Koppel in Iran

I watched Ted Koppel's two-hour show on Iran last night on The Discovery Channel. I thought it was excellent. Click the link to see some clips. I also recommend you catch the show when it is shown again, as it surely will be.

There were two things that struck me that I feel are worthy to pass along.

The first is that the Iranians think their president Ahmadinejad is not up to his job, that he uses religion to bolster his image and stir people up, and that he is largely ignorant of foreign affairs and policy. They see the similarity between him and Bush.

The second thing is the changes they've seen due to the rise in the power of religion:

"We used to pray at home and go out and drink. Now, we drink at home and go out to pray."

I think we have more in common with those folks than we might have thought.

Oh yeah, they're still pissed-off at us for nipping their nascent democracy in the bud by replacing the elected Mossadegh with the Shah in '53 after he nationalized the oil industry, and for supporting Saddam in their eight-year war in the '80s that killed 800,000 Iranian soldiers, almost a whole generation of young men.

Rangel to propose new draft

LATimes

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said Sunday he sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars and to bolster U.S. troop levels insufficient to cover potential future action in Iran, North Korea and Iraq.

"There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way," Rangel said.

Rangel, a veteran of the Korean War who has unsuccessfully sponsored legislation on conscription in the past, said he will propose a measure early next year.

He said having a draft would not necessarily mean everyone called to duty would have to serve. Instead, "young people (would) commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it's our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals," with a promise of educational benefits at the end of service.

This is win-win-win.

Win No. 1: America's kids will get a chance to go somewhere and see and do something besides video games, getting fat on junk food, getting each other pregnant, and apathy. It wouldn't hurt our spoiled, over-protected youth to get their hands dirty either. It's a good thing for kids of different backgrounds to get thrown together so they have to work together and get to know one another as well, aka "seeing how the other half lives".

Win No. 2: They'll get to go to college, which is rapidly getting beyond the means of average and low-income folks. As a nation, we need them to get a higher education. Brains, and the opportunity to develop them, are not, or at any rate should not be, the exclusive property of rich white kids, however much they think they are.

Win No. 3: America's youth will get the chance to become more involved as citizens, which is good for democracy. We have a startling, unnerving lack of that at present.

Go get 'em, Charlie. One thing I would add: NO DEFERMENTS, except for truly impaired conditions.

They took shelter amid the poison

Here's a four-part story in the LATimes coming today through Wednesday about how uranium mining has affected Navajos over the years and what the government hasn't done about it.

During the Cold War, uranium mines left contaminated waste scattered around the Navajo Nation. Homes built with it silently pulsed with radiation. People developed cancer. And the U.S. did little to help.

I first got acquainted with this problem several years ago when I read People Of Darkness by Tony Hillerman, one of a series of novels about Navajo tribal policemen Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn.

Our Southwest and its Navajo culture are just an interest of mine, and I pass this on to whomever else might be interested as well.

Send in the subpœnas

Ron Suskind on investigations, subpœnas, and congressional leadership.

The new Democratic Congress may well come down to a series of confrontations between the competing urges to investigate and to lead. Between delving into past wrongdoings and building consensus on how to proceed in Iraq. Between, in a sense, the Democratic Party's show horses and its pit bulls.

Democrats should be able to both investigate and lead, but it will take an embrace of Republican-style discipline (hardly a Democratic strong suit), an appreciation for deferred gratification (think inauguration day, January 2009) and a shrewd division of labor between pit bulls and show horses.

Here, then, is a playbook for the Democrats -- one that keeps the show horses preening, lets the pit bulls attack, helps the party figure out how to use its new subpoena power to maximum effect and encourages the sort of reality-based disclosures that all citizens, regardless of party, deserve.

First, the Democrats must broker a separation of powers. The show horses are their putative candidates for president, especially in the Senate, and the party's leadership in both chambers. Keep them above the fray, focusing on proposals for the future and the new "action plans," especially in foreign policy. But unleash the pit bulls: the committee chairs, their seconds and investigators who will dig relentlessly, identify targets and thus, inevitably, leave themselves vulnerable in their next reelection campaigns.

Over in the people's chamber, some House investigators are quite clear on how to make things personal: Force administration officials to say that they lied or to take the Fifth Amendment.[...]

Please read the rest. There's 435 of these people. Surely, in amongst the "show horses" there's enough "pit bulls" and "workhorses" to do two things at once.

Same old song and dance ... revisited

Like a TV show going into reruns. Ed Encho sent me a link to this:

Washington - A classifed draft CIA assessment has found no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as alleged by the White House, a top US investigative reporter has said.

Seymour Hersh, writing in an article for the November 27 issue of the magazine The New Yorker released in advance, reported on whether the administration of Republican President George W. Bush was more, or less, inclined to attack Iran after Democrats won control of Congress last week.

...

WMD! Rape rooms! Uranium! The Russians! The Chinese! Mushroom clouds!

Yawn ...

On torture 2

I've touched on the torture issue before, in general terms and of how wrong and useless it is for the purpose of information-gathering. Well last night, after an email exchange with a fellow blogger and one of the Brain's best friends, I got to thinking about it after reading through the links sent to me. I thought about it all night (thanks, pal), though I thought those dreams were a thing of the past. (I'm going to keep our friend's identity vague, National Security Secrets Directives are involved) I, on the other hand, don't give a fuck anymore and if they got a problem they can take their best shot. Today, I'm going to talk about torture and how it works in the real world, as opposed to what all the talking heads and Rethug assholes say about it. That said, we can move on.

Link #1: Excerpts of an interview with Edwin Meese (former AG under Reagan). Meese is discussing the concept of waterboarding as torture.

Let's move to the Geneva Conventions. A lot of people are concerned that terrorism suspects don't have any kind of habeas corpus.
In order to be covered by the Geneva Convention, you have to fulfill certain requirements. . . . So there are a number of criteria in the Geneva Convention that are not met by everyone on the battlefield. Then there's another category of people going back to the Revolutionary War-people who were in those days called spies. If they were not in uniform, they were subject to being summarily executed.

You mean they were executed without even a military tribunal?
I think there were some. Also, a "tribunal" could be a military commander ordering the hanging. I think that's what happened to some of them.

You're advocating summary execution.
Well, yeah, that happens in the military. Illegal combatants are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions.

Um, no. There is no such thing as an 'illegal combatant' on the battlefield. You're either my friend or enemy. If you're the latter, I'm gonna try to kill you. Even the Rosenbergs were given a trial. And I have a pretty good feeling that no spies were summarily executed (without trial) in our nation's history. If you disagree, you'd better be armed with proof.

As many of you know, my mother was a nurse in the German Army during WW2. She was captured by the Americans and held as a POW for eighteen months. She always said the American soldiers treated her, and her fellow nurses, with the utmost respect. They also treated the German soldiers with respect as long as they followed the rules. No, we do not have a history of torture.

They then go on to ask Meese about waterboarding and he's as evasive as the rest of them when it comes to calling it torture.

It seems like some of these techniques, like waterboarding, are a long way from humane.
Well, again, I have a great deal of confidence that the administration would not engage in torture.

Would you call that torture?
I don't know. I don't know about waterboarding.

It's putting a wet rag over someone's mouth and making them think that they're going to drown.
Yeah, I don't know. As I said, I don't know enough about it to give a firm determination.

That doesn't necessarily sound like torture to you?
I don't know whether they're doing that.

And if they are?
I don't know, because I don't know enough about it.

I'm asking, if that is what they're doing, does that sound like torture?
Well, I'd have to find out how long they do it and whether it does create the impression of drowning. I've never heard of this using a washcloth in their mouth before.

But he sure knows about summary executions. Waterboarding is torture, period. Putting people you have in confinement in fear for their lives is mental abuse at the least. I gather if you're on the receiving end, 'abuse' would be considered a benign term. Let me explain, we did not use techniques like this until this bunch came to power. Don't get me wrong, we're not chiorboys, but this is the first time techniques like this were offcially sanctioned from on high.

Which brings us to Link #2: An interview with an Air Force weenie (like myself) about the survival school at Fairchild AFB where most Air Force combat troops go to learn how to live on their own in the wilderness and how to evade and, if not so lucky, deal with capture (I have also been through the course, 1980, and can vouch for what's written).

I served in the Air Force from 1982 to 1988. I was an airborne linguist and, as such, was required to go through survival school at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane. This was a school that officers and enlisted men alike were required to attend...anyone who might end up in a hostile situation or behind enemy lines--or a POW. That was in January of 1984. Part of survival school was training in interrogation resistance and how to handle oneself in the event of capture by enemy forces.

What does that have to do with Meese's remarks, you might ask? Simply this: Our trainers were careful to instruct us on the Geneva Conventions and which interrogation techniques were covered and which were illegal. I have a very clear memory of what they said about waterboarding. As I recall, water boarding was classified as torture and was a violation of the Geneva Conventions. They told us about the technique for the simple reason that the North Vietnamese used it on American Forces. They wanted us to know about that technique in case we were ever captured by "scumbags who didn't respect the Geneva Conventions." There were no demonstrations; it was considered too traumatic. [my ems]

...

And believe me, if the Air Force refused to allow their people to experience it, it was bad. Once I was strung up with my arms behind my back, wrists tied togther, pulled up behind me with a rope tied to the cieling, off balance so I was on tip toe. It was only 5 minutes (it felt like an hour) but I swore my shoulders were going to dislocate. (Let that be a lesson to you kids who are thinking of enlisting: Don't volunteer for anything!) However, a Squid related his experience with waterboarding to the Air Force weenie.

...

My cousin, who was a diver for the Navy, also went through similar training at the same time I did, but in a difference school. We both wen't through survival training at the same time, and we met up on leave in Montana in February of 84 before I went off to my permanent duty station in Greece and he went to Hawaii. He told me they actually put them through the experience for a very short period of time (less than a minute each) so they could see how psychologically disturbing it was.

The procedure as he described it was as follows: You are strapped to a board or plank that is set at an incline angle so that your head is approximately a foot below the level of your feet. A wet cloth is placed over your face so that it covers your eyes, nose and mouth. Then water is dripped steadily onto the cloth over your nose and mouth.

It doesn't sound that bad in the abstract, does it? According to my cousin, it was a terrifying experience. And like me, he was taught that this practice was clearly torture and a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Anyone who went through Survival School at the same time I did, in the mid-80's, would have been taught about water boarding and would also have been taught that it was a form of Torture. For the mouthpieces of the current administration to now pretend that waterboarding is somehow acceptable--or even somehow borderline--is a deliberate and methodical deception. I can't speak knowledgably about the interrogation resistance training of the US Military for the last 15 years, but if you were in the service in the 80's and you had any chance of being in a combat risk situation, you went through this training. And every last one of us who has completed this training knows that waterboarding is torture, pure and simple. [my em]

...

The institutional sanctioning of torture puts us in the same league as Soviet Russia, the Khmer Rouge, Nazi Germany, Kim's Korea, Amin's Uganda, and Mao's China. Neocon America is not the nation I put my ass on the line for, not the nation I pledged my life to defend, and not the nation whose secrets I pledged to keep. Now for personal experience, because torture takes a toll on the people who are charged with meting it out as well, unless they are psychopaths or sociopaths.

In a combat situation, I have done things that could be qualified as abuse and torture. In order to protect my mates and achieve success in the mission, I was prepared to do anything to gather information I needed. Example: My intel is shaky and I'm not sure of the size of a guard force protecting an enemy installation that we're charged with destroying. What do I do? I grab a perimeter guard and demand to know the troop strength. He tells me to go fuck myself. I take out my knife and either remove a finger or dig an eye out of his head, or both depending on his stubbornness and pain threshold. I ask the question again and get an accurate reply. Needless to say, his usefulness to me is over and he becomes just another casualty of war. I have no qualms about this because it's happening on the battlefield and war is horrible (there is no glory in war). The only consequences I have to deal with is what goes on in my own head (I don't wish that on anybody). I've been sentenced to that prison for the past 20 years.

Now, after combat is over and I have prisoners, the scenario changes. Case in point - Grenada 1983. We took about a hundred Cuban soldiers prisoner when we took the airport in Fort Georges. They were in our custody for about 72 hours until the appropriate authorities could take them off our hands. After hostilities were over and they realized they weren't going to be executed, the macho Latino came out and a lot of them got lippy. It got to the point that you just wanted to grab the loudmouths and kick the crap out of them. We talked about it because we were worried they might foment an uprising, and yes we even considered killing the lot of them. My CO took us aside and said this: "The Geneva Conventions apply here, boys. If you abuse one of them, I'll shoot you myself." He wouldn't even let us threaten them.

I know it's a fine line I'm walking and I hope most of you get it. Once an enemy is reduced from 'combatant' to 'prisoner', the rules change. When an enemy is your prisoner, you are responsible for his well-being. He can't harm you, he can't kill your people, he is impotent and depends on your good graces to remain alive. Regardless of the Geneva Conventions, it's just a basic fact of humanity that you don't abuse those who are incapable of defending themselves.

Americans don't torture. Correction, torture should not be sanctioned by our government. Yes, shit happens on the battlefield, but when an enemy is disarmed and captured, we have a moral imperative to show our humanity toward our fellow man, not only for humanity's sake but for the protection of our own troops who might find themselves in a similar situation. Just because 'they' do it, doesn't mean we should. We are better (supposedly) than 'they' are, and only these chickenhawk assholes who are running the show want to lower ourselves to 'their' level.

Any more former or current GIs who'd like to add to this? As my Air Force brother says:

I'm a little baffled that I haven't seen any other ex-service people speaking up about it.

Well, I am because it disgusts me.

Update:

Brother Lurch picks up the ball.

The glamorous life of a rock star...

Our pal Patrick of I speak dog is traveling abroad as the guest drummer in a really loud rock band. England, France, Spain. Go read his journal. Start at the top and read it backwards, or any way you choose. Educational and entertaining.

GOP Bloodbath - Whee!

Americablog

Tucked in to the bottom of an article in the New York Daily News about the Hoyer/Murtha election was this little tidbit:

For all the focus on the Democrats, a former Bush official who predicts a coming bloodbath between the White House and disgruntled conservative Republicans brushed off the Pelosi-Hoyer tussle as much ado about process.

"The Democrats are the sideshow," he said. "Bush self-destructing is the big story in town."

The reporters, Tom DeFrank and Ken Bazinet, always have very, very good inside GOP sources.

The GOP bloodbath will be great fun to watch. Let the games begin.

No comment. Big grin.

Weekend reading ...

And shameless blogwhoring. This week's installment (Chapter Five) of my novel The Captains is up at Fixer and Old White Lady's Writing Blog* The Practical Press.

*Explanation.

"A disaster ..."

The Mail via BuzzFlash:

Tony Blair admitted that British intervention in Iraq has been a disaster last night - sending shockwaves through Westminster.

...

Challenged by veteran interviewer Sir David Frost that the Western invasion of Iraq has "so far been pretty much of a disaster", Mr Blair said: "It has."

...

Almost four years on and one of them finally gathers the stones, but only out of political expediency, to admit what the rest of us reality-based folks knew going in. Had a little effort been put in to post-war planning, as opposed to the effort people put into ripping off the Coalition Authority, the Chimp and Tony could have come up smelling like roses, and the 'permanent Republican majority' might have become a reality here.

But the Chimp's West Highland Whitey refused to concede he was part of the problem. Of course not. Why would you have to plan for what comes after the war if you win?

...

The Prime Minister went on: "You see what I say to people is why is it difficult in Iraq? It's not difficult because of some accident in planning, it's difficult because there's a deliberate strategy - al Qaeda with Sunni insurgents on one hand, Iranian-backed elements with Shia militias on the other - to create a situation in which the will of the majority for peace is displaced by the will of the minority for war." [my ems]

...

The blame for the insurgents goes directly to Blair and Bush because had we not invaded, Iraq would be terrorist-free. Say what you will about Saddam, and I'm not defending him, but under his regime, as long as you kept your mouth shut and stayed out of his way, you could live a pretty good, safe life. Bush, Blair, the Spaniard, and the Eye-Tie bear full responsibility for the mess in Iraq.

Just wondering ...

How you Vietnam guys feel about this?



I wonder how the Chimp feels with Uncle Ho looking over his shoulder saying "Missed you the first time"?

Pic thanks to Holden.

Gentlemen, start your subpœnas

Raw Story

In a letter addressed to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, soon to be chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has requested the release of documents that outline the Bush Administration's interrogation policies.

The documents, which have long been thought to exist by observers and critics of America's national security policies, were confirmed to exist as the result of a still-pending Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the ACLU.

Let the games begin!

Full text of letter at the link.

[Welcome to all the visitors from The Daou Report. ~ Fixer]

Depraved Indifference

Don Davis

While George Bush the Elder is currently being hailed for pulling in the reins on his ne'er-do-well son, local authorities in Kennebunkport, Maine have arrested "41" on counts of "negligent supervision of a minor," and "endangering the planet."

As the Kennebunkport D.A. rhetorically asked at his press conference, "what good is it to take the car keys away from a wasted teenager, after he's already destroyed the neighborhood?"

Paraphrasing from the Maine Criminal Code, the D.A. asserted that Poppy Bush "knew or should have known, of a need to prevent Dubya from operating a country, especially under the influence of Dick Cheney."

The D.A., a Republican, added that the State would be seeking the maximum punishment under the law due to the aggravated nature of the offense, since it was "41" himself who supplied Cheney to "43": "Simply put, this was like handing a loaded gun to a child."

The D.A. concluded his press conference by asserting that Senior never should have let Junior out of his sight: "When you take 41 away from 43, you just end up with No. 2."

Yes, a great steaming, wormy loaf of it.

Let bygones be bygones, my ass...

L.A. City Beat

The midterm election was a long night, and I didn't rise until the next afternoon, but when I did finally drag my hangover to a TV set, I discovered aimless panic as though Godzilla were coming down the Ginza. Donald Rumsfeld has already been hurled from the train. Rush Limbaugh was pounding his fists and bellowing that he'd been "carrying water" for all the wrong people. Talking heads who, when I'd passed out, had been wired to the RNC and Karl Rove were no longer even Republicans, embracing some weird, amorphous "libertarianism." Tucker Carlson had ditched his fatuous bow tie. Others were pointing out that it really wasn't much of a Democrat victory, because the winning Dems were kinda conservative, and that all would basically be business as usual. George himself made an appearance, and every third word was "bipartisan." A few Bushite pundits even had the enduring gall to issue threats while still scuttling like roaches at the light. Henry Waxman was advised to keep his subpoenas under the bed, and John Conyers to forget his articles of impeachment, because vindictive investigations of the White House would not be in the national interest.

Though the post-victory haze, I perceived a final pathetic spin, based in the fiction that the people still respond to Bush's supposed charisma: that to lay a Democrat glove-of-impeachment on the president would alienate the electorate big-time. We were being urged to forgive, forget, and all get along. As in forget the lies and the spies, the Constitution and Geneva Conventions, the war profiteering and the body count. Forget that New Orleans's 9th Ward is still in ruins, forget the inflated homophobia, the decimated middle class, for-profit health care, reproductive rights and embryonic stem cells, and all the small-time insanity, like the Terri Schiavo debacle. Forget My Pet Goat and the War on Christmas? And the accusations of everything from treason to dementia leveled at most of my friends?

Believe me, I have no inclination to forget any single damned thing, or to make any attempt to get along. I want to see every dirty secret dragged out and exposed, until George W. Bush is doing the Nixon perp-walk to the helicopter.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Quote of the Day

From one who always seems to come up with great quotes, our pal 42 on Mitt Romney's Presidential aspirations:

... I guess the next thing you do after leaving the Governor's Mansion in Springfield is buy up a media conglomerate in preparation for your presidential fantasy-run; fantasy because Americans are more likely to elect a Jewish lesbian for president than a Mormon ...

Whaddaya mean ...

I can't beat her? She's my wife, ain't she? Another of the 'values crowd' shows his true colors*:

State Rep. Mark Olson, just elected to his eighth term in the House, was being held in the Sherburne County jail Monday after being arrested in connection with an alleged domestic assault on his wife Sunday afternoon at their home in Big Lake, Minn.

...

I just can't understand why most Americans won't cast a cynical eye at those who would presume to judge our morals. Just because someone swears they follow the teachings of Jesus (and I'm still trying to figure our which of Jesus' teachings they actually do follow) doesn't mean they do. How many examples do you need?

Like the Catholic preisthood it seems the Republican party has become a haven for wife beaters and pedophiles. How can anyone, in good conscience vote for a party where assault and sexual abuse are so widespread? When authority figures abuse the authority they have been given, using it to steal the innocence of youngsters or assault their spouses, on such a scale, something should click in the public's collective heads making them wonder if it might be a systemic problem. It does in mine.

It's a sad commentary on America when the Republican Party can be held harmless for the sins they've committed against this nation and her people.

*Link via Maru.

Got some doom for ya, F-man

Almost 7 min long, this video packs a lot of doom...


There is a detailed diary on this on DKos, so here's a bare outline of how 2 police officers couldn't detain a student with (allegedly) 6 taser shots: During a late night security check of students at a computer lab at UCLA a student who is not carrying his ID is asked to leave. When the student doesn't immediately shut down his computer the security guard calls in the campus police, who encounter the student as he is leaving the lab. The above video starts where the student is intercepted by the campus police and prevented from leaving the computer lab, and when he protests he is tasered by the UCLA police. According to the police the student "didn't cooperate" although students say he did. The police cuff the student who then drops. The police keep telling the student to get up and when he can't or won't they tazer him again and again. Why didn't they just pick him up and carry him out, you ask, since that's what happened at the end anyway. I'm asking that too. Why do they keep screaming at the terrorized student, which only serves to escalate an already tense situation, instead of calmly talking with him, trying to see his position? Wouldn't public safety be better served by just 'talking the kid down'? Yes, the police need to respond forcefully to violent criminals resisting arrest but this student perhaps broke a college rule (I don't know UCLA regs). If you want to be tough I guess you can argue that they could have given the kid a written warning and let him walk off. Well, it can also be said that terrorism is intended for those who witnesses it as well. Oh yes, a student who asked for badge numbers was threatened with a tasering, too.
"Here's your Patriot Act! Here's your f**king abuse of power!" Mostafa Tabatabainejad, the aforementioned student.
Update 1: Please see Dan's comment, which provides contact info for the UC Chancellor.
Update 2: Thank you, Keith Olbermann, for bringing this disgusting incident to national attention.
Last Update:
I think what happened at UCLA is tragic, repugnant and despicable not because it's unique but because it isn't unique. That or worse happens in this country regularly. Here is a quote from They Thought They Were Free, The Germans 1933-1945, by Milton Mayer:

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it--please try to believe me--unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted', that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures' that no 'patriotic German' could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head."

The real me...

I've had one of these decals - yes, decal - on my toolbox for thirty years and I decided I needed another one and found one on the internets in ten minutes. Ain't life grand?

Tsunami hits California

San Francisco Chronicle. Story and pictures.

Steven said Del Norte County officials received a notification from the National Weather Service on Wednesday morning that a 3- to 5-foot surge resulting from an 8.1 magnitude quake near Japan would hit the Crescent City region about 11:40 a.m.

"We did have a very small surge at that time, and then everybody went back to business as usual," Steven said.

Then around 2:30, Steven said, residents noticed an ominous sign -- water started running out of the town's harbor, a classic indication of an approaching tsunami.

"You don't like to see that," Steven said. "It looked like a very fast river."

Musta been kinda hard to see out of the back of your head whilst running full speed for higher ground.

"...couldn't put this clusterfuck back together again."

Sidney Blumenthal via True Blue Liberal. Read the whole thing.

Bush family guardians James Baker and others are trying to rescue "Sonny" from his failed Middle East policies. Will he listen this time?

In the event that Baker actually advocates what he thinks, Bush's options will be to admit the errors of his ways and the wisdom of his father and father's men or to cast them and caution aside once again. His choice is either Shakespearean or Wagnerian.

Mr. Blumenthal left out Dante:

"Abandon hope all ye who enter here..."

From the Guardian:

President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make "a last big push" to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration's internal deliberations.

I think "machinations" might have been a better choice of words than "deliberations" but them Limeys are quite reserved.

The "last push" strategy is also intended to give Mr Bush and the Republicans "political time and space" to recover from their election drubbing and prepare for the 2008 presidential campaign, the official said. "The Iraq Study Group buys time for the president to have one last go. If the Democrats are smart, they'll play along, and I think they will. But forget about bipartisanship. It's all about who's going to be in best shape to win the White House.

The official added: "Bush has said 'no' to withdrawal, so what else do you have? The Baker report will be a set of ideas, more realistic than in the past, that can be used as political tools. What they're going to say is: lower the goals, forget about the democracy crap, put more resources in, do it."

I don't think we have the military resources to "do it" like it needs, not that it should have ever been "done" in the first place.

This will use up our military, folks. In the fuckin' Bush is giving us and Iraq, these are the short strokes. An act of desperation in pursuit of inevitable failure.