Multi Medium

Juxtaposition Of The Day

From the Washington Post:

The Air Force’s top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on “comfort capsules” to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules’ carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.

(…)

Air Force documents spell out how each of the capsules is to be “aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule,” with beds, a couch, a table, a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers, and a full-length mirror.

(…)

Air Force officials say the program dates from a 2006 decision by Air Force Gen. Duncan J. McNabb that existing seats on transport planes, including some that match those on commercial airliners, may be fine for airmen and troops but inadequate for the top brass….

And from the NYT:

Shoddy electrical work by private contractors on United States military bases in Iraq is widespread and dangerous, causing more deaths and injuries from fires and shocks than the Pentagon has acknowledged, according to internal Army documents.

During just one six-month period — August 2006 through January 2007 — at least 283 electrical fires destroyed or damaged American military facilities in Iraq, including the military’s largest dining hall in the country, documents obtained by The New York Times show. Two soldiers died in an electrical fire at their base near Tikrit in 2006, the records note, while another was injured while jumping from a burning guard tower in May 2007.

And while the Pentagon has previously reported that 13 Americans have been electrocuted in Iraq, many more have been injured, some seriously, by shocks, according to the documents. A log compiled earlier this year at one building complex in Baghdad disclosed that soldiers complained of receiving electrical shocks in their living quarters on an almost daily basis.

Electrical problems were the most urgent noncombat safety hazard for soldiers in Iraq, according to an Army survey issued in February 2007. It noted “a safety threat theaterwide created by the poor-quality electrical fixtures procured and installed, sometimes incorrectly, thus resulting in a significant number of fires.”

The Army report said KBR, the Houston-based company that is responsible for providing basic services for American troops in Iraq, including housing, did its own study and found a “systemic problem” with electrical work.

But the Pentagon did little to address the issue until a Green Beret, Staff Sgt. Ryan D. Maseth, was electrocuted in January while showering. His death, caused by poor electrical grounding, drew the attention of lawmakers and Pentagon leaders after his family pushed for answers. Congress and the Pentagon’s inspector general have begun investigations, and this month senior Army officials ordered electrical inspections of all buildings in Iraq maintained by KBR.

(…)

Since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, tens of thousands of American troops have been housed in Iraqi buildings that date from the Saddam Hussein era. KBR and other contractors have been paid millions of dollars to repair and upgrade the buildings, including their electrical systems. KBR officials say they handle the maintenance for 4,000 structures and an additional 35,000 containers used as housing in the war zone.

The reports of shoddy electrical work have raised new questions about the Bush administration’s heavy reliance on contractors in Iraq, particularly because they come after other high-profile disputes involving KBR. They include accusations of overbilling, providing unsafe water to soldiers and failing to protect female employees who were sexually assaulted.

Officials say the administration contracted out so much work in Iraq that companies like KBR were simply overwhelmed by the scale of the operations. Some of the electrical work, for example, was turned over to subcontractors, some of which hired unskilled Iraqis who were paid only a few dollars a day.

Government officials responsible for contract oversight, meanwhile, were also unable to keep up, so that unsafe electrical work was not challenged by government auditors.

Several electricians who worked for KBR have said previously in interviews that they repeatedly warned KBR managers and Pentagon and military officials about unsafe electrical work. They said that supervisors had ignored their concerns or, in some cases, lacked the training to understand the problems.

So, to sum up: The Pentagon spares no expense to make sure Air Force generals can fly anywhere in the lap of luxury, but can’t be bothered to ensure that Army grunts don’t get electrocuted in the shower.  Fantastic.  That should do wonders for morale.

So tell me again which troops it is we’re supposed to be supporting? ‘Cuz it seems like there might be some kind of minimum rank requirement.

Add comment July 18th, 2008 at 07:19am Posted by Eli

Foreign Policy Wisdom

No-one could have possibly anticipated…

Jim Dobbins - A man who has just a bit of history of dealing with some pretty bad guys and doing it effectively - then chimed in arguing that the whole idea that blatant military threats had to be a part of effective negotiations was simply ahistorical.  He argued that we never used military threats when negotiating with the Russians or Chinese during the Cold War.  We just made clear what our redlines were and that worked pretty well, but we never in negotiations actually threatened them.  He then said that in his forty year career he had negotiated with Soviet Apparatchiks, Afghan warlords, Somali warlords, Serbs and Bosnians.  He found that when explicit military threats were part of the negotiations the negotiations would fail. So we should just stick the military threat back in the drawer.  The Iranians know it’s there.  We don’t need to waive it in their face.

Gee, who ever would have thought that threatening people would make them less receptive.  Crazy, innit.

Add comment June 12th, 2008 at 07:24pm Posted by Eli

Supporting The Troops… Dubya-Style

Yeah, Dubya loves the troops so much that he’s using them as hostages…

President Bush is threatening the lives of American troops if Congress doesn’t give him the money he wants for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan….  The Commander-in-Chief  has also pledged to stop paying troops in combat if America’s wallet isn’t handed over straightaway.

From The Hill:

Bush said that if Congress does not act promptly, “critical accounts at the Department of Defense will soon run dry.” He added that civilian employees may face “temporary layoffs,” and the Pentagon would be forced to “close down a vital program that is getting potential insurgents off the streets and into jobs.” If the supplemental spending bill is not enacted after July, Bush said, the department would “no longer be able to pay our troops,” including ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I just want to be clear about two points:

1. Insurgents kill Americans.  So when the President says that the Pentagon would be forced to “close down” a program that gets “potential insurgents off the streets,” he’s really saying that he’ll deliberately allow the threat to American troops in Iraq increase if he doesn’t get his money.  He’s playing chicken with Congress at the expense of American lives in Iraq.  Make no mistake about it: More insurgents on the streets would lead to more American deaths.

(…)

2. Bush is also threatening to stop paying troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  This is funny, because I don’t hear him threatening to cut the contracts of Halliburton, Blackwater, SAIC, and DynCorp–and thus cutting their employees’ inflated salaries.

This is a clear indication that the Bush administration is more loyal to contractors than to soldiers. When forced to cut spending, Bush would rather starve members of the Armed Forces than cut the exorbitant pay checks given to those who work for privatized military companies.

Impeachment is too late at this point, but there’s no reason that this appalling behavior shouldn’t be hung around John McCain’s neck–thus ensuring that the betrayal of the American military doesn’t extend past January 2009.

At the very least, Obama needs to put McCain on the spot and force him to either repudiate Bush on this and pledge that he would never make these kinds of threats if he became president.  Either McCain helps pressure Dubya to abandon this stance, or he clings to him and destroys what’s left of his own pro-troop, independent-from-Dubya reputation even further (opposing the new GI Bill really didn’t help).

True, it’d be giving McCain an opportunity to score some points at Dubya’s expense, but I don’t think he’d take it.

2 comments June 8th, 2008 at 01:13pm Posted by Eli

Pat Roberts Accidentally Sabotages McCain

Hey, remember this?

The [Senate] Intelligence Committee began a comprehensive investigation nearly five years ago. Initially, the committee was prepared to release one authoritative document on the Iraq intelligence, what it said, and how it was handled. With the 2004 presidential election looming, then-Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) split the report in two — one on how wrong the intelligence community and agencies were (released before the ‘04 election) and another on how the White House used/misused/abused the available information (to be released after the ‘04 election).

Roberts played fast and loose for years. First he said publicly that he’d “try” to have Phase II available to the public before the 2004 election. He didn’t. Roberts then gave his word, in writing, that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee would have a draft report on controversial “public statements” from administration officials by April 2006. That didn’t happen, either. Then he indicated that he wanted to give up on the second part of the investigation altogether. (In January, we learned that the investigation was impeded by the Vice President.)

Well, it finally came out, and it pretty much confirmed what most reality-based people already believed:

[Y]ou’ll never guess what investigators found.

A long-awaited Senate Select Intelligence Committee report made public Thursday concludes that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney made public statements to promote an invasion of Iraq that they knew at the time were not supported by available intelligence.

In a statement, Intelligence Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D- W. Va.) said, “There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate.”

Key points from the report, by way of Rockefeller’s office:

* Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.

* Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.

* Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.

* Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.

* The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.

* The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.

To this day, Still-President Bush will talk about his obviously false pre-war claims in the context of mistaken intelligence, which “everybody” believed at the time. But this long-overdue report is a reminder of just how wrong the Bush defense is — he (and his team) weren’t fooled by errors, they fooled others with arguments they knew had no foundation in fact.

Now here’s the beauty part:

And then, of course, there’s John McCain, who’s running on his national security expertise and judgment on military matters, who bought every line Bush told him, then parroted it to the nation. Worse, McCain has assured voters that “every [intelligence] assessment” justified the 2003 invasion. Today reminds us how wrong this is.

Or as Joe at Americablog puts it:

Republican Senators fought very hard to prevent the release of this intel report back in 2004 to insure Bush’s re-election. And, they wouldn’t release this report back in 2006 to protect their own re-elections. All that delay has resulted in the release of this report in 2008 — leaving John McCain to defend the Bush Iraq war agenda. In some ways, it was worth the wait.

This report makes the illegitimacy of the Iraq invasion even more mainstream and “official” (as opposed to being something that can be dismissed as a dirty hippie conspiracy theory), and makes McCain’s claim that “every assessment” justified it even more untenable.  I wonder if he’ll keep saying that - I hope he does.

2 comments June 5th, 2008 at 06:38pm Posted by Eli

I Wonder What It Was Like…

To be Landay & Strobel in the early days of BushCo’s drumbeating for the Iraq invasion.  I figure that at first they must have been racing to get their stories out, afraid that some other news organization would beat them to the explosive scoop: White House Lying About Case For War!

And then, gradually, realizing that they weren’t actually racing against anybody.  No-one was trying to beat them to the story, no-one else wanted anything to do with it.  I wonder if they doubted their own sanity a little bit, the way that you do when you’re the only person who sees something, or thinks a certain way.  Hell, I wonder if either one of them could have sustained it alone, without someone else to reassure him that they were seeing the same things, that he wasn’t deluding himself and chasing shadows.

How sad is that, really?  The biggest story of the decade, and nobody wanted to cover it.

Add comment May 30th, 2008 at 10:18pm Posted by Eli

Grammar Has A Well-Known Liberal Bias

This might be the lamest defense ever:

Yesterday at a townhall meeting in Wisconsin, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claimed that troops in Iraq are already down to “pre-surge levels”:

So I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it’s succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr city are quiet and it’s long and it’s hard and it’s tough and there will be setbacks.

(…)

This assertion is wrong. There are now 155,000 troops in Iraq — far above the 130,000 before the surge.

But today on a conference call with reporters, the McCain campaign tried to dismiss this factually inaccurate statement. “So what?” said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), a strong McCain supporter. “What does that amount to?” He added that McCain just “misspoke.” According to adviser Randy Scheunemann, McCain meant to say that troops will be eventually drawn down to pre-surge levels. From his response to the AP’s Liz Sidoti:

SIDOTI: Randy, I’m a little confused here. If the question is over the tense of the statement, why is he not wrong?

RANDY: If the question is, are we drawing down to pre-surge levels? The answer is, yes. If the question is, have we drawn down? The answer is, yes. Liz, I don’t know how to make it any clearer than that. […]

SIDOTI: He said, “We have drawn down to pre-surge levels.” And what you’re saying is, we will have drawn down to pre-surge levels by June — or, I’m sorry, by July. He was speaking in the present tense: “We have drawn down to pre-surge levels.”

RANDY: And if we want to talk about verb tenses, we can talk about verb tenses. Everybody knows — it’s been publicly announced since before April — Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker testified about it extensively. It is very well-known where we are in the surge force levels and that we are drawing down to pre-surge levels. That has not been fully completed yet, but will be completed within no more than 60 days.

“Verb tenses” aside, this claim still seems to be wrong. Michael Shear of the Washington Post points to testimony by Joint Staff director for operations Lt. Gen. Carter Ham at the end of February, where he said that the Bush administration’s goal is to reduce troop levels to only 140,000:

Q: General, coming back to Iraq and the troop numbers, so what you’re saying is by the time we get to the end of July, we’re going to be at 140,000, which looks to me like we’re still talking about significantly higher than pre-surge levels in Iraq. Am I reading that correctly?

GEN. HAM: Yes.

The Politico’s Ben Smith has more from the call, including the campaign’s cries of “nitpicking.”

So I guess McCain was actually speaking in some kind of exotic conditional future tense, i.e., “we will have eventually been drawn down to pre-post-surge levels.”

Add comment May 30th, 2008 at 05:50pm Posted by Eli

Guns Don’t Kill People…

…Shaking hands with American politicians kills people.

John McCain invited Barack Obama for a photo-op trip to Iraq together: (h/t Needlenose)

Over the weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of McCain’s top surrogates, laid the groundwork for McCain’s criticism in a television interview in which he noted Obama’s absence from Iraq and floated the idea that Obama and McCain should go together to be briefed by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Asked whether he’d be willing to take such a trip, McCain told the AP: “Sure. It would be fine.”

“I go back every few months because things are changing in Iraq,” he said. McCain questioned whether Obama has ever been briefed by Petraeus. “I would also seize that opportunity to educate Senator Obama along the way.”

The Obama campaign quickly responded in the negative:

(…)

Of course, Obama is right. This is nothing more than a cheap political stunt. But it’s worse than that. George Bush and John McCain love to take pictures with their Iraqi “friends” but those friends have a disturbing habit of turning up dead shortly thereafter:

The fact is, people are dying for these photo-ops. Being associated with the U.S. is bad enough in a country where every side seems to be against us. Being publicly photographed shaking the enemy’s hand is literally a death sentence.

Whatever the way forward is in Iraq, our politicians need to stop using Iraqi stooges for political gain. You don’t need to have been there to be taken seriously when talking about the war, and you certainly don’t need a picture of your with a scared looking sheik to be legitimate. So don’t go to Iraq! All you are doing is making your friends into targets.

Obama was right to deny McCain’s political stunt. These photo-ops kill people.

Hey, what’s a few more dead Iraqis when American votes are at stake?  Surely the competence and awesomeness of a McCain presidency would end up saving far more Iraqi lives than would be snuffed out by a thoughtless dog-and-pony tour, right?  Yes, I’m sure that must be correct.

Add comment May 29th, 2008 at 09:34pm Posted by Eli

Al Qaeda Is Not A Truck

See, this is the sort of thing that happens when you don’t have Joe Correcterman to whisper in your ear:

[Ted Stevens on] KFQD with conservative talk show host Dan Fagan:

We expect Al Qaeda to come out some time today with a new manifesto where they ought to be using weapons of mass destruction against the United States. That means that they’re realizing they can’t win in Iraq. I think they’re going to change their way of doing business. And I think we have to be on the alert. These people are all over the world. Al Qaeda’s not just in Iraq. They’re in Iran. They’re in the Philippines. Sen Inouye and I went down to [indistinguishable]. They’re over in Indonesia. They’re all over.

This sounds strange at first, until you realize that al Qaeda is actually a series of tubes.

1 comment May 28th, 2008 at 06:44pm Posted by Eli

Happy Memorial Day From Bob Geiger

I think I may have actually found someone who hates Dubya more than I do - and with good reason.

Dead Troops Remembered By President Who Had Them Killed

Yes, that’s a harsh headline for this piece.

But I’ll ask you to forgive me because, as a Veteran, there isn’t a day on the calendar that causes my hatred — and I do indeed mean hatred — of George W. Bush to bubble over the top more than Memorial Day.

“On Memorial Day, we honor the heroes who have laid down their lives in the cause of freedom, resolve that they will forever be remembered by a grateful Nation, and pray that our country may always prove worthy of the sacrifices they have made,” reads Bush’s official Memorial Day proclamation, issued by the White House on Thursday.

The Chickenhawk-in Chief says a lot of things that make this Vet’s blood boil but stuff like saying that he prays “…that our country may always prove worthy of the sacrifices they have made” is almost vomit inducing.

This statement comes from the same man who himself began dishonoring the sacrifices of all Veterans in such huge ways in March of 2003, when he invaded Iraq behind a veil of lies and deceit and started spilling barrels of military and civilian blood to start a war with a country that posed no threat whatsoever to our national security. These stirring words of remembrance come from an administration that began with a stolen election in 2000, which goes entirely against what I was taught way back when I was in the U.S. Navy, which was that part of the “way of life” we were protecting was symbolized by the ability of all of our citizens to have their votes counted.

“These courageous and selfless warriors have stepped forward to protect the Nation they love, fight for America’s highest ideals, and show millions that a future of liberty is possible,” continues Bush’s proclamation. “Americans are grateful to all those who have put on our Nation’s uniform and to their families, and we will always remember their service and sacrifice for our freedoms.”

The words Bush puts forth are true — it’s him being the one to say them that I find so sickening and personally offensive.

It is positively nauseating to have George W. Bush ever talk to us about “America’s highest ideals” when his administration has started a bloody war for no reason, imprisoned those suspected of being “terrorists” without trial or benefit of legal counsel, tortured prisoners in America’s name and done everything but grab the original U.S. Constitution from the National Archives and run it through a paper shredder.

I also don’t believe for one minute that the majority of the planet now holds our country in such extreme contempt because we’re right and they don’t understand our “highest ideals.” This Veteran will go to his grave believing that the years 2000 through 2008 were a dark time in our history when much of what I believed when I served in uniform was made invalid and debased.

According to the Defense Department, we have now lost 4,082 men and women in Bush’s war of choice in Iraq and we should not allow the man who sent them needlessly to their deaths to lead our nation today in mourning their loss. Make no mistake about it, George W. Bush is as responsible for the deaths of those men and women as if he himself had fired the bullet or set the IED that ended their lives.

(…)

The least Bush can do is stay in the White House today, keep his lying mouth shut and understand deep in his craven soul that the next day the Congress should declare a national holiday is January 20, 2009, the day he leaves office and his days of dishonoring our war dead are forever done.

The thing is, Dubya - and Republicans in general - know that the troops are iconic, and held in the highest esteem by Americans in general, and conservative Americans in particular.  So he gushes about their courage and poses with them and bathes in their reflected glory every chance he gets… but he doesn’t actually give a damn about them, or about any other American making under $1,000,000 a year.

What’s amazing to me is that this isn’t obvious to everybody.

1 comment May 26th, 2008 at 01:36pm Posted by Eli

Take That, Propaganda!

Woohoo!  House passes amendment to investigate the DoD’s use of generals to spout administration talking points on teevee in the guise of “analysis”:

Tonight, the House passed an amendment introduced by Reps. Hodes, DeFazio, and DeLauro to the Defense Authorization Act for FY2009 requiring that “not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Inspector General of the Department of Defense and the Comptroller General of the United States shall each conduct a study of, and submit to the Congress a report on, the extent to which the Department of Defense has violated the prohibition on propaganda” and defines propaganda as “any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of the people of the United States in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.”

On passage of the amendment, Speaker Pelosi said:

In his farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower stated that “only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” The Pentagon media influence program reported by the New York Times struck at the heart of this principle – not only denying citizens the knowledge they deserve but also using the media to manipulate public opinion, and as a consequence, damaging our democracy.

The President and members of his Administration led the country to war on the basis of unproven assertions, later confirmed to be false, and have continued to misrepresent the truth on the ground. The Hodes-DeFazio-DeLauro Amendment which prohibits the Department of Defense from using funds for propaganda purposes and initiates a GAO and IG investigative report into past use of propaganda, is a vital step toward restoring the public’s faith in information stemming from the Pentagon.

Rep. Hodes:

The American people were spun by Bush Administration “message multipliers.” They were fed Administration talking points, believing they were getting independent military analysis. Days after, the Pentagon suspended the program. The news outlets have been remarkably silent. The Department of Defense Inspector General has begun an internal review of the program but given the possibility as well as decision makers in this Congress were misled about the war in Iraq, I believe it is absolutely critical that a public investigation happen that is transparent to this body as well as to the American people. Congress cannot allow an Administration to manipulate the public on false propaganda on matters of war and national security.

Awesome. Be even better if the media were to report on it. I couldn’t find a story about this vote in either NYT or WaPo, so who knows if they’ll bother to write about the investigation’s results either.

2 comments May 23rd, 2008 at 07:30am Posted by Eli

Oh, This Can’t Be Good…

Sounds like Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Sistani has reached his limit:

Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric has been quietly issuing religious edicts declaring that armed resistance against U.S.-led foreign troops is permissible - a potentially significant shift by a key supporter of the Washington-backed government in Baghdad.

The edicts, or fatwas, by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani suggest he seeks to sharpen his long-held opposition to American troops and counter the populist appeal of his main rivals, firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.

But - unlike al-Sadr’s anti-American broadsides - the Iranian-born al-Sistani has displayed extreme caution with anything that could imperil the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

(…)

So far, al-Sistani’s fatwas have been limited to a handful of people. They also were issued verbally and in private - rather than a blanket proclamation to the general Shiite population - according to three prominent Shiite officials in regular contact with al-Sistani as well as two followers who received the edicts in Najaf.

(…)

It is impossible to determine whether those who received the edicts acted on them. Most attacks - except some by al-Qaida in Iraq - are carried out without claims of responsibility.

It is also unknown whether al-Sistani intended the fatwas to inspire violence or simply as theological opinions on foreign occupiers….

(…)

In the past, al-Sistani has avoided answering even abstract questions on whether fighting the U.S. presence in Iraq is allowed by Islam….

The subtle shift could point to his growing impatience with the continued American presence more than five years after the U.S.-led invasion.

It also underlines possible opposition to any agreement by Baghdad to allow a long-term U.S. military foothold in Iraq - part a deal that is currently under negotiation and could be signed as early as July.

Al-Sistani’s distaste for the U.S. presence is no secret. In his public fatwas on his Web site, he blames Washington for many of Iraq’s woes.

But a more aggressive tone from the cleric could have worrisome ripples through Iraq’s Shiite majority - 65 percent of the country’s estimated 27 million population - in which many followers are swayed by his every word.

A longtime official at al-Sistani’s office in Najaf would not deny or confirm the edicts issued in private, but hinted that a publicized call for jihad may come later.

“(Al-Sistani) rejects the American presence,” he told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to media. “He believes they (the Americans) will at the end pay a heavy price for the damage they inflicted on Iraq.”

Juan Cole, a U.S. expert on Shiites in the Middle East, speculated that “al-Sistani clearly will give a fatwa against the occupation by a year or two.” But he said it would be “premature” for the cleric to do so now.

Great, wonderful.  So even if he doesn’t openly call for violence against American forces, he’s sure as hell giving it the green light.  And if both al-Sistani and al-Sadr call for jihad at the same time, the Iraqupation is over.  And not in a good way.

(h/t gorilla’s guides by way of Siun)

Add comment May 22nd, 2008 at 09:24pm Posted by Eli

Surrounded By Appeasers

This just gets better and better.  Dubya tells the Israeli Knesset that anyone who would negotiate with terrorists and rogue states (*coughcoughObamacoughcoughcough*) is an appeaser like Neville Chamberlain (which is a very creative definition of appeasement, by the way), then a few days later we hear that he was actually insulting his hosts.

Now here’s Dubya’s favorite surgin’ general, in a written statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee:

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, President Bush’s nominee to lead U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, supports continued U.S. engagement with international and regional partners to find the right mix of diplomatic, economic and military leverage to address the challenges posed by Iran.

In written answers to questions posed by the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he will testify today, Petraeus said the possibility of military action against Iran should be retained as a “last resort.” But he said the United States “should make every effort to engage by use of the whole of government, developing further leverage rather than simply targeting discrete threats.”

But wait, there’s more!

On the cover of a new book titled “The China Diary of George H. W. Bush: The Making of a Global President,” edited by Jeffrey A. Engel, our 41st president is quoted as saying, “I was a big believer then, and still am, that personal diplomacy can be very useful and productive.” That’s not a quote from the diary, which covers Bush’s time as the head of the United States Liaison Office in Beijing from 1974 to 1975. It’s from a preface Bush penned specifically for this book.

(…)

“I took some hits for not being tougher on the Chinese,” he writes, “but my long history with Deng and the other leaders made it possible for us to work through the crises without derailing Sino-American relations, which would have been a disaster. I was a big believer then, and still am, that personal diplomacy can be very useful and productive.” At no point in the preface does Bush object to establishing relations with a tyrannical regime.

Et tu, Poppy?

Add comment May 22nd, 2008 at 08:12pm Posted by Eli

Whatever You Do, Don’t Give The Troops An Education - They Hate That.

Lindsey Graham is a strange and clueless man:

Just over an hour ago, the Senate voted overwhelmingly — a veto-proof 75-22 — to approve Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) 21st Century GI Bill, which would expand educational benefits for veterans who joined the service after Sept. 11, 2001.

Before the vote, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who introduced his own watered-down, paltry version of the GI bill, exhorted President Bush to veto the measure, as he has indicated he will. Graham also insisted that his Republican colleagues would “get rewarded in the next election” if they vote against GI benefits:

This is a defining moment for the Senate, for the Republicans, and this war. I can tell you if we leave the generals alone and support our troops, they will win this war. And to my Republican colleagues, if we’ll stand firm for a fair procedure and a sensible solution to the veterans’ problems, we will get rewarded in the next election, not punished. If we give into this, we don’t deserve to be here.

So apparently, not offering the troops a college education is supporting them, but offering them one is not.

Out of the 22 Republicans who voted against the bill (even Lieberman voted in favor!), it looks like Jeff Sessions (AL), Mitch McConnell (KY), Thad Cochran (MS), Lamar Alexander (TN), John Cornyn (TX), John Barrasso & Mike Enzi (WY), and, of course, Graham, are the only ones actually running for election this year, and McConnell and Cornyn are probably the only two whose seats are not comfortably safe.

Also worth noting that McCain is virulently opposed to Webb’s version of the GI Bill and prefers Graham’s lame one, but he couldn’t be bothered to actually show up for the vote (he was off fundraising in CA).

I’m a big believer in holding Republican incumbents accountable for their most heinous votes, but it doesn’t look like this one is going to have a huge impact on the 2008 Senate elections - and I don’t know if it’ll still be fair game in 2010.

On the positive side, it could be a big millstone for McCain’s presidential campaign, and the Democrats essentially used the Republicans’ own support-the-troops narrative to shame and scare the most embattled ones to vote for something good for the troops. (No, I do not believe that voting to extend the war indefinitely counts as “supporting the troops,” but obviously I’m just a crazy person.)

I think we’ll see more votes like this over the next five months, as Republicans try to distance themselves from the Dubyatross to save their electoral skins.  Hopefully voters’ memories will go back far enough to remember the seven years when those same Republicans enthusiastically gave Dubya everything he wanted.

Oh, and when Liddy Dole either loses her seat or gets fired as NRSC Chair, can the Republicans name Graham as her replacement?  Pleeeeeaaaase???

Add comment May 22nd, 2008 at 07:22pm Posted by Eli

Surprise!

Coming soon to a theater of operations nowhere near you:

The Jerusalem Post reports that a senior Israeli official said that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are of the belief that military action against Iran is necessary and that such an attack could be coming soon:

US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term, Army Radio quoted a senior official in Jerusalem as saying Tuesday.

The official claimed that a senior member of the president’s entourage, which concluded a trip to Israel last week, said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for.

However, the official continued, “the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice” was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic, for the time being.

I’m not sure how credible (if at all) the Jerusalem Post is, and this is essentially a reporter saying that an unnamed Israeli official told him that an unnamed American official told him that Bush & Cheney want war, so take it all with a great big shaker of salt.

But it would be in character for Dick and Dubya - no doubt they miss that delicious new war smell, and they know that this might be their last chance to bomb Iran unless McCain is elected. Which, incidentally, they might also be trying to ensure with an attack on Iran, since everyone knows that Republicans are totally credible and serious when it comes to matters of national defense.

(f/t Attaturk)

Add comment May 20th, 2008 at 11:18am Posted by Eli

Welcome To The 2008 Campaign Metanarrative

I think the #1 story - and deciding factor - of the 2008 campaign is going to be the efforts of McCain and downticket Republican candidates to distance themselves from the unpopular awfulness of the Bush/Cheney administration and position themselves as Reasonable Pragmatic Moderates.

Dick Morris thinks it’s doable, at least for Straight-Talking Maverick McCain:

McCain needs to not run as a traditional Republican, which is easy, since he’s not one. After all, how did an anti-torture, anti-tobacco, pro-campaign finance reform, anti-pork, pro-alternative-energy Republican ever emerge from the primaries alive?

I wasn’t aware that one did.

…McCain can win by running to the center.

His base will be there for him; indeed, it will turn out in massive numbers. Wright has become the honorary chairman of McCain’s get-out-the-vote efforts. It would be nice to think that race isn’t a factor in American politics anymore, but it is. The growing fear of Obama, who remains something of an unknown, will drag every last white Republican male off the golf course to vote for McCain, and he will need no further laying-on of hands from either evangelical Christians or fiscal conservatives.

So McCain doesn’t have to spend a lot of time wooing his base. What he does need to do is reduce the size of the synapse over which independents and fearful Democrats need to pass in order to back his candidacy. If the synapse is wide, they will stay with Obama. But if they perceive McCain as an acceptable alternative, there is every chance that they will cross over to back him in November.

(…)

Earlier in the race, Iraq might have been a deal-breaker. But a kinder, gentler war has emerged. U.S. combat deaths are way down, and the de facto U.S. alliance with Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province against al-Qaeda in Iraq seems to have dramatically improved the security situation. Still, most Americans don’t like the war, and McCain must deal with their opposition if he wants to win.

(…)

….Unlikely as it sounds, the soon-to-be former president needs to get out of the White House, reenter the political arena (much as it will pain him) and go around the country telling us two things: First, we are winning in Iraq; second, the economy is not as bad as most people think….

Right, because Dubya hasn’t been doing that at all for the past four years.

Bush can help McCain, but that doesn’t mean that McCain should support Bush. As Bush makes the case for himself, McCain must put distance between them. A lot of distance. Once, McCain ran against Bush. But since then, he has basked in the glow of Bush’s warm welcome back to the mainstream of the party. Now McCain needs to free himself of Bush’s spell, go out again into the cold and show the country the difference between his agenda and Bush’s.

Meanwhile, McCain should highlight his credentials as a reformer and a maverick to attract Democrats and independents who worry about Obama. Forget about the base. It will be there. Obama’s liberalism, his pro-tax agenda and his proposed weakening of the USA Patriot Act — as well as fears that he would appoint to office people such as Rev. Wright and William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground — will all assure the full mobilization of the right. Immigration reform and McCain’s other acts of apostasy will be forgiven for the sake of beating Obama. So McCain needs to go after the swing voters:

[Laundry list of things that McCain will mostly never do, but might conceivably pretend to have intentions of doing]

(…)

Meanwhile, the right wing will carry the attack against Obama. McCain is not a mudslinging politician by nature, but he doesn’t need to be. The collected quotes of Rev. Wright will be a bestseller this summer. Obama once had to prove to us that he was not a Muslim; now he must convince us that he never really went to church much….

Wow, Dick really has put all his eggs into the racism/Reverend Wright basket, hasn’t he?  And he obviously wants us to believe that McCain really is as honorable and independent as he pretends to be.

Frank Rich doesn’t think it’ll work:

The G.O.P.’s best hope would be for both the president and Dick Cheney to lock themselves in a closet until the morning after Election Day.

Republicans finally recognized the gravity of their situation three days after Jenna Bush took her vows in Crawford. As Hillary Clinton romped in West Virginia, voters in Mississippi elected a Democrat [by eight points] in a Congressional district that went for Bush-Cheney by 25 percentage points just four years ago. It’s the third “safe” Republican House seat to fall in a special election since March.

(…)

The vice president’s visit was last Monday, the centerpiece of a get-out-the-vote rally in DeSoto County, a G.O.P. stronghold. “We’ll put our shoulders to the wheel for John McCain,” the vice president promised as he bestowed his benediction on Mr. Davis. Well, he got out the vote all right. In the election results the next day, the Childers total in DeSoto County increased 142 percent, while the Davis count went up only 47 percent.

(…)

The McCain campaign is hoping that… showy, if tardy, departures from Bush-Cheney doctrine will constitute a galaxy of Sister Souljah moments, each with headlines reading “McCain Breaks With Bush on…” and the usual knee-jerk press references to Mr. McCain as a “maverick.” Enough of these, you see, and those much-needed independent voters might be flimflammed into believing that the G.O.P. candidate bears no responsibility for the administration’s toxically unpopular policies.

(…)

But are independents suckers? They’d have to be to fall for the pitch that Mr. McCain is an apostate in his own party in 2008. He has been an outspoken Bush defender since helping him sell the Iraq war in 2002 and barnstorming for him in 2004. Despite Mr. McCain’s campaign claims to the contrary, he never publicly called for the firing of Donald Rumsfeld. He is still one of the president’s most stalwart supporters in Congress, even signing on to the president’s wildly unpopular veto of an expansion of children’s health insurance.

(…)

Hard as it is for Mr. McCain to run from the Bush policies he supports, it will be far harder to escape from Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney themselves. When Mr. McCain accepted Mr. Bush’s endorsement at the White House in March, he referred three times to the president’s “busy schedule,” as if wishing aloud that the lame-duck incumbent would have no time to appear at, say, get-out-the-vote rallies. Alas, Mr. Bush and company are not going gently into retirement.

Just look at Mr. Rove. Some Democrats are outraged that he is now employed as a pundit by Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal as well as Fox News. Instead of complaining, they should be thrilled that Mr. Rove keeps inviting Republican complacency by constantly locating silver linings in the party’s bad news. His ubiquitous TV presence as a thinly veiled McCain surrogate has the added virtue of wrapping the Republican ticket in a daily and suffocating Bush bearhug, since Mr. Rove is far more synonymous with his former boss than Mr. Obama is with his former pastor.

And what of the loyal base that Dick Morris doesn’t think the Republicans have to worry about?  Check out the comments on this NRCC blog post where Tom Cole hypes the rollout of a kinder, gentler Republican Party.  They uniformly bemoan the sellout big-government liberalism and vow to stop contributing and stay home on Election Day.

So this is the dilemma that McCain and the Republicans face: How do they thread the needle between pretending that they have absolutely nothing in common with Dubya, nope, never heard of him, and pissing off the die-hard conservative base that is completely unaccustomed to not being pandered to? Even with the corporate media’s unstinting assistance, I don’t think it can be done - not if American voters still have functioning memories.

I’m looking forward to watching the Republicans alienate both the independents and the base for a truly epic implosion.  And if Bob Barr really does end up running to siphon off the crazy base vote, McCain will have absolutely zero chance.

(h/t dakine, Mike Stark, & Julia)

2 comments May 18th, 2008 at 02:13pm Posted by Eli

Quotes Of The Day

Just some things that made me smile today.

Hans von Spakovsky:

Dear President Bush:

It is with great regret that I write to request that you withdraw my nomination to be a Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission.  My nomination has been pending for almost two and one half years in the Senate without any resolution.  This process has been extremely hard on my family, and quite frankly, we do not have the financial resources to continue to wait until this matter is resolved.  I also agree with my former colleague Robert Lenhard, who recently withdrew his nomination, that it was past time that the FEC was reconstituted - the agency that is tasked with policing our campaign finance system needs to be operational during a presidential election year.  Ths opposition to my nomination (however unfair) is preventing that from happening.

He actually makes a very commendable point at the end there (aside from the “however unfair” part), so it appears that he does feel some rudimentary sense of civic responsibility then again, his vision of what the FEC should be doing during a presidential election year is very different from ours.

In case you’ve forgotten why he’s a total bastard who should never have been allowed within 3000 miles of the FEC, check out the roundup at the end of this TPMMuck post.

John Conyers:

We’re closing in on Rove. Someone’s got to kick his ass.

Tom Davis, by way of Peggy Noonan:

The party, Mr. Davis told me, is “an airplane flying right into a mountain.” Analyses of its predicament reflect an “investment in the Bush presidency,” but ‘the public has just moved so far past that.” “Our leaders go up to the second floor of the White House and they get a case of White House-itis.” Mr. Bush has left the party at a disadvantage in terms of communications: “He can’t articulate. The only asset we have now is the big microphone, and he swallowed it.”

Jay Leno:

Huge political fireworks today after President Bush went to Israel and he talked about American politicians who might want to talk with Hamas or other leaders. Politicians who would sit down and appease terrorists. He said he would not do it. He would not put up with it. He would never talk to terrorists. And then he flew to Saudi Arabia to spend a couple of days with the Saudi royal family.

Jon Stewart (while showing footage of Dubya biking, fishing, and dancing):

You know what?  Pictures matter.  Image is everything.  And when you ask military families to sacrifice so much — through stop-loss, or multiple tours without proper stateside rest, or refusing to fund a proper GI Bill, the least you can do is not force them to see you dicking around like you don’t have a care in the world.

Awesome.

(h/t All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin)

Add comment May 16th, 2008 at 08:23pm Posted by Eli

Republicans Supporting Our Troops, Episode CXLVII

Well, let’s see.  There was voting against updating the GI Bill to give troops a college education…

And then there was the VA’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder program coordinator sending an e-mail to VA staff recommending that they not diagnose PTSD if they can possibly avoid it, and that they should diagnose “Adjustment Disorder” instead.  Because too many troops had been seeking compensation.

It also appears that the military is calling troops with mental ailments “malingerers” and giving them a General Discharge that disqualifies them from collecting on their GI Bill payments. They can’t even recover the money that they had to invest in the GI Bill fund.

Yep, Republicans sure do love our troops, and spare no effort or expense to make sure they’re treated well and rewarded for their sacrificed.

Add comment May 16th, 2008 at 07:27am Posted by Eli

Co-Wanker Of The Day, Part II

Ah, memories…

Our Selfless Leader:

For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families.

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq and the organization’s high commissioner for human rights.

“I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life,” he said. “I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, ‘It’s just not worth it anymore to do.’”

It is so touching to see how Dubya appreciates the importance of sacrifice like that.

Add comment May 13th, 2008 at 09:20pm Posted by Eli

All The Iraqis Tell Me So, But What Do All The Iraqis Know?

It’s the Battle Of The Unscientific Polls!

On CNN’s American Morning earlier today, Kyra Phillips reported that during a recent trip to Baghdad “dozens of Iraqi soldiers and dozens of students at Baghdad university” told her that they “don’t want to see a Republican president.” “Out of every single one that I talked to, one person said they supported John McCain,” said Phillips.

Asked to respond, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who is an ardent supporter of McCain, dismissed what the Iraqis told Phillips as an “unscientific poll.” He claimed that on all the visits he’s made to Iraq, “the Iraqi people on the street, the Iraqi military, the Iraqi government that I’ve talked to, don’t want us to just pick up and leave.”

Lieberman then noted that the Iraqis don’t want the U.S. “to stay there forever,” which he claimed was consistent with McCain’s position on Iraq.

The Iraqi people on the street, the Iraqi military, the Iraqi government that I’ve talked to, don’t want us to just pick up and leave, which is what Sen. Obama, Sen. Clinton have been advocating. They want us, obviously, not to stay there forever. Sen. McCain wants the war to stop and to have us pull back into bases and be on a path, a reasonable path of withdrawal.

As Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) told ThinkProgress last year, congressional trips like Lieberman’s are shrouded in a “Green Zone fog” that makes it hard to get a real sense of the reality on the ground. But, as Phillips noted during her March report from Baghdad, she didn’t have a public affairs official present when she interviewed the soldiers and students, which she says allowed for an “uncensored” and “candid” two-hour discussion.

Additionally, in making the claim that like the Iraqis, McCain doesn’t want us “to stay there forever,” Lieberman completely ignores the fact that McCain has said it is “fine” with him for the U.S. to stay in Iraq for 100 years, which would essentially be forever. Also, while the Iraqi people have rejected permanent U.S. bases in the country, McCain has said they may be “necessary.”

Lieberman isn’t even on the same planet as reality.  Hell, even Ellen Tauscher says he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Add comment May 12th, 2008 at 10:16pm Posted by Eli

Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Syria…

Just to give you an idea of who has McCain’s ear these days…

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, THE REAL NEWS NETWORK:…John McCain has been assembling his team, and in his foreign policy team are some very interesting figures. First and foremost, James Woolsey, former head of the CIA. And then a man named Randy Schoenberg, who with Woolsey helped constitute something called the Committee on the Present Danger, co-chaired by Senators Kyl and Lieberman, who pushed the resolution declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as terrorist. And the Committee on the Present Danger is quite dedicated to regime change in Iran and Syria, and the fundamental thesis of the Project for a New American Century document, which is the projection of American military might to reshape the world.

[FORMER REPUBLICAN AND MORE-OR-LESS SANE PERSON] ERIC MARGOLIS, ANALYST, THE REAL NEWS NETWORK: Well, I’ve met Woolsey on a number of occasions, been on TV programs with him in Washington, and I would be very nervous to have this man anywhere in a high-level government position. The reason is that he’s one of the point men for the extreme right wing of the Republican Party. They’re almost so far right wing you can hear goose-stepping. They want a very militaristic foreign policy. They want to use American power to destroy all of Israel’s perceived enemies.

JAY: Eric, in that respect, let me show you a piece of video. This is a clip of James Woolsey speaking during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and this is Woolsey calling for what he thinks should be the American approach at that moment towards Syria.

[COMPLETELY BATSHIT INSANE REPUBLICAN] JIM WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: …I think Iran is the puppet master, and Syria and Hezbollah and Hamas to varying degrees are the puppets. This is really about Iran versus the US, and Israel is in the way.

INTERVIEWER: Woolsey, are you saying that we should be hitting Syria, we should be hitting the airport, we should be hitting Bashar Assad’s office?

WOOLSEY: Yes. The last thing we ought to do now, I think—.

INTERVIEWER: Well, you mean we the United States, not Israel.

WOOLSEY: Yes. Yes. I think the last thing we ought to do now is to start talking about ceasefires. This is a very serious challenge from Iran, and we need to weaken them badly, and undermining the Syrian government with air strikes would help weaken them badly.

INTERVIEWER: If undermining Syria, if taking Syria down a peg or two by actually hitting them with air strikes would be effective, why not hit something in Iran?

WOOLSEY: Well, you know, one has to take things to some degree by steps.

Alrighty then.  Bomb Syria first, then work your way up to Iran.  Very sensible, very Serious.  I’m sure there couldn’t possibly be any kind of unintended consequences whatsoever.  Do you really want this bloodthirsty nutjob whispering in the ear of the President Of The United States?  Do you really want a president who makes Dubya look reasonable and moderate?

(h/t David Goldstein)

1 comment May 12th, 2008 at 08:56pm Posted by Eli

America’s Best Friends

Just when you thought the Bush administration couldn’t respect the troops any less…

Since 2001, the U.S. military has cremated the remains of approximately 200 service members at Friends Forever Pet Cremation Service, a Delaware facility that primarily cremates pets. The practice was stopped yesterday, as the Washington Post reports:

The revelation came to light when an Army officer who works at the Pentagon traveled to Delaware on Thursday to attend the cremation of a military comrade. Offended to discover that the facility was labeled as a pet crematory, the officer sent an e-mail late Thursday night to superiors at the Pentagon that included a photograph of the signage.

The Friends Forever manager said that service members usually dropped off remains and returned the next day to pick them up. The practice is “contrary to the normal procedure,” in which the military is supposed to provide “an escort for all service members killed overseas during transport to the United States, and again after ‘medical processing’ at the Dover mortuary as the deceased returns home for interment.”

I want to say something bitterly snarky, but I just can’t.  It’s too horrible.  They really do treat the troops like dogs.

(h/t Blue Texan)

1 comment May 11th, 2008 at 01:12pm Posted by Eli

Blue Dogs Share Republican Vision Of “Fiscal Responsibility”

God, I hate these people:

A small group of fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats is threatening to block the emergency war spending bill over a program for veterans’ benefits not offset with tax hikes or spending cuts.

Because of that problem, and the efforts by House Republicans to stall floor action with procedural motions, the vote on the carefully crafted supplemental measure could be delayed until Friday or next week.

“Some of us oppose creating a new entitlement program in an emergency spending bill, whether it’s butchers, bakers or candlestick-makers,” said Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), a founding member of the Blue Dog Coalition who serves on the House leadership team as a deputy whip.

The so-called GI Bill of Rights, authored by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), would give veterans money for college and cost $720 million in its first two years. But critics say that could grow to billions in future years.

House Democratic leaders attached it to the supplemental spending bill figuring Bush wouldn’t dare veto veterans’ benefits. If he did, Republicans would pay a steep political cost.

But that calculation is now causing heartburn for Blue Dogs, the same members who have generally supported war funding. The fiscally conservative coalition is split. Some members are willing to block the bill because “pay-as-you-go” budgetary rules — offsetting new spending with spending cuts or increased taxes — have been ignored one too many times….

Got that?  They’re perfectly fine with spending $200 billion to continue the disastrous Iraqupation, but a few billion more to do right by the troops would be fiscally irresponsible.  What a bunch of loathsome tools.

(h/t Stoller)

Add comment May 9th, 2008 at 07:20am Posted by Eli

Unaccountable Contractors

Yet another great example of how much the Bush administration cares about our troops:

The Pentagon has provided $30 billion in contracts to KBR during the Iraq War.  Apparently that’s just the Basic Troop Support Package, however, because it’s not enough money to keep the contractor from electrocuting a dozen troops in showers and elsewhere throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.

(…)

The accidental deaths and close calls, which are being investigated by Congress and the Defense Department’s inspector general, raise new questions about the oversight of contractors in the war zone, where unjustified killings by security guards, shoddy reconstruction projects and fraud involving military supplies have spurred previous inquiries.American electricians who worked for KBR, the Houston-based defense contractor that is responsible for maintaining American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, said they repeatedly warned company managers and military officials about unsafe electrical work, which was often performed by poorly trained Iraqis and Afghans paid just a few dollars a day.

One electrician warned his KBR bosses in his 2005 letter of resignation that unsafe electrical work was “a disaster waiting to happen.” Another said he witnessed an American soldier in Afghanistan receiving a potentially lethal shock. A third provided e-mail messages and other documents showing that he had complained to KBR and the government that logs were created to make it appear that nonexistent electrical safety systems were properly functioning.

(…)

One former KBR electrician was quite frank about what’s going on:

And Mr. Bliss, who saw a soldier standing next to him in Qalat, Afghanistan, receive a severe shock from an electrical box that was not supposed to be charged, said his KBR bosses mocked him for raising safety issues. They were “not giving the Army what it needed,” he said, “and not giving the soldiers what they deserved.”

I understand that accidents happen in combat zones.  I know that nothing ever runs perfectly under these conditions.  But that’s not what bothers me.  What bothers me is the fact that taxpayers are funding these clowns to the tune of $30 billion and counting.  And they’re not capable of producing work remotely close to what the government could do for itself in terms of quality and speed.

And then there’s this:

In March 2005, one of the Pentagon’s most trusted contractors - Virginia-based MPRI, founded by retired senior military leaders - won a $400 million contract to train police in Iraq and other hotspots. Two months later, MPRI set up a company in Bermuda to which it subcontracted much of the work.

It was not the first time that MPRI executives had used a shell company in an offshore tax haven to perform government-funded work. A year earlier, MPRI headed a joint venture that won a $1.6 billion contract to provide US peacekeeping forces in Kosovo and elsewhere. Three months later, MPRI set up a company in the Cayman Islands to do the work.

Like MPRI’s Bermuda subsidiary, the Cayman Islands company appears to have no phone number, website, or staff of its own there.

Rick Kiernan, an MPRI spokesman, declined to explain why the company created the two offshore entities and stressed that MPRI operates in “total adherence or compliance with the current law.”

But tax lawyers say that MPRI appears to be avoiding the payment of roughly $4 million dollars a year in Social Security and Medicare taxes for the police-training contract alone and is sidestepping scrutiny by hiring workers through offshore entities based outside the jurisdiction of the Internal Revenue Service.

“The employer is trying to take itself out of the audit reach of the IRS,” said California-based tax lawyer James R. Urquhart III.

(…)

MPRI’s use of offshore shell companies has received little notice from the agencies that pay for their services. State Department officials say that their contractors have a right to subcontract work, even to their own wholly-owned subsidiaries set up in offshore tax havens.

“A contractor generally has the right to retain and terminate subcontractors as it deems necessary,” a State Department official said in an e-mail response to a Globe inquiry.

The US Army, for its part, also has declined to condemn the practice.

“We know that it is a practice that goes on,” said Jeffrey Parsons, director of contracting for the Army Materiel Command. “I would not say anyone encourages it, but there are no rules or pratices that would prohibit it. I think that is why Congress is weighing in.”

I can’t imagine what it would take for one of these companies to lose a government contract, much less face criminal sanctions.

Stories like these really drive home the relationship between the government and the contractors: The contractors aren’t paid to deliver services, they’re paid for being loyal and connected Republicans, so it doesn’t matter whether they deliver on their contracts (or manage to not kill anyone), or whether they pay their fair share of taxes.  It’s nothing more than cronyism at the corporation level.

(h/t dakine)

Add comment May 4th, 2008 at 03:01pm Posted by Eli

The Accomplisher

Is it possible to be so wrong that you end up in a different dimension altogether?  I give you… Richard Perle, 5/2/03:

From start to finish, President Bush has led the United States and its coalition partners to the most important military victory since World War II. And like the allied victory over the axis powers, the liberation of Iraq is more than the end of a brutal dictatorship: It is the foundation for a decent, humane government that will represent all the people of Iraq.

This was a war worth fighting. It ended quickly with few civilian casualties and with little damage to Iraq’s cities, towns or infrastructure. It ended without the Arab world rising up against us, as the war’s critics feared, without the quagmire they predicted, without the heavy losses in house-to-house fighting they warned us to expect. It was conducted with immense skill and selfless courage by men and women who will remain until Iraqis are safe, and who will return home as heroes.

In full retreat, the war’s opponents have now taken up new defensive positions: “Yes, it was a military victory, but you haven’t found Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.” Or, “Yes, we destroyed Saddam’s regime, but now other dictators will try even harder to develop weapons of mass destruction to make sure they will not fall to some future American preemptive strike.”

We will find Saddam’s well-hidden chemical and biological weapons programs, but only when people who know come forward and tell us where to look. While Saddam was in power, even a hint about his concealment and deception was a death sentence, often by unimaginable torture against whole families. Saddam had four years to hide things. We have had a few weeks to find them. Patience — and some help from free Iraqis — will be rewarded.

(…)

Iraqis are freer today and we are safer. Relax and enjoy it.

(Not that Perle was at all unique in his delusions…)

Let’s take stock, shall we?