Memo to the Bush Administration: Sex sells

by twit

So CBS Correspondent Lara Logan went on the Daily Show on June 17, 2008, and you can watch the entire episode here.

In response to Stewart’s question about whether we have lost our humanity, Logan answers “yes.” One might infer that she is not impressed with the limited war news coverage generally available to Americans.

And now we get to learn that there are sex scandals. What a coincidence.

Ghosts of Iraq

by twit

An insightful comment on a previous post raised an important point about the mental health effects of combat stress, and it reminded me of a recent news story that goes far beyond the cold statistics of the suicide rates for our war veterans:

From the Fort Mill Times on May 25, 2008:

Until the day he died, Sgt. Brian Rand believed he was being haunted by the ghost of the Iraqi man he killed.

The ghost choked Rand while he slept in his bunk, forcing him to wake up gasping for air and clawing at his throat.

He whispered that Rand was a vampire and looked on as the soldier stabbed another member of Fort Campbell’s 96th Aviation Support Battalion in the neck with a fork in the mess hall.

Eventually, the ghost told Rand he needed to kill himself.

The Miracle Marine

by twit

Cpl. Merlin German was injured so badly by a roadside bomb in Iraq he was rushed back to the United States so his family could have a chance to say goodbye. 97% of his body was covered in burns but he defied the odds and slowly began the long process of recovery and rehabilitation.

People started calling him the “Miracle Marine.”

The Associated Press reports on May 25, 2008:

At Brooke [Army Medical Center], he designed a T-shirt that he sometimes sold, sometimes gave away. On the front it read: “Got 3 percent chance of survival, what ya gonna do?” The back read, “A) Fight Through, b) Stay Strong, c) Overcome Because I Am a Warrior, d) All Of The Above.” D is circled.

His recovery became legendary:

“Early on, he thought, ‘This is ridiculous. Why am I doing this? Why am I working so hard?’” Renz recalls. “But every month or so, he’d say, ‘I’ve licked it.’ … He was amazingly positive overall. … He never complained. He’d just dig in and do it.”

In Golf We Trust

by twit

Olbermann has some choice words for Bush about his claim of sacrificing golf out of respect for families of soldiers lost in his wars:

via Buzzfeed.

Bush foreign policy advice is like weight loss tips from those fat twins on the scooters

by lestro

Today the President in all his wisdom chided those who would negotiate with “terrorists and radicals.”

It is being perceived as a shot at Obama, for his (amazingly Christian, something you’d think our born-again crusader of a president would know) view of talking with our enemies in an attempt to resolve the issue by not having to start a multi-billion dollar, never-ending war.

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Mr. Bush said.

“We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.”

We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

What a son of a lame duck bitch he is.

love letters from gangsters and thieves

by twit

why, Alan… my, how you do go on…

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Tuesday the U.S. economy was in recession, and said it would be appropriate to tap public funds to resolve the mortgage-related crisis that has helped pull the economy under.

why, Bubba… my, how you do go on…

Mark Penn, who lost his job as chief strategist to the Clinton campaign because of his work for the Colombian government on a controversial trade pact, wasn’t her only adviser with such ties. Another is Bill Clinton.

Mr. Clinton supports the pact with Colombia even though his wife opposes it, a Clinton campaign spokesman said Tuesday.

why, Karl… my, how you do go on…

… even Rove had to agree that Sen. Clinton has run a poor campaign.

“She has run a horrific campaign,” said Rove. “It has been astonishingly bad. … [Obama] has strategically always run a better campaign than she has tactically.”

why, Energy Information Administration… my, how you do go on…

… the Energy Information Administration predicted that average gasoline prices will shoot up to $3.60 a gallon in June and average $3.54 per gallon over the summer driving period, an increase of 60 cents a gallon over last summer.

It’s entirely possible, EIA Administrator Guy Caruso said, that gasoline prices could top $4 a gallon during parts of the summer driving period, defined as April 1 to Sept. 30.

Surprised?

by twit

ABC News is, but I don’t know what channel they’re watching…

Surprising Political Endorsements By U.S. Troops

… these soldiers spoke out about their personal endorsements, and their opinions are likely to matter. In 2004, 73 percent of the U.S. military voted for a presidential candidate, and officials believe it may be even higher this time around.

so here comes the surprise…

PFC Jeremy Slate said he supported Sen. Barack Obama…

SFC Patricia Keller also expressed support for Obama…

Spc. Imus Loto said he supported Obama…

1st Sgt. David Logan said, “I am leaning toward Hillary…”

Spc. Joseph Lindsesdt’s pick is Obama…

but John, you are a warmonger. look it up.

by lestro

For being such a tough guy, Sen. John McCain seems to me to have a pretty thin skin:

The campaigns of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama sparred Saturday after Ed Schultz, a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who is known for his blunt criticisms of the Bush administration and the Republican Party, called Mr. McCain a “warmonger” at a fund-raiser.

Mr. Schultz, a conservative Republican turned liberal Democrat, made the remarks on Friday while revving up a group of Obama supporters at a $100-a-head fund-raiser at the North Dakota Democratic Party’s convention in Grand Forks. As soon as the Republican National Committee got word of the attack, it issued a statement criticizing Mr. Schultz and calling on Mr. Obama to repudiate the comments.

Later, Mr. McCain, speaking to reporters in Prescott, Ariz., said, “Mr. Schultz is entitled to his views.” But he added, “I would hope that in keeping with his commitment, that Senator Obama would condemn such language, since it was part of his campaign.”

But here’s the thing, he is a warmonger. I looked it up:

war·mon·ger

Pronunciation:

\ˈwȯr-ˌməŋ-gər, -ˌmäŋ-\

Function:

noun

Date:

1817

: one who urges or attempts to stir up war

we taught them everything they know

by lestro

Well, we’ve done a heckuva job in Iraq and have obviously trained the Iraqi leadership to the absolute best of our leadership’s abilities, as apparent by the Iraqi push into Basra last week that stirred up the Mahdi army:

… interviews with a wide range of American and military officials also suggest that Mr. Maliki overestimated his military’s abilities and underestimated the scale of the resistance. The Iraqi prime minister also displayed an impulsive leadership style that did not give his forces or that of his most powerful allies, the American and British military, time to prepare.

“He went in with a stick and he poked a hornet’s nest, and the resistance he got was a little bit more than he bargained for,” said one official in the multinational force in Baghdad who requested anonymity. “They went in with 70 percent of a plan. Sometimes that’s enough. This time it wasn’t.”

As the Iraqi military and civilian casualties grew and the Iraqi planning appeared to be little more than an improvisation, the United States mounted an intensive military and political effort to try to turn around the situation, according to accounts by Mr. Crocker and several American military officials in Baghdad and Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A leader with good intentions and bad advice who went lumbering into a battle with no exit strategy and a vastly underestimated sense of the insurgency that was waiting for them?

why does that sound familiar? oh yeah.

But the comparisons don’t end there.

our surge can beat up your surge

by lestro

With all the talk about the great effectiveness of “the surge” in Iraq, one little important bit of evidence is always left out when discussing the reduction in violence: the Mahdi Army’s decision to lay low since last summer.

However, this week Moktada al-Sadr - a guy who went from a terrorist who needed to be killed into a political leader we deal with - decided to reassert himself:

Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric who commands the Mahdi Army and initially called for a suspension of his militia’s activities in August, called on Monday called for a nationwide civil disobedience campaign, beginning in Baghdad, in response to what his followers say is an unwarranted crackdown.

and what happened?  all hell broke loose.

Should the US boycott the Olympics?

vs.

Previously, in response to a report that hundreds of Tibetans have been killed since March 10, 2008, lestro wondered, “what if they hosted an Olympics and no one came?”

The conversation continues…

Bush: Politics not a factor in Olympics

WASHINGTON - China’s crackdown in Tibet will not cause President Bush to cancel his planned trip to the Beijing Olympics, the White House said Thursday.

… Presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush’s position is that the Olympics “should be about the athletes and not necessarily about politics.”

She said that Bush, in accepting the invitation last year from Chinese President Hu Jintao to attend the Olympics, told him the games would “shine a spotlight on all things Chinese.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Perino added.

Bush agreed to go to the Olympics during a meeting with Hu in Australia last September during the Asia Pacific Economic Council meeting. A White House spokesman said at the time that Bush was going to the games for the sports and not for any political statement.

(image via infoplease.com via www.attytood.com)

Should the US boycott the 2008 Olympics?

birthday parties for unjust wars

by twit

Five years ago I watched the war start on CNN. It had been frustrating then to see how limited the news coverage was of the protests that were taking place in DC and around the country at the time. On the ground, they were huge. On the news, not so much.

Five years ago we didn’t have the internets like we do now, but today, after visits to the main organizing sites and finding no blogs, no updates few updates, no recent press releases or video, I see a missed opportunity here. It looks like whatever fragmentation is happening with the organizers of the protests, it translated into fragmented coverage on the internets and in the news.

so what the hell happened?

war is fun

by twit

Bush listens to military and civilian personnel on the front lines describe how difficult operations are in Afghanistan, and in a Ferraro-esque display of self-absorption and abandonment of reality, suggests they should quit complaining and instead be more appreciative of the ‘fantastic’ and ‘exciting’ experiences of war and reconstruction.

From Reuters on March 14, 2008, with emphasis added:

“I must say, I’m a little envious,” Bush said. “If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.”

“It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger.

You’re really making history, and thanks,” Bush said.

The Raw Story notes on March 13, 2008 that an upcoming conference is going to highlight “some pretty fucked-up shit” from the experiences of combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

pay no attention to the war in Iraq

by twit

MSNBC reports on a recent study from the Pew Research Center that suggests “public awareness of developments in the Iraq war has dropped precipitously since last summer, as the news media have paid less attention to the conflict.”

And maybe they have a point. I had figured that the graphic story about the five severed fingers sent to US officials in Iraq would dominate the news today, but apparently it is (mostly) flying under the radar. DNA tests confirm that the fingers belong to military contractors kidnapped in Iraq in 2006. McClatchy reports:

The first four men were security contractors with Kuwait-based Crescent Security and were captured in a brazen ambush of their 43-truck supply convoy in the southern Iraqi town of Safwan, near the Kuwaiti border, on Nov. 16, 2006.

The Crescent contractors appeared in two hostage videos released in December 2006 and January 2007 in which they pleaded for the United States to withdraw troops from Iraq and to free all Iraqi prisoners. In the videos, they appeared in good condition and said that they were being treated well.

No financial demand has been made public and it’s unclear what group is holding the men. All of the hostages were seized in southern Iraq, an area swarming with powerful Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militias.

Image via Drudge, representative of what the American news prefers to think about instead.

The Washington Post points out that only “[t]wenty-eight percent of the public is aware that nearly 4,000 U.S. personnel have died in Iraq over the past five years, while nearly half thinks the death tally is 3,000 or fewer.” For the record, via Think Progress, “[a]s of today, the Department of Defense has confirmed the deaths of 3,973 U.S. soldiers.”

UPDATE: The Raw Story reports on March 24, 2008:

The remains of two American security contractors who were kidnapped more than a year ago have been found in Iraq, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Monday.

“There is no crisis to be dealt with or managed when you are first lady”

by twit

zing. From the Associated Press on March 8, 2008:

“Her experience speaks for itself,” says former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who is advising Clinton’s campaign. She wasn’t the one making the final decisions on U.S. policy, he says, but “no one in the world got a better idea of the countervailing pressures. The most important decision a president can make is to send Americans into harm’s way. She knows what that entails.”

A contrary view comes from Susan Rice, a former assistant secretary of state from the Clinton years and an Obama campaign adviser. She said Clinton’s involvement with foreign policy as first lady was “laudable and important, but it is hardly the same thing as the kind of crisis management” that is required of a president. “There is no crisis to be dealt with or managed when you are first lady,” Rice said.

hm. Hillary Clinton’s adviser says that the most important decision “a president can make” is about sending the military into harm’s way. So she gets a big ‘fail’ for voting to start the Iraq war, right?

postcards from the internets

by twit

when he’s right he’s right: “I have some news for John McCain,” Obama said, according to The Politico. “There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain” started their war… John McCain may like to say he wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell, but so far all he’s done is follow George Bush into a misguided war…”

when she’s right she’s right twice: “It’s a hard sell for Hillary to say that she is the only one capable of leading this country in a war when she helped in leading the country into that war.” aaaand: “It is only because of the utter open-mindedness of the press that Hillary can lose 11 contests in a row and still be treated as a contender.”

through the looking glass: “First came Harold Ickes, who gave a presentation about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s prospects that severed all ties with reality.”

and back again: “A new CBS News/New York Times poll finds Barack Obama with a 16-point lead over rival Hillary Clinton among Democratic primary voters nationwide…

When all registered voters were asked who they favored in a head-to-head general election match up between Obama and McCain, Obama led by 12 percentage points, 50 to 38 percent. In a Clinton-McCain match up, registered voters were evenly split, with 46 percent backing each candidate.”

when the kitteh’z right…

more postcards after the jump…

100 Years Is OK With Me

by squishmael

Please don’t interpret this as a commitment of support on my hairy part, but, in specific regards to the ‘100 years’ statement that Hill and Barry have been riding, I don’t think it’s all that bad as explained by CNN. I, too, think that a 100% pull-out could have some notable consequences. In fact, I would have to say that having some very-limited presence there is the responsible way to go. Getting to the point where our presence is peaceful and not prompting innocent civilians to be killed as a result of suicide bombers’ actions in reaction to our presence, however, is a very dim-lit road.

Right To Life

by squishmael

I haven’t finished the process of breaking down all the issues yet. I admit to not giving the race for the presidency a lot of attention until the last month or so. But, you can count on one issue being on the top of my list when I line up the candidates side by side to compare their positions: how do they address the issue of the people’s right to life?

Now, you may already be writing me off as a Christian conservative, but, hold on. When I consider the right for each individual being to live, I’m not just talking about fetuses (which I do believe have that right), but, also about American citizens being forced to serve in Iraq, elderly people who can’t afford medication, hispanics who cross the border out of desperation, and blue collar workers who can’t afford proper medical care.

The worst thing somebody could do is claim that they are for protecting the lives of the unborn and vote for a candidate who says they also want to protect the unborn, but, then put hundreds or thousands of people in harm’s way for the sake of oil.

The fact that the American political system is flawed becomes apparent when you realize that bundled laws that aren’t even read by most lawmakers are being passed by the truckload and presidential candidates are burning millions of dollars just to make the point that they’re responsible enough to have the job of righting our economy, providing healthcare for people who can’t afford it, and feeding those whose cupboards are bare.

As Chris Cornell once sang so brilliantly several years ago, “The wreck is going down. Get out before you drown.”

understatement of the day

by twit

“This parody concept is brilliant.”

thx Wonkette

People may ignore the war in favor of the elections

by twit

and the Pew Research Center reports that Iraq was the focus of only two percent of news coverage from January 28 through February 3, 2008.

But Iraq has a way of calling attention to itself:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two journalists working for CBS News have gone missing in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the company said in a statement.

“All efforts are under way to find them and until we learn more details, CBS News requests that others do not speculate on the identities of those involved. CBS News has been in touch with the families and asks that their privacy be respected,” CBS News said in a statement.

via drudge

Made in France - False Statements

by the squid

So finally, some poor graduate students were asked to over all the rhetoric leading up the the Iraq war. They found 935 false statements.

“The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.”

when it’s the romper room, that’s how

by twit

“How do you not notice when 308,000 barrels of oil go missing?”

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2008/01/oil-crisis-as-b.html