Leave It To Feaver

Here's the NYT article referenced below. Not a great more deal than what E&P reported, but some good fill-ins.

Of note:

In their paper, "Casualty Sensitivity and the War in Iraq," which is to be published soon in the journal International Security, Dr. Feaver and his colleagues wrote: "Mounting casualties did not produce a reflexive collapse in public support. The Iraq case suggests that under the right conditions, the public will continue to support military operations even when they come with a relatively high human cost."

"Under the right conditions?" Would those conditions be being sold a bill of goods based upon a mountain of falsehoods?

To me, that line is the wheat. Read on! It won't hurt a bit. I promise(headache, maybe)

Puffed Rice

The Guardian is reporting that the US' diplomat's diplomat, Condoleezza Rice will tell Britain and the EU to 'back off' on the subject of secret CIA detention centers, and their alleged attendant practices.

That Rice was going to go into full denial mode was pretty much broadcast last week..I provided color here and elsewhere(hint: do a site search)

She likely won't deny the existence of secret CIA detention centers, but will deny that the US is doing anything 'illegal.' Or maybe she'll just aver that whatever it is that we're doing must be done in order to stop the evil doers.

Via The Guardian:

[snip]...US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will inflame the transatlantic row over America's alleged torture of terror suspects in secret jails by telling Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and other European officials to 'back off'.

Rice, who arrives in Brussels tomorrow for a meeting with Nato foreign ministers, has been under pressure to respond to claims the US has been using covert prisons in Eastern Europe to interrogate Islamic militants. Human rights groups have alleged the CIA is flying terror suspects to secret jails in planes that have used airports throughout Europe, including Britain...[/snip]

I wonder if 'back off' is the actual language the US is attempting to convey? 'FO' would be more apt.

More here:

[snip]...Rice's refusal to answer detailed questions on what has become known as 'extraordinary rendition' will anger many in Europe. Last week Straw wrote to Rice asking for clarification about some 80 flights by CIA planes that have passed through the UK. European politicians and human rights groups claim the flights and use of a network of secret jails breach international law.

State Department officials have hinted that Rice's response to Straw and other European ministers will remind them of their 'co-operation' in the war on terror. She is expected to make a public statement today stressing that the US does not violate allies' sovereignty or break international law. She will also remind people their governments are co-operating in a fight against militants who have bombed commuters in London and Madrid. She will drive home her message in private meetings with officials in Germany and at the EU headquarters in Brussels.

Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said Rice told him in Washington she expected allies to trust that America does not allow rights abuses...[/snip]

(more at link)

No folks, she unfortunately is not joking.

I do agree with Rice that the US doesn't break international law. We mangle it into something unrecogizable, and then claim it doesn't apply to us. Is it any wonder that the US is turning into a global pariah? Nobody's gonna let the US play in their reindeer games this year.

I wonder if pushing the fear button works as well in Spain and the UK as it does here? Ms. Rice will likely find out.

'America does not allow rights abuses.' Strange. Tell those folks in Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib, Ms. Rice. I simply have not the time for your lies.

There is so much layered hypocrisy here that it's difficult to wrap your head around it all. It's a damned good thing we've had five years of practice with this stuff. Otherwise, our collective heads might explode from the utter rubbish being strewn about.

Next week(this week for my foreign visitors) looks to be a very interesting week.

Update: The Times Online has more. Quotes Scott McClellan: "When it comes to human rights, there is no greater leader than the United States of America" Intriguing. Untrue, but intriguing.

Update 2: The Independent ominously reports on the CIA 'black-sites' under the headline: "The torture files." Ouch! That has to hurt.

Update 3: The BBC is reporting on a Der Spiegel article claiming over 400 suspicious flights in German airspace. It's a pretty speculative piece, but it is another warning flag.

Read 'em all!

Any further comments will be contained within a new entry.

Bush's Feaver Fever

Those ever resourceful folks over at a REAL journalistic resource, Editor & Publisher claims that people in the know, know who Bush's National Strategy for Victory in Iraq penner is..At least in large part. The person most responsible's name is Peter D. Feaver, a 43-year-old Duke University political scientist(I always chuckle at the term 'political scientist')

Let's keep this brief, as The Times is sure to have lots to say about this in tomorrow's edition.

Just a quick teaser:

Feaver, the Times’ Scott Shane writes, "was recruited after he and Duke colleagues presented to administration officials their analysis of polls about the Iraq war in 2003 and 2004. They concluded that Americans would support a war with mounting casualties on one condition: that they believe it would ultimately succeed."

This past June, the Washington Post observed that Feaver's studies had already "helped influence the White House thinking."

But Christopher F. Gelpi, Feaver's colleague at Duke and co-author of the research on American tolerance for casualties, tells the Times on Sunday that this week's 35-page report "is not really a strategy document from the Pentagon about fighting the insurgency. The Pentagon doesn't need the president to give a speech and post a document on the White House Web site to know how to fight --the insurgents. The document is clearly targeted at American public opinion." Dr. Gelpi said he had not discussed the document with Dr. Feaver, who declined to be interviewed by the Times.

E&P has learned that Feaver is on leave from Duke until at least August 2006. According to his curriculum vitae, obtained by E&P, he describes himself as "Special Advisor for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform, National Security Council Staff."

The study he did with Feaver, along with Jason Reifler, challenged the post-Vietnam view that Americans will only support military operations if casualties are low. Rather, they declared, based on a study of recent polls, that public acceptance for the Iraq war depended much more on feeling that the war was a worthy cause--and even more, a belief that the war was likely to end well.

(much more at link)

As if anyone thought that the document, replete with a speech was really about 'winning' on the ground in post-war Iraq.

That seems laughable. It would be if it wasn't so tragic.

This is group-think at its worst. All that the White House has to do to turn around public opinion concering Iraq is to keep too many of OUR guys from getting killed. This will magically metamorphose public opinion from dour to happy.

These guys are obviously deluded. I think that most Americans would support the war if there was real progress being made. It's not so simple as a body count.

This one-dimensional type of thinking is very clearly outlined in an absolutely terrific book by Jeff Schmidt titled: Disciplined Minds Amazon link.

How could these guys not land on Team Bush? Bush must love the simplicity of the message.

Stay tuned for the NYT piece tomorrow. It could be a winner..Unlike the PR ploy: National Strategy for Victory in Iraq ;)

Radio Bush: Deconstructed

Let's get right to it

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Earlier this week I visited Arizona and Texas to observe firsthand our efforts to protect our southwest border. And I met with customs and border protection agents who are working tirelessly to enforce our laws and keep our borders secure.

Illegal immigration and border security are issues that concern Americans. We're a nation built on the rule of law, and those who enter the country illegally break the law. In communities near our border illegal immigration strains the resources of schools, hospitals, and law enforcement. And it involves smugglers and gangs that bring crime to our neighborhoods. Faced with this serious challenge our government's responsibility is clear. We're going to protect our borders.

I already commented on the absurdity that we are a nation governed by the rule of law. In addition to my earlier caustic remarks, I'd like to add that just this past week, Lawrence Wilkerson(Colin Powell's Chief of Staff) stated that Dick Cheney committed a domestic crime for his role in the various prisoner abuse scandals, and additionally, thought that this would be a breach of "international crime as well." There's the president's rule of law in action.

Since I took office we've increased funding for border security by 60 percent, and our border agents have caught and sent home more than 4.5 million illegal immigrants, including more than 350,000 with criminal records. Yet we must do more to build on this progress.

"Took (the) office?" I'll let that stand.

Bush goes on to tell us how evil immigration is, and how, through the use of increased manpower, technology(remember this guy?), and a host of other initiatives we're going to stop illegals from coming in to pick fruit and get those Wall Street types to work the lettuce crop(okay, so that last bit's not in the address, but who the hell is going to do this essential work?)

Finally, comprehensive immigration reform requires us to create a new temporary worker program that relieves pressure on the border, but rejects amnesty. By creating a legal channel for willing employers to hire willing workers we will reduce the number of workers trying to sneak across the border, and that would free up law enforcement officers to focus on criminals, drug dealers, terrorists, and others who mean us harm.

Now he's on message. All those illegals are here to harm us. Press that fear button! Press it, damn you! Your poll numbers are in the toilet. Press it!

In the interest of fairness, you can read the President's immigration reform proposals here

We're "Fair and Balanced" here at pure bs!

Our nation has been strengthened by generations of immigrants who became Americans through patience, hard work, and assimilation. In this new century we must continue to welcome legal immigrants and help them learn the customs and values that unite all Americans, including liberty and civic responsibility, equality under God, tolerance for others, and the English language. In the coming months, I look forward to working with Congress on comprehensive immigration reform that will enforce our laws, secure our border, and uphold our deepest values.

Jees, George(native American name: "Governs with his Dick") the indigenous peoples upon which we bestowed smallpox, tuberculosis, and a host of other diseases upon might take umbrage with your entire statement. And didn't we sort of steal their land?

Being an agnostic, I am not living under any god's guiding hand. Much less 'his' repressive social ideas.

How does Bush get away with using "tolerance for others" and the establishment of "English language" for all in the same sentence? That's for minds greater than mine to decipher(I know the answer. It plays to his base..sad, no?)

Thank you for listening.

No, George. Thank you for providing us with such fine leadership and for ending your address with the word 'assimilation.'

The above radio address is available for viewing, and listening at the following link: President's Radio Address

This would make great political humor if it wasn't so damned true(I am not touting my own puerile attempts at humor. I'm talking about "The Address" as delivered)

Let's face it, if I could write, I wouldn't be involved with blobs of sand.

Oh, Brother

This being Saturday, El Presidente Bush once again filled the airwaves with the weakly Radio Propaganda Clambake Address.

I just can't let the whole thing pass without comment. When you start off with:

Good morning. Earlier this week I visited Arizona and Texas to observe firsthand our efforts to protect our southwest border. And I met with customs and border protection agents who are working tirelessly to enforce our laws and keep our borders secure.

Illegal immigration and border security are issues that concern Americans. We're a nation built on the rule of law, and those who enter the country illegally break the law.

Rule of fu%king law? Does this man think that the populace doesn't think?

(well, there is some good evidence that many do not, but others certainly do)

He and his circus of assclowns have spent the last five years disproving this very point. By design, or otherwise, it matters not. Argggh!

I just cannot let this pass unchallenged. This is especially good because there is no copyright issue, and I can rip the whole speech(?) without breaching copyright protection.

I'm involved with work again, but will provide my readers with a minimum of three things today.

Since there are about ten things that I'm pissed off about today, I'll try and put the issues out that are the most irritating. Bush's speech(?) is a given ;)

Blowin' In The Wind

This is for all you stats freaks - of which I am one.

In light of the fact, that 'Epsilon' is now the 14th hurricane, and the 26th named Atlantic tropical storm of this season of record destroying hurricane season, I thought an update was in order.

The actors:

1. Arlene


2. Bret


3. Cindy


4. Dennis


5. Emily


6. Franklin


7. Gert


8. Harvey


9. Irene


10. Jose


11. Katrina


12. Lee


13. Maria


14. Nate


15. Ophelia


16. Philippe


17. Rita


18. Stan


19. Tammy


20. Vince


21. Wilma


22. Alpha


23. Beta


24. Gamma


25. Delta


26. Epsilon

Lovely group, don't you think?

Now, In addition to this being by far the busiest tropical storm/hurricane season record, there are some other records that fell as well.

Most category five storms in a season!

Most expensive hurricane season ever!

There may be others of which I am not aware, but even the most petro-centric dunderhead can see that if the increase in both number and power of storms is due to ocean surface temperature warming(and there is good evidence to support the relative strength claim) that it is going to be far cheaper to cut our atmospheric carbon emissions, and other greenhouse gases than to clean up after a few Katrinas per year.

(sorry 'bout the run-on sentence)

Not to even mention the other likely outcomes of accelerating climate change. We're in deep now.

This may be my next tact for approaching my wooden headed Congressmen. They're the four horsemen of the environmental apocalypse. The only thing that'll turn them is a well argued financial benefit to limiting pollutants.

Now it's time to do the research(well, it's likely way past midnight, but I'll be able to say that I tried)

Iraq and Vietnam: No Parallels

Honest. You can trust us We're the government!

This is political humor that's already written.

• Johnson blames Vietnam on faulty intelligence



• Bush blames Iraq on faulty intelligence(sort of)(there's faulty intelligence at work, but it's a shared experience..makes you want to go hug a group of neo-cons)

From images of crippled warships to images of mushroom clouds over the Big Apple, it's comforting to know that the grown-ups are still in charge.

FWIW, I didn't intend it to be unordered list Friday, but it seems to be going in that direction ;)

Rebel, Rebel..

I meant to post an entry concerning this NYT piece concerning the Iraq resistance groups earlier, but I just spaced it.


Sleep deprivation 1, todd's blog 0.

Super quick synopsis:

• Over 100 groups



• Horizontal structure



• We're not winning(unless you define the metric with fomenting violence across Iraq)

****************************

That's all I have time for. Gotta run.

Happy Friday!

Roving in Uncharted Waters

Karl Rove may be back on the hotseat in the Plame leak case. The NYT is reporting that the summoning of Ms. Novak, which we first reported here is likely to focus on contadictory statements and/or alterations of testimony(s) Rove gave to the Grand Jury after learning that Matt Cooper might possibly have identified Rove as a source in the leak.

From the NYT piece:

People involved in the case said that at a minimum Ms. Novak communicated to Mr. Luskin that Mr. Rove might face legal problems because of potential testimony from Mr. Cooper, her colleague. They said Ms. Novak had told Mr. Luskin that Mr. Cooper might have been in contact with Mr. Rove about Ms. Wilson in the days before her identity became public. Mr. Cooper helped write an article on Time's Web site in July 2003 that was among the first, after Mr. Novak's column, to divulge Ms. Wilson's identity, using her maiden name, Valerie Plame.

As stated, that may be the minimum of Rove's trouble with regard to this piece of the puzzle. However, the NYT also reports in some detail the circumstances surrounding an email from Rove to Stephen Hadley that recounted a conversation beteween Rove and Cooper which in turn lead to Rove's altering of his testimony. Guess what is in the email? Details of a conversation Rove had with Cooper prior to his Grand Jury testimony.

Oh yeah. Karl is definitely out of the woods here. NOT!

More On Iraqiganda: Confirmed!

According to Reuters, the White House has expressed 'concern' over the US military secretly funneling American Happy Items to Iraqi media outlets.

Is this an admission that someone knew? Apparently they do now.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch speaking about the allegations:

Lynch replied that al Qaeda leaders believe "half the battle is the battlefield of the media," citing a letter, released by the United States in October, said to have been written by al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, to the extremist network's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

"And what Zarqawi's doing continuously is lying to the Iraqi people, lying to the international community, conducting these kidnappings, these beheadings, these explosions so that he gets international coverage to look like he has more capability than he truly has," Lynch said.

How is one to read this? Is it that if Zarqawi's doing it, we get the green light to follow suit?

Is this the Zarqawi letter that has had its veracity questioned? It's the only letter of which I am aware.

Some more stuff:

'WE DON'T LIE'

"We don't lie. We don't need to lie. We do empower our operational commanders with the ability to inform the Iraqi public, but everything we do is based on fact not based on fiction," Lynch said.

Okay, this should easy enough to confirm. Let's get all the facts out on the table, and let some neutral party investigate any claims made. Seems simple enough. Too simple. It'll never happen.

Lynch did not explicitly confirm the practice of paying newspapers to run pro-American articles, first reported on Wednesday by The Los Angeles Times, but other officials did confirm it. The Times also reported that the military had bought an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station to disseminate pro-American views.

A senior State Department official, who asked for anonymity because his views could be seen as critical of the Pentagon, said the reports of planted stories undermined U.S. diplomats' efforts to foster democracy in Iraq.

Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat defeated by President George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election, told reporters at the White House, "I think that the United States of America paying for stories in Iraqi papers undermines America's credibility."

"What we need are Iraqis who really believe what they're saying and say it for themselves," Kerry said.

Eek! I agree with Kerry. He's been in a lot of weird places politically lately, but I agree that this is the path to initiating integrity in Iraq. We have to start somewhere.

A defense contractor involved in the effort, Washington-based public relations and strategic communications firm Lincoln Group, declined to detail its activities.

Ahh, no comment from the viper's den. That's pretty shocking ;)

[Scott] McClellan said Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had indicated Pentagon officials are looking into the matter. "We need to know what the facts are. Gen. Pace indicated it was news to him as well," McClellan said.

So, other officials have confirmed the existence of the Happy Time stories, but the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs doesn't know anything about their existence. That's convenient.

At least Scotty didn't go into reflexive denial mode. Perhaps having his mouth crammed full of his feet so many times, he has learned something...Nah!!

Am I the only one to see that it's not criticism of the war that hurts troop morale, but the inane way in which it is being conducted? That has to really effect the troops.

If I was in uniform I'd be livid. I'm trying to stay alive and get home, whilst we are going out of way to undermine my ability to continue to inhabit this planet above ground. I'd be god damnned pissed off. Hell, I am pissed off!

US-Iraq Policy: bin Laden's Golden Goose

Just one day after President Bush's stay-the-course-with-few-modifications speech, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Peter Pace had the following to say:

"There is no option other than victory," he said. "You need to get out and read what our enemies have said ... Their goal is to destroy our way of life."

Sure, that may be true now that we've gone in, and turned Iraq into a recruiting tool for bad guys, but this wasn't so before Cheney, Rummy, Wolfie, Rice et. al. set us off on our Excellent Iraq Adventure.

Bush's speech of yesterday must be hailed as a propaganda coup for Islamic extremism.

Not being able to watch Bush deliver his speech, I've been relegated to reading it.

Did anyone notice that there are some made up words in the speech? How about some utter falsehoods and mis-directions?

Bush actually - according to the official transcript - uttered this sentence:

Victory will come when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot new attacks on our nation.

Excuse me, "Saddamists?" Shouldn't that be "Hussseinistas" or some other equally nonsensical bit of tripe.

And what the hell about Iraq being a safe haven for terrorists? If you read this logically, the Pres. implies that Iraq is currently a safe haven for the bad guys, but we're working on it.

Lastly, and most sadly, the mean old terrorists can't plot NEW attacks against our nation. The tacit code here is that they have done so before. This is simply fantasy.

From all appearances, the attacks of 9/11 were pretty much planned within our borders.

Lots of smoke and mirrors, but little in the way of fact. If the mass media doesn't call Bush out on these fabrications, democracy is dead in the US.

All Pollutants Are Global

The Journal Nature has an online article posted concerning the weakening of Atlantic Ocean currents.

The researchers report that there has been a 30% weakening in the 'Atlantic meridional overturning circulation' which helps to warm the upper latitudes, and includes the Gulf Stream.

The change has been extremely rapid. The 30% weakening has taken place in the last 50 years.

Since the material is likely to be new to most readers, I urge you to go and read the whole article. I cannot die it justice here. It's simply too much material to enter into a blog post. I have lots of far more detailed information, that I am going to be adding to my own online resource center within the next couple of months.

If there is one message that everyone needs to take away from this article, it is this:

"This is quite sensational information in itself," says Detlef Quadfasel, an oceanographer at the University of Hamburg in Germany. "But it is also an important message to politicians who negotiate the future of the Kyoto agreements: we do change our climate."

I am not going to continue to write my Congressmen(they are all men) and ask just what the f&ck they are doing to save us from ourselves. That avenue hasn't worked. I don't yet know what I am going to do. Me, you, the majority of the US scientific community, and other like minded individuals and organizations haven't been able to get the US to even sign onto Kyoto, much less do what's really necessary to halt the warming of the planet.

Kyoto is only a tiny fraction of what we need to do. But it's an important first step that the current Administration deems not economically feasible.

Well, when the Midwestern US dries up and can no longer produce an abundance of crops, their uppance shall be at hand.

The only thing less economically viable to signing onto Kyoto is to do nothing. That threatens us all.

But Wait, More Humor...Or Is It?

Media Matters is reporting that Keith Olbermann of MSNBC's Countdown has awarded that bastion of journalistic integrity, and sublime taste, one Mr. Bill O'Reilly, their coveted "Worst Person of the Year" honor.

I am no fan of the vile O'Reilly, and am happy to see him honored in taking all three spots on the podium for three of his most notorious false claims for the calendar year 2005. Hoo-ahh!

But hey, I have high hopes that O'Reilly will yet surpass his dynastic capacity for the absurd before year's end.

Not knowing enough about Olbermann's show, I am uncertain if this is meant as political humor - and I'll admit it is funny - or if this is something more serious.

Either way, it's a home run.

I hope that this doesn't meant that I'll have to staret watching television. That would be very sad indeed.

Today's Political Humor

David Rees has posted another series of the phenomenally cool Get Your war On series.

I'd just pop the new panel right here, but my respect for others' copyright is pretty much absolute.

I really need to update the blog in order to properly title my posts. I've looked at mt feed, and it's a bloody mess ;) However, this is rather fitting in my case.

I've been working on my own crass three panel strip for a while. The only thing that stops me from posting it to tha blog is the fact that it sucks. Oh well.

But We're Winning!

The Iraq war according to Bush:

Again, I will repeat myself, that the more progress we make on the ground, the more free the Iraqis become, the more electricity is available, the more jobs are available, the more kids that are going to school, the more desperate these killers become, because they can't stand the thought of a free society. They hate freedom. They love terror. They love to try to create fear and chaos. And what we're determined in this administration is not to be intimidated by these killers. As a matter of fact, we're even more determined to work with the Iraqi people to create the conditions of freedom and peace, because it's in our national interest we do so.

(More at White House link)

We must be making real progress as The 'killers' attacked US military bases and government buildings earlier today.

A snipperoo:

[snip]...BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Insurgents attacked several U.S. bases and government offices with mortars and rockets Thursday before dispersing in the capital of western Iraq's Anbar province, residents and police said.

Iraq's interior minister on Thursday fired his top official for human rights in connection with a torture investigation.

The attacks in Ramadi occurred as local tribal leaders and U.S. military officials were to hold their second meeting in a week at the governor's office in the city center. The insurgents apparently tried to shell the building, but reporters inside said there was no damage or injuries.

Police Lt. Mohammed Al-Obaidi said at least four mortar rounds fell near the U.S. base on the eastern edge of the city, but that there were no reports of casualties.

Insurgents also launched mortar rounds at the Ramadi auditorium where U.S. and Sunni Arab leaders met on Monday, The Washington Post reported this week.

Residents said that within minutes, scores of masked gunmen, believed to be members of Jordan-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq group, ran into the city's streets but dispersed after launching attacks with mortars and Russian-made Katyusha rockets.

It wasn't clear if the attacks left any casualties.

Ramadi is the provincial capital of Anbar province, a Sunni stronghold, where clashes between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi troops have left hundreds of people dead in the past two years.

U.S. and Iraqi troops launched a joint operation near Ramadi on Wednesday, sweeping through an area used to rig car bombs.

About 500 Iraqi troops joined 2,000 U.S. Marines, soldiers and sailors in a move to clear insurgents from an area on the eastern side of the Euphrates river near Hit, 85 miles west of Baghdad, the U.S. command said in a statement.

The offensive came as President Bush said he hopes to shift more of the military burden onto the Iraqis as part of a strategy to draw down American forces...[/snip]

(much more at link)

I'm glad that this is prima facie evidence that we're winning! Glory!

More Pollin' Woes

..For the Bush team.

From CNN/USA Today/Gallup comes the revelation that Americans have seen through the Bushiganda, and think that Bush's plans for 'victory' in Iraq aren't plausible.

I'm not going to lead you astray. A large percentage of those polled hadn't yet heard, or read about Bush's speech of yesterday. Perhaps later polls will show different results.

My personal feeling is that when Bush spoke of "complete victory" in Iraq, we will see the administration move the goalposts on this bit of semantic swagger as well.

The way I see this developing - while all the time in continuous denial for the facts on the ground is this:

1) Continually redefining "complete victory"

2) Redefining "complete"

3) Redefining "victory"(remember: "Mission Accomplished" how hollow those words ring)

Bush is not living in the real world. We now know that in excess of 90% of the Anti-occupation forces in Iraq(according to Rummy, you best not call them insurgents) are made up of newly militarized Iraqis.

Let's do some simple math:

Approximately 160,000 US troops in Iraq.

Approximately 26,000,000 Iraqis in the same area. If 20% of those Iraqis are male and of fighting age, that gives us 5,200,000 potential fighters.

If even 10% of those take up arms, that's 520,000.

If Bush pulls troops as the Iraqis are better able to provide for their own defense, the numbers will tip toward the anti-US fighters.

My numbers are likely to be conservative, UNLESS the US can demonstrate immediately that we will deliver on all the promises we made prior to, during, and post-invasion.

I'm not going to include foreign fighters(other than the US) in this equation, as the numbers are small. That's not to say that these fighters are an insignificant force, but I want to keep the math simple.

Again, the LA Times has the goods on Bush's latest plan.

Useless observation: If the Pentagon and the Bush Administration had listened to the field generals prior to the invasion regarding troop numbers, this entry would likely never have been made.

That Bush had to bring up the thoroughly discounted nexus between 9/11 and Iraq is beyond irresponsible. Okay, he said(paraphrasing) that the "9/11 terrorists and the Iraqi fighters share the same ideology." Where is the evidence for this?

A more accurate statement would have been that the anti-US forces in Iraq share a common ideology with The French resistance of WWII. As I've penned many times, why don't we understand anything about nationalistic/religious pride other than our own?

Since the Bush speech of yesterday was but part one of a four part pontification ABC mini-series, we'll have to see where things move over the next three installments.

Now Everybody Do The Propaganda!

(nod to Green Day for the title)

I had a bunch of alternative names for this entry...But hey, that works as well as any of them.

I meant to grab this from the LA Times earlier today, but Reuters AlertNet does a nice job of condensing the Times piece down for the short attention span crowd like me ;)

It seems that your tax dollars(if you're a US citizen) are going to a special unit of the US military to funnel specially written pro-US 'news stories' to Iraqi media outlets. Isn't that a great idea?

From Reuters:

The newspaper also reported that the "Information Operations Task Force" in Baghdad has bought an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station, and was using them to disseminate pro-American views as well.

It said it based the story on interviews with U.S. military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity and with Iraqi newspaper employees, as well as documents it obtained.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said he could not say whether the story was true but some of what it described was "troubling" and he had asked military officials in Iraq for information.

"This article raises some questions as to whether or not some of the practices that are described in there are consistent with the principles of this department," he said.

The Times reported the program began this year. Records and interviews indicated that the articles were written in English, translated into Arabic and then given to Baghdad newspapers to print in return for payment.

Given the opportunity, I would have to ask Me. Whitman just what the hell are 'the principles of this department?'

The Pentagon, otherwise known as Rummy's Sphincter Shaped Playhouse™ doesn't appear to be above doing anything at this juncture.

The article goes on to detail the workings of the ironically named 'Lincoln Group,' the operational arm of the operation.

As we so often find, the best bits are near the bottom. This article follows the pattern. Reuters closes the article with this:

Earlier this year, the Bush administration came under criticism after federal agencies distributed video packages to American TV stations that could be broadcast as news stories.

The Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress, has said those efforts could be seen as a form of "covert propaganda".

I remember those 'video packages'(ooh, fun!) all too well.

Whoever it was at the GAO that penned the "covert propaganda" phrase wins the pure bs "Truth of the Day" award(void where prohibited. does not include tax, title or destination fees)

The Patriot v. Tyranny

True American Patriot, and hence thorn in the Bush Administration's side, had her appeal to tell what she knows about the FBI's 9/11 operations rejected for consideration by the Supreme Court. The Supeme's sent her case back to the DC US District Court, where they ruled that she could not speak because it would constitute a breach of the "states secrets privilege."

If you look in the pure bs archives you'll find nine mentions of Ms. Edmonds.

I remember her telling her story - as much as she was able to, being under a gag order from the FBI - to Amy Goodman of Democracy now! That seems like a lifetime ago.

If you want to know just who she is, I have stuff.

The latest in the ongoing battle between Edmonds and the Federales concerns the same old issues she's been fighting for in excess of a year.

The Village Voice article is very good, but I recommend that you hop on over to Democracy Now! and download a couple of shows that feature Ms. Edmonds. Much of what she was muzzled for was already in the public record, and then re-classified by the FBI!!

If you do nothing else, please follow the Village Voice link at the top of this entry, and take a look at the bulleted points. Then read the last paragraph where she claims she was called a "whore" by her supervising agent for telling the truth.

Sibel Edmonds may be effectively silenced for now, but I feel certain that we'll here more from this True American Patriot.

Bush Today

No comment.

Poor Donny's Lost His Noggin

Insurgents? What Insurgents?

No comment. Read. Laugh. We are in seriously deep trouble.

Rummy's on a roll to top Bush's sheer genius at delivering political humor.

Pre-Bush Speech Iraq Highlights

In my efforts to brint to you, my gentle readers, the nes before it happens, I offer you this AP report highlighting the major bullet points of Bush's Cheney's modified policy on Iraq.

The pres. is due to speak on this a bit later today. I need to confirm the facts concerning our purported progress before commenting on them, so I'll just offer the article up as a starting point.

There are a few things that I am imediately drawn to comment on, but in the interest of being accurate rather than first, I need to do some background work. Sorry, but that is the way in which I choose to operate.

UPDATE:

Bloody Hell! The Center For American Progress has all the goods. The analysis seems very sound, without being inflammatory. Unless you're inflamed by factual analysis - then you shouldn't be here.

I started to do my own analysis as part of my lunchtime madness crunch, and I decided to see if the folks at CAP had anything of use, and lo and behold...My work is done.

Many thanks to the team at CAP!

Lawrence Wilkerson: What A Guy!

I'm really starting to like this guy..In a purely hetero, punch-you-in-the-shoulder, entirely platonic sort of way ;)

Yesterday, in an interview with the BBC, Wilkerson(Colin Powell's chief of staff until they both said sayonara to the Bushies), used the phrase "International Crime" when describing the atmosphere that Richard B. Cheney had engendered in post 9/11 US foreign policy.

Directly from the BBC transcript:

[snip...]If what you say is correct, in your view, is Dick Cheney then guilty of a war crime?

Well, that's an interesting question - it was certainly a domestic crime to advocate terror and I would suspect that it is - for whatever it's worth - an international crime as well.

You've got also John Kerry recently accusing President Bush of orchestrating one of the great acts of deception in American history, and saying that flawed intelligence was manipulated to fit a political agenda. Now Colin Powell would be tarred with that same brush wouldn't he? Did he feel that he had correct information about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction when he outlined the case against Saddam?

He certainly did and so did I. I was intimately involved in that process and to this point I have more or less defended the administration.

I have basically been supportive of the administration's point that it was simply fooled - that the intelligence community, including the UK, Germany, France, Jordan - other countries that confirmed what we had in our intelligence package, yet we were all just fooled.

Lately, I'm growing increasingly concerned because two things have just happened here that really make me wonder.

And the one is the questioning of Sheikh al-Libby where his confessions were obtained through interrogation techniques other than those authorised by Geneva.

It led Colin Powell to say at the UN on 5 February 2003 that there were some pretty substantive contacts between al-Qaeda and Baghdad. And we now know that al-Libby's forced confession has been recanted and we know - we're pretty sure that it was invalid.

But more important than that, we know that there was a defence intelligence agency dissent on that testimony even before Colin Powell made his presentation. We never heard about that.

Follow that up with Curveball, and the fact that the Germans now say they told our CIA well before Colin Powell gave his presentation that Curveball - the source to the biological mobile laboratories - was lying and was not a trustworthy source. And then you begin to speculate, you begin to wonder was this intelligence spun; was it politicised; was it cherry-picked; did in fact the American people get fooled - I am beginning to have my concerns...[/snip]

(you know the drill, follow the link for all the action)

I have my concerns as well.

I found this transcript while doing my early morning round-up at the UK's Independent. The above link is to an article that merely condenses the entirety of the Wilkerson interview for the reader.

Add'l: I'll add much more in the way of useless commentary once I arrive back from my morning activities..And begin work. ;) That should be around 11:00AM EST -5 GMT. I'll leave this update info. here, just in case there is anyone reading that thinks I tried to dupe them. Remember, I am not out to dupe you, but there are those that have that very thing as a part of their agenda. Caveat Lector.

********************************************

Well, this is either going to a cause for great joy, or at worst a flat affect, but I am going to unable to provide a timely update on this story.

Simply read the two pieces. They pretty much speak for themselves. I can add no great insights into this matter. I think Wilkerson's own words can certainly stand on their own.

********************************************

On a more serious note, I think that I have the evidence that I need to affirm my agnosticism. If Julia Roberts is Hollywoood's highest paid actress, it does not bode well for the existence of the Christian God ;)

Keystone Gops

That should read GOPs, but the headline then becomes much like my writing, dull and stilted.

You just can't write this stuff yourself. No one would believe you. These statements are provided consecutively. No breaks. No messing with the dialogue.

Another Reuters piece. This is the preparatory article for tomorrow's big Iraq announcement that I've been crowing about for the past several days.

I expect you to check the article to see that I didn't rearrange the following sequence in order to cast the Bush Administration in the least favorable light:

Bush told reporters earlier during a visit to the U.S.-Mexican border that any decision on drawing down U.S. troop levels would be based on whether U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq believe Iraqi forces are sufficiently prepared to fight the insurgency.

"If they tell me we need more troops, we'll provide more troops," Bush said. "If they tell me that the Iraqis are ready to take more and more responsibility and that we'll be able to bring some Americans home, I will do that."

Umm, George. You have only been told this by the military for nearly three years, going back to before your war started. Unless your crack civilian advisors withheld the information from you.

But White House spokesman Scott McClellan joined other top administration officials on Tuesday in raising expectations that Washington could reduce the number of troops next year.

Scotty, stick to the damned script. Thinking isn't what you're paid to do. Bullshitting people, and spreading propaganda are your two tasks.

"In 2006, the expectation is the conditions will be changed on the ground. We can make real progress with training Iraqi security forces and that conditions will permit us to be able to reduce our presence," McClellan said, although he cautioned that any reductions would be based on "conditions on the ground" at the time.

Dammit, Scotty. Now you're aiming for the redundancy Hall of Fame. Stick to the script.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last week that the United States may not need the number of troops it has in Iraq "all that much longer."

(much more at link)

Condi must be having issues channeling Bush.

Good to see unity at the White House ;)

Kudos to Reuters reporter Adam Entous for getting that published. There is a lot more material to read, but I need to have a bit of fun ;)

Besides, all will be revealed tomorrow.

Update: Condi And The Holiday Camps

In response to Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier's queries, US Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice today acknowledged that allegations of CIA detention centers in Europe would be responded to...at some point.

Condi reportedly gave Steinmeier her personal pledge that the US would respond 'to the accusations.'

That's hopeful.

Again from Reuters AlertNet:

[snip]..."The United States realizes that these are topics that are generating interest among European publics as well as parliaments and that these questions need to be responded to," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters after the diplomats' meeting.

Rice maintained the U.S. position of avoiding denying or confirming a newspaper report that secret centers to interrogate terrorism suspects were located in Eastern Europe, but Steinmeier said he was reassured Washington would be more forthcoming.

Steinmeier said that Rice, who will visit Germany on a trip to Europe next week, pledged to "provide a prompt and detailed response" to an EU request for clarification of the report...[/snip]

I have a friend that was stationed on a nuclear submarine. He's now a nuclear engineer working for the Navy as a civilian.

He used to guide tours on a nuclear armed Ohio class sub, but could only respond to questions about what kind of firepower the sub was packing with: "I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons aboard this vessel."(that might be paraphrasing a word or two, but no more than that)

I am really wondering what the situation is regarding the CIA 'black-sites.'

The US is going to issue an official response to a series of newspaper reports?

Weird.

Further along in the Reuters piece, GWB was reportedly asked about the centers today, and had this pearl to offer:

"The United States of America does not torture. And that's important for people around the world to understand."

(much more at link)

Why yes. Yes it is.

It's odd that in the almost four weeks since the story first broke, that the Administration hasn't used the outright denial defense.

I guess we'll all have to wait.

UPDATE: Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst, and head of BERG Associates, is claiming that Dana Priest of WaPo, got her information in part from CIA officers concerned that Dick Cheney and CIA Director Porter Goss by pushing for a "torture loophole" would severely discredit the Agency's future effectiveness

Johnson has been a very reliable source on matters of national security.

The soup thickens.

Wanna See Annie Run?

I just received my daily email dispatches(round 1) and the fine folks at Media Matters are exposing the latest Coulterisms and calling for Ms. Coulter's head. Well technically, they just want her off CNN. The link above gives you the tools to make a forceful argument, and here's the CNN contact form to join the fight against venomous, dissembling, blonde pundits.

I don't need to tell any reader that in order to be taken seriously, use Media Matters' information, as well as your own verifiable work(s)

Ann Coulter should not get a national audience on any network even remotely interested in improving the level of discourse in this country. One would hope that CNN falls into this category(I'm not holding my breath, but Coulter is just so very bad, that there may be hope)

I'm all for free speech, as long as it's both free and accurate when being broadcast over our airwaves.

The Boondocks Update!

I have seen the first four episodes, and while I was skeptical after watching the premiere episode, I am now a fan.

Having been a long-time fan of the comic strip of the same name, the animated show offers less topical humor, and thus far seems to embrace longer term themes(think $yndication) A trade-off that is entirely appropriate and doesn't detract from the messages.


Riley Freeman

The Boondocks is the most honest portrayal of black/white relations in the US I have seen on television in some time.

The animation is good, and the story lines while not riveting, are very good for an animated television comedy. This is great social commentary with humor.

It's bound to offend some people, but anything that portrays the truth always does.

The Canadian's Lead..

...The North American charge in the fight against global climate change. Of course Canada is hosting the UN's climate change conference(Caution: .pdf file)(no caps because this is an amalgam of the Parties to Kyoto Protocol and the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention)

Of course, the US, a non-signatory to Kyoto, stayed our incredibly self-destructive course with chief US climate negotiator, Harlan Watson telling Reuters, that "A (system of) targets and timetables approach will not work for us."

There's more about yesterdays happenings at the Reuters AlertNet link.

It's not impossible to envision that we're already past the 'tipping point,' where a system can sustain considerable strain to its equilibrium, and suddenly collapse into a new state.

The mathematics underlying the collapse of steady-state systems are pretty heady, but their effects are immediate and can be quite pronounced.

(jebus, I just realized how geeky the above reads)

The easiest things that you can do as a concerned citizen of the planet is to reduce your overall ecological footprint, and vote out of office the people that are enabling the wanton destruction of our environment.

Then comes the real heavy lifting.

You Can't Leak THAT!

It's official, two Brits have been charged in the leaking of a secret British memo containing details of a conversation between Tony and George, as well as troop activities and so forth.

The two men have been charged for a breach of the UK's 'Official Secrets Act.'

Here is The Guardian's take on why the memo is so damaging, and some background on Bush's alleged 'obsession' with al-Jazeera. It also highlights a Rado Four program that had a British MP, one Lord Goldsmith explaining why he had warned news outlets not to publish the contents of the leaked memo.

And here is the Mirror's exclusive story that started this whole affair.

Apparently, it is perfectly okay to leak some official secrets - both British and American - but not others.

********************************************************

I also want to point the reader toward Seymour Hersh's latest New Yorker piece. As I've noted in this blog on deveral ocassions, expect an announcement from Bush slightly altering the traditional 'stay the course' message tomorrow.

Hersh makes the claim that boots on the ground may be replaced by much greater use of airpower. According to Hersh, this is a subject of much debate in Washington, and is far from settled.

There is a lot more detail on Bush's mental state as well. Not his currently observed mumbling and apparent stupor, but the long-term rigidity of his thought processes.

As is the norm for Sy Hersh, it's a great bit of journalism.

Second Time

Reuters is reporting that a second Time reporter has been called by Pat Fitzgerald to testify under oath about her conversations with Karl Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin.

Is this beautiful, or what?

Ms. Viveca Novak, covered the inquiry into the leak of Valerie Plame's name to the press for Time beginning in May 2004, is the latest subject to come under the prosecutor Fitzgerald's scrutiny.

Now, what about all those folks that have said Fitzgerald was 'nearly finished.' Or that Karl Rove was 'unlikely to be indicted.'

No one really knows save for Fitzgerald, his team, and Judge Hogan. And even then, as Fitzgerald himself said, that you never know where the path is going to lead once you start down it(paraphrasing)

Oh Captain, My Captain!

Sorry about the Walt Whitman reference in the title. This is a very serious post.

I just received another good bit of mail here in the dungeon.

Via Stars & Stripes come this:

War based on a lie

Weapons of mass destruction? I’m still looking for them, and if you find any give me a call so we can justify our presence in Iraq. We started the war based on a lie, and we’ll finish it based on a lie. I say this because I am currently serving with a logistics headquarters in the Anbar province, between the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. I am not fooled by the constant fabrication of “democracy” and “freedom” touted by our leadership at home and overseas.

This deception is furthered by our armed forces’ belief that we can just enter ancient Mesopotamia and tell the locals about the benefits of a legislative assembly. While our European ancestors were hanging from trees, these ancient people were writing algebra and solving quadratic equations. Now we feel compelled to strong-arm them into accepting the spoils of capitalism and “laissez-faire” society. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching Britney Spears on MTV and driving to McDonald’s, but do you honestly believe that Sunnis, Shias and Kurds want our Western ideas of entertainment and freedom imposed on them? Think again.

I’m not being negative, I’m being realistic. The reality in Iraq is that the United States created a nightmare situation where one didn’t exist. Yes, Saddam Hussein was an evil man who lied, cheated and pillaged his own nation. But how was he different from dictators in Africa who commit massive crimes again humanity with little repercussion and sometimes support from the West? The bottom line up front (BLUF to use a military acronym) is that Saddam was different because we used him as an excuse to go to war to make Americans “feel good” about the “War on Terrorism.” The BLUF is that our ultimate goal in 2003 was the security of Israel and the lucrative oil fields in northern and southern Iraq.

Weapons of mass destruction? Call me when you find them. In the meantime, “bring ’em on” so we can get our “mission accomplished” and get out of this mess.

Capt. Jeff Pirozzi
Camp Taqaddum, Iraq

I have a nurse friend over in Iraq. I have already emailed her to get the author's permission to reprint this here.

I think it's important.

Roving For Dollars!

Newsweek is reporting that Scooter Libby is getting some assistance in helping to pay for his legal defense, while Karl Rove recently secured a $100K line of credit against a vacation home he owns in Florida.

It seems to me that anyone who wishes to save their political fortunes, much less preserve any scrap of dignity that they might still have as human beings would stay as far away as possible from these two 'gentlemen.' Walking minefields comes to mind.

But then I still have my scruples.

The Libby legal fund raising team reads like a who's who amongst GOP behind the scenes types. Because the fund was set up after Scooter left the side of Richrd B. Cheney, the names of the donors are not open for disclosure.

Newweek hits upon another potential trouble spot for Mr. Rove at the very end of the article(ever wonder why the media always tucks the best bits near the end of an article?).

It seems that Karl may yet have additional legal issues to tend to if there are improprieties in the nexus detailed here:

[snip]...But any Rove legal debts—which won't have to be publicly disclosed until next year—could bring attention to his relationship with Patton Boggs, the D.C. powerhouse lobbying firm, where his lawyer in the leak case, Robert Luskin, is a partner. Lobbying records show Patton Boggs represents a battery of foreign governments, corporations and others with interests before the government. Rove has been involved in White House meetings involving at least one big Patton Boggs client: the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which paid the firm $400,000 earlier this year to lobby for a controversial native-Hawaiian recognition bill. Patton Boggs lawyer Ben Ginsberg, a Rove friend and big GOP lawyer who recommended he hire Luskin, is a principal on the case. The White House—which recently ordered all staffers to take an ethics training course—declined to say if there is any policy for Rove to recuse himself from issues involving Patton Boggs clients. "All ethical obligations are being met," said spokeswoman Nicole Wallace...[/snip]

(much more at link)

So, umm. Karl took a class..What? Last month? So he is now ethically cleansed from any activity that took place prior to this time?(and yes, I know that isn't precisely what is meant by Ms. Wallace's statement..but it's better wordplay)

Thank you, Nicole for your comments, but I smell something.

Financial disclosures are always a real eye-opener. I can hardly wait.

More Carbon, Less Humans

From the Independent comes this terrific primer on global climate change. It's the best political thing you'll read today. If there is one political issue that touches everyone on this planet, it is climate change.

It is transcendent across administrations, knows no geographical boundaries, and barring a killer asteroid crashing into the earth, it is the one thing that can end civilization as we know it.

It is also something that we have exercised no control over. It shows just how inhumanly humans treat their home.

This is the one issue that I've been shouting about for more than two decades.

More On CIA Camps!

No Virginia, these are not fun camps.

The BBC is reporting that any EU member State(country) may have its voting rights suspened if it is found to be in violation of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights(well, that's not actually in the article, but it is the part of the law that the CIA detention centers would violate if they didn't adhere to the basic standards)

Here's the BBC link. As always, there is something more than a bit nefarious about the CIA's alleged conduct.

Here's the good stuff:

[snip]...He said a suspension of voting rights would be justified if any country is found to have breached the bloc's founding principles of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Such a move would be unprecedented.

A diplomatic source said that to suspend a member state's voting rights in the Council of the European Union, the other 25 member states would have to vote unanimously to take such a step, which would be unlikely to happen in practice.

Mr Frattini said the Bush administration had asked for more time to deliver a response to the accusations after a senior commission official formally raised the issue on a visit to Washington last week.

"Right now, there is no [US] response," he said.

The allegations that the CIA held al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons in Eastern Europe were first reported in the Washington Post on 2 November.

According to civil liberties group Human Rights Watch, the jails are based in Romania and Poland.

Mr Frattini said Romania's Interior Minister, Vasil Blaga, told him there were no such prisons in his country.

The justice commissioner said it was "very, very important to get the truth", but he cautioned that it was "impossible to move only on the basis of allegations"...[snip]

(much more at link)

Oh my.

Can you read that?

We need more time to fabricate the least damaging response. Maybe even convert the Polish and Romanian camps into Best Westerns..Now that 'new Europe' is part of the West. If this wasn't so troubling, it would be comical.

How this gets spun should be deeply alarming.

Bush's Blight

I was just sent this link via email..at work..Shhhhh.

It's a terrific look at a Bush's current inability to address his woes.

If there ever was a more clear case that excessive consumption of alcohol creates rigidity in one's thinking, this article is it. Read the article, and then check out wikipedia's entry under dry drunk. Startlingly close to the claims made in the article.

That Bush's behavior when not under the tremendous stress that he is likely feeling is odd, will be the stuff of legend. Legendary as a curiousity(no pointing and laughing, kids). How he handles the many current crises afflicting our nation may turn out to be the makings of a nightmare.

I'd add a bunch of commentary, but I need to get back to work.

Warner Breaks Ranks with GOP

From Yahoo news via Reuters comes something of a break with his GOP compatriots. As you may know, Sen. Warner is the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, so this is a bit surprising.

Warner's stated reason(s):

"I think it would be to Bush's advantage. It would bring him closer to the people, dispel some of the concern that, understandably, our people have about the loss of life and limb, the enormous cost of this war to the American public," Warner said.

"We have got to stay firm for the next six months. It is a critical period ... in this Iraqi situation, to restore full sovereignty in that country. And that enables them to have their own armed forces to maintain that sovereignty," he said.

Bush is to speak on immigration in Arizona on Monday and then will return to Washington on Tuesday and give a speech about the war on terror at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis on Wednesday.

(much more at link)

Now I do not know if Warner was coached prior to his appearance on Meet The Press yesterday by the White House, or if this is own thinking. It seems that while the White House is castigating Democrats for questioning the future direction of the Iraq war(or are we now considered occupiers?), that the Bush Administration is sending up trial balloons in order to get a feel for where the public is on this issue. We know that the Senate recently voted to turn a large amount of sovereignty to Iraq.

If, and how, this colors White House thinking is unclear at present. If you never have to run for re-election, you can do some pretty crazy shit and get away with it. The Senate seems pretty much where the public is. They want to know just what the hell the plan is, if there is indeed one.

Rumor has it that Wednesday's speech will be the clearest indication as to where the White House plans to take us next in post-war Iraq.

Since Cheney toned down the rhetoric concerning war criticism - while using calculated upbeat soundbytes such as calling John Murtha "a patriot" - the messages coming out of the White House have been very mixed.

Drawdown announcement Wednesday?

Perhaps.

If that's the announcement, it'll likely be conditional, which I agree with, but you can't put too many conditions on a fledgling 'democracy.'

Add'l: I suppose that I could watch MTP, and other 'news shows' on Sunday mornings, but I'd rather do something of value ;) with my time off.

Dishonest, Reprehensible, Corrupt ...

I respect copyright.

By the way, anything on this site that I write, or the page layout, CSS etc. is free for the taking. No props. required..although a backlink, and a thanks would be appreciated.

Sorry for the digression.

The entry title is the title to Frank Rich's(NYT) scathing attack on the Bush administration's attack on everything else.

I'm not going to reprint any of it here, but truthout has the piece in all its glory. I'm certain that they have the expressed written consent of the National Football League and ABC Sports to use the Op-ed ;)

More On Cheney's Salesmanship

This is a very well balanced article by Knight-Ridder.

There is a bunch of great stuff about a great many things Iraq related.

As is often typical, the tastiest bits are relegated to the last few paragraphs.

Here's the Dick sales angle:

[snip]...The Republicans, however, are handicapped by the fact that their top advocates for staying the course in Iraq - Bush, Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney - are no longer viewed as credible by a majority of Americans.

Cheney demonstrated this problem in a speech the other day: "Those who advocate a sudden withdrawal from Iraq should answer a couple simple questions. Would the United States and other free nations be better off or worse off with Zarqawi, bin Laden, and Zawahiri in control of Iraq?"

He thus implied that foreign jihadists run the insurgency (the same insurgency that he recently claimed was in its "last throes"). But a new report by military expert Anthony Cordesman, at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies, concludes on the basis of evidence gathered from U.S. intelligence and Iraqi contacts that between 90 and 96 percent of insurgents are homegrown Iraqis rebelling against the ascendant Shiites and the U.S. occupation...[/snip]

Of course we have known for some time that the vast majority of the insurgents are Iraqis demonstrating nationalistic and religious pride(if you ever questioned why pride is one of the seven deadly sins, I believe you have an answer).

Why and the hell is it that most of us in the US can only understand our own sources of pride? We can't be that insular and ignorant..Or can we?

And here's a bit for the pollsters mentioned below to chew on:

[snip]...Nor can the administration assume any longer that its critics are all Democrats. A leading critic these days is William Odom, a retired Army general who ran the National Security Agency for Ronald Reagan. He thinks the Iraq war "will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history," and he urges "rapid withdrawal" because "to hang on to an untenable position is the height of irresponsibility."..[/snip]

(much more at link)(if you only read one article today, this isn't a bad one)

Of course it would be folly to consider that Odom is the only GOP partisan to see and voice that the Iraq war is a plainly bad idea. When the Republican controlled Senate voting for a resolution that 2006 as "a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty" it is clear that there is consensus that something dramatic need be done about Iraq(the vote was 79-19).

Pitfalls of Polling

According to this WaPo piece, people polled believe Dick Cheney's assertion that criticism of the Bush administration's Iraq war policies is damaging to troop morale.

If you still believe anything that Cheney says about troop morale, you may be suffering from the notion that Cheney is an expert in military psychology. This is technically known as the logical fallacy argumentum ad verecundiam and is a staple of the advertising world.

People may perceive Cheney as an expert, but it is clear that his own 'military background'(?) never involved wearing the uniform. Remember, 5 deferments during the Vietnam conflict due to Mr. Cheney having "other priorities."

He did his salesman's job very well last week. This is via the WaPo piece:

Democrats fumed last week at Vice President Cheney's suggestion that criticism of the administration's war policies was itself becoming a hindrance to the war effort. But a new poll indicates most Americans are sympathetic to Cheney's point.

Seventy percent of people surveyed said that criticism of the war by Democratic senators hurts troop morale -- with 44 percent saying morale is hurt "a lot," according to a poll taken by RT Strategies. Even self-identified Democrats agree: 55 percent believe criticism hurts morale, while 21 percent say it helps morale.

Of course this begs the question: what about the GOP members in Congress who are now openly critical of the Bush administration's handling of the war effort?

Before I could even answer such a poll with anything but the 'don't know/not sure' response, I'd need data. Not from serial propagandist's like Dick Cheney. I would need data from some entities without a stake in continuing the war effort, and equally as important, from those that would like to see it end.

Our soldiers are professionals. This is the life that they have chosen for themselves. In the private sector, individuals themselves are often dressed down for errors in judgment. There is a distinct line drawn between opposing policy, and opposing the people carrying out the policy.

Dick Cheney has erased that line, and added nothing of value to the discourse.

If this comes across as being disparaging of the polled individuals critical thinking abilities, I assure you that is not the reason for this entry.

I am only critical of our Vice President. He may yet be right. But he is in no position to provide us with anything remotely resembling understanding on matters in which he has no expertise.

However, he did his job. He sold America an idea that may or may not have any basis in reality.

Welcome to 1984

Ethics? Never Had 'em, Never Will

In this shocker from Newsweek, they dare ask the question: Will Ethics Scandals Hurt GOP Bids in 2006?

Hasn't seemed to hurt anyone yet. But seriously, I think that this all hinges on which ethical matters are breached. Does the general public even know the names of some of these key players?

DeLay?(probably, but never 'misunderestimate' people's penchant for mental lapses during the holiday season)
Abramoff?
Ney?
Burns?
Doolittle?(no, not the good doctor)

And good old Grover Norquist.

Newsweek gives him a bit of exposure here:

[snip]...While most Republicans have stayed mum on Ney's problems, there was a notable exception last week. In a breakfast with reporters, Republican activist and key White House ally Grover Norquist, whose own dealings with Abramoff have come under scrutiny, suggested if Ney is facing a "serious legal problem," he "should step aside for the good of the team." While no Republican has publicly asked Ney to step down in '06, party officials privately admit worries over the investigation, which reportedly includes other lawmakers. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Justice Department is now probing Abramoff's dealings with DeLay, Rep. John Doolittle and Sen. Conrad Burns, all of whom are up for re-election in 2006. All have denied wrongdoing...[/snip]

Grover is a sweet man. Norquist himself, has received a subpoena from the Senate Indian Affairs Committee for records related to his dealings with Abramoff.

Baseball bat to the forehead hyprocrisy? Or, am I missing something?

Are your friends, neighbors, your neighbor's cat, following the developments in this ever expanding scandal?

At this juncture, I'd have to say, NO. But of course they should.

Can your friends name all the Supreme Court Justices?(my pet question when someone even less informed than I am starts a political rant)

Yesterday was Reading Day.

Today is Educate Your Friends Day.

For your own primer on this scandal, wikipedia is a good bet. Lots of facts, little editorial.

A well informed electorate is something that all politicos fear.