How to end a colonial war

This is the Dien Bien Phu valley in Vietnam. Notice the plain
surrounded by the mountains in full color.




You've probably never seen this before. This is Mang Yang
Pass, near Pleiku, Vietnam

Ok, anyone who's a student of history knows about the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1953-54. Briefly, the French High command wanted to draw the Viet Mihn into a climactic battle and picked an isolated valley near Laos to establish a base from which to attack the enemy.

Only problem, they didn't command the heights, and the Viet Minh did. Soon, the post was isolated and under constant fire. It was overrun on May 7th, 1954

But at the same time, in Southern Vietnam, another, equally tragic, but untold battle was taking place. Known to history as Group Mobile 100 or the Battle of Mang Yang pass.

GM 100, made up of veterans of the Korean War, serving with the US Army's 2nd Indianhead Division, and other units, were ordered to retreat from An Khe to Pleiku. To do this, they have to go over mountain passes.

In an era where the units were roadbound and lacked comphensive air support, the battle turned into a bloody fighting retreat. According to Bernard Fall, the unit was decimated in the retreat, 85 percent of the vehicles lost, 100 percent of the artillery. Again and again, VM units attacked the French units, punishing them.

The battle is recreated in the opening of We were soldiers once

If it seems familiar, it should. Unlike in the Second Vietnam War, US units in Iraq are amazingly roadbound and while not facing jungle terrain, would have many of the same problems, long vunerable columns and limited air support to cover any one section at any one time.

Airmobility was invented to end the dependence on roads, until anti-aircraft weapons forced units back down to earth.

While the French didn't have the advantages of the US, many of their tactical problems were similar, in that they had to rely on roads for mobility. When they tried to use paratroopers, they found their utter lack of mobility and the inability to reach then on foot doomed them.

One of the things not widely made public in the US media is that the US Army in Iraq serves in widely scattered units in isolated bases. Even moving to an airfield could lead to a running gun battle to get there.

People are quick to use the history they know. But if America's war in Iraq is like Vietnam, it is closer to the first war, a war of local levies, and professional volunteers than the second. While we may not face a Dien Bien Phu, over the last three years, we have seen our tactical options limited by an ever more aggressive enemy.

As our time in Iraq runs short, it seems that no one has any real idea of how this ends. If it ends like most colonial wars, it will end badly.

Christmas for the lucky and the unlucky

Lucky


Not so lucky

Let them eat cake (or a Yule log or cookies shaped like Barney)

Tony Snow isn't the only one with a little sensitivity problem. As the president flies back from his summit on the war -- the one that will have claimed the lives of more than 3,000 Americans by Christmas -- the Office of the First Lady is distributing the menu for this year's White House holiday receptions.

What we'll be missing:

Display of Specialty Cheeses and Winter Fruits (Served with a Bountiful Display of Lavish Specialty Crackers and Spiced Pecans).

Colossal Shrimp Cocktail and Jonah Crab Claws (Served with Ramsey’s Cocktail Sauce and Spiced Remoulade).

Stuffed Turkey Breasts with Winter Mushrooms, Cheese and Brandied Cranberries.

Sugar Cured Virginia Ham with Hot Pepper Mustard (Served with Warm Blue Corn Muffins).

Chicken Fried Beef Tenderloin with White Onion Gravy (Served with Tiny Icebox Rolls).

Herb Roasted Lollipop Lamb Chops served with Warm Yeast Rolls.

Honey Cup Mustard Sauce.

Fresh Tamales with Tomatillo Sauce and Black Beans.

Baked White Cheddar Farfalle.

Sweet Potato Soufflé.

Asparagus Tier with Lemon-Garlic Aioli.

Golden and Crimson Beet Salad with Orange, Fennel, and Feta.

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies with Peppermint Crunch.

Pecan Sandie Tree (Mexican Wedding Cookies, Russian Tea Cakes) with Layers of Cookies.

Holiday Ornamental Cookies: Barney, Miss Beazley, Christmas Trees, Snowflakes, Candy Canes.

Red Hat Box Mascarpone Cake.

White Pound Cake with Mascarpone Cream Filling, Red Marzipan Frosting and Red Ribbon Bow Decoration.

Coconut Cake.

Coconut Chiffon Cake, Coconut Pastry Cream Filling and 7 Minute Meringue Frosting.

Chocolate Roulade (Christmas Log): Soft Ganache Frosting with a Chocolate Sponge, Meringue Mushrooms, Magnolia Leaves in White Chocolate, Raspberries.

Mini Tartlettes.

Pecan Pie, Lemon Meringue Pie, Orange Chiffon and Chocolate Boston Cream Pie.

Chocolate Truffles.

Homemade, Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache.

Long Stem Strawberries with Dark Chocolate Dipping Sauce.

Warm Macintosh Apple Cobbler With Oatmeal Crumble.

Pumpkin Trifle.

Spiced Pumpkin Mousse with Whipped Cream and Shaved Dark Chocolate.

Would it be wrong to mention just now that 52 bodies -- apparent victims of death squad violence -- were found in and around Baghdad Wednesday? That security forces have discovered 28 bodies in what appears to be a mass grave near Baquba? That a roadside bomb has killed three more Iraqi police officers near Jurf al-Sakhar? That at least one Shiite warlord enjoys running electric drills through the heads of the people he's torturing?

OK, we'll admit that we're being unfair here. The pumpkin trifle may actually be the same thing as the spiced pumpkin mousse with whipped cream and shaved dark chocolate, meaning that White House holiday guests may have only 22 -- not 23 -- desserts from which to choose this year. It's like the president says: "The time of war is a time of sacrifice."

For some other people, their Christmas dinners won't be so lavish, they will be missing even a decent meal. But then, you can't have a buffet in a Ramadi outpost.

WHAT IS IN IT?

The twenty-four different varieties of meals can be seen in the menu table. Components are selected to complement each entrée as well as provide necessary nutrition. The components vary among menus and include both Mexican and white rice, fruits, bakery items, crackers, spreads, beverages, snacks, candy, hot sauce, and chow mein noodles for the pork chow mein entrée. The fruits may be applesauce, pears, peaches, pineapple, or strawberry. The bakery items include a fudge brownie, cookies, fruit bars, a toaster pastry, and pound cake in flavors of lemon, vanilla, orange, pineapple, and chocolate mint. Each meal also contains an accessory packet. The contents of one MRE meal bag provides an average of 1250 kilocalories (13 % protein, 36 % fat, and 51 % carbohydrates). It also provides 1/3 of the Military Recommended Daily Allowance of vitamins and minerals determined essential by the Surgeon General of the United States.

ISG: Out of Iraq by 2008

Fuck Daddy, this is my war

Iraq Panel to Urge Pullout Of Combat Troops by '08

By Peter Baker and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 1, 2006; Page A01

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group plans to recommend withdrawing nearly all U.S. combat units from Iraq by early 2008 while leaving behind troops to train, advise and support the Iraqis, setting the first goal for a major drawdown of U.S. forces, sources familiar with the proposal said yesterday.

The commission plan would shift the U.S. mission in Iraq to a secondary role as the fragile Baghdad government and its security forces take the lead in fighting a Sunni insurgency and trying to halt sectarian violence. As part of major changes in the U.S. presence, sources said, the plan recommends embedding U.S. soldiers directly in Iraqi security units starting as early as next month to improve leadership and effectiveness.

The call to pull out combat brigades by early 2008 would be more a conditional goal than a firm timetable, predicated on the assumption that circumstances on the ground would permit it, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the commission's report will not be released until next week. But panel members concluded that it is vital to set a target to put pressure on Iraqi leaders to do more to assume responsibility for the security of their country.

"It's really about transitioning from a combat to a support role, and basically making very clear that this is no longer an open-ended commitment and we're going to get this done whether the Iraqis like it or not," said one of the sources. "Everybody understands that we're at the end of the road here."

The choice of early 2008 as a goal could also, intentionally or not, change the nature of the debate over the war at the height of the U.S. presidential primary season. If the commission's plan is successful, the war might recede as an issue, as many strategists in both parties hope. But if U.S. commanders do not meet that goal, or if they do but violence only escalates, it may inflame the struggles for both parties' nominations.

Democrats, who captured control of both houses of Congress in last month's midterm elections, and some Republicans have pushed strongly for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops. But President Bush has firmly resisted such demands, warning that it would amount to surrender and could destabilize Iraq even further.

At a news conference yesterday after a summit with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Amman, Jordan, Bush seemed to douse the idea of withdrawal in response to news reports about the Iraqi Study Group's recommendations. "This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever," Bush said.

What is this? Reverse Vietnam? When the US leaves Iraq, ALL US soldiers are going to leave. No Iraqi government can survive their assistance. But the clock is running, hard. The Maliki-Kerensky government is on borrowed time. Either the Shia or Sunni will collapse it. But not in months, weeks, maybe days.

Long post, short answer

My husband beat me. Should I divorce him?

I am conflicted and tied up in knots; he has tried to make it up to me, and wants me to come back.

By Cary Tennis

..........................

Very soon, H became more and more possessive. In a way, I liked the assertions that he couldn't live without me for a second. But then he also became intensely involved with demanding all the details of my past relationships and became more and more abusive. This went on night after night in his house and his parents either didn't notice or chose not to comment. Perhaps they didn't hear. One night, he even beat me (while jeering, "You're not so clever now, are you''). Immediately he said he was sorry. I said he must never do it again. He promised, but a few other times he hit me once or twice, rather than sustainedly.

It was only nine months after this started -- and paradoxically, when things were much better on the whole -- that again he kept me awake all night and I fled for the first time to see my parents on my own. They live nearby, but I had always gone there only with him after getting married. I told my mother everything and spent a week at home working out what to do. I then tried to go back, but his parents put pressure on me to "forget about this and get on with the rest of your life now." I realized I needed more time and moved out, staying first with a relative and then moving in with a friend.

H did everything he could to get my sympathy, crying, telling me he missed me, moving out into a rented place so I would live with him. I started therapy (before my therapist discontinued it a few weeks ago because her nanny resigned). My therapist said I needed to be more assertive and not fall into the trap of being manipulated; that I should not feel responsible for H's loneliness or sadness.

I began to feel better; I wrote more (I am a nascent novelist) and carried on with work. Of course I continued to see H every day. No one at work knows; it is a very judgmental kind of place and in any case I prefer to keep my personal life separate (but not to the extent of not marrying a colleague, I know).

H has been pulling out the stops. He bought me jewelry for our anniversary, took me away for the weekend, and cooks for me every time I stay at his place. He also continually cries and tells me things are difficult for him. I alternate between rage, sadness, loneliness, relief, reluctance to get back together with him and a belief that we can still make things work. He has promised to see my therapist, too, when her nanny issue gets resolved. But that appears to be taking time.

My question, after this long preamble, is this. I want to make things work with him, I think. But, often, when I wake up at his place, or when I concretely consider the idea of living with him forever, my gut knots and says no, that he will always try to repress me in order to feed his insecurity; that we don't share the same interests (he is antipathetic toward art, though he's now starting a novel himself); that in order to feel less insecure he will always want to bring me down; and that I cannot live with someone who is like that. I feel in my gut that he is my enemy. Not that I hate him. But that he will destroy me if I don't escape.

Cary's simple answer to a windy question:

Dear Knot,

If I have occasionally failed to be blunt when bluntness was called for, let me be blunt in this case: End the marriage. In your gut you feel that this man is your enemy, that he will destroy you if you don't escape. Trust your gut. End the marriage.

It's really simple: he will kill you. If he can taunt you while beating you, and then does all this passive aggressive crap. HE WILL KILL YOU.

What if Bush says no?

Bush Dismisses Call for Panel’s Pullout Plan

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: November 30, 2006

AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 30 — President Bush today proclaimed Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki "the right guy for Iraq," and said the two had agreed to speed the turnover of security responsibility from American to Iraqi forces. But Mr. Bush dismissed a reported decision by an independent bipartisan panel to call for a gradual withdrawal of troops.
...............................

"I know there's a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there's going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq," the president said during a joint news conference with Mr. Maliki, referring to the panel's reports that are expected next week. "We're going to stay in Iraq to get the job done so long as the government wants us there."

Mr. Bush also said he and Mr. Maliki would oppose any plan to break up the country, which is riven by sectarian violence. The two appeared together after an hourlong breakfast meeting with aides at the Four Seasons Hotel here that was followed by a 45-minute one-on-one session.

"The prime minister made clear that splitting his country into parts, as some have suggested, is not what the Iraqi people want, and that any partition in Iraq would only lead to an increase of sectarian violence," Mr. Bush said, adding, "I agree."

The two leaders set no timetable for speeding up the training of Iraqi forces, which Mr. Bush described as evolving "from ground zero," and a senior administration official, who attended the breakfast and was granted anonymity to discuss it, said hurdles remain.

"This is not a simple process of passing the baton," the official said, adding, "This is not the United States and Iraq struggling for control of the steering wheel. This is the United States wanting Iraq to be firmly with the steering wheel in its hand, and the issue is, how do we get there as quickly as possible."

What happens, if after Congress has hearings, the ISG issues their report and Bush says no.

What happens, as US forces get attacked by all sides and the roads seized, if Bush says no to ANY changes. Because, right now, 150K servicemembers are relying on James Baker smacking the president into common sense. Because, right now, he's going to go down to the bitter end with other people's lives.

Do we really have to wait for the Mahdi Army to seize the government?

The end in Iraq pt 3

This is the Green Zone. If there is any sort of military action there, evacuation will be hard, if not impossible to accomplish, party because of the concentration of people and bodies. The main evacuation route to Baghdad Airport is a long, isolated highway the US calls Route Irish.

It is the most dangerous road in the world, and to travel it escorted is $3-5000 one way.


This is the route from the Green Zone to the airport. It doesn't seem far, but hundreds of people have died along it's length. Imagine trying to move the US infrastructure in Iraq with our Iraqi allies alone this highway


This is a close up of Route Irish. The red areas are open ground where the guerrillas have staged attacks for three years. In an evacuation by ground, the US military would have to move to the airport under fire.

Here's the point. Yes, the US can do a fighting retreat, but the complications of it are frightening. Look at the topography and you see a hundred ambush points.

Now there's talk of the US going after Sadr.

Jesus, look at the map. He can sit inside Sadr City forever. But it's three years too late anyway. They tried in 2004 and all hell broke loose. Now? We need to talk to him, not try to kill him so that all the Iraqis can fight us.

The Green Zone is a shitty place to defend, with it's back against the river and few open landing areas, tons of civilians and the security staffed with Shias. It's also a shitty place to attack for the few access points available. But once in, stopping an attack, especially with inside help, could turn this into Peking 1900 with no relief force on the way.

All these maps should show that a fighting retreat is a really, really bad idea.

Commissioner Kelly, you have a problem

NYPD's Loose Cannon Is Bungalow's 'Undercover Mike'

Certain hard-partying patrons of Chelsea nightspot Bungalow 8 received the shock of their lives Monday when they awoke to find photos of Mike Oliver—the NYPD officer who squeezed off 31 of the 50 shots fired at a carful of unarmed men in Queens last weekend—splashed across the city's tabloids. For the past year, the 35-year-old detective has been a four-night-a-week regular at the Olsen twin-heavy haunt, where he is known to the late-night crowd as "Undercover Mike."

"Everyone there was freaking the fuck out when they saw the Post," says a Bungalow insider. "It was like, 'Holy shit, that's Undercover Mike!'"

Oliver, according to multiple sources, began frequenting the club on a regular basis sometime last winter—whether in the course of his duties as an undercover officer or on his own time was never quite clear. "Sometimes he'd come alone, and sometimes with a young lady, always in plainclothes and always with a gun on him," says another source, who knows Oliver casually from his visits to the club. "The door guys all knew he was a narc and would tell people that, but they had to let him in. We never knew if he was on duty or off."

Not that Oliver made trouble for Bungalow's patrons—far from it. To all appearances, sources say, he was a regular customer, partaking in all of the nocturnal activities of his fellow revelers. "He was really friendly with the staff and all the regulars, and hit on girls like every other guy there," says the Bungalow insider. "He'd have one drink and nurse it all night but talk about how wasted he was. It was clear to everyone who knew him that he was doing more than just drinking."

Ok, so if this story is corroborated, you have an armed, coke sniffing cop using his badge to get into a club he had no business in on duty. Who then unleashes 31 rounds into a car. His credibility as a witness will turn to shit. As will their defense.

Kelly should understand that all hell will break loose when this makes the papers.

Maybe he was acting, but four nights a week and no arrests from the club. And when they call you "Undercover Mike", how can you be undercover. It's like that episode of the Simpsons when Homer wears his snitch hat in the Frank Gehry designed jail.

This is going to break out and when it does, even an asshat like Sliwa, so despised, the Mafia got away with shooting him, is going to be silent. But I can assure you Sharpton, Barron, the family and the Black radio in New York will not be.

Please shut your fucking mouths

You know, it's been a fun three years watching you guys spout nonsense about Iraq. All you cheetos eating slobs. You haven't been right about one fucking thing since 2003 and you need to stop. We're not playing Risk.

But you need to shut the fuck up because you don't know what you're talking about. This is a time for sober discussion and not your vapid cheerleading.

I know it may not be the end that you want, but the war in Iraq is not only lost, but could be the greatest military disaster since Chosin. You may have gotten away with bullying people in the past, but the reality of Bush's war is coming home.


The Associated Press Hits Back At The Military

Yesterday, we detailed criticism by a number of right-wing bloggers of the Associated Press's reporting from Iraq. The criticism focused on a story about Shiites burning six Sunni worshippers alive in Baghdad. CENTCOM issued a press release disputing the legitimacy of the source of the story, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, and asking for a retraction or correction if the organization did not have "a credible source" behind it's reporting.

.................................

That report came last night. Here's a portion:

Seeking further information about Friday's attack, an AP reporter contacted Hussein for a third time about the incident to confirm there was no error. The captain has been a regular source of police information for two years and had been visited by the AP reporter in his office at the police station on several occasions. The captain, who gave his full name as Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, said six people were indeed set on fire.

On Tuesday, two AP reporters also went back to the Hurriyah neighborhood around the Mustafa mosque and found three witnesses who independently gave accounts of the attack. Others in the neighborhood said they were afraid to talk about what happened.

Those who would talk said the assault began about 2:15 p.m., and they believed the attackers were from the Mahdi Army militia loyal to radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. He and the Shiite militia are deeply rooted in and control the Sadr City enclave in northeastern Baghdad where suspected Sunni insurgents attacked with a series of car bombs and mortar shells, killing at least 215 people a day before.

The witnesses refused to allow the use of their names because they feared retribution either from the original attackers or the police, whose ranks are infiltrated by Mahdi Army members or its associated death squads.

Two of the witnesses — a 45-year-old bookshop owner and a 48-year-old neighborhood grocery owner — gave nearly identical accounts of what happened. A third, a physician, said he saw the attack on the mosque from his home, saw it burning and heard people in the streets screaming that people had been set on fire. All three men are Sunni Muslims.
....................................

The message between the lines in all this is that the AP believes the government is going to be more aggressive in challenging the press – even when they don't have the goods to back it up, as the AP believes is the case here. "I have infinitely more faith in the U.S. military than in the Associated Press, but that doesn't mean the military is always right or the AP always wrong," writes Powerline. "It seems that the AP believes it is in a strong position. I'm tempted to say that one institution or the other must emerge from this affair with its credibility damaged." This could be one fight that's just beginning.

Well, Powerline are idiots, because CENTCOM lies like a junkie. They lie about everything when they can, from hillbilly armor to suicides and nothing they say can or should be trusted.

What these mental children need to realize is that Bush has launched this country into a disaster and pretending Iraq is not an insane charnel house is a disservice to anyone with a brain. Yes, they burned people alive. Because they wanted them to suffer.

Your childlike worship of Bush was amusing when it didn't matter, but now, it's time for you to let the adults explain to you what a mess your cheerleading help create. Not that any of you deigned to actually serve, you were too good for that, for raising money for soldiers needs or discussing veterans.

So now, as we watch this play out, your silly, infantile, parsing or as you call it, fisking, comments don't fucking matter. You have no credibility left, the GOP has no credibility left, and the president has no credibility left.

FEMA to restore Housing Aid

FEMA Ordered to Restore Evacuees’ Housing Aid

By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: November 30, 2006

FEMA has to restore housing assistance and pay back rent to thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees who had been deemed ineligible for long-term housing assistance, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

The judge, Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, wrote that the agency also had to improve an appeals process that evacuees had long said was confusing, contradictory and amounted to an arbitrary denial of help.

“It is unfortunate, if not incredible, that FEMA and its counsel could not devise a sufficient notice system to spare these beleaguered evacuees the added burden of federal litigation to vindicate their constitutional rights,” Judge Leon wrote.

The suit was brought by Acorn, a housing advocacy group that runs the Katrina Survivors Association. Michael Kirkpatrick, a lawyer with Public Citizen who represented Acorn, said that as many as 11,000 families could be affected based on numbers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency provided in court papers.

A spokesman for the agency, Aaron Walker, said it had not decided whether to seek a stay of the decision.

Last spring, the agency began notifying thousands of families given emergency shelter that they did not qualify for long-term help with rent and utility payments. That surprised many families who had been given housing vouchers valid for a year.

For months, families who had lost everything struggled to understand why they had been rejected and how to appeal that decision.

In a process that Judge Leon called Kafkaesque, families received notification letters with “reason codes” instead of actual reasons, were given different information each time they called the agency help line or found that the agency had erroneously determined that their house had “insufficient damage” or that someone else in their household (often a roommate) had already applied for assistance.

The paternalism of charity

Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

Walter Bender, left, and Nicholas Negroponte
working with an early model of the $150 laptop
computer in Cambridge, Mass.

For $150, Third-World Laptop Stirs a Big Debate
By JOHN MARKOFF

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — When computer industry executives heard about a plan to build a $100 laptop for the developing world’s children, they generally ridiculed the idea. How could you build such a computer, they asked, when screens alone cost about $100?

Mary Lou Jepsen, the chief technologist for the project, likes to refer to the insight that transformed the machine from utopian dream to working prototype as “a really wacky idea.”

Ms. Jepsen, a former Intel chip designer, found a way to modify conventional laptop displays, cutting the screen’s manufacturing cost to $40 while reducing its power consumption by more than 80 percent. As a bonus, the display is clearly visible in sunlight.
.............................................

Each machine will come with a simple mechanism for recharging itself when a standard power outlet is not available. The designers experimented with a crank, but eventually discarded that idea because it seemed too fragile. Now they have settled on several alternatives, including a foot pedal as well as a hand-pulled device that works like a salad spinner.

Ms. Jepsen’s display, which removes most of the color filters but can operate in either color or monochrome modes, has made it possible to build a computer that consumes just 2 watts of power, compared with the 25 to 45 watts consumed by a conventional laptop. The ultra-low-power operation is possible because of the lack of a hard drive (the laptop uses solid-state memory, which has no moving parts and has fallen sharply in cost) and because the Advanced Micro Devices microprocessor shuts down whenever the computer is not processing information.

The designers have also gambled in designing the laptop’s software, which is based on the freely available Linux operating system, a rival to Microsoft’s Windows. Dispensing with a traditional desktop display, the software substitutes an iconic interface intended to give students a simpler view of their programs and documents and a maplike view of other connected users nearby.

A video-camera lens sits just to the right of the display, for use in videoconferencing and taking digital still photos of reasonable quality. The computer comes with a stripped-down Web browser, a simple word processor and a number of learning programs. For e-mail, the designers intend to use Google’s Web-based Gmail service.

Only one program at a time can be viewed on the laptop because of its small 7.5-inch display.

Mr. Negroponte has been a globetrotting salesman for the project, winning Libya’s participation when he was summoned by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to a meeting in a desert tent on a sweltering August night. But there have also been setbacks. The Indian Education Ministry rejected a proposal to order a million computers, noting that the money could be better spent on primary and secondary education.

Mr. Negroponte said he had been re-energized by the recent arrival of the first 1,000 working prototypes. The prototypes, he said, will give him new ammunition to convince government leaders that his tiny machines can be a positive force for social development. [On a visit to Brazil on Nov. 24, Mr. Negroponte presented one of the prototypes to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.]

He said a program would be created to enable those in the developed world to underwrite a laptop for a child in a designated country and to correspond with the recipient by e-mail as a sort of “glorified pen-pal program.” But however attractive the idea of a $100 or $150 laptop, he said there were no plans to make it generally available to consumers.

“They should buy Dell’s $499 laptop for now,” he said. “Ours is really designed for developing nations — dusty, dirty, no or unreliable power and so on.”

Did anyone ask people in the third world what kind of machine they wanted? No.

Did anyone ask what kind of software they had on hand?

No.

They just want to shower this on the world and have it embraced. Gates has a point, is it what they need in the developing world. I would think addressing basic literacy might be the first point.

Bush's bitch

Yeah, like I give a fuck what you have to
say, Tony.

'London's bridge is falling down'

Tom Baldwin in Washington and Philip Webster, Political Editor
# Damning verdict on one-sided US-UK relations after Iraq
# State Department official says Blair is ignored by Bush

In a devastating verdict on Tony Blair’s decision to back war in Iraq and his “totally one-sided” relationship with President Bush, a US State Department official has said that Britain’s role as a bridge between America and Europe is now “disappearing before our eyes”.

Kendall Myers, a senior State Department analyst, disclosed that for all Britain’s attempts to influence US policy in recent years, “we typically ignore them and take no notice — it’s a sad business”.

He added that he felt “a little ashamed” at Mr Bush’s treatment of the Prime Minister, who had invested so much of his political capital in standing shoulder to shoulder with America after 9/11.

Speaking at an academic forum in Washington on Tuesday night, he answered a question from The Times, saying: “It was a done deal from the beginning, it was a onesided relationship that was entered into with open eyes . . . there was nothing. There was no payback, no sense of reciprocity.”

His remarks brought calls from British politicians last night for the special relationship to be rethought, but also attracted scathing criticism from one close supporter of the Prime Minister.

Dr Myers had hard words for his own Administration’s record in the Iraq war: “It’s a bad time, let’s face it. We have not only failed to do what we wanted to do in Iraq but we have greatly strained our relationship with [Britain].”

Dr Myers, a specialist in British politics, predicted that the tight bond between Mr Bush and Mr Blair would not be replicated in the future. “What I think and fear is that Britain will draw back from the US without moving closer to Europe. In that sense London’s bridge is falling down.”

The extraordinarily frank remarks will be seen as further evidence of the long-standing unease felt within some parts of the State Department over the direction of White House policy. They may also be an indication of the weakness of President Bush as he struggles to stop Iraq sliding into civil war and faces a Democrat-dominated Congress elected this month.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: “These remarks reflect a real sense of distaste among thinking Americans for Mr Blair’s apparent slavish support for President Bush . . . The special relationship needs to be rebalanced, rethought and renewed.”

But Denis MacShane, Labour MP for Rotherham and a former Foreign Office minister, who supported the Iraq war, said: “After the Republican defeat in the midterm election, every little rat who feasted during the Bush years is now leaving the ship. I would respect this gentleman, who I have never heard of, if he had had the guts to make any of these points two or five years ago.”

Mr. MacShane, they made those points years ago, and you didn't hear them. Blair swore he had some kind of pull with Bush, some special relationship, and he was laughing at you behind your back.

The End in Iraq pt 2

Every car a potential bomb, every roof
a potential RPG or sniper's nest.



Pick the emergency LZ

These are Google Earth images of Ramadi, a place the US does not control.

For some reason, people are allergic to maps, but since I was a Boy Scout, I love them, and nothing is better than Google Earth, not even the online Perry-Casteneda collection

Look at the first image. Every dot is a car.

And every car is a potential bomb.

Let's say, and the two sites are chosen randomly from the map, are two potential rally/evacuation points from the center of town.

The red line is the road, the white, access roads.

Blue Zone A is an open parking lot, and so is Green Zone B.

Oh, and that close up? It's of the buildings between the two lots. In peace time, a 10 minute walk, five minute drive. Now? They're pretty much isolated.

Now, A and B are on access roads. But A has low lying buildings and B has a warehouse. A has a slightly shorter flying time to the highway, which is the way out.

What you get to figure out is which will be easier to gather people in, get machines in and out and protect the landing zones for as long as needed.

Now, I have no answers. But what you need in mind is that if we have to fight our way out of Iraq, this is the kind of decisions we will have to make on the spot.

Meet the New Boss

Iraq's new president, Moqtada Al- Sadr


The New Iraqi Presidential bodyguard
(formerly known as the Mahdi Army)

Bush-Maliki Talks Are Postponed

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: November 29, 2006

AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 29 —The first meeting in a scheduled two-day summit between President Bush and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq was canceled at the last minute today, against the backdrop of threats by a radical Shiite cleric to boycott the Maliki government and the disclosure of a classified White House memo that was highly critical of Mr. Maliki.

In Amman, there were signs that President Bush would be greeted with a decidedly blunt message.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki still intend to have breakfast together here Thursday morning, and to hold a much-anticipated press conference afterward.

But a joint session planned for this evening with their Jordanian host, King Abdullah II, was abruptly called off while Mr. Bush was in the air, flying to Amman from Riga, Latvia.

Mr. Bush’s counselor, Dan Bartlett, told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One that there was no need for the three-way session, since Mr. Maliki and King Abdullah had already met earlier in the day and Mr. Bush and King Abdullah were planning to have a separate, private dinner together later in the evening.

Mr. Bartlett said the cancellation had nothing to do with disclosure of the classified memo, reported in today’s issue of The New York Times. “No one should read too much into this, except for the fact that they had a good meeting,” Mr. Bartlett said, referring to Mr. Maliki and the king.

Meanwhile in Baghdad, lawmakers and cabinet members loyal to the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr followed through today on a previous threat to boycott the government if Mr. Maliki went to Amman to meet with Mr. Bush. They said in a statement today that they were suspending their participation in both the parliament and the cabinet.

Bush goes to Jordan, indicating some level of crisis in the US-Iraqi relationship, and the Iraqi prime minister refuses to meet with him?

Who refuses to meet with the US president? When he has troops in your country and is keeping your country on life support.

Read the lame excuse a humiliated White House came up with.

Bartlett on Cancelled Maliki Meeting: ‘It Was Going To Be More of A Social Meeting Anyway’

Today’s widely anticipated meeting between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki was abruptly canceled. CNN suggests that it “was put off to Thursday after a U.S. memo cast doubt on al-Maliki’s ability to deal with the sectarian warfare in Iraq.” Bush counsellor Dan Bartlett put that speculation to rest with this clear explanation:

BARTLETT: The President is going to have a bilateral and dinner with the King of Jordan. Since the King of Jordan and Prime Minister Maliki had a bilateral themselves, earlier today, everybody believed that negated the purpose for the three of them to meet tonight, together, in a trilateral setting. So the plan, according to — since they had such a good, productive bilateral discussion, was just for the President to deal with bilateral issues and other issues with the King this evening in a dinner setting, and then the meetings set for tomorrow will still take place as scheduled.

Is that clear? No? Ok, here’s more Bartlett:

QUESTION: The King and the Prime Minister had a meeting, but the Prime Minister hasn’t seen the President since he got here, and the President changed his schedule to come here for this meeting.

BARTLETT: The President requested the meeting. This was the President requesting the meeting with the Prime Minister. And the substantive meetings on Iraq — look, they were not going to be doing a full detail discussion in a trilateral setting about Iraq and the future of Iraq and the strategy anyway, that just wouldn’t be appropriate. So it was going to be more of a social meeting anyways. But the fact that they had already had a good meeting together, felt like it negated the purpose to doing so. And the President and Prime Minister Maliki will have a very robust and lengthy dialogue tomorrow morning.

So the President flew to Jordan to have a “social meeting” with Maliki, which Maliki decided not to attend. There’s nothing more to it. That should put all the speculation to rest.

Can we cut the bullshit and admit that Sadr now runs Iraq.

Warning : politican ahead

This man is an experienced politician

Webb won't be a wallflower
by kos
Wed Nov 29, 2006 at 08:55:48 AM PST

The WaPo profiles Jim Webb.

At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia's newest senator tried to avoid President Bush. Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken with the man he had often criticized on the stump this fall. But it wasn't long before Bush found him.

"How's your boy?" Bush asked, referring to Webb's son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

"I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

"That's not what I asked you," Bush said. "How's your boy?"

"That's between me and my boy, Mr. President," Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House [...]

If the exchange with Bush two weeks ago is any indication, Webb won't be a wallflower, especially when it comes to the war in Iraq. And he won't stick to a script drafted by top Democrats.

"I'm not particularly interested in having a picture of me and George W. Bush on my wall," Webb said in an interview yesterday in which he confirmed the exchange between him and Bush. "No offense to the institution of the presidency, and I'm certainly looking forward to working with him and his administration. [But] leaders do some symbolic things to try to convey who they are and what the message is."

In the days after the election, Webb's Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill went out of their way to make nice with Bush and be seen by his side. House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sat down for a lunch and photo opportunity with Bush, as did Democratic leaders in the Senate.

Not Webb, who said he tried to avoid a confrontation with Bush at the White House reception but did not shy away from one when the president approached.

The Washington Post doesn't include Webb's desire to slug the president. Which was endearing in its own right.

But the article goes on and on about how Webb might be a liability because, well, because he's not a "polished" politician.

If he's a "liability" (inside the DC bubble), it's because Webb has a well-developed bullshit detector (soldiers develop those really quickly) and will call b.s. when he sees it. We saw that about him from day one, and it's one of the reasons the netroots was so gung-ho on drafting him into the race and into his candidacy.

That's what I want in D.C. Not more too-slick, too-polished presidential wannabees who see the Senate as a stepping stone to the White House, thus afraid to show real leadership.

OK, Webb is not some naif from the far west, this is a man with an adroit political sense combined with character. He was one of the most important Secretaries of the Navy in the post-war period and is a Hollywood producer. He knows politics.

But let's be honest. Without George Allen imploding , he'd be writing another book.

The fact is that Webb will probably be better in office than running for it. He isn't too good at making nice with people, which isn't always a bad thing.

But let's not pretend that a Navy Cross -winning, Annapolis grad and former Navy Secretary is somehow unschooled in the ways of Washington or isn't polished enough to succeed. He suceeded in publishing and the movies with people who didn't agree with anything he stood for. This is the same man who opposed Maya Lin making the Vietnam Memorial, yet has an Asian-American wife. So let's stop pretending he's Mr. Smith going to Washington.

His one sin, if it is that, is to say what he thinks, once, it was that women didn't belong in the military. Now, it's time to get his kid home. And unlike George Allen, he has the capacity to grow up.

Webb will be right on some issues, wrong on others, but let's just say he's a smart man with a proven record of character.

The launch into madness

(AP Photo/Nabil Al Jurani)
Oh, boys, they want to bring back the Baathists

Bury my heart in the Green Zone
By Pepe Escobar

.........................

Kurdish warlord-turned-politician Talabani may have been US-protected during the days of Saddam Hussein, but quite a few players in the White House and Pentagon axis will have their reasons to regard the summit in Tehran as a pure "axis of evil". As for the helpless Maliki, there's not much for Bush to lecture him about; his days in power may be numbered. According to various and persistent reports, including from Western and Arab networks, a coup d'etat may be in the works in Baghdad: the US in the Green Zone may have enlisted four of Saddam's Sunni Arab generals with the mission of toppling the Shi'ite-majority Maliki government to install a regime of "national salvation". It would then restructure the Shi'ite-dominated ministries of Defense and Interior and finish off Shi'ite militias such as the Badr Organization of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Mehdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr.

Call it the return of the Ba'athists - minus Saddam. Even before rumors of a coup began circulation, one could see the so-called diplomatic strategists of Baker's ISG coming up with the idea of trying to co-opt the resistance into entering a coalition government.

But that does not mean the plan will work. The US might invest in an Asian-style face-saving operation spun by heavy public relations by getting involved in direct negotiations with the Sunni Arab resistance. But only a Saddam-style dictator is capable of assuring a strong, stable central government in Baghdad in charge of security for everyone, with no discrimination. That would mean alienating the Shi'ite religious parties and their paramilitary factions to the limit.
.................................

A web of myth continues to be spun by much of the world's press, according to which Iran, as an overpowering entity, uses the US occupation to crush the Sunni Arab resistance while manipulating Shi'ite militias. This is a two-pronged fallacy. The Pentagon's finest in Iraq are not crushing anything - on the contrary. Al-Qaeda in Iraq has all but installed an Islamic emirate in al-Anbar province, while the Mehdi Army reigns in Kufa, south of Baghdad, and in Sadr City in Baghdad itself.

The 10,000-strong Badr Organization - affiliated with SCIRI - may have been trained by the Revolutionary Guards in Iran, but it does not take any orders from Tehran. As for Muqtada's 7,000-strong Mehdi Army, it is split into at least three different factions (two of them don't even respond to Muqtada anymore). But all of them are opposed to Iranian interference.

..................... Maliki cannot order any kind of crackdown either on the Badr or the Mehdi Army factions. According to the Islamic Party - which has the majority of parliamentarians under the Sunni Concord Front - the police and the army are totally infiltrated by Shi'ite militias. The Sadrists for their part denounce the US "return of the Ba'athists" strategy - and defend the Mehdi Army as patriots who protect Shi'ites from the takfiris (Sunni radicals).

The Maliki government won't go down quietly, though, if judged by its current diplomatic frenzy. The US for its part will accomplish absolutely nothing by trying to take down Muqtada and the Mehdi Army, or even the Badr Organization. If the Pentagon somehow decided to go on an all-out offensive, it would be very easy for SCIRI/Badr - or for Mehdi Army commandos - completely to cut off the US supply route from Kuwait to Baghdad.

What the Shi'ite Islamic parties in power and Tehran agree on is a crucial point: the Sunni Arab resistance must be vanquished. But Muqtada's position is more nuanced: as a true Iraqi nationalist, he does not rule out agreements with Sunni Arabs with the supreme objective of kicking the occupiers out. Meanwhile, the US military will keep being caught in a deadly trap - between the sprawling, underground Sunni Arab resistance and the Shi'ite militias' non-stop rampage.

The fall of the Green Zone
Everyone is guilty in the ongoing Iraq tragedy. The US-trained new Iraqi army is infiltrated by militias, by death squads and even by al-Qaeda in Iraq. The SCIRI, Da'wa and the Kurds are only worried about their own interests, not the interests of Iraq as a nation. And the US - always hiding under the dubious mantra of "Iraqi democracy" - totally evades its responsibility in provoking the appalling chaos in the first place.

Militia hell will remain impervious to any summit. Shi'ite clerical leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani may call for restraint. But Sistani does not control the Shi'ite proletarian masses anymore, Muqtada does. The Americans - attacked at least 180 times a day, every day - will keep "controlling" only one piece of real estate in the whole of Mesopotamia (although an extremely valuable one): the Green Zone
.................................
The next big step for the Sunni Arab resistance - according to sheikhs of the powerful Shammar Sunni tribe - would be to take out the Badr Organization, holed up in the Ministry of the Interior, and the two most murderous factions of the Mehdi Army. That would mean an Iraqi nationalist purge of the hated "Iranians". And that implies an all-out attack on the Green Zone.

The return of the Ba'athists and the fall of the Green Zone: now that's a prime-time double bill to knock 'em dead.

Oh, and Maliki is planning his own pogrom

Iraqi premier wants more control over his military
By Alexandra Zavis and Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writers
November 29, 2006

BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nouri Maliki will push for the U.S. military to relinquish control over his nation's security forces when he meets President Bush today to discuss a strategy to quell raging violence in Iraq, aides and political insiders said Tuesday.

Frustrated by U.S. accusations that he isn't doing enough, Maliki says his hands are tied as long as he does not have the authority to deploy forces as he sees fit. He wants Bush to accelerate the training of the army and police, fund more recruits and provide them with bigger and better weapons, lawmakers briefed by Maliki said.

The prime minister also will insist at the two-day summit in Jordan that his government should drive negotiations with Iraq's neighbors, Iran and Syria, they said.

Maliki's emboldened stand comes at a time of uncertainty for U.S. strategy in Iraq. Bush is under pressure to make changes after Democrats swept the midterm congressional election on a wave of unhappiness about the war's results.

I wouldn't considered the Mahdi Army to have a fixed number. I think if Sadr needs 70K bodies, he can get them.

But let's not forget, the US let the Shia die for stability in 1991. The Sunnis might get into the Green Zone, but the Army and police will come to evict them. With an enraged Sadr City behind them. A Baathist government cannot rule, cannot survive. Maliki may be unpopular, but the threat of a Sunni government is so great that the Shia would have to take to the streets armed to protect themselves.

One of the flaws of the Sunnis is that they believe that they are 40 percent of the population. If the US lets them try Diem II, they may find out the hard way they aren't.

Settle now or settle later

(Luis Sinco / LAT)
THIS IS WRONG’: Tennie Pierce addresses
the Los Angeles City Council with his wife, Brenda,
at his side. Standing with him at right are Willis
Edwards, a national board member of the NAACP;
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Urban Policy
Roundtable; and, at far right, Eddie Jones, president
of the L.A. Civil Rights Assn.

Firefighter settlement sharply splits council

By Steve Hymon and Jim Newton, Times Staff Writers
November 29, 2006

A torturous debate left the Los Angeles City Council sharply divided by race Tuesday as members weighed whether to restore a settlement offered to a black firefighter whose dinner had been laced with dog food.

For the first time, the council heard directly from Tennie Pierce, the target of the incident, who had filed a discrimination case against the city.

At their lawyer's recommendation, council members initially voted to pay $2.7 million to keep it from going to trial. But last week — amid a storm of public reaction — Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa vetoed the action, setting the stage for Tuesday's council session.

"Whatever anyone says about me, I've always tried to do what's right," said Pierce, holding back tears as his wife sat nearby. "This is wrong. If four black firemen did it to a white fireman, I would stand up [with] the white fireman and say it was wrong."

With a decision expected today, all three black members — Bernard C. Parks, Jan Perry and Herb Wesson — said they would vote to override the veto because the white firefighters who doctored Pierce's spaghetti committed an act that could be viewed as racist and because the city could lose more money in court.

But other members said they had come to view it as a firehouse prank, especially after photos surfaced showing Pierce taking part in hazing rituals banned by a Fire Department that has repeatedly been accused in audits and other lawsuits of subjecting blacks to hostile conditions.

...................................

Later, Councilman Greig Smith ardently argued that he believed the dog food incident was serious but not racist.

"It is wrong, it is abusive, it is dehumanizing to all races and not just African Americans," Smith said. "I'm sorry, sir. The question here today is do we pay Mr. Pierce for his charge of racism or look at it for what it is."

Councilman Parks told Pierce that his comments had "brought tears to my eyes."

Parks said he had recently spoken on "The John & Ken Show" on KFI-AM (640), whose hosts have been prominent in fighting the settlement, and "I had the great pleasure of them hanging up on me.

"I said [to them], 'When's the last time that you ate dog food?' "

Pierce suggested to the council that the pranks he participated in were good-natured and said that, when they were over, "people would hug the person and take pictures with them. What they did to me at the Fire Station 5 was wrong because it was something I did not know. My mother worked three jobs to get me where I am today. At no time did she ever feed us dog food."

Pierce said that what bothered him most was that white firefighters watched him eat. And, when he complained, the Fire Department didn't help.

Are they kidding? You really think a federal trial jury won't find this racist? Feeding him dog food, and trying to write it off as a prank?

When they get to bring in racist acts within the department? LA is getting a bargain. You can't do this in New York. The City doesn't place settlements up for a vote. I think when the price is not only losing in LA County, but probably a much larger settlement they will have to pay, this is the cheaper and smarter solution.

Drunk and pregnant

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times



The Weighty Responsibility of Drinking for Two

By JULIA MOSKIN
Published: November 29, 2006

IT happens at coffee bars. It happens at cheese counters. But most of all, it happens at bars and restaurants. Pregnant women are slow-moving targets for strangers who judge what we eat — and, especially, drink.

What amount? Signs bear a warning that some women choose to ignore.

“Nothing makes people more uncomfortable than a pregnant woman sitting at the bar,” said Brianna Walker, a bartender in Los Angeles. “The other customers can’t take their eyes off her.”

Drinking during pregnancy quickly became taboo in the United States after 1981, when the Surgeon General began warning women about the dangers of alcohol. The warnings came after researchers at the University of Washington identified Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, a group of physical and mental birth defects caused by alcohol consumption, in 1973. In its recommendations, the government does not distinguish between heavy drinking and the occasional beer: all alcohol poses an unacceptable risk, it says.

So those of us who drink, even occasionally, during pregnancy face unanswerable questions, like why would anyone risk the health of a child for a passing pleasure like a beer?

“It comes down to this: I just don’t buy it,” said Holly Masur, a mother of two in Deerfield, Ill., who often had half a glass of wine with dinner during her pregnancies, based on advice from both her mother and her obstetrician. “How can a few sips of wine be dangerous when women used to drink martinis and smoke all through their pregnancies?”

Many American obstetricians, skeptical about the need for total abstinence, quietly tell their patients that an occasional beer or glass of wine — no hard liquor — is fine.

“If a patient tells me that she’s drinking two or three glasses of wine a week, I am personally comfortable with that after the first trimester,” said Dr. Austin Chen, an obstetrician in TriBeCa. “But technically I am sticking my neck out by saying so.”

Americans’ complicated relationship with food and drink — in which everything desirable is also potentially dangerous — only becomes magnified in pregnancy.

When I was pregnant with my first child in 2001 there was so much conflicting information that doubt became a reflexive response. Why was tea allowed but not coffee? How could all “soft cheeses” be forbidden if cream cheese was recommended? What were the real risks of having a glass of wine on my birthday?

Pregnant women are told that danger lurks everywhere: listeria in soft cheese, mercury in canned tuna, salmonella in fresh-squeezed orange juice. Our responsibility for minimizing risk through perfect behavior feels vast.

Eventually, instead of automatically following every rule, I began looking for proof.

Proof, it turns out, is hard to come by when it comes to “moderate” or “occasional” drinking during pregnancy. Standard definitions, clinical trials and long-range studies simply do not exist

What happens if you're not honest about your drinking and get hammered?

Let me put it this way, if you're working class and someone sees you drinking while pregnant, you could lose your kids.

Yes, this is a class issue.

This is amusing

President Bush, a Shia-dominated
Iraq would be impossible without
you. Thank you.

As Iraq Deteriorates, Iraqis Get More Blame
U.S. Officials, Lawmakers Change Tone

By Thomas E. Ricks and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 29, 2006; Page A01

From troops on the ground to members of Congress, Americans increasingly blame the continuing violence and destruction in Iraq on the people most affected by it: the Iraqis.

Even Democrats who have criticized the Bush administration's conduct of the occupation say the people and government of Iraq are not doing enough to rebuild their society. The White House is putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group have debated how much to blame Iraqis for not performing civic duties.

This marks a shift in tone from earlier debate about the responsibility of the United States to restore order after the 2003 invasion, and it seemed to gain currency in October, when sectarian violence surged. Some see the talk of blame as the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement.

"It is the first manifestation of a 'Who lost Iraq?' argument that will likely rage for years to come," said Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University expert on terrorism who has worked as a U.S. government consultant in Iraq.

...............................

"I'm tired of nit-picking over how we should bully the Iraqis into becoming better citizens of their own country," former CIA Middle East expert Ray Close wrote in an e-mail to the other advisers to the study group.

Several other experts of various political stripes said this tendency to dump on Baghdad feels like a preamble to withdrawal.

"It's their fault, and by implication not ours, is clearly a theme that's in the air," said retired Army Col. Andrew J. Bacevich, a Vietnam veteran and longtime skeptic of the war in Iraq. It reminds him, he said, of the sour last days of the Vietnam War, when "there was a tendency to blame everything on the 'gooks' -- meaning our South Vietnamese allies who had disappointed us."

"People never understood the culture and the challenges that we faced in trying to build a new Iraq," a senior U.S. intelligence official said. "There's incredible frustration . . . but it also shows a great deal of ignorance."

Fucking morons.

Anyone with a good history book, and not a total cretin like Ken Pollack, would have known the end game in Iraq meant a Shia state allied with Iran.

Only in Bush's fantasy world did Iraqis share our interests. In reality, they wanted a Shia state and we paved the way for it.

How stupid can they be

Bush Adviser’s Memo Cites Doubts About Iraqi Leader

By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: November 29, 2006

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 — A classified memorandum by President Bush’s national security adviser expressed serious doubts about whether Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had the capacity to control the sectarian violence in Iraq and recommended that the United States take new steps to strengthen the Iraqi leader’s position.

The Nov. 8 memo was prepared for Mr. Bush and his top deputies by Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, and senior aides on the staff of the National Security Council after a trip by Mr. Hadley to Baghdad.

The memo suggests that if Mr. Maliki fails to carry out a series of specified steps, it may ultimately be necessary to press him to reconfigure his parliamentary bloc, a step the United States could support by providing “monetary support to moderate groups,” and by sending thousands of additional American troops to Baghdad to make up for what the document suggests is a current shortage of Iraqi forces. (Text of Memo)

The memo presents an unvarnished portrait of Mr. Maliki and notes that he relies for some of his political support on leaders of more extreme Shiite groups. The five-page document, classified secret, is based in part on a one-on-one meeting between Mr. Hadley and Mr. Maliki on Oct. 30.

“His intentions seem good when he talks with Americans, and sensitive reporting suggests he is trying to stand up to the Shia hierarchy and force positive change,” the memo said of the Iraqi leader. “But the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action.”

An administration official made a copy of the document available to a New York Times reporter seeking information on the administration’s policy review. The Times read and transcribed the memo.

The White House has sought to avoid public criticism of Mr. Maliki, who is scheduled to meet with Mr. Bush in Jordan on Wednesday. The latest surge of sectarian violence in Baghdad and the Democratic victories in the midterm elections are prompting calls for sharp changes in American policy. Such changes are among options being debated by the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan panel led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton.

A senior administration official discussed the memorandum in general terms after being told The New York Times was preparing an article on the subject. The official described the document as “essentially a trip report” and not a result of the administration’s review of its Iraq policy, which is still under way.

He said the purpose of the memo “was to provide a snapshot of the challenges facing Prime Minister Maliki and how we can best enhance his capabilities, mindful of the complex political and security environment in which he is operating.”

The American delegation that went to Iraq with Mr. Hadley included Meghan L. O’Sullivan, the deputy national security adviser, and three other members of the National Security Council staff. The memo, prepared after that trip, has been circulated to cabinet-level officials who are participating in the administration’s review of Iraq strategy.

There is nothing in the memo that suggests the Bush administration is interested in replacing Mr. Maliki as prime minister. But while Mr. Bush has stated that he has confidence in the Iraqi leader, the memo questions whether Mr. Maliki has the will and ability to establish a genuine unity government, saying the answer will emerge from actions he takes in the weeks and months ahead.

“We returned from Iraq convinced we need to determine if Prime Minister Maliki is both willing and able to rise above the sectarian agendas being promoted by others,” the memo says. “Do we and Prime Minister Maliki share the same vision for Iraq? If so, is he able to curb those who seek Shia hegemony or the reassertion of Sunni power? The answers to these questions are key in determining whether we have the right strategy in Iraq.”

In describing the Oct. 30 meeting between Mr. Hadley and Mr. Maliki, it says: “Maliki reiterated a vision of Shia, Sunni and Kurdish partnership, and in my one-on-one meeting with him, he impressed me as a leader who wanted to be strong but was having difficulty figuring out how to do so.” It said the Iraqi leader’s assurances seemed to have been contradicted by developments on the ground, including the Iraqi government’s approach to the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia known in Arabic as Jaish al-Mahdi and headed by Moktada al-Sadr.

“Reports of nondelivery of services to Sunni areas, intervention by the prime minister’s office to stop military action against Shia targets and to encourage them against Sunni ones, removal of Iraq’s most effective commanders on a sectarian basis and efforts to ensure Shia majorities in all ministries — when combined with the escalation of Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM) killings — all suggest a campaign to consolidate Shia power in Baghdad.”

Among the concerns voiced in the memo was that Mr. Maliki was surrounded by a small group of advisers from the Shiite Dawa Party, a narrow circle that American officials worry may skew the information he receives.

The last paragraph is fucking hillarious. Maliki has a small circle of advisors? What about Bush. Jesus fucking Christ. It's a 50-50 bet he shows up to meet Bush today. And if he does, he may not be able to go home.

All these educated people are as smart as a donkey. A newborn, mentally disabled donkey.

Why would a member of the Dawa Party want to create a Shia-dominated Iraq?

No clue, other than that's been their goal for 40 years.

Dumbasses.

Are these people making foriegn policy or are the biggest rubes on the planet?

A little discussion on air power

Ok, let's take a look at the highway south of Baghdad.

The green line is the north south road, the blue, the east west road.

The red is the areas directly lining the road and the pink are areas indirect fire weapons can
be shot from.

Now, let's say you have a convoy of a couple of hundred vehicles and you start taking fire.

So you call for the fast movers and you get an A-10. Lucky you.

So you set up the coordinates, make sure he knows you're on the highway, and call him out. He makes his gun run with that big cannon of his, everything around you on fire.

And then five minutes later, the mortars start up again and you don't see anything other than a couple of helicopters for the next five hours.

Why?

Because air support is like money, everybody wants some, but it is a finite resource. So, people think, yes, the US will do what it takes to get everyone home in a fighting retreat, but they can't carpet bomb their way home. The people they may be fighting can hide from bombs and bullets.

If there is a fighting retreat from Iraq, there will be more targets than the AF/Navy/Marines can handle.

No matter how many Air Tasking Orders are written, no matter how many CCT's are calling in strikes, they won't have enough, and they may face serious AAA opposition. All those guns sitting in depots captured after the invasion didn't go anywhere.

It could be a very ugly, desperate fight.

About that no man left behind thing......

Abandoned On The Killing Fields - No Medevac Coming

By Roger Charles

A recent IED attack has surfaced an ugly truth -- the Grunts doing the great majority of fighting and dying in Iraq are considered "more expendable" than their REMF comrades, and the people making this determination are themselves, you guessed it, REMF's!!


(Now, before I get a couple hundred emails protesting my use of "REMF's as disparaging of some of our military who are themselves at risk, let me make this point. There is "risk" back in an FOB, no question. Is it the same risk as those who work outside the FOB? Don't think so. Is risk outside the FOB spread evenly? No -- go to one of the infantry companies in Ramadi, or Fallujah, and then compare that risk with someone running convoys between Ramadi and Baghdad. Not the same, but one hell of a lot more than someone back in the TOC at the FOB. And, I fully appreciate the risk faced by our Combat Engineers as they clear roads, and our EOD studs as they deal with IED's/EFP's. A special salute to our Combat Medics/Corpsmen out in the killings fields while I'm at it. And, the drivers who haul ass through IED Avenue -- you've damn sure got my respect!! But,bottom line -- if I've offended anyone who has dodged the occasional mortar shell in route to Burger King, or who has to make do with a 36-inch plasma tv while others, in the Green Zone in Baghdad have 42-inch sets, then I don't apologize. If you want me to place you in the same category as The Grunts, change MOS's! Until then, have the intellectual honesty to admit that REMF's are not deserving of the same respect given to Hack's "Warriors," even if you get the same "Imminent Danger Pay." Let me make it clear that while I respect all who serve our great nation, I am not blind to the reality that not all who serve, share the same threat of death, or of crippling or maiming wounds. And, as to who is a REMF, and who is not -- it's between you and your conscience. If the "shoe" fits, wear it.)

So, imagine this scenario -- you and your buddies have finished another day of training Iraqi troops and are headed back to your FOB (Forward Operating Base) when an especially nasty IED (in the form of EFP, an "Explosively Formed Projectile") explodes into the lead Humvee in your column of three.

The blast is strong enough to flip the Humvee into the air, landing in a ditch on it's top.

Here's what happened, in the words of America's Grunts who where there.


To: Soldiers For the Truth

From: The NCOs of the 4th INP Brigade SPTT Team

The 4/1 SPPT Team was traveling back from Salman Pak to Camp Rustamiyah along EFP alley (RTE Pluto South) on Sunday May 14th about 5:15pm in a 3 vehicle convoy. About 3 miles from Camp Rustamiyah, the first Humvee was hit by a massive roadside bomb called an EFP. The bomb blew the HUMVEE into the air and created a giant cloud of debris, dirt and pavement. We stopped as fast as we could and when the smoke cleared enough, we could see the first HUMVEE had been completely blown off the road and was lying upside down in a ditch. To make matters worse it was also on fire. The rest of the team tried to free the driver and vehicle commander from the wreckage but the frame of the HUMVEE was bent and the door would not open. The two soldiers in the front were trapped inside the burning vehicle and died. We could only pray that they were already dead from the EFP blast and did not burn to death. We tried to pull the front doors off with a winch and a tow strap, but the burning ammunition inside the wreck started to explode and the entire vehicle caught fire and blew up. The gunner was pulled from the wreckage and was severely wounded with shrapnel wounds from the spalling. The Medic with the SPTT Team was able to start working on the gunner to save his life and we gave the interpreter aid as best as we could. A MEDIVAC was immediately called for the litter urgent and critical soldier and the QRF rolled from the FOB. About 10 minutes later the tanks and HUMVEES of the QRF got there and secured the area. What happened at this point is what we need your help with.

The MEDIVAC was denied because we could not guarantee the LZ was not hot. Even with the QRF securing the area, the MEDIVAC was not launched. We were told we had to transport the severely wounded soldier and interpreter back to the FOB, have the aid station stabilize them and the MEDIVAC would then fly to the FOB to pick them up. To complicate matters the QRF did not have an ambulance with them, because the medical until will not roll any of the 20 odd HUMVEE and M113 combat ambulances with the QRF because it is too dangerous outside the FOB. We had to put the soldier in a HUMVEE and drive him to the FOB, where the chicken shit medics were waiting inside the FOB gate to transport him, via ambulance to the TMC. Thank God this soldier is still alive and on his way to Landstuhl. The two soldiers were eventually pulled from the wreckage after a HEMMIT with a tank pump unit put out the fire that engulfed the wrecked HUMVEE. It took the HEMMIT almost an hour to get to the site, 3 miles away from the FOB, because the KBR contracted Fire Department and EMT unit refused to leave the FOB, because their contract states they will ONLY work within the protection of the FOB.

Their brand new fire engines and rescue vehicles were waiting inside the gate when we finally towed the wrecked HUMVEE back. By the time the HEMMIT arrived, both soldiers were burned beyond recognition. to the point where their own wives could not recognize them. Last night at 1:00am in the morning, we loaded the body bags on a helicopter to BIOP and to start their trip home

When we asked why the MEDIVAC would not land on a secured LZ to MEDIVAC the critically wounded soldier, we were told �the policy is that we cannot afford to lose a Blackhawk and crew flying into potentially hostile LZ.� We work in Salman Pak, which is almost an hour southeast of Baghdad. If a soldier is wounded, we are expected to self evac him back to Rustamiyah because �it is too dangerous to send a MEDIVAC, Ambulance or M113 combat medic vehicle (even if it is with the QRF). From he time we landed in Kuwait and after we arrived in Iraq, we were given MEDIVAC procedure cards and even given a MEDIVAC Freq . We were told that all we had to do is call and follow the procedures on the card and a MEDIVAC would be launched. This is BOGUS! ALL Soldiers need to know that unless they are at a FOB, the MEDIVAC will not be launched. Fire departments, EMT, combat medic vehicles, field ambulances all have orders not to leave the FOB because it is to :�dangerous.� The reality is if you are wounded, you are SOL until your own unit puts you into a HUMVEE and you get back to the FOB.
Please help us contact [deleted] about this policy. 4th ID is telling us that �this is just the way things are.� That, �these things happen.� We need your help before this is swept under the rug.

OK, this means two things. One, 11B's are stuck in the sandbox and their bosses are too scared to dust them off. POG's as they call them, seem to be more valuable than grunts. So no one is going to send out a shiny helo to catch an RPG round.

People die over things like this and not just from wounds. Imagine your best friend dies because they didn't launch a dustoff. Your reaction might not be entirely rational.

In Vietnam, fragging started when people could no longer trust their superiors to act in their best interests. The same with combat refusals.

There is another, far more ominous implication here. US units only control as far as their guns can shoot. When commanders are afraid they can't protect dustoffs from ambush, much less an M113, whatever Bush is telling you about Iraq is a total and complete lie. It's easy to say gutless fucking POG's, but the reality is that they cannot secure those vehicles from ambush because they don't have enough armor or men.

And that is truly scary

So, how was Argentina?

Iraq? Is that a new nightclub?

G.W Asks About Webb's Son. Webb wants to 'slug him'.
by LieparDestin [Subscribe]
Tue Nov 28, 2006 at 05:02:06 PM PST

This is another of those stories that I stay out of the way with my commentary/snark and let the story speak for itself:

From The Hill

President Bush has pledged to work with the new Democratic majorities in Congress, but he has already gotten off on the wrong foot with Jim Webb, whose surprise victory over Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) tipped the Senate to the Democrats

Webb, a decorated former Marine officer, hammered Allen and Bush over the unpopular war in Iraq while wearing his son’s old combat boots on the campaign trail. It seems the president may have some lingering resentment.

At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

“I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,” Bush retorted, according to the source.

Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t. It’s safe to say, however, that Bush and Webb won’t be taking any overseas trips together anytime soon.

Sorry for the shortness, etc, but the content speaks volumes

Bush is clueless.