Someone please tell me, because he appears to be a pest who is at least as hard to eradicate as members of the insects of the order Blattodea, because Chalabi is back in Iraq.
There would be a few hundred more Americans alive if 4-½ years ago he had been put in a car trunk and driven to Jordan to serve his sentence for bank fraud.
Richard Griffin, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic securitya former Secret Service agent who was once in charge of Presidential security.
However, this policy has come right from the top, from the man who mad private contractors a part of the military, Dick Cheney. Expect more of the same.
Yes Virginia, there is a bombing fairy, and he leaves a bomb under George W. Bush’s pillow every evening.
Bush is offering US airstrikes against the PKK to keep the Turks out of Iraq.
You can always trust the bombing fairy to pour gasoline on a fire.
Iraq has revoked L. Paul Bremer’s grant of immunity to contractors, and so now the contractors in Iraq are considering cutting and running.
This is a good thing. They do more harm than good, they cost too much, and mercenaries are just plain wrong.
Furthermore, this is an action that must have somewhere near 100% support by the Iraqi public, and it useful for the average citizen to see the central government doing something productive.
Well, it appears that Blackwater is both more crooked, and more stupid, than I had previously thought. They have been classifying their mercenaries as independent contractors for tax purposes.
The rules on this are pretty strict. To be an independent contract, you have to be indepndent, you have to set your own hours, place of works, not be subject to company supervisors, etc. Mercenaries don’t qualify. They are told when and where and with what to fight, and Blackwater supplied them with uniforms, flak jackets, weapons, etc.
These were not freelance illustrators.
Henry Waxman has noticed this discrepancy, and that this does not correspond to the standard practices of other firms, like Triple Canopy and Dyncorp, and further noticed that his testimony did not jibe with direction from the IRS.
They are looking at huge fines. It may not be as satisfying as getting them for being mercs and war criminals, but it worked to get Al Capone.
Here is the first part of Waxman’s letter to Blackwater, which implies tax evasion and perjury before congress:
I have received documents which suggest that Blackwater may have engaged in significant tax evasion. According to an IRS ruling in March 2007, Blackwater violated federal tax laws by treating an armed guard as an “independent contractor.” The implication of this ruling is that Blackwater may have avoided paying millions of dollars in Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, and related taxes for which it is legally responsible.
Unlike DynCorp and Triple Canopy, the two other major private military contractors providing security services to the State Department in lraq, Blackwater classifies its armed guards as independent contractors rather than as employees. Under federal tax laws, this classification has important ramifications. Businesses must pay Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment taxes for their employees. They must also withhold federal income taxes on their salaries. By classifying its armed guards and other personnel as independent contractors instead of employees, Blackwater has apparently evaded withholding and paying these taxes.
When you testified before our Committee on October 2,2007, Congresswoman Norton asked you why Blackwater treats its security personnel as independent contractors, while your competitors treat their guards as employees. You responded that Blackwater treats its guards as contractors because you found “it is a model that works” and because your guards prefer the “flexibility” of an independent contractor relationship.
Since the hearing, I have learned that the IRS determined in March – six months prior to your testimony – that your classification of a security guard working in Afghanistan as an independent contractor was “without merit.” The IRS advised that “[y]ou are responsible for satisfying the employment tax reporting, filing, and payment obligations that result from this determination.” By its terms, the IRS ruling applied only to the individual security guard who protested his classification, but the IRS warned that its ruling “may be applicable to any other individuals engaged by the fum.” The logic of the ruling would appear to apply to your entire workforce in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There is also evidence that Blackwater has tried to conceal the IRS ruling and the evasion of taxes from Congress and law enforcement officials. The IRS determination was issued in response to an inquiry by an individual security guard who questioned his classification as an independent contractor. In June, Blackwater required this employee to sign a nondisclosure agreement before it agreed to pay the back pay and other compensation that he was owed. The terms of this agreement explicitly prohibited the guard from disclosing any information about Blackwater to “any politician” or “public official.” The agreement further provided: “THE UTMOST PROTECTION AND NONDISCLOSURE OF CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION IS OF CRITICAL IMPORTANCE AND IS THE ESSENCE OF THIS AGREEMENT.“
It is difficult to read the IRS ruling and the nondisclosure agreement and not question Blackwater’s intent and actions. When the IRS issued an alert in 2004 warning employers not to “incorrectly treat employees as independent contractors,” the IRS Commissioner described the “[f]ailure to pay employment taxes” as “stealing from the employees of the business” and said that “those who embrace these schemes face civil or criminal sanctions.” Yet it now appears that Blackwater used this illegal scheme to avoid millions of dollars in taxes and then prevented the security guard who discovered the tax evasion from contacting members of Congress or law enforcement officials.
I believe that Blackwater is completely boned.
So, Nancy Pelosi is rebukes Stark for his comments about Bush and the Republican chicken-hawks while debating S-CHIP..
The proper response to the Republican faux outrage is what Bender said. Tell them to kiss your shiny metal ass. Seriously.
Nancy, don’t be a Nancy-boy. Cowardice is unbecoming a house speaker.
This has some seriously bad mojo attached. Look at the last misbegotten sons of a wombat who tried this.
Heck of a job there stabilizing the Middle east there, Georgie.
Ricardo Sanchez calls the Iraq war, “A nightmare with no end in sight”, and he does so in a an interview in Stars and Stripes which is is close as you can come to being the Army’s newspaper and not be a part of the Pentagon budget.
The Republicans, of course, going after him in ways that makes Moveon’s dumb-ass “Betray Us” ad seem like a bloody love in, but the fact that this is in Stars and Stripes is significant.
As to Sanchez himself? I think that he is looking at his place in history, and a possible life sentence in the Hague, and trying to backtrack.
Yes you read that right Paul beat Romney, and he beat him handily: Paul 33%, Romney 16%, Hunter 15%, “Undecided” 11%, and the rest were in single digits.
It should be noted that it was a small conference, about 430 people, and Paul was not at the conference, but Romney and Hunter were.
While a part of it might be attributed to the libertarian streak of western Republicans, I think that a lot of has to do with the fact that polling shows that most Republicans favor us leaving Iraq too.
Ron Paul will not be the Republican nominee. Some of his positions regarding “social issues” and “law and order” are out of sync with the party.
That being said, the first mainstream Republican who says, “George W. Bush, Kiss My Ass, We are Leaving Iraq” would sweep the primaries. He might even have a chance in the general.
But no one running has the guts to do that.
General Casey is claiming that the service is not broken, but that it will take 3-4 years for it to recover from Iraq.
Well duh!!!
It’s actually going to take longer. When you consider the amount that the army has had to drop it’s standards for recruits, the people held in by stop loss orders and inactive ready reserve (aka backdoor draft), and the people who are staying only because they don’t want to leave their buddies while the fight is still going on, it’s going to be a lot longer.
It appears that Dick Cheney is just bloody nuts.
Speaking openly with Bret Baier in the new documentary, “Dick Cheney: No Retreat,” the vice president said he “thought that in terms of the way forward, Don was the right guy to continue to lead the Department of Defense.”
The right guy? I wouldn’t hire Rumsfeld as a pastry chef.
The US Marines are suggesting that they be redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan.
With about 25,000 Marines in Iraq, and about 26,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, this would seem a relatively straightforward swap, though the obvious question is, “why?”
I think that it is because the Marines as a group recognize that Iraq as a lie, and while they are willing to fight, they find that fighting for a lie is disheartening.
There is some push back on this, particularly from the USAF, because the Marines bring their own air capability, one that would probably seriously outperform the USAF, since a Marine air wing is more focused on the ground, with every pilot being a trained rifleman, which would mean less civilian casualties, and better coordination with ground troops.
In July, it was 70 Congressmen, and now it’s “nearly 90”, and the letter is still being circulated.
The interesting thing is that with about 25 more signatures, over ½ of the Democratic members of congress will have signed this. What does the leadership do then, because it can only pass with Republican votes, and more Dems opposing than supporting.
What do the craven elements of the house leadership *cough* Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emmanuel *cough* do then?
This is a good sign.
Text of letter below:
The Honorable George W. Bush
President
United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500Dear Mr. President:
Seventy House Members wrote in July to inform you that they will only support appropriating additional funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq during Fiscal Year 2008 and beyond for the protection and safe redeployment of our troops out of Iraq before you leave office.
Now you are requesting an additional $45 billion to sustain your escalation of U.S. military operations in Iraq through next April, on top of the $145 billion you requested for military operations during FY08 in Iraq and Afghanistan. Accordingly, even more of us are writing anew to underscore our opposition to appropriating any additional funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq other than a time-bound, safe redeployment as stipulated above.
More than 3,742 of our brave soldiers have died in Iraq. More than 27,000 have been seriously wounded. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or injured in the hostilities and more than 4 million have been displaced from their homes. Furthermore, this conflict has degenerated into a sectarian civil war and U.S. taxpayers have paid more than $500 billion, despite assurances that you and your key advisors gave our nation at the time you ordered the invasion in March, 2003 that this military intervention would cost far less and be paid from Iraqi oil revenues.
We agree with a clear and growing majority of the American people who are opposed to continued, open-ended U.S. military operations in Iraq, and believe it is unwise and unacceptable for you to continue to unilaterally impose these staggering costs and the soaring debt on Americans currently and for generations to come.
Sincerely,
For once, Maureen Dowd gets it right. Her thesis is that Hillary Clinton is too focused about her being a woman, and so she will vote for anything bellicose to show that she has the balls to be presieent.
…….
When Hillary voted to let W. use force in Iraq, she didn’t even read the intelligence estimate. She wasn’t trying to do the right thing. She was trying to do the opportunistic thing. She felt she could not run for president, as a woman, if she played the peacenik.
By throwing in with Joe Lieberman and the conservative hawks on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard issue, she once more overcompensated in a cynical way. She’d like to paint Obama as the weak reed who wants to cozy up to dictators, while she’s the one who will play tough. It was odd, given her success in the debates conveying the sense that she is the manliest candidate among the Democrats, that she felt the need to man-up on Iran.
But maybe she knows that Rudy will hurl thunderbolts at her, as he did in the debate yesterday, suggesting that she doesn’t have the guts to use a military option to stop Iran from going nuclear.
Voters seem more concerned with Hillary’s political expediency — which the vote underscored — than with her ability to be manly.
Her camp seems to think her vote was a safe one because W. and Cheney do not have the time or support to bomb Iran, and that Bob Gates can stop it. But she may be underestimating W. and Cheney. She should be at least as paranoid about that pair as she was about an Iowa Democrat.
She nailed it.
One more instability in the region, the motto of Bush and His Evil Minions&trade must be Chaos is Job One.
Over 1100 members of the Minnesota National Guard were deployed to Iraq for 22 months.
Their orders had them deployed for 229 days, more than any other unit. However, if they had been deployed for 730 days, they would have gotten more than three times the educational benefits under the new GI Bill.
This is about two tings, the Bush Admin and the Pentagon wanting to run the war on the cheap, and the general disdain that the regular army has for the guard and reserves.
It’s penny wise and pound foolish. Their retention rate on these soldiers will be a lot less than it would have been.
In this case, Dan Fleshler, when he says that the Jewish Neocons are dead wrong, not disloyal.
I would add terminally stupid, and that they have actually done significant damage to Israel’s negotiating position and security because of their idiocy in Iraq.
I could see at the start of the invasion that this would end badly for Israel, with pressures coming for a quick settlement in the hope that a vain hope that it will calm things down in Iraq.
These folks honestly believed that they would create something like Norway by invading. It just goes to show you that, as the Japanese say, “baka ni tsukeru kusuri wanai”*.
*There is no medicine for stupidity.
They are currently getting parlimentary permission to do so.
So the only stable area in Iraq is about to get invaded. Great.
The Public Editor of the New York Times*, Clark Hoyt, just called General David H. Petraeus a liar. He was circumspect, but here is the money quote:
Stephen Biddle, a scholar at the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, said Petraeus’s December number was “very high” but was likely the result of “statistical noise” — the tendency of Iraq numbers to jump all over the place. Biddle was an adviser to Petraeus last spring but believes the general’s testimony was “potentially misleading” because it didn’t discuss all the reasons why the numbers might have improved.
He said the best way to analyze statistics from Iraq is to gather all the numbers from all sources and look for broad trends instead of picking isolated points, as Petraeus did. Biddle examined data from nine sources on Iraqi civilian deaths, including the U.S. military, independent organizations like Brookings and Iraq Body Count and four news organizations. Although the specific monthly numbers varied widely, he said they all showed declines since late 2006.
Let’s be clear. The general is not a politician, or a pundit, and his testimony is given under the authority of his rank, and he purposely misled congress. The man is a liar, and a suck-up, at least that is what his boss thinks.
Petraeus used numbers that his numbers guy said were unreliable, because he’s a lying sack of excrement REMF.
*In less pretentious papers, they are called an Ombudsman.
Ezra Klein answers the question of why liberal war hawks are lumped with the Neocons.
The answer is, simply enough, that they are indistinguishable from Neocons so long as they continue to enable Bush’s war.
I do not care what the internal machinations are of wankers like Richard Cohen’s mind. I care about the actions of wankers like Richard Cohen, and they are providing as least much aid and comfort to the supporters of Bush’s war as people like William Kristal.
Cohen may not, personally, think like Bill Kristol. But he certainly writes like him. “Neocon, for many, has become shorthand for neocon-Zionist conspiracy,” he says, naming no names, and instead offering a simple, generalized accusation of anti-semitism against all those who question the neoconservatives. “Baghdad is closer to Sarajevo than the left has allowed,” he writes, obliterating the difference between a bombing campaign undertaken to end an ongoing genocide and a ground invasion undertaken to unearth weapons that didn’t exist, overturn a regime we couldn’t replace, and forcibly impose a system of governance that lacked foundations. “MoveOn.org is the Petraeus-insulting face of never-set-foot-in-a-war-zone liberalism,” he scoffs, having never, himself, fought in a war, but nevertheless adopting the authority of those who have.
These are not arguments. They are smears. They are attacks aimed at degrading the credibility, rather than the beliefs, of the coalition that opposes the Iraq War. And in intent and effect, they are indistinguishable from Bill Kristol’s worst columns, save for the possibility that they are more effective, because they ostensibly come from within the Left, rather than outside of it.