Foiling Terror Plots Doesn’t Take An Army (August 10, 2006)

Law Enforcement Continuing To Succeed Where War Fails (October 4, 2006)

New Alleged Terror Plot Thwarted-Again Without Destroying A Foreign Country (June 2, 2007)

U.S. Should Rethink “War On Terrorism” Strategy to Deal with Resurgent Al Qaida (July 29, 2008)

These articles, covering a span of about two years, are all saying the same thing: fighting terrorism is better done through law enforcement than through war. Interesting enough, the first three articles were written by me and posted at Bring It On. The final article was published yesterday by the Rand Corporation, a think tank developed by the US Air Force after WWII and today a major supplier of policy advice to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the unified commands and other defense agencies. Seems like the Rand Corporation is a little behind the “obvious curve.”

In it’s newly released report, the Rand Corporation says:

“Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism.” -Seth Jones, the study’s lead author and a political scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.

Hmmmmm….sounds an awful lot like this:

“There are terrorists who want to harm the west, specifically killing as many civilians as they can. If they are determined enough, some will succeed. But through the application of solid investigative work and application of the rule of law, many of these folks have been stopped before reaching their murderous intentions.” – Ken Grandlund, 8-10-06

And this:

“Law enforcement, including cooperation with intelligence agencies and other countries, is more effective in breaking up terror cells than going to war.” – Ken Grandlund, 6-2-07

I’m not trying to brag here. I’m just pointing out that for over two years, I’ve been saying publically what the Rand Corporation (and presumably the folks who rely on its reports to craft policy) is only now figuring out. I’m no genius, but then again, it doesn’t take a genius to state the obvious. Apparently it just takes waiting for an idiot president who has squandered untold billions of dollars, thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, soiled the reputation of the United States of America and garnered the disgust of people everywhere to enter his final months in office for someone (in a position to be really heard) to finally stand up and state the obvious.

(Sarcastic) Kudos to the Rand Corporation and every other asshat politician, corporate executive, and neo-con ass-licker for finally facing the facts- namely that massive military action is a stupid way to deal with terrorists.

(cross posted at Bring It On!)

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz has told Israeli newspaper reporters that sanctions against Iran were not working and that an Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear development sites was becoming “unavoidable.”

“If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective,” Shaul Mofaz told the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

“Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable,” said the former army chief who has also been defense minister.

One question…does this mean that the US and the Bush Administration can stop banging their own war drums about Iran? Not likely…and here’s why.

Iran has already said that any attack on Iran will result in retaliations against Israel AND any US targets available.

Iran still claims to be developing nuclear capabilities for non-military, civilian use only. But the rhetoric from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regarding the right of Israel to exist has only sought to increase skepticism about Iranian nuclear ambitions.

But why is this a US problem anyhow? We now have confirmation that Israel has their own ready nuclear strike force. Why can’t we let them take care of this themselves like the did with the Iraqi nuclear program in the 1980’s and like the claim to have done when bombing a Syrian facility not long ago? Are Iranian nukes really a US problem- a problem that requires another costly war and further raping of the US treasury by unsavory “contractors?”

Unfortunately, US foreign policy is so entangled in the Middle East, and so heavily in favor of Israel, that any Israeli strike would likely suck US forces into the abyss, especially if it occurs while Bush is still steering the ship of state. Experts believe that Iranian nuclear facilities are more numerous and better defensible than Iraq had in the 80’s or than Syria was building. As such, unless Israel unleashed the power of her own nuclear arsenal, a protracted ground and air war could likely ensue, requiring assistance to Israel.

One has to wonder whether this entire Iranian nuclear problem is largely the making of the Bush Administration. Immediately following the 9-11 attacks, Bush included Iran in his official “Axis of Evil” club, putting the Iranians on notice that they were in the sights of the warmonger in chief. Add a couple hundred thousand US troops at their doorstep in Iraq, an increasing presence in the Straight of Hormuz, and it’s no wonder that Iranian government officials would worry about their own country’s security.

Still, it’s hard to have empathy for the Iranian government. After all, they have been clear sponsors of terrorism for decades and have been a vocal foe of the US since the deposition of the CIA-installed Shah in the late 1970’s. (Actually, Iranian resentment of US interference in their government runs deep and back to the 1950’s when the CIA backed a coup to reinstall the Shah to power. His harsh rule created theenvironment for revolution that swept the Islamicists into power. And our government’s backing of the Shah turned their enmity towards the U.S.)

If Israel does attack Iranian nuclear facilities they could respond in kind. If that occurs, we’ll be pulled in. Which in turn could inflate other Arab nations to join Iran against the US and Israel. This is how regional conflicts grow and suck in other nations. This is how world wars begin.

Bush knows his stance on Iran is unpopular in the states. He doesn’t much care. Perhaps this is his way of getting to attack Iran anyhow- by getting Israel to start thingsoff. Or maybe he’s still trying to help bring on his fundamentalist base’s idea of Glory on Earth- the beginning of the end.

(cross posted on Bring It On!)

Most of the world has known, and accepted, that the Bush Administration “cooked the intel” with regards to Iraq and forced the United States into a war of choice that has cost far more in money and lives than we were expected to accept. In proving that they are only several years behind the curve, the U.S. Senate today issued a report that blames the Bush Administration of leading the nation into war under false pretenses.

The long-delayed Senate study supported previous reports and findings that the administration’s main cases for war — that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was spreading them to terrorists — were inaccurate and deeply flawed.

“The president and his advisors undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the (September 11) attacks to use the war against al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein,” said Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia in written commentary on the report.

At the same time, a British newspaper is today reporting on a secret deal between the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government that, if agreed to and signed, would keep the United States in Iraq indefinitely with more than 50 military bases, allow the US to conduct military campaigns against “terrorists” without Iraqi authority, keep control of Iraqi airspace, and offer immunity from Iraqi law for all Americans working in that country, whether employed by the US government directly or through one of its mercenary contractors.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government.

Of course, immediately on the heels of the article in The Independent, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq comes out with the denials. Which is why we know that this “secret plan” as revealed is more truth than not.

“I’m very comfortable saying to you, to the Iraqis, to anyone who asks, that, no indeed, we are not seeking permanent bases, either explicitly or implicitly,” Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker said at a State Department news briefing.

Translation: Yes, this is exactly what we’re trying to do, and if it weren’t for you darn kids and your stupid dog we’d have gotten away with it.

Iraqi politicians and Iraqi’s in general seem to be opposed to any such deal, and US officials fear that if the plan is put to a general referrendum it will fail.

Public critics in Iraq worry the deal will lock in American military, economic and political domination of the country. Iraqis also widely view the U.S. insistence that American troops continue to enjoy immunity under Iraqi law as an infringement on national sovereignty. (msnbc.com)

Which could explain why the Iraqi government is being put under great pressure to finalize this deal in the coming months. With a signed accord in hand, Bush could not only claim (once again) Mission Accomplished, but he could tie the hands of the next president by agreeing to a long term treaty.

Or would he?

Although almost every precedent Bush has engaged in has been unsavory at best and un-American at worst, he has initiated a precedent for ignoring treaties signed by past US administrations that could be useful in this case. Clearly, following the lead set by Bush, our next President could duly bypass any Bush-signed treaties that would bind us to Iraq for several generations. We already know what McCain thinks-he’s happy to keep us embroiled in Iraq for another 100 years. But a President Obama might just decide that any Iraq treaty engineered by Team Bush and coerced through a reluctant Iraqi government isn’t worth the toilet paper its written on. He’d be right too.

(cross posted at Bring It On!)

Now that you’ve finished your taxes for the year, I thought a little refresher on where those tax dollars are being spent would be in order. So without further adieu, here is where your federal tax dollars are spent:

MOST TAX DOLLARS SPENT ON MILITARY

Out of every tax dollar collected by the US government,

42.2¢ goes to the military to pay for wars, weapons, and every now and then a few bucks for a wounded soldier.

22.1¢ goes to health care initiatives like Medicare and Medicaid and a few pennies for those pesky kids programs.

10.2¢ towards non-military debt-you know, paying off that national debt that comes from bigger government under Republican administrations.

8.7¢ funds anti-poverty programs like welfare, foodstamps, and shelters.

4.4¢ gets thrown at education where it is promptly turned into administrator salaries and profits for the big companies who print standardized testing materials.

3.9¢ underwrites the costs of governmental services-from the courts and justice systems to the lifetime benefits our elected officials receive but would never let the rest of us have.

3.3¢ pays the bills for any projects related to affordable housing and community development-mostly this is used to buy poisonous FEMA trailers from some corporation tied to the current administration.

2.6¢ is spent to promote and explore the wonders of science and space, the future of cleaner, renewable energy, and to protect the environment…no, really, it IS!!!

1.5¢ of every dollar is for agriculture and transportation. Half to farmers to keep them from planting certain crops and half to people who can’t seem to make a road that lasts more than a season or two.

and finally,

1¢ gets sent abroad in the form of foreign aid-but only to countries who promote abstinence, fight terrorists, or lend us lots of money.

I know this only adds up to 99.9¢ out of a dollar…I guess that other tenth of a cent is beign siphoned off the top ala Office Space and is accumulating in a slush fund somewhere for out of work politicians to draw from in case of a caviar emergency or something. (Hey…a tenth of a cent can really add up when you’re talking billions of dollars in tax receipts.)

(BTW- these numbers were culled from a slide show presented at cnbc.com)

Cross posted at Bring It On!

This post’s title words were said by current president George W. Bush, way back in 1999 when he was just a lowly governor from Texas and not the Decider-in-Chief.

The full quote, published in the Seattle P-I, and referencing the Clinton Administration’s actions and policies in Kosovo, is:

“I would strongly urge that if there are U.S. troops involved, they be under U.S. command or NATO command. I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn. If there needs to be a residual force, it is important that over time U.S. troops are withdrawn and our European allies carry the majority of the load.”

Bush also lamented Clinton’s “lack of an exit strategy” in this Houston Chronicle quote:

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”

(thanks to ThinkProgress for the articles.)

Yet in his very own war, Bush has turned around 180 degrees, much as Cheney did when he cautioned against going to Baghdad after Gulf War I only to aggressively pursue war with Iraq after coming aboard as Vice-President.

Recent quotes from Bush:

“I believe artificial timetables of withdrawal would be a mistake. … I will strongly reject an artificial timetable withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job. ” [President Bush, 4/23/07]

The double-standard is obscene, but the rationale is clear. Kosovo wasn’t an oil nation, nor did it fit into any kind of biblical end-times scenario. Iraq satisfies both of those criteria for far right evangelical foreign policy aims. And Bush is the most far right, evangelical, biblical literalist we’ve ever had sitting in the Oval Office.

Oh, and he’s also a dirty rotten liar, a double-talking politician, and a wannabe theocratic despot.

(cross posted at Bring It On! )

The country we call Iraq was created by the French and British, carving up territory won from the Ottoman Empire after WWI. Without taking into account the politics of the different ethnic and religious groups in the country, in particular those of the Kurds to the north, Britain imposed a Hāshimite monarchy on Iraq and defined the territorial limits of Iraq . (Wikipedia) Prior to the creation of the present-day boundaries of Iraq, the various ethnic and cultural peoples did not consider themselves to be of one nation. Only under the iron fist of dictators and strongmen could Iraq exist as a political reality. Remove the tyrant and the facade melts away. Anyone with a few minutes and an ounce of perspective could have surmised as much before starting a war over there. We know our leaders thought long and hard on this whole Iraq mess. I guess it’s the ounce of perspective they lack.

When it comes to Iraq, Bush is like the kid in junior high school who learns that the girl he had a crush on didn’t like him back. But instead of getting on with life, he becomes a stalker, sending friends over with “do you like Gerogie” notes, and trying to get invited to the same parties. The difference here is that instead trying to get a seat next to the girl in the cafeteria, Bush is sending a generation of American’s into a hellhole of his choosing, as if to say, “If I can’t have you, nobody will.”

We begin the fifth year of American corporate warfare with over 3200 dead American soldiers, tens of thousands of seriously wounded veterans, hundreds of thousands of emotionally injured troops, millions of affected wives, husbands, and children, tens of millions of displaced Iraqi families (the use of Iraqi here is used in the current meaning to identify any number of ethnicities in the region formerly know as Iraq), and an entire region of the world in chaos. That’s a lot to pay for something that was never there to begin with. For something many pretended was there even though it never was. For the artificial construct that is Iraq.

Once the dictator fell, and once the people realized that the conquerors were just after the resources under the sand (that is, that for the American government Iraq represented a massive wealth transfer operation disguised as any number of changing rationale) and would not continue to rule with a strong hand, or with any hands at all, the long-buried but unforgotten ethnic enmity returned, and the reality on the ground today is at least as historically motivated as it is terrorist-driven or anti-occupationist in nature. In essence, the bloody chaos in Iraq is a violent reminder of what happens when imperialism carves up the world for itself.

The Iraq War can not be won by conventional military means wrought upon the people of Iraq by the American military. It did not work in Vietnam. It is not working now. You do not democratize a people by killing every other one of them and starving the rest of work, food, modern essentials and sanitation. Even if the vast majority of Iraqi citizens wanted to work with the American’s to restore their country, they would still be consumed by fighting amongst themselves for eventual internal control. Under the assumption that victory in Iraq must be measured by the establishment and continued viability of a single, unified, national democratic government, victory is all but impossible; defeat all but assured. No amount of American soldiers will change that reality. No amount of treasure. No amount of tears.

The Bush Administration’s insistance on maintaining the facade that Iraq is a unified nation and must remain so is likely a major contributor to the inability of elected Iraqi legislators to achieve any sort of progress. They do not want to be unified. They do not consider themselves as brother’s in arms. They are Kurds or Shia or Sunni. Then they are of their family group and town. Only after that might they consider themselves as Iraqi. The sectarian violence and relative peaceful Kurdish region separated in the north are testaments to that idea.

Often the neo-cons and other war supporters will claim that those who want the war to end have no ‘plan to stop the war.’ The truth is that they just aren’t (a)listening, (b) comprehending, (c)realistic or (d) any of the above. Stopping a war is actually pretty easy when you have a defined enemy. You call a formal truce, arrange a peace treaty meeting, make agreements, and cease armed hostility. It can’t be done overnight, but it certainly can be done.
When faced with an amorphous enemy or one who has no desire to make peace with you, you have no alternative but to fight until one side can fight no longer. Or until one side can be convinced to fight no longer.

In Iraq, we face both scenarios. If America were to accede to at least listening to ideas that Iraq divide into three autonomous regions such talks could lead to a drastic reduction in sectarian violence and reduce the elements of civil war that now engulf much of Iraq. There have been talks of a tripartite oil revenue commission to fairly distribute oil wealth from the former Iraq to the three new sovereign nations. Such talks could lead to the political solution that even our military leaders have said is the only realistic path to take. And frankly, it should make no difference to us (or the Bush Administration) if the end result is three friendly countries or even 2 friendly countries in the region instead of one. Unless of course, if by acceding to such a plan, or even to talks, it would irreversably let loose the grip Team Bush and their cut and run corporate buddies like Halliburton have of all that oil.

In addition to prompting a sectarian cease-fire, the possibility of ethnic autonomy could lead to a concerted effort by each group to help root out the real terrorists in their midsts so as to speed up their own path to their self-determined future. And with renewed effort, American’s could work with and train “Iraqi” units in each region to restore order, moderation, and modern living to the regions.

And for those terror groups with whom we must ‘fight to the end,’ at least we’d have the ability and the cooperation to actually disrupt and end their murderous reign over civilians and soldiers alike.

Unfortunately, it’s really the oil that the Bush-puppet has been in love with all along. All the way back to the first Iraqi invasion, when the fledgling neo-cons like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and their dark little minions begat their foul plan for oil domination in the Middle East. And that’s why they’ve continued to come up with excuse after excuse to validate their horrific misadventure. And that’s why American troops will never leave Iraq so long as Bush is president and Cheney is still in line for the job. And frankly, I’m not all that confident in the Democrats ability to rectify the solution either.

Victory in Iraq means that Iraq no longer exists. But in it’s place could stand three new, strong, modern, and moderate nations that at the very least could be ambivalent towards the west and at the very most long lasting allies in a new middle east
.

(cross posted at Bring It On!)

I guess somebody didn’t get the memo from the Bush Administration that you aren’t allowed to use the words “Iraq,” “Civil,” and “War” all in the same sentence.

“Some elements of the situation in Iraq are properly descriptive of a “civil war,” including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities and mobilization, the changing character of the violence, and population displacements. Illegally armed groups are engaged in a self-sustaining cycle of sectarian and, politically motivated violence, using tactics that include indiscriminate bombing, murder, and indirect fire to intimidate people and stoke sectarian conflict.

Much of the present violence is focused on local issues …”

The report goes on to show a graph that lists who the key destabilizing elements in Iraq are and what their goals seem to be. In each of three cases, the main goal seems to be to get American and ‘coalition of the willing’ forces to leave the country. But that’s about where they part ways.

The report does note that much of the violence (up to 80%) is centered in 4 of the country’s 18 provinces, and those provinces account for almost 40% of the total population. And it seems to verify the notion that while most Iraqi’s don’t want American troops in their country, they also aren’t supporting the violence that is growing around them.

“More than 80 percent of the population rejects violence against the government under any circumstance, and more than 90 percent rejects attacks against women and children,” the report states. “However, two-thirds of Iraqis express a sense that conditions for peace and stability are worsening, and the population is roughly split on whether the government is moving in the right direction to quell the violence.”

It’s going to be hard now for Cheney and Bush (and their chickenhawk pals and apologists) to keep pretending that America has some nobel mission in Iraq, or even a chance at having a voice in the future of the country, short of committing to an all out assault and forcing American-style democracy on a weary and unimpressed people.

American soldiers have no place in a foreign civil war, even if American policies ultimately are responsible for conditions that allowed that civil war to bloom. Bush’s new commanders have said there is no military solution in Iraq, only a political one. Bush’s ‘coalition of the willing’ has shrunk considerably, and the contributions of the remaining players are paltry to say the least. And now the Pentagon, heart and soul of the US Department of Defense (although we should really revert to calling it the War Department as the first presidents did, since that is how Bush has been using it) is saying Iraq is in civil war too.

I don’t buy the argument that we’ll be handing a victory to the enemy if we leave. In light of this report, I’d have to consider most Iraqi’s my enemy for that to be true. I don’t buy the argument that if America leaves we’ll be less safe either. Hell, the degradation of our military, our treasure, and our reputation due to our Iraqi involvement is what has made us less safe.

But since we have a chickenhawk administration and a new, Democrat congress more bent on rhetorical displeasure than on any real action to end the war, it looks like the American body count will continue to grow as our troops die in a conflict that no longer (if it ever did) concerns us.

(cross posted at Bring It On! )

No ‘Plan B’ For Iraq If Surge Fails

In what has become typical Team Bush fashion, it turns out that there is no Plan B for Iraq if the president’s troop surge fails to deliver the results he seems to think they will. No matter that most of the rest of the world doesn’t think the surge has a snowballs chance in hell of changing conditions in Iraq, Bush and his jolly band of chickenhawks are so confident in Plan A (the Surge) that when asked by a group of governors last week during a meeting at the White House what the back-up plan was they were told by Marine General Peter Pace, “I’m a Marine and Marines don’t talk about failure. They talk about victory. Plan B is to make Plan A work.”

Plan B is to make Plan A work? Well, that’s sure comforting isn’t it? Does this mean that if the first surge of 21,000 combat troops doesn’t quell the violence that we’ll just send in another 21,000 ad infinitum until either all the Iraqi’s are dead or the US Treasury is bankrupted?

Not only did this administration never have a plan for Iraq in the first place, they still can’t seem to move their vision beyond Send in More Troops, despite the fact that sending in more troops hasn’t exactly turned hearts and minds towards American imposed democracy.

Mr. Bush- Plan A should have been to end the American presence in what is now an Iraqi Civil War. Plan B should be to help Iraq reconstruct once they have quelled their own violent tendencies and established a workable solution to what is now their own sectarian problem.
But it’s clear that the president has no desire to end the war in Iraq. While he’s busy recategorizing who belongs to his Axis of Evil club he has to keep up his ‘tough guy’ appearances somewhere.

As bad as the recent revelations are regarding what the Bush government means when it talks about supporting the troops, with Plan B for Iraq amounting to more of Plan A (i.e. keep on surging on), we can only expect things to worsen both for our troops abroad and for wounded vets who return home.

And sadly, the new Democratically controlled Congress is pussy-footing around the whole issue when they could take real steps to bring the troops home, restructure the real war against terrorism, and bring an end to the worst administration America has ever had to deal with.

Bush “Justice” Purge- Replace Crookbusters With Crooks

The ‘internets’ are all abuzz over the revelations coming out of the Congressional probe of the Bush DOJ firings of several US Attorneys. It seems that congresspersons, journalists, and citizens alike are shocked-just shocked, I tell you– to learn that the firings may indeed have been politically motivated to expel from the ranks of the DOJ those attorneys who actually decided that prosecuting corrupt public officials was a pretty good thing to do, even if those politicians were Republicans.

Excuse me for a minute while I roll my eyes. The shock of the revelations should be no such thing. This is how Team Bush runs ‘Merika, you know? In fact, when I first touched on this issue back in January, I said (about the firing of US Attorney Carol Lam of San Diego), “Perhaps the real reason Lam has been swept aside has more to do with the very public Cunningham prosecution that began to shine a light on who the Republican Party really is.” So the facts coming out that seem to support a political purge are no shock to me.

But this particular bit of news was, even though it probably shouldn’t have been either, knowing too well how Team Bush operates.

Apparently tossing crookbusters out of the DOJ ranks just isn’t pushing the purge far enough for the president. Now it seems that the old method of stocking federal agencies and departments with cronies has been elevated to a new level. In short, replace the crookbusters with crooks. That way, there is less chance that your own Justice Department will turn on one of your own. And with that handy little insertion into the Patriot Act that allows the AG to appoint “permanent-interim” attorneys without the need for congressional approval, putting crooked cronies into positions of power just got a whole lot easier.

Enter Timothy Griffen, top pick for the newly vacated US Attorney position for Eastern Arkansas. Griffen, an assistant to Karl Rove, was the major player in a scheme to defraud up to 70,000 voters of their voting rights during the 2004 election.

From the article:

Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election.

Key voters on Griffin’s hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women. Nice guy, eh? Naughty or nice, however, is not the issue. Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

 

In his article, Palast goes on to explain:

The Griffin scheme was sickly brilliant. We learned that the RNC sent first-class letters to new voters in minority precincts marked, “Do not forward.” Several sheets contained nothing but soldiers, other sheets, homeless shelters. Targets included the Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida and that city’s State Street Rescue Mission. Another target, Edward Waters College, a school for African-Americans.

If these voters were not currently at their home voting address, they were tagged as “suspect” and their registration wiped out or their ballot challenged and not counted. Of course, these ‘cages’ captured thousands of students, the homeless and those in the military though they are legitimate voters.We telephoned those on the hit list, including one Randall Prausa. His wife admitted he wasn’t living at his voting address: Randall was a soldier shipped overseas.
Randall and other soldiers like him who sent in absentee ballots, when challenged, would lose their vote. And they wouldn’t even know it.

And by the way, it’s not illegal for soldiers to vote from overseas — even if they’re Black.
But it is illegal to challenge voters en masse where race is an element in the targeting.

 

Department of Justice? I don’t think so.

I seem to remember from my history classes that there were other governments who engaged in political purges….we have a name for those kinds of governments don’t we?

As Troops Languish At Walter Reed, Bush Decides To Send USS Comfort On PR Mission

It turns out that President Bush really does approve of free health care, so long as you live in Central or South America and are not a wounded US combat veteran. Prefacing his upcoming visit to Latin America (where he plans on winning all the hearts and minds away from his third highest ranking arch-nemesis Hugo Chavez) with a speech on Monday, the Decider-in-Chief promised to send the USS Comfort down the coast this summer to deliver treatment to 85,000 people in 12 countries.
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With wounded soldiers living in mold infested barracks and enduring 7AM inspections, all while trying to put together the pieces of their shattered bodies and minds and navigate the obstructionist bureaucracy that has become the military medical system, you’d think that maybe, just maybe, there might be another good use for a US Military hospital ship. Something a little better than heading south for a PR mission perhaps?

The USS Comfort has as it’s primary mission “to provide a mobile, flexible, and rapidly responsive afloat medical capability for acute medical and surgical care in support of amphibious task forces, Marine Corps, Army and Air Force elements, forward deployed Navy elements of the fleet and fleet activities located in areas where hostilities may be imminent.” Seems like Bush’s little escapade in Iraq fits into that criteria pretty well. And since we know the president isn’t planning any troop pull-out by June, perhaps we should send the ship there (or keep it there, whatever the case may be.)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for humanitarian missions. But folks…there’s a time and a place for everything. And when your stateside military hospitals are a shambles, understaffed, and expecting a continued flow of wounded patients, it makes sense to keep your resources at home. Not only that, we have a solemn duty to our fallen men and women to care for them to our best ability. It is only too clear that this administration has failed badly thus far. So why is the president making a bad problem worse by diverting more medical resources away from our troops? Is this what “support the troops” really means?

And don’t even get me started on the ‘free health care’ about face the president is pulling here. Why is it that free health care to foreign nations is a great idea for a PR junket but a lousy idea to even discuss here in America? If this isn’t a case of total cognitive dissonance then I don’t know what is.

Bush seems to be getting out of town at a good time- for him at least. With scandals breaking all around him, with the thin veneer of ‘compassionate conservatism’ wearing away to expose the rotten ideology for what it is, and with an American public (and even some –gasp-elected officials) increasingly calling for his impeachment, the president needs to get out of the harsh light of reality for a little while. That, and maybe he needs to clear some brush at Rancho Nuevo Bush in Paraguay.

The shame, it seems, never ends.

(articles originally posted at Bring It On!)

We saw it from FEMA when Katrina hit. We see it in Iraq daily. Corporations securing no-bid contracts to provide services or support and then fleecing the payments while leaving the job undone or done so poorly a first grader would question the results.

So I guess it’s no surprise to find that outsourcing may well be behind the meltdown at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In a recent article at Army Times, it turns out that an internal memo from late 2006 described in detail how the Army’s decision to “privatize support services at Walter Reed could put patient services at risk of mission failure.” In fact, the Army has been aggressively outsourcing all sorts of work, and specifically at Walter Reed since the year 2000. And the reason for that aggressive outsourcing is given as President Bush’s ‘competitive outsourcing’ initiative.

And guess who has the deal to ‘handle’ Walter Reed? A little company called IAP Worldwide Services, run by former senior Halliburton official Al Neffgen. They scooped up a five-year contract that started in january 2006. Since then, they’ve managed to cut the ranks of federal employees at WRAMC from around 300 to only 60 by early February 2007. Since then, those 60 federal employees have been replaced by 50 IAP workers. And it seems as though they weren’t even the lowest bidder initially. An initial employee bid came in $7 million less than IAP, so the bidding process was recalculated to favor IAP.

Tell me again about how you support the troops Mr. President?

By the way- remember the whole Katrina debacle? IAP is the same company that couldn’t figure out how to deliver ice to the Gulf Coast after the hurricane did it’s damage. Clearly with a proven track record like that, they should be top of the list for any government contracts, especially one so important as caring for wounded veterans.

It’s not about the soldiers people. It’s not about democracy or rule of law. It’s not even about compassion. It’s just about the money- getting it from all of us and giving it to a few of the boys from Club Bush.

We may have to redefine what “Bush League Politics” really means.

(cross posted at Bring It On!)

Highlighted in the report are the following:

There’s the $43.8 million spent on a temporary police training camp that has never even been used.

There’s the $36.4 million for armored vehicles, body armor, and weapons that no one seems able to account for.

There’s the $73 million facility built to train Iraqi security forces that has massive expansion cracks in the walls and trickling sewage from ceilings.

This does not even include all the billions stolen by shady civilian contractors who have been hired to perform certain services for the troops- there’s plenty of billions down the drain there too.

But of course, in the mind of the President, where all is well in Iraq (or at least was until around November 2006) and getting better by the day, what’s a few more billion unaccounted dollars between friends. After all, this Iraq war was all about generating massive corporate profits for the Military Industrial Complex and their derivatives, not about anything so noble as spreading democracy or making the world a safer place.