Booby-trapped Left-Overs
Filed Under Musings, Politics | Leave a Comment
Lurching to a finish, Decider George will leave the next president a foreign policy situation worse-than a can of big, ugly worms.
This particular can, however, is way-different, thus making the worms way-different — they’ve been trip wired, booby trapped, apt to explode when touched a certain way.
And they’re really, really slimy.
Worm One: Iraq, quickly becoming a much-bigger failure; Worm Two: Afghanistan, the Taliban more vicious and clever; Worm Three: Pakistan, ready to collapse; Worm Four: Somalia, pirates and al-Qeada; Worm Five: Syria, a non-lethal worm until just this week.
(Illustration found here).
A nasty legacy left for most-hopeful a President Obama.
And one of our favorite commentators, Rosa Brooks of the LA Times, worried pretty bluntly today about the booby trapped worms facing the next commander-in-chief (she also poses a President Obama) and how they could easily blow up in his face.
- But every new president is “tested” by national security crises, some predictable, some not.
And I’m a lot less worried about the tests “the world” may offer Obama than about the national security booby traps the Bush administration is leaving behind for him.
…
We can’t leave behind a stable Iraq without the cooperation of Iraq’s neighbors, but this week’s cross-border raid by Iraq-based U.S. troops into Syrian territory led Syria to break off high-level diplomatic contacts with U.S. officials — contacts that had only recently been resumed.
Heated negotiations over the future status of U.S. forces in Iraq have further increased tensions with Syria, Iran and the Iraqi government, which fear permanent U.S. military activities in the region.
The current impasse in status-of-forces negotiations also threatens to leave U.S. troops in Iraq with no legal basis for their presence when their United Nations mandate expires Dec. 31.
Happy New Year, Barack!
…
The Bush administration followed early military successes with grandiose promises of democracy and prosperity, then mostly ignored Afghanistan for the next six years.
Meanwhile, the Taliban reconstituted itself, Al Qaeda leaders slipped away into Pakistan’s ungoverned tribal regions, and U.S. troops found themselves playing an increasingly deadly game of Whac-a-Mole against an elusive and ill-defined enemy.
…
According to the latest national intelligence estimate, Afghanistan is now in a possibly irreversible “downward spiral.”More troops in Afghanistan might have turned things around if those troops — and a less stingy reconstruction package — had arrived five years ago, when Afghan hopes were high.
But after years of Bush administration malfeasance, increasing U.S. troop levels without an accompanying dramatic shift in regional strategy risks turning Afghanistan into another Iraq.
Or worse, because the Afghan booby trap is wired tightly to the Pakistan booby trap.
Pakistan is the proud but horrifyingly unstable possessor of a nuclear arsenal.
If the escalating conflicts in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions spin out of control, we could end up in another Iraq-like situation — only with weapons of mass destruction in the mix for real this time.
Brooks doesn’t say nothing about a ‘President McCain.’
She probably knows the very thought is too cruel — Jackboot John, with Sarah Palin at his elbows, attempting to defuse all those trip-wired, booby trapped worms (one that’s nuclear), and being stupid and arrogant, doing something wrong.
See, it is too cruel to contemplate.
And that’s just the foreign policy can of worms.
The new president will inherit a financial can all its own.
This evening from the New York Times comes bad news for the brand-new administration:
- “The economy has taken a turn for the worse, big time,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist for Decision Economics, a consulting and forecasting group. “Consumption literally caved in. It is a prelude to much worse news on the economy over the next couple of quarters. The fundamentals around the consumer are all negative, and there are no signs of any help anytime soon, from anywhere.”
…
Whoever captures the White House seems certain to inherit a starkly challenging economic picture. Thursday’s government report showed that consumer spending — which makes up more than 70 percent of American economy activity — dipped at 3.1 percent annual rate between July and September, after growing at a 1.2 percent annual rate in the previous three months.
That was the largest three-month drop since the second quarter of 1980, a contraction that was in some sense artificial: the Carter administration, seeking to suffocate inflation, imposed limits on bank borrowing.
Putting that episode aside, this year’s drop represents the sharpest decline in consumer spending since the end of 1974.
And how did the White House respond? By tossing out the old blame game.
- “Today’s G.D.P. report is weak, but it is not unexpected,” a White House spokeswoman Dana M. Perino. “A number of things contributed to the slowing economy in the third quarter — record high energy prices, housing and credit concerns, two major hurricanes and a prolonged Boeing strike.
The president is taking forceful actions to return the economy to growth and job creation by early next year. While we continue to face serious challenges, the United States remains the best place to do business, and we’re positioned to bounce back.”
Decider George taking forceful actions? — Dana, you’re out of your tree!
The economy has more booby traps than an Afghan minefield.
Indeed, Happy New Year! Barack!
Piracy Now!
Filed Under Just Plain War, Musings | Leave a Comment
Shipping in and out of the Red Sea is undergoing some old-time, real-violent incidents with pirates, so much so there seems to be a crisis in an ability to handle it.
Information Dissemination, the best site for all things Naval, made note today on another freighter attacked by pirates as it tried to navigate through the Gulf of Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea.
The blog gave an account of the latest report from the International Chamber of Shipping, the principle trade association for the industry, which noted the ship’s escape was aided by the timely arrival of a military jet.
(Map found here).
The ICS reported some agonizing moments for a ship’s skipper and crew.
- Situation: Vessel was under full lockdown with anti-piracy lookout posted on both bridge wings night and day and navigating in Gulf of Aden safety corridor.
First attack took place at 08:00 in posn 13-26N, 48-27E. Three high speed craft approached with direct intent from port side 45degrees off the bow.
…
I called the company on the telephone, I made evasive maneuvers, mayday call on vhf, mustered all in our security muster station (conference room) and kept 3/O on the bridge with a helmsman.
We came under automatic small arms fire targeted at the bridge. No damage or injuries.
I was also sounding the air horn whilst making S-turns and calling Mayday on VHF16.
After about 10min the attackers gave up chase and stopped and re-grouped. We escaped.
And then again, after the captain had calmed the crew:
- The 2nd attack was more serious and came at 15:00 in posn 12-54N, 46-40E where 3 fast attack boats were seen departing from a mother ship fishing vessel white in colour.
…
I immediately called Mayday on vhf, mustered crew in safe place and was again fired upon by automatic small arms fire but with more aggression lasting about 5 minutes into the accom block. Fortunately a coalition warship (Spanish Navy) heard my mayday call and responded by sending out a Russian aircraft to our scene which was patrolling the area.
…
I was very happy to see the echo on my radar of the inbound aircraft.
The pirates were within 100m when the small fixed wing Russian bomber arrived and gave a very low passing.
The pirates yielded. The aircraft then proceeded to drop ordinance on them.
The situation became safe very quickly with the bomber in attendance.
About 20min later a French attack helicopter arrived to check our situation was under control and we alerted him as to the estimated position of the pirate mother ship.
The report concludes:
- If evidence is needed of the lawless situation in this part of the world then the attached report provides it.
It illustrates both the effectiveness of organic defensive measures as well as the need for active military intervention.
A hairy-high-old-time had by all.
Piracy is becoming a major problem for shipping and for humanitarian aid to the Horn of Africa.
Each year about 16,000 ships use the Gulf of Aden, one of the most important trade routes in the world — the southern route to the Suez Canal.
The piracy has already caused insurance premiums for the Gulf of Aden to increase tenfold.
Oops.
As reported earlier this month by the Danger Room blog at Wired News:
- Resolving Somalia’s at-sea piracy crisis requires “the formation of a Somali government that can clear out pirates’ land bases,” I reported in a new piece for Popular Mechanics.
But there’s a twist: Somalia had just such a government only two years ago, and the United States helped destroy it.
Two years ago, the hardline Islamic Courts regime, allied with a number of regional warlords, had brought a measure of stability to Somalia after 15 years of civil war.
The Courts suppressed piracy to its lowest level in years.
But U.S. suspicions that the Courts were actively harboring Al-Qaeda operatives led the U.S. to sponsor an joint invasion by Ethiopia and an alliance of outside Somali clans, destroying the Courts and sparking a bloody, Iraq-style insurgency.
In the wake of the invasion, piracy flared up again.
McClatchy reported today on more blowback from US policy shit involving the old, time-tested suicide bomber routine:
- Five suicide blasts rocked government and international targets in northern Somalia on Wednesday, killing at least 31 people, according to international security officials, in the most highly coordinated terrorist strike in years in the troubled East African nation.
…
A U.N.-backed transitional government was formed nearly five years ago to restore order to Somalia, but it’s split apart because of corruption, infighting and clan divisions.
With less than a year left in its mandate, its leaders have lost control of nearly all the country to militant groups such as al Shabaab, which have begun targeting African Union peacekeepers and humanitarian workers.
The lawlessness extends to the waters off Somalia, where pirates in speedboats have earned world headlines this year by capturing dozens of vessels and securing millions of dollars in ransom payments.
One seems to lead to another.
Another sad, side-show in Decider George’s Wide World War on Terror.
Treasure-Hearts of Darkness
Filed Under Just Plain War | Leave a Comment
Despite all, wars keep warring. In Africa’s heart, seemingly all-perpetual war keeps hacking away at history, yesterday, today and tomorrow.
The machete-AK-47 adventure continued in earnest on Monday as UN peacekeepers attempt to mount a rescue of its aid workers trapped in the deep Congo jungle, caught in the pincer of an escalating advance of a vicious renegade Congolese warlord.
The tale is the worst of African pulp fiction in real time.
A back story can be found here and it’s updated here, but terror on the ground in eastern Congo has to be enormous.
(Map and Congo info found here).
This evening’s New York Times:
- But the attempt to evacuate roughly 50 aid workers trapped in the battle zone deep in the forest was halted after furious villagers attacked the armed convoy and blocked the road, United Nations officials said.
In the melee, even Congolese government forces fired on the convoy, the officials said.
“The situation was very chaotic,” said Ivo Brandau, a United Nations spokesman in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital. “The convoy had to turn back.”
…
Eastern Congo has been plagued by violence and insecurity for years and is home to the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world.
But the peacekeepers have seemed unable to stop one man, Laurent Nkunda, a renegade Congolese general, who is leading the rebel charge on Goma.
For the past several weeks, Mr. Nkunda’s troops have been gobbling up territory and forcing the Congolese government’s forces to retreat.
They are now within 10 miles of Goma, and they are employing new hit-and-run tactics that seem to be frustrating the United Nations peacekeepers who are working with the Congolese military to beat back the rebels.
The guy, Mr. Nkunda, is not a a real nice person — his army gained fame for rape murder and mass looting, all asshole/terror-proven veterans from the three or four Congo wars the past couple of decades.
A good look at the deteriorating situation can be found today in Time.
The current mess is just a continuing mess.
A snippet:
- Hundreds of thousands of Congolese have fled renewed fighting in the eastern part of the country in the past few weeks.
Government forces are pitted against rebel groups that have operated in the area since crossing the border from neighboring Rwanda at the end of the genocide there in 1994.
In some ways — such as how the conflict has sucked in armies from across Africa and how it has often descended into a fight over the region’s plentiful natural resources — the war in Congo is immeasurably more complicated than the one in Rwanda.
But in other ways, it’s a direct sequel.
The rebels now advancing on Goma, for instance, are led by General Laurent Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi fighting remnant Rwandan Hutu militias.
In all, according to humanitarian NGO the International Rescue Committee, the war in Congo — which escalated into a full-scale civil war in 1998 that lasted until 2003, and still erupts periodically, as now — has killed 5.4 million people, mostly through hunger and disease.
And what have our illustrious presidential candidates said about this horror?
Nothing except to conduct a course in political squabbling:
- After Obama’s promise in Israel this year to “never again” allow genocide to occur, the McCain camp quickly pounced, issuing a press release saying that if Obama were sincere in that statement, he would have voted to allow the troop surge in Iraq.
The media immediately published Obama’s response: “Well, look, if that’s the criteria [genocide or humanitarian crisis] by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven’t done.”
…
Friends of the Congo issued a strong response to Obama’s statement, objecting to the stereotypical notion that tribal bloodletting is responsible for this travesty.
The United Nations has termed the humanitarian crisis in Congo the “deadliest in the world since World War II.”
Nearly 6 million people have died in the region since 1996 due to the war and conflict related causes such as treatable disease, malnutrition and related violence, including the documented rapes of 200,000 women and children.
Doctors Without Borders has consistently reported that the Congo conflict is one of the top ten most under reported stories in the world.
…
The central reason for the nearly six million dead in the Congo since 1996 is not ethnic strife but rather the scramble for Congo’s enormous treasure trove of diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, coltan, tin, timber and more,” says Maurice Carney of Friends of the Congo.
…
DRC harbors the richest, purest minerals in the world, many of them vital to the U.S. defense industry. There is not one person who is reading this article who does not benefit by mineral extraction and exploitation in DRC.
For example, Congo has from 64%-80% of the world’s reserve of coltan. Oil may arguably be the non-renewable resource which is front and center in every American’s mind, but coltan is found in cell phones, laptops, digital cameras, and video game consoles.
Coltan is the engine behind our communications systems, and 1500 people a day are dying in this region while Americans profit from corporate greed, take Congolese resources, turn our backs, and power-up our cellphones.
Maybe it’s time for US peoples to take a journey through the darkest heart of darkness.
Syria Now!
Filed Under War & Politics | Leave a Comment
Why now indeed?
After all these years, the US pulls a punch out of its bag of latent tricks and popped a farmhouse inside Syria on Sunday, supposedly chasing after some bad al-Qaeda types from inside Iraq.
Maybe one of Decider George’s final sword thrusts?
From Syria Comment:
- I think we can assume that this cross border raid was not inspired by Patreaus.
It has the finger prints of the White House.
Patreaus and Rice have consistently fought to improve relations with Syria in order to win better coordination on the border.
This would explain why press releases on this issue are being released from “sources” in Washington and not being made by boots on the ground in Iraq.
My hunch is that Centcom in Iraq is furious about being pressed to carry out this raid during the last minutes of Bush authority.
They understand that it will complicate any future efforts to improve Syrian-US relations, which is the only real way to get better cooperation on the border issue.
By ordering this raid, the Bush administration has administered a poison pill to US-Syrian relations and to Syrian-Iraq relations.
…
The White House may be counting on Syria not to respond to this provocation, believing that Damascus will be constrained by its interest in cultivating a new relationship with an Obama administration.
There is much hope in Damascus that an Obama administration will resume dialogue and allow the Defense Department to re-establish intelligence sharing and allow the State Department to restore proper relations with Damascus.
Politics before life.
Yes, of course, the old ‘poison pill’ routine.
And this was a boots-on-the-ground operation.
From antiwar.com:
- In a report from local witnesses later confirmed by a Syrian government spokesman, Two US helicopters landed in the Syrian border town of Al-Sukkariya while others remained in the air and eight American soldiers exited.
The soldiers killed at least eight people in the attack, and wounded 14 others before reboarding the helicopters and returning to Iraqi territory.
Decider George will continue to shit out bile until the day he’s run out of the White House.
Juan Cole, an expert on this kind of war-political bullshit, says it all at Informed Comment:
- It seems to me more likely that the attack was aimed at making sure that what the administration calls “al-Qaeda in Iraq” did not have the means to mount a spectacular bombing or assassination campaign that would hurt McCain and help Obama.
I was told by NGOs when I was in Amman last summer that the Bush administration had for the first time pledged money to help Iraqi refugees, and that US officials had admitted to them that the reason was that the administration wanted the refugee crisis kept off the front pages this fall.
Scott McClellan has already told us that the Bushies are in campaign mode 24/7.
I’d say that every single thing they are doing, whether raiding Pakistan or raiding Syria, is intended in some way to help the Republican Party in the election, in addition to whatever local military goal the action had.
When Decider George is finally gone!
Blood Down the Oil Hole
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Iraq is the nightmare version of Alice’s surreal Rabbit Hole.
There’s blood on the walls.
(Illustration was found here).
When Decider George invaded Iraq in 2003 — carried out over the bodies of US GIs and countless numbers of Iraqi civilians — it was because Saddam Hussein was such a nasty sonofabitch and a threat to world peace.
As it has turned out, Decider George was/is the real nasty sonofabitch and the real threat to world peace.
Alan Greenspan, that grand OLD financial wizard, who this week is being grilled (and squirming) on Capitol Hill about the current Wall Street meltdown, earlier this year told a little bit of the truth when he said the reason for the Iraqi war was/is all about the oil.
And now with all the oil going elsewhere, Iraq is still Iraq — an endless, never-ending hell hole.
One of the best sites on the Internets for current affairs is TomDispatch and today posted a searing analysis on the horror of Iraq as a worse-than-failed enterprise.
TomDispatch regular Michael Schwartz compiles a short essay off his current book, War Without End: The Iraq War in Context and paints an ugly picture of the reality of Decider George’s decision to invade.
The entire post can be found here.
A few snippets:
- By the time Bremer left Iraq in the spring of 2004, the inhabitants of many cities faced 60% unemployment.
Meanwhile, the country’s agriculture, a key component of its economy, was also victimized by the dismantling of government establishments and services.
The lush farming areas between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers suffered badly.
The once-thriving date palm industry was a typical casualty. It suffered deadly infestations of pests when the occupation eliminated a government-run insecticide spraying program.
Even oil refinery-based industrial towns like Baiji became cities of slums when plants devoted to non-petroleum activities were shuttered.
…
The dwindling central government presence made schools inviting arenas for sectarian conflict, with administrators, teachers, and especially college professors removed, kidnapped, or assassinated for ideological reasons.
This, in turn, stimulated a mass exodus of teachers, intellectuals, and scientists from the country, removing precious human capital essential for future reconstruction.
…
The Iraq that has emerged from the American invasion and occupation is now a thoroughly wrecked land, housing a largely dysfunctional society.
More than a million Iraqis may have died; millions have fled their homes; many millions of others have been scarred by war, insurgency and counterinsurgency operations, extreme sectarian violence, and soaring levels of common criminality.
Education and medical systems have essentially collapsed and, even today, with every kind of violence in decline, Iraq remains one of the most dangerous societies on earth.
Decider George has the touch of an anti-Midas and has created a deep, swallowing suck hole in the very midst of the Middle East.
And from the worse president in US history to the worse candidate for the Oval office — this sweet, SNL skit from last night tells it all.
See it here via HuffPost.
Alice would be scared shitless.
3rd-Worlded
Filed Under Musings | Leave a Comment
The real race problem in the US — economics.
And despite Booker T. Washington‘s approach, African-Americans are getting the short-end of the paycheck stick.
An UN Report today:
- Levels of economic disparity in major US cities, including New York and Washington DC, are comparable to those of African cities, a United Nations report has concluded.
The UN-Habitat report “State of the World’s Cities” released on Thursday said that, while the US has less poverty than many cities in the developed world, inequality is high, rising above the international “alert” line.
…
“The life expectancy of African Americans in the United States is about the same as that of people living in China and some states of India, despite the fact that the United States is far richer than the other two countries,” it said.
And this is a built-in problem, festering for generations and not a spark off the current financial shit-storm.
The future of US cities is bleak.
Osama’s Endorsement
Filed Under Musings, War & Politics | Leave a Comment
UPDATE BELOW
While Barack Obama snagged Colin Powell’s endorsement on Sunday, Jackboot John McCain has received thumbs up support from Osama and his boys.
According to the today’s Washington Post, al-Qaeda has claimed the best man for the White House is the angry former POW:
- “Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group.
It said the Arizona Republican would continue the “failing march of his predecessor,” President Bush.
…
In language that was by turns mocking and ominous, the newest posting credited al-Qaeda with having lured Washington into a trap that had “exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy.” It further suggested that a terrorist strike might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world.
Al-Qaeda is joy-filled right now because of the US financial shitfire that’s globe-trotting its toxic wastes and the West just might be on its knees any day now.
War is a good sucker device.
What would one say about the Iraq War: Two Billion Dollars a week to maintain and one has to wonder what impact this horrifying amount of loose change has on the US economy.
Adam Raisman, a senior analyst for Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamic Web pages provided translations of the comments to the Post.
- “The idea in the jihadist forums is that McCain would be a faithful ‘son of Bush’ — someone they see as a jingoist and a war hawk,” Raisman said. “They think that, to succeed in a war of attrition, they need a leader in Washington like McCain.”
Although there was blubbering and bluster from the McCain camp, Osama and his boys have indeed worked a nail-screw on the US, and in a domino-like effect, have twisted it on the world.
After 9/11, Decider George and his neocon war party played into al-Qaeda’s hand, sort of like Custer being led down into the valley of the Big Horn, albeit in a more haphazard way.
The operative question, however, is this: How the hell did Osama know Decider George would be such an incompetent, lying dick?
(Osama’s pix found here; Jackboot John’s here).
***
YESTERDAY, this angle on the McCain/Osama connection at War in Context.
Interesting…
Press, Press, Pull: Failure of the Media
Filed Under Media, Musings | Leave a Comment
Only logic can save the day.
As a kid (and even now as an ‘adult’), I loved the insane violence, and memory brings up a little bit about the media.
In one of those The Three Stooges clips, and there seems to be thousands of them, the boys needed to get inside some official meeting.
After some brain-storming, the trio decide to pass themselves off as newspaper reporters, and in order to do so, go to a public bathroom and remove all the “Press” levers to use as official passes.
Of course, there’s a screw-up — two go with ‘Press’ and ‘Press,’ but the third dumb-ass used a ‘Pull’ insignia.
The result: Mayhem and chaos.
US media has a pull certificate.
And in the run-up to the Iraqi war, the US media pulled hard in the opposite, though decidedly unfunny, way.
A recent Nieman Foundation discussion panel found the media sadly lacking of backbone.
On this panel were Michael Massing, Charles Lewis, Florence Graves, Tom Rosenstiel, John Walcott, Jane Mayer and Gil Cranberg.
A complete report on the event can be found here.
Some snippets:
- Covering one of the most important stories of our time – the run-up to war in Iraq — our nation’s top reporters and editors blew it. Badly. Their credulous, stenographic recitation of the administration’s deeply flawed arguments for war made them de facto accomplices to a war undertaken on false pretenses.
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The country was solidly behind Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the administration branded those who raised too many questions as unpatriotic, some of those who did buck the administration line found themselves subject to harassment, and too many mainstream reporters and editors were worried about losing readers if they swam against the political tide.
Panelists said pressures were great in some newsrooms – particularly where the corporate leadership was concerned with appearing out of step with the country. Though there wasn’t any consensus about why some organizations were more susceptible than others – and why the most important outlets were among the most susceptible – there was a clear sense that the fearfulness of a newsroom is a management failure. The panel didn’t come up with a solution, but it did hold up Walcott and Knight Ridder (now McClatchy) as a model.
…
And despite the explosion of blogs and alternate news sources, the panel also noted how the most elite traditional news outlets continue to set the nation’s political agenda. Indeed, Massing pointed out that “with all the cutbacks that have gone on at many papers, particularly these … once very good regional papers, like the Boston Globe and Newsday and the Baltimore Sun and so on, these sort of elite organizations have in some ways become more important, and the New York Times and Washington Post in particular.”
Add to the media’s thumb-sucking asshole-ness: Jackboot John McCain wouldn’t be where he is today without the media loving his lying guts and then covering up all those ugly faults.
Press, press, pull.
Shredding the Troops
Filed Under Orwellian, War & Politics | Leave a Comment
Warriors in that happy-go-lucky city-state of ancient Sparta either can back with their shield, or on it.
Veterans from US wars, however, especially those from the little-horrors currently in Iraq and Afghanistan, have no protective shields to ride back home.
US Veteran’s Affairs has been just piling up those shields and shredding them.
- Department of Veterans Affairs regional offices have been ordered to immediately stop shredding documents after an investigation found some benefits claims and supporting documents among piles of papers waiting to be destroyed.
Claims often include personal records supplied by veterans that are not duplicated in government files and might be difficult to replace, such as certificates for births, deaths and marriage.
VFW National Commander Glen Gardner is pissed:
- “Secretary Peake must hold everyone involved personally accountable for this disgraceful management failure,” he said. “Someone who intentionally destroys paperwork, or supervisors who allow employees to interpret their own rules, are … doing serious damage to a great public image that took the VA years to build. Our veterans and our nation deserve much better.”
Damn well as he should be.
And that ‘Secretary Peake’ is, of course, VA honcho Jimmy Peake, another loudmouth incompetent appointed by Decider George in October 2007, former surgeon general who’s most-likely allowed the VA to descend into its shameful state.
In salon.com last November on Peake’s nomination:
- Sick and wounded soldiers back from Iraq were warehoused in dilapidated barracks, waiting weeks or even months to see doctors. Many were not getting proper treatment for one of the signature ills of this war, post-traumatic stress disorder. Buried in a blizzard of paperwork, frustrated soldiers became ensnared in an Army bureaucracy that is supposed to provide them with medical treatment and disability payments. To make matters worse, separate efforts to care for soldiers by the Army and the Department of Veterans Affairs were duplicative and confusing.
…
The Army surgeon general presiding over the crisis back then was Lt. Gen. James Peake, who, like Kiley in 2007, sought to whitewash the situation. Peake retired in July 2004 — but now he’s back in the news.
Peake don’t believe in PTSD.
Last May, while visiting Alaska’s corrupted Ted Stevens, Peake said the PTSD deal with the returning vets was overblown, they just need some “counseling” and they’ll be fine.
According to Think Progress:
- Peake’s comments are disturbing, especially in light of new numbers released by the Pentagon this week showing that the number of new PTSD cases “jumped by roughly 50 percent in 2007.”
Since 2003, “roughly 40,000 troops have been diagnosed with the illness.”
I hope President Obama cleans house at the VA.
Warriors deserve it.
Same Old, Same Old
Filed Under Musings, Politics | Leave a Comment
Another example of Decider George/GOP incompetence.
Hurricane Ike tore across the Texas coast in September and flattened everything, and despite the Katrina experience, the US federal government is still too arrogant to help the helpless.
In this day and age, natural disaster can be more than just a storm.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, a Texas woman faces problems no matter where she turns.
This could make one scream or cry:
- A FEMA inspector denied her claim and told her that the place was habitable, she said.
But Child Protective Services said that if Washington stayed in such an unsafe environment, they could take her children away from her, so she moved to the shelter.
She has appealed FEMA’s decision, but still hasn’t heard back, she said.
The federal government’s ability to help disaster victims has collapsed.
Or has Decider George so gutted the national emergency apparatus with his horrible wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there’s nothing left.
Even fighting fires in California, and again despite being forewarned, needed aircraft are sitting on a Santa Barbara tarmac unfit for service.
This week from the LA Times:
- The Bush administration has failed to outfit massive California Air National Guard cargo planes for firefighting duty despite pressure from the military and elected officials — a delay that could have grave implications as the state confronts the worst of its wildfire season.
And even the future of food.
- Nearly two-thirds (60%) of people in a new 26 nation poll commissioned by the BBC World Service say they are feeling the burden of recent rises in the cost of food and energy.
They say that the rising cost of food, fuel and electricity has affected them and their family “a great deal.”
The survey found that many people, especially in the developing world are cutting back on what they eat because food is more expensive.
Coupled with the financial meltdown, the US is shit-out-of-luck for any helping hand.
(The illustration from National Geographic.)
Joe the plumber
Filed Under Musings, Politics | Leave a Comment
Watching this last debate is so depressing, I have to take more-than-the-usual smoke breaks.
I don’t understand live blogging — only been doing this a short while — and so this a kind of real-time, after-thought observations on Barack Obama and his table chatter with who we here call Jackboot John McCain, a guy that’s got to be one of the most crazed individuals ever to come down the political-people pike.
He’s the reason I gotta have a smoke every two-minutes.
Watching him gets hard after awhile.
Jackboot John reminds me of Steve Carell’s character in the TV sit-com, “The Office” — a character who’s so shameless, ignorant and dip-shitty, hurtful, sometimes spiteful, and forces an under-the-skin, not-so-comfortable feel.
I stopped watching the show some time ago despite the other office characters being really, really funny.
Even Bob Schieffer had to cut him off fairly sharply once tonight, leaving Jackboot John blubbering into the ether, and one gets ashamed for the guy — not-worth-a-shit yet so, so believes his shit don’t stink.
How can he, with a straight, seemingly-sincere face, say anything good about Sarah Palin — “a reformer, through-and-through.”
Sarah’s interview with Katie Couric had the same attitude as Jackboot John’s this evening — so damn, dumb-shit stupid one is forced to look away, ashamed for their arrogance.
Who in his right mind could ever vote for Jackboot John?
Over on TalkingPointsMemo there’s great coverage of the debate — even ‘live’ blogging and all kinds of other useful info.
One doesn’t know how good a president Obama will be, but for gosh-shit’s-sake, he’ll be a trillion dollars better than Jackboot John.
(Easy how such sums can now be realized in the brain — as in $700 billion bail out, or $250 billion to buys some banks, or the Iraq war costing a trillion dollars — a billion here, a billion there and after a bit, a trillion).
An image made for this election year is near half a century old — Bill Mauldin‘s sketch of a mourning, distraught Abe Lincoln, which appeared Nov. 23, 1963 in the Chicago Sun-Times.
Although Mauldin originally intended the art to represent the horror of JFK’s assassination, it can be readily applied to the US in 2008.
The Constitution is near shredded, official US foreign policy includes torture and nation destroying, the economy is tanking, every natural disaster becomes a major catastrophic event because of federal government incompetence, and 80 percent of US peoples consider the country is so off track it’s shit-faced crazy.
The illustration was found here.
Good night, and good luck.
Skunk Poll
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No wonder Jackboot John McCain can’t get any traction — Decider George has become beyond loathsome.
A new ABC News poll today pretty much tells the tale:
- Given the global economic crisis, a record 90 percent of registered voters say the country is seriously off on the wrong track, the most since this question first was asked in 1973.
At 23 percent, Bush’s job approval rating has fallen below Nixon’s lowest; it’s a point away from the lowest in 70 years of polling, set by Harry Truman in early 1952.
Bush’s disapproval, meanwhile, is at an all-time record – 73 percent.
Jackboot John is in the shits.
Further bad news from the ABC News poll:
- One apparent result of these factors is a drop in McCain’s favorability rating, to 52 percent, a loss of 7 points since the Republican convention; 45 percent now see him unfavorably, a new high for McCain in polls since 1999.
Obama’s rating, meanwhile, is 64 percent favorable, near its high and up 6 points in the same time frame.
Enthusiasm for McCain’s candidacy, never strong, has softened alongside his favorability rating.
Just 29 percent of his own supporters are “very enthusiastic” about his campaign, the fewest since August and down a sharp 17 points from his post-convention peak.
By contrast, 63 percent of Obama’s backers are very enthusiastic, steady since September.
McCain’s portrayal of Obama as a risky choice, further, is not resonating, and indeed may be backfiring. By 55-45 percent registered voters see Obama as safe rather than risky; by contrast, they divide 50-50 on whether McCain himself is safe or risky — down from 57-41 percent “safe” at McCain’s best on this measure in June.
…
Another way to look at the challenge facing McCain is via the shadow of George W. Bush.
Fifty-one percent of registered voters think McCain as president would lead the nation in the same direction as the profoundly unpopular Bush — as persistent a problem for McCain as experience has been for Obama.
And after hacking at the hackers on Wall Street the last couple of weeks, Jackboot John is having trouble getting those master-asses-of-the-universe to contribute to that all-important funding for the shell-shocked, failing campaign.
A fundraiser tomorrow night might have slim pickings.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
- The McCain campaign hopes to raise $7 million at the event at a midtown Manhattan hotel. For $25,000, guests get a sit-down dinner and a photo with the Arizona lawmaker and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Guests who pay $1,000 can attend a reception.
And though a flurry of pledges in recent days reached the event’s fund-raising goal, organizers in recent weeks had struggled to fill the ballroom.
Money on the rope-a-dope.
(Illustration of crying, frightened baby with Decider George can be found here).
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