Blackwater Just Wants to Spread the Love...

So today Wired brings to light the story that Blackwater stole two airplanes from the Iraqi Air Force in 2005, according to the military who let that one slip to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Of course, which one of the C-130 air transports, SAMA-2000 light reconnaissance aircraft, Huey-2 helicopters and Mi-17 helicopters, is for now a secret, but Blackwater has until November 2nd to confess. Things look bleak for Blackwater, with the resignation of their paid lackey at State and the Iraqi government revoking Order 17. A lot to fit in with revamping its website, and the startling news that Blackwater USA will alter its name to Blackwater Worldwide. Guess patriotic jingoism is fading in fashion even for Republicans these days?



Blackwater found protesters recreating their Nisour Square Massacre outside their front door recently, complete with dead bodies for the police to cart away. Guess they must have been freaked out. So they vamped up their "love us like we love to pump innocent civies with lead" campaign, and sent out an email encouraging supporters to contact Congress. Yeah, oh I have a letter for Congress... and I'm going to sign it with a bloody hand print too.

"Cost efficiency of Blackwater — saving the US taxpayer millions of dollars so that the US Government doesn’t have to take troops from their missions or send more into harm's way."

Of course, it's a lie that mercenaries are cheaper than soldiers. The average Blackwater merc takes home $600 a day in Iraq. If you are a US soldier you get a lousy $83-$85, and if you're married you get $170. Just because Republicans love him the most of all our soldiers, General Petraeus gets $493 dollars a day. Feel the support for our troops?

Oh look, just as Blackwater rolls out it's new PR campaign, we have another "we don't work for Blackwater, we just want to have their babies" blog at BlackwaterBirds. Who is this? Oh, it's Standish, of course!! His sock puppet blog "Blackwater Facts" just happens to be linked to by... Blackwater USA!!. Their list of blogs includes also includes another "New" blog called Blackwaterreporting. Groomed over, of course, as Blackwaterreporting now conceals that it was registered to GoDaddy by an Internet brand advertising company. As far as results go, they suck. You, dear readers, can do better by helping Blackwater pick a new logo!!

Technorati Tags:
Blackwater, Blackwater Facts, war contractors, Iraq, politics, current events

Blackwater Faces a Cold, Cruel World Alone

So today the military started dropping "I survived Blackwater" stories of there own. Utterly beyond belief that "former soldiers" could harbor such disrespect for their uniformed comrades in the age where looking at a soldier funny in the States is an act of treason. Of course, why shouldn't Blackwater be the lords and ordinary marines and army privates be the serfs? After all, Blackwater allows it's members to reach the true mark of acheivement for men in the modern age: a six-figure yearly salary and no responsibility to the Constitution.

Oct. 15, 2007 issue - The colonel was furious. "Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers." He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street in Baghdad's Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV. His account was confirmed by the head of another private security company. Asked to address this and other allegations in this story, Blackwater spokesperson Anne Tyrrell said, "This type of gossip has led to many soap operas in the press."

...Unlike nearly everyone else who enters the Green Zone, said an American soldier who guards a gate, Blackwater gunmen refuse to stop and clear their weapons of live ammunition once inside. One military contractor, who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution in his industry, recounted the story of a Blackwater operative who answered a Marine officer's order to put his pistol on safety when entering a base post office by saying, "This is my safety," and wiggling his trigger finger in the air. "Their attitude was, 'We're f---ing security; we don't have to answer to anybody'."

Meanwhile, the "we swear we aren't Blackwater, we just want to have their babies" blog "Blackwater Facts" has chosen the tactic of defending Blackwater in it's legal troubles by labeling sueing Blackwater as a terrorist attack, and part of a vast conspiracy by the Al-Qaeda planners of 9-11. Hence, in it's attempts to smear the lawyers involved in the lawsuit, it posts a nice big picture of one of the hijacked jets flying into the World Trade Towers on 9-11. Blackwater Facts hasn't bothered to comment a word of course on what the military has to say about Nisour Square, despite claiming to have been formed to correct "misinformation in the media." What does Blackwater Facts therefor leave as established facts?

In the hours and days after the Nisoor Square shootings, the U.S. military sought to distance itself from Blackwater. Dozens of soldiers went door-to-door to seek out victims, offer condolence payments and stress that the military was not involved in the shootings, Tarsa and his soldiers said. Their actions underscore the long-standing tensions between the U.S. military and private security companies -- and the military's concerns that such shootings, and the lack of accountability for the private security industry, could undermine U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq.

"It was absolutely tragic," said Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division and the Army's top commander for Baghdad. "In the aftermath of these, everybody looks and says, 'It's the Americans.' And that's us. It's horrible timing. It's yet another challenge, another setback," he said.

The Washington Post on Thursday examined a storyboard of the soldiers' assessment that has been forwarded to senior U.S. military commanders, photos taken by aerial drones shortly after the shooting and sworn statements by two U.S. soldiers at the scene that day. The Post also reviewed photos taken by U.S. soldiers of the shootings' aftermath. These, along with interviews with four of Tarsa's soldiers who inspected the scene, revealed previously undisclosed details:

At least two cars, a black four-door taxi and a blue Volkswagen sedan, had their back windshields shot out, but their front windshields were intact, indicating they were shot while driving away from the square, according to the photos and soldiers. The Volkswagen, which crashed into a bus stand, had blood splattered on the inside of its front windshield and windows. One person was killed, soldiers said.

U.S. soldiers did not find any bullets that came from AK-47 assault rifles or BKC machine guns used by Iraqi policemen and soldiers. They found evidence of ammunition used in American-made weapons, including M4 rifle 5.56mm brass casings, M240B machine gun 7.62mm casings, M203 40mm grenade launcher casings, and stun-grenade dunnage, or packing.

A white sedan, carrying a doctor and her son, had not entered the Nisoor Square traffic circle, where the Blackwater vehicles had stopped, when it was fired upon, according to the aerial photos. News reports have said the guards shot at the car because they believed it approached them in a threatening manner.

"I was surprised at the caliber of weapon being used," said Capt. Don Cherry, 32. "My guys have 203s with nonlethal rounds we use as warning shots. It's a rubber ball that bounces off the windshield."

"I was upset this happened," Cherry said. "This was uncalled for."

Startling to learn that the US military uses rubber bullets to fire warning shots, but the conservative commentators among us will battle to the last breath to defend Blackwater's right to arbitrarily kill Iraqi civilians because they have a gut feeling that they are suicide bombers. The gut feeling supplied merely by the desire to be going faster through rush hour traffic in the capital city. So far, when you google "blackwater" in the blog links, the right is being silent on the fact that Blackwater and their CEO Prince have lied about coming under fire from the Iraqi police or insurgents, given that the only bullets fired were American. Tomorrow of course, they will claim that Blackwater got confused, and really it was the American military who was trying to kill Blackwater!

An Iraqi colonel walked up to Lt. Col. Mike Tarsa and described the Blackwater shooters as men in "tan uniforms, black helmets, and that flag," pointing at the U.S. flag on Tarsa's sleeve. The colonel added that he knew the U.S. military wasn't involved. Still, Tarsa dispatched his soldiers across their sector over the next few days.

"I wanted our guys to be on the ground, to look people in the eye, to listen to their anguish, listen to their outrage, to let them know we're going to help those people personally affected," Tarsa said.

"I was concerned about acts of vengeance and misinformation somehow indicating we were part of this event," he said. Tarsa spoke with community and tribal leaders.

"It was a very tense 24 hours," said Maj. David Shoupe, the battalion spokesman. "We didn't know which way it was going to go."

Blackwater quit the International Peace Operations Association, a lobbying and public-relations firm for private military companies, effective Oct. 10th. Blackwater stated that it intended to pursue other "other aspects and methods of industry outreach and
governance." The bite in Blackwater's tone got explained today in IPOA's official statement:

In recent weeks, IPOA was actively engaged with senior management at Blackwater USA, both through our Standards Committee and our Executive Committee, to ensure that they were fully compliant with the IPOA Code of Conduct. On October 8, 2007 the IPOA Executive Committee authorized the Standards Committee to initiate an independent review process of Blackwater USA to ascertain whether Blackwater USA's processes and procedures were fully sufficient to ensure compliance with the IPOA Code of Conduct.

All IPOA member companies are required to follow the IPOA Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct is a set of ethical and professional guidelines for companies in the peace and stability operations industry. The Code stresses human rights, corporate ethics, International Humanitarian Law, transparency, accountability, and responsibility and professionalism in relationships with employees, clients, and partner companies.

Blackwater has scattered the Nisour murderers to the winds inside the US, while CBS reports that the FBI may be neglecting to investigate several of the vehicles targeted in the shootings. The bus which Blackwater shot up is still making it's regular rounds, bullet holes and shattered glass and all, while the white family car of the Iraqi woman doctor and her son still remains on the road to Nisour Square in a grisly monument.

Military analyst Col. (ret.) Steve Lyons told CBS .... there is little chance the US government will meet Iraqi demands either by severing all ties with Blackwater, which is by far the largest and most competent of the many security contractors in Iraq, or by turning over the gunmen responsible for the shooting. Even the Iraqi demand of $8 million in compensation for each of the victims is uncertain.

"These contractors are long gone," Lyons stated. "They're back in the United States. They've scattered, really, to the four winds. ... They're not going to get any money from those individuals."

Condi Rice floated the idea that the State Department's diplomatic security force assign observers to ride along with Blackwater. Presumably, they are supposed to be competent enough to judge Blackwater's conduct and having them join Blackwater will save us money, by allowing Blackwater to continue to replace them. Love the illogic here. State can't seem to end the torrid romance, and plans to hide Blackwater employees on the government payroll:

Under terms of the department’s Worldwide Personal Protective Security contract, which covers privately contracted guards for diplomats in Iraq, Blackwater, Dyncorp and Triple Canopy are the only three companies eligible to bid on specific task orders there.

If Blackwater goes, the slack almost certainly would have to be picked up by one or more other companies, which may require certifying other firms to bid, including non-U.S. ones, the officials said.

Of interest to the department is the possibility of standing up Iraqi companies with Iraqi employees to protect U.S. diplomats as local guards do for embassy staff in other countries, they said. That would bring the guards fully under the jurisdiction of Iraqi law but is not a short-term option given inadequate training facilities.

The Pentagon has been reluctant to provide security for diplomats but another alternative might be joint State-Defense department patrols. Yet another would be hiring Blackwater and other private guards as temporary U.S. government employees, the officials said.

A passenger walked by me at the airport with one of the Blackwater books, which suddenly renewed my faith in democracy. So I brought the subject of Blackwater up at work, us being federal employees engaged in protecting the nation from terrorists and all. One of my coworkers is an Iraqi veteran, who in his tour of duty crossed paths with Blackwater's mercenaries several times. "First off, they're not the shit," commented the reservist Srgt. "Everybody has a 'how Blackwater got ambushed' story, and they're a national shame. Blackwater makes the insurgency look like they are tactically capable. And they are mercenaries. Who does Blackwater answer to but Blackwater?"

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Blackwater, iraq war, 2008, war contractors, moonbat

White House Terror Officials Feed Intel to Fox News

So today we wake up to discover that the recent OBL video overshadowed by sordid tale of how it was acquired early by the Bush White House and then leaked to FOX NEWS. Two senior officials in Bush's Administration were given an emailed link around 10 a.m. to the video on a private intelligence company's website that monitors Islamic terrorists. Those two officials are White House counsel Fred F. Fielding and Michael Leiter, who holds the No. 2 job at the National Counterterrorism Center. The Search for International Terrorist Entities first contacted Fielding, and then emailed the link to Fielding and also to Leitner, at the suggestion of Joel Bagnal, deputy assistant to the president for homeland security. Fielding and Bagnal both told SITE that Bush's White House did not yet have a copy of OBL's video.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.

"Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless," said Rita Katz, the firm's 44-year-old founder, who has garnered wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from extremist chat rooms and Web sites, while attracting controversy over the secrecy of SITE's methodology. Her firm provides intelligence about terrorist groups to a wide range of paying clients, including private firms and military and intelligence agencies from the United States and several other countries.

The precise source of the leak remains unknown. Government officials declined to be interviewed about the circumstances on the record, but they did not challenge Katz's version of events. They also said the incident had no effect on U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts and did not diminish the government's ability to anticipate attacks.

While acknowledging that SITE had achieved success, the officials said U.S. agencies have their own sophisticated means of watching al-Qaeda on the Web. "We have individuals in the right places dealing with all these issues, across all 16 intelligence agencies," said Ross Feinstein, spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

At first blush, we are faced with the idea that the Bush Administration is so extraordinarily sloppy with controlling sensitive information, that people began forwarding the emails sent to Feilding and Leitner at-will. As a federal employee, constantly trained in the handling of sensitive information and reminded by marks on every document and email, this innocent excitement seems implausible. Of course, this wouldn't be the first time that analysts in either the CIA or the DIA have used or misused intelligence in order to fight their constant turf battles. How alarming it is that Bush has created an entire security apparatus in order to fight terrorism and it's plagued at the top by people who just want to be the first to leak to their overlords at FOX NEWS.

Conservative bloggers are fighting the notion of a White House Intel Leak tooth and nail. One attempt involves stating that since the transcipts, which include a translation, were done on the 6th, the day before the link was provided to the White House, that is de facto proof that American intelligence had the video the day before... because only American intelligence could have done the translation. However, the Jawa Report is in (deliberate?) error. The "marks" are in fact SITE marks. You can discover that for yourself by hunting down the original posting of the "marks" on FOX NEWS... which shows the same document without the header chopped off. The header clearly shows the translation was downloaded off a SITE website and gives the address.



CounterterrorismBlog also corrects another one of The Jawa Reports inaccuracies, when it claimed that blogger Laura Mansfeild had the video. Laura Mansfeild only knew the video was coming, and released a link to another jihad video which came out the day before. The Jawa Report goes on to claim that it had the video, but check out their actual posting of the OBL video. The time stamp reads as posted By Dr. Rusty "John Doe" Shackleford at September 7, 2007 03:39 PM. That would be after the release on FOX NEWS. One amusing misquote of Jawa's "marks" claim further distorted the claim to the point that the marks proved ABC had the video and transcript on the 6th!!



Other conservative bloggers attempt to make hay with an ABC story on the video after latching onto the date marker for the article, which reads 9:23 AM. The Jawa Report's blog on the marks has found life as a source for this spin. At first blush, perhaps to those who didn't actually read the article, it would seem that ABC had the transcript previous to SITE's emails at 10 AM. However, when you get to the bottom of the article, you find the words "This post has been updated." Which means that the original story of the Blotter, talking about DHS statements on possible terrorist attacks against the US and New York City on 9-11, which you can extrapolate out of the text, was amended later to include the blurb that there was a new video. You would think that they would take this as a chance to scream about how the liberal media is just trying to discredit the DHS and US counterterrorism by making it seems as if the DHS got caught sleeping, but even a chance to scream "liberal media bias" gets sacrificed in the need to defend Bush.

Con-blogs resist document comparison between the ABC and FOX transcripts which leave little room for doubt that they are the same document, and work hard at insisting that ABC posted the video before FOX. The evidence against them would be the comment section for the Blotter's post. Surely, if ABC had posted the actual video at 9:23 as is being claimed, the comments would include references to the contents. Yet the comments contain no discussion of OBL's rant on the state of the mortgage industry in our country. And it is not until 3:37:45 PM that comments on the content of the video begin, including a count on the number of times OBL says "Wake Up."

Technorati Tags:
White House, Bush, terrorism, Al-Qaeda, moonbat, politics

Blackwater is Another Term for Human Waste Water

So today let us reveiw what it's like to give congressional oversight to a company that goes by a word for what you flush down the toliet.

Biggest bombshell of the day is the fact that there's no budgetary justification for employing war contractors to replace our military's soldiers after all. One Blackwater mercenary costs America more than $400,000 while his counterpart in the US military costs only $50,000 to $70,000. Astounding.... but that get's a little lost in the cauterwailing on the Republican side of the aisle over the idea that Blackwater needs its "conduct" examined by Congress. What do we find in these murky waters?

In one incident last Christmas Eve, [b]a drunken Blackwater contractor shot and killed a security guard for one of Iraq's vice presidents[/b], and the State Department allowed the contractor to leave Iraq, the report said.



In response to questions about the Christmas Eve shooting, Prince said that the employee was promptly fired and fined "multiple thousands of dollars" but that Blackwater did not have authority to take other punitive action.

"I'm not going to make any apologies for what he did," Prince said. "He clearly violated our policies." He said Blackwater acquired an airline ticket for the employee to return to the United States "by direction of the State Department."

Blackwater shelled out $15,000 to the family of the Iraqi guard, which the State Department handed off. The made the mercenary in question pay for his own airplane ticket and then withheld a bonus, but that does not constitute a "fine." Neatly, the bonus comes out a bit shy of what they paid to the family of the guard. You can bet that $15,000 didn't come out of Blackwater profits.

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) said [b]the Justice Department has informed the committee that it is still investigating the Christmas shooting nine months later.[/b]

[b]Prince also was asked about an initial erroneous report that the Iraqi security guard had been shot by a drunken U.S. soldier, rather than a private contractor. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) pointed to a Blackwater e-mail referring to the mistake and saying that "at least the ID of the shooter will take the heat off us."[/b]

Prince said Blackwater did not take any action to correct the account because it is prohibited by contract from engaging with the news media. "I don't believe that false story lasted in the media for more than a few hours," the Blackwater chief executive said.

He also disputed charges that Blackwater guards have killed innocent Iraqi civilians in reckless shootings while escorting convoys, but he said there have been "times when guys are using defensive force" to protect themselves or their convoys and could have killed civilians through "ricochets" or "traffic accidents."

So we have Prince testifying before Congress that never have Blackwater mercenaries ever pointed their weapons at an unarmed and innocent Iraqi and just killed them. The only civilians Blackwater mercenaries kill, are the Iraqis that they don't aim at. So I geuss they just define insurgents and terrorists as anyone they aim at? Hey- they may be better at fudging numbers than the White House.

Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) said he was "a little saddened by this hearing" because Blackwater is a member of "our team." He said the committee "should not go to the extent of undermining Blackwater's ability to perform as our team."

But Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.), voicing rare GOP criticism of Blackwater at the hearing, observed that [b]Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, earns about $180,000 a year, less than half the salary of a Blackwater official in charge of a 34-member security team[/b].

The war in Iraq has produced some of the most "lavish" and "excessive" contracts in U.S. history, Duncan said. "Fiscal conservatives should feel no obligation to defend this kind of contracting. . . . In fact, fiscal conservatives should be the ones most horrified by this."

Time will tell if the Republicans send through an ammendment giving Petraeus a raise to the level of what a Blackwater official for a security team gets paid. You know, if they really valued his service. On the other hand, it's good to have clear to the world exactly what some Republican members of Congress place as the value of an innocent Iraqi life. Even lower than $15,000 it seems, if it's not worth even the slightest public embarressment for a Republican campaign contributor.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released preliminary information gleaned about Blackwater's conduct.

Blackwater security contractors in Iraq have been involved in at least 195 "escalation of force" incidents since early 2005, including several previously unreported killings of Iraqi civilians, according to a new congressional account of State Department and company documents.

In one of the killings, according to a State Department document, Blackwater personnel tried to cover up what had occurred and provided a false report. In another case, involving a Blackwater convoy's collision with 18 civilian vehicles, the firm accused its own personnel of lying about the event.

....In total, the documents indicate, Blackwater has terminated 122 employees under its State Department contract. According to Prince, the company currently has about 1,000 employees in Iraq.

...Based on more than 437 Blackwater documents and "a limited number of incident reports and documents from the State Department," the Democratic staff memo said, Blackwater personnel had participated in 195 incidents in which they discharged firearms, with Blackwater firing first in more than 80 percent of them. At least 16 Iraqi casualties resulted.

Another blogger over at Pissed On Politics worked on the numbers for Blackwater a little more. Blackwater charges Regency a baseline of $815 for a single mercenary and $1,075 a day for a senior manager. How much does Petraeus make a day? $493

Let's do a little more math. Not much, moonbat's honor. So if you have about 1,000 employees in Iraq, and you have to fire 122 of them for conduct reasons, that means 17% of your employees were a problem and got caught. Let's emphasize the "got caught" part. Is anyone going to try to say that the percentage of military personal we have had to prosecute for conduct in Iraq even approaches this horrifying number?

In a June 24, 2005, incident -- reported in a U.S. Embassy memo that was cited by the committee and obtained by The Washington Post -- a Blackwater security detail in the city of Hilla, south of Baghdad, shot a civilian man standing at the side of the street as the contractors drove by. "This is the case involving the PSD [personal security detail] who failed to report the shooting, covered it up, and subsequently were removed" from the city, an embassy security officer wrote in a July 1, 2005, report.

Everyone remember what Prince said about Blackwater mercenaries not shooting civilians intentionally? Oh, did our little Prince just lie? To Congress? No you see, anyone Blackwater mercenaries aim at is de facto a terrorist, even if they are unamred and walking down the street to the bakery. Prince fired the shooter not for murdering some guy in cold blood for fun, but for not filling out the paperwork afterwards.

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Blackwater, current events, blogging, politics, congress, moonbat, Iraq war

MoveOn Haters Require the Suspension of Disbelief

So today C-SPAN took a stream of callers on that phony ginned-up artificial manufactured vat-grown faux-controversy over Move-On's "General Betray Us" ad. Moonbat found herself chewing the steering wheel when none of the Democratic callers could stay focused on the statistics, but at least the Republicans were amusing enough to use Petraeus' report as a justification to nuke Baghdad. Guiliani's frogs hop about promoting his own, closer to the front page, denouncement of Hillary Clinton, for not being a spokesperson for MoveOn, so that she can hurt her own campaign by being stupid enough to give into his demands to apologize for the ad. MSNBC's political analyist Joe Watkins claims on television that MoveOn's ad contained only the words "General Betray Us?" and a mug shot of General Petraeus, so outrageously taken of his unflattering side. And oh yes... TalkLeft's call for liberals to denounce MoveOn has been reposted to raise advertising revenue.

Con-blogs whipped themselves into hysteria over the idea that MoveOn got a $167,000 full page-ad for only $65,000. "This is tantamount to an endorsement in my opinion. If THE preeminent paper in the nation is willing to go so far as endorse this deplorable and mindless behavior, then "baby killers" shouted in the streets can't be far off." (Beware the ad-ware that downloads off this site!) Heck, it's even McCarthyism to demand accountability, not for your political affiliation anymore, but testimony you're going to give to Congress. McCarthyism? MoveOn must be calling Petraeus a communist, oh my!

BlackFive takes the cake by filing a very sad complaint with the Federal Elections Commission. "I sold political advertising ...during the 2006 elections. We were informed that there could be absolutely no discounts to the rate card prices for political or advocacy advertising ...to stop the paper from favoring one viewpoint over another. It seems evident that if the reports are true, the NY Times has favored MoveOn by offering a huge discount to them for political advocacy advertising." Blackfive and it's dear readers seem unaware that the New York Times is available online, where spokeswoman Catherine J. Mathis explains how political advocacy groups can save a little green by running ads on ""standby." Wait.. it get's better!!

Who backs up the NYTimes against Blackfive but Freedom Watch. “The New York Times representative explained to us that we could run a standby rate ad for $65,000, but we could not pick the date or placement of the ad.” Freedom Watch expresses the doubt that MoveOn would have the political savvy to leak it's own ad once the NYT phoned them before putting the paper to bed.. but who cares about sour grapes? Perhaps it's even too little to point out Blackfive's selective revision of the English language when UncleJimbo "defines" betray... as "to deliver or expose to an enemy by treachery or disloyalty: Benedict Arnold betrayed his country." Now, clicking on the link provided we find something beyond such an elementary understanding of our language:

1. to deliver or expose to an enemy by treachery or disloyalty: Benedict Arnold betrayed his country.
2. to be unfaithful in guarding, maintaining, or fulfilling: to betray a trust.
3. to disappoint the hopes or expectations of; be disloyal to: to betray one's friends.
4. to reveal or disclose in violation of confidence: to betray a secret.
5. to reveal unconsciously (something one would preferably conceal): Her nervousness betrays her insecurity.
6. to show or exhibit; reveal; disclose: an unfeeling remark that betrays his lack of concern.
7. to deceive, misguide, or corrupt: a young lawyer betrayed by political ambitions into irreparable folly.
8. to seduce and desert.

Moonbat discovered that not a single one attempted to actually defend Petraeus' redefinition of determining who is or is not a terrorist by how they pump you with lead. In fact, poor reading skills led Newsbusters to claim MoveOn cited Iraq sectarian death statistics wrong. MoveOn's Ad stated "For example, death by car bombs don't count." Newsbusters quoted the NewYorkTimes incorrectly to refute that statement:

Victims from car bombs are treated as sectarian casualties if the attack appears to be directed at a sectarian or ethnic group ....Casualties that result from fighting between groups, like the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps, however, are not classified as sectarian, as they are the result of clashes between two Shiite organizations. But victims of all car bomb attacks and Shiite and Sunni infighting are included in the overall civilian casualty count.

Key parts they misread are in bold. Car bombings that strike open market places in cities, or random buses, or police stations, or Coalition military personnel are not counted. Only the overall civilian count, which General Petraeus did not use, includes all deaths by car bombs. Unless a car bomb strikes a mosque or an isolated tribe, that car bombing has been excluded as an indication of the continued insurgency. The difference made means de facto, MoveOn is right.

Giuliani forgets Aesop's parable about the little yappy dog who tries to bite two steaks at once and looses both, aiming poorly at MoveOn and Hillary at the same time. At least he's not as sad as Thompson, whose words of wisdom are that veterans are stupider than youngsters who he doesn't trust to drink beer. McCain perhaps does him better by saying Hillary can prove she's a man's-man by not showing she understands something as hard as math. Moonbat will let her dear readers be the decider.

Interesting to see if this fantasy love-affair between MoveOn and Hillary Clinton will become the stuff of pop legend. Beyond conservatives insisting that any elite with a PhD or who has been called a Great Leader by a magazine deserves having their reputation defended by a congressional resolution, Hillary Clinton's full testimony gets hacked into unrecognizable tidbits which she "huffed" when she pointed dared grill the General over the point that to accept his report as accurate, several other recent independent reports must be dismissed wholesale. Clinton even went out of her way to point out that no one should expect Petraeus to have to answer for the years of Bush's policy, to be a spokesperson for everything that came before him. Sheesh. Giuliani dearly would love Americans to be so uncultured as to equate the phrase "the willing suspension of disbelief" with deliberate falsehood... but no, we is more learned than that, yes?

While the surge strategy gets hashed to pieces, at least the BBC got around to asking the Iraqi people what they thought of the surge:

"The United States has increased the number of its forces in Baghdad and surrounding provinces in the past six months. Please tell me if you think this increase of forces has made it better, worse, or had no effect?"



"How long do you think US and other Coalition forces should remain in Iraq?"

"Some 47% of respondents now back an immediate withdrawal, compared with 35% in February. The poll also shows dwindling support for troops remaining in the country, even in support of the Iraqi government and security forces. Only 10% of those surveyed favor coalition forces remaining for that purpose."



Con-blogs better batten down the hatches, pile up the Pepsi, and hook up that pee-bag: MoveOn Moves On to presidential shrubbery on September 17th. "Before the surge, George Bush had 130,000 troops stuck in Iraq," says the narrator of the new ad. "Americans had elected a new Congress to bring them home. Instead, Bush sent 30,000 more troops. Now he's making a big deal about you guessed it . . . pulling out 30,000. So, next year, there will still be 130,000 troops stuck in Iraq. George Bush. A Betrayal of Trust." 130,000 + 30,000 - 30,000 = 130,000 Which means the surge got us right back to start. But wait, I suppose that's more math moonbat shouldn't worry her cute little curls over??

Technorati Tags:
General Petraeus, troop surge, Iraq, Move On, withdrawal, politics, current affairs, moonbat

Passengers Fail to Observe 9-11 Moment of Silence

So today, the vast majority of Americans seem to have chickened out on flying, count that towards what you will: no one believes Petraeus, people have noticed how many Al-Q terrorist cells keep getting arrested trying to make explosives, rainy weather. Those few who trickled through airports local to moonbat overwhelmingly booked flights without realizing what date they were picking, or else flew for business, because heck, gotta make that buck. Several offical attempts were made to observe moments of silence when the first World Trade Center was struck, as passengers rolled their eyes and continued to take off their shoes. Moonbat found herself off eating lentil soup and completely missed the correct time. Headquarters provided nifty little posters for everyone to sign stating that they remembered the reason why they came to work. As a mark of low morale, no one signed.

En route to and from defending the nation from Osama bin Laden, and to and from the one intelligence class at her college there's been enough student interest in to run, moonbat has been listening to tidbits of Petraeus' "I swear I wrote this despite that the White House rewrites everyone else's testimony, but I hid mine in my underwear drawer and Cheyne would never think to look there" testimony. So sectarian violence is down 45% since last December and 80% in Baghdad alone... as long as you don't include car bombs, Diyala province and anyone shot anywhere else than the back of the head. What are we to do with a General who defines the difference between a terrorist and a criminal by how they shoot you?? Under the spit and polish, the truth remains that the surge has failed. Sectarian violence remains above levels in 2004, 2005, and 2006. Ducking under one month in the last twelve by spinning numbers is political manuevering unexpected from General Betray Us.

People should read the ad before swallowing the inevitable attempts at Republican spin and give MoveOn a fair chance. A difference remains between calling someone a traitor for voicing dissapproval of their President's policy and the commendable act of saying the General has no clothes. When numbers given as Congressional testimony are misleading and false, a General who speaks them betrays the trust of the public, and that act is not removed from moral outrage just because even moonbat favors a few of his overall ideas. Nor should Democrats feel the need to return MoveOn's money. You'd think con-blogs would assume Petraeus had any skin at all.

Six years later.... our military tetters on the edge of an abyss and meets it's recuitment goals only by large cash payments. We still can't translate most of our intercepted SIGINT. Our country got milked by almost $60 billion in wasted contracting dollars by Republican election donors pretending to "work" in Iraq. Electricity production in Baghdad remains 2 hours a day. The Taliban are just about as popular as ever in Afghanistan. Al-Q's mobile terrorist training camps still churn out bomb-makers from international schools in Pakistan. China spends it's time on a Marshal Plan for Africa. Osama bin Laden finds the time to die his beard and follow the real estate mortage crisis in the United States. What has the Republican party done for you lately??

Counterinsurgency in the American Military

So fine the line between bravery and domestic counterinsurgency when one ventures an opinion on the American military's conduct in Iraq. Especially if you accuse your boss generals of 'intellectual and moral failures.' Yet, a young and snappy Lt. Col. Paul "Beergoggles" Yingling roars to the world about 'a failure in generalship' in the American Forces Journal. "Beergoggles" fails to be uncivilized enough to name names, so the gossip's pretty mild, and well-warmed over by several New-York Times Bestsellers. Yingling snarks at these "tell-all books" where generals speak of private concerns they failed to speak of publically before the invasion. The author of one of the said tell-alls, Thomas Ricks of 'Fiasco', wrote the glowing WaPost coverage of Yingling's expose. The main of the Lt. Col.'s beef begins:

"For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.

These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress."

Does it surprise you to learn that Yingling graduated from the University of Chicago with a Master of Arts in Political Science?

....After failing to visualize the conditions of combat in Iraq, America's generals failed to adapt to the demands of counterinsurgency. Counterinsurgency theory prescribes providing continuous security to the population. However, for most of the war American forces in Iraq have been concentrated on large forward-operating bases, isolated from the Iraqi people and focused on capturing or killing insurgents. Counterinsurgency theory requires strengthening the capability of host-nation institutions to provide security and other essential services to the population. America's generals treated efforts to create transition teams to develop local security forces and provincial reconstruction teams to improve essential services as afterthoughts, never providing the quantity or quality of personnel necessary for success....

"....The need for intelligent, creative and courageous general officers is self-evident. An understanding of the larger aspects of war is essential to great generalship. However, a survey of Army three- and four-star generals shows that only 25 percent hold advanced degrees from civilian institutions in the social sciences or humanities. Counterinsurgency theory holds that proficiency in foreign languages is essential to success, yet only one in four of the Army's senior generals speaks another language. While the physical courage of America's generals is not in doubt, there is less certainty regarding their moral courage. In almost surreal language, professional military men blame their recent lack of candor on the intimidating management style of their civilian masters. Now that the public is immediately concerned with the crisis in Iraq, some of our generals are finding their voices. They may have waited too long."

Yingling plugs "Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife" by one John Nagl and On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War," by Col. Harry Summers. In November of 2006, Yingling cowrote with Nagl an essay New Rules for New Enemies in... Armed Forces Journal. Within they argue:

"To win the Long War, the Army must develop a more adaptive organizational culture. To create such a culture, the Army must change its focus from a centralized, specialized focus on major conventional wars to a more decentralized and less specialized focus on full-spectrum operations. This shift in organizational culture cannot occur within existing organizations — indeed these organizations can be an impediment to change. The best way to change the organizational culture of the Army is to change the pathways for professional advancement within the officer corps. The Army will become more adaptive only when being adaptive offers the surest path to promotion."

Moonbat thinks Beergoggles wants a promotion, eh? John Nagl was on the writing team that produced the Army's new Counterinsurgency Field Manual. Who also wrote that? Petraeus!! Who got a Teddy Award from Time Magazine last December for his leadership in encouraging institutional change in the Army towards effective counterinsurgency tactics at the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center (CAC) in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Guess who also spent that year assigned to Fort Leavenworth? "Beergoggles!!" Who in turn got interviewed by the Combat Studies Institute, a military think tank run by Petraeus' CAC. {The CSI gets described as an 'academic department' of the CAC by this private contractor, who creates "virtual staff tours" to help train officers about Iraq, but I digress.} Oh, Yingling's 2006 interview:

"The thing the Army institutionally is still struggling to learn is that the most important thing we do in counterinsurgency is building host nation institutions-building security forces, building local government capacity- and yet all our organizations are designed around thelear important line of operations: combat operations. There is a real danger in over-determination based on the organization's design. There's the old saying, "If you give a man a hammer, he sees every problem as a nail." Similarly, if you give a unit tanks and Bradleys, they see every promblem as a movement to contact. That's an oversimplification, but it is a problem. I've now had two combat tours where I was involved in developing ISF and I've been to every Army school you can go to as an officer, and no one has ever talked to me about that challenge. No one has ever given me classes on how to do that...

....The institutional Army.. has not caught up in either professional education or organizational design with the challenges of counterinsurgency. So as I go into battalion command, I'm going to focus my troops on those tasks and give them the mental models that will allow them to anticipate those problems and solve them. (That he has just learned from... Petraeus. You guessed it!) Eventually the institutional Army will catch up and they'll get that stuff into schools and there will be MTOE positions for security force development and civil-military operations; but until that day I think individual commanders will have to solve that problem on their own, because when we get into theater we certainly have to solve it...

...I do think that having organic to our institutions the ability to develop intelligence- to collect on our friends, if you will; to be able to find our friends- is extremely important. Because once you find your friends, finding the enemy is very easy. In a city of 200,000, there are people who know who's complicit with the insurgency. So I guess if I had to condense this into a pithy little bullet it would be: don't train on finding the enemy; train on finding your friends and they will help you find your enemy."

WaPost's Thomas Ricks, author of Fiasco and Yingling's shining write-up for his expose, interveiwed Yingling on this very subject, later in November of 2006, Flaws Cited in Efforts to Train Iraqi Forces: where Yingling again gets a chance to showcase how much he has learned at Fort Leavenworth.

"Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, a staff officer with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq in 2005 and 2006 who worked with Iraqi units, came away thinking that the Army fundamentally is not geared to the task of helping the advisory effort.

"The thing the Army institutionally is still struggling to learn is that the most important thing we do in counterinsurgency is building host-nation institutions," he told the interviewers, "yet all our organizations are designed around the least important line of operations: combat operations."

Yingling came to a broader conclusion. He recommended an entirely different orientation in Iraq, both for trainers and for regular U.S. units. "Don't train on finding the enemy," he said. "Train on finding your friends, and they will help you find your enemy. . . . Once you find your friends, finding the enemy is easy."

SmallWarsJournal blogged to promote Yingling's expose, stating that "In this morning’s Washington Post Tom Ricks reports on an Armed Forces Journal article that should be required reading for anyone who cares about our nation’s capability to successfully prosecute the LONG WAR." Their About page states that Small Wars Journal is a private site. It is run by Small Wars Journal, LLC, a private company formed in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its principals are Dave Dilegge (Editor-in-Chief) and Bill Nagle (Publisher). SWJ in turn gets listed as an item of particular interest on the official Marine website, Small Wars Center of Excellence. But that probably has nothing to do with Petraeus helping the Marines with their own version of a counterinsurgency manual. Surprising the flack Yingling's getting from con-bloggers of all stripes, eh?

Yingling popped up in The Wall Street Journal's December 2006 article Despite $168B Budget, Army Still Faces Cash Crunch:

"At Fort Hood, the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, which returned from Iraq in March and will go back in fall 2007, is already worried about time to prepare. The regiment will spend most of the winter receiving new soldiers, fielding new equipment and learning to use it. The regiment left most of its tanks and Humvees in Iraq for follow-on units.

That means troops won't have much time to train for other critical tasks. Junior leaders need to know everything from how to assess a water plant to the tribal politics of the area where they are deploying, says Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, the unit's deputy commander. They must know enough Arabic to interact with locals.

"It is incredibly frustrating for combat veterans to return to Iraq for the third time with only minimal training on the skills we know are essential, like language, culture, intelligence and local security force development" Col. Yingling says. "Army units don't fail to train on these tasks because we're stupid or lazy; we fail because we don't have the time to do it right"."

An article in which we hear something familiar:

"Junior officers know that success in these wars is about a lot more than killing the enemy. It depends on providing security for the people, finding friends and fixing infrastructure," says Maj. John Prior, who served as a company commander in Baghdad. "A lot of senior officers just don't get it."

And again Yingling (as in Rick's Nov. 2006) gets tapped for the last say:

Some question how quickly the Army will be able to shift its thinking. "All our organizations are designed around the least important line of operations in these fights -- combat operations," says Col. Yingling. "If you spend your whole career in tanks, you tend to see the solution to every problem as a tank."

Yingling cut his teeth on counterinsurgency PR way back in 2004, in an official Army article called Training the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. Here with Julian Urquidez, Yingling presents an 8-step training program for Iraqis, which they developed and implemented in Iraq. {I digress again: Julian Urquidez ran the 'Honolulu Marathon in Iraq' this year in 4:05:16. Useless trivia, hooray!} Yingling's been working on his counterinsurgency credentials for far too long not to be getting any credit. What do I mean?

Paul Yingling's Wikipedia entry currently stands in stunning dissarray, containing factual errors and conservative bias as regards Yingling's supposed political opinions on continued U.S. involvement in Iraq: assumed as against. In Paul Yingling's "Also See" section, a link exists to Ehren Watada, who is "also against the Iraq War" and to Ann Wright, who is incorrectly described as having resigned from the U.S. Army in protest of the invasion of Iraq. No external links exist to any military writings of Yingling's other than his current expose. The Masters in Political Science mentioned; not mentioned would be his education at the Command and General Staff College and the School of Advanced Military Studies... at the same time as General Petraeus resided there, expounding about the neccessity of counterinsurgency training and institutional change in the Army. Not mentioned also: Tal Afar. Yingling gets quoted in March 2007 for his part in the successful elimination of the insurgency in Tal Afar, just before he publishes his expose. Someone passed his number on to the reporter. President Bush praised Yingling for his conduct in Tal Afar. Of course, who listens to Bush. Heh.

Now moonbat ponders the worth of Yingling's counterinsurgency operations. Hook himself to Petraeus' rising star and if Petraeus shines in Iraq and continues up that ladder of promotions, so will "Beergoggles." Inch too far out, and those boss generals who Petraeus stands to dethrone use you for target practice. Work this spin wrong, and have your name tarnished too much for future quotations for journalists. Will this growing domestic counterinsurgency succeed or will the old Army regime remain dominant over it's military institutions. Bush promises by the Fall we will know which side shall fall.

Technorati Tags:
war on terror, Iraq, Petraeus, Paul Yingling, troop surge, Bush, Wikipedia, conservative, liberal, counterinsurgency, Combat Studies Institute, american military, moonbat

Has Al-Qaeda Jumped the Shark?

So WaPost threw out an interesting expose on the war on terror: do we all buy the mantra of the Bush Administration that all aspects of every citizen's life should be filtered through the question of "does this encourage the bad guys?" We now know that OBL's father traveled to America and returned home with a deep disgust over our immorality... because of suburban lawns. Does this excuse me from all counterinsurgency tactics against dandelions? Are lawns now to be considered anti-American? Or a patriotic duty not well understood by urban liberal Democrats? Seriously. Aptly noted is that FDR, on entering America into WWII, extolled to the public that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." And the summers of the odd numbered year.

Even my conservative coworkers blinked at me today when I broached the issue at lunch. What's with odd years? 2001. 2003. 2005. Now it's 2007. 2001. What happened those other years? You're kidding. We haven't experienced a terrorist attack since.... Madrid. London. Those Al-Qaeda bombings. Oh. Not here. Our allies, yeah. Them. Europe has too many Muslims now, so they can't be our allies. Interesting. I'm just saying. So... you think there is some kind of a pattern? Three odd years in a row. Major attack on a Western City. So.. if 2007 passes by and there isn't one... has Al-Qaeda jumped the shark?

I'll give them credit; no one asked me what "jumped the shark" meant. What will it mean if there is no major attack on a Western City this summer? British investigations prove that terrorist cells develop inside their target drawn from individuals recruited at training camps held away from major combat. "Operation Crevice" drew itself from terrorist camps in Pakistan, a country Bush has yet failed to invade, and which appears a bit lower on that lucky list than Iran. British evidence given at trial links the "Crevice" bombers with conventional ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and not a Weapon of Mass Destruction. Crevice bombers also met several times with bomber of the successful 7/7 plot, whose connections were not investigated due to a lack of funding and manpower. Of course, if one has to choose between soldiers in Iraq and police hunting actual terrorist cells in a Western City... well, Al-Qaeda must be defeated in Iraq or they will follow us home! No of course, to any expensive Republican ski-lodges in the Rocky Mountains, just the cities of liberals.

Dick Cheney lectured in Florida (smell 2008 campaign work?) 3/24/07:

"The most common myth is that Iraq has nothing to do with the global war on terror. Opponents of our military action there have called Iraq a diversion from the real conflict, a distraction from the business of fighting and defeating bin Laden and al Qaeda."

Cheney goes on at length to quote OBL propaganda. Truth is, few and far between are the Americans (outside of the anti-all-war protesters) who treat bombings in Baghdad that kill hundreds the way we would treat a similar bombing in a Western City, where we would plaster the site with flowers and candles and teddy bears. How many teddy bears end up outside of the Iraqi Embassy following a suicide bombing in some random dusty town on the Eurphrates? When we are honest, we admit this. When Al-Aaeda plots to incinerate Britons with plant food, they understand this. The global war on terror exists because the global jihad exists, whose sole pursuit is to strike at Western targets. And nothing is more West than the West. Despite the Taliban being routed, and the invasion of Iraq, the formation and execution of the terrorist cell proved enduring, and exportable to the Muslim fighters at war with Mother Russia. Iraq remains one square on the giant checkerboard, and not the only one that makes kings.

"The second myth is the most transparent -- and that is the notion that one can support the troops without giving them the tools and reinforcements they need to carry out their mission."

I like Petraeus. Truth. I supported a vote of no confidence in Bush's troop surge plan. That plan was not Petraeus' as Bush began it before Petraeus was confirmed, something that Cheney selectively avoids. Liberals of course were right, the plan was faulty which Bush proved when he had to send reinforcements for his reinforcements just this month. Petraeus' real COIN operation would have required more soldiers. Enough more to make Bush's surge look like a couple of cops in a squad car. What does happen when a bad war happens to a good general?

Congress does, of course, play a critical role in the defense of the nation and the conduct of this war. That role is defined and limited by the Constitution -- after all, the military answers to one commander-in-chief in the White House, not to 535 commanders-in-chief on Capitol Hill. (Applause.) If they really support the troops, then we should take them at their word and expect them to meet the needs of our military on time, in full, and with no strings attached. (Applause.)

Cheney avoids scolding the dethroned Republican Congress of 2006 for failing to provide adequate funding last year for the troops, making this supplemental necessary in the first place. The vast majority of these funds aren't for the troops being surged, but for more normal combat or military operations which should have been already provided for in full. Cheney also seems not to be a big fan of the Constitution, if he thinks that Congress is limited as he implies above, to merely writing blank checks. How can the audience trust Cheney and Bush to spread democracy abroad when they prefer a lack of democracy at home?

There is a third myth about the war on terror, and this is one that is perhaps the most dangerous. Some apparently believe that getting out of Iraq before the job is done will strengthen America's hand in the fight against the terrorists. This myth is dangerous because it represents a complete validation of the al Qaeda strategy. The terrorists do not expect to be able to beat us in a stand-up fight. They never have, and they're not likely to try. The only way they can win is if we lose our nerve and abandon the mission -- and the terrorists do believe that they can force that outcome. Time after time, they have predicted that the American people do not have the stomach for a long-term fight. They've cited the cases of Beirut in the '80s and Somalia in the '90s. These examples, they believe, show that we are weak and decadent, and that if we're hit hard enough, we'll pack it in and retreat. The result would be even greater danger for the United States, because if the terrorists conclude that attacks will change the behavior of a nation, they will attack that nation again and again. And believing they can break our will, they'll become more audacious in their tactics, ever more determined to strike and kill our citizens, and ever more bold in their ambitions of conquest and empire.

Cheney and his fanclub have amnesia. We won the Cold War, the last long great struggle against an intractable foe, the only adequate comparison. Cheney also fails to mention the other side of the Beruit story.. which would be the French. The French also suffered a bombing a few days after the U.S. and they retaliated... against Iran, with an airstrike. But the French are still wussies. That's public opinion for ya. Depresses me that not only does Cheney expect people to be impressed by this argument, so many people have such undeveloped brains that they are unable to appreciate the effect of spin. Some people will say anything, and that includes Islamofacists. And some people will believe anything. Just look what the National Inquirer can publish. Iraq is not all that important to Al-Qaeda. There will always be another Iraq for them, another Afghanistan, another Sudan. They're global. Like cockroaches.

That leads me to the fourth, and the cruelest, myth -- and that is the false hope that we can abandon the effort in Iraq without serious consequences to our interests in the broader Middle East. The reality is that, if our coalition withdrew before Iraqis could defend themselves, radical factions would battle for dominance in that country. The violence would spread throughout the country, and be very difficult to contain. Having tasted victory in Iraq, jihadists would look for new missions. Many would head for Afghanistan and fight alongside the Taliban. Others would set out for capitals across the Middle East, spreading more sorrow and discord as they eliminate dissenters and work to undermine moderate governments. Still others would find their targets and victims in other countries on other continents.

Cheney forgets how wrong his administration proved going into Iraq. What's given him some new brilliance over the past few years... ah... nothing? Another scenario finds that with reduced American presence, Sunni tribes become less welcoming of foreign fighters. Shite leaders become more confident in their majoritarian governance and form better alliances with the Kurdish population to develop oil production. Iran gets smoozy, sure, and the rising economic fortunes of both countries' urban populations leads to stronger democratic parties and a weaker Islamic fundamental showing in following elections. Saudi Arabia's (mildly fundamental) dominance begins to wain, as Iraq's oil production increases. Jordan's economic fortunes rise with their old friend Iraq, which enables them to better manage their Palestinian refugee population. Increases in regional stability spread to Lebanon and into the West Bank. All equally possible. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to provide air and naval defense to Iraq, combined with training to it's military and police, while maintaining it's boarders against those foreign fighters. Also a possible scenario, but equally not guaranteed. Life gives no such promises.

We can be confident in the outcome of this struggle. America is a good and an honorable country. We serve a cause that is right, and a cause that gives hope to the oppressed in every corner of the Earth. We're the kind of country that fights for freedom, and the men and women in the fight are some of the bravest citizens this nation has ever produced. (Applause.)

Cheney said this holding up a tiny asterisk to indicate all the various places in the world where the U.S. pursues no policy to give hope to the oppressed. In Tibet.

Or in airports. Which leads me to the subject that con-bloggers who don't do my job should shut the frak up:

"If this legislation passes (civil service protections given to every other federal worker extended to federal airport security), the Democrats will be making the TSA’s job more difficult. Passengers will assume a greater risk when flying commercial airplanes as a result of this legislation."

TSA pursues the purposes of it's political appointees who spend lavishly on limos and passing on contracts to their personal friends. None of which has to do with airport security. Or preventing future terrorist attacks. Reducing overtime and reducing customer complaints are the primary concern of the management level. When I have a union to protect me for telling the truth, I'll get back to you on this subject.

I need a picture here to educate this bloody moron:



Don't blame the crew in the boiler room for TSA's design flaws.

Technorati Tags:
Iraq, Bush, Petraeus, war on terror, global jihad, 7/7, homeland security

Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?

So today the wardrums for attacking Iran have stepped themselves up a notch in the wake of Al-Zawahiri releasing an audio message with pictures to color in and a Guardian story detailing the advancement of plans in the Bush administration to attack Iran in the spring. Con-blogs are latching onto an American Enterprise Insitute initiative to use bunker-busting nuclear weapons. Other reasons for war with Iran embrace the geopolitical ignorance of kindergartners who are another group of American citizens who are blind to certain realities. If Russian missiles are being purchased and used to down U.S. helicopters, why is there no drumbeat to nuke Russia? More self-embraced confusion by the cons comes with the idea that nuking Iran will lower recruitment for Islamic fundamentalism and that Iran can be equated as a wellspring of Al-Qaeda. The rise of Iran as a Middle East power also excites the "End-Times" segments of the cons... but then they also think Boston's mooninites herald the judgement day. Only con-blogs could accuse Iran of arming anti-Iraqi Irai to attack Iraq and American soldiers.

How is the surge going anyways and how could it have ever gone? Crystal balls of course, only really work on the past: How it took six weeks for American troops to pacify one Sunni street... and then loose it again to the same insurgents in 2006, the instant they left. Neighborhoods will be controlled by the dominant armed group who lives in them, although this is a difficult reality about Iraq to face. Talk of "pacifying" isn't talk about creating peace, it's about putting your boot on someone's throat in the hopes that their spirits will break before you need to go take a piss. Get real- these people survived under Saddam, they will survive a couple of 20ish kids from Iowa. Plodding through the partisan muck masquerading as patriotism, your moonbat finds Iran billed as a new front in the war on terror, and Iran's getting a coat of 9-11-backer lipstick, no one's claiming the U.S. will find Osama bin Laden there in a spiderhole.

The wardrums pound out an accusatory beat that must make our nominal Middle Eastern allies rather nervous, given that Iran stands as the least of the offenders in who has been pumping aid into the civil war in Iraq. Of course, if we do attack Iran to stop the supplying of weapons to the Shiites, Russia will still be able to sell to the Sunni through Saudi Arabia, so it won't be a complete loss to them. What makes the pounding of the drums such savagry, is the unflinching support on the Right for the idea of using nukes to intimidate terrorists. States have a vested interest in not getting nuked; terrorists will just relocate. And anyways, the Iranian population strongly dislikes Osama bin Laden right now... but drop a few nuclear missles and the copies of his lectures will become bestsellers. You can even ask them:

"Both Iranians and Americans have strongly negative views of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Three in four Iranians (74%) and more than nine in ten Americans (94%) view bin Laden unfavorably, including large majorities (68% and 89%, respectively) who view him very unfavorably. Only 10 percent of Iranians look at the al Qaeda leader favorably (2% Americans). Nine in ten Americans have a very unfavorable opinion of bin Laden and ninety-two percent of Americans say al Qaeda poses an important threat to the United States, including 59 percent who say it poses a critical one.




Iranians, like Americans, perceive al Qaeda and Islamist militant groups as threats, though less strongly. More than half of Iranians (53%) call al Qaeda an important threat, including a third (33%) who say it is critical. Twenty percent say al Qaeda is not a threat (27 percent no answer). Similarly, 57 percent of Iranians view the threat from “Islamist sectarian militant groups” as important, including 36 percent who say is critical. Fifteen percent say it is not important at all....

Iranians were also asked specifically about attacks on American and Iraqi civilians, with “sometimes” or “never” justified the only options given. Nine in ten Iranians (88%) say that “attacks against Iraqi civilians in Iraq” are never justified. Nearly as many (76 percent) say “attacks against American civilians living in the United States” are never justified (15% sometimes justified).

Respondents were then asked to think “in the context of war and other forms of military conflict” and to consider whether certain types of civilians could be a legitimate target. Overwhelming majorities of Iranians reject as “never justified:” attacks on women and children (91%), the elderly (92%), and “wives and children of the military” (86%).

Americans largely agree, though larger percentages in each case said such attacks are rarely justified. This is true for attacks on women and children (72% never, 15% rarely), the elderly (71% never, 16% rarely), and wives and children of the military (74% never, 12% rarely)."

So, we are declaring war on yet another country and it's not actually about finding terrorists are rooting out bomb cells, we're just calling it the "war on terror" for consistency's sake. What we are really going to bill nuking Iran as is revenge for 1983. Which just goes to show that only the moonbats are reading Dinesh D'Souza. Don't believe me, just check out the Congressional speech when Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) was called upon to speak of Iraq, but stumped for attacking Iran. Boehner reimagines the "war on terror" as having been started by Iran all along, and not Osama:

"It began with the Iran hostage taking in 1979.
Then, on October 23, 1983, the suicide attack on the Marine Barracks in Beirut killed 241 American servicemen and injured 60 others."

Con-blogs love to insinutate or outright claim that 9-11 occurred because President Clinton didn't bomb Afghanistan in retaliation for the USS Cole bombing... so they are trying to sweep under the rug that President Reagan didn't bomb Iran for the Iranian funded bombing in Beirut that claimed the lives of 241 American service personnel and 1 Lebanese janitor. Which is more than the total fatality count for deaths reportedly linked to Iranian manufactured weapons components over the last three years. So what did happen to Iran in 1983. Oh... the French bombed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for their part in the next day bombing of a French barracks that killed 58 paratroopers and 5 Lebanese civilians. Got to love those French. What did Reagan do? A few months later, the U.S. military pulled out of Lebanon.

Wait.. what was the question?? Osama who?? I have no clue.

Technorati Tags:
Iraq, Iran, Osama bin Laden, war on terror, Beirut, liberal, conservative, moonbat

O'Reilly: Many Americans 'Paid Agents of Oppression' in Iraq

So today I wandered from a search for stories about New Orleans on Fox to where Bill O’Reilly calls the second largest armed contingent of Americans in Iraq “paid agents of oppression.” Trying to defend the largest such contingent, Billy forgets that ah… America does have mercenaries- oops, private security contractors, in Iraq and that the United States… pays them money to kill people and doesn’t ask them to swear an oath of fealty before doing so. So America does in fact have it’s very own 15,000 some force of “paid agents of oppression,” and if some 300 of them have died in the War on Terror, Billy discounts them because at least they got paid. Who can blame him really, when confusion seems rampant? Still, you heard it from Bill O'Reilly, so America must indeed be the Great Oppressor. Nice, Billy.

Why has the internet devolved into a froth of STFU over the word “mercenary?” Osama bin Laden released a new tape? Ann Coulter released a new book and still sporting a ridiculous skimpy black dress? Nope… it’s all NBC, released a STFU clip of several soldiers of Apache Company speaking on Americans who dissent from any aspect of the War in Iraq. One soldier whines that only soldiers who have served in Iraq really have anything intelligent to say. Another maintains that you can't support the troops and not agree wholeheartedly with the war... so liberals are lying. Another sniffles that if Americans don't put on a brave face and say that our soldiers are winning in Iraq, he can't feel good about himself. Other Apache Company soldiers (who didn't make the clip) possess the ability to understand why some 70% of Americans think sending more troops to Iraq is “beating a dead horse” and would rather “go back and play my PlayStation.” All reported to you by that mythical creature that con-blogs swear does not exist: a Washington Post reporter outside of the Green Zone.

William Arkin choked on his Starbucks latte and fired off a STFU: The Troops Also Need to Support the American People, on his WaPost blog, Early Warning. The gist of it being (and of course so often wildly distorted and misquoted by various con-blogs) that soldiers in uniform ought not to think they can get up and tell the American people to STFU and be quiet and obedient little homefront whores. Okay, his language wasn't that strong. But he did go out of the way to state he didn't think they'd been brainwashed or prompted by their superiors, and that they more than of course enjoyed the freedom of speech of those people these soldiers were telling to STFU. Under the indignint sputtering, Arkin had a point: the freedom of speech does not include the freedom to decide that others should be silent for your own peace, and that their superiors should point that the frak out. Certainly nothing dire will happen to those three soldiers, but I would have been immediately terminated from federal employment for making a political statement in my uniform. Arkin has another stinger for the troops in the NBC vid: the liberal anti-Iraq War movement has been bending over backwards to focus their displeasure at the political side of the Iraq spectrum. Appreciation and gratitude for this decorum are in order, and not these sneers and snipes.

900 responses served the cut off for WaPost on that article, yet an astounding number of people wrote back with wild ideas about what the
article they were responding to actually said and who Arkin actually happened to be. Most denounced Arkin as claiming soldiers didn't have First Ammendment rights and as having spent his life safe inside the confines of Washington DC. Arkin took the time to clairfy that his annoyance had not been directed towards the military as a whole, but those soldiers who suggest that dissent against the war should be suppressed for the greater good. Although his post contained no further insults, many con-blogs went on to twist his words to read so, claiming he had gone on to call soldiers inhuman and murders. Which.. sorry, but none of that's in the note. 1500 responses later, WaPost pulls the plug on the comment section: Arkin's been denounced as a traitor, comments on O'Reilly exposing Arkin as an environmentalist, suggestions he actually visit Iraq, and his being a father called a "shame." Arkin opens up his mailbag and organizes all the ways he has beendemonized, and points out that there's a difference between a debate and a mob. Arkin bows out, for the moment, and who can blame him in the face of threats of violence?

Bill O'Reily reared his head to the fore of the blood thirsty mob, charging that Arkin's blog was an attack on the military in "a very personal way" and constituted a "debacle," despite the fact that no interns were soliticited for sex by a member of Congress while Arkin sat by and typed. Herein O'Reilly defends the military's record in Iraq and Afghanistan:

"The United States military has performed heroically in Iraq and Afghanistan in brutal environments. For any American, any American to accuse them of being paid agents of oppression is disgraceful and far over the line of rational thought."

O'Reilly isn't done with just ambushing Arkin when he's on a snow day in Vermont. He teams with FOX news analyst Kirsten Powers (just for an official flair) and his real guest, con-blog Michelle Malkin. Notice on the transcript page of their segment, the two cons get professional ID photos, and Arkin gets a "wild man" blurred mug shot. Surely FOX could have coughed up a professional headshot of Arkin... unless there's a deliberate message there? Wonder what it could be?

On with the show: Michelle's scared silly of course, that Arkin's going to track her down and mug her. "He's an intellectual coward. He's a thug. And he's a radical left wing loon." Michelle goes on to harp about Arkin working for Greenpeace and Human Right's Watch, implying that he worked as a primary activist. (Michelle conceals that Arkin worked for them as a military analyst, especially for Greenpeace's impact study of the Gulf War on the environment of the Middle East.) Michelle conceals (and this is important) any indication Arkin might have a background in the military, making him reputable as a "military affairs analyst and an intelligence specialist." Arkin was in the military you say? Oh yes, dear readers.

"William M. Arkin is an independent writer, investigator, and consultant specializing in national security affairs. He is the "Dot.Mil" columnist for the Washington Post's online service and has written the "Last Word" column in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1985. He is also a regular contributor to Defense Daily. He is an adjunct professor at the U.S. Air Force's School of Advanced Airpower Studies...

Mr. Arkin served in the U.S. Army from 1974-1978, and was an assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence of the US Commander Berlin. He was engaged in a number of covert intelligence collection projects and was the primary intelligence analyst for the West Berlin command."

Fox passes on a threat of physical assult to Arkin. How... Stalinist. In the only other time FOX acknowledged Arkin's existence and thought to keep a record, was to quote him on possible Iraqi casualties in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Arkin is only then a "a private analyst and expert on the Iraqi military," quoted as noting that Iraqi deaths during the invasion would be a factor in a possible future Iraqi insurgency. No need to mention Greenpeace? Why not? Gee, I wonder. I just can't figure it out...

When Evil Prospers picks up the Michelle's spin nice and clean with: "You see Arkin, like most other anti-war folks, never served in the military, so they don't really understand the idea behind a "cause"." Apparently, google is a really complicated search engine to learn to use, eh? That little white lie picks up steam. We are treated to a great deal of profanity and alliteration over at BlackFive, and also "[soldiers] also happen to be the American people to a degree you and the rest of the hater clowns with your Grinch-sized hearts will never understand" and references soldiers as Arkins "betters." Blackfive then goes on to say that anyone who serves as an army soldier in the feild of intelligence is an "intel weasel." So, who would rather be a paid agent of oppression over roadkill? I would. Blackfive then descends into public confessions of a possible inability to control his bladder, and that Arkin must be a Soviet Commie spy. Don't you just love original insults? Oh wait.. didn't the USSR go away? Don't we just call it Russia now? Anyway, so amusing to find a con-blog who insults soldiers because soldiers were insulted. Clowns.

Novelty emerges in the charge that Arkin isn't a traitor because there can be no traitors to America... anyone who expresses dissent about American soldiers must be an illegal alien, so call ICE. Some intelligent people are speaking up, and should be heard. However, the avoidance of Arkin's military service bears noting for lib-logs and liberal activists, who might think that liberal soldiers opinions will be an effective counter for the con-blogs. Who are becoming less bashful in calling us all traitors, out to get the soldiers by speaking against the Iraqi Occupation: "...for the government and the population to deny them our support is a civil betrayal of the first order and a gross moral failing." Con-blogs who address his military service feel of course free to use it to attack him, claiming there must be an inner demon that makes Arkin unfit to be a soldier. Rare civility may be found, but still the underlying sentiments of evil liberals out to get the troops shines through. Yes, because that's what I think about when I see a hot young enlistee out of bootcamp. Well yes, I do think about getting them, but just.. in another way. Hehehehe.... Go to the comment section here for another American who first called a volunteer army "mercenaries."

Surely some of all this vitrile arises from how much the cons used to love Arkin.. for say... passing on praise of a human rights worker in Iraq of the US military. Or blogging that Ted Kennedy is full of s**t. Or being a leading voice against the real fruitcakes of the left and the 9-11 Truth Movement, by stating that the most diabolical conspiracy theory about 9-11 is that "the U.S. government somehow was complicit and even responsible for the events." Or smiling warmingly when Arkin hates on Hugo Chavez. But wait, what has your favorite moonbat found here??

"Nothing in the description includes the United States, not just as occupier and the most prized target but also as a wholly ineffective force. The U.S. military battles here and there, headhunting for al-Qaeda, engaged in a never-ending game of “whack-a-mole” with insurgents, cat and mouse moving around to avoid faceless IED attacks on the roads and highways, barricaded in its “green” zone.


What the United States is not doing, and what its Iraqi government partner is not doing, and what neither has ever been done since day one, is provide security and safety for the citizens of the country."

The depth of this manufactured outrage over being called mercenaries is highlighted when it takes a moonbat to point out that being called a "wholly ineffective force" is worse. At least mercenaries get to kick @$$ and keep their pride in their boots and not their hurt little feelings.

Sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never hurt you. And oh yeah... STFU!!

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Iraq, America, William Arkin, Early Warning, liberal, conservative, moonbat, peace