White House Quietly Retracts Entire State Of The Union Address

White House Quietly Retracts Entire State Of The Union Address:

January 31, 2007 | Issue 43•05 WASHINGTON, DC—

In a brief statement faxed to major media outlets at approximately 11:50 p.m. Friday, the White House retracted the entire 5,600-word State of the Union address delivered by President Bush last Tuesday. “This includes all components of the address, and is not limited to the president’s congratulations to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi or his plan to give more Americans affordable health care through tax cuts, which has since been deemed infeasible,” the statement read in part. “Furthermore, the president’s urge for bipartisanship as well as his final statement about the state of the union being ’strong’ are hereby stricken from the public record.” Like the State of the Union address itself, the White House’s retraction has not yet become a significant national news story. © Copyright 2006, Onion, Inc. All rights reserved.

DISCONTINUATION OF STATE DEPARTMENT TERROR REPORT RAISES EYEBROWS

Apr. 22, 2005

DISCONTINUATION OF STATE DEPARTMENT TERROR REPORT RAISES EYEBROWS.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., asked for an investigation this week after
the State Department announced that after 19 years, it would no longer annually publish terrorist attack numbers,
Reuters reported Thursday. The decision “denies the public access to
information about the incidence of terrorism,” he said in
correspondence to the acting State Department inspector general in
which he asked what political concerns, if any, motivated the
discontinuation. The 2004 statistics contradicted the Bush
administration’s claims that the war on terror was making progress.
A spokesman for the State Department, Richard Boucher, answered the press corps’ questions about the decision
on Monday morning, saying that responsibility for the report has simply
been shifted to the National Counterterrorism Center because “the 9/11
Commission recommended and the Congress passed legislation called the
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 that
established the National Counterterrorism Center as the primary
organization in the U.S. Government for analysis of global terrorism.”

Behind the Homefront

Stop The Escalation

This ad is being pushed in the six home states of the Republicans on Foreign Relations Committee that voted against the Levin/Biden/Hagel resolution.

Stop Escalation

Army investigates war contractors

KANSAS CITY DOT COM

Up to 50 criminal cases involving alleged fraud, bribery and abuse have been opened.
The Associated PressWASHINGTON | Army investigators have opened up to 50 criminal investigations involving battlefield contractors in the war in Iraq and the U.S. fight against terrorism, The Associated Press has learned.

They include high-dollar fraud, conspiracy, bribery, and bid rigging.

Senior contracting officials, government employees, residents of other countries and, in some cases, U.S. military personnel have been implicated in millions of dollars of fraud allegations.

“All of these involve operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait,” Chris Grey, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, confirmed Saturday.

Battlefield contractors have been implicated in allegations of fraud and abuse since the war in Iraq began in spring 2003. A special inspector general office that focused solely on reconstruction spending in Iraq developed cases that led to four criminal convictions.

The problems stem in part from the Pentagon’s struggle to get a handle on the unprecedented number of contractors now helping run the nation’s wars. Contractors are used in battle zones to do nearly everything but fight.

Special agents from the Army’s major procurement fraud unit recently were dispatched to Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, where they are “working closely and sharing information with other law enforcement agencies in the region,” Grey said.

One case involves an Army chief warrant officer accused of taking a $50,000 bribe to steer a contract for paper products and plastic flatware away from a government contractor and to a Kuwaiti company, according to court records.

Chris Matthews Drools Over Cheney/Plame Link

WIKILOBBYING

MICROSOFT OFFERS CASH FOR WIKIPEDIA EDIT

http://www.tinyurl.com/3y36ap

Cheney Was “Obsessed” With Hardball

 Cheney Was “Obsessed” With Hardball

Bob Somerby Explains: WHY DEMS TALK DOWN THEIR OWN HOPEFULS

In today’s Post, Dan Balz helps spread a canard about Hillary Clinton:

WHY DEMS TALK DOWN THEIR OWN HOPEFULS: Reporting from darkest Cedar Rapids,
Dan Balz was playing the perfect dumb-ass. He had spoken with 14
Democratic “party activists.” One of them—a high
school student!—had made a familiar remark:

BALZ (1/29/07): But even those who want to see a woman elected to the
White House worry that Clinton may not be able to win a general
election, given her political baggage. “I think that it would be amazing to have her be our president,” said Hollyanne Howe, a high school student. “I fear that if she is nominated, she won’t be electable. I
would love to see her get elected, but my biggest fear is that it won’t
happen and we’ll get stuck with another President Bush or whomever
else.”

First off, it’s odd that the Post includes a high school kid when
it assembles a small group of Dem “party activists.” (They
also included a married couple. That was lazy too.) But don’t
worry! It’s also easy to find adult Dems
expressing inchoate fears about the “electability” of their
parties’ candidates. Balz closes today’s dumb-ass report
today with a second such comment, this time by an adult:

BALZ: “I really like Edwards,” said Ann Bromley, a retired city worker. “I think he’s intelligent and compassionate. I don’t think he’s electable, and I don’t know why. Something is missing.” Others nodded in agreement.

“Others nodded in agreement”—good God! Is anyone dumber than our Dem Party activists? In fact, even as these party stalwarts spoke, Newsweek released another national poll.
This poll, conducted last Wednesday and Thursday, showed Clinton
leading McCain by six points (50-44) and Edwards leading McCain by four
(48-44). In fact, it was the third straight Newsweek poll, in a
span of two months, which showed Clinton ahead of McCain; she also
leads Giuliani by three in this latest survey (49-46). But so what! Nothing stops
us liberals and Dems from reciting the types of defeatist points which
reporters then rush into national papers. Hillary Clinton is
unelectable! Because of “her political baggage!”
(Sometimes, we’re such perfect tools that we say it’s
because she’s “too polarizing.”) In short, the RNC
doesn’t need to exist. We liberals and Dems are now quite pleased
to recite their talking-points for them.

But then, the press corps is currently deeply involved in failing to
mention those national polls. Consider one exchange that occurred this
weekend on the Chris Matthews Show.
At one point, Andrew Sullivan shared his childish thoughts about
Clinton’s “cooties”—and the entire,
dumb-as-dust panel enjoyed a good, solid group laugh:

SULLIVAN (1/28/07): I think she’s been a very sensible senator. I
think—find it hard to disagree with her on the war. But when I see her again, all me—all the cootie-vibes resurrect themselves. I’m sorry—

PANEL: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

HOWARD FINEMAN: That’s a technical term!

SULLIVAN: I must represent a lot of people. I actually find her positions appealing in many ways. I just can’t stand her.

Bless their hearts! The panel shared a good solid laugh at
Sullivan’s talk about Clinton’s cooties. Let’s face
it. If these pundits got any dumber, we’d have to feed and dress
them each morning. The Matthews Show would have one producer just to help tie their shoes.

But then, omigod! It semi-happened! Howard Fineman almost mentioned the relevant facts! And he did cite that latest Newsweek survey:

FINEMAN (continuing directly): In fairness to her, after, after the roll-out she had this week, the numbers in our poll—the Newsweek poll and others—were very positive, very powerful actually. Cooties notwithstanding.

In fact, Clinton led McCain by seven in the Newsweek poll
back in early December, long before last week’s events. And
Fineman didn’t say the thing it kills pundits to say; Fineman
didn’t specifically say that Clinton was ahead of McCain and Giuliani in
several major polls. Viewers were left to puzzle about what sort of
polls had been so powerful. But at least he made a first small step
toward interjecting some relevant information. Not that it made a bit
of difference to one ardent dumb-ass:

SULLIVAN (continuing directly): If you look at her polling all these years, it is absolutely dead straight-line. People who don’t like her are not going to change their minds. And they’re about, over 40 percent.

But Clinton’s polling isn’t straight line—although, to be perfectly fair to Sullivan, he’s probably too clueless to know that.

Where do Dem voters, including Iowa “party activists,” get
the idea that Clinton can’t be elected? In part, from endless TV
propaganda, and from reports like Balz’s. People who watched the Matthews Show
heard a pundit aggressively say that Clinton’s polling has been
“dead straight-line;” no one in the panel managed to say that she’s has been ahead of McCain for months.
This is how a nation of voters gets the press corps’ preferred
ideas in their heads. This is how our “party activists” end
up reciting the RNC’s points.

Indeed, let’s return to that Balz report. At least twice, his
tiny gang of “party activists” told him that our current
nominees weren’t “electable.” There is no sign that
Balz then asked them why they thought such a thing, in light of the
current national polls—and he didn’t mention the national
polls as he typed up their comments. Result: Balz’s readers heard
again, from two “party activists” (one of them a high
school student!), that Clinton and Edwards can’t be elected.
Thanks to Balz, they didn’t hear that these unelectable losers are ahead in the national polls.

We offer the following thohughts, first about the Balz report, then about the liberal web:

RE Balz: When reporters speak to “the man on the
street,” they hear a wide array of comments. Endlessly, the
“main on the street” will say things which are false or
grossly misleading. And we’re sorry, but reporters shouldn’t print
remarks which are false or misleading without including the relevant
contrary information. In this case, the doubts which Balz managed to
hype three times are hard to reconcile with national polls. In his
focus group, Balz should have mentioned these polls to these
“activists.” But he certainly should have mentioned the polls in reporting the things these dumb-asses said.

RE the liberal web: Again, we see one of the major spins which
liberals and Dems should be challenging. And we’re going to see
it again and again until we force them to stop! Sorry, kids: In
performing our press critique, it isn’t enough to call Chris
Matthews “Tweety” a couple of times par semaine. And
it isn’t enough to say “Read it and weep” when we
present the Sunday line-up—without explaining what libs should be
weeping about. We have to educate readers about specifics—about specific spins which are harming our candidates. Hillary Clinton is unelectable
is one the RNC’s favorite spin-points. We ought to be teaching
readers how to respond when this spin-point gets pushed through the
land.

We’ll discuss other spins this week and next, including the utterly matchless spin-point: Hillary Clinton is soooo polarizing. But then, we’ve even seen major Dem Party strategists repeat that bromide on the air! Could we possibly get any dumber? Could our “leaders” be any more clueless?

Why do Dems talk down their own candidates? In part, because we are so inept on the web! Rest assured—the leadership won’t come from our “liberal journals,” or even from the Dem Party itself. It’s time to let our web readers know specifics about the way our hopefuls get harmed. And it’s time for us all
to scream, loud and long, when reporters and pundits, like Balz and
that panel, keep spreading this bull-roar around the country. Hillary Clinton/John Edwards is unelectable! We’re being harmed by that counterfactual spin-point. It’s time to fight back, long and loud.

THE FULL MONTY: Full disclosure: In that latest Newsweek poll, Clinton, Obama and Edwards are all ahead
of Saint John McCain. Clinton and Obama are ahead of Saint Rudy;
Edwards trails him by one point. In short, absent some sort of extended
argument, Clinton and Edwards are plainly “electable.”
Voters deserve to hear these facts when they’re exposed to spin
and opinion—even if the trumpeted spin, in the Washington Post,
comes from a high school kid.

VISIT OUR INCOMPARABLE ARCHIVES: Reporters can spread any
bullshit they want once they start quoting the “man in the
street.” Why not visit our incomparable archives?

In April 2000, Ceci Connolly went to a Gore rally—but weirdly, she could only find Gore critics to quote! Apparently, no one favorable to Gore had attended! Isn’t life grand when you can choose who to quote? See THE DAILY HOWLER, 5/4/00.
In July 1999, Bill Sammon wanted to print a false fact about
Gore—so he simply quoted a “man in the street” who
had made the bogus statement in question. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 7/30/99.

Yes—this is how these idiots work. We need to inform our liberal readers—and they need specifics.

AND GOOD RIDDANCE: One bit of news this week was just flat-out
positive. It concerned the Washington Post’s Sunday
“Outlook” section:

WASHINGTON POST (1/27/07): John Pomfret, a prize-winning reporter and
foreign correspondent…was named yesterday to become editor of The
Washington Post’s Outlook Section….

In his new role, which starts the first week in April, Pomfret succeeds
Susan Glasser, who is assistant managing editor for national news.

Regarding Glasser’s departure from “Outlook,” we’ll say two things: Good-bye—and good riddance.

As editor, Glasser maintained the tradition of terminal dullness
inherited from her predecessor, Steven Luxenberg. But when she
isn’t returning her readers to dreamland on Sundays, she fills
her section with the sort of garbage she offered in yesterday’s
“Outlook.” This piece by Linda Hirshman is about as dumb
(and nasty) as “analysis” gets—and Glasser balanced
it off with this sad apologia by the hapless Dinesh D’Souza.
Meanwhile, last week’s lead story examined a burning question: Is
it possible that Jeb Bush will still seek the White House, perhaps as
early as 08? S. V. Date began with this clownish portrait of how great
things might have been:

DATE (1/21/07): Tuesday would have marked his sixth State of the Union address—and it might have been his best yet.

The nation is in great shape, President Jeb Bush would have reported:
record tax cuts propelling the economy to greater heights; a
revolutionary school-vouchers program for the first time granting
low-income parents real education choices; and, five years after the capture of Osama bin Laden, the final 20,000 U.S. troops returning home from Iraq.

The president would break into his fluent Spanish and wave at
his Mexican-born wife, Columba, gazing at him from the balcony. The
cameras would settle on their eldest, George P. Bush, 30, and
commentators would speculate on whether the dashing lawyer would soon
run for Congress and carry on the Bush dynasty.

Yet contrary to the best-laid plans of the Bush family, it won’t be John Ellis “Jeb” Bush addressing the nation this week…

Good God—what absolute nonsense! It could have been so great, we’re now told. We just picked out the wrong Bush!

Only at the mossback Post would an editor consider such perfect
nonsense to headline her pre-State of the Union Sunday section. And
only Glasser would follow up with yesterday’s astonishing piece
by Hirshman—a piece which strives to help us see how dumb women
are when they vote. Hirshman’s idea of supporting evidence? Men listen to more talk radio! What sort of editor would even dream of printing such consummate nonsense?

But we’re really glad to see Glasser go because of
her work during Campaign 2000. In July 1999, she co-authored
back-to-back, front-page putdowns of Gore—reports which were,
most simply put, blatant acts of journalistic malpractice. We’ll
try to revisit those articles later this week, to help you get a better
idea of the sorts of people who are behind the scenes, running your
mainstream press corps. But suffice to say: In any other American
profession, a person who offered work like that would come in for
professional sanction. (See: Nifong, Michael—Durham, N.C.) Yep!
In real professions, the Nifongs get charged. In “journalism,” the Glassers get promoted.

Glasser’s the kind of creepy crawler who lurks, unnamed, behind
the scenes in our major mainstream news orgs. Her departure from
“Outlook” is simple good news; her departure from
journalism would be that much better. Final note: Glasser is the wife
of Post reporter Peter Baker. (As we’ve long told you, this
cohort is deeply intermarried.) It’s too perfect! They fell in
love while covering Lewinsky, this sad capsule profile once said.

STICKS, STONES AND THE WASHINGTON POST: The Post deserves praise
for the way it continues to challenge a pair of campaign slimings
(their term). Yesterday, ombudsman Deborah Howell offered this rebuke to a recent, front-page Post report which falsely implied wrong-doing by John Edwards. Right next to it, the Post offered this lead editorial, rebuking some of those who have tried to slime Barack Obama in recent weeks. Here’s how the editors started:

WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL (1/28/07): IT’S BECOME a fad among some conservatives to refer to the junior senator from Illinois by his full name: Barack Hussein Obama. This would be merely juvenile if it weren’t so contemptible.
Republican lobbyist Ed Rogers, on “Hardball,” was one of the early
adopters of this sleazy tactic. “Count me down as somebody who
underestimates Barack Hussein Obama,” he said. Radio host Rush
Limbaugh, demonstrating his usual maturity, got a chuckle out of the
senator’s allegedly oversized ears, calling him “Barack Hussein
Odumbo.” And Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council issued this
e-mail alert: “Joining an already glutted field of hopefuls, Sen.
Barack Hussein Obama (D-Ill.) announced his candidacy for the 2008
Democratic nomination yesterday.”

Insight magazine managed to further degrade the public discourse
with a scurrilous “report” alleging that Mr. Obama, as a child in
Indonesia, attended a radical Islamic madrassa. In fact, Mr. Obama
attended a public school in Jakarta that was predominantly
Muslim—no surprise given that Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim
country. Insight, whose piece was eagerly touted by Fox News Network,
might have learned this if it had bothered to check its story…

The headline: “Sticks, Stones and Mr. Obama/Misleading aspersions
about the senator’s background only make the perpetrators look
bad.”

We’re thrilled to see the editors doing their job. But we offer some basic reactions.

First: In its opening sentence, the Post attributes the
“contemptible” treatment of Obama to “some
conservatives.” It then names Ed Rogers, a GOP honcho, as
“one of the early adopters” of this “sleazy
tactic.” As usual, the corps is protecting its own. As Media Matters
has importantly shown, it was really Chris Matthews (good God—who
else?) who took the lead in putting Obama’s middle name on the
air (just click here).
But then, as we reminded you just last Friday, this mainstream press
corps always does this; they always obscure their own members’
misconduct. They always say it was “late night comedians”
or “Republican operatives” who have engaged in such slimy
tactics, even when it was their own mainstream cohort which drove the bullshit in question. The mainstream press corps is deeply involved in hiding the sins of its own.

Second: One quick note on the Post’s headline. According
to the Post, “[m]isleading aspersions about the senator’s
background only make the perpetrators look bad.” That’s a
pleasing, feel-good statement—but of course, it’s utterly
bogus. Over the past fifteen years, Democratic leaders have
been endlessly made to “look bad” when
“perpetrators” have cast such “misleading
aspersions.” It feels very good when the Post says different. But
the editors’ statement is cosmically wrong, as the editors of
course understand.

Mainly, though, this editorial made us picture the Ghost of False
Aspersions Past. As we noted last week, this is the type of editorial
which was never written
during the press corps’ astonishing war against Candidate Gore
during Campaign 2000. The editors refused to write such a piece during
Campaign 2000—which explains why George W. Bush is now president,
and why the U.S. is stuck in Iraq. Here’s the editorial the
editors failed to type at this stage eight years ago. We work closely from Sunday’s text, which arrived about eight years too late:

WHAT THE WASHINGTON POST SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN (4/99):

STICKS, STONES AND MR. GORE
Misleading aspersions about the vice president’s background only make the perpetrators look bad.

IT’S BECOME a fad among some journalists to pretend that Vice President
Gore has been lying—or is even
“delusional”—about his personal family background.
This would be merely juvenile if it weren’t so contemptible. Sadly, our
own Michael Kelly has been one of the early adopters of this sleazy
tactic. Kelly wrote an op-ed column, “Farmer Al,” which
seemed to suggest that Gore was lying in statements he recently made in
Iowa—statements in which Gore accurately described the part of
his early years which was spent on his family’s farm.

In fact, Mr. Gore spent about a third of each year on the family farm
as a youth—no surprise, given his parents’ modest Tennessee
backgrounds. Kelly, whose misleading column has been eagerly touted,
might have learned this if he’d bothered to check past the
Post’s past reporting about the vice president’s personal
history. Or Kelly might have checked his own past
work; in 1987, he wrote a detailed profile of Gore for the Baltimore
Sun. In it, he described all the youthful activities he now seems to
suggest that Gore has been lying about.

When the attacks on Gore were debunked by Bob Zelnick’s new
biography—it describes Gore’s youthful life on the farm in
detail—Mr. Gore’s slimers didn’t even have the decency to
slink away. They continue to pretend that Gore has been lying about
that part of his early life, and they add silly, embellished complaints
about a fleeting remark Gore once made about the film Love Story. Those complaints against Gore have been debunked too, by Love Story author Eric Siegal and by Time’s Karen
Tumulty. But the attacks continue. Mr. Gore’s slimers seem to think
such name-calling can score points with the American people.

Mr. Gore has never tried to distort his past or his family’s
history. Those who take pains to pretend that he has are trying, none
too subtly, to stir up scary images of Bill Clinton’s
misstatements concerning Monica Lewinsky. But these matters are
completely unrelated. The critics who make these claims about Gore
embarrass only themselves.

Sunday’s editorial was so obvious that it virtually typed itself.
That said, the editors still deserve our thanks for having written it.
But the same editorial should have been written when it was Gore whom
the press corps was sliming. The Post’s editors have done the
right thing—but they’ve done it eight years too late. They
should crawl on their hands and knees to beg forgiveness for their past
silence. And who knows? Maybe E. J. Dionne could even get involved in
fighting the conduct which has transformed our politics—and
changed our nation’s history. Maybe Dionne will even challenge
the slimers—and stand up for American values.

This is mayhem beyond the comprehension of George Bush and Tony Blair

Inside Baghdad: A city paralysed by

fear

By Patrick Cockburn

Published: 25 January 2007

Baghdad is paralysed by fear. Iraqi drivers are terrified of running
into impromptu checkpoints where heavily armed men in civilian clothes
may drag them out of their cars and kill them for being the wrong
religion. Some districts exchange mortar fire every night. This is
mayhem beyond the comprehension of George Bush and Tony Blair.

Black smoke was rising over the city centre yesterday as American and
Iraqi army troops tried to fight their way into the insurgent district
of Haifa Street only a mile north of the Green Zone, home to the
government and the US and British embassies. Helicopters flew fast and
low past tower blocks, hunting snipers, and armoured vehicles
manoeuvred in the streets below.

Many Iraqis who watched the State of the Union address shrugged it
off as an irrelevance. “An extra 16,000 US soldiers are not going to be
enough to restore order to Baghdad,” said Ismail, a Sunni who fled his
house in the west of the city, fearing he would be arrested and
tortured by the much-feared Shia police commandos.

It is extraordinary that, almost four years after US forces captured
Baghdad, they control so little of it. The outlook for Mr Bush’s
strategy of driving out insurgents from strongholds and preventing them
coming back does not look good.

On Monday, a helicopter belonging to the US security company
Blackwater was shot down as it flew over the Sunni neighbourhood of
al-Fadhil, close to the central markets of Baghdad. Several of the five
American crew members may have survived the crash but they were later
found with gunshot wounds to their heads, as if they had been executed
on the ground.

Baghdad has broken up into hostile townships, Sunni and Shia, where
strangers are treated with suspicion and shot if they cannot explain
what they are doing. In the militant Sunni district of al-Amariyah in
west Baghdad the Shia have been driven out and a resurgent Baath party
has taken over. One slogan in red paint on a wall reads: “Saddam
Hussein will live for ever, the symbol of the Arab nation.” Another
says: “Death to Muqtada [Muqtada al-Sadr, the nationalist Shia cleric]
and his army of fools.”

Restaurants in districts of Baghdad like the embassy quarter in
al-Mansur, where I once used to have lunch, are now far too dangerous
to visit. Any foreigner on the streets is likely to be kidnapped or
killed. In any case, most of the restaurants closed long ago.

It is difficult for Iraqis to avoid joining one side or the other in
the conflict. Many districts, such as al-Hurriya in west Baghdad, have
seen the minority – in this case the Sunni – driven out.

A Sunni friend called Adnan, living in the neighbouring district of
al-Adel, was visited by Sunni militiamen. They said: “You must help us
to protect you from the Shia in Hurriya by going on patrol with us.
Otherwise, we will give your house to somebody who will help us.” He
patrolled with the militiamen for several nights, clutching a
Kalashnikov, and then fled the area.

The fear in Baghdad is so intense that rumours of even bloodier
battles sweep through the city. Two weeks ago, many Sunni believed that
the Shia Mehdi Army was going to launch a final “battle of Baghdad”
aimed at killing or expelling the Sunni minority in the capital. The
Sunni insurgents stored weapons and ammunition in order to make a
last-ditch effort to defend their districts. In the event, they believe
the ultimate battle was postponed at the last minute. Mr Bush insisted
that the Iraqi government, with US military support, “must stop the
sectarian violence in the capital”. Quite how they are going to do this
is not clear. American reinforcements might limit the ability of death
squads to roam at will for a few months, but this will not provide a
long-term solution.

Mr Bush’s speech is likely to deepen sectarianism in Iraq by
identifying the Shia militias with Iran. In fact, the most powerful
Shia militia, the Mehdi Army, is traditionally anti-Iranian. It is the
Badr Organisation, now co-operating with US forces, which was formed
and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In the Arab world as a
whole, Mr Bush seems to be trying to rally the Sunni states of Saudi
Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to support him in Iraq by exaggerating the
Iranian threat.

Iraqis also wonder what will happen in the rest of Iraq while the US
concentrates on trying to secure Baghdad. The degree of violence in the
countryside is often underestimated because it is less reported than in
the capital. In Baquba, the capital of Diyala province north-east of
Baghdad, US and Iraqi army commanders were lauding their achievements
at a press conference last weekend, claiming: “The situation in Baquba
is reassuring and under control but there are some rumours circulated
by bad people.” Within hours, Sunni insurgents kidnapped the mayor and
blew up his office.

The situation in the south of Iraq is no more reassuring. Five
American soldiers were killed in the Shia holy city of Karbala last
Saturday by gunmen wearing American and Iraqi uniforms, carrying
American weapons and driving vehicles used by US or Iraqi government
forces. A licence plate belonging to a car registered to Iraq’s
Minister of Trade was found on one of the vehicles used in the attack.
It is a measure of the chaos in Iraq today that US officials do not
know if their men were killed by Sunni or Shia guerrillas.

US commanders and the Mehdi Army seem to be edging away from all-out
confrontation in Baghdad. Neither the US nor Iraqi government has the
resources to eliminate the Shia militias. Even Kurdish units in the
capital have a high number of desertions. The Mehdi Army, if under
pressure in the capital, could probably take over much of southern Iraq.

Mr Bush’s supposedly new strategy is less of a strategy than a
collection of tactics unlikely to change dramatically the situation on
the ground. But if his systematic demonising of Iran is a precursor to
air strikes or other military action against Iran, then Iraqis will
once more pay a heavy price.

TWO ELECTION WORKERS CONVICTED OF RIGGING ‘04 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RECOUNT

1/24/2007, 5:30 p.m. ET By M.R. KROPKO The Associated Press   CLEVELAND (AP) — Two election workers in the state’s most populous county were convicted Wednesday of illegally rigging the 2004 presidential election recount so they could avoid a more thorough review of the votes. A third employee who had been charged was acquitted on all counts. Jacqueline Maiden, the elections’ coordinator who was the board’s third-highest ranking employee when she was indicted last March, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee. Maiden and Dreamer also were convicted of one misdemeanor count each of failure of elections employees to perform their duty. Both were acquitted of five other charges. Rosie Grier, assistant manager of the Cuyahoga County Elections Board’s ballot department, was acquitted of all seven counts of various election misconduct or interference charges. The felony conviction carries a possible sentence of six to 18 months. There was a gasp in the courtroom gallery, which included some relatives and friends of the defendants, when a “not guilty” verdict was announced on the first charge. The courtroom went silent when a “guilty” verdict was returned. The defendants sat near each other silently as the 21 verdicts were read. Ohio gave Bush the electoral votes he needed to defeat Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the close election and hold on to the White House in 2004. Special prosecutor Kevin Baxter, who was brought in from Erie County to handle the case, did not claim the workers’ actions affected the outcome of the election — Kerry gained 17 votes and Bush lost six in the county’s recount. But Baxter insisted the employees broke the law when they worked behind closed doors three days before the public Dec. 16, 2004, recount to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand so they could avoid a lengthier, more expensive hand recount of all votes. Ohio law states that during a recount each county is supposed to randomly count at least 3 percent of its ballots by hand and by machine. If there are not discrepancies in those counts, the rest of the votes can be recounted by machine. A full hand-count is ordered if two random samples result in differences. Grier, the worker who was acquitted, was the only defendant who commented following the verdicts. “It has all been very stressful,” said Grier, 54. “Yes, I’m very relieved. But, none of us should have been in this courtroom today. These charges should not have been brought against any of us.” Defense lawyer Roger Synenberg said in his closing argument that the 2004 presidential election was the most publicly observed ever in Cuyahoga County and the workers were simply following procedures as they understood them. Baxter said he intends to speak with Maiden and Dreamer before their scheduled sentencing on Feb. 26 to see if they wish to make any statements that might influence the sentence. “We’d like to listen to them if they had anything to say, if anyone else was involved with this. We still haven’t been able to determine that,” he said. A message was left Wednesday with elections board director Michael Vu. The board released a statement saying the convictions highlight the importance of changes it has made since 2004 “and the critical need to aggressively pursue additional reforms.” “The board’s goal is to fully restore the public’s confidence in the election process in Cuyahoga County,” the statement said. Maiden’s attorney, Robert Rotatori, said he expects appeals will be filed for his client and Dreamer. The case comes as elections have fallen under greater scrutiny since the 2000 presidential election. That’s when recounts of paper ballots in Florida dragged on for weeks and the U.S. Supreme Court became involved. Cuyahoga also has been under the microscope following numerous problems with elections in bellwether Ohio. Cuyahoga County is a Democratic stronghold where about 600,000 ballots were cast in 2004. Statewide, Bush won by about 118,000 votes out of 5.5 million cast. Green Party candidate David Cobb and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik sought the recount and complained about its procedure. ___ On the Net: Cuyahoga County elections board: http://www.boe.cuyahogacounty.us

SEAN HANNITY EXPLAINS “CLEAR, HOLD AND BUILD” TO GENERAL WESLEY CLARK

Hannity “Explains” “New” Military Strategy to a Four Star General

By:
SilentPatriot  at CROOKS AND LIARS

There’s perhaps nothing funnier than a propagandist college dropout trying to explain military strategy to a Rhodes Scholar retired four-star Army General.
Well, maybe a quick Google search that proves the propagandist wrong is
a little funnier. Although General Clarke misspoke and said “seize,
clear and hold” — he meant to say “clear, hold and build” —
he’s dead on that this is not a new strategy. (h/t nitpicker)

Hannity: Alright. You said there was no new
strategy. Let me tell you what the new strategy is ‘cause clearly
uh I guess you’re missing what the President’s saying here.
The prior strategy, and the President admitted that there were some
mistakes made, was that they go in and they’d clear out the
insurgency and they didn’t stay long enough or hold those areas
long enough. Now the new strategy with the troop surge will be go in,
remove the insurgents, hold the areas as pa…and also accelerate
the training of Iraqi troops and police. That is a new strategy.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK:: I don’t think that’s a new strategy. […] I’ve heard him for a year talking about “seize, clear and hold.”

Hannity: No. That’s what it is now.

That’s what the strategy is now? Hmm…

Condoleezza Rice, October 19, 2005: In short, with the Iraqi Government, our political-military strategy has to be to clear, hold, and build: to clear areas from insurgent control, to hold them securely, and to build durable, national Iraqi institutions.

George W. Bush, October 28, 2005: As Secretary Rice explained last week, our strategy is to clear, hold, and build.

Condoleezza Rice, November 20, 2005: When we talk about clear, hold, and build,
what we really mean is that we and the Iraqis have been successful now
in clearing areas. Iraqi forces are now attaining the numbers and
capabilities that will allow them to hold those places and not allow
bad guys to come back. And then they can build economic and political
institutions.

Title of strategic “Fact Sheet,” March 20, 2006: Strategy for Victory: Clear, Hold, and Build

Crooks and Liars

Hannity “Explains” “New” Military Strategy to a Four Star General
By: SilentPatriot @ 6:01 PM – PST Submit or Digg this Post

hc-clarke.jpg There’s perhaps nothing funnier than a propagandist college dropout trying to explain military strategy to a Rhodes Scholar retired four-star Army General. Well, maybe a quick Google search that proves the propagandist wrong is a little funnier. Although General Clarke misspoke and said “seize, clear and hold” — he meant to say “clear, hold and build” — he’s dead on that this is not a new strategy. (h/t nitpicker)

video_wmv Download (1744) | Play (1396) video_mov Download (721) | Play (849)

Hannity: Alright. You said there was no new strategy. Let me tell you what the new strategy is ‘cause clearly uh I guess you’re missing what the President’s saying here. The prior strategy, and the President admitted that there were some mistakes made, was that they go in and they’d clear out the insurgency and they didn’t stay long enough or hold those areas long enough. Now the new strategy with the troop surge will be go in, remove the insurgents, hold the areas as pa…and also accelerate the training of Iraqi troops and police. That is a new strategy.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK:: I don’t think that’s a new strategy. […] I’ve heard him for a year talking about “seize, clear and hold.”

Hannity: No. That’s what it is now.

That’s what the strategy is now? Hmm…

Condoleezza Rice, October 19, 2005: In short, with the Iraqi Government, our political-military strategy has to be to clear, hold, and build: to clear areas from insurgent control, to hold them securely, and to build durable, national Iraqi institutions.

George W. Bush, October 28, 2005: As Secretary Rice explained last week, our strategy is to clear, hold, and build.

Condoleezza Rice, November 20, 2005: When we talk about clear, hold, and build, what we really mean is that we and the Iraqis have been successful now in clearing areas. Iraqi forces are now attaining the numbers and capabilities that will allow them to hold those places and not allow bad guys to come back. And then they can build economic and political institutions.

Title of strategic “Fact Sheet,” March 20, 2006: Strategy for Victory: Clear, Hold, and Build

2006 Called the Deadliest Year for Journalists and Media Workers

“2006 was the worst year on record, a year of targeting,
brutality and continued impunity in the killing of journalists,”
said the federation’s general secretary, Aidan White.

By DOW JONES/AP

BRUSSELS, Dec. 31 (Dow
Jones/AP) — The year 2006 was the deadliest for journalists and
news media workers worldwide, with at least 155 killings and
unexplained deaths, the International Federation of Journalists said
Sunday.

The group, which represents half a million journalists in more than 100 countries, said in its annual report that Iraq
continued to be the most dangerous place to work; 68 media staff
members were killed there in 2006, bringing the total since the war
began in March 2003 to 170.

The federation also pointed to continuing attacks on journalists in Latin America, where 37 media staff members were killed. Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela stood out.

Thirteen journalists died in the Philippines, pushing the total of such deaths in Asia up to 34, the federation said.

The federation counts among the deaths all people who were employed
by media organizations and who died performing their duties, whether
reporters, photographers, interpreters or drivers.

Other press freedom groups use more restrictive criteria.

Reporters Without Borders, based in Paris, said in an annual report,
also released Sunday, that 2006 was the deadliest year for journalists
since 1994, with 81 journalists and 32 media assistants killed. A dozen
years ago — the year of the Rwanda genocide — it counted 103 reporters killed.

For the fourth consecutive year, Iraq was the world’s
deadliest nation for media professionals, with 64 journalists and media
assistants killed, up from 29 in 2005, the group said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists,
a United States group that also uses stricter definitions, said earlier
in December that 32 journalists were killed in Iraq in 2006.

The federation saw a hopeful development in the United Nations Security Council’s
unanimous approval on Dec. 23 of a resolution condemning all attacks on
journalists in armed conflicts and urging combatants to stop singling
out members of the media and respect their professional independence.

Reporters Without Borders also said at least 56 reporters in a dozen
countries were kidnapped in 2006. Iraq led the ranking, with 17
journalists seized. The Palestinian territories, where 6 were
kidnapped, came in second.

“All those seized in the Palestinian territories were freed,
but six in Iraq were executed by their captors,” the group said.

Cheney “Inadvertently” Caused Death of Man He Stabbed On Previous Hunting Trip, Says White House

Eyewitnesses: Man Ran Into Cheney’s Knife

Vice President Cheney accidentally killed a man during a previous
hunting trip, the White House reluctantly confirmed today after denying
the incident several times. During a deer hunting expedition on a
friend’s eight billion dollar ranch, a man “ran into Cheney’s knife”
several times while Cheney was gutting and dressing a deer, wealthy
Republican Party donors and eyewitnesses said.

The man who died was Willford Buchs, a Bush family accountant who
“took care of the books” for the Bushes and several Bush companies, and
was later appointed Director of the Texas Accounting Commission after
the previous commissioner was dismissed for revealing irregularities in
the accounting practices of Buchs’s clients.

Buchs’s death was ruled a suicide by Sen. Dr. Bill Frist, who
examined Mr. Buchs by polaroid. Cheney’s involvement with the death has not previously been disclosed,
although it occurred a little more than a year ago. The incident was
uncovered by the press after reporters discovered Buchs’s mummified
carcass on the ground last week and began asking questions.

Questions have arisen as to why the White House failed to report the incident
to the press or the authorities for more than a year. “The Vice
President’s office deferred to the people who owned the knife that he
borrowed for the expedition,” said Candy Ricks, a spokesman for the
Veep. “It really was up to them.” Ricks also maintained that it was not
necessary to report the incident to the authorities because the Vice
President and his party were authorities, “and very powerful and influential ones, too, I might add.”

Ricks denied that Mr. Cheney needed to exercise more caution during
hunting trips. “Mr. Cheney is every bit as careful with hunting as he
is with civil liberties, foreign policy and democracy,” she said.

http://tomburka.com/archives2/2006_02.php#000901

CHENEY’S CHIEF OF STAFF LAURENCE LIBBY TOO BUSY INVESTIGATING GERMANY BEING MEAN TO SCIENTOLOGY

Full pdf

Crooks and Liars 

Libby is dreamy over Scientology
By: John Amato

According to the CIA briefer Craig Schmall at the Libby trial today, while Scooter Libby was so busy with hugely important issues like, oh. I don’t know—the outing of an undercover agent—he was also fascinated with listening to Tom Cruise and his very own Penelope complain about Germany’s treatment of Scientology. He got really excited too. That’s our boy—-to hell with national security issues and remembering who you’re calling on the phone. No sir. Nobody messes with the Church of Cruise (full pdf)

SPOCKO VS. DISNEY/ABC RADIO GETS USA TODAY STORY-BLOGOSPHERE KEEPS ON WORKING

Spocko makes it USA Today

By:
Nicole Belle

Let
no one doubt that the blogosphere–even just a lone
blogger–has the power to frame and shape the national
debate. This story still has legs in the traditional media
because the blogosphere has continued to push back after ABC/Disney’s
strong-arm tactics. Go Spocko.

USA Today:

In a dispute between the “new media” of the Internet
and the “old media” of broadcasting, liberal bloggers and conservative
talk-radio hosts are accusing each other of trampling the First
Amendment’s guarantees of free speech.

[..]Some advertisers, including Bank of America and MasterCard,
have deserted KSFO since an anonymous media critic identifying himself
online as Spocko began posting recordings of the station’s “Hot Talk”
hosts. Spocko and some of his readers have been e-mailing the audio to
KSFO advertisers since 2005, asking the companies whether they want to
be associated with the controversial rhetoric.

The First Amendment flap was debated Sunday on CNN’s
Reliable Sources. Dan Riehl, a blogger critical of Spocko, said some of
the radio hosts’ comments “were blown out of proportion or
misrepresented” in the complaints to sponsors. Mike Stark, another
blogger and a Spocko ally, said: “The way to fight free speech that you
disagree with is to engage in more free speech. And that’s exactly what
Spocko did.”

[..]“Yes, this is a freedom of speech issue, and this individual
is entitled to say what he wants to,” Morgan told the San Francisco
Chronicle. “But he’s trying to take away my livelihood, and I’m not
trying to take away his.”

(EFF attorney Matt) Zimmerman says Spocko’s rights are in more
peril than the station’s. “ABC/Disney tried to use the legal process to
silence a critic who was actually amplifying their speech,” he says. “Spocko was doing exactly what the First Amendment is designed to do – promote this marketplace of ideas.”

BUSH BULGE REVISITED

The Emperor’s New Hump

I can appreciate the broader factors weighing on the paper’s top editors, particularly that close to the election. But personally, I think that Nelson’s assertions did rise above the level of garden-variety speculation, mainly because of who he is. Here was a veteran government scientist, whose decades-long career revolves around interpreting imagery like features of Mars, who decided to say very publicly that, without reservation, he was convinced there was something under a president’s jacket when the White House said there was nothing. He essentially put his hard-won reputation utterly on the line (not to mention his job) in doing so and certainly with little prospect that he might gain something as a result—except, as he put it, his preserved integrity.

Bill Kristol: HORSE’S ASS

ANONYMOUS LIB GUESTING FOR GLENN FINDS SOME EXAMPLES OF KRISTOL’S STUPID, FATUOUS  WRITING

Bill Kristol: Pundit Superstar

By Anonymous Liberal

On March 17, 2003, on the eve of our invasion of Iraq, Bill Kristol wrote the following:

We
are tempted to comment, in these last days before the war, on the U.N.,
and the French, and the Democrats. But the war itself will clarify who
was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will
reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth
about Saddam’s regime. It will produce whatever effects it will produce
on neighboring countries and on the broader war on terror. We would
note now that even the threat of war against Saddam seems to be
encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and Saudi Arabia,
and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda from other
governments in the region. It turns out it really is better to be
respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite
sensitivity, other people’s pain. History and reality are about to
weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.

Well,
it’s been almost four years since Kristol penned those smug, taunting
words, and I think it’s fair to say that history and reality have
indeed weighed in. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Our
invasion has destabilized the entire region (and not in a positive way)
and has actually exacerbated the overall terrorist threat our country
faces. We are no longer feared or respected, at least nowhere near the
degree we were before the invasion. Over 3000 American soldiers have
lost their lives (with many thousands more badly injured). Tens of
thousands of Iraqis (perhaps hundreds of thousands) have been killed
and millions more displaced. We’ve squandered billions of dollars, as
well as our national credibility and mystique. And our armed forces are
currently bogged down and stretched to the limit as they undertake the
thankless task of policing an escalating civil war.

Now, you
would think that being so incredibly wrong about such an important
subject might hurt your career prospects, and that would probably be
true in any other field. But in the world of Washington punditry, being
consistently and catastrophically wrong about everything is apparently
not an obstacle to advancement. As David Corn reports, TIME Magazine has invited Kristol to become one the magazine’s new “star” columnists.

I
can see why TIME wanted Kristol so badly. His track record over the
last few years is rather remarkable. Here’s a sampling of some of
Kristol’s most impressive contributions to our political discourse over
the last few years:

August 26, 2002:

Reading
the Scowcroft/New York Times “arguments” against war, one is struck by
how laughably weak they are. European international-law wishfulness and
full-blown Pat Buchanan isolationism are the two intellectually honest
alternatives to the Bush Doctrine. Scowcroft and the Times wish to
embrace neither, so they pretend instead to be terribly “concerned”
with the administration’s alleged failure to “make the case.”

April 4, 2003:

“There’s
been a certain amount of pop sociology in America … that the Shia
can’t get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to
establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no
evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been very secular.”

April 28, 2003:

The
United States committed itself to defeating terror around the world. We
committed ourselves to reshaping the Middle East, so the region would
no longer be a hotbed of terrorism, extremism, anti-Americanism, and
weapons of mass destruction. The first two battles of this new era are
now over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively
and honorably. But these are only two battles. We are only at the end
of the beginning in the war on terror and terrorist states.

March 22, 2004:

[T]here
are hopeful signs that Iraqis of differing religious, ethnic, and
political persuasions can work together. This is a far cry from the
predictions made before the war by many, both here and in Europe, that
a liberated Iraq would fracture into feuding clans and unleash a
bloodbath. The perpetually sour American media focus on the tensions
between Shiites and Kurds that delayed the signing by three whole days.
But the difficult negotiations leading up to the signing, and the
continuing debates over the terms of a final constitution, have in fact
demonstrated something remarkable in Iraq: a willingness on the part of
the diverse ethnic and religious groups to disagree–peacefully–and
then to compromise. This willingness is the product of what appears to be a broad Iraqi consensus favoring the idea of pluralism.

July 26, 2004:

What
the Bush administration did say–and what so many reporters seem to
have trouble understanding–is that Iraq and al Qaeda had a
relationship that, by its very existence, posed a potential threat to
the United States.

October 29, 2004 (column titled “Politicizing the bin Laden Tape”):

Is
there any development in the war on terror, however grave, that the
Kerry campaign won’t try to exploit for partisan advantage?

November 1, 2004: (column titled “Bin Laden v. Bush”)

Osama bin Laden’s videotape is an attempt to intimidate Americans into voting against President Bush.

March 7, 2005:

Just
four weeks after the Iraqi election of January 30, 2005, it seems
increasingly likely that that date will turn out to have been a genuine
turning point. The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, ended
an era. September 11, 2001, ended an interregnum. In the new era in
which we now live, 1/30/05 could be a key moment–perhaps the key
moment so far–in vindicating the Bush Doctrine as the right response
to 9/11. And now there is the prospect of further and accelerating
progress.

April 4, 2005 (re: Terri Schiavo)

After
all, we are a “maturing society,” as the Supreme Court has told us.
Perhaps it is time, in mature reaction to this latest installment of
what Hugh Hewitt has called a “robed charade,” to rise up against our
robed masters, and choose to govern ourselves. Call it Terri’s
revolution.

November 7, 2005:

Last week the Bush Administration’s second-term bear market bottomed out.

November 30, 2005 (column titled “Pelosi’s Disastrous Miscalculation”):

All
this made me think the 2006 elections could result in a Speaker Pelosi.
I now think that unlikely. Pelosi’s endorsement today of the withdrawal
of U.S. troops from Iraq makes the House Democrats the party of defeat,
the party of surrender. Bush’s strong speech today means the GOP is
likely to be–if Republican Congressmen just keep their nerve–the
party of victory. Now it is possible that the situation in Iraq will
worsen over the next year. If that happens, Bush and the GOP are in
deep trouble. They would have been if Pelosi had said nothing. But it
is much more likely that the situation in Iraq will stay more or less
the same, or improve. In either case, Republicans will benefit from
being the party of victory.

December 26, 2005 (column titled “Happy Days!”):

If
American and Iraqi troops continue to provide basic security, and if
Iraq’s different sects and political groups now begin to engage in
serious, peaceful bargaining, then we may just have witnessed the
beginning of Iraq’s future.

April 4, 2006:

What
was striking, following the mosque bombing, was the evidence of Iraq’s
underlying stability in the face of attempts to undermine it. The
country’s vital institutions seem to have grown strong enough to
withstand even the provocation of the bombing of the golden mosque.

I
could go on and on, but you get the idea. If you want to succeed as a
conservative pundit in Washington, the key appears to be amassing a
mile-long track record of wildly inaccurate predictions and
disastrously bad advice. Congratulations, Bill Kristol. You truly are a
“star”.

posted by A.L.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:: Olbermann: Special Comment on “Sacrifice”

January » 02 CROOKS AND LIARS

Sacrifice 

 Keith Olbermann stepped up and slapped Bush’s plan to use the word “sacrifice“
as an excuse to send more troops to Iraq. Bush needs a new
catch phrase to try and deceive the nation with,
but Republican talking points won’t work on the people
anymore. They are fed up with Bush and this war and sending more
troops to die is not an answer. John McCain and Lieberman will now wear the McCain Doctrine around their necks—as Bill Kristol drools with glee as he’ll finally get his wish.

 Download (5846) | Play (6819)     Download (2487) | Play (3525)

Olbermann: If in your presence an individual tried to
sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene? Would
you at least protest? What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them?
What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them — and was then to
announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more?

(Read the rest of this story…)

Bill Kristol gets off on the “long surge”

JOHN AMATO at CROOKS and LIARS

 If your stomach can take it, Bill “the Vampire” Kristol practically orgasms at the thought of a long and sustained troop level surge in Iraq. “What’s needed is a sustained and large surge.” Billie got almost three solid minutes to praise Bush for his—cough—cough—leadership.

Video-WMP Video-QT

There’s nothing like some hot burning warmongering love for Billie.

John Burns and Marc Santora detail the frantic, reckless manner in which Saddam Hussein was hung

depressing New York Times article

Greenwald explains…

Sgt. Charles Monroe King

Crooks and Liars 

For months before my fiancé, First Sgt. Charles Monroe King, kissed my swollen stomach and said goodbye, he had been preparing for the beginning of the life we had created and for the end of his own. He boarded a plane in December 2005 with two missions, really – to lead his young soldiers in combat and to prepare our boy for a life without him.

 Dear son, Charles wrote on the last page of the journal, “I hope this book is somewhat helpful to you. Please forgive me for the poor handwriting and grammar. I tried to finish this book before I was deployed to Iraq. It has to be something special to you. I’ve been writing it in the states, Kuwait and Iraq.

The journal will have to speak for Charles now. He was killed Oct. 14 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his armored vehicle in Baghdad. Charles, 48, had been assigned to the Army’s First Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, Fourth Infantry Division, based in Fort Hood, Tex. He was a month from completing his tour of duty. (Read the rest of this story…)

Marla Ruzicka “youthful representative of a certain kind of not-yet-lost American idealism”

December 31st, was supposed to be Marla Ruzicka’s 30th birthday.
Marla has founded the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) and convinced Congress to create an Iraqi War Victims Fund. Lawmakers
realized that financial compensation for families of civilians
accidentally injured or killed by the U.S. military is important for
helping them cope financially. A compassionate response might convince
the families that Americans feel sorry about their loss; therefore they
might not hate Americans, i.e. Marla was advancing US interests. Newsweek’s Baghdad bureau chief wrote
that “Marla was alienated from much of the human rights community
because she chose to work with the military instead of always against
it.” As Peter Bergen wrote in the Washington Post:

Ruzicka
initially came off like a blond surfer girl (she was much given to
exclaiming “Dude!” and “You rock!”), but underneath the effervescent
exterior was a tough-minded humanitarian advocate who had little
tolerance for leftist anti-war demonstrators. Ruzicka understood that
wars happen despite the demonstrations, and she wanted to do something
concrete to alleviate the subsequent damage to human life.

Rolling Stone Magazine described her as a “youthful representative of a certain kind of not-yet-lost American idealism.” It’s a good, balanced and heart-wrenching biographic article.
 

Her friend Jennifer Abrahamson has just published the book Sweet Relief: The Marla Ruzicka Story (Amazon.com | Amazon.de).
Marla was killed in car bomb explosion in Bagdad in April 2005. CIVIC continues her work helping civilian victims in Iraq and Afghanistan. CIVIC’s executive director Sarah Holewinski wrote in USA Today recently: “NATO must follow US lead in helping Afghan civilians.”

Unfortunately,
the media does not write much about the many relief workers in war and
natural disaster zones around the world, while they are alive. The
nameless aid and relief workers around the world who risk their lives
to help others don’t get awards or much press coverage. Time Magazine
rather gives the Person of the Year award to folks like you and me, who spend a lot of time sitting comfortably in front of the computer. Exception: Doctors Without Borders (Médecins
Sans Frontières) received the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize. “The
American soldier” deserved the Time’s award in 2003. The US military
provides a lot of humanitarian aid around the world, primarily after
natural disasters (like in Pakistan), but it is not their primary job.

Without the Iraq war, Marla Ruzicka would most likely be able to celebrate her 30th birthday today. And the nearly 3,000 US soldiers, who died in Iraq, would probably be alive as well. Estimates concerning Iraqi casualties range from a few ten thousand to close to a million.

Endnote: Associated Press interviewed scholars, veterans and other Americans about this poll:

Americans
may question this war for many reasons, but their doubts often find
voice in the count of U.S. war deaths. An overwhelming majority — 84
percent — worry that the war is causing too many casualties, according
to a September poll by the nonpartisan research group Public Agenda.
The country largely kept the faith during World War II, even as about
400,000 U.S. forces died — 20,000 just in the monthlong Battle of the
Bulge. Before turning against the wars in Korea and Vietnam, Americans
tolerated thousands more deaths than in Iraq.

Change the World in 2007

Change the World in 2007

Writing in WorldChanging.Com, philosopher Edward Wolf says the key to being in tune with social change in 2007 will not be what we think, but how we think. “Politics resembles a battle of brands more than an exchange of ideas,” Wolf observes.
“The blogosphere has blown the doors of civic conversation wide open
but hardly elevated the dialogue, as almost any comment string
confirms. But that may be changing as social networking and open-source
tools reshape the ’spaces’ in which people interact. Can new leaders
emerge in such spaces?” He thinks so and advises watching for leaders
who “embody humility, not those who merely espouse it.”

Writing in the same WorldChanging series, Jason Kottke calls for a True Cost rating on food and products, like the nutritional information on a cereal box or the Energy Star rating on a refrigerator. True Cost,
as he points out, would allow consumers to make legitimately informed
decisions about how they spend their money. When True Cost is factored
in, conflict diamonds become a more morally charged choice, as does
clothing made in sweatshops. Organic blueberries flown in from Chile
may be healthier for your toddler, but how much carbon dioxide was
released into the atmosphere to get them to your kitchen? What’s the
energy cost of living in the suburbs, compared to living downtown? Do
the people who made the clock hanging on the wall get paid a fair wage
and receive health care? Just how bad for the environment (and for me!)
is the laptop on which I’m typing or the cell phone on which I’m
talking?

Henry Waxman: The Watch Dog of the Taxpayers

Crooks and Liars:

Henry Waxman: The Watch Dog of the Taxpayers
John Amato

 WAXMAN: It seems to me our top priority as the chief investigative and oversight committee is to make sure that taxpayers’ funds are no being wasted, that there’s no fraud and abuse. These are the taxpayers’ dollars, and what we’ve seen so far in Iraq, according to the government’s own auditors, is billions of dollars that have gone to waste and corruption and graft. We’re going to look into that more carefully. Only a small part of the money spent in Iraq has been audited, but what we’ve seen is very, very frightening. And that’s not only a problem in Iraq. When we look at the spending on homeland security, when we look at the spending on Hurricane Katrina, we see the same pattern of hiring big contractors, having them overcharge for the work they do. We’ve got to be the watchdog for the taxpayers.

When he lost the 11 others in his squad, he lost a 2nd family —and his zeal for the war

THE LAST MARINE:
When he lost the 11 others in his squad, he lost a 2nd family —and his zeal for the war

Associated Press reporter Antonio Castaneda was with Marines in Lima
Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, 4th Division, when they led an
offensive into the city of Haditha in late May. And he returned to the
area after an August blast killed 14 Marines — and shortly before
the unit began demobilizing to return to the United
States

By Antonio Castaneda
Associated Press Writer

HADITHA
DAM, Iraq — Cpl. David Kreuter had a new baby boy he’d seen only
in photos. Lance Cpl. Michael Cifuentes was counting the days to his
wedding. Lance Cpl. Nicholas Bloem had just celebrated his 20th
birthday.

Travis
Williams remembers them all — all 11 men in his Marine squad
— all now dead. Two months ago they shared a cramped room stacked
with bunk beds at this base in Northwest Iraq, where the Euphrates
River rushes by. Now the room has been stripped of several beds, brutal
testament that Lance Cpl. Williams’ closest friends are gone.

For
the 12 young Marines who landed in Iraq early this year, the war was a
series of hectic, constant raids into more than a dozen lawless towns
in Iraq’s most hostile province, Anbar. The pace and the danger bound
them together into what they called a second family, even as some began
to question whether their raids were making any progress.

Now,
all of the Marines assigned to the 1st Squad, 3rd Platoon, Lima
Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, based in Columbus, Ohio, are
gone — all except Williams. They died in a roadside bomb set by
insurgents on Aug. 3 that killed a total of 14 Marines. Most of the
squad were in their early 20s; the youngest was 19.

“They
were like a family. They were the tightest squad I’ve ever seen,” said
Capt. Christopher Toland of Austin, Texas, the squad’s platoon
commander. Even though many did not know each other before they got to
Iraq, “They truly loved each other.”

All
that is left now are photos and snippets of video, saved on dusty
laptops, that run for a few dozen seconds. As they pack up to return
home by early October, the Marines from Lima Company — including
the squad’s replacements — sometimes huddle around Williams’
laptop in a room at the dam, straining to watch the few remaining
moments of their young friends’ lives. Some photos and videos carry the
squad’s adopted motto, “Family is Forever.”

In
one video, Lance Cpl. Christopher Dyer, who graduated with honors last
year from a Cincinnati area high school, strums his guitar and does a
mock-heartfelt rendition of “Puff the Magic Dragon” as his friends
laugh around him.

In a
photo, Kreuter rides a bicycle through a neighborhood, swerving under
the weight of body armor and weapons, as Marines and Iraqis watch and
chuckle.

Each video
ends abruptly, leaving behind a blank screen. Some are switched off as
soon as they start — some images just hurt too much to see right
now.

Insurgent hunt

The
August operation began like most of the squad’s missions — with a
rush into another lawless Iraqi city to hunt insurgents and do
house-to-house searches, sometimes for 12 hours in temperatures near
120 degrees.

On Aug.
1, six Marine snipers had been ambushed and killed in Haditha, one of a
string of river cities that line the Euphrates, filled with waving palm
trees. Two days later, Marines in armored vehicles, including the 1st
Squad, rumbled into the area to look for the culprits.

Like
other cities in this region, Haditha has no Iraqi troops, and its
police force was destroyed earlier in the year by a wave of insurgent
attacks. Marines patrol roads on the perimeter and occasionally raid
homes in the city, which slopes along a quiet river valley.

Commanders
say insurgents have challenged local tribes for control and claim
Iraq’s most wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, once had a home
here.

Since their
arrival in February, the Marines had spent nearly all their time on
such sweeps or preparing for them, sometimes hurrying back to their
base to grab fresh clothes and then heading off again to cities that
hadn’t seen American or Iraqi troops in months.

Surprised by combat

The
intense pace of the operations, and the enormous area their regimental
combat team had to cover — an expanse the size of West Virginia
— caught some off guard.

The combat was certainly not what the 21-year-old Williams had expected.

“I
didn’t ever think we’d get engaged,” said the soft-spoken, stocky
Marine from Helena, Mont. “I just had the basic view of the American
public — it can’t be that bad out there.”

In
some sweeps, residents warmly greeted the Marines. But in others, such
as operations in Haditha and Obeidi near the Syrian border, the squad
members met gunfire and explosions. In the Obeidi operation in early
May, another squad from Lima Company suffered six deaths. Williams
himself perhaps saved lives, once spotting a gunman hidden in a mosque
courtyard, said Toland, the platoon commander.

The
night before the Aug. 3 operation, an uneasy Toland couldn’t sleep.
Instead he spent his last night with his squad members talking and
joking, trying to suppress worries the mission was too predictable for
an enemy that knew how to watch and learn.

“I had concerns that the operation was hastily planned and executed, with significant risks and little return,” Toland said.

The
road had been checked by engineers and other units, Marine commanders
say. But insurgents had been clever — hiding the massive bomb
under the road’s asphalt.

Massive blast

Several Humvees first drove over the bomb, but the triggerman in the distance apparently waited for a vehicle with more troops.

Then,
as the clanking sound of their armored vehicles neared, a massive blast
erupted, caused by explosives weighing hundreds of pounds.

It threw a 26-ton Amphibious Assault Vehicle into the air, leaving it burning upside-down.

The
blast was so large that Toland and his radioman, Williams —
traveling two vehicles ahead and not injured — thought their
vehicle had been hit by a bomb.

They scrambled out to inspect the damage, but instead found the blazing carnage several yards down the road.

A total of 14 Marines and one Iraqi interpreter were killed.

There
was no time for grieving — not at first. There was only sudden
devastation, then intense anger as the Marines pulled the remains of
their friends from the vehicle.

Then
there was frustration, as they fanned out to find the triggerman.
Instead, they found only Iraqis either too sympathetic toward the
insurgency, or too afraid, to talk.

Although
the bomb had been planted in clear view of their homes, residents
claimed they had seen nothing of the men who had spent hours digging a
large hole several feet deep and concealing the bomb.

It was a familiar — and frustrating — problem.

“They
are totally complacent with what’s going on here,” said Maj. Steve
Lawson of Columbus, Ohio, who commands Lima Company. “The average
citizen in Haditha either wants a handout, or wants us to die or go
away.”

Intelligence scarce

In
a war where intelligence is the most valued asset, the Marines say few
local people will divulge “actionable” information that could be used
to locate insurgents.

Some Iraqis apparently fear reprisal attacks from militants. Many just want to stay out of the crossfire.

Others
hate the Americans enough to protect the insurgents: Marines say
lookouts in cities would often launch flares as their vehicles
approached.

In this
region ruled by Sunni tribal loyalties, few voted for the new Central
Iraqi government, and many suspect the U.S. military is punishing them
and empowering their longtime rivals, the Shiites of the south and the
Kurds of the north.

“From
a squad leader’s perspective, the intelligence never helped me
accomplish my mission,” said Sgt. Don Owens, a squad leader in Lima
Company from Cincinnati, who fought alongside the 1st Squad throughout
their tour.

“Their intelligence is better than ours,” Owens said.

Sobs in the night

The
first night after the attack, Williams couldn’t sleep. He stayed near
his radio, listening to the heavy sobbing of fellow Marines that
punctured the night around him.

He thought of his best friend, Lance Cpl. Aaron Reed, a 21-year-old with a goofy demeanor and a perpetual smile, now dead.

A
world without his second family had begun. The young men Williams had
planned to meet up with again, back in the States, had vanished in a
matter of minutes.

He was alone.

Yet
from a military standpoint, it was important to press on to show the
enemy that even their best hits couldn’t stop the world’s most powerful
military.

The Marines were ordered away from the blast site, to hunt insurgents, just one hour after the explosion.

They
stayed out for another week, searching through dozens of homes in the
nearby city of Parwana and struggling to piece together intelligence
about who had planted the bomb.

“I pushed them back out the door to finish the mission,” said Lawson. “They did it, but they were crying as they pushed on.”

As
word spread back in the United States that 14 men had been killed, the
Marines on the ongoing mission couldn’t even, at first, contact their
families to let them know they had survived.

Progress questioned

Marine
commanders say the large-scale raids in western Anbar province have
kept the insurgency off-balance, killing hundreds of militants and
leaving a dwindling number of insurgent bases in the area.

They
say the sweeps are critical to beat back the insurgent presence in
larger cities such as Ramadi and Baghdad, where suicide bombings have
been rampant. But, among some Marines and even officers, there are doubts whether progress has been made.

The
insurgents lurk nearby — capable of launching mortars and suicide
car bombs and quietly re-entering cities soon after the Marines return
to their outskirt bases.

“We’ve
been here almost seven months and we don’t control” the cities, said
Gunnery Sgt. Ralph Perrine, an operations chief in the battalion from
Brunswick, Ohio. “It’s no secret.”

Even
commanders acknowledge that with the limited number of U.S. and Iraqi
troops in the region, the mission is focused on “disrupting and
interdicting” the insurgency — that is, keeping them on the run
— and not controlling the cities.

‘Maintenance work’

“It’s maintenance work,” said Col. Stephen W. Davis, commander of all Marine operations in western Anbar.

“Because
this out here is where the fight is, while the success is happening
downtown while the constitution is being written and while the
referendum is getting worked out. . . . If I could bring every
insurgent in the world out here and fight them all day long, we’ve done
our job.”

For Williams, the calculation is much more visceral and personal.

“Personally,
I don’t think the sweeps help too much,” he said quietly on a recent
day, sitting in a room at the dam, crowded with Marines resting from a
late mission the night before.

“You find some stuff and most of the bad guys get away
. . . . For as much energy as we put in them, I don’t think the output is worth it,” he said.

Thoughts of home

Williams, a Marine for three years, has decided not to re-enlist.

Instead, in these last days in Iraq, he thinks of home and fishing in the clear streams of Montana.

He hopes to open a fishing and hunting gear shop once he returns and complete his bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology.

He looks forward to seeing his mother, his only surviving parent, and traveling to her native Thailand this fall.

He said his “best memory” will be the day he leaves Iraq. His only good memories, he said, are of his friends:

Of Dyer, 19, an avid rap music fan who would bop his head to Tupac Shakur.

He played the viola in his high school orchestra and had planned to enroll in a finance honors program at Ohio State University.

Of
Reed, his best friend. He was president of his high school class from
Chillicothe, Ohio, and left behind a brother serving in Afghanistan.

Of
Cifuentes, 25, from Oxford, Ohio. He was enrolled in graduate school in
mathematics education and had been working as a substitute teacher when
he was deployed.

“I think the most frustrating thing is there’s no sense of accomplishment,” Williams said.

“You’re biding your time and waiting. But then you lose your friends, and it’s not even for their own country’s freedom.”

Copyright 2005 THE DECATUR DAILY. All rights reserved.
AP contributed to this report.

–>

Copyright 2005 Associated Press.

BRIAN SUSSMAN WANTS TO BOMB SYRIA YESTERDAY

THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN.

White House Censors Op-Ed

New York Times (not) Getting It Done

  END OF DECEMBER

redacted version

You know your country is in trouble when…

Baghdad Burning:

1. The UN has to open a special branch just to keep track of the chaos and bloodshed, UNAMI.
2. Abovementioned branch cannot be run from your country.
3. The politicians who worked to put your country in this sorry
   state can no longer be found inside of, or anywhere near, its borders.
4. The only thing the US and Iran can agree about is the deteriorating state of your nation.
5. An 8-year war and 13-year blockade are looking like the country’s ‘Golden Years’.
6. Your country is purportedly ’selling’ 2 million barrels of oil
   a day, but you are standing in line for 4 hours for black market
   gasoline for the generator.
7. For every 5 hours of no electricity, you get one hour of public
   electricity and then the government announces it’s going to cut back on
   providing that hour.
8. Politicians who supported the war spend tv time debating whether it is ’sectarian bloodshed’ or ‘civil war’.
9. People consider themselves lucky if they can actually identify the corpse of the relative that’s been missing for two weeks.

Crooks And Liars Has The Fran Townsend Scoop

Here’s the video to Nicole’s post from before about Fran Townsend and her deep state of denial.

Video WMP  |  Video MOV 

Townsend said something else that I thought warranted its own post:

TOWNSEND: Look, we can’t do it alone.
We understand from the intelligence that he’s most likely in the tribal
areas. They are inaccessible. They’re difficult to reach. It’s
difficult terrain. And, oh, by the way, it’s part of the sovereign country of Pakistan.

I’ve heard this argument made time and time again, yet it never ceases to amaze me. Even though it is widely accepted
that bin Laden is hiding out in the remote areas of Pakistan, the fact
that they are a “sovereign county” precludes our troops from entering
and taking care of business. Are you kidding me? President Bush even
reiterated this point back in September, telling Wolf Blitzer
that he wouldn’t send troops into Pakistan unless he was “invited” to
do so because Pakistan is a “sovereign nation.” With all due respect to
Our Dear Leader, Iraq too was a “sovereign nation” but that didn’t stop
him from invading and deposing a leader who (a) didn’t attack us and
(b) posed no threat to our national security.

So, as Saddam Hussein awaits execution, the man actually responsible for 9/11 and the deaths of 3000 Americans remains free. What’s more, he’s being protected by our favorite dictator ally in The War on Terror, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, whose sovereignty we respect so much.

White House Tries To Hide Age of Grand Canyon

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give
an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due
to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a
prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was
created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three
years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale
at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees
for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

“In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our
National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in
geology,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “It is
disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the
geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.’”

In a letter released today, PEER urged the new Director of the
National Park Service (NPS), Mary Bomar, to end the stalling tactics,
remove the book from sale at the park and allow park interpretive
rangers to honestly answer questions from the public about the geologic
age of the Grand Canyon. PEER is also asking Director Bomar to approve
a pamphlet, suppressed since 2002 by Bush appointees, providing
guidance for rangers and other interpretive staff in making
distinctions between science and religion when speaking to park
visitors about geologic issues.

In August 2003, Park Superintendent Joe Alston attempted to
block the sale at park bookstores of Grand Canyon: A Different View by
Tom Vail, a book claiming the Canyon developed on a biblical rather
than an evolutionary time scale. NPS Headquarters, however, intervened
and overruled Alston. To quiet the resulting furor, NPS Chief of
Communications David Barna told reporters and members of Congress that
there would be a high-level policy review of the issue.

According to a recent NPS response to a Freedom of Information
Act request filed by PEER, no such review was ever requested, let alone
conducted or completed. Read on…

The Best Books of 2006

The Best Books of 2006

Thanks to :
Nicole Belle @ CROOKS AND LIARS

Salon: Editor’s Picks for 2006 (watch a short ad for a site pass)

Amazon.com: Editors’ Top 50; Customers’ Top 50

Publisher’s Weekly: Best Books of the Year

Washington Post: Book World Holiday–Editor’s Top Ten

Time Magazine: 10 Best Books  

NY Sun: The Year’s Best Books

Times UK: The 10 best books of 2006

“Well, I’m not sure — it’s a success that hasn’t occurred yet. I don’t know that I view that as a failure”

By:
Nicole Belle from Crooks and Liars:

Homeland Security Department Adviser Fran Townsend was on the
Situation Room to speak about Iraq and the War on Terror.  Bless
her little heart, she tried to spin it as best as she could for the
administration, but since reality is well known for having a liberal
bias, her attempts fell rather on the pathetic side.  I’m going to
try to get video for it (John’s having some connectivity issues related
to the power outages earlier), but here are the transcripts, courtesy of CNN:

HENRY: But now as 2006 ends, Osama bin Laden is
still at large. Heading into 2007, how confident are you that he can be
brought to justice this coming year?

TOWNSEND: Well, there’s no question in my mind that he’ll be
brought to justice. The real question is whether or not it’s going to
be this year. I will tell you that I feel increasingly confident, you
know, it was interesting. There’s a recent poll and the American people
said 71 percent of them were optimistic that we can protect the country.

And I think they’ve got reason to be optimistic. We’ve made a
lot of progress. They see the progress we’ve made. We’ve disrupted
plots. We’ve made reforms in our system, in our security system. So on
bin Laden, do I think we are going to get him? I absolutely know we’re
going to get him.

The question is will it be this year. And I will tell you I
think there’s increased activity both the part of the CIA, JSOC and our
partners, the Pakistanis.

HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president
said, dead or alive, we’re going to get him. Still don’t have him. I
know you are saying there’s successes on the war on terror, and there
have been. That’s a failure.

TOWNSEND: Well, I’m not sure — it’s a success that hasn’t occurred yet. I don’t know that I view that as a failure.

GAO Calls Pharmaceutical Industry’s Bullshit

TIME :

Whenever critics complain about the high cost of
prescription drugs, the pharmaceutical industry’s standard defense is
that companies have to plow so much money into researching innovative
new medicines. But a recently released report from the Government
Accountability Office casts doubt on that rationale. Yes the industry
is spending heavily on R&D, the GAO found, but it turns out big
pharma isn’t actually generating such a good return on their
investments.

The congressional watchdog agency’s 48-page study came up with
disturbing numbers. From 1993-2004, spending by U.S. drug companies on
research and development jumped 147%, from $16 billion to nearly $40
billion annually. But the number of applications the pharmaceutical
firms submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for potentially
groundbreaking new drugs during that 10-year period increased only a
meager 7%. And since 1995, the applications for these innovative drugs
have been dropping each year. “The productivity of research and
development investments has declined,” the GAO concluded.

Read on… 

The paramountcy of neoconservatism and Joe Lieberman

Glenn Greenwald:

The paramountcy of neoconservatism and Joe Lieberman

American political conflicts are usually described in terms of “liberal
versus conservative,” but that is really no longer the division which
drives our most important political debates. The predominant political
conflicts over the last five years have been driven by a different
dichotomy — those who believe in neoconservatism versus those who do
not. Neoconservatism is responsible for virtually every significant
political controversy during the Bush administration — from our
invasion of Iraq to the array constitutional abuses perpetrated in the
name of fighting terrorism — and that ideological dispute is even what is driving the war
over Joe Lieberman’s Senate seat. It is not traditional conservatism or
liberalism, but rather one’s views on neoconservativsm, which have
become the single most important factor in where one falls on the
political spectrum.

Like a bad satire of The First Two Rules of The Fight Club, neoconservatives used to vehemently deny that there even was such thing as “neoconservatism,” even going so far as to smear
anyone who used the term as being anti-semitic. But with every aspect
of their foreign policy in shambles, and due to (an understandable)
fear that they will be blamed for these disasters, neoconservatives are
assertively coming out of the closet — for self-defense reasons if no
other. They are insisting that neoconservatism hasn’t failed, but
rather, it has been failed, by those who lack the necessary
resolve, courage and brutality to do the dirty work that has to be
done. In short, they are demanding more war, more militarism, and more
barbarism, and are claiming that the reason for our foreign policy
failures is because — thanks to the Chamberlian-like cowardice of
virtually everyone other than them — we don’t have nearly enough of
all of that.

Bill Kristol yesterday complained in The Weekly Standard that the
Bush administration is getting pushed around by Iran, Syria, North
Korea and even that dove-ish General Casey, who wants slowly to
withdraw from Iraq. Because of this collective weakness, our enemies
“must be feeling even less intimidated,” and as a result, the lines
drawn by American foreign policy are no longer drawn in warrior red,
but instead are weak, effeminate “pink lines and mauve lines.” Kristol
has a long roster of other countries on whom we have to wage war, or at
least credibly threaten to wage war, and our cowardice and lack of
resolve is responsible for every failure, from Bush’s political
collapse at home to anti-American animosity around the world:

But
hey, we’re in sync with the EU-3 and the U.N.-192. And our secretary of
state–really, the whole State Department–is more popular abroad than
ever. Too bad the cost has been so high: a decline in the president’s
credibility around the world and sinking support for his foreign policy
at home.

A few weeks ago, Michael Rubin lamented in this
magazine that Bush’s second term foreign policy had taken a Clintonian
turn. But to be Clintonian in a post-9/11 world is to invite even more
danger than Clinton’s policies did in the 1990s.

To
neoconservatives like Kristol, Americans have abandoned the President
and the U.S. has lost credibility around the world because we have been
insufficiently militaristic and belligerent. We haven’t
threatened and invaded enough countries, and we are too eager to leave
Iraq. To underscore the claim that the Bush administration’s failure is
a lack of commitment to neoconservative principles, Kristol
even hurls the ultimate insult: Bush has become “Clintonian” in his
foreign policy because he is too weak and eager to negotiate with the
long list of countries on whom we need to wage more war.

TAP- ”Personally, I can’t see where we’re really accomplishing anything over there anymore.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS INTERVIEWS TROOPS’ FAMILY MEMBERS WHO DON’T AGREE WITH BUSH!

Okay, so yesterday I ranted at length
about how oddly reluctant the big news orgs have been at this critical
moment of national decision-making about Iraq to interview troops or
family members who oppose a troop “surge” or even downright favor
withdrawal.

Well, credit where credit’s due: Now the Associated Press has gone and done just that. It’s really worth a read.

The AP interviewed family members who (a) oppose a “surge” and even want to pull out, and (b) aren’t named Cindy Sheehan. And the results are nothing short of wrenching:

Jonathan Lootens, from upstate New York, joined the Army, telling family members: ”This is something I have to do.”

”It did impact him and make him feel like he should serve,” his
father, Robert Lootens, said Tuesday. ”He felt that this was his
time.”

The 25-year-old sergeant was killed during his second tour of duty when a roadside bomb went off near his vehicle in the city of Kirkuk. His father says more than enough Americans have died in the conflict.

”I want the boys to come home, you know,” Lootens said.
”Personally, I can’t see where we’re really accomplishing anything
over there anymore.”

The AP story, which is about how the Iraq death toll has surpassed
the number killed on 9/11, also solicits views of this stat from family
members of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks — you know, the
attacks that President Bush claims he avenged
by going to war with Iraq. While one bereaved family member interviewed
backs the war, another has somehow not found that the Iraq war makes
her feel any better about her 9/11 loss:

The death toll in Iraq was an emotional reminder of loss
for family members of Sept. 11 victims. Sally Regenhard’s son
Christian, a firefighter and a Marine, was killed at the trade center
on Sept. 11.

”I just would like this war to stop in whatever way we need to,”‘ Regenhard said. ”I can hardly tolerate it when I see these beautiful people. It reminds me of my son.”

The White House is still pushing the repulsive line that the only
way to give meaning to the lives that have been lost already is to
continue fighting — that is, to continue to lose more lives. Yesterday a White House spokesman told reporters: “The president will ensure that their sacrifice was not made in vain.”

Just try to imagine for a sec what it would be like if the major
networks saw fit to ask bereaved family members like these to rebut
White House comments like this one with any regularity. Just try to
imagine what it would be like if we heard such voices on the major
networks even a small fraction of the time.

–Greg Sargent

Former detainee in U.S. prisons abroad tells NOW a disturbing story alleging kidnap, torture and murder

	Video: The Prisoner

In his first primetime interview on American television, a former
detainee in U.S. prisons abroad tells NOW a disturbing story alleging
kidnap, torture and murder.

British citizen Moazzam Begg, who spent three years in captivity at
American detention facilities in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
gives us a rarely seen intimate view of a detainee’s life inside the
prisons of the ‘war on terror.’

Begg describes a beating he witnessed while being held at a U.S. prison
in Bagram, Afghanistan. “I saw his body being dragged in front of me,
battered and bruised, limp,” Begg said.

	Program Resources: » Video » Listen to this show [mp3] » Transcript » Print » E-mail this page to a friend

Taken suddenly from his home one night in Pakistan, Begg was imprisoned
without any charges ever pressed against him. He spent almost 20 months
in solitary confinement at Guantanamo, and he said there was no doubt
that the Geneva Conventions did not apply there or at any of the other
U.S. foreign prisons where he was held.

NOW’s David Brancaccio traveled to Begg’s hometown in Birmingham,
England to find out how a Muslim man from an educated, middle-class
family ended up in an a street gang and grew entangled in militant
Islamic politics.

The 37-year-old husband and father of four was accused by the U.S. of
having “strong, long-term ties to terrorism,” an allegation he firmly
denies. Although he was set free from Guantanamo last year having never
been found guilty of any crime, the U.S. government is adamant that his
detention was justified.

As for the remaining 450 Guantanamo prisoners, Congress is working to
hack out new laws for trying terrorism suspects after the Supreme Court
ruled last month that international law does apply to “enemy
combatants.”

Begg recalls a conversation about Guantanamo prisoners that he had with
a security guard at the detention camp. “One of the guards, what they
said to me is that, ‘Hell, if I wasn’t a terrorist when I came here I
would be by the time I was released because of what had been done to
me.’”

MOONIE PAPER EXPOSE BY FORMER EMPLOYEE

CAN THE WASHINGTON TIMES SURVIVE?:

The Washington Times gets picked up every day on C-SPAN, and by other major news organizations when it scores a big hit.

But for a paper that only has a daily circulation of just 90,000
with inflated numbers, can that marvelous respectability continue?

The paper for years has been a beacon for both conservative and
liberal readers for its own take on the news of the day and the
direction of our culture.

Conservatives love it, liberals may hate it, but as President Bill
Clinton told me personally when I was still a reporter for The Times,
“I read you every day to see what you’re saying about
me.” That was respect from a man who hated The Washington Times,
but he said he felt he had to read The Washington Times every day to
find out what the other side was thinking and doing.

But can that conservative-liberal, love-hate scenario that once made
the low-circulation Washington Times work as a pacesetting newspaper
continue?

Can The Washington Times survive and continue to be a beacon of the
conservative view of America, its politics and culture, that all can
look to with respect for a complete daily report from its own
perspective?

I doubt it, because of a festering internal civil war within the
company, featuring ideological and abusive micro-management by senior
TWT editors, backed by the founder’s top corporate manager at The
Washington Times Corp., that has driven out the newspaper’s best
people over the past five years, and continues to drive people out.

The latest brain-drain victim in late December 2006, just before
Christmas, was Washington Times Corp. Vice President Jonathan Slevin,
executive assistant to company CEO Douglas M. Joo. Slevin told
inquiring news organizations that he left voluntarily — but I’m told
confidentially by several of Slevin’s close co-workers that he felt
forced to leave after months of extremely intolerant abuse and
rejection of him by Joo.

Slevin, according to people who know him best, just gave up and
refused to continue accepting a paycheck from a company for whom he had
worked for a quarter century because its current CEO, Joo, was a
tyrannical maniac who listened to nobody except a coterie of
arse-kissers who weren’t helping better the perpetually
money-losing situation of the company.

I have known Jonathan Slevin for more than a quarter century, but he
understandably did not want to talk to me about this situation for a
publicly posted piece.

Let me just say as a person who has dealt with Slevin over many
years in different situations, some of them quite complex, involving
difficult personalities and circumstances, that Jonathan Slevin is one
of the finest, nicest, most erudite, capable, calm, kind, sensitive,
and fair individuals I have ever dealt with, ever. He always gave his
all to his employer and the job at hand.

For Jonathan Slevin to leave his post at The Washington Times
executive offices abruptly, without a thank-you normally accorded to
any longtime employee right down to the switchboard — albeit nicely
saying he was leaving to finish a book — tells all who know Jonathan
that something was terribly wrong in the way he departed or was forced
out. Everybody who knows Jonathan Slevin knows what I am saying is
correct. This man is a saintly man, and I know in my heart that he has
been wronged. So herein lies the greater story.

As the first reporter hired at The Washington Times outside the
founding group, and a 21-year veteran who received four Pulitzer Prize
nominations from the newspaper for investigative reporting,  I
found from talking to people at all levels of the company after I left
in September 2005 that the newspaper now has just a small cadre of
reliable, experienced reporting talent. There has been a huge exodus of
capable reporters and editors on all desks and at all levels over the
past several years. Why?

The Washington Times can no longer claim to be the premiere
conservative pacesetting newspaper in the Nation’s Capital, which
it was in the 1980s and 1990s, because it is no longer breaking big
exclusives and blockbuster stories that overcome its puny circulation,
despite its claimed access to powers in the Bush administration and on
Capitol Hill.

The Wall Street Journal, which has both excellent editorial and news
pages and a seasoned feisty staff in Washington that dwarfs the news
and opinion product of The Washington Times every day. So does National
Review magazine online, the weekly Human Events tabloid, rigidly
ideologically conservative but factually dependable for breaking out
important domestic and foreign news stories for readers across the
country, and liberal media outlets – The Washington Post, New
York Times, and Los Angeles Times.

Broadcast competition such as Fox News on the conservative side, CNN
on the liberal side, and BBC, NPR, and PBS on the middle-left of the
ideological spectrum also are constantly beating the socks off The
Washington Times, both on the news side and in their editorial opinion
offerings. Why?

MORE…

THE BEST FILM LISTS 2006

Salon: Cinema to Savor (watch a short ad for site pass) 

Rolling Stone:  Best and Worst of 2006 Movies

via About.com: American Film Institute (AFI)’s Best Films of 2006  

Time Magazine: 10 Best Movies of 2006

LA Times: Best of 2006 by Kenneth Turan

MSNBC: Best of 2006; Worst of 2006 

Just STFU, Chait

Once Upon a Time…

Oh, Jonathan Schwarz! Yoo-hoo! You, sir, are a prevaricator!

That’s what I first thought when I read this post,
and the excerpt from Jonathan Chait’s latest column that Jonathan
Schwarz included. “No,” methinketh, “Chait couldn’t possibly have said that! That [to use Jonathan S.'s apt phrase] is dangerously insane!”

But then I thinketh on it more. “Jonathan S. is one smart guy. I mean, really smart. (And funny! Never forget the funny. Buy his book.) He couldn’t have misread Chait that badly, even if Chait is
dangerously insane.” So I read Chait’s column. Chait actually, truly,
as real as the blinding pain in my head when I contemplate the fact
that Chait is a columnist published in the freakin’ Los Angeles Times and Jonathan S. and I aren’t, said it. Chait burbles:

[Jonathan]
Schell insisted [in 1990] that we could force Iraq to leave Kuwait with
sanctions alone, rather than by using military force. But the years
that followed that war made it clear just how impotent that tool was. Saddam
Hussein endured more than a decade of sanctions rather than give up a
weapons of mass destruction program that turned out to be nonexistent.
If sanctions weren’t enough to make him surrender his imaginary
weapons, I think we can safely say they wouldn’t have been enough to
make him surrender a prized, oil-rich conquest.

[Irrelevant
note to self: Why is everyone in this post named "Jonathan"? Well,
except Saddam. And me. Does this mean anything?]

Read Jonathan S. on these burbles from The Snake Pit. I have a few comments of my own to add.

Let’s take Chait’s deeply offensive opening paragraph:

I
DON’T WANT to accuse American doves of rooting for the United States to
lose in Iraq because I know they love their country and understand the
dire consequences of defeat. But the urge to gloat is powerful, and
some of them do seem to be having a grand time in the wake of being
vindicated.

The magnanimity toward “American doves” is
overpowering, like the stench of rotting corpses. And that, you
miserable son of a bitch, is the point. Those of us who opposed the war and occupation of Iraq wanted to avoid all the unnecessary
deaths and maimings that have resulted from our actions, and from our
damnable “war of choice.” Hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and
tens of thousands of Americans are dead and maimed because of what we
have done. Most of us don’t give a damn about gloating: we want the killing to stop. We wanted it never to begin.

Speaking only for myself, I disavow the term “dove,” since it is obviously intended only as a smear. If Chait means to denote pacifism,
I am not aware of any significant public figure who opposed the Iraq
war whom it would fit. There may be one or two, but they don’t readily
leap to mind. I recognize that war is sometimes necessary, although
extremely rarely. Most of the wars the United States has fought in the
last 60 years were entirely unnecessary — including Korea,
Vietnam and, certainly and absolutely, Iraq. (If we extend the time
line farther into the past insofar as unnecessary and deleterious U.S.
involvement is concerned, the list of unnecessary wars must begin with
World War I, which led to most of the other conflicts of the twentieth
century, and the effects of which still reverberate around the world
today, most especially in the Middle East.) For the ten millionth time:
Iraq did not attack us. Iraq did not threaten us. Both propositions
were entirely clear before the first soldier set foot in Iraq. Not one
of the deaths, and not one of the damaged lives, need have occurred.
And they should not have occurred, if one gives a damn at all about people’s lives.

The
primary motives behind Chait’s column are transparently clear: first
and foremost, he is desperately afraid that he and the many other
pundits similarly situated might actually suffer entirely deserved
consequences for having been so profoundly wrong about this foreign
policy catastrophe. This just fate is one Chait is absolutely
determined to avoid. So he is similarly desperate to denigrate and
disparage anyone who dares to call him to account. You can sense the
tremors of anxiety that wrack Chait’s body, and the sweat that pours
off him like a torrent. Think of Albert Brooks’s on-air breakdown in Broadcast News. Chait’s column is laughably pathetic. The Los Angeles Times should be mortified to have published it.

In his final paragraphs, Chait reveals that — despite his claims to the contrary, and just like Andrew Sullivan — he has learned precisely nothing from this ongoing debacle, one whose consequences will be felt for decades:

There
are many lessons to be absorbed from Iraq. We’d be foolish not to
absorb them; only the most dense war supporter has come away from the
experience unhumbled. But the failure of a criminally negligent
administration to carry out a highly challenging rebuilding task in the
most hostile part of the world does not teach us everything we need to
know about the efficacy of military power.

Of course we’ll learn lessons from Iraq. I’m worried that we’ll learn too much.

The
highlighted sentences are critical. Chait’s reference to “a criminally
negligent administration” falls within the ambit of the first major
error I discussed here: “Trapped in the Wrong Paradigm.”
Chait does not object to the fact that we began an immoral and illegal
war of aggression, in defiance of international law and minimal norms
of conduct abroad. He objects only to the fact that the occupation has
been managed “incompetently.” If it had been managed “well,” he would
have no objection at all. War criminals have been hanged for less.

The other critical phrase is this one: “the efficacy of military power.”
And there is the awful truth: what Chait seeks to preserve above all
else is positive belief in “the efficacy of military power.” More
directly: whenever he and the other hawks again decide the time is
right, he wants to be sure they can do it again.

That’s all. That’s the whole thing. They want to do it again.
Maybe not next year, but sometime. Less than three decades separate the
final withdrawal from Vietnam from the invasion of Iraq. We were
supposed to have “learned” the lesson about aggressive, non-defensive
wars from Vietnam. We didn’t. And the hawks are determined that the
lesson will escape us once more, even after Iraq.

Whether it’s
Iran, North Korea, or somewhere else, they’ll tell you the next war is
necessary for our self-defense, just as they did about Iraq. It won’t
be true next time either, just as it wasn’t true in the case of
Vietnam, Iraq or World War I. But they are determined to be able to do
it again.

No one is “gloating,” Chait. We want only one thing:
we want you to stop preaching about the glories of war, and “the
efficacy of military power.” We want you to stop killing people and
ripping bodies apart when you don’t have to. With very, very rare
exceptions, you never have to.

To put it more simply: we
want you and the other warmongers to shut the hell up. Since you won’t
and because your “dangerously insane” burbles unaccountably continue to
see the light of day, we want to make sure that fewer and fewer people
listen to you, or believe one word you write or speak.

May the day come when no one listens to you at all. May it come very, very soon.

posted by Arthur Silber

CHUCK HAGEL IS A TRUE PATRIOT

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Follow Your Muse And Discover Great Live Recordings

Amazon:

Years ago I was shopping for CD’s at a pawn shop and the owner/salesman
remarked that he hated live recordings, and I was genuinely surprised.
I had never thought someone would really exclude live shows from their
collection. Now, I know studio and live recordings are different
animals, even if they share the same skin, but a live recording comes
closer to revealing a band’s real ability and character (alot harder to
hide the flaws under the big lights). And I also know that what many
bands pass off as live today is in fact lipsynched-enhanced play by
numbers stuff. So amid the rough and poorly done recordings and the
slick and fake shows I guess I can understand this guys ambivelance.
But then again he doesn’t know what he’s missing……If I had to
eliminate most of my collection (saving one box for the life-raft), I’d
keep the live recordings. Here are the ones I’d take…..

My
favorite bands are those that do it best live. And while many have
better quality studio recordings some are really only great live – THE
RADIATORS Earth vs. The Radiators: The First 25 is one, THE GRATEFUL DEAD Europe 72, The JERRY GARCIA BAND After Midnight: Kean College, 2/28/80,
< ASIN: B000003CKL>, are others. Many “jambands” are way better
live than when scrutinized by the light of day, such as WIDESPREAD
PANIC Live in the Classic City, A String Cheese Incident, BLUES TRAVELER Live From the Fall, and GONG Floating Anarchy Live 77.

Lets look more closely at some really good classic live recordings;
PAUL BUTTERFIELD East-West Live (A great example of having to get past the inferior recording quality to find the masterful performance).
FRANK ZAPPA’s Roxy & Elsewhere, the complete Helsinki show from later in that 1974 tour You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore – Vol. 2, at his zenith The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life, and at his last The Yellow Shark.
ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND (then) At Fillmore East and (now) One Way Out
LOU REED Rock N Roll Animal.
JIMI HENDRIX Live at Winterland
LITTLE FEAT’s definitive Waiting for Columbus
BOB DYLAN Bob Dylan Live 1975 (The Bootleg Series Volume 5)
THE BAND The Last Waltz
DAVE MATTHEWS The Central Park Concert
NEIL YOUNG Weld (2 disc set)
MUDDY WATERS Muddy “Mississippi” Waters Live
ERIC CLAPTON Unplugged

Then there are less well known recordings but amazingly powerful;
MACEO PARKER Life on Planet Groove
PHIL MANZANERA’s 801 Live
JOHNNY WINTER Second Winter
THE FLECKTONES Live Art
GOV’T MULE Deepest End (with Bonus DVD)
NORTH MISSISSIPPI ALLSTARS Hill Country Revue: Live at Bonnaroo
Old & In the Way
Buena Vista Social Club
Remember Shakti: Saturday Night in Bombay

As well as these obvious jewels there are a bunch of fine recordings from famous and obscure artists;
DAVID LINDLEY Live in Tokyo
(a good stand-in for the better EL RAYO X -Live! – (1986), and current
collaberation with WALLY INGRAM – Live in Europe! – (2003), available
on his website)
RICHARD THOMPSON Small Town Romance (a good stand-in for his more recent “Ducknapped” – 2003 US tour with band, available from his website)
KELLY JOE PHELPS Tap the Red Cane Whirlwind (solo 2004 recordings in California)
MARTIN SIMPSON Live
TONY FURTADO Live Gypsy
SONNY LANDRETH Grant Street
DEREK TRUCKS Live at Georgia Theatre
ROBERT RANDOLPH Live at the Wetlands (Dig)
JOHN PRINE Live on Tour
WARREN ZEVON Learning to Flinch
GREG BROWN The Live One
CHRIS SMITHER Live As I’ll Ever Be
EVA CASSIDY Live at Blues Alley
KATE WOLF Give Yourself To Love (Volumes 1&2) (Live In Concert)
ALISON KRAUSS Alison Krauss & Union Station – Live
DAN HICKS Where’s the Money?
GUY CLARK, TOWNES VAN ZANDT, STEVE EARLE Together at the Bluebird Café….
as well as others too numerous to list; JOHN HIATT (Comes Alive at
Budokan), JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, PACO DELUCIA, AL DIMEOLA (Friday Night In
San Francisco), HARRY MANX (Road Ragas), PHIL LESH AND FRIENDS (There
and Back Again, with a nice bonus live disc, similar to current music
from THE DEAD), JAZZ IS DEAD (Great Sky River, live instrumental covers
of Dead songs), FROGWINGS (Croakin’ At Toads), FUJI MARINERS (Live),
ROXY MUSIC (Viva!), KING CRIMSON (USA and Great Deceiver box set)),
CARAVAN (BBC Radio 1), BRAND X (Livestock),HENRYCOW (Concerts), SANTANA
(Sacred Fire, Live in South America), BOB MARLEY (Live At The Roxy),
BIG HEAD TODD AND THE MONSTERS (Live Monsters)….

I guess to
sum it up,if you like an artist get their live recordings, shop around
for the best performance and sound quality and you’ll see how good they
really are. At least you’ll get to imagine or remember being there, and
thats way more fun than imagining being in the studio!

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I’ve had some issues with Flash on Linux

CROOKS AND LIARS VIDEO FEEDBACK

I’ve had some issues with Flash on linux off and on so I prefer either .wmv or .mov. But v. 7 Beta seems to be working on youtube at the moment so I suppose it usually could be OK.

One thought. I was reading a 2 part article on trying linux as a web designer’s platform and was surprised that a lot of the comments were favorable about their own experience. One of the good things noted was that a person became standards conscious grounded in Firefox first and _then_ wrote the exceptions for IE.

In the same way, would it be possible to routinely try the vids on linux first as the acid test on the assumption that if they work, they should be good for everybody? That way you might frequently be a version behind but at least you would retain audience.
smchris

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Hey, “Feel Free To Stop Being An Assfaced Geek”, 64 bit Linux User

Users of 64-bit unix machines will not be able to read flash as Adobe does not support them. You are effectively cutting off the uber geeks by not including a format that can be read on these platforms

http://www.haloscan.com/comments/crooks/100112997

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Flavorpill LA – “lala.com swoops in, saves WOXY”

 Los Angeles

Just days after Cincinnati-based indie radio station WOXY.com announced that a lack of funding would silence it for good, the founders of dollar-a-disc trading site lala.com swooped in to save the day. Almost a month after returning to the airwaves, the partnership with lala intends to expand WOXY’s beloved live broadcasts, “Lounge Acts,” to include sessions from San Francisco, New York, Austin, and other hubs of musical ingenuity. Registered lala members can also generate podcast-style radio stations of their own from over 150,000 tracks in a forthcoming Citizen Radio feature. Until then, 165 beta stations like the Anglophiliac Britpop Mainstays & Requisites or the eclectic Alternative Algebra (and, of course, WOXY itself) crank out jams you’d never hear on a clock radio.

-IB

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George Will Is An Ass

Video-WMP Video-QT

Will: Baghdad is the problem and while we
debate what to do in Baghdad, the Shiites are changing the facts on the
ground in Baghdad through incremental—not at all
stealthy—rather rapid ethnic cleansing. So we may get a
monochrome Baghdad out of this which would be ahhh, sad, but perhaps
tranquilizing.

94 percent of all euro bank notes currently in Spain have traces of cocaine

UPI:

A study says 94 percent of all euro bank notes currently in Spain have traces of cocaine on them because of their use in drug trafficking.

War Criminal

“The Bush presidency plunges into a death spiral”

Salon.com |

A decisive year for “the decider”

 The Bush presidency plunged into a death spiral as the reality of Iraq spurred Americans to hand over Capitol Hill to the Democrats.

By Walter Shapiro

Dec. 26, 2006 | “In this decisive year, you and I will make choices that determine both the future and the character of our country.”
– George W. Bush, State of the Union address, Jan. 31, 2006

Rarely in the annals of American democracy has a president spoken with such godlike prescience about the year to come. The choices made by the voters in the 2006 elections altered the future of the nation and asserted the character of the country. A religious man, Bush undoubtedly appreciates these words of Jesus: “A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country.” But, as seems evident, Bush never expected this biblical statement to apply directly to him and his tragic misadventure in Iraq.

How bad a year was it for Bush? There are four distinct stages in the death spiral of a presidency — and Bush managed to reach three of them in 2006. He began the year with desperate, reality-defying belief in spin, as symbolized by this brazen line from the State of the Union: “We’re on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory.” Then came denial, as the president in his bunker believed Field Marshal Karl Rove’s assurances that the Republicans had wonder weapons they would deploy on Election Day. Now we are in the Harry Truman phase, as Bush frequently likens himself to that midcentury president whose approval rating hit 23 percent during the Korean War. Pretty soon the star-crossed Bush (whose own popularity score is barely hovering above 30 percent) may display this motto on his desk: “The Luck Stops Here.” All that is missing in this four-part saga is for Bush to start talking to the portraits on the White House walls — the political version of the Book of Revelation that truly heralds Nixonian end times.

The year’s most politically significant eight-word sentence comes at the beginning of the December report by the Baker-Hamilton Commission: “The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating.” While the actual recommendations of the Iraq Study Group are fading faster than Judith Regan’s literary reputation, the establishment’s bipartisan verdict that the war is close to unwinnable will endure. Nearly four years after the statues of Saddam Hussein were toppled in Baghdad, 2006 was the year that reality set in about the Mesopotamian mess. Outside the closed-loop universe of conservative talk radio and Fox News, there no longer is a constituency for vaporous visions of victory. Even the president himself belatedly conceded the obvious about the situation in Iraq when he told the Washington Post in a year-end interview, “We’re not winning, we’re not losing.” The voters themselves are even more pessimistic. A mid-December CNN poll found that 70 percent of those surveyed believe that the likely outcome for the U.S. in Iraq will be either stalemate or defeat.

All this brings us to defrocked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the fall guy of the decade. Without glossing over his grotesque errors of military judgment and his legendary intolerance for dissent at the Pentagon, it does seem that all during the run-up to the 2006 elections Rummy was single-handedly taking the rap for the administration’s collective failures in Iraq. By early November, even desperate Republicans were bellowing, “Fire Rumsfeld!” when asked about an exit strategy from the war, as if a new defense chief would automatically bring the Age of Aquarius to Iraq. Still, Bush’s decision to wait until the day after the elections to relegate Rumsfeld to retirement remains baffling, especially to the maybe dozen GOP congressional incumbents who might have held their seats if the president had opened the (Robert) Gates earlier.

Much of what played out politically in 2006 seems inevitable in hindsight. OK, no one would have guessed that Virginia Sen. George Allen would have his “macaca” moment and go from a smart-money pick for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination to unemployment in a few short months. In fact, compared with Allen (whose racially insensitive past came to light along with his Jewish ancestry), Rumsfeld had a rather good year. Also unexpected was Joe Lieberman’s zigzag path back to the Senate from Connecticut (he lost the Democratic primary to antiwar blogger hero Ned Lamont, only to win handily in November running as an independent). Depending on perspective, the Lieberman saga proved a) the warriorlike worth of the netroots in Democratic primaries; b) the weakness of one-issue liberal candidates in the general election, even in New England; c) the weirdness of Connecticut’s election laws, which permitted Lieberman to run twice; or d) the wobbliness of largely self-funded candidates like Lamont in races against politically experienced incumbents.

Hard to remember how much skepticism there was last January among the seers and soothsayers about the chances that the Democrats would soon shed their minority status in Congress. The political culture in Washington is inordinately fond of identifying iron laws of human behavior based on the results of the last three or four elections. The conventional wisdom in early 2006 was that a Democratic upheaval on par with the 1994 Gingrich revolution in the House would be virtually impossible because of computer-enhanced partisan gerrymandering, the lack of close congressional elections in recent years, the Republican Election Day turnout machine and the diabolical genius of Rove. CNN political analyst William Schneider captured with perfect pitch the Beltway political orthodoxy when he wrote in National Journal in January, “Democrats are likely to make gains this year. But it would take a political earthquake for Democrats to win control of the House or Senate. Few House seats are truly up for grabs.” Eleven months later, the seismic rumbles are still reverberating, as the Democrats won 29 new House seats, won six Senate seats and took over six additional governorships, including those in New York and Ohio. The most stunning statistic: Not a single Democrat running for reelection was defeated for Congress or governor.

There are many explanations for the Democratic sweep, beginning with the underappreciated value of that thing called luck — a shift of 12,000 votes in Virginia and Montana (where Jon Tester upended scandal-singed GOP incumbent Conrad Burns) would have left the Republicans in control of the Senate by a 51-49 margin. But more than anything, the 2006 elections were a top-to-bottom repudiation of Rove’s hard-right-is-never-wrong theory of politics. Despite ruin in Iraq and the culture of corruption in Congress (symbolized by disgraced Florida Republican Mark Foley’s inappropriate advances to House pages), Rove’s beloved conservative base turned out to loyally vote for GOP candidates, the same as always. What changed was that these angry evangelicals and antitax conservatives were about the only people voting Republican. As pollster Andrew Kohut, the president of the Pew Research Center, wrote, “The outcome of this election … was determined by the shifting sentiments of independents and moderates. It is no exaggeration to say that the views of the least ideological voters decided this election for the Democrats.”

The year 2006 may someday be remembered as the year when the ascension of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court — with Senate Democrats proving to be all talk and no filibuster — created a permanent majority of jurists seemingly willing to give blank-check powers to the president in national security cases. (The precise trajectory of the Roberts court will not be known for years — and, in fact, civil libertarians were buoyed by Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a landmark decision in June that challenged many premises of the war on terror.)

Historians may also look back at the meteoric rise of such would-be presidents as Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, the outgoing Massachusetts Republican governor. These chroniclers may note the lack of even a day’s pause between the 2006 congressional elections and the start of the 2008 presidential race, demonstrating that politics (not software, entertainment or financial services) is 21st century America’s dominant industry.

But mostly this was a decisive year for a president who may wonder why he sought a second term. Now, mired in an unpopular war and deprived of the protection of a Republican Congress, George W. Bush — the only true “decider” per self-proclamation — must decide how to handle his final two years in office. For even amid the splendid isolation of the White House, Bush cannot escape the big message of 2006: The American people have offered a stinging vote of “no confidence” in his presidency.

Bush Hires Lawyers, Prepares for Congressional Investigations

Baltimore Sun

White House hiring lawyers in expectation of Democratic probes.

Washington – President Bush is bracing for what could be an onslaught of investigations by the new Democratic-led Congress by hiring lawyers to fill key White House posts and preparing to play defense on countless document requests and possible subpoenas.

Bush is moving quickly to fill vacancies within his stable of lawyers, though White House officials say there are no plans to drastically expand the legal staff to deal with a flood of oversight.

“No, at this point, no,” Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said recently. “We’ll have to see what happens.”

Snow rebutted the notion that Bush is casting about for legal advice in the wake of his party’s loss of control of the Congress.

“We don’t have a war room set up where we’re … dialing the 800 numbers of law firms,” he said.

Still, in the days after the elections, the White House announced that Bush had hired two replacements to plug holes in his counsel’s office, including one lawyer, Christopher G. Oprison, who is a specialist in handling white-collar investigations. A third hire was securities law specialist Paul R. Eckert, whose duties include dealing with the Office of the Special Counsel. Bush is in the process of hiring a fourth associate counsel, said Emily A. Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman.

“Obviously, if we do have investigations, we’ll have to make sure we have enough people to be prepared to answer questions that come our way,” Lawrimore said. “As of right now, I wouldn’t say it’s anything special.”

Republicans close to Bush say any such moves would not come until the White House sees how aggressive Democrats are in trying to pry the lid off the inner workings of the administration.

“They just think it’s inevitable that there will be some investigations that will tie up some time and attention,” said Charles Black, a strategist with close ties to the White House. But there’s no panic in the ranks of Bush’s team, he added. “They don’t think they have anything to hide.”

Bush still must do what he can now – before Democrats take over the majority in Congress next month – to prepare, legal specialists say.

“At a time like this, the experienced people in the White House view themselves as in a race they hope to win, of organizing and coordinating their defenses to have them in place in time to slow down or resist oversight before the oversight can get organized,” said Charles Tiefer of the University of Baltimore Law School, a former House counsel and veteran of congressional investigations.

People familiar with the counsel’s office caution against reading too much into the new additions, saying that Bush has yet to go on a hiring spree akin to President Bill Clinton’s when he faced impeachment. But White House officials know of the potential challenges, they said.

“It’s certainly not lost on them that there will be more investigative requests and more things for them to respond to, but I don’t think that you’re going to see any dramatic changes,” said Reginald Brown, a former associate in Bush’s White House counsel’s office who is now in private practice.

Democrats’ stated intention to conduct more rigorous oversight of the Bush administration “simply will mean that [White House officials] need a few more people to manage the paper flow,” Brown said.

Veterans of investigative battles between the White House and Congress predict that Bush ultimately will need to add staff members – or at least borrow some from government agencies – to contend with Democrats with subpoena power on Capitol Hill.

“Like any White House that has to deal with a Congress run by the other party, this White House has to bulk up its staff to deal with the inevitable flood of subpoenas. They’re also going to have to coordinate with lots of friends and supporters,” said Mark Corallo, a former top Republican aide to the House committee that issued more than 1,000 subpoenas to the Clinton camp.

Corallo and Barbara Comstock, another Republican public-relations executive with broad experience in Hill investigations, are launching a crisis-communications firm to serve officials and corporations who, Corallo said, could end up as “drive-by victims” in a new round of probes.

Snow said the firm is “certainly independent of the White House.”

Republican lobbyist David M. Carmen has added an oversight practice to his firm’s menu of services, tapping Frank Silbey, a veteran of congressional investigations, to minister to companies and public figures caught in the web of expected probes.

Democrats are reluctant to reveal their investigative plans, but they have made it plain that they want to conduct more oversight of the Bush administration.

It is clear, though, that Democrats will be beefing up their staffs. With control of Congress comes twice as much funding, which will allow Democrats to double their staffs, including hiring new lawyers and investigators to face off with the Bush administration.

Bush will need “people who have experience in responding to subpoenas, overseeing document production and preparing witnesses,” said Amy R. Sabrin, who defended several Clinton administration officials during the investigations of the 1990s.

The president might want to launch internal investigations of his own, legal experts and analysts say, to turn up anything untoward before Democrats do. Some suggested that the administration was doing that last month when the Justice Department announced that it would look into the use of information gleaned from the National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic surveillance program, an investigation that Bush thwarted earlier by refusing to grant security clearances.

“It’s quite common that a White House, anticipating congressional investigations, will prefer to let previously blocked internal administrative investigations go ahead as a preferred alternative way of trying to deprive the upcoming congressional investigation of exciting things to discover,” Tiefer said.

An example from recent history was the Reagan administration’s Tower Commission, set up to “steal the thunder” of the congressional probe into the Iran-contra scandal, Tiefer added.

White House adviser Black noted that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have been careful to guard executive secrecy, a stance that is unlikely to change in the face of new congressional zeal for information.

“That means if a committee wants to investigate a Cabinet agency, they cooperate. If they’re asking to get information about who the president and the vice president are getting advice from and meeting with, the answer is no,” he said.

None of which will make life easier for White House lawyers who will be fielding Democrats’ requests.

Fulfilling congressional oversight requests is always tedious and time-consuming. When the investigations become partisan, it can be even worse.

“The oversight work was among the most stressful and least-rewarding work in the office,” said Bradford A. Berenson, a former counsel in Bush’s White House. “When you’re playing defense against investigations that are, to one degree or another, politically motivated in an environment where there are very few rules and very little prospect of judicial relief, it can be very frustrating.”

“This puts accountability right into the White House” REDUX

(FROM Monday, October 06, 2003)

This puts accountability right into the White House,” a senior administration official said:

White House announces reorganization to deal with Iraq and Afghanistan (according to story in the New York Times). Here’s a snapshot.

UGGA BUGGA SAID:

 Why is this being re-posted? Because the Bush administration has time after time after time asserted that the “next step” was going to lead to success. This particular case is one of the earlier ones, from over three years ago. And now the latest gambit is that a “surge” is going to make things right. Enough already. (Yes, this commentary is inspired by Kevin Drum’s post about how giving Bush more troops will finally make the war in Iraq look like a mistake.) Bush and his supporters have been wrong on virtually all the key assessments and implementations. Sometimes it’s hard to keep focus on that, because of the kind of political dialogue we encounter every day. Bush has been wrong, is wrong, and should not be indulged any more.

Also … even though so many Big Names have been wrong, does anybody think that Bill Kristol will no longer be invited to Fox News Sunday? Or that McCain and Lieberman won’t be chatting with Tim Russert? In any society that valued simple matters like being correct on foreign policy, these clowns would have been banished from the public arena a long time ago. But Rupert Murcoch and G.E. and the Washington Post don’t care about that. They want war and they will continue to support advocates of the Iraq war regardless of the facts. And when things go completely sour, or when the troops are finally taken out, get ready for it. These Masters Of The Media will give a forum for commentators to blame Democrats or liberals or anyone else they can find, for the failure. Expect to hear the kind of nonsense Tom DeLay says now (“It’s the fault of the liberals and the media and the Democrats”).

Facts don’t matter. Being right or wrong doesn’t matter. What matters is who controls the press.

UGGA BUGGA ‘S EXCELLENT BUSH LINKS

Nineteenth Century Bush

Diagramming Kevin Phillips book on the Bush dynasty
Diagramming Bush the businessman
All the lies and distortions about Iraq peddled by Bush and his allies
Bush regime playing cards
Bush lies about Iraq having WMDs (14 times on the campaign trail)
Chalabi: Thief of Baghdad? (+ Baghdad museum info)
Bush: uniter or divider?
Seymour Hersh’s timeline of North Korean nuclear program
George W. Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service (table)
Let’s play North Korean Brinksmanship!
Bush lies about Saddam/alQaeda “connections” (11 times on the campaign trail).
Tim Russert uses a meaningless, 56 year old statistic about Social Security
Richard Perle’s Secret Plan.

uggabugga

Nineteenth Century Bush
Diagramming Kevin Phillips book on the Bush dynasty
Diagramming Bush the businessman
All the lies and distortions about Iraq peddled by Bush and his allies
Bush regime playing cards
Bush lies about Iraq having WMDs (14 times on the campaign trail)
Chalabi: Thief of Baghdad? (+ Baghdad museum info)
Bush: uniter or divider?
Seymour Hersh’s timeline of North Korean nuclear program
George W. Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service (table)
Let’s play North Korean Brinksmanship!
Bush lies about Saddam/alQaeda “connections” (11 times on the campaign trail).
Tim Russert uses a meaningless, 56 year old statistic about Social Security
Richard Perle’s Secret Plan.

Charles Krauthammer Babbles About American Women’s Ice Hockey Team Being Mean…No, We’re Serious!!

By Charles Krauthammer

ROUNDS: the ritual whereby a senior doctor goes from bed to bed seeing patients, trailed by a gaggle of students.

ROUNDSMANSHIP: the art of distinguishing oneself from the gaggle with relentless displays of erudition.

The roundsman is the guy who, with the class huddled at the bed of a patient who has developed a rash after taking penicillin, raises his hand to ask the professor — obnoxious ingratiation is best expressed in the form of a question — whether this might not instead be a case of Shmendrick’s Syndrome reported in the latest issue of The Journal of Ridiculously Obscure Tropical Diseases.

None of the rest of us gathered around the bed has ever heard of Shmendrick’s. But that’s the point. The point is for the prof to remember this hyper-motivated stiff who stays up nights reading journals in preparation for rounds. That’s the upside. The downside, which the roundsman, let’s call him Oswald, ignores at his peril, is that this apple polishing does not endear him to his colleagues, a slovenly lot, mostly hung over from a terrific night at the Blue Parrot.

The general feeling among the rest of us is that we should have Oswald killed. A physiology major suggests a simple potassium injection that would stop his heart and leave no trace. We agree this is a splendid idea, and entirely just. But it would not solve the problem. Kill him and another Oswald will arise in his place.

There’s always an Oswald. There’s always the husband who takes his wife to Paris for Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day? The rest of us schlubs can barely remember to come home with a single long stem rose. What does he think he’s doing? And love is no defense. We don’t care how much you love her — you don’t do Paris. It’s bad for the team.

Baseball has its own way of taking care of those who commit the capital offense of showing up another player. Drop your bat to admire the trajectory of your home run and, chances are, the next time up the unappreciative pitcher tries to take your head off with high cheese that whistles behind your skull.

Now, you might take this the wrong way and think that I am making the case for mediocrity — what Australians call the “the tall poppy syndrome” of unspoken bias against achievement, lest one presume to be elevated above one’s mates. No. There is a distinction between show and substance. It is the ostentation that rankles, not the achievement. I’m talking about dancing in the end zone. Find a cure for cancer, and you deserve whatever honors and riches come your way. But the check-writer who wears blinding bling to the cancer ball is quite another manner.

Americans abroad have long been accused of such blinging arrogance and display. I find the charge generally unfair. Arrogance is incorrectly ascribed to what is really the cultural clumsiness of an insular (if continental) people less exposed to foreign ways and languages than most other people on earth.

True, America as a nation is not very good at humility. But it would be completely unnatural for the dominant military, cultural, and technological power on the planet to adopt the demeanor of, say, Liechtenstein. The ensuing criticism is particularly grating when it comes from the likes of the French, British, Spanish, Dutch (there are many others) who just yesterday claimed dominion over every land and people their Captain Cooks ever stumbled upon.

My beef with American arrogance is not that we act like a traditional great power, occasionally knocking off foreign bad guys who richly deserve it. My problem is that we don’t know where to stop — the trivial victories we insist on having in arenas that are quite superfluous. Like that women’s hockey game in the 2002 Winter Olympics. Did the U.S. team really have to beat China 12-1? Can’t we get the coaches — there’s gotta be some provision in the Patriot Act authorizing the CIA to engineer this — to throw a game or two, or at least make it close? We’re trying to contain China. Why then gratuitously crush them in something Americans don’t even care about? Why not throw them a bone?

I say we keep the big ones for ourselves — laser-guided munitions, Google, Warren Buffett — and let the rest of the world have ice hockey, ballroom dancing, and every Nobel Peace Prize. And throw in the Ryder Cup. I always root for the Europeans in that one. They lost entire empires, for God’s sake; let them have golf supremacy for one weekend. No one likes an Oswald.

Military considers recruiting foreigners

The Boston Globe

Military considers recruiting foreigners
Expedited citizenship would be an incentive

By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | December 26, 2006

WASHINGTON — The armed forces, already struggling to meet recruiting goals, are considering expanding the number of noncitizens in the ranks — including disputed proposals to open recruiting stations overseas and putting more immigrants on a faster track to US citizenship if they volunteer — according to Pentagon officials.

Foreign citizens serving in the US military is a highly charged issue, which could expose the Pentagon to criticism that it is essentially using mercenaries to defend the country. Other analysts voice concern that a large contingent of noncitizens under arms could jeopardize national security or reflect badly on Americans’ willingness to serve in uniform.

The idea of signing up foreigners who are seeking US citizenship is gaining traction as a way to address a critical need for the Pentagon, while fully absorbing some of the roughly one million immigrants that enter the United States legally each year.

The proposal to induct more noncitizens, which is still largely on the drawing board, has to clear a number of hurdles. So far, the Pentagon has been quiet about specifics — including who would be eligible to join, where the recruiting stations would be, and what the minimum standards might involve, including English proficiency. In the meantime, the Pentagon and immigration authorities have expanded a program that accelerates citizenship for legal residents who volunteer for the military.

And since Sept. 11, 2001, the number of imm igrants in uniform who have become US citizens has increased from 750 in 2001 to almost 4,600 last year, according to military statistics.

With severe manpower strains because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and a mandate to expand the overall size of the military — the Pentagon is under pressure to consider a variety of proposals involving foreign recruits, according to a military affairs analyst.

“It works as a military idea and it works in the context of American immigration,” said Thomas Donnelly , a military scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington and a leading proponent of recruiting more foreigners to serve in the military.

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan grind on, the Pentagon has warned Congress and the White House that the military is stretched “to the breaking point.”

Both President Bush and Robert M. Gates, his new defense secretary, have acknowledged that the total size of the military must be expanded to help alleviate the strain on ground troops, many of whom have been deployed repeatedly in combat theaters.

Bush said last week that he has ordered Gates to come up with a plan for the first significant increase in ground forces since the end of the Cold War. Democrats who are preparing to take control of Congress, meanwhile, promise to make increasing the size of the military one of their top legislative priorities in 2007.

“With today’s demands placing such a high strain on our service members, it becomes more crucial than ever that we work to alleviate their burden,” said Representative Ike Skelton , a Missouri Democrat who is set to chair the House Armed Services Committee, and who has been calling for a larger Army for more than a decade.

But it would take years and billions of dollars to recruit, train, and equip the 30,000 troops and 5,000 Marines the Pentagon says it needs. And military recruiters, fighting the perception that signing up means a ticket to Baghdad, have had to rely on financial incentives and lower standards to meet their quotas.

That has led Pentagon officials to consider casting a wider net for noncitizens who are already here, said Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty , an Army spokesman.

Already, the Army and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security have “made it easier for green-card holders who do enlist to get their citizenship,” Hilferty said.

Other Army officials, who asked not to be identified, said personnel officials are working with Congress and other parts of the government to test the feasibility of going beyond US borders to recruit soldiers and Marines.

Currently, Pentagon policy stipulates that only immigrants legally residing in the United States are eligible to enlist. There are currently about 30,000 noncitizens who serve in the US armed forces, making up about 2 percent of the active-duty force, according to statistics from the military and the Council on Foreign Relations. About 100 noncitizens have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A recent change in US law, however, gave the Pentagon authority to bring immigrants to the United States if it determines it is vital to national security. So far, the Pentagon has not taken advantage of it, but the calls are growing to take use the new authority.

Indeed, some top military thinkers believe the United States should go as far as targeting foreigners in their native countries.

“It’s a little dramatic,” said Michael O’Hanlon , a military specialist at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution and another supporter of the proposal. “But if you don’t get some new idea how to do this, we will not be able to achieve an increase” in the size of the armed forces.

“We have already done the standard things to recruit new soldiers, including using more recruiters and new advertising campaigns,” O’Hanlon added.

O’Hanlon and others noted that the country has relied before on sizable numbers of noncitizens to serve in the military — in the Revolutionary War, for example, German and French soldiers served alongside the colonists, and locals were recruited into US ranks to fight insurgents in the Philippines.

Other nations have recruited foreign citizens: In France, the famed Foreign Legion relies on about 8,000 noncitizens; Nepalese soldiers called Gurkhas have fought and died with British Army forces for two centuries; and the Swiss Guard, which protects the Vatican, consists of troops who hail from many nations.

“It is not without historical precedent,” said Donnelly, author of a recent book titled “The Army We Need,” which advocates for a larger military.

Still, to some military officials and civil rights groups, relying on large number of foreigners to serve in the military is offensive.

The Hispanic rights advocacy group National Council of La Raza has said the plan sends the wrong message that Americans themselves are not willing to sacrifice to defend their country. Officials have also raised concerns that immigrants would be disproportionately sent to the front lines as “cannon fodder” in any conflict.

Some within the Army privately express concern that a big push to recruit noncitizens would smack of “the decline of the American empire,” as one Army official who asked not to be identified put it.

Officially, the military remains confident that it can meet recruiting goals — no matter how large the military is increased — without having to rely on foreigners.

“The Army can grow to whatever size the nation wants us to grow to,” Hilferty said. “National defense is a national challenge, not the Army’s challenge.”

He pointed out that just 15 years ago, during the Gulf War, the Army had a total of about 730,000 active-duty soldiers, amounting to about one American in 350 who were serving in the active-duty Army.

“Today, with 300 million Americans and about 500,000 active-duty soldiers, only about one American in 600 is an active-duty soldier,” he said. “America did then, and we do now, have an all-volunteer force, and I see no reason why America couldn’t increase the number of Americans serving.”

But Max Boot, a national security specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the number of noncitizens the armed forces have now is relatively small by historical standards.

“In the 19th century, when the foreign-born population of the United States was much higher, so was the percentage of foreigners serving in the military,” Boot wrote in 2005.

“During the Civil War, at least 20 percent of Union soldiers were immigrants, and many of them had just stepped off the boat before donning a blue uniform. There were even entire units, like the 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry [the Scandinavian Regiment] and General Louis Blenker’s German Division, where English was hardly spoken.”

“The military would do well today to open its ranks not only to legal immigrants but also to illegal ones and, as important, to untold numbers of young men and women who are not here now but would like to come,” Boot added.

“No doubt many would be willing to serve for some set period, in return for one of the world’s most precious commodities — US citizenship. Some might deride those who sign up as mercenaries, but these troops would have significantly different motives than the usual soldier of fortune.”

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.

34,000 civilians killed in Iraq during 2006, UN said

UN marks soaring Iraq death toll
More than 34,000 civilians were killed in violence in Iraq during 2006, a UN human rights official has said.

The envoy to Iraq, Gianni Magazzeni, said 34,452 civilians were killed and more than 36,000 hurt during the year.

The figure is nearly three times higher than calculations previously made on the basis of Iraqi interior ministry statistics for 2006.

Accurate figures are difficult to acquire, and previous UN estimates have been rejected outright by Baghdad.

Mr Magazzeni said his figures were compiled from data collected by the Health Ministry, hospitals, mortuaries and other agencies.

Car bombs

Speaking in London, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair described the death of innocent people in Iraq as “tragic”, but insisted it was the fault of insurgents, not foreign troops stationed in the country.

KEY DEVELOPMENTS DURING 2006
Civilian deaths reach new high of 12,320, Iraqi government says, UN puts toll at 34,452
More than 800 US troops killed
Violence at record levels, with 140 reported attacks daily
Thousands of Iraqis leaving the country each week

Incidents of violence are reported throughout Iraq everyday.

On Tuesday, at least 53 people were killed in a series of bomb blasts and gun attacks across Baghdad.

The BBC’s Andrew North in the capital says no-one knows the true figure for how many Iraqis are dying in the conflict, but the regular UN calculations are seen as one guide.

Iraqi officials have yet to respond to this latest report, but they described a UN estimate of 3,700 civilian deaths in October alone as grossly exaggerated.

Sectarian clashes

Nonetheless observers say the upward trend is clear and supported by evidence from the ground.

Every morning police collect dozens of bodies from the streets of Baghdad.

Most of those killed are victims of sectarian violence between the minority Sunni and majority Shia Muslims.

It’s not British and American soldiers that are killing innocent people, we’re trying to protect innocent people
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair
Mr Blair made mention of this fact when he was asked about Iraq’s soaring death toll at his monthly press briefing in Downing Street on Tuesday:

“But of course it is tragic when there’s innocent people losing their lives in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of them lost their lives, innocent people, under Saddam.

“Now thousands of them are losing their lives, but they’re losing their lives because terrorists and because internal extremists, linking up with external extremists, are killing them,” he said.

“It’s not British and American soldiers that are killing innocent people, we’re trying to protect innocent people.”

There are fears violence will only intensify as a result of the circumstances surrounding the execution of Saddam Hussein and his aides, who were from the Sunni community.

The taunting of Saddam in his final moments and the decapitation of his half brother during an apparent accident in the hanging process has drawn intense international criticism.

Law and order

Mr Magazzeni demanded the Iraqi government do more to enforce the rule of law.

“Law enforcement agencies do not provide effective protection to the population of Iraq,” he said, adding that “militias act in collusion with or have infiltrated” the security forces.

“Without significant progress in the rule of law sectarian violence will continue indefinitely and eventually spiral out of control,” he warned.

Last week, US President Bush announced plans to send at least 20,000 more troops to Iraq, saying it will help bring security to Baghdad’s streets, where violence is most intense.

Previous attempts to stop the killings in the capital have failed, in part, analysts say, because coalition and Iraqi troops have not stayed in an area once insurgents have been cleared.

Under the new plans, once an area is taken, the extra US troops will stay behind, backing up Iraqi forces to hold the area.

Story from BBC NEWS:

Troops in Basra demolish the headquarters of the city’s Serious Crime Unit.

BBC NEWS
Discussions to follow Basra raid
British officials are to explain to the authorities in Basra why coalition troops demolished the headquarters of the city’s Serious Crime Unit.

UK forces say Iraqis are still supporting them despite anger over the raid on a police station, and discussions will follow.

A British officer said the destruction of the base has made Basra safer.

Mohammed al Abadi, head of the city’s council, had said the raid was illegal and threatened to stop co-operation.

He said local officials had not been informed of the operation and that it violated earlier agreements to move the prisoners without military action.

And Basra police commander Brigadier General Ali Ibrahim said: “This storming operation is illegal and violates human rights.

“We think that what the operation sought to achieve is very simple and could have been settled by Iraqi troops.”

But the UK Foreign Office said there had been no formal announcement to withdraw co-operation with the British.

A spokesman conceded some elements of the council were unhappy but said the UK and the Iraqi government would explain the reasons for them.

‘Iraqi backing’

Major Charles Burbridge, speaking on behalf of the British Army in Basra, said the 127 prisoners rescued from Jamiat police station had been tortured.

And the raid had the backing of regional and national Iraqi politicians.

He said: “Some members of the provincial council conducted a press conference yesterday where they criticised what we did and how we did it.

“But at the same time the MoD up in Baghdad had a similar press conference stating that the provincial council’s facts were wrong.

“We still believe that we’ve done the right thing and I think it’s important to acknowledge the fact that what we do here is never going to be overwhelmingly popular and if we don’t get any criticism then this isn’t democracy.”

British forces raided and demolished the unit’s headquarters, and rescued prisoners they feared would be killed.

SAS rescue

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said hundreds of seized files and computers were taken as evidence.

The raid came three days after seven Iraqi officers were arrested by UK troops on suspicion of corruption and leading a death squad at the unit.

In September 2005, two SAS soldiers were rescued from Jamiat after being accused of shooting dead a local policeman and wounding another.

TONY AND TINA’S WEDDING GOING ON 19 YEARS

Writer/Director Roger Paradiso has been interested in Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding since 1986.  He was dating an actress who was in this weird showcase about an Italian wedding.  “It was only going to run for one weekend because that’s all the money they had.  I thought it worked great as an improv for theatre.  I really liked the skeleton of the story.  I thought it would work as a Film if you could capture the helter skelter nature of the improv and were able to develope a more structured story.”

Paradiso became friendly with the creators of the show, in particular a talented young lady named Nancy Cassaro.  “Nancy’s father, a doctor, had financed the weekend workshop.  There was some doubt as to whether she would be able to finance another weekend, so she begged me to borrow a 16mm camera and shoot the next workshop performance.  I told her this would be impossible to do and wouldn’t do the story I had in mind justice.  In hindsight, if I had known it would take 17 years to get it made, I would have grabbed that camera and shot the workshop.”

Paradiso had been a writer-director in the New York Off-Off-Broadway Theatre scene and to make ends meet had been leading a double life as a Location Manager, Assistant Director and Line Producer in feature films and commercials.  “All my friends from high school, college and my early years in New York knew me as a creative person.  I had been writing and directing in theatre and I had also been a set and lighting designer at some regional and Off-Broadway theatres.  But to pay the rent, since everybody knows there is no money in theatre, I started working in Film.  And I enjoyed Film tremendously, not only as a young kid seeing all those Roger Corman and Samuel Z.  Arkoff matinees, but I had experimented with film since high school.  What a  learning experience it was for me to work with Writers and Directors like John Huston, Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman, Norman Jewison, John McTiernan, Michael Caton-Jones and Adrian Lyne.  It was like taking a Master Class in Filmmaking.”

But back to Tony N’ Tina’s Wedding: Paradiso had taken an option on the property, really an improv, and proceeded to develop a screenplay with some of the creators.  “We’ve had  offers over the years but none of us wanted to compromise the story.  I know it may sound stupid to some people, but we turned down several offers to make the movie.  It was either  because we had to develop the story as a big budget movie with two stars and cut out all the other characters, or can you make this movie in Toronto, Rome, South Africa or Mexico?  It all came down to the integrity of the story.  Tony and Tina are important, of course, but unbalancing the story by cutting other characters was unacceptable.  Also, over the years I have become a regional filmmaker for many personal and ethical reasons, so the idea of shooting the movie anywhere but New York was also unacceptable.  I felt that not only would I be selling out Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding, but I would be selling out all the other regional filmmakers in the US by supporting runaway film production.”

Being a 50 year old first-time feature director is also so politically incorrect that it appealed to Paradiso.  “I’ve directed award-winning shorts and industrials as well as commercials and theatre, but there were many conversations about replacing myself as a director and just writing and Producing.  But I figured that was just buying into more politically correct crap so I decided to go with my heart and direct the film no matter what anyone thought.  I know a lot of people may wonder why an older person is directing what is essentially a young person’s movie, but I don’t buy into limiting yourself.”

HENRY CAPLAN-The Ultimate VINNIE BLACK
From the Times Square cast

Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding finally found a dream investor who not only believed in Paradiso and the script, but supported production in New York.  “We had a very modest $1.5 million budget and I had 15 days to shoot.  I told all the actors that this may be the closest thing to theatre that they would ever experience in film.  We did improvs, rehearsed and rewrote scenes and roughed in the entire film in a very condensed two week rehearsal.  I actually started working with many of the actors weeks before that two week rehearsal period.  We did bios of their characters and had everyone email and call each other so they could develop their group mythology.  They had to behave as if they knew each other for many years.  I like to rehearse in film but it’s different than a theatre rehearsal.  In film I like to rough things in but not over-rehearse scenes, because I think scenes have to be fresh to make the audience think that this is really happening moment to moment.  In film, you want accidents to happen and you want the actors to perform as if they are hearing and seeing the scene for the first time.  Hopefully , we did that.  I know we did very long takes and I kept the camera moving so that the actors always had to be ‘On’.”

Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding

Tony And Tina’s Wedding -BROADWAY

This is a great show.

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THIS IS USEFUL

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WICB- Give Us A Break

Memories….

Decapitation suspicions follow Iraq executions

USATODAY.com

The
hangman’s noose came before dawn today for Saddam Hussein’s
half-brother and the former chief of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court, and
the action didn’t pass without controversy, reports say.

The Associated Press has the major detail:
“In confirming the executions, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said
the head of one of the accused, Barzan Ibrahim [the half-brother], had
been severed during the hanging in what he called ‘a rare incident.’
But he stressed that all laws and rules were respected during the
proceedings, choosing his words carefully after Saddam’s execution
became an unruly scene that brought worldwide criticism of the Iraqi
government. “

A leading Sunni legislator is accusing the government of mutilating the body, the AP says. Reuters finds more widespread suspicion in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, but the wire service also notes research finding decapitation to be possible in such a hanging.

BBC News has an eyewitness account of the incident.
“One of those present, public prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi, told the
BBC that when the trap door opened, he could only see the rope
dangling. ‘I thought the convict Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti had escaped
the noose. I shouted that he’s escaped the noose, go down and look for
him. I went down a few steps ahead of the others to see: I found out
that his head had separated from his body.’ “

Update at 9:24 a.m. ET: Government officials have now screened the hanging’s official video for reporters but say they will not release it, the AP reports.
“We will not release the video, but we want to show the truth,” a
government spokesman says. “The Iraqi government acted in a neutral
way.”

Posted by Patrick Cooper

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Fraud, Katrina Contracts Could Waste Two Billion Dollars

Fraud, Katrina Contracts Could Waste $2B

Tally for Hurricane Katrina Waste, Fraud Could Top $2 Billion in 2007, Federal Auditors Say

By HOPE YEN
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON – The tally for Hurricane Katrina waste
could top $2 billion next year because half of the lucrative government
contracts valued at $500,000 or greater for cleanup work are being
awarded without little competition.

Federal investigators have already determined the Bush
administration squandered $1 billion on fraudulent disaster aid to
individuals after the 2005 storm. Now they are shifting their attention
to the multimillion dollar contracts to politically connected firms
that critics have long said are a prime area for abuse.

In January, investigators will release the first of several audits
examining more than $12 billion in Katrina contracts. The charges range
from political favoritism to limited opportunities for small and
minority-owned firms, which initially got only 1.5 percent of the total
work.

“Based on their track record, it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw
another billion more in waste,” said Clark Kent Ervin, the Homeland
Security Department’s inspector general from 2003-2004. “I don’t think
sufficient progress has been made.”

He called it inexcusable that the Bush administration would still
have so many no-bid contracts. Under pressure last year, Federal
Emergency Management Agency director David Paulison pledged to rebid
many of the agreements, only to backtrack months later and reopen only
a portion.

Investigators are now examining whether some of the agreements which
in some cases were extended without warning rather than rebid are still
unfairly benefiting large firms.

“It’s a combination of laziness, ineptitude and it may well be nefarious,” Ervin said.

FEMA spokesman James McIntyre said the agency was working to fix its
mistakes by awarding contracts for future disasters through competitive
bidding. Paulison has said he welcomes additional oversight but
cautioned against investigations that aren’t based on “new evidence and
allegations.”

“As always, FEMA will work with Congress in all aspects to ensure
that we are carrying out the agency’s responsibilities,” McIntyre said.

The Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane swept ashore in southern Louisiana,
Mississippi and Alabama, leveling homes and businesses along the Gulf
Coast. Its storm surge breached levees in New Orleans, unleashing a
flood that left more than 1,300 people dead, hundreds of thousands
homeless and tens of billions of dollars worth of damage.

A series of government investigations in the storm’s wake faulted
the Bush administration for underestimating the threat and failing to
prepare by pre-negotiating contracts for basic supplies in what has
become the nation’s costliest disaster.

Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office said its
initial estimate of $1 billion in disaster aid waste was “likely
understated,” citing continuing problems in which FEMA doled out tens
of millions of dollars in fraudulent housing assistance.

Democrats in Congress called for more accountability. When they take
over in January, at least seven committees plan hearings or other
oversight from housing to disaster loans on how the $88 billion
approved for Katrina relief is being spent.

Among the current investigations:

The propriety of four no-bid contracts together worth $400 million
to Shaw Group Inc., Bechtel Group Inc., CH2M Hill Companies Ltd., and
Fluor Corp. that were awarded without competition.

The contracts drew immediate criticism because of the companies’
extensive political and government ties, prompting a promise last year
from Paulison to rebid them. Instead, FEMA rebid only a portion and
then extended their contracts once, if not twice to $3.4 billion total
so the firms could finish their remaining Katrina work.

The four companies, which have denied that connections played a
factor, were among six that also won new contracts after open bidding
in August. The latest contracts are worth up to $250 million each for
future disaster work.

The propriety of 36 trailer contract awards designated for small
and local businesses as part of Paulison’s promise to rebid large
contracts.

Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner is reviewing
whether some small and local businesses were unfairly shut out in favor
of winners such as joint venture PRI-DJI. DJI stands for Del-Jen Inc.,
a subsidiary of Fluor, which has donated more than $930,000 to mostly
Republican candidates since 2000.

“It’s not what you know, what your expertise is. I don’t even
believe it’s got much to do with price. It’s who you know,” contends
Ken Edmonds, owner of River Parish RV Inc. in Louisiana, a company of 9
people whose application was rejected.

PRI, a minority-owned firm based in San Diego, said it is the
“majority partner” with Del-Jen as part of a federal mentoring program
offered by the Small Business Administration. The joint venture
received four Katrina contracts worth up to $100 million each based on
price and “knowledge of work with the federal government,” president
Frank Loscavio said.

Whether small and minority-owned businesses were unfairly hurt
after the Bush administration initially waived competition requirements.

For many weeks after the storm, minority firms received 1.5 percent
of the total work less than one-third of the 5 percent normally
required because they weren’t allowed to bid for many of the emergency
contracts.

The National Black Chamber of Commerce called the figure appalling
because of the disproportionate number of poor, black people in the
stricken Gulf Coast, prompting Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Rep.
Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., to request GAO to investigate.

FEMA has since restored many of its competition rules, and the
number of contracts given to minority firms is now about 8.8 percent,
according to the agency.

On the Net:

A copy of the semiannual report on Katrina spending by the agencies’ inspectors general:

http://www.dhs.gov/xoig/assets/katovrsght/OIG pcie sept06.pdf

ABC News:

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PENTAGON WASTED MILLIONS ON SKETCHY CONTRACTS

Interior, Pentagon Faulted In Audits – washingtonpost.com

Interior, Pentagon Faulted In Audits
Effort to Speed Defense Contracts Wasted Millions

By Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Scott Higham
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 25, 2006; A01

The
Defense Department paid two procurement operations at the Department of
the Interior to arrange for Pentagon purchases totaling $1.7 billion
that resulted in excessive fees and tens of millions of dollars in
waste, documents show.

Defense turned to Interior, which manages
federal lands and resources, in an effort to speed up its contracting.
Interior is one of several government agencies allowed to manage
contracts for other agencies in exchange for a fee.

But the
arrangement between Interior and Defense “routinely violated rules
designed to protect U.S. Government interests,” according to draft
audit documents obtained by The Washington Post.

More than half
of the contracts examined were awarded without competition or without
checks to determine that the prices were reasonable, according to the
audits by the inspectors general for Defense (DOD) and Interior (DOI).
Ninety-two percent of the work reviewed was awarded without verifying
that the contractors’ cost estimates were accurate; 96 percent was
inadequately monitored.

In one instance, Interior officials
bought armor to reinforce Army vehicles from a software maker. In
another, Interior bought furniture for Defense from a company that
apparently had not previously been in the furniture business. One
contract worth $100 million, to lease office space for a top-secret
intelligence unit in Northern Virginia, was awarded without
competition. Defense auditors said that deal cost taxpayers millions
more than necessary, and they have referred the matter for possible
criminal investigation.

“These poor contracting practices have
left DOD vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse and DOI vulnerable to
sanctions and the loss of the public trust,” the Interior auditors
concluded in their report.

They examined 49 deals and concluded
that 61 percent had evidence of “illegal contracts, ill advised
contracts, and various failings of contract administration procedures.”

The
auditors’ findings underscore the difficulties that have come with
efforts over the past decade to streamline government by outsourcing
work, simplifying contracting procedures and cutting back on the
procurement workforce. Agencies such as Interior are allowed to handle
contracts for other agencies under the theory that they can perform
some services more efficiently. But in this case, auditors found that
Interior did not follow through on oversight and collected $22.8
million in fees for work the Pentagon could have done itself.

Officials at Defense and Interior said they have been working to fix contracting problems cited in the audits.

“We
are currently reviewing the findings of the DOD IG, and we have been
meeting with representatives of the DOI regarding the specifics of the
draft report,” said Shay Assad, director of defense procurement and
acquisition policy at the Pentagon. “It would be premature to comment
specifically except to say that we understand DOI is actively taking
actions to improve their contracting practices in response to a number
of the draft findings.”

Interior officials said they are adopting
many of the auditors’ recommendations and have made “giant strides.”
They said they are examining “specific contracts of concern” as well as
reviewing the qualifications of their contracting officers and
improving their training.

“We believe that many of your
recommendations can help us further improve our internal controls
related to the acquisition environment,” R. Thomas Weimer, Interior’s
assistant secretary for policy, management and budget, wrote in a Nov.
30 response to his department’s inspector general.

Unnamed contracting officials were quoted in the Defense audit as saying that they went to Interior to save time.

“We used DOI because they are able to expedite the contracting process,” one Defense official said.

Another said that the Defense office “did not have enough contracting people to handle the requirements.”

The
Interior procurement operations were allowed to charge fees for
managing contracts on behalf of other government agencies. One of the
operations, GovWorks, is located in Herndon. The other is the Southwest
Acquisition Branch of the National Business Center at Fort Huachuca,
Ariz., an Army base.

Defense paid Interior management fees of up
to 4 percent for everything from pistol holsters to intelligence
consultants to office leases. The Defense inspector general said the
Pentagon could have saved $22.8 million by using the U.S. General
Services Administration (GSA).

The Interior inspector general
said Defense “could have used these monies to purchase as many as
50,000 sets of body armor to protect our soldiers.”

At the
Southwest Acquisition Branch office in Arizona, the auditors concluded,
$411 million worth of deals were struck without a fundamental step in
government contracting: review and approval by properly trained and
certified contracting officers.

The Defense auditors found that
nearly half of the 49 contract files they reviewed failed to document
that the prices “were fair and reasonable.” Contracting officials
relied upon e-mailed statements and cursory reviews from the Pentagon,
rather than “documenting a detailed analysis of the contractor’s
proposal.”

At Interior, there was little supervision of the work.
The Defense inspector general “questioned the adequacy of government
surveillance for 23 of the 24 contracts” — or 96 percent of the total
reviewed in one analysis.

Key documents were missing from
contract files. “Lack of good documentation can create serious
problems,” the auditors noted. “If it is not documented, it never
happened.”

The findings prompted the inspector general’s office to demand that the Pentagon stop using Interior’s contracting shops.

The
auditors singled out two contracting arrangements for particularly
sharp criticism. In 2002, the Pentagon opened a new office called
Counterintelligence Field Activity, known as CIFA, which supervises
protection at Defense facilities against terror attacks.

When
CIFA needed office space in Northern Virginia, Defense officials turned
to Interior’s GovWorks program instead of the GSA, which manages office
space for the government, the audit said. GovWorks awarded a 10-year,
no-bid deal worth $100 million to a private company based in Anchorage
to acquire and manage the space, the auditors said.

The auditors said Defense officials violated regulations by not using the GSA for their office space.

“CIFA
and DOI circumvented numerous laws in contracting for leased space,”
the auditors said. “By not following the proper procedures, they
entered into a lease without the legal authority to do so.”

Auditors
found that the lease cost taxpayers up to $2.7 million more than it
should have. Auditors also found that the deal violated procedures
because it was not cleared by the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

In
May, members of the Defense inspector general’s office told senior CIFA
staffers that they could be in violation of the law if they continued
to make payments on the lease.

“Subsequently, we learned that CIFA had continued to make lease payments, totaling $2.9 million,” the auditors wrote.

The auditors referred the matter for possible criminal investigation to the deputy inspector general for investigations.

Weimer,
Interior’s policy and budget chief, disputed the auditor’s findings on
the lease arrangement. In his written response, he argued that CIFA did
not have to go through the GSA to obtain the office space. Weimer also
said CIFA did not enter into an improper lease because the lease was
between CIFA’s contractor and the managers of the office building.
Moreover, he said, the chief counsel for the Justice Department’s
Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force advised CIFA that the arrangement
was appropriate.

The other arrangement that received sharp
criticism from the auditors involved the Open Market Corridor, an
online buying program billed as a way to save tax money.

Built by
a California company, the Open Market Corridor began as a research
project for the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. In 2002,
management of the contract was handed to officials at Interior’s Fort
Huachuca operation. The California company, the Naval school and
Interior all received a small percentage when the system was used to
order goods and services.

Auditors found that select companies
were favored, in violation of federal regulations. The contracting
officer responsible for overseeing the online purchases “was unable to
provide a list of either the customers or participating vendors who
were using the system,” the auditors said.

Sixteen vendors
“appeared to be Government employees or firms that appeared to be
affiliated with Government employees,” another apparent violation of
regulations and a possible violation of federal criminal statutes,
auditors said.

One official who processed 1,616 “contract
actions” worth nearly $135 million was a lecturer at the Naval school
who did not have the authority to award government work.

Senior
Interior officials were not even “aware that the system existed” or
that it was processing tens of millions of dollars in deals each year
without approval, the audit said.

In March, after auditors reported the abuses, officials at the Naval school took the system offline.

The
auditors concluded that Defense should not continue to manage or use
the Open Market Corridor “because of the serious legal and other
problems we found.”

They referred their findings to the deputy
inspector general and the Navy Acquisition Integrity Office for further
investigation.

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Italian connected with Russian spy arrested in Naples.

Police in Naples have arrested an Italian who met a former Russian

agent, Alexander Litvinenko the day he fell ill in London from
radiation poisoning.

Mario Sacaramella, who was discharged from University College Hospital
in London earlier this month after testing positive for radioactivity,
was arrested by Italian police as he stepped off a British Airways
plane in Naples.

He had already been under investigation by Italian prosecutors for
alleged arms trafficking, before Mr Litvenenko’s death from radiation
poisoning.

 

Police said Mr Scaramella, who claims he holds a teaching post at Naples University, will be brought to Rome for interrogation.

ABC News Online

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Bill Kristol gets off on the “long surge” fantasy

Bill Kristol gets off on the “long surge” troop fantasy
By:
John Amato

If your stomach can take it, Bill “the Vampire” Kristol practically orgasms at the thought of a long and sustained troop level surge in Iraq. “What’s needed is a sustained and large surge.” Billie got almost three solid minutes to praise Bush for his—cough—cough—leadership.

Video-WMP Video-QT

There’s nothing like some hot burning warmongering love for Billie.
His neocon fantasy got a little pick me up like a sex addict with an
unlimited porn pass on DirecTV.

Crooks and Liars » 2006 » December » 25

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The neo-conservative dream faded in 2006

End of the neo-con dream

By Paul Reynolds World Affairs correspondent

The neo-conservative dream faded in 2006.

The ambitions proclaimed when the neo-cons’ mission statement “The
Project for the New American Century” was declared in 1997 have turned
into disappointment and recriminations as the crisis in Iraq has grown.

“The Project for the New American Century” has been
reduced to a voice-mail box and a ghostly website. A single employee
has been left to wrap things up.

The idea of the “Project” was to project American power and influence around the world.

The 1997 statement (written during the administration of President Bill Clinton) said:

“We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan
Administration’s success: a military that is strong and ready to meet
both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and
purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national
leadership that accepts the United States’ global responsibilities.”

Neo-conservatism has gone for a generation, if in fact it ever returns David Rothkopf Carnegie Endowment

Among the signatories were many of the senior officials who would later
determine policy under President George W Bush – Dick Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams and Lewis Libby – as well as
thinkers including Francis Fukuyama, Norman Podheretz and Frank
Gaffney.

The neo-conservatives were called that because they
sought to re-establish what they felt were true conservative values in
the Republican Party and the United States.

They wanted to stop what they felt were the
isolationist tendencies that had developed under President Clinton, and
even under the pragmatic President George Bush senior.

They saw the war in Iraq as their big chance of showing how the “New American Century” might work.

They predicted the development of democratic values in a region lacking
in them and, in that way, the removal of any threat to the United
States just as the democratisation of Germany and Japan after World War
II had transformed Europe and the Pacific.

Attack

Since so much was pinned on Iraq, it is inevitable that the problems there should have undermined the whole idea.

George Bush is about the last neo-conservative standing David Rothkopf Carnegie Endowment

“Neo-conservatism has gone for a generation, if in fact it ever
returns,” says one of the movement’s critics, David Rothkopf, currently
at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, and a former official in the
Clinton administration.

“Their signal enterprise was the invasion of Iraq and their
failure to produce results is clear. Precisely the opposite has
happened,” he says.

“The US use of force has been seen as doing wrong and as inflaming a region that has been less than susceptible to democracy.

“Their plan has fallen on hard times. There were flaws in the
conception and horrendously bad execution. The neo-cons have been
undone by their own ideas and the incompetence of the Bush
administration.

“George Bush is about the last neo-conservative
standing, Cheney as well maybe. Bush is not an analytical person so he
just adopted the neo-cons’ philosophy.

“It fitted into his Manichean, his black and white view
of the world. After all, he gave up his dissolute youth and was born
again as a new man, so it appealed to his character.”

In-fighting

The fading of the dream has led to a falling-out among the neo-conservatives themselves.

In particular, two leading neo-conservatives, Richard Perle and Kenneth
Adelman, attacked the Bush team in Vanity Fair magazine. Both had been
on a Pentagon advisory board. Both had argued for war in Iraq.

In an article called “Neo Culpa”, Richard Perle
declared that had he known how it would turn out, he would have been
against it: “I think now I probably would have said: ‘No, let’s
consider other strategies’.”

Kenneth Adelman said: “They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the post-war era.

“Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional.”

Donald Rumsfeld “fooled me”, he said.

He declared of neo-conservatism after Iraq: “It’s not going to sell.”

Defence and counter-attack

Other neo-conservatives defend their record, arguing strongly that the
original idea had an effect, and pressing the point raised by Perle and
Adelman that it was the execution of the idea not the idea itself that
was wrong.

“Now I am not sure we can pick the bacon out of the fire Gary Schmitt American Enterprise Institute

Gary Schmitt used to be a senior figure at the “New American Century”
project. Now he is director of strategic studies at the American
Enterprise Institute (AEI), and he says the project has come to a
natural end.

“When the project started, it was not intended to go
forever. That is why we are shutting it down. We would have had to
spend too much time raising money for it and it has already done its
job.

“We felt at the time that there were flaws in American
foreign policy, that it was neo-isolationist. We tried to resurrect a
Reaganite policy.

“Our view has been adopted. Even during the Clinton
administration we had an effect, with Madeleine Albright [then
secretary of state] saying that the United States was ‘the
indispensable nation’.

“But our ideas have not necessarily dominated. We did
not have anyone sitting on Bush’s shoulder. So the work now is to see
how they are implemented. Obviously it makes life difficult with the
specific failure in Iraq, but I do not agree with Richard Perle that we
should never have gone in.

“I do argue that the execution should have been better.
In fact, I argued in late 2003 that we needed more troops and a proper
counter-insurgency policy.”

Indeed, not all neo-conservatives have given up all hope in Iraq.

The AEI, which has become the natural home for refugees from the
American Project, is promoting an article entitled: “Choosing Victory:
A Plan for Success in Iraq”.

The article calls not for a withdrawal of US troops but
for an increase. President Bush’s decision is expected in early
January.

Paul.Reynolds-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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Cory Doctorow – The Blog as Writing Tool

Cory Doctorow – The Blog as Writing Tool – Google Video

Those who are saying the Haditha charges are “politically motivated” have a fundamentally flawed knowledge of military justice

Reuters AlertNet:

The decision to charge four Marine officers accused of failing
to properly investigate the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians was a rare
step and might never have occurred had the media not brought the
incident to light, experts said on Friday.

The Marine Corps on Thursday charged four Marines with
unpremeditated murder in the killing of the two dozen men, women and
children on Nov. 19, 2005, in Haditha, Iraq.

[..]Four officers — a lieutenant colonel, two captains and a
lieutenant — also were charged, accused of dereliction of duty and
other counts for their role in the aftermath. An investigation
concluded that reporting on the killings up the chain of command was
inaccurate and untimely.

“In my opinion the Marine Corps is demonstrating a serious
concern that officers that are in command of combat troops closely
supervise those troops, and when incidents of a suspicious or unusual
nature arise, that they had best look into those,” said Gary Solis, who
teaches the law of war at Georgetown University.

“It is rare for officers to be charged. And that four would be
charged when in the prior history of the war only 10 have been charged,
I think that Marine Corps concern is demonstrated,” he said.

Those who are saying the Haditha charges are
“politically motivated” have a fundamentally flawed knowledge of
military justice in general and Marine Corps culture in particular.

First, prior to a General Court Martial an “Article 32″ hearing
is held, the equivalent of a Grand Jury in civilian terms. FYI, Article
32 refers to the portion of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)
that defines the process. This is, despite what many may think, a fair
process and the accused generally stand a better chance than they would
under similar circumstances in the civilian world (especially since
many of the accused are black or brown). Charges are rarely prefered,
especially in high profile cases, if there is not good evidence for
moving forward. This does not mean they are convicted prior to trial,
but it does reflect what happens (career death) to a military prosector
who pushes a case forward with insufficent evidence. That charges were
preferred means that something out of policy happened.

If this were a “show trial”, as many are suggesting, then
the charges would have been something like manslaughter or negligent
homicide, not murder. Unlike police departments, for instance, the
honor and reputation of the Marine Corps is more important than the
individual reputations of Marines who have brought dishonor to the
Corps.

---

Filed Under:

Iraq, Investigations

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Sadly, No! » The Pluperfect Malkin

HERE’S A GREAT RUNDOWN OF THE WINGNET’S QUEEN BEE : MICHELLE MALKIN
FROM THE EQUALLY GREAT “SADLY, NO”

A drama in three leanly-wrought acts:

Jimmy Carter math
By Michelle Malkin
December 19, 2006 11:26 AM

Jimmy Carter says he has signed more than 100,000 books during his book tour.

Book publishing insider Brad Miner’s B.S. detector has been activated.

Update: Whoops.

A work in progress:

Retraction: “Jamil Hussein”
By Michelle Malkin
December 18, 2006 11:04 AM

A few minutes ago, I posted an update to the Jamil Hussein story. My source just informed me that he had incorrect information. I’m removing the post. I’ll update as soon as I know more.

Update: Marc Danziger reports the results of his investigation.

A spoiler for those who wish to skip ahead: The Iraqi police officer’s correct name is Jamail Hussein, not ‘Jamil.’ So, in regard to Malkin & Co.’s weeks-long hurricane tantrum accusing the Associated Press of using a nonexistent source in order to help spread enemy propaganda: Whoops.

Also, previously: Whoops.

A treatise on fairness:

Not everyone’s a winner
By Michelle Malkin
December 18, 2006 09:29 AM

In all its breathless purple prose about the “new digital democracy” and the “unmediated free-for-all” on YouTube, Time magazine ignores certain citizen journalists and overlooks those who have been banned from participating for expressing unpopular views.

We remember.

Above: certain citizen journalists

Oh, we remember some things as well. 2006 has been a remarkable year for ol’ Michelle, filled as it’s been with the suicide of one of her targets, an admirer’s arrest for serial domestic terrorism, a lot of jumping up and down and yelling, and steaming plates of crow apparently served with onion rings.

Let us be among the first to congratulate the intrepid citizen-journalists of the WingNet.

PS: After Michelle bit the onion ring, it resembled a crescent…a crescent…a crescent…

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“Guantanamo has brought shame to our nation”

Protests worldwide mark the 5-year anniversary of Guantanamo

By Carol Rosenberg and Lesley Clark

McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT)

From anti-Iraq war mom Cindy Sheehan in Cuba to protesters in a
Washington, D.C., courthouse, demonstrators fanned out across the globe
Thursday to protest America’s five-year-old experiment in offshore
incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The protests came as a top Democrat said Congress would scrutinize
the Bush administration’s handling of the Guantanamo prison camps with
an eye toward closing the facility.

“The new Democratic majority has every intention of conducting
vigorous oversight on these issues and getting answers on the
administration’s detention practices,” said House Majority Leader Steny
Hoyer, D-Md. “The administration has said it hopes to close the
facility at Guantanamo, an objective that I share.”

About 100 protesters were arrested in a Washington courthouse, and
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon used his first news conference to
likewise call for closure of the remote U.S. prison in southeast Cuba.

“Gitmo prison is a source of shame. No more torture in our name,”
chanted protesters in Cuba-controlled Guantanamo, where Sheehan marched
with a dozen or so international protesters on the other side of a
minefield from the U.S. Navy base.

Amnesty International and other human rights groups choreographed
the daylong protests from Europe to Australia to the Americas on five
years to the day when the Pentagon opened the detention and
interrogation center for international captives airlifted from
Afghanistan.

The protests achieved their desired results.

News photographs of orange jumpsuit-clad protesters – on the march,
on their knees or in chains – splashed across the Internet from such
far-flung cities as Melbourne, Australia, Budapest, Hungary, and
Thessaloniki, Greece.

The Pentagon argues that the prison camps are a war-on-terror
necessity. About 395 men and teens are held there, some of whom could
soon face war-crimes trials, once the Defense Department unveils its
new design for military commissions.

At the U.S.-controlled corner of Guantanamo, the day passed
peacefully and without notice, although 14 captives were listed as
hunger strikers. Five were being fed through tubes in their noses under
military medical protocols for forced feedings.

A minefield and no-man’s land separated the chants of Sheehan and her fellow protesters from the 45-square-mile U.S. Navy base.

“It’s a normal work day here,” reported U.S. Army Col. Lora Tucker
by e-mail. It passed with “nothing special going on to mark the
anniversary,” she added. “We are just continuing our mission of safe,
humane care of the detainees.”

Not so in downtown Washington, not far from Congress, where about
100 demonstrators were arrested in a federal courthouse for waving
signs and wearing T-shirts that said “Stop Torture” and “Shut Down
Guantanamo.”

They were led away in plastic handcuffs.

Earlier, hundreds of foes of U.S. detention policy fanned out on the
steps of the Supreme Court, some in detainee-style jumpsuits and black
hoods, others in mock military garb, and staged some political theater
of their own in the frigid winter weather.

“Guantanamo has brought shame to our nation,” Larry Cox, executive
director of Amnesty International, told the crowd from a lectern
entwined with barbed wire.

Behind him stood dozens of protesters, some with black tape across
their mouths, others bearing the names of detainees. “There’s no
evidence that we have been made safer,” said Cox, “but there is growing
evidence that the moral authority of the United States has been
severely diminished.”

---

Rosenberg reported from Miami, Clark from Washington.

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BILL KRISTOL “But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction”

When you hear level-headed people say that General Kristol and the Neocons have been wrong about literally everything for the past five years, they’re not kidding. Anonymous Liberal — guest-posting for Glenn at Unclaimed Territory — gives us a small sample of the predictions made by TIME Magazine’s new “star” columnist:

On March 17, 2003, on the eve of our invasion of Iraq, Bill Kristol wrote the following:

We are tempted to comment, in these last days before
the war, on the U.N., and the French, and the Democrats. But the war
itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of
mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq,
and expose the truth about Saddam’s regime. It will produce whatever
effects it will produce on neighboring countries and on the broader war
on terror. We would note now that even the threat of war against Saddam
seems to be encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and
Saudi Arabia, and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda
from other governments in the region. It turns out it really is better
to be respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite
sensitivity, other people’s pain. History and reality are about to
weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.

Now, you would think that being so incredibly wrong about such
an important subject might hurt your career prospects, and that would
probably be true in any other field. But in the world of Washington
punditry, being consistently and catastrophically wrong about
everything is apparently not an obstacle to advancement. Read more…

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Se, Chuck Hagel Calls Lieberman’s Bullshit

Chuck Hagel Smacks Lieberman: Questions his competency

By:
John Amato @

10:08 AM – PST  

 Chuck
Hagel plastered Holy Joe on Meet the Press this morning and it’s about
time somebody called him on his garbage. Lieberman got on his soapbox
and tried to tell us that Bush’s implementation of the McCain Doctrine
is our only hope in Iraq and then throws his grand children
into the ring. He’s even more offensive today than usual if that’s
possible because he uses the 9/11 attacks and says we’re fighting the
same enemy in Iraq that attacked our country. He knows that’s a right
wing talking point that’s just not true—yet he’ll try to scare people
anyway, Shame on you!

 Download (3913) | Play (3636)  Download (2204) | Play (2857) (rough transcript)

Hagel: I am not nor any member of Congress that I’m aware of Tim, is advocating defeat, that’s ridiculous and I’m
offended that any responsible member of Congress or anyone else would
even suggest such a thing…Sen. Lieberman talks about his children and
grandchildren, we all have children and grandchildren—he doesn’t have a
market on that nor do any of my colleagues. We’re all concerned about the future of this country…

Lieberman jumps on the Iran bandwagon that Bush threw out last week
and is setting up support for an American attack on them. It seems to
be just a matter of time and many of us have been speaking out against
it. Congress needs to push back–hard on it. Hagel calls into question
Joe’s competency (yea) as well he should. When is Lieberman going to
look into the Katrina nightmare again?

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Bobby Hamilton, longtime NASCAR driver, dead at 49

ESPN.com
NASHVILLE, Tenn.

Bobby Hamilton, the longtime NASCAR
driver who won the 2001 Talladega 500 and was the 2004 Craftsman
Truck Series champion, died Sunday of cancer, said Liz Allison, a
family friend who co-hosted a radio show with Hamilton. He was 49.

Hamilton was at home with his family when he died, said Allison,
the widow of former NASCAR star Davey Allison.

“The thing I loved about Bobby Sr. so much is that he treated
everybody the same,” Allison said. “It didn’t matter if you were
one of the drivers he competed against or a fan he’d never laid
eyes on before.

“He didn’t have a pretentious bone in his body. I think that’s
why people were drawn to him. He was just very real and had a way
of relating to everyone.”

Hamilton was diagnosed with head and neck cancer in February. A
malignant growth was found when swelling from dental surgery did
not go down.

“NASCAR is saddened by the passing of Bobby Hamilton,” said
Jim Hunter, NASCAR’s vice president of communications. “Bobby was
a great competitor, dedicated team owner and friend. Our thoughts
and prayers go out to all of the Hamilton family.”

Hamilton raced in the first three truck races of the season,
with a best finish of 14th at Atlanta Motor Speedway, before
turning over the wheel to his son, Bobby Hamilton Jr. The senior
Hamilton then started chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

By August, he had returned to work at Bobby Hamilton Racing in
Mount Juliet, about 20 miles east of Nashville, and doctors
indicated his CAT scans looked good. But microscopic cancer cells
remained on the right side of his neck.

“Cancer is an ongoing battle, and once you are diagnosed you
always live with the thought of the disease in your body,”
Hamilton said in an article posted on NASCAR’s Web site last month.
“It is the worst thing you could ever imagine.”

Hamilton, born in Nashville in 1957, drove in all of NASCAR’s
top three divisions, making 371 starts and winning four times in
what is now the Nextel Cup series. He won 10 truck races and one
Busch Series race.

“I love what I do; I love this business,” he said in March
2006 when he disclosed that he had cancer. “NASCAR has been good
to me, and I just don’t feel comfortable when I am not around it.”

Hamilton’s Nextel Cup wins, in addition to Talladega, came at
Phoenix, Rockingham and Martinsville. His best season was in 1996
when he finished ninth in the points standings. He won his first
Cup race that year, at Phoenix.

Hamilton drove in the top-level NASCAR series from 1989-05,
earning $14.3 million and racing to 20 top-five finishes.

He became a full-time driver-owner in the truck series in 2003.

The news of Hamilton’s death caught friends by surprise.
“You could always count on Bobby,” seven-time NASCAR champion Richard
Petty said in a statement. “He was just that type of guy. He never let
you down and gave you everything he had on-and-off the track. His
family is in our hearts and prayers.”

Nextel Cup driver Sterling Marlin, a fellow Tennessee native, said a lot
of people didn’t know Hamilton well even though he was generous
enough to give someone the shirt off his back.

“He always had a good vision,” Marlin said in Daytona where
testing begins Monday. “He always wanted to do things his own way,
so he became his own boss, got into the trucks, and it worked out
well for him.”

According to The Tennessean, a public visitation will be held Tuesday
from 5-8 p.m. at Hermitage Memorial Gardens in Nashville, Tenn. Private
funeral services will be conducted Wednesday.

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Victory Junction Gang Camp or the American Cancer Society.

Another NASCAR favorite, 1973 Winston Cup champion Benny
Parsons, was diagnosed with cancer in his left lung in July. He was
checked into intensive care last week at a North Carolina hospital.

In addition to Bobby Jr., Hamilton is survived by wife Lori and
a granddaughter.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

MATTHEWS: Melanie, tell me why Joe Wilson and you do not wish him to testify in the Scooter Libby perjury trial

Melanie Sloan trashes Libby’s reasons for wanting Wilson to Testify

By:
John Amato @

7:15 AM – PST  

 On
Hardball Wednesday, the topic: Why shouldn’t Joe Wilson testify in the
Scooter Libby trial if he’s been so outspoken about the Plame case.
Matthews erroneously slimes Wilson and says:

MATTHEWS:  But trying to quash the subpoena.  It would
seem to me, as a non-lawyer—I say for the millionth time, an admission
you have got something you don‘t want to talk about. 

Video-WMP Video-QT 

Chris needs to brush up on his law. Having a staff and resident
pundits around for information at his finger tips—you’d figure they
would know Wilson isn’t needed on the witness stand because Libby is
facing charges of of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false
statements. What light would Joe be able to shed that could add
anything to Scooter’s case? This is a ploy by Libby’s team to get
Wilson on the stand before his civil suit hits. Melanie Sloan had to
call into the show and set these “experts” straight.

MATTHEWS:  Melanie, tell me why Joe Wilson and you do not wish him
to testify in the Scooter Libby perjury trail. full transcript via MSNBC:

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I understand your consternation

I understand your consternation as this President has done
absolute squat to earn the confidence of a small minority of us who saw
these wars of choice as the disasters they were to become, long before
they unfolded. Now that a majority of Americans have awakened to this
plain fact albeit, five years too late, we (those few of us who were on
the beam from the very beginning) need to sift through and eliminate
any emotion, hate and distrust for this man.

Only a measured,
rational, realistic and a well thought out approach, sans emotion, will
bring us through this tragedy as unscathed as may be possible
considering the hole we have dug and that much blood is left to be
spilled. The problem with this war and how it was initiated and fought
both at the front and at home has been adversely and grossly effected
negatively by the emotions Americans have placed before logic and
reason.

The Bush/Rove machine have used emotion to carry the
country into war and those very few opposed have used emotion in
failing to either present a solid case in opposition to or prevent this
debacle. We need to back off the emotional propaganda/infighting by
both sides as this energy clouds reason, distorts the issues and
divides the nation allowing the current trending to continue unabated
and spiraling perilously out of control.

My hope of hopes is
that Mr. Bush will look into the faces of the wounded to soften his
resolve and make the needed changes to bring our kids home before any
more are killed or disabled. Then again this may stiffen the Presidents
spine like Hitler brushing the face of pre-teens as the Allies/Russians
bared down outside the gates of Berlin.

Frank Zappa

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For their own sake, they need to impeach him

The Osterley Times: Impeach him!

There are times when it’s hard to describe Bush’s stubbornness and
sheer pig-headedness in the stark terms that it deserves. The Baker
Report has offered him a way out of Iraq, but he seems determined to
ignore the advice given to him by that bipartisan committee and seems
to think one last push will bring him the victory that has so far
eluded him.

Let’s look at this carefully. James T Baker, the man
who is as responsible as any other for getting Bush elected after he
guided him through the Florida recount, has said enough is enough. Bush
is planning on ignoring him.

Colin Powell,
Bush’s former Secretary of State, has said the US is losing the war in
Iraq and that the sending of more troops is no longer the answer. Bush
is planning on ignoring him.

Gen. John P. Abizaid, his top Middle East commander, has announced his retirement and other generals have signalled that they do not agree with Bush’s plans to increase troop levels. Bush is planning on ignoring them.

The
change in tactic here is staggering. This is the same President who, up
until now, has hidden behind these same Generals insisting that he is
following their lead and that they are in charge of the military
campaign. Now that they are saying something that he doesn’t want to
hear, Bush is planning on ignoring them.

Even Blair and Bush now appear to be showing cracks
regarding the way forward as Blair has embraced the Baker report that
Bush seems determined to ignore. Bush will now ignore Blair.

Astonishingly,
Bush appears to be still in the thrall of the neo-conservatives who
have led him into his present quagmire, and he appears to be still
listening to them as they promise a way out through victory. Indeed,
they have even prepared a paper on the subject entitled: Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq.

The
clear implication being that victory is there for the taking if the US
simply apply themselves more. The old arguments surrounding Vietnam are
once more being dusted down.

At this juncture we are looking at
a President more isolated than any in recent memory. His Generals, his
ex-Secretary of Defence, has father’s friends and the British PM who
has supported him to such an extent that he has earned himself the
sobriquet “poodle” all now oppose what he plans to do next. And yet
Bush, a man who has never served in any military capacity, now plans on
ignoring them all.

Of course, if one reads Frederick W Kagan’s
paper one will find that, like most neo-cons, he is scathing about the
way their plan for world domination was carried out rather than finding
any fault with the grandiose plan itself.

The truth, of course,
is that neo-conservatism died in Lebanon this summer. The idea that the
US could shape any region it wanted through the application of military
force was laid bare with Hizbullah’s victory over Israel.

However, these buggers are not for lying down. They are certainly not for admitting defeat. A defeat that all but the most stubborn of conservatives now accepts as fact.

What
does one do when a President ignores the advice of everyone around him
and insists on sending more troops into harms way? Troops enlisted from
the poorest quarters of his nation that do not include his children or
the children of the elite neo-cons who support his insane new policy?

We
are looking at a President who simply will not accept defeat and is
willing to allow the children of others to die rather to admit what
even his own supporters have admitted. He has lost. Even Ralph Peters has conceded that fact, although his reasoning for why they lost is simply garbage.

The state of affairs is truly grim:

But
the president has not only lost the “battle for hearts and minds”
across the Arab world, he’s lost it across the United States. The
people of Bapchule and Oxford no longer believe his words or trust his
judgment. Virtually everything he ever said to them about the war —
from “Mission Accomplished” to “absolutely, we’re winning” — has been
wrong.

Once,
Americans might have shared his vision of a free, self-governing Iraq,
but not any more. He has squandered their trust and betrayed their
patriotism. The parents of Thibodaux and Cheektowaga no longer want to
sacrifice their children to a lost cause.

Bush
is now insisting, despite his defeat at the polls, that more young
Americans must die for a cause that all but he can see is lost.

There is only one thing to do when faced with such stubbornness. Impeach him.

For the sake of young soldiers being asked to die for a lost cause, impeach him.

The
US now has no other choice. This is an isolated President embarking on
a suicidal course, who has lost the support of even his own side and
who has nothing to lose as he will never again face re-election.

Polite
intervention from Baker and his colleagues has not worked. Blair
distancing himself from the project has not worked. Powell speaking out
has not worked.

There is only one course left open. Impeach him.

The
most incompetent President in living memory needs to be saved from
himself. This should now be done if Republicans are to hold on to any
chance of re-election for the next decade. The party that allows this
man to do what he is planning to do deserve the disapprobation of the
entire nation.

For their own sake, they need to impeach him.

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Sooner Or Later There Will Be A Draft, So Get Cracking On That “Gears of War” Christmas Present Laddies

New York Daily News – http://www.nydailynews.com

VA boss likes draft – till White House blows it off

BY LISA COLANGELO in New York
and RICHARD SISK in Washington
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Friday, December 22nd, 2006

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson gave qualified support
yesterday to renewing the draft – a suggestion that rattled the White
House.

“I think that our society would benefit
from that, yes, sir,” Nicholson said of replacing the all-volunteer
force with a tough draft purged of the deferments that allowed many to
avoid service in Vietnam.

“I think if we bring back the draft, there
should be no loopholes for anybody who happens to be drafted,” he said.
“If it’s a random system, it ought to be an honestly random system.”

Nicholson’s remarks came a day after
President Bush said he was seeking new recruits to expand the Army and
Marine Corps, and the secretary was quickly reined in by the White
House.

“The administration is not considering reinstating the draft,” a White House spokesman said.

Nicholson later said his remarks had been
“misconstrued,” and he issued a statement saying, “I strongly support
the all-volunteer military and do not support returning to a draft.”

Nicholson spoke on the draft in answer to a
question at an event with Mayor Bloomberg at the Borden Ave. Residence
Center in Queens, where they announced a program to put 100 homeless
vets in housing in 100 days. They also said a task force would be set
up to boost services to vets.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem), an Army vet
who served in Korea, has introduced a resolution in recent years to
bring back the draft and has said he will introduce another in the new
Congress next year.

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DEMOCRATS TO GROW CAJONES

From US NEWS’ WASHINGTON WHISPERSBLOG

Evidence continues to mount that the new Democratic majority plans to
investigate the war, energy policy, and other Bush policies, as key
committees have begun hiring lawyer-investigators whose job will be to
probe the administration. In the House, for example, the Appropriations
Committee under Rep. John Murtha’s
direction is hiring investigators who will be charged with looking into
the administration’s war policies and spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Also, Rep. Henry Waxman,
the incoming chairman of the House Government Reform Committee who’s
been dogging the vice president’s energy task force, is also hiring
lawyers. A Democratic leadership official said that the planned
hearings and investigations into the war and other issues the
lawyer-investigators are being hired to look into will be “very
focused.” In the Senate, officials said similar hirings were underway
in a speeded up effort to have people in place for the start of the new
Congress, especially the planned early January hearings into the war
and military spending that are set to begin January 8.

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How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches

Independent Online Edition > Middle East

How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches

By Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb

Published: 07 January 2007

 Iraq’s massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. “So where is the oil going to come from?… The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies,” he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq’s oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through “production-sharing agreements” (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world’s two largest producers, is state controlled.

Opponents say Iraq, where oil accounts for 95 per cent of the economy, is being forced to surrender an unacceptable degree of sovereignty.

Proposing the parliamentary motion for war in 2003, Tony Blair denied the “false claim” that “we want to seize” Iraq’s oil revenues. He said the money should be put into a trust fund, run by the UN, for the Iraqis, but the idea came to nothing. The same year Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, said: “It cost a great deal of money to prosecute this war. But the oil of the Iraqi people belongs to the Iraqi people; it is their wealth, it will be used for their benefit. So we did not do it for oil.”

Supporters say the provision allowing oil companies to take up to 75 per cent of the profits will last until they have recouped initial drilling costs. After that, they would collect about 20 per cent of all profits, according to industry sources in Iraq. But that is twice the industry average for such deals.

Greg Muttitt, a researcher for Platform, a human rights and environmental group which monitors the oil industry, said Iraq was being asked to pay an enormous price over the next 30 years for its present instability. “They would lose out massively,” he said, “because they don’t have the capacity at the moment to strike a good deal.”

Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, who chairs the country’s oil committee, is expected to unveil the legislation as early as today. “It is a redrawing of the whole Iraqi oil industry [to] a modern standard,” said Khaled Salih, spokesman for the Kurdish Regional Government, a party to the negotiations. The Iraqi government hopes to have the law on the books by March.

Several major oil companies are said to have sent teams into the country in recent months to lobby for deals ahead of the law, though the big names are considered unlikely to invest until the violence in Iraq abates.

James Paul, executive director at the Global Policy Forum, the international government watchdog, said: “It is not an exaggeration to say that the overwhelming majority of the population would be opposed to this. To do it anyway, with minimal discussion within the [Iraqi] parliament is really just pouring more oil on the fire.”

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman and a former chief economist at Shell, said it was crucial that any deal would guarantee funds for rebuilding Iraq. “It is absolutely vital that the revenue from the oil industry goes into Iraqi development and is seen to do so,” he said. “Although it does make sense to collaborate with foreign investors, it is very important the terms are seen to be fair.”

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Bush to raise stakes with new Iraq strategy

FT.com

Bush to raise stakes with new Iraq strategy

By Edward Luce in Washington

Published: January 10 2007 02:00 | Last updated: January 10 2007 02:00

In a broadcast tonight, George W. Bush will gamble what remains of his presidency on a counter-insurgency strategy drawn up by the general he appointed last week to take charge of US forces in Iraq.

The 168-page manual, that Lieutenant General David Petraeus completed last month, provides the blueprint for what supporters of Mr Bush’s expected 20,000 troop “surge” hope the beefed up US forces will do in Iraq over the coming months.

The first US army counterinsurgency manual in 20 years, it recommends a starkly different approach to tackling the insurgency than most US commanders have followed since the April 2003 Iraq invasion.

It says that the principal goal of the US military should be to win the respect and support of the domestic population and that killing insurgents can often be counter-productive by creating even more to take their place.

Furthermore, it recommends that US soldiers and civilians learn Arabic and become culturally sensitive to the conditions of the local population as a way of improving critical intelligence. “Without good intelligence, counter-insurgents are like blind boxers flailing at an unseen opponent,” it says.

On previous tours in Iraq, most notably in command of US forces in the northern city of Mosul, Gen Petraeus has put much of this into practice with good effect, say analysts. This time around, he is expected to apply it across Iraq but particularly in Baghdad and Anbar province.

Kenneth Pollack, an Iraq analyst at the Brookings Institution, said: “He comes with two very big advantages, which is that the previous strategy of chasing al-Qaeda fruitlessly around Iraq has failed.

“Second, he won’t have Donald Rumsfeld breathing down his neck and vetoing everything he does. Bob Gates [the new defence secretary] is not like that.”

However, Gen Petraeus will also face three obstacles, they say. First, the surge – or “escalation”, as the Democratic party has called it – would need to be many times the expected 20,000 in order to pacify Iraqi population centres.

The report says the ideal ratio of troops to population in a counter-insurgency operation is 20 per 1,000. This would imply the US would need to add at least 250,000 to its existing force of 140,000 – a logistical and political impossibility. Iraq’s population is 26m.

Although Gen Petraeus is advocating what British strategists had long recommended, the UK’s 8,000 force level was never enough to control Basra, a city of more than 1m. “The UK had the right idea but never putits money where its mouth was,” said Mr Pollack. Second, Gen Petraeus cannot rely on the co-operation of all of Iraq’s security forces, many of which are riddled with sectarian death squads. Patrick Clawson, a former administration official at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said: “The thing to watch out for is not the surge but the number of high-quality US trainers Mr Bush can provide for the Iraqi army.”

Third, the focus on counter-insurgency might be years too late. Mr Pollack said: “The Iraqi civil war has acquired a psychological dimension that may now be impossible to control.”

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14 Jimmy Carter Center staff members resign in protest over book

SHEESH!

14 Carter Center staff members resign in protest over book

ATLANTA Fourteen members of a Carter Center board who worked to build support for the human rights organization started by former President Jimmy Carter and his wife have resigned in protest over Carter’s latest book.
The resignations announced today are the latest in a backlash against the former president’s book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” It has drawn fire from Jewish groups, been attacked by fellow Democrats and led to the resignation last month of Kenneth Stein — a Carter Center fellow and a longtime Carter adviser.

The members of the Center’s Board of Councilors wrote of Carter in the letter of resignation — quote — “you have clearly abandoned your historic role of broker in favor of becoming an advocate for one side.”

The book follows the Israeli-Palestinian peace process starting with Carter’s 1977-1980 presidency and the peace accord he negotiated between Israel and Egypt. It doles out blame to Israel, the Palestinians, the United States and others, but it is most critical of Israeli policy.

The 14 who resigned are members of the 200-member board.

The Carter Center’s spokeswoman did NOT have an immediate comment.

___

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We had it (Iraq) right at the beginning…

The Dirty F*&king Hippie Caucus Archived Edition

Billmon goes back into his archives:

But to piece together the truth in those days you had to
scrounge for it, ignore the ignorance and lies pouring out of Donald
Rumfeld’s mouth and defy the prevailing political tide of arrogant
triumphalism. Very few journalists, and even fewer politicians, were
willing to do that. Some in Left Blogistan were (Kos, Needlenose and
Steve Gilliard, among others, also come readily to mind). As a result
we presented a far more accurate picture of the war to our readers than
the corporate media — with a few honorable exceptions — did
to its own. I’m proud enough of that to want to remind the world, and
the moronic media blog bashers in particular, of it…read on

From Crooks and Liars

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“Brainwashed” by President Bush?

Independent UK:

Tony Blair’s “shoulder to shoulder” support for
George Bush has been called into question again by claims that he was
“brainwashed” by President Bush over plans to pull troops out of Iraq.

The Prime Minister returned yesterday from his seven-nation
visit to the Middle East, apparently without achieving any significant
breakthrough in the peace process. [..]The trip has been overshadowed
by a growing perception that Mr Blair’s relationship with President
Bush is very much a “one-way street” in which Britain gets very little
in return for his unwavering public backing for Washington. Even some
Blairites are starting to question the Prime Minister’s stance. They
are appalled that President Bush has refused to honour his 2004 promise
to expend “capital” on the Middle East peace process during his second
term. “He doesn’t cut Tony much slack,” one Blair aide said yesterday.

For someone who is often described as a “lucky” politician,
cabinet ministers believe that Mr Blair was extremely unlucky to have
President Bush in the White House for the past six years.

(Read the rest of this story…)

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Spike Lee has added another two hours to his documentary

RawStory:

Spike Lee has added another two hours to his documentary on the victims of Hurricane Katrina, When the Levees Broke. [now available on DVD, a portion of the proceeds will go directly to victims]

Lee plans to make the film an ongoing project. Future chapters will add coverage of other areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.

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WINGNUTS GONE WILD

WINGNUTS GONE WILD: Hugh Hewitt says, “The Iraqis and the Afghanis are going to be as grateful to Bush as African-Americans are to Lincoln”…Over at The Corner, reality has donned a rubber glove and is probing the depths of John Derbyshire’s political conviction…A rational person looks at our media and sees Fortune 500 corporations.  A crazy person looks and sees willing accomplices of jihadists and suicide bombers…GOP radio host: Send Critics of Dear Leader Bush to Detention Camps

FROM MIKE’S BLOG ROUNDUP ON JOHN AMATO’S EXCELLENT Crooks and Liars

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Information Architects selected CrooksandLiars as one of the Top Blogs of 2006.

Crooks and Liars » 2006 » December » 22:

Information Architects selected CrooksandLiars as one of the  Top Blogs of 2006

IN IRAQ: “…From mid-August to mid-November, the weekly average number of attacks increased 22 percent from the previous three months”

Forbes:

Attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops and Iraqi civilians
jumped sharply in recent months to the highest level since Iraq
regained its sovereignty in June 2004, the Pentagon told Congress on
Monday in the latest indication of that country’s spiraling violence.

In a report issued the same day Robert Gates took over as defense secretary, the Pentagon said that from mid-August to mid-November, the weekly average number of attacks increased 22 percent from the previous three months. The worst violence was in Baghdad and in the western province of Anbar, long the focus of activity by Sunni insurgents.

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Atrios tells CNN: Stop it.

Atrios tells CNN: Stop it.

I’d want more too. I never, ever speak for the troops. They have been used as pawns in the propaganda war and it disgusts me. I have no idea what they are going through and would never presume otherwise

JOHN AMATO in Crooks and Liars

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Eight Marines were charged in the massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif.

Eight Marines were charged Thursday in the massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha last year. At least two were charged with murder. Some of those charged were officers who were not there but were accused of failures in investigating and reporting the deaths.

The highest ranking defendant, Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, was accused of failing to obey an order or regulation, encompassing dereliction of duty.

More on this soon fron NYHS and BB

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At midnight on Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret documents were instantly declassified

Int’l Herald Tribune:

It will be a Cinderella moment for the band of researchers who study the hidden history of American government.

At midnight on Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret
documents will be instantly declassified, including many FBI cold war
files on investigations of people suspected of being Communist
sympathizers. After years of extensions sought by federal agencies
behaving like college students facing a term paper, the end of 2006
means the government’s first automatic declassification of records.

Secret documents 25 years old or older will lose their
classified status without so much as the stroke of a pen, unless
agencies have sought exemptions on the ground that the material remains
secret.

Historians say the deadline, created in the Clinton administration but enforced, to the surprise of some scholars, by the secrecy-prone Bush administration, has had huge effects on public access, despite the large numbers of intelligence documents that have been exempted.

And every year from now on, millions
of additional documents will be automatically declassified as they
reach the 25-year limit, reversing the traditional practice of
releasing just what scholars request.

Many historians had expected President George W. Bush to scrap the deadline. His
administration has overseen the reclassification of many historical
files and restricted access to presidential papers of past
administrations, as well as contemporary records.

[..]Gearing up to review aging records to meet the deadline,
agencies have declassified more than one billion pages, shedding light
on the Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam War and the network of Soviet
agents in the American government.

[..]J. William Leonard, who oversees declassification as head of
the Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives,
said the threat that secret files might be made public without a
security review had sent a useful chill through the bureaucracy.

“Unfortunately, you sometimes need a two-by-four to get agencies
to pay attention,” Leonard said. “Automatic declassification was
essentially that two-by-four.”

Read full article here

Technorati Tags: McCarthy, communist witchhunt, F.B.I.

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All Spin Zone on Haditha and Deborah Howell Controversey

All Spin Zone

Followup: WaPo Ombudsman Responds to Haditha Photo Controversy

I received an unexpected phone call late yesterday afternoon – Deborah Howell, ombudsman for the Washington Post, rang me in response to my article on WaPo’s editorial decision to not run or print some graphic photos from the Haditha, Iraq massacre.

The conversation was quite cordial. I reiterated the concerns that I raised earlier. And I also explained that I understood – truly understood – the desire to avoid controversy with WaPo’s readership, were the photos to be published. However, I explained that the decision would be more understandable if the images were out in the wild, ala Saddam’s hanging. If the images were accessible in some other location, then it would truly be an editorial decision not to offend readers. The problem is: that’s not the case. The Washington Post is apparently the only media organization which has possession of the Haditha massacre photos.

My original arguments stand. Without photographic evidence, how easy would it be for the David Duke contingent & Holocaust deniers to make a credible case that the Holocaust didn’t really happen? The iconic photos from Vietnam that I published in my original article helped change public perception (and by extension, the course) of the Vietnam war. All of these pictures are graphic and horrifying – but they make a point and record history in a way that mere words can not.

Let’s revisit the words from page A14 of this past Sunday’s Washington Post:

…Among the images, there is a young boy with a picture of a helicopter on his pajamas, slumped over, his face and head covered in blood. There is a mother lying on a bed, arms splayed, the bodies of three young children huddled against her right side. There are men with gaping head wounds, and a woman and a child hunkered down on their knees, their hands frozen around their faces as if permanently bracing for an attack.

While the words above provide a graphic description, they are easily forgotten and do not carry the weight of pictures. Page A14 becomes birdcage liner and we move on.

Ms. Howell called me back a second time in the early evening, and told me that she has requested that she be allowed to view the photos. In speaking with her editors, she was told that the pictures are not iconic in nature, and are closer to “morgue shots”. The point is: it doesn’t matter. The pictures were taken in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, and bear witness to a heinous crime in a war that is so very distant from our national psyche. So, almost by default, the pictures become iconic if they impact our perceptions of and conversations about the war in Iraq.

I don’t doubt for a moment that images of a young boy with half his head blown off would be disturbing. Images frozen in time of a murdered mother huddling in fear with her murdered children would make anyone cringe. The images become a Pompeii-type record of the atrocities committed in our country’s name.

On the day that George Bush will be committing tens of thousands more troops and untold billions of dollars in an effort to salvage his legacy and rectify his prior mistakes, we need to cringe as a nation. We need to see what Bush’s commitment is buying. We need to fully understand why the insurgency exists, and why the hatred of U.S. policy runs so deeply with a large segment of the Iraqi population.

As we closed our conversation, Ms. Howell promised me that she would get back to me and give me her opinion after she has viewed the pictures. (It’s also important to note that Ms. Howell doesn’t have the ability to make an editorial decision, but in her position, she can champion for the release of the photos.)

I truly hope that our collective voices on this issue will make a difference. If WaPo’s editorial decision stands, then they should consider, at a minimum, releasing the photos into the wild since the Post is (again, apparently) the only news organization that has the pictures.

If you’d care to express your opinion, Ms. Howell can be reached at:

Deborah Howell
202-334-7582
ombudsman@washpost.com

If you call or write her, be nice, and build a logical case for publishing some or all of the pictures. And when (or if) Ms. Howell gets back to me, I’ll post a followup.
Richard Blair | Wednesday, January 10th, 2007

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“Pajamas Media: The Movie”

“Pajamas Media: The Movie“

Technorati Tags: tool, bush apologists, right wing talking machine, war criminals

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McCain Hires Blog Sockpuppet

MyDD :: McCain Hires Blog Sockpuppet

by Matt Stoller, Thu Dec 21, 2006 

McCain keeps hiring smart staffers (hat tip Bluejersey).

Jill Hazelbaker, battle tested in New Jersey this year as Tom Kean Jr.’s Communications Director, is headed to John McCain’s presidential campaign. She will serve as Communications Director for McCain’s campaign in New Hampshire.

Jill Hazelbaker it seems has a little penchant for posting on liberal blogs and lying about it. Bluejersey is the site that caught her, and the New York Times had the story:

The Internet postings came from people calling themselves “cleanupnj,” “usedtobeblue” and “AmadeusNJ.” They said they were concerned Democrats, “lifelong liberals,” and they were troubled by the United States senator from New Jersey, Robert Menendez…

But the liberal Democratic hosts of BlueJersey.com, the Web log where such comments were posted, smelled something fishy about the postings, and said they traced them to a computer inside the campaign headquarters of Mr. Menendez’s Republican opponent, Thomas H. Kean Jr.

Read this post documenting how often she lied to the press about what happened. It’s actually kind of amazing. There were even blog sockpuppets defending her personally.

My favorite is this one.

Also, you guys are upset about the attacks on Menendez, but isn’t it a little bit hypocritical to then attack his press secretary. Not to mention, Kean is winnng so she must be doing something right. Just my thoughts.

Ah, the last honest man hires the last honest press secretary.

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Last Lennon FBI Files Released

Published Online

A university historian finally forced the FBI to turn in the last 10 documents they had on John Lennon. Jon Weiner, who has waged a 25-year legal battle, immediately posted the documents on his website on Wednesday.

Though some files were released on Weiner’s initial request, the FBI held 10 documents back on national security grounds, claiming that they “can reasonably be expected to … lead to foreign diplomatic, economic and military retaliation against the United States,” according to a government brief filed in 1983.

“The content of the files released today is an embarrassment to the US government,” said Wiener, 62, who has written two books on the late Beatle, “Come Together: John Lennon in His Time” and “Gimme Some Truth: the John Lennon FBI Files.”

“I doubt that Tony Blair’s government will launch a military strike on the US in retaliation for the release of these documents. Today, we can see that the national security claims that the FBI has been making for 25 years were absurd from the beginning,” said Wiener.

The now-released files reveal that then-FBI Director J Edgar Hoover wrote to HR Haldeman, former president Richard Nixon’s chief of staff, that “Lennon had taken an interest in ‘extreme left-wing activities in Britain’ and is known to be a sympathizer of Trotskyist communists in England.”

Another document revealed that Lennon had been courted by British left-wingers but resisted joining any organization and rejected requests for funds to open a book shop “despite a long courtship by Blackburn and Ali.” It had been totally blacked out on the grounds of national security when Wiener obtained it more than 20 years ago through litigation.

Lennon “apparently resisted the attempts of any particular group to secure any hold over him,” the document said. Another page states that there was “no certain proof” that Lennon had provided money “for subversive purposes.” Another describes an interview with Lennon published in 1971 in an underground London newspaper called the Red Mole. “Lennon emphasized his proletarian background and his sympathy with the oppressed and underprivileged people of Britain and the world,” the document says.

Wiener first requested the documents in 1981, several months after he decided to write a book about Lennon following the singer’s murder. Wiener sued the government and received a number of files in 1997 as part of a settlement with the FBI. Wiener lost the initial court skirmishes, but in 1991 he won a major victory in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that declarations filed by FBI agents provided inadequate grounds for keeping the material secret. From that point forward, the court ruled, the FBI had to file “affidavits containing sufficient detail” to allow Wiener to “intelligently advocate” for their release and for a trial judge “to intelligently judge the contest,” reports LA Times.

Justice Department lawyers continued to withhold the final 10 pages until a federal judge in 2004 ordered their release, reports AP. Only one document alludes to Lennon’s music, saying he has “encouraged the belief that he holds revolutionary views [...] by the content of some of his songs.”

“Give Peace a Chance”, recorded in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War, marked Lennon’s transformation from loveable mop-top to anti-war activist, and began a process that culminated in 1972, when the Nixon Administration sought to silence him by ordering him deported from the US.

While his deportation battle was going on, Lennon spoke often against the Vietnam War, appearing at rallies in New York City and on TV shows, including a week hosting the Mike Douglas Show in February 1972, where Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale appeared as his guests. He was tailed by a team of FBI agents, who concluded “Lennon appears to be radically oriented however he does not give the impression he is a true revolutionist since he is constantly under the influence of narcotics,” according to Wikipedia.

In the end, Nixon left the White House in the Watergate scandal, and Lennon stayed in the USA, winning his green card in 1975.

The FBI files on John Lennon were published at www.lennonfbifiles.com

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“We’re not winning, we’re not losing”

Jon Stewart tracks Bush’s clear and consistent message on Iraq
and throws in a Tony “I Don’t Know” Snow instant classic for good measure.

Video WMP  |  Video MOV 

“We’re not winning, we’re not losing….Are we covering the spread?”

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HTTP://BROADCATCHING.WORDPRESS.COM

HTTP://BROADCATCHING.WORDPRESS.COM

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Dog Bites Man

INTENSITY!

peter gabriel – solsbury hill

WOW!

B O N U S

Wilson challenges subpoena in CIA leak case

Wilson challenges subpoena in CIA leak case

 WASHINGTON – Former ambassador Joseph Wilson asked a federal judge Wednesday not to force him to testify in the CIA leak case and accused former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby of trying to harass him on the witness stand.

Libby, who faces perjury and obstruction charges, subpoenaed Wilson as a defense witness this month. Libby’s attorney, William Jeffress, said in court Tuesday that was a precautionary move and he did not expect to put Wilson on the stand.

Libby is accused of lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters regarding Wilson’s wife, outed CIA operative Valerie Plame. Plame and Wilson have sued Libby and other Bush administration officials, accusing them of plotting to leak Plame’s identity as retribution for Wilson’s criticism of prewar intelligence on Iraq.

“Mr. Libby should not be permitted to compel Mr. Wilson’s testimony at trial either for the purpose of harassing Mr. Wilson or to gain an advantage in the civil case,” Wilson’s attorneys wrote.

While Wilson and Plame are at the center of the CIA leak scandal, Wilson is a minor figure in Libby’s perjury trial. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton has sought to keep much of the back story of the leak out of the case.

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The Soggy Biscuit Award

The Soggy Biscuit Award:
A) Lee Seigel and “sprezzatura”, The New Republic “Lee Siegel is a genius”
B) Asorted, “Glenn Greewald is eeeeeeevil”
C) The Wingnutosphere, “James Webb writes kiddie porn!”
D) The Washington Post, “stop being mean to Deborah Howell!”
E) The Wingnutosphere, “John Kerry sez our troops are stoopid!”
F) Assorted, “Bush is a liberal!”
G) The Wingnutosphere, Slightly-more-smokegate
H) Everybody, the great conservative victory in 2006

I’m getting very excited!

Is there to be no honest accounting for the events in Basra?

New Statesman

Is there to be no honest accounting for the events in Basra? Do we simply accept John Reid’s customary arrogance?

Here are questions that are not being asked. Were explosives and a remote-control detonator found in the car of the two SAS men “rescued” from prison in Basra on 19 September? If true, what were they planning to do with them? Why did the British army put out an unbelievable version of the circumstances that led up to armoured vehicles smashing down the wall of a prison?

According to the head of Basra’s governing council, which has co-operated with the British, five civilians were killed by British soldiers. A judge says nine. How much is an Iraqi life worth? Is there to be no honest accounting in Britain for this sinister event? Do we simply accept the customary arrogance of the Defence Secretary, John Reid? “Iraqi law is very clear,” he said. “British personnel are immune from Iraqi legal process.” He omitted to say that this fake immunity was invented by Iraq’s occupiers.

Watching “embedded” journalists in Iraq and London attempting to protect the British line was like watching a satire of the whole atrocity in Iraq. First, there was feigned shock that the Iraqi regime’s “writ” did not run outside its American fortifications in Baghdad and that the “British-trained” police in Basra might be “infiltrated”. Jeremy Paxman wanted to know how two British soldiers – in fact, highly suspicious foreigners dressed as Arabs and carrying a small armoury – could possibly be arrested by Iraqi police. “Aren’t they supposed to be on our side?” he demanded.

Although reported initially by the Times and the Mail, all mention of the explosives allegedly found in the SAS men’s unmarked Cressida vanished from the news. Instead, the story was the danger the men faced if they were handed over to the militia run by the “radical” cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. “Radical” is a gratuitous embedded term; al-Sadr has actually co-operated with the British. What did he have to say about the “rescue”? Quite a lot, none of which was reported in this country. His spokesman Sheikh Hassan al-Zarqani said the SAS men, disguised as al-Sadr’s followers, were planning an attack on Basra ahead of an important religious festival.

“When the police tried to stop them,” he said, “[they] opened fire on the police and passers-by. After a car chase, they were arrested. What our police found in the car was very disturbing – weapons, explosives and a remote-control detonator. These are the weapons of terrorists.”

The episode illuminates the most enduring lie of the Anglo-American adventure. This says the “coalition” is not to blame for the bloodbath in Iraq – which it is, overwhelmingly – and that foreign terrorists orchestrated by al-Qaeda are the real culprits. The conductor of the orchestra, goes this line, is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian. The demonry of al-Zarqawi is central to the Pentagon’s “Strategic Information” programme, set up to shape news coverage of the occupation. It has been the Americans’ single unqualified success. Turn on any news in the US and Britain, and the embedded reporter standing inside an American (or British) fortress will repeat unsubstantiated claims about al-Zarqawi.

Two impressions are the result: that Iraqis’ right to resist an illegal invasion – a right enshrined in international law – has been usurped and de-legitimised by callous foreign terrorists, and that a civil war is under way between the Shias and the Sunnis. A member of the Iraqi National Assembly, Fatah al-Sheikh, said last month: “There is a huge campaign for the agents of the foreign occupiers to enter and plant hatred between the sons of the Iraqi people and spread rumours in order to scare the one from the other. The occupiers are trying to start religious incitement and if it does not happen, then they will try to start an internal Shia incitement.”

The Anglo-American goal of “federalism” for Iraq is part of an imperial strategy of provoking divisions in a country where the communities have long overlapped, even intermarried. The Osama-like promotion of al-Zarqawi is integral to this. Like the Scarlet Pimpernel, he is everywhere but nowhere. When the Americans crushed the city of Fallujah last year, the justification for their atrocious behaviour was “getting those guys loyal to al-Zarqawi”. But the city’s civil and religious authorities denied he was ever there or had anything to do with the resistance.

“He is simply an invention,” said the imam of al-Kazimeya Mosque in Baghdad. “Al-Zarqawi was killed in the beginning of the war in the Kurdish north. His family even held a ceremony after his death.” Whether or not this is true, al-Zarqawi’s “foreign invasion” serves as Bush’s and Blair’s last veil for their “war on terror” and botched attempt to control the world’s second-biggest source of oil.

On 23 September, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, an establishment body, published a report that accused the United States of “feeding the myth” of foreign fighters in Iraqi, who account for less than 10 per cent of a resistance estimated at 30,000. Of the eight comprehensive studies into the number of Iraqi civilians killed by the “coalition”, four put the figure at more than 100,000. Until the British army is withdrawn from where it has no right to be, and those responsible for this monumental act of terrorism are indicted by the International Criminal Court, this country is stained.

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“It hasn’t passed the GW bridge yet.”

Odor Attracts Attention Of Cablers

The cable nets “are making more of this NYC odor than the NY locals,” an e-mailer remarks.

MSNBC was apparently the first to mention the smell at 9:29am. “There are numerous reports at this hour of a gas odor all the way from Battery Park up through midtown,” the anchor said.

But there’s no way to show a smell, so the cable nets tried a variety of tactics. CNN used satellite pictures from Google Earth and wind data from its weather center. MSNBC used a map of New York City. All the cable nets used their standby live shots of the Big Apple. At various points, FNC, CNN and MSNBC each boxed three live shots on screen… as if three pictures were better than one.

FNC was the first net to use the word “terrorism,” at 9:58am, but a guest quickly called it “unlikely.” A graphic on screen later said: “U.S. official: no sign of terrorism at this point.”

On CNBC, Mark Haines on Wall Street asked Liz Claman in Engelwood Cliffs if the odor had reached New Jersey. “Not yet,” she said. “It hasn’t passed the GW bridge yet.”

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How Losers Become Popular

FakeYourSpace: The Blog Herald 

MySpace and Facebook are great social tools that enable people to socialize, meet up, plan events or just find out about what is happening in their best friends life. But for some being inside a social network is a chance to actually become popular, something that is actually harder to do online than off.

But for those whose vanities exceed the realities of online life, and desire to “look cool,” FakeYourSpace can help you out–for a price.

(FakeYourSpace About Page) FakeYourSpace is an exciting new service that enables normal everyday people like me and you to have Hot friends on popular social networking sites such as MySpace and FaceBook. Not only will you be able to see these Gorgeous friends on your friends list, but FakeYourSpace enables you to create customized messages and comments for our Models to leave you on your comment wall. […]

Our basic plan starts at only $.99 This will give you 2 messages per week for 4 weeks.

Although sites like these will probably be ignored by the vast majority of users, there are enough users who can not thrive outside of MySpace or Facebook who will sign up for the service, enabling FakeYourSpace to generate some serious cash on the despair of others.

Since disclosure is not encouraged with this type of business, I wonder if PayPerPost will consider acquiring this vanity affair?

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Here’s an Example of Why Jonah Goldberg Needs To Be Beat-Up:

National Review Online

The Cowboy Way

 In search of a preemption metaphor.

ne of my favorite cartoons in the wake of the 9/11 attack was a picture of a giant Uncle Sam standing against the New York skyline, brushing himself off and rolling up his sleeves. He’d clearly been knocked down by a cheap shot and he was mighty angry about it. If memory serves, he said, over his shoulder and through gnashed teeth, “You shouldn’t have done that.” The meaning was obvious. America was going to the pantry and clearing the shelves of every case of whup-ass in our larder (24 cans per case).

People forget now, but it took awhile to get the cases from the top shelf. We didn’t begin bombing Afghanistan forward into the stone age for about six weeks. And yet, critics of the president were already calling him a cowboy, as if cowboys usually take 45 days to return a punch.

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KEVIN DRUM- “BELTWAY MIND WARP” VICTIM

The Washington Monthly

If an already unpopular President escalates this already unpopular war and the escalation fails… Well, that isn’t political good news for the Republicans.

 Nor is it good news for Democrats who enable them. It isn’t enough to give them the rope to hang themselves, so to speak. That rope is our own brothers and fathers and husbands. (Not to mention all of our money.) In the end, when it comes time to assign blame for the disaster, people will rightly want to know who opposed this mess? Who tried to stop it, and who let them get away with it?

I mean, if you’re really willing to let this horror continue, with more multitudes dying and suffering, just so that the Democrats MIGHT gain some political benefit in the future, then you are just as bad as the warmongers, cynically using the military and the war for your own domestic politics.

Morality? As Kevin said, Bush is Commander in Chief. We can’t stop it anyway. Moral culpability for this war stays with its prosecutors.

No, it does not. It also belongs to those who permit it to happen.

Look, the biggest criticism of the Democrats in DC(per the conventional beltway “wisdom”) is precisely their failure to provide any meaningful opposition to disastrous policies. In particular, the accusation that we don’t believe in anything, and we are willing to go along with anything Bush does because we give up too easily.

You think that throwing up our hands and saying, “well, we can’t stop it, so let’s let them do it some more” is going to magically make people see us as NOT responsible for this mess?

I call bullshit.

Don’t give them an inch. Oppose escalation. Demand withdrawal. Remain consistent, and clearly establish that there is a moral difference between the GOPers who cry for more war and the Dems who oppose them.

And if you waver on this because you are unreasonably afraid of paying a political price, (I say unreasonably because there is NO price to pay opposing an unpopular war) you prove THEIR point that we have no spine and no moral beliefs… and therefore we have no moral basis to criticize the GOP’s future wars.

Again, if domestic politics (and not basic human decency) is the only thing that motivates you, consider that constant opposition to the war and its expansion or escalation IS the smart move politically. Take a moral stand now, so that you can in the future.

Why do you think Hillary’s lost so much support from rank-and-file Dems? Why was support for Kerry so lukewarm? It’s the war, and their initial support for it making their later/future opposition look like so much opportunism.

What was that line about the only way for evil to triumph? Something about the good doing nothing?

If the Dems let them keep doing what they’re doing, KNOWING that it is futile, then they ARE just as culpable. Even if you really can’t stop it, people will remember that you didn’t even try. I sure will.

Take a stand. Show some guts, fercryinoutloud. Nobody respects a quitter- you don’t quit a political fight just because you think it’s unwinnable in the short term because in the long run you’ll lose even bigger. You’ll lose the respect that people have for those who stand up for the right thing, even when they know they’ll lose. Especially then.

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Democrats are so “lost” and “off the cliff” that it makes Joe Klein want to “cry”

Glenn Greenwald

As Digby documented at the time, “liberal MSM journalist” Joe Klein of Time Magazine
also went on Hugh Hewitt’s show and did exactly what Halperin did –
pleaded with Hewitt to recognize Klein as one of the Good Journalists
by lavishly praising the President and the full pantheon of right-wing
icons (proclaiming that Bush is an “honorable man” and “I really like
the guy”; proudly showing off the affectionate nickname the President
gave him; touting his deep friendship with Bill Bennett; and best of
all: “I’ve always really respected Newt, because he’s a man of honor,
and he is a real policy wonk, and he really cares about stuff”).

By
sad and glaring contrast, Klein also sought Hewitt’s approval by
devoting equal attention and energy mimicking right-wing demonization
efforts to bash “the Left” (Democrats have a “black soul” that is
anti-military — Democrats are so “lost” and “off the cliff” that it
makes Klein want to “cry” — Democrats are now “harsh and stupid” –
insisting that he doesn’t want to be called a “liberal” any longer
because he doesn’t want to be associated with people like Al Gore and
Michael Moore (Bill Bennett is great, though, and he loves George
Bush)).

These are the biased leftist titans of the tyrannical,
liberal MSM who persecute the Hugh Hewitts and George Bushs of the
world (from their kneeling position, while dutifully reciting, and
nodding in desperate agreement with, every right-wing talking point).

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More on Mark Halperin’s sad little crusade for right-wing blessings

Unclaimed Territory – by Glenn Greenwald: October 2006:

More on Mark Halperin’s sad little crusade for right-wing blessings

 I honestly didn’t think it was possible for Mark Halperin’s behavior to become any more craven or cringe-inducing than it was during his three-hour submissive inquisition with Hugh Hewitt last night. But I was so wrong. Today, Halperin is very upset — very emotionally distraught — because Hewitt remarked both during and after the interview that he thinks Halperin is “very liberal.” Halperin spent three hours in the interview desperately trying to convince Hewitt that he is on Hewitt’s side, but that wasn’t enough to win Hewitt’s approval. Nonetheless, Halperin is willing — actually, quite eager — to go to still greater and more horrifying lengths to obtain Hewitt’s blessing. First, Halperin e-mailed Hewitt today to again try to persuade Hewitt that he is not a liberal. Hewitt didn’t print the e-mail but wrote about it on his blog, and claimed that Halperin “asked that [Hewitt] apologize for the characterization and remove the description or post” in which he called Halperin “liberal.” Hewitt also quoted Halperin’s e-mail by writing that Halperin “considers the description a ‘a serious affront to [his] professional integrity,’ and requested that I “note [Halperin's] strong objection to [my] characterization.” Unconvinced by Halperin’s pleas both in the interview and again today that he is not a liberal, Hewitt rubbed the comment in Halperin’s face again: “Not only do I think that Mark Halperin is very liberal, I don’t think it is possible to conclude anything else.” In response, Halperin returned to Hewitt yet again, this time to request that Hewitt allow him to post a statement on Hewitt’s blog, in which Halperin expressed how hurt he was that even after he agreed with almost everything Hewitt said during the interview, Hewitt is still calling him a liberal: Dear Hugh, I really enjoyed our radio talk and I appreciated the opportunity to appear with someone I respect so much. I have gotten a lot of positive feedback, mostly from conservatives, including this reaction on Powerlineblog.com. But, as I have said to you privately, I am beginning to think you are intellectually dishonest on a few points.

Pentagon: Iraq Attacks at Highest Level

Forbes.com

Attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops and Iraqi civilians jumped sharply in recent months to the highest level since Iraq regained its sovereignty in June 2004, the Pentagon told Congress on Monday in the latest indication of that country’s spiraling violence.

In a report issued the same day Robert Gates took over as defense secretary, the Pentagon said that from mid-August to mid-November, the weekly average number of attacks increased 22 percent from the previous three months. The worst violence was in Baghdad and in the western province of Anbar, long the focus of activity by Sunni insurgents.

A bar chart in the report to Congress gave no exact numbers but indicated the weekly average had approached 1,000 in the latest period, compared to about 800 per week from the May-to-August period. Statistics provided separately by the Pentagon said weekly attacks had averaged 959 in the latest period.

The report also said the Iraqi government’s failure to end sectarian violence has eroded ordinary Iraqis’ confidence in their future. That conclusion reflects some of the Bush administration’s doubt about the ability of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make the hard decisions U.S. officials insist are needed to quell the violence.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

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Army suicide rates in Iraq and Kuwait rose in 2005

Army suicide rates in Iraq and Kuwait rose in 2005

Stars and Stripes | Jeff Schogol |
December 20, 2006
ARLINGTON, Va.

Army suicide rates in Iraq and Kuwait doubled between 2004 and 2005 but were still below the 2003 rate, officials said Tuesday.

But Armywide, the 2005 saw the highest rate of soldiers taking their own lives since the beginning of the Iraq war, officials said.

Officials spoke about the suicides Tuesday as the Army released a report on the third Mental Health Advisory Team Survey of troops in Iraq. Data for 2006 is not yet available.

In 2005, the number of soldiers in the Iraq theater who killed themselves was 22, double the 2004 figure of 11, but below the 2003 figure of 25, Morales said.

Armywide, the number of reported suicides was 88 in 2005, up from 67 in 2004 and 78 in 2003, said Walter E. Morales, Army suicide prevention manager.

Of the 2005 downrange suicides, five had been deployed more than once, said Dr. (Col.) Edward Crandell, who was in charge of the survey team to Iraq.

Crandell said suicide rates can vary up to 40 percent in a given year.

Asked about the increase in suicides in Iraq and Kuwait between 2004 and 2005, Crandell replied, “There’s no way to predict suicides.”

The Army’s Surgeon General, Dr. (Lt. Gen.) Kevin Kiley, said he does not see a trend in the suicide rates.

“It only takes a few to shift the numbers,” Kiley said.

Kiley said he has no evidence linking suicides with multiple deployments or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, saying most suicides are impulsive decisions.

“In some cases we’ve had young soldiers who will get bad relationship news and walk right into Porta-Potty and end their lives, and no one has an opportunity to intervene,” he said.

Kiley said he is standing up a suicide prevention cell to tackle the problem.

“The cell I am standing up in MEDCOM is to get to MEDCOM, which is my command, more fully engaged with the G-1 to sort these issues out to see if there is something we’re missing; to see if there is some new strategies, either in training, leader training, further reduction in stigma in seeking health care, and frankly, I’m not really ready to discuss it because my staff hasn’t come to me with some new ideas and some ideas initiatives in that regard,” he said.

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George Harrison

Blow Away

Day turned black, sky ripped apart Rained for a year ’til it dampened my heart Cracks and leaks The floorboards caught rot About to go down I had almost forgot.
All I got to do is to love you All I got to be is, be happy All it’s got to take is some warmth to make it Blow Away, Blow Away, Blow Away.
Sky cleared up, day turned to bright Closing both eyes now the head filled with light Hard to remember what a state I was in Instant amnesia Yang to the Yin.
All I got to do is to love you All I got to be is, be happy All it’s got to take is some warmth to make it Blow Away, Blow Away, Blow Away.
Wind blew in, cloud was dispersed Rainbows appearing, the pressures were burst Breezes a-singing, now feeling good The moment had passed Like I knew that it should.
All I got to do is to love you All I got to be is, be happy All it’s got to take is some warmth to make it Blow Away, Blow Away, Blow Away.

Remora fish on the bellies of sharks

4&20 blackbirds:

Heh. bloggers do suck, but i’ld say the analogy that we are like rR picking at the scraps. is only partly true. The missing part of that analogy is where a baracuda pays the shark to not report eat a story fish. Then the remora fish points out that it is the sharks reporters responsibility to do so. Or the part about where the sharks keep merging and merging until they become one huge mega shark that is controlled by a few special interest baracudas and they forget to do their job all together or something like that…

This Just Not In 2

Eat The Press | Harry Shearer: This Just Not In | The Huffington Post:

You know, there were a lot of credible sources out there, including the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who disputed many Bush administration claims about WMD from the beginning, and the most credible ones were careful to distinguish between chemical, biological and nuclear threat analyses. At least some US Senators, including Joe Biden, who voted in favour of the Iraq resolution (for reasons that are worthy of another post!) knew the real scoop on ‘WMD’ and did not buy the administration’s pre-war rhetoric. I guess the moral of this story is simply that if you want to be informed about any complex issue, you cannot and should not rely solely on the media, and certainly not on just two or three sources. We have to take responsiblity for our own enlightenment, particularly in these times, when our own lack of awareness – due to laziness, time constraints, just too many pressing personal concerns about living our own lives – can l 2ead to such dire and fatal consequences as war can bring. My point continues to be that constantly blaming the media for our own lack of critical thinking – common sense, even – on any number of pressing issues of our time is not going to do much to solve the problem of a severely uninformed electorate. By: LizM on December 17, 2006 at 10:04pm

New cover-up claims in WMD dodgy dossier

New cover-up claims in WMD dodgy dossier | News | This is London:

Tony Blair faced fresh accusations of a “cover up” today over his discredited claims about Saddam Hussein’s weapons arsenal. Brian Jones, a former nuclear and biological arms specialist at the Ministry of Defence, reignited the row over the Government’s “dodgy” dossier on Iraq with new claims that Parliament was misled. Dr Jones, the official at the Defence Intelligence Staff who was a key witness at the Hutton Inquiry, revealed that senior intelligence experts had rejected one of the most striking claims in the dossier. While most attention has focused on the claim that Saddam could fire a WMD within “45 minutes”, another key claim about the Iraqi regime speeding up production of biological and chemical agents was also deeply flawed,

… he said. A highly secret MI6 report on the agents was included in the government report in September 2002 even though analysts considered it was “crap” and it had been rejected by them “within hours of seeing it”, Dr Jones revealed in today’s New Statesman. The key piece of intelligence, dubbed “Report X”, was officially rejected as coming from an unreliable source by July 2003, when MI6 formally withdrew it. Mr Blair insists he did not know about the error until after the event, but Mr Jones points out that “any one of a number of officials in various government departments will have known and should have been alert to the danger of Parliament-being misled”. Dr Jones emerged as the “star” witness of the Hutton inquiry when it emerged he was the only official to formally object to intelligence caveats being left out of the dossier in the rush to its publication in the run-up to war. He alleges that MI6 chief John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee at the time of the dossier’s drafting, knew that defence intelligence experts had not approved “Report X”. “I am more convinced than ever that Report X was welcomed in September 2002, not as a particularly valuable piece of new intelligence but as a way to finesse a “sexed-up” dossier past the experts on WMD. The normal intelligence process of sceptical scrutiny was subverted,” he said. “I believe there were experienced intelligence professionals on the JIC who had seen Report X and understood it was not substantial. This means that the Government’s claims [after the Butler Report on the dossier], that the intelligence process needed to be tightened.. .was part of a cover-up intended to blame intelligence rather than policy for the mistake that led us to war.” The Butler Report into the intelligence on Iraq revealed that the source of the last-minute report was discredited. The “sub source” who had allegedly passed on the information denied later to MI6 that he had said any such thing. Lord Butler also found that former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove briefed Mr Blair personally on Report X. He told the Prime Minister that the source remained “unproven”.

“One More Shot” Bill Kristol

General Kristol appeared on The Daily Show last night and Jon Stewart didn’t pull any punches, challenging every single delusional neocon talking point he tried to put forward.

Video WMP | Video MOV

Kristol’s other appearance on the show can be found here (16MB WMV)

General Says Army Will Need To Grow

General Says Army Will Need To Grow – washingtonpost.com:

Warning that the active-duty Army “will break” under the strain of today’s war-zone rotations, the nation’s top Army general yesterday called for expanding the force by 7,000 or more soldiers a year and lifting Pentagon restrictions on involuntary call-ups of Army National Guard and Army Reserve troops.Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, issued his most dire assessment yet of the toll of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the nation’s main ground force. At one point, he banged his hand on a House committee-room table, saying the continuation of today’s Pentagon policies is “not right.” In particularly blunt testimony, Schoomaker said the Army began the Iraq war “flat-footed” with a $56 billion equipment shortage and 500,000 fewer soldiers than during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Echoing the warnings from the post-Vietnam War era, when Gen. Edward C. Meyer, then the Army chief of staff, decried the “hollow Army,” Schoomaker said it is critical to make changes now to shore up the force for what he called a long and dangerous war. “The Army is incapable of generating and sustaining the required forces to wage the global war on terror . . . without its components — active, Guard and reserve — surging together,”

Spocko Rocks ABC! Micky Mouse blinks!

Daily Kos: Spocko Rocks ABC! Micky Mouse blinks! Updated: Spocko jumps in:

 Spocko comments

When I started CallingAllWingnuts, one of the hundreds of bloggers that came by to introduce themselves was Spocko of Spockosbrain (now defunct, for reasons soon to become revealed).  Spocko was doing some work related to my own in his own market in California’s Bay Area.  His target?  KSFO, home of Melanie Morgan, Lee Rogers, Brian Sussman and other poisonous 2nd rate talk show wingers.

Since this is Spocko’s gig, I’m gonna pretty much use his words to explain what’s gone down.  Before the flip, to give you something to chew on as you click to the full story, I can tell you this much:  you’re gonna love what you read.  Spocko has actually cost Disney money – he chased away advertisers and forced them to pay a law firm to intimidate his ISP.  The story isn’t all good though – Spocko’s broke and can’t afford to wage the legal battle, so he’s shut down.  That said, maybe we can use this space to buck up his spirits a little bit and see if there are any lawyers that want to file a Rule 11 motion against Disney’s unscrupulous lawyers…

anyway, flip for the complete story.

CSS Cheat Sheet:

CSS Cheat Sheet:

11 most outrageous conservative comments of 2006

Truthdig – A/V Booth – Weekly Video Roundup:

Media Matters has collected, stomached and ranked the 11 most outrageous conservative comments of 2006, including Rush Limbaugh blaming America’s obesity crisis on the left and Ann Coulter calling Al Gore a “total fag.” Glenn Beck Watch it

Plus BONUS

PETER GABRIEL -DOWNSIDE UP on Jools Holland

 

Tom Donahue is possibly the most powerful business lobbyist in D.C.

AlterNet: It’s hard to precisely define the political establishment, the fixed group of financiers, political operatives, journalists, and politicians who make up the swirl of right-wing power in Washington D.C. But if it’s not always simple to define in its totality, one man stands out as an innovative and particularly venal power broker: Thomas Donahue, President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In a lot of ways, the new challenge after the 2006 elections for the progressive movement boils down to finding the unethical and unaccountable purveyors of systemic corruption and rooting them out. It is these forces that put Bush in the White House and reelected him. It is these forces that corrupt both parties. It is these forces that are going to fight tooth and nail to defeat the Democratic majority, while attempting to also corrupt it from within.

Fortunately, in this case, we can put a face to the force. Tom Donahue is possibly the most powerful business lobbyist in D.C. Most recently, he has been pushing aggressively to weaken the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was passed in the wake of the Enron scandal to ensure corporate accountability and protect investors. And right now, he’s reeling, because he’s been caught in an unethical stock scandal of his own.

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One senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Bush ‘to reveal Iraq troop boost’:

Bush ‘to reveal Iraq troop boost’ By Justin Webb BBC News, Washington US President George W Bush intends to reveal a new Iraq strategy within days, the BBC has learnt. The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq to focus on ways of bringing greater security, rather than training Iraqi forces. The move comes with figures from Iraqi ministries suggesting that deaths among civilians are at record highs.

 The US president arrived back in Washington on Monday after a week-long holiday at his ranch in Texas. The BBC was told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush’s Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week. Its central theme will be sacrifice. The speech, the BBC has been told, involves increasing troop numbers. The exact mission of the extra troops in Iraq is still under discussion, according to officials, but it is likely to focus on providing security rather than training Iraqi forces. The proposal, if it comes, will be highly controversial. Already one senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland.

The need to find some way of pacifying Iraq has been underlined by statistics revealed by various ministries in the Iraqi government, suggesting that well over 1,000 civilians a month are dying.

The Giuliani presidential campaign charges: “dirty trick”

New York Daily News – Home – ‘This is clearly a dirty trick’

‘This is clearly a dirty trick’Giuliani camp says dossier was taken,
copied & returned

BY DAVID SALTONSTALLand BEN SMITH
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Rudy Giuliani publicly says he has not decided to run for the White House, but the 140-page dossier details possible hurdles and a fund-raising strategy.
The fledgling Giuliani presidential campaign charged yesterday that it was the victim of a mysterious “dirty trick” in the theft of the former mayor’s political road map for 2008.

The astonishing charge threatened to overshadow the candid details in the 140-page strategy guide obtained by the Daily News from a source sympathetic to a rival campaign.

“This is clearly a dirty trick,” said Giuliani spokeswoman Sunny Mindel. “The voters are sick and tired of this kind of thing.”

Mindel said that while working on the 2006 campaign trail, a Giuliani aide lost a piece of luggage containing the paper.

“During one leg of his campaign travel, all luggage was removed from a private plane and later put back on,” she said in a statement. “However, one staffer’s bag was not returned.

“After repeated requests over the course of a few days, the bag was finally returned with the document inside”

“Because our staffer had custody of this document at all times except for this one occasion, it is clear that the document was removed from the luggage and photocopied.”

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Cheney On Libby Witness List

Cheney On Libby Witness List:

Vice President Dick Cheney will be called as a defense witness in the CIA leak case, an attorney for Cheney’s former chief of staff told a federal judge Tuesday. “We’re calling the vice president,” attorney Ted Wells said in court. Wells represents defendant I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who is charged with perjury and obstruction. Early last week, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said he did not expect the White House to resist if Cheney or other administration officials are called to testify in Libby’s trial, expected to begin in January…. Cheney, who would be the trial’s most anticipated witness, has said he may be called to testify. If so, prosecutors could ask how the White House responded to Wilson’s criticisms. Cheney was upset by Wilson’s comments, Fitzgerald has said, and told Libby that Plame worked for the CIA. That conversation is a key to Fitzgerald’s perjury case. Libby testified that he learned about Plame’s job from a reporter. Cheney could also help prosecutors undermine Libby’s defense that he was so preoccupied with national security matters, he forgot details about the less-important Plame issue. Prosecutors argue that Plame was a key concern of the vice president, and thus would have been important to Libby.

In-camera Editing

Videography Basics – In-camera Editing:

In-camera Editing Most of the time, when videographers shoot tape, they do it with the thought in mind that they’ll edit the pictures later. But sometimes deadline pressures or other constraints make it difficult to do post-production editing. In those cases, videographers can “edit in the camera.” That means planning in advance what shots could tell the desired story and then shooting only those shots in that order. This style of shooting might not result in a perfect product, but the finished tape is much more interesting to watch than one that was shot without a plan.

Poll: Hillary tops McCain, ties Rudy

Newsday.com: Poll: Hillary tops McCain, ties Rudy:

BY GLENN THRUSH Newsday Washington Bureau December 18, 2006, 11:28 PM EST WASHINGTON – Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton beats John McCain and ties Rudolph Giuliani in a new Newsweek national poll, a stunning counterpoint to recent surveys showing the former first lady trailing the GOP’s dueling presidential frontrunners. The poll, taken earlier this month, shows Clinton besting McCain 50 to 43 percent among 1,000 registered voters nationwide. It also showed her in a dead heat with McCain among independents, a group that has proven stubbornly resistant to her centrist message. Clinton leads Giuliani — her onetime Senate nemesis — by a 48 to 47 margin, a technical tie that falls within the poll’s 4 percent margin of error. Clinton came within a hair’s breadth of renouncing her October 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq invasion Monday, telling NBC “Today” show anchor Meredith Vieira that she wouldn’t have voted yes if President George W. Bush had leveled with the American people about Saddam Hussein’s limited weapons arsenal.

It’s good to see Bill Moyers…

Crooks and Liars » 2006 » December » 19:

Save The Internet: Net NeutralityNew spot…

it’s good to see Bill Moyers…

Few Iraqis Are Gaining U.S. Sanctuary – New York Times

Few Iraqis Are Gaining U.S. Sanctuary – New York Times:
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and ROBERT F. WORTH BAGHDAD,
Jan. 1 —

With thousands of Iraqis desperately fleeing this country every day, advocates for refugees, and even some American officials, say there is an urgent need to allow more Iraqi refugees into the United States. Until recently the Bush administration had planned to resettle just 500 Iraqis this year, a mere fraction of the tens of thousands of Iraqis who are now believed to be fleeing their country each month. State Department officials say they are open to admitting larger numbers, but are limited by a cumbersome and poorly financed United Nations referral system. “We’re not even meeting our basic obligation to the Iraqis who’ve been imperiled because they worked for the U.S. government,” said Kirk W. Johnson, who worked for the United States Agency for International Development in Falluja in 2005. “We could not have functioned without their hard work, and it’s shameful that we’ve nothing to offer them in their bleakest hour.” Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat who is taking over the immigration, border security and refugee subcommittee, plans hearings this month on America’s responsibility to help vulnerable Iraqis. An estimated 1.8 million Iraqis are living outside Iraq. The pace of the exodus has quickened significantly in the past nine months. Some critics say the Bush administration has been reluctant to create a significant refugee program because to do so would be tantamount to conceding failure in Iraq. They say a major change in policy could happen only as part of a broader White House shift on Iraq. “I don’t know of anyone inside the administration who sees this as a priority area,”

Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment

Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment – New York Times:

December 18, 2006 Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment By MICHAEL MOSS

One night in mid-April, the steel door clanked shut on detainee No. 200343 at Camp Cropper, the United States military’s maximum-security detention site in Baghdad. American guards arrived at the man’s cell periodically over the next several days, shackled his hands and feet, blindfolded him and took him to a padded room for interrogation, the detainee said. After an hour or two, he was returned to his cell, fatigued but unable to sleep. The fluorescent lights in his cell were never turned off, he said. At most hours, heavy metal or country music blared in the corridor. He said he was rousted at random times without explanation and made to stand in his cell. Even lying down, he said, he was kept from covering his face to block out the light, noise and cold. And when he was released after 97 days he was exhausted, depressed and scared. Detainee 200343 was among thousands of people who have been held and released by the American military in Iraq, and his account of his ordeal has provided one of the few detailed views of the Pentagon’s detention operations since the abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. Yet in many respects his case is unusual. The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading. But when American soldiers raided the company at his urging, Mr. Vance and another American who worked there were detained as suspects by the military…

Carter back in the 70s (the killer rabbit); Dukakis in the 80s (tank); Clinton in the 90s (haircut)

The Washington Monthly:

Yes, and even little ole jim had it right with Carter back in the 70s (the killer rabbit); Dukakis in the 80s (tank); Clinton in the 90s (haircut).
The MSM go along for the frivolous ride sometimes. And, no, I cannot think of comparable example in their treatment of Republican nominees.
The idea to paint the opponent as someone who cannot be entirely trusted because they are rather…. odd somehow. And the oddity must be due to personal problems. This strategy works best with a relatively unknown person, somebody who is a blank slate. You get to paint them as an oddball.

654,965 (at least 392,979 and as many as 942,636) Iraqi civilians had been killed in the occupation

Unknown News | Casualties in Afghanistan & Iraq :

Estimate of Iraqi civilian deaths is based on this study, published in Britain’s most respected medical journal The Lancet in October 2006. The study concluded that 654,965 (at least 392,979 and as many as 942,636) Iraqi civilians had been killed in the occupation, in addition to deaths expected from Iraq’s normal death rate.

US authorities, including President Bush himself, have loudly complained that the study is based on “flawed methodology” and “pretty well discredited,” but as often happens when Bush speaks, that’s simply untrue. The study, conducted by Johns Hopkins University, used standard, widely accepted, peer-reviewed scientific methodology. Explained very briefly, Iraqi respondants in numerous randomly selected locations were asked about recent deaths in their households, and family members were able to show a death certificate to document 80% of the deaths they described. Results from these interviews were extrapolated nationwide, the same way political opinion polls extrapolate a few hundred interviews to reflect nationwide opinions. It’s the same method used by the US Centers for Disease Control to estimate deaths from disease outbreak anywhere in the world, the same method routinely trusted by the US and UK when counting deaths from warfare, civil unrest, or other situations anywhere in the world.

Based on the study’s estimate of 654,965 deaths occurring over the first 40 months of occupation, we have extended this rate of civilian deaths (16,374 deaths per month) over subsequent months of the occupation since the study was published. Of course, we will adjust this figure when more accurate or credible information becomes available.

. US and coalition military deaths and US military injuries in Iraq are announced by US Department of Defense and CENTCOM, and tracked by the good folks at Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. Our heading “seriously injured” reflects DoD listing of injuries described as “Wounded in action, [did] not return to duty within 72 hours,” and excludes injuries wherein troops return to duty within 72 hours.

The officially-announced number of US injuries is deceptive, however, because the US military does not include in its figures service members who are evacuated “from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries or illnesses not caused directly by enemy bullets or bombs.” This would leave out, for example, soldiers sickened by radiation or injured in transport accidents.

According to this article by Salon reporter Mark Benjamin, an additional 25,289 service members had been evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries or illnesses, but not included in the official numbers. Based on Salon’s article, dated December 2005 and including injuries through the first 34 months of occupation, we have extrapolated this rate of un-reported military injuries (743 injuries per month) over subsequent months of the extended occupation. Of course, we will adjust this figure when more accurate or credible information becomes available.

Coalition injuries are not tracked, and posted number reflects an estimate, per ratios explained below.

. US and coalition civilian deaths in Iraq are tracked by Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

Where no credible data on serious injuries to citizens or troops has been made public, our rough estimate uses a conservative, historically-based ratio of 3:1 (serious injuries to fatalities) for troops, 1.8:1 for civilians.

Deaths and injuries included are generally only those resulting directly from military actions — bombs, missiles, bullets, etc. Civilians’ deaths and injuries from the chaos of Afghan and Iraqi day-to-day life after the invasions, from disease, from malnutrition, from depleted uranium, from post-traumatic stress disorder, and other incidental effects of warfare are not included.

Numbers are updated often, so if you find more recent or more credible numbers, please let us know. Our email address is unknownnews at inbox.com.

3. @#$%*&
4. Dick Cheney’s Google Searches: On The Web: vanityfair.com:

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HDL fried onion rings
HDL freedom fries
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Google Maps: tora bora
Google Maps: cheney house
Google Maps: cheney maryland
birdshot pellet removal
quail hunting “involuntary manslaughter”
hunting accident manslaughter
hunting accident manslaughter pleas
firearms disposal
smoking gun
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ahmadinejad members only beige jacket
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lynne cheney MySpace
mary cheney MySpace
mullah omar MySpace
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iraq exit strategy
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Is there nothing Neocons won’t politicize?

Crooks and Liars »

This is absolutely ridiculous.

 Flynt Leverett — former CIA analyst, NSC member and established foreign policy expert — has written an op-ed for the NYT bashing the Bush admin. for it’s failed policies towards Iran. The WH, in typical ruthless and authoritarian form, has pressured the CIA to heavily redact his draft on the grounds that it would reveal national security secrets — something the CIA disagrees with — and have even threatened him with criminal prosecution. Leverett, visibly distraught at his press conference today, has countered that this claim is a “fraudulent” and deliberate attempt to silence a respected critic by politicizing the CIA review process.

Video WMP | Video MOV

“It is fraudulent. It is an abuse of the pre-publication review process to silence an established critic of their policies at a time when they are under maximum political pressure to change those disastrous policies.”

Leverett’s full report can be found here (.pdf). The Washington Note has more, including an official statment from Leverett. I wonder when the swiftboating will begin? Tony Snow was asked about it at todays briefing and, like usual, he played dumb.

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