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Iraqi Insurgent Snipers Target U.S. Medics, Engineers and Chaplains

Jon Ponder

The longer we stay, the more sophisticated the insurgents get at attacking us:

Enemy snipers in Iraq have improved their skills, and their attacks have become well-aimed and well-disciplined.

Insurgent groups have prepared instructional manuals and videos to train more snipers. Training materials obtained by U.S. intelligence show that snipers are urged to single out medics, engineers and chaplains for attacks on the theory that those casualties will demoralize entire units.

The manuals have been posted on the Internet. U.S. Central Command has verified the authenticity of at least one such training guide.

One recently captured insurgent sniper had a hole in the trunk of his car, which allowed him to fire at U.S. and Iraqi troops while hidden in the vehicle, said Brig Gen. David Halverson, deputy commander of U.S. forces in and around Baghdad. The sniper also mounted a video camera on his car’s rear window.

Enemy snipers in Iraq have improved their skills, and their attacks have become “well-aimed and well-disciplined,” said Col. Michael Beech, commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team in central Baghdad. His brigade has lost two soldiers to sniper fire since September, he said.

Bush Uses ‘the Google’ to Surf the Internets, Yearns for Crawford

Jon Ponder
We want to remind Mr. Bush that all he has to do is resign. He can be back in Crawford in 24 hours, with nothing on his agenda for the rest of life but working on his abs.

One thing you gotta give President Bush — he’s not the least bit shy about putting his ignorance on display:

HOST: I’m curious, have you ever googled anybody? Do you use Google?

BUSH: Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see — I’ve forgot the name of the program — but you get the satellite, and you can — like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes.

This just says it all, doesn’t it? The Google puts an entire universe of knowledge at the president’s fingertips, and yet all he can think of to use it for is gazing at his own navel.

The president’s wistfulness about his ranch is touching — sad, really. As ever, we want to remind Mr. Bush that all he has to do is resign. He can be back in Crawford in 24 hours, with nothing on his agenda for the rest of life but working on his abs.

U.S. Conducting War Games off Iranian Coast

Jon Ponder

Tick… tick… tick…

There is a massive concentration of US naval power in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Three US naval strike groups off the Iranian coastline are deployed: USS Enterprise, USS Eisenhower and USS Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group.

The naval strike groups have been assigned to fighting the “global war on terrorism.”

Tehran considers the US war games to be conducted in the Persian Gulf, off the Iranian coastline as a provocation, which is intended to trigger a potential crisis and a situation of direct confrontation between US and Iranian naval forces in the Persian Gulf:

“Reports say the US-led naval exercises based near Bahrain will practise intercepting and searching ships carrying weapons of mass destruction and missiles.

Iran’s official news agency IRNA quoted an unnamed foreign ministry official as describing the military manoeuvres as dangerous and suspicious.

Reports say the US-led naval exercises based near Bahrain will practise intercepting and searching ships carrying weapons of mass destruction and missiles.

The Iranian foreign ministry official said the US-led exercises were not in line with the security and stability of the region. Instead, they are aimed at fomenting crises, he said.” (quoted in BBC, 23 October 2006)

Nelson v. Harris: Not-So-Great Debate

Buck Banks

Words without ideas: Watching the debate between Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Rep. Katherine Harris last night was a frustrating experience. Not because the candidate I favor lost the debate, but because both candidates failed to articulate a coherent message that communicated either vision or capability.

Granted, Nelson came off a little better overall than Harris, but not much. It was clear that Harris had been prepped with some stock phrases and soundbites, which she strung together in a somewhat haphazard fashion, as if she were constructing a dadaist speech from random sound samples. I had expected Harris to come off as crazier than she did, but she managed to keep it together, although she did go after Nelson on his voting record in kind of a mean way. His weak-assed response to Harris’ quoting the St. Petersburg Times’ criticism of Nelson’s rather short list of accomplishments in the Senate was to hold up a paper and claim to have been endorsed by a dozen newspapers from across Florida. This was not even your high-school debate club level of discourse.

Harris had been prepped with some stock phrases and soundbites, which she strung together in a haphazard fashion, as if she were constructing a dadaist speech from random sound samples.

Harris’ most annoying habit in the debate was to walk out from behind the podium, I suppose to show off her cream-colored hose (which kind of made her legs look big), and to show off her bosom, which otherwise was hidden by the podium, and which seems to be a major part of her campaign platform. Unfortunately, standing out in the open like that meant that she had to use a range of about six stock hand motions to emphasize her points, whether they made sense in context or not. Nelson did not rise to the bait, however, and remained safely ensconced behind his podium.

But Harris’ most bizarre behavior of the night came immediately after the debate. As soon as it was over, she exited stage left, while Nelson bee-lined to the journalists who asked the questions and started glad-handing and chumming with them and the moderator. He also was joined by his wife, and the two of them stood chatting with the panelists and moderator as the credits rolled.

Meanwhile, Harris was visible in the darkness of the other end of the stage because of her cream-colored blouse. After watching Nelson for about 30-45 seconds, Harris marched across the stage and inserted herself in the scene, shaking hands with the panelists and moderator. But then, having shaken hands all around, she didn’t have anything else to do, as no one seemed interested in jaw-jacking with her. So she turned and walked back over to the darkness of the oppposite end of the stage and stood there, arms crossed, watching Nelson work the stage as more people came up from the audience.

She was still standing there, alone and in the dark, when the credits ended.

I suppose after all was said and done, I kind of wished I’d done what Brian Moore did. He’s the independent candidate running for Nelson’s seat who, along with a handful of other unknowns, was not invited to participate in the debate. So, figuring there are more ways than one to get media coverage, Moore went to Cuba to underscore his opposition to the U.S. embargo of that island nation.

Now that’s my kind of independent thinking — and, with coverage in the International Herald Tribune, an admirable PR ploy to boot.

GOP Sen. Graham Says Iraq Is ‘on the Verge of Chaos, and the Current Plan Is not Working’

Jon Ponder

Hard to know what to make of Sen. Graham. Every now and then he seems to grow a spine but it invariably whithers after a few days — probably after a heated phone call from Karl Rove:

“We’re on the verge of chaos, and the current plan is not working,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in an Associated Press interview. U.S. and Iraqi officials should be held accountable for the lack of progress, said Graham, a Republican who is a frequent critic of the administration’s policies.

Asked who in particular should be held accountable – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, perhaps, or the generals leading the war – Graham said: “All of them. It’s their job to come up with a game plan” to end the violence.

Expect ‘October’ Surprise in November to Launch Pre-Election 72 Hour GOTV Campaign

Jon Ponder
Some commentators suggest that the insurgents in Iraq will ramp up the violence in advance of the election. This is hard to parse because they are thriving under the Bush/GOP regime here in the United States, and it is unclear why they would do anything to help loosen control of the Republican Party in Congress.

As we approach Election Day on Nov. 7, it seems that pollsters are moving additional once-safe GOP House seats into the toss-up category every day. This should be heartening news, except that the margins in these races are almost uniformly squishy and so could go either way when the votes are counted.

Take the case of Rep. Heather Wilson, the Republican incumbent from predominantly Democratic Albequerque, New Mexico. Her Dem opponent, Patricia Madrid, should be leading handily by now but a new poll showsthat the candidates are in a statistical tie, with Madrid at 45 percent and Wilson at 42 percent. Nine percent of voters at this late date remain undecided.

With exactly two weeks to go, there are a dozen or more races around the country in a similar position, with incumbent Republicans teetering on the edge and Democratic challengers not yet making the sale.

This positions the midterm elections perfectly for the Karl Rove “way of war.” Rove is famous for his “50-plus-1” strategy, which eschews building bipartisan consensus in order to achieve decisive victories but rather depends on terrorizing 51 percent of the electorate into voting Republican while bitterly alienating the other 49 percent of us. It is a strategy for winning, not governing — otherwise it would be too risky to squeak by with such razor thin majorities.

Now, with the status of the election at the tipping point, Rove is almost undoubtedly ready for the coup de grace — a two-prong attack that starts with an “October” surprise on or around Thursday, Nov. 2, that launches the GOP’s vaunted get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaign 72 hours before voting begins on Tuesday, Nov. 7 .

Moving the surprise so close to the election ensures that the shock value of the story will dominate the news cycles through the start of voting and prevents Democrats from launching a counter-assault.

What the surprise will be has been widely debated. We have speculated that it might be an announcement that Osama bin Laden has been captured and killed, and we have noted that a Navy strike force spear-headed by the newly retooled U.S.S. Eisenhower arrived this weekend off the coast of Iran, where it is in position to start bombing the country’s nuclear facilities.

Events on the ground could countervail Rove’s efforts here and in Iraq, of course. In the Foley scandal, high-ranking Republicans including House Majority Leader John Boehner and aides to Speaker Dennis Hastert are scheduled to testify before the Ethics Committee this week — and Foley himself comes out of rehab on Oct. 27.

Some commentators suggest that the insurgents in Iraq will ramp up the violence in advance of the election. This is hard to parse because they are thriving under the Bush/GOP regime here in the United States, and it is unclear why they would do anything to help loosen control of the Republican Party in Congress.

Finally, here’s one way to guage what Republicans’ internal polling is showing as Nov. 7 approaches: If you start to hear comedian Rush Limbaugh and his cohorts begin to talk woefully bout huge numbers of seats changing hands to the Democrats — upwards of 80 or more — you can assume they are seeing a real surge and are trying to lower expectations so that if they lose just 20 or seats they can say, “See, it wasn’t as bad as we thought.”

UK Guardian: Bush Purchase of 100k Acres in Paraguay Has Country in a Spin

Jon Ponder

The U.S. media is all but silent on reports that President Bush has purchased 100,000 acres of ranchland in Paraguay. Thankfully, the Brits aren’t so timid:

Last week the Paraguayan news group Neike suggested that [Jenna] Bush was in Paraguay to “visit the land acquired by her father – relatively close to the Brazilian Pantanal [wetlands] and the Bolivian gas reserves.”

The rumours, as yet unconfirmed but which began with the state-run Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, have triggered an outpouring of conspiracy theories, with speculation rife about what President Bush’s supposed interest in the “chaco,” a semi-arid lowland in the Paraguay’s north, might be.

Some have speculated that he might be trying to wrestle control of the Guarani Aquifer, one of the largest underground water reserves, from the Paraguayans.

Rumours of Mr Bush’s supposed forays into South American real estate surfaced during a recent 10-day visit to the country by his daughter Jenna Bush. Little is known about her trip to Paraguay, although officially she travelled with the UN children’s agency Unicef to visit social projects. Photographers from the Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color tracked her down to one restaurant in Paraguay’s capital Asuncion, where she was seen flanked by 10 security guards, and was also reported to have met Paraguay’s president, Nicanor Duarte, and the US ambassador to Paraguay, James Cason. Reports in sections of the Paraguayan media suggested she was sent on a family “mission” to tie up the land purchase in the “chaco.”

Erasmo Rodriguez Acosta, the governor of the Alto Paraguay region where Mr Bush’s new acquisition supposedly lies, told one Paraguayan news agency there were indications that Mr Bush had bought land in Paso de Patria, near the border with Brazil and Bolivia. He was, however, unable to prove this, he added.

Last week the Paraguayan news group Neike suggested that Ms Bush was in Paraguay to “visit the land acquired by her father – relatively close to the Brazilian Pantanal [wetlands] and the Bolivian gas reserves.”

The US presence in Paraguay has been under scrutiny since May 2005 when the country’s Congress agreed to allow 400 American marines to operate there for 18 months in exchange for financial aid.

Jordanians Excuse Torture: ‘U.S. Is Doing It Too’

Jon Ponder

It hasn’t been a week since President Bush signed a law passed by the GOP Congress legalizing torture of suspects. Now Jordan is claiming the right to torture its people because the United States is doing it:

Some countries try to rebut criticism of how they treat prisoners by saying they are only following the U.S. example on handling terrorism suspects, a U.N. human rights expert said Monday.

Manfred Nowak, the United Nations investigator on torture, told a news conference that “all too frequently” governments responded to criticism about their jails by saying they handled detainees the same way the United States did.

“The United States has been the pioneer of human rights and is a country that has a high reputation in the world,” Nowak said. “Today, other governments are kind of saying, ‘But why are you criticizing us; we are not doing something different than what the United States is doing.’ ”

He said nations such as Jordan tell him, “We are collaborating with the United States, so it can’t be wrong if it is also done by the United States.”

Other similarities: Jordan has a dictator, lacks free elections and is a de facto theocracy.

Imagine — A Room Full of Katherine Harrises

Buck Banks

What the Kat dragged in: I just love this story, but don’t think my tender constitution could handle a room full of Katherine Harris look-alikes:

With Senator Bill Nelson running far ahead of US Representative Catherine Harris in the polls, Florida Democrats are pretty happy about his re-election prospects — but one of the party’s debate-watching parties tonight could be a real drag.

The Florida Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Democratic Caucus will host a debate watch party featuring a Katherine Harris look-alike contest in Broward County. The contest is set for 9 p.m., right after the debate, and is open to both men and women.

The $10-per-person event is scheduled at Rosie’s, formerly Hamburger Mary’s, in Wilton Manors. Proceeds go to the Democratic Vote Center in Fort Lauderdale.

Hillary’s Rival Says She Is Ugly

Jon Ponder

Accuses Her of Spending ‘Millions’ on Plastic Surgery

“You ever see a picture of [Hillary Clinton] back then? Whew … I don’t know why Bill married her.”
–John Spencer, Senate candidate (R-New York)

Yo mama: The latest GOP candidate to shoot his campaign in the foot is Sen. Hillary Clinton’s opponent in New York, John Spencer. pparently, Spencer dished on Mrs. Clinton’s appearance to a reporter for the New York Daily News:

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Republican challenger reportedly accused the former first lady of being ugly and said she had “millions of dollars” in plastic surgery conducted to improve her appearance, according to Monday’s New York Daily News.

The newspaper said former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer made the remarks last Friday morning en route to the Senate campaign debate in Rochester. Spencer trails the Democratic incumbent by a wide margin in all the polls.

“You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew,” the paper reported Spencer said, referring to Clinton’s younger days. “I don’t know why Bill married her.”

The Clintons have been married more than 31 years and have a daughter together.

“She looks good now,” he was quoted as saying.

Predictably, Mr. Spencer later categorically non-deniably denied calling the senator “ugly.”