New Pentagon chief reiterates how badly Bush and the GOP have put America in danger

I do enjoy how the Bush administration is so hell-bent on repeatedly reminding the public of how much the US will be harmed in the future as a result of George Bush's little war. It seems the Republicans just can't get enough of the old "you're screwed, and we did it."

From AP:

On his first day as defense secretary, Robert Gates warned Monday that failure in Iraq would be a "calamity" that would haunt the United States for years. Underscoring eroding security there, a Pentagon report said the number of insurgent and sectarian attacks had risen to the highest level in years.

And he's right. The debacle in Iraq is a calamity that will haunt the US for years, if not decades. All thanks to George Bush and the Republicans. Read the rest of this post...

Pentagon report says Iraq violence now at record levels

No, George Bush told us the Iraq Study Group was crazy. Things are going great in Iraq. Sure the media is reporting absolute anarchy, death and destruction, but Tony Snow assured us last week, as did Laura Bush, that the media is basically lying to us. So, I guess that means the Pentagon is now lying to us too. (Of course, the Pentagon has been lying to us for years about Iraq, so now I'm totally confused.) Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Man, I bought a Cingular 8525 smartphone so I can blog on the road, and my head is ready to explode. I just spent the past 3+ hours trying to get the thing to sync to my Mac (it eventually did, God knows why). It seems to be quite the powerhouse, and even has a qwerty keyboard that pops out. Very cool, and I hope very useful (I read all the reviews, they were quite complementary, and seemed to say this is the kind of device for someone like me - i.e., primary interest is convenient Web surfing/blogging (in my case).

Anyway, the learning curve on this thing is pretty steep. I'm continually amazed at how complicated technology has gotten. That's not necessarily a complaint, since technology has also gotten terribly cool. I just wish they could come up with better instruction manuals, written by real people, for these things. As always, the best instructions I can find are by googling, rather than reading what the manufacturer sends with the product (which in this case, ironically, is a CD containing the manual, but it's a windows-only CD - no help there!). More later when I'm more in touch with my inner smartphone. Read the rest of this post...

Violent crime continues to rise in the U.S.

Bush told us he'd make us safer. Wrong. Not safer world-wide. Not safer in the U.S.:

Murders, robberies and other violent crimes reported in the United States jumped 3.7 percent in the first half of the year, continuing a troubling upswing that began in 2005, the FBI said on Monday.

The FBI said law enforcement agencies reported that robberies soared by a startling 9.7 percent, followed by an increase in murders of 1.4 percent and aggravated assaults of 1.2 percent.

Last year, the number of violent crimes increased by 2.5 percent, the largest percentage gain in 15 years. The increase came after years of declines.

Fighting crime takes a serious commitment at the federal, state and local level. Bill Clinton understood that. George Bush doesn't.

The local commitment is key. Last summer, there was a brutal murder in Georgetown, here in DC. I was struck by the cavalier comment from one of our city councilors:

D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), whose district includes the neighborhood, said he fears people have been lulled into a sense of complacency by the low crime rate. Georgetown, Capitol Hill and Adams Morgan -- the District's leading entertainment centers -- are still "inner-city neighborhoods," he said.

"Robberies happen at this time of night because it's when the bars and the movie theaters let out," he said. "Whether you're in Georgetown or Capitol Hill or in Adams Morgan, it's that profile of the person leaving and going to their car -- and the robbers laying in wait for the people to come by."

Robberies just don't happen. Evans made it sound like people who go out to bars and movies in D.C are at fault -- so it's not the fault of the robbers and certainly not the fault of the city leaders, like Evans, who are charged with keeping us safe.

Rising crime is a bad sign. And it feels like no one is really paying attention. Read the rest of this post...

Ex-Iraqi minister escapes police custody

Yes, let's send even more of our troops into this joke of a war. Read the rest of this post...

Troop surge a terrible idea

The increased talk of a "surge" in troops is indicative of several things, none of them good.

First of all, following an election that can only reasonably be viewed as an overwhelming condemnation of the President's stewardship of the Iraq war, an election that clearly indicated America's distaste with continued fighting without a clear goal or strategy for moving forward, the President is seriously contemplating -- perhaps already planning to -- not only ignore the will of the voters, but to flout it openly. In an appropriate media environment, every story about this strategy would begin, "Demonstrating continued contempt for the vast majority of the nation, as seen by the 2006 elections and consistent opinion polling, President Bush is considering/has decided . . ."

Many pundits and politicians continue to believe, against six years of evidence to the contrary, that the President will be swayed by something other than his own whims. "Experts" predicted he would reduce troop levels for the 2004 elections, then insisted he would certainly draw down for fall 2006, and now the same people are speculating that this will be part of a strategy to get out for 2008. Uhh, no. It will take months to accomplish the kind of increase that's being discussed, and there's no reason to believe it will be reversed anytime soon. First the election results were going to be the wake-up call for a reasonable Iraq policy, then people pinned their hopes on the Iraq Study Group (has any organization gone from respected, bipartisan saviors to completely ignored in a shorter time?), and now some leaders are claiming that a troop increase will help get us out of Iraq.

The people who believe the President will act appropriately have become Charlie Brown to the President's Lucy, and I'm not sure how many times he has to pull away the ball, leaving those who had faith in him flying through the air, before they refuse to play his game.

As for the "surge" itself, it's not going to work (assuming that the goal is to pacify Baghdad). It happens to coincide with the time of the year when violence traditionally wanes significantly (see page 22), so unless the increase is a colossal failure (i.e. actually manages to reverse the usual trend of decreased attacks), we won't even know if it worked until summer/fall '07. But on the merits, an inflammatory troop presence that is overwhelmingly unwanted and reviled, even one that is overwhelmingly well-intentioned at the ground level, is not helped by an increase. If the plan is for these troops to go after Sadr's Mahdi Militia, this is a horrific and massive error, and either way the President would be putting tens of thousands more men and women in harms way without a discernible goal or clear exit strategy. Not good. Even leading current generals have indicated such an effort would not be helpful.

Finally, I keep putting "surge" in quotes because the word itself seems to indicate a temporary increase. It evokes a wave, which tends to rush forward before receding. But it will take months to increase the troop level to this extent, and I see no reason why the President will draw back down anytime soon. Like a gambler on tilt, he's continuing to up his bets in an effort to save his legacy. Eventually he'll be the only one who doesn't know he's already lost. Read the rest of this post...

Extremist churches in Virginia break away from the Episcopal Church

Good, and good riddance. There's a special place in hell, quite literally I think, for Christians who flaunt their faith but never abide by it. From AP:

Two of the most prominent and largest Episcopal parishes in Virginia voted overwhelmingly Sunday to leave The Episcopal Church and join fellow Anglican conservatives forming a rival denomination in the U.S.

Truro Church in Fairfax and The Falls Church in Falls Church plan to place themselves under the leadership of Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who has called the growing acceptance of gay relationships a "satanic attack" on the church.

Just like the conservative churches that endorsed slavery (and don't think anyone missed the irony of conservative Virginia churches choosing to follow a black African leader - I'm thinking Blazing Saddles here), and only recently apologized, these hateful extremists who like to wrap their intolerance in the mantle of God will look back some day and realize how morally corrupt they really were. Of course, they'll be looking back from Hell. Read the rest of this post...

Americans held as prisoners of America in Baghdad show how Bush's democratic ideals are working in Iraq

Read the article in today's New York Times about how we treat detainees in Iraq. And, keep in mind, these detainees are Americans who understand they have rights. Read this article and see how George Bush brought democratic ideals to Iraq:

Detainee 200343 was among thousands of people who have been held and released by the American military in Iraq, and his account of his ordeal has provided one of the few detailed views of the Pentagon’s detention operations since the abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. Yet in many respects his case is unusual.

The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading.

But when American soldiers raided the company at his urging, Mr. Vance and another American who worked there were detained as suspects by the military, which was unaware that Mr. Vance was an informer, according to officials and military documents.

At Camp Cropper, he took notes on his imprisonment and smuggled them out in a Bible.

“Sick, very. Vomited,” he wrote July 3. The next day: “Told no more phone calls til leave.”

Nathan Ertel, the American held with Mr. Vance, brought away military records that shed further light on the detention camp and its secretive tribunals. Those records include a legal memorandum explicitly denying detainees the right to a lawyer at detention hearings to determine whether they should be released or held indefinitely, perhaps for prosecution.

The story told through those records and interviews illuminates the haphazard system of detention and prosecution that has evolved in Iraq, where detainees are often held for long periods without charges or legal representation, and where the authorities struggle to sort through the endless stream of detainees to identify those who pose real threats.

In some ways, this is just another one of those stories that show how depraved we've become because of the Iraq war. Something is seriously wrong with the leadership of our country. We're in a war for no reason and it is destroying our democratic principles. Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

Slow start today. Will probably be a slow week here in DC. Not in Baghdad or the rest of Iraq. We are at war over there even if no one really acts like it over here.

So, start threading. Read the rest of this post...

Big Pharma and one-size-fits-all drugs

And the GOP will keep telling America that industry should be allowed to self regulate. When you are in their pocket, what else are you going to say, really?

Eli Lilly encouraged primary care physicians to use Zyprexa, a powerful drug for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, in patients who did not have either condition, according to internal Lilly marketing materials.

The marketing documents, given to The New York Times by a lawyer representing mentally ill patients, detail a multiyear promotional campaign that Lilly began in Orlando, Fla., in late 2000. In the campaign, called Viva Zyprexa, Lilly told its sales representatives to suggest that doctors prescribe Zyprexa to older patients with symptoms of dementia.

How many times is the public going to be subjected to these tactics before Congress gets serious about this issue?

Zyprexa is not approved to treat dementia or dementia-related psychosis, and in fact carries a prominent warning from the F.D.A. that it increases the risk of death in older patients with dementia-related psychosis. Federal laws bar drug makers from promoting prescription drugs for conditions for which they have not been approved Â? a practice known as off-label prescription Â? although doctors can prescribe drugs to any patient they wish.

Yet in 1999 and 2000 Lilly considered ways to convince primary care doctors that they should use Zyprexa on their patients. In one document, an unnamed Lilly marketing executive wrote that these doctors Â?do treat dementiaÂ? but Â?do not treat bipolar; schizophrenia is handled by psychiatrists.Â?

As a result, Â?dementia should be first message,Â? of a campaign to primary doctors, according to the document, which appears to be part of a larger marketing presentation but is not marked more specifically.

Later, the same document says that some primary care doctors Â?might prescribe outside of label.Â?

Read the rest of this post...

Bush considering his options in Iraq

He's sooooo decisive and such a leader. Read the rest of this post...