Nice little exchange in a Congressional hearing yesterday. The topic was the manipulation of pre-war Iraq intelligence. Rep. Walter Jones (a NC Republican who voted for the war, and later regretted it) was talking to Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff: JONES: My question is this to all four of you who would like to answer, maybe it’s a … Read More
Everybody’s For “Cutting And Running”
It seems that if any anti-war person suggest that we get out of Iraq, they are labelled as "cut and run" cowards. Sadly, it’s not just those on the left who U.S. troops to start moving out of Iraq: A timetable for withdrawal of occupation troops from Iraq. Amnesty for all insurgents who attacked U.S. and Iraqi military targets. Release … Read More
Indifference To The Truth
What Matt says: Another report on pre-war WMD intelligence stuff. The basic picture I think we get from all of this is that the administration’s rhetoric certainly wasn’t a matter of "mistakes" or "bad intelligence" and probably wasn’t primarily the product of lies either. One reason some of us were so credulous about what they said before the war is … Read More
Speaking of WMD…
Sen. Rick Santorum says we found them. The Department of Defense responds to Santorum’s evidence: "You’re wrong, Rick, and everybody who has looked at your ‘evidence’ in the past thinks it’s horseshit." (rough paraphrase) Actually, it appears that the "found" WMD was 500 shells of degraded mustard or sarin nerve agents. That’s right: they were degraded and ineffective. Had they … Read More
Facts Don’t Lie
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, speculating on why the Iraq War is so unpopular: The president understands people’s impatience — not impatience but how a war can wear on a nation. He understands that. If somebody had taken a poll in the Battle of the Bulge, I dare say people would have said, wow, my goodness, what are we … Read More
Cheney Offers Same Lame Excuse
Cheney on the war in Iraq: "I don’t think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we’ve encountered," Cheney said. Does that excuse sound familiar? It should: "I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" – George Bush It’s very odd that this Administration falls back on their own tunnelvision in order to excuse their monumental policy failures. … Read More
Ethnic Cleansing In Iraq
Just hours before Bush’s arrival in Baghdad a couple of weeks ago, the U.S. Embassy wrote a confidential cable talking about what the situation was like outside the safe Green Zone. The assessment is based on interviews with Iraqi staff members who work in the Embassy and live in Baghdad. The cable is here (PDF format). The subject of the … Read More
Haditha Apologists
Tom Tomorrow says: If you listen to Limbaugh or Hannity, you’ll learn pretty quickly that the right wing party line on Haditha is that we should not “rush to judgment.” By discussing the case as it unfolds, by printing information clearly supplied to them by military sources, the media are apparently making it impossible for Our Troops Who Are Defending … Read More
More Iraqi Murders
Not Haditha, but just as heinous: The fatal shooting of an Iraqi man could lead to murder, kidnapping and conspiracy charges against a group of Marines and a Navy corpsman, an attorney for one of the men says. "The Los Angeles Times and NBC News said troops may have planted an AK-47 and shovel near the body to make it … Read More
The Truman Show
Bush and Rice have been quoting Harry Truman a lot recently, as part of their never-ending propaganda war to reclaim support for the real one. Nobody’s buying it: Bush and Rice are correct that Truman saw tyranny as a threat to world peace and believed in resisting it, by means that included force. At West Point, Bush quoted Truman’s famous … Read More
Things Fall Apart
This Haditha thing just keeps getting worse. Bad enough that U.S. Marines summarily execute 24 Iraqi non-combatent civilians (including children) in cold blood, an act that is far worse than the Abu Gharib scandal (at least the abused prisoners in Abu Gharib were, you know, supposedly combatents). But now there’s strong evidence of a cover-up by Marine superiors: The U.S. … Read More
Last Throes Blah Blah Blah
May 30, 2005 — Dick Cheney: "I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." One year later: The Pentagon reported yesterday that the frequency of insurgent attacks against troops and civilians is at its highest level since American commanders began tracking such figures two years ago, an ominous sign that, despite three years of combat, … Read More
Last Throes = One Year (At Least)
Dick Cheney: "I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time. But I think the level of activity that we see today, from a military standpoint, I think will clearly decline. I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." — Dick Cheney, May 30, 2005
Memorial Day
Today is Memorial Day (yesterday we observed it). It’s the time to remember fallen heroes who, as is so often said, protect our freedoms. Ironically, a fallen soldier by the name of Patrick Stewart is being denied his freedom of religion: Stewart was a follower of the Wiccan religion, which is not recognized by the Department of Veterans Affairs for … Read More
Bush Admits Mistake And STILL Gets It Wrong
In the week leading up to Memorial Day, the president acknowledged that some of his childish taunts hadn’t been in America’s best interests. … (S)aying "bring it on," kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people. I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner — you know, "wanted dead … Read More