My Current Anthem
Sporadic posting over dialup on the weekend.
Pearl Jam covering Dylan below the fold.
Have a nice day.
August 22, 2008
August 18, 2008
I Can Hardly Believe It
American advisors in Georgia:
U.S. military trainers — the only American boots on the ground — say the Georgian soldiers they knew who were sent to battle the Russians had fighting spirit but were not ready for war.
The Georgians were "beginning to walk, but by no means were they running," said Army Capt. Jeff Barta, who helped train a Georgian brigade for peacekeeping service in Iraq. "If that was a U.S. brigade it would not have gone into combat."
Not that more training would have helped against far superior weaponry and air power of the Russian bear.
August 07, 2008
Base-Ten Number Alert!
Because we only seem to pay attention when the mile markers are reached:
...in June, the war in Afghanistan roared back into public view when American deaths from hostilities exceeded those in Iraq. In the face of an expanding threat from the Taliban, the conflict is becoming deadlier and much more violent for American troops, who three weeks ago reached their highest deployment levels ever, at 36,000.
June was the second deadliest month for the military in Afghanistan since the war began, with 23 American deaths from hostilities, compared with 22 in Iraq.
The Soviets spent a decade fighting the mujahideen and all they got out of it was...the Vietnam lesson.
I would think we would have learned that one by now.
August 04, 2008
Budgetary Discussions?
Don't forget to mention the elephant in the room....
(Tip to Crooks and Liars!)
July 10, 2008
Rocketry in the News
Iran has its rockets:
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards test-fired nine missiles in war-game maneuvers on Wednesday, including at least one the government in Tehran described as having the range to reach Israel.
Of course, should one of those missiles ever hit Israel, Tehran would probably disappear. That's the way it is with MAD.
Those rockets don't really concern me, however. I don't think the Iranians are that stupid, frankly.
There are rockets that do concern me, however:
Suspected Shiite militiamen have begun using powerful rocket-propelled bombs to attack U.S. military outposts in recent months, broadening the array of weapons used against American troops.
U.S. military officials call the devices Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions, or IRAMs. They are propane tanks packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives and powered by 107mm rockets. They are often fired by remote control from the backs of trucks, sometimes in close succession. Rocket-propelled bombs have killed at least 21 people, including at least three U.S. soldiers, this year.
If there's one thing humanity is good at, it is innovation in methods of killing other humans.
Good thing that surge is working, right?
July 08, 2008
Random Iran Readings
All in the space of a couple of hours I learn that Israel isn't going to attack Iran:
The US did not give the green light for an Israeli attack on Iran, Prof. Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon official and currently the top defense analyst at the ABC TV network, said Monday.
I learned that Iran is ready to strike back, almost randomly but not, if it does get attacked:
Iran will hit Tel Aviv, U.S. shipping in the Gulf and American interests around the world if it is attacked over its disputed nuclear activities, an aide to Iran's Supreme Leader was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
"The first bullet fired by America at Iran will be followed by Iran burning down its vital interests around the globe," the students news agency ISNA quoted Ali Shirazi as saying in a speech to Revolutionary Guards.
Please keep in mind that Israeli bullets=American bullets for the purpose of this demonstration.
Then I learned that (at least) some people seem to prepare for the future:
A senior Iranian military official said on Sunday the Islamic republic is digging some 320,000 graves in its border provinces for future slain invaders, Iran's English-language satellite channel Press TV reported.
Iran's Armed Forces headquarters has approved the plan to dig graves for enemy forces in case of any attack on its territory, said Brigadier General Mir-Faisal Baqerzadeh, head of the Foundation for the Remembrance of the Holy Defense.
"We do not wish the families of enemy soldiers to experience what Americans had to go through in the aftermath of the Vietnam War," said Baqerzadeh, who is also head of Iran's search committee for missing soldiers.
This whole brinksmanship pissing contest is really starting to annoy me.
June 20, 2008
This Is Dedicated to the CM-IC*
*Congressional Military-Industrial Complex, that is...
June 17, 2008
Here's Your Legacy, Mr. President
...and may god have mercy on your soul for it:
In a home movie, 1st Sgt. Jeff McKinney sings softly to his new son while his wife, Chrissi, gives the baby a bath. McKinney teases tiny Jeremy about this, his first nude video.
Someday, McKinney says, the family will show off the footage to Jeremy’s first girlfriend.
“Cause that’s how our parents did us,” McKinney sing-songs. “You’ll be 15, 16 years old, and you have your first date ... .”
It won’t ever play out that way, though. The McKinneys made the movie during his two weeks of home leave halfway through what was supposed to be a 15-month Iraq war deployment. He spent the break bonding with his new son and talking to his 18-year-old son, James, about going to college.
But everything changed July 11 in the bright sunshine of Adhamiyah, Iraq. That day, while out on a simple meet-and-greet patrol, McKinney stepped out of his Humvee and yelled.
“F--- this!”
He raised the barrel of his M4 to his chin and squeezed off one shot.
Read the rest here.
June 12, 2008
Special Comment Tonight
Keith is going to have a Special Comment tonight.
I'll decide later if I'm going to put it up here.
You will find out how I feel about it, regardless.
June 11, 2008
The Times Gets an Interview
...so let's see what our president has to say:
President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq.
*
“I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.”
Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive”, he said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”.
Wow...It's almost like a President Bush that we didn't know.
That we didn't know because he didn't exist until this interview.
Bush, 1999:
“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”
...and he wants a pony, too.
So how many "men of peace" have a record of reviewing executions and:
routinely denied last-ditch pleas for clemency on execution day by systematically hearing no evidence, seeing no evidence, and sealing himself away from any tragic possibility that any evil was done at all.
There's still a word for it, folks: Sociopath.
June 10, 2008
The Real Elephant in the Room
When I hear the conservative side of our government talk about government mismanagement and waste and bridges to nowhere, I have to laugh to keep from crying.
If only because the pipeline of our money to Iraq/Afghanistan has a broken valve somewhere:
A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.
For the first time, the extent to which some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding has been researched by the BBC's Panorama using US and Iraqi government sources.
A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.
The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.
War profiteering
While George Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.
To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.
The president's Democrat opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.
Henry Waxman who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, its egregious.
"It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."
Move along...nothing to see here...
June 06, 2008
In Honor of Those Who Served
Today was the beginning of the end, with all due respect to Churchill's call two years prior:
On this day in 1944, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the go-ahead for largest amphibious military operation in history: Operation Overlord, code-named D-Day, the Allied invasion of northern France.
By daybreak, 18,000 British and American parachutists were already on the ground. At 6:30 a.m., American troops came ashore at Utah and Omaha beaches. At Omaha, the U.S. First Division battled high seas, mist, mines, burning vehicles-and German coastal batteries, including an elite infantry division, which spewed heavy fire. Many wounded Americans ultimately drowned in the high tide. British divisions, which landed at Gold, and Sword beaches, and Canadian troops, landing at Juno beach, also met with heavy German fire, but by the end of the day they were able to push inland.
Despite the German resistance, Allied casualties overall were relatively light. The United States and Britain each lost about 1,000 men, and Canada 355. Before the day was over, 155,000 Allied troops would be in Normandy. However, the United States managed to get only half of the 14,000 vehicles and a quarter of the 14,500 tons of supplies they intended on shore.
June 03, 2008
Good Idea Gone Bad
Pretend for a moment that you've returned from a (another?) tour of combat duty and the experience has rewired your brain in a odd way. Maybe you were ambushed, maybe someone 28' away blew up, or maybe the ground exploded as you were out on patrol.
Whatever it was, it ended up with you being diagnosed with PSTD and you get to spend your first 8 or so months back on American soil at the Soldier and Family Assistance Center in Georgia. So far, so good, right?
Army Sgt. Jonathan Strickland sits in his room at noon with the blinds drawn, seeking the sleep that has eluded him since he was knocked out by the blast of a Baghdad car bomb.
Like many of the wounded soldiers living in the newly built "warrior transition" barracks here, the soft-spoken 25-year-old suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. But even as Strickland and his comrades struggle with nightmares, anxiety and flashbacks from their wartime experiences, the sounds of gunfire have followed them here, just outside their windows.
Across the street from their assigned housing, about 200 yards away, are some of the Army infantry's main firing ranges, and day and night, several days each week, barrages from rifles and machine guns echo around Strickland's building. The noise makes the wounded cringe, startle in their formations, and stay awake and on edge, according to several soldiers interviewed at the barracks last month. The gunfire recently sent one soldier to the emergency room with an anxiety attack, they said.
What. The. Frak.
I just don't know what to say anymore...
June 01, 2008
The Stink We're In Over There
If you're not reading NewsHoggers, you're missing out on some excellence in blogging.
I'm just saying.
For example, today's post about Iraq simply states some realities we, as a nation, hate to face up to:
The Washington Times Post editorial today writes that "the U.S.-backed government and army may be winning the war" in Iraq, following reports that the month of may saw the lowest US casualty count - 19 - since the beginning of the occupation. Iraqi civilian deaths are down from 2007 highs too - although only to 2005 levels that were sufficient to cause the collapse of Iraqi society - while recent high-profile offensives by the US military and the Iraqi security forces have enabled supporters of the occupation to claim exactly what the WaPo editors are, that the war is being won.
But the war ended in 2003. This is an occupation ,and an occupation is only won when the occupiers go home and the nation is at peace.
The trouble is going to be our collective conscience when we leave and the killing that is natural for a civil war continues in a lopsided fashion.
...but history being what history is, eventually more people will come to realize the truth:
There's a 'war' between Iraqi factions that still hasn't been decided. There's a proxy 'war' between Iran and the US that seems to be a draw with no end in sight so far. Both are part of a combined anarchy of occupation and civil strife that means Iraq as a whole will be traumatised for years to come. Let's not forget that these conflicts are in large part due to the quickly-won invasion and the botched first five years of the occupation. High fives are certainly not in order.
I can only imagine about what the future lunatic fringe will be saying about how the war was lost by the left, etc....
Frank Rich Sunday!
Almost right off the bat, Frank tells me why I'm already bored with Scotty & the book:
There is no news in his book, hardly the first to charge that the White House used propaganda to sell its war and that the so-called liberal media were “complicit enablers” of the con job. The blowback by the last Bush defenders is also déjà vu. The claims that Mr. McClellan was “disgruntled,” “out of the loop,” two-faced, and a “sad” head case are identical to those leveled by Bush operatives (including Mr. McClellan) at past administration deserters like Paul O’Neill, Richard Clarke, John DiIulio and Matthew Dowd.
So why the fuss?
Why, indeed - Well:
Americans don’t like being lied to by their leaders, especially if there are casualties involved and especially if there’s no accountability. We view it as a crime story, and we won’t be satisfied until there’s a resolution.
That’s why the original sin of the war’s conception remains a political flash point, however much we tune out Iraq as it grinds on today. Even a figure as puny as Mr. McClellan can ignite it.
That's the drum to beat in this election cycle and it's got to be as merciless a drumbeat as the selling of this war used.
Again...Why?
As F. Scott Fitzgerald would have it, we will be borne back ceaselessly into the past. Or so we will be as long as Americans continue to die in Iraq and as long as politicians like Mr. Bush, Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton refuse to accept responsibility for their roles, major and minor, in abetting this national tragedy.
Bingo, Frank.
May 31, 2008
Mission Accomplished!
We've known it for a while now:
"WE'RE not leaving, so long as I'm the President." There in nine words is the exit strategy for the United States involvement in Iraq. Depending on your viewpoint, it's either a commitment or an admission of defeat.
That's been the sole reason for continuing our occupation of Iraq, regardless of whatever else seemed to happen or not.
And now the intelligence community is backing him up - again:
Previewing the world for the next U.S. president, a top U.S. intelligence official this week predicted that the Bush administration would make little progress before leaving office on top national security priorities including an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, political reconciliation in Iraq and keeping Iran from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.
A regenerated al-Qaeda will remain the leading terrorism threat, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Donald M. Kerr said. Pakistan's "inward" political focus and failure to control the tribal territories where al-Qaeda maintains a haven, he said, is "the number one thing we worry about."
Meanwhile, the misdirected Iraq meatgrinder continues....
It truly is a bit frustrating.
May 29, 2008
Citizens Have Rights
In the U.K., for example:
A citizen's arrest can be carried out under certain circumstances by a member of the public, if they believe a person had carried out a crime, under the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.
The humour comes when you find out the reason I have that paragraph from the story:
John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, has escaped an attempted citizen's arrest as he appeared at the Hay Festival.
That's the kind of fun awaiting a few of our current employees in the executive branch if they travel outside of the U.S., I guess.
In my dreams, it could happen within our borders, as well.
May 27, 2008
Memorial Day, Part III
I read far too many cartoon strips each and every day.
It's nice when they point out some truth, though, and I look for those things.
For example, Frazz.
May 26, 2008
Memorial Day, Part II
You may never have heard of Sheldon Adelson. He's one of the quiet billionaires in the country today.
You may not agree with everything the man has done:
In 2007 Adelson founded Freedom's Watch, a group that advocates America's continued involvement in the war in Iraq, and is run and supported, in part, by former officials of the Bush administration.
I certainly don't in every case.
But the man does, occasionally, have his heart in the right place:
All too familiar with the gambles of war, Jimmy Kinsey, Kyle Riley and a few dozen fellow soldiers landed in the desert. But for these guys this Memorial Day, the most at stake is a few bucks.
The soldiers-turned-high rollers took a private jet to Las Vegas over the weekend for an all-expenses-paid getaway with all the perks normally saved for casinos' richest regulars.
They were greeted at the airport by Wayne Newton, chilled backstage with the guys from Blue Man Group and hobnobbed with Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul who runs Las Vegas Sands Corp. and paid for the trip.
The trip, organized by the Armed Forces Foundation, brought 40 wounded soldiers from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md., to the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
It's a nice gesture, of course, but I would certainly hope that this is not held up as an example of how all of our returning warriors are being cared for.
There is, as Kirk said, still a lot of work to to in that regard.
So let's get on that, OK?
May 25, 2008
Frank Rich: Theatre Critic
I've never seen South Pacific but Frank has and knows how the stories about war can often be passed from conflict to conflict with only a few changes in details:
Watching “South Pacific” now, we’re forced to contemplate Iraq, which we’re otherwise pretty skilled at avoiding. Most of us don’t have family over there. Most of us long ago decided the war was a mistake and tuned out. Most of us have stopped listening to the president who ginned it up. This month, in case you missed it, he told an interviewer that he had made the ultimate sacrifice of giving up golf for the war’s duration because “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf.”
“South Pacific” reminds us that those whose memory we honor tomorrow — including those who served in Vietnam — are always at the mercy of the leaders who send them into battle. It increases our admiration for the selflessness of Americans fighting in Iraq. They, unlike their counterparts in World War II, do their duty despite answering to a commander in chief who has been both reckless and narcissistic. You can’t watch “South Pacific” without meditating on their sacrifices for this blunderer, whose wife last year claimed that “no one suffers more” over Iraq than she and her husband do.
"...those whose memory we honor tomorrow — including those who served in Vietnam — are always at the mercy of the leaders who send them into battle." That can certainly be a problem once the leaders start showing certain...tendencies.
Have a safe holiday.
May 23, 2008
Understatement of the Day
Kirk sent me an article:
Audit finds lax oversight in contractor payments
An internal audit of some $8 billion paid to U.S. and Iraqi contractors found that nearly every transaction failed to comply with federal laws or regulations aimed at preventing fraud, in some cases lacking even basic invoices explaining how the money was spent.
Of the money paid during a five-year period — from 2001 through 2006 — $7.8 billion in payments skirted billing rules with some violations egregious enough to invite potential fraud, warned the Defense Department's inspector general.
The findings provided fresh fodder for anti-war Democrats, who say the Bush administration has turned a blind eye to the problem of corruption and fraud by relying too heavily on contractors to manage the war.
Kirk: I disagree with the third paragraph. The administration didn't turn a blind eye, they actively encouraged and fired whistleblowers.
I'm assuming that Kirk meant that the administration actively encouraged the lax oversight and got rid of people pointing out the obvious sacking of the U.S. Treasury.
True enough for me to post that alone, but Kirk probably realizes, himself, that it's all going according to plan.
The class war is over, the rich won, and they will continue their own plan for income and wealth redistribution on their own terms and for their own benefit.
May 20, 2008
Wow
I'm speechless.
Pundit Rationality
It is refreshing to see once in a while. Bob Herbert has been consistently rational through a lot of the insanity, inanity, and horrors of the past few years.
Reading his latest column, Let's Be Serious, from the NYTimes, I had quite a few reactions. If you would like to read the column itself, click on the link and read it (relatively) undisturbed.
So let's take a look at it, shall we? I've gone light/nonexistent on links on this as I was typing somewhat furiously. If you've got questions, you've also got Google.
May 16, 2008
Knesset-ing & Telling
Regardless of how idiotic and possibly (politically) treasonous the President's words were in Israel yesterday, it has certainly brought about opinion.
Larisa Alexandroyna of The Huffington Post was/is...incensed:
Dear Mr. Bush,
Your speech on the Knesset floor today was not only a disgrace; it was nothing short of treachery. Worse still, your exploitation of the Holocaust in a country carved out of the wounds of that very crime, in order to strike a low blow at American citizens whose politics differs from your own is unforgivable and unpardonable.
...and that is perfectly understandable of a United States citizen. Outrage is healthy and keeps a person focused.
Hell, when an archeologist looks back on this era of our nation, it will hard to dispute her.
But, of course, we live here now, so perhaps a more...objective view is necessary:
No, (probably) even Bush's speechwriters aren't so crass as to make such a blindingly partisan move in the American electoral race when their dummy is acting as Head of State of both Democratic and Republican Americans at a major international event. We need to look beyond purely domestic motivations - and we'll find them in the aspirations and dreams of the neoconservative lobby and their Very Serious Person enablers in the media.
Cernig goes on with his/the theory - A Wink And A Nod - and there is certainly a point to be made there.
My own thought is that the people who have been driving the President so far probably thought they could get away with it - Look at the job they've been doing so far, right? Speaking of the job done so far, I doubt that the Israelis would start OR stop a job that needed doing on the say-so of the United States.
So my verdict remains unchanged through the Knesset-times.
My president is an inarticulate speech-reader trying to live up to daddy's reputation.
...and daddy's reputation isn't all that clean, although admittedly unverified.
May 14, 2008
Our War Dead
Thanks again go to jp at Pottersville:
Doug Feith Is A Moron, It Seems
I watched the edited-down version on The Daily Show this morning.
Here's the Full Interview.
May 12, 2008
Basic Human Dignity
Apparently that's too much for our fallen troops to ask for.
Thanks to jurassicpork for bringing this to my attention:
Now we come to find out the Pentagon contracted a pet crematorium to cremate the freight that is our war dead. The pet crematorium is near Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where our fallen troops arrive before their remains are sent home.
...but I bet they got a great deal...