Intellectually bankrupt is just a really polite and very British way of saying

That Rumsfeld and Bush are fucking stupid:

Commentators in the US media have been suggesting for weeks that the British have failed in Iraq and are preparing to flee. Britain's Defence Secretary Des Browne and Foreign Secretary David Miliband took the unusual step of publishing an editorial in the Washington Post last week defending the UK's role in Iraq. "We believe we remain on track to complete the return of full sovereignty to the Iraqi people as planned," they wrote. "The United Kingdom is sticking to the mission we took on four years ago."

Then, over the weekend, two retired senior British officers upped the ante by lashing out at what they see as US incompetence in Iraq. Maj. Gen. Tim Cross, who was Britain's most senior officer involved in reconstruction efforts in Iraq, said he had talked to former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the need to have international support and enough troops on the ground to reconstruct the country. "He didn't want to hear that message. The US had already convinced themselves that Iraq would emerge reasonably quickly as a stable democracy," he told the Sunday Mirror. "Anybody who tried to tell them anything that challenged that idea -- they simply shut out."

His comments came a day after the Daily Telegraph quoted Gen. Mike Jackson, commander of the British army during the invasion, describing Rumsfeld's policy as "intellectually bankrupt" and criticizing the Pentagon for discarding detailed plans drawn up by the State Deparment for post-conflict Iraq. "It was an ideological article of faith that the coalition soldiers would be accepted as a liberating army," he writes in his forthcoming autobiography which is being serialized by the newspaper.

Is he really concerned about the British withdrawal?

Or does he just want someone else to shoulder the blame?:

The Bush administration is becoming increasingly concerned about the impact of an imminent British withdrawal from southern Iraq and would prefer UK troops to remain for another year or two.

British officials believe that Washington will signal its intention to reduce US troop numbers after a much-anticipated report next month by its top commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, clearing the way for Gordon Brown to announce a British withdrawal in parliament the following month. An official said: "We do believe we are nearly there."

It is not known whether George Bush expressed concern about the withdrawal of the remaining 5,000 British troops when he met Mr Brown in Washington last week. But sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the administration was worried about the political consequences of losing British troops.

One source said: "If the difference is between the British leaving at the end of the year or staying through to next year or the year after, it is a safe assumption that President Bush would prefer them to stay as long as the Americans are there."

The Bush administration - focused on the north, west and central Iraq and the "surge" strategy that has seen 30,000 extra US troops deployed - has until recently ignored the south, content to leave it to the British. Now, however, it is beginning to pay attention to the region, amid the realisation that what has been portrayed as a success story is turning sour.

I wonder if George Bush was related to General Custer?

The British show us how it's done

Without declaring that society will collapse and suddenly unmarried citizens will take to the streets:

Since the British military began allowing homosexuals to serve in the armed forces in 2000, none of its fears — about harassment, discord, blackmail, bullying or an erosion of unit cohesion or military effectiveness — have come to pass, according to the Ministry of Defense, current and former members of the services and academics specializing in the military. The biggest news about the policy, they say, is that there is no news. It has for the most part become a nonissue.

It's a NON-ISSUE. Even with our own military:

According to a recent Zogby poll of active personnel, 73% of military members say they are comfortable around lesbians and gays. For that matter, more than one in five U.S. troops already knows a gay person in their unit, including combat units. So where’s the “intolerable risk”?

But we still get to wear the white hat, right?

Even though those evil doers treated their hostages a little better than we treated ours?

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- An Iranian diplomat freed two months after being abducted in Iraq accused the CIA of torturing him during his detention, state television reported Saturday. The United States immediately denied any involvement in the Iranian's disappearance or release.

Jalal Sharafi, who was freed on Tuesday, said the CIA questioned him about Iran's relations with Iraq and assistance to various Iraqi groups, according to state television.

"Once they heard my response that Iran merely has official relations with the Iraqi government and officials, they intensified tortures and tortured me through different methods days and nights," he said.

Sharafi's comments came a day after 15 British sailors released by Iran said they had been subject to psychological pressure and coercion in captivity. The sailors were captured in the Persian Gulf on March 23 for allegedly entering Iranian waters and released Wednesday.

And what has been the message imparted by these events?

WASHINGTON - If the administration of US President George W Bush is paying attention, the drama over the 15 British sailors and marines, whose release by Iran after 12 days of detention was announced in Tehran on Wednesday, was designed to convey two key messages, according to experts in Washington.

First, the initial capture of the Britons by Revolutionary Guards near the entry to the disputed Shatt-al-Arab waterway was meant to demonstrate that, despite its conventional military weakness and diplomatic isolation, Iran retains the ability to strike at Western interests when it feels sufficiently provoked.

Second, when Western powers engage Iran with respect and as an equal, they are more likely to get what they want than when they take a confrontational path designed to bully or humiliate the regime.

Neither message is likely to be well received either at the White House or among the neo-conservative and other right-wing pundits who have tried hard to depict the incident as the latest sign of Islamic or Persian barbarism. Properly understood, however, the messages could form the basis of a new approach capable of yielding still greater results, according to Juan Cole, a regional expert at the University of Michigan.

And you know those 5 Iranian diplomats being held by us? They weren't the droids we sought...

US soldiers who captured five Iranians in the Iraq's northern city of Irbil three months ago were hoping to seize commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, a senior Kurdish leader has said.

Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish region government, said senior Guards leaders had been visiting Kurdish officials at the time of the January raid.

The five Iranian diplomats who were arrested in the raid on a house in Irbil were all innocent of US charges that they were helping co-ordinate attacks against US and Iraqi forces, Barzani told Dubai-based Al-Arabiyah television in remarks broadcast on Friday.

Speaking of apologizing for the troops, remember the Chinese, Mr. Bush?

Was that a real wimpified action to take back then just like the British are doing right now with the Iranians?

Via Vanity Press, part of the apology letter to the Chinese:

Dear Mr. Minister:

On behalf of the United States government, I now outline steps to resolve this issue.

Both President Bush and Secretary of State Powell have expressed their sincere regret over your missing pilot and aircraft. Please convey to the Chinese people and to the family of pilot Wang Wei that we are very sorry for their loss.

Although the full picture of what transpired is still unclear, according to our information, our severely crippled aircraft made an emergency landing after following international emergency procedures. We are very sorry the entering of China's airspace and the landing did not have verbal clearance, but very pleased the crew landed safely. We appreciate China's efforts to see to the well-being of our crew.

So. What on earth did the rightwingers expect the 15 hostages to do? Die?

Now that Iran is releasing the British troops

The frantic smearing of the soldiers' good names begins.... by calling them cowards.

W. T. F.

Do as I say

Not as I do:

President Bush on Saturday said Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines was "inexcusable" and called for Iran to "give back the hostages" immediately and unconditionally.

Bush said Iran plucked the sailors out of Iraqi waters. Iran's president said Saturday they were in Iranian waters and called Britain and its allies "arrogant and selfish" for not apologizing for trespassing.

"It's inexcusable behavior," Bush said at the Camp David presidential retreat, where he was meeting with the president of Brazil. "Iran must give back the hostages. They're innocent. They did nothing wrong."

It was the first time that Bush had commented publicly on the captured Britons. Washington has taken a low-key approach to avoid aggravating tensions over the incident and shaking international resolve to get Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program.

Bush did not answer a question about whether the United States would have reacted militarily if those captured had been Americans. The president said he supports British Prime Minister Tony Blair's efforts to find a diplomatic resolution to the crisis, now in its second week.

Bush would not comment about Britain's options if Iran does not release the hostages, but he seemed to reject any swapping of the British captives for Iranians detained in Iraq.

But strangely, Bush is silent on what we have done with the 5 Iranian diplomats or how they have been treated:

WASHINGTON - As the Western media focus on the fate of 15 Britons detained for allegedly trespassing into Iranian waters, the status of five Iranian officials captured in a US military raid on a liaison office in northern Iraq on January 11 remains a mystery.

Even though high-level Iraqi officials have publicly called for their release, for all practical purposes, the Iranians have disappeared into the US-sanctioned "coalition detention" system that has been criticized as arbitrary and even illegal by many experts on international law.

Hours before US President George W Bush declared that they would "seek out and destroy the [Iranian] networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq", US forces raided what has been described as a diplomatic liaison office in the northern city of Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, and detained six Iranians, infuriating Kurdish officials in the process.

The troops took office files and computers, ostensibly to find evidence regarding the alleged role of Iranian agents in anti-coalition attacks and sectarian violence in Iraq. One diplomat was released, but the other five men remain in US custody and have not been formally charged with a crime.

"They have disappeared. I don't know if they've gone into the enemy combatant system," said Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia University who served in the White House under president Jimmy Carter. "Nobody on the outside knows."

Because Bush and Cheney demanded torture

We can't even activate moral outrage over what may happen to the 15 British sailors:

Instead of being able to take the high moral ground -- the ground where that beacon once shone -- we have to look at how such a tyrannical country as Iran abuses its captives and know that we are worse than Iran in how we treat our captives. We cannot look down from the moral high ground on Iran because we're sunk even deeper in the muck than they are.

The Guardian:

It's right that the government and media should be concerned about the treatment the 15 captured marines and sailors are receiving in Iran. Faye Turney's letters bear the marks of coercion, while parading the prisoners in front of TV cameras was demeaning. But the outrage expressed by ministers and leader writers is curious given the recent record of the "coalition of the willing" on the way it deals with prisoners.

Turney may have been "forced to wear the hijab", as the Daily Mail noted with fury, but so far as we know she has not been forced into an orange jumpsuit. Her comrades have not been shackled, blindfolded, forced into excruciating physical contortions for long periods, or denied liquids and food. As far as we know they have not had the Bible spat on, torn up or urinated on in front of their faces. They have not had electrodes attached to their genitals or been set on by attack dogs.

They have not been hung from a forklift truck and photographed for the amusement of their captors. They have not been pictured naked and smeared in their own excrement. They have not been bundled into a CIA-chartered plane and secretly "rendered" to a basement prison in a country where torturers are experienced and free to do their worst.

As far as we know, Turney and her comrades are not being "worked hard", the euphemism coined by one senior British army officer for the abuse of prisoners at Camp Bread Basket. And as far as we know all 15 are alive and well, which is more than can be said for Baha Mousa, the hotel receptionist who, in 2003, was unfortunate enough to have been taken into custody by British troops in Basra. There has of course been a court martial and it exonerated the soldiers of Mousa's murder. So we can only assume that his death - by beating - was self-inflicted; yet another instance of "asymmetrical warfare", the description given by US authorities to the deaths of the Guantánamo detainees who hanged themselves last year.

Discussion of the GPS position and the oddly shifting maps.

How do self-confessed torturers demand Iran cease torturing the captured British marines?

Thers at Whiskey Fire:

Now, that might be justifiable, were the "crisis" that Sullivan had in mind simply the fact that Iran now has British hostages. But, of course, that's not what he's talking about:

[The captured sailors] are being "interrogated," apparently. The news reports put that word in quotation marks. I wonder if it emerges that they are being subject to George W. Bush's preferred euphemism "coercive interrogations." And if that turns out to be the case, and we have to pray it isn't, then what will the United States and its ally Great Britain say in complaint? After all, Iran is only doing to Western soldiers in captivity what the U.S. has been doing to "enemy combatants" since the war began. Then there's a question of what kind of trial they might face. One in which their defense gets a chance to see all the evidence against them? Oh, wait ... we don't do that either.

The first strategic crisis created by the Bush-Cheney torture regime is now occurring. It won't be the last. And if these British sailors are found to have been mistreated and their "trials" tainted, who in the international community is now going to come to Britain's and America's defense?

Sullivan is clearly saying that the Bushite torture policy was a vast strategic miscalculation, because it seriously mucks up the US's ability to put pressure on Iran in a case just such as this one.