Another Ugly Leak

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Massive toxic leaks into the environment can be horrible, whether it be the Gulf of Mexico or a horrible, incompetent-run war in Afghanistan.
On Sunday, WikiLeaks (my laptop won’t load the group’s website) released a shitload of formerly-classified documents on the  Afghan conflict, and the result ain’t pretty.
From the the New York Times:

The documents — some 92,000 reports spanning parts of two administrations from January 2004 through December 2009 — illustrate in mosaic detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001.

The documents will most-likely raise a stink, but the war will also most-likely continue.
In Afghanistan (as in Iraq), there is no winning for losing.

Despite the Obama White House blubbering about how the leaks “could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk,” US Sen John Kerry retorted: “However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

And also on Sunday:

Meanwhile, Nato says it is investigating reports that as many as 45 civilians died in an air strike in Helmand province on Friday.
Although an initial Nato investigation found no evidence, a BBC journalist visiting Regey village spoke to several people who said they had witnessed the incident.

Try and cap this sonofabitch…

Crying on the Toilet — ‘Conspiracy, conspiracy…’

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Nearly 50 years have passed since that fateful day in Dallas when JFK was assassinated, and now some new insights have surfaced into those few precious moments in the abrupt transition of presidential power — and it ain’t macho.

In a new book on the November 1963 event, The Kennedy Assassination–24 Hours After: Lyndon B. Johnson’s Pivotal First Day as President, by Steven Gillon, paints LBJ as near the break-down point.

(Illustration found here).

Reportedly, JFK’s military aide, Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh, could not find LBJ on Air Force One after people had told him Johnson was on board — everyone figured he had departed already on Air Force Two as Kennedy and Johnson arrived in Dallas on separate aircraft — until the general checked the shitter in the presidential bedroom.

Via a piece by Gillon at HuffPost:

What McHugh claimed to have witnessed next was shocking.
“I walked in the toilet, in the powder room, and there he was hiding, with the curtain closed,” McHugh recalled.
He claimed that LBJ was crying, “They’re going to get us all. It’s a plot. It’s a plot. It’s going to get us all.’” According to the General, Johnson “was hysterical, sitting down on the john there alone in this thing.”
I soon discovered that McHugh had told a similar story when he spoke by phone with Mark Flanagan, an investigator with the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA).
Ironically, McHugh gave the interview to the HSCA a week before he sat down with the Kennedy Library in May 1978.
“McHugh had encountered difficulty in locating Johnson but finally discovered him alone,” Flanagan wrote in his summary to the Committee.
Quoting McHugh, the investigator noted that the General found Johnson “hiding in the toilet in the bedroom compartment and muttering, ‘Conspiracy, conspiracy, they’re after all of us.’”
Author Christopher Anderson claimed that McHugh shared a similar, although slightly more dramatic, version of this story when he interviewed the General for his book Jackie after Jack, published in 1998.

In complete contrast to LBJ’s blubberings, Jackie Kennedy was stoic and strong, seemingly in control despite the horror blowing around her.
She was only 34 then, the youngest First Lady in US presidential history.

In an interview (pdf) with historian Theodore White about a week after the shooting (Nov. 29, 1963), Jackie had this to say about the chaos on-board Air Force One, spinning the tale “one brief shinning moment that was known as Camelot”:

“…History…, everybody kept saying to me put a cold towel around my head” (and wipe the blood off: she is referring to the swearing-in scene at the plane, when Johnson is sworn in at the plant at Love Field and she was beside him)… “later, I saw myself in the mirror; my whole face spattered with blood and hair…I wiped it off with Kleenex.
History. I thought no one really wants me there.
Then one second later I thought, why did I wash the blood off?
I should have left it there, let them see what they’ve done…If I’d just had blood and caked hair when” (they took pictures of swearing in).
“Then later I said to Bobby what’s the line between histrionics and drama.
I should have left the blood on.”

In 1995, a year after Jackie’s death, The John F. Kennedy Library in Boston released the interview notes.

Another strange, little-known incident that day — US District Judge Sarah Tilghman Hughes, who administered the oath of office to Johnson, and JFK’s Bible and a three-by-five-inch file card containing the oath.
According to the National Archives:

Judge Hughes, in the process of stepping down the boarding steps, was hailed by a self-assured man who inquired if she wanted the two items she held in her hand.
Assuming he was a security man and because the items did not belong to her, Judge Hughes transferred to the man the file card and the President’s Bible, neither of which were ever located.

Kennedy’s assassination will always be clouded in conspiracy, pity and…romance.

Crossing the Rubicon — Or How Not to Shit in Your Mess Kit

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US troops slugging through Afghanistan are sick of it and according to their chaplains:

“The many soldiers who come to see us have a sense of futility and anger about being here. They are really in a state of depression and despair and just want to get back to their families,” said Captain Jeff Masengale, of the 10th Mountain Division’s 2-87 Infantry Battalion.
“They feel they are risking their lives for progress that’s hard to discern,” said Captain Sam Rico, of the Division’s 4-25 Field Artillery Battalion.
“They are tired, strained, confused and just want to get through.” The chaplains said that they were speaking out because the men could not.

And they’re about to get more of the same.

(Illustration found here).

Adding thusly:

Sergeant Christopher Hughes, 37, from Detroit, has lost six colleagues and survived two roadside bombs. Asked if the mission was worthwhile, he replied: “If I knew exactly what the mission was, probably so, but I don’t.”
The only soldiers who thought it was going well “work in an office, not on the ground.”
In his opinion “the whole country is going to s***.”

The word above is ‘shit‘ – in case dear reader is unfamiliar with asterisks.

Right now there’s about 100,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, with more than 65,000 of them US GIs, and head of the operation there, Gen. Stan McNasty — oops, sorry, I keep doing that — Gen. Stan McChrystal has requested another 40,000 soldiers and just recently a surprise ante-up: An open-ended possible option of 60,000 more to be funneled into the Afghan countryside.
Despite all that, and the morale of the GIs, the US public views the war as one without end — according to a Clarus Research Group poll earlier this month: Sixty-eight percent of the respondents said the United States will not win or lose the war which will go on without resolution, Clarus said.
Couple such a message from the public with an actual deteriorating Afghan war and you’ve got yourself a reverse-history/time-travel episode of the Twilight Zone, featuring Viet-fuckin‘-nam (that’s a whole ‘nother country).

The current Afghan condition and LBJ’s decisions on how to handle Vietnam are similar, especially how there’s no winning to either one.
Historian John Prados has an excellent piece at History News Network on a similitude between LBJ in 1967/1968 and President Obama’s upcoming way-weighty decision on an Afghan strategy/troop build-up.
A couple good snips:

Then came the Tet Offensive and America was visibly shaken. We need not engage the argument about the true outcome at Tet to make the point that the Vietnamese adversary could carry out their country-wide initiative because the measures possible for Johnson were not ones that actually affected the adversary’s capability.
And such real progress as there was could not alter the final outcome of the war, except for adding to the toll in blood and treasure.
…
The best U.S. force may be able to accomplish — like Vietnam — is likely to be prolonging stalemate. And the longer that persists — worse if deterioration becomes evident — the more restricted become the options for President Obama.
This is the real Afghan problem.
…
As Lyndon Johnson saw in 1967, escalation had few prospects.
He did not see, as President Obama needs to realize, that an escalatory course now actually accelerates America’s new march into quagmire.
In Vietnam the greatest mistake was to avoid looking at the full range of options — withdrawal was repeatedly kept off the table.

And in a point of Twilight Zone-like mirror, Obama frontman Bob Gibbs told Helen Thomas earlier this week withdrawal from Afghanistan is not an option — “That’s not a decision that’s on the table to make.”
Yet one must remember why the US is in Afghanistan in the first place — Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
So the comments last weekend by Obama’s national security advisor, James Jones, seemed to convey a message that it’s now stupid to be there.
From AFP:

But the retired general insisted that the presence of Al-Qaeda — which launched the September 11 attacks on the United States — was “very diminished” across Afghanistan, with fewer than 100 members of the group operating there and “no bases, no ability to launch attacks.”

This should indicate something, huh?

And what of the Taliban?
Obama has said he would accept some Taliban involvement in governing Afghanistan, though, will “not tolerate their return to power,” but at least that’s a peephole in which to view a possible future for the US without a huge troop buildup, but who’s to really say.
A good source on the history and current status of the Taliban is found here.
The problem is everyone is scared that once the Taliban take over, al-Qaeda will return and start creating shitfires all over the place, including the US homeland.
Which is bunk…

This morning it was reported another US serviceman has died in Afghanistan, bringing the total to 871 since 2001, but 241 of those just in this year alone — eight in one fell swoop last weekend when the Taliban attacked an isolated outpost in mass — and the entire US military operation since last summer has been a bust, a deadly bust.
And don’t underestimate the Taliban — they’re much stronger than anyone anticipated earlier this year, just look at the power in that outpost attack — a “shock” in how many fighters were involved in the assault.

Former Naval aviator Jeff Huber has a right-on blog at Pen and Sword, and on Thursday wrote the US should get the shit out of Dodge (Afghanistan) with a post extremely-aptly titled: Just Say No to McChrystal.
The real bottom line:

It’s time to bring our troops home.
They’re not doing any good.
That’s not their fault. At the tactical level, the level at which combat occurs, they’re unbelievably competent. But strategically, use of military force by global hegemon America has become a losing proposition.
We need to let the Afghanistan conflict blow itself calm at the nearest opportunity.
We can best do that by fading away and letting the natural political forces that exist in that part of the world duke things out among themselves.
We don’t need to send any more kids over there to get killed or have their legs blown off, or to take part in the slaughter of innocents that they’ll experience trauma about for the rest of their lives.
We need to shut down this madness now.

And with a Nobel Peace Prize in his grip, Obama should think peace, should use what the Nobel Prize committee was thinking in laying that surprise prize on his ass — how would it look if  death and destruction was attributed to the guy given a peace award.

The best way to not shit in your mess kit is watch what the fuck you’re doing!
Obama’s big, shinning hope, or is he entangled in another LBJ moment.
Time is not on his side, but a decision to do the right thing is most certainly.

Whoa!

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Friday morning shocker: President Obama has has won the Nobel Peace Prize — “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
And the Nobel Committee added: “He has created a new international climate.”

(Illustration found here).

This will indeed piss-way-off the GOP and all wingnuts as the award comes much, much early in Obama’s tenure in power — an unprecedented event.
As one reader at Talking Points Memo pointed out this morning: Isn’t it a little soon for this? Maybe after he brokers an Israeli-Palestinian agreement or something like that.
It sounds like the, ‘boy is the world relieved you guys didn’t choose McCain’ award.

GOP chairman Michael Steele responded: “The real question Americans are asking is, What has President Obama actually accomplished?”… and it’s “unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights.” And the president won’t be…“receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.”

Whether Obama deserves the award is not the real excitement — the horror stories now will pour forth from the conservative aisle and it will be much fun.

Eight Years Later

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Today eight years ago, Oct. 7, 2001…

“On my order, U.S. forces have begun strikes on terrorist camps of al Qaeda, and the military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan,” Bush said in a somber, televised address from the White House Treaty Room.
…
“We are supported by the collective will of the world,” Bush said.
— George Jr., CNN

History is way-ironic, yes it is.
Now the collective will of the world is focused on figuring out how to extract itself from a terrifying, tempestuous Afghanistan.
The US is also now poised to descent even further into an intractable abyss.

(Illustration found here).

Not only is President Obama pondering  the intensely-crucial decision on whether to jack-up the US Afghan troops levels — dragging the country (and with it the region and ultimately the world) into a quagmire with no end (see ‘abyss‘) — but there also appears to be a pull on the civilian leash-control of the military on what to do.

Reportedly last week, Obama met with Gen. Stan McChrystal, head of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, aboard Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen and chewed his ass about opening his lean-and-mean mouth — McChrystal had stated the only way forward in Afghanistan was with a troop surge and nothing short of that would accomplish the trick.
Don’t talk asshole talk behind the boss’s back: Bruce Ackerman, an expert on constitutional law at Yale University, said in the Washington Post: “As commanding general, McChrystal has no business making such public pronouncements.”
He added that it was highly unusual for a senior military officer to “pressure the president in public to adopt his strategy.”

And what’s even worse, the White House won’t even venture an answer to a vital question Helen Thomas asked Bob Gibbs on Monday during a press briefing — what would happen if the US withdrew from Afghanistan?

Helen Thomas: “Is pulling out of Afghanistan part of the assessment?”
Robert Gibbs: “No. In fact, the President was — the President was exceedingly clear that no part of the conversation on — no part of the conversation involved was leaving Afghanistan. That’s not something that has ever been entertained, despite the fact that people still get asked what happens if we leave Afghanistan. That’s not a decision that’s on the table to make.”
Thomas: “What does he think will happen?”
Gibbs: “What does he think will happen?”
Thomas: “If we leave?”
Gibbs: “I don’t think we have the option to leave. I think that’s — that’s quite clear.”

Is it really all that clear?
The big-money words: ‘no part of the conversation…on leaving…’ and ‘that has never been entertained‘… and ‘don’t think we have the option to leave…’
Such total bullshit.
And the words ‘despite the fact‘ seem to scream out from Gibb’s fluttering answer: People want to know the freakin’ consequences if the US leaves.

One must remember another little spiel that spilled out Oct. 7, 2001: Osama bin Laden issued a strongly-worded warning that same day to the US in a recorded statement broadcast on al-Jazeera TV.
After a shitload of religious arrogance way-similar to George Jr.’s cowboy antics, Osama said this near the end (BBC translation):

As for the United States, I tell it and its people these few words: I swear by Almighty God who raised the heavens without pillars that neither the United States nor he who lives in the United States will enjoy security before we can see it as a reality in Palestine and before all the infidel armies leave the land of Mohammed, may God’s peace and blessing be upon him.

Bin Laden eight years later — either dead or alive — has accomplished a great deal without really doing much at all.
In George Jr. he had the best dupe available, and now it appears President Obama is heading in that direction.
It’ll be a major shock if Obama does not okay the whole 40,000-GI request from McChrystal, and, what should have been a quick engagement in Afghanistan in 2001, maybe drawing down troops in 2003 or so, instead has morphed in another empire killer.

Extreme Saber-Rattling

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Iran getting nuked — one view of the repercussions…
James Howard Kunstler, author of ‘The Long Emergency,’ describes a nightmare domino effect if Iran is bombed, and what the planet would then face.
From his aptly titled blog, Clusterfuck Nation:

This is a dangerous situation.
I’m not so sure that Israel could launch an effective attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but it might try anyway, especially if a US-backed sanctions effort fails to coalesce quickly.
I’m not sure Israel would seek permission from the US to do this, though the US would certainly be tasked with defending the shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf. Iran might succeed in sinking more than a couple of US ships-of-the-line with sunburn missles and other toys, and this would lead to the bigger danger of oil supplies being choked off to the rest of the world.
The US air response would be impressive, but possibly not effective against hardened targets. The leaders of Iran might exult even if the Iranian people were swept into a maelstrom.
I imagine that what followed would be a very extravagant military frenzy amounting to World War Three, with European air forces and navies dragged in, with Hezbollah and Syria striking back at Israel, India and Pakistan possibly incinerating each other, and mayhem galore among the bystanders in Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan.
There could easily be internal mischief in the UK, France, and Germany from angry immigrant populations, and “sleepers” could work some overdue hoodoo in the USA. I don’t know what Turkey would do, but it could be the biggest beneficiary of a bad regional meltdown, providing the only effective governance what remains in the region.
China and Japan would probably just gape at the spectacle in wonder and nausea from the sidelines as they saw their energy supplies for years-to-come go up in flames.
The G-20 nations would be crippled as global oil supplies were choked off indefinitely.
And if anyone — Iran, or its friends inside the Kingdom — managed to pull off a stunt such as blowing up the Ras Tanura oil terminal — then a darkness will spread across places that were used to being lighted and they will stay dark a long time.
I don’t know if any of this will come to pass, but as I said, tensions have reached a breaking point, including the greater tensions of history, which seem to require periodic release no matter how poignant the Pete Seegar songs are.
It is perhaps, just another prime symptom of “overshoot,” the world’s way of shedding some of the toxic organisms that are making it so unhappy — Gaia in a really bad mood.

(h/t: The Oil Drum).

Read an excerpt of ‘The Long Emergency‘ from the March 2005 issue of Rolling Stone here.

‘Bratty’ And Not At All Funny

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“I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”
– Oscar Wilde

(Illustration found here).

The so-called Republican Party — the GOP — has descended into nothing more than bullshit, and the hard part is that a certain segment of US society takes these assholes for serious, a point that would make Barry Goldwater spin in his grave.
According to reports, when it was announced a couple of days ago Chicago didn’t make the 2016 Olympic cut, a meeting for Americans For Prosperity, a conservative group opposing health care reform, “erupted in cheers,” only because they viewed the news as a blow to President Obama.
Not that it was a blow to all US peoples.
And idiot-face Bill Kristol, the rightest of right-wing nitwits, was overjoyed:

“You couldn’t help but be amused by it,” Kristol said on Fox News Sunday.
Kristol said that Obama’s liberal world view should have prompted him to campaign against his adopted home town of Chicago, and support Rio de Janeiro’s winning bid.
“By Barack Obama’s view of the world, he should have been rooting for Brazil to get the Olympics. South America’s never gotten them. It’s a rising power. It would help Brazil. We don’t need the Olympics. We’ve had them a million times. Our economy doesn’t need the boost of the Olympics,” said Kristol, who evidently is very good at emulating “liberal” talking points when he wants to be.

Has Kristol read any, any-at-all US economic stats lately?
Talking Points Memo has a run-down on the GOP cheer squads.
And GOP bigwigs are cruising all over the world to take a slap at Obama, though, in reality they’re slapping at the whole US — Politics and not America is the over-all concern.
TPM also has a nice list of GOPers on the move: Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is visiting Honduras in order to support the recent military coup against a leftist president, which has been opposed by the Obama administration and all the surrounding countries in the region … Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) will be going to the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen, bringing a “Truth Squad” to tell foreign officials there that the American government will not take any action … House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) traveled to Israel, where he spoke out against President Obama’s opposition to expanded settlements … Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) boasted in June that he told Chinese officials not to trust America’s budget numbers.

What the livin’ shit?
Are these clowns Americans?

The New York Times‘ Paul Krugman nailed it this morning:

So what did we learn from this moment?
For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.
But more important, the episode illustrated an essential truth about the state of American politics: at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation’s two great political parties is spite pure and simple.
If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it — whether or not it’s good for America.

Be afraid, be really, really freakin’ afraid.