will then be presented as an Iranian attack on forces, with the air raids on Iranian nuclear targets called "retaliation." Fabricated border incidents have a long history as casus belli; perhaps the Bushies can dress some German soldiers up in Polish uniforms*.

As Bush made clear in last Wednesday's speech, his policies are not a variable. He will pursue the neocons' dreams all the way to Hell, where they originated.

In fact, we have already failed. The war in Iraq was lost long ago. In terms of the administration's objective of a "democratic Iraq," which Bush re-stated in his Wednesday speech, it was lost before the first bomb fell, because it was unattainable no matter what we did. Now, not even the minimal objective of restoring an Iraqi state is attainable, at least until Iraq's many-sided, Fourth Generation civil war sorts itself out, and probably not then. Events in Iraq are simply beyond our control; the forces our invasion and destruction of the Iraqi state unleashed far overpower any army we can deploy to Iraq, surge or no surge.

Once Democrats accept and announce that Congress cannot lose a war that is already lost, they will have the freedom of action they need to get us out. Polls suggest the public will go along; most Americans now realize the war is lost, regardless of what President Bush may say or do.

Senator Joe Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, put it best. According to the January 5 Washington Post, he said in an interview,

"I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost. ... Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy - literally, not figuratively."

I believe Senator Biden is correct; I said the same thing in an earlier column. If the question the Democrats put to the American people is, should we allow thousands more American kids to get wounded or killed so the Bush administration can put our withdrawal off until it is out of office, the public's answer will be clear. Killing our kids for national objectives is one thing; doing so for political advantage is something else.

The key variable thus comes down to this: do the Democrats in Congress have the courage and the communication skills to level with the people about why the war in Iraq is continuing after we have lost it? If not, they will have proven themselves as unfit to govern as the Republican majorities they replaced.

Note to Congress: it's time to shit or get off the pot.

*Just a note: I'm not going to go back and look up the references, but it's nice to see things I've said, original or not, in the big blogs.

"...due to your barren, fruitless womb..."

Watch Jon Stewart volunteer to take one for the team. He's a better man than I am...

This is just gettin' too fuckin' crazy...

Joe Conason

Should the United States attack Iran, which side would the Iraqi government support? The answer to that simple question is far from clear, despite the thousands of lives and billions of dollars we have sacrificed to support the ruling coalition in Baghdad. While the Bush administration seeks to isolate and even overthrow the Iranian regime as well as its Syrian ally, its partners in Iraq are establishing closer relationships with both.

Indeed, the most powerful elements of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's political coalition regularly collude with the Iranian intelligence apparatus - which the Bush administration has accused of arming the insurgents and terrorists who are attacking our forces, committing sectarian atrocities and undermining the new Iraqi democracy. The Maliki government has resumed diplomatic relations with Syria, signed a billion-dollar aid agreement with Iran and encouraged the expansion of Iranian consulates and border stations.

Friendship with Iran and Syria is endorsed not only by Shiite fundamentalists such as Moqtada al-Sadr, the Mahdi Army warlord, and his rival Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, chief of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq - but also by President Jalal Talabani and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Kurdish leaders who believe in secular democracy and actually like the United States.

So in Iraq, the friends of our enemies are . . . our best and only friends.

That lethal contradiction is among the many reasons why the president's plan to send more troops to Iraq won't achieve his objectives - and why the basic framework of his policy is fundamentally flawed.

Nothing proposed by President Bush in his "new way forward" speech solves this conundrum. Instead, he and his aides pretend that the Middle East is now divided between "reformers and responsible leaders" in Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, versus Iran and Syria. So said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Jan. 11, when she declared that the president's escalation represents a "regional strategy."

She was wrong, as usual.

There is no such simple divide in the Middle East. Even Israel has been secretly negotiating with the Syrians through third parties over the past two years, as revealed by the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. For the United States to rule out discussion with the Iranians or the Syrians - while the Iraqis exchange diplomats and sign agreements with those governments - is not a regional strategy. It is merely the residue of strategic failure.

When you can't tell which side is which, or where the goalposts are, or how many balls are in play, or what the object of the game is, or what the rules are, it's time to leave the game. Especially if a glimmer shines through your little pea brain that everybody else is gangin' up on you and you're losing because you were stupid enough to get in the game in the first place.

Duelling Puppeteers

Pensito Review

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki responded yesterday to criticism of him and his government by Pres. Bush and Sec. of State Condolezza Rice, saying that their grim assessments were giving aid and comfort to terrorists:

Commenting on a recent statement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, he said, "Rice is expressing her own point of view if she thinks that the [Iraqi] government is on borrowed time," humorously suggesting that it might be the Bush administration that is on borrowed time.

Here's a news flash for ya: they're both on borrowed time. Payback is comin' due.

The question this raises is whether Maliki is being told to act defiant toward his puppet masters in order to create an illusion of independence, or whether the puppet is truly cutting his strings.

Our neocon/big biz puppet is vying for control of his puppet with al Sadr. Eventually, and not far off, Maliki's strings will be cut and Iraq will be passed to local control with or without Maliki.

Bush might be able to postpone this until he is out of office at great expense of American blood and treasure, but he can't stop it. It's all about his ego now.

Swastika less four right angles...

From a book review at Buzzflash:

In a 2004 article that served as the basis for his new book pulling the fire alarm on thuggish Christian fascism, Chris Hedges recalled:

"Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, told us that when we were his age, he was then close to 80, we would all be fighting the 'Christian fascists.'

The warning, given to me 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global, Christian empire. It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the pages of the Bible.

...All debates with the Christian Right are useless. We cannot reach this movement. It does not want a dialogue. It cares nothing for rational thought and discussion. It is not mollified because John Kerry prays or Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday School. These naive attempts to reach out to a movement bent on our destruction, to prove to them that we too have "values," would be humorous if the stakes were not so deadly. They hate us. They hate the liberal, enlightened world formed by the Constitution. Our opinions do not count.

This movement will not stop until we are ruled by Biblical Law, an authoritarian church intrudes in every aspect of our life, women stay at home and rear children, gays agree to be cured, abortion is considered murder, the press and the schools promote "positive" Christian values, the federal government is gutted, war becomes our primary form of communication with the rest of the world and recalcitrant non-believers see their flesh eviscerated at the sound of the Messiah's voice.

This is not fiction.

One of the most striking conclusions we drew from "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America" is that it offers some indirect insight into the inexplicable political survival of George W. Bush.

The world that Hedges enters and depicts is run by white Christian males who reach pinnacles of religious and political power through the use of fear. They see themselves as warriors for Christ. Male authority and apocalyptic violence are integral to the Christian fundamentalist movement.

George W. Bush couldn't be a better role model, could he?

Amen.

Expecting to fail

Here's some more psychobabble about the Chimp by a coupla folks with letters behind their names. Here's the last little bit:

In the recent maneuvering toward the "new strategy" in Iraq, we have witnessed a great pretense of normal decision-making. But the president clearly made up his mind almost as soon as the "surge" alternative appeared, and apparently moved to cow others, including his new secretary of defense Robert Gates (his father's man) in the process. "Success" is the only alternative for him. "Failure" and disintegration of Iraq is unthinkable because it would be synonymous with his own internal disintegration.

As his decisions go awry, he exudes a troubling, uncanny aura of certitude (though some find it reassuring). He seems to expect to feel despised and alone (and probably has always felt that), as he has always secretly expected to fail. That expectation of failure leads to sloppy, risky, incompetent decisions, which in turn compel him to swerve from his fears of incompetence.

At this point, the president seems to have entered a place in his psyche where he is discounting all external criticism and unpopularity, and fixing stubbornly on his illusion of vindication, because he's still "The Decider," who can just keep deciding until he gets to success. It's hard not to feel something heroic in this position - but it's a recipe for bad, if not catastrophic, decisions.

Psychologically, President Bush has received support for so long because many have thought of him as "one of us." Most of us feel inadequate in some way, and watching him we can feel his inadequacies and sense his uncertainties, so we admire him for "pulling it off." His model tells us, "If you act like you're confident and competent, then you are." We are the culture that values the power of positive thinking and seeks assertiveness training. We believe that the right attitude can sometimes be more important than brains or hard work. He's bullied us, too. We don't dare to really confront the scale of his incompetent behavior, because then we would have to face what it means to have such an incompetent and psychologically disabled decision-maker as our president. It raises everyone's uncertainty. And that is, in fact, happening now.

Better late than never, I suppose. I've known about this pathetic little wimp since he ran in 2000 thanks to Molly Ivins and others, but I guess folks can't be bothered with substance, just style, when it's just a minor matter like deciding who's going to be the most powerful man in the world.

Damn near enough voters had him nailed down to keep him out, but he had a set of enablers that got him in anyway. He also had an opponent that was his own worst enemy when it came to campaigning.

If it hadn't been for 9/11, he might have gotten away with the charade long enough to get through his one term without doing irreversible damage to the nation, but such was not to be.

I don't much care that Bush is unhinged. A lot of us are, no big deal. Point is, his condition has gotten bad enough that he's a clear and present danger to us all.

He is good at setting himself up to fail. He's had a lifetime of practice. Things aren't going his way, as they shouldn't, and he's bound and determined to see the United States of America go down with him rather than admit colossal mistakes.

I don't care if the sonofabitch is in denial. I don't care if he sees what he's doing plainly and is forging on regardless, which is probably worse than denial. This is not about his self-esteem. It's about the future of the WORLD and he's blowing it big time.

Head first or feet first, straitjacket or handcuffs, Bush has to go.

Nothing to see here, move along ...

Joe Galloway* of McClatchy:

President Bush was asked in an interview this week why our military and their families are bearing all the sacrifices of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His response was telling.

The American people are sacrificing, too, Bush said. Their peace of mind is disturbed by the images of carnage they see on their televisions.

...

The educator-in-chief said that it's been his view all along that the American people need to keep living their lives without making sacrifices while 25,000 of their sons and daughters have been killed or wounded in combat in the last five years.

...

Our volunteer military is working just fine, Bush said. It can continue to shoulder the entire weight of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the wars that have ground the Army and the Marine Corps beyond the breaking point.

...

Our troops and our military are now in deep trouble. Many of our soldiers and Marines are now pulling their third or fourth combat tours.

Those tours are being extended beyond the normal 12 months and the troops' time at home for family and training is being reduced from the promised and badly needed 12 months, all in order to man Bush's "surge" or escalation or augmentation in Iraq. And now Defense Secretary Gates has conceded that more troops are needed in Afghanistan, too. [emphases mine]

...

My peace of mind is disturbed every time I see the Chimp on TV.

Another year of this mess and we won't have an Army or Marine Corps to defend us, and conscription will be necessary. The Idiot-in-Chief is whistling past the graveyard, hoping to dump the entire mess in the next President's lap but I don't think it can wait that long, no matter how deeply in denial the Chimp seems.

I don't know how these guys have kept it together this long and it doesn't look like there's an end in sight. Wait. You're gonna start seeing the nasty shit that went on in Vietnam, more innocents killed as more and more troops lose their perspective, more fragging incidents as guys who begin to feel their only way out of Iraq will be in a "transport tube"; some gung ho, green, 2nd Looie gets in one of these guys' grille area at the wrong time he's gonna be on the wrong end of "friendly fire".

This is a mess and the "Bush/McCain Surge" will only make it worse for both sides. It's why I'm so annoyed that we're running the presidential race already. I don't care about Hillary's motives for signing on to blocking the surge as long as she's on board. I'll worry about folks running for President next year. I want the troops home and out of that meatgrinder this year. I'm proud of the Rethugs who crossed the line too, regardless of their motives. Chuck Hagel, Sam Brownback, Norm Coleman, Snowe, Voinovich, and the rest, good on yas. I don't care why, I'm just glad you did.

I'm glad you're all starting to see we are not only breaking our armed forces in Iraq, we're breaking our nation. Time for the rest of you to step up too. Remember what you were whining about 2 weeks ago? Bipartisanship? This is how it works.

*Tip o' the Brain to Dr. Attaturk (Podiatrist to the Stars) for the link.

Maybe the Iranians wouldn't be so dangerous ...

If we didn't arm the motherfuckers. Being that we're gonna invade 'em soon, you think the morons at the Pentagram might not want to outfit the enemy:

WASHINGTON - Fighter jet parts and other sensitive U.S. military gear seized from front companies for Iran and brokers for China have been traced in criminal cases to a surprising source: the Pentagon.

In one case, federal investigators said, contraband purchased in Defense Department surplus auctions was delivered to Iran, a country President Bush has branded part of an "axis of evil."

In that instance, a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran resumed business after his release from prison. He purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran from a U.S. company that had bought them in a Pentagon surplus sale. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents say those parts did make it to Iran.

...

Mrs. F couldn't find me an RPG on Ebay last year (I have issues with the ice cream man). She shoulda gone directly to the Pentagon. Idiots. Incompetents. Criminals.

For, Against, For, Against

Seems a lot of us have been going back through our archives lately, establishing their bona fides they were against the war since the beginning of time (at least since they started blogging). Know what? If you're on our side, I'll stipulate you're anti-war. Okay? Can we move on to more important shit now?

Aaaaarrrggghh!

Shaddap! I don't want to hear about Presidential candidates already. The primaries are a year away, for crying out loud.

5 minutes to midnight ...

This is comforting:

Global warming, a new factor being used by U.S. scientists in their "doomsday" predictions, has helped push the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock to five minutes before midnight - two minutes closer to Zero Hour than before.

This is the first time that the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock, a universally recognized indictor of the world's vulnerability to the threat of nuclear weapons, has moved since 2002.

...

Thank you, Mr. Bush.

Draft Karl Rove's Son

Yeah, like that'll happen. When we're dodging gravitationally induced descending aviating porcine excreta. Bill Robinson lays out the case for all supporters of the present imperialistic pipe dream.

Our president calls Karl Rove his "architect." The powers that be genuflect to him in a way unprecedented. But if this genius has had anything to do with the defining act of the Bush II administration, surely he is, as they say, "in it... to win it." Well I say, if you wanna surge baby, put your money where your mouth is.

Send your son.

Shouldn't there be some gesture of authenticity in this latest round of bloody cheerleading? Where's the conviction that this escalation-- I mean, "surge"-- can triumph? I know, I know, we can't send the Bush twins, they're drunk. And Condi has no offspring to offer up. She's married to her, um, job. But Karl Rove, the man all too happy to take credit for the Decider-in-Chief, has the perfect candidate to show us what he really believes in. Why not send Andrew? He's not exactly curing cancer. Last I heard, he was volunteering for the Governor of Texas. And we all know where that can lead.

Maybe Karl doesn't want to risk losing another family member. It's understandable. His mother killed herself, his gay father left the family. Maybe he wants Andrew to follow his own example: In December 1969, Karl's number was drawn for the Vietnam War draft. Yet, on February 17, 1970, he was deferred because he enrolled at the University of Utah. Even though he quickly withdrew from classes, he maintained the deferment until Dec. 14, 1971. Maybe it all runs in the family.

Still, one can't help but wonder... how can Karl Rove deny his son the chance to march in the victory parade-- after the surge-- when the troops return triumphant? That, truly, will be an unbelievable day.

Oh, Bill - how quaint. The scions of the rich and politically influential are groomed from birth to ascend to positions where they can send the less fortunate off to die so they can maintain their grip on power and wealth. Go themselves? Heavens, no! They are the chosen. By themselves. That's what the peasants are for.

Swift boating Scott Ritter

You remember Scott Ritter, the Marine-turned-arms inspector? You remember how he was running around with his hair on fire before the Iraq War and subsequent occupation, saying that Saddam didn't have WMDs? Glenn Greenwald looks at how everybody demonized him, Dem and Rethug alike, and the press dutifully following along:

...

Ritter's extremely prescient warnings were all but ignored in the mainstream American press, except when television panels were convened to smear his character and attack his credibility.

On January 26, 2003, Wolf Blitzer held a panel discussion on CNN to discuss Ritter's war opposition. Ritter was not present, but Peter Beinert, the pro-war Editor of The New Republic, and Jonah Goldberg, the pro-war pundit from National Review, were invited to urge the invasion of Iraq, mock Ritter's anti-war arguments, and smear him with a series of personal attacks.

...

Ritter was 'righter' than anybody from the get go and the spineless Dems and 'news' media never gave his views any objective thought, going out of their way to show him as a traitor. They were all engorged, waving it around after 9/11, seeing Bush as the 'Great Warrior'. Heh ... there's a laugh. All the 'adults' and 'manly men' who'd never stared into the business end of an enemy rifle wanting it as badly as that new red Corvette in the dealership window. Yeah, thanks for thinking with the wrong head, you assholes. 4 years on, your flaccid little pricks still ain't any bigger and we're 3000 lives in the hole with a half-trillion bucks up in smoke.

You know, I'd love to draft all these guys who 'fight with their keyboards' and make them public information officers at the company level in Iraq. If they manage to keep their heads, literally and figuratively, I wonder if they'd still be parroting Rethug and WH talking points? And why aren't these assholes in Iraq anyway? The war is going badly, the Army and Marines need more volunteers. If they believe in it so much, now's the time to trade keyboard for rifle. Aren't you patriots? Your country needs you to keep up morale over there and remind the troops what they're fighting for. 4 years on, what are we fighting for anyway?

I'm sure the families of the dead thank you for your commitment to the cause.

Aw jeez ...

Give your good thoughts to Jane. Dammit ...

Watch this

A tip o' the Brain to Lurch.

Memories ...

761927:

...

But in January 1971 that didn't really matter. Mine was only one of about eight or ten M16's in my squad - we also had a M60 machine gun. Four squads made a platoon, three platoons made up Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion 8th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division. We packed immense firepower; my limited marksmanship skills made little difference. That became clear to me in my first "firefight". I use the term loosely since we took almost no return fire. But we sure poured it out even as our targets melted into the jungle. Our first salvo swept away the small brush in front of us. Our continued fire pruned away larger vegetation while the M60 rounds chewed through small trees. The entire engagement lasted no more than one very long minute and left the air filled with smoke and the smell of cordite. Our follow-up patrol found drops of blood but no other sign of the two individuals who had the misfortune to intersect our path.

...

They write themselves*

Incredible. And he actually believes this shit:

... I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that... ~ the Chimp on 60 Minutes.

*An increasingly regular series as reality and the Bush administration get farther and farther apart.

Great thanks to Xsociate for the link.

Stating the obvious

Stars and Stripes

LANDSTUHL, Germany - U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Monday that Afghanistan has made some progress, but the country is "tottering" and needs more troops to finish off Taliban and al-Qaida forces.

"I'm encouraged by the progress in Afghanistan, but Afghanistan is tottering," Clinton said. "We've got to get more support there to make sure we try to finish off the Taliban and al-Qaida that are regrouping, coming across the border. We expect a big spring offensive."

Obvious, but thank you anyway, Senator. If, as President, you'll get us out of Iraq and back into Afghanistan, I'll vote for you.

If you can make it happen sooner, I'll still vote for the Democratic candidate.

It's the 16th of January ...

And Moderate already has a list.

More popcorn, Moqtada? We're gettin' to the good part...

Fareed Zakaria

Lt. Col. Steven Duke says the Mahdi Army is 'sitting on the 50-yard line, eating popcorn, watching us do their work for them.'

Over the past three and a half years, the dominant flaw in the Bush administration's handling of Iraq is that it has, both intentionally and inadvertently, driven the country's several communities apart. Every seemingly neutral action - holding elections, firing Baathists from the bureaucracy, building up an Iraqi military and police force - has had seismic sectarian consequences. The greatest danger of Bush's new strategy, then, isn't that it won't work but that it will - and thereby push the country one step further along the road to all-out civil war. Only a sustained strategy of pressure on the Maliki government - unlike anything Bush has been willing to do yet - has any chance of averting this outcome.

Otherwise, American interests and ideals will both be in jeopardy. Al Qaeda in Iraq - the one true national-security threat we face from that country - will gain Sunni support. In addition, as American officers like Duke and Brady have noted, our ideals will be tarnished. The U.S. Army will be actively aiding and assisting in the largest program of ethnic cleansing since Bosnia. Is that the model Bush wanted for the Middle East?

All Bush ever wanted was what the neocons told him to want - oil, hegemony, and the dominance of Israel in the area. Oh, and a legacy unlike the one he has already gotten out of the deal.

No one 'chooses to lose', but Bush did when he started his 'war'...

Good article in The American Spectator:

Oh I know, I know, we lost the war in Vietnam, were humiliated, and we're never going to let it happen again. But that's the whole point. We're always going to end up losing when we intervene in these civil wars and try to prop up a puppet regime in a country that basically doesn't exist.

How many times do we have to learn this lesson? There is no Iraqi democracy. All there is are Sunni and Shi'ites who have been fighting each other since 700 A.D. It's humiliating to watch President Bush playing Br'er Rabbit with this Tar Baby, crying, "Where are you Iraqis? Why don't they stand up?" They only exist in his imagination. Prime Minister Maliki isn't George Washington, he's a frightened bureaucrat trying to avoid being assassinated. He can't "disarm the Shi'ite militia," they're the ones who keep him in power. They're already killing television comedians, university professors, anyone who represents normal life. They'd kill him in an instant if he turned against them.

Bush had his Clark Clifford moment when Baker and company handed him The Iraq Report. Amazingly, he didn't take it. Instead, he was reportedly won over by Fred Kagan's "Choosing Victory," cooked up at the American Enterprise Institute.

I would challenge anyone to read this report. Here's the way Kagan begins:

* American resources are great: 300 million people, $12 trillion in GDP compared to 25 million Iraqis, $100 billion in Iraq GDP in a country the side of California.

* Success requires effort and will, but we need not choose to lose.

It's interesting that he implies we're at war with the whole country. I thought we were supposed to be defending somebody? Someone should also inform Kagan of Archimedes' principle. The force of an object at the end of a lever is its weight times the distance. We may have six zillion times the wealth of the Shi'ite militia, but the war is being fought on their home territory. By the time a U.S. soldier starts poking through the warrens of Sadr City, all that wealth back home has been reduced to his rifle and body armor against a bunch of IEDs and AK-47's.

Kagan's analysis simply reprises the joke that circulated around the army in 1970. The Pentagon hires a huge computer, plugs in all the data about comparative forces, and asks, "How long is it going to take us to win in Vietnam?" The answer comes back, "You won back in 1965."

The best suggestion I've heard is this. Let's schedule a referendum for March asking the Iraqis if they want us to go or stay. They're a democracy, right? Let them decide. If they want us to stay, then we've answered the world. If they want us to go, then we can withdraw with honor.

A referundum of the Iraqis as to whether they want us to stay or go? Good idea, but if you think Bush would permit that, just on the off chance (cough!) it might not go his way, then I've got this nice bridge for you...

As to 'honor', in the main, our troops have acquitted themselves with honor. For far long enough. Bring them home.

This nation's leaders have no concept of the meaning of the word. They confuse it with 'vanity' and being the biggest dog on the block or else. Which they're not.

There is no 'honor' in lying to get your way at the expense of everybody else.

Lightweight stuff

Me'n Mrs. G had a real "Global Warming Weekend", with just a smidgen of irony since it's been -2° to about 20°F around here for days. Spent eight bucks on Pay-Per-View. We watched An Inconvenient Truth, which I highly recommend to everyone. To warm up (heh!) for that we watched Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, with Queen Latifah, beautiful as ever, as a Wooly Mammoth who thinks she's a possum. Heady stuff.

We haven't watched an awards show for years, but this time we were kinda interested, and besides, there ain't enough good TV shows these days that there was anything else to watch, so we watched the first coupla hours of the Golden Globes. 'Watched' might be a little strong, but we looked up whenever something would come on we were interested in.

The actress and the show that we wanted to win, won. Congratulations to America Ferrera and Ugly Betty. To see what she really looks like, go here. There's about four shows a week we like, and that's one of them. If you haven't watched it, watch it.

I return you now to our regular earth-shattering cosmic programming.

How's that working out for ya?

Dr. Attaturk:

It looks likely Castro is going to die a natural death some 47 years after taking power, and 43 and a half years after we staked out our policy of boycotting him.

WOW, how fucking effective has that been?

...

Late for work, bye!

Letters

In the vein of my post the other night, via Flame, a letter to the people of Iran and Iraq, and others:

First let me speak to the people in Iran.

There is a large majority of Americans who are terrified by our governments inability to hear our voices. We do not want war. Not with you, not with anyone. We admire your ancient culture and respect your religious beliefs...

Now, the people of Iraq hear me out.

Please understand our sorrow in what our leaders have done to your nation. While most of us believe that Saddam Hussein was a terrible dictator, we also understand that for many years, our country supported him and only deposed him as the president of Iraq when it was beneficial to our government. Our leaders lied to us about the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Most of our citizens at the time were quite fearful over what was happening in the world due to the attacks on September 11, 2001, and our president used that fear to further his personal agenda. It was WRONG. It was not our place to overthrow a dictator; it was yours if you so choose.

...

To the people of Israel...

I'd like to say we understand.

We recognize your struggles in the world. We understand that for many years you were persecuted. However, that does not give you the right to do to others what has been done to you. I'm not suggesting that you bare all of the responsibility for the struggles in the West Asia, but you're not helping to solve it either.

...

Much more and very well thought out. A good morning read.

MLK

God we could use him now.

Bush the Empire Slayer

I never heard of this guy until just now, but I'm going to call this piece by Bernard Chazelle today's "damn sure oughta read".

Somewhere, deep in the cold, worm-infested soil that a mother will keep watered by tears, lies one of 3,000 young Americans. Dispersed across the land, thousands more will forever carry the scars of war in their battered bodies and hollowed souls, mutants battling hellish shadows and silent phantoms. And the Iraqis, yes those, Mr President, see them spiral into Dante's lower rings of hell, as they join the fastest-growing sect in the land: the dead - hundreds of thousands strong. Watch the White Man's Burden devolve into an orgy of torture and mayhem. (Has it ever devolved into anything else?)

Could the invasion have succeeded? Not a chance. All the grousing about incompetent planning is the age-old excuse-making prattle of losers. Leave aside the not-so-trifling fact that the United States never had the proper DNA for empire (lite or otherwise). It is the incontrovertible reality of the 21st century that the time for the White Man's Burden has passed. Not only is the era of empire gone, but the days of the so-called liberal hegemonic order are numbered. Even before 9/11, the cumulative impact of European integration, the rise of Asian powers, and the resurgence of Muslim identity sounded the death knell for American hegemony. To hasten the burial will be one of Bush's legacies. Alas, incalculable misery in the Middle East, enduring anti-American hatred, and future terrorist attacks in London, Paris, and Seattle will be another one.

To connect it to the war for terror would indeed be easier. A self-declared uniter, Bush is beginning to unite the country around the belief that he is the worst president in US history. Whether his reelection, ipso facto, makes the electorate the dumbest ever is a logical inference that a political culture drunk with self-admiration will have trouble getting its woozy head around.

To call Team Bush a thundering herd of galloping loons is to be unnecessarily kind. For rarely has daftness been elevated to such a lofty plane of power and influence. [...]

The unfolding catastrophe in Iraq had a single cause: the reassertion of US hegemony after 9/11. Its trigger was a rare astral alignment. Big Oil, the neocons, the Christian fundamentalists, the liberal hawks, AIPAC, the MSM, and 9/11 all formed cosmic dots in the sky that only one power could - and did - successfully align: the president of the United States. No American leader has so much owned a war.

And none has so little owned up to it. Victors are never war criminals. That's because they get to write the history books. Bush won't have that chance. The die has been cast and the hour is too late for him or anyone to alter the unforgiving judgment of posterity. Therein, paradoxically, lies our quandary. For, if freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose, then Bush is a free man - free to pursue the most malignant policies, heedless of the consequences to his unworsenable presidential standing. Beware the desperation of a cornered man.

That's pretty much what we're seeing. It's going to get even uglier.

Iraq: Beyond the Gallows

Conflicts Forum

The Bush administration's provocative posture towards Iran in recent days could thus say more about what has already happened than about what is yet to come. From the vantage point of the Oval Office, raising the specter of a military confrontation with Iran may in fact seem preferable to facing the greatest humiliation of all: the acknowledgement of an Iranian victory in Iraq. Yet it now appears that Saddam's ignominious end was exactly that: victor's justice - Iranian victor's justice. It is a message from Iran to Iraq's Sunnis that it is Iran, and not the U.S, that is now the dominant force in Iraq. Iran may have been diplomatic enough to call Saddam's execution a "victory for the Iraqi people," but the blunt message heard across the region is that Iran will not relent in asserting its title as the region's leading power.

The message for the Bush Administration should be clear: shifts in military strategy cannot undo the fact that the political struggle for Iraq has already been lost.

The technical term for what Bush is attempting to do by way of self-salvation in Iraq is "shoveling shit against the tide", the "shit" being our troops in his estimation.

Bush: I'm Sending More Troops To Iraq No Matter What Congress Does

Think Progress

This week, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) introduced a resolution requiring President Bush to gain new congressional authorization before escalating the War in Iraq.

President Bush, however, says that he is going to send more troops to Iraq no matter what Congress does. Watch an excerpt from his 60 Minutes interview tonight:

It's there to watch if you've got a stronger stomach than I do.

Legal scholars on the right and left agree that Congress has the legal power to prevent an escalation or end the war completely.

Transcript:

Q: If you have the authority to put the troops in there no matter what the Congress wants to do.

BUSH: I think I've got, in this situation I do, yeah. I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it. But I've made my decision. And we're going forward.

Congress, you've just been bitch-slapped. You gonna take it from that punk?

Probably.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

CONGRESS IN MAJOR FIGHT WITH WHITE HOUSE OVER IRAQ
Shown (left to right): Senators Feingold, Durbin, Boxer, Obama leave contentious hearing on Capitol Hill.

Robot Aircraft to Monitor Canadian Border
Will watch for seniors returning to U.S. with arthritis medicine.

Administration Will Seek Continuing Bipartisan Advice on Iraq
By talking to Joe Lieberman.

Gas Prices Plummeted During Two Months Before Election, Started Rising Day After
Consumer advocates call for more frequent elections.

Roll Call

Prince Harry: "Present, sir."

Jenna: (crickets)

NotJenna: (crickets)

Just sayin', being that the Chimp needs more troops.

Describing Lieberman

I think Michael Stickings says it best:

... Joe Lieberman has proven himself to be a dangerous idiot who thinks Bush is a great leader, cozies up to McCain and the neocons, plays the 9/11 card in defence of the Iraq War, and uses his children and grandchildren as gratuitous props in his outrageous fearmongering ...

Joe is only out for Joe and he's cast his lot with the Neocons. It was nice to see Chuck Hagel hand him his ass yesterday, but it's sorta sad a Dem couldn't have done it before Election Day. A shame Dems were conflicted over supporting their own party's candidate or spoiled, whiny Lieberman. Well, you got what you wished for. Now Joe can openly support the Chimp, undercut the Dems on national TV, and there's nothing you can do because you're afraid he'll jump ship to the Rethugs (as if he hasn't already).

Dear Dem leadership,

Ned Lamont wouldn't be parroting WH talking points on Timmeh's show. Good thing all you senators are "good friends" (right, Mr. Dodd?) and have that "collegial relationship". It's time you stopped kissing Joe's ass and call a spade a spade. Like Michael says, he's a "dangerous idiot".

Innocents

This is my overwhelming deal. It's what motivates me to blog, it's the basic story behind my books, it's my message.

I have a big problem with innocents being trampled. I have a problem when every time the big guys make a move, a buncha innocent folks have to pay the price. Reminds me of the joke: What's the black shit between the elephant's toes? Slow moving pygmies.

In my life I've seen too many innocent people, men, women, and children, run over because somebody a million miles away makes a decision. I can't take for granted that some people, somewhere, have to pay the price for polices a buncha folks who somehow are smarter than the rest of us pull out their collective ass, and that it's okay.

Like the unfortunate goatherders in Somalia, whose fires were mistaken for an al-Qaeda encampment. 90% just shrug and say 'oh well, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time'. Nice. So were those 3000 people at the World Trade Center on September 11th.

That's why people's cavalier attitude toward war, this surge in particular, chaps my ass. And it's not just folks' disregard for the lives of the troops who will be sent there, or have their tours extended, or be retained under stop-loss; though the troops are probably better prepared for it. When I was in, I was used to getting pissed on and told it was raining.

It's the poor bastids in Iraq, not the 'dead-enders' not the jihadists, but the regular folks who only want to keep their families safe, put food on the table, and give their kids a better life than they had. These poor people were getting by under Saddam, they were at peace, and though living was hard, their sons and daughters had a chance to get an education and make something of themselves. If they stayed out of the way, didn't make waves, and minded their own business they could live half-decently.

Because some moron, and a buncha other morons with him, decided that removing a despot who was contained, who kept the peace between people who have hated each other for 1400 years (something we have yet to do), was the right thing to do for whatever reason, that has all changed for the average guy. Now he's afraid to send his wife to the market, send his kids to school, or let his daughter out on the street unescorted if at all.

Because of that same buncha morons, a group of Somali goatherders won't be coming home to the families who depended on them, and the animals who were also slaughtered. Do you think these poor guys didn't have families? Did you think the goats were there for decoration? I wonder how many months' supply of meat and milk those goats represented. Did you not learn, the last time our troops were in Somalia, how these poor people have to eak out a living in a land of anarchy and chaos? Or did you even pay attention? Yeah, the black shit between the elephant's toes.

Do any of you realize how lucky we are? How lucky we are not to be subject to the tsunami that occurs when great nations shrug. We just shrug and go about our lives. Twenty thousand more troops? Yeah, no problem, ain't my kid. A surge? Yeah, no problem, it's just a buncha brown folks who like to kill each other anyway so it doesn't matter what we do there. Airstrike on al-Qaeda? Oops, just a buncha Somali goat ropers, no big deal; we'll get 'em next time.

It's nice to be at arm's length, not to be the one pulling the trigger. Take it from someone who has. It's nice to know that no matter what the clown parade in Washington decides, you'll probably wake up tomorrow and do what you do every Monday morning. You take it for granted, whether the President orders an airstrike on a buncha Somali farmers or sends three carrier groups into the Persian Gulf, you'll still pull out of your driveway and go to work. Whether the President sends twenty thousand troops into Baghdad or not, you'll still come home to your wife and kids tomorrow night.

As you lay comfortably in your beds tonight, think about the poor folks who are praying they live through tomorrow. They're the ones who are paying for our leaders' decisions. The black shit between the elephant's toes.

Quote of the Day

Two today.

Frank Rich:

What the world saw on Wednesday night was a defeated Willy Loman who looked as broken as his war.

Steve Gilliard:

Why the fuck is the president listening to this fat motherfucker who wouldn't know how to load an M-4, much less take one apart in the dark.

To all the Connecticut Dems ...

Who voted for Lieberman over Lamont. To all the Senate and House Dems who campaigned with Lieberman over Lamont (Especially you, Mary Landrieu):

Go fuck yourselves.

Glad we were there ...

For your photo ops. Seems you didn't give a shit after you used us to get what you wanted.

Come on, Steve

I never thought of Steve Soto as naive. I love his posts and his blog (he is quoted many times on this page), but God, man, do you realize, even if you are technically correct, that you're talking about the lives of American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines?

...

Assuming that Gates did not lie to the Senate yesterday, I can support Bush's plan with qualifications. I think it is too late for Bush's plan to work, for the reasons I gave about al-Maliki, and because Bush should have taken these steps a year ago. Politically, I am glad to see that after this blog said late this week that the Democrats should answer Bush's challenge by adopting the ISG report as their policy, tomorrow's Post reports that Democrats are doing exactly that. But in the interim, with Gates tying the gradual surge to concrete steps by the Iraqis, I can support what Bush is proposing here, albeit months too late. Yes, the alternative is to withdraw, cut off funds for the escalation, or demand that the ISG report be implemented immediately. But the ISG report doesn't propose going after Al Qaeda immediately nor does it tie a surge to immediate Iraqi commitments to their own security. At the other end of the spectrum, Bush could also have escalated without any benchmarks or even kept the status quo without any tie to Iraqi performance. He didn't; instead he is inserting more troops to go after Al Qaeda, and to buy the Iraqis one last time window to take over for themselves.

...

Yeah, Steve, I would have supported a 'surge' too, if it would have happened in 2003, when we realized we didn't have enough troops to protect Iraqi infrastructure. In 2004, when we knew we didn't have enough troops to clear and hold the neighborhoods we pacified. But this war was doomed to failure before the balloon went up and nothing we do now can stop it. Well ... unless we abdicate what little morality we have left and say 'kill 'em all and let God sort out the mess'.

A 'surge' now will only squander American, and more Iraqi, lives. I'd support a 'surge' if it weren't doomed to failure, if it wouldn't sentence more Americans to die. There is no Divine Wind in the U.S. aside from the bad farts coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The lives of highly trained and motivated soldiers are not meant to be squandered to see if it might work. If you "think it is too late for Bush's plan to work", why bother in the first place? I lay odds one of your kids isn't staring down the sights of his rifle at the enemy, I'll lay odds you never did either or you wouldn't be so cavalier about this.

...

The burden will solely be upon Bush to deliver what he as the commander in chief says can work. If it doesn't work by the summer, he is done and Congress can take control of foreign policy for the remainder of his term.

Yes, his political strategy is right on, and it would be sound if we were talking about something where American lives didn't hang in the balance. When 3, 4, 5 or 10 U.S. troops die every day, political strategy and expediency don't play. Over 2800 troops have died since 'Mission Accomplished', we don't have the time, or the troops, to try different plans and wait a Friedman Unit or two to see if they work. Let me repeat; American lives hang in the balance. Our soldiers' are not guinea pigs, not lab rats. They are here to defend this nation and as long as they are in Iraq our defense suffers.

Yes, Steve, if you look at this in a clinical, detached manner, you are decidedly correct. Unfortunately, as someone who's been in combat on more than one occasion, I can't look at the deaths and maimings of my brothers and sisters in a clinical, detached manner. I can't square their losses for political gains, sir, and I refuse to trade more of their lives for a little more leverage over the Chimp.

Read my lips: No more troops to Iraq, period. Those who are there already need to be brought home now.

Our troops are not just numbers on a force strength chart or killing machines like Ahnold's Terminator. They are men and women with lives and families who volunteer to keep this nation safe. It's time we stopped treating them like pieces on a game board and realize they are human beings who are going to come home with real problems. Our focus should be getting them home in one piece and giving them the help they need when they do get home, not using them in some game played by people who don't have to worry about getting blown up as they pull out of their driveway in the morning.

Just don't get caught ...

Oy. Just ... oy.

Talk about the good stuff ...

Well, the good stuff doesn't matter when you hear things like this:

...

In the first incident in West Amarah three brothers Hussein Sabri Matanch (Aged 18) and Rafael Qasim (Aged 12) and Jasim (Aged 9) were trying to dismantle a mortar shell to get at the copper inside it so that they could sell it to scrap dealers. Here's how eyewitnesses to their deaths describe what happened ...

I been in Third World toilets where kids had to scavenge through trash dumps for used food to find the day's meal. These kids are having to scrounge dud and leftover ordnance to make the little money to feed themselves.

Remember, this isn't some African or Afghani backwater. This is the place where people tamed fire and invented the wheel. This is the place where up until 4 years ago, the streets of Baghdad resembled Manhattan more than they do post-WW2 Tokyo now. We have set these people back five hundred years thanks to the Chimp's illegal war.

I want you to read the whole post; learn what's been wrought in our name. Yeah, we've built schools and shit, but when a modern nation (regardless of what you thought of Saddam, Iraqi culture was more on par with the West than with their Middle East contemporaries) is reduced to having their children scrounging discarded ordnance or being sold to pedophiles, the bad far outweighs the good.

Saturday in the park

I'll blogwhore like the 4th of July*. Chapter 14 of my novel The Captains is up at The Practical Press.

*Apologies to Chicago.

Who dies

Remember how I said we missed everybody in Somalia? Well, here's who we didn't miss:

The herdsmen had gathered with their animals around large fires at night to ward off mosquitoes. But lit up by the flames, they became latest victims of America's war on terror.

It was their tragedy to be misidentified in a secret operation by special forces attempting to kill three top al-Qa'ida leaders in southern Somalia.

...

I wonder what those poor bastids thought before they died, when the night sky opened up like the Gates of Hell. I wonder if they thought they'd angered their gods? I wonder if they died thinking they'd done something so wrong, yet been totally unaware of. Buncha goatherders trying to be comfortable after a hard day's work. Something you and I do every day, and for that they died. They were killed in your name, to keep you safe from 'terrorists', and their blood is on your hands as well as mine. It will be unless we get these assholes out of the White House real soon.

Great thanks to Dr. Attaturk for the link,

2 F.U.s

President Bush's new operation to secure Baghdad will begin in earnest with a push by thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops in the first week of February, and its chances of success should be evident within a few months, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told lawmakers yesterday.

If the plan works, the United States could begin drawing down troop levels by the end of the year, Gates said. If the Iraqi government does not deliver troops and political and economic support, he said, the United States could withhold many of the 21,500 additional troops Bush has ordered to secure the most violent parts of Iraq. [my em]

...

Hmmmm ... Didn't I hear this horseshit* from Rummy in 2003? I wonder what these guys are thinking now?

TRENTON, N.J. -- New Jersey Army National Guard troops currently in Iraq will be staying an extra 125 days as part of President Bush's new policy to send more troops to the region, news that was met by anger from political leaders and disappointment from the troops' families.

A total of 159 troops from a reconnaissance unit and a battalion support unit will be affected, including 148 who are New Jersey residents; the others come from Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York.

...

I caught an interview with NJ Governor Corzine this morning, who's rightly pissed. He visited this very same unit a few months back and to a man they said they couldn't wait to get home. Well shut up, bend over, and take it, guys. You've got your President's legacy to protect.

Not only has the Chimp and his carnival of idiots brought our active duty forces to the breaking point, he's misused our citizen soldiers to the point of leaving us vulnerable at home.

Update:

And then there are the guys who are just losing it because they've been there too long:

... Between Christmas and New Year's 2006, five U.S. soldiers committed suicide after being informed they'd been ordered to serve an additional tour in Iraq ...

*Tip o' the Brain to Atrios for the link.

General George S. Patton Addresses Dubya

"I WANT YOU TO REMEMBER THAT NO DUMB BASTARD EVER WON A WAR FOR HIS COUNTRY ...BY BEING A DUMB BASTARD."

From the movie Patton via SPR.

White House Dog Barney Resigns

"I'm not going down with this administration," Barney told press at a news conference on the front lawns of the White House at 11am EST today.

Barney, pictured left, told press, "the writing is on the wall. No way in the world am I going to become Dick Cheney's dog."

Meanwhile, Barney intends to devote himself to his favorite pastimes, which include rolling in fæces, licking his genitals and chewing on dead birds.

"The White House is a bit too loathsome for a dog like me," he told press, explaining his need to distance himself from politics.

"Last time I went hunting with Dick Cheney, he needed to lock himself away from the press for twenty-four hours while he sobered up. So you see, I have no plans at this stage on becoming his dog."

The vice-president, responding to Barney's remarks, told press: "F%#*ing dog $#%$ !#@! if he comes near me I'll *$#! shoot him, or my name isn't @%*! Cheney."

Barney used the press conference to promote his forthcoming autobiography, Bait and Switch: Peril on the White House Lawn.

From Brainsnap.

Desperation and oversight

You can tell the White House is desperate*. They're counting on Michelle Malkin "to fight the new media war".

Back to the real war. If you think Gord is the only one who knows Bush has to be stopped now, Colonel Murtha's got a surprise for you:

...

Murtha announced his intention to use the power of the purse try and close US prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, eliminate the signing statements President Bush uses to secretly expand executive power and restrict the building of permanent bases in Iraq.

And starting February 17, Murtha will begin holding "extensive hearings" to block an escalation of the war in Iraq and ultimately redeploy US troops out of the conflict. Murtha predicts that a non-binding resolution criticizing Bush's expansion of the war would pass the Congress by a two to one vote. But he believes that only money, not words, will get the President's attention.

...

Most vets know this but for you others, don't piss off a stubborn old Marine.

Update:

More from Jim Webb on 'Plan B, C, D'.

And while these serious men try to undo the damage done to this nation, an idiot caves.

*Link via Atrios.

No shit ...

Nicole at C & L:

First, the AC-130 is not a precision weapon in any practical term ...

Every time I called for 'Spectre' we needed to level something the size of a city block or two.

Seems we missed everybody we were gunning for in Somalia but we sure killed a buncha people.

Webb comes through for Vets

At last, something positive. What a relief...

Bob Geiger

Keeping a promise he made on the campaign trail in 2006, Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) did more for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan on his first day in the Senate than the man he ousted, George Felix Allen, did in the entire previous Congress.

Going unnoticed in the frenzy of Democrats assuming control of Capitol Hill and George W. Bush seeking to plunge the country deeper into the Iraq quagmire, Webb introduced the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2007, legislation that will provide the newest Veterans with educational benefits like those received by men and women who served in the three decades following World War II.

This bill deserves to pass. A lot of today's combat Vets have a Hell of a lot more combat time than WWII or even Vietnam Vets. Those that don't, will, unless a miracle occurs. Even normally non-combat troops are in more peril than ever before. Combat or not, they are all in our service, however much we dislike what they are made to do, and we owe 'em big time.

This is a good one to write your legislators about. I did.

A tip o' the Brain to WKMaier, one of Lurch's fine commenters.

Entitled Criminality

P.M. Carpenter

[The president's most revealing comments on his prosecution of the Iraq war came not on the air last night, but beforehand in a private confab with Congressional leaders.

In his speech, Mr. Bush spoke vaguely and inconclusively about the consequences of Prime Minister Maliki's failure to cooperate with the administration's "New Way Forward": "If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people."

Seeing how the support of both fell through long ago, the remark was as baffling and empty as it was vague and inconclusive. But we're used to that, so let's forgo beating that dead horse among the accumulating herd of dead horses.

In his earlier White House meeting with Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi and Congressional others, however, Mr. Bush, according to the New York Times, brusquely framed the same issue this way: "I said to Maliki this has to work or you're out." (So much for "free elections" - G.)

No more chances. No more bilateral negotiations with our own uncertain ally. No more Mr. Nice Guy permitting a sovereign nation to conduct its business with sovereignty. The prime minister either gets it right or he's gone -- presumably at the hands of an American-orchestrated coup.

The ultimatum says a lot about Mr. Bush's own sense of entitlement -- his inner assurance that he and he alone should be in charge and stay in charge of this mess, no matter how many times he fails, fails again and keeps on failing. After all, how many chances has the president had to get things right in Iraq? How many times has he covered failure, excused failure or promised success while mired in the abyss of certain failure?

Others are rightly subject to accountability and finality, was the one reasonable side of Mr. Bush's message. The other was that he, for reasons unproffered, is regally exempt from that human condition -- although the adverb "regally" is proffer enough, in his mind.

Another remark to Congressional leaders was even more revealing of the president's insular, bubbled mind. Asked time and again why this fourth or fifth "new way" would prove victorious when the past three or four haven't, Mr. Bush finally blurted: "Because it has to."

Simple as that. Reality be damned. We, meaning 150,000 human targets, are now fighting with the brigades of a hope and a wish and a prayer. The commander in chief can "will" victory and victory shall ensue.

Why? How? Well, simply "because it has to."

That's more than delusional, the frame of mind most commonly attributed to Mr. Bush. That's criminal negligence wrapped in fraudulent faith and served on a plate of pure, willful hokum.

Entitled criminality -- that's what we have in charge. And the ways in which Congress can unseat or deal with it are even more problematic than the war itself.]

Note to Congress: Just STOP the sonofabitch, any way you can.

Folks, if it appears like I've gone crazy over this shit, it's only because I've gone crazy over this shit.

Did the president Declare "Secret War" Against Syria and Iran?

Again, The Washington Note:

Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.

The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country.

Some are suggesting that the Consulate raid may have been designed to try and prompt a military response from Iran -- to generate a casus belli for further American action.

If this is the case, the debate about adding four brigades to Iraq is pathetic. The situation will get even hotter than it now is, worsening the American position and exposing the fact that to fight Iran both within the borders of Iraq and into Iranian territory, there are not enough troops in the theatre.

Bush may really have pushed the escalation pedal more than any of us realize.

So far, this is just a rumor, but experience leads me to believe the worst of Bush.

I'm not sure whether he is committing our suicide or our murder, but he is going to get an awful lot more people killed even than he already has. All in vain, for nothing but his own unbalanced vanity.

I'm gonna quit being nice about this: Bush is an evil insane sociopath and must be hauled out of the White House in irons - TODAY.

At the very least, will SecDef and the Brass PLEASE just stop doing what he says? It isn't mutiny, but rather a patriotic duty of the highest order. The motherfucker's CRAZY!

A Quiet Response to a presidential Visit

WaPo

FORT BENNING, Ga., Jan. 11 -- The pictures were just what the White House wanted: A teary-eyed President Bush presenting the Medal of Honor posthumously to a slain war hero in the East Room, then flying here to join the chow line with camouflage-clad soldiers as some of them prepare to return to Iraq.

To ensure that there would be no discordant notes here, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, the base commander, prohibited the 300 soldiers who had lunch with the president from talking with reporters. If any of them harbored doubts about heading back to Iraq, many for the third time, they were kept silent.

Bush is still just running a campaign. He can't really make soldiers thunderously applaud, but he can easily make them attend his deluded lie-fests and keep them quiet. And they're useful for photo ops. Even dead ones.

Look for Bush to pretty much stick to military bases to promote his bullshit. They're the only safe places left for him.

The same thing happened to Lyndon Johnson - another parallel to Vietnam.

Bush Makes Same Mistake Twice

Via The Washington Note:

As a last-ditch effort, President Bush is expected to announce this week the dispatch of thousands of additional troops to Iraq as a stopgap measure, an order that Pentagon officials say would strain the Army and Marine Corps as they struggle to man both wars.

Already, a U.S. Army infantry battalion fighting in a critical area of eastern Afghanistan is due to be withdrawn within weeks in order to deploy to Iraq.

According to Army Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Tata and other senior U.S. commanders here, that will happen just as the Taliban is expected to unleash a major campaign to cut the vital road between Kabul and Kandahar. The official said the Taliban intend to seize Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city and the place where the group was organized in the 1990s.

"We anticipate significant events there next spring," said Tata.

Bush has gone crazy. The Afghanistan campaign should have been the focus all along and deserves to succeed. He's widening his war in order to lose it on all fronts.

The president who cried wolf

Keith Olbermann's 'Special Comment' on the Chimp's latest outrage. Transcript and Video. Do not miss it.

Bush's strategy fails because it depends on his credibility.

And to Iran and Syria - and, yes, also to the insurgents in Iraq - we must look like a country run by the equivalent of the drunken pest who gets battered to the floor of the saloon by one punch, then staggers to his feet, and shouts at the other guy's friends, "Ok, which one of you is next?"

I read this list last night, before the president's speech, and it bears repeating because its shape and texture are perceptible only in such a context.

Before Mr. Bush was elected, he said nation-building was wrong for America.

Now he says it is vital.

He said he would never put U.S. troops under foreign control.

Last night he promised to embed them in Iraqi units.

He told us about WMD.

Mobile labs.

Secret sources.

Aluminum tubes.

Yellow-cake.

This list goes on and on and is mesmerizing on video. Beautiful!

And after all of that, now it is his credibility versus that of generals, diplomats, allies, Democrats, Republicans, the Iraq Study Group, past presidents, voters last November and the majority of the American people.

Oh, and one more to add, tonight: Oceania has always been at war with East Asia.

Mr. Bush, this is madness.

This becomes your legacy, sir: How many of those you addressed last night as your "fellow citizens" you just sent to their deaths.

And for what, Mr. Bush?

So the next president has to pull the survivors out of Iraq instead of you?

Again, do not miss this one. Also at Crooks and Liars.

Quote of the Day

Moderate:

By the way...congratulations Messrs. Kristol, Kagan and Joseph on your overwhelming success. Our soon-to-be-dead children thank you also...

Off to work ...

Parallels

You know how, when I start going off about something, I break into my usual rant of: "I've lived all over the world and can say that people are more alike than different"? Of course you do, I never shut up about it. Our pal Scout Prime understands that too and draws some striking parallels between Baghdad and NOLA after the Bush administration began 'working hard' on their behalf.

Translations

Especially in this time, we really need to know what our Preznit is telling us. Since you can't figure out anything once his lips start moving, comedian Elayne Boosler compiled a list of words the White House uses and translates them into stuff reg'ler folks like you and me can understand:

...

Strategy = Pin the Tail on the Donkey

Mission= Quagmire

Mission Accomplished= Premature Evacuation

Mandate= 29%

Sectarian violence= Civil war

...

Habeus Corpus= So 1776

9/11? = 9/11

Family values = One million Iraqi dead

Abortion is murder= One million Iraqi dead

Stem cell research is murder=Three thousand Americans dead

Culture of life= Three thousand Americans dead

Iraqis are free= Except the women

...

Lots more on her post. Heh ...

U.S. Troops Raid Iranian Consulate in Iraq

The dumb sonofabitch is already trying to start a war with Iran. WaPo:

U.S. troops raided an Iranian consulate in northern Iraq late Wednesday night and detained several people, Iran's main news agency reported today, prompting protests from Tehran just hours after President Bush pledged to crack down on the Islamic Republic's role in Iraqi violence.

Iran released news of the raid through its Islamic Republic News Agency in a dispatch that was broadly critical of Bush's plan to deploy about 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.

The IRNA report said that U.S. forces entered the Iranian consulate in Irbil, in Iraq's Kurdish-dominated north, and seized computers, documents and other items. The report said five staff members were taken into custody.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry appealed to the Iraqi government to obtain the release of its personnel.

I don't care much for Iran's aid against the US in Iraq, but I certainly understand it. Iraq is well within their sphere of influence, being right next door and all.

Blow up the trucks carrying war materiél, arrest or kill their agents, sure, but don't invade their goddam consulate, fer chrissakes! That's like invading their home turf.

I hope the Iranians are smart enough and cool enough not to rise to Bush's bait. So far, so good.

Hey, I got an idea! There are Kurds in Iran as well as in Iraq. Put some dead Iraqi Kurdish criminals in Iranian military uniforms and display their corpses near a car bomb that killed GIs with the detonator in their hands. That's pretty much how Hitler justified invading Poland to start WWII in Europe. Nobody'll remember.

Bush has to go NOW, head first or feet first, makes no difference.

Your local government ...

Or at least my local government. Over the past few weeks, I've had some legal issues pertaining to the ownership of my house. Basically whether my parents' divorce was filed properly, and my mother had sole ownership of the house I currently live in at the time of her death. Their divorce was final in 1983, my father is deceased 15 years, my mother 11, and in New York, I can't get into their divorce record without a court order (an avenue which time will not allow me to pursue). So for the past few weeks, I've had to chase this down indirectly. This chase has led me from the Supreme Court of the State of New York, to the Court of Suffolk County, to local courts, and back.

In all this, dealing with countless court officers and civil servants on every level, all I can say is that I am pleasantly surprised. I was given courtesy and helpfulness on a scale I thought government employees totally incapable of. I thank you all for your help and I'm sorry for harboring the misconception that most of you were cynical, apathetic, and bad tempered. You made my task far easier than I expected and I am extremely grateful.

They're marching!

Maybe you can join them?

Is Bush calling for genocide?

This may be a little tinfoil-hattish, but that's never stopped me. From xymphora:

The 'surge' is itself another Bush lie. The Pentagon doesn't have the troops, so the 'increase' will just be Pentagon crooked bookkeeping (crooked bookkeeping is something the Pentagon is good at). The real plan is much worse. It is a covert change in the rules of engagement. [...]

This is coded language, but not difficult to read. Bush is calling for genocide against the Sunnis. He is following the recommendation of John Podhoretz in the New York Post (note that Uruknet misattributes this to John Podhoretz's almost equally vile father; the most infamous line is in red [bold]):

"What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?

If you can't imagine George W. Bush issuing such an order, is there any American leader you could imagine doing so?"

Now we can imagine Bush issuing such an order. We will also see the Americans go medieval on the Sunnis in Anbar (who are called 'al Qaeda'). Just to confirm who is running things, there is a tiny reference in Bush's speech to more for Israel:

"We will expand intelligence sharing - and deploy Patriot air defence systems to reassure our friends and allies."

Patriot air defense systems deployed in Iraq would protect Israel from attacks from where? You do the geometry. If Israel wants to try something awful, it would not want to face any kind of counterattack.

The neocons have been lying in the weeds, pretending to have been soundly defeated by the all-powerful American Establishment. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bush's speech could have been - and probably was - written by Bill Kristol. The Zionist Plan for the Middle East continues, with the next step ensuring that Iraq breaks up. You have to wonder what the Saudis, who have expressed concern about Shi'ite influence, will think about an American campaign of genocide against Sunnis. You have to wonder what the American Establishment, too decadent and weak to defend itself, will do when much of its wealth is destroyed.

Maybe so, maybe no.

One thing I find horribly ironic is that Bush is backing al Maliki, a weak politician at the head of a weak non-representative (of the Iraqi people, anyway) government, who remains tenuously in place at the suffrance of al Sadr and his Mahdi militia. By attempting to quell a Sunni insurgency, Bush is in effect helping al Sadr and thus aiding and abetting Iranian influence in Iraq at the same time he is threatening to go to war with Iran.

Those people are all going to be there when we leave, one year or a hundred years. Sorta like this other place I dimly remember from my youth...

Bush has set these folks up beautifully to have it out with one another over who gets control. If there's gonna be any re-arranging of the Middle East, the Middle Easterners are the ones who will do it.

Let's leave and let 'em have at it. When things quiet down a little in a hundred years, or a thousand, we can go back. If we want to. If they'll let us.

Poised to surge...

The Guardian

Deadly Embrace

MoDo at Tennessee Guerilla Women.

My colleague Tom Friedman (yeah, yeah, button it - G.) wrote last week: "Whenever I hear this surge idea, I think of a couple who recently got married but the marriage was never very solid. Then one day they say to each other, 'Hey, let's have a baby, that will bring us together.' It never works. If the underlying union is not there, adding a baby won't help."

Some women say that the Surge will not work because it's like starting over with an old boyfriend: you think you've learned the pitfalls and can resume with more success - you can set benchmarks! - but instead you're swiftly ensnared by the same old failures. And the most maddening romances, of course, are those in which you think you have the power, you should have the power, but somehow in the end, you don't have the power.

With the Surge, as with the invasion of Iraq, W. is like the presumptuous date "who reserves a hotel room and then asks you to the prom," as my friend Dana Calvo put it.

Teddy Kennedy gave a speech at the National Press Club yesterday about his new legislation that would require Congressional approval before troop levels can be increased. Afterward, he was asked if he would try to block the escalation with an amendment to an upcoming Iraq spending request.

"The horse will be out of the barn by the time we get there," Senator Kennedy replied. "The president makes his speech now. We're going to get the appropriation request probably the end of January, early February." He said it could take eight more weeks for Congress to act. "By that time, the troops will already be there," he said. "And then we'll be asked, are we going to deny the body armor to the young men and women over there?"

In other words, the president will ask us to the prom once he reserves the hotel room.

I got a hunch it's gonna end up for Bush the same way it always does - lyin' on the hotel bed alone, watchin' porn with his dick in his hand, too drunk to get it up, and blamin' his date.

While people die.

Shuttle Without Diplomacy

Go read Sidney Blumenthal on how Bush's Titanic and Condi's Ship of Fools State are team-ramming the same iceberg.

Nine days after Zelikow's resignation the Iraq Study Group report was released. Informed correspondents of the Washington Post and New York Times related in conversation that Bush furiously called the report "a flaming turd," (my em) but his colorful remark was not published. Perhaps it was apocryphal. Nonetheless, it conveyed the intensity of his hostile rejection. Still, Scowcroft and Baker, like Vladimir and Estragon in "Waiting for Godot," waited for Rice.

The State Department has been completely sidelined in the making of Bush's latest and last policy on Iraq. Its experience in the Balkans remains thoroughly ignored. And Rice does nothing to call it to Bush's attention, for that would require her to point out his shortcomings. The State Department founders like a ghost ship. Rice meanders back and forth to and from the Middle East, the shuttle without the diplomacy.

After twice rejecting the job of deputy secretary of state, John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, was implored to accept it. In exchanging a Cabinet post for a sub-Cabinet one, a position of policymaking for an administrative post, Negroponte excited rumors that he would only have decided to make the switch if he believed that Rice would eventually leave and he would ascend to her job. But, once again, the logic of that Washington gossip is merely rational. Rice the irrelevancy remains Bush's indispensable devotee.

I worship at Fixer's feet too, but I ain't gonna let him poke me there!