Tag: surge

Arrrrrghhh !!!

As Lieberman deliberated, the new chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), told HuffPost that the party would consider supporting Lieberman if he returned to the fold.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Joe Lieberman,Senator Joe Lieberman

Joe & George the President


The feeling of ill will is mutual: Lieberman said during the health care debate that one reason he opposed a Medicare buy-in compromise was that progressives were embracing it.

Joe Lieberman and John McCain

Joe & John the Presidential Candidate




March 20, 2003

” What we are doing here is not only in the interest of the safety of the American people. Believe me, Saddam Hussein would have used these weapons against us eventually or given them to terrorists who would have. But what we are doing here, in overthrowing Saddam and removing those weapons of mass destruction and taking them into our control, is good for the security of people all over the world, including the Iraqi people themselves.”

http://www.lobelog.com/lieberm…

John McCain Joe Lieberman,McCain,Lieberman

Joe and John in Iraq


September 29, 2011.    10 years and 18 days after 9-11 attacks on NYC



” It is time for us to take steps that make clear that if diplomatic and economic strategies continue to fail to change Iran’s nuclear policies, a military strike is not just a remote possibility in the abstract, but a real and credible alternative policy that we and our allies are ready to exercise.

It is time to retire our ambiguous mantra about all options remaining on the table. It is time for our message to our friends and enemies in the region to become clearer: namely, that we will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability — by peaceful means if we possibly can, but with military force if we absolutely must. A military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities entails risks and costs, but I am convinced that the risks and costs of allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapons capability are much greater.

Some have suggested that we should simply learn to live with a nuclear Iran and pledge to contain it. In my judgment, that would be a grave mistake. As one Arab leader I recently spoke with pointed out, how could anyone count on the United States to go to war to defend them against a nuclear-armed Iran, if we were unwilling to go to war to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran? Having tried and failed to stop Iran’s nuclear breakout, our country would be a poor position to contain its consequences.

I also believe it would be a failure of U.S. leadership if this situation reaches the point where the Israelis decide to attempt a unilateral strike on Iran. If military action must come, the United States is in the strongest position to confront Iran and manage the regional consequences. This is not a responsibility we should outsource. We can and should coordinate with our many allies who share our interest in stopping a nuclear Iran, but we cannot delegate our global responsibilities to them.”

http://www.lobelog.com/lieberm…

http://lieberman.senate.gov/in…

New Wikileaks on Petraeus’s Afghanistan “Nudge.”

A new diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks shows top commanders in Afghanistan wrangling over the issue of what to call yet another troop escalation to re-gain footing in their faltering nine-year effort to control the country.  “The Surge” used in Iraq was a fresh, sufficiently masculine and strength exuding name for the troop escalation, without actually referring to a “troop escalation” and being divorced from connotations of the ensuing gore and violence.  Public opinion tolerated, and was even perhaps vaguely stirred by “the surge,” which struck a nice balance between the need to project strength prudently while avoiding the pale of Rumsfeld’s premature “shock and awe” rhetoric so many years into an ageing war.

But by the time “the surge” was re-deployed by General Petraeus in Afghanistan, it had already become somewhat stale-sounding, and uninspiring.  Similarly, when George H.W. Bush invaded Iraq the first time, it was dramatically named “Operation Desert Storm,” with the troops being led by Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf, but using the same name for the second invasion by George W. Bush simply was out of the question, so the second military action was idealistically re-branded “Operation Iraqi Liberation Freedom.

In its tenth year, support for the Afghanistan war is wearing thin, and “the surge” branding is thought by commanders to be losing appeal.  Cables revealed that among candidates for re-branding the latest troop escalation (and reasons for rejection) were:  

The billow and the swell weren’t manly enough.  The torrent seemed too excessive and “raging.”  The throb reminded everyone of headaches and boners.  The blast was too violently explosive.  The gush implied a loss of control — open wounds and broken pipes gush.  The pulse reminded everyone that Dick Cheney hasn’t one.  The uptick sounded small bore; plus it’s often used in the phrase “the uptick in violence.”  The heave was associated with vomiting and death throes.  The punch, the prod, the squash, and the squish sounded too aggressive, hectoring even.  The push and the shove seemed rude.  The squeeze were a band from the eighties.  Everyone agreed it was “great song-writing.”  The goose seemed “too butt grabby.”   The thrust and the poke were too phallic.  The press and the dig raised some eyebrows, but were somehow vague or basketbally.  The dragooning reminded everyone of good old-fashioned browbeating and rendition.  The ram, the steamroller, the bulldozer, pouring it on,  going to town on, putting the screws to, etc.,  were dismissed as signs of growing frustration with the brainstorming process.  It really was difficult to find a phrase having all the qualities of “the surge” without the negative associations.  Finally, one commander suggested, “Howzabout just tellin’ ’em  we’re “puttin’ some starch in our shorts?“”

The cables indicated that Petraeus will soon be announcing the nudge, something that can be done to persuade and encourage friends and allies without appearing overly domineering.

Adorable Lindsey Graham Threatening to Prosecute NYT, Guardian UK, & der Speigel- oh, wait a second

This past weekend July 25, saw 3 major on line news publications, the      New York Times  ,  The Guardian UK, and Germany’s    der Speigel publish the Afghanistan War Logs, 90,000+ documents from wikileaks, which show that the United States and NATO forces have been killing many more civilians in the Afghanistan occupation than has been previously acknowledged.  The war of the air vs the ground explosives has also ramped up in neighboring Pakistan, where, since January 2009, according to the BBC, nearly 2,500 people have been killed by either American drone attacks or by Islamic or Pakistani ISI forces- and “extremists” have killed more than 1,700 in Pakistan.  There have been more than 2000 Afghan casualties from roadside bombs.  Adding up all the numbers and then some, there’s at least 7,000 dead from the war in this border region.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl…

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

Using a theory I read about elsewhere, if each one of these deceased casualties has at least 6 surviving relatives, parents, siblings, and/or offspring, the United States has just created, with the aid of whatever factions they’re paying in Pakistan, at least 36,000 more angry people whose religious warrior culture teaches them that it’s okay to extract revenge upon the invading enemy.    

From Guardian UK, “How To Read Afghanistan War Logs” from wikileaks

The Guardian UK, a British publication, says that they asked to see the 90,000+  wikileaks documents of whistleblower Julian Assange on the Afghanistan War, and has created its own stories on them, and has not paid for this. They say they’ve “crawled through it so you can make sense of it,”  which means that they must have had it for a while.  

As the U.S. Senate strips out $20 billion of domestic funding resources that would have paid for schools, teachers, and college students,  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…


A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wouldn’t comment on whether the House will simply approve the Senate measure and send it on to Obama for his signature.

But the pressure to do so is intense, especially after Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned lawmakers this week that unless the measure is enacted into law before Congress leaves for its August recess, the Pentagon could have to furlough thousands of employees.

….     out of yet another war “supplemental” bill above the regular military funding, and is poised to influx another massive amount of deficit cash into yet another surge into a country we’ve now occupied for 9 years, the timing could not be better.


Rachel Reid, who investigates civilian casualty incidents in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, said: “These files bring to light what’s been a consistent trend by US and Nato forces: the concealment of civilian casualties. Despite numerous tactical directives ordering transparent investigations when civilians are killed, there have been incidents I’ve investigated in recent months where this is still not happening.  

Accountability is not just something you do when you are caught. It should be part of the way the US and Nato do business in Afghanistan every time they kill or harm civilians.” The reports, many of which the Guardian is publishing in full online, present an unvarnished and often compelling account of the reality of modern war.

Most of the material, though classified “secret” at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…

The Guardian’s war logs homepage of links is here:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…

Morning Migraine: BiPartisanship Commission Member Named to BiPartisanship BP Oil Spill Study

Saturday May 21, 2010  One month and one day past the destruction of the drilling rig of the Deepwater Horizon, with BP unable to stop the oil blowout destroying the Gulf, President Obama’s anonymous source announced he will appoint former  Senator Bob Graham (D, FL) and former EPA head William K Reilly to a commission to study the cause of the spill, federal oversight, and the potential risks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

William K Reilly was administrator at the EPA under the first George Bush administration, George H W “Poppy” Bush, the one who invaded the Middle East the First Time and went to war against Iraq the First Time, which was called the ……  Gulf War.


The commission, modeled on ones which investigated the Challenger shuttle explosion and the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, will not include any federal officials, administration officials said this week.

National Guard recruiters forged re-enlistment papers:

Well, well, well, is this one more isolated incident, under the command of one george w. bush, and with only one State National Guard or were similar incidents taking place in the lead up to the ‘surge’, i.e. escalation, and during other times, in Iraq to make sure there were enough needed warm bodies or were recruiters trying to keep their numbers up for their bonuses!

Test Votes Mean Nothing to Afghanis and Americans

One hopes that President Obama will strongly and clearly frame our mission in Afghanistan tonight, including the reason for our continued presence in a country that has known wave after wave of outside invaders fighting to advance their own ends.  We are but the latest army to set up shop and increase troop presence in pursuit of an elusive and often invisible enemy force.  The ultimate result is cloudy at this juncture, as was the previous President’s troop surge in Iraq when it was proposed.  I would hasten to call the latter decision an unequivocal success, but it did largely and surprisingly contain a low-grade Civil War.  It is with this fact in mind that many will choke down the prospect of another round of foreign entanglement, troop deployment, and media saturation coverage of major military skirmishes.      

One could, I suppose, reach for an obscure citation describing a similar conflict to which the United States committed troops.  In this situation, however, there are no easy parallels and no conventional warfare nor wisdom to cite.  The Soviet Union’s disastrous nine years in the country might be the best possible comparison under the circumstances, but the peculiarities of that conflict leave it more akin to Vietnam to our current endeavor.  The Soviet War in Afghanistan was an attempt to bolster the existing Communist party from collapsing against the Mujahideen.  We, of course, allocated weaponry and financial support to the Islamic insurgents as a means of undermining the Soviets.  

What has been forgotten in this day is that for nearly fifteen years, the Communist government ruled effectively and made great strides in developing a civilization rather than a backwards state beholden to constant conflict.  With the collapse of the USSR in 1991 came the decline of the Communist state and the rise of the Taliban, which single-handedly destroyed years of reform and plunged the country back into the Dark Ages.  The country deserves lasting stability if it is ever to move forward in time but until it ceases to be a designated battleground, it never will.

Nationwide protests this week against Afghanistan escalation (UPDATE)

It’s about time for a substantial anti-war movement to start in this country – and with Obama probably announcing an escalation of 34,000 troops to Afghanistan (in addition to the 20,000 he already sent), there is no better time than now.  A leading anti-war organization, World Can’t Wait, is holding protests around the nation.

Throughout next week, there will be protests in (this list will probably include more cities by the time the protests start – and you can always organize a protest yourself!):

Protest the Troop Buildup on an Intersection Near Your Home

I just got in from protesting the war during rush hour. I live by a busy intersection, so I can just walk out and get a fairly good audience with the people driving to work. I stood on the sidewalk right next to the road from 7:30 to 9:00 with a big sign that had a peace sign on one side and “The war is not worth it” on the other. I plan to do it again at quitting time today. And then I am going to do the morning and afternoon rush hours ever day until Obama makes his announcement next week. We the citizens can help set the frame for Obama’s announcement. We should demonstrate resistance before he has even said anything, so the backlash will be even greater when he tells us he’s sending more troops.

So I hope others will join me and make up a sign, very legible from a distance, and protest where they live. You don’t need a big group to protest. A single sign can remind people of the war. All you need is a big audience. High-traffic intersections are excellent. So please, for the Iraqis and Afghans, make a sign and protest. If you wait around for the big organized protests, you will have waited too long. This is something you have to do on your own. Protesting with a small group of friends is fun too.

And if you’re already doing it, keep up the good work!

Sen. Sherrod Brown Torches Dick Cheney on “Dithering”

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    Sen. Sherrod Brown does NOT pull any punches once he gets started, and this time he beat up on poor ole Shooter something awful.

    First Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) put up a lame defense for another 5 years of Afghanistan, but at least he was kind enough to throw Dick Cheney under the bus while he did it. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) then systematically torched Dick Cheney (Sith-Lizard planet) for being Co-Proesident to FAIL.

    More of a good torching below the fold.

Leila Fadel: McClatchy Newspapers on Iraq

Paul Jay, of the Real News Network, speaks to Leila Fadel, Baghdad bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers in a series of interviews covering a number of topics pertaining to Iraq. The interview, and her points, are very insightful, showing her understanding of the country and it’s people.

This interview, and a few others, are what the American people should be seeing. Not reporting? being done by so called News Anchors and expert? analyst, most having never been In-Country, or only quick visits to, and having few reports directly out of the Country and even fewer about and with the people of, same for the other Theater of Occupation Afghanistan.

Condi, Condi, Condi…………………..

You gotta get your ducks all in a row there before tooting those horns:

At a press conference she and Zebari said the negotiators were close to signing the deal but cautioned it had not yet been clinched.

Everyone says how intelligent you are, and after all you’re the Secretary of State with a whole department working for you, or are they being allowed to.

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