Iraq War

I noticed a general message giving birth today – that we should have started focusing on Yemen back in the beginning of the whole war on terror. I can’t say I entirely disagree with that, but what makes it post-worthy is that I am hearing this argument from a lot of GOPers, the same ones who were cheerleading for us to go to war in Iraq.

Given the fact that fighting Iraq stripped our resources from Afghanistan, a fact that is extremely obvious, wouldn’t it have been better for these former Iraq cheerleaders to speak up back in 2002? Instead they took to backing the Bush administration, no matter what. I can only assume that is because “you don’t question the commander in chief at a time of war”, yet that is exactly what they are doing now.

So would someone in the media please ask these people when they spin this whole “we should have been in Yemen for years” mantra, why didn’t they push for this instead of Iraq? Also ask them if they think we could have fought Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq all at once.

We are talking about terrorism and people’s lives, so it’s time to stop the bullshit talking points game and actually address the situation. The best people to do that is the media and after they were accomplice number 1 in lying this nation into war with Iraq, they sure as hell better stand up now and do their jobs.

Last night I posted the good news that December marked the first month since the start of the Iraq war that no U.S. service members died in hostile actions. I hope that is the start of a new trend, but given the recent developments of a judge dismissing all charges against Blackwater, I can’t be too optimistic:

Iraqis seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at a Baghdad intersection responded with bitterness and outrage Friday at a U.S. judge's decision to throw out a case against a Blackwater security team accused in the killings.

The Iraqi government vowed to pursue the case, which became a source of contention between the U.S. and the Iraqi government. Many Iraqis also held up the judge's decision as proof of what they'd long believed: U.S. security contractors were above the law.

"There is no justice," said Bura Sadoun Ismael, who was wounded by two bullets and shrapnel during the shooting. "I expected the American court would side with the Blackwater security guards who committed a massacre in Nisoor Square."

The Blackwater decision is the exact kind of fuel needed for extremists to rise. If Iraq starts to descend too much again, it will present a big problem for our exit and even for Afghanistan. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail in Iraq, but if history is any indicator then I doubt it will.

December 2009 was the first month that no U.S. forces were killed in hostile action in Iraq since the war started:

2009 also marks the least number of fatalities. Now I’m sure all the wingnuts will credit this to Bush, while blaming everything else on Obama. No matter what spin/lies people tries to make of it, it is really good to see that the number of fatalities have taken a serious drop.

Just another chapter in the infinite wisdom that is our military:

A top US commander is threatening soldiers who fall pregnant on active service with jail.

Under the new policy, troops expecting a baby face court martial and a possible prison term – and so do the men who made them pregnant.

And the rule applies to married couples at war together, who are expected to make sure their love lives do not interfere with duty.

Usual US Army policy is to send pregnant soldiers home from combat zones within 14 days.

But Major General Anthony Cucolo, who runs US operations in northern Iraq, issued the new orders because he said he was losing too many women with critical skills.

This could become a serious issue with bi-partisan support. The left should want this changed because of how it singles out women, while the right should support changing it because of the whole right-to-life thing. Somehow I doubt we will see that though.

Image via Wikipedia

It’s been over a week now since some hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit surfaced showing that researches sexed up some data; something the right is calling “climategate” and proof that global warming is a hoax. Since then the right has complained nonstop about the lack of media coverage on this non-story.

Let me take a moment and remind everyone of an actual event of lying. This act didn’t involve some scientists locked up in an office somewhere, just trying to make their data show a stronger case for what it already proved. This is a case with much more dire consequences.

George Bush engaged in the biggest act of lying to the world in history. He and his administration mislead the entire planet into believing that Saddam Hussein had the weapons to destroy the planet, as well as some how being involved in the 9/11 attacks. One of the basis of their lies was even a forged document that George Bush used in his State of the Union Address, saying that Saddam was trying to get yellow cake uranium from Niger.

Let’s take a moment and compare these two stories. What would the real cost of some scientists misleading the public on climate change be? A planet with a much healthier environment and one able to sustain life much longer. That is nothing compared to the act of lying countess nations into war, something that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars on top of making the world a much more dangerous place by emboldening terrorists.

Like I said last week, these hacked emails prove nothing. The whole notion of Global Warming wasn’t started in the late 90s; the research actually dates back to the 60s. Are we supposed to subscribe to the belief that countless scientists around the world have forged their data since these emails? We get new numbers almost daily showing the acceleration of global warming, and if over 90% of the world scientists are involved then that is the biggest case of collusion in world history. Yet we have never had any data proving that George Bush did not lie this nation into war, and the right never wants to discuss that very costly and deadly lie.

If the right wants a national discussion on “climategate”, then we also get to bring up Iraq. We have far more evidence that George Bush lied this country into war than proof that the global science community has lied about global warming. And like I said, even if all the scientists did come together to lie to the world, the cost of Bush’s lies way out shadow the costs of “climategate”.

The New York Times is reporting that Blackwater Executives started paying Iraqi officials around $1 million in 2007 to silence them about the shooting death of 17 Iraqi civilians. The information was provided by four former Blackwater executives in interviews.

You can read the entire article here.

The right is on an uproar over the size of the health care bill and the Politico is following suit:

The House health care bill unveiled Thursday clocks in at 1,990 pages and about 400,000 words. With an estimated 10-year cost of $894 billion, that comes out to about $2.24 million per word. .

Wow those are some expensive words, but not as bad as $425.9 million per word. That would come from the authorization for the Iraq war (pdf document), which has cost over $925 billion and clocks in at 2,174 words.

That was President Obama sneaking out last night to witness the return of our fallen troops. How many times did Bush did this in either of the wars that he started?

The dramatic image of a president on the tarmac was a portrait not witnessed in years. Former President George W. Bush spent lots of time with grieving military families but never went to Dover to meet the remains coming off the cargo plane. Obama did so with the weight of knowing he may soon send more troops off to war.

NONE! This is the difference between a Commander in Chief and a war mongering idiot.

This is rather amazing:

A new national poll suggests that nearly three-quarters of all Americans support the plan to withdraw most U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities and towns, even though most believe that the troop movements will lead to an increase in violence in that country.

But nowhere near as amazing as this:

"This plan has widespread bipartisan support," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Seventy two percent of Democrats and 74 percent of Republicans favor this move."

Republicans support the drawdown in Iraq more than Democrats do. The difference is within the MOE, but it does put a big crimp in Cheney’s claims that Obama is making us less safe.

Oh and Iraq is really going down hill. I mean look at this violence:

The only ones that want us there is Dick Cheney and the rest of his war-mongering, draft-dodging friends.

While the media and right try to pin everything involving torture on Nancy Pelosi, today it’s time to go back to the real criminals involved – the previous administration. At a time when the American press abandoned their core principals and became nothing more than an echo chamber for the Bush White House, Cheney was working to generate even more reasons to invade Iraq, particularly a link between Saddam and 9/11.

Reuters is reporting that 5 soldiers and 2 Iraqi police officers were killed in a suicide bombing  in Mosul today. You sure wouldn’t know about it watching the news. Instead they are on the 100% coverage of a high speed chase in California.

Don’t let the lack of reports fool you. Iraq is still very unstable, and seeing some very deadly days:

Six car bombs exploded across Baghdad Monday, killing at least 34 people and wounding scores, police said, after a spate of arrests targeting Sunni Arab fighters raised tensions in the Iraqi capital.

A blast at a popular market in eastern Baghdad's Shi'ite Sadr City slum killed at least 10 people and wounded 65.

Why aren’t we hearing about this? It’s hard to say. Perhaps it could be that there is so much going on that the media’s ADD is kicking into overdrive. Your guess is as good as mine, but we need these stories out there.

The media will turn their attention to Iraq one the troops start getting pulled out. When that starts then stories like this will be plastered on every network. It will serve  as some sort of “proof” that Obama is destroying Iraq. But right now they can still push the meme that “the surge worked” by kicking these stories under the rug.

The media is in a frenzy about the Democrats getting ready to “fight” President Obama on his Iraq plan. Of course they are – the media loves anything that might have to do with Democratic infighting.

Personally, I support Obama’s plan. Would I like to see all troops out next year? Of course. But I trust Obama. As matter of fact Obama has given us more reason to trust him than any other politician in history. In his first 40 days he has worked to deliver on an unprecedented amount of campaign promises. So since Obama hasn’t given me any reason to not trust him, I am going to take him for his word and judgment. If he really believes that we need 50,000 troops to remain, then we need that. I want what’s best for my country, not what best aligns with my own political belief.

Also just think back to Bush. Constantly Bush said he would listen to his commanders. For years now the commanders in Afghanistan have been yelling for more troops as that region continues to deteriorate. Bush ignored them, and now we got a bigger mess there then when we first entered that war. So the fact that Obama is proving that he is willing to listen and learn from our military leaders is a big bonus, and something we didn’t see in the past eight years.

But I also agree with the Democrats who are against this plan, and would rather see all our troops pulled out. It also makes me proud to be a Democrat.

Let’s compare this to the recent stimulus battle. Three Republican senators broke with their party to vote for the bill. Were they commended on serving their constituents or personal beliefs that got them elected? No. Instead they are facing punishment from their party.

So this goes back to my post earlier this week, where I talked about how the Republicans tent seems to be shrinking while the Democrats is getting bigger. The Republicans got into the boat they are in because of their refusal to break with Bush. It wasn’t until they started losing elections that they would let some light shine between them and the White House.

Democrats aren’t risking that. Instead they are allowing their own members to do what members of Congress should do – vote for their constituents, not their party.

So I welcome the fact that their might be a little bit of a rift between Democrats and the White House. It shows we have a party of individuals able to make their own decisions and stand on their own beliefs, and the party accepts that.

The Republicans have been going on for too long about “sticking together” and “party allegiance”. No matter what you consider the main factor in the Republicans’ recent losses at the polls, one thing is for certain – if the Republicans didn’t stick together so much they would be in a better place today. If the Republicans broke with Bush, instead of this faux allegiance to the man, they might even still control Congress, or at least be a much strong minority.

Our country is too diverse to divide into only two strict political beliefs. The Republicans just don’t get that.

Finally we are starting to see some accountability from the wasted adventure called Iraq:

In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme.

Remember – most of this happened while Republicans controlled Congress. Democrats weren’t allowed to mention this stuff for fear of being called Hitler, unpatriotic or some other name. That doesn’t excuse the Democrats though for not pushing forward with investigations once they took control of Congress. I just don’t know how far it would have gone with Bush in office. So perhaps its time to look at new laws defining what the President can and can’t do even more now. We need an oversight branch of our military and that branch should be Congress – not the same branch that leads it.

Blackwater has been kicked out of Iraq by the Iraqi government.