Category: International

It’s Officially McCain

Posted on by TL

CNN has projected that John McCain now has enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination for president. Mike Huckabee is not on CNN conceding to John McCain.

Huckabee has class. He has some evolutionary problems, but he’s a nice guy. Our astronomer friend may disagree (Huckabee = very very very bad guy), but I think he’s a nice guy. His appearance on Saturday Night Live was very funny.

But we’re officially up against McCain.

I have major concerns about McCain, and you should too. Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, longtime Speaker of the House, once said, “All politics is local,” and Illinois is feeling terribly the effects of the Two Trillion Dollar War. Bob Herbert really drives that home today in the New York Times:

The war in Iraq will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers not hundreds of billions of dollars, but an astonishing $2 trillion, and perhaps more. There has been very little in the way of public conversation, even in the presidential campaigns, about the consequences of these costs, which are like a cancer inside the American economy.

McCain said we could be there 100 years, and he wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. That’s a plan for horrible disaster.

McCain is a nice guy. Huckabee is a nice guy. Their policies would tear us apart.

Remember this number?

$9,370,442,189,107.39

That’s our National Debt. If you go to that page now, the number will be higher. That’s George Bush’s legacy. And here’s the price tag on Iraq right now:

The War in Iraq Costs

$499,777,068,876

Illinois has paid the following

The War in Iraq Costs

$27,062,363,778

That money is gone, and we’re not finished yet. McCain has a plan, after all. A Hundred-Year-Plan. We must learn patience, because, one day, 100 years or so down the road, we will finally know peace in Iraq.  Perhaps, too, the entire world will finally know peace.

America will be long gone, of course, probably bought out by Japan and China who currently own much of our national debt.

But there will be peace at last in Iraq.

 

Benazir Bhutto Buried

Posted on by TL

Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest Friday in Pakistan as unrest continued to spread throughout the country. The government is blaming al-Qaeda and the Taliban, an assertion that is wildly premature. No one from al-Qaeda has come forward to claim responsibility, and al-Qaeda is hardly shy about such admissions. Bhutto supporters allege that President Pervez Musharraf’s government is responsible — an assertion which may also be premature at this point. From this distance, all we can do is speculate.

The larger and more alarming concern is the continued destabilization of Pakistan, a nuclear power. The questions are overwhelming.  Ahmed Rhashid of the Washington Post iterates some of the most compelling:

Her death only exacerbates the problems Pakistan has been grappling with for the past few months: how to find a modicum of political stability through a representative government that the army can accept and will not work to undermine, and how to tackle the extremism spreading in the country.

Was Musharraf responsible? Was al-Qaeda involved? These questions pale in comparison to what may lie ahead for Pakistan. Musharraf does not seem the least bit interested in establishing a democracy, and President Bush should not forget this. Musharraf is no ally — but he must be dealt with. The only route to Afghanistan is through Pakistan, and Musharraf now holds every card in Pakistan.

To his credit, President Bush called on Pakistan to pursue justice in the aftermath of Bhutto’s assassination, and to honor her memory. In a statement, Bush said:

The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy. Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice. Mrs. Bhutto served her nation twice as Prime Minister and she knew that her return to Pakistan earlier this year put her life at risk. Yet she refused to allow assassins to dictate the course of her country.

We stand with the people of Pakistan in their struggle against the forces of terror and extremism. We urge them to honor Benazir Bhutto’s memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life.

He’s right. Musharraf would do well to bring her murderers to justice. Otherwise, Pakistan will be lost to conspiracy theories forever, and someone even more radical than Musharraf may come closer to controlling the country’s nuclear arsenal.

Two Chinese Teachers Sentenced to Death

Posted on by TL

Wow.

The BBC reports that two Chinese teachers have been sentenced to death for forcing more than 20 young girls — including their own students — into prostitution.

Zhao Qingmei and her husband, Chi Yao, were convicted of running a child-sex ring in the southern Guizhou province.

The girls, aged between 11 and 17, were taken to local hostels and reportedly told that their families would be poisoned if they refused to have sex.

And later:

Bijie Intermediate Court handed down the death sentences last Friday after hearing how the couple forced 23 girls into prostitution between March and June 2006.

Six of the victims were under the age of 14.

The court was told that the child-sex ring made 32,350 yuan.

Chi’s sentence was suspended for two years, and is likely to be commuted to life imprisonment.

The couple have until 24 December to appeal against the sentences.

Wow.

US Official: “There will be an attack on Iran.”

Posted on by TL

The neo-cons are having wet dreams about attacking Iran, and they’re stepping up the rhetoric.

According to an article in yesterday’s Time Magazine,  the Bush Administration is planning on putting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on the terrorism list.  The article by Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, gives every indication that the Bush Administration intends to go forward with some type of attack in Iran, “an awe and shock campaign, lite, if you will,” and actually believe that taking out the IRGC will pave the way for Democracy in Iran, and help stabilize Iraq.

And, dammit, we’ve heard that all before.

From the article:

As with Saddam and his imagined WMD, the Administration’s case against the IRGC is circumstantial. The U.S. military suspects but cannot prove that the IRGC is the main supplier of sophisticated improvised explosive devices to insurgents killing our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And later:

A second part of the Administration’s case against the IRGC is that the IRGC has had a long, established history of killing Americans, starting with the attack on the Marines in Beirut in 1983. And that’s not to mention it was the IRGC that backed Hizballah in its thirty-four day war against Israel last year. The feeling in the Administration is that we should have taken care of the IRGC a long, long time ago.

So, take out the IRGC, and we’ll have regional stability at last.

But what if that doesn’t happen?

And what do we do if just the opposite happens — a strike on Iran unifies Iranians behind the regime? An Administration official told me it’s not even a consideration. “IRGC IED’s are a casus belli for this administration. There will be an attack on Iran.”

Yet another half-baked casus belli from the neo-cons an “W”.  Will they finally be sending their own children to fight this one?

Obama Would Fight Pakistan

Posted on by TL

I’ve let this sink in for a few days.  And I don’t get it.  Obama’s foreign policy seems like it’s all over the place.  From the Washington Post:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama issued a pointed warning yesterday to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying that as president he would be prepared to order U.S. troops into that country unilaterally if it failed to act on its own against Islamic extremists.

In his most comprehensive statement on terrorism, the senator from Illinois said that the Iraq war has left the United States less safe than it was before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that if elected he would seek to withdraw U.S. troops and shift the country’s military focus to threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“When I am president, we will wage the war that has to be won,” he told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center in the District. He added, “The first step must be to get off the wrong battlefield in Iraq and take the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

I don’t understand at all the logic in threatening Pakistan.  Musharraf is not to be taken lightly.  No world leader is.  However, Musharraf is a smart politician, with more experience than Barack Obama.  I am confounded by Barack’s approach.  Invade Pakistan?  When we cannot afford Iraq?

I don’t get it at all.

White House Fears Brits May Leave Iraq

Posted on by TL

New leadership in Great Britain has brought fresh thinking on Iraq, and the White House is worried.

It appears the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown may take his country in a different direction than his predecessor.  The London Times reports:

A SENIOR Downing Street aide has sounded out Washington on the possibility of an early British military withdrawal from Iraq.

Simon McDonald, the prime minister’s chief foreign policy adviser, left the impression that he was “doing the groundwork” for Gordon Brown, according to one of those he consulted.

While the British have not made any formal statements, discussion of withdrawal of military forces from Iraq within the UK on a level so close to the Prime Minister has the White House worried:

Behind the scenes, however, American officials are picking up what they believe are signals that a change of British policy on Iraq is imminent.

McDonald, a senior diplomat who formerly ran the Iraq desk at the Foreign Office, was in Washington this month to prepare for the summit. He asked a select group of US foreign policy experts what they believed the effect would be of a British pull-out from Iraq.

“The general feeling was that he was doing the groundwork for a Brown conversation,” said a source. Most of the experts felt it was a question of when, not if, Britain would leave.

The British feel they cannot fight two wars, and see Afghanistan  more worth a fight.  Could be an interesting week at Camp David.

Pat Tillman May Have Been Murdered

Posted on by TL

Pat Tillman

What a chilling thought.

From the Associated Press:

Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman’s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player’s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

“The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described,” a doctor who examined Tillman’s body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

The doctors – whose names were blacked out – said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.

Time magazine is reports:

Congressional investigators told the White House on Tuesday that they intend to question several former Bush administration officials about their knowledge of Pat Tillman’s death, escalating their inquiry into the high-profile friendly fire case.

What an absolutely horrid, chilling thought.

No, I never served, and I do not understand what it is like to be over there. I want our young people home. All of them. Alive.

I simply cannot wrap my mind around the idea that Pat Tillman may have been murdered.

White House Cites Executive Privilege To Withhold Tillman Documents

Posted on by TL

U.S. Army Corporal Patrick Tillman

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chairman of the Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued a statement Friday indicating the White House was asserting executive privilege once again to withhold documents pertaining to communications between the White House and the Defense Department regarding the death of U.S. Army Corporal Patrick Tillman by “friendly fire” in 2004:

Today Chairman Waxman and Ranking Minority Member Davis sent a letter to the White House objecting to the withholding of documents related to the death of U.S. Army Corporal Patrick Tillman, who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004. As a result of deficient responses from both the White House and Defense Department, the Committee also announced an August 1 hearing to examine what senior Defense Department officials knew about Corporal Tillman’s death.

Following the Committee’s April 24, 2007, hearing on the Tillman fratricide, the Committee wrote to White House Counsel Fred Fielding seeking “all documents received or generated by any official in the Executive Office of the President” relating to Corporal Tillman’s death. The White House Counsel’s office responded that it would not provide the Committee with documents that “implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests” and produced only two communications with the officials in the Defense Department, one of which was a package of news clippings. The response of the Defense Department to the Committee’s inquiry was also deficient.

In response to the deficiencies in the White House and Defense Department productions, Chairman Waxman and Ranking Member Davis today sent letters to White House Counsel Fred Fielding and Defense Secretary Robert Gates requesting complete document production by July 25, 2007. Chairman Waxman also wrote the Republican National Committee to request communications about Corporal Tillman’s death by White House officials using e-mail accounts controlled by the RNC.

In addition, the Oversight Committee announced that a hearing will be held on Wednesday, August 1, 2007, to investigate what senior officials at the Defense Department knew about Corporal Tillman’s death.

Questions surfaced after Tillman’s death when the public learned the Army withheld the truth:

The first Army investigator who looked into the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan last year found within days that he was killed by his fellow Rangers in an act of “gross negligence,” but Army officials decided not to inform Tillman’s family or the public until weeks after a nationally televised memorial service.

The War Is Coming Home

Posted on by TL

ABC News reports, “Large teams of newly trained suicide bombers are being sent to the United States and Europe, according to evidence contained on a new videotape obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com.”

The war is coming home.

Instead of actually following through with the plan to target al Qaeda after 9/11, the President Bush took us to Iraq.  According to the story:

The tape shows Taliban military commander Mansoor Dadullah, whose brother was killed by the U.S. last month, introducing and congratulating each team as they stood.

“These Americans, Canadians, British and Germans come here to Afghanistan from faraway places,” Dadullah says on the tape. “Why shouldn’t we go after them?”

The report indicates that some do not take this threat seriously.  Others take it very seriously:

“It doesn’t take too many who are willing to actually do it and be able to slip through the net and get into the United States or England and cause a lot of damage,” said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism official.

It’s only a matter of time.   Full story here.

Our Deafening Silence

Posted on by TL

I blog about a war I don’t like.? Others blog.? We run to our computers and read each other’s blogs.? And the terrible war goes on.

I don’t understand the silence — the goddamn deafening silence.? I don’t understand our level of comfort letting this all continue.? Do we really feel that helpless?? Have we become that sensitive to what is political, to getting our people back in office and keeping them there, that we persist in doing nothing?? Are we really that helpless?

America stands by and watches while civilians die, while soldiers die, while children die.? We watch childred die, and really don’t ruffle a feather when the President of the goddamn United States says we should go shopping — shopping — so the terrorists don’t win.

3,189 American soldiers dead.? Soon, it will be time for another moment of silence on Turning Left as soldier 3,200 dies.? 11 to go, and another young man or woman checks out early.

Dulce et decorum est?

I think not.

And neither did Wilfred Owen.

We’re all part of the goddamn, deafening silence.