Troops missing counterinsurgency training because of Bush's "surge"

They hate the troops and love the war.

Rushed by President Bush's decision to reinforce Baghdad with thousands more U.S. troops, two Army combat brigades are skipping their usual session at the Army's premier training range in California and instead are making final preparations at their home bases....

Army officials say the two brigades will be as ready as any others that deploy to Iraq, even though they will not have the benefit of training in counterinsurgency tactics at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., which has been outfitted to simulate conditions in Iraq for units that are heading there on year-long tours.

Right, they're not missing out on anything important on their way to fight Iraq's insurgency - other than their counterinsurgency training.

Hat tip, Markos. Read the rest of this post...

Strom Thurmond "did many wonderful things for black people"

Name one. Read the rest of this post...

Just look at the guy, clearly a perv

From the Bay City Times. Read the rest of this post...

US military carries out "controlled explosion" near soccer field, wounds 30, including 9 children. Conflicting reports as to whether many kids died.

This is a weird story. Earlier today, a blast near a soccer field in Ramadi kills scores of children. Also today, apparently, the US military conducted an explosion near a soccer field in Ramadi that hurt a bunch of children. But the US military is saying the deadly attack couldn't have happened, because they'd have known about it. At the same time, both of these attacks sound awful similar - like they may be the same explosion, i.e., one we caused.

Here's the OTHER blast in Ramadi that killed 18 boys near a soccer field:

A car bomb exploded Tuesday near a park popular with young soccer players, killing at least 18 boys in [Ramadi] a city west of Baghdad known as a center of the Sunni insurgency, police said.

And here's the blast the US military caused in the same town near a soccer field, injuring kids:

The U.S. military said its soldiers had carried out a controlled explosion in Ramadi, near a soccer field, that wounded 30 people, including nine children.

But here's where it gets stranger. The US says they can't imagine the deadly attack is real since they weren't aware of it:

Iraq's government and police said a bomb blast near a soccer field in the western city of Ramadi on Tuesday killed 18 people, mostly children, but the U.S. military said it was unaware of such an attack....

"I can't imagine there would be another attack involving children without our people knowing," said Major Jeff Pool, a spokesman for U.S. forces in western Anbar province. The wounded had cuts and bruises, he said [referring to the explosion the US caused near a soccer field].

So, is the attack that killed the children "real" or didn't it happen at all? And if it real, is it the SAME explosion that US caused, and if so, did we also kill children and no one is telling us? Read the rest of this post...

Stock market drops 9% in China, Dow falls more than 4%

So who owns this economy? What brain trust thought that Guns & Butter II would somehow work better than the original which sunk the US into an economic quagmire for years? Let's remember that there have been voices out there who have criticized this administration for waging war while handing out tax cuts to the wealthiest and just running a tab on China's expense account so now that China is stumbling and the war debt is increasing, this most recent fiasco falls squarely in the hands of the Bush administration. When the other shoe drops and the real estate bubble bottoms out, it will be another fine mess these clowns got us into. Republican economics in action, also known as the perfect storm. Read the rest of this post...

House Republicans keeping terror tainted money

The House Republicans must be desperate for funds. Clearly, they're really desperate for money because, despite criticism from both progressives and right wingers, the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) is keeping donations made by one of their major contributors, Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari. According to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Alishtari was arrested "on attempt charges of terrorism financing, material support of terrorism, and international money laundering, as well as additional charges of conspiracy and wire fraud." Despite that, the House Republicans are keeping on to Alishtari's contributions.

The DCCC Stakeholder has more.

Okay, let's just ask: how loud would the outcry be if Democrats held on to terror-tainted money? Read the rest of this post...

Another edition of: We have no idea what's going on in Iraq

The news that U.S. forces arrested a close relative (reports have varied, some saying son and others saying nephew) of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is infuriating for a number of reasons. Last week we arrested a convoy of people traveling from Iran to Iraq, which sounds to me like an intelligence tip-off rather than a random operation. There is a huge amount of traffic between Iran and Iraq, so to coincidentally go after a group that includes an extremely influential member of SCIRI, a leading Shia political party, seems unlikely. It's also unlikely that we knew it would include Ammar al-Hakim, judging by his swift release and subsequent official apology, so I'd be very curious to know how the operation was established.

However it happened, it is yet another clear sign that our executive and military leadership has no idea how to handle Iraq, either tactically or strategically. We can't identify people, we don't recognize political or tribal affiliations, and it's impossible to trust intelligence tips when there's a good chance they're being used to settle scores. In this case, we couldn't even figure out whether we were sorry or not -- Ambassador Khalilzad apologized but the military defended the arrest the very next day.

Hakim also alleged mistreatment, and reportedly some of the group is still in custody, but the quick release also brings up an important point: either he did something wrong, in which case we should have proven his wrongdoing instead of releasing him, or, much more likely, we arrested him for no good reason. Reports circulate widely (and wildly) that we incarcerate hundreds or thousands of people without charge or anything resembling due process, which is just horrendous as a counterinsurgency tactic, a bad way to establish democracy, and, of course, a disgrace for a country that values freedom and the rule of law.

Finally, we don't even know what side (or sides) we're taking in this ongoing debacle. Just a few weeks ago reports indicated support for an "80% plan", i.e., supporting the Shia (60% of the population) and Kurds (20%), and now we're apparently backing Sunnis across the region to repel some mythical Shia expansionism. So we toppled a secular and manageable Sunni regime to install a majority (Shia) government, and now the administration is mad about this? It really is unbelievable. Read the rest of this post...

Is Laura Bush getting top secret briefings on Iraq, or is she just a liar?

Laura Bush is either getting top secret briefings on the situation in Iraq, or she's a liar. I think the public deserves to know which.

As Joe reported last night, the White House dragged Laura Bush out before the cameras, again, and as they always do when things aren't going well for them. This time, Laura went on Larry King as an expert on Iraq policy. Here's what she had to say:

Many parts of Iraq are stable now. But, uh, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everyone.

Really? And how does the happy homemaker know this? How does Laura Bush know that many parts of Iraq are stable - and apparently she knows this through other sources that are NOT the media, since she informs us that the media isn't telling us the "real" story about Iraq.

So if Laura know the "real story" about Iraq, that isn't available to the public through the media, then Laura must be privvy to insider information about Iraq, classified information, and I'd like to know why. Because if she's not being fed classified information that we aren't privvy to, then the woman is a liar. And if Bush is going to use his wife to justify the biggest foreign policy disaster in decades, if not ever, then the public has the right to call her on her bullshit. Read the rest of this post...

Mostly kids killed by Iraq car bombing at soccer game

Last night, Laura Bush told the world that many parts of Iraq were, in fact, stable. She blamed the media for covering that "one bombing a day that discourages everyone."

Easy for Laura Bush to say. This bombing isn't just discouraging, it's horrifying:

A car bomb exploded Tuesday near a park popular with young soccer players, killing at least 18 boys in a city west of Baghdad known as a center of the Sunni insurgency, police said.

The bomb-rigged car blew apart in central Ramadi late Tuesday afternoon while the boys were playing, and police said those killed were ages 10 to 15. The attack was also reported on Iraqi state television. The Interior Ministry did not immediately comment.

Young people are often caught in Iraq's daily bloodshed. On Sunday, more than 40 people, mostly college students, were killed in a bombing outside a mostly Shiite college in Baghdad.

Young Iraqis dying. Young soldiers dying. Too bad the media is discouraging everyone. Read the rest of this post...

Owners of Seattle Sonics/Storm gave $1.1 million to Gary Bauer's anti-gay marriage campaign

Dan Savage's "Slog" uncovered the rather disturbing fact that two of the owners of the WNBA team in Seattle, the Seattle Sonics/Storm, appear to have donated most of the budget to religious right homophobe Gary Bauer's anti-gay marriage campaign. From Slog:

The campaign finance records I’ve reviewed show that Sonics/Storm co-owner Tom Ward has contributed $475,000 to Gary L. Bauer’s Americans United to Preserve Marriage.

And another Sonics/Storm co-owner, Aubrey McClendon, contributed $625,000.

Both men made their first contributions to the group, $250,000 apiece, on September 8, 2004—the day after the group was formed.

As I said, the controversial group doled out $1,056,962 in the 2004 election cycle, which means Storm owners Ward and McClendon basically bankrolled the whole thing. Indeed, records show that between the 2004 and 2006 cycles the group spent $1.3 million total while Ward and McClendon’s donations total $1.1 million.

Savage's paper contacted the team for comment, they didn't get back to him, but did to the local paper. Check out their response:

People are entitled to have their views, they are not views that I happen to agree with but they are not trying to impose them on anyone out here.

Yeah, $1.1 million for a campaign to jam conservative Christian laws down our throats, to force all Americans to live under Baptist religious principles - that, according to the Seattle Sonics/Storm is "not trying to impose" your views on anyone.

Kiss that team goodbye. It's bad enough to be massively huge bigots. It's even worse to get all pissy and lie about it. And as Dan mentioned to me, "their games are attended mostly by lesbians."

Not anymore. Read the rest of this post...

Maryland promoting environmentally friendly cars

Once the new Democratic governor signs the bill, Maryland will become the eleventh state to follow the California model.

The measure is designed to force manufacturers to sell fewer gas-guzzling SUVs and other large vehicles and to instead market more hybrids and other cars with fuel-efficient engines.

Automakers must cut fleetwide emissions of global warming gases -- that is, the average emissions of all the cars they sell in Maryland -- by 30 percent by 2016 or face fines.

To meet this goal, car companies will have to offer financial incentives to encourage people to buy smaller cars and vehicles that emit less carbon dioxide, a gas that scientists have concluded is warming the atmosphere.

Read the rest of this post...

Food problems connected to GOP cuts

While the Republicans love selling themselves to their core supporters as the team who have made important cuts in the federal government, here is yet another example of the end result and what it means in the real world. We already know what they've done to US vets and with this most recent outbreak of food illness related to the American kids staple peanut butter, it has become painfully obvious that GOP cuts continue to risk the lives of millions of Americans.

The federal agency that’s been front and center in warning the public about tainted spinach and contaminated peanut butter is conducting just half the food safety inspections it did three years ago.

The cuts by the Food and Drug Administration come despite a barrage of high-profile food recalls.

“We have a food safety crisis on the horizon,” said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.

Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.

But at least the Republicans got another round of tax cuts and the richest Americans are doing just fine. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

I guess the intelligence reports about a resurgent Taliban are accurate. Maybe now the Bush Administration will take these reports seriously. Not that they can do anything since Bush and Cheney have the U.S. pinned down in Iraq. Maddening.

Get it started. Read the rest of this post...

Bomber attacks Bagram Air Base during Cheney visit

But not to worry, Cheney will still not be able to admit that there's a problem.

The attack occurred inside one of the security gates surrounding the heavily guarded base some 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of the capital Kabul.

"It was a suicide bombing. It took place between the main gate and the gate guarded by American soldiers," said Bagram district governor Kabir Ahmad.

"We don't have an exact figure but it's said that two have been killed and about 18 wounded," he said. A local police officer said the area had been sealed off by US troops.

It's hard to say what it would take for this crowd to admit their failures but for most, this attack would be a red flag. Let's see what Cheney's office has to say later on today. Read the rest of this post...

Bush and GOP are breaking the military

The new report detailing the problems created by the botched war in Afghanistan and unnecessary war in Iraq comes straight from the top.

Strained by the demands of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a significant risk that the U.S. military won't be able to quickly and fully respond to yet another crisis, according to a new report to Congress.

The assessment, done by the nation's top military officer, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, represents a worsening from a year ago, when that risk was rated as moderate.

The report is classified, but on Monday senior defense officials, speaking on condition on anonymity, confirmed the decline in overall military readiness. And a report that accompanied Pace's review concluded that while the Pentagon is working to improve its warfighting abilities, it "may take several years to reduce risk to acceptable levels."

Any normal, level-headed person might think this is the time for discussions and dialog with Iran, but that's not the case with the GOP leadership who just don't seem to get it. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

I'm exhausted. Will give you my CNN stories in the morning, including my thrill at realizing the man standing next to me in the Green Room was Bill Donohue. You remember him: The guy who went after the Edwards campaign bloggers and who thinks that Christian-hating Jews run Hollywood (and apparently like anal sex). Read the rest of this post...