The complete and total delusional miscalculation of what would happen in Iraq by the Bush administration became obvious once again this week. It has become obvious we are not being greeted with flowers.
The True Cost of War

In anger and embarrassment, Congressional Republicans are scrambling to repair a budget shortfall in veterans’ medical care now that the Bush administration has admitted it vastly underestimated the number of returning Iraq and Afghanistan personnel needing treatment. The $1 billion-plus gaffe is considerable, with the original budget estimate of 23,553 returned veterans needing care this year now ballooning to 103,000. American taxpayers should be even more furious than Congress.

Rather than being a case of cold hearted callousness on the part of Republicans, as many on the left have claimed, it appears that underfunding the Veterans Administration may simply be another example of gross incompetence on the part of the administration and the unwillingness of Republicans to go against the administration.

The Capitol’s Republican majorities have shown no hesitation in signing the president’s serial blank-check supplemental budgets for waging the war, yet they repeatedly ignored months of warnings from Democrats that returning veterans were being shortchanged. One Republican who warned of the problem - Representative Christopher Smith of New Jersey - lost his chairmanship of the Veterans Affairs Committee after pressing his plea too boldly before the House leadership.

But partisan resistance melted in a flood of political chagrin once the administration admitted the budget error, which was first discovered in April but only now disclosed. The explanation offered - the gaffe was due to using dated formulas based on prewar calculations - left Republicans sputtering all the more.

Take note of the reason: “the gaffe was due to using dated formulas based on prewar calculations“. The prewar calculations were off by an order of magnitude. There is a word for that, incompetence.

I went through my e-mail today, and I came across a piece from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. On my own blog, I have remarked on the DCCC’s penchant for filling my inbox with messages that ask me to “please send money.”

A recent e-mail, dated June 23, came with this subject line:

Don’t Let the GOP Buy Another Election!

And how can I prevent the GOP from buying another election? By … ahem … sending money. E-mails like this threaten to break the Irony-O-Meter.

Goldstein demolishes the “Chickenhawk” rhetoric.

This will be my last post here until Tuesday, so I leave you some topical quotes…

“This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.”

-Elmer Davis

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”

-Thomas Paine

“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.”

-Thomas Paine

“In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.”

-Franklin D. Roosevelt

Happy 4th, Americans.

It’s always weird hanging in someone else’s digs, but I told Jack that I would at least put up one post before I skipped town myself.

And I’ve been meaning to link Ophelia for over a week now on her gay stereotype bashing post. A young one in blog years, and yet, she’s got the idea.

It’s interesting to gain a new perspective.

Pam discussed this several months ago, and I linked her on it. We wondered why so many homosexuals have seemed to define themselves by their homosexuality.

Ophelia blames Hollywood for handing down that definition, rather than the gay community. And I say: How can you not blame Hollywood? Those feather-muckers.

I will say this, at least of late, the movement seems to have gotten away from the “nasty, sickly, disease-ridden” stereotypes, and more towards the JUST JACK! overly animated type from Will and Grace.

That’s our fault. As humans, we find comfort in stereotyping, almost as much as we are enraged by it. And as an audience of this generation, we seek comedic relief as a refreshing contrast to the world’s coming to an end! mentality of the late 80’s.

And so here we are…

Regarding our position on the bell curve of balance - on ALL of the issues - I have to question where we stand.

I can’t help but wonder how close we are to “as good as it gets.”

I’m in a Shakespearean mode of late, so I offer the words of Shylock, from The Merchant of Venice:

I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge?

President George Bush’s speech is all over the news — but did you know there are two versions of this speech?

On my own blog I ran THIS POST that analyzed the speech we saw on television.

But then we leared about the REAL speech and did THIS POST.

Since there has been so much heated discussion on my blog of late about Iraq. I thought I would write the definitive post on my feelings about the war. I am going to TRY and keep this short to avoid misinterpretation.

I am against the war. I have been against it almost from day one, as I believed and still believe that the REAL war is in Afghanistan, and the greater danger to our country is Osama Bin Laden.

I believe it was an insult to those who died on 9/11 and their families, to shift focus from finding their murderer to pursuing a war in Iraq.

I believe the American People were lied to about the reasons for going to war, and I believe we began executing a secret war in Iraq well before the war was declared or authorized.

I believe the neglect of our troops in providing them proper equipment and support is a criminal act that should be punished.

I believe that ultimately the abuses at Abu Gharib, Gitmo and in Afghanistan are the responsibility of command, and prosecuting a bunch of low level troops for these abuses does nothing to address the cause.

I believe that to support our troops does not mean that we have to support an illegal and immoral war. Further I believe that REALLY supporting our troops means demanding that they have the best equipment to get the job done, and the best medical and social services when they return home.

I do not believe in timetables for ending the war. We broke a country, we need to fix what we broke and finish the job. But I do believe we need to demand accountability and a strategy rather than idiotic rhetoric. Saying the insurrection is in its “Last Throes,” as your Generals acknowledge a situation unchanged from six months ago, is just adding to the long list of lies associated with this war. Denying the need for additional resources when it is clear that they are needed is not SUPPORTING OUR TROOPS.

I believe that those who most loudly support the war SHOULD be doing something other than spouting rhetoric. I don’t necessarily think that everyone who expresses support for the war on a blog should or could be a good soldier, but I do believe that many of the most rabid supporters who are young, able bodied men and women, should put their money where their mouth is and volunteer if they feel so strongly about it. Perhaps some of the others could support the war by buying additional flack jackets and such, since our government seems incapable of outfitting the troops. The families of these troops have already taken on a tremendous burden. I am sure a few of the Top Conservative Bloggers can afford to donate a few thousand bucks a piece to such a noble cause.

I am going to finish this post with a comment I made last night in response to a criticism of one of my post:

“True patriotism is standing up for what is right. They lied, and over 100,000 people are now dead. I don’t really care about the morale of our troops in light of that. Nor do I care about being right personally. I care about my country and it’s place in History. That place has potentially been irrevocably stained as a result of the actions of a few people whom you happen to support. History will determine who among us is right or wrong. The fact that so many of you on the Right are willing to overlook the immorality of sending our young men and women to war based on a lie, is a sad testament to the state of political affairs in our country today.

The evidence is beginning to mount that this war was executed well before we went to the U.N. or got Congressional Approval. You may be able to live with that, I can not, and will not accept it for the convenience of being accepted as a fellow patriot. My form of Patriotism recalls the founding principals of this country, not the evolving lack of principal in an age of Special Interest.

This will forever divide us, regardless of how we might feel about each other on a personal level. I have committed myself to seeking the truth, no matter how much it may hurt. That hurt may be to my pride if all the actions taken by our government prove to be legal and moral, if they do not, the hurt will be much more grievous, and I pray to God that those of you who did not ask questions, are able to sleep at night with the results.”

So I am going to keep on covering the DSM, and I am going to keep on criticizing our government when I think it is the right thing to do. Call me a Traitor, imply that I don’t support our troops, call me a moonbat, whatever. History will be the measure of all of our patriotism and of the justness and legality of this war. For now there is one thing in which we all agree. We need to finish the job. But when it is done, perhaps before… We all need to take a look at WHY…

Oh, and ONE MORE THING… READ MY LIPS… Iraq has NOTHING to do with 9/11!

“We are not going away.”

Crossposted to ISOU

But didn’t:
“The young people who support me and support the war effort should put their money where their mouth is and join the military.”

“Politicians, like diapers, have to be changed frequently–and for the very same reason.”

-Author Unknown

Have truer words ever been spoken?

Not much of a title but it wasn’t much of a speech. I must admit I’m surprised. Why you ask?. There was no attempt at anything new, not even any new bull shit. The same old spinning platitudes recycled. Of course among the platitudes 911 was mentioned, at least 3 times I think. He emphasized that 911 was the centerpiece of the war on terror. Polls indicate a majority no longer think so. Bush’s rather lame performance won’t change any minds. Once again the plan is not a plan. He will hold on to those who are still heavely addicted to the Kool-Aid but won’t help the numbers.

Not much of a post but once again it wasn’t much of a speech.

I feel a bit foolish that I had to travel to Andrew Sullivan’s blog on the east coast to find this op ed in a paper less than 100 miles from where is live but here it is.
The party’s over for betrayed Republican

As of today, after 25 years, I am no longer a Republican.
[......]
My problem is this: I believe in principles and ideals which my party has systematically discarded in the last 10 years.

My Republican Party was the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, and George H.W. Bush. It was a party of honesty and accountability. It was a party of tolerance, and practicality and honor. It was a party that faced facts and dealt with reality, and that crafted common-sense solutions to problems based on the facts as they were, not as we wished them to be, or even worse, as we made them up. It was a party that told the truth, even when the truth came hard. And now, it is none of those things.

Fifty years from now, the Republican Party of this era will be judged by how we provided for the nation’s future on three core issues: how we led the world on the environment, how we minded the business of running our country in such a way that we didn’t go bankrupt, and whether we gracefully accepted our place on the world’s stage as its only superpower. Sadly, we have built the foundation for dismal failure on all three counts. And we’ve done it in such a way that we shouldn’t be surprised if neither the American people nor the world ever trusts us again.

Like many traditional Republicans James Chaney feels betrayed.

My party has repeatedly ignored, discarded and even invented science to suit its needs, most spectacularly as to global warming. We have an opportunity and the responsibility to lead the world on this issue, but instead we’ve chosen greed, shortsightedness and deliberate ignorance.

We have mortgaged the country’s fiscal future in a way that no Democratic Congress or administration ever did, and to justify the tax cuts that brought us here, we’ve simply changed the rules. I matured as a Republican believing that uncontrolled deficit spending is harmful and irresponsible; I still do. But the party has yet to explain to me why it’s a good thing now, other than to say “… because we say so.”

Our greatest failure, though, has been in our role as superpower. This world needs justice, democracy and compassion, and as the keystone of those things, it needs one thing above all else: truth.

The theocons and neocons don’t represent the Republican party much less America. They don’t represent to proverbial “moral majority” anymore than the extreme left represents the “moral majority”.

Let’s say–theoretically, of course–that your country is run by the dregs of society. Dregs who look out for number one, and don’t actually give a fig about you and me. Dregs who waste our hard-earned money every chance they get, and spend most of their time and energy ensuring they get re-elected every 2, 4, or 6 years (as the case may be).

Now let’s say some court decision is made…I don’t know…giving them the right to take away the home your grandfather built. The home your father grew up in, and the home your dear, sweet, apple pie-baking grandmother lives in. She lives on a tight budget, but still manages to spoil her grandchildren when they come to visit her. Every 4th of July the whole family gathers at Grandma’s house for a barbecue dinner after the parade. The flag waves on the flagpole your grandfather put up after your uncle died in Vietnam.

But one year, the government comes along and tells your grandmother to pack her things. Her house is standing in the way of progress. A company worth billions of dollars needs to build their new headquarters in the very spot your dad buried his pet dog when he was 12 years old. They can’t build 20 miles away on the land a farmer is trying to sell because he can’t make a living on his farm. Nope, they need Grandma’s house.

Your grandmother packs her things, takes the market value settlement, and tries to find a new home for herself. Of course, it’s hard to find an equivalent home, because her house was 50 years old and most new homes cost much more. So Grandma settles into a small apartment in a senior living community. Her grandkids can’t visit as much, because there just isn’t the room. Plus some of the seniors don’t care for the noise kids make.

On the day the bulldozers move in to tear the old house down, your cousin puts a flag on Grandpa’s flagpole and sets it on fire. It’s his small way of protesting against a government that would rip an old lady out of her home…some old men and women in black robes let it happen…some politicians let it happen. No one stopped it. So the flag of the country burns in silent protest. And your cousin is arrested for it.

Fair, huh?

The traffic over at my blog Middle Earth Journal is up this month. I should be happy, right? Well I’m not. I did a single post that mentioned Natalee Halloway about 2 or 3 days after the media event started. It was a rant against the media for wall to wall coverage. Most, but not all, of the increased traffic this month has been search engine hits for that post. I’m sorry, but that’s really sick. The world is full of life and death news, real news. I’m disgusted.

That’s all…thank you

I usually dont post whole post from other blogs, but this is a worthy cause that all of us should be willing to help on. From Wizbang:

I’ve mentioned in passing the story of Manuel Gehring, the New Hampshire man
who killed his two children, then hanged himself in his jail cell
before his trial.

But for some reason I kept neglecting to mention what may be the
most tragic element. Gehring shot the children in his minivan, then
started driving across the country. Somewhere along Interstate 80
between Pennsylvania and Iowa, he pulled off the highway and buried his
son and daughter. But their bodies have never been recovered.

Authorities are convinced that the Gehring was telling the truth
before he killed himself. They report that all the details are
accurate, and all the physical evidence (the purchasing of the shovel
and other materials he says he used to bury them, the overwhelming
evidence in the van that it was a murder scene, and so on) backs it up.
Gehring himself retraced his path several times with law enforcement
officials, but couldn’t find the scene.

Terri Knight — Gehring’s ex-wife and mother of the missing children — has been to the Midwest several times, and is planning yet another trip soon. She’s hoping that this time she will find the bodies of her son and daughter, and bring them home for a proper burial.

The FBI has taken a most unusual step. They have posted transcripts and audio clips of Gehring’s account on their web site here and here.

Please do the trackback dance and get this story noticed.

Crossposted to ISOU

“Even revolutionaries like chocolate chip cookies.”

-Trudeau’s Doonesbury

The ARG poll yesterday showing that the Bush administration has all but lost the middle has already resulted in a great deal of blog activity. I gave my thoughts and the thoughts of a couple of others over at Middle Earth Journal but today I want to discuss what the Democrats should and more importantly shouldn’t do to take advatage of it.
The Bush administration cannot improve their approval rating based on their policy. In spite of continued rosy assesments from the administration the majority have figured out that things are not going well in Iraq and that the economy is not really as great as the moronic John Snow would like us to believe. As a result expect the Rovian slime machine to kick into full gear. The only way the administration can hope to come out of this is to make the Democrats look worse. There are indications that it may backfire this time. It is essential that the Democrats are very careful not to give the appearance that they are climbing into the same slimy gutter that Rove resides in. There was nothing inaccurate about what Dick Durbin said about GITMO but he could have avoided the inflammatory references to gulags and the Nazis. Howard Dean should continue to criticize the Republicans but should avoid the Rovian inflammatory generalizations that may inspire the base but turn off everyone else. If you fight Rove using his tactics you will lose.
My advice to the Democrats is you can win this round; the polls show that not nearly as many are drinking the kool-aid now. But you won’t win if you you try to out-slime Karl Rove. Take the high road, it’s a winner this time.

Hello, Jack’s readers. This is my second time guest-blogging here. I’m surprised Jack asked me to return, considering my own blog’s lack of quality lately, but someone has to throw some quotes out now and then. May as well be me, I guess.

First I’d like to let you know that you will not get any thoughtful or visionary political commentary out of me. I find that sort of thing is best left to those with good blood pressure medication.

Now, how about a quote or two to bid Jack a bon voyage?

“A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking.”

-Earl Wilson

“A vacation should be just long enough that your boss misses you, and not long enough for him to discover how well he can get along without you.”

-Unknown

Enjoy yourself, Jack!

“Fixed” means Fixed!

From Blue Collar Politics

Michael Smith, the Sunday Times reporter who broke he story thinks he knows what “fixed” means. On June 16, he told the Washington Post:

“There are a number of people asking about ‘fixed’ and its meaning. This is a real joke. I do not know anyone in the UK who took it to mean anything other than fixed, as in fixed a race, fixed an election, fixed the intelligence. If you fix something, you make it the way you want it. The intelligence was fixed…the head of MI-6 has just been to Washington. He has just talked with George Tenet. He said the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. That translates in clearer terms as the intelligence was being cooked to match what the administration wanted it to say to justify invading Iraq.”

I contacted a number of British friends who are close observers of the political scene, to get their opinion. Here is one recent email reply:

“Nobody that I have come across here in London interprets the term ‘fixed’ in this context as other than cooked/manipulated/selected. Fixed refers to trickery—as in ‘the fix is in.’ What Woolsey and Co. may think…that is completely irrelevant. It is what we British think that counts. The memo was written to be read by us British, not by Woolsey. It appears that he and his “neoconservative” friends are getting a bit desperate. He would probably be one of the people to go to jail at the end of this, given the key role he has played.”

Or, from VIPS colleague Col. Patrick Lang, USA (ret), who tends to be more succinct:

“Fixed is fixed, man.”

And Spin means Spin…

And lies my friends… Are lies…

We are not going away…

Crossposted to ISOU

I had seen some posts earlier today on this, but combined with my host problems along with the lack of confirmation regarding the assertions in the news releases, I chose not to try to write about this issue at the time. Now, with confirmation, it provides a starting point for a post that I lost when my hard disk for my PowerBook died, so I will attempt to reconstruct it now.

The news story:

US acknowledges torture at Guantanamo and Iraq, Afghanistan: UN source

Fri Jun 24, 9:23 AM ET

GENEVA (AFP) - Washington has for the first time acknowledged to the
United Nations that prisoners have been tortured at US detention centres in Guantanamo Bay, as well as
Afghanistan and Iraq, a UN source said.

The acknowledgment was made in a report submitted to the UN Committee against Torture, said a member of the ten-person panel, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“They are no longer trying to duck this, and have respected their obligation to inform the UN,” the Committee member told AFP.

“They will have to explain themselves (to the Committee). Nothing should be kept in the dark.”

UN sources said it was the first time the world body has received such a frank statement on torture from US authorities.

The Committee, which monitors respect for the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, is gathering information from the US ahead of hearings in May 2006.

Signatories of the convention are expected to submit to scrutiny of their implementation of the 1984 convention and to provide information to the Committee.

The document from Washington will not be formally made public until the hearings.

“They haven’t avoided anything in their answers, whether concerning prisoners in Iraq, in Afghanistan or Guantanamo, and other accusations of mistreatment and of torture,” the Committee member said.

“They said it was a question of isolated cases, that there was nothing systematic and that the guilty were in the process of being punished.”

The US report said that those involved were low-ranking members of the military and that their acts were not approved by their superiors, the member added.

The US has faced criticism from UN human rights experts and international groups for mistreatment of detainees — some of whom died in custody — in Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly during last year’s prisoner abuse scandal surrounding the Abu Ghraib facility there.

Scores of US military personnel have been investigated, and several tried and convicted, for abuse of people detained during the US-led campaign against Islamic terrorist groups.

First: I take no joy in this. I feel shame for my nation.

Second: My nation has indeed done the right thing and admitted that individuals that were representing the United States engaged in behaviors that could be called “torture” under a reasonable interpretation of the word.

Third: This admission should NOT be read as anything more than what it is; an acknowledgment that certain individuals did not act in accordance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Going against this Convention is not a stated part of United States policy.

After all of the above, can we finally look at this issue?

I have stated repeatedly both here and in comments at other weblogs about how the prison at Guantanamo stains our national honor.

I want to clarify for those who do not get it exactly how this prison is wrong upon its very basis.

However, this explanation is perhaps too long for the modern short attention span, much less for the time I have available to reconstruct the coherent whole of the foundation of my beliefs.

So instead I will try a melange of my thoughts that perhaps might provide a better perspective, even if being less satisfying from a logical viewpoint.

I have grown very angry recently when I have seen defenders of abhorrent statements from prominent representatives of BOTH sides of the political spectrum, namely Karl Rove and Dick Durban.

Am I equating what they said?

No, I am not.

But I am indeed equating much of what I have read in defense of what they said.

Typically, the defense follows the pattern of “Yes, but the other side has said this…” followed by a listing of more egregious offenses than those presented by the offensive statements of the representatives of their preferred side.

In other words, relative morality at its apex.

When I was young and I wanted to do something, I would try to persuade my parents (mainly my mother) by saying something along the lines of “But Jimmy is able to do it!!!”

Consistently, the response I received was, “If Jimmy jumped off a bridge, would you jump off it, too?”

That lesson stuck with me.

The cries of defense when Durban or Rove say something idiotic, cries of “Well, the other side said…” ring hollow in my ears.

Should we base our statements and behavior on what our opponents do?

I do not think so.

I was tempted earlier to write a post entitled “Can someone show me the memo” that was followed up by the statement, “you know, the memo where we can justify any behavior by saying that someone else, usually our opponents, behave worse, so our bad behavior is just fine because it is not as evil.”

I do not know if it was fortunate or unfortunate that due to a mistake on my part my weblog was offline while I was mentally composing that post.

The residue of the feelings that provoked those thoughts remain, however. I am disgusted by the relative morality expressed by those who are more than ready to call foul on anyone who does not adhere to their own point of view, but defend to the point of unreasonable incoherence statements equally morally egregious from those “on the same side”.

To put it simply, no situation is evaluated on whether or not that person behaved in a manner right or wrong, independent of the acts of others. Instead, everything is brought to the appeal of “someone on the other side did worse”, regardless of how representative of the “other side” is this so-called archetype chosen by the opposition.

Let us take this to the extreme then. By this logic, I can rape whoever I want as long as I don’t kill them, because there are more than few out there I can point to who did worse than just “merely rape” someone.

I can essentially do or say whatever I want because I can always find someone whose behavior is worse.

Is that truly the mode of thought we want to follow?

This is the system we are setting up with the unreasoning, unreasonable defense of those who are behaving badly by any standard, but are defended by those who cannot see beyond their own partisan gain or loss.

What happened to “look at each situation to determine the right or wrong of it; do not let others determine your standards…”?

Apparently that baseline has disappeared.

This sums up why I call the prison camp at Guantanamo dishonorable:

A nation, or a person, the honor of either is shown by how they treat those whom they have in their power, those with no defense.

The foundation of the Untied States is in a nation of laws, not of men.

Yet…

We deliberately create a prison at Guantanamo to imprison people beyond the reach of law.

We do not set up a realistic, reasonable system to review the imprisonment of those held with consistent standards of evidence.

We created an environment where bad actors could carry out their bad acts with the belief they would not be caught.

Added to the mix: The President declares he has the power to name any US citizen an “enemy combatant” who upon being imprisoned cannot have any access to counsel, nor any appeal.

Are you seeing a pattern here that is a wee bit hypocritical compared to what we say we want to do, which is destroy dictatorships such as that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq?

Is there a distant but still dimly reflective mirror present here?

Answer honestly.

The defense of these actions is of the “Yes, but…” genre, which does not speak well of these actions in and of themselves.

In other words, honorable behavior does not depend upon the actions of others but instead is recognized on its own.

If your first defense of any act, whether perpetrated by Democrat or Republican, military or civilian contractor, starts with “Yes, but…” then the behavior you are defending is NOT honorable.

Honorable behavior stands on its own.

Honorable behavior does not need to be compared to atrocious acts to be held in high regard.

Honorable behavior has its own standards that are independent of the bad acts of others.

Honorable behavior does not depend upon relative morality.

Do the math.

When you cry, “Yes, but the terrorists are worse,” or, “Yes, but the Democrats (Republicans) have said worse,” consider what exactly is the behavior you are defending. If these acts were committed by someone on “the other side”, would you give them a pass on it? How does this behavior seem when evaluated independently, based solely upon its own merits and flaws rather than upon who “wins” or “loses”?

Honor knows no relative morality, and I am surprised by those who appear to have forgotten this basic lesson.