Jon Stewart Grills Doug Feith

I missed this when it aired, but, on my husband's recommendation, I went looking for video. Jon Stewart proves once again that he is one of the only actual journalists in broadcast news. In this interview, he really puts Doug Feith's feet to the fire the way "real news professionals," let alone Congress, failed to in the run up to our invasion of Iraq.

Conduct Waivers Up... Way Up

From USA Today:

The percentage of recruits requiring a waiver to join the Army because of a criminal record or other past misconduct has more than doubled since 2004 to one for every eight new soldiers.

. . .

The percentage of active and Reserve Army recruits granted "conduct" waivers for misdemeanor or felony charges increased to 11% last fiscal year from 4.6% in fiscal 2004, according to Army Recruiting Command statistics. So far this fiscal year, which began last October, 13% of recruits have entered the Army with conduct waivers.

. . .

Carr and others say the military has granted waivers without hurting the quality of recruits. Exceptions are granted after examining recommendations from teachers, coaches and others. "We don't look at them unless their community stands behind them," Carr said.

No loss in quality, huh? Great. Well I'm sure that Iraqi family, murdered and their teenage daughter raped, at the hands of Pfc. Steven D. Green will be relieved to hear it.

Recruits who have come in with waivers generally perform better than peers who haven't needed special permission to join the Army, [military personnel official, Bill] Carr said.

Better? Well, then, the Army should have been granting these waivers all along. I don't know why they waited until we started breaking the military in Iraq. Any policy that improves the quality of recruits should be consistent policy, I'd think. Note to Mr. Carr: Good flacks, in the know, know the meaning of the word "overkill."

The IRack

Every time I catch this sketch in a MadTV rerun, I mean to locate a YouTube and post it. This time I actually did something about it. Hilarious.

Military Families Turn On Bush Republicans

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing.

"The man went into Iraq without justification, without a plan; he just decided to go in there and win, and he had no idea what was going to happen. There have been terrible deaths on our side, and it's even worse for the Iraqi population. It's another Vietnam."

-- Mary MacNeely, Mother of Air Force Reservist

Vietnam, which ruptured this country in incalculable ways. Among them, a right/left split that moved most military and military families to kneejerk Republican allegiance. Speaking as a member of one of those few left-leaning military families, let me say that I have seen this this coming; this Republican loss of its reliable military voter base.

Families with ties to the military, long a reliable source of support for wartime presidents, disapprove of President Bush and his handling of the war in Iraq, with a majority concluding the invasion was not worth it, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

The views of the military community, which includes active-duty service members, veterans and their family members, mirror those of the overall adult population, a sign that the strong military endorsement that the administration often pointed to has dwindled in the war's fifth year.

The Bush Administration's obsessive pursuit of "victory" in Iraq has not only managed to destroy its own support from military culture, but that of its party.

When military families were asked which party could be trusted to do a better job of handling issues related to them, respondents divided almost evenly: 39% said Democrats and 35% chose Republicans. The general population feels similarly: 39% for Democrats and 31% for Republicans.

And, I'm sure it doesn't help when chicken-hawks like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell belittle the sacrifice of our all-volunteer military.

Unfortunately, most of our friends on the other isle are having a hard time admitting things are getting better; some days I almost think the critics of this war don't want us to win. Nobody is happy about losing lives but remember these are not draftees, these are full-time professional soldiers.

How much is wrong with that statement? For one thing... Democrats live on a island? Shouldn't that be "other side of the aisle?" Perhaps it was a transcription error and I should point the finger at the Grayson County News-Gazette. Or perhaps McConnell really does strand the Democrats of his imagination at sea, with Gilligan and the Skipper, too. It would not surprise me. The man is apparently so out of touch with reality that he has no awareness that we are losing members from every branch of the military, not just the army (soldiers), and that many of those currently risking life and limb are not full-time military professionals, but reservists who are, on top of other indignities, losing the income of their regular salaries to collect, in many cases, significantly lower military wages.

Mitch McConnell, a shining example of Republican military advocacy; lionizing our "brave troops" one minute, and displaying his near total ignorance of the realities of military life the next.

"I don't see gains for the people of Iraq . . . and, oh, my God, so many wonderful young people, and these are the ones who felt they were really doing something, that's why they signed up. I pray to God that they did not die in vain, but I don't think our president is even sensitive at all to what it's like to have a child serving over there."

-- Sue Datta, Mother of Army Staff Sergeant

Being in an active duty military family creates a certain isolation and a sense of internal community. We are, in many ways, cut off from the sense of geographical community that many Americans define by. We move a lot, so it is the military bases, commissaries, and the surround of other military families that is the most reliable constant. The result is, among, other things a conformity of viewpoint within that community. Particularly because he is an officer, my husband has long dealt with the "presumption of Republicanism." You are assumed to be Republican and conservative unless you openly state otherwise. That's been the case throughout my husband's military career, but it may not be so for much longer.

From the beginning of this push to go into Iraq, there were rumblings. I was somewhat surprised to learn that I was not the only military spouse who was pissed as hell at the idea of my husband deploying for a war that made no fucking sense. One of my husband's Marines officially changed his party affiliation from Republican to Independent the day he got his orders. And, when I went to protests in my largely military town, Marines were seen walking by giving the thumbs up to the protesters. This war has never been as popular with military culture as Bush's staged photo-ops, with their props in uniform, would have you think.

Five years later, what we are seeing is a sea change. Military families are becoming fed up with a President and a political party that does not serve their interests.

Asked about the Bush administration's handling of the needs of active-duty troops, military families and veterans, 57% of the general public disapprove. That number falls only slightly among military families -- 53% give a thumbs-down.

And most military families and others surveyed took no exception to retired officers publicly criticizing the Bush administration's execution of the war. More than half of the respondents in both groups -- 58% -- say such candor is appropriate. Families with someone who had served in the war are about equally supportive at 55%.

The Bush Administration will not be able to hide behind the military for much longer, and defend his misguided policies as supporting troops who want "to get the job done." Not when 60% of military families say "the Iraq war is not worth the cost," and 58% want the within a year.

"We support the troops; we don't support Bush. These boys have paid a terrible, terrible price."

-- Linda Ramirez, Mother of US Marine

Why Does the Military Hate the Troops?

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing.

"I tried to do my best and serve my country. I was unfortunately hurt in the process. Now they're telling me they want their money back." -- Jordan Fox

Jordan Fox accepted a $10,000 signing bonus from the US Army. Then like so many of our troops in Iraq, he got blown up by a roadside bomb. He suffered back and head injuries and lost vision in his right eye. His injuries left him unable to pursue his dream of joining the police force... and continue serving in the military. He was sent home 3 months before his contract was up. Then he got a bill from the Pentagon for nearly $3000 of his signing bonus. They want their money back because he didn't fulfill his entire contract.

Jordan Fox is not alone. According to reportage from KDKA, thousands of injured troops are being denied signing bonuses because of injuries that cut that service short. It would seem that sacrificing vision, limbs, and futures, in the service of their country, is not enough. The government would also like them to relinquish money they promised to pay them for risking death and disfigurement, in the first place.

When I first heard about this story, earlier today, I thought, the Pentagon will fold on this one. The publicity is just too heinous, especially when they are still waving signing bonuses under the noses of potential enlistees, in their desperate effort to meet enlistment quotas. Cave they did, but so far, only in the case of the young man who has gotten media attention. (Power of the press, we call it.) According to this follow-up report from KDKA, they will not explain whether Fox's bill was sent in error, nor on the status of the thousands of other injured vets who are reportedly being denied what was promised to them.

Jason Altmire, a freshman Congressman from Pennsylvania, last month introduced a bill called the Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act. Altmire is, of course, a Democrat, because, as we know, Republicans only care about the troops when they are using them as set dressing and propaganda tools.

Frank Rich Gets It

What is "it?" The fact that there are real parallels between what is happening in this country and what happened in Nazi Germany and that too many Americans are being Good Germans. Only enablers of fascism could keep turning a blind eye to the atrocities being committed by our government. Citing the Andrew Sullivan column discussed here, Rich lays out a laundry list of crimes from torture to the shoddy treatment of our troops to lawless mercenary contractors, and questions American apathy.

I have always maintained that the American public was the least culpable of the players during the run-up to Iraq. The war was sold by a brilliant and fear-fueled White House propaganda campaign designed to stampede a nation still shellshocked by 9/11. Both Congress and the press — the powerful institutions that should have provided the checks, balances and due diligence of the administration’s case — failed to do their job. Had they done so, more Americans might have raised more objections. This perfect storm of democratic failure began at the top.

As the war has dragged on, it is hard to give Americans en masse a pass. We are too slow to notice, let alone protest, the calamities that have followed the original sin.

. . .

Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war’s last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country’s good name.

Bush v. Congress: Armenian Genocide

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing.

As discussed here and here, there is still ongoing debate over whether or not the mass slaughter of Armenians at the hands of the Young Turks qualifies as a "genocide." A symbolic piece of legislation, pressed by Speaker Pelosi and approved by committee to go to the full Congress, hours ago, would acknowledge the Armenian genocide. This, over President Bush's objections, as he moves aggressively to sideline it.

President Bush and two top cabinet members urged lawmakers today to reject a resolution describing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians early in the last century as genocide — a highly sensitive issue at a time of rising tensions with Turkey over northern Iraq.

“We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915,” Mr. Bush said in a brief statement from the White House. “But this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to relations with a key ally in NATO and to the war on terror.”

. . .

Adding to the tensions are the recent Turkish preparations for a possible invasion of northern Iraq in an effort to stop lethal incursions by armed Kurdish militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.

. . .

When the resolution seemed likely to reach a vote last spring, Ms. Rice and Mr. Gates joined in a strongly worded letter to Ms. Pelosi warning against passage. They repeated their arguments Wednesday.

“The passage of this resolution at this time would be very problematic for everything we are trying to do in the Middle East,” Ms. Rice said.

Yes, acknowledging that Armenians were subject to a genocide would make President Bush's job even harder and we all know that being President is hard work. But one must truly wonder where all that "moral clarity" he's so famous for goes when it's inconvenient. Over this, he wants to be a diplomat?!

So, was what happened to the Armenians a genocide? According to the late Raphael Lemkin, who created the word "genocide," and spent his life pressing for international law forbidding it, it most definitely was.

The Crime With No Name

“I became interested in genocide because it happened to the Armenians; and after[wards] the Armenians got a very rough deal at the Versailles Conference because their criminals were guilty of genocide and were not punished. ”

-- Raphael Lemkin

Someone Take the Shovel Away from Limbaugh

Because he's just digging himself in deeper with this sad attempt to clarify his troop bashing comments. A hat-tip to Jules Siegel on Pff, who alerted me to Rush Limbaugh's attempt to correct the record on his use of the term "phony soldiers." Limbaugh's explanation?

I was not talking, as Contessa Brewer said here, about the anti-war movement generally. I was talking about one soldier with that "phony soldier" comment, Jesse MacBeth.

But Limbaugh did not say "phony soldier." He said "phony soldiers," plural.

It only gets worse from there.

Media Matters had the transcript, but they selectively choose what they want to make their point. Here is -- it runs about 3 minutes and 13 seconds -- the entire transcript, in context, that led to this so-called controversy.

But, even as Limbaugh accuses Media matters of creative editing, he provides a transcript that is creatively edited. His "entire transcript" is missing over a minute of dialog between his "phony soldiers" comment and his subsequent reference to the infamous Jesse MacBeth.

I love the smell of desperation in the morning.

Also worth a look is Jon Soltz's blog on The Huffington Post, in which he poses the following challenge to Limbaugh:

My challenge to you, then, is to have me on the show and say all of this again, right to the face of someone who served in Iraq. I'll come on any day, any time. Not only will I once again explain why your comments were so wrong, but I will completely school you on why your refusal to seek a way out of Iraq is only aiding al Qaeda and crippling American security.

Ball's in your court.

And if you're in the mood for some really creative editing, (or "creative edititing," as it says on the video) this wing-nuttized version of Soltz's appearance on "Hardball," discussing Limbaugh, was the only one I could find on YouTube.

Chicken-Hawk Limbaugh Maligns Troops

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing.

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Well, that didn't take long. As I said on the occasion of the Senate's censure of MoveOn.org:

They are not interested in protecting the troops from criticism any more than they are in providing for their actual needs. They are only interested in protecting their political "tools," which is exactly what General Petraeus is.

Republicans will continue to aid and abet attacks on any service member, active duty or retired, who does not spout GOP talking points, or dares to criticize the neocon agenda.

Leave it to Rush "Boil On His Butt" Limbaugh, to unload his venom on all the troops who don't share the grand neocon vision. As per Media Matters:

LIMBAUGH: There's a lot more than that that they don't understand. They can't even -- if -- the next guy that calls here, I'm gonna ask him: Why should we pull -- what is the imperative for pulling out? What's in it for the United States to pull out? They can't -- I don't think they have an answer for that other than, "Well, we just gotta bring the troops home."

CALLER 2: Yeah, and, you know what --

LIMBAUGH: "Save the -- keep the troops safe" or whatever. I -- it's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.

CALLER 2: No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.

LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.

CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq. They understand their sacrifice, and they're willing to sacrifice for their country.

Yes, from the man who could not serve his country in Vietnam, because of an anal fissure, a delightful new term: "phony soldier." Pretty horrifying, especially when you consider just how many of those "phony" soldiers are taking it in the shorts in this misbegotten adventure. Yes, a good number of the troops who are actually doing the fighting and the dying are really phonies, by Mr. Limbaugh's standard.

Media Matters cites the New York Times op-ed by seven 82nd Airborne soldiers who expressed their disenchantment with our Iraq involvement and conclusion that we need to withdraw and let the Iraqis regain their dignity by ending our occupation of that country. Two of those seven "phony soldiers" have already paid the ultimate price in Iraq.

But those seven soldiers are just the tip the of the "phony" iceberg floating in our armed services. As of December of last year, it is the minority of our active-duty military who agree with Bush's policies in Iraq. Washington Monthly quotes an E&P article, which is no longer extant on its servers:

Barely one in three service members approve of the way the president is handling the war, according to the new poll for the four papers (Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Times). In another startling finding, only 41% now feel it was the right idea to go to war in Iraq in the first place.

And the number who feel success there is likely has shrunk from 83% in 2004 to about 50% today. A surprising 13% say there should be no U.S. troops in Iraq at all. [...]

Nearly three-quarters of the respondents think today's military is stretched too thin to be effective.

That poll did not, apparently, address the idea of a phased withdrawal from Iraq. An earlier Zogby poll did. When offered a range of questions on the subject, 72% favored some schedule of withdrawal spanning a year. So, by that poll, 72% of our troops are "phony."

Here are some things a chicken-hawk like Mr. Limbaugh cannot possibly understand. Just because our troops are committed to completing whatever mission is assigned to them does not automatically mean that they support the politics behind it. They commit to do what their country, through its representatives, asks of them, and put party and politics aside. That is how our professional military is set up; to be an apolitical institution. The disenchantment we are currently seeing in our military has to do with the increasing sense of futility about the overall mission.

Spc. Don Roberts told the AP, "I don't know what could help at this point..... What would more guys do? We can't pick sides. It's almost like we have to watch them kill each other, then ask questions."

Sgt. Josh Keim, who is on his second tour in Iraq, said, "Nothing's going to help. It's a religious war, and we're caught in the middle of it. It's hard to be somewhere where there's no mission and we just drive around."

Sgt. Justin Thompson added that a troop surge is "not going to stop the hatred between Shia and Sunni." Thompson, whose 4-year contract was involuntarily extended in June, added, "This is a civil war, and we're just making things worse. We're losing. I'm not afraid to say it."

As much as Mr. Limbaugh might want to dismiss those soldiers from the Army's 5th Battalion as "phony," they are real and they represent a growing number of troops who do not think they can be effective in Iraq. By judging our troops according to a political litmus test -- and alternately lionizing and bashing them based on how they represent the GOP agenda -- Limbaugh and his ilk demonstrate their total lack of understanding about what honor really means.

Likewise, the Senate, including 22 Democratic members, completely misconstrued what MoveOn.org was saying with the ad they wasted time and our tax dollars condemning. General Petraeus has betrayed the American people by acting as exactly the kind of political tool that the UCMJ forbids him from becoming.

So, will the Senate be condemning Rush Limbaugh for his scurrilous attack on those military members who have dared to question the efficacy of our Iraq policy? I won't hold my breath.

Senate Condemns Free Speech

So, let me get this straight. A Senate which could not pass legislation to provide our troops with adequate rest between deployments or to restore habeas corpus can waste time and tax dollars censuring MoveOn.org. Is this what our Senate is good for now? Condemning free speech? Squelching dissent?

Republicans escalated a rhetorical war with Democrats over political advertising on Thursday, as the Senate voted 72 to 25 to condemn an attack on the U.S. commander in Iraq by the liberal activist group MoveOn.org.

President Bush entered the fray for the first time, describing a newspaper ad sponsored by MoveOn.org -- which ridiculed Army Gen. David H. Petraeus as "General Betray Us" -- as "disgusting."

"I felt like the ad was an attack not only on Gen. Petraeus, but on the U.S. military," Bush said at a news conference. "Most Democrats are [more] afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org . . . than they are of irritating the United States military. That was a sorry deal."

That Senate Republicans would pose such legislation with the backing of the President himself should come as no surprise. GOP blowhards have a documented history of exploiting members of the military as symbols and not giving a good goddamn about the actual, material needs of the men and women who serve. But this move is mind-numbingly hypocritical. Where was their outrage when John Kerry was Swift-Boated, when pasty-faced chicken-hawks sported purple heart band-aids, when Saxby Chamblis ridiculed the courage of Vietnam Veteran and triple amputee Max Cleland, or when GOP operatives impugned the service record of Congressman Murtha? But, no. When Barbara Boxer offered an amendment that would have condemned attacks on any service member, it failed. They are not interested in protecting the troops from criticism any more than they are in providing for their actual needs. They are only interested in protecting their political "tools," which is exactly what General Petraeus is.

Republicans will continue to aid and abet attacks on any service member, active duty or retired, who does not spout GOP talking points, or dares to criticize the neocon agenda. Yet, 22 Democrats have, with all the cravenness that defines that party, sided with Republicans on this idiotic bill. Read 'em and weep.

Jane Hamsher summed up this idiocy well the other day and it stuck with me.

It’s just such a basic, elemental principle at play here — you don’t help the right wing out by repeating their talking points, ever. Why was this so hard to grasp?

Why, indeed.

Why Do the Republicans Hate the Troops... and Puppies?

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing.

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As discussed here, Jim Webb's bill would have mandated "dwell time" to give our exhausted troops a break. It stood a good chance of passing until Senator Warner did a 180 and withdrew his support. In the end only 6 Senate Republicans showed that they give a damn about the well-being of our fighting men and women.

Senate Republicans blocked a plan on Wednesday to give U.S. troops in Iraq more home leave, defeating a proposal widely seen as the Democrats' best near-term chance to change President George W. Bush's Iraq strategy.

The measure to give troops as much rest time at home as they spent on their most recent tour overseas needed 60 votes to pass in the Democratic-controlled Senate; it received just 56 votes, with 44 against.

It had been offered by Sen. Jim Webb, a decorated Vietnam veteran and former Navy secretary. The Democrat said U.S. troops are being "burned out" by repeated redeployments to Iraq, with tours of up to 15 months and less than a year off in between.

Portrait of a Chicken-Hawk

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing.

Frederick W. Kagan

Glenn Greenwald, whose forthcoming book is on the meaningless chest-thumping of chicken-hawk culture, offers the following illustration. He quotes Fred W. Kagan, whose argument against Jim Webb's proposal for allowing our troops more time at home between deployments, is that it will be a bureaucratic nightmare.

So this amendment would actually require the Army and Marine Corps staffs to keep track of how long every individual servicemember had spent in either Iraq or Afghanistan, how long they had been at home, how long the unit that they were now in had spent deployed, and how long it had been home...

Greenwald makes the point, and it's a good one, that weighing some paperwork concerns against the welfare of our troops is "almost too much to bear." But, with all due respect to Mr. Greenwald, the bureaucratic difficulty argument offered by Kagan isn't worth its weight in paper. My first thought reading that statement: I'm pretty sure they do that now. So, I called my husband at work. Being a Marine Corps officer, he has a little experience with these matters. His thoughts:

That's what admin shops do. All of that data is tracked now. At most you might have to collate it into a central database, a spreadsheet if you will, and post it. It might add a step, maybe two.

Apparently Mr. Kagan is laboring under the misconception that we don't currently keep records on "every individual servicemember" (I mean, they're just cannon fodder, right?) and that all of our current deployment logistics, after-action reports, awarding of medals, combat pay, hazardous duty pay, tax deferments, supply, specialized training, activating reservists, reporting of deaths and casualties, etc., etc., etc... All of it is just happening by magic. War is a bureaucratic nightmare, Mr. Kagan.

That is reason number... ok, I've lost count... why lazy, fat fucks, with no military experience, whatsoever, should shut the fuck up about what is and isn't a hardship for our men and women in uniform.

But Kagan's defense against Webb's defense of our troops is even more disingenuous than his erroneous inflation of a few paperwork headaches. Kagan goes on to explain that Webb's plan to legislate hard rules about the length of "dwell time" will "severely constrain the pool of units and personnel that could be sent." And that's the heart of the problem, now isn't it. We. Don't. Have. Enough. Troops. Not to fulfill the grand vision of global of hegemony envisioned in his lazy, fat-fuck, neocon, wet dream. And we can't possibly go to a draft, because that would mean that Bush's chicken-hawk base might have to actually put their own tiny dicks into this fight and whatever support is left for this catastrophe will evaporate in a nanosecond.

Blackwater: Throwing Out the Mercs

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing.

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The Iraqi government wants Blackwater out of Iraq, following an incident that has left at least 8 Iraqi civilians dead.

"We have revoked Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq. As of now they are not allowed to operate anywhere in the Republic of Iraq," Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf said Monday. "The investigation is ongoing, and all those responsible for Sunday's killing will be referred to Iraqi justice."

But the Iraqi government will face an uphill battle. Blackwater, like other private military contractors, is functioning virtually outside the law.

The question of whether they could face prosecution is legally murky. Unlike soldiers, the contrators are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under a special provision secured by American-occupying forces, they are exempt from prosecution by Iraqis for crimes committed there.

Blackwater will most assuredly fight their de-licensing and they will have the full backing of the Bush Administration, because these extra-legal corporate warriors are integral to the "war on terra." I fully expect the Iraqi government to cave to US pressure.

Tens of thousands of foreign private security contractors work in Iraq some with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and bulletproof vehicles to provide protection for Westerners and dignitaries in Iraq as the country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war.

. . .

Many of the contractors have been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys, but none has faced charges or prosecution.

BLACKWATER: THE SHADOW WAR

It's the Oil, Stupid -- Part Infinity

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I really tire of saying this. We are in Iraq for oil. And the latest pol to attest to this obvious reality: Alan Greenspan. With his memoir set to pub on Monday, news that Greenspan has been taking the piss out of the Bush Administration for its crappy economic policies has been bubbling out all week.

However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East.

NOBODY Scoops General Petraeus

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, My Left Wing, and the Independent Bloggers' Alliance.

This week the General Accountability Office slipped an advance copy of its progress report on Iraq to the Washington Post. Their report was "strikingly negative." The GAO thinks that Iraq has failed to meet all but 3 of its 18 mandated benchmarks. But that's because the GAO is a bunch of girlie-men. Don't they know that we are all supposed to -- say it with me now -- "Wait to hear what General Petraeus has to say!"

Well General Petraeus is speaking, to The Australian, and guess what: The Surge Is Working!

"We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress and we believe al-Qa'ida is off balance at the very least," he said.

At the "very least," he says. Pshaw. I think the thing I love most about General Petraeus is his modesty. Let's face it. He is kicking insurgent ass, over there.

Here are a few things the terrorists didn't know about General Petraeus when they provoked his wrath:

• General Petraeus's tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.


• When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for General Petraeus.


• General Petraeus can make a woman climax by simply pointing at her and saying "hooah."


• General Petraeus does not sleep. He waits.


• General Petraeus once tried to sue Burger King after they refused to put razor wire in his Whopper Jr., insisting that that actually is "his" way.


• General Petraeus took my virginity, and he will sure as hell take yours. If you're thinking to yourself, "That's impossible. I already lost my virginity," then you are dead wrong.


• General Petraeus can slam revolving doors.


• General Petraeus doesn't have hair on his testicles, because hair does not grow on steel.


• General Petraeus counted to infinity - twice.


• When General Petraeus exercises, the machine gets stronger.


• General Petraeus is allowed to talk about Fight Club.


• General Petraeus sleeps with a night light. Not because General Petraeus is afraid of the dark, but because the dark is afraid of General Petraeus.


• Water boils faster when General Petraeus watches it.


• If General Petraeus is late, time better slow the fuck down.


• When General Petraeus jumps in a lake, he doesn't get wet. The water gets Petraeus.


• General Petraeus once ate three 72 oz. steaks in one hour. He spent the first 45 minutes having sex with his waitress.


• General Petraeus refers to himself in fourth person.


• Superman owns a pair of General Petraeus pajamas.


• As a child, General Petraeus played Hungry Hungry Hippos with real hippos.


• General Petraeus's sperm can penetrate 13 condoms, the birth control pill, a brick wall, and the 1975 Pittsburgh Steelers offensive line in order to impregnate a woman.


• General Petraeus always gets blackjack. Even when he's playing poker.


• The only thing we have to fear is fear itself... The only thing fear has to fear is General Petraeus.

But Curmudgette, you are saying, aren't these just warmed over Chuck Norris and Vin Diesel jokes? Yeah. What are you gonna do about it?

EVERYTHING is better with General Petraeus in it. The following video, for instance, is only good, if you close your eyes and imagine he's singing about General David Petraeus.

Jim Webb: Now THAT'S Support for the Troops

I am loving Jim Webb, at this moment, for saying on "Meet the Press" what I have been saying for years; that Republicans need to stop using the troops as political cover and putting words in the mouths of the voiceless. Voiceless because members of the military are bound by the UCMJ not to align themselves publicly with any political cause. Yet, the Bush Administration, at every turn, uses them as props to dress a set and exploits their deaths to justify killing more of them.

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars for providing this partial transcript of Webb's stand-off with Lindsey Graham:

Graham: “The surge has been in place for two weeks” Webb: “we didn’t
do that in two weeks”

Webb: “It’s been a hard month Lindsey, hasn’t it?”

Webb: “Lindsey’s had a hard month. These people who have gathered around the President, you know, on the immigration bill and this bill, I know it’s been tough. We gotta bring people together …”

Webb: “We’re now in a situation where the soldiers and the Marines are having less than a one to one ratio [time at home versus time at war], and somebody needs to speak up for them instead of simply defending what this President …”

Graham: “Well, they reenlist in the highest numbers anywhere than the…”

Webb: “This one thing I really take objection to is politicians …”

Lindsey keeps interrupting

Webb: “May I speak? … Is politicians who put their political views in the mouths of soldiers. You can look at poll after poll and the political views of the United States military are no different than the country writ large. Go take a look at the New York Times today. Less than half of the military believes that we should have been in Iraq in the first place.”

Graham: “Have you ever been to Iraq? Have you ever been?”

Webb: “Have you ever been to these … I’ve covered two wars as a correspondent.”

Graham: “Have you been to Iraq and talked to the soldiers?”

[Curmudgette's note to Lindsey Graham: Jim Webb's own son served in Iraq as a US Marine!! Do you think he might have a little insight into what his own son and other grunts are facing over there?]

Webb: “You know, you haven’t been to Iraq Lindsey. (cross-talk). You go see the dog and pony show. That’s what Congressman do.”

cross talk

Webb: “I’ve been a member of the military more than the Senators been a Senator.”

———
Webb: “35% of the United States military agrees with the policy of this President.”

Graham: “Well, why do they keep reenlisting? Why do they go back?”

Webb: “Because they love their country. (cross-talk) They do not do it for political reasons. Believe me, my family’s been doing this since the Revolutionary War.”

Graham: “Yea? Well so has my family.”

Webb: “They do it because they love their country. They do it because they have a tradition, and it is the responsibility of our national leaders so make sure that they are used properly.” [Emphases mine]

Political Wushu II: Double Double Crossers

Appearing at The Blogging Curmudgeon, My Left Wing, and the Independent Bloggers' Alliance.

I was reminded today of a term I haven't thought about in a while, which is funny, because I coined the phrase: "political wushu." I introduced this concept on my blog here, and on My Left Wing here. Wushu means "Arts of War" and once described a body of serious martial arts disciplines in China. But under Mao it was stripped of any real fighting utility and became a dizzying acrobatic sport, which is, to this day, enjoyed as entertainment. Sadly, this is exactly what has happened to our representative democracy. What was once a brave experiment -- a practical application of principles rendered in the age of enlightenment -- is now an empty spectacle. The Democratic Party has put on something of a show of being an opposition party, but it is all part of a choreographed routine, in which the outcome is never in doubt. Their spears are flimsy tin. Their swords, dull.

Did we really expect Congressional Democrats to fight to the finish for timetables in Iraq? Did we honestly think they would put a stop to the madness of this Administration? No, friends. That's not how it was scripted. This week, the mighty Democrats took a dive.

Sure, opposition to this war is at an all-time high. Sure, three quarters of the country thinks the surge is a failure. The American people don't so much as pick out the music for these performances. We just stare slack-jawed from the audience and wait for the curtain to come down on yet another predictable denouement.

As David Sirota points out, Democrats are proud of their performances, and of their ability to dazzle and deceive.

And here's the worst part of it all - Democrats are now bragging about it. Not only have they sent out a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraising email attempting to confuse voters by claiming with a straight face that they really stood up to President Bush. But most insulting of all, they are actually running to reporters to pat themselves on the back for engineering a procedural pirouette designed to confuse the public. Here's the [Washington] Post again:

"But while protesters outside the Capitol condemned what they saw as a capitulation, Democrats inside were remarkably understanding of their speaker's contortions. Party leaders jury-rigged the votes yesterday to give all Democrats something to brag about...Democrats saw brilliance in the legerdemain. And with such contortions came more appreciation for the efforts Pelosi was making to fund the war in a fashion most palatable to angry Democrats. 'It was the responsible thing to do, and she's a responsible speaker,' said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.)."

This is what we're dealing with folks. A party that runs to the press to brag about the brilliance of using their majority not to end the war, but to create a situation that makes it seem as if they oppose the war, while actually helping Republicans continue it.

Sleight of hand, indeed. Here, Sirota breaks down, step-by-step, the complex choreography of the Democrat's illusion.

...Every bill comes to the House floor with what is known as a "rule" that sets the terms of the debate over the legislation in question. House members first vote to approve this parliamentary rule, and then vote on the legislation. Today, however, Democrats are planning to essentially include the Iraq blank check bill IN the rule itself, by making sure the underlying bill the rule brings to the floor includes no timelines for withdrawal, and that the rule only allows amendments that fund the war with no restrictions - blank check amendments that House Democratic leaders know Republicans will have the votes to pass.

This means that when the public goes to look for the real vote on the Iraq supplemental bill, the public won't find that. All we will find is a complex parliamentary procedure vote, which was the real vote. Democratic lawmakers, of course, will use the Memorial Day recess to tell their angry constituents they really are using all of their power to end the war, that they voted against the Republican blank check amendment which the rule deliberately propels, and that the vote on the rule - which was the real vote for war - wasn't really the important vote, when, in fact, they know very well it is the biggest vote on the war since original 2002 authorization for the invasion. It is a devious, deliberately confusing cherry on top of the manure sundae being served up to the American public, which voted Democrats into office on the premise that they would use their congressional majority to end the war...

As I said here:

Establishment Democrats have long since ceased to be an opposition party. They are tools of a statist regime giving us all a good show, but stripped of any real power to stop a political juggernaut years in the making; one that would make kings of presidents and reduce Congress to a sad spectacle.

And so we are saddled with this war for the indefinite future; one that has claimed 3437 of our troops, as of this writing, and at a rate that spirals ever upward.

Today I learned that still greater horrors may await us, as the Bush Administration prepares to make its consolidation of power complete.

President Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9 signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president.

The "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive," with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive, establishes under the office of president a new National Continuity Coordinator.

What will the Democrats do? Will they stand and fight to the last for what is left of our tattered Democracy? Will they guard the gates to their dying breaths like the Spartans at Thermopylae? Or will they simply dance, dance, dance!

Marine Corps Dropped the Ball

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Who needs up-armored vehicles?! Apparently our Marines deployed into a war zone where IEDs are one of the most prevalent threats don't need them badly enough for the Marine Corps to act on the urgent request.

The Marine Corps waited over a year before acting on an "priority 1 urgent" request to send blast-resistant vehicles to Iraq, DANGER ROOM has learned.

According to a Marine Corps document provided to DANGER ROOM, the request for over 1,000 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles came in February, 2005. A formal call to fulfill that order did not emerge until November, 2006. "There is an immediate need for an MRAP vehicle capability to increase survivability and mobility of Marines operating in a hazardous fire area against known threats," the 2005 "universal need statement" notes.

Back then -- as now -- improvised explosive devices, or IEDs -- represented the deadliest threat to American troops in the region. "The expanded use" of these bombs "requires a more robust family of vehicle capable of surviving the IED... threat," the document adds. "MRAP-designed vehicles represent a significant increase in their survivability baseline over existing motor vehicle equipment and will mitigate... casualties resulting from IED[s]."

When my husband was in Iraq, which was during the initial invasion, he was issued a flak jacket, with no plate armor. Flak jackets repel shrapnel and 9mm rounds, but that's the extent of the protection. Plate armor was selectively distributed and, to his knowledge, the most anyone in his unit got, was one plate, which they could choose to wear over the chest or the back. None of the HMMWVs in his unit were up-armored. Instead, they were issued an older flak jacket to jury-rig a little more protection. They could choose between draping them over the canvas doors or sit on them to protect... well... you get it. They were, however, issued two, count-em two, MOPP Suits, to protect against chemical weapons. My husband got trench foot -- in the desert -- because the of the protective boots. How many chem weapon attacks did they face? That would be none.

This initial miscalculation was somewhat understandable. We invaded Iraq, ostensibly, over banned weapons, and everyone, except those of us smart enough to listen to Scott Ritter, believed they'd face chem weapon attacks.

You would think that by 2005, after all the lives and limbs lost to IEDs, the Marine Corps would have considered the urgent request for sufficiently armored vehicles, well, urgent. Bureaucratic ineptitude was only part of the problem, in this case. According to Marine Corps spokesman Bill Johnson-Miles, the problem was one of manufacturing and supply.

To Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the stunted response is another example of how "the suits and the bureaucrats in Washington don't seem to have the same sense of urgency as the guys in the field."

"This is what happens when industry isn't put on a war footing," he adds. "It's like the military families are at war, and everyone else is out shopping."

Remember national war efforts? Remember when we were a nation at war, not just a military at war?

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Thomas Friedman: We're In Iraq For Oil

Appearing at The Blogging Curmudgeon, My Left Wing, and the Independent Bloggers' Alliance.

In an unusually lucid column, former Iraq War enthusiast Thomas Friedman makes a plea for a responsible policy for military disengagement from Iraq. I'll go straight to the punch line:

You can’t be serious about getting out of Iraq if you’re not serious about getting off oil.

In other words, it's the oil stupid.

Friedman has a long history of talking out of both sides of his mouth on Iraq. (On many things actually.) And this is not the first time he's let the well-oiled cat slip out of the bag.

In the face of the failure of the government/media campaign to build mass support for a US invasion of Iraq, New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman has felt obliged to come to the aid of the Bush war cabal by proposing a shift in its propaganda. Hence Friedman’s January 5 column headlined “A War for Oil?”

In this thoroughly cynical piece, Friedman concedes what is obvious to anyone who has followed the US military buildup against Iraq with any objectivity: Bush’s plan to invade the country is driven, above all, by a determination to seize control of Iraqi oil....

He continues: “Let’s cut the nonsense. The primary reason the Bush team is more focused on Saddam [than on North Korea] is because if he were to acquire weapons of mass destruction, it might give him the leverage he has long sought—not to attack us, but to extend his influence over the world’s largest source of oil, the Persian Gulf.”

Thus, having acknowledged that the US government is lying to the American people and the world, Friedman seeks to fashion a new justification for war against Iraq. It is not a matter of self-defense, or even countering something Iraq has done. Rather, the country must be attacked and occupied because the regime might—in the future—extend its influence over the world’s largest oil reserves.

Yet, in his relentless cheer-leading for the war he has since soured on, he offered up gems like this one:

The war in Iraq is the most important liberal, revolutionary US democracy- building project since the Marshall Plan. It is one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad.

Friedman is one of those mind-meltingly wrong pundits who has managed to fail spectacularly upward. In "The Iraq Gamble," Jebediah Reed gets to the heart of his infuriating duplicity.

Re-reading Friedman's columns from the six months or so prior to the invasion of Iraq can induce vertigo. Unlike many of his hawkish colleagues, he grokked all the vital details of the situation....

So even a Webelo-grade logician knows where to go from here, right? You connect the dots and conclude that while it would be very nice to get rid of Saddam, it would also be stupid and dangerous.

But somehow he still managed to come out in favor of the war. And if the whole thing weren't so tragically misguided, his reasoning would be worth a chuckle. Says Friedman: "something in Mr. Bush's audacious shake of the dice appeals to me." A nice ballsy gamble of a war. Sure, it could throw the region into chaos, bankrupt this country, and dye the fertile crescent red with the blood of civilians; yet an audacious war is like a red lollipop—who isn't powerless to resist it?

Red lollipop's aside, Friedman's pitch was always a sucker's bet. The author of "The Lexus and the Olive Branch," has always known full well what this war was really about and why his imperialistic self supported it. He has known from the beginning that it comes down that unctuous substance which drives the economic engine of the world.

As Alien Abductee reported a few days ago, the Bush Administration's naked oil grab is reaching a crucial moment. As discussed here everything rides on getting the Iraqi Parliament to pass legislation which will open Iraq's oil reserves for exploitation by Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell. But the Iraqi's have been infuriating Bushco by dragging their heels on selling their souls. Their recalcitrance has been serious enough that Cheney was flown to the Mideast -- I'm assuming in some sort of portable hyperbaric chamber -- so that he could scold those shiftless Iraqis for threatening to take a summer break.

For all the wrangling and veto threats, our own congress looks to be safely on board with a bid to railroad the Iraqis into giving over the bulk of their oil wealth to the conglomerates.

The supplemental appropriation package requires the Iraqi government to meet a series of “benchmarks” President Bush established in his speech to the nation on January 10 (in which he made his case for the “surge”). Most of Mr. Bush’s benchmarks are designed to blame the victim, forcing the Iraqis to solve the problems George Bush himself created.

One of the President’s benchmarks, however, stands apart. This is how the President described it: “To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country’s economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.” A seemingly decent, even noble concession. That’s all Mr. Bush said about that benchmark, but his brevity was gravely misleading, and it had to be intentional.

The Iraqi Parliament has before it today, in fact, a bill called the hydrocarbon law, and it does call for revenue sharing among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. For President Bush, this is a must-have law, and it is the only “benchmark” that truly matters to his Administration.

Yes, revenue sharing is there-essentially in fine print, essentially trivial. The bill is long and complex, it has been years in the making, and its primary purpose is transformational in scope: a radical and wholesale reconstruction-virtual privatization-of the currently nationalized Iraqi oil industry.

If passed, the law will make available to Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell about 4/5’s of the stupendous petroleum reserves in Iraq. That is the wretched goal of the Bush Administration, and in his speech setting the revenue-sharing “benchmark” Mr. Bush consciously avoided any hint of it.

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist," (Keyser Soze) and the Bush Administration has as cleverly sustained the illusion that oil is not the underlying reason for pouring the American blood and treasure into the Iraqi sand. With prestidigitators like Thomas Friedman acting as front men, it wasn't too hard to pull off.

Serve Your Country -- Lose Your Kids

Appearing at The Blogging Curmudgeon, My Left Wing, and the Independent Bloggers' Alliance.

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Now there's a trade off, huh? Add this to the list of sacrifices that the small minority of Americans known as "our troops" is making for Bush and his cronies. Men and women in the armed services are losing their kids in custody battles for no reason other than being deployed.

Such was the reality of Lt. Eva Crouch, who returned from her National Guard duty to find that she had stumbled into a legal gray area.

A federal law called the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act is meant to protect them by staying civil court actions and administrative proceedings during military activation. They can't be evicted. Creditors can't seize their property. Civilian health benefits, if suspended during deployment, must be reinstated.

And yet service members' children can be _ and are being _ taken from them after they are deployed.

Some family court judges say that determining what's best for a child in a custody case is simply not comparable to deciding civil property disputes and the like; they have ruled that family law trumps the federal law protecting servicemembers. And so, in many cases when a soldier deploys, the ex-spouse seeks custody, and temporary changes become lasting.

Family court judges have a fair bit of latitude because their mandate is best interest of the child; not necessarily what seems fair to parents. And in a sense, judges such as the one who handed Eva's daughter over to her ex-husband have a point. Endless war is terrible for the children and family members of the troops who have to fight it; especially given that many of them are serving in back to back deployments of ever-increasing duration.

Two years and $25, ooo dollars later, Crouch has regained custody of her daughter Sara. But an unknown number of other service people have returned from battle to fight on another front; the courts.

Military and family law experts don't know how big the problem is, but 5.4 percent of active duty members _ more than 74,000 _ are single parents, the Department of Defense reports. More than 68,000 Guard and reserve members are also single parents.

Divorce among military men and women also has risen some in recent years, with more than 23,000 enlisted members and officers divorcing in 2005.

Isn't it wonderful having a President who is so devoted to family values?