It's Veterans Day...

"Veterans Day", by Tom Russell, performed by Johnny Cash,

 from the 1990 Album Boom Chicka Boom

It's Veterans Day.  November 11, derived from the ending (by armistice) of active hostilities during The Great War, at the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month of 1918 (although formally, the state of war did not end for various combatants until between 1919 and 1924).

In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed 11/11 to be Armistice Day:

"To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…"

In 1938, Congress

... made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday—a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as "Armistice Day." Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I...

and in 1954

...after World War II had required the greatest mobilization of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen in the Nation’s history; after American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word "Armistice" and inserting in its place the word "Veterans." With the approval of this legislation (Public Law 380) on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.

Originally, Armistice Day was intended as a day for celebration and remembrance, with parades and public meetings.  Business would cease briefly at 11am.  By making Veterans Day a statutory holiday, Congress was more or less doubling up on Memorial Day (formerly known as Decoration Day) which had been instituted after the American Civil War.  The division of labour was essentially that Memorial Day was for veterans who had died, and Veterans Day was for all veterans.

In 1968, the US government attempted to "normalize" holiday celebration in order to create uniform three day weekends for federal employees, which resulted in several years of confusion until President Gerald Ford returned Veterans Day to November 11.

As a result, Veterans Day (unlike Memorial Day, Presidents Day, and Columbus Day -- and incidentally, my mother's birthday, which until 1971 was always Memorial Day) is again celebrated on 11 November, no matter what the day of the week.  Partially because of this peculiarity, and probably largely because of the Vietnam War, Veterans Day parades are much rarer than they used to be.

That's wrong.

Lionizing the military and declaring everybody who serves to be a hero isn't right, but ignoring the service and sacrifice of our veterans isn't right either.  Jim Wright says it much better than I can:

...I concur with the bare gist of Masciotra's basic premise: i.e. calling everybody in uniform a "hero" is nothing but shallow mindless patriotism and, worse, waters down the sacrifices of those shining few who truly ARE heroes. Putting us military folks up on a pedestal is wrongheaded and counterproductive and blinds you to the very real, very human, problems. Heroes can do no wrong, they never kill the wrong people by accident, or on purpose, they never commit rape or harass their fellows, heroes never break their oaths for a book deal, do they? Heroes don't get PTSD. Heroes don't wake up at night, the sheet soaked with sweat, the screams ringing in their ears. Heroes certainly don't need help or counselling or medical care after they leave the service. Heroes don't end up dirty and hungry and addicted and living on the street. Regular people do, but not heroes. 

The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of us, me most definitely included, are NOT heroes. We are just ... people. We were just soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, trying to do our duty, doing the best we could with what we had under difficult conditions.

So, it's Veterans Day.  Do something nice for a veteran, if you can -- and do it some other day if you can't do it today.  At least be conscious that there are nearly 20 million Americans who signed up to go into harms way for the rest of us.  Try to be worthy of that.

And make sure that you, and your children if you have any, make it, at least once, to Arlington National Cemetery, or Colville-sur-Mer, so that you (and they) remember what war costs.

"Stones", Arlington National Cemetery,

by Evan Robinson

There's more...

OBL is Dead

President Obama announced last night...

Osama bin Laden is dead.

Killed in Pakistan along with two men and one woman during a raid to capture him.

Unconfirmed reports say he has been buried at sea (so as not to give any followers a place to gather.)

Crowds of primarily Millennials were cheering and waving American Flags outside The White House Sunday evening, as President Obama spoke to the Nation.

Mission finally accomplished.

Now -- let's bring our troops home.

There's more...

A Disproportionate Response

Georgia has called for a cease fire and retreated out of separatist areas but the Russian attack is continuing.

OUTSIDE TSKHINVALI, Georgia, Aug. 10 -- The Georgian army, suffering massive casualties in the face of overwhelming Russian firepower, retreated from the breakaway region of South Ossetia on Sunday. Georgian leaders' recent expressions of defiance turned increasingly into pleas for a cease-fire- Peter Finn, Washington Post

And it appears, from several unconfirmed reports that Russia has run at least 8 attacks on a major Georgian pipeline providing oil to the rest of Europe.

Russia has stated officially that they don't believe the Georgians have retreated. They are asking for written pledges, and claiming war crimes.

There's more...

Sadly, Georgia and Russia Now in Outright War

This is going to be a personal reaction-- not news tonight.

I have friends who have been living and working in Georgia. They and their two kids (3 and 5)were there with the peace corps. Luckily they are on a long planned trip to Bali, Indonesia right now, but though I have heard tonight that they are safe; they may never be able to go back to what has become their home-- and they have worked there for over a year and made many friends whose fates are certainly unknown at this time.

Not much to say at this point yet except to vent sadness and frustration at more loss of life, more civilians injured and killed, more conflict in a world that has seen so much of this again in recent years.

I join with others around the globe today hoping that calmer heads will prevail and that hostilities will ceased, but there doesn't seem to be much hope of that right now. And all this breaking out on the very weekend that the world gathers to celebrate a hope for peace at the Olympic games.

I was working in a summer camp in Norway during the Atlanta games and broke out weeping when I heard about the bomb that went off there. Certainly the reality is that the Olympic weeks are not some sacred time or so different than any other time; but the combination of hope and hope lost is all the more disappointing and painful. In the Atlanta tragedy I remember being relieved that it was NOT an international conflict.

I am going to bed here now in Tokyo, hoping to wake up to better news tomorrow.

There's more...

On Site in Kabul, A Friend's Impressions Of Waiting to See Barack

My friend, who is serving in Afghanastan wrote me last night about his impressions of waiting to see Barack. Can't say his name as you really can't be out politically while serving active duty but he said I could post his view to share with all of you.

Just got to see Sen Obama on his way from the US embassy in Kabul. You should have seen the security coverage, several Blackhawks circling as his chinook came in and following his motorcade out. Though seeing him (from a distance) out here is thrill, even more exciting was the crowd of service members from many nations who waited for a momentary glimpse.

Of course, out here (almost) any excitement is welcomed in the stretches of boredom that accompany duty in Afghanistan, but as we waited for something to happen for over an hour the discussion of everyone's feeling and thoughts for the election and Afghanistan's future revealed just how much people out here are pinning their hopes on the US to make a good call this November and for the next president to get things done to recover from recent setbacks.

These are the guys and gals who have been on multiple combat tours, some here, many in Iraq, and sound bites about "Cutting and Running" or "Bring It On" don't go far. They want intelligent discussion and results.

I hope American voters are smart enough to demand the same for the next few months, and the next four years.

As everyone focuses on each little shift in campaign strategy, each media story of the day, I hope they remember that momentary disappointments or elation need to be kept in the context of the folks dying out here. Lost another Coalition soldier yesterday afternoon, and it has been a rough week for civilian casualties in the crossfire with a resurgent Taliban.

Very glad Sen Obama knows this is where he should be, if only for a day or two.

As one British Sergeant exclaimed, "I just got a photo of the next
President of the United States!" I do hope he is
right. -- Kabul, Afghanistan

I was happy to get a second email from my friend this morning. He did get to meet Barack in person and sent me a picture. He was smiling from ear to ear.

There's more...

Children and Others Dying in Iraq Recently

Babies and children reported as killed by U.S. Troops. Hilla, Iraq.
photo found at Gorilla's Guides, March 27, 2008.

How Many Dead Babies Does It Take
To Make Us Quit Killing Them?

Want to know what's REALLY happening in Iraq?

Read Gorilla's Guide. Read Iraq Today.

Hold on to your stomach...and your heart.

Oh... one more note.

I am copying over almost five full days directly over from Gorilla's Guide. This isn't how one normally does these things. In case anyone isn't clear, I have enormous respect for Gorilla's Guide, and for copyright law. (Go read the Gorilla’s Guides For The Perplexed. Their reference articles on Islam, and their briefings on what the frack is going on will blow you away. That's in addition to their daily journalism, to which I am introducing you here.)

Copyright law depends on a balancing test. Among other factors, it requires a transformative effect or usage. If after having been stuck inside of the U.S. media machine (including progressive blogs) you are not transformed out the ass by reading THIS, almost five days of THIS, I urge you to keep reading it till you are. Seriously. (And yes, I know that's almost certainly not what was meant when the law was written. Besides, black-letter law doesn't say “transformative”; it's case-law which does. It was just too good a line to pass up. *smiles*) None the less I am serious in my intent, which is causing a transformation for each of us. And there, GNB Media is allowed to copy the material to facilitate teaching, especially considering the other parts of the traditional four-pronged balancing test.

Consider this a transformative introduction, a genuine education in the amazing breadth and range of non-U.S. sources of journalism. But today isn't only about getting outside of U.S. journalism. I intend to cause a shift in you, you, and you, the lurker over in the corner, such that all of you are left having deeply confronted what I've been confronting, what I keep demanding of myself that I confront over and over again, every couple of weeks...

We are killing children.

Look at that photo. LOOK.

Some nice young man -- the “troops” -- followed orders, and dropped a bomb right into the middle of a crowded housing project or neighborhood.

• Brooklyn.
• Manhattan.
• Houston.
• Detroit.
• San Francisco.
• Little Rock.
• Tucson.
• Los Angeles.
• Chicago.
• Kansas City.
• St. Louis.
• Seattle.
• Miami.
• Portland.
• Atlanta.
• San Diego.
• Tulsa.
• Boston.
• Dallas.
• Salt Lake City.
• Denver.
• Sacramento.
• Reno.
• New Orleans.
• Nashville.
• Palm Beach.
• Or even Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Wait... I said too many places and the horror went away... poof, that fast.

Look at the photo again please.

This happens daily. Nice young men in uniform kill children, kill babies.

Here are the last five days in Iraq, partially represented from one website. All I'm posting up is one photograph. You're not watching the video, not having to listen to the families morn, listen or watch the little ones scream in pain, not seeing the few doctors remaining work frantically to try and keep the kids alive, failing.

As you read through this, please imagine this happening to your family, your children, your brothers and sisters, your mother and father, your aunts and uncles, your best friends, the people you work with if only they weren't all out of work because your office or factory is destroyed, plus it's too dangerous to get to work. Imagine please, it is your family dying, fighting to eat, struggling to stay alive as bombs, missiles and guns go off.

Here are five days in Iraq (one-website, one photo, no sound.)

*breathe*

Gorilla's Guide

March 27

Baghdad:

By midday March 26th 2008 - hospitals in Baghdad reported civilians casualties from the American attacks on Sadr city as 20 dead 239 wounded. Mostly women and children. Such as the boy you see to the left. Many of the wounded are not expected to survive.

The Americans continue to prevent both doctors and ambulances from entering Sadr city.

They are also preventing ambulances from leaving the city.

Normally very reliable sources say the Americans have fired on ambulances and other vehicles trying to take wounded out of the city.

Two Soldiers from the American army still trying to subjugate Irak were killed in Baghdad.

Missile attacks on the green zone wounded 3 or 5 Americans depending on who you believe.

Mortar attacks in Nle and al-Resala killed 7 and wounded 23.

The green zone also is being shelled.

In Karrada 4 were killed and 5 wounded by mortar attacks. Another person was killed by shooting, 5 were wounded in that shooting attack.

UPDATE: Karrada is under curfew and there are very heavy forces to try to stop people attacking it and the homes of the SIIC leadership there.

UPdate: At least 2 further people were killed in ongoing American attacks on Sadr city this afternoon evening reports of wounded vary the minimum number is 8.

There are massive demonstations throughout Baghdad against the Americans and the puppet government in the green zone.

There has been major incidents of violence in the following districts - al-Amil, Fudhailiya, al-Hurriyah, Iskhan, Kamiliya, Mashtal, al-Rustumiyah Sadr, City, al Shula, al-Shurta, Ur, Washash. Many incidents in rest of Baghdad and outlyingh areas also.

UPDATE The Americans and the Badr brigade are trying to stop people getting into or out of Khazimiyah.

Sources: Radio reports & Team members.

Gunmen attacked the home of the commander of logistics for GZG forces and burnt it to the ground, the report says the family were rescued by GZG special forces.

The Guardian is reporting that a British SAS soldier was killed in Baghdad.

In a show of force Mahdi army fighters in the “New Baghdad” area completely cut off the main highway and main roads. Our member who live in area says that this was done as a warning of what they would do if attacked.

UPDATE There is fighting in al-Shula Mahdi army fighters stormed the GZG checkpoint controlling access to the district forcing the GZG “elite” troops and police to flee. The American outpost there is under attack.

UPDATE: GZG spokesmen in Baghdad say that 66 GZG troops and five gzg officers have been killed so far.

UPDATE: The American base in . al-Rustumiyah (SothEast Baghdad) is coming under repeated attack.

UPDATE Local sources confirm Aswat al Irak fighting throughout ALL northest Baghdad. UPDATE 2 Locals confirmed several GZG vehicles seized and set alight. Figfting described by them as “intensifying” contradicting Aswat al Iraks report that heavy American air presence calmed the situation down..

UPDATE Sources in al-Shula say that many police stations and checkpoints have been stormed an overrun we do not have reports of police survivors.

UPDATE GZG is trying to impose curfews they appear to have little success in this.

UPDATE GZG Baghdad spokesman saying 19 dead and 307 wounded.

Babil Governorate:

More than 60 people allegedly all armed were killed in the American aerial bombardment of Al-Askari and Nader in central Hilla but there is a problem:

The problem is that it is a lie. It a STUPID lie. It’s the sort of STUPID LIE that only an American military spokesman would tell.

Were you stupid enough to believe anything the Americans are saying about them knowingly killing women and children?

The attack was by Apache aircraft on al-Askari, Ahmed Nader and Muhaizem neighbourhoods.

Gunmen like the children in the screen grab with caption from the Sadrist site nahrainet [that you see at the top of this post -- Jesse.]

Al Askari, Ahmed Nader, and Muhaizem are all heavily populated areas.

It is physically impossible to heavily bombard a densely populated civilian area without killing a lot civilians.

The Americans killed a lot of civilians.

Civilians like the women and children you see to the left. The caption incidentally cites “dozens” of dead women and children.

Eyewitness accounts speak of seeing 25 bodies, including many women and children. They also talk of 35 people being evacauted as seriously wounded and that again many if not most of these were women and children. Two doctors in the local hospital who refused to be identified said to one of our local correspondents that many of these were expected to die.

According to local people the scale of destruction is enormous, they speak of families being wiped out, there are reports of 6 houses turned to rubble, many other houses rendered uninhabitable and of multiple secondary explosions from the fuel tanks in cars.

It is worth noting that an American base is nearby. It is also worth noting that the local police are members of the Badr brigade and that they have repeatedly been reported as committing serious atrocities in the three neighbourhoods which are very deprived even by present day Iraki standards and are overwhelmingly Sadrist.

UPDATE: The GZG governor is trying negotiate with Sadrist leadership in Hilla. Local sources the fighting is as heavy as ever.

And according to the the American spokesman the people killed were 60 gunmen.

March 27 -- evening

Ali Ibn Laith. Born December 14 1999 - Killed March 27 2008

Son of our much missed colleague Laith and his wife, last remaining brother to our greatly loved colleague Mohammed Ibn Laith and his sister.

O God! Pardon our living and our dead, the present and the absent, the young and the old, the males and the females.

There will be no further postings tonight.

[Note:A Child's Death in Iraq -- Jesse]

March 29

Witnesses to the battle for Basra describe scenes in the city

‘I told her she was mother to a martyr’

As fighting between the Shia Mahdi army and the Iraqi national army continued yesterday, witnesses described scenes in the city to Ghaith Abdul-Ahad.

“Yesterday we were in the street and saw a black car coming. They stopped and two men opened the boot. They dragged out an Iraqi soldier and threw him in the street and they drove away.”

“He was a young soldier dressed in a military uniform, he had a bullet hole in his head and there was blood on his face - even his boots were covered with blood.

“We found his ID card, his name was Ahmad Raad al-Helfy. We went through his mobile phone and found a number marked “mum”, we dialled and an old women answered. I told her that her son had died and that she was the mother of a martyr; she started screaming and wailing.”

Said Abu Saleh, 30

“The situation is very difficult in Basra, all the side streets are controlled by the Mahdi army. Even if the army has lots of tanks, the Mahdi fighters are controlling the streets. The fighters are driving in captured Iraqi Humvees and waving new guns.”

Resident of Hayyaniya, a stronghold of the Mahdi army

“Our fighters are being targeted not by the Iraqi government but by government militias working for Moqtada al-Sadr’s rivals in the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council. They are a executing a very well-drawn plan. They are trying to exterminate the Sadrists and cut and isolate the movement before the September local elections. The Sadrists are the only Shia resistance movement against the occupiers [Americans] and we have wide popularity.

“We are going through a battle of existence. We will fight to the end; we either survive this or we are finished.

“We have captured lots of their vehicles, machine guns and mortars. We have new rocket-propelled grenades we got from their supply trucks. Our fighters know how to use the side streets as their battle space.”

Sheikh Ali al-Sauidi, a senior commander in the Mahdi army speaking in a telephone interview

Source: Witnesses to the battle for Basra describe scenes in the city | World news | The Guardian

See also: We’re fighting for survival, says Mahdi army commander for a fuller account.

March 30

British and US forces drawn into battle for Basra - Middle East, World - The Independent

So far Mr Sadr has not formally ended his ceasefire, declared in August last year and renewed in February. Ever since he fought the US marines in two battles in Najaf in 2004, he has been averse to direct military confrontation with the Americans or his Shia rivals when backed by the US. But as Mr Maliki’s military offensive falters, his commanders are increasingly looking to the US and Britain for support. If US and British forces engage in direct military action on a wide scale with the Sadrist militia, then Mr Sadr could call for a general uprising, which would engulf all of Shia Iraq in war. The Mehdi Army already controls half of Baghdad.

Read in full: British and US forces drawn into battle for Basra - Middle East, World - The Independent

More March 30

Police refuse to support Iraqi PM’s attacks on Mehdi Army - The Independent

US and British forces are increasingly playing a supporting role in the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s stalled offensive against the Mehdi Army militia. American aircraft launched air strikes in Basra yesterday and fought militiamen on the streets in Baghdad while British advisers have also been assisting Iraqi troops in Basra.

Mr Maliki retreated from his demand that militiamen hand over their weapons by yesterday and extended the deadline to 8 April. This is a tacit admission that the Iraqi army and police have failed to oust the Mehdi Army from any of its strongholds in the capital and in southern Iraq. The Iraqi army has either met stubborn resistance from Mehdi Army fighters or soldiers and police have refused to fight or changed sides. “We did not expect the fight to be this intense,” said the officer from a 300-strong commando unit that has been pinned down in the Tamimiyah district in Basra, where the supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Mehdi Army, have strong support.

The officer said four of his men were killed and 15 wounded in the fighting. “Some of the men told me that they did not want to go back to the fight until they have better support and more protection,” he added. The Interior Ministry threatened that the men would be court-martialled for refusing to fight. Government troops arriving in Basra complain that they are being fired on by local police loyal to Mr Sadr. Members of one police unit had fist fights with their officers after they refused to join the battle.

Continue reading ‘Police refuse to support Iraqi PM’s attacks on Mehdi Army - The Independent’

Basrah "surge" update March 29 2008 - March 30 2008

Overview Basrah:

There is extremely intense fighting still going on in Basrah. After a relatively calm morning - 8 people killed and 7 were wounded in an airstrike by the Americans on al-Tak in al-Hussein, an area the GZG said on Friday they had control of - GZG troops assisted by Badr militia and British artillery made efforts to dislodge Mahdi army fighters from their positions. These appear to have failed according to local reports the Mahdi army seem to have withdrawn to prepared defensive positions. The GZG “defence” minister says they cleared Mahdi army fighters from Al-Ashar, Tanouma, Shatt Al-Arab, al-Zubair. The efforts by GZG forces to recapture the bridge at Qurnah also are reported to have failed. This means that the GZG attemts to reinforce are not working which perhaps explains his comment that they were surprised by the weaponry being used by Mahdi army fighters and therefore are bringing up heavier weaponry to try to dislodge the Mahdi army. He and other spokesmen are saying that GZG forces will fight on until they have “cleared Basrah of criminal elements”. Maliki has gone as far as to say that the JAM are “worse than al Qaeda”.

Residents in al Taminmiyah say that GZG forces are making announcements demanding they leave their homes and that afraid of being caught up in an assault many have complied. Other residents report that GZG troops attempted an incursion and are now trapped there are similar reports from Zubair and al-Ashar. There are widespread reports of defections by GZG police and army to the Mahdi army. Mahdi army has also allowed journalists to speak to captured GZG police and army soldiers.

A bombing raid on Sunday night by the Americans seriously wounded 7 people and cause the collapse of two houses. UPDATE: 10 killed 7 wouned

Overview Baghdad:

Political:

In his interview with al-Jazeera al-Sadr made the following key points:

• He would never accept the American occupation of Irak.
• Politics and religion are inseparable this does not mean that the Sadrists are a political party - they will never be that.
• The role of the clergy is to observe and advise the government.
• That all Irakis Sunni and Shia alike should resist the American attempts to occupy Irak.
• That he had rejected and denounced sectarian killings repeatedly.
• That sectarian (and ethnic) killing would always take place for as long as the Americans were in Irak.
• That he personally had told Iranian supreme leader Khamenei that Iranian interference in Irak would not be tolerated.
• That the struggle in Irak was both political and sectarian that it was political at government level and sectarian and street level.
• That at the political level Sadrist representatives in the GZG “parliament” routinely voted with the “Sunni” parties.

UPDATE AL-Sadr has explicitly told his supporters not to give their weapons to GZG forces that they may only give their weapons to a government that expels the Americans.

UPDATE The GZG have sent a delegation to Najaf to negotiate with the Sadrists.

Hospitals in Sadr city said that by noon Friday, 39 people were killed and 389 others injured since the outbreak of fighting and airstrikes on Sadr City. By noon Saturday the casualty levels had gone up to 75 dead and 500 wounded. GZG Health ministry officials update that figure on Sunday morning to 125 dead and 892 wounded.

The spokesman for GZG Baghdad Operations Command finally got around to admitting that the “surge” spokesman has been kidnapped - he was responding to questions about the tape released of him pleading with Maliki to end the current operation.

Fighting broke out after midnight in Abu D’sheer.

The curfew has been tightened and extended indefinitely.

Other Governorates

Fighting continues in Karbala. (Local GZG security forces deny this saying that what is happening is a series of raids.) There is sporadic fighting. The Dawa party HQ in al Salam was attacked by fighters using RPGs. Fighting also continues in Diwaniyah.

Site News: Many of us are running low on fuel for our generators. This means very light or no posting from Monday. The subscribers edition will continue to be produced as normal.

March 31

The big news is the al-Sadr’s “Stand Down” —more accurately termed Maliki’s “climb down” follow this link or click the image below to see the original text of al-Sadr’s declaration. There will be plenty of statements and counter statements and a lot of misinformation especially in the Western media and the pro-government Iraki media. This is my “take” on the matter.

Text of the declaration:

Based upon our responsibilities under the law [shariah] and for the sparing of Iraki blood and for the protection of the reputability of the Iraqi people, and for their unity both in terms of people and in terms of territory, and in preparation for its independence and liberation from the armies of oppression; and in order to put out the fires of fitna which the occupier and his followers wish to keep burning between Iraki brothers, we call upon the beloved Iraki people to measure up to their responsibility and their cognisance of law in sparing bloodshed and preserving peace in Irak, and its stability and independence.

The following is resolved:

1. Ending armed manifestations in Basra governorate and all the other governorates.
2. Ending of attacks and illegal arbitrary detentions.
3. Demand that the government apply the law on general amnesty, and release all prisoners who have not had charges confirmed against them, in particular prisoners belonging to the Sadrist current.
4. We announce that we will repudiate those who carry weapons and target the government and service agencies and institutions, or the offices of political parties.
5. Cooperation with government agencies to bring about security and to charge criminals, according to due process of law.
6. We reassert that the Sadrist movement does not possess heavy weapons.
7. Efforts [meaningful efforts are to be made] for the return to their residential areas of those who were forced out as a result of security incidents.
8. We demand respect for human rights by the government in all of its security activities.
9. Working [meaningful efforts are to be made] towards the realisation of development and service projects in all governorates.

The first thing that must be said is that these are exactly the same demands that al-Sadr has been making for months. He reiterated them again when the fighting started. Maliki has been forced to accept every single one of them. I wonder how he managed to delude himself that the spectacularly misnamed “Saulat al-Forsan” (Charge of the Knights) would succeed.

Basrah is the country’s economic lung and the Mahdi army, the Badr Brigade, and Virtue (Fadhila) party all have a heavily armed presence there. Politically it is arguable whether it is the Virtue party or the Sadrists who are likely to do best in the forthcoming elections both are likely to do very well indeed, the SIIC is unlikely to do well, they will be lucky if the retain and significant presence.

The Mahdi Army was well-prepared:

The Mahdi army took the lessons of recent events to heart. Since the fighting in Karbala followed by further recent operations to reduce if not eliminate, their presence the Mahdi army have been digging in and preparing a defense in depth in Basrah. They plainly also planned to interdict the arrival of reinforcements for GZG troops once the fighting which everyone could see was coming got underway. They succeeded in their goals:

• They successfully prevented attempt after attempt after attempt to retake the Qurnah bridge.
• Far from being dislodged from their strongholds they successfully carried out a very difficult military operation — a tactical retreat under heavy fire to ready prepared defensive positions.
• They successfully counter-attacked repeatedly.

During several of those counter-attacks they captured and/or destroyed heavy weaponry from GZG forces they also on several occasions cut off and then destroyed attacking forces.

We can now confirm that in regard to al Taminmiyah the reports from residents in this earlier posting “Other residents report that GZG troops attempted an incursion and are now trapped there are similar reports from Zubair and al-Ashar“turns out to have been no more than the truth and that the same is true of Zubair and al-Ashar.

The GZG defense minister admitted that his forces were unprepared either for the ferocity with which the Mahdi army fought or for the sophistication of much of their weaponry. Nor were they prepared for the combination of a simple refusal to fight by many of the soldiers coupled with wholesale defections.

That was not all they were unprepared for. The South erupted. That is a dramatic way of saying that the Mahdi Army successfully opened a number of new fronts in the fighting, Nasiriya, Karbala, Hilla, Diwaniyah, and Kut all saw very fierce fighting. Apart from the benefit to its fighters in Basrah there was the added benefit of reducing the pressure on its fighters in Karbala. They successfully seized Kut - they remain in control of that city for the moment, and in Nasiriyah, Dawa’s heartland, they not only seized ground they laid siege to the governor in his palace and the large number of GZG troops who were protecting him. Every time those troops tried to effect a breakout they were easily beaten back. Desperate negotiations ensued before the final Mahdi army assault, and the governor remains alive, and under siege, - for now.

As to what happens next on these secondary fronts it is hard to tell. My guess, and it is no more than an educated guess, is that the Mahdi army will gradually cede partial control of Kut and the other cities once the local GZG authorities demonstrate good faith. The problem of course lies in those two words “good faith” - at no point have Dawa and SIIC ever done so and I find it difficult to believe GZG officials loyal to those parties will do so now. I hope to be proved wrong in this but I am not optimistic. The fact that operations by GZG forces are continuing in several places including in Basrah makes me even less optimistic.

Let us get back to what we know instead of guesswork. It is clear that the GZG was also unprepared for the ferocity of the fight back in Baghdad. The Mahdi army not only were not dislodged they succeeded in gaining territory and will not lightly give it up. A measure of how desperate the situation was the GZG in Baghdad can be found in the fact that they had to massively reinforce Karrada and prevent all access to Kazhimiya. They had to get the Americans to help them besiege Sadr city. They lost badly in al-Shula. Baghdad did not see the wholesale defections of Basrah but there were enough of them including among elite units - army and police, to make the GZG military leadership very doubtful of their men.

Another measure of GZG desperation is that they used peshmerga forces in Basrah (and in Baghdad). I find it hard to find the words to describe how thoroughly hated the Peshmerga regiments have made themselves in the central and southern governorates. They see themselves as entitled to exact every piece of revenge they possibly can at every possible opportunity and do so. This may be understandable but it is very bad tactics.

What happens next? I do not know. But on past performance we can expect a lot of chest thumping from the GZG and from the Americans. We can also expect a lot of “incidents” of varying severity from the GZG side - probing attacks in other words.

What of Maliki - the man whose arrogance and disastrous lack of judgement has drastically weakened the GZG. What will happen to him?

Who cares …

Saba Ali Ihsaan,
Baghdad,
Irak

Fuck war.

Killing is wrong.

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Hillary Clinton Under Fire

I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady. That’s where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.

Look, I don't really understand it, but there are lots of people who want to borrow combat experiences. Plenty of guys running around with fake medals, and lots of war stories.

Senator Clinton, believe me if you were under fire you would remember every fucking detail. It's absolutely terrifying, it would have been doubly so with your daughter next to you.

Get a fucking grip, you had probably more troops covering you and that airport then when Baghdad John McCain put the 101st Airborne in harms way for his Shorja Market Photo-op. It's fun, titillating even, to pretend you came under fire, oohhhh... remember that mom? No, because it didn't fucking happen.

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The Forgotten War

Geez, You have to read the NY Times piece that Gray pointed out.

As I went to get some hot chocolate in the dining tent, the peaceful night was shattered by mortars, rockets and machine-gun fire banging and bursting around us. It was a coordinated attack on all the fire bases. It didn’t take long to understand why so many soldiers were taking antidepressants. The soldiers were on a 15-month tour that included just 18 days off. Many of them were “stop-lossed,” meaning their contracts were extended because the army is stretched so thin. You are not allowed to refuse these extensions. And they felt eclipsed by Iraq. As Sgt. Erick Gallardo put it: “We don’t get supplies, assets. We scrounge for everything and live a lot more rugged. But we know the war is here. --nytimes.com

What a complete disaster to lose a war. Bush is losing two.

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How To Kill Someone, Lesson One.

Matthew Sepi's AK-47 & 180 rounds of ammo. He instinctively "engaged the targets."
photo Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

Visualize Your Target. Eliminate Hesitancy. Act Reflexively.

Killing is a matter of training and intent.

If you train properly, you'll kill reflexively and automatically when the time comes. If you don't train properly, you'll likely die to someone who did train well.

Want to live? Train exactly how you intend to fight.

As medics, we ran countless simulations, all designed to have us act reflexively, precisely the way we were expected to, in the event of.

After each run and shift, we hot-washed the run, debriefing precisely what worked and what didn't, visualizing the runs over and over again, replaying them till we had the run working perfectly, down to stepping around the obstacle instead of bumping into it, asking the correct question at the perfect moment instead of missing the point, or blocking the punch instead of getting clocked in the ribs.

As paramedics, we trained to act with force on automatic pilot, totally on reflex, just as we train to swerve to avoid a car glimpsed out of the corner of our eye -- as the costs of thinking even for a moment could cause injury to our partner, patient or ourselves.

Troops are coming back deadly dangerous from the wars.

Even most Veteran's Associations won't talk, says The New York Times. The Associations hate the idea of vets who might be so out of control, regardless of what the statistics may show, fearing all vets will be viewed in the same light.

The Pentagon absolutely doesn't want to talk and has lame-ass excuses as to why -- even though they're not talking -- they're certain none of the results of The Times' study are valid.

Bullshit they're not valid.

The New York Times

The Times used the same methods to research homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans for the six years before and after the present wartime period began with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

This showed an 89 percent increase during the present wartime period, to 349 cases from 184, about three-quarters of which involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. The increase occurred even though there have been fewer troops stationed in the United States in the last six years and the American homicide rate has been, on average, lower.

The Pentagon was given The Times’s roster of homicides. It declined to comment because, a spokesman, Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, said, the Department of Defense could not duplicate the newspaper’s research.

The Times’s analysis showed that the overwhelming majority of these young men, unlike most civilian homicide offenders, had no criminal history.

“He came back different” is the shared refrain of the defendants’ family members, who mention irritability, detachment, volatility, sleeplessness, excessive drinking or drug use, and keeping a gun at hand.

“You are unleashing certain things in a human being we don’t allow in civic society, and getting it all back in the box can be difficult for some people,” said William C. Gentry, an Army reservist and Iraq veteran who works as a prosecutor in San Diego County.

In earlier eras, various labels attached to the psychological injuries of war: soldier’s heart, shell shock, Vietnam disorder. Today the focus is on PTSD, but military health care officials are seeing a spectrum of psychological issues, with an estimated half of the returning National Guard members, 38 percent of soldiers and 31 percent of marines reporting mental health problems, according to a Pentagon task force.

The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study, considered the most thorough analysis of this population, found that 15 percent of the male veterans still suffered from full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder more than a decade after the war ended. Half of the veterans with active PTSD had been arrested or in jail at least once, and 34.2 percent more than once. Some 11.5 percent of them had been convicted of felonies, and veterans are more likely to have committed violent crimes than nonveterans, according to government studies. In the mid-1980s, with so many Vietnam veterans behind bars that Vietnam Veterans of America created chapters in prisons, veterans made up a fifth of the nation’s inmate population.

There's more...

This is a fraction of The Times' article. The full article breaks your heart.

The New York Times - The Cases

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war.

It has been 19 years since my last patient as a paramedic. I didn't see combat during my military tour with the 101st Airborne, though I saw more than enough death as a civilian paramedic. No one put IEDs out for our rigs, thank you, and we didn't take sniper fire. Patient care in South Tucson and Oakland ghettos is still safer than being a medic in Iraq.

Yet even 19 years later, there are days I want to take my walking stick and beat someone to death, no kidding. I smile at them sweetly, until the moment passes. Maybe excuse myself, go for a brief walk. Not that I can walk very far.

And this is nothing, compared to how I was immediately after I retired as a medic. I don't remember having a full night's sleep for years. And by years, I mean maybe the first 8-10 years. With the drugs available now, this is freaking heaven.

People who haven't walked (or crawled or limped) through the Valley of the Shadow of Death themselves, or watched as family did so, have no clue how desperate it gets.

The Times' reports an under-age (for drinking) kid back from the war trying to self-medicate with booze, reacted on instinct in Las Vegas and cut down two gang members, killing one, wounding other, by firing his AK-47 when startled.

Why is anyone surprised?

After ruining our military, the Bush Administration has yet again failed to take care of our troops. It's just so much easier simply to not count them as war casualties when they get triggered back in the world, then kill and maim. After all, then it isn't the service's fault; they just couldn't handle it. These screwed-up wack-jobs (whose stability was good enough while they were on active duty) end up in the criminal justice system. The DOD ends up not having to pay active duty pay, mental health benefits or VA benefits.

Now that's a win-win-win.

The thing is, if you're a combat troop, you are trained to run scenarios obsessively. Visualizing a scenario, over and over, honing it down, fine-tuning it, making it better and better, till you have the perfect mission.

And if now you're back in the States, running a kill scenario?

You just better hope no one accidentally hits your trigger.

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Your “Round'-The-Way” Vocabulary Phrase Of The Week:

“WOLF TICKET”

Just Ask Dear Sweet Emily...oh, never mind!—NOT!

WOLF TICKET: The phrase wolf ticket is a corruption of woof ticket, an African American slang expression for the practice of verbal intimidation, ”sellin' (or passin' out) wolf tickets,” that was misinterpreted. Over time, the misnomer has become accepted terminology in some quarters.

-------------------------------------

“Selling wolf tickets” is the act of engaging in threatening or intimidating verbal aggression, usually without the intent of doing actual physical harm. In West African and African-American cultures, verbal sparring and physical displays traditionally were employed as proxies for physical violence to preserve life and maintain peace and order. Woofin' also can be a means of “calling someone out,” of challenging an opponent to a verbal or physical match.

As we've been discussing a little bit of slang terminology and all that downpage a piece, colloquial words and phrases have been a' buzzin' in my head much of the day. The phrase “Wolf Ticket” is one that Black folks of a certain age used up until about twenty years or so ago. If you were on the playground, or on the corner, or a stoop, and some punk-ass clown was just flappin' his lips about all the stuff he was gonna do to “X” person, and you knew he was all about bullshit with his reasoning and swaggering, that fool was basically selling a “Wolf Ticket”.

Especially if the idiot later had to do a public backdown.

Yesterday ladies and gentlemen, some verrrry prominent people got busted selling “Wolf Tickets”.

From The Times yesterday afternoon:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb.

The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to be explosive in the middle of tense international negotiations aimed at getting Iran to halt its nuclear energy program, and in the middle of a presidential campaign during which a possible military strike against Iran’s nuclear program has been discussed.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran’s ultimate intentions about gaining a nuclear weapon remain unclear, but that Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.”

Now remember these infamous howls?

“I’ve told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III,” said the President. ”It seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”

“Arooooooooo!” to the second power!

“Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions,” Cheney said in a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Studies.

He said Iran's efforts to pursue technology that would allow them to build a nuclear weapon are obvious and that “the regime continues to practice delay and deceit in an obvious effort to buy time.”

If Iran continues on its current course, Cheney said the U.S. and other nations are “prepared to impose serious consequences."”

Prune-faced, old Mildew Wolf let loose his hoarse little howl reaaaaaal early in the game too:

“WASHINGTON - A prominent Democratic senator urged the Bush administration to directly engage Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons program and that preemptive military force should not be ruled out.

"I don't want to saber rattle, but I wouldn't take anything off the table," said Senator Joe Lieberman...

-------------------------------

But he told defense reporters Iran “is on a path to develop a very significant nuclear weapons program” and is working hard to develop missiles with ranges capable of striking targets in Europe as well as the Middle East.

And rounding out the minyan of mini-dicked machismo is just who you'd suspect:

In October, speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition, Mr. Giuliani said: “As we all know, Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and they’re threatening to use them. If I’m president of the United States, I guarantee you we will never find out what they will do if they get nuclear weapons, because they’re not going to get nuclear weapons.”

You know, when people said to folks like these four lily-livered assclowns that caution should be observed because of the “debacle” of the wholesale swallowing of the lie-filled, administration massaged, bullshit faulty intelligence used to justify war with Iraq, said folks pooh-poohed those concerns and madly rattled sabers like seizure-addled, empty suits of armor.

Now we come to find that those concerns were well founded. Iraq had apparently dialed their offensive nuclear plans back years ago, in spite of the “I-am-too-tough!”, bantam-rooster rhetoric from Ahmadinejad.

I will say this bluntly. It is the rankest nadir of evil to cavalierly play “tough guy” with the lives of American soldiers. They are not expendable pawns to be thrown away willy-fucking-nilly. And these above noted combat-ducking skunks were perfectly willing to burn the lives of said soldiers over the sketchiest, bully-boy posturing. Bush and his people sat on the NIE report for almost a year, hoping to pressure the compilers of it to see things “The Cheney Way”, and use those findings as an impetus to go to war, throwing more of America's sons and daughters, and potentially the lives of millions of innocent Iranian civilians, who matter less than an amoeba to them— on the pyre of egomania and messianic, “new world order” crazythink.

It takes a special, demonic kind of hubris for a draft-dodging frat boy, a system-gaming quintuple-deferment-nabbing coward, and a couple of sanctimonious, deferment-hungry scolds to practically salivate at the idea of sending somebody else's kids into death's maw for shits, giggles and nubbin-dicked over-compensation.

But that's exactly what they did. Along with their aides de camp in the pundit class like William (“Let someone else get bloody”) Kristol and the near entirety of the wingnut blogosphere—punkass chickenhawks all in a row. They, as a whole care not a whit about the lives of people beyond themselves. Sacrifice for thee, but not for my rubber-chicken munching, ball-going ass. These are evil people. Evil, death-horny “people”. And this exposure of the bogusness of the Iran intelligence they were so furiously beating off to confirms it without a doubt. My God..the last time I saw people so proud and arrogant about being so horribly wrong, 3,882 American soldiers got pine-boxed home, another 29,451 were wounded, and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in a faraway land who “threw flowers at our feet” got themselves D-E-A-D for their trouble. The next time one of these war-pimping fuckers lets the line “Support The Troops”, or “Bringing Democracy” ooze from their venomous lips, may Almighty God, Yahweh, or a random, non-denominational thundercloud just lightning-strike them dead in their hypocritical teeth.

I mean, I know selling “Wolf Tickets” is pretty damned easy for people who've never had to lift a soft, non-worked finger in their miserable lives and have always relied on someone else doing all the fighting for them...but this ain't a fucking game of Stratego we're talking about here. It's real people who bleed, and die, and are never seen again once nutjob, eliminationist think-tankers and their administration counterparts' neo-Crusade and “glass parking lot” fantasies of a peaceful, perfect Mid-East comes true.

They don't understand that, though. The President just got through grumping, hissing and finger-pointing his way through a press conference where after his “Wolf Ticket” selling was exposed for all to see by the truth, he continued to jump bad and as we say nowadays in lieu of “Wolf Ticket”, “pop shit”.

I remember a loudmouth dude years ago on my Junior High playground selling “Wolf Tickets” about how he was gonna do this, and he was gonna do that to some other guy he was running down just because he could. We'd all tired pretty much of his yammering until from nowhere...or more factually, a school window a couple of stories above us, a large cup of lunchroom pudding exploded against the back of this clown's head, neck and back—“BLAP!” He turned to where the pudding cup came from—“What the fuck”-ing to beat the band, when somebody from behind the handball court wall chucked an open container of milk at him too—“BLAP!” again.

Loudmouth whipped his head around the other way now, as we all laughed our best “Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids” gang-laugh at the discredited, pudding-and-milk-soaked charlatan.

Dubya...I may not get my lightning-bolt dream to come true, but, uh...you may wanna get a Handi-Wipe or two.

That NIE-brand pudding and milk you've got on you will leave a nasty stain if you let it set too long.

UPDATE:

One of our frequent commenters here calls attention to something in comments, and I must say was ahead of the curve on the point some of our well-paid pundit “thinkers” are now saying 24 hours after he first noted it at his own blog. Props to The Wanderer:

“After a while, as the legend of the Boy Who Cried Wolf will tell you, a person's lies diminish in influence to unattractive returns.. Sounding the drumbeat for war against Iran because of its WMD program rang hollow with many of us because of the abject and utter failure of the Bushies to find any WMDs in Iraq (which I beg to remind the wingnuts in the audience, was the first reason for invading that country).

Now, with new evidence and a new assessment by the 16 US intelligence agencies, you can expect denials and spin galore from the White House, and the corpulent bulk of Dick Cheney, like Falstaff "larding the lean earth with his footsteps," rampaging through the corridors of certain buildings in Langley and Washington leaving blood and entrails in his wake.

One may wonder, "Why would the intel community throw the Administration under the bus like this?"

Simple answer: The intel community got thrown under the bus by the Bushies post-9/11 and were blamed for the Iraqi WMD thing. The notion that the intel was cherry-picked, marketed and spun to fit peoples' fears was silently swept aside.

Moral: Don't mess with the bureaucracy; they can do terrible things to you.”

He nails it. And gives me a chance to deploy this piece of art again:



True that.

There's more...

The Master Blaster—Live In New York City!

The Blind Man Sees—While The Sighted Stumble In The Dark

We've talked here before about great American songwriters—folks like Willie Nelson and Curtis Mayfield. This post is about a not unsung songwriter/performer—one Steveland Hardaway Judkins, better known as Stevie Wonder.

Music fans don't have a lot to gripe about with the great Stevie—save for the fact that he's been so prolific and long-starred that there has really been no proper compleat anthology of his hits for at least 30 years. He's one of the very few living artists worthy of the Dylan “Biograph” treatment (believe it or not, Prince is one of the others). Stevie is a rare creature indeed—a product of the Motown factory system who spread his wings upon contract emancipation and graced the world with the raw, unfiltered brilliance of his talent. He reeled off seven consecutive phenomenal albums—1971's Music Of My Mind, '72's Talking Book, '73's Innervisions, '74's Fullfillingness First Finale, '76's Songs In The Key Of Life, the grossly underrated at the time Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants from 1979, and 1980's Hotter Than July.

An unabashed romantic, there is just about no one who's penned more songs singing the praises of unconditional, un-dying love.

When I Fall In Love, It Will Be Forever

Overjoyed

My Cherie Amour

You Are The Sunshine Of My Life

I swear I could give you ten more.

But Stevie, like Curtis, and Marvin Gaye at the same time, could reach within himself and deal beyond the beautiful selfishness that is the love between two individuals, and hit the nail square on the head when it came to matters of people as a whole.

There was the rough, rural-urban mini-opera that was “Living For The City”, his scathing indictment of the Nixon administration “You Haven't Done Nothin”, and his tuneful urging for a Martin Luther King holiday (it worked!) “Happy Birthday”.

This past weekend though, Mr. Wonder came to New York City on tour for the first time since 1996—a rare treat for us in town, and all the more precious as there's a dearth of top-line live entertainment due to the Broadway stagehands strike.

According to several reviews, he did not disappoint. He was in fine voice, radiated ample energy and had as helpful onstage aides de damp, the performers Aisha Morris (his daughter, and the name-checked inspiration for 1976's “Isn't She Lovely”), and Tony Bennett who he duetted with on “For Once In My Life”, and he conjured up a surprise sideman in a “spectating” Prince—who supplied blazing, impromptu scratch guitar on “Superstition” (Goddamn!).

But it was this little bit of patter during a vamp in a song that stuck out for me in the New York Times' review of the performance:

Over a vamp in “Visions,” he opened up a long monologue, bellowing at the top of his pitch range. “I can’t believe it,” he shouted:

“Here we are in 2007, and we’re still practicing the same bad habits that we had centuries ago. We love the God that we serve, whether we are Christian, Muslim, Jewish or whatever we might be, and we still ask our God to give us the right to kill in his name. It’s unacceptable. I can’t believe it.”

He returned to this theme at the end of the show with equal conviction. “Hate is unacceptable,” he said. “If you can’t do nothing but hate, why don’t you go on and die and go to hell?”

And there you had the spectacle of a blind man from Saginaw, Michigan, schooled on the hard road during his teen years of touring by a tutor from the Michigan School For The Blind, seeing the world and how to make it better with a thousand times the clarity than the sighted Yale and Harvard educated, alleged “leader” of the free world. A thousand times the clarity of every sighted, backward-thinking supplicant and enabler as well.

The Malkinite/Ingraham-ette flying monkey squad like to screech between poop-tosses, “Shut up and sing!” to performers who dare challenge their hate-oozing, grand-high-exalted-mystic poobahs of prickishness.

Well, I vehemently disagree. For every lunk-head who croaks out a practically government-approved “Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American)” there is a space for artist to sing, or say otherwise. Or, to quote the Bible—(oh, my wingnut brother's gonna hate me for this) specifically Ecclesiastes 3:

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven...

Stevie found that time to say what had to be said. Never mind the rhyme, or meter—the key or pitch...it was delivered perfectly.

For all of us. From the “Jesus Children Of America” to “Big Brother” to the “Black Man” in “Village Ghetto Land”.

You said what had to be said...and that's NEVER wrong.

Workout Stevie, work-out.

There's more...

Rejecting Theological Thinking: CJCS Mullen Gets Real With Cheney

CNO Adm Mike Mulllen aboard the USS Pasadena (SSN 752) Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, May 7, 2007
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ben Gonzales

“The ground forces are not broken, but they are breakable.”

The New York Times Magazine (By Ron Suskind, Published: October 17, 2004)

Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush

I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

By the time you become the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, you don't buy into airy-fairy west-coast bullshit about creating your own realities.

I leave aside here, the very valid Many-Worlds conversation from quantum physics, and the equally valid Autopoetic neuro-biology theories advanced by Humberto Maturana (From Being to Doing) currently doing to biology what Einstein did to physics; making it recursive by demonstrating when an Observer is present, the wave-form function collapses, leaving a world literally caused by the collapsing of the wave-form.

This is not what I'm talking about, and I assure you, it was not what the quote senior adviser to Bush unquote was talking about back in 2004 in The Times Magazine article. I doubt the senior adviser had ever even completed calculus, let alone understood how wave form functions worked. But I'll bet dollars to donuts -- not resorting to cliché, that's an actual bet I'm offering -- the smarmy unnamed bastard believed in the New Age bullshit about literally creating new realities. Either through religious fundamentalism -- quite possibly, or through a weekend "I am responsible for my own experience" LGAT course.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen (nominated June 28, 2007) doesn't buy into "create your own reality" bullshit. He wants something done, he does it himself, gives an order, or makes a request.

He doesn't: "I take responsibility for my space and create a world which works for everyone in which I go deep and produce a result which causes that which I promise to occur reliably, moving the future I've declared into the present moment, thus causing my declared intention to be realized, inside my commitment for being responsible to my oath to the Constitution of the United States of America, which declaration I am continuously bringing forth from the future into the present now, thereby creating new historical realities consistent with my fundamental declaration, responsibilities, and accountabilities."

*grins*

Really, he's not doing that. No one in the Navy does that. Or the Army or Marines.

What CJCS Adm. Mike Mullen is doing, is standing up to Dick Cheney, who does seem to think he can create realities.

First, from the VPOTUS (Very Pompous & Officially The Ugly Sociopath-in-charge)

New York Times

Vice President Dick Cheney issued a pointed warning to Iran on Sunday, calling the government in Tehran “a growing obstacle to peace in the Middle East” and promising “serious consequences” if the government there does not abandon its nuclear program.

The remarks, just days after President Bush suggested that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III,” amounted to Part II of a one-two punch from the administration at a moment when it is trying to persuade its allies in Europe to impose stiffer sanctions on Tehran. Those efforts grew more complicated on Saturday when Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator resigned on the eve of crucial talks with Europe.

“The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences,” Mr. Cheney said, without specifying what those might be. “The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

Mr. Bush has repeatedly said the administration would not “tolerate” a nuclear-armed Iran. But during a news conference on Wednesday, the president went further, saying of Iran: “If you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”

That distinction — having the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon, as opposed to actually having a weapon — is one the administration has not made in the past. David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute who moderated a panel discussion before and after Mr. Cheney’s speech, said the vice president also seemed to draw a new red line when, instead of saying it is “not acceptable” for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, he said the world “will not allow” it.

“The first is a condition,” Mr. Makovsky said. “The second is a commitment.”

Tough talk from a chickenhawk, an an old man with a bad heart and the balls of a coward.

When he could have gone himself -- yes, yes, it is well know, BUT IT DESERVES TO BE SAID OVER AND OVER AGAIN -- Dick "the Coward-Hearted" Cheney cut and run, having "other priorities."

Now he wants to set the middle-East aflame in nuclear fire over a sea of oil, and ka-CHING, watch the oil stocks and his Haliburton shares go straight to the moon, Alice! ...over the burning corpses of the dead.

Fuck that.

The New York Times

The new chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, expressed deep concerns that the long counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan have so consumed the military that the Army and Marine Corps may be unprepared for a high-intensity war against a major adversary.

He rejected the counsel of those who might urge immediate attacks inside Iran to destroy nuclear installations or to stop the flow of explosives that end up as powerful roadside bombs in Iraq or Afghanistan, killing American troops.

With America at war in two Muslim countries, he said, attacking a third Islamic nation in the region “has extraordinary challenges and risks associated with it.” The military option, he said, should be a last resort.

“We’re in a conflict in two countries out there right now,” he added. “We have to be incredibly thoughtful about the potential of in fact getting into a conflict with a third country in that part of the world.”

This man and the remainder of the Joint Chiefs, clearly are standing between Dick Cheney, George Bush, and war with Iran.

READ THE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT.

Hold the line Admiral. Hold the bleeding line.

h/t Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo: New JCS Chair: Cheney's Whacked

There's more...

Boom Chicka Boom: Cat's in the Cradle

Atomic Bomb Code Name Baker, Bikini Atoll, Height Minus 90 Feet Underwater,
Burst 21 kilotons Yield. July 23, 1946 0835 local time. photo US Military.

Russia Launches Successful Test Of Ballistic Missile

Big yellow air-raid sirens all over Tucson when I was growing up.

Every Saturday, 1 PM they'd start low and WAIL up to a HIGH TONE and HOOOOOOOLD, I said, HOOOOOOOLD, we're not done yet, it's HOOOOOOOLD..OOOOLD..OOOL..OOL and down, down, down she goes and where she stops no.

Okay, enough. Done now. Everyone, back to work.

Cold war.

Plus, as an added bonus, Tucson had Davis-Monthan Air Force Base with its B-52 bombers (and their Special Weapons), Plus THERE'S MORE.

We had three SAC Titan ICBM Missile Wings literally encircling Tucson.

Yeah, we were a TARGET with a capital T, and that rhymes with you're fucking dead. But we don't talk about it, because it upsets Mrs. Clag and Mrs. Crigger.

USA TODAY

The Topol RS-12M rocket hit its intended target on Kamchatka near the Pacific Ocean, the Russian Strategic Missile Forces said in a statement. The launch, from the Plesetsk launch facility in northern Russia, was part of the country's plan to upgrade its ballistic missiles and extend the life of its Topol missiles.

The successful test will allow Russia to maintain the Topol rocket for 21 years, the statement said, significantly more than the original 10 years forecast.

The Cold War is dead.

Long live the Cold War.

Who the hell would have thought I'd be happy to see a Russian missile launch and a former KGB dude hanging with an Iranian guy I can't stand and don't trust, as our last best hope of preventing what I consider to be a clinically sociopath Vice President and his dry-drunk also sociopath and massively incompetent President, from starting a war with Iran which the Joint Chiefs have refused to go to.

I'm not even certain that sentence has a subject.

Anyway, this launch is a good thing. Anything which keeps the Cheney/Bush people away from paying attention to the reality you and I are coupled in, long enough for the rest of us to get out alive and not in a civil or world war, is a very, very good deal.

Note to self. Don't post tired. Is too honest. Also, speaks missing article in sentence. Sound Russian. Da. No laughing, you who hate American. Grrr.

There's more...

Breaking: Hillary Promises To End War "Immediately" Upon Taking Office

"There Is No Military Solution"

Firedoglake has the breaking news. Without further commentary:

firedoglake (looseheadprop)

Every year I go to a fundraiser luncheon sponsored by group called Eleanor Roosevelt’s Legacy Committee. It’s a group that raises money, recruits and trains Democratic women candidates and give campaign grants to those running in New York.

Hillary Clinton has been a patron of this organization from the beginning, and is often the keynote speaker. As you can imagine, the lunch this year was Hill chillin’ with her homegirls.

So, maybe it made her let down her guard? Or maybe she recognized that a group of politically active NY Dems is no place to advocate for residual troops, or maybe the polling after the last debate convinced her that being Joe Lieberman light is not playing well? Who knows?

What I do know, is that I heard her say that she would end the Iraq war immediately upon taking office. Lots of heads snapped up when she said that (and there was plenty of applause, even a little whooping) and the very politically plugged in person sitting next to me remarked that the statement was “completely new”. She went on to say that the troops had already done everything they had been asked to do: got rid of Saddam, created a situation where elections could take place, surged to create political stability so the elected Iraqi government could do some legislating and work out a political solution (which she said they have not done) and that it was unfair to ask our troops to stay in Iraq and “play referee to an Iraqi civil war.” She said there is no military solution.

I’m not a Hillary watcher, so somebody in the comments may want to contradict that, but it certainly is the first time I’ve heard that and is very different than what I heard her say in the last debate.

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Damn.

Well damn.

I've got a big, huge grin. You go, Hillary.

Better late than never, and this is even better 'cause it throws down a gauntlet, a challenge right in the face of every Democrat.

The bar is raised in a way no candidate dare ignore. One week, max, and every Democratic candidate will be on board: "I too, once sworn in, will end the Iraq war immediately and bring the troops home."

Yeah baby! Make my freaking day.

Beautiful strategic move. A master-stroke.

(The New York Times reports an ordinary event. Were they not listening?)

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He Saved The World (No Cheerleader)

photo Giyori Antoine/Corbis

Didn't Do a Damn Thing Either

On September 26, 1983, Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, the Duty Officer in the Hole -- the secret bunker outside Moscow monitoring the world for nuclear launches -- choose to do nothing.

It just didn't feel right.

The alarm said there were five missiles inbound from the United States. Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov bet the future of his country -- and a worldwide nuclear counterstrike -- on his own personal best judgment. That the alarm ringing loudly simply didn't make sense.

Wired Magazine

Given the heightened tensions between the two countries -- the alarm coincided with the beginning of provocative NATO military exercises and barely three weeks after the Russians shot down a South Korean airliner that had wandered into Soviet air space -- Petrov could have been forgiven for believing the signal was accurate. The electronic maps flashing around him didn't do anything to ease the stress of the moment.

But Petrov smelled a rat. "I had a funny feeling in my gut" that this was a false alarm. For one thing, the report indicated that only five missiles had been fired. Had the United States been launching an actual nuclear attack, he reasoned, ICBMs would be raining down on them.

"I didn't want to make a mistake. I made a decision, and that was it." Petrov's gut feeling was due in large part to his lack of faith in the Soviet early-warning system, which he subsequently described as "raw." He reported it as a false alarm to his superiors, and hoped to hell he was right.

Petrov was initially praised for his cool head but later came under criticism and was, for a while, made the scapegoat for the false alarm. Further investigation, however, found that the satellite in question had picked up the sun's reflection off the cloud tops and somehow interpreted that as a missile launch.

As we count down to war with Iran, I just have to keep hoping -- boy, that's a word I really hate using when it comes to nuclear weapons, carrier groups, and Armies -- that the Joint Chiefs and their immediate subordinates haven't lost sight of how much sense it sometimes makes to...

Just. Do. Nothing.

Sometimes it can even save the world. (Cheerleaders included.)

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