Tag: Iraq

Pentagon to Force 2,500 Marine Reserves Back to Iraq

Jon Ponder
“You can send Marines back for a third or fourth time, but you have to understand you are destroying their lives. It is not what they intended the all-volunteer military to look like.”
— Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

It appears that U.S. Marines are no longer supporting Pres. Bush’s failed policy in Iraq:

The Marine Corps said Tuesday that it would begin calling Marines back to active-duty service on an involuntary basis to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan — the latest sign that the American force is under strain and a signal that the military is having trouble persuading young veterans to return.

Marine commanders will call up formerly active-duty service members now classified as reservists because the Corps failed to find enough volunteers among its emergency reserve pool to fill jobs in combat zones. The call-ups will begin in several months, summoning as many as 2,500 reservists at a time to serve for a year or more…

“You can send Marines back for a third or fourth time, but you have to understand you are destroying their lives,” said Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “It is not what they intended the all-volunteer military to look like.”

Desperate Military Seeks Cannon Fodder for Iraq, Afghanistan

Buck Banks

Illegal draft: According to Congress Daily, the General Accounting Office has issued a report highly critical of the Department of Defense’s recruiting practices, citing numerous irregularities as the armed services strive to maintain the flow of fresh meat to the Iraq and Afghanistan fronts.

In May, the Army accepted an autistic recruit and signed him up to become a cavalry scout.

“Some recruiters, reportedly, have resorted to overly aggressive tactics, which can adversely affect [the Defense Department’s] ability to recruit and erode public confidence in the recruiting process,” GAO said.

Cases of wrongdoing vary widely, ranging from paperwork errors to serious allegations, such as sexual harassment, falsifying documents and concealing serious medical conditions. In May, for instance, The Oregonian reported that the Army had accepted an autistic recruit and signed him up to become a cavalry scout. The recruit has since been discharged.

Last year, allegations of wrongdoing among the military’s 22,000 recruiters grew by 50 percent over fiscal 2004 claims, while substantiated cases increased by more than 50 percent. Criminal violations, meanwhile, jumped by more than 100 percent, the GAO reported.

But perhaps more alarming, the GAO says the DoD probably doesn’t even have an accurate idea of the actual number of abuses because it has no effective way to record and track allegations and complaints. This is the third report — following two negative reports in 1997 and 1998 — that called on the DoD to clean up its act.

Perhaps the solution is for people to stop volunteering for the all-volunteer army. If George Bush had no soldiers, he could not play War. Of course, there’s always the 7th Autistic Cavalry Division to fall back on ….

Arianna: CNN Newser Should Be Held Accountable for Calling Lamont ‘Al Qaeda Candidate’

Jon Ponder

Arianna Huffington was on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” with Howard Kurtz yesterday. The topic was a rightwing blog’s revelation that news photos from the Israel-Hezbollah war were doctored but Arianna turned the tables on Howie by bringing up a rather egregious bit of wordsmithing by CNN newsreader Chuck Roberts:

HUFFINGTON: I mean, you had your own headline anchorman, Chuck Roberts, describe Lamont as the al Qaeda candidate. This is an equally deceitful, fraudulent, fabricated statement. There should be zero tolerance for all those deceits, whether in images or words.

KURTZ: Well, what Chuck Roberts said, according to the transcript, was that some are calling Ned Lamont the al Qaeda candidate. But it’s certainly not a formulation I would have used.

HUFFINGTON: You cannot find a single person who called Lamont the al Qaeda candidate, except Chuck Roberts. And what have been the consequences when it comes to Chuck Roberts? Has he been demoted to be covering Paris Hilton or entertainment news? … It’s about time that there is that same kind of accountability that Charles is demanding from photojournalists from journalists, as well.

Had anyone in the media ever called Lamont “the al Qaeda candidate?” Arianna says, no:

Indeed, an exhaustive Lexis Nexis search confirms that no one has called Lamont “the Al Qaeda candidate.” Except for Chuck Roberts. In fact, you know what you find if you Google “Al Qaeda candidate”? A lot of references to John Kerry being smeared by the RNC and its cronies during the 2004 election. Clearly, Lamont as “tha Al Qaeda candidate” is the latest rendition of an old G.O.P. tune.

Republicans have flourished under Bush because they have been able to elide in the public mind the 9/11 terrorist attacks by al Qaeda and their phony war in Iraq. Now that 60 percent of Americans view Bush’s war in Iraq as a mistake, the challenge for Democrats is to drive a wedge between the so-called War on Terror and the civil war caused by Bush’s bloodlust for Saddam Hussein.

What is clear is the “liberal” media will not be of any service in helping to separate our need for security against terrorism from the Iraq civil war.

Ft. Bragg’s Hometown Paper Lambastes Bush Team’s Politics of Fear

Jon Ponder

As the home of Fort Bragg, the sprawling military base in the sand hills and scrub of eastern North Carolina, the city of Fayetteville is about as red as a red state gets. But if this editorial in the Fayetteville Observer today criticizing the Bush political team’s use of fear tactics is an indicator, the president may be experiencing some cracking around his base:

The terrorists aren’t attacking one political party. They are attacking all of us. Politicians can, and should, debate our strategy against terrorists and the course of the war in Iraq. But questioning each other’s patriotism or resolve against terrorists should be out of bounds. It is unnecessary and divisive. And it is, quite simply, a diversionary tactic. Members of both parties have repeatedly shown by their votes strong support for the war against terror.

But even as British police were arresting some of the terror plot suspects, Vice President Dick Cheney was sounding off on Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman’s primary defeat by a businessman who successfully made opposition to the Iraq war the centerpiece of his campaign. It shows “the direction the party appears to be heading,” Cheney said. “What is particularly disturbing about it is from the standpoint of our adversaries. … They are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.” Voting against Lieberman, he said, is encouraging “the al Qaida types.”

…Thomas Kean, the Republican who chaired the nation’s 9/11 commission, offered this thought on Thursday: “It shouldn’t be a political issue. It should be something that everybody supports.”

It should. And we believe that most politicians do. Let’s get on with strengthening our defenses and stopping the terrorists. The voters know the difference between our Iraq war problems and the overall effort against terror. Politicians would be wise to remember that.

The Puzzling Case of Bush’s Dem Enablers

Jon Ponder

Atrios:

In their world they were the courageous ones – as if supporting an administration’s policies is courageous – and those who risked getting Dixie Chicked were cowardly and weak.

…I’m still somewhat puzzled by those who long enabled Bush’s disaster in Iraq. I don’t mean lickspittles like Bill Kristol, but nominal Democrats whose personal insecurities and deep self-loathing required – and still require – them to imagine an allegiance and affiliation with some bizarre tribe of “hawks” who were wrong for the right reasons as opposed to those who were, in their judgment, right for the wrong reasons.

In their world they were the courageous ones – as if supporting an administration’s policies is courageous – and those who risked getting Dixie Chicked were cowardly and weak.

It’s disheartening that even now many of them are more concerned with marginalizing the opinions of those who rightly saw this as folly from the beginning than they are at taking a long hard look at themselves.

They fucked up, and many sadly continue to do so.

After 1 Month Stalemate, Israel Shakes Up Military Leadership, While Bush Maintains Status Quo in Iraq after 3 Years of Quagmire

Jon Ponder

We’re so deep in the looking-glass world of George W. Bush that it is nice to be reminded of who the real world works sometimes. After less than 30 days of less than anticipated progress against Hezbollah in south Lebanon, the Israeli government has reorganized its military leadership:

In the Israeli military shakeup, Chief of General Staff Lieutenant General Dan Halutz appointed his deputy, Major-General Moshe Kaplinsky, to supervise air, sea and land operations as his representative in the north until the end of the war, the military said.

Israeli commentators saw the decision as pushing aside the head of the northern command, Major-General Udi Adam, who has overseen the four-week offensive against Hezbollah so far.

It came as Israel’s security cabinet prepares to meet today to decide whether to approve an expanded ground offensive if diplomatic efforts to end the conflict fail.

In the U.S. Civil War, Abraham Linclon fired generals, including McClellan, Meade and Hooker, before settling on Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to lead the Union Army.

But in Iraq, President George Bush has yet to hold anyone at the Pentagon, in either civilian or military leadership positions, accountable for three years of unnecessary death and destruction or the incompetent planning and execution of war.

Poll: One In Two Americans Believes Iraq Had WMDs

Buck Banks

Fifty percent can be all wrong: A new Harris poll suggests that half of Americans believe Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction at the time Bushco decided to invade Iraq. And it appears that the delusion has been maintained and even enhanced by strong partisan rhetoric by bloggers and conservative media, as well as by individuals’ personal psychological need to find a justification for the ongoing war. The Associated Press reports:

People tend to become “independent of reality” in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.

The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq.

Despite this, a Harris Poll released July 21 found that a full 50 percent of U.S. respondents — up from 36 percent last year — said they believe Iraq did have the forbidden arms when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003, an attack whose stated purpose was elimination of supposed WMD. Other polls also have found an enduring American faith in the WMD story.

“ARE SADDAM HUSSEIN’S WMDS NOW IN HEZBOLLAH’S HANDS?”
— Fox News

Pollsters say that the timing of the poll may help explain the results:

Two weeks before the survey, two Republican lawmakers, Pennsylvania’s Sen. Rick Santorum and Michigan’s Rep. Peter Hoekstra, released an intelligence report in Washington saying 500 chemical munitions had been collected in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

“I think the Harris Poll was measuring people’s surprise at hearing this after being told for so long there were no WMD in the country,” said Hoekstra spokesman Jamal Ware.

But the Pentagon and outside experts stressed that these abandoned shells, many found in ones and twos, were 15 years old or more, their chemical contents were degraded, and they were unusable as artillery ordnance. Since the 1990s, such “orphan” munitions, from among 160,000 made by Iraq and destroyed, have turned up on old battlefields and elsewhere in Iraq, ex-inspectors say. In other words, this was no surprise.

The no-surprise aspect of the non-story didn’t stop the — surprise! — wingnuts from jumping all over it:

Conservative commentator Deroy Murdock, who trumpeted Hoekstra’s announcement in his syndicated column, complained in an interview that the press “didn’t give the story the play it deserved.” But in some quarters it was headlined.

“Our top story tonight, the nation abuzz today …” was how Fox News led its report on the old, stray shells. Talk-radio hosts and their callers seized on it. Feedback to blogs grew intense. “Americans are waking up from a distorted reality,” read one posting.

Other claims about supposed WMD had preceded this, especially speculation since 2003 that Iraq had secretly shipped WMD abroad. A former Iraqi general’s book — at best uncorroborated hearsay — claimed “56 flights” by jetliners had borne such material to Syria.

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Hagel: Iraq Civil War Will Be ‘a Slaughter of Immense Proportions’

Jon Ponder
“This will be a slaughter of immense proportions. The American people will not put up with it. The leadership in Congress will not put up with it.”
— Hagel

Heard it before: Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, spoke out yesterday against sending more troops into Iraq:

On the heels of new warnings from top U.S. generals about the possibility of civil war in Iraq, a senior Republican lawmaker on Sunday publicly questioned the wisdom of moving more American troops into Baghdad to stop the violence.

“Are we going to put our troops in the middle of a civil war?” Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees, asked on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“This will be a slaughter of immense proportions,” he said. “The American people will not put up with it. The leadership in Congress will not put up with it.”

I’m not impressed. We’re getting used to occasional outbursts of sanity from Hagel and senators John McCain and Arlen Specter and others who make news pointing out various policy failures of the Bush Administration. But they never do anything. When it comes time to conduct a serious investigation or actually cast a vote in opposition, these Republicans always get back in line.

Put up or shut up.

Prior To Invading Iraq, Bush Did Not Know Islam Had Conflicting Sects

Jon Ponder

President boor: As evidence piles up that America has never had a more ill-equipped leader, so do the bodies of American soldiers and innocent Iraqis who have died as a result:

Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith is claiming President George W. Bush was unaware that there were two major sects of Islam just two months before the President ordered troops to invade Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.

In his new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, Galbraith, the son of the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith, claims that American leadership knew very little about the nature of Iraqi society and the problems it would face after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

A year after his “Axis of Evil” speech before the U.S. Congress, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites.

Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam–to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”

Sen. Intel Chair – and Bush Lapdog – Turns on White House over Iraq Cover-Up

Jon Ponder
“I have been disappointed by this administration’s unwillingness to declassify material contained in these reports, material which I believe better informs the public, but that does not — I repeat, does not — jeopardize intelligence operations, sources and methods.”
— Sen. Roberts (R-Kansas)

When President Bush’s misadventure in Iraq began is steady de-evolution into civil war during his first term, the president’s team answered calls for investigations into what went wrong by delaying them whenever possible.

The White House had a more-than-willing partner in obfuscating their malfeasance in the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Pat Roberts, R-Kansas. Roberts allowed the first part of an investigation to go through during Bush’s first term but did everything in his power to delay an investigation into the false pre-war intelligence the president used as his precepts for war.

With Sen. Roberts’ help, Bush managed to stave off the investigation into pre-war intelligence during his first term, thus helping to ensure he would get a second term.

But now, seemingly inexplicably, Sen. Roberts has turned on the White House (in as much as a rightwing lapdog can do) over the second part of the investigation:

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