Same circus, same clowns, different costumes

changing up the defense, CIA and afghan teams...

Administration sources say President Barack Obama plans this week to name CIA Director Leon Panetta to replace Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Gen. David Petraeus, now running the war in Afghanistan, would take the CIA chief's job.

The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because the changes are not final.

The changes would probably take effect this summer. Gates has already said he will leave this year.

The officials say Obama is expected to also announce that Lt. Gen. John Allen would replace Petraeus as Afghanistan commander, and that diplomat Ryan Crocker will be the next U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan.

The changes are expected to be announced Thursday at the White House.

anybody see any real change here...? hmmmmm... didn't think so...

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Hilarious...! Chinese reverse engineering...

hey... you gotta admire the chinese... they can sure figure things out... u.s. stealth technology was adapted from technology developed by the germans in the last years of wwii (another interesting story, i'm sure) and first put into regular use in the early 70s, although rumors are that it was in use even prior to that... but it only took the chinese slightly over 10 years to take what the u.s. had and make it part of their own defense arsenal... the biggest slap in the face was introducing it as secretary gates was making his big visit to china a couple of weeks ago and just prior to hu jintao's visit to d.c. this past week... no fools, those chinese...

Chinese officials recently unveiled a new, high-tech stealth fighter that could pose a significant threat to American air superiority — and some of its technology, it turns out, may well have come from the U.S. itself.

Balkan military officials and other experts have told The Associated Press that in all probability the Chinese gleaned some of their technological know-how from an American F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999.

Nighthawks were the world's first stealth fighters, planes that were very hard for radar to detect. But on March 27, 1999, during NATO's aerial bombing of Serbia in the Kosovo war, a Serbian anti-aircraft missile shot one of the Nighthawks down. The pilot ejected and was rescued.

It was the first time one of the much-touted "invisible" fighters had ever been hit. The Pentagon believed a combination of clever tactics and sheer luck had allowed a Soviet-built SA-3 missile to bring down the jet.

The wreckage was strewn over a wide area of flat farmlands, and civilians collected the parts — some the size of small cars — as souvenirs.

"At the time, our intelligence reports told of Chinese agents crisscrossing the region where the F-117 disintegrated, buying up parts of the plane from local farmers," says Adm. Davor Domazet-Loso, Croatia's military chief of staff during the Kosovo war.

yep, the chinese are definitely slick operators...

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More on tomorrow's Wikileaks document dump

when i posted last night about the upcoming wikileaks document dump, i figured glenn would have something to say about it... then this morning, in my usual browsing of news sites, i noticed the story about gates saying nothing was compromised in the previous release this past july... however, leave it to glenn to make the connection between the propaganda that flooded the media after the july dump and gates' admission and, as always, document the hell out of it... guess that's why he's writing a column in salon and not me, eh...?

so, now let's see what happens tomorrow...

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Sickening

Robert Gates and Stanley McChrystal
(AFP/Jim Watson)

the spectacle of one of the super-rich elites' puppet masters heaping praise on the poor bastards who are giving their lives so that the super-rich can become even richer while those whose lives are on the line will very likely remain trapped forever in the poor underclass makes me want to run to the toilet and regurgitate my bran cereal and fruit breakfast...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FRONTENAC, Afghanistan – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a hard-hit battle unit Tuesday that its heavy losses have helped the U.S. begin to push back against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

Gates visited a small, remote outpost 30 miles north of Kandahar, where the Fort Lewis, Washington-based Stryker unit has lost 22 men and suffered an additional 62 wounded since arriving here last summer.

The latest injuries came Monday night, and the latest death three days ago.

Gates praised the 800-soldier unit and told the troops that as the fight shifts toward securing Kandahar itself later this year, they will again be "at the top of the spear."

so there gates sits, telling these guys that their nation is ever so grateful that they're dying, all the while knowing that, among those he's talking to, several more will undoubtedly die, some within days... how can a deceitful bastard like that look himself in the mirror in the morning...?

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Well, Shut My Mouth

The half-life of American Stupidity has to be somewhere around a million years.

"I will fight my brothers and cousins, but I will stand beside them to fight off the infidels."
~An old Muslim saying

As the U.S Government, via the Pentagon, continues to piss away billions of American Taxpayer dollars each month, the WaPo has this story.

Gates, in unannounced trip, urges Pakistan to expand crackdown against Taliban

RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made an unannounced trip here Thursday to urge Pakistan to expand its crackdown against the Taliban as well as to counter skepticism about the Obama administration's new war strategy for Afghanistan.

Soon after the Pentagon chief landed, however, the Pakistani military declared it was not yet prepared to send more troops into the rebellious tribal area of North Waziristan, home to a leading Taliban faction and a suspected hideout for al-Qaeda commanders.

Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the chief spokesman for the Pakistani military, said it would take at least "six months to a year" to mount an army offensive in North Waziristan. He said the military was preoccupied with counterinsurgency operations launched last year in neighboring South Waziristan and the Swat Valley, two other Taliban strongholds.

"At present, we are not in a position to get overstretched," Abbas told reporters traveling with Gates.

Gates, on his first trip to Pakistan in three years, praised Islamabad for launching a ground offensive in South Waziristan in October and for deploying 140,000 troops along the Afghan border. But he said Pakistan needed to crack down equally against all factions of the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups.

"The reality [is] that you can't ignore one part of this cancer and pretend that it won't have some impact closer to home," Gates said. Pakistan has been reluctant to act against fighters who cross into Afghanistan and India but don't cause trouble domestically. One faction that has largely avoided the crackdown is the Haqqani network, a North Waziristan-based militia that regularly targets U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

My favorite part, and hence, the post title:

Asked why the Pakistani military has not clamped down on the Haqqanis, Abbas noted that the network, led by Pashtun warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani, has an equally large presence in Afghanistan. "Why hasn't the U.S. been able to detect Haqqani and target him there?" he said.

Hmmmmm......I wonder why the reporters didn't press Gates to answer Abbas' question? Damn Liberal Media.

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Hmmm... Do ya s'pose Gates and the Pentagon are trying to do an end run on Obama's Afghanistan policy review...?

kinda sounds like gates might just be offering his government career up as a whole burnt offering by essentially saying that, regardless of what his boss decides, he's already decided the troops stay in afghanistan... am i reading this correctly...?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates blamed the Taliban's revival on a past failure to deploy enough troops to Afghanistan and said U.S. forces would not withdraw whatever the result of President Barack Obama's strategy review.

"We are not leaving Afghanistan. This discussion is about next steps forward and the president has some momentous decisions to make," Gates said in a TV program taped at George Washington University on Monday and being aired by CNN on Tuesday.

oh, yeah, "the president has some momentous decisions to make," all right, but, in the meanwhile, lemme tell ya what they're gonna be... listen up, barack, m'boy...

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Fiddling While Rome Burns

I feel like Yogi Berra. "This is like deja vu all over again".

As the tensions build in the Georgia/Russia conflict, it seems the bloggers are working harder for a resolution than our government officials.

For the first 5 days, Secretary of State, Condiliesalot Rice, couldn't be bothered, because she was on vacation. Fercryinoutloud, this kind of situation is exactly what the Secretary of State's job is all about.

Since she is a pianist, I'm assuming she's accompanying the Three Fiddlers, Bush, Cheney, and Gates.

The WaPo did it's journalistic fiddling with the story, After Warnings to Moscow, U.S. Has Few Options, burying it on page A-11.

President Bush announced the start of a humanitarian aid program for Georgia using U.S. military airplanes and ships, although officials said the effort so far includes only two scheduled flights. One shipment arrived later yesterday and another is to land today. He also dispatched Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for a diplomatic trip that will take her to Paris and then to Georgia's capital of Tbilisi to show "America's unwavering support."

"The United States stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia," Bush said during an appearance at the White House. "We insist that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia be respected."

Then, further into the story, 'ole Johnny proves, once again, that his brain and his mouth reside on opposite ends of the continent.

McCain, speaking to reporters in Birmingham, Mich., also praised Bush's announcement but said he was concerned the cease-fire did not do enough to guarantee Georgia's "territorial integrity."

"I'm interested in good relations between the United States and Russia," he said. "But in the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations.''

He has mastered his proclivity for speaking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time. With all his fiery rhetoric against Russia for the last 5 or 6 days, the first part of that statement is laughable, at best. As for the second part, is he saying that March 19, 2003 is not in the 21st century? Or is he saying the United States, Afghanistan, and Iraq, are not considered nations?

The best part of this buried story is buried in the final paragraphs.

Bush said he spoke yesterday morning with Saakashvili and with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who brokered the cease-fire agreement. Rice will have lunch with Sarkozy at an official summer residence in the south of France, then will stay overnight in Paris before traveling to Georgia, officials said.

Apparently, Paris must have some great shoe sales going on, or she's afraid they don't sell Ferragamos in Tbilisi.

The haste with which Rice's trip was put together -- the decision was made at the White House yesterday morning just before Bush emerged in the Rose Garden -- meant that the Boeing 757 aircraft normally used by the secretary of state was unavailable. Vice President Cheney used it yesterday for a fundraising trip to Colorado, and Rice was relegated to a smaller Air Force C-40, with limits on staff, security and reporters, officials said.

The conflict in Georgia also upended Bush's travel plans. He decided to postpone by one or two days a planned vacation beginning today at his ranch in Crawford, Tex.

But Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is overseeing the aid efforts, plans to proceed with his vacation at the end of the week, the senior defense official said. He is not scheduled to return to the Pentagon until almost Labor Day.

So Cheney misappropriates the 757 for a fundraiser in Denver. Bush, who just got back from his Volleyball Back-Slapping Vacation in Beijing, sacrificially postpones the second half of his vacation in Crawford for a day or two. And Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates of Hell goes on vacation till Labor Day.

................and Rome continues to burn.

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The Washington Post won't provide context even from their OWN newspaper, even when it's from YESTERDAY

god, it's SO-O-O-O-OOO ANNOYING...!

on page one of today's edition, gates says...

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says that even winning the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will not end the "Long War" against violent extremism and that the fight against al-Qaeda and other terrorists should be the nation's top military priority over coming decades, according to a new National Defense Strategy he approved last month.

yeah, ok, we're all familiar with the "Long War"/endless war rhetoric... it's been shoved down our collective throats for years as the no-argument excuse for lining the pockets of defense contractors and bush cronies, shredding the constitution, stripping our civil liberties, justifying torture, collecting mountains of private information on everyone and everything, and perpetrating abuses unimaginable in what we thought was the land of liberty and justice for all... but yesterday, in this very newspaper on page 4, it was revealed that the rand corporation, not exactly a bastion of peace-loving, dope-smoking hippies, had this to say...

The Bush administration's terrorism-fighting strategy has not significantly undermined al-Qaeda's capabilities, according to a major new study that argues the struggle against terrorism is better waged by law enforcement agencies than by armies.

The study by the nonpartisan Rand Corp. also contends that the administration committed a fundamental error in portraying the conflict with al-Qaeda as a "war on terrorism." The phrase falsely suggests that there can be a battlefield solution to terrorism, and symbolically conveys warrior status on terrorists, it said.

[...]

"In most cases, military force isn't the best instrument," said Jones, a terrorism expert and the report's lead author.

Addressing the U.S. campaign against al-Qaeda, the study noted successes in disrupting terrorist financing, but said the group remains a formidable foe. Al-Qaeda is "strong and competent," and has succeeded in carrying out more violent attacks since Sept. 11, 2001, than in all of its previous history. Moreover, its organizational structure has adapted and evolved over time, "making it a more dangerous enemy," Jones and Libicki wrote.

The authors call for a strategy that includes a greater reliance on law enforcement and intelligence agencies in disrupting the group's networks and in arresting its leaders. They say that when military forces are needed, the emphasis should be on local troops, which understand the terrain and culture and tend to have greater legitimacy.

very interesting, no...? but did the high potentates who exercise the ever-so-thorough oversight on the news that gets printed in the wapo see fit to mention THAT in the gates article...? of course not... so, the very day after the rand corporation story is published, decrying the entire notion of the "Long War," our secretary of defense bald-facedly declares that we're not only fighting the "Long War," but that it will continue on for DECADES, without ONE SINGLE MENTION of what the very same newspaper published the day before...

yeah, i know... it's not news to anyone that our news media practices propaganda instead of journalism, nor is it news that they pretend that what they reported as news yesterday is somehow irrelevant to today, but it's still shocking to see such a graphic display of dishonesty, to say nothing of a goddam shame...

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What's going on here?

i'm not sure i believe any of these official stories... somethin's up... each one of these is big news all by itself but, in every one, the story is either being underplayed or the explanation seems fishy - or both...

why is gates firing top generals...? yeah, i know what it SAYS, but there's more to this than meets the eye...

Gates ousts Air Force leaders in historic shake-up

Defense Secretary Robert Gates ousted the Air Force's top military and civilian leaders Thursday, holding them to account in a historic Pentagon shake-up after embarrassing nuclear mix-ups.

Gates announced at a news conference that he had accepted the resignations of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne — a highly unusual double firing.

Gates said his decision was based mainly on the damning conclusions of an internal report on the mistaken shipment to Taiwan of four Air Force electrical fuses for ballistic missile warheads. And he linked the underlying causes of that slip-up to another startling incident: the flight last August of a B-52 bomber that was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

this next one is equally explosive and, natch, hasn't even been covered in u.s. news media...

US issues threat to Iraq's $50bn foreign reserves in military deal

The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.

US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.

Iraq's foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq's funds would lose this immunity. The cost to Iraq of this happening would be the immediate loss of $20bn. The US is able to threaten Iraq with the loss of 40 per cent of its foreign exchange reserves because Iraq's independence is still limited by the legacy of UN sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the 1990s. This means that Iraq is still considered a threat to international security and stability under Chapter Seven of the UN charter. The US negotiators say the price of Iraq escaping Chapter Seven is to sign up to a new "strategic alliance" with the United States.

The threat by the American side underlines the personal commitment of President George Bush to pushing the new pact through by 31 July. Although it is in reality a treaty between Iraq and the US, Mr Bush is describing it as an alliance so he does not have to submit it for approval to the US Senate.

Iraqi critics of the agreement say that it means Iraq will be a client state in which the US will keep more than 50 military bases. American forces will be able to carry out arrests of Iraqi citizens and conduct military campaigns without consultation with the Iraqi government. American soldiers and contractors will enjoy legal immunity.

The US had previously denied it wanted permanent bases in Iraq, but American negotiators argue that so long as there is an Iraqi perimeter fence, even if it is manned by only one Iraqi soldier, around a US installation, then Iraq and not the US is in charge.

The US has security agreements with many countries, but none are occupied by 151,000 US soldiers as is Iraq. The US is not even willing to tell the government in Baghdad what American forces are entering or leaving Iraq, apparently because it fears the government will inform the Iranians, said an Iraqi source.

then, there's this last one which only serves to tell me that the financial/economic collapse that seemed imminent only a couple of months ago hasn't gone away...

Banks fear new $5,000bn balance burden

Accounting changes could force US banks to take thousands of billions of dollars back on to their balance sheets in the coming months in a move that is likely to curb further their lending and could push them into new capital raisings, analysts have warned.

Analysts at Citigroup said a planned tightening of the rules regarding off-balance sheet vehicles would force banks to reconsider arrangements and could result in up to $5,000bn of assets coming back on to the books.

The off-balance sheet vehicles have been used by financial institutions to keep some assets off their balance sheets, thereby avoiding the need to hold regulatory capital against them.

i was hoping the article would give me some more information about these "accounting changes" other than broad general strokes... ('course, if it had, i probably wouldn't have understood it anyway...)

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Deja Vu All Over Again

This AP story could have come from William Shirer's, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. These clowns are following it like it was an NFL Playbook. They think Hitler had the right idea, they can just do it better.

Congressman Questions DOD Presence

Dem. Congressman claims generals watched House vote, demands to know why.

ERICA WERNER
AP News
May 16, 2008 14:57 EST

An anti-war Democratic congressman is demanding to know why there were uniformed Defense Department personnel watching House proceedings from a public gallery Thursday, who they were and what they were doing.

"If they were here on official duty, this was an abhorrent misallocation of our military resources at a time of war," Northern California Rep. Pete Stark asserted Friday in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Stark, an 18-term incumbent known for his liberal positions and outbursts of temper, said he observed the contingent of 20 or so officers, apparently Army generals, in the gallery for a couple of hours while the House debated and voted on an Iraq war spending bill.

"At a time when our nation is at war, our troops are overextended, and the administration is literally asking for emergency military spending, what good to the 'war on terror' is having U.S. generals and other top-ranked officers — who were likely accompanied by staff and escorted by their chauffeurs — spending hours sitting in the gallery of the House of Representatives?" Stark asked.

[...]

Stark said he didn't have a problem if the military personnel were there on their own time, but if they were there on official duty he wanted to know why. He asked Gates for an accounting by Monday of the name, rank, branch and duties of each of the officers as well as how many staff members and drivers were involved.

Good luck with that Congressman. You might have more success writing a letter to Santa Claus.

Thanks, and a tip 'o the hat to:
Betmo at Life's Journey

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Parking a U.S. aircraft carrier right off your shores is only a "REMINDER"? Bollocks...!

yeah, yeah... "they" "say" a lot of things, but since when does what "they" "say" have anything to do with what "they" "do"...?

The U.S. Navy has temporarily added a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf as a "reminder" to Iran, but this was not an escalation of American forces in the region, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters during a trip to Mexico, Gates flatly denied a suggestion that the presence of two U.S. carriers in the Gulf could be a precursor to military action against Tehran.

"This deployment has been planned for a long time," Gates said. "I don't think we'll have two carriers there for a protracted period of time. So I don't see it as an escalation. I think it could be seen, though, as a reminder."

He declined to elaborate on his remarks and provided no details about the deployment.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the second carrier arrived in the Gulf on Tuesday to replace one on duty that was expected to depart the region in two days.

for one thing, the gulf is a small area... even ONE carrier plus all the ships that comprise a carrier battle group parked in the gulf where there's an honest-to-god transit point that's so narrow that it doesn't even contain any international water* (see below), takes up one hell of a lot of space...

* Strait of Hormuz

Ships moving through the Strait follow a Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS), which separates inbound from outbound traffic to reduce the risk of collision. The traffic lane is six miles (10 km) wide, including two two-mile (3 km)-wide traffic lanes, one inbound and one outbound, separated by a two-mile (3 km) wide separation median.

To traverse the Strait, ships pass through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman under the transit passage provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.[1] Although not all states have ratified the convention,[4] most states, including the U.S.,[5] accept these customary navigation rules as codified in the Convention.

stop and think about this for just a minute... check out the google earth image of the bay of fundy below... now, imagine a russian aircraft carrier on station in the middle, complete with all the ships that make up a carrier battle group... got that...? what do you think the canadian government would think of it...? what do you think the u.s. government would think of it...? how about the residents of nova scotia...? of new brunswick...? of maine...? what do you think of the possibility that it could ever happen before the first snowfall in hell...?



what's endlessly fascinating to me is that we in the u.s. don't stop for a second to think about the over-the-top arrogance of our own country sending an aircraft carrier and an entire carrier battle group to park right in the middle of half a dozen other countries as though we owned the entire chunk of real estate ourselves... imagine the shoe on the other foot...

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Why are we not surprised that Bush would nominate a toady like Petraeus to replace Fallon?

as gagging as it is to see, could anyone possibly have doubted that george bush would replace an honest-to-god, professional, integrity-filled military man with a propaganda-spewing shill whose lips are permanently attached to his ass...?

Gen. David H. Petraeus, who has commanded United States troops in Iraq for the past year, will be nominated to head the United States Central Command, which oversees military operations across a wide swath of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced on Wednesday.

Mr. Gates said that he and President Bush and settled on the four-star general for the post because he is best suited to oversee American operations, not just in Iraq but also in Afghanistan and other areas where the United States is engaged in “assymetric” warfare, a euphemism for battling terrorists and non-uniformed combatants.

“I am absolutely convinced he is the best man for the job,” Mr. Gates said.

The necessary paperwork to make General Petraeus’s new assignment a reality will be speeded to the White House, and from there to the Senate, where the Secretary said he is confident of quick confirmation.

and in the 13th paragraph of a 13-paragraph story, the nyt reluctantly reminds us of petraeus' successor and why he was unexpectedly and unceremoniously cashiered...

The previous Central Command chief, Adm. William J. Fallon, was ushered into retirement in March after rankling the Bush administration with public comments that seemed to suggest an emphasis on diplomacy over confrontation in dealing with Iran.

george bush is such a flaming asshole...

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The WaPo catapults the Bush administration Iran propaganda on page 1

what kind of hidden perks and bennies do you suppose the wapo reaps for splashing bush administration spin and talking points all over its front page...? there simply HAVE to be some, wouldn't you agree...?

Last week's violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials.

Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran's "malign" influence, the officials said.

The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.

she-e-e-e-eeeit, vern, you don't think they just GOTTA manufacture reasons to stay in iraq and to attack iran, do ya...? huh...? do ya...?

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Shit... Fallon resigns... Goddam George W. Bush...

from defense tech...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that Admiral William Fallon, the top U.S. military commander for the Middle East, is resigning.

Gates said Fallon had asked Gates for permission to retire and that Gates agreed.

Fallon was the subject of an article published last week in Esquire magazine that portrayed him as opposed to President Bush's Iran policy. It described Fallon as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

Fallon has had a 41-year Navy career. He took the Central Command post on March 16, 2007, succeeding Army Gen. John Abizaid, who retired. Fallon previously served as commander of U.S. Pacific Command.

Fallon released a statement blaming his quotes from the Esquire piece as the reason for his resignation and President Bush put out his own statemement praising Fallon's service. Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who was the head of Iraqi army training before becoming the CENTCOM number two, will take over in the interim.

Methinks the Esquire interview was 100 percent intentional and that he contemplated this move beforehand. But that's just me...

what a crock o'shit...

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A new low of cynicism at the NYT

whether it was intended that way or not, the following headline and the accompanying teaser on this op-ed in today's nyt strikes me as unrelievedly cynical...

Gates, Truth and Afghanistan

The fact that Defense Secretary Robert Gates was permitted the candor that he demonstrated last week is a measure of how bad things have gotten in Afghanistan. [emphasis added]

gates was PERMITTED to engage in candor...?? lord, i never thought i'd read a comment like that about a united states cabinet member...

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Our troops: stealing to survive

i just got back from the va hospital where i had an appointment this morning to have blood drawn in preparation for a regular check-up next week... the lab there manages to do a pretty damn good job processing what i imagine must be at least a hundred or more folks a day... i had brought along a book and, even though i wasn't anticipating a long wait, i figured i could move ahead a bit in my latest cyber-punk novel... i couldn't concentrate on the reading, however, because these two guys across from me were having a conversation that could easily be heard well into the next room... it's when the conversation took this turn that i started to unobtrusively pay attention...

both guys, as it so happened, had served in different parts of alaska, and both had assignments that required them to visit remote areas to inspect and service radar and other electronic surveillance stations... the interesting part, for me, was that both of them were taking turns topping each other's stories about how much government stuff, mostly gas and oil, they were able to steal without getting caught... one guy talked about driving his official car by his house near elemendorf afb and stopping to siphon gas into his private vehicle... the other bragged about stopping by a storage depot late at night and filling 50-gallon drums with motor oil and then selling it to friends and acquaintances... "everybody did it, nobody gave a shit," one of them said... "how else are you gonna make it on what they pay you..."

i drove home and it just now hit me... those guys have the very same mindset that those running kbr, halliburton, blackwater, and lockheed martin have... yeah, and probably cheney and gates too... the big difference...? they saw themselves as stealing to survive... but if they were suddenly plopped down in senior exec positions in one of those companies, would they behave any differently...?

This is my country! Land of my birth!
This is my country! Grandest on earth!
I pledge thee my allegiance,
America, the bold,
For this is my country to have and to hold.

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Turkey says that the U.S. is assisting in Turkish raids on northern Iraq

well, well, well... let's see if THIS grows any legs...

Turkey's air strikes against Kurdish rebels in Iraq on Sunday were approved by the United States in advance, the Turkish military has said.

The country's top general, Yasar Buyukanit, said the US opened northern Iraqi airspace for the operation.

Jets targeted the Kurdish rebel PKK in areas near the border. The Turkish media said up to 50 planes were used.

Iraqi officials said the bombs hit 10 villages, leaving one woman dead, while the PKK reported seven deaths.

The Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, told the BBC that his government had told the Turkish ambassador in Baghdad that the air strikes were "unacceptable".

can't you just hear gates squawking, "we TOLD 'em to keep their damn mouths SHUT..."

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At $500M a minute, Gates requests biggest war funding yet

war, war, war, war, and semi-trailer trucks full of money to support it...

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates asked Congress yesterday to approve an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the Bush administration's 2008 war funding request to nearly $190 billion -- the largest single-year total for the wars so far.

[...]

The administration's funding request -- which came on the same day that the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of a nonbinding resolution calling for the split of Iraq into three semiautonomous regions -- would boost war spending this year by nearly 15 percent and would bring the total cost of both conflicts to more than $800 billion since Sept. 11, 2001, according to the Congressional Research Service.

and, to add an unfortunate note to the story, it was accompanied by this photo of troops training for iraq at ft. riley, kansas... note what i assume is a mannequin or dummy in the background, dressed (again, i assume) as an al qaeda terrorist...

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Bush visits our 51st state, Iraq, and disses Maliki in the process

he sends gates to meet with the iraqi bigwigs first while he zips in and out of a u.s. airbase... some pretty potent buried messages here, methinks... first of all, it's a desperate move... he needs the media exposure and p.r... secondly, it's a clear middle finger to maliki... thirdly, zooming in and out of a u.s. airbase in a foreign country that is under u.s. occupation and NOT going to baghdad only serves to reinforce the view generally held by a majority of people around the world that iraq is really a u.s. possession, and does not act as its own country...

President Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq on Monday, using the war zone as a backdrop to argue his case that the buildup of U.S. troops is helping stabilizing the nation.

The president secretly flew 11 hours to Iraq as a showdown nears with Congress over whether his decision in January to order 30,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq is working.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived ahead of Bush, and convened a meeting with the country's top political leaders to highlight Bush administration hopes for prodding Iraq into a "bottom-up" approach to national reconciliation.

[...]

Bush and his national security team flew directly to this air base in a remote part of Anbar province, bypassing Baghdad in a symbolic expression of impatience with political paralysis in the nation's capital. The gesture underscored the U.S. belief that the spark for progress may come at the local level.

and we wonder why they hate us...

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Update on Gitmo

well, it was a mildly uplifting thought for a fleeting moment...

“No decisions on the future of Guantanamo Bay are imminent, and there will not be a White House meeting tomorrow,” White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said in response to a report by the Associated Press.

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