Iraq

Reckless Administration May Reap Disastrous Consequences

Robert Byrd

by US Senator Robert Byrd
Senate Floor Speech – Wednesday, February 12, 2003

To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war.

Yet, this Chamber is, for the most part, silent — ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing.

We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events. Only on the editorial pages of our newspapers is there much substantive discussion of the prudence or imprudence of engaging in this particular war.

And this is no small conflagration we contemplate. This is no simple attempt to defang a villain. No. This coming battle, if it materializes, represents a turning point in U.S. foreign policy and possibly a turning point in the recent history of the world.

This nation is about to embark upon the first test of a revolutionary doctrine applied in an extraordinary way at an unfortunate time.

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The Church of Friedman and Woodward ~ Pastor Stretch "Chip" Gregory Wrote Down Questions

Afghanistan, Broadcatching, Friedman Units

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This is Our Last Chance

Aetna, Alan Grayson, Barack Obama, Betsy McCaughey, Bill Nelson, Broadcatching, Charles Grassley, Cigna, Congress, Dylan Ratigan, FOX News, GOP, Health Care Reform, Howard Dean, Kent Conrad, Max Baucus, Rahm Emmanuel, Republicans, Rick Scott, Senate, Shepherd Smith, United Health

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An Open Letter To: The People Who Thought The Iraq War Was A Good Idea ~ You Know Who You Are.

Iraq, Military Industrial Complex, Neocons, Think-Tanks

Dick2_f0e23

John Tully

The Los Angeles Sun

June 19 2004

You don’t get to sneer about how the evidence was there.

You don’t get to scoff about how even Bill Clinton, Germany and France thought there were WMD’s.

You don’t get to shriek about media-elite liberals just Bush-hating, conspiracy theorists whining about Halliburton, and Saddam gassing his own people:

…Not when our leaders were so fully unprepared for this war that there was no legitimate flank or rear security support for the thousands of vehicles, many endlessly breaking down, in that convoy that stretched across the Iraqi desert at the beginning of the war.

…Not when they couldn’t even bribe Turkey into letting us enter Iraq from the north.

…Not when there weren’t enough MRE’s, tanks that would work in the sand and flack-jackets for our troops .

…Not when our Marines suddenly became gendarmes on the streets of Baghdad while we completely disbanded both the Iraqi army and police and the country was being destroyed from the bottom up as the looters demolished everything that the precision guided bombs did not.

…Not when Republican Senators Richard Shelby, Chuck Hagel and Dick Lugar had been screaming about the need for a plan post-war Iraq and what to do about the Shiites/Sunnis/Kurds on The News Hour and Charlie Rose virtually every night for the twelve months leading up to the start of the attack.

…Not when there was no budget for the war, funding was asked for on the eve of the initial strike and there have been no plans to pay for the ever-increasing cost.

…Not when Deputy Secretary Of Defense Paul Wolfowitz is asked to give the number of Americans killed in Iraq during a congressional commitee on April 29 2004 and he’s off by over two hundred soldiers.

…Not when they won’t let us see the bodies at Dover and undercount casualties received in combat by the thousands.

Now bugger off and prepare for the trials.

©2004 THE LOS ANGELES SUN

The Best of Noam Chomsky [Video]

American Hegemony, Banking, Communism, Congress, Corporatocracy, Imperialism, Iraq, Military Industrial Complex, MIT, Neocons, Noam Chomsky, Politics, Think-Tanks, Vietnam, Wall Street


Contractors Outnumber U.S. Troops in Afghanistan

Afghanistan, Iraq, Military Industrial Complex, Neocons, Think-Tanks
September 2, 2009
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New York Times

Civilian contractors working for the Pentagon in Afghanistan not only outnumber the uniformed troops, according to a report by a Congressional research group, but also form the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel recorded in any war in the history of the United States.

On a superficial level, the shift means that most of those representing the United States in the war will be wearing the scruffy cargo pants, polo shirts, baseball caps and other casual accouterments favored by overseas contractors rather than the fatigues and flight suits of the military.

More fundamentally, the contractors who are a majority of the force in what has become the most important American enterprise abroad are subject to lines of authority that are less clear-cut than they are for their military colleagues.

What is clear, the report says, is that when contractors for the Pentagon or other agencies are not properly managed — as when civilian interrogators committed abuses at Abu Ghraib in Iraq or members of the security firm Blackwater shot and killed 17 Iraqi citizens in Baghdad — the American effort can be severely undermined.

As of March this year, contractors made up 57 percent of the Pentagon’s force in Afghanistan, and if the figure is averaged over the past two years, it is 65 percent, according to the report by the Congressional Research Service.

The contractors — many of them Afghans — handle a variety of jobs, including cooking for the troops, serving as interpreters and even providing security, the report says.

The report says the reliance on contractors has grown steadily, with just a small percentage of contractors serving the Pentagon in World War I, but then growing to nearly a third of the total force in the Korean War and about half in the Balkans and Iraq. The change, the report says, has gradually forced the American military to adapt to a far less regimented and, in many ways, less accountable force.

The growing dependence on contractors is partly because the military has lost some of its logistics and support capacity, especially since the end of the cold war, according to the report. Some of the contractors have skills in critical areas like languages and digital technologies that the military needs.

The issue of the role of contractors in war has been a subject of renewed debate in Washington in recent weeks with disclosures that the Central Intelligence Agency used the company formerly known as Blackwater to help with a covert program, now canceled, to assassinate leaders of Al Qaeda. Lawmakers have demanded to know why such work was outsourced.

The State Department also uses contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, although both the department and the C.I.A. have said they want to reduce their dependence on outside workers.

Responding to the Congressional research report, Frederick D. Barton, a senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said it was highly questionable whether contractors brought the same commitment and willingness to take risks as the men and women of the military or the diplomatic services.

He also questioned whether using contractors was cost effective, saying that no one really knew whether having a force made up mainly of contractors whose salaries were often triple or quadruple those of a corresponding soldier or Marine was cheaper or more expensive for the American taxpayer.

With contractors focused on preserving profits and filing paperwork with government auditors, he said, “you grow the part of government that, probably, the taxpayers appreciate least.”

Congress appropriated at least $106 billion for Pentagon contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003 through the first half of the 2008 fiscal year, the report says.

The report said the combined forces in Iraq and Afghanistan still had more uniformed military personnel than contractors over all: 242,657 contractors and about 282,000 troops as of March 31

We are the most powerful nation in the world. There is no excuse, only corruption.

Alberto Gonzales, Albritton Communications, Ari Fleisher, Baker Botts, Barack Obama, Beck, Brewster Jennings, Brit Hume, Broadcatching, Broder, Carlyle Group, Childhood Literacy, CIA, D.C., David Frum, David Gregory, David Ignatius, Dick Cheney, Eisenhower, Executive Power, George Stephanapoulos, George W. Bush, Halliburton, Health Care, Housing, Hunger, Infant Mortality, Iran, Iraq, John Harris, Justice Department, K Street, Karl Rove, KBR, Kellogg Brown Root, Krauthammer, Kristol, Limbaugh, Lobbyists, Meet The Press, Michael Gerson, Michael Wolff, Military Industrial Complex, Neocons, New York Times, O'Reilly, Pentagon, Politico, Ronald Reagan, Scooter Libby, Think-Tanks, Tim Russert, Torture, Valerie Plame, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Will, Wiretapping

We are the most powerful nation in the world. There is no excuse, only corruption.

On a Plane Ride Home From Paris Sitting Next to a Douchebag With an Ed Hardy Shirt Reading Glenn Beck's Book

Alberto Gonzales, Albritton Communications, Ari Fleisher, Baker Botts, Barack Obama, Beck, Brewster Jennings, Brit Hume, Broadcatching, Broder, Carlyle Group, Childhood Literacy, CIA, D.C., David Brooks, David Frum, David Gregory, David Ignatius, Dick Cheney, Duct Tape, Eisenhower, Executive Power, George Stephanapoulos, George Stephanopoulos, George W. Bush, George Will, Haditha, Halliburton, Health Care, Housing, Hunger, Infant Mortality, Iran, Iraq

TEEVEE1

1441!

by John Tully
The New York Herald Sun
July 26, 2009


Whether it was Michael Wolff’s “piece” in Vanity Fair on Politico or the Paris tap water that produced the explosive diarrhea on a hot sweaty July night in the City of Lights, we’ll never know…

Time moves both slow and fast in these Dog Days of Summer and the memory hole of the past eight bloody years is fading and digging deeper.

I take you back to the city of D.C.

A few years ago…
A quaint city, soon to written about like Rome, gilded on their own lily and pathetic to boot.

Sucked in to television, watching the camera moves, editing, and heavy music to a story about a mom and a dad and a wife who lose their little/big man to a fiery explosion in Iraq. The soldier leaves a “just in case” final video for his bride, tells her of his deep love, and urges her to go on with life: “get married, have kids”  It’s a noble gesture from a brave young man and the camera cuts to the weeping widow watching the tape.

The evening news comes on and the 80 year-old man who marched against Iraq in a February freeze watches a report on two dead Marines and 17 Iraqi dead civilians . Remember seeing that look on the face of the Marines’ mother or the site of yet another widow with two babies that finally punches the gut.

At this point in the war,  President Bush hadn’t been to one funeral service for them.

Remember.

Remember banned television cameras at the arrival of the bodies from Germany, at the base in Delaware .

The cowering, obedient press corpse giving the President a free pass after 9/11 and the Administration using it to make the United States less safe, less secure, and spoil environmental and geopolitical progress for years to come.

Remembering Television and Freedom Fries and Terror Alerts here in Paris 6  years later, the mind once again boggles and crunches the serious, sad, mistaken war of choice that ignored all plans and warnings of consequences.

Powered by arrogance and breathtaking hubris and television’s Meet The Press and This Week With Will for the latest talking points of the day.

MR. RUSSERT: All right, this way: Should the blogs, talk radio, cable TV—should people lower their voices, and, and, and control their rhetoric?

Remember that very same week when the Vice-President poked a fat finger in the eye of Russia while the Bush Administration reflexively rejected the first written communication from Iran in seventeen years. Neither Vice President Cheney’s speech or the letter was ever mentioned on either program.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney had blown the cover of longtime C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame who it turns out was working on nuclear proliferation. Her contacts through front company Brewster Jennings were actively working the underground nukes world. That intel might have been helpful that very same week in dealing with Iran.

Instead, the latest Cool-Kids Media Club Memes emerged: “Anger on the Blogs”

That’s right. Three different allusions to blogs and anger on both Meet The Press and This Week complete with an obligatory question from Tim Russert to new/old ham Newt Gingrich.

Schmuck David Brooks, perpetual mealy-mouthed defender of the Bush administration throwing out his  shoulder shrugging off the incident at Haditha in front of two shocked Marines: Mark Shields and Jim Lehrer.

Remember when columnist Tony Blankley said the war protests were organized by the communist party and the Press corps labeled Al Gore as Crazy for his pre-war criticism about invading Iraq.
How about when war hero Max Cleland was derisively compared to both Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in a television advertisement by his republican opponent, Saxby Chambliss during their Senate race? Mr. Cleland lost his legs and an arm during Vietnam but the republican claimed the democrat was soft on National Security. Mr. Chambliss sat out the war with a bad knee.

Go back in time and recall when Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz had no idea how many Americans had been killed in Iraq and called the idea of two hundred thousand troops needed in Iraq as  “wildly off the mark”

It’s apparent that there Was Not a massive intelligence failure and the administration indeed was warned about the vagueness of the information about Iraq.

Remember that classic “Everybody thought-even-France and Germany” song about W.M.D.’s.
The Memory-Hole pieces together the events of the past six years but can never illuminate fully how one of the most brilliant countries in history could now be cowardly defending war atrocities and blaming, as Mr. Blankley said that very same week about the incident at Haditha: “Over reporting by a gleeful media is more damaging than any single fact”

Come to think of it-maybe that gleeful, fluffy, Politico piece that completely failed to mention the publication’s Reagan connection was responsible for that gut bomb the other night.

Either way, I’m still sick as a dog.

JT

Paris, France

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Americans Heart Torture

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Pat Tillman's Parents Hold New Head Honcho in Afghanistan Responsible For Son's Death

Iraq, Pat Tillman, US Army

Tillman’s parents criticize general

Hall of Fame Ballot Football

Contend he helped cover up circumstances of NFL star’s 2004 death
The Associated Press
May 12, 2009

WASHINGTON – The parents of slain U.S. Army Ranger and American football star Pat Tillman said Tuesday they have misgivings that the general who played a role in mischaracterizing their son’s death could be put in charge of military operations in Afghanistan.

In a brief interview with The Associated Press, Pat Tillman Sr. accused Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal of covering up the circumstances of the 2004 slaying.

“I do believe that guy participated in a falsified homicide investigation,” Tillman Sr. said.

Separately, Mary Tillman called it “imperative” that McChrystal’s record be carefully considered before he is confirmed.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Defense Secretary Robert Gates has complete confidence in McChrystal, whom he hopes can be confirmed by the Senate before month’s end.

“We feel terrible for what the Tillman family went through, but this matter has been investigated thoroughly by the Pentagon, by the Congress, by outside experts, and all of them have come to the same conclusion: that there was no wrongdoing by Gen. McChrystal,” Morrell said.

Aides to the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which will consider the nomination, said they were unaware of any opposition to McChrystal.

Silver Star awarded
McChrystal, a former “black ops” special forces chief credited with capturing one of the most-wanted fugitives in Iraq, was tapped Monday to lead U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. If confirmed by the Senate, he would replace Gen. David McKiernan, who was fired in an unusual wartime shake-up.

In April 2004, McChrystal approved paperwork awarding Tillman a Silver Star after he was reported killed by enemy fire, even though McChrystal suspected the Ranger had been killed accidentally by fellow American soldiers, according to Pentagon testimony later obtained by the AP.

The testimony showed that McChrystal sent a memo to top generals imploring “our nation’s leaders,” specifically the president, to avoid cribbing the “devastating enemy fire” explanation from the award citation for their speeches. In 2007, the Army overruled a Pentagon recommendation that McChrystal be held accountable for “misleading” actions.

In a book published last year, Mary Tillman accused McChrystal of helping create the false story line that she said “diminished Pat’s true actions.”

Her one-sentence e-mail to the AP on Tuesday said: “It is imperative that Lt. General McChrystal be scrutinized carefully during the Senate hearings.”

Smooth confirmation?
Last year, however, the Senate unanimously approved promoting McChrystal from a two-star general to a three-star general as director of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.

Similarly, this time around, Senate Armed Services’ Democratic Chairman Carl Levin “does not foresee any problems with Gen. McChrystal’s confirmation” with the committee, a Levin aide said Tuesday.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the committee’s top Republican, backs the decision to change leadership in Afghanistan and will support McChrystal’s nomination, said Brooke Buchanan, a McCain spokeswoman. Tillman was a star member of the Arizona Cardinals National Football League team.

McCain was highly critical of the Army’s handling of the Tillman investigation, and in April 2007 he called the service’s actions “inexcusable and unconscionable.”