Absolutely beautiful.Penelope wrote:No Honor for Andrew Card.
New Developments III
Shameless.
From Mother Jones:
FEAR-MONGERING AND FICTION: CHENEY ADDRESSES WEST POINT GRADS
Washington Dispatch: The veep last spoke at West Point four years ago. He is still peddling the phony link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
By Paul McLeary
May 26, 2007
With the poise and purpose that has been drilled into them during the past four years, the cadets filed slowly into West Point's Michie Stadium in crisp lines, standing at attention as they reached their seats. Here stood the graduates of the nation's premier military academy, nearly a thousand of them, who would soon swear the oath of the United States Army and be commissioned as second lieutenants.
The class of 2007, the first to enter the academy after the invasion of Iraq, has chosen the motto "Always Remember, Never Surrender" and a crest that includes these words emblazoned above a scene that shows the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Before long, it's likely that many of these men and women will deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan, complex and asymmetric battlefields that have forced the military to rethink its approach to warfare. The nature of the war on terror has caused the staid military academy itself to revisit its curriculum. In Iraq and Afghanistan these soon-to-be officers will lead platoons, where they will be called upon to carry out their missions not just as soldiers, but as diplomats and cops and sometimes a combination of the three.
Vice President Dick Cheney, on hand to deliver this year’s commencement address, acknowledged that this crop of West Point grads is unique. “It is rare in West Point history for a class to have joined during war time and graduate in the midst of that same war,” he said. Addressing the academy’s graduates, the vice president, who drew a crowd of protestors outside one of West Point's gates, relied on the same brand of doomsday rhetoric that has characterized his remarks since 9/11. "We know," he told the audience at one point, that Al Qaeda is “working feverishly to obtain even more destructive weapons and using every form of technology they can get their hands on. This makes the business of fighting this war as urgent and time sensitive as any task this nation has ever taken on.”
Not only is the threat real, he warned, it’s immediate. “The timeline is no longer a calendar, it’s a watch,” he said, quoting a line used recently by Mike McConnell, the director of National Intelligence. Cheney then claimed that the “enemy likely has cells inside our own country.”
As Cheney told the graduates of the enemies they may soon face — terrorists "who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character" — there were moments when it seemed that he had simply recycled an old speech from 2002. Indeed, long after most members of the Bush administration have distanced themselves from some of the more insidious claims that propelled the U.S. into war with Iraq, the vice president continues to repeat them as fact. At one point today he cited the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda (which has been thoroughly debunked) as the reason why the U.S. invaded Iraq. "America is fighting this enemy in Iraq because that is where they have gathered," he told the West Point graduates. "We are there because, after 9/11, we decided to deny terrorists any safe haven."
In a subtle irony, the vice president last addressed graduating West Point cadets the very year the class of 2007 entered the academy, in 2003. It was close to a month after the president declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq and Cheney crowed that “the battle of Iraq was a major victory in the war on terror.” At the time, two West Point graduates had been killed in Iraq. Since then an additional 49 tombstones have risen on West Point's campus, marking the graves of graduates who were killed in Iraq, fighting a war the vice president had previously assured them they’d already won.
From Mother Jones:
FEAR-MONGERING AND FICTION: CHENEY ADDRESSES WEST POINT GRADS
Washington Dispatch: The veep last spoke at West Point four years ago. He is still peddling the phony link between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
By Paul McLeary
May 26, 2007
With the poise and purpose that has been drilled into them during the past four years, the cadets filed slowly into West Point's Michie Stadium in crisp lines, standing at attention as they reached their seats. Here stood the graduates of the nation's premier military academy, nearly a thousand of them, who would soon swear the oath of the United States Army and be commissioned as second lieutenants.
The class of 2007, the first to enter the academy after the invasion of Iraq, has chosen the motto "Always Remember, Never Surrender" and a crest that includes these words emblazoned above a scene that shows the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Before long, it's likely that many of these men and women will deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan, complex and asymmetric battlefields that have forced the military to rethink its approach to warfare. The nature of the war on terror has caused the staid military academy itself to revisit its curriculum. In Iraq and Afghanistan these soon-to-be officers will lead platoons, where they will be called upon to carry out their missions not just as soldiers, but as diplomats and cops and sometimes a combination of the three.
Vice President Dick Cheney, on hand to deliver this year’s commencement address, acknowledged that this crop of West Point grads is unique. “It is rare in West Point history for a class to have joined during war time and graduate in the midst of that same war,” he said. Addressing the academy’s graduates, the vice president, who drew a crowd of protestors outside one of West Point's gates, relied on the same brand of doomsday rhetoric that has characterized his remarks since 9/11. "We know," he told the audience at one point, that Al Qaeda is “working feverishly to obtain even more destructive weapons and using every form of technology they can get their hands on. This makes the business of fighting this war as urgent and time sensitive as any task this nation has ever taken on.”
Not only is the threat real, he warned, it’s immediate. “The timeline is no longer a calendar, it’s a watch,” he said, quoting a line used recently by Mike McConnell, the director of National Intelligence. Cheney then claimed that the “enemy likely has cells inside our own country.”
As Cheney told the graduates of the enemies they may soon face — terrorists "who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character" — there were moments when it seemed that he had simply recycled an old speech from 2002. Indeed, long after most members of the Bush administration have distanced themselves from some of the more insidious claims that propelled the U.S. into war with Iraq, the vice president continues to repeat them as fact. At one point today he cited the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda (which has been thoroughly debunked) as the reason why the U.S. invaded Iraq. "America is fighting this enemy in Iraq because that is where they have gathered," he told the West Point graduates. "We are there because, after 9/11, we decided to deny terrorists any safe haven."
In a subtle irony, the vice president last addressed graduating West Point cadets the very year the class of 2007 entered the academy, in 2003. It was close to a month after the president declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq and Cheney crowed that “the battle of Iraq was a major victory in the war on terror.” At the time, two West Point graduates had been killed in Iraq. Since then an additional 49 tombstones have risen on West Point's campus, marking the graves of graduates who were killed in Iraq, fighting a war the vice president had previously assured them they’d already won.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
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Damien wrote:From the Miami Herald:
WHITE HOUSE REJECTED WARNINGS ON IRAQ WAR
Declassified reports released by the Senate intelligence panel show that President Bush was warned that sectarian strife was likely.
By JONATHAN S. LANDAY
WASHINGTON -- U.S. intelligence agencies warned the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq that ousting Saddam Hussein would create a ''significant risk'' of sectarian strife, encourage al Qaeda attacks and open the way for Iranian interference.
The Senate Intelligence Committee on Friday released declassified prewar intelligence reports and summaries of others that cautioned that establishing democracy in Iraq would be ''long, difficult and probably turbulent'' and said that while most Iraqis would welcome elections, the country's ethnic and religious leaders would be unwilling to share power.
Nevertheless, President Bush, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top aides decided not to deploy the major occupation that force military planners had recommended, planned to reduce U.S. troops rapidly after the invasion and believed that ousting Saddam would ignite a democratic revolution across the Middle East.
The administration also instituted a massive purge of members of Saddam's Baath Party and disbanded the Iraqi army -- moves that helped spark the country's Sunni Muslim insurgency -- even though the newly declassified reports had recommended against doing so.
WASHINGTON--President Bush at a Rose Garden press conference on Thursday insists he is credible when it comes to the war.
Q Mr. President, after the mistakes that have been made in this war, when you do as you did yesterday, where you raised two-year-old intelligence, talking about the threat posed by al Qaeda, it's met with increasing skepticism. The majority in the public, a growing number of Republicans, appear not to trust you any longer to be able to carry out this policy successfully. Can you explain why you believe you're still a credible messenger on the war?
THE PRESIDENT: I'm credible because I read the intelligence
--------------
LOL!
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Win Butler
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Damien wrote:This morning, Bush was a litttle more full of shit than usual.
From the Washington Post:
Is there no safe haven for President Bush?
It happened midway through his news conference in the Rose Garden yesterday morning, in between his 10th and 11th mentions of al-Qaeda: A bird flew over the president and deposited a wet, white dropping on the upper left sleeve of his jacket. Bush wiped the mess off with his bare hand.
==========================
Richard Woolf of Newsweek joked, "Clearly that bird hates our freedoms."
Damien! How could you post such a story without an accompanying video?
Okay, the bird dive-bombed him. Not his fault. Could happen to anyone. But this barnyard animal pretending to be the president WIPED IT OFF WITH HIS BARE HAND! What is the matter with him??
Even more proof he's vulgar and uncouth. And I'm not talking about his leadership. I'm talking about the way he conducts himself in public. No wonder the twins loved to be photographed drunk. Look at the pathetic father figure they were saddled with.
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Win Butler
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Twenty dead soldiers in three days. Eight of them died today.
And still, no evidence has been presented to me that we're any closer to winning the war (the so-called "progress") as a result of the surge. That's not the troop's fault. The blame falls squarely on Bush's shoulders. The soldiers are out there dying at a faster rate so Bush can give off the appearence that he's doing something over there.
<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>3,451</span>
Nearly one thousand GIs have died since last Memorial Day
BAGHDAD (AP) — Americans have opened nearly 1,000 new graves to bury U.S. troops killed in Iraq since Memorial Day a year ago. The figure is telling — and expected to rise in coming months.
In the period from Memorial Day 2006 through Saturday, 980 soldiers and Marines died in Iraq, compared to 807 deaths in the previous year. And with the Baghdad security operation now 3½ months old, even President Bush has predicted a difficult summer for U.S. forces.
"It could be a bloody — it could be a very difficult August," he said last week.
And still, no evidence has been presented to me that we're any closer to winning the war (the so-called "progress") as a result of the surge. That's not the troop's fault. The blame falls squarely on Bush's shoulders. The soldiers are out there dying at a faster rate so Bush can give off the appearence that he's doing something over there.
<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>3,451</span>
Nearly one thousand GIs have died since last Memorial Day
BAGHDAD (AP) — Americans have opened nearly 1,000 new graves to bury U.S. troops killed in Iraq since Memorial Day a year ago. The figure is telling — and expected to rise in coming months.
In the period from Memorial Day 2006 through Saturday, 980 soldiers and Marines died in Iraq, compared to 807 deaths in the previous year. And with the Baghdad security operation now 3½ months old, even President Bush has predicted a difficult summer for U.S. forces.
"It could be a bloody — it could be a very difficult August," he said last week.
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Win Butler
AMERICA HAS A HERO PUPPY. NAMED HERO.
(this story is everything wrong with America.)
Puppy From Iraq Ties Family to Slain Soldier
CONCORD, N.H. (May 25) - The family of Army Spc. Justin Rollins feels a little better thanks to a puppy, fresh from a nearly 6,000-mile journey from Iraq , that connects them to one of the soldier's last happy moments.
Seeing photos of the 22-year-old nuzzling a puppy from a newborn litter the night before his death in a roadside bombing in Iraq prompted Rollins' family and girlfriend to start pushing to adopt Hero, who arrived in New Hampshire on Friday.
"It was the last bit of happiness Justin had," said Rollins' girlfriend, Brittney Murray.
Rollins and some other soldiers from the 82nd Airborne found the puppies outside an Iraqi police station March 4 but weren't allowed to bring them back into their barracks. Rollins was killed the next day in Samarra.
After Murray saw the photos, she sought help finding the short-haired dog.(1) U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes contacted the U.S. Central Command, which ordered the 82nd to retrieve the pup and turn it over to delivery company DHL.(2)
Hero was named as a reminder of the man who planned to propose to Murray on his next visit home, she and Rollins' mother said.(3)
The female pup arrived Thursday night at Kennedy International Airport in New York, visited a veterinarian and arrived in New Hampshire overnight. The floppy-eared pooch - mostly white, with brown spots along the right side of its muzzle and paws still too big for its 15-pound body - was a hit Friday as she sniffed around Hodes' office, pausing to piddle on the carpet.(4)
Whether the mixed-breed puppy is definitely the one in the photo didn't matter.(5) Several people claimed credit for the dog's name (6), but everyone agreed it was a fitting tribute to Rollins, whose parents said he was always an animal lover.
"We have a dog and three cats at home. When he was little, they all were on his bed," said his mother, Rhonda.
Rollins was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with a baseball signed by Red Sox player David Ortiz, who met him last summer shortly before Rollins' unit was deployed.
"He really did believe in what he was fighting for," Rhonda Rollins said of her paratrooper son. "I think he'd be thrilled there was a positive story from the negative thing that happened to us. ... He was such a happy-go-lucky guy."(7)
Let's break this down:
1) If you're a major PR person for any political party, this sad little request from this sad little person is as close to gold as you can get. "Find me the puppy my hero boyfriend was holding!" - If they had to assemble a puppy from similar-looking puppy bits and pieces they themselves had to personally remove from other living puppies with chopsticks and butter knife to make this Frankenstein's puppy, they would do it. This is gold.
2) To which the 82nd replied: "Uh, we're kinda busy."
3) Yay, Hero the Hero Puppy! Long Live Hero the Hero Puppy!
4) How delightful! Somebody tell me if there's been a news article in decades that's used the term 'piddle' in lieu of 'urinate'.
5) True story whether it's been reported or not: The Real Hero the Hero Puppy is dead now. It does not need to be reported. He was eaten for food or destroyed by shrapnel or killed in any twenty of the worst ways you can die on the planet. This Hero the Hero Puppy is an imposter. He never met the guy and these families have a lot of therapy ahead of them and will doubtlessly use Hero the Hero Puppy as a Conch for whose turn it is to speak in the circle.
6) NO! I'M THE GENIUS WHO NAMED HIM HERO!
7) Am I the only one who thinks this is an incredibly sad and pathetic story? WE COULDN'T FIND THE REAL HERO, SO WE FOUND A PUPPY WHO LOOKS JUST LIKE HIM AND NAMED HIM HERO! THE, UH, THE REAL HERO IS STILL OUT THERE. WE DON'T KNOW IF HE'S ALIVE OR DEAD. KINDA LIKE OSAMA BIN LADEN. I fucking hate Hero the Hero Puppy and all he represents in this country. Can't find the real terrorist? Find one who's just as brown. Find a substitute war. Whatever you need to keep yourself happy and believing that your son is in heaven and God is giving him a handjob for fighting on the side of George W. Bush, just let it into your house and make sure you use the word piddle when it torpedo piss-shits your house into a tar pit.
Your son died in the desert and this isn't the puppy he was holding.
That is all.
(this story is everything wrong with America.)
Puppy From Iraq Ties Family to Slain Soldier
CONCORD, N.H. (May 25) - The family of Army Spc. Justin Rollins feels a little better thanks to a puppy, fresh from a nearly 6,000-mile journey from Iraq , that connects them to one of the soldier's last happy moments.
Seeing photos of the 22-year-old nuzzling a puppy from a newborn litter the night before his death in a roadside bombing in Iraq prompted Rollins' family and girlfriend to start pushing to adopt Hero, who arrived in New Hampshire on Friday.
"It was the last bit of happiness Justin had," said Rollins' girlfriend, Brittney Murray.
Rollins and some other soldiers from the 82nd Airborne found the puppies outside an Iraqi police station March 4 but weren't allowed to bring them back into their barracks. Rollins was killed the next day in Samarra.
After Murray saw the photos, she sought help finding the short-haired dog.(1) U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes contacted the U.S. Central Command, which ordered the 82nd to retrieve the pup and turn it over to delivery company DHL.(2)
Hero was named as a reminder of the man who planned to propose to Murray on his next visit home, she and Rollins' mother said.(3)
The female pup arrived Thursday night at Kennedy International Airport in New York, visited a veterinarian and arrived in New Hampshire overnight. The floppy-eared pooch - mostly white, with brown spots along the right side of its muzzle and paws still too big for its 15-pound body - was a hit Friday as she sniffed around Hodes' office, pausing to piddle on the carpet.(4)
Whether the mixed-breed puppy is definitely the one in the photo didn't matter.(5) Several people claimed credit for the dog's name (6), but everyone agreed it was a fitting tribute to Rollins, whose parents said he was always an animal lover.
"We have a dog and three cats at home. When he was little, they all were on his bed," said his mother, Rhonda.
Rollins was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with a baseball signed by Red Sox player David Ortiz, who met him last summer shortly before Rollins' unit was deployed.
"He really did believe in what he was fighting for," Rhonda Rollins said of her paratrooper son. "I think he'd be thrilled there was a positive story from the negative thing that happened to us. ... He was such a happy-go-lucky guy."(7)
Let's break this down:
1) If you're a major PR person for any political party, this sad little request from this sad little person is as close to gold as you can get. "Find me the puppy my hero boyfriend was holding!" - If they had to assemble a puppy from similar-looking puppy bits and pieces they themselves had to personally remove from other living puppies with chopsticks and butter knife to make this Frankenstein's puppy, they would do it. This is gold.
2) To which the 82nd replied: "Uh, we're kinda busy."
3) Yay, Hero the Hero Puppy! Long Live Hero the Hero Puppy!
4) How delightful! Somebody tell me if there's been a news article in decades that's used the term 'piddle' in lieu of 'urinate'.
5) True story whether it's been reported or not: The Real Hero the Hero Puppy is dead now. It does not need to be reported. He was eaten for food or destroyed by shrapnel or killed in any twenty of the worst ways you can die on the planet. This Hero the Hero Puppy is an imposter. He never met the guy and these families have a lot of therapy ahead of them and will doubtlessly use Hero the Hero Puppy as a Conch for whose turn it is to speak in the circle.
6) NO! I'M THE GENIUS WHO NAMED HIM HERO!
7) Am I the only one who thinks this is an incredibly sad and pathetic story? WE COULDN'T FIND THE REAL HERO, SO WE FOUND A PUPPY WHO LOOKS JUST LIKE HIM AND NAMED HIM HERO! THE, UH, THE REAL HERO IS STILL OUT THERE. WE DON'T KNOW IF HE'S ALIVE OR DEAD. KINDA LIKE OSAMA BIN LADEN. I fucking hate Hero the Hero Puppy and all he represents in this country. Can't find the real terrorist? Find one who's just as brown. Find a substitute war. Whatever you need to keep yourself happy and believing that your son is in heaven and God is giving him a handjob for fighting on the side of George W. Bush, just let it into your house and make sure you use the word piddle when it torpedo piss-shits your house into a tar pit.
Your son died in the desert and this isn't the puppy he was holding.
That is all.
"How's the despair?"
From the Miami Herald:
WHITE HOUSE REJECTED WARNINGS ON IRAQ WAR
Declassified reports released by the Senate intelligence panel show that President Bush was warned that sectarian strife was likely.
By JONATHAN S. LANDAY
WASHINGTON -- U.S. intelligence agencies warned the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq that ousting Saddam Hussein would create a ''significant risk'' of sectarian strife, encourage al Qaeda attacks and open the way for Iranian interference.
The Senate Intelligence Committee on Friday released declassified prewar intelligence reports and summaries of others that cautioned that establishing democracy in Iraq would be ''long, difficult and probably turbulent'' and said that while most Iraqis would welcome elections, the country's ethnic and religious leaders would be unwilling to share power.
Nevertheless, President Bush, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top aides decided not to deploy the major occupation that force military planners had recommended, planned to reduce U.S. troops rapidly after the invasion and believed that ousting Saddam would ignite a democratic revolution across the Middle East.
The administration also instituted a massive purge of members of Saddam's Baath Party and disbanded the Iraqi army -- moves that helped spark the country's Sunni Muslim insurgency -- even though the newly declassified reports had recommended against doing so.
The committee released two newly declassified January 2003 analyses by the National Intelligence Council -- whose work reflects the consensus of the nation's intelligence agencies -- and summaries of reports by individual agencies as part of a four-year investigation into the administration's use of prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Committee members voted 10-5 to release the documents, with Republican members Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine joining majority Democrats in approving the decision.
Democrats said the documents showed that the administration had failed despite adequate warnings to prepare for the Sunni insurgency, al Qaeda terrorism and other problems that the United States has encountered since the March 2003 invasion.
''These dire warnings were widely distributed at the highest levels of government, and it's clear that the administration didn't plan for any of them,'' said the committee's chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va....
President Bush said at a news conference Thursday that his administration was ``warned about a lot of things, some of which happened, some of which didn't happen.''
But, he added, ``The world's better off without Saddam Hussein in power. I know the Iraqis are better off without Saddam Hussein in power. I think America is safer without Saddam Hussein in power. As to al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda's going to fight us wherever we are.''
One January 2003 report, titled Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq, cautioned that whoever assumed control of Iraq ``would face a country with societal fractures and significant potential for violent conflict among domestic groups if not prevented by an occupation force.''
It said ousting Hussein would lead to ``heightened competition for power among the different groups and new suspicions about what grabs for power other groups were making.''
Another January 2003 analysis, titled Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq, warned that a U.S.-led war and occupation would encourage the spread of Islamic radicalism in the Muslim world and support for anti-American terrorism.
WHITE HOUSE REJECTED WARNINGS ON IRAQ WAR
Declassified reports released by the Senate intelligence panel show that President Bush was warned that sectarian strife was likely.
By JONATHAN S. LANDAY
WASHINGTON -- U.S. intelligence agencies warned the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq that ousting Saddam Hussein would create a ''significant risk'' of sectarian strife, encourage al Qaeda attacks and open the way for Iranian interference.
The Senate Intelligence Committee on Friday released declassified prewar intelligence reports and summaries of others that cautioned that establishing democracy in Iraq would be ''long, difficult and probably turbulent'' and said that while most Iraqis would welcome elections, the country's ethnic and religious leaders would be unwilling to share power.
Nevertheless, President Bush, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top aides decided not to deploy the major occupation that force military planners had recommended, planned to reduce U.S. troops rapidly after the invasion and believed that ousting Saddam would ignite a democratic revolution across the Middle East.
The administration also instituted a massive purge of members of Saddam's Baath Party and disbanded the Iraqi army -- moves that helped spark the country's Sunni Muslim insurgency -- even though the newly declassified reports had recommended against doing so.
The committee released two newly declassified January 2003 analyses by the National Intelligence Council -- whose work reflects the consensus of the nation's intelligence agencies -- and summaries of reports by individual agencies as part of a four-year investigation into the administration's use of prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Committee members voted 10-5 to release the documents, with Republican members Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine joining majority Democrats in approving the decision.
Democrats said the documents showed that the administration had failed despite adequate warnings to prepare for the Sunni insurgency, al Qaeda terrorism and other problems that the United States has encountered since the March 2003 invasion.
''These dire warnings were widely distributed at the highest levels of government, and it's clear that the administration didn't plan for any of them,'' said the committee's chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va....
President Bush said at a news conference Thursday that his administration was ``warned about a lot of things, some of which happened, some of which didn't happen.''
But, he added, ``The world's better off without Saddam Hussein in power. I know the Iraqis are better off without Saddam Hussein in power. I think America is safer without Saddam Hussein in power. As to al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda's going to fight us wherever we are.''
One January 2003 report, titled Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq, cautioned that whoever assumed control of Iraq ``would face a country with societal fractures and significant potential for violent conflict among domestic groups if not prevented by an occupation force.''
It said ousting Hussein would lead to ``heightened competition for power among the different groups and new suspicions about what grabs for power other groups were making.''
Another January 2003 analysis, titled Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq, warned that a U.S.-led war and occupation would encourage the spread of Islamic radicalism in the Muslim world and support for anti-American terrorism.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
This morning, Bush was a litttle more full of shit than usual.
From the Washington Post:
Is there no safe haven for President Bush?
It happened midway through his news conference in the Rose Garden yesterday morning, in between his 10th and 11th mentions of al-Qaeda: A bird flew over the president and deposited a wet, white dropping on the upper left sleeve of his jacket. Bush wiped the mess off with his bare hand.
==========================
Richard Woolf of Newsweek joked, "Clearly that bird hates our freedoms."
From the Washington Post:
Is there no safe haven for President Bush?
It happened midway through his news conference in the Rose Garden yesterday morning, in between his 10th and 11th mentions of al-Qaeda: A bird flew over the president and deposited a wet, white dropping on the upper left sleeve of his jacket. Bush wiped the mess off with his bare hand.
==========================
Richard Woolf of Newsweek joked, "Clearly that bird hates our freedoms."
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
-
Sonic Youth
- Tenured Laureate
- Posts: 8005
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 8:35 pm
- Location: USA
More on the surge's remarkable progress:
<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>3,431</span>
Iraq Attacks Kill 9 U.S. Troops
By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Writer
Roadside bombings and gunbattles across Iraq killed nine U.S. servicemen, and U.S. authorities were examining a body found in a river that Iraqi police believe is a U.S. soldier seized in an ambush nearly two weeks ago, officials said Wednesday.
U.S. authorities have not determined if the body found in the Euphrates River was one of three missing American soldiers from the May 12 ambush of their patrol near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Four Americans and one Iraqi soldier were killed in that attack.
The military said seven soldiers and two Marines were killed in separate attacks Tuesday, bringing the U.S. death toll for the month to at least 80. Last month, 104 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq.
U.S. officials have warned that American casualties were likely to increase as troops made more frequent patrols during the three-month-old U.S.-led security crackdown in Baghdad.
Six of the soldiers were killed by roadside bombs and the seventh was killed by small arms fire. The military said only that the two Marines were killed in combat operations in Anbar province.
In the town of Mandali, on the Iranian border 60 miles east of Baghdad, meanwhile, a suicide bomber walked into a packed market cafe and blew himself up Wednesday, killing 22 people and wounding 13 others, police said.
The cafe in the mixed Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish city, was usually frequented by police, but no police officers were there at the time, police said. Police said a man in his 30s wearing a heavy jacket despite the searing heat was seen walking into the cafe just seconds before the blast.
In another devastating attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the house of two brothers who were supporting a Sunni alliance opposed to al-Qaida in the Anbar province, killing 10 people, including the men, their wives and their children, police Lt. Col. Jabar Rasheed Nayef, said Wednesday.
The attacker, a 17-year-old neighbor, broke into the house of the two men, Sheik Mohammed Ali and police Lt. Col. Abed Ali, and detonated his bomb belt about 11 p.m. Tuesday in Albo Obaid, about 60 miles west of Baghdad.
The targeted men were part of the Anbar Salvation Council, a group of local Sunni tribal leaders who had banded together with government support to fight al-Qaida, Nayef said.
More than 4,000 U.S. soldiers, backed by Iraqi forces have been searching for more than a week and a half for the missing Americans. U.S. and Iraqi troops endured temperatures of 115 degrees Tuesday as they trudged through canals waist-deep in sewage, searching for the missing soldiers.
A senior Iraqi army officer in the Babil area told The Associated Press that the body found Wednesday was that of an American soldier. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
But the U.S. military said no determination had been made.
"Iraqi police did find the body of a man whom they believe may be one of our missing soldiers," Maj. Gen. William C. Caldwell told reporters. "We have received the body and we will work diligently to determine if he is in fact one of our missing soldiers."
He said that if the body proves to be one of the missing soldiers, his family will be notified first.
Iraqi police said the man had a tattoo on his left hand.
The father of missing soldier Army Spc. Alex Jimenez, of Lawrence, Mass., said he did not believe the body was that of his son. Ramon Jimenez said his son, 25, did not have a tattoo on his left hand, the Eagle-Tribune reported on its Web site.
"For now, he is relieved," said Wendy Luzon, a close family friend who spoke with Ramon Jimenez.
An al-Qaida front group claimed it was behind the May 12 attack. But the Islamic State of Iraq posted no pictures of them on the Internet or offered other evidence to support the claim.
In an interview with the Army Times newspaper last week, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said he believed at least two of the missing soldiers were alive.
"As of this morning, we thought there were at least two that were probably still alive," he said in the interview, which was posted Saturday on the newspaper's Web site. "At one point in time there was a sense that one of them might have died, but again we just don't know."
U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, meanwhile, provided the latest evidence that Washington has put Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government on notice that it must meet several policy benchmarks to guarantee continued U.S. support.
Crocker said the government needs to tackle in several issues in "the weeks ahead", including adoption of a law for the equitable distribution of the country's oil wealth, approving another to integrate members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in government, amending the constitution to satisfy Sunni Arab demands and holding local elections.
"These are tasks that must be completed, and completed soon, to achieve the national reconciliation that the vast majority of Iraqis desire," said Crocker said in a statement marking the first anniversary of al-Maliki's government.
But Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabhagh rejected suggestions that al-Maliki's coalition had been put on notice. He said the government recognized the importance of legislation meant to bolster national reconciliation but argued that restoring security must come first.
"The Iraqi government is answerable to the Council of Representatives (parliament) that elected it," he said. "Presenting timetables to the Iraqi government from other parties is out of the question."
Also Wednesday, a parked car bomb exploded in a parking lot south of Baghdad, killing three civilians and wounding 15 others, police said. The attack took place in the town of Jbala, about 45 miles south of Baghdad.
In other violence, gunmen drove into a commercial area in central Baghdad and opened fire on shops, killing four civilians and injuring 14 others, police said. The attack broke out in the Khulani neighborhood near a historic Shiite mosque. A joint patrol of U.S. troops and Iraqi security officers drove off the attackers, police said.
A day earlier, a car bomb exploded at an outdoor market in a Shiite area of Baghdad, killing 25 people and wounding at least 60. At least 100 Iraqis were killed or found dead nationwide Tuesday, according to police. They included 33 people found shot execution-style — presumably by sectarian death squads — and their bodies scattered across Baghdad.
<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>3,431</span>
Iraq Attacks Kill 9 U.S. Troops
By RAVI NESSMAN, Associated Press Writer
Roadside bombings and gunbattles across Iraq killed nine U.S. servicemen, and U.S. authorities were examining a body found in a river that Iraqi police believe is a U.S. soldier seized in an ambush nearly two weeks ago, officials said Wednesday.
U.S. authorities have not determined if the body found in the Euphrates River was one of three missing American soldiers from the May 12 ambush of their patrol near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Four Americans and one Iraqi soldier were killed in that attack.
The military said seven soldiers and two Marines were killed in separate attacks Tuesday, bringing the U.S. death toll for the month to at least 80. Last month, 104 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq.
U.S. officials have warned that American casualties were likely to increase as troops made more frequent patrols during the three-month-old U.S.-led security crackdown in Baghdad.
Six of the soldiers were killed by roadside bombs and the seventh was killed by small arms fire. The military said only that the two Marines were killed in combat operations in Anbar province.
In the town of Mandali, on the Iranian border 60 miles east of Baghdad, meanwhile, a suicide bomber walked into a packed market cafe and blew himself up Wednesday, killing 22 people and wounding 13 others, police said.
The cafe in the mixed Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish city, was usually frequented by police, but no police officers were there at the time, police said. Police said a man in his 30s wearing a heavy jacket despite the searing heat was seen walking into the cafe just seconds before the blast.
In another devastating attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the house of two brothers who were supporting a Sunni alliance opposed to al-Qaida in the Anbar province, killing 10 people, including the men, their wives and their children, police Lt. Col. Jabar Rasheed Nayef, said Wednesday.
The attacker, a 17-year-old neighbor, broke into the house of the two men, Sheik Mohammed Ali and police Lt. Col. Abed Ali, and detonated his bomb belt about 11 p.m. Tuesday in Albo Obaid, about 60 miles west of Baghdad.
The targeted men were part of the Anbar Salvation Council, a group of local Sunni tribal leaders who had banded together with government support to fight al-Qaida, Nayef said.
More than 4,000 U.S. soldiers, backed by Iraqi forces have been searching for more than a week and a half for the missing Americans. U.S. and Iraqi troops endured temperatures of 115 degrees Tuesday as they trudged through canals waist-deep in sewage, searching for the missing soldiers.
A senior Iraqi army officer in the Babil area told The Associated Press that the body found Wednesday was that of an American soldier. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
But the U.S. military said no determination had been made.
"Iraqi police did find the body of a man whom they believe may be one of our missing soldiers," Maj. Gen. William C. Caldwell told reporters. "We have received the body and we will work diligently to determine if he is in fact one of our missing soldiers."
He said that if the body proves to be one of the missing soldiers, his family will be notified first.
Iraqi police said the man had a tattoo on his left hand.
The father of missing soldier Army Spc. Alex Jimenez, of Lawrence, Mass., said he did not believe the body was that of his son. Ramon Jimenez said his son, 25, did not have a tattoo on his left hand, the Eagle-Tribune reported on its Web site.
"For now, he is relieved," said Wendy Luzon, a close family friend who spoke with Ramon Jimenez.
An al-Qaida front group claimed it was behind the May 12 attack. But the Islamic State of Iraq posted no pictures of them on the Internet or offered other evidence to support the claim.
In an interview with the Army Times newspaper last week, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said he believed at least two of the missing soldiers were alive.
"As of this morning, we thought there were at least two that were probably still alive," he said in the interview, which was posted Saturday on the newspaper's Web site. "At one point in time there was a sense that one of them might have died, but again we just don't know."
U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, meanwhile, provided the latest evidence that Washington has put Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government on notice that it must meet several policy benchmarks to guarantee continued U.S. support.
Crocker said the government needs to tackle in several issues in "the weeks ahead", including adoption of a law for the equitable distribution of the country's oil wealth, approving another to integrate members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in government, amending the constitution to satisfy Sunni Arab demands and holding local elections.
"These are tasks that must be completed, and completed soon, to achieve the national reconciliation that the vast majority of Iraqis desire," said Crocker said in a statement marking the first anniversary of al-Maliki's government.
But Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabhagh rejected suggestions that al-Maliki's coalition had been put on notice. He said the government recognized the importance of legislation meant to bolster national reconciliation but argued that restoring security must come first.
"The Iraqi government is answerable to the Council of Representatives (parliament) that elected it," he said. "Presenting timetables to the Iraqi government from other parties is out of the question."
Also Wednesday, a parked car bomb exploded in a parking lot south of Baghdad, killing three civilians and wounding 15 others, police said. The attack took place in the town of Jbala, about 45 miles south of Baghdad.
In other violence, gunmen drove into a commercial area in central Baghdad and opened fire on shops, killing four civilians and injuring 14 others, police said. The attack broke out in the Khulani neighborhood near a historic Shiite mosque. A joint patrol of U.S. troops and Iraqi security officers drove off the attackers, police said.
A day earlier, a car bomb exploded at an outdoor market in a Shiite area of Baghdad, killing 25 people and wounding at least 60. At least 100 Iraqis were killed or found dead nationwide Tuesday, according to police. They included 33 people found shot execution-style — presumably by sectarian death squads — and their bodies scattered across Baghdad.
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Win Butler
Look Who's TalkingPenelope wrote:I know he's supposed to be this great diplomat who won a Nobel, but this guy just doesn't like tough foreign policies. You know what that got us during his presidency? Yeah, you know.
Yeah, I do know. This is the guy who relentlessly managed to broker an accord between Egypt and Israel. I should say that gives him all the right in the world to criticize another president's tragically inept and murderous foreign policy.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, May 21, 2007 4:20 PM PT
Leadership: So Jimmy Carter calls the Bush administration "the worst in history." This from the man who wrecked the world's greatest economy and made a nuclear Iran and North Korea possible.
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Profile In Incompetence: First In A Series
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We didn't think we'd see the day when a president-elect of France would be more appreciative of America's role in the world than one of our own former presidents.
But here is Carter telling the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that President Bush's "administration has been the worst in history," one that has "endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war even when our own security is not directly threatened."
Worst President in American history.
Later, Carter called his comments "careless or misinterpreted." But given a chance to retract, he didn't. Apparently the man whose idea of leadership was to sit in front of a fireplace and blame everything on America's "malaise" does not consider Islamofascists turning passenger jets into manned cruise missiles and flying them into skyscrapers a direct threat.
Nor does he consider himself responsible for the chain of events that gave us not only 9/11, but al-Qaida, the Taliban, Hezbollah and a nuclear Iran and North Korea.
Iran
On taking office in 1977, Carter declared that advancing "human rights" was among his highest priorities. America's ally, the Shah of Iran, was one of his first targets, with Carter chastising him for his human rights record and withdrawing America's support.
One of the charges was that the Shah had been torturing about 3,000 prisoners, many of them accused of being Soviet agents. Carter sent a clear message to the Islamic fundamentalists that America would not come to the Shah's aid. His anti-Shah speeches blared from public address systems in downtown Tehran.
The irony, as noted by Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute in his book, "The Real Jimmy Carter," is that the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini "executed more people in its first year in power than the Shah's SAVAK had allegedly killed in the previous 25 years." Khomeini's regime was a human rights nightmare.
When Khomeini, a former Muslim exile in Paris, overthrew the Shah in 1979, he established the first modern Islamic regime, a role model for the Taliban and the jihadists to follow. And when the U.S. embassy was stormed that November and 52 American hostages were held for 444 days, America's lack of resolve was confirmed in the jihadist mind.
The wreckage of Carter's foreign policy was seen in the Iranian desert, where a plan to rescue the hostages, a plan never formally presented to the Joint Chiefs, resulted in the loss of eight aircraft, five airmen and three Marines. The rest, as they say, is history.
Hezbollah
As we have noted, it was the Ayatollah Khomeini who introduced the idea of suicide bombers to the Palestine Liberation Organization and who paid $35,000 to PLO families who would offer up their children as human bombs to kill as many Israelis as possible.
It was Khomeini who would give the world Hezbollah to make war on Israel and destroy the multicultural democracy that was Lebanon. And perhaps Jimmy has forgotten that Hezbollah, which he helped make possible, killed 241 U.S. Marines in their Beirut barracks in 1982.
The Soviet Union, seeing us so willingly abandon a staunch ally, invaded Afghanistan, and it was the resistance to the Soviet invasion that helped give birth to the Taliban. The Iranian revolution led to the Iraq-Iran War that took a million lives and encouraged Hussein to invade Kuwait to strengthen his position.
That led to Operation Desert Storm and bases in Saudi Arabia that fueled Islamist resentment, one of the reasons given by Osama bin Laden for striking at America, the Great Satan. Now we're about to face a nuclear Iran as we are embroiled in a war on terror.
If we'd stuck by the Shah and his successors, the history of the last 25 years in the Middle East and here at home would have been very different. As Hayward observes, the fruits of Carter's Iran disaster are with us still, spawning the rise of radical Islam, terrorism, the Taliban and al-Qaida.
North Korea
When President Clinton first learned of the North Korean nuclear program in 1994, a surgical strike against its Yongbyong reactor might have sufficed to send Pyongyang a message that a nuclear North Korea was unacceptable.
Instead, Clinton allowed Jimmy Carter to engage in some private foreign policy and jet off to the last Stalinist regime on earth to broker a deal whereby North Korea would promise to forgo a nuclear weapons program in exchange for a basket of goodies that included oil, fool and, amazingly, nuclear technology.
Along the way, Carter praised North Korea's mass-murdering dictator as a "vigorous and intelligent man." And of North Korea itself, Carter said of this habitat for inhumanity: "I don't see they are an outlaw nation."
Cold War
Jimmy Carter also once challenged Ronald Reagan's "aggressive" and successful strategy for winning the Cold War. Perhaps he'd like to send one of his Habitat for Humanity crews to rebuild the Berlin Wall brick by tyrannical brick. The fact is that Jimmy Carter could not have done more to damage our national security had he been a hand-picked mole planted in the White House by the KGB.
When Carter left office, the Soviet Union was on the march from Grenada to Afghanistan, control of the strategic Panama Canal had been given away, our military had planes that couldn't fly and ships that couldn't sail for lack of trained crews and spare parts, production of the B-1 strategic bomber had been canceled and our economy was in no shape to resist Soviet expansion.
Jimmy Carter, the man who makes Neville Chamberlain look like Dirty Harry, made his remarks about President Bush while promoting his audiobook series of Bible lessons for children. Jimmy, thou shalt not bear false witness against your president and country. Haven't you done enough damage? If you want to see our worst ex-president, look in the mirror.
Tomorrow: How Carter ran the world's greatest economy into the ground.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021