Instaputz: Stumbling into total incoherence.

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Instaputz: Stumbling into total incoherence.: “Stumbling into total incoherence.
Putz is now saying he agrees with Nancy Pelosi on Iraq.

Related thoughts from Jon Henke, who thinks that Nancy Pelosi might be onto something by saying Iraq isn’t a war: ‘If it were a war, we could win it by killing people and blowing stuff up. While security problems necessarily involve the occasional application of force, the dominant difficulties in Iraq simply aren’t force-on-force problems. The remaining problems are sociopolitical. No amount of firepower is going to resolve the intractable conflicts of interest between the Shiites and the Sunnis, or between various subgroups. No US troop level will convince the rival Iraqi factions that pluralism is better than asserting their own interests. They’ll either find it in their interest to moderate. . .or they won’t.’

I think that’s right — as I’ve said before, it’s a political rather than a military issue, which is why I’ve been unpersuaded by the more-troops argument.

Leaving aside the obvious fact that adding more troops isn’t mutually exclusive with supporting a political mission, since more troops would theoretically provide more security, what happened to sitting on our bayonets and the loss of momentum? What happened to all of the confident announcements that ‘we’re winning’ supported by historical kill ratios?…

Instaputz: So that's what we're doing wrong in Iraq.

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Instaputz: So that’s what we’re doing wrong in Iraq.: “So that’s what we’re doing wrong in Iraq.
Now this is the Putz we all know and ridicule.

RALPH PETERS ON IRAQ: ‘With political correctness permeating our government and even the upper echelons of the military, we never tried the one technique that has a solid track record of defeating insurgents if applied consistently: the rigorous imposition of public order. That means killing the bad guys.’

I really hope the Iraq Study Group takes note of this. See, those notoriously politically-correct generals, reporting to that squishy, politically-correct President, are simply killing insufficient numbers of bad Arabs.

Problem solved!”

Frist’s Post-Election Revelation: We Are ‘Not Winning’ In Iraq

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Think Progress: “Frist’s Post-Election Revelation: We Are ‘Not Winning’ In Iraq »

Last night on Fox News, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) was asked to explain the midterm election results. Frist answered, “clearly, number one, the fact that we were not winning in Iraq dominated.” Watch it:

What a difference an election makes. In July, Frist said the conservative national security message for 2006 was, “We’re for staying the course in Iraq and the war on terror.” And as recently as last month, Frist said the U.S. was making “tremendous progress” in Iraq.

I’m confident that we are making tremendous progress in hunting down and killing the murderers of Islamic fascism, in stabilizing the democratic governments of Afghanistan and Iraq and in winning the generational struggle that is the War on Terror.

Full transcript:”

Trent Lott is back

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Think Progress: “Trent Lott is back.

In a 25-24 vote, the Senate Republican caucus has elected Trent Lott (R-MS) as Minority Whip, the #2 minority position in the Senate. As expected, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was elected Senate Minority Leader. Lott, who defeated Lamar Alexander (R-TN), resigned his post as Minority Leader in 2002 after he said the United States would have avoided “all these problems” if then-segregationist Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948.

Think Progress » Bush Tells Barnes Capturing Bin Laden Is ‘Not A Top Priority Use of American Resources’

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Think Progress » Bush Tells Barnes Capturing Bin Laden Is ‘Not A Top Priority Use of American Resources’

The Uniform Code of Military Justice

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The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) 809.ART.90 (20), makes it clear that military personnel need to obey the ‘lawful command of his superior officer,’ 891.ART.91 (2), the ‘lawful order of a warrant officer’, 892.ART.92 (1) the ‘lawful general order’, 892.ART.92 (2) ‘lawful order’. In each case, military personnel have an obligation and a duty to only obey Lawful orders and indeed have an obligation to disobey Unlawful orders, including orders by the president that do not comply with the UCMJ. The moral and legal obligation is to the U.S. Constitution and not to those who would issue unlawful orders, especially if those orders are in direct violation of the Constitution and the UCMJ.

During the Iran-Contra hearings of 1987, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, a decorated World War II veteran and hero, told Lt. Col. Oliver North that North was breaking his oath when he blindly followed the commands of Ronald Reagan. As Inouye stated, ‘The uniform code makes it abundantly clear that it must be the Lawful orders of a superior officer. In fact it says, ‘Members of the military have an obligation to disobey unlawful orders.’ This principle was considered so important that we-we, the government of the United States, proposed that it be internationally applied in the Nuremberg trials.’ (Bill Moyers, ‘The Secret Government’, Seven Locks Press”

Bush renominates Tomlinson for Broadcasting Board of Governors

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Crooks and Liars: Bush renominates Tomlinson for Broadcasting Board of Governors
By: John Amato @ 10:08 AM – PST Submit or Digg this Post

Please make it stop!

Steve Benen: ‘At this point, Ken Tomlinson’s partisan, ideological, and generally ridiculous work is legendary. By August, it became almost comical…..read on'”

Broadcast Chief Misused Office, Inquiry Reports – New York Times

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Broadcast Chief Misused Office, Inquiry Reports – New York Times: “WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — State Department investigators have found that the head of the agency overseeing most government broadcasts to foreign countries has used his office to run a “horse racing operation” and that he improperly put a friend on the payroll, according to a summary of a report made public on Tuesday by a Democratic lawmaker.”