Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich twice called on the United States to attack North Korea and Iran Thursday because the United States has only attacked "one out of three" of so-called "Axis of Evil" members by invading Iraq. He also claimed that Muslims are trying to install Sharia law on America and said that the "War on Terror" should have been a war on "radical Islamists" instead.Update: David Corn has more:
Gingrich likes to pose as a serious thinker and idea man, but his embrace of such melodramatic hyperbole is more befitting a cartoon character. But Gingrich has always undermined his attempts to be seen as a statesman by immature bomb-throwing. After the 2008 campaign -- during which he originated the GOP's "Drill, Baby, Drill" initiative -- he positioned himself as a post-partisan player, declaring that he wanted to promote a "tri-partisan" approach to politics that would bring together Democrats, Republicans, and independents. He denounced the Republican Party for releasing an ad attempting to tie Obama to disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, decrying "the sort of negative attack politics that the voters rejected in 2006 and 2008." Yet now -- after the Tea Party explosion has made attack politics rather popular on the right -- Gingrich is willing (and eager) to engage in the most foul of attacks: accusing the president of purposefully endangering the country because he and his crew prefer America's enemies. This is the worst form of calumny.
Gingrich's use of such poison -- and his abandonment of "tri-partisan," let's-work-together rhetoric -- is no shocker. He's not a man of high-minded consistency. When he was House speaker in the 1990s, he led the family-values GOP during its impeachment crusade against President Bill Clinton (for lying about a sexual affair with intern Monica Lewinsky) -- wasting much time and energy that could have been used to address challenges facing the nation, such as the troubled health care system, flat wages for middle-income Americans, and the nation's dangerous dependency on fossil fuels. At the same time, Gingrich was carrying on an extramarital affair of his own.
In 2008, 140 soldiers on active duty took their own lives, continuing a trend in which the number of suicides has increased more than 60 percent since 2003, surpassing the rate for the general U.S. population.The answer to this puzzling problem is found within the same article. To help, I've bolded it.:To deal with the problem, the Army has added to the ranks of mental health and substance abuse counselors. The service also required all units to cease operations for two to four hours to talk about suicide prevention in February and March.
Chiarelli's monthly meetings are the Army's way of sleuthing out patterns and identifying new policies to deal with the trend.
The Army's biggest challenge is that its volunteer force is in uncharted territory. Many soldiers are now in the midst of their third or fourth combat tour, and Army surveys show that mental health deteriorates with each one. Senior Army officials said they are focusing more resources, including extra mental health counselors, where troops are returning from multiple deployments. This year, Fort Campbell, Ky., which is home to the frequently deployed 101st Airborne Division, has had 14 suicides.Um... guys. The military is broken. Soldiers are people and they are used up and tired. You can't have an Eternal War on a Noun and expect only a small percentage of the American population to fight it ... forever. You can't extend tours, use stop-loss, badger and harass soldiers into reenlisting, lie to get potential recruits to sign up, ignore signs of mental stress and ptsd, provide crappy veteran's care and not have a backlash.
"We probably don't know how many mental health care providers we need after eight years of war and three and four deployments," Chiarelli said.
This is still about leaving Vietnam, isn't it?ORLANDO — John McCain told the nation's largest veterans group Monday that both he and Barack Obama want to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq, but "the great difference is that I intend to win it first."McCain assailed Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, for saying he still would have opposed the 2007 U.S. troop build-up in Iraq.
"Even in retrospect, he would choose the path of retreat and failure for America over the path of success and victory," McCain said.
VoteVets.org is running this new ad nationwide, making clear that Iraqi Freedom means listening to them when they ask for a timeline to leave. John McCain would have us occupy Iraq indefinitely, instead.
Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors:I don't think anyone is really surprised by this. You can't build the largest effing embassy on earth and not have it discussed.A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.
The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.
But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.
The timing of the agreement would also boost the Republican candidate, John McCain, who has claimed the United States is on the verge of victory in Iraq – a victory that he says Mr Obama would throw away by a premature military withdrawal.
There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was the only senior official urging delay in taking any offensive action. The decision to go ahead with plans to attack Iran is the direct result of concerns being expressed over the deteriorating situation in Lebanon, where Iranian ally Hezbollah appears to have gained the upper hand against government forces and might be able to dominate the fractious political situation.It's that last sentence that scares the &^#$ out of me.
The White House contacted the Iranian government directly yesterday through a channel provided by the leadership of the Kurdish region in Iraq, which has traditionally had close ties to Tehran. The US demanded that Iran admit that it has been interfering in Iraq and also commit itself to taking steps to end the support of various militant groups. There was also a warning about interfering in Lebanon. The Iranian government reportedly responded quickly, restating its position that it would not discuss the matter until the US ceases its own meddling employing Iranian dissident groups. The perceived Iranian intransigence coupled with the Lebanese situation convinced the White House that some sort of unambiguous signal has to be sent to the Iranian leadership, presumably in the form of cruise missiles. It is to be presumed that the attack will be as “pinpoint” and limited as possible, intended to target only al-Qods and avoid civilian casualties.
The decision to proceed with plans for an attack is not final. The President will still have to give the order to launch after all preparations are made.
This morning, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, where Pat Buchanan asked him whether he believed “the United States states should conduct air strikes on the Iranian Quds force in Iran if they do not stop” interfering in Iraq. Lieberman replied that he “hoped” the U.S. would not have to strike at “the people who are responsible for killing Americans,” but said that the Iranians should “have in mind that it’s a distinct possibility.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday postponed consideration of a bill that would continue funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a bloc of conservative Democrats balked at the high cost of including several of Pelosi's favored domestic spending programs.Yet without question, there is more than enough money to pay for Bush's Eternal War on a Noun and all the defense contractors, mercenary groups, and militias that are involved. Nice to see what their priorities are.
Pelosi (D-Calif.), who also faces Republican stalling tactics in protest of unusual parliamentary procedures, predicted that the complaints of "Blue Dog" Democrats would be addressed and that the bill eventually would receive unanimous support from Democrats.
"I am very confident that, next week, we will come to the floor with a bill that has the full consensus of the Democrats and hopefully can attract a large number of Republicans, as well," she told reporters.
The Blue Dogs have objected to the creation of a program that would guarantee veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan a year of in-state college tuition for each year served in the war zones. The Blue Dogs said the House had not found any additional money, through spending cuts or tax increases, to pay for the program, a violation of pay-as-you-go rules imposed by House Democrats in early 2007.
[snip]
President Bush has announced his opposition to any bill that contains veterans' benefits and unemployment insurance in addition to the war funds.
"McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal -- that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we'll stay."
Sanchez goes on the explain that his interpretation of this meeting was that he was being bribed with job offers in an attempt to get him to agree that Rumsfeld had no knowledge that he was being left in charge of the occupation of Iraq. But, again, while that is interesting, the important point is that it appears that there was no plan to stick around in Iraq. The plan was to get the hell out.If this is true, the neocons in the Bush administration are not only evil but incompetently evil. And we get to pay for their destructive influence for decades to come. Heckovajob, Bushies!
The only thing I can think of that explains this is that the lunatics around Cheney and Rumsfeld seriously believed that they could just install Ahmed Chalabi as a new strongman and that he would be able to maintain order. But once they arrived in Iraq they quickly realized that that would be impossible and that Ayatollah Sistani (who they had probably never heard of before) was the most important man in Iraq. They couldn't do anything without his approval, and that is when things began to unravel in a hurry.
This theory can explain a lot of things, like why General Franks did so little Phase IV (occupation) planning and why the State Department's plan was tossed aside, and (potentially) why the decisions were made to disband the military and engage in de-Ba'athification.
But, in any case, it doesn't look like the plan was initially to have a long-term occupation of Iraq.
Inside the Air Force reported in late March on a problem vexing the U.S. military -- fake parts showing up in depots and finding their way into Air Force and Navy aircraft.An unknown number of counterfeit aircraft parts are being fastened into U.S. military weapon systems after infiltrating supply depots, posing new safety risks and potentially driving up maintenance bills by hundreds of millions of dollars annually, according to Pentagon officials.
This practice is an unintended consequence of two converging trends: globalization and Defense Department acquisition policies instituted in the 1990s that encourage use of commercial-off-the-shelf technology, according to Robert Ernst, head of aging aircraft studies for the Navy.
Nice. You don't go to war with the military you have, you sabotage it at every turn with defense contractors who sell cheap copies and overcharge. In for a penny, in for as much loot as you can carry away.
The last thing GEN Cody wants is to bring back the Draft. If you look at all of his previous statements in hearings and in media - he STRONGLY opposes the Draftt. He served in a draft Army, and knows how bad it can get. He made that statement last week to get Congress to get off their duffs and give the Army the money it needs to win this War, and to take care of the Soldiers and families. Congress continues to underfund this Army and cut key programs, FCS, etc. His message has always been the same. Grow the Army, fund it appropriately in the BASE budget, and stop trying to win this war on the cheap thru supplementals.He served in a draft Army, and knows how bad it can get.
It's hard to have an Eternal War on Terror that Defines the New Century when you are losing your all-volunteer army to mismanagement, incompetence, and indifference.And then he added the kicker:
If unaddressed, this lack of balance poses a significant risk to the All-Volunteer Force and degrades the Army’s ability to make a timely response to other contingencies.
When Cody says “this lack of balance poses a significant risk to the All-Volunteer Force,” he’s really saying we have three options:
1. We can change course now and save everyone a lot of trouble.
2. We can maintain our current course in Iraq and watch the Army disintegrate as it did during and after Vietnam.
3. We can institute the Draft.
The adjective “All-Volunteer” is the key part of the statement. He’s implying that if the force were not all-volunteer, then there would be no “significant risk.” As no sane officer would accept the disintegration of the Army, Cody is saying that if we want to keep up this thing in Iraq, we’re going to have to move toward instituting a draft. It’s that simple.
