There is a heated discussion in the other thread about an easy to misunderstand statement Alabama made. He is in favor of Iraqis killing Americans. I am too and here is why.

The above headline shows in its existence the importance of the triple digit number. The one hundred is obviously a threshold with some significance. The AP piece has the news of breaking that threshold in the first paragraph. The real number is higher, it comes 18(!) paragraphs behind the lede.

The U.S. weekend deaths raised to at least 104 the number of American troops killed in Iraq so far in April, making it the deadliest month since December, when 112 died.

Before I am getting misunderstood let me assure you, that I wish for everyone to die after a rich life, without pain, in peace and dignity. That is indeed the base of my argument. 

But it would have been terrible had the April number been lower than 100.

The U.S. is in a public discussion about when the last U.S. troops will have to leave Iraq. (The "if" question has already been decided by the Iraqi people. That will not change.)

Different parts of the U.S. public are in various phases of grief about the lost war.

The hard-core believers are still in the denial phase. Moderate Republicans have proceeded to anger. The Democrats are in the bargaining phase. The pro-war left realm is in depression and the anti-war people have long accepted the loss. 

Like with the war on Vietnam, it will take years until a majority will have finished the grieving process and accept the loss. Only after that happened will the last GI leave Iraq. Only then will the Iraqi people be able to find their solution for peace.

Every day during this process people will die violently in Iraq. Everything that can shorten the process, should be welcome. Everything that prolongs the process kills more people than necessary.

The AP headline will shorten the process. Printed millionfold it will push people further along. If only 99 U.S. military personal would have been killed in April, the process would likely take longer.

Meeting the threshold number gives a stronger argument to end the war. That’s why I am happy about it.

Do I wish the May number to beat December’s 112?

Yes I do. I want to see the headline: "U.S. May deathtoll in Iraq exceeds record"

So I favor Iraqis killing Americans. It saves lifes.

As I am not an Amercian let me add that I’d favor German troops, under the same circumstances, to be killed just alike.

When Obama held his big Foreign Policy speech last Monday, I didn’t bother to read it. But yesterday the Washington Post editors lauded it. A good reason to get suspicious and today Robert Kagan has fun with some damning Obama quotes:

Obama talks about "rogue nations," "hostile dictators," "muscular alliances" and maintaining "a strong nuclear deterrent." He talks about how we need to "seize" the "American moment." We must "begin the world anew." This is realism? This is a left-liberal foreign policy?

Kagan works for McCain, who probably would have little chance in a run against Obama. So there is his motive for some selective quoting. But in fact Kagan is right. Reading the speech now, there is some stuff I could support, but I find the basic philosophy behind it very wrong.

Obama wants a bigger Army even while he wants to pull out of Iraq. The U.S. has to have enough to fight two war and defend the "homeland" he says. Wars against whom and why?

No President should ever hesitate to use force – unilaterally if necessary – to protect ourselves and our vital interests when we are attacked or imminently threatened.

"Imminently threatened vital interests," what might those be? Who will define those?

Why should, as he says, more in the U.S. military learn Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi, Urdu, or Korean. Do those languages reflect his hit list?

We have heard much over the last six years about how America’s larger purpose in the world is to promote the spread of freedom – that it is the yearning of all who live in the shadow of tyranny and despair.

I agree. But this yearning is not satisfied by simply deposing a dictator and setting up a ballot box. The true desire of all mankind is not only to live free lives, but lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and simple justice.

Delivering on these universal aspirations requires basic sustenance like food and clean water; medicine and shelter. It also requires a society that is supported by the pillars of a sustainable democracy – a strong legislature, an independent judiciary, the rule of law, a vibrant civil society, a free press, and an honest police force. It requires building the capacity of the world’s weakest states and providing them what they need to reduce poverty, build healthy and educated communities, develop markets, and generate wealth.

Only the methods are currently wrong he says. But the U.S. mania of "spreading freedom" and "democracy" is just the same.

How does he know other people do want this "freedom"? Do they want it the way he understands it? Will he ask the Chalabi’s of his time to find out?

I can not even see logic in the argument. Is "opportunity" a "universal asperation"? Dignity, security, justice, food, water, medicine and shelter can certainly be secured by a benevolent dictatorship – they don’t require "democracy." Especially when the alternative is the U.S. Army "spreading freedom." Indeed, talk to some homeless folks in our streets and ask them how "democracy" has delivered on Obama’s list.

Maybe I am falling for Kagan’s trick here, but I do get some very disturbing feelings whenever I read such idealism.

Obama lauds the US troops in Djibouti for distributing food and it sounds so nice. But Djibouti is the place U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship recently started to kill civilians in Somalia. To fight for U.S. "interests" is the only reason why U.S. troops are there and it is what they do.

Maybe such rethoric is needed to get the votes for becoming President. But maybe Obama really believes in what he says. What would then be the difference between him and the neocons?

Those, you might remember, are mostly former idealistic lefties too.

To get a sense on Tenet’s "tell all" book and his media appearances tomorrow, which accuse anyone but him and GWB of errors, consider the opinion of two political very different folks involved in the "action" to "fix the truth" on Iraq.

From the far right ex-CIA guy Michael F. Scheuer writes:

Tenet now paints himself as a scapegoat for an administration in which there never was "a serious consideration of the implications of a U.S. invasion," insisting that he warned Bush, Cheney and their Cabinet about the risks of occupying Iraq. Well, fine; the CIA repeatedly warned Tenet of the inevitable disaster an Iraq war would cause — spreading bin Ladenism, spurring a bloody Sunni-Shiite war and lethally destabilizing the region.
[…]
Tenet’s attempts to shift the blame won’t wash. At day’s end, his exercise in finger-pointing is designed to disguise the central, tragic fact of his book. Tenet in effect is saying that he knew all too well why the United States should not invade Iraq, that he told his political masters and that he was ignored. But above all, he’s saying that he lacked the moral courage to resign and speak out publicly to try to stop our country from striding into what he knew would be an abyss.

From the moderate center ex-CIA guy Larry C Johnson chimes in:

Sorry George.  Too little and way too damn late.  You had ample opportunity to blow the whistle on the Bush bullshit but you played ball.  I do not give a damn whether you did or did not say the case for war was a "slam dunk".  You signed off on Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations.  You, more than any other U.S. Government senior official, were in the unique position to know that the Secretary of State was selling a pack of lies.  And you sat behind him nodding affirmatively like a bobblehead doll.
[…]
Most importantly and tragically, you betrayed your country.  Instead of resigning in protest you provided the Bush Administration the pretext of respectability and became the scapegoat for their misdeeds.  Your silence contributed to the willingness of the public to support the disastrous war in Iraq which has killed more than 3000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

If one is slashed by the right sided media and the barely left sided media one may rise out of it as a centrist. (Still usually unsuccessful as Sen. Biden will attest).

But when the right sided experts bash you just like the left sided experts do and both do so for rather irrelevant technicals like standing up for the truth, you might consider to be the asshole everyone thinks you really are.

When Ambassador Randall L. Tobias explained:

A key element of our strategy is the balanced ABC policy, pioneered with tremendous success in Uganda. It does include an emphasis on ‘Abstinence’. especially for youth, but also on ‘Being faithful,’ especially for those in committed relationships, …
[…]
The U.S. is also partnering with communities to find solutions to such issues as sexual coercion and exploitation of women and girls, as well as fighting sex trafficking and prostitution, while still serving victims of these activities.

He certainly did know his subject:

Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias submitted his resignation Friday, one day after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of a Washington, D.C. escort service …
[…]
On Thursday, Tobias told ABC News he had several times called the "Pamela Martin and Associates" escort service "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage."   Tobias, who is married, said there had been "no sex," and that recently he had been using another service "with Central Americans" to provide massages.

Bush knows who to call about massages too:

.. as specifically about our position on prostitution, I’m going to have to talk to the Secretary about it.

You see, there are DC madams for men like Tobias to call and then there is The DC madam.

Cont. reading: DC Madams

Thanks to some Congress oversight fire on the Justice Department, some cracks are appearing.  Here is a collection of today’s news on the issue:

Cont. reading: Attorney Scandal News Scan

by annie
(excerpt lifted from a comment)

It all seems like we are headed into a major trainwreck and nothing can turn it around regardless of impeachment or pulling troops out or whatever. It’s huge, it’s like the corporations are running the damn place and we are going to be all swimming in shit before anything is allowed to happen in some healthy way. I have no idea.

But there are millions and millions of people here and I think it is foolish to assume we are all just clueless because you can’t hear our voices all the way in Europe or the ME, or Asia of Africa or any of the other places we are screwing over. We need leaders who are going to pull us out of this crap and we aren’t fighting a foe like ‘republicans’. We are fighting a foe like massive corporate power who will fight tooth and nail to hold onto that power.

Who’s drinking the koolaid? If the MSM doesn’t tell you the people are fed up, does that mean we aren’t? There are millions of dissatisfied voices that aren’t being heard.

There are no serious left voices on the talk shows. Period. None. They throw up some luke warm piece of crap like Joe Klein and call him liberal. The serious left in Congress are harassed and degraded, like McKinney and Kucinich. You will not be seeing any serious left in the MSM. There is no way they are going to give us a platform unless somebody starts screwing dogs or otherwise f’s up. Then it will be sliced and diced and regurgitated into a Dean scream.

It is simply an insult to the serious left in this country to even imply anyone that our enemies would showcase, would be considered the serious left.

We exist. And we have more to say than I’m sorry.
Do me a favor, get your media to front page that project censored story.

It takes serious money SERIOUS money to compete w/the global foes.

We’re here. All over the country in little towns and big cities. Not recognizing us doesn’t mean we don’t exist. Having our votes destroyed doesn’t mean we don’t exist. Most people don’t know how to make our voices heard. I don’t. But were here, and a lot of us are screaming. Every single f’ng gd day

If it doesn’t fit elsewhere, leave it here.

News & views …

The U.S. wants to build "missile defense" positions in Poland and Czechia. Moscow is not amused.

The Russians argue:

• There is no missile threat from Iran or North Korea to the U.S. or Europe and it is unlikely that there will ever be such.
• The positioning of a defense against it in Poland does not make any geographic sense as it is outside of the flight path of the assumed threat.
• The U.S. "missile defense" has never functioned so far. It is not usefull for real missile defense.
• This is a ruse to install a first-strike capacity against Russia. A ballistic missile attack from Poland on Russia would leave Russia only some three minutes of reaction time. A political and military decapitation of Russia would thereby become possible.

Russia’s President Putin now considers to pull out of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. This could start a new arms-race no NATO country but the U.S. wants.

Sec State Rice is miffed:

Cont. reading: The Missile Threat From Nicaragua

Regarding Bill Moyer’s recommendable report on media behavior in the run up to the war on Iraq (watch here):

• The only demand from the serious U.S. left is a ‘sorry’ for the Iraq war media bamboozling which they failed to recognize themselves.
• There has been and will not be any ‘sorry’ for this by the major media companies.
• There is no and will not be any demand by the serious U.S. left to stop the ongoing bamboozling with regard to the current U.S. wars on the Somalian, Sudanese and Iranian people and the simmering conflicts with North Korea and other countries.

Our military is making good progress in Iraq.
President Rallies Troops at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, March 26, 2003

… we have made progress, steady progress, …
President Bush Discusses Progress in Iraq, July 23, 2003

And we’re making progress.
President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld Discuss Progress in Iraq, August 8, 2003

We’re making progress.
President Outlines Steps to Help Iraq Achieve Democracy and Freedom, May 24, 2004

And we’re making progress.
President’s Press Conference, March 16, 2005

As we make progress toward victory, …
President Discusses War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom, March 20, 2006

Iraqi and U.S. forces are making gradual but important progress …
President Bush Discusses …, March 6, 2007

Bonus quote:

“Progress in Anbar is almost something that’s breathtaking,” [Petraeus] added.
Petraeus: Progress In Anbar ‘Breathtaking’, April 26, 2007

There goes my breath …

In the recent off-topic thread, b real flagged a New York Times piece: In Somalia, Those Who Feed Off Anarchy Fuel It.

"You know, these are some bad people down there" – says the NYT on its front page.

Omar Hussein Ahmed, an olive oil exporter in Mogadishu, the capital, said he and a group of fellow traders recently bought missiles to shoot at government soldiers.

“Taxes are annoying,” he explained.

Cont. reading: NYT Falsifies History on Somalia

There is a Waxman hearing today on Accuracy of Battlefield Information (an oxymoron) with Jessica Lynch and Kevin Tillman, brother of Pat Tillman.

This video is the opening statement of Kevin Tillman. Behind him (left in the video) sits an officer in uniform. Watch him …

This must be about the sickest and funniest line a neoconservative has ever uttered. Frederick Kagan, him of the "surge," writes in a fluff op-ed on Turning the corner in Iraq:

One of the things that struck me on my visit to Iraq this month was a growing Iraqi desire to exercise sovereignty. The insistence on evidence rather than intelligence as the basis for arrests reflects a desire to see the rule of law functioning.

I agree with Kagen’s thought here. Though applying it to him and his AEI companions it is more intelligibly to express it the other way around:

The insistence on intelligence rather than evidence as the basis of actions reflects a desire to see no rule of law functioning.

Ahhh – mushroom clouds …

Another thought: The metaphor of "turning the corner" seems to come into vogue again. It implies a change of direction. But in the contorted logic of the neocon crowd it is always used as an argument to "stay the course," i.e. to not change the direction.

Then again, if one turns the corners often enough one ends up at the starting point. Repeating this over and over again one runs in circles. Following the Ledeen mantra "Faster please," one starts to spin. And that’s what "turning the corner" is all about: spin.

Here is some history of such:

Cont. reading: Neocons: Intelligence Rather Than Evidence

What the MSM obits on Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin will not say:

• He illegally dissolved the country’s legislature.
• He called up tanks to shell the Russian White House, the elected Parliament, blasting out his opponents.
• His economic shock therapy let the Russian GDP fall by 50%.
• He ordered the military invasion of Chechnya.
• His privatization scheme defrauded the people and made some of his friends billionaires.
• He appointed his relatives to key government positions.
• He was a chronic drunk.
• He left the job with a 2% approval rating.

Please add in the comments …

Within all the Gonzales mess, there is one odd case of replacement of one interim "loyal Bushie" US Attorney with another "loyal Bushie" for unknown reasons. Here is a bit of background.

Until March 10, 2006, the US Attorney in Kansas City was one Todd Graves. His brother is Representative Sam Graves. Matt Blunt, son of House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, is Governor of Missouri.

Matt Blunt awarded the lucrative state franchises to collect fees for driver’s license renewals, etc. to the wife of Todd Graves and to Graves’s brother-in-law, Todd Bartles.

Cont. reading: Why Was Schlozman Replaced?

News and views …

On another recent night raid near Muqdadiyah — based on a tip from the Iraqi police — U.S. soldiers rolled out in six Humvees expecting to find a half-dozen al-Qaeda in Iraq members in a meeting.

Instead they found a crying mother and her terrified 13-year-old boy.

"Tell him, since he’s the oldest one in the house, he’s the man of the house, he needs to man-up and stop hiding behind his mother," 1st Lt. Christopher Nogle, 23, of Orlando, instructed his interpreter.

The boy covered his face and sobbed. It was 3 in the morning. He said he didn’t know where his father had gone.

"Does he love his father?" Nogle asked. "Does he want to see him again?"

The small barefoot boy shook with fear and said nothing.

"Ask him where his father hides his weapons," Nogle demanded.

"I swear to God I don’t know," the boy said.

"He is not a man, he is scared," said his mother, who was also wailing.

"He needs to quit crying. He’s responsible for everybody in here right now since his father left; his father abandoned everybody else," Nogle told the boy through his interpreter. "Tell him when his father comes back later tonight or tomorrow that he needs to have a talk with his father, that his father is doing very bad things and it’s getting the whole family in trouble."

Before the soldiers left, an Iraqi police officer brandished two large buck knives in front of the boy’s face. Nobody was arrested.
Troops in Diyala Face A Skilled, Flexible Foe

You can reach Lt. Hearts-and-Minds Chris Nogle at christopher.nogle1@us.army.mil

Pat Lang compares the scene with this picture.

I find it a quite idealized and sanitized narrative painting. It doesn’t look like a rushed inquisition after midnight.

The Iraqi boy was certainly not dressed in glittering blue at 3 o’clock at night. Military police in battle dress looks much more frightening than those Parliamentarians in the picture.

But then, the conflict inside the boy when the Lt. asks: "Does he want to see [his father] again?" may well be just the same.

UPDATE: Though the lighting is too good, this picture via Iraq Today may capture a bit of the atmosphere.

In early March Seymour Hersh reported on dangerous U.S. meddling in Lebanon:

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

The claim, based on anonymous sources, did not get much traction. But now there are confirmations for Hersh’s assertions.

Badger recently translated a piece by a Lebanese politician, Issam Naaman, who belongs neither to the Saudi supported Hariri dominated government, nor to Hizbullah. Naaman wrote:

It was learned from influential members of the US delegations that the Washington special[-forces] apparatus has begun assembling, arming and training members of Islamic extremist groups to undertake assaults on Hizbullah, in the framework of the conflict that it [the Bush administration] plans between the Sunni and the Shiite population, in districts where the two groups are contiguous. And it will be arranged to camouflage the agents in this by attributing the attacks to AlQaeda.

Today we learn that an interview with the Prince Hassan, the one time heir to the Jordanian throne, is getting suppressed because – well:

Nasser Judeh, the chief Jordanian government spokesman, confirmed the videotape’s confiscation but said it had nothing to do with the content of the interview with Prince Hassan, the uncle to Jordan’s King Abdullah II and one time heir to the Jordanian throne.

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera aired a statement by Ghassan Ben Jeddou, the network’s bureau chief in Beirut, Lebanon, who had interviewed Prince Hassan in Amman and who said the tape contained remarks by the Jordanian royal claiming that a national security adviser in Saudi Arabia was financing Sunni militants to fight the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.

The national security adviser in Saudi Arabia is Prince Bandar, who acts in lockstep with Cheney and the neocons.

Saudi money combined with U.S. armament and training for a radical ideological Sunni group.

Haven’t we seen such before?

What will be the big backlash this time?

Want

When we die, eternity will ask us if we got the
joke. If we say no then we’ll have to do it over again.

Ynetnews provides Jewish communities and others worldwide interested in Israel with the same authoritative, fast, and world-class news reporting and commentary Hebrew-speakers receive from Ynet and “Yedioth Ahronoth,” Israel’s most-read newspaper.

Ynetnews: The real Israel in real time

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has to be killed. Really be killed, I mean, physically. He should be eliminated, put to death, assassinated, and all those words that serve to say the same thing.
[…]
Here too, while we are so busy with manners and etiquette, the man in Teheran is vigorously advancing the extermination plan for the people of Israel.
[…]
Indeed, this is impolite, unaesthetic, not customary and undiplomatic. Yet in order to stop this particular archenemy, we simply have to explain to him that his end is nearing.

Ynetnews Opinion by Uri Orbach, April 20, 2007: We need to kill him