In The News

Library of Congress/Flickr: Palmer, Alfred T.,, photographer.
Electric phosphate smelting furnace used to make elemental phosphorus in a TVA chemical plant in the vicinity of Muscle Shoals, Alabama
1942 June

This was done in your name: The United States illegally used white phosphorus and chemical weapons in Fallujah in 2004; now babies are being born with birth defects.

Many of the supposed "terrorists" tortured by the Bush Administration at Guantanamo were actually innocent. Again, this was done in your name. Chilling.

The Taliban -- remember them? -- attacked a prison in Kandahar, Afgahanistan from within and without, and 1100 prisoners escaped. The resurgence of the Taliban is another complete failure for the Bush Administration.

John McCain has a former Texas gubernatorial candidate organizing a $300,000 fundraiser -- a guy who joked rape is like the weather, when it is inevitable you should just lie back and enjoy it, in 1990. At first, McCain announced the fundraiser was cancelled. But there was money for the taking, so they're rescheduling it, with all the same donors -- except now the rape joker is not invited. Just his money and his moneyed friends. Any Hillary Clinton supporter who votes for McCain is a fool.

John McCain doesn't use a computer. Who doesn't use a computer anymore? My 80-year-old friend is on her third. McCain: Too old, too out of touch with modern life.

The odious Rudy Giuliani is back. He's trying to retire his campaign debt -- by selling his appearances at fundraisers to other Republicans. Hey Rudy -- there's no "I" in "Team". But it was always about Rudy.

Read this article on the Bush/Rove response to Katrina. You want to cry, but you have to laugh -- bitterly -- at this:

[Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco] gave Bush a two-page letter detailing everything the state needed to cope with the disaster -- troops, buses, supplies, money, and more. It would not be until several days later, when Blanco's aides released the letter to the press and got frantic phone calls from Rove's aide Maggie Grant, that it became clear that Bush had taken the letter Blanco had personally handed to him -- and lost it.

President Dumber-Than-A-Box-of-Hammers Lost. The. Letter. Heckuva job, Bushie.

'The Army, despite its $168 billion budget, is out of money '

Iraqis celebrate next to a burning [$225,000] U.S. Army Humvee after an attack near Fallujah []. Three Americans were wounded, witnesses said. (Akram Saleh/Reuters)

Stephen Pizzo, The Smirking Chimp: An Important Story You Didn't See

Here are just a few of the grim facts from Jaffe's exclusive:

* According to Maj. Gen Stephen Speakes, the Army was sent to war in Iraq $56 billion short of essential equipment.
* Army officials told the White House that it needs at least an additional $24 billion, not in the 2007 budget, just to pay its current bills.
* Cash shortfalls have forced the Army to lay off janitorial staff, close base swimming pools, and even stop mowing lawns on Army bases.
* But cuts have also hit soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army officials had to cut $3 billion for replacement of weapons in heavy use in Iraq, such as armored Humvees, two-way radios, remote control surveillance aircraft and trucks.
* National Guard units now lack 40% of their critical readiness gear because it's been sent to Iraq, and the Army lacks the funds to replace it.

This budget crunch comes at a time when running the US Army never cost more, Jaffe reported.

* To stem the flow of soldiers leaving the Army because of repeated deployments to Iraq the Army was forced to spend $773 million on “retention bonus' this year compared with just $85 million three years ago.
* The Army had to spend an additional $300 million on recruiting this year than in 2003.
* The quality of the Army's oft touted all volunteer force has slid with the Army's decision to accept more enlistees that scored in the lower third of aptitude tests.
* As a result the Army had to issue 8500 “moral waivers” this year compared with just 2260 ten years ago. (Moral waivers are issued for past criminal convictions, drug use and other proven legal/moral violations.)

How much of the Army's budget problems are due to poor budgeting and how much from private sector gouging? You decide.

Here are few more facts from Jaffe's report.

* The cost of equipping an infantry soldier tripled, from $7000 in 1999 to $24,000 today.
* The cost of Humvee's went from $32,000 in 2001 to a breathtaking $225,000 each today.
* The cost of training, feeding and housing Army recruits went from $75,000 per soldier in 2001 to $120,000 today. (The Army uses private contractors, largely Halliburton's Kellogg, Root & Brown, to provide most non-training services, such as food service and base maintenance.)

Beautiful Dead Girls

The stories you should be reading, while the news media obsesses over Jon Benet Ramsey; from dailykos:

Beautiful Dead Girls

by hrh

Mon Aug 21, 2006 at 08:19:05 PM PDT

[From the Diaries - MB]

We hear a lot about beautiful dead girls in the US media.  Here are some that we haven't heard about much.  Their smiles haven't been plastered over the supermarket tabloid press, and they're not likely to be.  One of the reasons is that they don't fit the popular stereotype of beautiful-woman-as-helpless-victim.  Another reason is that many people still haven't focused on the reality of women in the military.  Even here on DKos, I see comments about "sons and fathers" who have been killed and maimed.  Almost NO MENTION of women in the military.

Here, in no particular order, are some American heroes who were killed in combat in Iraq:

• hrh's diary :: ::

(expanded from my comment in georgia10's diary)

Army Sgt. Amanda Pinson, age 21, killed in mortar attack, March 15, 2006.

She told a reporter in 2003,  "I thought, `This is what I want to do -- and I'm going to do it, no matter what.' I tell everybody, `It just feels right.'"

"She loved being in the Army and she loved doing her job," Ehlen said. "She felt like her work saved American lives. That's what she did."

Air Force Airman 1st Class Elizabeth Jacobson, age 21, killed by roadside bomb, September 28, 2005.

"She loved what she was doing and she loved to be able to say that people should give her respect because without her and those like her we wouldn't be free. She stood up for her beliefs and made everyone around her be aware of them," said her grandmother, Sondra Millman-Cosimano of Riviera Beach.

Marine Lance Cp. Juana Navarro-Arellano, age 24, killed by small arms fire, April 8, 2006.

"She was the toughest girl I've ever met," said Pfc. Gustavo Navarro Cristales, a bulk fuel specialist with 9th ESB and close friend of Navarro-Arellano. "She demanded to be treated equal."

Her incredible strength and tenacity was something learned from their mother, Navarro-Arellano's brother explained.

"Juana saw our mother raise six kids by herself," Lorenzo said. "That made her tough. She saw the entire struggle."

Marine Lance Cpl. Holly Charette, age 21, killed by roadside bomb, June 23, 2005.  

"She wanted to become a Marine after 9-11," Charlene Wheetman, Charette's aunt, said Saturday in a statement on behalf of the family. "She wanted to do something for her country. She was a very proud Marine."

Army Spc. Carrie French, age 19, killed by roadside bomb, June 15, 2005.

French said his daughter had an adventurous spirit and loved the outdoors. She had plans to travel Europe and study law after her tour of duty in Iraq.

For her high school graduation gift she asked her father to take her skydiving.

"She was willing to try anything, really," Rick French said.

[...]

He said she died doing what she wanted to do.

"I was scared (when she deployed), but I was very, very proud of her," he said. "She's my hero."

Army Spc. Toccara Green, killed by roadside bomb, August 14, 2005.  

Toccara Green's desire to be in the military was evident early: for four years in high school she got up early and stayed late to participate in her campus ROTC.

Family and friends say her devotion to her country is what inspired her.

"The only thing that puts my mind at ease is that she died for what she believed in," said Garry Green Jr., her brother. "She said her ideal situation: go out fighting for our country."

Army Staff Sgt. Tricia L. Jameson, age 34, killed when a roadside bomb blew up her Humvee ambulance on July 14, 2005.  She was a health-care specialist responding to a casualty incident.

A friend of hers said she "wanted to go get her hands on some serious injuries and fix some things."

Marine Cpl. Ramona M. Valdez, age 20, killed by roadside bomb on June 23, 2005.

Ramona, a communications specialist who wanted to become a policewoman, had originally been expected home in May. But she died Thursday in an attack on her convoy in Fallujah.

Fiorela Valdez said the family is bitter about the war it increasingly regards as senseless, and blames President Bush.

"Why doesn't he send his daughters over there? If he had a family member there, he'd end the war right now," Valdez said.

Army Pfc. Sam W. Huff, age 18.  killed by roadside bomb on April 18, 2005.

Eighteen-year-old Pfc. Sam Huff was born with a man's name.

But she was a consummate "girlie-girl," said her father, Robert Huff.

She liked to wear false eyelashes and played flute in her high-school band. Last July, she joined the Army, the first step in a career she hoped would take her to the FBI.

On April 18, Huff, an only child, became the 37th U.S. female to die in combat since 2003.

Yesterday, her parents and comrades gathered in a Fort Lewis chapel to recall Huff's independent spirit and her unfulfilled ambitions.

But what they remembered most was that she loved soldiering, and she was good at it. The memorial became, in part, a testimonial to the growing role women are playing in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Born in Tucson, Ariz., on July 12, 1986, Huff was 16 when she announced her intention to enlist in the Army, go to college to study psychology and become an FBI agent....

"We just stood there, dumbfounded," said Robert Huff, a retired Tucson police detective. His wife, Margaret Williams, served as an air traffic controller in the Marines.

But there wasn't any family talk of women not belonging in the military, he said: "Not in our house, are you kidding?"

[...]

"Beneath that beautiful young lady was a backbone of steel," Sgt. Sam Jones wrote in a letter read aloud during her funeral.

Army Sgt. Jessica M. Housby, age 23, killed by roadside bomb on February 09, 2005.

Lt. Archie Rose of the Illinois National Guard said Housby received an award in 1999 after taking part in a training exercise at Fort McCoy, Wis.

She was chosen as the top cadet out of a group of 187 because of her "hard work, enthusiasm and the responsibility," he said.

Army Sgt. Shawna M. Morrison, age 26, killed in mortar attack September 05, 2004.

It was Shawna Morrison's adventurous spirit that propelled her to seek the new, the different, the stimulating, in life.

"She liked to try things, go new places, try new food," said her brother, Allan Morrison. "She liked to test stuff out."

The family often took fishing trips that Shawna looked forward to, [her father] said, and his daughter never minded threading a worm onto a hook.

"She always had a smile. She had a super personality and was great to be around. She would laugh at anything," he said.

Army Spc. Jessica L. Cawvey, age 21, killed by roadside bomb on October 6, 2004.

She had a 6-year-old daughter named Sierra.  Her uncle said, "She joined the service because she wanted to provide the right future for her daughter."

The Cawveys keep the medals and ribbons their daughter earned during her military career in a special wooden box. Sierra recognizes many of the ribbons, and as she showed them to a visitor, she called them by name: "Good Conduct . . . Purple Heart . . . Bronze Star . . ."

"Why did she get that one?" asked her grandma, pausing.

"Because she died."

Army Pfc. Leslie D. Jackson, age 18, killed by roadside bomb on May 20, 2004.

"The Army is what she wanted. That's why there are no regrets," said her aunt, Pearl Roberts. Jackson exchanged e-mails with school principal Earl M. Pappy about her decision to enter the military and her experiences in Iraq. "The students are very upset because she was respected very, very much," he said.

[...]

She viewed the Army as a way to further her education, Roberts said. Jackson grew up in a close-knit family and "loved to shop and dress up and do her nails."

Army Spc. Isela Rubalcava, age 25, killed by mortar attack, May 8, 2004.

Her cousin said, "She's always been a happy person, always smiling. When she came back from boot camp, she was cheerful and told us about how great it was."

Army Sgt. 1st Class Linda Ann Tarango-Griess, age 33, killed by roadside bomb on July 11, 2004.

Her husband said, "She really loved her military career."

Army Sgt. Tatjana Reed, age 34, killed by roadside bomb July 22, 2004.

"She loved the Army," her mother said.

She had a 10-year-old daughter.

Army Capt. Kimberly N. Hampton, age 27, killed when her Kiowa helicopter was shot down on January 02, 2004.

Her parents said she had wanted to be a pilot since she was a child.  In third grade she wrote a paper about how she always wanted to fly.

While in Iraq, she wrote her mother an email:

"If there is anything I can say to ease your mind ... if anything ever happens to me, you can be certain that I am doing the things I love," she wrote. "... I'm living my dreams for sure, living life on the edge at times and pushing the envelope. ...

"So, worry if you must," she added, "but you can be sure that your only child is living a full, exciting life and is HAPPY!"

Army Pfc. Rachel K. Bosveld, age 19, killed in mortar attack October 26, 2003.

She enlisted in the Army when she graduated in June 2002, following in the footsteps of her father, who served in the Army in Italy from 1967-1969, and Craig, who served in the Army in Alaska.

"She idolized her brother," Marvin Bosveld said, pointing to a photograph of Craig holding a toddler-sized Rachel on a tree branch. "I had some reservation because she was a girl. She asked me not to worry about it. She was as good as anyone."

Her mother said she desperately tried to talk her daughter out of it.

"I would have done anything to have her choose a different career," Mary Bosveld said. "She said, `I know, Mom, but I have to do this. ... I want to keep up the family tradition. Except, Mom, I'm going to be the first girl in our entire family."'

There are many more.  If you want to see their names and how and where they died, go to Coalition Casualties and search on "Female".

I'd like everyone who has some kind of problem with feminism to look long and hard at the faces of these women and consider the fact that they died for YOU and they were doing a man's job.

News Round-Up January 31, 2006

Some news you may have missed:

Front paged all over Europe yesterday, the UK issued a report stating "the Greenland ice sheet is likely to melt, leading sea levels to rise by seven metres over 1,000 years." Stark warning over climate change

James Carroll states the obvious in an op-ed in the Boston Globe: You can't have a war when there is no enemy. Is America actually in a state of war?

State of the Union? Catastrophe, pure and simple.

The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2005.

#1 Bush Administration Moves to Eliminate Open Government

#2 Media Coverage Fails on Iraq: Fallujah and the Civilian Death

#3 Another Year of Distorted Election Coverage

#4 Surveillance Society Quietly Moves In

#5 U.S. Uses Tsunami to Military Advantage in Southeast Asia

#6 The Real Oil for Food Scam

#7 Journalists Face Unprecedented Dangers to Life and Livelihood

#8 Iraqi Farmers Threatened By Bremer’s Mandates

#9 Iran’s New Oil Trade System Challenges U.S. Currency
#10 Mountaintop Removal Threatens Ecosystem and Economy
#11 Universal Mental Screening Program Usurps Parental Rights

#12 Military in Iraq Contracts Human Rights Violators

#13 Rich Countries Fail to Live up to Global Pledges

#14 Corporations Win Big on Tort Reform, Justice Suffers

#15 Conservative Plan to Override Academic Freedom in the Classroom

#16 U.S. Plans for Hemispheric Integration Include Canada

#17 U.S. Uses South American Military Bases to Expand Control of the Region

#18 Little Known Stock Fraud Could Weaken U.S. Economy

#19 Child Wards of the State Used in AIDS Experiments

#20 American Indians Sue for Resources; Compensation Provided to Others

#21 New Immigration Plan Favors Business Over People

#22 Nanotechnology Offers Exciting Possibilities But Health Effects Need Scrutiny

#23 Plight of Palestinian Child Detainees Highlights Global Problem

#24 Ethiopian Indigenous Victims of Corporate and Government Resource Aspirations

#25 Homeland Security Was Designed to Fail

Framing

Ten U.S. Marines were killed and eleven Marines wounded in Fallujah yesterday by a homemade bomb, which the military has bureaucratically named the "IED", for "Improvised Explosive Device".

That just means bombs that were built with the material the U.S. military left unguarded when they stormed Iraq in 2003 with an insufficent number of troops.

Therefore, the Iraqi resistance is making bombs with the material looted from ammo dumps the US knew existed but callously chose not to guard. Improvised with the explosives Bush gave them.

Shouldn't there be a new name for these things?

Like

Bush Bombs
Bombs-R-US
Chump Cheneys

Anyone care to add a suggestion?

Karl Rove, bless his black heart, Traitor's Greetings to him, would have been all over this. Democrats are slow to cotton to the power of words.

We Got Rid of Saddam and Brought the Iraqis....Napalm

From Altercation, via booman tribune:

US Army Admits Use of White Phosphorus as Weapon

That's right. Not from Al Jazheera, or Al Arabiya, but the US fucking Army, in their very own publication, from the (WARNING: pdf file) March edition of Field Artillery Magazine in an article entitled "The Fight for Fallujah":

"WP [i.e., white phosphorus rounds] proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."

In other words the claim by the US Government that White Phosphorus was used only for illumination at Fallujah had been pre-emptively debunked by the Army. Indeed, the article goes on to make clear that soldiers would have liked to have saved more WP rounds to use for "lethal missions."

As Always, the President's First Priority Was Saving Himself; It Was The Poor Who Were Left Behind to Drown

Frank Rich:

Falluja Floods the Superdome

AS the levees cracked open and ushered hell into New Orleans on Tuesday, President Bush once again chose to fly away from Washington, not toward it, while disaster struck. We can all enumerate the many differences between a natural catastrophe and a terrorist attack. But character doesn't change: it is immutable, and it is destiny.

As always, the president's first priority, the one that sped him from Crawford toward California, was saving himself: he had to combat the flood of record-low poll numbers that was as uncontrollable as the surging of Lake Pontchartrain. It was time, therefore, for another disingenuous pep talk, in which he would exploit the cataclysm that defined his first term, 9/11, even at the price of failing to recognize the emerging fiasco likely to engulf Term 2.

After dispatching Katrina with a few sentences of sanctimonious boilerplate ("our hearts and prayers are with our fellow citizens"), he turned to his more important task. The war in Iraq is World War II. George W. Bush is F.D.R. And anyone who refuses to stay his course is soft on terrorism and guilty of a pre-9/11 "mind-set of isolation and retreat." Yet even as Mr. Bush promised "victory" (a word used nine times in this speech on Tuesday), he was standing at the totemic scene of his failure. It was along this same San Diego coastline that he declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln more than two years ago. For this return engagement, The Washington Post reported, the president's stage managers made sure he was positioned so that another hulking aircraft carrier nearby would stay off-camera, lest anyone be reminded of that premature end of "major combat operations."

This administration would like us to forget a lot, starting with the simple fact that next Sunday is the fourth anniversary of the day we were attacked by Al Qaeda, not Iraq. Even before Katrina took command of the news, Sept. 11, 2005, was destined to be a half-forgotten occasion, distorted and sullied by a grotesquely inappropriate Pentagon-sponsored country music jamboree on the Mall. But hard as it is to reflect upon so much sorrow at once, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the real history surrounding 9/11; it is the Rosetta stone for what is happening now. If we are to pull ourselves out of the disasters of Katrina and Iraq alike, we must live in the real world, not the fantasyland of the administration's faith-based propaganda. Everything connects.

Though history is supposed to occur first as tragedy, then as farce, even at this early stage we can see that tragedy is being repeated once more as tragedy. From the president's administration's inattention to threats before 9/11 to his disappearing act on the day itself to the reckless blundering in the ill-planned war of choice that was 9/11's bastard offspring, Katrina is déjà vu with a vengeance.

**********

A visibly exasperated Shepard Smith [of Fox/Faux News], covering the story on the ground in Louisiana, went further still, tossing hand grenades of harsh reality into Bill O'Reilly's usually spin-shellacked "No Spin Zone." Among other hard facts, Mr. Smith noted "that the haves of this city, the movers and shakers of this city, evacuated the city either immediately before or immediately after the storm." What he didn't have to say, since it was visible to the entire world, was that it was the poor who were left behind to drown.

"The Red Cross is Locked Out So They Can't Document the Atrocities"

Why the Red Cross is Locked Out and the People are Locked In

Crooks and Liars video of Geraldo Rivera and Shep Smith at the Convention Center reveals a big part of Team BushCo's disaster management strategy: lock down the cities so the hideous element isn't allowed to threaten the suburbs with invasion. And the Red Cross is locked out so they can't document the atrocities. They have a habit of doing that.

Of course, why didn't I think of that? Just like after Fallujah, the U.S. refused to let the International Red Cross in.

Despicable.

Oops

US strikes raze Falluja hospital

The hospital was run by an Islamic charity

A hospital has been razed to the ground in one of the heaviest US air raids in the Iraqi city of Falluja.

Witnesses said only the facade remained of the small Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the centre of the city. There are no reports on casualties.

A nearby medical supplies storeroom and dozens of houses were damaged as US forces continued preparing the ground for an expected major assault.

What more can I say?

Fallujah Redux

Looks like we are getting ready to liberate/kill many more residents of Fallujah.

Freedom, it's a beautiful thing. I bet those 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians are really enjoying their liberation. Do you think they heard something dissonant when Georgie Porgie said to his base, "I believe in a culture of life"?

You just have to know the hierarchy of life.

1. Most important life: Life at conception.

2. Second most important life: American (preferably white)

3. Not so important life: Iraqi

When you understand the equation, you understand why 3,000 American lives lost on 9/11 is properly revenged by the deaths of 100,000 Iraqi civilians.

Looks like we are getting ready to lose even more of categories 2 & 3 in Fallujah, especially since a company commander of our crack Iraqi militia seems to have deserted, taking his copy of the battle plans with him.

Iraqi briefed on Falluja plans missing
Marines concerned captain could pass along information

Iraqi briefed on Falluja plans missing
Marines concerned captain could pass along information
From Karl Penhaul, embedded with the Marines
Saturday, November 6, 2004 Posted: 4:42 PM EST (2142 GMT)

NEAR FALLUJA, Iraq (CNN) -- A company commander of the Iraqi security forces who received a full briefing on the expected Falluja assault is missing from a military base where U.S. and Iraqi troops are preparing for the possible operation.

The captain, a Kurd with no known ties to the Sunni city of Falluja, is thought to have taken notes from the battle briefing late Thursday. U.S. Marines and his fellow Iraqi officers found no sign of him Friday morning, except for his uniform and a weapon on his cot.

Marines are concerned that the information he knows could be passed along to insurgents. U.S. military sources believe insurgents have friends in the military and government.

The captain commands a company of about 160 men. He is among 10,000 U.S. and Iraqi forces expected to take part in the operation.

The incompetent boobs are still in charge, and Iraq is still FUBAR. Thanks, red states!

They Hate Us

LINK Deepening anti-U.S. rage casts doubt on Iraq leaders' ability to restore order


This Knight-Ridder report says the Iraqi security forces have melted away again. Therefore Allawi's Iraq government calls on the hated US military to restore order. And why do they hate us so?

LINK Abu Ghraib Victims Speak: Alleged Victim Calls U.S. Jailer ‘Disgrace to All Civilized and Democratic Values’

Maybe because, as in this quote from the ABC News article linked above:

"Most recent polls show between 80 percent and 90 percent of Iraqis call
Americans not liberators, but occupiers. And by a clear majority, Iraqis
want Americans to leave the country as soon as possible.

How did America lose the Iraqis' support? For many Iraqis, the answer
is Abu Ghraib."

Or maybe it's because we've killed over 10,000 Iraqis and the killing continues?

LINK Fighting spreads as U.S. troops kill 350 Iraqis

"The fighting in Najaf has included American F-15 fighter jets dropping
bombs, U.S. Apache helicopters shooting missiles and American tanks letting
loose with barrages of fire. "

LINK Clashes and Churches

A must-read post by River at Baghdad Burning. Here are the first two paragraphs:

"300+ dead in a matter of days in Najaf and Al Sadir City. Of course, they
are all being called 'insurgents'. The woman on TV wrapped in the abaya, lying
sprawled in the middle of the street must have been one of them too. Several
explosions rocked Baghdad today- some government employees were told not to go
to work tomorrow.

So is this a part of the reconstruction effort promised to the Shi'a in the
south of the country? Najaf is considered the holiest city in Iraq. It is
visited by Shi'a from all over the world, and yet, during the last two days, it
has seen a rain of bombs and shells from none other than the 'saviors' of the
oppressed Shi'a- the Americans. So is this the 'Sunni Triangle' too? It's deja
vu- corpses in the streets, people mourning their dead and dying and buildings
up in flames. The images flash by on the television screen and it's Falluja all
over again. Twenty years from now who will be blamed for the mass graves being
dug today?"

So, here's the big question: Why has the SCLM stopped covering the war in Iraq? More Americans were killed in July than in June, yet the war virtually disappeared from the television screens. We will hit the 1000 American death mark sometime in September yet those deaths are not marked or solemnized by the mainstream media.