Foreign Policy Archives

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April 27, 2008

An impressive list......

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April 18, 2008

Obama's smug, frat boy schtick is offensive enough. But the thought of someone so inexperienced and with such poor judgement at the top job in the country is scary. From Joe Wilson: Senator Obama's ill-conceived remarks likening small town Americans to embittered guns-and-God bigots have triggered a justifiable furor. Not only are the remarks insulting, but also factually incorrect. As it happens, at the same event in San Francisco, Senator Obama made other remarks, equally startling, insulting our Foreign Service, Intelligence Officers, members of Congress who provide oversight, and friendly governments. Like his comments about small town Americans, Obama demonstrated a cavalier disregard for Americans who every day get up determined to make this a better country, whether running the general store in a small town, or representing our national security interests in a foreign country. This is what Obama said: Experience in Washington in not knowledge of the world....

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April 08, 2008

Joe Scarborough via Taylor Marsh......

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March 28, 2008

I have subscribed to The Nation for years but will not renew because they "picked sides" - in particular, they picked the side of someone who does not well-represent their until now holier than thou progressive positions. Al Gore wasn't good enough for likes of The Nation in 2000 - they backed Ralph Nader. Now they have helped vault the ultimate insider politician to cult leader, while vilifying another Democrat who is far better qualified for the job. From Naomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill: Some of the most prominent anti-war voices--from MoveOn.org to the magazine we write for, The Nation--have gone this route, throwing their weight behind the Obama campaign. This is a serious strategic mistake. It is during a hotly contested campaign that anti-war forces have the power to actually sway U. S. policy. As soon as we pick sides, we relegate ourselves to mere cheerleaders. While Clinton and...

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March 03, 2008

From Hillary Clinton: Hillary Clinton will set out her approach to American foreign policy in the 21st Century in a speech at George Washington University today. Joining her will be a group of senior retired military and defense officials who have endorsed her to be this nation’s next Commander-in-Chief. They are: General Wesley Clark, Lt. General Joe Ballard, Major General Antonio M. Taguba, Rear Admiral David Stone, Brigadier General John M. Watkins, Jr. and former Secretary of the Army Togo West. Generals Taguba and Watkins will formally announce their endorsement of Senator Clinton today. Many of our nation’s most distinguished military officers stand proudly with Hillary Clinton because they believe that she has the strength, experience and leadership necessary to be President and Commander-in-Chief. They include three four-star generals, a former chairman and vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many other Americans who have served their country with...

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March 02, 2008

Op Ed at Taylor Marsh......

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February 29, 2008

"Inevitably, another national security crisis will occur. And when it does, voters shouldn't have to wonder whether their President will be ready. As president, Hillary will be ready to act swiftly and decisively." ~ General Wesley Clark...

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February 27, 2008

"We've seen the tragic result of having a president who had neither the experience nor wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security. We can't let that happen again." ~ Hillary Clinton...

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From Trudy Rubin in the Philadelphia Inquirer: Back in 1991, when Bill Clinton was running for president, he came to talk with the Inquirer Editorial Board. After wonkish discussions of domestic issues, I asked him about the Middle East. He started talking and wouldn't stop, even as his handlers dragged him to the elevator and his car. Clearly, he was new to foreign affairs; his ramble indicated he hadn't yet mastered the big picture even as he reveled in the details. I've thought about that discussion as Americans debate how much foreign-policy experience matters for the next commander-in-chief. Clearly, a smart leader can bone up on foreign policy over time. Although Clinton failed in his effort to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace, he came closer than any previous president and ended up as something of a Middle East expert. Our next president, however, won't have time for a learning curve. He...

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February 12, 2008

If I could only recommend one article about Hillary vs. Obama, it would be this. And also ask them why they think Obama chose Joe Lieberman as his mentor in the Senate in 2005, well after the Iraq War vote! From Ambassador Joe Wilson in the Baltimore Sun: We simply could not allow ourselves to be driven from the public square by bullying. Mrs. Clinton knew from experience, having spent the better part of the past 20 years fighting the Republican attack machine. She is a fighter.But will Mr. Obama fight? His brief time on the national scene gives little comfort. Consider a February 2006 exchange of letters with Mr. McCain on the subject of ethics reform. The wrathful Mr. McCain accused Mr. Obama of being "disingenuous," to which Mr. Obama meekly replied, "The fact that you have now questioned my sincerity and my desire to put aside politics for...

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February 07, 2008

This is good stuff, hang in there until the end. I love Rachel but think Buchanan has the right idea in this case. Countdown Video...

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October 15, 2007

From Eric Alterman: Meanwhile, in a column that shames his colleague across the page, Frank Rich explores the manner in which the rest of us have behaved like "Good Germans" in sitting still for the evil our government continues to commit in our name: By any legal standards except those rubber-stamped by Alberto Gonzales, we are practicing torture, and we have known we are doing so ever since photographic proof emerged from Abu Ghraib more than three years ago. ... There has been scarcely more response to the similarly recurrent story of apparent war crimes committed by our contractors in Iraq. ... There has been no accountability. The State Department, Blackwater's sugar daddy for most of its billion dollars in contracts, won't even share its investigative findings with the United States military and the Iraqi government, both of which have deemed the killings criminal. ... We can continue to blame...

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October 14, 2007

Huffington Post Video "This masterful book is a measured but furious call to arms. Naomi Klein is Antigone before the King, the antidote to the feeling of inevitability that says that we must accept murder as a legitimate economic policy. She has the audacity and the courage to chronicle the human costs of an ideology in which worshiping the markets is not enough; you must actually kill to feed them. Klein is the vanguard, the fire, the resistance and she challenges us not to join the suicide club that enables corporate cannibalism. A spectacular triumph." So, what to do? Arundhati Roy points us home: "Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability...

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September 22, 2007

The War "Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from all the blood and horror and tragedy our witnesses recalled is that no nation should embark upon any war without first understanding what its cost will be and without being certain that its objectives are really worth the fearful price." ~ Ken Burns My Parents and The War My father served in combat in World War II, in the Pacific theater. He was in the infantry, he said. As a child, I associated the word "infantry" with General Custer - visions of a man in a big hat astride a horse, sword at his side came to mind. But I found out later that an infantryman in World War II was a foot solder in the Army. My father rarely spoke about his experiences in combat. He rarely spoke at all - did the war change him, or was...

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September 17, 2007

From Fred Kaplan in the Dallas Morning News: On Monday, while Gen. David Petraeus prepared to testify before two House committees about the successes of the surge, seven of his soldiers died when their transport vehicle overturned in a highway accident west of Baghdad. Two of those soldiers, Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, and Sgt. Omar Mora, 28, were part of another group of seven – the seven noncommissioned officers of the 82nd Airborne Division who wrote a brave, well-reasoned op-ed in the Aug. 19 New York Times – and republished here – calling the prospect of victory "far-fetched" and appraisals of progress "surreal." Another author, Staff Sgt. Jeremy A. Murphy, was shot in the head during a firefight before the op-ed was published. (He is alive but recovering slowly.) It is sad and appalling that nearly half of the authors are now casualties of the war that they...

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August 31, 2007

Jeffrey Feldman asks the same question I have asked again and again, from the Huffington Post: According to the Washington Post, Harry Reid is again 'negotiating' with Senate Republicans about ways to end the nightmare on Baghdad Street often referred to as 'the war in Iraq' (i.e., it's not a 'war'--it's a burned-out military occupation). What's up for negotiation this time? You guess it: Bush wants $50 billion more for Iraq. Apparently, Republicans are wiling to sit down and talk about legislation to get out of Iraq, with just a few conditions: they refuse to use the words 'deadline' or 'timetable' or 'withdrawal.' In other words, the Republicans are happy to negotiation with Democrats about ending the war on Iraq, but refuse to allow any of the words Americans use to talk about ending a war. Now, I ask myself: would I sit down at the negotiating table if the...

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July 08, 2007

Tom Paine said, "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country." Colin Powell turned summer soldier and sunshine patriot when his country - and the world - needed him most. From Raw Story: It was revealed today that prior to the Iraq war, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell spent two and a half hours trying in vain to convince President George W. Bush not to invade. "I tried to avoid this war," Powell told the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, reports Sarah Baxter in the Sunday Times. Powell said he walked Bush through the risks of becoming an occupying force in an Arab country. The sectarian violence in Iraq has escalated to the point of civil war, said Powell, and one that US forces cannot resolve. Baxter points to plans being drawn up by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to begin...

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June 26, 2007

From Fareed Zakaria at Newsweek: In the fall of 1982, I arrived in the United States as an 18-year-old student from India. The country was in rough shape. That December unemployment hit 10.8 percent, higher than at any point since World War II. Interest rates hovered around 15 percent. Abroad, the United States was still reeling from Vietnam and Watergate. The Soviet Union was on a roll, expanding its influence from Afghanistan to Angola to Central America. That June, Israel invaded Lebanon, making a tense situation in the Middle East even more volatile. Yet America was a strikingly open and expansive country. Reagan embodied it. Despite record-low approval ratings, he exuded optimism from the center of the storm. In the face of Moscow's rising power he confidently spoke of a mortal crisis in the Soviet system and predicted that it would end up on "the ash heap of history." Across...

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June 16, 2007

WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier I heard about this on an XM public radio show. A teacher in England found his grandfather's letters that were sent to his brother and sister while he was a soldier on the front lines in WWI. The teacher is posting the letters as the soldier's (his grandfather Harry's) own blog - and posting each letter on the 90th anniversary of the dates they were written (to Harry's brother and sister, Jack and Kate). The story said there were other letters written to his grandmother that didn't survive. But judging by how he spares Kate the more gory details he shares with Jack (although as a midwife, Kate has probably seen a lot Harry has not seen), perhaps we will not miss much of the war experience (although we will miss some of Harry's emotional experience, as he misses his wife and baby...

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From Laurence M. Vance at Lew Rockwell: Because the war in Iraq was not defensive, U.S. soldiers – many of whom would claim to be Christians – cannot claim to be acting in self-defense when they gun down Iraqis. They are invaders and occupiers, not liberators and peacekeepers. It is unfortunate that many Americans have the idea that a terrorist is anyone who detonates a bomb but doesn’t wear an air force uniform.The Bible says in Colossians 3:23: "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men." Bombing, killing, maiming, and interrogating for the state cannot be done heartily in the name of the Lord. Christians who do these things in the service of the state do them unto men – men like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Powell, and the other architects of the Iraq war – they do not do them for...

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May 31, 2007

Bill Maher's latest and greatest New Rule: New Rule: Jimmy Carter must be shipped off to Guantanamo Bay. Last weekend, former U.S. president and current Al Qaeda operative--Jimmy Carter, launched an unprovoked attack upon democracy itself by telling an Arkansas newspaper that the Bush Administration has been the worst in history. And people were shocked... Arkansas has newspapers?! But, once again, we were sucked into a phony controversy about who said what and how it hurts George Bush's feelings. Because when you hurt George Bush, you hurt America's feelings; and when you hurt America's feelings, you hurt the troops. And when that happens, Tinker Bell's light goes out and she dies. Now, as for Carter's assertion, I was up all night on Wikipedia doing an exhaustive study of former presidents. And while other presidents have sucked in their own individual ways, Bush is like a smorgasbord of "suck." He --...

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May 29, 2007

From the New York Times: Never mind how badly the war is going in Iraq. President Bush has been swaggering around like a victorious general because he cowed a wobbly coalition of Democrats into dropping their attempt to impose a time limit on his disastrous misadventure. By week’s end, Mr. Bush was acting as though that bit of parliamentary strong-arming had left him free to ignore not just the Democrats, but also the vast majority of Americans, who want him to stop chasing illusions of victory and concentrate on how to stop the sacrifice of young Americans’ lives. And, ever faithful to his illusions, Mr. Bush was insisting that he was the only person who understood the true enemy. Speaking to graduates of the Coast Guard Academy, Mr. Bush declared that Al Qaeda is “public enemy No. 1” in Iraq and that “the terrorists’ goal in Iraq is to reignite...

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May 28, 2007

If we don't speak up and question our leaders, we are letting our troops down, as well as others throughout the world who depend on us to make sure our leaders do not abuse their position of power. I applaud Rosie for having the courage to publicly speak out - and it does take courage. From Rosie O'Donnell's blog: Did Rosie Call Our Troops Terrorists? The is directly from the transcripts of The View for May 17th: O’DONNELL: …… I just want to say something. 655,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. Who are the terrorists? HASSELBECK: Who are the terrorists? O’DONNELL: 655,000 Iraqis — I’m saying you have to look, we invaded – HASSELBECK: Wait, who are you calling terrorists now? Americans? O’DONNELL: I’m saying if you were in Iraq, and the other country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens,...

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May 06, 2007

From the AP: In a survey of U.S. troops in combat in Iraq, less than half of Marines soldiers said they feel they should treat noncombatants with respect. Only about a half said they would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian. More than 40 percent support the idea of torture in some cases, and 10 percent reported personally abusing Iraqi civilians, the Pentagon said Friday in what it called its first ethics study of troops at the war front. Units exposed to the most combat were chosen for the study, officials said. “It is disappointing,” said analyst John Pike of the Globalsecurity.org think tank. “But anybody who is surprised by it doesn’t understand war. ... This is about combat stress.” The military has seen a number of high-profile incidents of alleged abuse in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the killings of...

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From The Nation: It is the duty of Congress to check and balance the White House, especially when a President refuses to recognize the futility and mounting cost of an illegal war and occupation overwhelmingly opposed by the Iraqi people. Democratic leaders must recognize that they have already compromised too much. It is a brutal irony for George W. Bush that the fourth anniversary of his May 1, 2003, appearance in flight-suit drag before a banner declaring his Iraq War a "Mission Accomplished" falls on the week he is battling Congress for another $100 billion to keep the United States in a fight that has now lasted longer than the country's involvement in World War II. Congressional leaders who want Bush to acknowledge the failure of his mission would do well to recall another date: October 10, 2002, when House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt asserted that legislation authorizing Bush to...

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May 01, 2007

From Juan Cole at Salon: As Tenet recounted the story on "60 Minutes," Pentagon advisor Richard Perle "said to me, 'Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday; they bear responsibility.'" Tenet told interviewer Scott Pelley that he was startled at the allegation. "It's September the 12th," said Tenet. "I've got the manifest with me that tells me al-Qaida did this. Nothing in my head that says there is any Iraqi involvement in this in any way, shape or form, and I remember thinking to myself, as I'm about to go brief the president, 'What the hell is he talking about?'"Tenet's experience was nearly identical to that of former terrorism czar Richard Clarke. In his own "60 Minutes" interview three years ago, and in his 2004 book, "Against All Enemies," Clarke said that he met Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Sept. 12, 2001, and Rumsfeld was pushing for...

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April 21, 2007

From Joseph Galloway: The American military death toll in Iraq rose to almost 3,300 this week. The number of wounded and injured now tops 50,000. Continuing this war for another two years will bring the day-to-day cost to the American taxpayer to nearly a trillion dollars. Hidden long-term costs such as medical care and disability pensions for the thousands of wounded, and mental health care for those tormented by PTSD, could add another trillion dollars or more to the tab. It will be costly and painful to prolong the war in Iraq for another 21 months so that those who started it can hand off the harder decision of how to end it to the next occupant of the White House. President Bush isn't extending and expanding the war in a search for victory. His dream of victory in Iraq cannot be achieved. Not by sending 30,000 more American troops....

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April 19, 2007

Great article by Tom Engelhardt in Uruknet: Make no mistake, whatever words may be wielded, that "clock" of General Petraeus's is indeed ticking --loudly enough to be a bomb. Sooner or later, it will go off and whether it proves to be an alarm, waking Congress and the American people, or an explosion demolishing some aspect of our world remains unknown. In June or August or October, when horrific reality in Iraq outpaces whatever the Bush administration tries to call it, we may have our answer and perhaps then reality will name us. My aunt Hilda, whose very name came from some other century, once told me her earliest memory: She was a little girl standing under a large tree in the backyard of her house in Brooklyn, New York, and she cried out for help. Her mother (my grandmother) Celia came out to ask what the matter was. An...

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April 14, 2007

From the AP: A thinly stretched Army just got thinner. All active-duty soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been informed they will serve 15-month tours - three months longer than the previous standard. Rather than continuing its recent practice of deciding on tour extensions on a unit-by-unit basis, the Pentagon decided to spread the pain evenly, giving longer tours to all. Defense Secretary Robert Gates cast the news in a positive light, saying that more soldiers and Army families will benefit from a predictable deployment schedule, which he said would ensure that they get at least 12 months at home between deployments. But he also acknowledged that the strains of war are mounting. “Our forces are stretched; there's no question about that,” Gates told a Pentagon news conference Wednesday. Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq watcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the decision to add three months to...

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March 18, 2007

I saw the hearings on the conditions at Walter Reed Hospital on CSPAN Tuesday. One soldier's testimony was particularly moving. James Dole [sp?], only 23, a veteran of 4 years, is clearly carrying a heavy emotional burden. The enormity of what he had been through during combat duty in the mean streets of Iraq weighs heavily on his mind, compounded by callous treatment after suffering serious injuries in a car accident. Clearly, there is still a stigma attached to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - but if you had seen the man, you'd know how very real is the burden of witnessing and taking part in activity in which men, women, and children are routinely blown up and destroyed or disfigured before your very eyes. His suffering is there for everyone to see, as clearly as if he was bleeding all over the floor. If anyone would only have just looked....

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February 24, 2007

From the AP: Whatever their understanding of the respective death tolls, three-quarters of those polled said the numbers of both Americans and Iraqis who have been killed are "unacceptable." Americans are keenly aware of how many U.S. forces have lost their lives in Iraq, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. But they woefully underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed. When the poll was conducted earlier this month, a little more than 3,100 U.S. troops had been killed. The midpoint estimate among those polled was right on target, at about 3,000. Far from a vague statistic, the death toll is painfully real for many Americans. Seventeen percent in the poll know someone who has been killed or wounded in Iraq. And among adults under 35, those closest to the ages of those deployed, 27 percent know someone who has been killed or wounded. For Daniel Herman, a...

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February 22, 2007

From the Los Angeles Times: "The unpalatable truth is that we will leave behind a country on the brink of civil war, in which reconstruction has stalled and corruption is endemic, and a region that is a lot less stable than it was in 2003. That is a long way short of the beacon of democracy in the Middle East that was promised some four years ago." Britain's decision to pull 1,600 troops out of Iraq by spring, touted by U.S. and British leaders as a turning point in Iraqi sovereignty, was widely seen Wednesday as a telling admission that the British military could no longer sustain simultaneous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The British military is approaching "operational failure," former defense staff chief Charles Guthrie warned this week. "Because the British army is in essence fighting a far more intensive counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, there's been a realization that...

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February 05, 2007

From the AP: Republicans blocked a full-fledged Senate debate over Iraq on Monday, but Democrats vowed they still would find a way to force President Bush to change course in a war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. troops. "We must heed the results of the November elections and the wishes of the American people," said Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record). Reid, D-Nev., spoke moments before a vote that sidetracked a nonbinding measure expressing disagreement with Bush's plan to deploy an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq. The vote was 49-47, or 11 short of the 60 needed to go ahead with debate, and left the fate of the measure uncertain. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record) of Kentucky described the test vote as merely a "bump in the road" and added that GOP lawmakers "welcome the debate and are happy...

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January 31, 2007

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January 24, 2007

From the AP: U.S. and Iraqi troops battled Sunni insurgents hiding in high-rise buildings on Haifa Street in the heart of Baghdad Wednesday, with snipers on roofs taking aim at gunmen in open windows as Apache attack helicopters hovered overhead. Iraq said 30 militants were killed and 27 captured. New details also emerged about the downing of a private U.S. security company helicopter on Tuesday, with U.S. and Iraqi officials saying four of five Americans who died in the incident were shot execution-style. Violence was unrelenting in Iraq on Wednesday, with at least 69 people killed or found dead, including 33 tortured bodies found in separate locations in Baghdad. With President Bush pushing a controversial plan to increase troops strength in Iraq, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the latest joint raid was aimed at clearing the Haifa Street area of "terrorists and outlaws" targeting residents. He promised such operations would...

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January 17, 2007

Sweet, best of all, the Daily Show Mother Load is working fabulously now on my Mac with Firefox. THE best video from The Daily Show - this Trekkie was totally into what Rep. David Wu was saying: Rep. Wu: "Unlike real the Klingons of Star Trek, these Klingons have never fought a battle of their own." Jon Stewart: "I believe the Constitution states only real Klingons have that power." Wu: "Don't let faux Klingons send real Americans into war."...

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January 11, 2007

Last night, George Bush plans announce that he wants to send tens of thousands more troops to Iraq. The American people oppose it. The generals, both active-duty and retired, say that it won't help. But George Bush thinks he can do it anyway. He's got another thing coming. We believe the Democratic Congress must have the opportunity to review and approve the troop increase in Iraq. Whether you agree with a policy of escalation or not, Congress's involvement is fundamental to our democratic process. The people's representatives must consent to sending troops and spending money -- particularly on something as controversial as sending tens of thousands more troops into the middle of a civil war. Unlike the way we got into this war, America must have a real conversation about how to end it. Congress finally asserting its constitutional authority is the only way that conversation will happen. The most...

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January 06, 2007

As Pete Seeger sang, "Waist deep! Neck deep! Soon even a tall man'll be over his head! We're waist deep in the Big Muddy! And the big fool says to push on!" From The Times: The moves are part of a broad mission to surround himself, both in Washington and on the ground in Iraq, with officials who support increasing troop numbers, a move largely opposed on Capitol Hill and among the American public. He is to replace his two senior generals in Iraq, both said to be sceptical about increasing troop numbers. The US Army is stretched so thin that Mr Bush will rely heavily on extending tours in Iraq, and remobilising reserves, to make up his force “surge”. President Bush yesterday began an overhaul of his top military and diplomatic teams as he prepared to announce a highly controversial increase of 20,000 US troops in Iraq. He is...

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December 28, 2006

Why didn't he speak out before his death? People's lives were at stake. From the Washington Post: "Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people... I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security... I don't think I would have ordered the Iraq war. I would have maximized our effort through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer." Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration. In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's...

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December 27, 2006

Read all about it at Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory blog......

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December 14, 2006

From the AP: "Enough! Bring the troops home now!" read the sign Arredondo held aloft moments after he became a citizen. "Now I can use my First Amendment to say what I need to say," he said afterward. "Now I can express myself without being afraid of being deported." Two years ago, Carlos Arredondo tried to destroy a military van and set himself on fire in his grief over the news that his son, a Marine, had been killed in Iraq. On Tuesday, Arredondo became a citizen of the country his son died fighting for, and used his new status in a protest, peaceful this time, of the war his son died in. "Enough! Bring the troops home now!" read the sign Arredondo held aloft moments after he and 933 other immigrants were sworn as citizens in a ceremony at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium. "Now I can use my First...

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December 09, 2006

Now he says it. From Editor and Publisher: "I, for one, am tired of paying the price of 10 or more of our troops dying a day. So let's cut and run or cut and walk, but let us fight the war on terror more intelligently that we have because we have fought this war in a very lamentable way." As the national debate over Iraq, in the media and in Washington, continues in the wake of the Iraq Study Group report, a Republican U.S. Senator from Oregon has joined the fray in an unexpected way. Today, the largest newspaper in his stated backed his stand in an editorial. In a major speech in Congress on Thursday night, Sen. Gordon Smith called the current sitution surrounding the U.S. war effort "absurd," perhaps even "criminal" and called for rapid pullouts. He added that he would have never voted for the conflict...

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December 01, 2006

From Editor and Publisher: CNN's John Roberts, recently returned from a month-long visit to Iraq, was interviewed by The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz for his CNN "Reliable Sources" program on Sunday. Much of the talk concerned media treatment of the war, starting with complaints by U.S. soldiers, and then the overall media coverage. Roberts revealed that despite some charges to the contrary, military personnel did not have a problem with the coverage and, in fact, the situation on the ground is an "absolute mess," worse than the media has shown. "The amount of death that's on the streets of Baghdad for U.S. forces and for the Iraqi people is at an astronomical level," he said. "So, to some degree, what we're seeing is sanitized." The transcript follows. * KURTZ: The conventional wisdom is that American troops resent the media's coverage of this war as too negative. But there's a Zogby...

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November 01, 2006

Once again, Kerry, who volunteered not just to go to Vietnam, but once he landed a safe assignment there, volunteered for active combat duty, let Bush, who shamelessly used his rich daddy's connections to stay out of Vietnam and then didn't even follow through with his minimal committment, get the upper hand. Bush, who said "Bring 'em on", urging terrorists to attack our troops, after starting a senseless war - a war that has killed so many and wounded so many for life. And Hillary Clinton once again profoundly disappoints, joining the Republicans by parroting Karl Rove's talking points. From MSNBC: "DON IMUS, HOST: Please welcome to the “Imus in the Morning” program now the junior senator from the state of Massachusetts, Senator John Kerry. Good morning, Senator Kerry. SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Good morning, Don Imus. How are you? IMUS: Please stop it. (LAUGHTER) Stop talking. Go home,...

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October 31, 2006

From Jim Hightower: Bodies. Dead ones. Dead bodies are the harsh, horrifying, riveting realties of war. That's why those who make war don't want you seeing the bodies, don't want you counting them, or thinking about them. If you see, count, or think, you'll quickly question the war itself. Thus, from the start of George W's disastrous Iraq war, the White House and Pentagon decreed that there could be no cameras witnessing the return of America's dead from Iraq. The bodies arrive in the dark of night at a cordoned off air force base. The media establishment has cravenly submitted to this censorship of truth. Also, even though nearly 2,800 Americans have died in Iraq, Bush has not honored a single one of them by attending their funeral, for to do so would call attention to the bodies... and the real cost of his war. Of course, Iraqi civilians comprise...

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October 27, 2006

From the McLaughlin Group: MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Issue Two: The End of Iraq? Revenge killings, death squads, gruesome bombings -- the Iraq reality every day. Iraqi civilians killed since the start of the war: 655,000. So says a new Johns Hopkins study, and that's their median estimate. For U.S. soldiers, October is becoming the bloodiest month in at least two years; over 70 soldiers killed in the first 20 days of October, 10 in one day this week -- bloody Tuesday. The AP says that Baghdad feels like, quote, "a stick of dynamite with a lighted fuse." U.S. Major General William Caldwell in Baghdad says this. GEN. WILLIAM CALDWELL (Spokesman, Multinational Force Iraq): (From videotape.) The violence is indeed disheartening. MR. MCLAUGHLIN: On a U.S.-Iraq joint operation that was supposed to quell the violence in Baghdad, Caldwell also gave this stark assessment. GEN. CALDWELL: (From videotape.) In Baghdad, Operation Together Forward...

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October 25, 2006

From Bob Geiger......

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October 15, 2006

From the Philadelphia Daily News: It doesn't take much to be empathetic. All it takes is remembering that the people who suffer the effects of war, genocide, disease and poverty are people just like those we love and protect. Without delving too deeply into the matter of sin, may I suggest that few of us are bad. Don't get me wrong. I know evil exists and all of us could draw up a list of bad people. As a former member of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, I'd nominate Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray, for two. But for the most part, nine out of 10 people we meet are not bad. Most folks are decent human beings trying to do the right thing. Some of us accomplish that, others don't. It can be hard to know what to do. Remember the scene from "Hotel Rwanda" when a...

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October 13, 2006

From the Washington Post: Britain's new army commander said British troops in Iraq are making the situation worse and must leave the country soon, according to an interview published Thursday. Gen. Richard Dannatt said the British military should "get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems," according to the interview with the Daily Mail released on the paper's Web site. "Whatever consent we may have had in the first place" from the Iraqi people "has largely turned to intolerance," he said. The Defense Ministry and Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said they could not immediately comment. "We are in a Muslim country and Muslims' views of foreigners in their country are quite clear," Dannatt said. "As a foreigner, you can be welcomed by being invited in a country, but we weren't invited certainly by those in Iraq at the time." Dannatt was severely critical of British...

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October 08, 2006

From Time: Written last month, this straightforward account of life in Iraq by a Marine officer was initially sent just to a small group of family and friends. His honest but wry narration and unusually frank dissection of the mission contrasts sharply with the story presented by both sides of the Iraq war debate, the Pentagon spin masters and fierce critics. Perhaps inevitably, the 'Letter from Iraq' moved quickly beyond the small group of acquantainaces and hit the inboxes of retired generals, officers in the Pentagon, and staffers on Capitol Hill. TIME's Sally B. Donnelly first received a copy three weeks ago but only this week was able to track down the author and verify the document's authenticity. The author wishes to remain anonymous but has allowed us to publish it here — with a few judicious omissions. Our briefs and commentary seem to have no affect on their preconceived...

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October 04, 2006

From the AP: The US military announced the deaths of nine soldiers and two Marines yesterday in what has been a deadly period for American forces in Iraq. The announcement brought to at least 15 the number of service members killed in fighting since Saturday and coincided with a violent day across Iraq that left at least 51 Iraqis dead. The military said four US soldiers were killed over the previous 24 hours in a roadside bomb attack in northwest Baghdad, and four more died yesterday in small-arms attacks around the capital. The deaths brought to 2,172 the number of US military personnel killed in action, and the death toll since the March 2003 invasion to 2,721, according to Pentagon figures. The US military suffered 75 fatalities last month, its highest number since 79 personnel were killed in April, according to the US Department of Defense. Attacks on US and...

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September 28, 2006

It's all here in this must see video......

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September 26, 2006

From Raw Story: The White House has declassified only a small portion of a government report that many allege states the war in Iraq has made America more vulnerable to terrorism, RAW STORY has learned. Among some of the assessments in the NIE report are that "Iraq is shaping a new generation of terror leaders," and that the war in Iraq has become "a 'cause celebre' for jihadists." President Bush had earlier promised to declassify the document to quiet critics. The 30-page National Intelligence Estimate, compiled from information collected by 16 spy agencies and assessed by top security analysts, was leaked last week. Reports indicated that among its 9-pages of key judgments was the finding that the Iraq war fueled terrorism. Some reports have indicated or implied that it also found that the war made the United States more vulnerable. However, White House Advisor Frances Fragos Townsend told the Washington...

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September 25, 2006

I'm glad the big dog bared his teeth when Chris Wallace played dirty in an interview that was supposed to be about Clinton's charitable work. Right off the bat, Wallace followed through on the Republican disinformation campaign where the their "docudrama" left off (right according to plan) but Clinton was ready for him. I just wish John Kerry had reacted that way when they "swift boated" him. Video and fact checks (Clinton was right, Fox News has never asked the same questions of the Bush administration) at Think Progress... ...WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of e-mail from viewers. And I’ve got to say, I was surprised. Most of them wanted me to ask you this question: Why didn’t you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaida out of business when you were president? There’s a...

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From the AP: Torture in Iraq may be worse now than it was under Saddam Hussein, with militias, terrorist groups and government forces disregarding rules on the humane treatment of prisoners, the U.N. anti-torture chief said Thursday. Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special investigator on torture, made the remarks as he was presenting a report on detainee conditions at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay as well as to brief the U.N. Human Rights Council, the global body's top rights watchdog, on torture worldwide. Reports from Iraq indicate that torture "is totally out of hand," he said. "The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein." Nowak added, "That means something, because the torture methods applied under Saddam Hussein were the worst you could imagine." Some allegations of torture were undoubtedly credible, with government forces among the perpetrators, he...

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September 23, 2006

Not only is this morally reprehensible, but this defies common sense by endangering the lives of our soldiers for nothing in return. From The Nation: Democrats chose to outsource their policy on military tribunals to John McCain. And McCain did what he's done best the last year: capitulate to Bush. "Senators Snatch Defeat From Jaws of Victory: U.S. to be First Nation to Authorize Violations of Geneva," Georgetown University law professor Marty Lederman writes of the so-called "compromise" between Senators McCain/Graham/Warner and President Bush. Says Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office: "The proposal would make the core protections of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions irrelevant and unenforceable. It deliberately provides a 'get out of jail free card' to the administration's top torture officials, and backdates that card nine years. "Also under the proposal, the president would have the authority to declare what is — and...

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From Sidney Blumenthal in the Huffington Post: President Bush's war on terror now exists outside the law. His great struggle for "freedom" and "democracy" has turned into a crusade for lawlessness. After the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v Rumsfeld that his policy of denying rights to detainees and practicing torture was illegal he could have agreed to uphold the Geneva Conventions, especially Article 3 against torture. Instead he has tried to force the Congress to legitimate the conditions the Supreme Court has outlawed. His insistence on torture has aroused the intense opposition of the senior military. The counter-proposal of senators John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham that adheres to the Geneva Conventions reflects the military's resistance to Bush's illegal regime. In this fight, the military stands against torture and for the rule of law. In my new book "How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime," I have...

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What a sad little man. From Gawker: In an interview with Barbara Walters, Fox News harridan Bill O'Reilly claims that the FBI told him he was on Al Qaeda's death list. Over at Radar, however, a little reportage reveals, shockingly, that O'Reilly sense of self might be inflated. Says one Fox News correspondent: "I've never heard that before." Huh. An exec at another cable news network chimes in: "That sounds like absolute bullshit to me--it's typical O'Reilly. We've never received any similar warnings from the FBI or any other government agency, and we've done plenty of reporting to piss off Bin Laden." A federal law enforcement official joins the converation: "I'm not aware of any FBI agents warning anyone at Fox News of their presence on any list....For that matter, I'm not aware of any Al Qaeda hit list targeting journalists." Then an official at the FBI's New York office...

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September 08, 2006

From Selig Harrison in the Los Angeles Times: To Taliban sympathizers, Musharraf directed an explicit message, saying: "I have done everything for the … Taliban when the whole world was against them….We are trying our best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to Afghanistan and the Taliban." PAKISTAN'S President Pervez Musharraf is supposedly a key U.S. ally in the "war on terror." But is he, in fact, more of a liability than an asset in combating Al Qaeda and the increasingly menacing Taliban forces in Afghanistan? Since 9/11, the Bush administration has been propping up Musharraf's military regime with $3.6 billion in economic aid from the U.S. and a U.S.-sponsored consortium, not to mention $900 million in military aid and the postponement of overdue debt repayments totaling $13.5 billion. But now the administration is debating whether Musharraf has become too dependent on Islamic extremist political parties...

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September 06, 2006

From The Emerging Democratic Majority: The Wall St. Journal caps a particularly bad week for Republicans with a page one article in today's issue by Jackie Calmes, "Republican Advantage on Issue Of National Security Erodes." It's a fairly thorough wrap-up of recent developments on the topic, with very little that offers comfort to the GOP. Calmes sets the stage thusly: The public's patience has frayed as the Iraq war grows bloodier in its fourth year, eroding confidence in Mr. Bush's stewardship of national security. Mismanagement of the response to Hurricane Katrina contributed. Democrats, having ceded the security issue to Republicans in the past, now are on the offensive. They're attacking the administration's competence at home and abroad and fielding candidates with military experience. Democrats are also pressing an argument opposite to the president's: that Iraq isn't central to the broader war on terror but distracts from it, and breeds more...

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