By DOLPH HONICKER
Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing. --George Bernard Shaw
... we have violated the laws of warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and ... the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe ... that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.--Gen. Antonio Taguba (ret.)
Why in the name of God -- if there’s such a being -- create a nation in which its leaders countenance medieval torture ... warrantless wiretaps on its subjects ... imprisonment without the right of trial ... questionable elections ... a milquetoast media and a timid legislative branch?
Yes, Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia come to mind. But that was yesterday. Today is today.
With a pair of lame ducks pooping on them, why doesn’t a nation of sheep tire of the embarrassment, tune out “American Idol” and Paris Hilton, rise up as one and, like the star of the movie “Network,” shout, “I’m mad as hell and not going to take this any more?”
Realistically, what kind of a president allows his minions to send Maj. Bryan Bowlsbey to Iraq as part of a transport unit?
Who is Maj. Bowlsbey and why should this long-time National Guardsman, the director of the Illinois Veterans’ Affairs Department, get a free ride?
In the months before being shipped out, Bowlsbey was getting his home readied so that his invalid wife could get around. She’s missing two legs.
In 2005, his wife, Maj. Tammy Duckworth, was piloting a Blackhawk helicopter over Iraq when it was struck by a rocket propelled grenade. She tried vainly to control the chopper by pressing on the rudders.
She couldn’t feel them. Her right leg was shredded to the hipbone. Her left leg was shot off just below the knee, her right arm broken in three places. She lost almost half her blood.
One assumes that because Tammy Duckworth ran an unsuccessful race for Congress in 2006 on an anti-war campaign, denouncing the policies of President George W. Bush, had nothing to do with Maj. Bowlsbey’s deployment.
You have the right to assume that.
Meanwhile, is the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh the only reporter digging through the muck of the Bush/Cheney torture policy as enunciated by the know-nothing U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez?
Hersh’s latest report details how an honorable general, Antonio Taguba, tried to tell the truth and was steamrollered by the White House and his peers in the Army.
In his first meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Taguba told Hersh that an old friend, Lt. Gen. Banz J. Craddock, who was Rumsfeld’s senior military assistant, met him at the door and coldly told him, “Wait here.”
When ushered in, Rumsfeld declared, in a mocking voice, “Here ... comes that famous General Taguba -- of the Taguba Report!”
Also in the meeting: Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy; Stephen Cambone, under-secretary of defense for intelligence; Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Gen. Peter Schoomaker, Army chief of staff, along with Craddock and other officials.
All professed ignorance of Abu Ghraib.
Asked if he had found abuse or torture, Taguba recalled telling the group: “I described a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum, and said, ‘That’s not abuse. That’s torture.’ There was quiet.”
Tugaba says Rumsfeld denied seeing his in-depth investigative report despite having sent dozens of copies through several channels at the Pentagon and to the Central Command Headquarters, in Tampa, Fla., which ran the Iraq War.
Also, before the meeting, Tugaba says he’d spent weeks briefing senior military leaders on the report.
He says when he urged one lieutenant general to look at the photos, the officer rebuffed him, saying, “I don’t want to get involved by looking, because what do you do with information, once you know what they show?”
Gen. Myers testified that in January of 2004 information about the photographs had been given “to me and the Secretary up through the chain of command. ... And the general nature of the photos, about nudity, some mock sexual acts and other abuse, was described.”
Yet, testifying before Senate and House Armed Service Committees on May 7, Rumsfeld, said, “I wish we had known more, sooner, and been able to tell you more sooner, but we didn’t.”
Taguba told Hersh he was appalled, saying the secretary was in denial. Had an aide withheld the facts?
“Rumsfeld is very perceptive and has a mind like a steel trap,” said Taguba. “There’s no way he’s suffering from C.R.S. -- Can’t Remember Shit. He’s trying to acquit himself, and a lot of people are lying to protect themselves.”
What particularly galled Taguba was that Rumsfeld was accompanied by senior military officers who concurred with his denials.
In January 2006, Gen. Richard Cody, the Army’s vice-chief of staff, calls Taguba, who’d served 34 active years, and says, “I need you to retire by January 2007.” No chit-chat, though the two had known each other for years. Then Cody hangs up.
"They always shoot the messeger," Taguba told Hersh. "There was no doubt in my mind that this stuff was gravitating upward. It was standard operating procedure to assume that this had to go higher. The President had to be aware of this."
The message is: Don’t rock the bleeping boat.
Pythian Press.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
When in Nice, wear sandals
By DOLPH HONICKER
It was a lesson I should have learned when still wet behind the ears: never watch sausage being made or Congress at work.
But there I was viewing CSPAN as Democratic congresspersons tried vainly to pass a resolution to up the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour -- a pittance that hadn’t been changed in a decade -- as one Republican speaker after another rose to defend our troops, our flag and our record deficits. No, scratch that last item.
Having a weak stomach, I switched to the Discovery Channel. There I saw the No. 1 concern of my Republican friends. The channel was running a segment on yachts.
One of my favorite yachts was built for speed at 140 feet long and 26 feet wide. The master bedroom with its king-sized bed stretched from port to starboard. On a trial run, its owner got it up to 69 knots. That’s 74 miles an hour. Imagine the wake!
This fits the GOP axiom that a rising tide lifts all yachts. Leaky rowboats fend for themselves.
Was that yacht powered by 2,000 horsepower or 20,000 horsepower engines? I don’t recall. I just remember the owner smiling into the camera and saying, “When you open this up to maximum speed, it could burn up your credit card.”
Yeah.
Have no fear, Mr. Yacht Owner, President George W. Bush’s tax cuts that turn millionaires into multimillionaires will bail you out at the pump, and his pie-in-the-sky hydrogen program, run by nuclear power plants, will have your boat running on water vapors.
The speedy yacht sleeps ten plus its crew with a mere $30 million price sticker. And, when hurricane season approaches, you can avoid dings in the hull and bent windshield wipers by having it transported on specially built tankers to the Mediterranean off Monaco or Nice where the young maidens go topless on the pebble beaches.
Transportation cost? A shade over $200,000 one way. But, when you own a $30 million yacht, what’s a few hundred thou? Play your cards right and Bush-Cheney will reimburse you.
The yacht that really caught my eye was a large steamer built in 1921by the founder of Dodge auto works (I think his name was Dodge) which burned in 1926 and was refurbished a year or so later. Its original $2 million cost would be the equivalent of $100 million today -- chicken feed for the current crop of Bushonaires.
Teakwood furnishings, Jacuzzies and the all comforts of home (yours, not mine) abound in this floating luxury hotel.
But I offer this small bit of advice to neophyte yachtsmen sailing off to Nice. My wife and I were there in 1991. I was armed with a primitive video cam that weighed about 20 pounds. I zoomed in on the nubile beach scenery, swinging my neck from left to right. The next day in Avignon I woke up with a stiff neck that stayed that way for a month.
Note: Pebbles on the Nice beach hurt bare feet. This is not Florida. Wear sandals.
Pythian Press.
Monday, June 4, 2007
King George to be anointed?
By DOLPH HONICKER
More than one person close to President George W. Bush has said that he has a messianic complex. The Rev. Pat Robertson says that when Bush was governor of Texas Bush informed the evangelist that God had told him to run for president.
Since biblical happenings seem to occur in threes -- the Three Wise Men, Christ rising from the tomb on the third day, the Holy Trinity of Jesus, God and the Holy Ghost -- what could be so unusual about a third, self-anointed term for a man who considers himself above the law? In other words: King George.
Don't laugh.
At least don't laugh until you have absorbed National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-20.
They were handed down by the White House May 9, although you did not read them in the Washington Post or the New York Times. If you'd been one of the few thousand readers of the Progressive, you could have read it in their May 18 issue.
To be brief, Bush's two directives grant the presidency extraordinary powers without apparent congressional approval.
WorldNetDaily.com columnist Jerome R. Corsi says the directives establish under the office of the president a new national continuity coordinator to make plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial and "tribal" governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national emergency.
Tribal? Once again the Indians get the shaft.
National emergency?
This smells of martial law.
Ah, as though Bush and his joined-at-the-hip president of vice, Dick Cheney, did not have enough power already.
Under the definitions (b) "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, economy, or government functions.
Another Katrina and perhaps another Michael ("Ya doin' a fine job, Brownie") could take over.
Under (c), (d) and (e), alphabetical agencies take over: COG, "Continuity of Government; COOP, "Continuity of Operations; and ECG, "Enduring Constitutional Government.
One thing bureaucracy never runs out of is letters. So under (h) we have NEFs, or "National Essential Functions," which must be supported through COOP and COG capabilities, and (i) PMEFs or "Primary Mission Essential Functions," those government functions that must be performed in order to support or implement the performance of NEFs before, during, and in the aftermath of an emergency.
The directives, which meander on for six and one-eighth finely printed pages, is another example of why lawyers in the Bush administration have nothing better to do than to grant more powers to their leader.
Will the Democrats put a stop to such nonsense?
Sure, just like they've dilly-dallied over halting the war in Iraq.
The worst national disasters that these directives do not seem to recognize is the Bush/Cheney administration itself.
Pythian Press.
More than one person close to President George W. Bush has said that he has a messianic complex. The Rev. Pat Robertson says that when Bush was governor of Texas Bush informed the evangelist that God had told him to run for president.
Since biblical happenings seem to occur in threes -- the Three Wise Men, Christ rising from the tomb on the third day, the Holy Trinity of Jesus, God and the Holy Ghost -- what could be so unusual about a third, self-anointed term for a man who considers himself above the law? In other words: King George.
Don't laugh.
At least don't laugh until you have absorbed National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-20.
They were handed down by the White House May 9, although you did not read them in the Washington Post or the New York Times. If you'd been one of the few thousand readers of the Progressive, you could have read it in their May 18 issue.
To be brief, Bush's two directives grant the presidency extraordinary powers without apparent congressional approval.
WorldNetDaily.com columnist Jerome R. Corsi says the directives establish under the office of the president a new national continuity coordinator to make plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial and "tribal" governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national emergency.
Tribal? Once again the Indians get the shaft.
National emergency?
This smells of martial law.
Ah, as though Bush and his joined-at-the-hip president of vice, Dick Cheney, did not have enough power already.
Under the definitions (b) "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, economy, or government functions.
Another Katrina and perhaps another Michael ("Ya doin' a fine job, Brownie") could take over.
Under (c), (d) and (e), alphabetical agencies take over: COG, "Continuity of Government; COOP, "Continuity of Operations; and ECG, "Enduring Constitutional Government.
One thing bureaucracy never runs out of is letters. So under (h) we have NEFs, or "National Essential Functions," which must be supported through COOP and COG capabilities, and (i) PMEFs or "Primary Mission Essential Functions," those government functions that must be performed in order to support or implement the performance of NEFs before, during, and in the aftermath of an emergency.
The directives, which meander on for six and one-eighth finely printed pages, is another example of why lawyers in the Bush administration have nothing better to do than to grant more powers to their leader.
Will the Democrats put a stop to such nonsense?
Sure, just like they've dilly-dallied over halting the war in Iraq.
The worst national disasters that these directives do not seem to recognize is the Bush/Cheney administration itself.
Pythian Press.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Get ready for the long, long haul
By DOLPH HONICKER
What would happen in Iraq if American troops suddenly withdrew tomorrow and the Green Zone became a giant Motel 6 to house displaced Iraqis?
Chaos would erupt. But not necessarily in Iraq. That country already has its own brand of chaos which its own people must end, just as a minority of Americans overthrew the first King George in the 1700s.
If Sunnis and Shi’ites wake up tomorrow to find their streets free of roadblocks, troops kicking in doors, Humvees, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, tanks, jet fighters roaring overhead, and helicopters chopping up the desert air, the tribes might actually shout, “Praise Allah for delivering us from the infidels!” They’d probably exchange high-fives and move back into their formerly mixed neighborhoods.
The real chaos would break out in America.
Stocks in Halliburton, Lockheed, General Dynamics, Boeing, Raytheon and other defense firms would plummet, with layoffs in the millions.
Silicon Valley would panic.
China, Japan and other foreign nations would demand payment of trillions of dollars in loans that the U.S. under Bush/Cheney has used to finance wars and deficits and prop up the economy.
The GOP accused the Democratic Party of being the one of “tax and spend.“ Is it worse than being a party that chews ever so lightly on the upper crust to borrow and spend?
If an Iraqi pullout occurred tomorrow, you’d have to dodge CEOs leaping off tall buildings.
Tiger Woods might have to sell his yacht and play tournaments with second-hand driving range balls.
Paris Hilton might shave her head and sell her hair to cancer victims.
THINK.
Think back to 1929 and the Great Depression. Millions in bread lines. Massive runs on banks.
By 1933, 26.6 percent of Americans were unemployed. Those still working were paid less. Factory workers were forced to work twice as hard for the same wages.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made noble efforts to bring the country to its feet with such alphabet agencies as the WPA (Works Progress Administration), the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), and the NRA (National Recovery Agency).
He declared a bank holiday to prevent devastating withdrawals.
FDR’s efforts made a dent in the Depression, but it took World War II with the U.S. serving as the Arsenal for Democracy to bring about full employment.
And we’ve been on a wartime economy ever since -- from the Cold War with the Soviet Union, to the Korean Conflict, to the Vietnam War, to our mighty victory in Grenada over a fifth-rate police force and a bunch of Cuban workers building a runway, to Bosnia, Somalia, Panama, Desert Storm, Afghanistan and now the quagmire in Iraq.
Did I leave out any?
Sadly, we’re a nation made up of intelligent people who can be fooled some of the time but seem to catch on only when it’s almost too late to play catch-up.
Barack Obama and John McCain spoke the truth -- before they tripped over themselves apologizing -- terming the loss of troops in Iraq a waste. True. Those in uniforms didn’t give up their lives for mom, the flag and apple pie. Their lives were ripped from them by sniper bullets, RPGs and stress-induced suicides. Wasted!
If is the biggest little word in the English language.
If Adolf Hitler had sent his Panzer divisions into Russia a month earlier, we’d be speaking German today. If Japan had followed up after its Pearl Harbor attack, we’d likely be bilingual -- speaking German and Japanese.
And if George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Pearle and the other neocons had not been so fixated on invading Iraq even before 9/11 and concentrated on taming the Taliban and capturing Osma bin Laden THINK of all the lives and money that would have been saved.
Should we leave Iraq tomorrow? Official numbers answer in the affirmative.
President Bush is sending 21,500 additional troops to Iraq. But, wait! He’s supplementing that with 4,700 support troops for a total of 26,200 troops, and maybe more. According to Pentagon assessments, Iraqi security forces now number 357,400.
That adds up to 383,600. That should be enough to start easing our forces out -- if not tomorrow, then by mid-summer.
All this is a dream, of course. Truth is, we’ll probably have boots on the ground there for 30 more years, long after my bones have turned to dust. How else would our economy survive?
And then there’s the oil, you know.
Pythian Press
What would happen in Iraq if American troops suddenly withdrew tomorrow and the Green Zone became a giant Motel 6 to house displaced Iraqis?
Chaos would erupt. But not necessarily in Iraq. That country already has its own brand of chaos which its own people must end, just as a minority of Americans overthrew the first King George in the 1700s.
If Sunnis and Shi’ites wake up tomorrow to find their streets free of roadblocks, troops kicking in doors, Humvees, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, tanks, jet fighters roaring overhead, and helicopters chopping up the desert air, the tribes might actually shout, “Praise Allah for delivering us from the infidels!” They’d probably exchange high-fives and move back into their formerly mixed neighborhoods.
The real chaos would break out in America.
Stocks in Halliburton, Lockheed, General Dynamics, Boeing, Raytheon and other defense firms would plummet, with layoffs in the millions.
Silicon Valley would panic.
China, Japan and other foreign nations would demand payment of trillions of dollars in loans that the U.S. under Bush/Cheney has used to finance wars and deficits and prop up the economy.
The GOP accused the Democratic Party of being the one of “tax and spend.“ Is it worse than being a party that chews ever so lightly on the upper crust to borrow and spend?
If an Iraqi pullout occurred tomorrow, you’d have to dodge CEOs leaping off tall buildings.
Tiger Woods might have to sell his yacht and play tournaments with second-hand driving range balls.
Paris Hilton might shave her head and sell her hair to cancer victims.
THINK.
Think back to 1929 and the Great Depression. Millions in bread lines. Massive runs on banks.
By 1933, 26.6 percent of Americans were unemployed. Those still working were paid less. Factory workers were forced to work twice as hard for the same wages.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made noble efforts to bring the country to its feet with such alphabet agencies as the WPA (Works Progress Administration), the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), and the NRA (National Recovery Agency).
He declared a bank holiday to prevent devastating withdrawals.
FDR’s efforts made a dent in the Depression, but it took World War II with the U.S. serving as the Arsenal for Democracy to bring about full employment.
And we’ve been on a wartime economy ever since -- from the Cold War with the Soviet Union, to the Korean Conflict, to the Vietnam War, to our mighty victory in Grenada over a fifth-rate police force and a bunch of Cuban workers building a runway, to Bosnia, Somalia, Panama, Desert Storm, Afghanistan and now the quagmire in Iraq.
Did I leave out any?
Sadly, we’re a nation made up of intelligent people who can be fooled some of the time but seem to catch on only when it’s almost too late to play catch-up.
Barack Obama and John McCain spoke the truth -- before they tripped over themselves apologizing -- terming the loss of troops in Iraq a waste. True. Those in uniforms didn’t give up their lives for mom, the flag and apple pie. Their lives were ripped from them by sniper bullets, RPGs and stress-induced suicides. Wasted!
If is the biggest little word in the English language.
If Adolf Hitler had sent his Panzer divisions into Russia a month earlier, we’d be speaking German today. If Japan had followed up after its Pearl Harbor attack, we’d likely be bilingual -- speaking German and Japanese.
And if George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Pearle and the other neocons had not been so fixated on invading Iraq even before 9/11 and concentrated on taming the Taliban and capturing Osma bin Laden THINK of all the lives and money that would have been saved.
Should we leave Iraq tomorrow? Official numbers answer in the affirmative.
President Bush is sending 21,500 additional troops to Iraq. But, wait! He’s supplementing that with 4,700 support troops for a total of 26,200 troops, and maybe more. According to Pentagon assessments, Iraqi security forces now number 357,400.
That adds up to 383,600. That should be enough to start easing our forces out -- if not tomorrow, then by mid-summer.
All this is a dream, of course. Truth is, we’ll probably have boots on the ground there for 30 more years, long after my bones have turned to dust. How else would our economy survive?
And then there’s the oil, you know.
Pythian Press
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Red tape clogs way out for friends
By DOLPH HONICKER
Poker has two inviolate axioms: (1) know when to hold and when to fold and (2) never send good money after bad.
In Iraq, President George W. Bush and the president of vice, Dick Cheney, have run roughshod over both rules.
The time for folding has long since past. In fact, it was a hand that never should have been dealt. That brings us to No. 2. In Iraq, we’re not only spending like it was Monopoly money, we’re spending our most valuable assets, boots on the ground -- some 30,000 pairs of them.
They’re volunteers. But if you polled them, most probably would prefer going to Afghanistan, where the 9/11 terrorists trained, so they could make a dent against a surging Taliban and al-Qaeda force .
Some of us, even though we were not military experts, saw the error of pulling troops from Afghanistan as we were zeroing in on Osama bin Laden and sending them to invade Iraq. It was stupid since allied forces controlled the air over Iraq and Saddam Hussein wasn’t going anywhere.
The world knows we cherry-picked faulty evidence from the likes of “Curveball,” Amad Chalibi and, my favorite, this from the archives of Newsweek, which said information about links between Iraq and al-Qaeda came from Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. “I been a shaky alibi (?)”
Imagine the immediate days post-9/11. The world was with us. We could have had half a million U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. With that show of force, Pakistan would have thrown in her lot wholeheartedly. Saddam could have been held off with our left hand. How could he hit New York with Scuds that had a range of 100 miles?
But today Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf sits on a powder keg, his will weakened. Time quotes a senior military official in Afghanistan as saying: “The bottom line is that the Taliban can do what they want in the tribal areas because the {Pakistani} army is not going after them.”
Taliban and al-Qaeda forces are settled in small groups in a heavily forested band of mountains that has virtually been conceded to them. It’s called Talibanistan. Digging them out will be like plucking fire ants one at a time.
Iraq presents a sorry tale of betrayal on our part as detailed in a lengthy New Yorker piece by George Packer. Hundreds of Iraqi translators and intelligence agents that served America, facing daily risks of having their heads chopped off, have been shafted. Many have died.
For instance, Ali spent his childhood in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma while his father completed graduate studies. Unfortunately, they returned home to Baghdad when he was 11 so his father could get his green card. The Iranian war prevented them from leaving.
Packer says Ali had to learn Arabic from scratch and “considered his American childhood a paradise lost.“ In 2003 he became an interpreter with the 82nd Airborne Division. He could not tell his family.
“Ali found that, although many soldiers were friendly, they often ignored information and advice from their Iraqi employees,” Packer writes. “Interpreters would give them names of insurgents, and nothing would happen. When Ali suggested that soldiers buy up locals’ rocket-propelled grenade launchers so they wouldn’t fall into the hands of insurgents, he was disregarded. ...“
Consider this vignette of Othman, a Sunni doctor, 29, and Laith, a Shia engineer, a few years younger, who shared a strong friendship based on a desire for the Americans to arrive and change their lives.
“Most of the people Othman and Laith knew had left Iraq,” says Packer. “House by house, Baghdad had been abandoned. Othman was considering his options: move his parents from their house (in an insurgent stronghold) to his sister’s house (in the midst of civil war); move his parents and brothers to Syria (where there was no work) and live with his friend in Jordan (going crazy with boredom while watching his savings dwindle); go to London and ask for asylum (and probably be sent back); stay in Baghdad for six more months until he could begin a scholarship that he had won to study journalism in America (or get killed waiting). Beneath his calm good humor, Othman was paralyzed -- he didn’t want to leave Baghdad and his family, but staying had become impossible. Every day, he changed his mind.”
As for Laith: “Sometimes I feel like we’re standing in line for a ticket, waiting to die.”
Many of the young Iraqis who signed up with the U.S. military to become translators, or “terps” as the soldiers called them, “had learned English,” says Packer, “from American movies and music, and from listening secretly to the BBC.”
Otherwise, under Saddam, as one said, it “was a one-way road leading to nothing.”
Ironically, that’s where it stands today. Red tape and indifference clog their every step. Try to teach a soldier cultural dos and don’ts, he won’t listen. You’re an Iraqi and untrustworthy. Just translate for me, mother.
Iraqi “terps” received inferior or no body army, leading Baathists to make a persuasive case that Americans treat all Iraqis badly, even those who work for them.
L. Paul Bremer III, as the virtual dictator in Iraq for 14 months, ditched the entire Iraqi army, threw hundreds of thousands out of work and lit the fuse that has led to today’s chaos. He spoke no Arabic and knew nothing about the Middle East. By the time he was forced to fold his hand, it was too late.
As the banner across the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln the summer of 2003 so blithely put it: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
Sooner or later -- a year, four years, twenty years -- we’ll be out. What happens then to all the Iraqi “terps” who served us at great risk but have been fingered by both Sunni and Shia insurgents as collaborators?
Many of them now seek safe flight ahead of the eventual exodus, before heads roll. They’re snarled in red tape.
It’s Catch-22. We can’t tell you when we’re leaving. It would tip off the enemy. Anyway, American personnel will leave first. You’re on your own. Catch a chopper out, if you can. With friends like us, who needs enemies
Pythian Press
Poker has two inviolate axioms: (1) know when to hold and when to fold and (2) never send good money after bad.
In Iraq, President George W. Bush and the president of vice, Dick Cheney, have run roughshod over both rules.
The time for folding has long since past. In fact, it was a hand that never should have been dealt. That brings us to No. 2. In Iraq, we’re not only spending like it was Monopoly money, we’re spending our most valuable assets, boots on the ground -- some 30,000 pairs of them.
They’re volunteers. But if you polled them, most probably would prefer going to Afghanistan, where the 9/11 terrorists trained, so they could make a dent against a surging Taliban and al-Qaeda force .
Some of us, even though we were not military experts, saw the error of pulling troops from Afghanistan as we were zeroing in on Osama bin Laden and sending them to invade Iraq. It was stupid since allied forces controlled the air over Iraq and Saddam Hussein wasn’t going anywhere.
The world knows we cherry-picked faulty evidence from the likes of “Curveball,” Amad Chalibi and, my favorite, this from the archives of Newsweek, which said information about links between Iraq and al-Qaeda came from Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. “I been a shaky alibi (?)”
Imagine the immediate days post-9/11. The world was with us. We could have had half a million U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. With that show of force, Pakistan would have thrown in her lot wholeheartedly. Saddam could have been held off with our left hand. How could he hit New York with Scuds that had a range of 100 miles?
But today Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf sits on a powder keg, his will weakened. Time quotes a senior military official in Afghanistan as saying: “The bottom line is that the Taliban can do what they want in the tribal areas because the {Pakistani} army is not going after them.”
Taliban and al-Qaeda forces are settled in small groups in a heavily forested band of mountains that has virtually been conceded to them. It’s called Talibanistan. Digging them out will be like plucking fire ants one at a time.
Iraq presents a sorry tale of betrayal on our part as detailed in a lengthy New Yorker piece by George Packer. Hundreds of Iraqi translators and intelligence agents that served America, facing daily risks of having their heads chopped off, have been shafted. Many have died.
For instance, Ali spent his childhood in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma while his father completed graduate studies. Unfortunately, they returned home to Baghdad when he was 11 so his father could get his green card. The Iranian war prevented them from leaving.
Packer says Ali had to learn Arabic from scratch and “considered his American childhood a paradise lost.“ In 2003 he became an interpreter with the 82nd Airborne Division. He could not tell his family.
“Ali found that, although many soldiers were friendly, they often ignored information and advice from their Iraqi employees,” Packer writes. “Interpreters would give them names of insurgents, and nothing would happen. When Ali suggested that soldiers buy up locals’ rocket-propelled grenade launchers so they wouldn’t fall into the hands of insurgents, he was disregarded. ...“
Consider this vignette of Othman, a Sunni doctor, 29, and Laith, a Shia engineer, a few years younger, who shared a strong friendship based on a desire for the Americans to arrive and change their lives.
“Most of the people Othman and Laith knew had left Iraq,” says Packer. “House by house, Baghdad had been abandoned. Othman was considering his options: move his parents from their house (in an insurgent stronghold) to his sister’s house (in the midst of civil war); move his parents and brothers to Syria (where there was no work) and live with his friend in Jordan (going crazy with boredom while watching his savings dwindle); go to London and ask for asylum (and probably be sent back); stay in Baghdad for six more months until he could begin a scholarship that he had won to study journalism in America (or get killed waiting). Beneath his calm good humor, Othman was paralyzed -- he didn’t want to leave Baghdad and his family, but staying had become impossible. Every day, he changed his mind.”
As for Laith: “Sometimes I feel like we’re standing in line for a ticket, waiting to die.”
Many of the young Iraqis who signed up with the U.S. military to become translators, or “terps” as the soldiers called them, “had learned English,” says Packer, “from American movies and music, and from listening secretly to the BBC.”
Otherwise, under Saddam, as one said, it “was a one-way road leading to nothing.”
Ironically, that’s where it stands today. Red tape and indifference clog their every step. Try to teach a soldier cultural dos and don’ts, he won’t listen. You’re an Iraqi and untrustworthy. Just translate for me, mother.
Iraqi “terps” received inferior or no body army, leading Baathists to make a persuasive case that Americans treat all Iraqis badly, even those who work for them.
L. Paul Bremer III, as the virtual dictator in Iraq for 14 months, ditched the entire Iraqi army, threw hundreds of thousands out of work and lit the fuse that has led to today’s chaos. He spoke no Arabic and knew nothing about the Middle East. By the time he was forced to fold his hand, it was too late.
As the banner across the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln the summer of 2003 so blithely put it: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
Sooner or later -- a year, four years, twenty years -- we’ll be out. What happens then to all the Iraqi “terps” who served us at great risk but have been fingered by both Sunni and Shia insurgents as collaborators?
Many of them now seek safe flight ahead of the eventual exodus, before heads roll. They’re snarled in red tape.
It’s Catch-22. We can’t tell you when we’re leaving. It would tip off the enemy. Anyway, American personnel will leave first. You’re on your own. Catch a chopper out, if you can. With friends like us, who needs enemies
Pythian Press
Stay the course, slay the horse?
By DOLPH HONICKER
In a rapid advance to the rear in the bloody occupation of Iraq, George W. Bush and his fellow warriors have muzzled their impotent “stay-the-course” weapon and unleashed newly coined rhetorical artillery under the rubric of “progress moving forward.”
This new “strategy” is anchored upon a three-legged stool of (1) governance, (2) security and (3) economics.
At least it has a far better ring to it than the shock and awe
pre-preempted invasion labeled Operation Iraqi Liberation and changed as rapidly as you can spell OIL to Operation Enduring Freedom.
Democrats can never hold a candle to the way Republicans can shoot themselves in the foot and tap-dance away from “stay the course” to “a study of constant motion,” meaning that stay the course did not mean what it said.
Still, in a Salt Lake City address in August 2006, Bush said: “We will stay the course. We will help this young Iraqi democracy succeed.”
And July, in Milwaukee, according to the Washington Post: “We will win in Iraq so long as we stay the course.”
Earlier, in June, after returning from Baghdad, “I saw people wondering whether the United State would have the nerve to stay the course and help them succeed.”
But, just as he cut and ran from Afghanistan, Bush has cut and run from that phrase of steely resolve.
White House press secretary Tony Snow and the Bush team has tried to explain that “stay the course” does not actually mean stay the course but is a study in constant motion by the administration.
And what once was “we’ll stand down as soon as they stand up” is now we’ll “step back as they step forward and step up.” A little longer, perhaps, but it gets the point across.
In an Oct. 11 news conference, Bush became tangled over the original phrase, complaining, “The characterization of, you know, ‘it’s stay the course’ is about a quarter right. ‘Stay the course means keep doing what you’re doing. My attitude is: Don’t do what you’re doing if it’s not working -- change. ‘Stay the course’ also means don’t leave before the job is done.“
In a later appearance with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, it was no longer a quarter right as Bush said: “We have been -- we will complete the mission, we will do our job and help achieve the goal, but we’re constantly adjusting tactic. Constantly.“
It was painful to watch Marine Gen. Peter Pace, head of the Joint Chief of Staffs, blinking rapidly like a resurrected Richard Nixon as he tried to put a new face on a disintegrating policy.
Instead of a target date to withdraw from Iraq, we now have a timetable with windows of opportunity for the Iraqi leadership to meet. If they fail to meet our timetable for cleaning up corruption, protecting the population and rebuilding the infrastructure, then we’ll adjust the timetable and open the windows a little wider. To put a precise date on our leaving, Pace says, meekly echoing his boss, would result in chaos -- as though Iraqis today were living in Ronald Reagan’s peaceful city on a hill.
Anyway, as the commander-in-chief himself once announced -- in words meant to sound Churchillian -- the war against terrorism will be long hard, bloody and victory will be up to the next president(s).
Blame Bob Woodward for the recent Republican shift in “strategy” that’s merely a shift in rhetoric. In his book, State of Denial, Woodward peels away the framework from the false White House of cards to reveal the arrogance of the neocons, particularly former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney who led a willing Bush into the Iraq quagmire.
And remember, Rummy was Bush’s point man until the day after the election.
Pythian Press
In a rapid advance to the rear in the bloody occupation of Iraq, George W. Bush and his fellow warriors have muzzled their impotent “stay-the-course” weapon and unleashed newly coined rhetorical artillery under the rubric of “progress moving forward.”
This new “strategy” is anchored upon a three-legged stool of (1) governance, (2) security and (3) economics.
At least it has a far better ring to it than the shock and awe
pre-preempted invasion labeled Operation Iraqi Liberation and changed as rapidly as you can spell OIL to Operation Enduring Freedom.
Democrats can never hold a candle to the way Republicans can shoot themselves in the foot and tap-dance away from “stay the course” to “a study of constant motion,” meaning that stay the course did not mean what it said.
Still, in a Salt Lake City address in August 2006, Bush said: “We will stay the course. We will help this young Iraqi democracy succeed.”
And July, in Milwaukee, according to the Washington Post: “We will win in Iraq so long as we stay the course.”
Earlier, in June, after returning from Baghdad, “I saw people wondering whether the United State would have the nerve to stay the course and help them succeed.”
But, just as he cut and ran from Afghanistan, Bush has cut and run from that phrase of steely resolve.
White House press secretary Tony Snow and the Bush team has tried to explain that “stay the course” does not actually mean stay the course but is a study in constant motion by the administration.
And what once was “we’ll stand down as soon as they stand up” is now we’ll “step back as they step forward and step up.” A little longer, perhaps, but it gets the point across.
In an Oct. 11 news conference, Bush became tangled over the original phrase, complaining, “The characterization of, you know, ‘it’s stay the course’ is about a quarter right. ‘Stay the course means keep doing what you’re doing. My attitude is: Don’t do what you’re doing if it’s not working -- change. ‘Stay the course’ also means don’t leave before the job is done.“
In a later appearance with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, it was no longer a quarter right as Bush said: “We have been -- we will complete the mission, we will do our job and help achieve the goal, but we’re constantly adjusting tactic. Constantly.“
It was painful to watch Marine Gen. Peter Pace, head of the Joint Chief of Staffs, blinking rapidly like a resurrected Richard Nixon as he tried to put a new face on a disintegrating policy.
Instead of a target date to withdraw from Iraq, we now have a timetable with windows of opportunity for the Iraqi leadership to meet. If they fail to meet our timetable for cleaning up corruption, protecting the population and rebuilding the infrastructure, then we’ll adjust the timetable and open the windows a little wider. To put a precise date on our leaving, Pace says, meekly echoing his boss, would result in chaos -- as though Iraqis today were living in Ronald Reagan’s peaceful city on a hill.
Anyway, as the commander-in-chief himself once announced -- in words meant to sound Churchillian -- the war against terrorism will be long hard, bloody and victory will be up to the next president(s).
Blame Bob Woodward for the recent Republican shift in “strategy” that’s merely a shift in rhetoric. In his book, State of Denial, Woodward peels away the framework from the false White House of cards to reveal the arrogance of the neocons, particularly former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney who led a willing Bush into the Iraq quagmire.
And remember, Rummy was Bush’s point man until the day after the election.
Pythian Press
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Everything's just too damn small
By DOLPH HONICKER
My wife Jeannine and I own a cell phone (one). We share it. If she’s out, it’s attached to her purse, which means she has to drag her purse up to her ear if anyone calls. People stare when she’s at a restaurant and appears to be talking into her purse while leaning under the table.
If I’m out, she still has the cell phone with her. I haven’t quite got the hang of it. My fingers fumble.
It’s a remarkable device. Fits in the palm of your hand. It can take photos. It has a button that turns it into a video camera. I think it can add, subtract, divide and multiply (not like rabbits but with numbers). It may even have a timer and a button to get the latest stock market reports.
We use it to call people and receive calls from other people. That’s it. The luxury services remain unused.
If we had a flat tire on the highway or saw a traffic accident, our cell phone would come in handy. Unless we were in a dead zone, we could call 911 and tell them where we were -- if we had a global positioning system.
But, even if we saw a spectacular accident, worthy of CNN coverage, I wouldn’t know how to photograph with a digital camera which I usually leave at home.
Many years ago, I had a Rolliflex camera. I never used a flash. I learned to use available light. A light meter gave me settings for Tri-X film which I could juice up to an even higher speed.
Our digital camera fits in the palm of your hand. We ordered it over the internet. Yes, I’ve learned how to use the internet. Small as it is, the ad said the camera can turn out images of 10 pixels, which means it can cram a bunch of dots smaller than a period at the end of this sentence so tightly the photo would be almost as sharp as an old-fashioned darkroom photo -- so sharp you could blow up the image into a poster.
By the time I added a battery charger and lots of other stuff to my order, the bill came to $318.
We’ve had it for almost a year now. Every time I take it out and look at it the damned thing intimidates the hell out of me. It came with a manual. The manual also intimidates the hell out of me. It also came with a CD of instructions. But I’ve lost it.
With my Rolliflex all I had to do was look down, focus, set the shutter speed and snap. I could develop and print my own pictures. I was no Ed Weston or Ansel Adams, but some of my shots looked pretty good. Or, as Larry David would say: “Pretty, pretty good.”
Today everything technical seems to be getting smaller and smaller. Next year I may be able to watch Lawrence of Arabia on my thumbnail.
But do I?
Technology is passing me by. I have no idea what an iPod is. It sounds like one of those old black-and-white horror films where giant ants from outer space land in pods, hatch and then begin gobbling all the people in their path until a handsome young scientist develops a death ray that kills the ants.
Apple (not the edible type but the Silicon Valley version) is coming out with an iPhone that’ll sell for $500 to $600. What will you get for your money besides a mobile phone? Here are the other features: music player, camera, wireless e-mail, Web browser and video player.
For that money, it ought to have a device that will burn in CDs, although I have no idea how to burn in CDs. However, there’s a lot of rap music I’d like to burn. I come from an era of 78-rpm records with one song on one side and a second on the flip side.
Forget this high tech stuff. In my book, the greatest invention of the modern era was the flip-top can that replaced the ubiquitous “church key,” once a must at all beer busts.
And forget about making things smaller. Give me something Big like Sharp’s 108-inch flat panel television, the largest ever made. Of course, the only place we’d have to put it would be on our roof.
If we sat out chairs in the backyard and charged admission, it might be worth it.
Pythian Press
My wife Jeannine and I own a cell phone (one). We share it. If she’s out, it’s attached to her purse, which means she has to drag her purse up to her ear if anyone calls. People stare when she’s at a restaurant and appears to be talking into her purse while leaning under the table.
If I’m out, she still has the cell phone with her. I haven’t quite got the hang of it. My fingers fumble.
It’s a remarkable device. Fits in the palm of your hand. It can take photos. It has a button that turns it into a video camera. I think it can add, subtract, divide and multiply (not like rabbits but with numbers). It may even have a timer and a button to get the latest stock market reports.
We use it to call people and receive calls from other people. That’s it. The luxury services remain unused.
If we had a flat tire on the highway or saw a traffic accident, our cell phone would come in handy. Unless we were in a dead zone, we could call 911 and tell them where we were -- if we had a global positioning system.
But, even if we saw a spectacular accident, worthy of CNN coverage, I wouldn’t know how to photograph with a digital camera which I usually leave at home.
Many years ago, I had a Rolliflex camera. I never used a flash. I learned to use available light. A light meter gave me settings for Tri-X film which I could juice up to an even higher speed.
Our digital camera fits in the palm of your hand. We ordered it over the internet. Yes, I’ve learned how to use the internet. Small as it is, the ad said the camera can turn out images of 10 pixels, which means it can cram a bunch of dots smaller than a period at the end of this sentence so tightly the photo would be almost as sharp as an old-fashioned darkroom photo -- so sharp you could blow up the image into a poster.
By the time I added a battery charger and lots of other stuff to my order, the bill came to $318.
We’ve had it for almost a year now. Every time I take it out and look at it the damned thing intimidates the hell out of me. It came with a manual. The manual also intimidates the hell out of me. It also came with a CD of instructions. But I’ve lost it.
With my Rolliflex all I had to do was look down, focus, set the shutter speed and snap. I could develop and print my own pictures. I was no Ed Weston or Ansel Adams, but some of my shots looked pretty good. Or, as Larry David would say: “Pretty, pretty good.”
Today everything technical seems to be getting smaller and smaller. Next year I may be able to watch Lawrence of Arabia on my thumbnail.
But do I?
Technology is passing me by. I have no idea what an iPod is. It sounds like one of those old black-and-white horror films where giant ants from outer space land in pods, hatch and then begin gobbling all the people in their path until a handsome young scientist develops a death ray that kills the ants.
Apple (not the edible type but the Silicon Valley version) is coming out with an iPhone that’ll sell for $500 to $600. What will you get for your money besides a mobile phone? Here are the other features: music player, camera, wireless e-mail, Web browser and video player.
For that money, it ought to have a device that will burn in CDs, although I have no idea how to burn in CDs. However, there’s a lot of rap music I’d like to burn. I come from an era of 78-rpm records with one song on one side and a second on the flip side.
Forget this high tech stuff. In my book, the greatest invention of the modern era was the flip-top can that replaced the ubiquitous “church key,” once a must at all beer busts.
And forget about making things smaller. Give me something Big like Sharp’s 108-inch flat panel television, the largest ever made. Of course, the only place we’d have to put it would be on our roof.
If we sat out chairs in the backyard and charged admission, it might be worth it.
Pythian Press
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