Sickening

When will the senseless killing stop?

From 'US drone attacks jeopardizing war on militancy':

Pakistan's president warns the US that its drone attacks, killing mostly civilians, will undermine the national consensus supporting the war on militancy.

President Asif Ali Zardari said on Thursday that relations between Washington and Islamabad should be based on respect, mutual trust and mutual interest.

Zardari made the comments during a meeting with a US delegation in Islamabad on Thursday, a day after US drone attacks killed at least 13 people on the border with Afghanistan.

US drones carried out more than 50 such attacks on Pakistan's tribal areas last year, killing hundreds of people — mostly civilians.

From Ex-Blackwater mercenaries charged with murder:

Two former mercenaries of the notorious US security firm Blackwater (now known as Xe Services LLC) have been charged with the 2009 murder of two Afghan civilians in Kabul, the Justice Department says.

Justin Cannon, 27, of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Christopher Drotleff, 29, of Virginia Beach, Virginia, have been charged with second-degree murder after opening fire on the two civilians.

Blackwater changed its name to Xe after it was faced with international condemnation following an incident in which its mercenaries in Iraq opened fire on unarmed civilians in September 2007, killing more than a dozen people.

These things do not make me feel safer. They do not make me feel more secure. They simply make me feel sick to my stomach.

Update: 
The Blackwater Kabul Shooting Case: What Do We Know?

Ass Biting Lies

From Why Do So Many Christians Support The Iraq War? by Kyle West:

If one supports the war, one is also inadvertently supporting the lies that made it possible. It's ironic that Christians, among the strongest supporters of the war, have supported an administration of liars.

And if one supports letting the Bush administration off the hook for this, then the inadvertent support of the lies will continue into perpetuity and continually come back to bite us in the ass.

Update:
My ass is beginning to hurt more. Is yours?

Generational Theft Revisited

Are there any Republicans complaining about this?

From A 'fraud' bigger than Madoff by Patrick Cockburn:

In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme.

"I believe the real looting of Iraq after the invasion was by US officials and contractors, and not by people from the slums of Baghdad," said one US businessman active in Iraq since 2003.

In one case, auditors working for SIGIR discovered that $57.8m was sent in "pallet upon pallet of hundred-dollar bills" to the US comptroller for south-central Iraq, Robert J Stein Jr, who had himself photographed standing with the mound of money. He is among the few US officials who were in Iraq to be convicted of fraud and money-laundering.

Despite the vast sums expended on rebuilding by the US since 2003, there have been no cranes visible on the Baghdad skyline except those at work building a new US embassy and others rusting beside a half-built giant mosque that Saddam was constructing when he was overthrown. One of the few visible signs of government work on Baghdad's infrastructure is a tireless attention to planting palm trees and flowers in the centre strip between main roads. Those are then dug up and replanted a few months later.

The end of the Bush administration which launched the war may give fresh impetus to investigations into frauds in which tens of billions of dollars were spent on reconstruction with little being built that could be used. In the early days of the occupation, well-connected Republicans were awarded jobs in Iraq, regardless of experience. A 24-year-old from a Republican family was put in charge of the Baghdad stock exchange which had to close down because he allegedly forgot to renew the lease on its building.

Read more here.

Congressional Republicans voted in favor of all of this. Congressional Republicans supported Bush's war policies. Now, all of a sudden with a Democrat in the White House, they are concerned about taxpayers' money? Rush Limbaugh may want Barack Obama to fail. George W. Bush did fail.

Update:
Of course the war profiteers (including Rush Limbaugh) probably don’t see Bush as a failure.

The Top Ten Myths About Iraq

The Top Ten Myths about Iraq, 2008 by Juan Cole:

1. Iraqis are safer because of Bush's War.


2. Large numbers of Iraqis in exile abroad have returned.


3. Iraqis are materially better off because of Bush's war.


4. The Bush administration scored a major victory with its Status of Forces Agreement.


5. Minorities in Iraq are safer since Bush's invasion.


6. The sole explanation for the fall in the monthly death rate for Iraqi civilians was the troop escalation or surge of 30,000 extra US troops in 2007.


7. John McCain alleged that if the US left Iraq, it would be promptly taken over by al-Qaeda.


8. The Iraq War made the world safer from terrorism.


9. Bush went to war in Iraq because he was given bad intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.


10. Douglas Feith and other Neoconservatives didn't really want a war with Iraq (!).

Laura Bush Talks About Shoes

From Laura Bush ‘wasn’t amused’ by shoe incident by Kristi Keck:

First Lady Laura Bush said that although she “wasn’t amused” when an Iraqi journalist threw shoes at her husband, she sees the incident as a sign that “Iraqis feel a lot freer to express themselves.”

Earlier this month, an Iraqi journalist threw shoes at President Bush during a news conference in Baghdad. Bush ducked, and the shoes, flung one at a time, sailed past his head.

“It was an assault. And that's what it is,” the first lady said in an interview that aired Sunday on “Fox News.”

“And the president laughed it off. He wasn't hurt. He's very quick. As you know, he's a natural athlete. And that's it. But on the other hand, it is an assault, and I think it should be treated that way,” she said.

Dubya was amused, why wasn’t Laura? Do you find “Iraqis feel a lot freer to express themselves” to be an extremely arrogant expression? I do. Do you find it to be extremely insulting? I do. Do you find it to be delusional? I do. Laura Bush is effectively saying that Iraqis should be thankful that we invaded their country, killed and maimed many of their civilians, and bombed them into the Stone Age so that they could throw their shoes at President Bush. She wants them to be thankful that she and her idiot husband gave them freedom. (How free are the ones who are dead, Laura?) And yet, when one of them chooses to express himself using this wonderful freedom, Laura Bush doesn’t like it. Freedom. Does Laura Bush even understand the meaning of the word?

I have a question for Laura. If throwing shoes is an assault, what do call what your husband did to Iraq? If Muntadhar al-Zaidi is to be held accountable for his actions, shouldn’t George W. Bush also be held accountable for his actions, as well? Let's remember that Muntadhar al-Zaidi did not kill anyone. He didn't even injure anyone. What kind of assault is that? Assault. Does Laura Bush even understand the meaning of the word?

Perhaps we should have invaded Iraq with an army of shoe throwers.

Perhaps someone should have given Laura Bush a dictionary for Christmas.

Here is more on the topic of the shoes of Muntadhar al-Zaidi by Bruce A. Jacobs.

And so Bush, feckless and clueless as ever, makes his final victory lap, and the shoes fly. And, thankfully, in another month we will be airlifting him out of Washington.

Is Anyone Listening?

Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at George W. Bush. His message is Yankee go home. George W. Bush didn’t get the message. He is too stupid, too self-absorbed (like many Americans), and too arrogant to hear. Now more voices have joined the chorus of Yankee go home. Is anybody listening?

From Iraqis urge government to free shoe-thrower:

Protesters across Iraq Tuesday urged government authorities to free the TV correspondent who threw his shoes at President Bush.

Hundreds of students at Diyala University in Baquba carried banners demanding the release of Muntadhar al-Zaidi -- described by demonstrators as an "honorable Iraqi."

Smaller protests emerged in the Anbar province city of Falluja and in two Baghdad locations -- Baghdad University in the northern part of the city and western Baghdad's Ameriya district. In those events, students also took to the streets.

Dhirgham al-Zaidi, the shoe-thrower's brother, said the journalist hated the "material American occupation" and Iranian influence in Iraq.

TV networks across the world continue to air the shoe-throwing scene, which has touched a nerve in the Arab world, where there has been an outpouring of support for al-Zaidi -- a correspondent for the Egyptian-based Al-Baghdadia TV.

Callous George

Is George W. Bush the most callous man on the planet? He is a man with absolutely no empathy. Worse than that, he shows absolutely no desire to be at all empathic.

Here are some selected quotes by Bush from Bush 'Not Insulted' by Thrown Shoes:

In response to the shoe throwing incident:

“…it was amusing.”

“…I thought it was unusual to have a guy throw his shoe at you. But I'm not insulted. I don't hold it against the government. I don't think the Iraqi press corps as a whole is terrible. And so, the guy wanted to get on TV and he did. I don't know what his beef is. But whatever it is I'm sure somebody will hear it.”

Would someone please tell Bush the reason for the shoes being thrown. Death and destruction caused by Bush himself. And yet, Bush is merely amused, but not insulted, by this very courageous demonstration of self-expression. It seems that most of the world knows why the shoes were thrown. Why doesn’t Bush? Is he truly that much of an idiot? Or is he that sheltered by his handlers? Bush looks at this incident and sees something like a silly frat party prank, so he is amused and not insulted. Incurious to a fault, will he ever look beyond the simple act of shoes flying through the air to understand the why of the act?

And what is the deal with “I don't hold it against the government. I don't think the Iraqi press corps as a whole is terrible.”? Has he no concept of individual thought, individual expression, and individual actions? And yes, the only motivation to do anything these days is to get on television. Let's ask Hollywood for a new reality series: "The Amazing Shoes."

“Clearly, one of the most important parts of my job because of 9/11 was to defend the security of the American people. There have been no attacks since I have been president, since 9/11.”

This is a totally illogical statement. There were no attacks before 9/11 on Bush’s watch either. He must have been doing something right then. Right?

In response to al Qaeda not being in Iraq until after the U.S. invaded:

“So what?”

Here is more from Bush 'Not Insulted' by Thrown Shoes:

Raddatz: Just let me go back because you brought this up. You said Saddam Hussein posed a threat in the post-9/11 world. They didn't find weapons of mass destruction.

Bush: That's true. Everybody thought they had them.

Raddatz: So what threat?

Bush: Saddam Hussein was the sworn enemy of the United States. He had been enriched by oil revenues. He was a sponsor of terror. I have never claimed like some said that he -- you know, oh, that he was directly involved with the attacks on 9/11, but he did support terrorists. And, uh, Saddam Hussein had the capability making weapons of mass destruction.

How can Martha Raddatz sit through this and not grab Bush by the throat, like Homer Simpson grabs Bart, and scream “Lies, Lies, Lies!”?

Everybody thought they had weapons of mass destruction, except all of the weapons inspectors searching Iraq, who couldn’t find any.

Perhaps Bush never claimed that Saddam Hussein was directly involved with the attacks on 9/11, but people in his administration certainly did, and the American people believed a lie, and Bush didn’t stand up and tell them it was a lie.

From Bush stands by al Qaeda, Saddam link:

Critics have accused the president and other administration officials of falsely inflating the links between Iraq and al Qaeda in the months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Vice President Dick Cheney, in a speech Monday in Florida, raised eyebrows by reasserting claims that Saddam "had long-established ties with al Qaeda."

From The impact of Bush linking 9/11 and Iraq by Linda Feldmann:

In his prime-time press conference last week, which focused almost solely on Iraq, President Bush mentioned Sept. 11 eight times. He referred to Saddam Hussein many more times than that, often in the same breath with Sept. 11.

Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president. Still, the overall effect was to reinforce an impression that persists among much of the American public: that the Iraqi dictator did play a direct role in the attacks. A New York Times/CBS poll this week shows that 45 percent of Americans believe Mr. Hussein was "personally involved" in Sept. 11, about the same figure as a month ago.

Sources knowledgeable about US intelligence say there is no evidence that Hussein played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks, nor that he has been or is currently aiding Al Qaeda. Yet the White House appears to be encouraging this false impression, as it seeks to maintain American support for a possible war against Iraq and demonstrate seriousness of purpose to Hussein's regime.

From Bush Gang Swore Saddam Was Behind 9/11 In Lawsuit by Evelyn Pringle:

Much to the dismay of President Bush, Americans can remember all on their own, without any coaching from Democrats, that in the run up to war in Iraq, it was top official from the administration who were making the claim that Saddam was in cahoots with bin Laden and that he was secretly involved to 9/11.

The fact that the administration's disinformation campaign was entirely successful is evidenced by an October 2004, Harris Poll, taken three weeks before the last presidential election, which reported that 62% of all voters, and 84% of those planning to vote for Bush, still believed that Saddam had ''strong links" to Al Qaeda, and that 41% of all voters, and 52% of Bush backers, believed that Saddam had ''helped plan and support the hijackers" who had attacked the country on 9/11.

As we now know, the basis for these allegations were false but the saddest part of the situation is that many Americans are just now beginning to realize that Bush knew the stories were false for more than a year when he cited them as justification for taking the country to war.

Read the rest of the ABC News Martha Raddatz interview with Bush here, if for some reason you need your blood pressure to go up to dangerous levels.

Throwing Shoes At Bush

Muntadhar al-Zaidi literally threw his shoes at George W. Bush.

From Iraqi journalist throws shoes at Bush in Baghdad:

A man identified as an Iraqi journalist threw shoes at -- but missed -- President Bush during a news conference Sunday evening in Baghdad, where Bush was making a farewell visit.

Bush ducked, and the shoes, flung one at a time, sailed past his head during the news conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in his palace in the heavily fortified Green Zone.

The shoe-thrower -- identified as Muntadhar al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist with Egypt-based al-Baghdadia television network -- could be heard yelling in Arabic: "This is a farewell ... you dog!"

While pinned on the ground by security personnel, he screamed: "You killed the Iraqis!"

Bush, never one to resist an opportunity to prove that he is an insensitive clod, joked about the incident:

Al-Zaidi was dragged away. While al-Zaidi was still screaming in another room, Bush said: "That was a size 10 shoe he threw at me, you may want to know."

I hope that Muntadhar al-Zaidi is not punished severely for this. He is not responsible for killing, maiming, and destroying people’s lives. Bush, on the other hand, is. Bush is the one who should be punished.

What would it be like if Muntadhar al-Zaidi has started some kind of movement? I imagine a future where Bush is inundated with shoes everywhere he goes for the rest of his life.

On the other hand, or foot, the Justice Department has found a way to throw some figurative shoes at George W. Bush.

From Justice Dept. Times Cases For Obama's Arrival by Ari Shapiro:

Some lawyers who have worked at the Justice Department for years say they are delaying certain cases in hopes that the Obama administration will give them more attention than they received from the Bush administration.

That is especially true in parts of the Civil Rights Division, where the Obama administration's priorities are expected to be very different from those of the current administration.

Civil rights prosecutors also say they are dusting off old investigations that have sat untouched for years. They hope new leaders will take interest in those old cases, which makes some companies that have long been under investigation nervous.

The Buck Does Not Stop Anywhere Near George W. Bush

I think that the W in George W. Bush stands for wimp and weasel. Come on George, the least you can do is be a man and admit that you screwed up.

"The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess." George W. Bush

Yes George, I wish the intelligence had been different too, and by that I mean your intelligence. A smarter man would not have dismissed the actual intelligence which said that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

Not only is Bush one of the most immoral men on the planet, he is also not really a man. A real man would face reality and tell the truth. Not Bush, however. He still is in his own little fantasy world, and he is still telling lies.

From Bush: My Biggest Regret Was Failure Of Iraq Intelligence by Greg Sargent:

Of course, Bush made the decision to overlook all the good intel -- not to mention the claims of those poor forgotten inspectors -- saying that Saddam wasn't really a threat at all, or certainly not one requiring the response Bush himself ordered.

One overlooked thing about this is that not only Bush, but many supporters of the war -- Dems and liberal hawks included -- also have a vested interest in pretending that the good intel never existed and those inspectors never said what they said. Those inconvenient historical facts reflect rather badly on them, too. With so many opinion-makers having vested interests of their own in telling the story this way, history has been tidily rewritten, and Bush is able to make this claim without a peep of objection from his big-time network interviewer.

From Bush Goes Out Dodging by Matthew Yglesias:

It’s stunning that the President is still trying to mislead people about this rather than taking responsibility for his actions. French President Jacques Chirac didn’t feel compelled “looking at the same intelligence” to invade Iraq. Neither did German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder or the leaders of any number of other countries. No intelligence received by the White House ever justified the more extreme claims made by members of the administration, and some of the pre-war intelligence (that from the State Department INR Bureau, for example) was spot-on. The administration deliberately went out of its way to re-write intelligence reports as less ambiguous than they really were — compare the classified and unclassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq — and to ignore reports that didn’t match the administration position.

Last, at the actual moment during which Bush pulled the trigger on war, inspectors were on the ground in Iraq. Hans Blix and Mohmmaed ElBarradei were in an excellent position to improve our knowledge of Iraqi WMD activities. And both Blix and ElBarradei were saying that there were no weapons stockpiles and no active WMD programs. There were busy asking the United States to hand over whatever contrary intelligence we had so that they could check it out. But instead of listening, Bush plunged the country into a disastrous war. It wasn’t a decision he made alone, but it was his decision; not something “the intelligence” made him do.

Bush behaves like a little child, a bad little child who is also a bully and a liar. If only he had been given some adult supervision over the last eight years.

Let’s hope that such a weak, pathetic, immoral creature like Bush never becomes president again.

Is It All That Oil That Makes Bush So Slimy?

From In Final Days, Bush Pushes for Iraq's Oil by Maya Schenwar:

As the Bush administration rumbles to an end, it is pushing with increasing urgency for a commitment to a long-term US presence in Iraq. Though the military aspect of this "commitment" has garnered substantial publicity, the administration is equally invested in the economic aspect: securing US control over Iraqi oil before Bush leaves office, according to experts in the field.

Many Iraqis fear that the Bush administration's last-ditch efforts to gain control of their oil will leave their resources in the hands of the US for decades to come.

Read the rest here.

Democracy?

What does democracy mean? What does representative government mean? How much democracy exists in Iraq? How much democracy exists in the United States?

Why is the United States still in Iraq? In the 2006 Congressional elections a clear signal was sent that most Americans want us out of Iraq. I’ve read articles for years that said that many Iraqis want us out. Here is another one.

From Protesters march against proposed U.S.-Iraq pact:

Thousands of people marched in central Baghdad on Saturday to protest a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that would extend the presence of U.S. troops in the country after the end of the year.

The political party of Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for the rally. At one point, several speakers at a podium addressed the mass of people, urging the Iraqi government to reject the proposal.

"End the U.S. occupation of Iraq!" one speaker shouted in English.

Hazem al-Araji, a senior al-Sadr aide, told protesters their voices would be heard in America.

Baghdad has sought the power to arrest and try Americans accused of crimes not related to official military operations, plus jurisdiction over troops and contractors who commit grave mistakes in the course of their duties.

The United States has insisted its troops and contractors remain immune from Iraqi law.

Where is the will of the people in all of this?

Failure And Mass Destruction

From Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, The Ultimate Election:

In the last year, the Bush administration's top officials have sunk much of their increasingly lame-duck energy into pacifying Iraq, and so getting it out of the news and the spotlight at least long enough for election '08 to happen (and undoubtedly long enough as well for them to get out of town in January). And then what happens? The administration is ambushed, not by Sunni militants or Shiite radicals but by its own people: investment bankers, lenders, hedge-fund managers, financial management types -- the very people for whom they organized the world and who had long been playing fast and loose (and profitably) with our economic system. The ambush, of course, took the form of a financial meltdown of massive proportions for which, as in Iraq in 2003, the administration had clearly done no significant preplanning or war-gaming. And, as with the insurgency then, so now they operated by the increasingly worn seats of their pants. Their attempted $700 billion "surge," as stock exchanges around the world indicated yesterday, wasn't likely to pacify a global financial system near cardiac arrest.

Debating The Debate

From Why I feel like a vampire bit me by Avedon Carol:

However, I just about lost the will to live when they were talking about the surge. Since Obama bought into the whole lie about how the surge had worked, he was helpless. McCain just quoted Obama as saying the surge had worked beyond our wildest expectations even though he'd opposed it.

Then he pressed Obama to say that he'd changed his mind about whether there should have been a surge. When Obama wouldn't, McCain compared Obama's apparently stubborn refusal to support the right thing with Bush's similar behavior.

It was a breathtakingly clever bit of manipulation that Obama walked right into by playing along with the out-and-out lie that the surge had done anything to advance any goal other than escalated troop presence and PR for the Permanent Campaign.

It would have been completely avoidable if the Democrats had stuck to the facts on this issue from the beginning: The Anbar Awakening preceded the Surge and had nothing to do with it - it had to do with the fact that we've been paying The Enemy not to attack us. Dems should have been screaming about this, but it's a bit late to introduce this kind of new information on the fly. And the stated purpose of the Surge was that it was supposed to reduce violence so we could leave, but we show no sign of thinking of leaving; ergo, the surge has failed. Period.

McCain also reiterated the whole casting of the occupation as a war we must win rather than go home in defeat. Since the only definition of "win" we've ever been given sounds exactly like "never leave", it would have been good if that question had been put to him. It is claimed that we will leave when things are stable and peaceful, but we haven't been told how we get rid of that tiny little problem of how peace can't break out as long as we are there making war on them.

Read more about the Anbar Awakening (Sunni Awakening) here, here, and here.

Joe Biden

From VP choice Biden unpopular in Iraq for autonomy plan by Peter Graff and Khalid al-Ansary:

Senator Joe Biden may be one of the only U.S. politicians that can get Iraq's feuding Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish politicians to agree. But not in a good way.

Across racial and religious boundaries, Iraqi politicians on Saturday bemoaned Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama's choice of running mate, known in Iraq as the author of a 2006 plan to divide the country into ethnic and sectarian enclaves.

"This choice of Biden is disappointing, because he is the creator of the idea of dividing Iraq," Salih al-Mutlaq, head of National Dialogue, one of the main Sunni Arab blocs in parliament, told Reuters.

"We rejected his proposal when he announced it, and we still reject it. Dividing the communities and land in such a way would only lead to new fighting between people over resources and borders. Iraq cannot survive unless it is unified, and dividing it would keep the problems alive for a long time."

Read the rest here.

Five Million Dollars

From 'Way Of The World' Sees Fabricated Case For War:

In his new book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism, author Ron Suskind alleges that the Bush administration knew Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and eventually fabricated intelligence assets to support its case for war. Both the White House and the CIA deny his claims.

Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, tells Steve Inskeep that a secret mission was conducted, in which a British intelligence agent met with the head of Iraqi intelligence in a secret location in Jordan, and that the Iraqi conveyed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"What that meant is that we knew everything that became so obvious by the summer after the invasion, and the president made a decision essentially to ignore that intelligence," Suskind says.

He says once the final report went to President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and others, the U.S. cut off communications with the Iraqi intelligence chief and then moved forward. An agreement was made to resettle the Iraqi and pay him $5 million.

Read the rest here.

Soldiers Charged With Murder In Iraq

From Two U.S. soldiers charged with murder in Iraq:

The coalition command in Iraq has charged two U.S. soldiers with the murder of an Iraqi detainee.

Staff Sgt. Hal M. Warner and 1st Lt. Michael C. Behenna were charged with premeditated murder, assault, making a false official statement and obstruction of justice, according to a statement Saturday from the Multi-National Division.

The charges stemmed from a criminal investigation into the death of Ali Mansur Mohamed, a detainee initially believed to have been released by coalition forces in May, the statement said, without elaborating on the case.

Read the rest here.

Is There Some Way We Can Make Bush Pay For This?

Bush is responsible for this. Let’s make him pay.

From Report: U.S. 'wasted' $560 million on Iraq repairs by Joe Sterling and Adam Levine:

The United States has "wasted" more than half a billion dollars in Iraq repairing facilities that were damaged because of poor security, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction says in a report released Wednesday.

Stuart Bowen's quarterly report arrived at a price tag of $560 million by tallying the results of more than 100 audits his office has conducted.

Further billions had to be diverted from reconstruction to security because the Bush administration did not adequately foresee how volatile Iraq would be when it began rebuilding the country, the report says.

"The U.S. government did not fully anticipate or plan for the unstable working environment that faced U.S. managers when reconstruction began in Iraq," it says.

Read the rest here.

Why All The Hate?

From Blasts in Indian city kill at least 29:

At least 29 people were killed and 88 wounded in 17 blasts within a little more than an hour Saturday night in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, police and government officials said.

All metropolitan areas in India have been put on high alert.

Several media outlets and the country's Intelligence Bureau received an e-mail, purportedly from the Muslim militant group Indian Mujahedeen, warning about a possible attack. The group has claimed responsibility for two similar attacks in the past nine months in northern India.

Indian Mujahedeen claimed responsibility in May for near-simultaneous bomb attacks that killed 63 people in the northwest Indian city of Jaipur. In that claim, the group declared "open war" against India in retaliation for what it said were 60 years of Muslim persecution and the country's support of U.S. policies.

Why do they hate the United States so much?

I suggest you read Why Muslims hate the US? by Zafarul-Islam Khan if you don’t know the answer to that question, or if you think they hate us for our “freedoms.”

The Lesser Of Two Evils

The move I hear from Barack Obama, the more I think of him as the lesser of two evils. This morning on the television I heard him talking about wanting to move troops out of Iraq. However, instead of bringing them back to the United States where they belong, he wants to move them to Afghanistan. I am disappointed in Obama. He seems to be willing to abandon principle after principle in order to get elected as president.

Fear should not trump what is morally right. We do not belong in anyone else's country. If we have a right to be in Iraq and Afghanistan, then the French (or any other country’s) army has a right to be here in the United States.

From My Plan for Iraq by Barack Obama:

The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.

As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.

Here is part of what Rob Payne says about this:

So for Obama the past is not remembered, all that exists is the here and now. We didn’t invade Iraq, lynch their leader, dismantle their government, and destroy their infrastructure. We didn’t murder them by the hundreds of thousands or send millions into exile. Quite clearly the problem all along has been that the people of Iraq have not been acting in a responsible manner. And now, at least according to Obama, we need more military, more helicopters, bombs, guns, bullets, and tanks in order to expand the war on terror into Pakistan and widen the war in Afghanistan.

So what this trip is really about is Obama needs to show us and the world that he is ready to take command of the imperial agenda and his little cock-a-doodle-do in the NYT assures the establishment that he is ready to pull the trigger. Ready, aim, fire, today Afghanistan tomorrow the world and not only will he not be afraid to slaughter and kill but he will be better and more efficient about it than his predecessor.

War is immoral. The occupation of another country is immoral. Think of all the talk you have heard about Iraq and Afghanistan for the last seven years. Rationalize this, rationalize that. Endless rationalization will never change the fact that war is immoral.

I’d like to see a president who recognized that fact, and believed it, and had the courage to act on it.

No Plan Required For FUBAR

Finally, a major news organization referring to the “occupation of Iraq”, rather than the “war in Iraq.” Let’s hope there is more of this. It took them long enough.

From Occupation Plan for Iraq Faulted in Army History by Michael R. Gordon:

The story of the American occupation of Iraq has been the subject of numerous books, studies and memoirs. But now the Army has waded into the highly charged debate with its own nearly 700-page account: “On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign.”

The unclassified study, the second volume in a continuing history of the Iraq conflict, is as noteworthy for who prepared it as for what it says. In essence, the study is an attempt by the Army to tell the story of one of the most contentious periods in its history to military experts — and to itself.

It adds to a growing body of literature about the problems the United States encountered in Iraq, not all of which has been embraced by Army leaders.

Read more here.