"TO DESTROY THIS INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT, TO DISSOLVE THE UNHOLY ALLIANCE BETWEEN CORRUPT BUSINESS AND CORRUPT POLITICS IS THE FIRST TASK OF THE STATESMANSHIP OF THE DAY." -- Theodore Roosevelt--
Showing posts with label Iraq OCCUPATION. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq OCCUPATION. Show all posts
Can we get a BWA HA HA for this item from the BBC?
Shoes thrown at Bush on Iraq trip
" A surprise visit by US President George Bush to Iraq has been overshadowed by an incident in which two shoes were thrown at him during a news conference.
An Iraqi journalist was wrestled to the floor by security guards after he called Mr Bush "a dog" and threw his footwear, just missing the president.
The soles of shoes are considered the ultimate insult in Arab culture.
[...]
His previously unannounced visit came a day after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told US troops the Iraq mission was in its "endgame".
In the middle of the news conference with Mr Maliki, a reporter stood up and shouted "this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog," before hurtling his shoes at Mr Bush, narrowly missing him.
"All I can report is a size 10," Mr Bush said according to the Associated Press news agency "
Thousands of Iraqis have demanded the release of a local TV reporter who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush at a Baghdad news conference.
Crowds gathered in Baghdad's Sadr City district, calling for "hero" Muntadar al-Zaidi to be freed from custody. There were similar scenes in Najaf.
Officials at the Iraqi-owned TV station, al-Baghdadiya, also called for the release of their journalist.
This just keeps getting better and better. The only thing is Bush is such a delusional psychopath that the insult will roll off of him like water off a lame duck's back.
Bush's 'Surrender' Rhetoric Comes Back to Haunt Him
There'll be a load of compromisin'/On the road to my [time] horizon --Glen Campbell, "Rhinestone Cowboy"
Rhinestone Cowboy diplomacy has finally boxed the President in. After demonizing Democratic efforts, such as they were, to establish a timetable for getting out of Iraq ever since he got us into Iraq as a "date certain for surrender", Bush now faces an emboldened Iraqi Prime Minister who finally found his political footing. If I didn't know that the surge was a mirage based on buying off berzerkers in certain regions and fostering truces in other areas where the players are perfectly happy to wait us out and kill each other later than sooner, I would say that maybe the surge worked too well for the Bushies because, as blogger Juan Cole of Informed Comment told Air America's Rachel Maddow on Friday, it allowed Nouri al-Maliki the time he needed to make the transition from anti-Saddam conspirator to national leader with the full confidence in his own ability to direct the military to serve his ends.
Bush wants Al-Maliki to get the leaders of Iraq to sign off a new troop agreement that would serve the dual purpose of legitimating his invasion of Iraq as well as make it difficult for Barack Obama to end the occupation should he win the election in November. The problem is, Bush and John McCain have long maintained that they would listen to the Iraqi government if it told them that they wanted American troops to leave the country.
Instead of alienating the Iraqi people who apparently hate us like poison, Iraq's leaders are refusing to sign the agreement unless there's a time table for withdrawal.
So, to make matters easier for Iraqi leaders Bush's speechwriter came up with some word melding of epic proportions.
On Friday the White House released this nugget:
In the area of security cooperation, the president and the prime minister agreed that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals.
Clearly this statement means nothing and the White House hopes that Iraqi politicians are stupid.
Then yesterday an interview Al-Maliki did with German magazine Der Spiegel was released that revealed his approval for Barack Obama's 16-month timetable for withdrawal.
(Via e-mail, a prominent Republican strategist who occasionally provides advice to the McCain campaign said, simply, "We're fucked." No response yet from the McCain campaign, although here's what McCain said the last time Maliki mentioned withdrawal: "Since we are succeeding, then I am convinced, as I have said before, we can withdraw and withdraw with honor, not according to a set timetable. And I’m confident that is what Prime Minister Maliki is talking about, since he has told me that for many meetings we’'ve had."
That's okay, you guys were fucked already. TPM has more on the response to Maliki's statement from both campaigns.
Making matters worse for them--and no, it can't really get worse--Gordon Brown piled on with his support for Obama.
SYDNEY, Australia - Australia, a staunch U.S. ally and one of the first countries to commit troops to the war in Iraq five years ago, ended combat operations there June 1.
Soldiers lowered the Australian flag that had flown over Camp Terendak in the southern Iraqi city of Talil. The combat troops are expected to return to Australia over the next few weeks.
The move fulfills a campaign promise by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was swept into office in November largely on the promise that he would bring home the country's 550 combat troops by the middle of 2008. Rudd has said the Iraq deployment made Australia more of a target for terrorism.
Rudd's predecessor, former Prime Minister John Howard, said he was "baffled" by the decision to withdraw the troops.
For those looking for a model for prosecution of crimes committed by the Bush administration might want to keep an eye on former Prime Minister Howard. A legal brief has been sent to the International Criminal Court by something called the ICC Action Group, which the Australian Broadcast Corporation says is comprised of "peace activists, lawyers, academics and politicians".
At four in the morning on Saturday, over 50 people gathered at the corner of 34th Street and 8th Avenue in Gainesville, Florida to work on a monument to those Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Neat rows of miniature gravestones stretch for one mile east of 34th Street on the south side of 8th Avenue. Each of the 4,516 "gravestones," lovingly and carefully made by groups of people getting together for months preceding this Memorial Day weekend, bears the name, rank, date of death and hometown of these brave members of our armed services. Additional markers were ready for 2009.
The Gainesville chapter of Veterans for Peace organized the event, which was also held last year.
I used to live three houses from the intersection where Memorial Mile originates and I used to walk this mile of road daily for months. The statues that normally span this stretch are of the nine planets (we include Pluto) situated roughly to scale. Seeing the head stones literally stretch from the Sun to Pluto is a shattering cosmic metaphor.
Here's a look at the Memorial Mile and the 4,577 monuments.
The White House decided to cover for blowing up a hospital by rolling out a new term for those pesky Iraqis. You see, the terminology has been a perennial problem for the Bush administration and it's even tripped up the otherwise sharp-as-a-bowling-ball John McCain numerous times. So instead of problematic language that might reveal the person speaking doesn't know a Shi'ite from a Sunni, every one we blow up from now on is a "criminal".
From AP:
A US air strike damaged a hospital in the Iraqi capital's violent Shiite stronghold of Sadr City on Saturday, injuring 20 people, as American forces claimed to have killed 14 militiamen.
The US military said it carried out the strike in Sadr City, a bastion of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, where US troops in separate confrontations killed at least 14 militiamen since Friday.
"I can confirm that we conducted a strike in Sadr City this morning," a US military spokesman told AFP. "The targets were known criminal elements. Battle damage assessment is currently ongoing."
[...]
The military said it destroyed a "criminal element command and control centre" at approximately 10 am (0700 GMT).
"Intelligence reports indicate the command and control centre was used by criminal elements to plan and coordinate attacks against Iraqi security and coalition forces and innocent Iraqi citizens."
[...]
On Friday, an M1A1 Abrams tanks engaged "criminals" with one round from its main gun after Iraqi army soldiers reported being attacked by small arms fire from a house, the military said.
"Three criminals were killed in the engagements," the military said.
Criminal element? So we were just taking a swipe at who exactly? Gem thieves pulling a job? Is it the Gambino Family in Iraq?
And by the way something, when John Kerry suggested that the war on terror be fought primarily as a global police action, he was laughed out of the election by a massive number of administrators and pundits who were proven wrong every step of the way, though not to the detriment of their continued employment. Now they tell us these people are criminals?
One of the primary reasons Iraq should be made a state is to keep us from bombing it again the next time oil-thirsty neo-neocons with light crude dripping from their fangs manage to steal another election. In fact, John McCain may not even need to steal this one if the tenor of the seemingly endless Democratic nomination process continues to distract from the vulgarity of our endless occupation in Iraq.
If McCain succeeds, then we're off to a great start on the 100 years in Iraq plan. His supporters are angry at the way McCain's critics have seized on the 100 years in Iraq comment. Too bad. He said it. He may have meant 100 years like the the comparatively tranquil ones our military spent in post-war Germany. It's not like Germany, Korea or Japan because this is an insurgency.
Even Dick Cheney saw the insurgency coming a decade away. In 1994, Dick Cheney eloquently made the case for not occupying Iraq. Cheney asked way back then, "How many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?" He answered himself quite correctly, "Our view was not very many, and I think we got it right."
Yet, as it dawned on the American people that we were looking at an occupation in prelude to a bloody, chaotic civil war, President Bush repeatedly pretended like Iraqis wanted us there as an occupying force. Bush claimed that U.S. forces would leave when the Iraqis asked us to, then Bush very cleverly made sure no one ever asked them. The problem for Bush is that some people actually have memories, even in ADD HD America.
Even Saturday Night Live, which may have saved Clinton's campaign when they skewered the media's allegedly unfair treatment of her several weeks ago, now has forcefully lampooned Senator Clinton's claim that she was against the war at the time of the resolution, authorizing George W. Bush to use force in Iraq in October of 2002, three weeks before an important midterm election, of which she voted in the affirmative.
In a sketch that that aired April 12, 2008, SNL parodied the mutually obsequious Congressional hearings that featuring David Petaeus, Ambassador Ryan Clark Crocker and the Presidential candidates. The writers made the case that Barack Obama will be the next president precisely because he was against Iraq from the beginning. The sketch plainly shows what reasonable people now believe--we should have known better and we now need a President that did know better.
Yet there are still plenty of people out there who, to this day, who still do not know better. Columnist William Rivers Pitt wrote a column recently about the liars in the administration. He received this response from a reader, "Your silly column amazed me. Of course none of the people you mention were liars regarding Iraq's WMD. Everyone thought Saddam had WMD, including Saddam's own generals. There were no lies."
Pitt listed dozens of lies in response. "Simply stated," Dick Cheney said in a speech to VFW National Convention in August of 2002, "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." "There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them," Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said at a briefing in September of 2002.Speaking to the UN General Assembly a few days later the President told them, "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." In a radio address in the following month, Bush said, "Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." These are but a few of the seventy-five lies Pitt cites.
Obviously Iraqi statehood is not going to happen, but the moral debt we owe the people of that country means we must act as if their people are our own. But in light of these lies, lies that led to an illegal invasion and a ruthless occupation that cost the lives of uncounted scores of their citizens, we must marry the fate of their democracy to the fate of ours.Colin Powell brought himself much shame for participating in this butchery, many of the administration's lies came out of his mouth, but it is his so-called pottery barn rule must guide the fate of the future integrity of the United States. We broke it; we bought it and we can not disown responsibility for our representatives' actions, especially the actions of rogue representatives, because it is our duty as citizens to make sure those unfit for power never wield it.
We can do as Bush asks and let history be his judge. Maybe he'll be foolish enough to test his self-proclaimed immunity to these war crimes by traveling abroad. The heinous Military Commissions Act works against him in other countries, where it can be cited as proof that there's no chance he will be charged in the United States, therefore must face justice abroad.
But Bush and his fellow war criminals' fate remains beside the point. Until there is peace, burgeoning democracy and prosperity in Iraq that equals our own, we will have a national morality deficit that we must address. While we must not allow future Presidents and Congresses to use that debt as an excuse to sustain the occupation, or even a military presence in Iraq, we must takes measures as drastic as necessary to never allow ourselves to forget what was done and to insure that it never happens again. No matter how much of our future wealth it costs, we must find means outside those of the military-industrial complex to rebuild and strongly fortify this country we allowed our leaders to so horrifically disfigure.
BAGHDAD (MSNBC, 10:30 EDT) March 23 - Four U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad late Sunday, raising the death toll for American forces since start of the war to 4,000, according to the Pentagon.
The grim milestone was reached less than a week after the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion to topple former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and coincided with a spate of violence across Iraq on Sunday that left at least 61 people dead.
The attacks included rockets and mortars fired at Baghdad's U.S.-protected Green Zone and a suicide car bomb detonated at an Iraqi army post in the northern city of Mosul.
The latest violence underscored the fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups as the war enters its sixth year.
The attacks in Baghdad probably stemmed from rising tensions between rival Shiite groups — some of whom may have been behind the Green Zone blasts. It was the most sustained assault in months against the nerve center of the U.S. mission.
Late Sunday, four U.S. troops were killed and another injured after being attacked with an improvised explosive device while conducting a vehicular patrol in Baghdad, the military said.
The military said the soldiers were from Multi-National Division but gives no other details about their identities.
The deadliest attack of the day was in Mosul when a suicide driver slammed his vehicle through a security checkpoint in a hail of gunfire and detonated his explosives in front of an Iraqi headquarters building, killing 13 Iraqi soldiers and injuring 42 other people, police said.
Iraqi guards opened fire on the vehicle but couldn't stop it because the windshield had been bulletproofed, said an Iraqi army officer. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not supposed to release the information.
Mosul, Iraq's third largest city about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, has been described as the last major urban area where the Sunni extremist al-Qaida group maintains a significant presence....
The rest is here. Now pardon me, as I must stick my head out of the window so as to begin screaming BLOODY MURDER!
Ten shy of four thousand members of the American military have lost their lives in Iraq. The first 3,990 of those did not have to die and the ten more that will soon die and bring this total to a mindblowing 4,000 do not have to die either. The ones that will likely die on the way to 5,000 and beyond do not have to die. The untolled masses of Iraqis that will be killed, do not need to be. All it would take to end this is a few words spoken into a telephone by George W. Bush. Just a few words. But, instead, the words we hear from him are "it was worth it".
The democratic majority in Congress ruthlessly squandered the opportunity to defund the OCCUPATION, so now, Congress can only end it with the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. These things sound impossible. They are not. They can happen right now. Today. It's a matter of will. Waiting another year is obviously a tragic mistake.
We continue to be told that a we just need to hold out for political reconciliation. It's never going to happen. Never was that more obvious than yesterday at a national reconciliation convention in Iraq that was boycotted by some of the most important political players in the country.
Several Democratic congressional candidates have laid out an impressive plan that will end US involvement in Iraq and then tie up some loose ends like restoration of our image in the world and supplying humanitarian relief. The pledge also would restore the constitution, bolster the military and advance energy independence (more at America Blog).
Today Dick Cheney is fishing off the coast of Iran. That's not symbolism--symbolically Cheney has been fishing off the coast of Iran since 2004. He's literally fishing off the coast of Iran. No word on whether he accidentally hooked Harry Whittington with an errant cast.
Speaking of Cheney, he doesn't care what two-thirds of the American people think about Iraq, and he's not shy about it.
Iraq coverage has dipped to a horrendous 3% of all news stories in February. I'm guilty of this too. Looking back at my own posts, it's almost all campaign all the time. It's a disease.
Question Girl at Blue herald 2.0 looks at some of the things on which we could have spent the money we poured into Iraq. Free gas for everyone for 1.2 years? No thanks! Nearly 3,000 high schools? No. Dlindorff at Democrats.Com weighs in with more on the cost of OCCUPATION. For even more on the costs, because there's a lot of costs to go around, CBS looks at fraud and waste in Iraq.
Al Jazeera spoke to Hans Blix about the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Part one here. Part two here.
The tireless Scott Horner took a brief break from hammering Karl Rove over Don Siegelman (maybe he was multitasking) to talk to Aram Roston about his book about Ahmad Chalabi, one of the primary instigators of the Iraq invasion.
The goal of the architects of the surge was to extend the life-sucking occupation in Iraq beyond the Presidency of George W. Bush. In an op-ed called "The Surge to Nowhere", International Relations Professor Andrew Bacevich takes apart the rhetoric of the surge.
From The Washington Post:
As the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom nears, the fabulists are again trying to weave their own version of the war. The latest myth is that the "surge" is working.
In President Bush's pithy formulation, the United States is now "kicking ass" in Iraq. The gallant Gen. David Petraeus, having been given the right tools, has performed miracles, redeeming a situation that once appeared hopeless. Sen. John McCain has gone so far as to declare that "we are winning in Iraq." While few others express themselves quite so categorically, McCain's remark captures the essence of the emerging story line: Events have (yet again) reached a turning point. There, at the far end of the tunnel, light flickers. Despite the hand-wringing of the defeatists and naysayers, victory beckons.
[skipping]
In only one respect has the surge achieved undeniable success: It has ensured that U.S. troops won't be coming home anytime soon. This was one of the main points of the exercise in the first place. As AEI military analyst Thomas Donnelly has acknowledged with admirable candor, "part of the purpose of the surge was to redefine the Washington narrative," thereby deflecting calls for a complete withdrawal of U.S. combat forces.
In May of last year Bacevich's son, a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army also named Andrew, was killed by a suicide bomber while serving in Iraq. He was 27, and one of 3,921 members of the U.S. military killed since the invasion.
GENEVA (Reuters) Jan. 9 - About 151,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the three years following the U.S.-led invasion of their country, according to World Health Organization (WHO) research published on Wednesday.
The new study, which said violent deaths could have ranged from 104,000 to 223,000 between March 2003 and June 2006, is the most comprehensive since the war started.
The study drew on an Iraqi health ministry survey of nearly 10,000 households — five times the number of those interviewed in a disputed 2006 John Hopkins University study that said more than 600,000 Iraqis had died over the period.
While well below that figure, the United Nations agency’s estimate exceeds the widely-cited 80,000 to 87,000 death toll by the human rights group Iraq Body Count, which uses media reports and hospital and morgue records to calculate its tally…
The White House said it had not seen the study, but mourned the deaths of Iraqi civilians.
“The unmistakable fact is that the vast majority of these deaths are caused by the willful, murderous intentions of extremists committed to taking innocent life,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto...
The rest is here. Another “unmistakable fact” that Mr. Fratto conveniently left out is that these people would probably not have died if the Bush/Cheney regime had not launched an unnecessary, illegal, immoral, indefensible war of aggression based on lies and media manipulation against a country which posed no immediate threat to us.
But hey, these aren’t Americans we’re talking about here. During the summer after the Iraq War began, my family and I took a day trip down to the Jersey Shore. I had my “Peacemonger” and “War Is Not The Answer” bumper stickers emblazoned (as always) across the back window of my Honda CR-V. We were curbside unloading our beach paraphernalia when this guy comes by on his very expensive imported Italian racing bike (the kind with peddles) and starts heckling me. He didn’t like my stickers. My wife told me to ignore him, but that just made him angrier. So my son said, “Let him have it, Dad.” So I did. Very politely. With my usual litany of peacemongering questions:
- “How many of the September 11th hijackers were from Iraq?”
- “How can you justify attacking a country which has never attacked us?”
- “How can you say that oil isn’t what this war is about, when Iraq sits on the third largest oil deposit on the planet?”
That kind of thing. The biker guy started sputtering. And then I said, “Sir, with all due respect, I am not willing to have your president kill my sons so that he can try to prove he’s right about what is obviously so wrong.” And the guy says, “Well, you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.“ And then he rode off.
I still can’t get over that.
“Egg” count, as of Jan. 10, 2008:
- Total U.S. combat deaths in Iraq: 3921 (NINE just yesterday)
- Total U.S. combat wounded: 28,000 +
- Iraq civilian deaths: 151,000 (est.)
- Iraq civilian wounded: Only God knows
- Progress made by the new Iraqi government towards peace and reconciliation: Zero.
A Plea to Iowa Voters, al-Sadr Seeks Reconciliation, Suicide Bombings on the Rise, More
Iowa, Iowa, Iowa.
Even I am totally psyched that tonight we officially begin the long task of voting in Chimpy McFlightsuit's successor. The hysteria has reached such a fever pitch, that over the last few months it has completely eclipsed media coverage of Iraq.
The violence is not over. The gains made by the escalation are attributable to temporary, unsustainable conditions and in fact, the trends in violence, such as suicide bombings, are up.
McClatcthy Newspapers blog Inside Iraq issues the following plea to voters in Iowa: "On the occasion of starting the first stage of American Election (Iowa caucus), and in the name of Iraqi people I would like to adjure the American people to think of Iraqi people and remember all the mistakes that happened in Iraq before directing toward the election boxes. Please choose who has the ability to correct these mistakes." [More]
Sometime this month or next month, the ticking clock on Muqtada al-Sadr's promise of a cease fire will expire and the ridiculous mirage of success being projected at the American people by the media could very well go with it if al-Sadr doesn't see what he considers political progress (h/t Russ). On Saturday, al-Sadr called for reconciliation between his followers and Iraqi security forces in the holy city of Karbala, which is an auspicious development. NPR reports on al-Sadr's break from the fighting--he's been studying to become an ayatollah.
In the most recent of a string of attacks, yesterday, in Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province, a suicide bomber jumped onto a car driven by Iraqi security forces and detonated himself.
Perhaps you've heard the horrifying story of Jamie Leigh Jones. Here's an excerpt from ABC news:
A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.
Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.
"Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave. [...] According to her lawsuit, Jones was raped by "several attackers who first drugged her, then repeatedly raped and injured her, both physically and emotionally." Jones told ABCNews.com that an examination by Army doctors showed she had been raped "both vaginally and anally," but that the rape kit disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.
Outrageous as that first appeared, some new details emerge in this video from Countdown:
There is so much to be outraged about here, it's hard to know where to begin. First, how did this story escape the attention of the Corporate Owned Media (COM) FOR TWO YEARS?!? After all, it involves a young attractive white girl in distress in a foreign land. Doesn't that make it a top story? But wait, such stories only take precedent when they serve to bury a bigger story embarrassing to the government. This story only embarrasses the government further.
Seder's remarks should cause embarrassment to the COM as well. "In fact, that's the story of the entire occupation and invasion of Iraq. Complete lack of informed consent from the American public." And it is the COM who have assiduously avoided informing the public.
The main focus is and should be the question of jurisdiction. In trying to pursue justice, Mrs. Jones has found herself in a legal limbo created quite deliberately to shield KBR and its employees.
Legal experts say Jones' alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.
"It's very troubling," said Dean John Hutson of the Franklin Pierce Law Center. "The way the law presently stands, I would say that they don't have, at least in the criminal system, the opportunity for justice.
That enormous loophole is of course the infamous (or it would be infamous if only more Americans knew it even existed - thanks again COM) Rule 17, put in place by Paul Bremer, neocon extraordinaire.
On June 27 2004, the day before the United States was to grant sovereignty to a new Iraqi government and disband the coalition provisional authority, Paul Bremer, the US proconsul, issued a stunning new order. One of the final acts of the CPA, Order 17, declared that foreign contractors within Iraq, including private military firms, would not be subject to any Iraqi laws - "all International Consultants shall be immune from Iraqi legal process," it read. "Congratulations to the new Iraq!" Bremer said moments before flying out. His memoir, My Year in Iraq, neglects to mention Order 17. [...] Order 17's grant of immunity to contractors guaranteed that more than half of the foreign presence on the ground - for US-paid contractors outnumber US military personnel - would operate for all intents and purposes beyond the law. Order 17 also undercut the authority of the US military, frustrating command and control of the battlefield and upsetting sensitive counterinsurgency strategies. Order 17 meant that the monopoly of violence was fractured and outsourced to those not subject to the law. By unilateral fiat Order 17 uniquely created a red zone of impunity covering the entire country.
A radical break with US policy, such an order had never been promulgated before. Order 17 should not be confused with a status of force agreement negotiated with sovereign nations such as South Korea. Those agreements are subject to complex bargaining and mutual assurance. Nor are contractors subject to the uniform code of military justice because, after all, they are not in the US military. Nor has the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000 been brought to bear on contractors in Iraq.
The result of all this legal legerdemain, as reported by Raw Story, is a near certainty that the guilty will go free.
A brave and savvy undergraduate questioned pResident Bush about this very same red zone of impunity on April 10, 2006. His response tells the tale.
"I don't mean to be dodging the question."
"..although it'd be kinda convenient in this case."
I can't believe he actually said that! In public! That and the nervous tics, smirking and giggling indicate that he knows EXACTLY what jurisdiction applies to his hired thugs - none whatsoever, by design. Notice that the unidentified questioner has already queried SecDef Rumsfeld about this and gotten a similar runaround.
This is of course of a piece with the Bush vision of law and order - the laws simply don't apply to them or their enablers, because they run the DoJ as if it was a wholly owned proprietary interest, not a function of the people's government.
If that hasn't got you fuming fit to blow your stack, Jon Swift (a self-described 'reasonable conservative') blogs about the response from less reasonable neo-conservatives - "Jamie Leigh Jones Undermines the War Effort." Seriously, this is one of those occasions where I've wished I believed that there was an especially hot corner of hell for people like this to spend eternity. The players referred to are "Rusty Shackleford at The Jawa Report, Curt at Flopping Aces and former humor blogger Ace of Spades." (Standard warning: Don't Click on Wingnuts. (DCOW)
Ace, quoting his doppelganger the Church Lady, says Jones' story is "too convenient." Curt, who supports actor Fred Thompson for President, says it sounds "too movie like." Shackleford, no doubt wrinkling his brow and rubbing his beard thoughtfully as the wheels spin in his brain, if he has one (a beard, that is), writes, "It's perfect. Too perfect. [...] Update:Bob Owens, a.k.a. Confederate Yankee, the blogosphere's Miss Marple, is on the case. If anyone can find a link between Jones and the terrorists, he can."
With thinking like that governing the reight wing, one must ask; how the hell are they doing such a good job of tearing down democracy in America? The uncomfortable answer must be that people on the left are doing such a piss poor job of opposing them. There seems to be an assumption that, "this is America. The problem will correct itself."
Well, let me remind you - Richard Nixon went unpunished. The Iran/Contra traitors were mostly pardoned by Bush Sr., and some of them now have successful careers on right-wing talk radio for cryin' out loud. Many of those involved in Iran/Contra went on to serve in the current government, despite their criminal records. The system has failed monumentally to self-correct in the past.
Your options are limited. You can resolve to actively do everything in your power to stop this lawlessness (even if that means a loss of income or lowering of lifestyle expectations), or you can prepare to spend the rest of your days weeping over the demise of democracy. Your choice.Addendum: Also from the Jon Swift post, an indication that this is far from being an isolated case.
Although there was a rape kit that confirmed she was sexually assaulted, it was lost and found again and the doctor who performed it doesn't remember doing it. "I have no idea which rape victim you are," the doctor told Jones, "because so many young contractor girls were raped after drinking with the guys…. I performed so many rape kits in the six months that I was stationed there that there would be no way to recall whom (sic) yours was."
Geez, Louise! Am I the only one who thinks that, I don't know, maybe something ought to be done about this?!?
"With every new revelation, I think, 'Is this it? Will this finally shake people out of their complacency?' " -- RevPhat --
UPDATE: From Think Progress - Rep Poe (R. - TX), Ms. Leigh Jones' congressman, and Sen. Ben Nelson (D. - FL) are both looking into allegations that this is not an isolated incident. Considering the quote above from the doctor who performed the rape kit, I would think they will find the allegations to be substantiated.
UPDATE II: From ABC News: The House Judiciary Committee will be hearing testimony on this matter starting next Wednesday. Given past performance, don't hold your breath waiting for any substantial result.
Like so many horrific things, child mortality in Iraq has "surged."
According to a report (State of the World’s Mothers 2007) released by Save the Children, mortality among children in Iraq has increased dramatically since the UN imposed economic sanctions in 1990: “Iraq’s child mortality rate has increased by a staggering 150 per cent since 1990, more than any other country.” The BBC reported that under the UN sanctions, the mortality rate among Iraqi children under five years of age doubled.
Recent figures show worsening mortality since the US led invasion in 2003:
That's right. Children in Iraq are now dying at a rate that is greater than the grossly elevated rate at which they were dying under the UN-imposed economic sanctions. Another mission accomplished.
War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always evil, never good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children. ~Jimmy Carter
And just how are Iraqi children dying? Combined, pneumonia and diarrhea account for over 30% of child deaths. Causes of the child mortality surge include:
tense security
deteriorating health services
lack of medical supplies
shortage of electricity
insufficient clean water
soaring inflation
prevalent pneumonia
rampant diarrhea
Watch this clip on the health crisis in Iraq from March 2004. What's going on is that because Iraq is so unsafe, there are not enough medications, not enough doctors, not enough medical facilities, and furthermore, traveling to the existing medical facilities is, itself, dangerous.
In hospitals throughout the country, it is not uncommon to hear the wails of grieving mothers, such as 30-year-old Zaineb Mohammed, whose two-month-old baby died after she failed to get him to hospital in time....En route to the hospital ...her family was repeatedly stopped at roadblocks and checkpoints...The delays caused the child’s condition to worsen and when they finally arrived there weren’t paediatric specialists to treat her. Mohammed has vowed not to have another child. "I don’t think that I can bear to lose another baby to the poor health and public services in Iraq," she said.
Thecompletelistissomuchlonger. (That's 7 good Bush Lie links, not including Crooks and Liars, which tracks the whole crooked lot of them.) Most recently, there are these last two matters of Bush botched record keeping:
The last item in the list is blood curdling, at least for me. In a recent edition of CounterPunch, Mike Whitney asserted that, "The Pentagon has been concealing the true number of American casualties in the Iraq War. The real number exceeds 15,000 and CBS News can prove it."
Whitney tells the tale of CBS's Investigative Unit and its experience obtaining misinformation from the Department of Defense (DOD). Whitney's article reveals that CBS submitted a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to the DOD for a story on military suicide. After a 4 month wait, CBS received a DOD document indicating, "that between 1995 and 2007-- there were 2,200 suicides among 'active duty' soldiers."
Trusting the DOD about as much as I do and realizing the DOD was only answering part of their question, CBS went on to collect veteran suicide data from 45 states and learned that in 2005 alone there were 120 suicides each week for a total of 6,256 suicides among those who had served in just that one year.
Active and retired military personnel, mostly young veterans between the ages of 20 to 24, are returning from combat and killing themselves in record numbers. We can assume that "multiple-tours of duty" in a war-zone have precipitated a mental health crisis of which the public is entirely unaware and which the Pentagon is in total denial.
Adding these 6,256 suicide victims from 2005 to the 3,865 combat casualties "officially" reported by the DOD yields a sum of 10,121 military deaths. Furthermore, even a conservative "low-ball" estimate of 2004 and 2006 suicide figures indicates that US military casualties from the Iraq war and ongoing occupation now exceed 15,000.
That's right; 15,000 dead US servicemen and women in a war that--as yet--has no legal or moral justification.
CBS interviewed the head of mental health at the Department of Veteran Affairs, Dr. Ira Katz, who attempted to minimize the suicide increase, but Whitney doesn't seem to buy it.
Maybe Katz is right...Maybe it's perfectly normal for young men and women to return from combat, sink into inconsolable depression, and kill themselves at greater rates than they were dying on the battlefield. Maybe it's normal for the Pentagon to abandon them as soon as soon they return from their mission so they can blow their brains out or hang themselves with a garden hose in their basement. Maybe it's normal for politicians to keep funding wholesale slaughter while they brush aside the casualties they have produced by their callousness and lack of courage. Maybe it is normal for the president to persist with the same, bland lies that perpetuate the occupation and continue to kill scores of young soldiers who put themselves in harm's-way for their country.
If you want to know my personal opinion (which is consistent with what some officials in a position to know have claimed), the Bush administration has not misled; it has not misinformed; it has not been mistaken. It has lied. They are crooks. They are liars. They are war criminals. And they provided incomplete information about the number of military suicides with the intent to mislead, as they have on every other matter.
To say that the "official" information provided by the Bush administration cannot be trusted is an understatement. And heaven knows, I wouldn't want to be accused of that. I'm just trying to figure out which one of them will blame the soldier suicide surge on the Democrats.
And by the way, it's not normal. You know what else isn't normal? Taking it lying down.
Take lying down~ to hear or yield without protest, contradiction, or resistance: I refuse to take such outrageous lies lying down.
Some folks are born made to wave the flag, Ooh, they're red, white and blue. And when the band plays hail to the chief, Ooh, they point the cannon at you, lord,
It ain't me, it aint me, I ain't no senators son, son. It ain't me, it aint me; I ain't no fortunate one, no,
Yeah! Some folks are born silver spoon in hand, Lord, don't they help themselves, oh. But when the taxman comes to the door, Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaires son, no. It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no.
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes, Ooh, they send you down to war, lord, And when you ask them, how much should we give? Ooh, they only answer more! more! more! yoh,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no military son, son. It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, one.
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, no no no, It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate son, no no no.
'Limited' Accountability, Displaced Iraqis Ignored, Embassy Construction Update, Forget Poland, More
The war in Iraq was illegal. There was and still is gruesome carnage on a massive scale. Now it's an occupation, not a war. There's also a lot of fighting that looks like war, but, despite the air raids, bombed houses and buildings, missing limbs, mass graves and melted faces, it's really an occupation. It will end when we want it to. There can be no winners.
Currently the U.S. military death toll from the war that's over and the ongoing, current, happening now OCCUPATION stands at:
Here's the Iraq news:
Harry Reid actually said this: "We're going to continue to do the right thing for the American people by having limited accountability for the president and not a blank check." Thanks for that limited accountability, Harry! Give 'em limited Hell! Hopefully the number of Democratic senators who vote for you next time you stand for majority leader is very limited, like zero would be good.
4.2 million displaced Iraqis are going ignored by the United States, Britain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia plans to close it's border with Iraq by building a $2 billion fence.
The justice department is investigating why the budget for the biggest US embassy building in the world leaped from a staggering $592m to a brain-blistering $736m. The state department has no idea when it would be finished. Here's the answer--it'll be finished when we run out of money to funnel into it.
Can we get a BWA HA HA for this item from the BBC?
Laugh My Frickin' Ass Off!! 
