Tannishblog

We got rid of the echo chambers of congress, but we still have Georgie flying solo for the next two years. Should be fun. Especially in light of his latest pronouncement during his current tour of Republics formerly Owned by the Soviet Union. As reported by the NY Times, Mr. Bush is prepping his Iraqi puppet for a new role as scapegoat.

Foreshadowing his message to Mr. Maliki, he said he would press the Iraqi prime minister to lay out a strategy for stopping the killings.

“My questions to him will be: ‘What do we need to do to succeed? What is your strategy in dealing with the sectarian violence?’ ” Mr. Bush said. “I will assure him that we will continue to pursue Al Qaeda to make sure that they do not establish a safe haven in Iraq.”

Really. The What’s Your Strategy game is supposed to mask the US Iraq strategy that’s been AWOL since the beginning? What kind of fools does he take us for?

That’s rhetorical, friends.

But if I were to answer, I might have to take notice of how Mr. Bush refuses to utter the words "civil war," even after NBC decided at last to label the "conflict" rightly.

NBC News said Monday that its reporters and anchors would begin referring to the ongoing sectarian strife in Iraq as a "civil war," a move that reflects the news media’s use of increasingly stark language to characterize the escalating violence gripping the country.

NBC’s decision, which came after a particularly deadly series of retaliatory attacks in Baghdad, makes it the first television network to officially adopt the term "civil war," a description the Bush administration has resisted.

Although our Decider-in Chief says Iraq is still insurgent, the media goes ahead and makes it an official Civil War ™. Never mind the media has been using the phrase for the past two months. Now that the election’s over and the Democrats have emerged from the Phoenix’s ashes of defeat, one news outlet has a sudden case of gumption. Bully!

And if I were to answer to how foolish our President believes we are, I would notice his phraseology during his denouncement of a possible thinning US presence in Iraq. According the the same NT Times report, he vowed not to withdraw troops "until the mission is complete."

Wait a minute! Is he now saying his mission is NOT accomplished?

What does ideology cost? Who pays the tab? We hear much about the thousands of US soldiers who gave their lives for an ideal, the tens of thousands who made it home damaged to find no funding for their after-care. We hear of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian collateral casualties. These numbers are tossed about, but do we really comprehend them?

The cost of war cannot be fathomed by quoting tallies. They can only be seen by investigating any one life affected by the Iraq war. Iraq Veterans Against the War has a moving article entitled The Pain of War, which brings the loss of one soldier into sharp focus. If you read this and are not moved by it, go see a psychiatrist.

Just hours after president Bush fed the media bovine offal regarding bipartisan cooperation in Washington, the lame duck Republican congress starts leveraging for John Bolton. Look for them to try to cement more of their worst decisions before they go.

Now, those damned cut-and-run Democrats are angling for troop withdrawals in Iraq. No doubt righty bloggers are told-you-soing as I write this. So much for bipartisanship.

"You keep using that word… I do not think it means what you think it means."

Perhaps the dictionaries have the word mis-defined. It certainly mystifies me. Neither party will miss a chance to defy the other, or should I say mis-defy the other. I guess we should pronounce the term "my-partisanship."

As things pertain to Iraq: Something new must be tried. While I cannot say if withdrawal is a good idea, I feel certain that staying the course ™ hasn’t worked. As near as I can fathom (without digging too deep in the loamy mire of Right Blogistan) the argument against troop redeployment goes something like this: "We can’t leave now! The country will devolve into civil war!"

Somehow, I gather, it’s better to stay there and kill-or-be-killed, to risk more Iraqi families breeding anti-Americanism as they mourn their dead while Americans patrol their streets, to risk more American lives, than is it to leave gradually, and let them kill themselves as they are doing already, to have them mourn their loved ones while wondering where their nation’s peacekeepers are hiding. They’ll hate us either way. We deserve it. Iraqi problems stem from a well-documented historical hatred that, like him or not, Saddam Hussein we able to control. America doesn’t have patience or resources to stay in Iraq for the couple of generations necessary to restructure cultural biases toward diversity. If indeed that can be accomplished.

So let’s get out. Let’s try that and see how it goes. After all, we’ve shown the world how easily we can go right back in. It’s not like we can fix this war anymore than we can fix our political polarization.

A lot of political posturing occurs in the name of our troops. It's the 21st century equivalent of wrapping ones self in the flag. But how are our congressional members really voting on veteran issues?

Two groups, Disabled American Veterans and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, have independently created report cards for our representatives in federal and state offices. Before you vote, check out the actions of your congressman or woman, state representatives or federal on vital issues to the thousands of military people damaged in our wars. According to IAVA, 86 members of congress scored "D" or "F" on issues that matter to the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and their families.

Concussive damage to the brain is emerging as the "signature injury" of our conflict. Yet Congress has failed to pass measures to fund research for reversing brain damage in our veterans.

So: Who are the real patriots and who are the professional politicians?

Remember Pat Tillman? He was the NFL safety from the Arizona Cardinals who, along with his brother, decided to honor the memories of those killed on 9/11 by quitting his covetous job and joining the Army. I’m sure they was glad to have him. He and his brother Kevin became Army Rangers and were shipped off first to Iraq, then to Afghanistan where Pat died.

The true peculiarity of his story starts there. The Army reported the circumstances of his death to his family and to the nation: he was killed while storming a position along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Read what the world was told in April, 2004:

Tillman, 27, was a member of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, based at Fort Lewis, Wash. The battalion was involved in Operation Mountain Storm in southeastern Afghanistan, part of the U.S. campaign against fighters of the al-Qaida terror network and the former Taliban government along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, military officials told NBC News.

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Matthew Beevers said Saturday that Tillman was killed Thursday night in a firefight at about 7 p.m. on a road near Sperah, about 25 miles southwest of a U.S. base at Khost.

After coming under fire, Tillman’s patrol got out of their vehicles and gave chase, moving toward the spot of the ambush. Beevers said the fighting was “sustained” and lasted 15-20 minutes.

A sad story, right? But he’s a hero, now, and America honors its heroes. The media played it up as a testament to the honor and courage of America for all to see.

But the Army lied. By December of 2004, after several months of inquiry, the Army was forced to rescind their original story and tell another one: Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire.

It ended on a stony ridge in fading light. Spec. Pat Tillman lay dying behind a boulder. A young fellow U.S. Army Ranger stretched prone beside him, praying quietly as tracer bullets poured in.

"Cease fire! Friendlies!" Tillman cried out.

Smoke drifted from a signal grenade Tillman had detonated minutes before in a desperate bid to show his platoon members they were shooting the wrong men. The firing had stopped. Tillman had stood up, chattering in relief. Then the machine gun bursts erupted again.

"I could hear the pain in his voice," recalled the young Ranger days later to Army investigators. Tillman kept calling out that he was a friendly, and he shouted, "I am Pat [expletive] Tillman, damn it!" His comrade recalled: "He said this over and over again until he stopped."

Steve Coll, of the Washington Post, writes a superb eulogy in the above article. He honors the memory of  Pat Tillman and honors the bravery and commitment of our troops on the ground while exposing the lies of our military machine who, it would seem, does neither. It make one wonder how many other lies have been told about the Oil Wars that we’ve not heard about? My father used to tell me: Once a person lies to you, you can never trust them again.

Pat’s birthday is November 6 - the day before the election. Coincidence or Fate? I guess the election’s outcome will decide this question as well as others. Last Thursday, TrughDig.com posted an article from Kevin Tillman who also enlisted and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now that Kevin is discharged, he is free to speak his mind. I don’t think he’ll be backing the Republicans this time around:

It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after.  It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military.  He spoke about the risks with signing the papers.  How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people.  How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition.  How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out. 

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Please read on. Here is a voice in anguish at the real cost of war. Here is a brave soldier awakening to the horror, the cost of war, weighing this against the romance of ideology perpetrated by our administration and our media. Here is a man who - more than the rest of us - has earned the right to speak out against the terrible state our nation is in. Right here is a National Tragedy. One of many.

That Pat Tillman was already a celebrity was a boon to America. Otherwise his story would fall into the same pit of obscurity that thousands of others have landed. Without his celebrity, we wouldn’t have know the length our military will go to cover it’s own ass, to the detriment of the families who sacrifice its children to feed the war machine. To the detriment of average American powerless to affect change.

Remember Pat Tillman. Honor his memory and the suffering of his family and the thousands of other families suffering from loss or having to adapt to a returned soldier hideously damaged in service to an uncaring ideology. Remember all this as you vote on November 7. May it give you wisdom.

By now, you’ll know that Mr. Bush has proudly signed into law the controversial Military Commissions Act of 2006. We have taken another giant step for mankind - backward.

Terror is in the eye of the politico. The Decider ™ now get a choice upon whom to practice of "coercive interrogation" in the name of "Protecting America" (patent pending.) This law has "legitimized" immoral behavior toward enemy combatants that retroactively clears the administration of wrongdoing perpetrated before this "law" existed. Let us not forget the penalty for violation of the Geneva Conventions is execution - be assured Mr. Bush know this. Not only the offending persons but the whole chain of command could be liable if it is proven to be that America had at any time ignored international law. So, the "American lives" he claims to be saving by signing the torture bill, just might be his own.

Yet as Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post notes:

Here’s what Bush had to say at his signing ceremony in the East Room: "The bill I sign today helps secure this country, and it sends a clear message: This nation is patient and decent and fair, and we will never back down from the threats to our freedom."

But that may not be the "clear message" the new law sends most people.

Here’s the clear message the law sends to the world: America makes its own rules. The law would apparently subject terror suspects to some of the same sorts of brutal interrogation tactics that have historically been prosecuted as war crimes when committed against Americans.

But that’s just one opinion. DownsizeDC.com has kindly enumerated all the implications of the law and all the liberties we’ve limited.

The entire bill is bad, but the "killer" passage is subsection ii which defines an Unlawful Enemy Combatant as anyone . . .

"who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense."

This section makes it clear that this law applies to anyone appointed bureaucrats label an "enemy combatant." That could be you.

There’s no limit to application of this law. It could be applied to anyone at anytime — war or no war.

Notice also that this new law is retroactive. You could have done something to violate this law before it even became a law.

Please also notice that the President is given the authority to create another "competent tribunal" to make these decisions if he or she is not satisfied with the efforts of the Combatant Status Review Tribunal. In other words, the President can create other tribunals, not even governed by this law, as long as he declares them to be "competent" to make decisions about who should be disappeared, detained, tortured, tried and punished, all without recourse to a legal defense.

. Hear that? It sounds like thousands of jackboots in perfect unison. Slowly, the erosion of American freedom is advancing

Crossposted at Democrats.org :

Happy Halloween! "What?" you say, "It's only September."

For the next few weeks, it might as well be Halloween or maybe a marathon Fright-Film fest. As Rep. Jim McDermott notes at Huffington Post, Expect to be frightened.

The Congress of the United States has reconvened in Washington, D.C., but don't expect Congress to legislate on behalf of the American people.

The Republican Party will spend the next 30 days trying to make you afraid. It is the Republican midterm election strategy.

For the rest of September, until the moment Republican leaders gavel the Congress into adjournment, Republican speakers will rise and implore the American people to be afraid.

He says 30 days. I say the fearmongering will continue until the photo finish in November and, if the Repugs have their way, well beyond. It's already begun.

President Bush mixed solemn remembrance of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks yesterday with a renewed call to complete the mission in Iraq, paying tribute to the fallen even while warning Americans that failure in the Middle East would leave the United States more vulnerable than ever to Islamic extremists.

"Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq," Bush said last night in a prime-time address from the Oval Office, "the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone. They will not leave us alone. They will follow us. The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad."

"I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks," Bush said.

"The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat," the president said, tapping his desk for emphasis. "The world is safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power."

Politicizing 9/11. Shameless. Especially when one notes how G. Warmonger Bush has missed the last few 9/11 anniversaries. Why attend this one? It's an election year, dummy!

Meanwhile, at the Pentagon:

Cheney told the crowd, which included families who lost loved ones during the attack on the Pentagon, that America has learned difficult lessons since that fateful day.

"We have learned that oceans do not protect us, and threats that gather thousands of miles away can now find us here at home," he said. "We have learned that there is a certain kind of enemy, whose ambitions have no limits and whose cruelty is only fed by the grief of others. In these years, we also found our mission, to defend America against a present danger, and to offer democracy and hope as the alternative to extremism and terror."

The vice president said America has a history of fighting tyranny and will never give in to terrorism.

"This nation has defeated tyrants and liberated death camps, raised the lamp of liberty to every captive land," he said. "We have no intention of ignoring or appeasing history's latest gang of fanatics trying to murder their way to power."

I especially love the way they try to cast themselves into the WWII imagery, as if they are the Saviors of the World Incarnate. Bullshit! Not a single one can match people like Montgomery, Eisenhower or Patton. To paraphrase Sen. Lloyd Bentsen: "You're no Winston Churchill, George." It seems the rest of America is noting this also: Who Left This Hole in the Ground, Mr. President?

So, prepared to be scared. Or to be disgusted some more. The Halloween season is upon us. While Education slips behind world standards, Health care impoverished us, while the wealthy reap benefits of vast tax cuts sent to off-shore shelters, while our vice President continues to work for the oil industry, while billions of dollars have been lost through graft and corruption, we on the ground floor get to watch the circus our Republican congressmen are planning to maintain their empire.

BOO!

Okay. I know I’m pointing out other’s words today instead of creating my own. Some days the muses sleep in, and here in Chicago, the rain makes it a great day to sleep in. Too bad I went to work.

Anywho, Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch and author Ira Chernus has an interesting take on all the 9/11 hyperbole floating about. (Gotta clean up the place after this.) It seems, per Tom , that the Day The World Changed came earlier than we’re led to believe.Very insightful.

This is the vicious circle from Hell. The Bush administration’s aggressive policies weaken U.S. power. Then its officials try to frighten the public into supporting the very same aggressive policies. We were stuck in a similar cycle, only half-recognized, throughout the Cold War years, and there’s no end in sight. So far, it looks like not much has changed at all since 9/11.

As I troll the web looking for inspiration on Patriot Day, the fifth anniversary of the demolition of the World Trade Towers. While reading all the pablum and politics the papers are spewing, one thing occurs to me:

Al Qaida succeeded in its mission to disrupt America.

And we’ve helped them do it. From conspiracy theorists to antiwar activists, from spying governments to circuit judge rulings, our nation has fractured. The debate whether ABC is libeling Democrats or just exercising author’s licence in its portrayal of event leading up to the tragedy, its political fallout for both parties, is just the latest example of how the attacks at the pentagon and in New York were victorious.

Notwithstanding anyone’s feelings about our incumbents, the Grand Canyon of our political discontent has never been as wide or as deep as it has grown since that fateful day five years ago. And it’s still growing. I’m sure our discomfort is a pleasure to watch for those who dreamed up the attacks: their understanding of American cultural psychology must be keen. And our understanding of ourselves must be non-existent.

Well done, Osama: good job.

Donklephant asks: Did We Just Lose? How did this story slip my radar? I must have been bamboozled by Paris' hijinks (or is that high-jinx). Or maybe TomKat's baby, or the resurrection of the Princess' death, or some other exceptionally important stuff I dunno…

Whatever; Pakistani capitulation is not getting much traction from the mediasphere that I've noticed. Where are all the pundits, od/ed-ers and sages? Why aren't they dissecting, opinionating, being sagacious over this story? Maybe they're over here.