It’s September 2004, the Presidential election is heating up and the rhetoric is spewing from every direction. We had that Abu Ghraib torture thing, which for some reason didn’t piss ALL americans off. There were those nasty, swifty veterans who lied every chance they could about john kerry’s service in vietnam. fox made sure they had plenty of air time, and please remember that not one of those guys was ever on kerry’s boat and everyone that WAS on his boat say the exact opposite.

It’s a random weekend and i’m on the web and looking for past seymore hersh articles. I come across a story written in the national review by jed babbin, it’s about seymore hersh and his new book (at the time) called Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. you may remember jed babbin from the bush 41 administration, he was the former deputy undersecretary of defense. so i start reading this article and i’m blown away by the amount of hot air from start to finish. he had this to say about Sy:

In recent years, however, his “investigative” reporting has produced more fiction than fact, more rant than reason. Hersh can be duped rather easily — that is, when he’s not just making stuff up.

babbin had this so say about the torture of prisoners:

(we) have captured about 50,000 prisoners…….In handling the 50,000, there have been only about 300 allegations of abuse………..Of the 300 allegations of abuse, only some 66 of them are substantiated.

(click here if you want to read batty babbin’s article)

So after reading it, i’m motivated to email this guy and call him out. so i do:

Mr. Babbin:
I was doing a search to find out more about Hersh’s new book, and I came upon your 9/17 article. I haven’t had a chance to read many of you past writings, but I read this one and felt I had to ask you a few questions. I agree with you that Seymour Hersh doesn’t speak fondly of President Bush, but there is no denying the Abu Ghraib torture story was a major news event concerning our current situation in the world, especially Iraq. What I would like to know, or better yet understand is how you can downplay the numbers. You say, “Of the 300 allegations of abuse, only some 66 of them are substantiated.” What would the American public say, or better yet, yourself say if we found out that the Iraqi’s had abused our soldiers 66 times? I would also like to know if you have had any contact with a National Guardsman? I have friends who are in the Guard and who have served and are currently serving in Iraq and I just want you to know that none of them were taught torture techniques during their weekend training. Can you tell me that these Guardsman did these things, without hearing from top people, such as bringing over dogs and hoods with the purpose of torturing POW’s. Your article lacks such facts as above. Maybe there’s something I don’t know about your past interactions with Mr. Hersh, but this article seems very unfair. We are not a country that should condone such horrible actions, and remember, the Geneva Conventions are not meant to protect their people, but intended to protect our boys and girls over there. Making sure they don’t torture our kids. Thanks you very much for you time.

i’m shocked when he actually writes me back, his response:

I do downplay those 66 incidents because: (a) they are not representative of the treatment of prisoners in Iraq or anywhere else; (b) there are eleven separate investigations, and prosecutions already under way, which will result in those responsible serving time in jail; and (c) what Hersh says, according to my own very reliable and highly-placed sources, is patently false. I don’t minimize the seriousness of what happened. But I’ve read the Taguba report. I’ve talked with a member of the Schlesinger commission, and I can say with confidence that the commanders and higher civilian officials did not know of or condone — far less order or even tolerate — what went on. On what facts to you then base your charge of unfairness?

Best regards,
Jed Babbin

What are you talking about jeb? ‘you start off by saying: I do downplay those 66 incidents… and then say: i don’t minimize the seriousness of what happened. which is it? you can’t have it both ways jeb! you were deputy undersecretary of defense? how is that possible?? sanctimony…..? what iraqi military campaign are you referring to? granted, i was in high school back in ‘91, but i think during a war, one in which i clearly remember, i’d recall a campaign that ended with all these american deaths…let alone demands for war crime trials!!

why read this nonsense you ask? because jennifer, who sits right next to you at work, or at school, has seen batty babbin on fox news and thinks he’s an honest guy who would never write lies that could/does pollute her mind. and your buddy mike, he reads the national review and thinks that the bush administration is out to help the common man, he also unfortunately thinks sean hannity is an american hero (that hurt to put sean’s devil name next to the word hero). we must know the contaminated messages to better understand and discuss the topics of the day with our righty friends. you have to identify before you can relate. it’s not going to be a michael moore, a maureen dowd, a molly ivins, or even an arianna huffington that helps them see that the bushies are doing some ghastly things, it’s going to be you.

e

side note: alright, we have another member of the Democrat leadership backing our boy Rep John Murtha. It’d be nice if some of the Dem front runners for 2008 would take the same stand…..hillary, joe biden……….
By LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press Writer

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday embraced a call by a prominent member of her rank-and-file to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, two weeks after she declined to endorse it.

“We should follow the lead of Congressman John Murtha, who has put forth a plan to make American safer, to make our military stronger and to make Iraq more stable,” Pelosi said. “That is what the American people and our troops deserve.”

Pelosi, D-Calif., said she wouldn’t call for a party caucus position on the plan by the Pennsylvania Democrat because “a vote on the war is an individual vote.”

Nevertheless, she said: “I believe that a majority of our caucus clearly supports Mr. Murtha.”

Two weeks ago, Murtha called for U.S. troops to begin returning home and said a complete pullout could be achieved in six months. He introduced a resolution in the House that would force the president to withdraw the 160,000 troops “at the earliest practicable date.”

Murtha, a Vietnam combat veteran and Marine, voted in 2002 to give President Bush the authority to go to war. He has been a strong supporter of the military and an influential voice on defense issues during his three-decade House career — and his position switch set off a firestorm on Capitol Hill.

At the time, Pelosi emphasized that Murtha spoke only for himself, and not for her or the Democratic caucus.

She changed her position at a news conference after Bush sought to lay out the administration’s Iraq strategy in a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy.

“I’m endorsing what Mr. Murtha is saying, which is that the status quo is not working and that we need to have a plan that makes us safer and our military stronger and makes Iraq more stable,” she said. “I believe that what he has said has great wisdom.”

A day after Murtha’s Nov. 17 announcement, Republicans sought to put the House on record rejecting immediate withdrawal and forced a vote just before adjourning for Thanksgiving break. Democrats called the vote a political stunt meant to undermine Murtha and limit debate on the war. Most in the minority party, including Pelosi, voted against immediate withdrawal in what they said was a protest, making the tally 403-3 against it.

Pelosi’s counterpart in the Senate, Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., doesn’t back Murtha’s plan. Some Senate Democrats support a phased withdrawal based on political and military conditions in Iraq, but not Murtha’s plan.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said he and other Democrats in the Senate believe the United States needs an exit strategy for U.S. troops in which there are “certain measurements for that success over a period of time.”

original article

side note: thanks for the article j.
By Peter Spiegel, Defence Correspondent
Financial Times

As Bush administration rhetoric has turned towards preparing the American public for a reduction in US forces in Iraq, the US military has been gradually – almost imperceptibly – changing its on-the-ground tactics to prepare for a smaller footprint after the December 15 elections.

According to civilian and military officials involved in Iraqi planning, US and coalition forces have begun backing off so-called “search and destroy” tactics that have killed large numbers of insurgents only to allow them to reoccupy urban havens.

Although such operations are likely to continue through this month’s elections in order to keep the Sunni-based insurgency off balance, people familiar with the changing tactics said the military was moving towards a post-election “clear, hold and build” counter-insurgency plan based largely on the lessons learned from the failures of the anti-Vietcong campaign during the Vietnam war.

Under such tactics – credited to Vietnam veteran and counter insurgency expert Andrew Krepinevich, who has advised Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Baghdad, on military issues – coalition and Iraqi forces will concentrate on securing and holding urban areas and gradually expanding their area of influence, a process called an “oil-spot” strategy.

In briefings to the US military’s joint staff and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s office, Mr Krepinevich, who has been highly critical of the lack of a country-wide counter-insurgency plan, has argued that through embedding US forces in Iraqi units and relying more heavily on those Iraqi units as the core of the “oil-spot”, the Pentagon should be able to rely on 120,000 troops, or 17,000 fewer than previous levels.

“Classical counter-guerrilla operations like Malaysia are small unit, not big, Westmoreland-style attrition,” said a senior Pentagon official, referring to William Westmoreland, the general who commanded US forces in Vietnam. “Andrew Krepinevich, who people said is critical [of Pentagon planning], said you don’t need more US troops in Iraq, you need more Iraqi troops, which happens to be our policy as well.”

Several US commanders, however, have argued that Mr Krepinevich’s views, while compelling, are only a repeat of strategies already implemented by coalition forces. Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, the deputy director for plans at US Central Command, said there were “a lot of people arguing about the oil-spot strategy”, but insisted that the current practice of bringing Iraqi forces in to secure and stabilise urban areas after US raids illustrated that coalition commanders had already shifted away from “search and destroy” tactics.

“We don’t want to say, okay, Krepinevich you’re right: let’s all pull back into cantons and start over,” Brig Gen Kimmitt said. “The coalition forces are providing a thin protective shield, to some extent, over the country at large. It’s not perfect, but what it then allows is to set the condition for the Iraqi forces to be the oil spot. The goal is that the oil spot, in fact, are the Iraqi forces who establish control, maintain control, and then get larger and larger.”

Indeed, Maj Gen Douglas Lute, the operations director at Centcom, said such recommendations as embedding US forces into Iraqi units began early in the year, well before Mr Krepinevich began advising Mr Khalilzad. Such embeds, largely in 10-man “coalition assistance teams”, enable Iraqi officers to have direct battlefield contact with coalition intelligence and airborne weapons, a practice that military leaders said has greatly contributed to Iraqi effectiveness.

“Here you have an Iraqi battalion in contact [with enemy forces], the Iraqi battalion commander turns to one of these 10 guys who is trained in close-air support, and F-16s or Tornados are dropping precision munitions in support of that Iraqi formation,” said Maj Gen Lute. “It accelerates the hand-off of battle space to the Iraqis, and second of all, just imagine the psychological effect for that Iraqi battalion commander.”

But several critics, including Mr Krepinevich, have argued the Pentagon has not fully embraced the strategy, and warned that continuation of offensive “whack-a-mole” missions – as they are known in the military, because of their tendency to defeat an insurgent presence in one place only to see them pop up elsewhere – are counterproductive.

Mr Krepinevich said he had been told by senior commanders that while the embedding process had been effective, the military was having a hard time convincing its best officers to take an assignment with an Iraqi unit.

original article

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to print stories written by US soldiers in an effort to polish the image of the American mission in Iraq, a US newspaper reported.

US military “information operations” troops have written the articles, which are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based defense contractor, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Many articles are presented to Iraqi newspapers as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists, the daily said, citing documents it obtained and unnamed US military officials.

The stories denounce insurgents and tout the work of US and Iraqi troops and the US-led effort to rebuild Iraq.

The United States has paid Iraqi newspapers to publish dozens of articles, the LA Times said.

“The operation is designed to mask any connection with the US military,” it said.

The Lincoln Group helps translate and place the stories. The contractor’s Iraqi staff, or its subcontractors, sometimes pose as freelance journalists or advertising executives to hand the stories to Iraqi papers.

Some senior US military officers in Iraq and at the
Pentagon have criticized the operation, saying it could ruin the US military’s credibility in other countries and with the US public.

“Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we’re breaking all the first principles of democracy when we’re doing it,” a senior Pentagon official who opposes the planting of stories was quoted as saying.

Much of the effort was being directed by the “Information Operations Task Force” in Baghdad, part of the multinational corps headquarters commanded by Army Lieutenant General John Vines, the newspaper said.

The task force has even bought an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station, a military official said, refusing to name the outlets to protect their staff from insurgent attacks.
see original

side note: we posted something about Mitchell a few days ago. i’m glad that the Huff Post is starting to talk about her. simply put, she’s a mouth piece of the administration. she is not to be trusted.

I realize there is some unwritten law that says no woman newscaster is allowed to appear on any of the NBC channels and question the network’s hypocrisy relative to the Valerie Plame affair, but Andrea Mitchell’s continued presence thereon is particularly grating. I for one live for those special moments when she, Tim Russert and Chris Matthews get together and “question” each other like they’re all not up to their eyeballs in it.
The stuff of Murrow, that.

Tom Maguire points out this little gem from the Tim Russert show on October 29, 2005:
MITCHELL: You know, I should have spoke–’cause there’s been a lot blogged about all of this–I was called by the CIA because it was erroneously reported in The Washington Post that I was the recipient of the leak before Novak’s column came out, and I had not been. So I was never questioned because I simply told the FBI–and, you know, NBC put out a statement that night–that I had not been a recipient of the leak; in fact, I had learned about it from Novak’s column like everyone else. Then after the fact, a lot of us had gotten calls and conversations with people, you know, `Hey, how about the Novak column?’ But that was after the fact.

That particular highlighted sentence is really a marvel of construction — she maintains she was never “questioned” even as she’s saying she talked to the FBI. Did a few agents just swing by to drop off a casserole and she started blathering so fast they couldn’t get a word in edgewise?

Oh those nasty bloggers and their mean questions. We should all just go back to posting vacation snaps and leave reportering to the professionals.

original article

Cold Fusion
by Kenneth Baer
The New Republic

To most Americans, Canada is the country that hippies flee to and sports franchises flee from. Few look to our northern neighbor as a political trendsetter. After all, Canadian politics is, in many ways, nothing like American politics. The Liberal Party supports gay marriage, marijuana legalization, and nationalized health care–and has dominated the political landscape for the past twelve years. The New Democrats are socialists. The Conservatives have to mute their free-market economics and faith-based appeals. And two-thirds of the Parliament members from Quebec, the second-most populous province, would like to see Quebec never send another delegation to the federal Parliament.

Yet this week Canadian politics got very interesting–and relevant. After just 17 months, the current Liberal government lost a no-confidence vote, prompting elections for January 23. Americans might not be inclined to pay the race much attention, but we should because it may offer a glimpse of what our own elections will look like in 2006 and 2008. Specifically, it will be a test case for the efficacy of the politics of reform. And it could reveal a lot about how a governing party’s corruption can, and cannot, be exploited for political gain.

Canada’s ruling Liberal Party has been in power for more than a decade and has spent the better part of the past two years fighting the unfolding “Adscam” scandal, in which federal contracts were padded with kickbacks that were sent to the party. The ensuing investigation lifted a curtain onto an ugly world of money, campaign consultants, and party operatives. Add to that a number of smaller scandals that have tainted the governing party–from the alleged misuse of government planes to accusations that information about a new tax cut was leaked to financial houses before it was publicly announced–and the Liberals find themselves in a similar position to, well, Republicans. Unsurprisingly, then, Conservatives, like Democrats, are positioning themselves as the party of reform. As Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper told his caucus after the no-confidence vote on Monday, “Opposition is not enough for you … Canadians are counting on you to give them a clean, honest government.”

Yet none of this is new. The details of the Adscam affair were pretty much known seventeen months ago during the last election; and last time around, Conservatives also ran as the party that would clean up Ottawa. Liberals, however, battled back by successfully painting Harper and the Conservatives as too far right. They charged that he was outside the Canadian mainstream on abortion and same-sex marriage–and willing to use a constitutional maneuver to overrule Supreme Court decisions that stood in the way of his right-wing agenda. In short, they depicted him as mean and extreme.

But now Harper has muted his most strident stances, cast himself as a regular guy, and, most importantly, gone out of his way to exude hope and optimism. In his first speech after the no-confidence vote, for instance, Harper made sure to balance his critique of Liberals with a promise to offer a positive vision: “Justice Gomery”–who led the investigation into Adscam–”looked into the past: where the money went, who stole it, and who benefited from it,” he said. “We are looking to the future. And we want to move forward and address the priorities of ordinary Canadians.” To underscore the forward-looking stance of the party, Harper surrounded himself with a diverse and young group of MPs–not the party’s grizzled veterans.

In the run-up to this week’s government collapse, it appears that this strategy of reform plus vision has softened the ground for Conservatives. Over the past three weeks, according to a Globe and Mail/CTV poll, Conservatives have gained eight percentage points on Liberals in Ontario, the key to winning the election, and now trail there by just five points. (Liberals have slipped from their previous vote total of 45 percent in the province to 40 percent.) Among all Canadian voters, 21 percent believe that Conservatives are the party with the best ideas versus 17 percent for the Liberals. And 19 percent say Conservatives have high standards of ethics and honesty as opposed to 12 percent for Liberals. Most importantly, Canadian voters no longer seem to see Conservatives as a nefarious, reactionary force: One-third of those polled believe Liberals harbor a “hidden agenda,” while only one-quarter say the same for Conservatives–in contrast to “the last election, when fears of a hidden agenda were said to have turned voters sour on the prospect of a Conservative Government,” according to CTV.

Of course, Liberals are by no means out of the running, and are still favored to hold on to power. They lead in the national and key provincial polls, and have a solid record on which to run: 400,000 new jobs since the beginning of 2004, 8 budget surpluses in a row, the lowest unemployment rate since 1975, and a booming economy.

But looking towards 2006 and 2008, Republicans won’t have a record nearly that strong to run on. What they will have is a record of corruption that surely rivals that of Canadian Liberals. The lesson for Democrats is that while scandal may tarnish the opposition, anger and revulsion is not enough to win an election. No matter where they live, people want national leadership that can offer a vision of where the country should be going, and that is unencumbered by the battles of the past. For instance, arguing about what went wrong with the intelligence leading up to the war is important; but it’s politically worthless if Democrats can’t put forward a plan to stabilize Iraq and present a coherent view of America’s proper role in the world. Sweeping the bums out is not enough: You must say what you will do once you occupy the capital. And if the vision offered is neither in sync with the times nor the underlying public philosophy of the country, it will go nowhere–no matter the depth of the opposition’s misdeeds.

Canadian Conservatives learned this lesson in 2004. Now they will try to use the politics of reform to dislodge one of the most successful political parties in Anglo-American history. If they pull it off, Democrats in Washington may come to see this strategy as a roadmap to victory in 2008–and the best thing to come out of Canada since their beloved Nationals.

Kenneth Baer , former Senior Speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore and author of Reinventing Democrats: The Politics of Liberalism from Reagan to Clinton, runs Baer Communications, a Democratic consulting firm.

latimes.com

IRAQ’S SUNNI, SHIITE AND KURDISH leaders have finally found an issue on which they agree: a timetable for the U.S. to leave Iraq. That’s fine. They have also agreed it’s permissible for insurgents to kill U.S. soldiers. That’s dreadful. But it’s also the realization of prewar fears that if the aftermath of the invasion went poorly, American troops would be viewed not as liberators but as occupiers.

The politicians did not spell out an exact date for U.S. troops to leave. That may be the reason the White House so far has not linked them to filmmaker Michael Moore, as it did 10 days ago in smearing decorated combat veteran Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) when he called for a immediate withdrawal of troops.

Although President Bush long ago declared victory in Iraq — remember that “Mission Accomplished” banner? — both the fighting and the administration’s campaign against its critics continue at a torrid pace. The death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq topped 2,100 in the same week that Vice President Dick Cheney called some critics of the war “dishonest and reprehensible.”

Like the vice president, we welcome an “energetic debate” about the war and its aims. But we reject his attempt to set its terms. Our view continues to be that the administration should announce specific goals and timetables — and mete out the consequences if they are not met.

On the ground in Iraq

When the Iraqis began meeting last weekend in Cairo (much safer than anywhere in Iraq) a suicide bomber back home killed 36 Shiite mourners in a funeral procession. Hours earlier, a car bomb killed 13 people in a market near Baghdad. The previous day, suicide bombers killed at least 80 people at two mosques. This is not what Pentagon officials mean when they say they see progress in Iraq.

Murtha was right to say U.S. forces in Iraq “have become the target.” Gen. George W. Casey, the top commander in Iraq, made that assessment two months ago, saying the presence of an occupying army was “one of the elements that fuels the insurgency.” Yet Casey has also predicted “fairly substantial reductions” of troops next year if the December parliamentary elections go smoothly and if Iraqi security forces continue to increase. The number of American troops has risen in the last few months from 138,000 to nearly 160,000.

Despite the periodic increases in troop strength, the insurgency shows no sign of waning. The number of trained Iraqi troops also fluctuates; earlier this year, U.S. generals said three units had attained the highest state of readiness, but months later they downgraded the number to one.

Murtha’s call to get U.S. troops out of Iraq within six months is off the mark. Setting a date would give insurgents the opportunity of waiting out famously impatient Americans. Yet it is clear that the U.S. military presence in Iraq cannot be open-ended. The administration needs to set specific goals for progress in Iraq and timetables to meet them, especially in such essential areas as oil exports, electricity supply and, above all, trained Iraqi soldiers and police.

A commitment without end makes no more sense now than during the Vietnam War. A premature withdrawal is likely to exacerbate the civil war that is already underway. But staying in the absence of progress is lunacy; it is not a refusal to “cut and run.” The Senate this month finally got around to passing a resolution to require quarterly progress reports on the war from the administration. It also urged that 2006 be the year of a transition to Iraqi sovereignty that would allow the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

On the ground in America

The vote shows that members of Congress are feeling the heat from constituents upset by a $200-billion bill and thousands of deaths. Iraq should be part of the debate during next year’s congressional elections. And part of that discussion should be what the U.S. knew (and when) before it went to war.

Last Sunday’s Times report on the Iraqi informant with the apt nickname “Curveball” was a devastating portrait of the deeply flawed prewar intelligence constantly promoted by the administration as it lined up the tanks, planes and troops in 2003. The report quoted German intelligence officials as saying they warned U.S. colleagues of the unreliability of Curveball, a defector who was critical to the administration’s claims that Saddam Hussein possessed biological weapons. If those red flags did not get to top officials, who hid them? Who’s accountable?

Cheney’s speech on Monday worked in the usual reference to 9/11 in the same sentence as Hussein. Yet once again it’s necessary to point out that Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. The vice president also cited the prewar declarations from many nations that Hussein probably had the most devastating weapons. But he neglected to say that Hussein at the eleventh hour allowed U.N. weapons inspectors into the country, that the initial inspections turned up nothing and that the administration refused to wait for more complete searches.

Only after the successful military campaign did the thorough search occur; as everyone now knows, Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. That was the selling point for the war. Later justifications of removing the dictator and transforming the nation into a beacon of democracy shining throughout the Middle East were runners-up in the explanation derby.

The administration used too few troops for postwar reconstruction, misunderstood how occupation forces would be viewed, did not dispatch enough who understood the language and culture and refused to listen to those experienced in nation building.

The world understood the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, the source of the 9/11 attacks. The Iraq war has squandered the goodwill. A survey of 16 nations in June found the U.S. “remains broadly disliked” in most countries surveyed, with the Muslim world “quite negative.” Even more ominous was another survey that found 42% of Americans agreeing that the U.S. should “mind its own business internationally” and let other countries do as best they can.

Americans need to understand that we need help from other nations and are more likely to get it if we offer assistance as well. The longer suicide bombers devastate Iraq and U.S. troops die with little signs of progress, the greater will be the cry to withdraw no matter the result. The U.S. needs to tell Iraqis we will be gone before too much longer, although we won’t yet say just when. And the administration needs to shore up its own credibility with Americans to maintain their support for this nation’s engagement in world affairs.
see original

By MAUREEN DOWD

In the vice president’s new, more fortified bunker, inside his old undisclosed secure location within the larger bunker that used to be called the West Wing of the White House, Dick Cheney was muttering and sputtering.

He wasn’t talking to the pictures on the wall, as Nixon did when he finally cracked. Vice doesn’t trust those portraits anyway. The walls have ears. He was talking to the only reliable man in a city of dimwits, cowards, traitors and fools: himself.

He hurled a sheaf of news reports with such force it knocked over the picture of Ahmad Chalabi that he keeps next to the picture of Churchill. Winston Chalabi, he likes to call him.

Vice is fed up with all the whining and carping – and that’s just inside the White House. The only negativity in Washington is supposed to be his own. He’s the only one allowed to scowl and grumble and conspire.

The impertinent Tom DeFrank reported in New York’s Daily News that embattled White House aides felt “President Bush must take the reins personally” to save his presidency.

Let him try, Cheney said with a sneer. Things are nowhere near dire enough for that. Even if Junior somehow managed to grab the reins to his presidency, Vice holds Junior’s reins. So he just needs to get all these sniveling, poll-driven wimps and losers back on board with the master plan.

Things had been going so smoothly. The global torture franchise was up and running. Halliburton contracts were flowing. Tax cuts were sailing through. Oil companies were raking it in. Alaska drilling was thrillingly close. The courts were defending his executive privilege on energy policy, and people were still buying all that smoke about Saddam’s being responsible for 9/11, and that drivel about how we’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here. Everything was groovy.

But not anymore. Cheney could not believe that Karl had made him go out and call that loudmouth Jack Murtha a patriot. He was sure the Pentagon generals had put the congressman up to calling for a withdrawal from Iraq. Is the military brass getting in touch with its pacifist side? In Wyoming, Vice shoots doves.

How dare Murtha suggest that Cheney dodged and dodged and dodged and dodged and dodged the draft? Murtha thinks he knows about war just because he served in one and was a marine for 37 years? Vice started his own war. Now that’s a credential!

It always goes this way with the cut-and-run crowd. First they start nitpicking the war, complaining about little things like the lack of armor for the troops. Then they complain that there aren’t enough troops. Well, that would just require more armor that we don’t have. Then they kvetch about using incendiary weapons in a city like Falluja. Vice likes the smell of white phosphorus in the morning.

What really enrages him is all the Republicans in the Senate making noises about timetables. Before you know it, it’s going to be helicopters on the rooftop at the Baghdad embassy.

Just because Junior’s approval ratings are in the 30’s, people around here are going all wobbly. Vice was 10 points lower and he wasn’t worried. Numbers are for sissies.

Why do Harry Reid and his Democratic turncoats think they can call the White House on the carpet? Do they think Vice would fear to lie about lying about the rationale for going to war? A real liar never stops lying.

He didn’t want to have to tell the rest of the senators to go do to themselves what he had told Patrick Leahy to go do to himself.

Now all these idiots are getting caught, even Scooter. DeLay’s on the ropes and the Dukester is a total embarrassment, spending bribes on antique commodes and a Rolls-Royce. Vice should never have let an amateur get involved with defense contracts.

Republican moderates are running scared in the House, worried about re-election. Even senators seem to have forgotten which side their bread is oiled on. Ted Stevens let oil company executives get caught lying about the energy task force meeting, while Vice can’t even get a little thing like torture chambers through the Senate. What’s so wrong with a little torture?

And now John Warner wants Junior to use fireside chats to explain his plan for Iraq. When did everybody get the un-American idea that the president is answerable to America?

Vice is fed up with the whining of squirrelly surrogates like Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Wilkerson on behalf of peaceniks like George Senior and Colin Powell. If Poppy’s upset about his kid’s mentor, he should be man enough to come slug it out.

Poppy isn’t getting Junior back, Vice vowed, muttering: “He’s my son. It’s my war. It’s my country.”

(And the bad news is: this man is our vice president.)

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

The Abu Ghraib images were bad enough.

There they were, fresh-faced American soldiers presiding over the systematic torture and humiliation of Iraqis with big smiles and thumbs up. There was the Iraqi corpse, wrapped in a bag and festooned with blood, and a toothsome female American soldier grinning like a kid at Christmas as she leaned over the body. There was the man menaced by a dog being restrained on a leash by an American soldier, and there was the same man in a subsequent photo with a huge, bloody chunk ripped out of his leg.

Now we have these videos, these so-called Aegis videos, allegedly showing contractors in Iraq driving the road between Baghdad and the airport. In the video, men speaking with Irish or Scottish accents use an assault rifle to indiscriminately blast other cars on the road. The video shows cars peppered with bullets careening to and fro, crashing into each other and rolling into the trees. In the background, Elvis Presley can be heard singing “Mystery Train.”

The UK Telegraph, reporting on the video, states, “The video, which first appeared on a website that has been linked unofficially to Aegis Defence Services, contained four separate clips, in which security guards open fire with automatic rifles at civilian cars. All of the shooting incidents apparently took place on ‘route Irish’, a road that links the airport to Baghdad.”

“The video first appeared on the website www.aegisIraq.co.uk,” continued the Telegraph. “The website states: ‘This site does not belong to Aegis Defence Ltd, it belongs to the men on the ground who are the heart and soul of the company.’ The clips have been removed.”

The road where these videotaped attacks took place, continued the Telegraph report, “has acquired the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous in the world because of the number of suicide attacks and ambushes carried out by insurgents against coalition troops. In one four-month period earlier this year it was the scene of 150 attacks.”

That last paragraph begs the obvious question: who exactly is doing the attacking along route Irish, and elsewhere in Iraq for that matter? The fact that this unspeakable act was captured on video, soundtrack and all, does not in any way preclude the probability that this was not the first time a non-Iraqi decided to pass the time by slaughtering innocent people.

An investigation into the substance of this video is onging.

Indeed, there is a substantial body of evidence to suggest that private security contractors in Iraq (who can simply be called mercenaries once we dispense with the euphemisms), who operate beyond any rules or controls, have often engaged in attacks upon Iraqi civilians. One such body of evidence is, in fact, a body.

His name was Ted Westhusing, and he was a colonel in the US Army. A scholar of military ethics and a full professor at West Point, Westhusing volunteered to serve in Iraq in 2004 because he believed the experience would help him teach his students the meaning of honor in uniform. Once in Iraq, he was tasked to oversee a private security company from Virginia called USIS, which had received a $79 million contract to train Iraqi police in special operations.

As the months passed, Westhusing’s mood darkened. He received reports that USIS contractors and their Iraqi trainees were killing Iraqi civilians, and that USIS was ripping off the US government by deliberately shorting the number of trainees in the fold so as to increase profits. Westhusing the ethicist became despondent, finding no honor whatsoever in his Iraq service.

One day in June, Westhusing’s body was found in a trailer with a bullet wound to the head. His service pistol was found beside him, along with a note. “I cannot support a mission that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars. I am sullied,” the note read. “I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. Death before being dishonored any more.”

Westhusing’s body was flown home to the United States, where it was greeted by his wife, Michelle, and an unidentified lieutenant colonel who had befriended Westhusing at West Point. The lieutenant colonel asked Michelle what had happened to her husband. She replied, simply, “Iraq.”

An Army investigation into the allegations raised against USIS is ongoing.

Highly-paid mercenaries are not the only ones who are apparently indiscriminately killing Iraqi civilians. The New York Times editorial board, in an article titled ‘Shake and Bake,’ published on Tuesday, felt the need to scold the US military for using horrific chemical weapons in battle – weapons that reportedly have caused serious civilian casualties.

“White phosphorus, which dates to World War II, should have been banned generations ago,” wrote the Times. “Packed into an artillery shell, it explodes over a battlefield in a white glare that can illuminate an enemy’s positions. It also rains balls of flaming chemicals, which cling to anything they touch and burn until their oxygen supply is cut off. They can burn for hours inside a human body. But white phosphorus has made an ugly comeback. Italian television reported that American forces used it in Fallujah last year against insurgents.”

“At first,” continued the Times, “the Pentagon said the chemical had been used only to illuminate the battlefield, but had to backpedal when it turned out that one of the Army’s own publications talked about using white phosphorus against insurgent positions, a practice well known enough to have one of those unsettling military nicknames: ’shake and bake.’ The Pentagon says white phosphorus was never aimed at civilians, but there are lingering reports of civilian victims. The military can’t say whether the reports are true and does not intend to investigate them, a decision we find difficult to comprehend.”

The charges against Aegis have not been proven. The charges against USIS have not been proven. The charge that the US military aimed white phosphorous chemical weapons at civilians has not been proven. In each instance, however, the charges are supported by substantial evidence.

Journalist Seymour Hersh, in a recent New Yorker article titled ‘Up In the Air,’ described the administration’s view of the spiraling madness taking place in Iraq. He recounts the comments of a former defense official who served in Bush’s first term. According to Hersh, “‘The President is more determined than ever to stay the course,’” the former defense official said. “‘He doesn’t feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage “People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.”‘”

“He said that the President had become more detached,” continued Hersh, “leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney.” “‘They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,’” the former defense official said. Bush’s public appearances, for example, are generally scheduled in front of friendly audiences, most often at military bases. Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war, was limited to similar public forums. “‘Johnson knew he was a prisoner in the White House,’” the former official said, “‘but Bush has no idea.’”

We are all prisoners on this mystery train. God only knows where it will lead.

original article

From today’s White House pool report:

Scott gaggled on AF1 and yes, he gave a preview of tomorrow’s speech on the war. Among the hightlights [sic], the WH will be releasing an unclassified “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.” He said they hope to have it out by 6:30 a.m.

Question: Shouldn’t we have had a “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” before the war started?
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WASHINGTON – More than 2 1/2 years into the Iraq war, Donald H. Rumsfeld has decided the enemy are not insurgents.

“This is a group of people who don’t merit the word `insurgency,’ I think,” Rumsfeld said Tuesday at a Pentagon news conference. He said the thought had come to him suddenly over the Thanksgiving weekend.

“It was an epiphany.”

Rumsfeld’s comments drew chuckles but had a serious side.

“I think that you can have a legitimate insurgency in a country that has popular support and has a cohesiveness and has a legitimate gripe,” he said. “These people don’t have a legitimate gripe.” Still, he acknowledged that his point may not be supported by the standard definition of `insurgent.’ He promised to look it up.

Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines the term “insurgent” as “rising up against established authority.”

Even Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who stood beside Rumsfeld at the news conference, found it impossible to describe the fighting in Iraq without twice using the term `insurgent.’

After the word slipped out the first time, Pace looked sheepishly at Rumsfeld and quipped apologetically, “I have to use the word `insurgent’ because I can’t think of a better word right now.”

Without missing a beat, Rumsfeld replied with a wide grin: “Enemies of the legitimate Iraqi government. How’s that?”
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Sy Hersh went on the Today show and spoke about his latest article in The New Yorker. He really has some unique insight into this mess we call the Iraq War. Nevada Thunder posted his article the other day.

Click here to read his article.

Click here to view Sy on the Today show

side note: didn’t we hear the VP tell the world in late May of this year that the insurgency was in “its last throes”? hmmm, i don’t think much progress has been made since then. we now have a new group in iraq that is taking responsibilty for the latest kidnappings. things are not getting better in iraq, even though the white house keeps telling us we’re winning and making progress….sounds awefully familiar to what we, the American people, were told during the vietnam war.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Al-Jazeera broadcast an insurgent video Tuesday showing four peace activists taken hostage in Iraq, with a previously unknown group claiming responsibility for the kidnappings.

The Swords of Righteousness Brigade said the four were spies working undercover as Christian peace activists, Al-Jazeera said. The station said it could not verify any of the information on the tape.

The aid group Christian Peacemaker Teams has confirmed that four of its members were taken hostage Saturday.

German TV broadcast photos Tuesday showing a blindfolded German woman being led away by armed captors in Iraq. Six Iranian pilgrims, meanwhile, were abducted by gunmen north of Baghdad.

The pictures of Susanne Osthoff were taken from a video in which her captors demanded that Germany stop any dealings with Iraq’s government, according to Germany’s ARD television. Germany has ruled out sending troops to Iraq and opposed the U.S.-led war.

Two U.S. soldiers assigned to Task Force Baghdad were killed when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb north of the capital, the U.S. command said. At least 2,109 members of the U.S. military have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

A suicide car bomber killed eight Iraqi soldiers and wounded five more when he drove into an army patrol Tuesday in Tarmiyah, 30 miles north of Baghdad, police Lt. Ali Hussein said. A U.S. Army medical helicopter helped evacuate the wounded, he added.

original article

side note: Perhaps a Freudian slip?
Salt Lake Tribune

WASHINGTON – Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, flubbed Monday and referred to Iraq as Vietnam while commenting on Fox News against an immediate troop withdrawal.
“The Democratic Party seems to be taken over by the Michael Moore contingent in their attitude toward Vietnam, and they continually call for a withdrawal of troops at a time when we haven’t finished the job,” Hatch said on the network’s morning show. Hatch’s spokesman acknowledged the error, which was first reported on the American Prospect Web log.
Spokesman Peter Carr said the Utah senator had been reading a magazine article that referred to analogies between the Iraq and Vietnam wars and misstated what he meant to say.
A transcript of the interview provided by Congressional Quarterly replaced “Vietnam” with “Iraq,” without any mention of a correction. A CQ subsidiary later acknowledged making a mistake in the transcription and the actual version of the comments was later posted.
– Thomas Burr

original article

Side note: This is why you have to pay attention and not get too lost in “your” side, because anyone can be bought. But what I think is important is we search for these SOB’s like Abramoff who are basically infecting our political system. There are a lot like him and the GOP led congress has made it easier for these guys to survive and most importantly thrive.

By JOHN SOLOMON

WASHINGTON – New evidence is emerging that the top Democrat on the Senate committee currently investigating Jack Abramoff got political money arranged by the lobbyist back in

A lawyer for the Louisiana Coushatta Indians told The Associated Press that Abramoff instructed the tribe to send $5,000 to Sen. Byron Dorgan’s political group just three weeks after the North Dakota Democrat urged fellow senators to fund a tribal school program Abramoff’s clients wanted to use.

The check was one of about five dozen the Coushattas listed in a tribal ledger as being issued on March 6, 2002, to various lawmakers’ campaigns and political causes at the instruction of Abramoff, tribal attorney Jimmy Faircloth said Monday.

Many of the recipients were lawmakers who had just written letters to the Bush administration or Congress supportive of Abramoff’s tribal causes, documents show.

“I am confident of that fact,” Faircloth said when asked whether Abramoff had requested the donations listed in a tribal ledger obtained by the AP.

The revelation came as Dorgan took to the offensive Monday, saying there was no connection between the $20,000 in donations he got from Abramoff’s firm and tribal clients in spring 2002 and a February 2002 letter he wrote urging the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund the tribal school building program.

Dorgan’s letter noted that the Mississippi Choctaw, one of Abramoff’s clients, had successfully used the program and requested lawmakers consider long-term funding for it. It made no mention of Abramoff or any of his other tribes that were interested in the program.

Dorgan sharply criticized an AP story last week that divulged he and about a dozen other lawmakers had gotten Abramoff-related donations around the time they sent letters supporting the school building program.

Dorgan told a news conference in North Dakota he had never met Abramoff, did not know about the donations from the lobbyist’s clients around the time of his letter and saw no reason to step aside from the Senate Indian Affairs committee investigation of Abramoff.
see rest of article