Just in case you haven’t looked at the sidebar counter (scroll down a bit), the number of U.S. fatalities in Iraq surpassed 1,900 today. Somewhere in this country, four nine families are getting the sad news that one of their loved ones was killed in Iraq. Some of them will be told "You can be assured that your son died … Read More
Increasing The Deficit To Improve Bush’s Image
Boy, Josh Marshall really hits it on the head with this one: This worries me. Note the added emphasis. The clip comes from a piece in tomorrow’s Post about yet another huge funding bill the president will roll out tomorrow for Katrina aid, which the Post says will cost more next year than the entire cost of the Iraq war … Read More
Ignoring Icebergs
Josh Marshall points to an interesting paragraph in an upcoming Newsweek article: Analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency have begun war-gaming scenarios for what might happen in Iraq if U.S. force levels were cut back or eliminated, say counterterrorism and defense sources. The officials, who asked not to be named because of the sensitive subject matter, declined to discuss specifics … Read More
Tenet No Longer Happy Being Fall Guy?
If this is true, it is political dynomite: George Tenet is not going to let himself become the fall guy for the September 11 intelligence failures, according to a former intelligence officer and a source friendly to Mr. Tenet. A scathing report by Inspector General John Helgerson criticized the former CIA director and a score of other agency personnel for … Read More
Opportunity Cost For Iraq
Via Corrente: Philly’s own Will Bunch follows the money (via the man in the grey turtleneck here) Yes, if you follow the money it turns out Bush took the money that should have been spent on New Orleans levees and pissed it away in Iraq. In fact, the very levee that burst, 17th Street, was a victim of Bush cutbacks: … Read More
Sgt Thomas Strickland
Here’s a passage from Sgt. Thomas Strickland, a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq, from his blog earlier this month: What the fuck has my chain of command been doing? We were winning somewhat when I left. And now we’re being pinned down in our own fucking homes? Insurgents are pushing locals out of their homes and taking over my area … Read More
Classic Definition Of A ‘Quagmire’
Who said this: "For the U.S. to get involved militarily in determining the outcome of, uh, the struggle over who’s going to govern Iraq, strikes me as a classic definition of a ‘quagmire’." Answer: Dick Cheney Crooks & Liars has the audio (from an NPR interview conducted in 1991), if you don’t believe me.
An Open Letter To Mr. Prager
Dear Mr. Prager: It’s kind of easy to win a debating point when you get to speak for *both* sides of the debate, as you’ve done in your latest piece. It allows you to misprepresent the position of your opponent, who is not there to correct you. (Do you now see why some liberals refer to the right wing media … Read More
From An Iraq Veteran
Via The Green Knight: [T]he only way that we can maintain our way of life is to have a strong defense…. And we had that before we started this little adventure here. Now we’re beginning to eat it up….The equipment and the people are getting chewed up and spat out. And that’s not the right way to defend our country….. … Read More
Stupid Neo-Con Logic
This is the mind-numbingly stupid thing that columnist Lorie Byrd actually wrote (apparently, in earnest), at Townhall: What is rarely, if ever, addressed by the opponents of President Bush and the current war is whether or not the decision he made was a correct one if everything we thought about the status of Saddam’s WMD capability had been correct. In … Read More
“More Costly Than The War To End All Wars”
That’s what the Christian Science Monitor says about Iraq. And yes, that’s adjusted for inflation: Despite the relatively small number of American armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan (140,000), the war effort is rapidly shaping up to be the third-most expensive war in United States history. This conflict has already cost each American at least $850 in military and reconstruction … Read More
Punishing Competence
What happens if you actually do your job, and the result is a potential embarrassment to the Bushies? You get demoted: A top Army contracting official who criticized a large, noncompetitive contract with the Halliburton Company for work in Iraq was demoted Saturday for what the Army called poor job performance. The official, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, has worked in military … Read More
Reality TV Comes To Iraq
From the New York Times: Reality TV could turn out to be the most durable Western import in Iraq. It has taken root with considerably greater ease than American-style democracy. Since spring 2004, when "Materials and Labor" made its debut, a constellation of reality shows has burst onto TV screens across Iraq. True to the genre, "Materials and Labor" has … Read More
Pro-Bush Supporters Attack Themselves
Protest Warriors is a conservative activist group. Their tradmark is to show up at progressive rallies posing as liberals and carrying signs that say things like: "Communism has killed only 100 million people; let’s give it another chance!" and "The ACLU – we don’t hate religions – we just hate Christianity!" Get it? Because people will read the signs and … Read More
Operation Yellow Elephant In Action
Hats off and kudos to this kid who went to a meeting of college Republicans, passing out recruitment fliers (you know, because Bush has called for sacrifice, and because the military news people. He filmed it. Best part is when he is chastized: One thing you’re missing the point on… there are some people..and you need to be more sensitive … Read More