Late Night News

Iraqis see red as U.S. opens world’s biggest embassy

By Howard LaFranchi, The Christian Science Monitor

Thu Apr 24, 4:00 AM ET

…

“It is a symbol of occupation for the Iraqi people, that is all,” says Anouar, a Baghdad graduate student who thought it was risk enough to give her first name. “We see the size of this embassy and we think we will be part of the American plan for our country and our region for many, many years.”

The 104-acre, 21-building enclave – the largest US Embassy in the world, similar in size to Vatican City in Rome – is often described as a “castle” by Iraqis, but more in the sense of the forbidden and dominating than of the alluring and liberating.

…

Designed according to what are called the “Inman standards” – the results of a 1985 commission on secure embassy construction headed by former National Security Agency head Bobby Inman – recent embassies have been built as fortified compounds away from population centers and surrounded by high walls.

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The $740 million compound – expected to cost more than $1 billion a year to operate – was originally expected to cost $600 million to build and was to open in September 2007. Design changes and faulty construction caused repeated delays.

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But even the embassy’s opening may not be assuaging diplomats’ concerns about assignments in Iraq. Last week, the State Department warned that it may start ordering employees to serve at the embassy next year if more volunteers do not come forward for the 300 posts expected to open.

But wait!

Gettysburg.

When I was but a lad one of my few enjoyable experiences in Boy Scouts was camping one weekend in Gettysburg Pennsylvania.  Among other memorable events I got to take a wizz on Ike Eisenhower’s fence.

That was not the main program.  Mouldering away in some dusty storage box is my uniform shirt with my “Blue and Grey” patch.  This was 2 days of structured hiking and lectures covering salient features of the Union and Confederate lines from all three days of conflict as well as some visits to local tourist traps like the Cyclorama.  We might have visited the Cemetery for a recitation of the Gettysburg Address but if so it did not make that strong an impression on me.

Little did actually, because of the structure.  First you did the Union line, all three days, and you started out in Gettysburg and worked your way down to Little Round Top visiting each monument in line, listening to the lecture from the Scout Guide Book read by the Scoutmaster or designee (suck ups) and copying the appropriate phrase from the monument into your proof book that you turned in at the end of the hike so you could get a passing grade for not being a slacker.

It’s not very hard walking, about 10 miles a day, but it does take about 10 or 12 hours because of lectures and breaks and it kind of goes Day 1, 2, and 3; Day 3; Day 2.  The next day you do the Confederate line.

About early afternoon, on the second day of your stay, when it’s hot and the sun is high in the sky, you arrive on the edge of the wood on Seminary Ridge across the field from Emmetsburg Road and the monuments you visited the day before and you visit the monument of Edward Porter Alexander.

Then you walk across the field, climb over the fence (probably don’t let you do that now), cross the road (looking both ways as good Scouts are trained) and visit the monument of Lew Armistead (if you are as lazy as I am you have already copied down the magic phrase the day before so you can kind of ignore this part).

And then you walk back and continue your tour.

I frequently wish that I could visit again now that I am no longer 14.  I would surely structure it differently and pay more attention.

After July 3rd, 1863 the Army of Northern Virgina was no longer able to conduct offensive operations in Union territory.  Until April 9th, 1865 all they could do was retreat with occasional local counterattacks until they were destroyed in a trench warfare battle of attrition in front of Petersburg.

On July 4th, 1863 John C. Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg.  People who don’t understand that Generals study logistics and not tactics sometimes argue about the relative importance of these 2 events.  I say this-

PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR,

Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.

Too weird not to blog.

We interrupt your regular lefty and ultra lefty radical common sense for some topics that are just too weird not to blog.

Our Complicit News Media-

George W. Bush and his Cabinet Personally Authorize Torture-

The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Dick Cheney, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.- ABC News

Pentagon Illegally Engages in War Propoganda-

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.- David Barstow

Presidential Debate Moderators Attack Democratic Candidate-

I can’t remember a debate in which the only memorable moment was the audience’s heckling of a moderator. Then again, I can’t remember a debate that became such an instant national gag, earning reviews more appropriate to a slasher movie like “Prom Night” than a civic event held in Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center:

• “Shoddy, despicable!” – The Washington Post
• “A tawdry affair!” – The Boston Globe
• “A televised train wreck!” – The Philadelphia Daily News

And those were the polite ones. Let’s not even go to the blogosphere.

… The trashiest ads often bumped directly into an ABC announcer’s periodic recitations of quotations from the Constitution. Such defacing of American values is to be expected, I guess, from a network whose debate moderators refuse to wear flag pins.

Ludicrous as the whole spectacle was, ABC would not have been so widely pilloried had it not tapped into a larger national discontent with news media fatuousness. The debate didn’t happen in a vacuum; it was the culmination of the orgy of press hysteria over Mr. Obama’s remarks about “bitter” small-town voters. For nearly a week, you couldn’t change channels without hearing how Mr. Obama had destroyed his campaign with this single slip at a San Francisco fund-raiser.- Frank Rich

Just in the last week.

“Some will call this a backward-looking distraction, but only by fully understanding what Mr. Bush has done over eight years to distort the rule of law and violate civil liberties and human rights can Americans ever hope to repair the damage and ensure it does not happen again.”- The New York Times

Not just W.  Only by fully understanding what our Complicit Beltway Media Traitors have done over the last 30 years to distort the truth can Americans ever hope to repair the damage and ensure it does not happen again.

We know who you are and what you are- liars, cowards, and fools.

Your audience hates you and won’t buy your bullshit anymore.  That’s why you’re dying.  Good luck when the money stops losers.