Irony Alert: "Surge" Boosted Obama More Than McCain

Iraq "surge" success aided Obama by de-emphasizing Commander-In-Chief bona fides as a prerequisite for the next Prez. WaPo explains.

-AF

There's A Sand Shortage In Iraq.

Stephen Colbert interviews 2001 Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. He co-authored The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict published earlier this year. Mr. Stiglitz tells of military contractors screwing US out of even more money by shipping sand from Kuwait to Iraq. To which Stephen Colbert replies:

"Wow! That's like shipping bullshit to Washington!"

Oy. Stiglitz details how the money we've spent on the Iraq War and on subsequent "reconstruction" attempts would have been better spent here at home on measures that would have prevented the current US economic crisis.

-AF

They Said It. I Repeat It.

“It must have been a challenge for him to walk so confidently with Woodward's lips attached to his backside."

Bloomberg book critic Craig Seligman describes Bob Woodward's portrayal of George W. Bush in the newly released The War Within.

-AF
(HT: Raw Story)

ASIAF Exclusive: John McCain Hand Picks Recruits For His 100-Year War

VA Sec. James Peake Is A Huge Asshole

He's dumber than dirt too. Via Think Progress:

Over the weekend, Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake visited Alaska with Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). While there, they met with Vietnam veteran John Guinn, who questioned the Secretary about the growing problem of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) amongst veterans. Instead of addressing Guinn’s concerns, Peake dismissed them:

VA secretary Peake suggested some of the concern about post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury has been overblown.

Many of the brain injuries are serious but some of them are akin to what anyone who played football in their youth might have suffered, Peake told Guinn.

Guinn wasn’t entirely satisfied with the answers. He said it’s a real issue for returning soldiers as well as their families, and he doesn’t think job training is enough.

On Saturday, Peake also said that many vets with PTSD may just need “a little counseling” and shouldn’t “need the PTSD label their whole lives.”

Despite his 40+ year military career, retired US Army Surgeon General Peake has proven he not only knows nothing about veterans but he also knows jack all about medicine. Where do I start ripping?

Vets with PTSD do not “need the PTSD label their whole lives.” PTSD is not a label anyone would ever want for any reason. With proper intensive treatment, not "a little counseling as Secretary Peake suggests," many vets will lead relatively normal productive lives.

I used to play contact sports. I was also a serious downhill ski racer. I’ve been in a few car accidents. I've whacked my head a few too many times (which explains a lot). I’ve had one diagnosed TBI or traumatic brain injury. I’ve also had PTSD.

Traumatic brain injury is a medical term describing what occurs when your head is struck by something, stops and your brain keeps going striking the inside of your skull. This could be caused by a bomb's concussion blast or a simple slip & fall. PTSD is a psychological term describing a specific response to a severe emotional trauma. While both can happen concurrently, they are completely different medical problems that require specific, intensive and separate treatment.

As long as we have clowns like Peake in charge of their wellbeing, veterans will continue to get short shrift.

-AF

This Does Not Surprise Me...

...But the sheer extent of it does. The Media fucked us big time.

In the run-up to the Iraq War, news executives across the board dictated that the coverage reflect the wave of patriotism sweeping our nation. Concerned far more about ratings than the truth, the folks upstairs killed stories critical of the administration, admonished/fired/reassigned overly aggressive or outspoken reporters, required two conservative guests for every dissenter(no liberals could be interviewed alone), pushed stories that were positive to the Bush Administration, etc.

Glenn Greenwald has the lowdown.

-AF

My Feelings Exactly

Ribbon-Based Economy.

-AF

(HT: Liesl)

The Loophole And The Damage Done

Yesterday TPM's intrepid reporter Paul Kiel reported that the Bush Administration closed a loophole they secretly created in a rule requiring our overseas contractors (read: Iraq & Afghanistan) to self-report fraud and waste. The loophole excluded all contractors billing $5 million+ (read: all of them). Never mind that due to it's self-reporting nature this rule had no teeth. It was drafted by Bush's own Justice Department!

As long as your company defrauded the American people out of a very large amount of money, the Bush Administration not only didn't care, their policies both encouraged it and then went out of their way to protect you. Very nice. Can we trust them at their word this loophole has been closed? No fucking way.

It occurs to me that this is yet another staggering example of a fundamental truth about warfare (or anything else for that matter) that Bush and his pals got backwards. As per usual it comes at great expense to our country. The difference here is that here it resulted in great profit to them and their friends. It's truly amazing what a President can get away with when he flouts The Constitution. If just for his interpretation of the unitary executive theory alone, John Woo has reserved himself a prime spot in Hell's VIP lounge.

Where was I? Oh yeah, "fundamental truths about war." Since time immemorial invading armies have pillaged those countries they invade. In Iraq, the Iraqis continue to loot their country and ours while our "reconstruction"/military contractors also plunder the US treasury.* And we don't even know the half of it yet.

The ugly truth is even if the fraud loophole is now closed the damage has been done and done and done. The US Treasury has been looted by Republicans and their favorite campaign contributors. This includes those neophytes i.e. Blackwater who established new companies specifically to cash in on "GWOT." The lion's share will be applied to Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater, Lockheed Martin, Dyncorp, et al's bottom line and to provide post-Bush positions for their soon to be unemployed benefactors. Be forewarned that a significant tithe of these ill-gotten gains will be plowed back into future Republican campaigns and/or decidedly un-American causes (i.e. Focus On The Family, Freedom's Watch, blah blah blah).

Yes, these looters and fraudsters will hedge their bets and contribute serious money to Democrats this election cycle. They are not fucking stupid. They may even give a little more this time around to Dems than Repubs. But I will guarantee this cash won't come close to matching their total Republican campaign contributions during any election period in the last ten years.

For example, in the '06 election cycle alone Halliburton's PAC alone gave 97% or about $160,000 to Republicans. I imagine the other 3% went to John Murtha and DIPO (Democrat In Perception Only) Joe Liebermann. This doesn't include money contributed by Halliburton execs and their families

-AF

Locking The Barn Door After The Goat Is Gone

al-Maliki's government kicks out 1300 Iraqi soldiers & cops for desertion. Like we needed another indication that all of that money going to arming, equipping and training Iraq's security forces is poorly spent.

Though its never come done hard on deserters before, Iraq's largely Shiite government claims many of these mostly Shiite cops & troops will be tried by primarily Shiite military courts. That's if more mostly Shiite cops & troops can or will catch 'em.

Let me know how that works out, OK?

-AF

It Always Comes Back To The Oil

Deadeye Dick Cheney sez if we don't get all that Tikrit tea, al Qaeda will. If we hadn't barged in and blown up the goddamn country, they'd never had the chance. Think Progress has the score.

-AF

$600 Million For Reconstruction? What Reconstruction? Oh, That Reconstruction.

On Tuesday, US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker told Sen. Carl Levin that we're “no longer involved in the physical reconstruction business." What's funny is that as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Levin had just received a tiny little request:

The same day we’re asked to shift $600 million to reconstruction.” He (Levin) added that “today the president says we’re almost down to zero” in terms of reconstruction spending.

Gates told Levin that there must be some confusion and that perhaps the money was intended to pay Iraqi police or other military forces, but that it was most likely not for reconstruction.

About 15 minutes later, Gates was passed a note by an aide. He stopped the proceedings to offer an apology to Levin, concluding that the $600 million was in fact intended for reconstruction. “[T]here are actually things that go on that I don’t know about,” said Gates by way of explanation. “I will take a very close look at it. ... I think this is an area where there is broad agreement the Iraqis should be spending their own money.”
(Politico's "The Crypt")

This is yet another indicator of just how fucked up and unbelievably expensive Bush's Iraq Adventure has become that Gates (and Crocker too) has no idea that his DOD requested $600 million for a reconstruction program he thought no longer existed.
-AF


HT: TPM Muckraker

Grandpa Sez: Jealous Competitors Dropped A Dime On "Boy Genius" Arms Dealer

By now you've probably heard of AEY and 22 year-old international arms dealer Efraim Diveroli. After an internship at his uncle's shady Botach Tactical (I googled Botach only to find many complaints), the then 18 year-old Diveroli took over his father's business AEY. He submit the low bid and won a $300 million DOD munitions contract to be the main supplier to Afghan forces.

It's a great story of a young buck living the American dream, right? Until an Army field investigation documented an act of fraud by AEY, it was. Diveroli's "Hungarian" ammo was Chinese - a clear violation of his contract. Much of it was useless being 40-50 years-old. TPM has the Army's March 25 audit letter suspending Diveroli's contract and notifying him of their investigation here.

Strangely, there seems to have been no background check of young Efraim. As The Miami Herald reports:

While living on Miami Beach, AEY's youthful president has had several run-ins with the law, Miami-Dade court records show.

Since 2005, Diveroli has physically assaulted and harassed a former girlfriend and beaten up a valet parker at his office building. Then when searched by police, he was found to be carrying a fake Florida driver's license that indicated he was four years older.

All the cases have been dismissed or resolved.

Theses cases may have been "resolved." But his fake ID alone should have precluded Diveroli from doing business with the US Government. Pay it no mind. According to Grandpa, this is not young Efraim's fault. It's "jealously" that has his grandson jammed up. CNN has the poop via affiliate WPLG:

"The kid is dedicated and patriotic," Diveroli's grandfather, Angelo, told Local 10 senior political reporter Michael Putney via telephone. "He's all over the world getting what the military needs. The big corporations are jealous, so they want to destroy him."

Ahh yes, the old "I'm being attacked by jealous big businesses 'cuz I'm making millions selling illegal, useless ammo" defense. Let me know how it works out for young Efraim willya Grandpa? CNN affiliate WFOR had these gems from a not-so-proud Pop:

"I would prefer he became a nice Jewish doctor or lawyer rather than an arms dealer. He's never asked for my approval on the company. He doesn't always take my advice, I don't influence him. As a father of a boy genius he's hard to control."

Perhaps you should have thought of that before you allowed your son to morph your "small printing co." into an shady international arms dealership.

You just can't make this shit up folks.

-AF

+Note: What's unusual about Diveroli's ability to secure the contract to supply munitions to Afghan forces is that it appears for once that this is a case of a contractor submitting the lowest bid. I spent part of yesterday checking Open Secrets and Newsmeat for any pattern of contributions to Republican or Far Right causes. I found nothing.

++Raw Story has more (tho' crediting themselves for AEY's website shutdown goes a little too far -- It's as if Raw was the only team calling AEY).

Open Letter To A Warlord...

...or how I got in touch with my inner Olbermann.*






To quote a former co-worker "This really burns my goat..."

President Bush comments on the renewed violence in Iraq:

“This is going to take a while, but it is a necessary part in the development of a free society.”
(emphasis added)

WTF? Necessary, Mr. Bush? How is this necessary? Please explain to the hundred thousand+ dead Iraqis and what's left of their families exactly how this war was necessary. Please explain the necessity of this ongoing bloodshed to the many more Iraqis wounded and maimed. Please explain to the thousands upon thousands who have forever lost their homes and livelihoods how their country's destruction has spurred "the development of a free society."

You can't. You can't not only because you lack the mental capacity to do so but also because it is not true. Optional wars prosecuted on pretense solely for personal gain and glory are never "necessary."

No matter how hard you wish it to be, Mr. Bush, unlike WWII your Iraq War is not a righteous conflict to save the world from vicious empire-building fascists. Except for in your clearly addled mind, there is nothing about this war that is "romantic." Instead, whatever "islamofascists" -- a piece of shit neocon word if there ever was one-- we currently fight, are almost to a man "fascists" created in the wake of and by our Iraq invasion. After five fucking years and with no end in sight, this war has outlasted WWII. But unlike WWII, we have precious little to show for our nation's many sacrifices to this conflict.

Mr. Bush, what we do have to show for your "Iraq Adventure" is all negative. Ours is a country that is much less not much more safe. We have 4000+ KIA citizens and tens of thousands more horribly wounded too. Our economy reels on the verge of collapse. Our treasury is likely bankrupt. Our international reputation is tarnished jet black. Our Armed Services are strained to almost breaking. Our Constitution lies in tatters.

Was this conflict necessary for "the further development of our free society" too, Mr. Bush? Because at no time in our nation's history has our society been less free. In the course of your utterly disgraceful Presidency, you have dialed back our many rights to the time of our last king: King George III. Never before has the distance between our poor and the rich been so great. Not in my lifetime has corporate greed so triumphed over citizens' rights. Nor did I ever thought I'd live to see the day when The Supreme Court sided with a commercial developer's use of eminent domain to force people from their homes. At no other time in our history has our government of our democratic "free society" been so secretive or so actively engaged in subverting the will of its people.

Your Iraq War is not about the "development of free societies," Mr. Bush. Rather it's a pathetic attempt by a small man (i.e. YOU) to make yourself feel like big man. Ironically, your total manipulation at the hands of Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the neocon cabal served only to shrink your stature. Your Iraq War is about big oil (not that you've got your hands on any yet), big corporations, huge spiffs to campaign contributors et al. Your US War on your countrymen's rights continues to be waged to cover up your administration's many crimes, to steal elections, to quash dissent, to spiff campaign contributors and/or big corporations.

Sometime after the end of your disgraceful Presidency, we will begin to learn the true extent of the damage you have caused this country. You will soon rise from the ranks of our most disgraceful Presidents to claim the title of our most disgraced President. In the meantime, Mr. Bush, is it too much to ask that you at least try to maintain the status quo? You know, not fuck up anything else too badly?

I thought not. Well, you can't blame this citizen for asking.

-AF

*Thanks for indulging me -- I'm not saying anything new.
Bush's blithe this "is a necessary part..." comment necessitated some blowing off of steam.
I'm not nearly as smart or as eloquent as KO.
Whatever delusions I may have are not of grandeur.

Mess o'potamia*

The Mahdi Army cease-fire is history. Iraq's titular head al Maliki has extended his 72-hour militia surrender offer another 288 hours and kicked in a gun buy-back plan (like that'll work -- not in a culture that so highly values guns when there isn't a war going on). Iraqi police are deserting in droves leaving the Iraqi Army (until they start deserting in droves) to man Baghdad check points.

Now comes the word Coalition Forces Drawn Into Basra Fighting. Yes, as the Iraqi Army stands up, we mount our warplanes and start a shellin'. NY Times:

BAGHDAD — American warplanes shelled targets in the southern port city of Basra late Thursday, joining for the first time an onslaught by Iraqi security forces intended to oust Shiite militias there, according to British and American military officials.

In Baghdad, the capital, American aircraft and Mahdi Army fighters exchanged fire in the Sadr City neighborhood, the capital’s largest Shiite militia stronghold. The Iraqi police said an American helicopter opened fire early Friday in Sadr City, killing five people.

The American military confirmed the strike, saying the helicopter was called in after troops on the ground were shot at and requested air support. The Iraqi police also reported a second, later strike by a fixed-wing American aircraft that they said killed four people.

Amid the violence in Baghdad, rocket or mortar fire struck the office of one of Iraq’s two vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashimi, in the Green Zone, killing a security guard. It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Hashimi was in his office at the time, or whether he was hurt in the attack.

As the situation in Baghdad deteriorates, a bad scene in Basra just gets worse. Again The Times:

The strikes by American warplanes in Basra, one on a militia stronghold and a second on a mortar team that was attacking Iraqi forces, were made at the request of the Iraqi Army, said Maj. Tom Holloway, a spokesman for the British Army in Basra.

Major Holloway said that the Americans conducted the air attack because the Iraqi security forces did not have aircraft capable of making such strikes. American and British forces have been flying surveillance runs over Basra since the latest fighting in the city began this week.

“I think the point here is actually that the Iraqis are capable, they are strong and they have been engaging successfully,” Major Holloway said.

But the airstrikes by coalition forces after a four-day stalemate in Basra suggested that the Iraqi military has not, on its own, been able to rout the militias, despite repeated statements by American and Iraqi officials that its fighting capabilities have vastly improved.

The Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who on Wednesday set a 72-hour deadline for the militias in Basra to lay down their arms or face harsh consequences, said Friday that cash rewards would be offered to anyone in Basra who turned in heavy weapons or artillery. Mr. Maliki, who has staked his political credibility on the Basra campaign, said the cash offer would last until April 8.

How is Mr. Sunshine, err, I mean Preznit Bush taking these new developments? Everything is going according to plan. Natch. The NYT has the kicker:

In Washington, President Bush reiterated his support for Mr. Maliki, describing the offensive as “a defining moment” in the history of a free Iraq and a test for its government — a test that Mr. Bush said it would pass successfully.

The United States will continue to help the Iraqi forces if asked, the president said, but the Iraqis “are in the lead.”

“This is going to take a while,” the president said at a White House appearance with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia, “but it is a necessary part in the development of a free society.”

I am so filled with bile and vitriol that I'll have to wait a few minutes to respond to Bush's "necessity of this war in the development of a free society."

*Apologies to Jon Stewart & co. for such a blatant rip-off. I couldn't come up with a snappier title and Iraq seems to be getting messier every minute.

Iraqis Speak On Our Invasion's Fifth Anniversay

This is powerful stuff. The normally unflappable Charlie Rose gets flapped.











Glenn Greenwald on What can and cannot be spoken on television:

The significance of the interview lies as much in what it says about the American occupation of Iraq as it what it illustrates about the American media. In the American media's discussions of Iraq, when are the perspectives expressed here about our ongoing occupation -- views extremely common among Iraqis of all types and grounded in clear, indisputable facts -- ever heard by the average American news consumer? The answer is: "virtually never."

Rose was as adversarial and argumentative -- angry, even -- as he ever gets with anyone, because he plainly did not anticipate, and did not like, that he was being exposed to such hostility towards our Freedom-spreading, Liberty-loving Liberation of the grateful, lucky (dead and displaced) Iraqi people.

Crooks And Liars has the Charlie Rose footage here. Note that previously for his Fifth Anniversary "celebration," Rose touted that he would have "conversations to find out how both critics and supporters of the war effort see the current situation." Chuckle's concept of Iraq War "critics" is seriously warped. Earlier this week, Greenwald ripped Rose's "panel of experts":

The two alleged "war critics" were the President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Lesley Gelb, and The New Yorker's George Packer. As Rose put it: "To get the other side's perspective, I talked to Richard Perle and Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute." And therein one finds a perfect expression of how limited, distorted and propagandistic the debate over Iraq in the establishment press continues to be.

In no meaningful sense are Gelb and Packer on "the other side" from Perle and Kagan. Both Gelb and Packer were, albeit to different degrees, among the most influential enablers of the invasion of Iraq.

In February, 2003, Gelb went on Fox News with Brit Hume and attacked the French for impeding our invasion, telling Hume (via LEXIS): "But frankly, except for The Cuban Missile Crisis, I don't think more has been at stake than today. Our country really is at risk in a way we've never been at risk before." Three days before the invasion, he told The Associated Press: "I'm in favor of this . . . . It's the best medicine for anti-Americanism around the world I can imagine." To this day, Gelb continues to insist that the invasion was the right thing to do, but that we just should have executed it more effectively. So that's one of Rose's "war critics."

While much more nuanced and cautious than Gelb, Packer was one of the intellectual leaders of the so-called "liberal hawk" movement. He wrote a highly influential December, 2002 New York Times article proclaiming "The Liberal Quandry over Iraq," touting the views of so-called "liberal hawks." The next month, he demanded "a clean break" with what he scorned as "doctrinaire leftists, who know what they think about American foreign policy -- they're against it," and rejected "an antiwar movement with little to say to Americans' fears for their own safety."

Packer never endorsed Bush's specific invasion plan, but he certainly never opposed it, and -- like most "liberal hawks" -- endorsed the concept itself ("the wrong people are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons"). Packer perfectly exemplified the Tom-Friedman-esque "liberal hawk" enabling behavior back then of advocating American interventionism of the type contemplated in Iraq (while wishing it would be better executed) and attacking those who were genuinely opposed to the war ("Until liberals show that they will make the world safe for democracy -- for their fellow citizens, and for citizens around the world -- the American people won't give them the chance").

No wonder Rose was completely unprepared for the Iraqi side of the story. The phrase Rose-coloured glasses comes immediately to mind.

-AF

Download Your Very Own...

...Redacted Institute for Defense Analyses Report once and for all exploding the al Qaeda->Saddam Hussein link that our government doesn't want you see here.

The Bush Administration has added a diabolical new info suppressing mechanism to their already overloaded arsenal: Snail Mail only!

Via ABC News:

The Bush Administration apparently does not want a U.S. Military Study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention. This morning, the Pentagon canceled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online.

The report was to be posted on the Joint Forces Command website this afternoon, followed by a background briefing with the authors. No more. The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia.

It won't be emailed to reporters and it won't be posted online. Asked why the report would not be posted online and could not be emailed, the spokesman for Joint Forces Command said: "We're making the report available to anyone who wishes to have it, and we'll send it out via CD in the mail."

Another Pentagon official said initial press reports on the study made it "too politically sensitive."
(emphasis added)

So exactly how long will it take a request to Joint Forces Command to receive, process and post a report the Commander-in-Chief doesn't want us to see? I've seen how long it takes for MRAPs to be ordered. Plus it's not like the military loses things unless you count $12 billion shrink-wrapped and stacked on pallets (you can't tell me the military was not involved in moving that quantity so quickly) or thousands of guns, $1 billion in equipment, etc. The US Postal Service loses millions of pieces of mail each year. And if the mail I received yesterday is any indication, the USPS cracks a few CDs too.

ABC News on the report's methodology:

The report is based on the analysis of some 600,000 official Iraqi documents seized by US forces after the invasion. It is also based on thousands of hours of interrogations of former top officials in Saddam's government who are now in U.S. custody.

I saved the best for last -- the key graph on conclusion and implications:

Others have reached the same conclusion, but no previous study has had access to so much information. Further, this is the first official acknowledgement from the U.S. military that there is no evidence Saddam had ties to Al Qaeda.

Now that is big.

AF

(h/t TPM Muckraker)

Update: McClatchy pieces on the study here and its canceled release there.

Kill For Cash

My boys Kraut with a prime slice of vintage NYHC.

"KFC" dedicated to KBR whose Q4 earnings are up 65%. 'Cuz there's no more potent profit pairing than crime and war.

-AF

(HT: Raw Story)