Iraq insurgents attack Petraeus’s headquarters. That must be progress, because it clearly indicates that the resistance is in its last throws.
Category: War
POentagon Working Group Says That Petraeus is Full of It
There’s not a hole bunch of love for Petraeus in the halls of the Pentagon.
Maybe they know that he’s destroying hte Army and Marines by sucking up to Bush:
But it’s questionable whether even the smoothest-talking salesman could appease public opinion—or Petraeus’s Pentagon detractors—at this point. NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus.
Republican Chooses Reelection Over “Dear Leader” Bush
Well, Rep. James Walsh (R-Onondaga, NY) is finally taking a stand against Bush on the war.
FWIW, this is his district:
This is upstate New York, Syracuse used to be a manufacturing center, and New York Republicans outside of Long Island are in the mold of Tom Dewey, not Alphonse “Da Woim” D’Amato.
He’s covering his ass. A number of Republicans lost their seats in New York in 2006. Every Republican in New England except for Chris Shays lost his seat in 2006.
The Republican party, and the war are an albatross around his neck, and he’s running scared.
Gee…The Republicans have their panties in a Bunch
They are planning to introduce legislation to condemn Moveon.org’s New York Times ad.
Yes, Moveon is calling him a liar. It would be completely unfair if he weren’t lying.
This is Called Listening to Your Generals, I guess
The UK delayed their withdrawal from Basra because of American political pressure.
“In April we could have come out and done the transition completely and that would have been the right thing to do but politics prevented that,” Bashall, 44, told the paper.
“The Americans asked us to stay for longer,” he said, adding the decision to stay in the city was a result of “political strategy being played out at highest level.”
What Cheney wants, Cheney gets.
Petraeus US surge has ‘not worked out’, Just Not to Congress
Well, here is no surprise, Bush’s hand picked stalking hours on Iraq, David Petraeus is saying that the surge has not worked out in a letter to troops in his command.
General David Petraeus, the commander of United States forces in Iraq, admitted on Friday that sending 30 000 more troops into the war zone in January had failed to yield the desired results. “It has not worked out as we had hoped,” the general said.
The acknowledgement by Petraeus that the situation in Iraq is “exceedingly complex” and that progress had been “uneven” came on the eve of his testimony to Congress on the state of the war. He offered the assessment in a letter to US forces serving in Iraq that was obtained by the Washington Post.
Not quite what he said before congress, huh.
Where I Call Out Oliver Willis on the Blue Dogs
Willis suggests that the campaigns against the Bush Dogs Dems is a waste of resources, and we should focus on places like Donna Edward’s challenge to Al Wynne.
He is completely wrong.
The “Bush Dog” Challenge is almost entirely about the war. There are other issues in the mix, but the war is the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and getting out of Iraq is a winner for Democrats, as the overwhelming majority of Americans, including Republicans want us out now.
They are pushing this position out of cowardice and stupidity, and getting them back on track serves to strengthen, not weaken the Democratic hold on their seats.
In addition, letting them be stupid and craven without consequence serves to destroy what is already pathetically weak Democratic party discipline.
Bush Intends to Use Nuclear Weapons Against Iran
Read Larry Johnson’s analysis:
- B-52s deploying to Barksdale is not unusual.
- The only time a plane has nukes on it is when it’s on alert, or it’s tasked to move it to a specific site.
- Barksdale AFB is a staging base for the Middle East.
- Someone on the inside obviously leaked the information, as mishaps with nukes are kept WELL under cover until well after they are resolved.
- Why would someone leak this if it were an honest accident?
Mr. Johnson is far more circumspect that I am. The Bush admin not only has plans for a nuclear strike on Iran, it is their preferred tactic.
John Edwards Calls Out Congress on War
Needless to say, the Washington DC Journamalist press corps will use this to claim that Edwards is too far out there*, but in reality the fact that that congress should not fund the war without a withdrawal timetable is actually pretty safe.
More than 90% of the primary voters, and more than 70% of those folks who are not Republican Dead Enders™ support this. It’s a natural vote getter.
My recommendation to any Democratic presidential candidate is to state loudly and clearly that escalation by attacking Iran is a bad thing. It would destabilize the region, provide popular support to the Iranian theocracy, and put more American lives at risk.
In fact, I would suggest that a candidate should suggest that this is a reason to initiate immediate impeachment proceedings.
More Ways that the US Invasion of Iraq Screws Up the Middle East
Bush Caught Lying About Disbanding Iraq Military
Well, it appears that contrary to his statements, Bush specifically endorsed dismantling the Iraqi army.
One wonders if the Washington press corps will be upset about this as they were about a blowjob.
RNC Doing Intelligence in Green Zone?
Seriously, when reps Moran and Tauscher went to Iraq, the found that thousands of flyers, describing them in terms sounding like opposition research, were circulating in the Green Zone.
Bush and His Evil Minions™ have infiltrated every level of US government, and we are going to need de-Bushification when he is gone if we want our government to work.
One amusing/appalling note from the story above:
But even such tight control could not always filter out the bizarre world inside the barricades. At one point, the three were trying to discuss the state of Iraqi security forces with Iraq’s national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, but the large, flat-panel television set facing the official proved to be a distraction. Rubaie was watching children’s cartoons.
When Moran asked him to turn it off, Rubaie protested with a laugh and said, “But this is my favorite television show,” Moran recalled.
Cover Up, Part Deux
Well it looks like the cover up masquerading as a court martial is finished.
So they acquitted Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan of everything but talking about the investigation, for which he will receive a reprimand.
So, no regular army officers, Jordan is a reservist, were convicted of anything, and the only thing an officer got was a slap on the wrist.
My someone with a star had to know, and explicitly approve of it, and someone at a higher level had to give tacit approval.
Based on reports, we already know that Rumsfeld viewed the Geneva conventions with contempt, and as the saying goes sh&% flows down hill.
Hmmmm….I’ve Heard This Before
A few years back…I can’t put my finger on it….Those things that Bush and His Evil Minions™ have been saying about Iraq Iran,”And Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust,” sounds strangely familiar.
It’s almost like I’ve heard this before, maybe about 5 years ago.
Iraq is Not their Catastrophe, Iraq is their Utopia
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone cuts to the heart of the matter in their article, “The Great Iraq Swindle“.
It is a must read expose of the corruption in the contracting in Iraq, but it answers a bigger question, why did the Neocons want to go there in the first place?
Here is the money quote:
Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient. George W. Bush’s war in the Mesopotamian desert was an experiment of sorts, a crude first take at his vision of a fully privatized American government. In Iraq the lines between essential government services and for-profit enterprises have been blurred to the point of absurdity — to the point where wounded soldiers have to pay retail prices for fresh underwear, where modern-day chattel are imported from the Third World at slave wages to peel the potatoes we once assigned to grunts in KP, where private companies are guaranteed huge profits no matter how badly they f%$# things up.
And just maybe, reviewing this appalling history of invoicing orgies and million-dollar boondoggles, it’s not so far-fetched to think that this is the way someone up there would like things run all over — not just in Iraq but in Iowa, too, with the state police working for Corrections Corporation of America, and DHL with the contract to deliver every Christmas card. And why not? What the Bush administration has created in Iraq is a sort of paradise of perverted capitalism, where revenues are forcibly extracted from the customer by the state, and obscene profits are handed out not by the market but by an unaccountable government bureaucracy. This is the triumphant culmination of two centuries of flawed white-people thinking, a preposterous mix of authoritarian socialism and laissez-faire profiteering, with all the worst aspects of both ideologies rolled up into one pointless, supremely idiotic military adventure — American men and women dying by the thousands, so that Karl Marx and Adam Smith can blow each other in a Middle Eastern glory hole.
They could not do this in Afghanistan, there simply is not the money there, but Iraq, with its immense oil reserves served as the laboratory for their twisted vision of society.
Simply put, it’s scarier than you think. Iraq is not their catastrophe, Iraq is their utopia
Ted Nugent Wets His Pants to Avoid Combat
Facing a draft, Nugent bravely wet his pants
Rocker is all talk as he calls Obama, Hillary vile namesAugust 27, 2007
BY RICHARD ROEPER Sun-Times Columnist
So Ted Nugent roams a concert stage while toting automatic weapons, calls Barack Obama “a piece of —–” and says he told Obama to suck on one of his machine-guns. He also calls Hillary Clinton a “worthless bitch” and Dianne Feinstein a “worthless whore.”That Nugent, he’s a man’s man. He talks the talk and walks the walk, right?
Except when it was time to register for the draft during the Vietnam era. By his own admission, Nugent stopped all forms of personal hygiene for a month and showed up for his draft board physical in pants caked with his own urine and feces, winning a deferment. Creative!
…
I can’t speak to what I would have done in that situation, but I’m not advocating sending someone else’s children off to war. When he had the chance to be a stand up guy, he did not stand up.
To quote Keith Olbermann, Ted Nugent is today’s worst person in the world.
It’s Official, We Need to Abolish the Air Force
Or, as David Axe, of War is Boring puts it, Reason #817 Why the Air Force Sucks.
This a real quote from the real Air Combat Command chief Ronald Keys, “The hardest wars we fight are not on the battlefield, but the wars we fight in the halls of Congress. They are fought in the Pentagon, they are fought in these programs, to make sure the money is paid and eventually the program is operating.”
That’s our problem. The air force is not a bunch of soldiers, it’s a bunch of f&^%ing K-street lobbiests.
Go read Axe’s stuff…It has the some quotes from Air Force’s counter-insurgency manual that are so stupid, you would think that Alberto Gonzalez would remember them.
One quote from Axe:
The Air Force bailed out of the potentially revolutionary UCAS killer drone program in order to buy a big new fleet of big new manned bombers for much more money. The service wants to prepare for an imaginary high-tech air war with China instead of fighting the dirty, low-tech wars we’re actually in. Why? Because high-tech superpower showdowns are what the Air Force knows. They’re easy. The low-tech approach to warfare, by contrast, requires patience and smarts, two things today’s Air Force lacks.
The independent air force was a bad idea.
Ironically, I considered joining the USAF, despite my myopia after I left high school.
A Very Interesting Point About Iraq
The folks at Think Progress ask the question is the prospect of withdrawal responsible for the modest security gains in Iraq?
They quote the following from the NIE:
Gearing a Coalition withdrawal, some tribal elements and Sunni groups probably will continue to seek accommodation with the Coalition to strengthen themselves for a post- Coalition security environment…
It’s a good point.
There are a lot of people in Iraq who would be preparing for what follows, and hence not blowing up our soldiers, if they believed that our exit, or at least our withdrawal from routine security operations, were imminent.
Iraq War Brings Drop in Black Enlistees – New York Times
There is an interesting article in the NY Times regarding precipitous drop in Black enlistment in the military.
The sharpest decline in black recruitment has been experienced by the Army, which has the most troops deployed in Iraq; black recruits dropped to 13 percent of the Army’s total in 2006 from 23 percent in 2001. In the Marines, with the second-largest force in Iraq, the share of black recruits decreased to 8 percent from 12 percent in the same period. There were also declines in the Navy and the Air Force, though not as great as those in the two other services.
To provide some perspective, note that Blacks are about 13% of the US population.
As a traditionally economically disadvantaged community, it should be noted that Blacks are traditionally more likely to enlist, as doing so is perceived as a way out of poverty and America’s profoundly dysfunctional ghettos.
“I’m not really into going overseas with guns and fighting other people’s wars,” said Mr. Finch, 18, headed to college this fall to study accounting.
While the fact that we are mired in a senseless quagmire in Iraq, this quote highlights another aspect of the drop, that many Blacks feel divorced from the US Government, and in particular George W. Bush, with whom the Iraq war is closely associated.
Additionally, it should be noted that one of the reasons that Black ghetto youth joined the military was to get away from gang activity in their neighborhoods, and because of the lowered recruiting standards, gang members, and gang culture, have increasingly entered the military.
Our military is being destroyed, and in a much more profound and long lasting way, by our fools errand in Mesopotamia.
The First Serious Republican to Call for a Pullout Wins Iowa
Strategic Vision Polled voters on a number of issues, including Iraq, and the results are interestting, particularly question 4.
4. Do you favor a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months? (Republicans Only)
Yes 51%
No 39%
Undecided 10%
Given those numbers, and given the number of candidates who are running, the highest in the polls gets barely 30%, the first credible* Republican candidate to call for a pullout wins Iraw.
*Credible means not a racist libertarian nutjob like Ron Paul.