"If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me."
-- Alice Roosevelt Longworth
The move produced a frantic political drama, as state troopers were reportedly sent out to find the fleeing lawmakers and Walker hinted that the National Guard would be called in to fill the void left by protesting union workers.
HAVING SPENT much of the past year mired in legislative trench warfare over Iraq, advocates in Congress seeking a mandatory withdrawal of troops are now refusing to pass funding for our forces deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan.
For Congress to fail to provide the funds needed by our soldiers in the field is inexcusable under any circumstances -- but it is especially disappointing right now, coming at the very moment when Gen. David Petraeus and his troops are achieving the kind of progress in Iraq that few would have dared imagine possible just a few months ago. [emphasis added]
Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) lambasted transparency advocates at a press conference Tuesday, when they renewed their promise to bring Senate business to a halt until their bill blocking the release of detainee photographs becomes law.
"We're not going to do any more business in the Senate," Graham said, his face flushed red. "Nothing's going forward until we get this right."
The duo's bill, which would allow the Pentagon to exempt Bush-era photos from the Freedom of Information Act, was stripped from the conference version of the war supplemental Monday night. In anticipation of trouble, Lieberman and Graham had already inserted the bill into the tobacco-regulatory legislation currently on the floor of the Senate.
By turns sober and furious, the two senators vowed again Tuesday to vote against -- and, if possible, filibuster -- the troop-funding bill and all other legislation until they get their way. They equated the weapons supplied by the war supplemental spending bill with detainee photos that they said would serve as a recruiting tool for al-Qaida and a weapon against U.S. troops. [emphasis added]
A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .
Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."
There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.
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.
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.
January 16 - Ann Arbor, Michigan Nicola’s Books – 7 p.m. EST Westgate Shopping Center 2513 Jackson Ave. Ann Arbor, MI January 17 – Cincinnati, Ohio University of Cincinnati – 5:30 p.m. EST Swift Hall, Room 819 January 22 – Chicago, Illinois University of Illinois, Chicago – 6:30 p.m. CST 750 South Halsted, Prairie Room January 23 – Madison, Wisconsin University of Madison, Wisconsin – 7 p.m. CST Memorial Building January 27 – Washington, DC Busboys & Poets Books – 7 p.m. EST 2021 14th Street NW Washington, DC 20009 202-387-7638 January 28 – Washington, DC George Washington University – 5:30 p.m. EST Marvin Center, Room 413 January 30 – College Park, Maryland University of Mary and – 7 p.m. EST Tydings Hall, Room 1114 February 1 – New Brunswick, New Jersey Rutger’s University Time and room TBA February 2 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Robin’s Bookstore – 6 p.m. EST 108 South 13th Street Philadelphia, PA 19104 February 5 – San Francisco, California University of California, Berkeley Time and location TBA February 6 – San Francisco Red Hill Books – 7 p.m. 401 Cortland Avenue San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 648-5331 February 11 - New York City, New York Columbia University Time and location TBA February 12 – Rochester, New York Rochester Institute of Technology Time and location TBA February 13 – Ithaca, New York Ithaca College Time and location TBA February 14 – Boston, Massachusetts Boston University – 6:30 p.m. EST Location TBA February 15 – Boston, Massachusetts Time and location TBA |
It was the first phone conversation between Mr. Bush and the Pakistani president since General Musharraf seized emergency powers on Saturday, a move that sent his country into political and legal disarray. During the phone call, Pakistani and American officials said, Mr. Musharraf sought to assure Mr. Bush that his power grab is temporary and that he still plans to call for elections. “My message was that we believe strongly in elections, and that you ought to have elections soon, and you need to take off your uniform,” Mr. Bush said he told Mr. Musharraf. “You can’t be the president and the head of the military at the same time.”
Never has a US President painted himself so completely as a military leader, and never has one been less qualified to do so. From day one I have found it sickening the way this Vietnam-avoiding, AWOL-from-the-National-Guard President uses the men and women of our armed services military as set dressing.
. . .
Bush and his stage manager Rove have done everything in their power to cement the image of Bush Republicans as the embodiment of military authority. Bush has become nothing but a tin-horn dictator. You'd think they'd instigated a military coup, instead of an electoral one. Think of it. An administration of chicken-hawks with the audacity to do what Eisenhower, a former 5 star general, never did.
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.
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.
Are you fucking kidding me?
What happened is so grossly wrong on so many levels that I hardly know where to begin. Since when did a circuit board on a sweatshirt look like a bomb? Since when did suicide bombers walk around with bombs on the outside of their clothing? If the people in charge of protecting us are stupid enough to think this, how hard would it be for real bombers to fool them?
What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.
It is not that I thought we had new enemies that day and now I don’t. Yes, in the wake of 9/11, we need new precautions, new barriers. But we also need our old habits and sense of openness. For me, the candidate of 9/12 is the one who will not only understand who our enemies are, but who we are.
Before 9/11, the world thought America’s slogan was: “Where anything is possible for anybody.” But that is not our global brand anymore. Our government has been exporting fear, not hope: “Give me your tired, your poor and your fingerprints.”
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...
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.
"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."
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.
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.
"Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent's rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.
"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. "Say that criminal law is against him? 'You have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so.
"So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes."
Wolf Blitzer asked him about the Arabic linguists trained by the government who have been ousted from the military after being outed.
Mr. Giuliani, who procured three deferments to avoid Vietnam, replied that, with the war in Iraq raging, “This is not the time to deal with disruptive issues like this.”
If he’s so concerned with disruptive issues, maybe he should start worrying about this one: Two straight guys who slithered out of going to Vietnam are devising a losing strategy in Iraq year after year. W. and Dick Cheney have fouled things up so badly that Robert Gates and Tony Snow are now pointing to South Korea — where American troops have stayed for over half a century — as a model.
Mitt Romney agreed with Rudy on the issue. Instead of going to Vietnam, Mr. Romney spent two and a half years doing Mormon missionary work in France. Isn’t that like doing Peace Corps work in Monte Carlo?
At the memorial for Mark Bingham, the gay 6-foot-5 rugby player who was on Flight 93 on 9/11, John McCain said he might owe his life to the young man who helped fight the hijackers, bringing down the plane aiming to crash into the Capitol.
But Senator McCain wants gay troops to stay closeted...
John Goglia, a former member of National Transportation Safety Board, said that if the plot had ever been carried out, it would likely have sparked a fire but little else, and certainly not the mass carnage authorities described.
"You could definitely reach the tank, definitely start the fire, but to get the kind of explosion that they were thinking that they were going to get... this is virtually impossible to do," he told AFP.
The fuel pipelines around the airport would similarly burn, rather than explode, because they are a full of fuel and unable to mix with enough oxygen.
Furthermore, the plotters seem to have lacked the explosives and financial backing to carry out the attack.
74 minutes. We're back. "The questions in this round will be premised on a fiction," says Hume. No news there. Hume wants to do a role-playing game. Three shopping centers near American cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attacker is apprehended and may have information about more attacks to come. The question goes to McCain. "How aggressively would you interrogate those being held at Guantánamo Bay for information about where the next attack might be?"
75 minutes. McCain answers emotionally, convincingly. "We do not torture people. When I was in Vietnam, one of the things that sustained us as we underwent torture ourselves is the knowledge that if we had our positions reversed and we were the captors, we would not impose that kind of treatment on them."
76 minutes. Giuliani tries to appear tougher than McCain. "I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of. Shouldn't be torture, but every method they can think of." It's unclear what he means, but it sounds a lot like torture. The crowd likes it. Applause.
77 minutes. Now Romney tries to appear tougher than McCain. "I don't want them on our soil. I want them in Guantánamo where they don't get the access to lawyers they get when they're on our soil. I don't want them in our prisons. I want them there," he says. "Some people have said we ought to close Guantánamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantánamo." More applause. Habeas corpus sucks!
79 minutes. Now Brownback sounds as if he is endorsing torture. "I'm going to do everything within my power to protect U.S. lives, period," he says. No applause for Brownback. The crowd is tired of cheering harsh interrogation.
80 minutes. It's Hunter's turn to sound like he's endorsing torture. "I would say to SecDef, in terms of getting information that would save American lives even if it involves very high-pressure techniques, one sentence: Get the information," he says. "SecDef" is tough talk for the secretary of defense.
81 minutes. The microphone returns to McCain, the only man on the stage who actually knows anything firsthand about torture. "Virtually every senior officer, retired or active duty, starting with Colin Powell, General [John] Vessey and everyone else, agreed with my position that we should not torture people," he says. Now he gets applause.
86 minutes. Pasty-faced Tancredo tries to outdo everyone else with his full-throttle endorsement of torture. "I'm looking for Jack Bauer at that time, let me tell you," he says. "And there is nothing -- if you are talking about -- I mean, we are the last, best hope of Western civilization." This sounds weird. Tancredo is saying torture will preserve the values of Western civilization. He seems to mean it. So be it. No blood has pooled at his feet. It must have been the makeup. [emphasis added]
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.
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.
The so-called peace movement certainly has the right to make Gandhi’s way their way, but their efforts to make collective suicide American foreign policy just won’t cut it in this country. When American’s think of heroism, we think of the young American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, risking their lives to prevent another Adolph Hitler or Saddam Hussein.
Gandhi probably wouldn't approve, but I can live with that.
I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions.... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.
At every meeting I repeated the warning that unless they felt that in non-violence they had come into possession of a force infinitely superior to the one they had and in the use of which they were adept, they should have nothing to do with non-violence and resume the arms they possessed before. It must never be said of the Khudai Khidmatgars that once so brave, they had become or been made cowards under Badshah Khan's influence. Their bravery consisted not in being good marksmen but in defying death and being ever ready to bare their breasts to the bullets. [emphasis added]
After lengthy deliberations, Gandhi declared that India could not be party to a war ostensibly being fought for democratic freedom, while that freedom was denied in India herself. As the war progressed, Gandhi increased his demands for independence, drafting a resolution calling for the British to Quit India. This was Gandhi's and the Congress Party's most definitive revolt aimed at securing the British exit from Indian shores.
At Rice’s Senate appearance in January, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, of Delaware, pointedly asked her whether the U.S. planned to cross the Iranian or the Syrian border in the course of a pursuit. “Obviously, the President isn’t going to rule anything out to protect our troops, but the plan is to take down these networks in Iraq,” Rice said, adding, “I do think that everyone will understand that—the American people and I assume the Congress expect the President to do what is necessary to protect our forces.”
As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.
A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.
