Program note:
Mood:  d'oh
For some reason the computer I've been using won't post to this blog, so I transfered this week's tirade to Non Sum Dignus. Please go there for your daily dose of bull.

I will resume posting here as soon as I find out what the heck is going on.

Willy Pete and timelines and benchmarks.
Topic: Iraq

AFP reports the US military is defending its use of Willy Pete (White Phosphorus) during "shake and bake" missions in Fallujah last November. "'It's part of our conventional weapons inventory. We use it like we use any other conventional weapon,' said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. Whitman said he had no knowledge of any civilian victims of attacks with white phosphorus.

'We don't target any civilians with any of our weapons, and to suggest US forces were targeting civilians with these weapons would be wrong,' he said."

Yeah, right, seizing the main hospital wasn't targeting civilans either. In any case, how could they tell who this stuff was falling on when they were using it? Its been pretty well established in this war that telling civilans apart from insurgents is a little difficult.

But enough of that bleeding heart stuff, on to the battle of Hue!

"A report on the battle of Fallujah published in April in the army journal Field Artillery said white phosphorous "proved to be an effective and versatile munition" in Fallujah.

'We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE (high explosives),' said the report."

Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable, another Pentagon spokesman, "It has been used in armies the world over for most the past century, I believe." Yeah, the Nazis probably used it too, so what's the big deal?

Slow poke to China:

W. is off to the Far East, where he will no doubt hope to escape the crumbling masonry of his administration crashing down on his head. China might not be far enough away, though, to get away from the consequences of his serial bungling. He did get off a parting shot at his Democratic detractors, however, on a fueling stop in Alaska---in front of a captive audience of soldiers---where he accused Democrats of giving mixed signals to our troops and the insurgents. That's rich, pull out the old 'my critics are giving the enemy aid and comfort,' bugaboo instead of actually answering the criticism that he fabricated and distorted pre-war intelligence, which is finding a lot of traction with a majority of Americans these days. He repeated the assertion that Democrats who voted for the war are now "rewriting history" and he's frankly shocked---shocked!---that they would play politics with the war in Iraq. (Lord knows Karl Rove has never used the war on terrorism as a political baseball bat to beat the Democrats with!)

The right wing pundits have apparently been given their talking points, because I've heard this claim that the Democrats who spoke "truth" then are "speaking politics now." Scott McClellan got the ball rolling last Sunday saying both Republicans and Democrats, including those in the Clinton administration,” came to the conclusion, that Saddam Hussein was a threat and a threat that needed to be addressed." It's funny that an administration that was so hell bent on wiping any evidence of the Clinton administration off the map---going so far as to immediately yank the DC "taxation without representation" license plate off the presidential limo---are now constantly invoking his name in their desperate attempts to save their asses. Before he was "Slick Willy, "a liar who couldn't be trusted with your teenage daughter, now all of a sudden, he's up there with W. in the great pantheon of terror fighters.

The claim that Clinton saw Saddam as a threat that needed to be dealt with was furthered by Rummy who joined the fight by quoting Sandy Berger's warning of Saddam's intention to use WMD if he was given a chance, out of context, and citing the fact that Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998, but failed to mention that Bubba was basically forced into it by Republican pressure during the Lewinsky scandal and never had any intention of following through. The Clinton administration policy was containment always, never a violent overthrow of Saddam's regime. And I do seem to remember that when the inspectors "were forced out" and the US bombed Baghdad, the right wingers all accused Clinton of the tail wagging the dog, trying to distract the public's attention away from his very serious blow job problems. (Can't have it both ways guys.)

Anyway, if congress in 2002 hadn't had to rely on that shoddy production Bush & Co. called a National Security Estimate, which consisted of faulty conclusions and information partly provided by drunks and liars masquerading as Iraqi "defectors," perhaps they would have asked more questions instead of willingly swallowing their tripe and then asking for seconds. It didn't help that most polities in congress are by nature spineless weasels and were played like a Stradivarius by the Chalabi/Miller echo chamber orchestrated from the bowels of Cheney's bat cave to perfect effect. I do recall seeing some brave Democrats standing on the steps of congress with hundreds of bags of mail written by their constituents pleading with them not to allow this illegal war, but the media hardly noticed.

Congressional rebels!

Lucky W. is out of town, because the Senate voted 79-19 to require the administration to give three month updates on what they're doing to get us out of Iraq and that 2006 should be, "a period of significant transition to Iraqi sovereignty." The Republicans just rewrote the Democratic bill and took out the part about a timetable, which Dan Bartlett spun into a positive. (These guys really have no shame!) Lindsay Graham said, "We want to get into the ball game, we're off the sidelines." Well, better late than never (About 2,070 dead too late), I guess, but it would have been nice if instead of waiting for public support to go south they had exercised the traditional "role of the Congress in war time," before the war had started. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel called for Bush to start drawing down troops levels next year. And as for Rummy and the right wing smear campaign, "Each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and elsewhere and should not be demonized or condemned for disagreeing with," the administration. Yeah, right on!

Along with this provision added into the Defense appropriation bill Lindsay Graham's Habeas Corpus stripping rule was toned down, now allowing detainees to challenge their "enemy combatant" status and appeal any ruling in the so-called military tribunals. McCain's ban against cruel and inhuman treatment is also included, all of which has to be hashed out in conference, which will be interesting considering that Bush has said he will veto the entire Defense spending bill if these items are included. How afraid of voter backlash over the war Congress is should drive the debate, I would think. The dream scenario is; all these provisions are kept in and W.'s veto is overturned. (Will never happen.)

Israel:

The Israeli Captain R., who shot a 13 year old Palestinian girl 15 times in the face, has been cleared of all charges by a military court in the Oct. 5, 2004 incident near Rafah. The BBC reports,"The army says it accepts the commander's claim that he fired into the ground near the girl after coming under fire in a dangerous area. It has not explained why the officer shot into the ground rather than at the source of the fire."

Well, if nothing else he should be cashiered for being a terrible shot. How do you manage to empty your magazine into a girl's face and claim you didn't mean to do it?

In Bush administration scandal news:

Former CPB chairman Kenneth Tomlinson violated the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 according to CPB Inspector General Kenneth Konz. AP says, "There was evidence the report said to suggest that "political tests" or qualifications were used as a major factor in the hiring of the new CPB president Patricia S. Harrison, in violation of federal rules...The report also faulted Tomlinson for hiring a consultant to review program content on PBS shows such as Now With Bill Moyers. Konz said Tomlinson did not obtain proper authorization from the board for the consultant's $20,000 contract. The consultant kept track of whether guests on the shows were "anti- or pro-Bush" and "anti- or pro-Tom DeLay," the report said." (Why does every sctechy political maneuver always have DeLay's name attached to it?)

Unfortunatly, breaking this law doesn't bring any criminal penalties. If he had been still working for the CPB he could have been sanctioned, but in this instance he gets off scott free.

In Iraq:

While the Senate is calling for the US to hurry up and train Iraqi military and police forces, news is out that US troops of the Third Infantry Division found by accident 173 Iraq detainees who had been malnourished and tortured in an Iraqi detention facility in the Jadriyah section of the capital. [AP] Surprisingly, all the prisoners appeared to be Sunnis and their captures, members of the Badr Brigade. This follows the news that the Wolf Brigade, another Shiite militia, has been busy rounding up hundreds of "suspects," also Sunnis, in the northeast province of Diyala.

In any case, the Interior Ministry's undersecretary of security, Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, told Reuters: "They were being abused. This is totally unacceptable treatment. I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beating, one or two detainees were paralyzed, and some had skin peeling off various parts of their bodies. I've never seen a situation like this during the past two years in Baghdad. This is the worst." No doubt this won’t be the last. If the US soldiers hadn't been following up on a missing 15 year old, they never would have found them and they would have most likely followed their predecessors into ditches around town with their hands bound and bullets in the back of their heads.

Have no fear, PM Ibrahim Jaafari vows to lanch a thourough investigation. A deputy PM has been put in charge of looking into this incident and a wider inquiry into prisons condition will be led by "ministers and other figure," Jafaari. Wow, don't you feel better now? I hope none of those ministers are associated with Sciri, because besides being a large part of the government also happen to be the political wing of the Badr brigade.

The real question is how much pressure the US is going to put on the Iraqis to clean up their act. I'm going to guess, not too much. We've spent all this time arming these thugs and pushing them to take charge, we're not about to start arresting their commanders who are up to their ears in torture and extra judicial killings.

[See this blog for info on what are now militias but will be later called 'freedom fighters.}

Husaybah under control? Operstion truth curtain continues.
Topic: Iraq

This link from Madtom says Colonel Stephen W. Davis, the Commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team - 2 currently operating in western Iraq and engaged in Operation Steel Curtain in the border town of Husaybah, claims:

"Husaybah has been cleared and secured. Coalition forces are now conducting combat patrols. Construction is underway for basing of Iraqi and U.S. troops to maintain a permanent presence in the city, and provide security. We had a real good plan, but the execution was even better. I am pleased with the results of Operation Steel Curtain."

As I wrote back in May, Husaybah has been a thorn in the military's side since the beginning of the occupation. Husaybah is the entry point to the Ramadi/Fallujah pipeline that supplies the foreign insurgency. Ramadi is hardly secure and Fallujah, despite being leveled and depopulated back in November, is still not secure, so news of Husaybah being under control is just slightly questionable.

Bugging out?

According to AP: "Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi said Friday that U.S. troops could begin leaving in significant numbers sometime next year." Wasn't this guy just is DC getting feted by all his neocon freinds? Doesn't this statement kind of undermine Bush's insistence that timelines help the insurgency? Does this have anything to do with conversations he's had with top officials in the administration? Very odd.

John Kerry called for the pull out of 20,000 troops after the Dec. 15th elections, but the pentagon said they'd go back to their "baseline" of 135,000, down from the current 160,000, or so, so I don't see that Kerry's arimatic adds up, what difference would his plan make?

John McCain, on the other hand, is calling for 10,000 extra troops to get a hold of the situation over there, but will 10,000 more cause things to change one way or the other?

Tony B-liar says British troops might pull by the end of next year, which dovetails with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani saying 8,500 British soldiers could be gone by the end of 2006. "8,500 British soldiers could be gone by the end of 2006," B-liar says, if, "the job is done.
." [Reuters]

Has he passed this by W.? This assumes of course, B-liar is still PM when 2006 come around.

We won't torture! Suuuure we won't, wink, wink.
Topic: Bush Administraiton

I'm back! Man, it’s been a weird week and I haven't been able to write at all. I hope all two of you who read this blog will come back occasionally to check up on what is going to be a very uneven posting schedule for a while.

Since I last posted, I have yet to see anything in the mainstream press about the chemical weapons in Fallujah story. Its good to see, though, W. has at least said that "we don't torture," although one has to wonder, if this is such an absurd notion, why he feels the need to say it in the first place. The whole Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, "black site," controversy is all just an aberration, I'm sure. We have to keep in mind that we're dealing with an enemy that "lurks and plots and plans and wants to hurt America again." (Why is it whenever I hear him say, "hurt America again," it always makes me think he's talking about child abuse?) You can bet, "we'll aggressively pursue them, but we'll do so under the law."

That will be quite a departure from the current policy. The trick is to rewrite the laws to make anything they feel like doing legal from now on. This is why while the administration talks about following the law, they've got Cheney going up to Capital Hill to strong arm the senate into exempting the CIA from John McCain's defense bill provision to ban torture and Lindsay Graham---who should know better---is trying to get congress to pass a law preventing the courts from ruling on any aspect of our detainee policies, except for narrow procedural questions, saying basically that Habeas Corpus doesn't apply to detainees at Gitmo anymore. (So, Habeas Corpus is one of the oldest and most fundamental underpinnings of our basic freedoms, big deal, we're fighting people who don't care about that, so we have to act more like them!)

All these frivolous lawsuits are totally unnecessary! "It’s not fair to our troops fighting in the war on terror to be sued in every court in the land by our enemies based on every possible complaint," says Graham. What the hell is he talking about? Which soldiers are being sued and wouldn't this sort of thing tend to endanger our troops in the future if we set the international standard for prisoner treatment by saying no laws apply? Every possible complaint?: From what I understand all the detainees are asking for is a hearing to determine whether their ongoing confinement is justified.

There seems to be a bit of a conundrum involving our war aims: on the one hand, we're losing about 3 soldiers a day and spending a billion dollars a month in Iraq trying to spread our form of democracy around the world---which includes everyone having the right to their day in court---but on the other hand we're denying the most basic legal rights of our great democracy to the detainees at Gitmo on the pretext that since they aren't on US territory they aren't entitled to them.

Five democrats voted for Graham's bill:

-Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut
-Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana
-Ben Nelson of Nebraska
-Kent Conrad of North Dakota
-Ron Wyden of Oregon

Shame on them!

[The New York Times - Freedom And Human Rights]


Leaders against terror to get the boot?

Things aren't going well for Tony B-liar and W. in their war on terror these days. Last week B-liar's draconian terror laws were voted down in the House of Commons, with many of his Labour MPs turning against him. Questions are now being raised about whether he can continue to stay in power after being so weakened by his lying about the war. His entire legislative agenda is in danger now that he's basically suffered a massive vote of no confidence by his own party.

The same could be said about W.’s agenda. Congressional Republicans weren’t even able to force through their big budget slashing bill last week, which before the elections on Tuesday seemed to be a sure thing.

W. showing up in the 11th hour to support Republican candidate Jerry Kilgore for governor of Virginia didn't help. Peter Baker in the WaPo wrote before the vote that, the White House decided at the last moment to reroute W.’s plane from his very successful trip to the Summit of the America’s in the hope that a Kilgore victory might revive Bush’s political corpse. Baker quotes Scott Reed, a Republican strategist who ran Robert J. Dole's presidential campaign in 1996 as saying, “They're going to own the results either way, so why not land the plane? If Kilgore wins, the president's political heart keeps beating. At the same time, given Bush's broader problems,” Reed said, "it doesn't change the dynamics."

No, indeed, the dynamics are still pretty bad. A new poll out has Bush’s approval rating at about 36%; that’s pretty low and two thirds now find him untrustworthy. His party is running away from him as fast as they can. As already noted by many pundits, the Democratic win in New Jersey wasn’t such a big shocker, but it is significant that John Corzine attacked Doug Forrester’s link to Bush, showing pictures of the two together while at the same time using a speech in which Clinton, of all things, praised the democrat. When a democrat can win an election in any state using Clinton as a cheer leader, you know the Republican’s have problems.

Meet Willy Pete all over again.
Topic: U.S. Military issues.

I worte back in April about Marines using Willy Pete, or White Phosphorus, on Fallujah at my other blog---Non Sum Dignus---but the news is so much worse than I could have thought.

The Italian newspaper La Repubblica is reporting Willy Pete, "was used as a chemical weapon in the rebel stronghold of Fallujah. And it was used not only against enemy combatants and guerrillas, but again innocent civilians."

RAI News 24 has broadcast, "video and photographs taken in the Iraqi city during and after the November 2004 bombardment which prove that the US military, contrary to statements in a December 9 communiqu? from the US Department of State, did not use phosphorus to illuminate enemy positions (which would have been legitimate) but instend dropped white phosphorus indiscriminately and in massive quantities on the city's neighborhoods."

See indymedia.ie for links to Video and pix. See also Phillybits for instant pix which are extremely graphic.

This is just breaking so I'll be back later. See Non Sum Dignus for lots of links and background on this story.

Dear W., don't come home.
Topic: Bush Administraiton

A few days ago I asked how long W. could stay out of DC while his administration implodes and it turns out it might be for quite a while. He's going to be traveling for pretty much the whole month of November. That's a good piece of timing because a new Post-ABC News poll came out today and among the mostly very negative opinions people have of the administration, one of the most troubling for the brains behind Bush has to be this one:

"A clear majority -- 55 percent -- now says the administration deliberately misled the country in making its case for war with Iraq -- a conflict that an even larger majority say is not worth the cost.

About 3 in 4 -- 73 percent -- say there have been an unacceptable level of casualties in Iraq."

That's a pretty bad combo; too much lying and too much dying.

Living in the Americas:

According to the AP Bush is having no troubles at all finding common ground with his fellow hemospheric leaders at the Summit of the Americas. He told Argentine President Nestor Kirchner that Manu Ginobili from, a guard for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association, has made, "A vital contribution to a basketball team from the state in which I live. But he's also a good ambassador for your country." Well, at least we can all agree on that. Before he met Bush, Kirschner said that he would "win by a knockout" in his discussions with Dubya. Hugo Chavez said he might sneak up behind W. and scare him and thousands of demostrators yelled "Bush get out!" So, all in all, it looks like this summit will be as sucessful as the last one in Chile when Bush had to rescue his body guard..

Where's the money?

The WaPo reports:

"Two months after the government began allotting billions of dollars for disaster relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, subcontractors in the Mississippi Gulf Coast say they are not being paid. As a result, they say, they cannot pay their workers, who are mostly immigrant laborers and who have painted homes, removed debris and completed other salvage chores."

A subcontractor of a company controlled by Halliburton Co., which was awarded a no-bid contract for disaster relief work by the Bush administration, is still waiting to get paid. According to the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, "150 immigrant workers, both legal and illegal," are waiting on $100,000 in unpaid wages.

If they think they have it bad, they should talk to the foreign workers Halliburton exploits in Iraq!

Naturally the government is getting right on this problem, right?

Not so much: "Spokesmen for the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees about $50 billion in hurricane relief, said they were unaware that subcontractors and workers were not being paid. The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, which hired contractors for debris removal, did not respond to a request for a comment.

Tamara Faulkner, a spokeswoman for the inspector general's office at DHS, which is responsible for overseeing more than 100 disaster relief contracts, said the issue has not been mentioned in reports."

Chavez is a fruit loop. no?
Topic: General News.

Are you parnoid if they really are out to get you? Hugo Chavez said in September on his visit here the US was planning to invade Venezuela and everybody just scratched their heads and then forgot about it. The wiseguy at Oilwars found this interesting post at the WaPo blog that reports:

"The Pentagon has begun contingency planning for potential military conflict with Venezuela as part of a broad post-Iraq evaluation of strategic threats to the United States.

The planning has been precipitated by general and specific directives issued by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his civilian policy assistants.

Internal documents associated with the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and preparation of the fiscal year 2008-2013 future defense plan identify five specific "threat" countries in three groups requiring "full-spectrum" planning."

A pardon for Libby?

A nice little war in South American would get everybody's minds off of Scooter Libby's upcoming trial. Or would it? Remember, Daddy pardonedCasper Weinberger just before he was going to trial to prevent his notes, possibly inplicating Bush in the Iran/Contra scandal, from being used as evidence. Weighing the potential disaster of having Cheney and his office of misfits testifying under oath versus keeping all that dirty laundry under wraps might convince the brains behind Bush that a pardon, though politically damaging, is the lesser of two evils. He might want to just go ahead and pardon Rove right now, jus to be on the safe side.

Another thing everybody should ignore is Dana Priest's article in the WaPo yesterday pointing out that the:

"CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long."

Meanwhile W. is moving his rollign bunler tour down south. Reuters reports:

Bush was scheduled to arrive late Thursday for a two-day Summit of the Americas in a country where anti-Bush sentiment runs high due to the war in Iraq and U.S.-backed, free-market policies that Argentines say pushed millions of their compatriots into poverty.

"People see all the iron barricades and police on every corner and they get scared," said construction worker Hernan Brito, who received five last-minute requests to board up store windows from merchants who he said also fear looting.

U.S. interests like Blockbuster video stores and Citibank branches were covered with corrugated metal shields ahead of protest marches early Friday.

More than 7,500 police officers erected a security ring around the summit hotels and patrolled the streets and beaches of this normally bustling city of 600,000, which looked more like a ghost town. Coast guard boats and helicopters trolled the shore, while air space was restricted.

"We hope protests are carried out in a peaceful way, but if they are not, we are prepared to give wrongdoers a forceful response," said Federal Police commissioner Daniel Rodriguez."

That'll keep everyone's focus elsewhere!

No bag of chips?
Topic: General News.

Let me get this straight; according to Orin Hatch, Samuel Alito is one of the best judges in the US, yet W. said two weeks ago he had looked and looked and the best person he could find was Harriet Miers. So, does this mean Alito isn't all that and a bag of chips? If he's so great why didn't W. pick him in the first place? What made the brains behind Bush think his wingnut base was going to go along with anything other than a dyed in the wool anti-abortion radical in the first place? The mind boggles.

By the way, the right wingers keep changing their story about what happened with the president's "mistake," otherwise known as the Miers nomination. I thought all their angst was caused by uncertainty over whether she would do the right thing and overturn Roe, which is the sole justification for most of these people's existence. Now, however, the narrative has shifted; I heard both David Frum and Rich Lowery say yesterday their concern wasn't over Roe (Because the liberals could then accuse them of being hypocrites.) but rather the integrity of the institution of the Supreme Court, which could have been undermined by an unqualified nominee. (Riiiiight! Because Clarence Thomas is such a genius) And it's not that the right has W. wrapped around their little fingers, but that liberals hate Bush so much they would never go along with his agenda so he has no choice but to govern from the extreme right. They're the only ones he has left! W. ought to keep in mind weakness breeds contempt.

Beschloss, be gone!

Is there anyone out there who can give Michael Beschloss a real job? I'm so sick of seeing that guy on the Newshour! He's like a professional wedding quest or something, he's always getting his puss on camera and all he does is recite boring antidotes from the Eisenhower administration that no one cares about. David Korn is another talk show schnorrer who has too much time on his hands. He always gets the call from NPR when they need a token liberal. There are other voices on the left, NPR, try updating your rolodex, maybe listen to Pacifica sometimes, they are out there.

Oh, sorry, I said the word that cannot be spoken: "Pacifica." Last week one NPR reporter had to lower himself and use a clip of a Joe Wilson interview from Democracy Now. That must have killed them. If they would actually have people like that on their programs they wouldn't have to rely on Amy Goodman. But then they might be accused of left wing bias and Cheryl F. Halpern might have to remove them physically from the studio.

PhARMA's terrorist plot

Here's weird story: a consultant named Mark Barondess came up with an idea to help out the pharmaceutical trade group PhARMA in its efforts to scare people about imported drugs, a big danger to drug company profits, by commissioning a thriller novel that portrays terrorists poisoning pharmaceuticals on their way to the US from Canada. Ken Johnson, a senior vice president for PhARMA says of this dubious project, "We didn't know anything. We had credible, safety based arguments supporting our position against importation." PhARMA says a deputy vice president for federal and state affairs with "limited budgetary authority" gave Barondess $100,000 (Well, it's PhARMA; that's chump change to them.) for consultant fees which he said he used to underwrite the book. Also involved with this farce was former NY Times reporter and fabricator Jason Blair who was hired to edit the book. In the end, everything fell apart badly with much bad feelings on both sides and now Barondess is writing a book, the Karasik Conspiracy, about a major drug company commissioning a terrorist attack to scare Americans away from buying imported drugs. Classic! [I have a friend who is a big shot at PhARMA, so I find this particularly amusing.]

In Iraq news:

Now that the president has got the Miers fiasco and the Libby indictment behind him, he can take comfort in the fact that at least the Alito story will put Iraq back on page A-15 for a few days. At the beginning of last week, the big news story was the death toll in Iraq hitting the 2000 mark, but that nasty bit of reality didn't mar the front pages long before the Miers withdrawal came along to draw attention away from the slaughter house that is George Bush's Iraq. Over the later part of last week and over the weekend, we lost another 25 troops; the highest daily casualties being 5 killed on Thursday and 7 on Sunday for a grand total of 93 for October. Along with the deaths of our troops, about 60 Iraqis are dying everyday according to a pentagon civilian body count no one even knew existed.[BBC]

It seems a day doesn't go by without news of dozens of bodies being found with their hands tied behind their backs and bullets in the back of their heads, presumably Sunni victims of Shiite death squads. Various car bombings in Shiite areas are also an almost daily occurrence along with the obligatory assassinations of government officials. The rate of 85 insurgent attacks a day has remained pretty steady since the start of 2005 and it doesn't appear the insurgency has been in the least bit deterred by US bombing raids and offensives with catchy names on the Syrian border.

The US reported another "precision" strike on two "safe houses” in the Syrian border region on Sunday that reportedly killed al-Qaeda militants but most likely also killed civilians. AP reports at least six dead including 3 children and a local doctor says up to 40 died, including 12 children. A Marine spokesman said he had no reports of civilian casualties, of course, and the information that the houses were full of insurgents came from local sources. In two years of fighting in Iraq what we apparently haven't learned yet is that our million dollar smart bombs are a good way for local disputes to be solved in one fell swoop, courtesy of the US tax payer.

A round up in Baghdad led to the arrests of a hundred "suspected insurgents," who I'm sure, were all guilty as hell and will get a fair trial before they disappear into Abu Ghraib, never to be seen again. Didn't we recently deploy another two battalions to Iraq to guard the over flow of about 10,000 prisoners currently held by us? With all these insurgents being detained you'd think we would get a grip of the situation over there by now.

Ap: "Military commanders have warned that Sunni insurgents will step up their attacks in the run-up to the Dec. 15 election." (I wish I had a nickle for every time I've heard that.) Therefore we've upped the Iraqi deployment to 157,000 troops. What I don't get about this mini escalation is why we need that many troops in there if we're turning over so many areas to Iraqi military control. Supposedly they're in total or partial control of large sections outside the "triangle of death." Are these troops there for the election or for regime change in Syria?

The Vietnam analogy department:

Ap reports the military is looking into a case of fragging involving a sergeant killing two of his superior officers. This supposedly the first case of a fragging in the Iraq war, but probably not the last.

The NYT reports the NSA has kept secret a report that finds, "NSA officials deliberately distorted critical intelligence during the Gulf of Tonkinepisode that helped precipitate the Vietnam war." The accusation is that, "The agency's communications intercepts were falsified to support the belief that North Vietnamese ships attacked US destroyers on Aug. 4 1964, two days after the previous clash." A NSA historian, Robert Hanyok, has had his report suppressed since 2001 because, "Agency officials feared its release might prompt uncomfortable comparisons with flawed intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq." Now, who could possibly think that? Besides, the intelligence that got us into Iraq wasn't "flawed," it was made up, manufactured, twisted to fit the policy, that's why Scooter Libby is going to court tomorrow.

The 'we still haven't learned our lesson' department.

John Hannah has been promoted to be Cheney's new National Security Advisor. Wasn't this the guy last week who was reported to be telling all his friends he thought he was going to get indicted? Why did he think that, I wonder? Guilty conscience?

Hannah is best known for being Cheney's liaison to Ahamd Chalabi and his cadre of liars and misfits. Apparently Hannah, along with his mentor John Bolton are really, really, gullible. If I could find out where they lived I'd offer to pave their driveway or maybe sell them some land in Florida. If you're completely incompetent in this administration you get ahead. This move puts paid to the theory that W. is going to shuffle the deck and get some fresh blood into the mix. It’s the same old crap, just a different day.

David Addington---aka. I've got mashed bananas in my pants---becomes Cheney's chief of staff.

Alito the Hun
Topic: Bush Administraiton

Well, now we're all distracted from Scooter Libby's indictment by the president's announcement of yet another nominee for the Supreme Court, right? (If this nomination thing goes on long enough we'll have to resort to the Greek alphabet for names.) I wrote last week that everybody was saying he almost had to pick "Attila the Hun," but that should have been "Alito the Hun." Yes, Samuel Alito, who a Democratic Senator called a "right wing wacko," according to Cokie Roberts on Morning Edition, is the new choice and this time he's a long time denizen of the judicial monastery. No fooling around with this nominee; he's "qualified" and he's sure to vote the right way on all the issues the president's rapidly shrinking "base" cares so passionately about.

Now, the Democratic line is sure to shift from what was the previous Republican position that every nominee deserves an up or down vote in the case of Harriet Miers, to the previous, previous Democratic line that this nominee is too far outside the mainstream and should be prevented from getting a vote. The Republicans are now saying this isn't about judicial philosophy but solely about the qualifications, opposed to last time when they couldn't vote for Miers because they didn't know enough about her philosophy (i.e. views on abortion.).

There is sure to be a major fight over Alito and the various special interests are glad to hear it. No one could get it up enough to donate tons of cash for Miers on the bench, but the money will be flowing for this one you can be sure. Christmas has come early for People for the American Way and James Dobson's Focus on the Family. This is the fight the right wingers wanted and they'd better win, because if things don't go as planned the president, their only champion, will be damaged beyond repair thus leaving them in the political wilderness.

The right wing rebellion has already weakened the White House and Sam Brownback is saying they may not be able to count on all 55 Republican votes if the candidate is too far out there, which Alita appears to be. Moderate Republican Senators are going to be leery of jumping off the cliff for Bush and even true believers like Rick Santorum have to be thinking twice about how far he's willing to go, considering he's involved in a very tight re-election bid with a popular liberal pro-choice Democrat. Time is not on the side of the Republicans either. Very soon now, the '06 race will be in full swing and they don't need a nasty filibuster fight going on forever or, even more potentially damaging, a vote on the "nuclear option," which could blow any Republican unity right out of the water.

And then there's the Libby trial: all the conservative elite pundits are sure he's going to be exonerated, but do they really want a very public airing of the inner workings of the vice president's office during the manufacturing of the "evidence" of Iraq's WMD, right in the middle of the '06 campaign? If he pleads guilty to avoid this almost unthinkable option, then they wind up with a convicted perjurer from the administration which the Dems can beat them over the head with. These are perilous times for the GOP, indeed.

And what about that Libby indictment?

What's the big deal, anyway? This is case is about one individual doing things all administrations do to counter critics and besides that, an indictment isn't a conviction. Remember, in our system a person is innocent until proven guilty. These allegations of lying are based on the word of journalists and as Pete Williams of NBC News asked, are you really going to take the word of "three journalists...versus the vice-president's chief of staff?" (Williams is a former spokesperson for Cheney, so he should know something about the character of the man.) I mean, who are these people; Judith Miller is a jail bird and Tim Russert is an obvious liberal fellow traveler and just last night Matt Cooper was on NOW and you know what a biased show that is!

And what about the Plame investigation? No one has been charged with outing a CIA agent; so again I ask, what's the big deal? Perjury? Is Patrick Fitzgerald serious? As Kay Bailey Hutchison rightly pointed out, if there's going to be an indictment make sure it's not on "some perjury technicality." Like William Kristol of the Weekly Standard says, we shouldn't be using our criminal law to resolve, "What is basically a policy and political dispute between the administration and its critics." Besides, I have problems remembering who I talked to last week, never mind two years ago, so how can you expect Scooter to remember all the good work he's done for the American people over the years?

I don't think this indictment hurts the president in the least. Who remembers the name of Al Gore's or George Bush Sr.'s chief of staff? People will soon forget who Scooter Libby ever was. In the overall scheme of things this is just a minor hiccup that will be wiped out by an excellent pick for the Supreme Court and a successful voter turnout on Dec. 15 in Iraq.

The president has 39 more months left in office and he can turn this around, no problem. Now he can go back to doing the business of the American people. As he said on Friday, "I got a job to do and so do the people who work in the White House." Yeah! Let's get those high oil prices under control and work on lifting the tax burden off working Americans.

Back to reality:

That's the initial spin I've been hearing from the unrepentant supporters of the administration on all the talk shows. They're pretty weak arguments and I don't think most people are going to buy it. As much as the true believers are going to want to spin Libby's indictments away from why we went to war in the first place---bogus claims of Saddam's WMD----etc.----it will just keep coming up like Lady Macbeth’s damn spot. This entire thing started because Cheney and his minions just couldn't tolerate anyone exposing their lies about the reasons for going to war. The serial lying and the obsession with Joe Wilson's wife by Cheney and the lengths he and Libby were willing to go to is really frightening.

One thing I don't get about this whole mess is why Karl Rove is still collecting a pay check from the American tax payer. When this Plame matter became an issue Bush came out and swore up and down that no one in the White House had anything to do with the leaking and if anyone did, they wouldn't be working for him anymore. Well? Either, Bush knew from the start that Rove was involved, or he subsequently found out about it and Rove lied to him about it, but in either case I don't see how Rove keeps his job. Patrick Fitzgerald says Rove is still under investigation, there is still a Grand Jury looking into his role, but in the strange world of the Bushies this is a good thing. At least he wasn't indicted; we can all breath a sigh of relief! What?

It's really amazing how incompetent the whole effort to undermine Joe Wilson was. Even before the attempted cover up, Libby still managed to bungle the initial character assassination part of the plan, because as soon as Bob Novak published Valerie Plame's name there was an immediate call for an investigation into how he got that name. What did they think would happen when her name appeared in newspapers?

Did they figure George Tenet could just ignore one of his covert agent's identity being broadcast all over the world without doing anything about it? If he had just let it pass, there would have been a mutiny at the CIA. The question is why did he give Cheney the name in the first place? Did he ask Cheney what he needed her name for? Didn't he have any concern at all about what they might do with the information? He must have known what kind of people he was dealing with, having observed their tactics against his own agency while they manufactured their own intelligence in the dungeons of the pentagon. What a spineless toady, no wonder he got a medal!

In any case, this indictment is just the tip of the ice berg. If the Plame investigation does nothing else, it points to a larger malady in our body politic. We have a serious disease and the only way to recover is to remove the malignant tumor. Our immune system, however, our checks and balances, are seriously compromised by having one party in control of two of the three branches. (Or maybe all three?) I don't know what it would take for the Republican dominated legislative branch to actually do their job and check the executive branch which is clearly running amok. The only thing we can hope for is a voter backlash in '06 that will turn the scoundrels out. I'm not holding my breath, though.

One would think the weight of all the scandals and rampant corruption that characterizes the GOP has to come crashing down on them eventually, right? Don't forget Lewis Libby isn't the first administration official to get hauled into the dock; David Safavian, the former procurement chief, was arrested just last month. Timothy Flanagan, Bush's choice for the number two spot at the Justice Department had to withdraw his nomination when too many questions about Jack Abramoff----the great GOP corrupter----kept coming up. Tom DeLay had to quit his leadership position in the House after being indicted on money laundering charges, Bill Frist is under SEC investigation for insider stock trading, the head of the FDA, Lester Crawford, who abruptly stepped down only three months after finally being confirmed, for an as yet unknown reason, is under investigation; Lawrence Franklin, a former pentagon official, has pled guilty to passing classified information to a foreign government; Grover Norquist, the king of K Street has cavorted with convicted terrorists and is implicated in nefarious dealings with Jack Abramoff; Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition chief and present candidate for Lt. Governor in Georgia, is also involved with Abramoff's funny business with Indian casinos; Michael Brown, former FEMA director, will be making another trip to congress to explain certain inconsistencies that have come to light in his previous testimony under oath about what he knew about what was going on in New Orleans in the days after Katrina; and who could forget the Ohio coin collection and newly indicted Ton Noe, former fund raiser for George Bush?

When do people wake up and say, enough his enough? Yes, there's always corruption and every administration has problems like these, but not on this scale. This is a culture of corruption; this is a universe of unbridled criminality. The pundits and the editorial pages are patting themselves on the back saying 'the system works,' because Libby got indicted, but until those names above are all in the court room and out of government, the system is still seriously ill and in desperate need of fixing.

Note: Why is this blog on Al-Jazeera's top 100 at # 85? What's that all about?

A culture of corruption!
Topic: Bush Administraiton

Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has been indicted for perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements. He has just resigned. So far, the word is Karl Rove is still under investigation and might be indicted later on. Actually, this is even worse for the White House because they'll have this Rove thing hanging over their heads maybe for months more to come. W. scooted out of DC this morning to make a speech on terrorism---always stick with the classics---but how long can W. stay out of Washington? Well, I guess for quite a while, he's pretty good at that sort of thing. Right now, I'm just going to focus on the other White House disaster, the Harriet Miers cave in, because this news is too new and we'll all need to take a deep breath and see what this is all about.

p.s. I can't wait for the very public trial right around election time!

David Brooks, big time douche bag:

The consensus on the failure of the Miers nomination seems to be in pundit-world that Bush yanked her out under pressure from his right wing, nut job, koo-koo base; it wasn't about documents as some Republicans and their pundit minions still insist. Last night on the NEWSHOUR David Brooks was sitting there with that cat-that-ate-the-canary-smile on his face---looking all warm and cozy over all the good work he did in killing the nomination---when out of nowhere Mark Shields goes medieval on him accusing him and the other right wingers of having their fingerprints all over the scene of the crime. He called Brooks and his ilk "hypocrites," for flunking Miers' on her litmus test, before she could even defend herself in front of the Judiciary Committee.

That wiped the self satisfied smirk off Brook's face for a minute: he, being a poor little old Op-Ed writer, could hardly have derailed a judicial nomination! "Do you think she was qualified?" he asked Shields. Of course, that's not the issue. The question isn't whether she was qualified, but rather, what about giving her 'an up or down vote?' Senator Sam Brownback (A major douche bag.) had been interviewed in the previous segment and he had maintained the fiction that without more documentation on her judicial philosophy, he couldn't have backed her and this is where the hypocrisy comes in. Isn't that always the right wing mantra when W. has sent these rabid nominees up in the past, give the nominee an up or down vote? When Democrats have requested documents on past nominees in order to divine their philosophy and the White House has stonewalled them, the right wing pulls out the "litmus test" bugaboo and demands an up or down vote. For Brooks to say his Op-Eds along with the avalanche of negativity orchestrated by David Frum and William Kristal had nothing to do with the killing of this nomination is just beyond the pale.

For my part, it's not that I was happy with the nomination either, but my concerns were more about her being a lapdog for Bush on the Court, backing his draconian policies on the war on terror; a concern barely brought up by the Democrats. I didn't agree with the notion that the Democrats should have gone ahead and backed her confirmation because it "could have been worse:" There was still the danger of her being very deferential to corporate interests and there wasn't any guarantee she wouldn't help overthrow Roe.

The strategy of standing back and letting the Republicans cannibalize each other, though, seems to have been effective both at killing the nomination and making the Dems look like the reasonable ones. On the one hand, I was irked that Democratic leader Harry Ried came right out and backed her, but on the other hand, whether intentional or not, his praise for Miers got the right wingers thinking there must be something wrong with her even before David Frum & Co. rolled out the guillotine. So, I'm happy she's out of there but the question is what is coming in her wake.

The fire breathing types on the other side have made their point, though: 'we got you into this position, now do our bidding, or else.' I would expect Attila the Hun to be the next nominee because this is what happens when an administration decides to govern solely from its most radical base of support and leave the moderates out in the cold. At this point they have no choice but to choose a divisive candidate. Bush may have been able to get Miers confirmed with the votes of the Democrats and moderate Republicans, but he decided to cave to the worst angels of our nature, again, and he's paid a big price for it.

The right wingers can't contain their glee over their big victory and are now girding for the battle of the century over whoever Bush picks next, who they fully expect to be their kind of guy. (And it will be a guy.) This might not turn out to be the Rapture they're anticipating, though, elections are coming up very soon and if they come off looking like the frothing at the mouth religious fanatics they really are, they might wind up alienating more moderate voters and independents. If they go too far, they could push themselves right out of power and into the political wilderness. I've already heard right wingers saying if the Dems want a filibuster fight 'bring it on,' and I hope they keep it up; that kind of arrogance it just the thing most Americans are really getting sick of.

Crazy Iranians:

Speaking of religious extremists...Iran, another country with a problem of being run by a radical minority, is getting racked over the coals for President Mamoud Ahmandinejad's comments that Israel should be wiped off the map. Today they held their annual post Ramadan "death to Israel, death to America, death to Britain" rally and gave the finger to the world community who have rightly condemned Ahmandinejad's anti-Israel tirade. The traditional burning of the Israeli and American flags will, of course, wind up being used by Tony Blair to make hay with his calls for something to be done about a country that is seeking nuclear weapons while calling for the destruction of Israel. "If they continue down this path, then people are going to believe that they are a real threat to our world security and stability." [BBC] The question is what can be done? Israel is calling for Iran to be thrown out of the United Nations, but none of this will amount to much in the long run.

I still say this is much to do about nothing, because this has been Iran's policy all along, nothing has changed, except that now they have a president who is obviously oblivious to foreign policy concerns. The real powers that be in Tehran won't allow this type of thing to continue, they have too much at stake. They can't afford to have a loose cannon blundering around pissing off India and China while at the same time trying to make money selling their natural gas and oil to them. War is bad for business, in this case, especially since Iran's position in the region right now is so strong.

Crazy Iraqis:

If we were to do something militarily about Iran, we might find ourselves in the funny position of having to shift our support to the Sunnis in Iraq, because the Iranians have more sway with the Shiites than we do these days. If we attacked Iran they just might start an insurgency of their own against us. I thought it was interesting that during the opening of the trial against Saddam, the Shiite prosecutor, Jaafar al-Musawi, started to go into a litany of Saddam's "odious crimes" including "a war with no justification against our neighbor Iran." Sadoun al-Janabi, the defense lawyer who was kidnapped and killed later that day, asked al-Musawi in objecting to the listing of crimes not included in the Dujail case, "What are you, an Iraqi or an Iranian?" To me, that was a very interesting line of defense, pulling out the nationalism card. (And is probably what got him killed.) The nationalism issue brings up even more serious questions about our supposed democratic friends the Shiites, or at least the faction of Shiites who are beholden to Iran and where their loyalties really lie.

The Sunnis main objection to the new Constitution was their fear that it would lead to the disintegration of Iraq. They seem to be the only Iraqis that want to remain Iraqis: the Shiites and the Kurds appear to be very comfortable with the possibility of an emasculated Iraq. The Kurds are justifiably leery of a strong government in Baghdad because of what's happened to them in the past, which is understandable. Besides, they're not even Arabs and have made no secret of their ambition to have their own country in the future. The Shiites on the other hand, might prefer to have a fragmented and weak Iraq with a strong Iran dominating the region. If it's our policy to have a secure, democratic Iraq being the shining light of the Middle East, we'd better think about making up with the Sunnis, because they seem to be the only ones who really want to be Iraqis.