This could should be ...

... on every blog in blogtopia and the blogosphere:

People sometimes ask me what the differences are twixt…

... Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan and it provokes flashbacks almost too painful to bear.

One thing in common is that they were all started by the fat, old, bigoted, and prejudiced white men seeking hegemony and the spoils of war. And, as all wars are, the similarities were always there: Good men driven relentlessly until they, too, recognized the insanity of war while trying to kill, maim, and destroy as many people as possible, even women and children.

It is the difference that haunts me, follows me, and breaks through my dreams to the sheer horror that was hell on earth at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, RPV, during my last trip there to help evacuate as many people as we could within a very short timeframe in April, 1975.

I had never before, and have not since, ever see crowds of well over 1.5-2 million people, so many of themselves wounded, so many with the blank stare of a mother or father whose children had either been killed or injured or were being forced to stay behind with little to no hope of survival. The cacophony of voices, the sea of tear-stained faces, the wailing cries of the sick and dying, the looks and pleas being made with the expectations that, despite it all, America wouldn't abandon them as promised even as they were watching us doing that very thing, in disbelief and with the knowledge certain we would not return.

A large group of us learned that some of the evacuees were paying $10,000.00 per head for the 'right' to go, Blackmarket bribery! that, with pride we set up an area for the poor, and with every busload of people, as we left the main processing grounds, we would stop and load on as many women and children as we could before continuing on to whatever aircraft we had on the ground.

Aircraft, combat loaded by marching evacuees up the plane's ramp and having them sit on the bare metal floor, no seats, seatbelts, no amenities of any kind 260 people on a C-141 Starlifter, 210 people on a Hercules C130. An aircraft leaving the ground every twenty minutes,non-stop.

I and many Security Police Law Enforcement Specialists were flown to Tan Son Nhut AB to act as Customs Agents and worked for eight days straight, day and night continuously, before relief could be flown in for us. Then we were taken to an Agent Orange Storage warehouse where we simply dropped to the floor and crashed. To this day I can still remember sleeping in and breathing remnants of those notoriously leaky A.O. barrels. I had no idea that this would someday almost kill me with two cancers, chemo, radiation therapy, and a radical neck dissection that permanently severed several nerves, leaving me in never-ending pain.

Still we worked twelve hour days tending to and processing that never ending sea of people, Hearing their cries, begging for us to take their babies and young children with us even when they knew they could not follow and would likely never see them again.

And that is the difference between these three wars. In Afghanistan they beg us to leave, to stop the senseless killing of hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of innocent women and children, bombing wedding parties and any other large groups gathered, even those seeking to bury their dead, in the belief, fostered by w and co., that we MIGHT kill a high value target; too bad about the others.

Iraq, a war of aggression ordered by war criminals seeking revenge for w's daddy and control of that nations resources. Again the people there beg us to just go and leave them to make their own choices.

But in Vietnam, another war we should never have started, the people who suffered the most begged us the hardest to stay or take them with us, and, for a very large segment of the population actually loved us Americans who abandoned them after declaring we had 'won' and could all go home.

I still hear those cries for help, still see the faces of people whom, though they had no reasons to like or trust us…except we promised them we were their saviors. We promised them freedom. We promised them justice. We lied and many, many good Americans will never again trust 'those in power' when they rattle the chains of war.

The Vietnamese believed and trusted in us and begged us to stay, Afghanistan is now and always will be under the thumb of the criminals and warlords supplying well over 90% of the world's heroin, and we never had the evidence claimed that was used to justify that war in Iraq.

But despite the ravaging of my body and mind by my own government, using dioxin ( a chemical so toxic they now wish it could be 'disinvented') it will always be those final images of Vietnam that will haunt me forever. In the ultimate unfairness of the Universe I paid so dear a price to mind and body, particularly my mind, which seems to have had large chunks of memory ripped out of it to never return, I dearly wish that some of those memory chunks had been these: the nightmarish visions and never-ending sounds of people abandoning hope and knowing with certainty they were more likely die than to ever live in common, human decency with hopes and dreams of a better future.

That, my friends, is the difference. And that, my friends, will forever haunt me with questions to which there can be no answers, only nightmares, sadness, and the recognition that we are, or should be, a better people.

Full disclosure: I invited Bill a couple of years ago to write for VidiotSpeak, a blog I contribute to. He has never let me or our nation down.

Bugle Call Rag

Stars and Stripes, the well known leftist Pentagon funded newspaper [/snark] has donesome excellent work on the following story. Check out the timeline:

Wednesday, June 24, 2009:Army bars Stars and Stripes reporter from covering 1st Cav unit in Mosul

Asserting that Stars and Stripes “refused to highlight” good news in Iraq that the U.S. military wanted to emphasize, Army officials have barred a Stripes reporter from embedding with a unit of the 1st Cavalry Division that is attempting to secure the violent city of Mosul.

Officials said Stripes reporter Heath Druzin, who covered operations of the division’s 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team in February and March, would not be permitted to rejoin the unit for another reporting tour because, among other things, he wrote in a March 8 story that many Iraqi residents of Mosul would like the American soldiers to leave and hand over security tasks to Iraqi forces.
[...]
Additionally, Col. Gary Volesky, the 3rd Brigade’s commander, asserted that Druzin “would not answer questions about stories he was writing.”

Maybe it's just me, but I seem to remember a “goddamned piece of paper” saying something about freedom of the press.

Now fast forward a few weeks.

Monday, August 24, 2009:Journalists' recent work examined before embeds

U.S. public affairs officials in Afghanistan acknowledged to Stars and Stripes that any reporter seeking to embed with U.S. forces is subject to a background profile by The Rendon Group, which gained notoriety in the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq for its work helping to create the Iraqi National Congress. That opposition group, reportedly funded by the CIA, furnished much of the false information about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction used by the Bush administration to justify the invasion.

Rendon examines individual reporters’ recent work and determines whether the coverage was “positive,” “negative” or “neutral” compared to mission objectives, according to Rendon officials. It conducts similar analysis of general reporting trends about the war for the military and has been contracted for such work since 2005, according to the company.

Notice there is nothing about accuracy in their standards.

But wait, there's more!

Thursday, August 27, 2009: Files prove Pentagon is profiling reporters

Contrary to the insistence of Pentagon officials this week that they are not rating the work of reporters covering U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Stars and Stripes has obtained documents that prove that reporters’ coverage is being graded as “positive,” “neutral” or “negative.”
[...]
“They are not doing that [rating reporters], that’s not been a practice for some time — actually since the creation of U.S. Forces–Afghanistan” in October 2008, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters Monday. “I can tell you that the way in which the Department of Defense evaluates an article is its accuracy. It’s a good article if it’s accurate. It’s a bad article if it’s inaccurate. That’s the only measurement that we use here at the Defense Department.”
[...]
But the Rendon profiles reviewed by Stars and Stripes prove otherwise. One of the profiles evaluates work published as recently as May, indicating that the rating practice did not in fact cease last October as Whitman stated.

And the explicit suggestions contained in the Rendon profiles detailing how best to manipulate reporters’ coverage during their embeds directly contradict the Pentagon’s stated policies governing the embed process.
[...]
“It’s troubling that the military is contracting a private PR firm, paid with U.S. taxpayer dollars, to profile individual reporters,” said one servicemember who declined to be identified for fear of official retribution. “It shows utter contempt for the Constitution, which we in the service pledge our lives to defend.”

And if you call now you'll receive:

Friday, August 28, 2009:Pentagon: Reporter profiling under review

Under fire following revelations that a military command in Afghanistan is compiling profiles of reporters covering U.S. military operations, Pentagon officials acknowledged Thursday that they were reviewing the practice even as they maintained that they were not making use of “positive,” “negative” and “neutral” grades assigned to reporters’ work by a Pentagon contractor.
[...]
[Pentagon spokesman Bryan] Whitman told Pentagon reporters that he was inquiring about the issue, but he added that the Pentagon is not launching any formal inquiry to the matter.

“I haven’t seen anything that violates any policies, but again, I’m learning about aspects of this as I question our folks in Afghanistan,” Whitman said. “If I find something that is inconsistent with Defense Department values and policies, you can be sure I will address it.”
[...]
“USFOR-A has only used this information to in part help assess performance in communicating information effectively to the public,” USFOR-A spokesman Col. Wayne Shanks told Stars and Stripes in an e-mailed statement. “These reports do not ‘rate’ reporters or news outlets themselves, nor do we keep any reports on individual reporters other than personal information, name, passport or ID number, media outlet, etc….”

Shanks also contended that the compiling of the reporters’ profiles was halted in May of this year.

But those claims run counter to the actual media profiles, the existence of which Stars and Stripes revealed earlier this week. The profiles contain ratings and pie charts purporting to depict whether an individual reporter’s work is “positive,” “negative” or “neutral,” as well as advice on how best to place a reporter with a military unit to ensure positive coverage and “neutralize” negative stories.

One Pentagon correspondent who requested and received her profile on Thursday said it included her current work up through July.

Riiiight, they never did it, and if they did do it they've stopped doing it, and if they did do what they said they didn't do and stopped doing they're still doing it and even tho they're reviewing what they didn't do they're not investigating it.

"Confused? You won't be, after this week's episode of...Soap"

Saturday, August 29, 2009: Army used profiles to reject reporters

The secret profiles commissioned by the Pentagon to rate the work of journalists reporting from Afghanistan were used by military officials to deny disfavored reporters access to American fighting units or otherwise influence their coverage as recently as 2008, an Army official acknowledged Friday.

Congratulations to the Stars and Stripes for their work in exposing lies from the Pentagon and maintaining the 4th Estate promise of keeping government honest. Unlike the stenographers of the corporate media, they did their jobs. There should be a Pulitzer in their future.

(You can go here to learn more about the history of Stars and Stripes.)

And now, the title song of this post starts at about 1:10:



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

I don't believe a word of it.

Donald Rumsfeld has finally said he's sorry. Sort of.

In an interview with biographer Bradley Graham, the former secretary of defense says he has regrets about the administration's controversial detainee policy.

The twist is that Rumsfeld doesn't regret the policy itself -- specifically the abandoning of the Geneva Conventions for detainees picked up in Afghanistan. Rather, he regrets how the policy was formulated.

Just like Rumsfeld was shocked over the photos from Abu Ghraib, it wasn't the torture, it was the outing of the torture. It's weirdly semantic. He and his cohorts still haven't understood exactly WHAT the world's revulsion is all about.

In comparison to this feeble reasoning, Robert McNamara's repentance appears saintlike.:

HUFFINGTON POST: In the course of producing the Fog of War what did you learn about Robert McNamara? And how did he see his place in history?

MORRIS: There are no simple answers to those questions. He is an extraordinarily complex figure and will probably remain as such... It is an amazing career and an amazingly complex career I might add. I don't share this view that McNamara is this clearly evil man. I think that he is extraordinarily complex and that may be a result as well of the extraordinarily complex history that he was part of. Nothing has a simple answer. Maybe nothing ever does. It's very easy to condemn him for these policies but harder to understand what his role was in these policies.

By the end of his life, McNamara clearly felt a sense of contrition. But did he feel as if he was responsible for what happened in Vietnam or did he think of himself as a victim of history, engulfed by the events that surrounded him?

I think that it is part of who we are, in general, that we would prefer to see ourselves as victims rather than as villains. Having said that, dealing with McNamara was dealing with a person who agonized about his past.

Update, emptywheel has more.

crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

And swords and guns and uniforms, Were scattered on the ground

We watched the season closer for Grey's Anatomy last night. No apologies, it's a good show. But they screwed up, IMHO.

A significant sub-plot had one character, mild-mannered George, enlisting in the Army to become a field surgeon. Two other characters argued this issue, and one made the overused point:

They're fighting to protect our freedoms.

Thing is, they're not.

I know it's not PC to say that, but in my life, I can't remember one war, one police action, one armed incursion, one invasion, that was to protect our freedoms. Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, Panama, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, all wars of choice, dreamed up by ideologues and executed by the brave, the foolish, and the desperate.

For the men and women who, for whatever noble and/or tragic reason find themselves in the armed forces, I have the utmost respect. For their own reasons, they did what I chose not to (1st Viet Nam draft, my # was 13. I didn't have to go, and I don't think I would have). And our government, and our population should support them in their sacrifice.

But we don't, by and large. We don't march on Washington to protest conditions at military hospitals, from rats to meal charges. Yes, we march to protest the war, but how does that help the returning soldiers who gave up jobs, whose families had to ask for food stamps?

They aren't defending out freedoms except in their own hearts. And that we should value. My Mom, before she died, was making knitted goods for the Long Beach VA Hospital, because she grew up during WWII when the entire population sacrificed to support the war effort and the soldiers. And Pam has done the same, because her dad was changed and formed by his participation in WWII.

So those of you enamored of the war, or who fetishize the military, what have you done? Have you done one thing that would get our soldiers out of deadly combat? Have you done one thing to help their transition back to a civilian life? Because if you haven't, you're part of the problem.

Clearly we need a defense force, and may sometime need an offensive force. But Iraq, and most likely Afghanistan are not those situations. So if you truly believe we need a military to "defend our freedoms", bring them home, equip them properly, heal them appropriately, pay them fairly, so that when a real threat occurs, they can do the job they volunteered for, the job we trust them to do.

Country Joe still makes sense:

Well... except for those pesky bombs going off.... Iraqis are fine!

While avoiding a general answer to "Are we better off?" Cheney did not hesitate to proclaim Iraqis better off because of the regime change initiated by the American invasion.

"I think Iraq is much better off than it was before we went in in '03 and got rid of Saddam Hussein," he said. "I think we are close to achieving most of our objectives. We've seen a significant reduction in the overall level of violence; it's lower now than virtually anytime since we've been there in the spring of '03. We've seen the elimination of one of the world's worst regimes. We've seen the Iraqis write a constitution and hold three national elections. We've now entered into a strategic framework agreement with the Iraqis that calls for ultimately the U.S. completion of the assignment and withdrawal of our forces from Iraq.

"All of those things I think by anybody's standard would be evidence of significant success. And I think we're very close to achieving what it is we set out to do five years ago when we first went into Iraq.

I'm sure the Iraqis would like to thank you in person, Dick. Because just today:

At least 38 civilians have been killed and 65 wounded in a suicide attack at a shrine in northwestern Baghdad, Iraqi government officials said.

An interior ministry official put the death toll at 40, including 17 Iranian pilgrims.

(Update: Mark Adams of American Street lists the deaths in Iraq since the New Year began. Better off, my ass.)

And just what was it that you were trying to achieve in Iraq, Dick? Because your excuses and reasons keep changing...

What does this looming concentration of Iraqi power at the top portend for U.S. oil interests? The omens are mixed at best. A tilt away from the United States may have come late in August, in the thick of negotiations over the U.S. withdrawal, when Iraq signed a 22-year contract in Beijing for development of an oil field southeast of Baghdad.

Without parliamentary approval, the al-Maliki government seems capable of making or unmaking whatever oil development arrangements it chooses to make. Thus, in September, it canceled six no-bid contracts it had awarded to big-name Western oil corporations. China provides the now cordially partnering Shiite governments in Baghdad and Tehran a clear alternative to Western companies.

Where America's politically unmentionable oil interests in Iraq are headed as the Bush administration leaves office remains anyone's guess, but out in the cold seems as good a guess as any. Back in 2002, the better class of commentator sniffed at the naiveté of "No Blood for Oil" - the chant of anti-war demonstrations around the country. But blood for oil may not be the worst of it. The worst, in the war's subdued and sorry denouement, may prove to be blood for no oil.

Because the war was about oil all along, wasn't it?

Several of the architects of the Iraq war no longer even bother to deny that oil was a major motivator for the invasion. On US National Public Radio's To the Point, Fadhil Chalabi, one of the primary Iraqi advisers to the Bush administration in the lead-up to the invasion, recently described the war as "a strategic move on the part of the United States of America and the UK to have a military presence in the Gulf in order to secure [oil] supplies in the future". Chalabi, who served as Iraq's oil undersecretary of state and met with the oil majors before the invasion, described this as "a primary objective".

Invading countries to seize their natural resources is illegal under the Geneva conventions. That means the huge task of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure - including its oil infrastructure - is the financial responsibility of Iraq's invaders. They should be forced to pay reparations, just as Saddam Hussein's regime paid $9bn to Kuwait in reparations for its 1990 invasion. Instead, Iraq is being forced to sell 75% of its national patrimony to pay the bills for its own illegal invasion and occupation.

crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

Can't We All Just Get Along?

Can't We All Just Get Along? Short answer: NO!

A Chance for Consensus on Iraq
By John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham
[...]
Now it's time for the unthinkable to take place in Washington. For the past several years, Iraq has divided and polarized our parties, our policymakers and our people. The debate over the war has often been disfigured by politics and partisanship, precluding the national consensus so important to American security in a dangerous world.

Consensus!? Freakin' CONSENSUS!? You dumb,lying,malevolent bastards! There's been a consensus for years! 60%+ Americans want us out and 70%+ Iraqis want us out, that's your consensus! The sovereign government of Iraq stated it quite clearly in the SOFA. Remember when Bush said we'd leave when they asked us to? They not only asked, they're telling us to get out!

The op-ed continues:

To achieve this, the president-elect, his national security team and all of us in Congress should seek the counsel of Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, and Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of coalition forces in Iraq.

Oh really!? Listen to those treasonous bastards?

US Military Defiant on Key Terms of Iraqi Pact

U.S. military leaders and Pentagon officials have made it clear through public statements and deliberately leaked stories in recent weeks that they plan to violate a central provision of the U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement requiring the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 by reclassifying combat troops as support troops.

The scheme to engage in chicanery in labeling U.S. troops represents both open defiance of an agreement which the U.S. military has never accepted and a way of blocking President-elect Barack Obama's proposed plan for withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of his taking office.
[...]
Gen. David Petraeus, now commander of CENTCOM, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who opposed Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan during the election campaign, have drawn up their own alternative withdrawal plan rejecting that timeline

The first time one of them pulls this crap after the inauguration I hope Obama does a Truman to their MacArthurs!



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Military Assaults

Sexual assault in military 'jaw-dropping,' lawmaker says

[Rep. Jane Harman, D-California] said Thursday that her "jaw dropped" when military doctors told her that four in 10 women at a veterans hospital reported being sexually assaulted while in the military.

A government report indicates that the numbers could be even higher.
[...]
"My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41 percent of the female veterans seen there say they were victims of sexual assault while serving in the military"
[...]
But when it came time for the military to defend itself, the panel was told that the Pentagon's top official on sexual abuse, Dr. Kaye Whitley, was ordered not to show up despite a subpoena.
[...]
"The Defense Department appears to be willfully and blatantly advising Dr. Whitley not to comply with a duly authorized congressional subpoena," Tierney said.

Here's more from Colonel Ann Wright:

Rep. Elijah Cummings joined Rep. Waxman in speaking of cover-ups. Cummings raised the cases of military women who had been sexually assaulted before dying in “non-combat incidents.” He spoke specifically about Army Pfc. LaVena Johnson, who was found beaten and dead of a gunshot wound at Balad Air Base, Iraq, in a burning tent owned by the contractor KBR. Her parents suspected that Johnson had been murdered and that the homicide was being covered up by the Army, which deemed the death a suicide. Cummings also spoke of Army Pfc. Tina Priest, who was raped at Taji, Iraq, and found dead 10 days later of a gunshot wound. After her family had measurements taken of her arms and of the angle of the bullet and found that she could not have pulled the trigger of her M-16 with her finger, the Army said she had pulled the trigger by using her toe.
[...]
Lt. Gen. Rochelle, the Army chief of personnel, reported the little known statistic that 12 percent of reported rapes in the military are of male military personnel.

[Representative Christopher Shays (R - CT)] said he had no confidence in DoD or the military services and their policies of prevention of sexual assault, and asked how recruiting will fare when young women learn that one in three women is sexually assaulted and when young men find out that one in 10 men is raped while in the military.

Leave it to a republican to be mainly concerned about how rape and sexual assault will affect recruiting.

Of course the rape and sexual assaults are not just confined to the military ... (maybe confined is the wrong term considering the incredibly low rate of prosecutions and even lower rate of jail time)... the American mercenary companies in Iraq have enjoyed complete immunity from any prosecution in Iraq, including rapes of fellow Americans.

They could have been prosecuted, it's American on American crime after all, but the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense refused to do so.

The most notorious and publicized rape by a DoD civilian sub-contractor has been Jamie Leigh Jones who was employed by KBR and was only able to report her rape by a cell phone given to her by a sympathetic KBR guard holding her captive in a shipping container.

And now that KBR thinks the heat has died down what is their reaction?

Iraq contractor bans cell phones for 'safety and security'

[...]
According to an e-mail obtained by CNN, the company issued the order to all KBR employees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait
[...]
In the e-mail, employees are ordered to stop using their cell phones as of 8 a.m. Saturday and turn them in to the company's human resources department.

"Any individual using a personal cell phone will be disciplined," the e-mail says. "Termination is an option of discipline. The cell phone will be confiscated."
[...]
A KBR employee, who asked to remain anonymous, said he was "not aware of any security breaches involving the use of cell phones" and that employees were not given any reason for the order.
[...]
"KBR has a communication system, but as with any system it does fail and we can only communicate with another installation by use of the cell phones," he said. "We pay for this use with our own funds."

So according to a male KBR employee this policy makes all KBR employees less safe, and they're willing to pay for this safety on their own dime.

I wonder what KBR employees would pay not to be raped? And I really wonder what KBR would earn if their employees can't report being raped. Golly, their shareholders must really be upset that KBR only made $48 million last quarter instead of the $140 million they made in the first quarter.




Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Heard of some gravesites, out by the highway

The lovely and talented darkblack has been too busy to post this here, so I will do it for him:


For those unfamiliar with the source artwork, here's from wikipedia:

Guernica is a monumental painting by Pablo Picasso, depicting the Nazi German bombing of Guernica, Spain, by twenty-eight bombers, on April 26, 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. The attack killed between 250 and 1,600 people, and many more were injured.

The Spanish government commissioned Pablo Picasso to paint a large mural for the Spanish display at the Paris International Exposition (the 1937 World's Fair in Paris). The Guernica bombing inspired Picasso. Within 15 days of the attack, Pablo Picasso began painting this mural. On completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour brought the Spanish civil war to the world's attention. Guernica epitomizes the tragedies of war and the suffering war inflicts upon individuals. This monumental work has eclipsed the bounds of a single time and place, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace.

For those intent on invoking Godwin's law, blow it out your collective ass. The source of the conflict is irrelevant. The operative phrase here is "Guernica epitomizes the tragedies of war and the suffering war inflicts upon individuals". While not speaking directly for darkblack (he can indeed do that on his own), I can state that no sane person would find the trouble visited on the Iraqi people in any way redeeming or positive. I repeat, no sane person . . .

I confess to being mystified and in awe of people who are visually creative, I don't have that gene. My feeble attempts at art in both high school and early college were simply terrible. For me it's all about the music, the sounds, which create wondrous visual effects in my brain.

For that reason, among others, I am humbled and flattered that someone with darkblack's talent for the visual helps out here. Everyone blogging here has merit and talent. But darkblack, and Dancin' Dave, provide eye candy, and thoughtful and provocative art, that raises us all up.

Thanks, guys.

As long as we’re together, honey, I don’t care

John McCain only has eyes for Iraq. To paraphrase Joe Biden some months ago: A noun, a verb, and Iraq/surge.

Our friend Cenk Uygur from The Young Turks scoops the entire world media today with this pickup of another McCain gaffe:

I guess Afghanistan wasn't big enough for him.

Watch the video, it's great.

If ever I would leave you....

How could it be in spring-time?
Knowing how in spring I'm bewitched by you so?
Oh, no! not in spring-time!
Summer, winter or fall!
No, never could I leave you at all!



crossposted at Rants from the Rookery

Good News for Modern Man!

Bump & Update: It was obvious that once Iraqi PM Maliki made the comment the Bush WH would take Maliki to the woodshed and 'clarify' his remarks, and away we go:

Mr. Maliki's interview prompted immediate concern from the Bush administration, which called to seek clarification from Mr. Maliki’s office, American officials said.

Scott M. Stanzel, a White House spokesman with President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., said that embassy officials explained to the Iraqis how the interview in Der Spiegel was being interpreted, given that it came just a day after the two governments announced an agreement over American troops.

“The Iraqis were not aware and wanted to correct it,” he said.
[...]
Diplomats from the United States Embassy in Baghdad spoke to Mr. Maliki’s advisers on Saturday, said an American official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss what he called diplomatic communications. After that, the government’s spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, issued a statement casting doubt on the magazine’s rendering of the interview.

The statement, which was distributed to media organizations by the American military early on Sunday, said Mr. Maliki’s words had been “misunderstood and mistranslated,” but it failed to cite specifics.

“Unfortunately, Der Spiegel was not accurate,” Mr. Dabbagh said Sunday by telephone. “I have the recording of the voice of Mr. Maliki. We even listened to the translation.”

Yeah, there's just a couple of problems with their spin:

But the interpreter for the interview works for Mr. Maliki’s office, not the magazine. And in an audio recording of Mr. Maliki’s interview that Der Spiegel provided to The New York Times, Mr. Maliki seemed to state a clear affinity for Mr. Obama’s position, bringing it up on his own in an answer to a general question on troop presence.

The following is a direct translation from the Arabic of Mr. Maliki’s comments by The Times: “Obama’s remarks that — if he takes office — in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq.”

He continued: “Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq.”

And in a later clarification:

Iraqi officials hopes for US troop pullout by 2010

Ali al-Dabbagh made the comments following a meeting in Baghdad on Monday between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama, who arrived in Iraq earlier in the day.

Umm, so the same Iraqi gov't spokesman who said the remarks were mis-translated, (they weren't), now confirms that Maliki and Obama both want US troops out of Iraq by 2010. Hey, you say 16 months, I say 2010, let's call the whole thing off.

Original post:

Maliki: I Support Obama’s Withdrawal Timetable

And that's from Faux News!

What's the White House's reaction?

White House sends press corps al-Maliki praise for Obama plan

Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

In which I respond to yet another Blackwater apologist

Jessica in London wrote a comment to this post. As with Doug, I'm going to respond in a post.

Blogger Jessica said...

Why does everyone insist on concentrating on Blackwater in this discussion?

It's one company. ONE company.

The industry, and all that's good and noble about it - and it IS worthwhile, despite hysteria over a one or two unfortunate incidents the leftist media like to whip up into a frenzy - is so much more than ONE commercial company who, whilst admittedly powerful at the moment, can be brought to heel by the power of economics.

Get over this ridiculous preoccupation - look beyond it and understand that having companies that stop rebel factions cutting open pregnant women is much more desirable than inaction and the status quo... one example obviously, but these companies operate in areas the perennial arm chair critical is clearly too spinelss to go, and yet they feel compelled to preach to the world like they are some sort of authority.

The positive effects of these companies have so much more benefit than the negatives ones - which are arguably inevitable due to the unfortunate nature of the environment they operate in. But if they actually meant to cause international outrage, you'd be reading about their anitics every day. But you dont, you only see the the dirge of the ill-informed, gutless critic. Wake up, and understand the world around you is not wrapped in cotton wool.
7/11/08 12:43 PM

As I said in the comments section, Jessica, thanks for the comment. I'm going to respond, your comments are indented and in bold.

Why does everyone insist on concentrating on Blackwater in this discussion?

It's one company. ONE company.

The industry, and all that's good and noble about it - and it IS worthwhile, despite hysteria over a one or two unfortunate incidents the leftist media like to whip up into a frenzy - is so much more than ONE commercial company who, whilst admittedly powerful at the moment, can be brought to heel by the power of economics.

Yes, Blackwater is one company. One company which, as of this moment, has made about one billion ... BILLION taxpayer dollars with its no-bid contracts with the government. No oversight, no accountability. No person would hand over his hard earned money to a stranger and not check up on what was being done with it, right? Why on earth should we not have oversight with this company? Being brought to heel by cutting off funds won't make any difference at this point. Blackwater is richer than some countries.

There are many more defense contractor companies than just Blackwater in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is known. But not all of them are run by a fundamentalist Christian during a time of a great religious power struggle within the US; not all of them are attempting to set up many bases in many different states; spread out into intelligence work and spying, border patrol, citizen control. Erik Prince has his sights on things we cannot even guess and he has the money now to achieve them. Check out his connections to the government, politicians, local police, and religious groups.

Blackwater is truly the tip of the enormous defense contractor iceberg, but it's what we can see. We know there's a lot we will never know about.

And 'one or two unfortunate incidents'? You say 'unfortunate' when innocent bystanders die? There are many more incidences, just not reported in the media. How about we go ask Iraqis what they have experienced when interacting with Blackwater? Our own military? We will definitely be hearing more and more of these stories soon.

Get over this ridiculous preoccupation - look beyond it and understand that having companies that stop rebel factions cutting open pregnant women is much more desirable than inaction and the status quo... one example obviously, but these companies operate in areas the perennial arm chair critical is clearly too spinelss to go, and yet they feel compelled to preach to the world like they are some sort of authority.

It's not a ridiculous preoccupation when Iraqis and millions of angry Muslims believe that Blackwater and the US military are one and the same. Yet one is run by the Geneva Conventions (or was) and rules of war and one is answerable and accountable to no one. Blackwater is presumed to act in our name yet will not answer to us. The company is even hiring Chileans and South Africans who have worked in the most oppressive of governments. This clearly qualifies them as mercenaries. Mercenaries who owe their allegiance to Erik Prince and to Blackwater, not to the US people.

As to your bizarre reference to sliced up pregnant women? Besides being the overused canard dragged out in every conflict since the world began to incite hatred of the enemy, our 'good and noble' side has tortured, bombed, killed innocents. You want to start listing atrocities? Abu Ghraib? Bagram? Gitmo? How about starting with the murder of the 17 innocents in the Mansour district in Baghdad? Pointing fingers is almost useless because no one involved is clean of such horrors, the tangle of militias, tribes, Shiite and Sunni, neighborhoods against neighborhoods is almost impossible to track.

What we've activated in Iraq by removing a feared strongman as Saddam is to fling off the lid on Pandora's box. Those who know the area have said there are about 20 different civil wars going on. You want to reference which 'rebel factions' are slicing up which 'pregnant women'? It depends on where you are, what time of day it is, and which militia has gotten their hands on more ammo. Rape and murder of women, pregnant or not, is a tool of terror and of war, one of the first things that happens when society collapses.

By the way, how is Blackwater 'stopping rebel factions'? They aren't combatants, right? Are they diplomats? How exactly are they stopping rebel factions?

The positive effects of these companies have so much more benefit than the negatives ones - which are arguably inevitable due to the unfortunate nature of the environment they operate in. But if they actually meant to cause international outrage, you'd be reading about their anitics every day. But you dont, you only see the the dirge of the ill-informed, gutless critic. Wake up, and understand the world around you is not wrapped in cotton wool.

Please tell me of the positive effects when the insignia you wear and the behavior you do inspires fear and hatred in the population. And how would you know about these effects, 'Jessica'? Do you know someone who is working for Blackwater? Are you yourself working for Blackwater? How would you know at all about what is going on in Iraq? Are you being an armchair 'supporter' or have you been there? Or are you reading on the net as I am doing?

Journalists have been targeted in Iraq and the news is hard to get and hard to get out and Blackwater is not telling us what they are doing, are they? One politician, Marshall Adame was protected by Blackwater on a visit and was so horrified by their behavior that he complained. Blackwater went after him in his election.

'The dirge of the ill-informed, gutless critic'? Really? (Dirges are funereal songs which is rather appropriate.) But are you suggesting that the American people should stop caring what is going on and only cheer on our wonderful war without question? Ill-informed? That they should not try to understand the Iraq war, all of its implications, present and future, and attempt to get many different perspectives rather than the swallowing the obvious propaganda? Gutless? Because they think the war has been a horrible blunder? Because they didn't sign up right away to fight the glorious War on Terror? Are you serious? Being awake means knowing what is going on, not accepting without question things being done in one's name. Cotton wool only muffles the noise.

Finally, in your first section ....'good and noble'? I beg your pardon? A company whose business it is to make money in times of war. What is good and noble about being a warmonger? There is no incentive to make peace, or to make things stable. The continuation of war and instability is what guarantees profits. How on earth is that good and noble?

Answer me this. Do you believe that war solves problems and that if someone resists you should hit them harder? Do you think you can frighten and cow a population into submission? Are all Iraqis bad? Are Muslims inherently evil? Do you believe there a crusade by Christianity against Islam? Can you explain why we are in Iraq in the first place? Do you believe in the Rapture? Do you have children?

I get the theme of your comment by the words you've used: hysteria, whip up, frenzy, ridiculous, preoccupation, perennial arm chair critic, spineless, compelled, preach, dirge, ill-informed, gutless. I believe it is hysterical, ridiculous, spineless, gutless, and ill-informed NOT to ask questions, demand answers, make posts, tell people.

Why on earth would you support Blackwater, Jessica, unless you have a connection to it?

crossposted at Rants from the Rookery and American Street

Should I Stay or Should I go?

GWBush wants 58 permanent military bases in Iraq. I'm pretty sure that's a bad idea. If you think so too, go here, sign the petition:

When the Bush Administration launched its attack on Iraq in 2003, it assured the American public that the war would be quick, cheap and easy. More than five years into this disastrous war, both Bush and Iraqi officials are negotiating an agreement that could keep the United States as an occupying power in Iraq for another decade - or even longer.

Withdrawing our military from Iraq, while helping rebuild Iraq and assisting refugees, is the just and honorable solution to an unjust war. We reject the idea of committing the United States to a long-term occupation in Iraq, and ask our elected officials to quickly and safely bring our American troops home.

. . . By keeping the U.S.-Iraq agreement in the headlines, the anti-war movement will raise public awareness about President Bush's long-term objectives, and force Barack Obama and John McCain to speak out on the issue. Since the pact jeopardizes the next President's freedom of action in Iraq, Obama and McCain should vigorously oppose President Bush's aggressive negotiations, which reportedly include seeking 58 permanent bases and control of Iraqi airspace.

Isaacs continued: "Obama would bolster his anti-war credentials by highlighting his previously expressed opposition to the agreement."

"McCain undoubtedly regrets saying that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for 100 years, but Bush's pact is a first step in that direction. If McCain spoke out against the agreement, he could begin to distance himself from the 100-years gaffe," explained Isaacs.

They must be stopped. They MUST be stopped.

Headline of the Day

Dead veterans happy to rock again for Obama

So I'm looking at just the headline and I'm thinking "Wow! Wouldn't that be great!?"

Alas, different Dead and different veterans.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

And the Hits Lies Just Keep on Coming

White House staying out of Iraq oil negotiations

[...]
“Iraq is a sovereign country, and it can make decisions based on how it feels that it wants to move forward in its development of its oil resources,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

“And if that means that our companies here in the United States can compete and win business, then that's for them and the Iraqis to decide,” Perino added.
[...]
State Department spokesman Tom Casey said it was unlikely that Rice would try to interfere.

“Since the United States has had no involvement in this, I'm not sure on what basis the United States could . . . block the Iraqi government from contracting in the way it sees fit,” he said.

In the first place, "our companies here in the United States can compete" is just a lie because these were no-bid contracts.

In the second place "the United States has had no involvement in this" is not just a flat out lie, it's just the latest in the Big Lie that Bush et al is foisting on the American and Iraqi people:

US Advised Iraqi Ministry on Oil Deals

A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.
[...]
In their role as advisers to the Iraqi Oil Ministry, American government lawyers and private-sector consultants provided template contracts and detailed suggestions on drafting the contracts, advisers and a senior State Department official said.

Golly, does anyone else think that the "private-sector consultants" just happened to consist of "Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron" reps?



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News!

General Who Probed Abu Ghraib Says Bush Officials Committed War Crimes

The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison accused the Bush administration Wednesday of committing “war crimes” and called for those responsible to be held to account.
[...]
“After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes,” Taguba wrote. “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”
[...]
Doctors and mental health experts examined 11 detainees held for long periods in the prison system that President Bush established after the 9-11 terrorist attacks. All of them eventually were released without charges.

The doctors and experts determined that the men had been subject to cruelties that ranged from isolation, sleep deprivation and hooding to electric shocks, beating and, in one case, being forced to drink urine.
[...]
The Defense Department responds to concerns raised by the International Committee for the Red Cross, he said, which has access to detainees under military control.

"the International Committee for the Red Cross ... which has access to detainees under military control" Well that's just a bald faced lie:

Documents Confirm US Hid Detainees From Red Cross

The U.S. military hid the locations of suspected terrorist detainees and concealed harsh treatment to avoid the scrutiny of the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to documents that a Senate committee released Tuesday.

“We may need to curb the harsher operations while ICRC is around. It is better not to expose them to any controversial techniques,” Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, a military lawyer who’s since retired, said during an October 2002 meeting at the Guantanamo Bay prison to discuss employing interrogation techniques that some have equated with torture. Her comments were recorded in minutes of the meeting that were made public Tuesday. At that same meeting, Beaver also appeared to confirm that U.S. officials at another detention facility - Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan - were using sleep deprivation to “break” detainees well before then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved that technique. “True, but officially it is not happening,” she is quoted as having said.

A third person at the meeting, Jonathan Fredman, the chief counsel for the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, disclosed that detainees were moved routinely to avoid the scrutiny of the ICRC, which keeps tabs on prisoners in conflicts around the world.

“In the past when the ICRC has made a big deal about certain detainees, the DOD (Defense Department) has ‘moved’ them away from the attention of the ICRC,” Fredman said, according to the minutes.
[...]
Fredman of the CIA also appeared to be advocating the use of techniques harsher than those authorized by military field guides “If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong,” the minutes report Fredman saying at one point.

There you have it in (literally) a nutshell. But wait! There's more!

I guess they 'did it wrong' a bunch (VIA Think Progress):

At today’s House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights hearing on torture, Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, told Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody, with up to 27 of these declared homicides

NADLER: Colonel Wilkerson, in your prepared testimony, you write that “as I compiled my dossier for Secretary Powell, and as I did further research, and as my views grew firmer and firmer I had to reread that memo (of February 7, 2002), “I needed to balance in my own mind the overwhelming evidence that my own government had sanctioned abuse and torture, which at its worse had led to the murder of 25 detainees and at least 100 detainee deaths. We have murder at least 25 people in detention. That was the clear low point [lower end of the range] of the evidence.” Your testimony said 100 detainees have died in detention; do you believe the 25 of those were in effect murdered?

WILKERSON: Mr. Chairman, I think the number’s actually higher than that now. Last time I checked it was 108, and the total number that were declared homicides by the military services, or by the CIA, or others doing investigations, CID, and so forth — was 25, 26, 27.

NADLER: Were declared homicides?

WILKERSON: Right, starting as early as December 2001 in Afghanistan.

NADLER: And these were homicides committed by people engaged in interrogations?

WILKERSON: Or in guarding prisoners, or something like that. People who were in detention.

NADLER: They were in detention, not trying to escape or anything, declared homicides by our own authorities.

Maybe, just maybe, impeachment should be off the table. Just because Bush 'unsigned' the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court doesn't mean Bush et al can't be subject to it once they have left office.

We can only hope.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Forever and a day

The good news:

Iraq Lawmakers Want US Forces Out As Part of Deal

A majority of the Iraqi parliament has written to Congress rejecting a long-term security deal with Washington if it is not linked to a requirement that U.S. forces leave, a U.S. lawmaker said on Wednesday.
[...]
“What are the threats that require U.S. forces to be there?” asked Nadeem Al-Jaberi, a co-founder of the al-Fadhila Shi’ite political party, speaking through a translator.
[...]
A Sunni Iraqi lawmaker, Khalaf Al-Ulayyan, founder of the National Dialogue Council, said bilateral talks on a long-term security deal should be shelved until American troops leave — and until there is a new government in Washington.
[...]
A senior U.S. official said in Baghdad earlier this week that the United States still hopes to reach a new security agreement with Iraq by July,

Now the bad news:

Revealed: Secret Plan to Keep Iraq Under US Control
Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors
[...]
The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.

The timing of the agreement would also boost the Republican candidate, John McCain

And the worse news:

US issues threat to Iraq's $50bn foreign reserves in military deal

The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.

US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.

BTW, the "$20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq" is part of the exact same money that

the Bush "administration lawyers have argued that Iraqi assets frozen in bank accounts in the United States are needed for Iraqi reconstruction

In a related case, a federal judge in New York ruled in September that the families of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks could not claim any part of about $1.7 billion in frozen Iraqi assets in the United States.

The judge noted that President Bush had signed an executive order in March, on the eve of the American invasion of Iraq, that confiscated Iraqi assets and converted them into assets of the United States government. "

Does anyone else remember when Bush said:

"We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation. Twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution. It's their government's choice. If they were to say, leave, we would leave."

Bush previously said it was 'up to the Iraqi people.' (I couldn't find the link to that. The first commenter who does gets a free year's supply of SteveAudio and VidiotSpeak!)

It's a fact that the majority of Iraqis have wanted us out at least since 2004.

So apparently Shi’ite's and Sunni's do agree on some things. And what they and 68% of Americans agree on is that US troops should not be in Iraq.

McCain and Bush think we should be there as long as Bush/McCain want us to be there, which is either 50 years, 100 years, or 10,000 years. It just depends on which day you ask.

As much as McCain tries to distance himself from Bush, including hiding joint fundraising events away from the press and the people, the fact is McCain has voted with Bush 95% to 100% of the time in the past 2 years.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

And one name read and nobody really cared, But a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair

Our good friend Brad Friedman of BradBlog has 4 posts at the top today with the names of every U.S. soldier killed in the Afghan and Iraqi Wars, it's incredibly humbling.

It's too easy to intellectualize these wars. Regardless of your opinion of either war, these are men, women, younger as well as older, that will never walk this earth again. If anyone reading here has lost someone in these wars, my heartfelt sorrow goes out to you. If you haven't lost anyone, look at someone you love across the room, and imagine their blood spilled thousands of miles away. It should make your heart ache. Now imagine the families connected to the names on Brad's list. Because for them, it's not intellectual, nor imaginary.

It's bitter reality.

And please, watch the video, listen to the lyrics. If you're not already a fan, you will be.

So you got to let me know, Should I stay or should I go?

Petraeus Expects to Recommend Troop Cuts in Iraq This Fall

"My sense is I will be able to make a recommendation at that time for further reductions"

Now where have I heard that before? Oh, I remember, it was exactly what Petraeus said last year:

Monday, September 10, 2007 - General David Petraeus made his long-awaited appearance on Capitol Hill today. The general said he believes the United States can reduce its presence in Iraq to pre-surge levels by next summer

Well summer's here and now he says he'll let us know next fall, oddly enough, it's yet another 'Friedman unit', what a surprise! And just in time for the elections!

Doesn't anyone in the MSM or Congress have enough brain cells to remember that this is the exact same lie that's been repeated for the whole war!? (More here.)

Why Congress isn't rejecting this "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" out of hand I'll never understand. (More here.)

Petraeus also said 'violence has hit a four-year low'

That's just an outright lie. Last month, April 2008, 52 Americans died and Iraqi military & civilian deaths were 744 (confirmed).

In the last 4 years there were 18 months that American soldiers had fewer deaths. In the last 2 years there were 5 months that Iraqi military & civilian deaths were lower. (That's just confirmed, actual civilian deaths are probably much higher, but our military refuses to do 'body counts.')

General, I just got one thing to say: You better go now, go now, go now.




Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Resisting an illegal war

Sgt. Matthis Chiroux, who served in the Army until being honorably discharged last summer after over four years of service in Afghanistan, Japan, Europe and the Phillipines, today publicly announced his intention to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq.

Resisting the backdoor draft or as I see it, involuntary servitude.

IVAW's post finishes with a request for donations:

To donate to IVAW’s Legal Fund to support Matthis and other servicemembers who are refusing to support the occupation of Iraq, use our online donation form and select “Legal Fund” under special projects.

crossposted at Rants from the Rookery