Another right wing blog swarm

How can they write blogs when they're obviously too stupid to breathe? Glenn reports on the latest attack - on Larry Johnson this time.

First the Ex-Generals - Now the Soldiers

Many in the military recognize the debacle in Iraq for what it is. However, because they're aware of the consequences of speaking out while on active duty, we've only been hearing open criticism from retired officers. Now a brave soul, an Army private in Bagdad, tells it like it is in a graphic and touching memo from the front.

Now I am still here in this country wondering why, and having to pick up the pieces of what is left of my friend in our room. I would just like to know what is the true reason we are here? This country poses no threat to our own. So why must we waste the lives of good men on a country that does not give a damn about itself? Most of my friends here share my views, but do not have the courage to say anything.

Read the whole thing - and let's hope that this soldier isn't the last to speak out and that Americans will be just as brave in supporting his right to speak truth to power. Perhaps Private Hudson will even stiffen the backbone of our Congress critters. You might consider sending yours a link to this essay!

No big surprise here.

Mentioned earlier that Riverbend of Bagdad Burning blog had finally thrown in the towel and was leaving Iraq - something a lot of folks are doing if they have the means to get out. That includes physicians. So what is the government doing? "Iraq Reimposes Freeze on Medical Diplomas In Bid to Keep Doctors From Fleeing Abroad." Yup, the same thing Hussein did to keep MD's in tow. Yet another sign of progress for the American occupation.

Hussein built a fine medical system in part by withholding doctors' passports and diplomas. Although physicians can work in Iraq with a letter from a medical school verifying their graduation, they say they need certificates and transcripts to work abroad.

It is a common refrain among war-weary Iraqis that things were better before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Electricity in Baghdad was more reliable; sectarian hostility was rare; Iraq was safe -- except for the many victims of Hussein's tyranny. But rarely has the government embraced a policy that so harshly evokes the era of dictatorship. To some students and doctors, the diploma decision, like Iraq's crumbling medical system, provides clear proof of the government's helplessness and the nation's decline.
[---]
The Iraqi Medical Association, with which all physicians must register to practice, estimates that at least one-third of the country's 40,000 or so doctors have fled to Jordan, Syria and other countries.
[---]
Only about 25 percent of students are able to attend classes daily, Araji said. The rest, kept away by explosions and gunfire and roadblocks, use lecture notes to study at home and show up only for exams.
[---]
"Let's put it right: What was happening in Saddam's time was better than what is happening now," said the official, who said he did not want his name published out of fear for his life. "There was order. There was discipline. This we are losing."

But not to worry - GW's surge will take care of this little problem.

Breaking our military

A disturbing report from AFP.

A mental health advisory committee conducted a study of almost 1,800 combat troops stationed in Iraq and found mental health and morale problems - worse among those with lengthened deployments and repeated deployments to Iraq. Although the study was completed in November, it wasn't released until now (in censored form) and only because some of the contents had been leaked.

Among the findings:

-- About 10 percent of soldiers surveyed reported mistreating non-combatants or damaging their property when it was not necessary;
-- Less than half of the soldiers and marines would report a team member for unethical behavior;
-- More than a third of all soldiers and marines reported that torture should be allowed to save the life of a fellow soldier or marine.

Morale among soldiers was worse than Marines who have shorter deployments (6 months). The team recommended shorter deployments and longer periods between deployments. Obviously, the Pentagon isn't listening. Interesting, too, that this report came from a foreign news service. Time for the blogosphere to push it to Congress and into the MSM.

Supporting our troops doesn't = pushing them to the breaking point, destroying character, or instilling guilt and shame by normalizing behavior and thinking that's far less likely to occur in benign environment. The prevalence of PTSD tells the story.

The Great Republican Debate

Well, it’s over. The Republicans and their groveling fan, Tweetie, have done their testosterone-laced thing. And what a sorry state the GOP is in if this is the best they can produce. The star of the evening (drum-roll)…. Ronald Reagan. Wonder if having to resurrect the dead president to establish credibility (forget Iran-contra!) bodes well for their future.

Tommy Thompson looked and sounded like he’d just rolled out of bed; Brownback had a very weird aura; McCain, backing off a bit from his war mongering, seemed worn out and over the hill; and Giuliani’s contortions to explain his unpopular positions made him seem not ready for prime time. Gilmore and Huckabee looked reasonable in comparison.

And then there was the "star" of the evening: facile, smooth articulate, Ken doll, Mitt Romney. Whoever said he’d make a good news anchor had it about right. Made me a bit sad when I thought about his straight-talking, shoot-from-the-hip Dad. But then again, maybe the Boston Globe's Swidey was right and Mitt overshoots a bit in trying to avoid George Romney’s mistakes.

The most heartening news from the debate? Only three of them don’t believe in evolution!

Thinking about who won in the end, decided I’d have to pick (half in jest) a guy I didn’t know too well before – Ron Paul. Looking around this morning, seems my quirky pick was a popular one. Who woulda thunk it? The supposedly “crazy” one seemed the sanest on the stage. Guess when a Goldwater GOP’er looks good, that says it all.

Follow-up on attempted bombing of women's clinic

"There's terrorism and then there's terrorism." called attention to the attempted bombing of an Austin women's health clinic that performed abortions. A man has now been charged with the crime and moiv presents an insider's look at the cultural context in which it occurred. My sense is that there's little general understanding of how some "culture of life" proponents contribute to a culture of death and destruction (in addition to supporting wars and the death penalty).

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED DAY!

Atrios looks back.

E&P has more of the retrospective on the NYT coverage.

And the Report Card.

Gonzogate gets worse and worse

Seems as though the firing of US Attorneys for apparently political reasons was just the tip of the iceberg. Now we learn that, in March 2006, Gonzales gave authority to two young and inexperienced aides, Sampson and Goodling, to hire and fire most non-civil service staff in the DOJ. The secret order was neither filed in the Federal Register nor included in the documents provided to the House and Senate committees investigating the firing of the US Attorneys. Murray Waas has the story.

The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level. Department records show that the personnel authority was delegated to the two aides at about the same time they were working with the White House in planning the firings of a dozen U.S. attorneys, eight of whom were, in fact, later dismissed.
[...]
The roles that Sampson and Goodling played in removing U.S. attorneys and selecting new ones drew fire from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who cited their youth, their scant prosecutorial experience, and their lack of law enforcement credentials. Goodling was a 1999 graduate of televangelist Pat Robertson's Regent University School of Law and had worked at the Republican National Committee as an opposition researcher. Sampson had tried one criminal case while at Justice and had worked as a counsel for Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and then for the White House counsel's office before rapidly ascending to become Gonzales's chief of staff.
[...]
Robert Litt, who served as a deputy assistant attorney general under former President Bill Clinton, said in an interview that during the Clinton presidency "it was routine that senior appointments in the department would be vetted by the White House. Appointees were often placed by the White House." Such a process is typical under most presidents, Litt said, because they "want to ensure that their administration's policies and priorities are carried out."

But Litt also called Gonzales's secret delegation of authority to Sampson and Goodling unprecedented. It was distressing, he said, that many of the most sensitive appointments at the highest levels of the Justice Department were to "be made by these two people with no law enforcement experience... that this extraordinary authority was being delegated to these two young puppies," and apparently without much input by more-experienced and less-partisan officials.
[...]
At the bottom of the delegation order, this note appeared, in all capital letters, referencing the Federal Register: "INTERNAL ORDER-NOT PUBLISHED IN F.R."

There's lots more in the Waas piece.

How refreshing to find that the Senate Judiciary chair, Patrick Leahy, is on top of things. The chutzpah of this administration has been astounding. But then, with their dreams of a permanent Republican majority and a rubber stamp Congress, guess they never expected to have any oversight.

There's terrorism and then there's terrorism.

Did you hear about the IED found in Austin, TX? Not surprising if you didn't. You see it was found outside a womens' clinic that performed abortions in the wake of the bizarre Supreme Court decision. Aside from the original AP report, there's been precious little coverage:

The national press? Aside from 97 words from the AP and a brief mention from CNN — nothing (according to a Nexis search at 5:15 pm today). In that lone CNN mention, we’re told that “Officials from the Homeland Defense Team, which includes police officers, also other Austin officers, the Department of Emergency Ordnance Disposal unit and the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives” were on the scene. Yet still, not a peep from the national press. Now, imagine if this clinic had been a bank, or a high school, or a sports arena. I bet we would have heard something about it then.

The Statesman did weigh in and included some interesting statistics:

More than 200 arsons and bombings have occurred at reproductive health care clinics across the United States and Canada since the mid-1970s, according to the National Abortion Federation's Web site.

According to the federation, 32 incidents of violence or disruption against abortion providers in the United States and Canada were reported in the first three months of 2007, along with five hoax devices or suspicious packages. In 2006, abortion clinics reported seven bomb threats and four attempted bombings or arsons.

It seems the media only considers terrorism worth reporting when the perp's (or or falsely alleged perp's) are US minorities or brown-skinned folks from the Middle East. When women are targeted by radical right hate groups - well, move along, nothing here.

Former intelligence agents hold Tenet accountable.

Larry Johnson posts at TPM Cafe the letter he and colleagues sent to George Tenet via his publisher. One has to consider not only how different the history of this country would have been if Tenet had had the integrity to resign and speak out before the war but also the effect if he had come clean before the 2004 election. Some excerpts:

Dear Mr. Tenet:

We write to you on the occasion of the release of your book, At the Center of the Storm. You are on the record complaining about the “damage to your reputation”. In our view the damage to your reputation is inconsequential compared to the harm your actions have caused for the U.S. soldiers engaged in combat in Iraq and the national security of the United States. We believe you have a moral obligation to return the Medal of Freedom you received from President George Bush. We also call for you to dedicate a significant percentage of the royalties from your book to the U.S. soldiers and their families who have been killed and wounded in Iraq.
[...]
It now turns out that you were the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community--a grotesque mixture of incompetence and sycophancy shielded by a genial personality. Decisions were made, you were in charge, but you have no idea how decisions were made even though you were in charge. Curiously, you focus your anger on the likes of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and Condi Rice, but you decline to criticize the President.
[...]
The reality of Iraq, however, has not made our nation more secure nor has the cause of human liberty been advanced. In fact, your tenure as head of the CIA has helped create a world that is more dangerous. The damage to the credibility of the CIA is serious but can eventually be repaired. Many of the U.S. soldiers maimed in the streets of Fallujah and Baghdad cannot be fixed. Many will live the rest of their lives missing limbs, blinded, mentally disabled, or physically disfigured. And the dead have passed into history.

You can read the whole letter here.

UPDATE:

AP has more information on the Tenet book which is to be published tomorrow.

The former CIA director offers a litany of questions that went unasked:

-'What impact would a large American occupying force have in an Arab country in the heart of the Middle East?'

-'What kind of political strategy would be necessary to cause the Iraqi society to coalesce in a post-Saddam world and maximize the chances for our success?'

-'How would the presence of hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, and the possibility of a pro-West Iraqi government, be viewed in Iran? And what might Iran do in reaction?'

Tenet laments that 'there seemed to be a lack of curiosity in asking these kinds of questions, and the lack of a disciplined process to get the answers before committing the country to war.'

Tenet assigns his own agency part of the blame, saying the intelligence community should have strived to answer the questions not asked by the administration.

Boggles the mind! And not just the lack of curiosity or Tenet's complicity. Those are critical questions that a lot of us were asking during the run-up to the war. In fact, we had a very good idea of what the answers were without a big intelligence agency behind us. But, of course, that required some knowledge of history, culture, and getting information from sources other than the pathetic US media.

Bush AWOL, says Gen. Odom

Another General speaks out:

In principle, I do not favor Congressional involvement in the execution of U.S. foreign and military policy. I have seen its perverse effects in many cases. The conflict in Iraq is different. Over the past couple of years, the President has let it proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued.
[...]
To put this in a simple army metaphor, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL, that is ‘absent without leave.’ He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge. Rather, he engages in tit-for-tat games.
[...]
The challenge we face today is not how to win in Iraq; it is how to recover from a strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place. The war could never have served American interests.

But it has served Iran’s interest by revenging Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in the 1980s and enhancing Iran’s influence within Iraq. It has also served al Qaeda’s interests, providing a much better training ground than did Afghanistan, allowing it to build its ranks far above the levels and competence that otherwise would have been possible.

Funny thing - a lot of people were upset when it was it was revealed that Bush was AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. If they didn't deny it outright, they said digging up ancient history was irrelevant. Maybe not so much so.

Recommend reading the whole radio address.

People ask, "What are blogs, what do they do?"

Atrios, today, in his inimitable fashion, captures the essence of liberal blogs in The Reeds and Brass Have Been Weaving.

Often people, usually in the course of needing to explain the almighty power of blogs to people who don't get it, want to describe blogs in terms of specific tangible successful events. You know, "blogs took down Trent Lott," and whatnot. And while there are certainly occasions where I think blogs have played a very important and clear role in defining and shaping events, I always think it's wrong to focus on those events as what's really important about the blogosphere.

Left of center blogs filled various connected vacuums which were created by a triangulating-against-itself-Democratic party, a media with a "no liberals on TV or radio" rule, and the post-9/11 media prostration to the Bush administration and its complete abdication of its responsibility with respect to the Iraq war, all of which followed its campaign 2000 prostration to the Bush candidacy. Overall what blogs have been able to do is create an unfolding political narrative which has been largely absent elsewhere. Sometimes it's about emphasizing different things, sometimes it's about combating DC conventional wisdom, sometimes it's about highlighting things which are being ignored. But taken all together it's about telling the story of politics in a different way.

While there are other elements - fundraising, various types of activism, etc... - day to day the power of the blogosphere is that it offers up a competing version of political reality, in opposition to the Russert/Matthews/Dowd version and in opposition to the Limbaugh/Hannity/Fox News/Heritage Foundation version.

Hope seems to be in the wind.

Greenwald is sensing a "sea change." A must read from the intelligent, articulate, independent blogger who recently moved to Salon.

Wow!

An active duty Lt. Colonel speaks out on the Iraq debacle and the Generals' complicity. Aravosis has a summary of a few high points if you don't want to read the whole thing.

And then there's Tenet's book on pre-war intelligence about to come out next week. From today's NYT (They got hold of a pre-publication copy.)

George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.
----
“There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,” Mr. Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years. Nor, he adds, “was there ever a significant discussion” about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion.

What will it take for the press and the remnants of the public still supporting the war to wake up, realize what a criminal enterprise this has been, and demand that we get the troops out? Suspect one of the big problems is that the true believers only see what they want to see and the press is reluctant to take responsibility for their complicity. We can only hope that the Republicans in Congress look at polls even if the President doesn't.

Riverbend is leaving Iraq

Some of us read Iraqi blogs to find out what's actually going on inside Iraq. These blogs, written by educated, moderate Iraqis have been essential to understanding the impact of the war on daily life. Some of the bloggers have a good command of English, others rely on translators. Some have always lived in Iraq, others have traveled - and even spent time in the US. What they've offered is a window into activities as mundane as daily shopping and as important as perceptions of Iraqi leaders and the American occupation. Some, like the Jarrar family and the mother, Faiza Al-Arji gave up long ago and scattered to Jordan, other mid-eastern countries, and the US.

Riverbend, a young Iraqi woman, stayed. Those who follow her blog have been concerned during the last year as she's posted less and less frequently. Has Riverbend been killed or jailed - has she left Iraq? When she does post, what has been clear is the deteriorating state of her country - the destruction of infrastructure, the danger, the deaths of friends and relatives, the lack of electricity, the hour's-long wait for gas to fuel generators, the maneuvering of politicians.

When all is said and done, her posting has fallen off primarily because she's been depressed. But still, she's stayed, because it's her country and she didn't want to leave everything of value to her. Now she and her family have decided it's too dangerous to stay. Read her posts over the last year - there aren't many - (and Faiza's as well). I suspect you'll have a picture of Iraq that you don't get from the TV or newspapers. Her comments about the violent conflicts between Shias and Sunnis (that Riverbend feels wasn't there before our invasion) are particularly interesting. And the suffering and the fear are palpable.

Let us all hope that she and her family are able to get out. Of course, with the departure of each moderate, peace-loving, educated family, Iraq is poorer - and will be less able to rebuild if there is ever the opportunity to do that.

A must read (and see)!

On the occasion of the Iraq War's 4th anniversary, Tom Tomorrow has a strip on "What They Said" (the pundits that is) as the US invaded Iraq.

It’s not just Catholic priests abusing minors.

Adelle Banks (Martha's sister), has the story for Religion News Service. Southern Baptists seem to be having a bit of trouble in this regard as well. And they don’t appear to be scurrying to address the problem. You see they have a bit of a problem:

-- The activist group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and a Catholic whistleblower priest have called on Southern Baptists to adopt review panels and registries of offending clergy for greater oversight.

Southern Baptist officials, meanwhile, say their denomination's decentralized structure and autonomous congregations prevent them from complying with some of the proposed reforms. They say they have addressed the issue in the past, and urge churches to conduct background checks on employees and volunteers.

"There is no Southern Baptist Convention office which collects and provides any qualifying information, including information about sex abuse convictions or accusations, with regard to any local church employees, including ministers," said D. August Boto, general counsel of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee, in an e-mail response to questions.

" ... The Southern Baptist Convention was formed on the belief that the selection of its ministers is a sacred right held and exercised by the local church alone under the leadership of God."

Of course those with integrity, like Parnham, hold a different view:

Some, however, including Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, have criticized the denomination for "hid[ing] behind the shield of local church autonomy to avoid taking needed actions to protect children from predatory preachers."

But SBC President Frank Page has stressed that Southern Baptists are not hiding behind their polity. "Let me clearly state that we believe in the autonomy of the local church as a biblical mandate," Page stated in a column earlier this month. “We are not hiding behind anything, except the Bible.”

Yup, sounds about right. Hiding behind the bible is exactly what they’re doing.

Ohio 2004 election rigging & congressional AG investigation

Is there a nexus? Turns out that the "missing" Rove e-mails demanded by congress in the current investigation of dicey doings in the AG's office also include the 2004 period during which Bush magically won Ohio after earlier exit polls indicated Kerry had a healthy lead.

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman haven't given up their investigation into election irregularities in Ohio and provide additional reasons that the Rove communications could have been "deleted" from the RNC server. It's a complicated story but one worthy of attention.

Turns out our ex-SOS, ex-gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell had arranged for Ohio election results to be stored on RNC servers, potentially allowing for election tampering in the wee hours of the morning following 2004 voting (and according to ePluribus Media repeated this egregious behavior in 2005 and 2006). So what was the communication between Rove and Blackwell that fateful night in 2004? Well... you see... any e-mail from that night that might have cast light on election rigging is among the "deleted" e-mails.

The pervasiveness of corruption in this administration boggles the mind. Jennifer Brunner, our new SOS, is moving aggressively to clean up the mess - at least in Ohio. Among other things she called for the resignation of the entire Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and after some foot dragging and threats by Bennet, the GOP County chair as well as the chair of the BOE, she got it.

Americans are catching on?

The latest NBC/WSJ poll is out and it doesn't look like Americans are buying the WH spin. Only 12% believe the situation in Iraq has improved since Bush started his surge and only 22% believe the country is on the right track. And 56% agree with the Dem's who want to set a deadline for troop withdrawal from Iraq as opposed to the 37% who agree with Bush. Hmmm... and on what planet do those in the 12% live? Keep it up, George. Things are looking better and better for us in '08. What worries me is how many more troops we have to sacrifice before the Congress calls a halt to this debacle.

Moyers is Back!

And PBS, with a jolt, begins it's trip back into the reality-based community - for the first time since Tomlinson took over (and departed) CPB. Maybe we're beginning to see some unexpected benefits of the Democratic takeover of Congress.

Buying the War should be extremely interesting, even for those of us who managed to keep our eyes open, read reliable sources, and preserve an appropriate degree of skepticism about administration hype in the run-up to the war. Moyers managed to pull in a number of good journalists (including Phil Donahue and the Knight Ridder reporters who were ignored pre-war) and some who admitted they were bamboozled (like Beinert of TNR and Rather of CBS). Needless to say, those who still haven't apologized for their whoring for the administration (Safire, Crystal, et al.) declined. The dissection of our current media morass is sterling. Anyway, if you missed it the first time around, you can catch it on repeat. Check for your local schedule or podcast here.

UPDATE:
Digby and Glenn Greenwald have weighed in on Moyers' superb piece. Read them for more details. They offer some of the best writing on the media that you're likely to find.

Welcome!

Working on the website, logo, and a survey for our local progressive group. May also be setting up a blog for them. That got me to thinking - why haven't I set up one for myself? Instead of sending people separate e-mail posts, or links to commentary on other blogs, I can post here and people can one-stop-shop to see if there's anything of interest to them (and control the clutter in their e-mail boxes). Can even post an occasional picture so they'll be readily accessible to folks using dial-up accounts.

Let me know what you think of the site as we move along and what I can do to improve it.