The Price of War, Ctd

Here is an update on the little girl who didn't want to let her daddy's hand go. Best wishes to them and to everyone serving in uniform.

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More Fail

I can just see the rightie blogs now: More Epic Fail From The Obama Administration!!! 

This is, of course, good news and it seems that slowly but surely we will extract ourselves from Iraq. I only hope that the current relative peace and stability remains intact. 

Shoe Fly, Don't Bother Me

Apparently they've run out of candy and flowers in Iraq.

An Iraqi television journalist hurled two shoes at President Bush on Sunday during a joint news conference Bush was holding with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to mark the signing of a U.S.-Iraq security agreement.

The Gap: A Tale of Fashion and Folly

Things have gotten better in Iraq? Sure, so long as you aren't a woman.

We have got a gap inside the Iraqi community. A gap between people of the same generation, I mean between those who fled the violence and traveled out of Iraq after 2003, and these who stayed in the country.

The people who left Iraq cannot imagine what happened, they only have the barest idea, and they have not seen and lived the Islamist style of life.

The current government won't be much help in holding back the forces of fundamentalism. The current group holds largely due to the support of Islamist factions like that controlled by Sistani. (And he's the moderate when compared to Sadr? This is NOT good news.) Let's see how the provincial elections go early next year.

(h/t Sullivan)

PWNED!

Fox News continues its stellar reporting on how well things are going in Iraq. Fucking Awesome!

Oy! McCain's moving target for withdrawal from Iraq

Why is Scott McClellan's Book News?

That question, asked and answered at Nukes & Spooks.

But the responses to McClellan from the Bush administration and media bigwigs, history-bending as they are, compel us to jump in. As we like to say around here, it's truth to power time, not just for the politicians but also for some folks in our own business.

The stellar performance of McClatchy journalists is undeniable, and they deserve our thanks for reporting, and asking the tough questions, while the major networks and the so-called liberal media were sucking their collective thumbs.

When McClellan pledges all income from this endeavor to the victims of his boss's war crimes I should be quite happy to entertain the notion we "need" men like him. Men with a front row seat, as it were, to tell us what happened. I know what happened! We were lied into a misbegotten war for no good reason. And now, more than 4000 dead Americans, score of thousands of dead Iraqis cry out from the grave for justice. McClellan was the willing mouthpiece of an administration filled with war criminals. We might spare him the gallows for his treachery, but his puppetmasters deserve no such leniency.

Tired of the War? Clinton Says Vote for Obama if You Answered Yes.

Remember that viral video of Clinton's "sniper fire" incident? The Jed Report is back with this takedown of her Iraq War vote and subsequent non-apology.

New Blood

Freshly minted Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA) received a spirited welcome from the Republican side of the aisle when she spoke out about the Iraq war during her first speech from the floor. A response to this question is in order:

"Why are they booing my mother?" Speier's middle-school daughter Stephanie asked, according to a staffer.

Because she's right and they don't like it. Stephanie you should be very proud of your mother, and the surly fellows booing her know it.

A Simple Request

Todd Gitlin has a very fine little request of the New York Times:

But would it be too much to ask that the paper publish a single sophisticated, full-length antiwar argument by someone who was not only right when it counted but who now elaborates on past rightness to sketch a postwar foreign policy?

Being right in the first place was a fairly simple proposition. The facts were not with the Administration, and much of the data was readily available to anyone curious enough to do some research. Those not put off by Colin Powell's self-immolation before the UN were exercising what every theater goer does: the willing suspension of disbelief. Most of what Powell said during that briefing was at best laughable. But the aluminum tubes were the dead give away to anyone working in the field of Nuclear Proliferation and nuclear enrichment.

Houston Wood was a consultant who worked on the Oak Ridge analysis of the tubes. He watched Powell’s speech, too.

“I guess I was angry, that’s the best way to describe my emotions. I was angry at that,” says Wood, who is among the world’s authorities on uranium enrichment by centrifuge. He found the tubes couldn’t be what the CIA thought they were. They were too heavy, three times too thick and certain to leak.

"Wasn't going to work. They would have failed," says Wood, who reached that conclusion back in 2001.

Thielmann reported to Secretary Powell’s office that they were confident the tubes were not for a nuclear program. Then, about a year later, when the administration was building a case for war, the tubes were resurrected on the front page of The New York Times.

Although not working directly in that particular field I suspected that Powell was wrong. One quick email confirmed my suspicion.

The NYT, and other establishment media sources, have disgraced themselves and know they were not objective. In fact some of them (Judith Miller, being the obvious example) have traded journalistic objectivity for access. They now spin (not unlike the very politicians they want access to) to perform a bit of CYA.

Now, belatedly, so many of the mea culpas from the previously pro-war crowd seem to be saying that they will "trust, but verify" next time.

Tell that to the family and friends of the 4000 dead Americans. Tell that to the family and friends of the scores of thousands of dead Iraqis.

Abolish the Company

Hitch makes a rational case that the Company has been at the center of most major intelligence failures since it inception.

Despite a string of exposures going back all the way to the Church Commission, the CIA cannot rid itself of the impression that it has the right to subvert the democratic process both abroad and at home. Its criminality and arrogance could perhaps have been partially excused if it had ever got anything right, but, from predicting the indefinite survival of the Soviet Union to denying that Saddam Hussein was going to invade Kuwait, our spymasters have a Clouseau-like record, one that they have earned yet again with their exculpation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He also makes a judicious and convincing case for the abolition of the CIA.

It was after the grotesque estimate of continued Soviet health and prosperity that the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued that the CIA should be abolished. It is high time for his proposal to be revived. The system is worse than useless—it's a positive menace. We need to shut the whole thing down and start again.

I don't know what we would replace it with, but a complete rethinking of our civilian intelligence gathering operations is certainly in order.

Success and Failure in a Time of Misbegotten Neverending War

More good and bad news from Iraq.

First the good news: Our military continues to perform with great success! They have accomplished each assigned task with incredible bravery, skill and professionalism. Thanks to everyone who serves.

Now the bad news: The American civilian continues to "under perform." No political progress in sight and Sunnis in some areas may still have links to Al Qaeda in Iraq:

Soldiers from the 4-64th said that the Sunni volunteers rarely offer tips on al Qaida and that they also have doubts about their loyalties.

"I think most of them are al Qaida or at least linked," said 1st Lt. Brendon McGann, 24, of Bethesda, Md. "They only give us Shiite JAM targets," he added, using the acronym for the Mahdi Army's Arabic name.

It's unclear how much the Americans know about their new partners. One volunteer, Maj. Mohammed Khalid, led the Americans to a roadside bomb that was carefully hidden under a blast wall that separates Saidiyah from the Sunni-dominated neighborhood of Dora. Asked how he knew it was there, he responded, "I have my sources."

How will a weak, Shia dominated parliament settle differences with the Sunni parliament members who have no control over Sunni militias run by former Baathist Officers? The former Baathists have zero incentive to do anything. They have not been defeated. Period. Local militias, with the blessing of US military commanders, have routed out most of the AQI elements, but they have not defeated the militias run by former Baathist generals. Therein lies the rub.

Why would these Sunni militias lay down the weapons that have served them so well?

Until the Jordanians, Saudis, and Syrians are brought in to pressure the Sunni militias, and the Iranians pressures its Shia constituency we have zero hope of ever leaving Iraq. Period.

If indeed we get all these parties involved, the US still has no guarantee that the shit won’t hit the fan when we leave.

And … the Kurds. What about our “allies” in Northern Iraq? They exponentially complicate the calculus. Which is unfortunate, because the people currently running the Executive Branch can’t even do simple arithmetic.

I have little faith in the Diplomatic skills of the Former Cheerleader and his Gang of War Criminals. Condi Rice poked her head up from her foxhole recently, but she’s still out gunned by the Twelve Sandwich Eating War Criminal with a Pacemaker. She is no match for him and David Addington. (New England Patriots versus Miami Dolphins,as it were.)

Jesus Babbling Christ! Will somebody please tell these deadenders the military options can go on until Sisyphus pushes that fucking boulder up the hill and we won’t straighten out the Iraq Abortion until we get some competent goddamn diplomats in the mix!

Conventional Wisdom and the Surge

Of late, it seems the Conventional Wisdom is that the surge is working. Ken Silverstein found an expert who says not so fast. The Surge of troops to quell the violence in Iraq may coincide with other efforts, but is it the reason for the cessation? According to Douglas Macgregor who writes for the Straus Military Reform Project, the surge ain't all its cracked up to be, and its effects are dubious at best. Money quote:

One of the unspoken assumptions that underpins the “great awakening” is that U.S. occupation forces will place untold thousands of Sunni insurgents on the U.S. government’s payroll, which will allow them to rearm and recuperate inside Sunni-pure enclaves while U.S. forces open a new front in the war of occupation against the Shiite militias. The question now is whether the Shiite militias will launch the kind of campaign against U.S. forces that the Sunnis waged for nearly four years.

Pretty depressing. What hath the Former Cheerleader wrought? The neverending war may be an understatement, if that were actually possible, at this stage of his unnecessary war.

Support the Troops

This is how you win a war. Make sure soldiers fighting your stupid fucking war with no end return signing bonuses when they can't complete their enlistments. Who cares if they couldn't complete the assignment due to service relates injuries.

The Bottom Line

Tyler Cowen writing in the Washington Post:

The bottom line is clear, Mr. President: The more you worried about the unchecked spread of doomsday weapons, the stronger you thought the case was for war in the first place. But precisely because you had a point about the need to stop nuclear proliferation, you must now realize that the costs of a failed war are far higher than you've acknowledged.

Mismanagement.Unrealistic war plan. No exit strategy. Ineffective or non-existent political plan. Wrong at every turn. This from the President who was hailed as having one of the most experienced cabinets in modern American history. These filthy criminals traded short-term political gain for effective planning. Lying, treacherous bastards--each and everyone of them.

Military Intelligence

Looks like Glenn Greenwald's buddy Colonel Steve has got quite an attitude problem when it comes to dealing with media. Whoa! The Colonel needs to have a sip of Wild Turkey and chill the fuck out.

The Political Minefield of a Political Military

Our Constitution and liberal democracy are skating on thin ice with the former Cheerleader and his gang of punks in charge of our military. Glenn Greenwald reports an interesting email exchange with a Petraeus aide. The Colonel needs an attitude adjustment. A few years in Leavenworth will take care of that.

Bad News

This is not good news. The Turkish Air Force struck suspected PKK hideouts in Northern Iraq earlier today.

Too Much of Too Few

The great Joe Galloway nails it today with this piece. This should send shudders down your spine:

A total of 35 percent of the West Point Class of 2000 left the Army in 2005; 46 percent of the Class of 2001 left in 2006, and a staggering 58 percent of the Class of 2002 left active duty when their obligation expired this year.

Those figures are mirrored among officers who are commissioned through university ROTC programs, with attrition rates now at a 30-year high. The Army Reserve reports that the situation is even worse for critical ranks and specialties: The Reserve has only 58 percent of the sergeants first class it needs, 53 percent of the needed captains and 74 percent of needed majors.

He continues on noting that in the enlisted ranks bonuses have increased and standards lowered for enlistment. What these people are doing to our Army is a goddamn disgrace. Bush and his pack of war criminals and scalawags are not worthy of the offices the hold.

Could It Really Be?

I hope this Andrew Sullivan reader; quoted in a post on Sullivan's blog, is not just someone hoping for the best. Anyone who reads this blog knows most of my screeds are about the former Cheerleader and his band of thugs. But I must say that IF we are really seeing the beginning of the end of this disaster in Iraq it can only be considered fantastic news. Are the Iraqis finally pulling themselves out of the violence and misery? I hope so. America needs this positive news for the sake of our troops. With that said; I am unconvinced that this is not some kind of lull or other shift before the violence sky-rockets again, but this might be the FIRST truly hopeful news to come from that hell hole created by our unnecessary invasion. Even a blind squirrel finds a few acorns, even if the that squirrel is named Dubya.

A flicker of hope on my part. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Iraqis standing up for Iraqis is the only way the war will come to any conclusion that comes out on the positive side of the ledger for the United States. Our military has performed spectacularly and done everything asked of them. Unfortunately, they can't force the competing sectarian groups to hold hands and sing Kubayah. But maybe, just maybe, the enough tribal leaders have seen the destruction wreaked on them by AQI so they can accept the help of American Forces. Today's report that Shia leaders travelled to Sunni dominated Ramadi is more good news that the War may have turned a very important corner.

So far the news is mixed.