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Epic Optics Fail

Sure, that’s a great idea to publicly embrace a company whose reputation is so corrupt and bloody that it had to CHANGE ITS NAME.  How could that possibly backfire?

The Republican National Committee plans to hold an April fundraiser at a Moyock, N.C. compound owned by the military contracting firm formerly known as Blackwater, Politico reports.

According to an RNC fundraising document uncovered on Wednesday, RNC “Young Eagles” — party major donors under 40 — will meet at the facility in the spring.

(…)

It was recently reported that Blackwater employees took hundreds of firearms from both the U.S. Mmilitary and Afghan police forces using the South Park alias “Eric Cartman.”

Brilliant!  Hey, maybe KBR can handle the lighting.

Add comment March 4th, 2010 at 08:30pm Posted by Eli

Rove Chides Self For Not Lying More Effectively

Poor Dubya – Karl really let him down:

While defending the administration’s handling of Iraq, Rove concedes that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction damaged the administration’s credibility. And he blames himself for failing to set the record straight.

“When the pattern of the Democratic attacks became apparent in July 2003, we should have countered in a forceful and overwhelming way,” he writes. “We should have seen this for what it was: a poison-tipped dagger aimed at the heart of the Bush presidency.”

If only he had done more to convince America that Iraq really did have WMDs.  Maybe he should have given Dubya’s little “Where are the WMDs?” sketch a happy ending or something.

Add comment March 4th, 2010 at 07:10am Posted by Eli

Chickens, Meet Roost

Hey, remember all those no-bid contracts to reconstruct Iraq, and all the shoddy work by connected profiteers like Halliburton & KBR?  The Iraqis do.

Iraq’s Baghdad Trade Fair ended Tuesday, six years and a trillion dollars after the American invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, and one country was conspicuously absent.

That would be the country that spent a trillion dollars — on the invasion and occupation, but also on training and equipping Iraqi security forces, and on ambitious reconstruction projects in every province aimed at rebuilding the country and restarting the economy.

Yet when the post-Saddam Iraqi government swept out its old commercial fairgrounds and invited companies from around the world, the United States was not much in evidence among the 32 nations represented. Of the 396 companies that exhibited their wares, “there are two or three American participants, but I can’t remember their names,” said Hashem Mohammed Haten, director general of Iraq’s state fair company….

(…)

American companies are not seeing much lasting benefit from their country’s investment in Iraq. Some American businesses have calculated that the high security costs and fear of violence make Iraq a business no-go area. Even those who are interested and want to come are hampered by American companies’ reputation here for overcharging and shoddy workmanship, an outgrowth of the first years of the occupation, and a lasting and widespread anti-Americanism.

Apparently the Iraqis are not stupid.  Who knew?

1 comment November 13th, 2009 at 07:01am Posted by Eli

Tom Kenniff Puts The “Jagoff” in “JAG Officer”

Epic Preparation Fail:

Probably not a good idea to ask a POW if they’ve ever been to Iraq.

8 comments November 6th, 2009 at 07:00am Posted by Eli

Tell Me Again Why I Voted For Obama

This is just horrrible:

The Obama administration has objected to a provision in the 2010 defense funding bill currently before the Senate that would bar the military’s use of contractors to interrogate detainees.

The provision, strongly backed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), describes interrogations as an “inherently governmental function” that “cannot be transferred to contractor personnel.” It would give the Defense Department one year from the bill’s enactment to ensure that the military had the resources to comply with it.

(…)

Obama and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates “are as serious as a heart attack on this,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.

Fantastic.  Because that whole contract interrogators idea worked out sooo well.

This moment, in which the Attorney General of the United States claims to be considering the possibility of allowing our laws against torture to be enforced seems a good one in which to reveal that I have seen over 1,200 torture photos and a dozen videos that are in the possession of the United States military. These are photographs depicting torture, the victims of torture, and other inhuman and degrading treatment. Several videos show a prisoner intentionally slamming his head face-first very hard into a metal door. Guards filmed this from several angles rather than stopping it.

(…)

Were these Abu Ghraib photos all made public, but those from other times and places kept hidden, and were we unaware of the executive orders, Justice Department memos, presidential signing statements, congressional reports, Red Cross reports, presidential and vice presidential televised confessions, and so forth, the military could still claim this was the isolated work of a few “bad apples”. But we would have a better understanding of what that work was. And making these images available to the public, or merely to a special prosecutor, would suggest an interest in seeking accountability for those responsible but not present in the photographs. On the other hand, hiding the evidence while prosecuting the soldiers who posed in some of the photos looks increasingly like scapegoating for the benefit of the Military Intelligence, CIA, and contractors who instructed the soldiers, as well as the commanders all the way up to the Secretary of Defense who encouraged torture, the lawyers who sought to provide immunity, and the president and vice president who gave the authorizations….

I very much hope that AG Holder is allowed to pursue his investigation into this, but given the administration’s stance on contractors, it’s pretty hard to imagine that he won’t find some excuse to avoid it, or else just quietly drop it or turn it into a whitewash.

Obama is doing a really piss-poor job of earning my trust.  In fact, at this point it would be more accurate to say that he’s earning my distrust.

Add comment July 16th, 2009 at 10:19am Posted by Eli

Franken Musings

1) The Coleman campaign kinda reminds me of the invasion of Iraq.  They declared victory prematurely, pissed off the natives, and poured massive quantities of money and resources down a black hole rather than admit defeat.  Of course, in this case the only fatalities were Norm’s political career, and maybe Tim Pawlenty’s.

2) Looking forward to the Republicans caterwauling about how the MN Supreme Court engaged in judicial activism by declaring the candidate with the most votes to be the winner.

3) Looking foward to Harry Reid explaining why you just can’t get anything done without 67 votes in the Senate.

2 comments June 30th, 2009 at 09:57pm Posted by Eli

Epic Messaging Fail

This is just foolish on so many levels:

Democrats plan a July 4th ad campaign to punish House Republicans who voted against the $100-plus billion Iraq and Afghanistan war supplemental — emulating GOP attacks against John Kerry and other Dems who voted against Bush war bills.

A series of 60-second radio ads will run during drive time from July 1 through July 8, according to a script provided to POLITICO — and they have the support-our-troops ring of GOP spots.

They’ll target seven Republicans seen as vulnerable in ‘10, including Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R-Pa..), Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), Mike McCaul (R-Texas), Lee Terry (R-Neb.) and Joe Wilson (R-S.C.).

The Terry script:

Around here, we recognize Independence Day with parades … and picnics … maybe a few fireworks. But July Fourth is about more than that.

It’s about remembering those who fought for our freedoms. And those still fighting today.

Congressman Lee Terry used to understand that.

When George Bush asked, Congressman Terry voted to fully fund our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And, last year he said, quote, “We must give our military every resource it needs.”

Seems like Congressman Terry is playing politics now …

Last month Congressman Terry voted AGAINST funding for those same troops.

It’s true: vote No. 348 – you can look it up.

“Republicans never hesitated to criticize those who voted against the previous supplemental bills that included funding for the troops, but now that they are trying to score political points, Republicans’ votes have conveniently changed,” said DCCC executive director Jon Vogel.

Yes, I appreciate the “Were you lying then or are you lying now” gotcha here, but do the Democrats really want to brand themselves as the Stay-In-Iraq-Forever Party?  They could have easily circumvented that pitfall – and secured a lot more progressive Democrat votes – by simply including a withdrawal timeline, but they didn’t, and I still don’t understand why.  After all, Obama did provide such a timeline during his presidential campaign, is it no longer operative now?  Why raise doubts about his stated commitment to get us out of Iraq, especially when it came so close to making the supplemental unpassable?

Of course, even if the supplemental hadn’t been written by morons ($108 billion to bail out the IMF?  WTF?), we’re still left with the Democratic Party embracing the GOP’s voting-against-war-funding/war-prolonging-is-like-personally-shooting-the-troops-in-the-head framing.  And while there is some poetic justice to seeing Republicans hoist by their own petard, it’s really not an argument our side should be validating.  I can’t wait to see the 2010 campaigns against Terry et al. where the Democratic challengers make a big deal about how the Republicans refused to vote to prolong the war.  I’m sure that’ll go over well.

Add comment June 27th, 2009 at 11:46am Posted by Eli

I Have Questions

Some things I’m wondering about today:

1) Considering that Iran’s presidency is rather circumscribed and the Ayatollahs are the ones calling the shots, why are they letting a contested election stir up revolutionary fervor like this?  The religious rulers used to allow toothless ineffectual moderates and “reformers” to be president to keep the people happy, why not now?  Do they like Ahmadinejad that much?  Do they want to send a message that their people haven’t gone soft over Obama?  Or is there something else at stake that I’m completely missing?  I just can’t believe that Ahmadinejad’s upside is worth the fire they’re playing with.

2) I know it’s kind of a moot point now, but since so many progressive representatives pledged not to vote for any Iraq supplemental that didn’t include a timeline for withdrawal… why didn’t Obama include one?  He already presented a 16-month timeframe for withdrawal during his campaign, so why not put it in the supplemental to make it easier for progressives to vote Yea?

3) How is it that the same Republicans who wailed about how the Democrats weren’t supporting our troops every time they voted against a supplemental are doing the exact same thing now that it’s a Democratic president asking for the money.  They’re still the same troops, right?

4) How is it that the possibility of 50-100 million people fleeing to a public healthcare plan the first chance they got is a flaw in the public option and not an indictment of the crapitude of our health insurance industry?

5) When do Sarah Palin’s 15 minutes end?

2 comments June 16th, 2009 at 09:20pm Posted by Eli

TARP Deja Vu

Does this sound… familiar to anyone?

From its inception, the TARP never made much sense. Forcing banks that did not need money to accept government bailouts was simply irrational.

The basis for the TARP went through several differing rationales — it began as a recapitalization of the major money center banks, then came the explanation of removing toxic assets, then it moved to freeing up credit and making banks lend again.

Its was $700 billion dollar pile of money in search of a justification for its existence.

So, in other words, it was a lot like the Iraqupation, only cheaper.

(Ritholtz’s theory, by the way, is that the whole thing was a smokescreen to bail out Citigroup.  Which I think is kinda paranoid – I think the goal was simply to give lots of money to the banking industry, but some of the recipients later decided that they didn’t need it, and that it was more trouble than it was worth.)

Add comment June 10th, 2009 at 07:04am Posted by Eli

The Most Important Legislation EVAR!

According to Joe Lieberman and his BFF Lindsey Graham, there is no higher legislative priority than ensuring that photographic evidence of war crimes never sees the light of day.

It is so heartwarming to see someone standing up for the torturers.  Truly, they are an inspiration to us all.

Add comment June 9th, 2009 at 09:18pm Posted by Eli

I Mean, Aside From That…

If only there were some way to reduce suicides among our combat troops – but how?

For more than two hours, Chiarelli, Army personnel chief Lt. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle and a roomful of other generals combed through the facts surrounding a dozen of the Army’s latest suicides, with commanders from Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and bases throughout the United States participating in a video teleconference.

Such meetings are one piece of a broader effort to arrest the Army’s rising suicide rate, which has surged to record levels in the past year. In 2008, 140 soldiers on active duty took their own lives, continuing a trend in which the number of suicides has increased more than 60 percent since 2003, surpassing the rate for the general U.S. population.

To deal with the problem, the Army has added to the ranks of mental health and substance abuse counselors. The service also required all units to cease operations for two to four hours to talk about suicide prevention in February and March.

Chiarelli’s monthly meetings are the Army’s way of sleuthing out patterns and identifying new policies to deal with the trend. In the most recent meeting, conducted last week, commanders were brutally candid about what went wrong — a mental health screener who missed signs of distress; the failure to take notice when a normally reliable infantryman with three combat tours didn’t show up for an Army school; the dangerous interactions of drugs, dispensed to help soldiers deal with combat stress, with caffeine and alcohol.

It’s too bad there isn’t some easily identifiable root cause behind this alarming trend…

Many soldiers are now in the midst of their third or fourth combat tour, and Army surveys show that mental health deteriorates with each one. Senior Army officials said they are focusing more resources, including extra mental health counselors, where troops are returning from multiple deployments. This year, Fort Campbell, Ky., which is home to the frequently deployed 101st Airborne Division, has had 14 suicides.

“We probably don’t know how many mental health care providers we need after eight years of war and three and four deployments,” Chiarelli said.

I guess it’ll always be a mystery.

(Am I the only one who thinks this is like reading about managers at an unshielded nuclear power plant trying to figure out how to reduce the incidences of cancer among their staff?)

1 comment May 23rd, 2009 at 12:18pm Posted by Eli

So Is That, Like, $1 Million Per Electrocution?

Well, this is disgusting yet unsurprising:

The U.S. Army paid “tens of millions of dollars in bonuses” to KBR Inc, its biggest contractor in Iraq, even after it concluded the firm’s electrical work had put U.S. soldiers at risk, according to a source close to a U.S. congressional investigation.

The Senate Democratic Policy Committee plans to hold a hearing on Wednesday to examine KBR’s operations in Iraq, and question why the Army rewarded the Houston-based company.

The panel says KBR has been linked to at least two, and as many as five, electrocution deaths of U.S. soldiers and contractors in Iraq due to “shoddy work.”

Investigators believe hundreds of other soldiers may have received electrical shocks, the source added. The Army is investigating.

(…)

Military reports have criticized KBR’s work in Iraq in recent years. Yet afterward, the company received “tens of millions of dollars in bonuses,” said the source, who declined to be identified.

“We want to know why,” the source said.

Um… bonuses are supposed to be a reward for exemplary work, right?  Perhaps the military has adopted the same standards as the corporate world applies to executives.  Electrocute some troops, run a company into the ground, good job, here’s your bonus.

I hope the committee invites some family members of troops who were electrocuted – I’m sure they’ll be very interested in hearing why that warranted a financial reward.

1 comment May 20th, 2009 at 11:54am Posted by Eli

Don’t Bogart That Suffering

And all this time, I thought suffering was a bad thing:

Suffering is a gift, not a problem.  It’s temporal happiness that’s a curse. When life is easy and unthreatened, the cancer of self-centered contentment can take over our spiritual life.  When that happens, suffering is the greatest gift that God can impart to us.

(…)

Isn’t it ironic that our happiness-seeking American culture is doing all in its power to avoid suffering–the true source of blessing?  We even do it through bailouts, and printing endless streams of fiat money. We want happiness without difficulty, the good life without pain.  But that pursuit will also mean life without God, character, heaven, or true peace. Self-centered worldly avoidance of pain is killing our spiritual and corporate life.  Only the gift of suffering can awaken us and point us to the true source of blessedness.

Okay, I’m sold: Suffering is Teh Awesome.  But why should its benefits be limited to ordinary citizens and those lucky duckies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Hellraiser movies?  Shouldn’t the upper classes be allowed to share in its blessings too?  Surely we owe them some tax increases at the very least.  True, it might deprive the lower and middle classes of some of their suffering, but they’ve had so much that they can afford to sacrifice a little for the sake of fairness.

And what about those noble heroes who have selflessly spread so much suffering to so many?  They’re entitled to a better reward than the curse of wealth, power, and permanent comfort.  Surely we can give the Masters Of The Universe who crashed the economy the gift of unemployment or at least steep pay cuts – maybe even jail time for the truly worthy.  And it would be churlish not to offer the torturers and war architects of the Bush administration prolonged prison sentences as a token of appreciation for all the concentrated suffering they’ve bestowed upon the world.

Of course, their natural modesty and humility will require them to protest this largesse as simply too generous, but we really must insist.  It’s the least we can do for them after all they’ve done for us.

It’s their due.

Add comment May 16th, 2009 at 01:39pm Posted by Eli

It’s Not A Bug, It’s A Feature

As I’ve said before, the fact that torture does not provide actionable intelligence was never a deterrent for the Bush administration, since they were a lot more interested in propagandizable intelligence.  False confessions are what torture gets you, and that’s just exactly what BushCo. wanted:

“There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used,” the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

“The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there.”

It was during this period that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaida detainees repeatedly — Abu Zubeida at least 83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times in March 2003 — according to a newly released Justice Department document.

Jim White actually speculated about this on Sunday, and now it’s confirmed.

Amazingly enough, Zubeida and KSM were able to resist – possibly because they had no idea what their torturers were talking about.  And in the end, it didn’t really matter, since we ended up invading Iraq anyway.

Add comment April 22nd, 2009 at 06:12am Posted by Eli

I Agree With Newt!

He may not be right in quite the way he thinks, but he’s right all right:

Reacting to President Barack Obama’s speech in Prague, Gingrich called the plan for a Global Summit on Nuclear Security a “wonderful fantasy idea,” saying Russia and other nations can’t be trusted.

“What are they going to promise, and why would we believe them?” Gingrich said. “It’s very dangerous to have a fantasy foreign policy, and it can get you in enormous trouble.”

That is so true.  Look what happened when we had a foreign policy based on the idea that you can bully, bluster, and invade countries to make them do anything you want.

Add comment April 5th, 2009 at 01:24pm Posted by Eli

Wanker Of The Day

Ari Fleischer is so wanky it makes my head spin:

In an interview set to air over the weekend on CNN’s D. L. Hughley Breaks the News, Ari Fleischer admits that the Bush administration was wrong to claim that Saddam Hussein had WMD in the lead up to the Iraq war, but still insists that Saddam was at fault for the war. “Saddam was the big liar here,” Fleischer concludes:

FLEISCHER: We were wrong about weapons of mass destruction being in Iraq. […]

HUGHLEY: When you found out that you were wrong, how did that make you feel?

FLEISCHER: You just scratch your head and say, “How could we be wrong?” It wasn’t just us that thought he had weapons of mass destruction. The Egyptians thought it, the French thought it, the Germans thought it the United Nations thought it, Bill Clinton’s CIA though it. We all thought it. Saddam was the big liar here.

Yeah, Saddam was a big fat liar who cunningly tricked the US into invading his country and executing him by saying that he didn’t have WMDs when, in reality… he didn’t have WMDs.  Brilliant.

Add comment February 22nd, 2009 at 03:23pm Posted by Eli

Democrats Are Not Parker Lewis

Funny how when they passed an Iraq funding bill that mandated a withdrawal timetable, Democrats were troop-hating obstructionists for passing a bill they knew Bush wouldn’t sign, but now Obama and the Democrats will be unreasonable failures if they can’t craft a workable stimulus bill that Republicans will vote for (which is probably an oxymoron).  In other words, regardless of who’s in power, Democrats’ responsibility is to give Republicans what they want.

This really is an ideal situation for the Republicans.  Their skillset is best suited to running the country into the ground, which is a political negative when they’re in control of the government, but a political positive when they aren’t.  As long as the media can sustain the narrative that everything that goes wrong is due to Obama’s failure of leadership and unwillingness to reach across the aisle to compromise with those oh-so-reasonable Republicans, the GOP could score big in 2010 and 2012, assuming that there’s still a United States left to regain control of.

Add comment February 4th, 2009 at 06:56pm Posted by Eli

Wait, Which Country Was He Talking About Again?

Dubya gets right to the heart of the problem in his farewell address:

The battles waged by our troops are part of a broader struggle between two dramatically different systems. Under one, a small band of fanatics demands total obedience to an oppressive ideology, condemns women to subservience, and marks unbelievers for murder. The other system is based on the conviction that freedom is the universal gift of Almighty God, and that liberty and justice light the path to peace.

I think he might be exaggerating a little bit about conservatives marking unbelievers for murder, but otherwise I think he’s spot on.

Add comment January 16th, 2009 at 09:45pm Posted by Eli

Wait… What?

Amid the usual pathetic attempt at legacy-laundering by – hmm, if it’s Tuesday it must be Condi, there was this bizarre little tidbit that she threw in as some kind of evidence of what a huge success Free Democratic Iraq is:

Arguing that Iraq shows signs of becoming an inclusive state – it even “declared Christmas a national holiday” — Rice said that if the country eventually emerges as a democratic, multiethnic state that has friendly ties with the United States, “that will be more important than what anybody thought in 2002 or 2003.”

Um, is Iraq making Christmas a national holiday really a sign of Super Awesome Democratic Inclusiveness, or is it more of a dead giveaway of the degree to which it is nothing more than a wholly-owned subsidiary client-state of the U.S.?

Add comment January 13th, 2009 at 06:55pm Posted by Eli

It’s On.

Holy crap.

Looks like Israel has decided to invade Gaza to try to take out Hamas once and for all, and too bad for anyone else who happens to be living there.  I guess they were inspired by how well our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq went, and how effective they were at neutralizing terrorism.  Because if there’s one thing we’ve proven, it’s that nothing succeeds like unchecked brutality, right?

Israel has fallen into a trap similar to the one the Bush administration fell into with al Qaeda: elevating their enemies into an existential threat.  Of course, in Israel’s case, Hamas is a democratically-elected government which actually showed some willingness to negotiate.  They are not al Qaeda, and they are not the second coming of Nazi Germany.

But if they weren’t implacable enemies of Israel before, I’m pretty sure they are now – and unlike al Qaeda and the U.S., they’re right next door. Violence will only beget more violence, and death will only beget more death.

Today is a sad and tragic day for Palestine, but the future will be sad and tragic for both Palestine and Israel.

3 comments January 3rd, 2009 at 02:15pm Posted by Eli

Carrots And Honey

Still more evidence that while torture may be satisfying to sadists and useful to propagandists, it’s as ineffective as it is immoral:

In response to Steve’s probing questions, Naji proudly explained that his father was grooming him to be a mujahedin and a future leader of Al Qaeda. He also said that his father took him to important meetings.

A veteran interrogator the night before had told us we “should show the little punk who’s in charge.” This was the attitude of many of the old guard, the interrogators who had been at Guantanamo Bay and in Afghanistan and Iraq early in the war, when the “gloves were off.” They mocked those of us who didn’t imitate their methods of interrogation, which were based on fear and control. There was tremendous peer pressure to follow in their footsteps and not appear soft on our enemies.

We ignored the pressure. We believed that, particularly with a child, interviewing rather than interrogation got better results. Steve had been trained in interviewing children, and he used those skills with Naji, gently stroking the child’s ego and noting that he must have been a very important boy to have attended meetings. Soon, Naji started rattling off places where meetings had taken place. He detailed who was at the gatherings, how many guns were stored at the houses, what was discussed and what plans were made. Naji talked because Steve was sympathetic and made him feel good.

From the information he provided, it was clear that Naji’s father had been a mid- to high-level Al Qaeda leader with connections throughout Yousifiya and Al Anbar province. By the time the interview ended after an hour, Steve had filled up pages in his notebook with detailed information about Naji’s father’s network.

Back in our office, Steve and I marveled at all the intelligence Naji had provided — the names, the locations. He’d pinpointed the better part of Al Qaeda’s operations around Yousifiya. In the two weeks that followed, our soldiers put this information to good use and took out a significant portion of Al Qaeda’s suicide-bombing network in the area. For two weeks, violence dropped and many lives were saved.

(…)

Good interrogation is not an exercise in domination or control. It’s an opportunity for negotiation and compromise. It’s a common ground where the two sides in this war meet, and it’s a grand stage where words become giants, tears flow like rivers and emotions rage like wildfires. It is a forum in which we should always display America’s strengths — cultural understanding, tolerance, compassion and intellect. But that’s not how all interrogators see their role.

According to a recent report from the bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee, “The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot be attributed to the actions of a ‘few bad apples’ acting on their own.” The effects of the policy that allowed torture to happen at Guantanamo Bay, the report concluded, spread to Iraq through the interrogators who had first been at Guantanamo. The preference for harsh interrogation techniques was extremely counterproductive and harmed our ability to obtain cooperation from Al Qaeda detainees. Even after the old guard interrogators were forced to play by the rules of the Geneva Convention, there was still plenty of leeway for interrogation methods based on fear and control. I believe their continued reliance on such techniques has severely hampered our ability to stop terrorist attacks against U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians.

We will win this war by being smarter, not harsher. For those who would accuse me of being too nice to our enemies, I encourage you to examine our success in hunting down Zarqawi and his network. The drop in suicide bombings in Iraq at two points in the spring and summer of 2006 was a direct result of our smarter interrogation methods.

I used to tell my team in Iraq: “The things that make you a good American are the things that will make you a good interrogator.” We must outlaw torture across every agency of our government, restore our adherence to the American principles passed down to us and, in doing so, better protect Americans from future terrorist attacks.

As Alexander points out, it is not enough simply to outlaw torture.  Until all our interrogators understand that harshness is not the key to intelligence-gathering, they will continue walking up to the edge and being as brutal as they think they can get away with, and they will get nowhere.  Torture is about as effective for intelligence-gathering as invasion and bombing are for winning hearts and minds.  Who knew?

As with politics, the right thing to do is often the smartest thing to do… and also the hardest.

(h/t Brandon Friedman)

Add comment December 30th, 2008 at 07:21am Posted by Eli

Can’t Wait To Be Rid Of Laura Either…

Ick.  Just… ick:

First Lady Laura Bush “wasn’t amused” by the Iraqi who hurled two shoes at her husband – and said Sunday the jailed man is lucky Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.

“If Saddam Hussein had been there, the man wouldn’t have been released. And he probably, you know, would have been executed,” the First Lady said on “Fox NewsSunday.”

“It was an assault,” she said. “And that’s what it is. And it would be an assault to anyone. The President laughed it off. He wasn’t hurt. He’s very quick. As you know, he’s a natural athlete. And that’s it. But on the other hand, it is an assault, and I think it should be treated that way, and I think people should think of it that way.”

As “bad as the incident is,” she said, it is an indication of progress. “It is a sign that Iraqis feel a lot freer to express themselves,” she said.

Dubya is just sooo dreamy!

And I really don’t see the shoe-throwing as a stirring endorsement of free speech in the post-Saddam era so much as a complaint that it is not much of an improvement… if any.

In any case, the fact that al-Zaidi was “merely” arrested and savagely beaten, and may very well be imprisoned for many years instead of being executed does not exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy all over.  And the swooning over Dubya’s natural athleticism just makes it downright icky.

1 comment December 29th, 2008 at 08:15pm Posted by Eli

Wanker Of The Month

Shorter Frank Gaffney: 4,000 dead American troops is AWESOME!

You probably think I’m exaggerating.

Add comment December 16th, 2008 at 11:52pm Posted by Eli

Support Our Mercs!

Hey, remember those American troops who indiscriminately opened fire on a bunch of innocent Iraqi civilians, killing 14 of them?  Oh, wait, they were Blackwater?  You’d never be able to tell from their defense team’s website:

Take a look at the homepage:

See all the references to Blackwater Worldwide?  Me neither.  All I see are the five seals of America’s Armed Forces and an image of the Marine Corps War Memorial.  Instead of this:

We see this:

(…)

See all those signature Blackwater goatees, baseball caps, and side arms?  Me neither.  I’m only seeing the photos of three marines and two soldiers.  So instead of this:

We see this:

(…)

What we have here is a move to elicit sympathy for the accused guards by painting them as patriotic soldiers and marines who were only doing their duties in Iraq.  We see their initial entry photos, deliberately intended to make them seem younger than they are, even though they’re now much older.  Even the father of one of the accused said he “can’t believe prosecutors are going after such decorated military veterans.”  In fact, every aspect of the portrayal makes it look as though soldiers and marines are going on trial here.  But they’re not.  Rather, these indictments were handed down to five highly-paid contractors who were working for Blackwater Worldwide on behalf of the U.S. State Department.  But they were in no way associated with the U.S. military.

(…)

These guys chose to fight in Iraq for a private company that offered them more money and looser grooming standards.  They left the more disciplined world of the Army or the Corps.  And that’s what they wanted.  That’s fine.  They just need to accept responsibility for the decision.

And they can start by leaving the military and its symbols out of this.  If working for Blackwater is such an honorable endeavor, then they should have no problem providing images of themselves operating in Iraq in the service of the State Department.  Instead of the Marine Corps War Memorial, we should see an image of the Blackwater bear paw.

The problem here is that if these guys are found guilty, because of the way their defense has rolled them out to the public, it’s going to reflect on the military.  And that’s not acceptable.  Because the military had nothing to do with this massacre.

What pisses me off is that by blurring the line, the defense team is trying to include Blackwater in the warm fuzzy glow of “supporting the troops,” even though they’re really highly paid mercenaries who are only in it for the money.

On the other hand, if they get the same kind of support our troops and veterans have been getting, maybe they’ll get what they deserve after all…

Add comment December 11th, 2008 at 09:20pm Posted by Eli

Supporting The Troops Fail

Once again, a couple of sterling examples of just how much our Republican government cares about our troops:

The military ignored steps before the invasion of Iraq that could have prevented the staggering number of casualties from roadside bombs, the Pentagon’s acting inspector general charged Tuesday.

The IG’s report says that the military knew years before the war that mines and homemade bombs, which the military calls “improvised explosive devices,” would be a “threat . . . in low-intensity conflicts” and that “mine-resistant vehicles” were available.

“Yet the military did not develop requirements for, fund or acquire” safer vehicles, the report says. The military invaded Iraq in 2003 “without having taken available steps to acquire technology to mitigate the known mine and IED risk to soldiers and Marines.”

Even after the war was under way, as the devices began taking a deadly toll and field commanders pressed for vehicles that were better protected from roadside bombs, the Pentagon was slow to act, the report says.

(…)

MRAPS are bigger and heavier than the Humvees that troops have used for patrols in Iraq. They’re higher off the ground and designed to deflect an explosion.

The IG report says that the military “stopped processing” a 2005 request for 1,169 MRAPS from commanders in the field. Another request came a year later, according to a letter from Bond and Biden to Gen. James Conway, the Marine commandant.

(…)

Gayl, a former Marine, said that “gross mismanagement” delayed the use of MRAPS in combat. Otherwise, he concluded, “hundreds of deaths and injuries could have been prevented.”

In a 2007 memo from Conway to Gen. Peter Pace, who was then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s top Marine said that MRAPS could cut IED casualties by 80 percent, according to Gayl.

…Or our veterans:

There was nothing dramatic about how Spc. Cristapher Zuetlau’s career in the Army came to an end: he stepped in a hole. But the damage to the tank crewman’s wrenched back was so brutal he can barely walk.

The Army agreed he was no longer fit to serve, but in doing so determined his disability was not severe enough to warrant long-term care by the military. That turned his health care over to the Department of Veterans Affairs, which left him with no retirement benefits and cut off his family from government health care.

Thousands of similar stories caused veterans advocates to protest that the military was manipulating disability ratings to save money, and Congress last year ordered the Pentagon to accept appeals from wounded and injured troops.

So far, officials have yet to examine a single case.

“Congress finally took action to give those troops a fair hearing, and now the Department of Defense is dragging its feet,” said Vanessa Williamson, the policy director at New York-based Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a veterans’ advocacy group. “Establishing the review board was clearly not the Department of Defense’s priority. And that’s a real shame.”

That’s our Bush administration: Supporting the troops as long as it’s not, y’know, too much trouble.

(h/t dakine)

Add comment December 10th, 2008 at 09:35pm Posted by Eli

Good. Fricking. Riddance.

I suppose there was really no reason to expect that he would bow out gracefully…

President Bush told an interviewer that his presidency may have helped Barack Obama win the White House.

“I think it was a repudiation of Republicans,” he told Charlie Gibson of ABC News, according to a transcript released by the network Monday. “And I’m sure some people voted for Barack Obama because of me. I think most people voted for Barack Obama because they decided they wanted him to be in their living room for the next four years explaining policy.”

Okay, so far so good.  I can’t very well ding him for narcissism when he’s right, now can I?

Bush would not say whether or not he would still have pushed for war with Iraq if he had known there were no weapon of mass destruction in that country.

“A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein,” Bush said. “It wasn’t just people in my administration. A lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington, D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence.

“I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess,” he said, but would not say whether he would have pressed forward with the decision to invade Iraq if he had known otherwise: “That is a do-over that I can’t do.”

Poor George, misled by the bad intel that he demanded, to support the invasion he wanted.  What a terrible tragedy for him.  Incidentally, I think that’s why he ducked the question of whether he would have still invaded Iraq if he had known Saddam didn’t have WMDs: He did know Saddam didn’t have WMDs.  The question is already answered.

(h/t dakine)

Add comment December 1st, 2008 at 07:17pm Posted by Eli

Schadenfriedman

Does it make me a bad person that I find this kinda hilarious?

It would be easy to dismiss today’s rant (however spot-on it might be) by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman as yet another ideological tirade against the U.S. automobile industry. But based on the bad news coming out of shopping-mall owner General Growth Properties [GGP], it is no wonder Friedman is feeling crankier than usual. That’s because the author’s wife, Ann (née Bucksbaum), is an heir to the General Growth fortune. In the past year, the couple—who live in an 11,400-square-foot mansion in Bethesda, Maryland—have watched helplessly as General Growth stock has fallen 99 percent, from a high of $51 to a recent 35 cents a share. The assorted Bucksbaum family trusts, once worth a combined $3.6 billion, are now worth less than $25 million.

How will Tom ever get by on only $25 million?  Will his $50,000 speaking engagements and million-dollar book deals be enough to sustain him?  Should we take up a collection?

If he hadn’t been an advocate of invading Iraq for no good reason, I might be a little more sympathetic… but he was, so screw him.

(h/t Stoller)

2 comments November 15th, 2008 at 01:44pm Posted by Eli

Obama And The Arab Blogosphere

The NYT op-ed page has a fascinating selection of Arab blog reactions to Obama’s victory, ranging from Hooray for America to Big deal, America will still treat us like dirt:

Tamem, Egypt (tamem.wordpress.com)

The victory of Barack Hussein Obama that we, along with the rest of the world, are witnessing today is another historic moment, not just for America but for the whole world by virtue of America’s huge influence, whether we like it or not. Personally I, like others, doubted Americans’ ability to overcome racism, but in electing “Abu Hussein,” they created a historic moment by accepting the first black president to govern not just America but the white West as a whole. With this, they removed all such doubts and the impossible dream of Martin Luther King became possible.

Syrian Dream, Syria (syriandream.com)

The world arose today to welcome Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States, and Africa danced with joy.

The whole world is optimistic about what he offers but doubts remain about him, a great question mark.

What will Syria’s fate be under him? Will he give the green light to bombing us?

(…)

Esra’a, Bahrain (mideastyouth.com)

I can honestly say that we can finally wave goodbye to the overwhelming anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry that we have suffered with for the past eight years under the Bush administration. We can expect less wars, less corruption, less political abuse. It won’t be perfect, but it will get better. I am so happy and proud of all the Americans who worked extremely hard for Obama, understanding fully well the importance of change in every sense of the word. This moment is not just historical but crucial to us here in the Middle East.

This is a win for all of us, not just America.

This is a win for civil rights and justice.

For all the pessimists out there, allow us to enjoy this moment. If you learned anything from this campaign, you would learn that it starts with hope — not cynicism. And hope is what I have right now, for America and the Middle East.

We can do it, and this time, we can be sure that we can do it together.

I haven’t said this in a really long time, but I am loving America right now.

(…)

Mashrabeya, Egypt (mashrabeya.blogspot.com)

Only time would tell if Obama is real, or just too good to be true!

Sometimes, it is not enough to have a Big Dream. What matters is to have enough strength to resist the pressures to give up a Big Dream!

Land and People, Lebanon (landandpeople.blogspot.com)

My take on this is that he is the president of the United States, and not Barack Obama. That said, I would really like to hope for change. After all, Obama showed that change was possible: he himself changed from a supporter of Palestinian rights into a man who believes that Jerusalem is the historic capital of Israel. He also changed during his campaign from “No Iraq war for me please, I’m trying to quit” into “All right I’ll have some, but a tiny piece please.”

(…)

But the question that really interests me is about the relationship between Obama and the true center of world power, Kapital. There was an awful lot of money in Obama’s campaign … A great chunk must have come from carefully planned investments by C.E.O.’s and multinationals. Will Obama be able to confront the mega-corporations? Does he want to? The poor and the colored population of the world, including that of the U.S., is the one that suffers most from malnutrition and hunger and food insecurity. We know now that mega-corporations, pushing for more profit at any cost, are responsible for most of the damage. Will Obama do something about that? Does he want to? Can he?

An Arab Woman Blues, Iraq (arabwomanblues.blogspot.com)

(…)

I also said that Obama will strike a deal with Ahmadinejad on Iraq and in particular southern Iraq.

And lo and behold, the vice president for the booma Obama is none other than J. Biden. J. Biden, the Zionist, is an ardent supporter of the partition of Iraq into three statelets. No wonder Maliki & Co. were also backing the booma along with Iran. I also know that Iran had generously contributed to the Obama campaign.

… I shall not congratulate you on your 44th president. He will simply finish off what the other Zionists had started — the final partition of my country.

To hell with all of you and all of your presidents.

Neurotic Iraqi Wife, Iraq (neurotic-iraqi-wife.blogspot.com)

For me, this is not just about history, this is about someone who was able to bring down the very people that broke my country. It’s a great punch to the very people that destroyed the individual Iraqi. And that to me is an enough victory.

I will only have to say to Mr. Obama, don’t let us down.

There’s a lot of hope, but also a lot of well-earned bitterness and cynicism.  I think the reality is probably going to be somewhere in the middle.  I don’t think Obama will stray outside the bounds of our historical Middle East foreign policy, but he also won’t be nearly as callous or malevolent towards Arabs and Muslims as his predecessor.

It won’t be The Dawning Of A Brand New Day in American foreign policy, but at least we won’t be trying to rule by fear and gratuitous violence.  Who knows, we might even stop bombing weddings.

Add comment November 8th, 2008 at 09:10pm Posted by Eli

Sarah Palin Outs The Republican Party

I knew it!

She continued: “And there must be something about San Francisco and he because it’s like I heard on Fox News today, it’s like a truth serum where when he’s there, he seems to be more candid, and remember it was there that he talked about, there you go, the bitter clingers, the cling-ons, all of us, I guess, you know holding on to religion and guns and, um, so something about he being there in San Francisco.”

It sure would explain their foreign policy, although not their complete lack of courage or honor.

(h/t Blue Texan)

Add comment November 3rd, 2008 at 07:49pm Posted by Eli

Least. Impressive. Endorsement. Ever.

Wow, so “lifelong Democrat who hasn’t wavered in his presidential vote since 1980″ and war pimp Michael O’Hanlon finally, reluctantly endorses Barack Obama after being “unable to support [him] over the last two years.”  And only because he thinks Joe Biden is a stronger running mate than Sarah Palin.

Some lifelong Democrat – I’ve seen stronger Obama endorsements by Republicans.  But not to worry – O’Hanlon’s with us on everything except the war. Just like lifelong Democrat Joe Lieberman.

(h/t Elliott)

Add comment October 26th, 2008 at 11:52am Posted by Eli