War With Iran Closer?

General William Fallon, who until this week was the most recent head of CentCom and the atrocity that is Iraq, has been referred to many times as perhaps the only person standing in the way of Bush-Cheney's nightmare folly of war with Iran.

Now Fallon has been effectively forced out.

I dunno. Scott Ritter predicted an April 2008 all-out war, us vs. Iran. Fallon's departure makes me damned scared this IS it. (Bush has pushed out countless people who dared suggest his plans were bad.)

Anyone else concerned?

The Pentagon, Bill Clinton's Penis, And Our Tax Dollars At... Uh... Work?

Like a lot of bloggers, especially perhaps those like me critical of the way our military is being abused, I find I get a fair amount of traffic from not just the Pentagon and the military as a whole, but also the State and Justice Departments and several other agencies staffed by people our tax dollars go to pay.

But on Thursday, I was both bemused and annoyed to find that someone from the Pentagon came into Cut to the Chase after doing a search on Bill Clinton's penis and then eagerly left again several minutes later looking for a link to photographs of naked Army National Guard female soldiers via Editor and Publisher magazine.

From my stats:

Domain Name osd.mil ? (Military)
IP Address 134.152.17.# (The Pentagon)
ISP The Pentagon
Location Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : Virginia
City : Herndon
Lat/Long : 38.9553, -77.3881 (Map)

...
Referring URL http://www.google.co...=Clenus Bill Clinton
Search Engine google.com
Search Words clenus bill clinton
Visit Entry Page http://www.inblogs.n...h/label/Bill Clinton
Visit Exit Page http://cut-to-the-ch...6_09_24_archive.html
Out Click photographs of naked Army National Guard female soldiers
http://www.editorand...ontent_id=1003188197

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.

More Bushian Drumbeats Toward War With Iran

Now another American general is claiming - at the behest of the Bushies who would very much love to "control" Iran's oil as well - that Iranian security forces are training both Hezbollah and Iraqi militants. Uh huh.

If you want to blame someone for the terrible state of affairs in Iraq, you need to look no further than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to two treasonous tyrants named Bush and Cheney with a hell of an assist from the Pentagon.

His and Hersh: How Bush And Rumsfeld Created The Horror of Abu Ghraib, Then Protected Themselves

I posted this at All Things Democrat in the wee hours of this morning, but it needs as much attention as possible (remember how Rummy dismissed abuses in Iraq prisons as the work of "a few bad apples" - I can agree with this if you say those bad apples are named Georgie Porgy and Donny Dumbsfeld):

While perhaps too many Americans have been closely following interviews with England’s two princes (Harry and William) and the unanswered questions of what happened on the night of their mother’s - Princess Diana’s - death a decade ago, there’s a much bigger issue that needs attention: what Bush and Rumsfeld allowed happen at the Iraq prison Abu Ghraib (and elsewhere).

Hardhitting journalist Seymour Hersh, one of the first to break the stories of abuse of prisoners - many of whom were arrested only for being Iraqis or Muslim or simply looking different from Americans - by American soldiers in 2004, is back in The New Yorker with fresh details that tell us both President Bush and then Pentagon Secretary Donald Rumsfeld LIED LIED LIED about not knowing of the torture and degradation and unnecessary deaths while they worked tirelessly to keep any official investigation into it from looking beyond grunt soldiers and low ranking generals.

Much of the punch packed in Hersh’s latest piece comes from Major General Antonio M. Taguba, the man charged with investigating the abuses at Abu Ghraib when the Bush Administration and Pentagon could no longer look blankly and say, “What’s Abu Ghraib?” Taguba says that Bush and Rummy knew WAY before they say they did about the claims of massive abuses, tortures and even deaths at the prison, that they specifically BLOCKED Taguba from looking any higher up the food chain than lowly GIs and minor generals, and THEN forced Taguba to retire as punishment for trying to investigate as fully and fairly as a decent inquiry should.

The highest “hit” there, of course, was Janis Karpinski, a one star general then titularly in charge of Abu Ghraib but - she says - forced by the Pentagon to allow psy ops and torture proponents run the prison and then busted down when she did as ordered by Rummy; the rest were the likes of Lindy England (the Abu Ghraib poster girl for torture and leash holding as well as frequent model for sex pictures in and around prisoners).

"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.

The National Disgrace Called Gitmo

We have committed at least as great atrocities against others - many of them just as innocent as so many who died on September 11th, 2001 - in the name of the national security we not only didn't have then but have even less of today. That we operate anything like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, or many other politically-oriented prisons like those Jose Padilla is held in as well as the countless "secret" prisons throughout the world does more than endanger us; it betrays absolutely everything that this country and we, its people, are supposed to stand for.

From The New York Times Op/Ed page Wednesday (June 6, 2007):

Ever since President Bush rammed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 through Congress to lend a pretense of legality to his detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, we have urged Congress to amend the law to restore basic human rights and judicial process. Rulings by military judges this week suggest that the special detention system is so fundamentally corrupt that the only solution is to tear it down and start again.

The target of the judges’ rulings were Combatant Status Review Tribunals, panels that determine whether a prisoner is an “unlawful enemy combatant” who can be tried by one of the commissions created by the 2006 law. The tribunals are, in fact, kangaroo courts that give the inmates no chance to defend themselves, allow evidence that was obtained through torture and can be repeated until one produces the answer the Pentagon wants.

On Monday, two military judges dismissed separate war crimes charges against two Guantánamo inmates because of the status review system. They said the Pentagon managed to get them declared “enemy combatants,” but not “unlawful enemy combatants,” and moved to try them anyway under the 2006 law. That law says only unlawful combatants may be tried by military commissions. Lawful combatants (those who wear uniforms and carry weapons openly) fall under the Geneva Conventions.

If the administration loses an appeal, which it certainly should, it will no doubt try to tinker with the review tribunals so they produce the desired verdict. Congress cannot allow that. When you can’t win a bet with loaded dice, something is wrong with the game.

There is only one path likely to lead to a result that would allow Americans to once again hold their heads high when it comes to justice and human rights. First, Congress needs to restore the right of the inmates of Guantánamo Bay to challenge their detentions. By the administration’s own count, only a small minority of the inmates actually deserve a trial. The rest should be sent home or set free.

Read the rest here (no subscription required).

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).

Jack Murtha: American Military Leaders Have Lost His Confidence

Mind you, while the right loves to treat any criticism of its leaders with CentCom and elsewhere among the Pentagonians as "speaking ill of our soldiers", this is just not the case. Americans as a whole and Democrats specifically have made it abundantly clear that, by and large, they see Bush and the Pentagon having let down our soldiers, rather than the reverse. From Matt at Think Progress:

lOn ABC’s This Week today, host George Stephanopoulos asked Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) about whether Congress would “move again to get a timetable for withdrawal in September if the benchmarks aren’t met, even if General Petraeus…comes to Congress in September and says he needs more time.” “He has an awful lot of credibility,” he added.

Murtha quickly disputed Stephanopoulos’s premise. “George, let me tell you, I’ve lost a lot of confidence in many of the military leaders. Because they say what the White house wants them to say,” said Murtha. Asked if he included Petraeus in his lack of confidence, Murtha added, “I’m waiting to see what he has to say. But I am absolutely convinced there has been this overly optimistic picture of what’s going on in Iraq, while the figures show the opposite.” [...]

Unfortunately, Murtha is right. Petraeus, and other military officers, have a history of supporting the administration line, despite the facts on the ground.
In April, while Congress was preparing to vote on its Iraq timeline legislation, the administration brought Petraeus back to the United States from Iraq for a rare visit, which Murtha slammed as “purely a political move.” Petraeus has allowed himself to be used as a “political prop” to support the White House’s war czar nominee. He has also echoed Bush’s line that al Qaeda, not sectarian civil war, is the greatest threat in Iraq — an assessment that contradicts the intelligence. l

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.

In The "Haven't The Iraqis Suffered Enough?" Department

ABC News' blog The Blotter says one GOP lawmaker - this the one who was behind renaming "French toast" and "French Fries" to Freedom Coronaries-on-Cheap - thinks disgraced Pentagon official/neocon engineer and even more disgraced head of the World Bank Paul Wolfowitz should be sent to Iraq as a mayor.

I say the Iraqis have suffered enough!

But perhaps we could send Wolf and Rummy and all those numb-minded neocons to Iraq for a day where we let civilians play Whack-a-Mole with their heads and family jewels (that's ball sacks to those of you who hate euphemisms).

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.

On Eve of Wolfowitz's "Resignation", Bush Says, "Done A Heluva Job, Wolfie!"

NBC News just reported that the resignation deal is complete (which many assume will, as he demanded, will made no admission of wrongdoing) re: Paul Wolfowitz, currently the head of the World Bank, formerly Rumsfeld's assistant at the Pentagon who insisted the Iraq war "would pay for itself."

At the same damned time, President Bush is falling all over himself with praise for "stud" Wolfowitz, whose latest "excuse" for his wrongful deeds at the World Bank is that he was too afraid of his live-in girlfriend whom he gave an unbelievably lucrative salary (with no experience to match it).

Wolfie also had no expertise with money or development or people or.... well, let's just say, President Bush ADORES incompetence and demands all those who work for him (mind you, he thinks he OWNS them although we pay the salary!).

Perverted Justice: Bush Promises Veto of Troop/Combat Widow Pay Raise

Is this sick, or what?

This story would sound like big drama if describing a rapid-fire sere tennis championship or hysterically funny if it were a Firesign Theater bit. But this situation is anything but light-hearted when it involves men and women forced to sacrifice their lives everyday for yet another lied-us-into war.

The way the Bush Administration and top GOP lawmakers and candidates rush for any chance of a photo op with troops (especially when it doesn't put them in the same dangerous situations our soldiers endure) while they hand billions to defense contractors seems pretty sick. But pair it with the grave reality that the Bushies and GOPees simultaneously race to cut services (pay, medical, support) for American service men and women is well past perverted.

Yet right now, President Bush is threatening to veto a bill to provide a troop and combat widow salary increase that passed by an extremely high majority in the House of Representatives. Mind you, it's not even a significant payroll raise being discussed here. But any amount is too much for Bush who would prefer to give the money to Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater, and other Republican f(r)iends.

The only irony here is that just in what Donald Rumsfeld - who left the Pentagon as Secretary of the Defense Department but now gets a HUGE paycheck while still there as a "consultant" - makes a year for his services, we could pay for a LOT of soldiers AND proper protection for them.

And We Need a War Czar Why?

"Czars" in American government are what a president appoints to create a lucrative new position for someone owed a political favor and what amounts to a way to pass the blame of a problem around to more people.

Interestingly enough, among those in the know, almost all said the perfect "war czar" for America, if one had to be apointed at all, is Colin Powell, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State for Bush. However, all these same people acknowledged that Bush couldn't and wouldn't call on Powell because, IF Powell accepted (and this was in doubt), it was likely Powell's first act would be to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq as immediately as possible.

So we get this general instead.

And what are we paying the folks at the Pentagon if we need a war czar, too?

The Missing Soldiers and RFID

I posted at All Things Democrat my deep questions about how we can possibly believe what the Pentagon tells us - and believe even less what the Pentagon tells us Al Qaeda/terrorists tell us - given their everlasting love affair with lying through their well-capped teeth.

But it struck me last night that, especially given the Bush Administration's thirst to remove every hint of privacy normal mortal citizens have, it would seem like they would force troops to wear RFID chips if not implant them into the soldiers (which could be done without a G.I.'s knowing).

What am I missing?

Majority of Americans Dislike Bush's Veto Of Iraq Funding Bill With Timeline Attached

OK, I fully and completely understand why 54% of Americans dislike Bush's presidential veto. What I don't get is that more than 40% of Americans APPROVE of Bush's veto.

A majority of the U.S. public disapproves of President Bush's decision to veto a war spending bill that called for U.S. troops to leave Iraq in 2008, according to a CNN poll released Tuesday.

The poll found that 54 percent of Americans opposed Bush's May 1 veto, while 44 percent backed the president's decision to kill the $124 billion bill.Now that the veto has been cast, 57 percent of Americans said they want Congress to send another spending bill with a timetable for withdrawal back to the White House, the poll found -- but 61 percent would support a new bill that dropped the timetables in favor of benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet to maintain American support. (Full results [PDF])

While it found that more Americans believe Congress, rather than the president, should be responsible for setting policy in Iraq, the survey may give the Democratic leadership some pause. The percentage of people saying Democratic control of Congress is good for the country dropped from 59 percent in a March poll to 51 percent now.

Bush To Congress And American People: "Just In Case You Forgot I'm Dictator, Fuck You"

Sadly, this sentiment on Bush's part applies to almost every issue that has come up in Washington, D.C. since even before his dad's pals on the U.S. Supreme Court selected him president in December 2000. Just as sad (and downright mad, in the sense of complete separation from reality), far too many Americans have been willing to accept his dangerous and completely undemocratic (not to mention insane) self-portrait.

However, here, this refers to Bush's swaggering, cocky promise to veto yet another Congressional bill on Iraq funding in answer to Bush's veto of last week's bill that provided all the funding Bush wanted WHILE it also set a timeline to begin to withdraw troops starting in the fall of this year.

From AP:

The White House threatened on Wednesday to veto a proposed House bill that would pay for the war only through July — a limit Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned would be disastrous.

The warnings came as Democratic leaders wrestled with how to support the troops but still challenge President Bush on the war. Bush has requested more than $90 billion to sustain the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through September.

Democrats were unbowed.

"With this latest veto threat, the president has once again chosen confrontation over cooperation," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In a flash of defiance, House Democratic leaders this week promoted legislation that would provide the military $42.8 billion to keep operations going through July, buy new equipment and train Iraqi and Afghan security forces. Congress would decide shortly before its August recess whether to release an additional $52.8 billion to fund the war through September.

"In essence, the bill asks me to run the Department of Defense like a skiff, and I'm trying to drive the biggest supertanker in the world," Gates told senators Wednesday. "And we just don't have the agility to be able to manage a two-month appropriation very well."

The veto threat came from White House spokesman Tony Snow, traveling aboard Air Force One with Bush to tour tornado damage in Kansas.

"There are restrictions on funding and there are also some of the spending items that were mentioned in the first veto message that are still in the bill," Snow said.

House members planned a vote Thursday, just two days after David Obey (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., chairman of the Appropriations Committee, briefed White House chief of staff Josh Bolten on the plan.

The stern White House response also reflected the high stakes involved for Bush, who is struggling to beat back congressional skepticism about his Iraq strategy. In recent days, Bush has tried to shore up support by personally reaching out to moderate Republican and Democratic rank-and-file.

Progress? Bush & Pentagon Win Battle Over Corruption In Iraq

This is one of those rare times when even I must admire how effectively President George W. Bush and the Pentagon/CentCom have found one major and seemingly very successful tactic for combatting the sky-high corruption in Iraq, much of it introduced by the U.S. itself (directly through war profiteers like Bush-friendly private contract companies and indirectly by the way we set up operations in the occupied Iraq.

What's the BIG secret to their success in drastically reducing reports of corrupt in Iraq?

Simple: stomp on any attempts to investigate said corruption.

Gee. Why didn't we think of this before? Silly us!