Iraq War Blogswarm

For those just coming out of their frigid, miserable ice caves, some right-minded though left-spirited are gathering to make March 19th, the anniversary of our 2003 invasion in Iraq, a day of discussion and activism to end the war.

I'll be participating. You can, too. Go here.

(Some "in-and-out", "cakewalk", "doubt we'll be there a month and most of the time, they'll be kissing us and tossing flowers at our feet!" of a war it's been, too. And the one million dead number is, I believe, just a percentage of how many have died JUST among the Iraqi civilians.)

Military Suicides Soar While Bushies & Pentagon Look The Other Way

In case you haven't heard, Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have brought active-duty military GI and veteran suicides to some of the highest - if not THE highest, since the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have steadfastly ignored the issue altogether - levels on record. Here:

The parents of an Iraq war veteran who committed suicide and members of Congress on Wednesday questioned why there's not a comprehensive tracking system of suicide among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Mike Bowman, of Forreston, Ill., said his son, Spc. Timothy Bowman, 23, is a member of the "unknown fallen" not counted in statistics. His son, a member of the Illinois National Guard, took his own life in 2005 eight months after returning from war. Bowman said he considers his son a "KBA" — killed because of action.

"If the veteran suicide rate is not classified as an epidemic that needs immediate and drastic attention, then the American fighting soldier needs someone in Washington who thinks it is," Bowman said.

Not Just Iraq: U.S. Also Marks Deadliest Year In Afghanistan

Not only does the Bush-led campaign in Iraq result in more U.S. and coalition deaths than ever in 2007 despite all the happy horseshit about the "grand success" of the "surge" to kill the insurgency; no, Bush has something else to boast about (and he's enough of an ass to do so, too): this is our deadliest year for American troops in Afghanistan (remember them?) since we invaded in early October 2001.

And this distinction was earned BEFORE Pakistan fell apart to prop up Musharraf's ego; with the chaos there now, one must assume that Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and friends have more room to manuever than ever. And each day, the Bushies push harder and harder for war with Iran, a country where we can't even begin to claim it will be a "cakewalk" to wage war.

The Bush Administration: fucking the world over since January 2001.

Obscene: Bush "Leans" On Dead Soldiers' Families For Support

Grrrrrrrr.....

While Bush and Cheney and Petraeus keep insisting "the surge" has been an unprecedented success, and given that the "surged" numbers were there just about all year, then how is it that 2007 became the deadliest year on record for American and coalition forces in Iraq?

And that doesn't even address how deadly it's been for Iraqis.

At the same time, this story by Stolberg in The Times about how Bush and the families of dead soldiers are "leaning on each other for great support" just makes me sick. Bush, who wouldn't attend one damned service funeral, who certainly won't meet with the families of ALL fallen soldiers because he wants a guarantee the grieving loved ones won't ask him any pesky questions. I find this to be the height of obscenity.

The Dumb(er) Bush Twin, Jenna: "Why Fight In Iraq When I Can Get Married In The White House!"

This one just makes me so ill...

Your kids can fight and die in Iraq but Jenna's just too busy having a good time spending some of the money the Bush-Cheney war of empire is netting the dumbest man ever to breathe White House air.

As I noted at All Things Democrat, Jenna's top 5 reasons for not fighting her dumb daddy's Iraq quagmire of a war must include:

a) not enough drugs and alcohol in Iraq
b) few nightclubs that allow women
c) will ruin her manicure
d) “What’s eye-rock? Cos if it’s hip clothing, I already own it!”
e) “Cos I’m a Bush, silly. We just suck the blood out of everything, not serve!”

Serve Those Who Served Us (Despite Bush's Lies)

This sent along by Steve of Cernigs Newshog (aka The Newshoggers) is worthy of our attention in this bipartison blog fundraising effort:

I'd like, if I may, to impose and request you spend a few minutes reading about a bipartisan blog fundraiser in honor of the tragically-killed NYT op-ed writers Sgt. Omar Mora & Sgt. Yance T. Gray.

This is truly a bipartisan effort, which has the approval of Sgt. Gray's father, and it goes to a good cause. All funds raised will go to the Fisher House charity, an organization which builds houses near military medical facilities where loved ones of those who have been injured in the line of duty can stay free of charge while their service member undergoes necessary treatment.

More here.

A Must Read

This is from Wes Clark (Retired NATO Supreme Commander and 2004 Dem presidential runner), but I've heard great reviews of this book from many sources. I won't like reading about it, but I feel it's my duty as a citizen of a country that sees war as a tool of empire.

I have just finished reading a book that was so compelling and moving that I wanted to urge you to buy a copy, while helping a worthy cause. "The War I Always Wanted: The Illusion of Glory and Reality of War," by Iraq and Afghanistan Veteran Brandon Friedman, captures the feelings of war with uncanny perception. Among the many excellent war memoirs by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, Brandon's stands out as the best. I couldn't put it down.

Dead Kids? No Problem in Bush's War of Error on Terror

Gee, is this what President Bush meant by "No Child Left Behind"?

Reported on MSNBC by Keith Olbermann: The Bush Administration - supported by a rabid right who will cry long and hard about the "right to life" of barely multi-cell organisms - and the Pentagon now admit that they knew children were in the Afghanistan compound they bombed over the weekend, and decided to bomb anyway, killing at least 7-8 little kids.

While the children died, it seems that our bombs did NOT take out the so-called "high profile" Al Qaeda target they were aiming for. So I guess killing a bunch of toddlers is a "great" moment in the War on Terror.

Only in BushTopia: U.S. Races To Deport Wife Of American Soldier Missing In Iraq

Alex Jimenez is one of the three U.S. soldiers ambushed and still missing in Iraq weeks after several comrades in the same unit were killed in the same scuffle that resulted in these MIAs. As if this isn't sad enough, bhfrik at All Things Democrat tells us how the U.S. government wants to say thanks to his family by deporting Jimenez's wife, who applied for a green card four years ago.

Why does the story of Yaderlin deserve any more attention than hundreds of others facing deportation, separation from children and families and uncertain futures in a land thousands of miles from home? Because Alex is one of the two soldiers whose unit was attacked and is now missing in Iraq. A third member of his unit was also captured and later found dead near the Tigris river.

That’s right… the government is working to deport the wife of a soldier missing in Iraq. It would be bad enough if the couple were just dealing with Alex being in Iraq and having to go through this domestic nightmare. Can you imagine our soldiers having to worry about dodging IED’s in the broiling heat surrounded by misery and death on a biblical scale… and having to worry and fret about your wife’s immigration status. I wonder how many soldiers have been killed or wounded from being all distracted by thoughts on legal proceedings at home, rather than concentrating on surviving the hell hole they find themselves in.

Color me apoplectic and ashamed of any government agency that would do this, at this time.

In fact, I'm thinking perhaps the right-most Republicans clamoring so fervently for blood and tears in forcing so many immigrants back across borders should be deported themselves, perhaps along with those who came up with the execution of this plan against Jimenez's wife. Bet they're all sporting "Support Our Troops" bumper stickers featuring a ribbon as yellow as these people's bellies on a background as white as the skunk stripe down their hateful backs.

"The Dying Continues... While We Bury Our Heads In The Sand"

Very powerful words from Joseph Galloway (author of "They Were Soldiers Once") on Iraq and our complicity through our ignorance and blinders:

The war in Iraq grinds on without much regard for an American president's pipedreams of victory, a congressional majority's impotent attempts to stop it and most of the American people's wish that it would just go away.

We're now well into the fifth year of this war. All 30,000 of President Bush's surge reinforcements are on the ground, and we have more than 150,000 American soldiers and Marines in the cauldron. The only surge in sight is an inevitable surge in the numbers of those troops being killed and wounded.

More than 3,500 Americans have now been killed in action and more than 29,000 wounded, along with an additional 25,000-plus injured in accidents. That's close to 60,000 American casualties to date, and God alone knows how many Iraqis have been killed and wounded in the war and the civil war - certainly hundreds of thousands.

The central focus of George W. Bush's escalation was to make Baghdad more secure so that the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki could take control of its own capital. In truth, Baghdad seems no more secure now than it was - only a more target-rich environment - and even the president and his generals predict that things will get worse before they get better. If they get better.

A beleaguered president must travel to Albania, of all places, to find a little love. Will he now, as Richard Nixon before him, become an inveterate lame-duck globetrotter in search of a crowd that will cheer him? What's next? Kazakhstan? Tierra del Fuego? How about Baghdad?

The Army and Marines scrape and scratch and scheme and pay big bucks and beguile high school dropouts, even those with criminal records, in their efforts to recruit enough young men and women to replace the casualties and those who are leaving the service.

The administration doesn't want you to worry about any of this. It's summertime, shopping time, surf's up. Head for the beach and bury your heads in the sand.

The planes loaded with flag-draped coffins soar over the Atlantic coast sunbathers to land at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the site of the military mortuary, unseen as they come home to a nation that barely noticed when they left so full of hope and dreams. Your government, your president, has banned cameras from Dover so those images won't intrude on your good times and good life.

The planes loaded with the scores of wounded - some of them double and triple amputees with bodies and brains shattered by the roadside bombs and mines that are responsible for two-thirds of our casualties - fly over the beachfront bars and restaurants and land at Andrews Air Force Base outside the nation's capital in the dark of night. The administration doesn't want too many people noticing them, either.

The rest is here.

Beauty For The Brave

Whether you do it because Father's Day weekend is rolling in or just because it's a great thing to do for those who have given so (too?) much, please check this out and participate, the information coming here from Cernig and the Newshoggers:

My good friend Mr. M at Comments From Left Field just emailed me asking for my support in spreading the word about a worthy cause. Very worthy, and I'm happy to oblige.

we at Comments From Left Field have decided to support the "Beauty for the Brave" campaign. 100% of the proceeds go to Fisher House which is an organization that builds homes outside of military hospitals so that family members can have a place to stay free of charge while their loved one receives treatment for injuries incurred while serving overseas.

Me, I don't know if I could have fulfilled my time in the service without the support of the people I call family, and I had it easy. Imagine coming back from Iraq, no legs, or an arm missing, learning how to walk again, or how to reenter life as left handed when you have been a right hander for all of your life.

Now imagine doing it alone.That is the kind of scenario that Fisher House seeks to avoid, and I for one support them completely.

The Beauty for the Brave campaign is simple. It merely asks people to point out one beauty product that they use on a regular basis, and go without once. Lipstick, moisturizer, anything. Skip it for just one shopping trip, and instead use the money to donate instead.

In case you haven't caught the other links, go here.

Estimate of Iraq Surge "Success" As Easy As Nailing Jelly To a Tree

Just since Sunday night, I've noticed that the message regarding Iraq and Bush's surge/escalation varies with more frequency than President Bush butchers the word nuclear into nukular.

First, it was abundantly clear that Bush refused to heed any of the warnings of military experts who insisted it was foolhardy to go into Iraq with anything less than 400,000 troops which is why we rolled into Baghdad with substantially less than half that number. But that's OK, Bush insisted, because he was listening to his men on the ground (defined as talking to people who talk to people who talk to other people who then talk to neocons in Washington) and if they said they needed more warm bodies in Iraq, he'd provide them. Except he didn't.

Second, when he planned this surge, he said it was for a very limited time period and would require, at most, about 15,000 American soldiers. Except that he started it before he had authorization and, rather than the slight "bump" in numbers, Bush will have more than 200,000 troops in Iraq before Christmas when we've had far less than half that number operating there for sometime.

Third, he's added the warm bodies, but these troops can't get the equipment they need -and the Republican Pentagon is responsible for that; they get the money, use it on everything but the soldiers, and then point to the Democrats as to blame for "bankrupting" our fighting men and women. These troops also don't have any better orders than they've had for a long time. Troops without a concrete mission aren't all that useful to anyone concerned.

Fourth, tied to the previous two, commanders are saying we don't have sufficient numbers of troops on the ground even without the surge. Shall we assume Bush isn't listening now that he's told us all the military has to do is ask and they shall receive?

Fifth, CentCom has doubled its air attacks on Iraq which isn't good for land-based soldiers OR civilians. "Friendly fire" deaths are up dramatically. Also, security on the ground AND air is so bad, concludes Great Britain information sources, that all British and American troops should be removed immediately. [Sadly, the Iraqis have no choice but to stay there.]

Sixth, the deadline date established to determine when a full and accurate analysis of whether Bush's "surge" is working keeps getting pushed back. John McCain, for example, said a couple of months would in NO WAY be enough to tell whether the Bush plan is working and then, practically in the same breath, when asked how long was needed to evaluate the surge's success, kept a straight face as Manic Depressive McCain replied, "A couple of months." Some estimates insist we won't know until around the beginning of 2009 whether the surge worked, which just happens to coincide with the time Bush will leave the White House (unless we can indict him first).

What Bush Calls Progress in Iraq, Others Call Non-Stop Funeral Dirges; Tortured Lives of Interrogators

While last week already seemed to shape up into a terrific nightmare in Iraq, this weekend saw at least 14 U.S. soldiers die in bombs and insurgency and other carnage in Baghdad and elsewhere.

But look at this as well:

Interrogators must constantly straddle the border between coercion and torture during questioning.

In The "How Kind Of Bush To Pay $200 In Restitution For Killing My Son But I Would Rather Have My Child Back" Department

Here's another example of why Greg Mitchell is a good as well as an important read in these disastrous, far from rapturish Bush years:

Until recently, the press has rarely covered the U.S. military program that occasionally offers “condolence” payments to Iraqis and Afghans whose loved ones have been killed or injured by our troops. But a number of high-profile incidents involving the killing of noncombatants has drawn some long-overdue, if fleeting, attention to the subject.

On Tuesday, in the latest example, the U.S. military apologized for a not-accidental atrocity near Jalalabad back in March and agreed to make the usual maximum payment -- don’t laugh -- of about $2000 to survivors for each of the 19 Afghan lives lost.

That’s an improvement in some ways. Last month I titled a column on this subject, "Sorry We Shot Your Kid, Here’s $500," referring to a documented case in Iraq.

And Still The Bushies Do Nothing But Lie, Inflame, and Corrupt All They Touch!

So Emperor Bush continues to behave, while things worsen by the hour, like he's the only one smart enough to know what's going on and he's sure he owes the American people NO explanation, let alone apology. When great skepticism was tendered about Bush's "Iraq Surge", and a way to burn through a trillion more dollars and lives of soldiers and Iraqi citizens, the Bush crew either ignored the skeptics outright, tried to discredit them, or flat out lied. With it, they've concocted huge webs of lies and spin so convoluted and labyrinthian they are sure the "dumb" voting public will nap through it.

If you've been paying attention to any of the Bush Administration's latest ever-expanding lists of the reasons King George demands we "give war a (thousand more) chance(s))", you're welcome to share my bottle of Bush-strength Excedrin. While you swallow (and the longer Bush and Cheney stay in office, the harder it becomes each day to try to force down your palate their strange and twisted recipes), let me note some of the White House's wildly changing rational, talking points, and unofficially official statements: which include:

• why we haven't caught Osama bin ForgottenLaden whom Bush told us "can run, but can't hide!" - For a megalomaniac who smirks thinking how smart he is (anyone who disagrees with him is garbage), the president SURE is wrong a lot, a WHOLE lot
• it was necessary to LIE throughout the build-up to war
• why we waged war when we KNEW there was no reason to do so
• we keep forgetting that Afghanistan, since our invasion on October 8, 2001, has turned from a bottom-of-the-bottom third world country into a full fifth world humanitarian meltdown producing a truly STUNNING amount of drugs and people with no great love for Bush, the United States, or the Bush Far Right's war on Muslims/oil producing countries
• With it clear to almost every American now (and obvious to those outside the U.S. far sooner) that the War on Terror was to finally satisfy those rich dinosaur fatcats (in deep grief since the Cold War "ended") and their war-making hardware, how can anyone treat the War on Terror seriously when the Bushies and Neocons try to act like something out of a very dim-witted Marvel comic book?

I don't know about you but I don't need superheroes. Especially pretend, fucked-up, corrupting superheroes like The Burning Bush, "Duck, It's Dick!" Cheney, Why-ever-would-you-conclude-I'm-a-woman-of-color? Captain Condi (Rice), Revoltin' Smotin' (John) Bolton, Karl "Blow Out The Pilot Lights On That Democrat's Gas Stove" Rove, and a cast of tens of thousands more representing "connected", crooked, confabulating, incompetent, factless fuckers of all time.

Remember. This is still the Bush Administration, where we consider Charles Darwin a greater threat than Osama Bin (over)Laden-with-business-contacts-with-Bush-Family bank accounts, where free speech should only be allowed to praise this president and to demand more war, and where the 25-year-old-and-never-held-a-job Bush Twins have spent more in one single night of partying (with some of the same drugs that would send you to prison) than almost all U.S. soldiers in Iraq each earn in a single year.

Just Close Your Eyes And Pretend Iraq Is Like DisneyWorld!

This is the advice being tendered by some of the weaker minds of the right, including the ever-so-desperate-for-any-attention-at-all adopted son of Ronnie Raygun. [Michael keeps trying so darned hard to be idolized like his dad as he fails to realize he is like his dad... a puppet of the right who can deliver scripted lines.]

Frank Rich of The Times has already reminded the far right that the gipper is dead, but Michael Reagan (Ronald's adopted son and a fairly poor second version which says a lot considering Ronald Reagan did not have one smart moment after the McCarthy witchhunt in the 1950s while Reagan headed the Screen Actors Guild) begs us to give one more to the ol' Gip.

Michael Reagan insists that we should "shut up" the press, ponder only pretty pictures of Iraq (perhaps take some flowers off the thousands of new civilian graves there each month or the hearts blown from bodies of U.S. and coalition soldiers with all the bombings), and demand that nothing but tales of "wonderful Disney-like perfect sweetness" be allowed to go out over the airwaves.

Apparently feeble-mindedness can be passed from one generation to the next even when there is no blood-bond between Daddy-o (Ronald) and sonny boy (Michael). Perhaps eternally-blond Michael would like to stop his chickenhawk status, put on some substandard body armor, and go over to Iraq to document all these pretty pictures. Idiot.

Maureen Dowd: "How We're Animalistic - In Good Ways and Bad"

[I've always suspected I was a churchmouse in a previous life; Bush was a fat rat.] Without further adieu, say Yo! to MoDo's May 30th column:

The odd thing is that conservatives wear pinstriped suits, when they really should be walking around in togas. The main contribution of the Greeks to modern American politics may have been Michael Dukakis, who once climbed the Acropolis in wingtips.

But that doesn’t stop conservatives — especially the Straussians who pushed for going into Iraq — from being obsessed with ancient Greece, and from believing that they are the successors to Plato and Homer in terms of the lofty ideals and nobility and character in American politics — while Democrats merely muck about with policies for the needy.

Harvey Mansfield, a leading Straussian who teaches political science at Harvard and who wrote a book called “Manliness” (he’s for it), gave the Jefferson lecture recently at the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington.

It was an ode, as his book is, to “thumos,” the Greek word that means spiritedness, with flavors of ambition, pride and brute willfulness. Thumos, as Philip Kennicott wrote in The Washington Post, “is a word reinvented by conservative academics who need to put a fancy name on a political philosophy that boils down to ‘boys will be boys.’ ”

Mr. Mansfield did not mention the war, which is a downer at conclaves of neocons and thumos worshippers. But he explained that thumos is “the bristling reaction of an animal in face of a threat or a possible threat.” In thumos, he added, “we see the animality of man, for men (and especially males) often behave like dogs barking, snakes hissing, birds flapping. But precisely here we also see the humanity of the human animal” because it is reacting for “a reason, even for a principle, a cause. Only human beings get angry.”

The professor used an example, naturally, from ancient Greece to explain why politics should be about revolution rather than equilibrium: “What did Achilles do when his ruler Agamemnon stole his slave-girl? He raised the stakes. He asserted that the trouble was not in this loss alone but in the fact that the wrong sort of man was ruling the Greeks. Heroes, or at least he-men like Achilles, should be in charge rather than lesser beings like Agamemnon who have mainly their lineage to recommend them and who therefore do not give he-men the honors they deserve. Achilles elevated a civil complaint concerning a private wrong to a demand for a change of regime, a revolution in politics.” Mr. Mansfield concluded: “To complain of an injustice is an implicit claim to rule.”

Read the rest here.

Debunking The Myth of John Wayne-As-Celluloid War Hero

[Ed. note: When I was really little, one of my generation older siblings took me to Lime Rock Racetrack - a big deal with many drivers then, including Paul Newman and I believe at least one of the Smothers Brothers drove there - where my brother Bob worked as a pit mechanic. Got to meet John Wayne there one day as I had many big celebrities then. At four, I'm told I was not too diplomatic which, once I was returned home to my mother, who when she heard that I had been less than servile to Mr. Wayne, made certain the only hair left on my head was that which did not fall out with harsh tugs. You'd think I'd learn.]

TruthDig helps debunk the myth of John "The Duke" Wayne who, even for his time, seems to have been something of a racist, rah-rah America type offscreen as well as on who rooted for war but did not fight. This from a man whose real first name is "Miriam" or "Marion" or something.

Wayne’s motion picture persona is associated with cowboys and soldiers. In fact, he was neither.

Wayne was full of contradictions. Although the star of countless Westerns such as John Ford’s 1939 “Stagecoach” and 1953’s “Hondo” owned a ranch, the Duke “didn’t particularly like horses and preferred suits and tuxedos to chaps, jeans and boots,” according to his son, Michael Wayne. The prototypical cowpoke also favored the sea over the prairie.

While many of his contemporaries, including Henry Fonda, Clark Gable and Ronald Reagan, served in the armed forces during World War II, the lead in such wartime sagas as 1945’s “They Were Expendable,” 1948’s “Fort Apache” and 1968’s “The Green Berets” did not. Wayne was not only missing in action during the 1940s’ liberation of the Philippines and Europe, he wasn’t a cavalry officer, a Vietnam commando or a Leatherneck—flying or otherwise—for he was never in the military.

According to Gary Wills’ book “John Wayne’s America,” the man who portrayed the archetypal, battle-hardened Marine, Sgt. Stryker, in 1949’s “The Sands of Iwo Jima,” actually avoided the draft during WWII. Wills contends that the Duke did not reply to letters from the Selective Service system, and applied for deferments. Apparently, Wayne—who had sought stardom during years of B-pictures following Raoul Walsh’s 1930 frontier drama “The Big Trail”—got his big break during the struggle against fascism when many Hollywood action heroes like Tyrone Power enlisted and shipped out overseas.

With much of the competition away in the Pacific and European theaters, Wayne was able to storm movie theaters to solidify his stardom. While Jimmy Stewart and his fellow celebrity servicemen were real action heroes, Wayne was a “Lights! Cameras! Action!” hero who merely played the part in the safety of Tinseltown’s home front and back lot.

So Duke dodged military service, just like Dick Cheney and George Bush. What a (yawn) surprise.

Poor Pundit, Rich Pundit - I'll Take Rich Over Brooks Anyday

While David Brooks tries to analyze Al Gore and, as usual, despite his bleak attempts at painting a "Vulcan Utopia" comes off far more like a Stiffly Stifferson than any media spin about Gore, Frank Rich has far richer things to say in "Operation Freedom From Iraqis!":

When all else fails, those pious Americans who conceived and directed the Iraq war fall back on moral self-congratulation: at least we brought liberty and democracy to an oppressed people. But that last-ditch rationalization has now become America’s sorriest self-delusion in this tragedy.

However wholeheartedly we disposed of their horrific dictator, the Iraqis were always pawns on the geopolitical chessboard rather than actual people in the administration’s reckless bet to “transform” the Middle East. From “Stuff happens!” on, nearly every aspect of Washington policy in Iraq exuded contempt for the beneficiaries of our supposed munificence. Now this animus is completely out of the closet. Without Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz to kick around anymore, the war’s dead-enders are pinning the fiasco on the Iraqis themselves. Our government abhors them almost as much as the Lou Dobbs spear carriers loathe those swarming “aliens” from Mexico.

Iraqis are clamoring to get out of Iraq. Two million have fled so far and nearly two million more have been displaced within the country. (That’s a total of some 15 percent of the population.) Save the Children reported this month that Iraq’s child-survival rate is falling faster than any other nation’s. One Iraqi in eight is killed by illness or violence by the age of 5. Yet for all the words President Bush has lavished on Darfur and AIDS in Africa, there has been a deadly silence from him about what’s happening in the country he gave “God’s gift of freedom.”

It’s easy to see why. To admit that Iraqis are voting with their feet is to concede that American policy is in ruins. A “secure” Iraq is a mirage, and, worse, those who can afford to leave are the very professionals who might have helped build one. Thus the president says nothing about Iraq’s humanitarian crisis, the worst in the Middle East since 1948, much as he tried to hide the American death toll in Iraq by keeping the troops’ coffins off-camera and staying away from military funerals.

But his silence about Iraq’s mass exodus is not merely another instance of deceptive White House P.R.; it’s part of a policy with a huge human cost. The easiest way to keep the Iraqi plight out of sight, after all, is to prevent Iraqis from coming to America. And so we do, except for stray Shiites needed to remind us of purple fingers at State of the Union time or to frame the president in Rose Garden photo ops.

Read the rest of Rich.

Cindy Sheehan: "Good Riddance, Attention Whore"

If you haven't yet heard, Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a son named Casey who went to Iraq for Bush and became one of fast-rising statistics of U.S. soldiers dead, is stepping down as the "face" and voice of the anti-war movement. While she's tired after years of fighting to stop our fighting, however, Cindy isn't just tired, she's angry.

Buzzflash offers the guest contribution she made for Memorial Day; I encourage you to read it. I think it raised some questions for me. If you have the same reaction, please share in comments here.

Meanwhile, I want to thank Cindy for all she did. This woman had already gone through hell when she decided to stand up and it only got tougher the more she was willing to exercise courage and standards our elected officials rarely do. Remember too that there are many other mothers (and friends and other family members) speaking up and out.