Today, Jackie Speier was sworn in as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. And what does she immediately do? Gives an anti-war speech and gets booed by Republicans.

For a few feel-good moments on the floor of the U.S. House today, Jackie Speier basked in bipartisan applause as she was sworn in as its newest member. Her family, supporters and kids cheered as she embraced her new colleagues.  Read more 

The plainest way to say it is that everything, every last fucking thing, is “constructed” in the SCLM product/discourse/fairy tale. Someone thinks about what it is in it, and what is not, and how, one word at a time. So when this happens, people should remember it’s a feature, and not a bug. What is funniest to me is that the WaPo, and the District, are queer havens, places where queer culture and thought and activity are open, vibrant. I guess I’ve just never been a part of that group of self-hating types who want to play these games.

But guys: trust me when I say, str8 America is over all this silliness. I look forward to the day, and indeed I believe it will come in my lifetime, when this sort of stunt is uncommon and quickly forgotten.

As the Blade reported last week, Maj. Alan Rogers, by all accounts a hero for his brave acts while serving in Iraq, was killed in January and buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Rogers lived as openly gay a life as he could, given the military’s discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. He had many gay friends in D.C., patronized gay businesses and even worked as treasurer for the D.C. chapter of American Veterans for Equal Rights, a group working to overturn the military’s gay ban.

But the mainstream media accounts of his death omitted any reference to his sexual orientation. These were not benign omissions. The Washington Post, in particular, worked overtime to excise any mention of Rogers’ sexual orientation. It did not even report his work for AVER. Several of Rogers’ gay friends told the Blade that they were interviewed by a Post reporter at the funeral, but their memories were not included in the paper’s coverage.

I say this as only one of my age and “race” can: there comes a time when people decide to hate others for different reasons. No construct lasts forever, and nothing cannot be changed. Yes, blah, I know it works ’both ways,’ but in this case, working with younger people and knowing what they tell me about sex and sexuality and gender, I’m confident that this country is on the verge of finally shedding our particularly vulgar and unimaginative form of homophobia. And that’s a good thing.

Feh, I’ll chalk it up to yet another example in which the WaPo reminds me that I’m not sorry I don’t read them. /tosses hair/ So tired, they are.

I’m curious. If this is true:

Defying the White House, Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday the House will change its rules to avoid a required vote this year on a hotly disputed free-trade agreement with Colombia.

Why then is it so hard to say, change some rules and make war funding votes not happen? I’m sure there’s a “reason.”

Obama’s top Iraq advisor has written a paper in which he advises that through negotiations with the Iraqi government “the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000–80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground).” (Emphasis mine.)

Now, of course, Obama’s campaign denies that this position is his position, but Colin Kahl heads his Iraq working group and Obama has never said how many troops he’d leave on the ground in Iraq. Obama’s advisors have also said that he wouldn’t rule out using Blackwater and other mercenaries in Iraq.  Read more 

I don’t mean to be understated but … Houston we have a major fucking problem.

Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.Numbers reported by the Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults were reported — 73% more than in 2004. The DOD’s newest report, released this month, indicates that 2,688 reports were made in 2007, but a recent shift from calendar-year reporting to fiscal-year reporting makes comparisons with data from previous years much more difficult.

Link

It means nothing to the dead and little to their families, but it’s still an important step in moving this nation back towards sanity. Conservative blogger Cole bitchslaps the stupidest of Villagers thusly:

see that Andrew Sullivan was asked to list what he got wrong about Iraq for the five year anniversary of the invasion, and since I was as big a war booster as anyone, I thought I would list what I got wrong:

Everything.

And I don’t say that to provide people with an easy way to beat up on me, but I do sort of have to face facts. I was wrong about everything.

I was wrong about the Doctrine of Pre-emptive warfare.
I was wrong about Iraq possessing WMD.
I was wrong about Scott Ritter and the inspections.
I was wrong about the UN involvement in weapons inspections.
I was wrong about the containment sanctions.
I was wrong about the broader impact of the war on the Middle East.
I was wrong about this making us more safe.
I was wrong about the number of troops needed to stabilize Iraq.
I was wrong when I stated this administration had a clear plan for the aftermath.
I was wrong about securing the ammunition dumps.
I was wrong about the ease of bringing democracy to the Middle East.
I was wrong about dissolving the Iraqi army.
I was wrong about the looting being unimportant.
I was wrong that Bush/Cheney were competent.
I was wrong that we would be greeted as liberators.
I was wrong to make fun of the anti-war protestors.
I was wrong not to trust the dirty smelly hippies.

I mean, I could go down the list and continue on, but you get the point. I was wrong about EVERY. GOD. DAMNED. THING. It is amazing I could tie my shoes in 2001-2004. If you took all the wrongness I generated, put it together and compacted it and processed it, there would be enough concentrated stupid to fuel three hundred years of Weekly Standard journals. I am not sure how I snapped out of it, but I think Abu Ghraib and the negative impact of the insurgency did sober me up a bit.

War should always be an absolute last resort, not just another option. I will never make the same mistakes again.

I salute you, Cole. It takes a real man to stand up and say, “I was wrong.” Kudos.

Speech-acts don’t impress me so much anymore. Nor do websites. Or rallies. Cucking Stool reminds us of the real cost of the continuation of the clusterfuck that is Iraq, and it’s hefty:

Nobel Economics Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz and his co-author, Harvard professor Linda Bilmes, have estimated the total cost of the war, just to the United States, to be three to four trillion dollars. The rest of the world will pay similar amount. They wrote a book called The Three Trillion Dollar War, but that estimate is apparently out of date, although the book just came out:

All of the war-price tallies include operations in the war zone, support for troops, repair or replacement of equipment, reservists’ salaries, special combat pay for regular forces and some care for wounded veterans — expenses that typically fall outside the regular Defense Department or Veterans Affairs budgets.

The highest estimates often include projections for future operations, long-term health care and disability costs for veterans, a portion of the regular, annual defense budget, and, in some cases, wider economic effects, including a percentage of higher oil prices and the impact of raising the national debt to cover increased war spending.

The debate raging on Capitol Hill, on the presidential campaign trail, in research institutes and in academia touches on such esoteric factors as the right inflation index for veterans’ health care costs; the monetary value of nearly 4,000 soldiers killed; and what role, if any, the war has had in higher oil prices.

Some economists who track the war expenses say they worry that politicians are making mistakes similar to those made in 2002, by failing to fully come to grips with the short- and long-term financial costs.

“The relevant question now is: what do we do now going forward? Because we can’t do anything about the costs that have already happened,” said Scott Wallsten, an economist and vice president of research with iGrowthGlobal, a Washington research institute. “We still don’t hear people talking about that.”

In discussions about the economy, the elephant - boy, is that an apt metaphor - in the room is the war. The national debt has soared, as has the price of oil, and the dollar has plunged. The Fed keeps throwing “liquidity” on the fire; it seems to help for a little while - at least in terms of buoying the stock market - but only for a little while. As the Fed accepts dodgey-er and dodgey-er debt as collateral, the prospect that the taxpayer is going to foot the bill becomes more and more inevitable.

Privatize the profits and socialize the losses!  Read more 

Whiskeyfire notes that Klein is now admitting he was “stupid” to support the invasion and occupation, and gets mean enough to say that “willful blindness” probably played a greater role. To me, this hardly goes far enough.

Let’s role-play. Imagine one day, a bomb falls on your house. Half your family is killed, including all your children and your grandmother. The people who bombed you were complete strangers with whom you’d had no interaction or relation, and they did so for political purposes that had nothing to do with you. If a few years later, Joe walked up to you and said, “gosh, I was stupid to support bombing you!” you would likely punch him in the face, or worse.

It seems as if most Villagers have no imagination nor compassion. They are truly inhumane, and times like this I’m reminded of that. The list of the true reasons for the invasion and the wide support for it at the time is a long one: greed, racism, bloodlust, insecurity, lack of vision, ignorance, arrogance, local/domestic political posturing, greed…

“Stupid” is too kind. It’s disengenuous, it undervalues the true degree of the sin and crime. It’s like a frat boy turning up his hands when the arresting officer comes by to pick him up on the charge of rape, saying, “Sorry, I was drunk” and expecting to get away with it. It’s the ’liberal’ element of the Unity meme. Republicans will always deny they made a mistake and blame someone else, but ’liberals’ like Klein will have the ’good grace’ to admit to some wrongdoing. Minor, of course. Just enough to make them seem different than their Republican co-cronies and apologists and criminals. “Stupid” is like “silly” and “sorry.” It’s unlike “bloodstained” and “warmongering” and “war criminal.”

That’s what Klein really is. And millions are dead, homeless, shredded in mind and body, because of people like him. I don’t forget that. Fuck him. And his “stupidity.”

Very good, almost enough to make me want to care about rock and roll again. Seriously, let me highlight some of the scarier parts. Myth isn’t strong enough to describe what the bobbleheads in the Village are obsessing over, the truth of what is happening in Iraq is stark, and damning:

He dreams of returning to the days when the Iraqi army served the entire country. “In Saddam’s time, nobody knew what is Sunni and what is Shiite,” he says. The Bush administration based its strategy in Iraq on the mistaken notion that, under Saddam, the Sunni minority ruled the Shiite majority. In fact, Iraq had no history of serious sectarian violence or civil war between the two groups until the Americans invaded.

Some time ago I realized we’d all been giving them too much credit. Rovian Maths, Rummy’s Unknown unknowns…they are and were always as stupid and arrogant as they seemed. Only the Mightiest of Wurlitzers has been able to keep that fact from being baldly obvious to a great majority. They can do nothing right.

his is what “victory” looks like in a once upscale neighborhood of Iraq: Lakes of mud and sewage fill the streets. Mountains of trash stagnate in the pungent liquid. Most of the windows in the sand-colored homes are broken, and the wind blows through them, whistling eerily. House after house is deserted, bullet holes pockmarking their walls, their doors open and unguarded, many emptied of furniture. What few furnishings remain are covered by a thick layer of the fine dust that invades every space in Iraq. Looming over the homes are twelve-foot-high security walls built by the Americans to separate warring factions and confine people to their own neighborhood. Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush’s much-heralded “surge,” Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood. Apart from our footsteps, there is complete silence.  Read more 

Via eriposte at The Leftcoaster, compare and contrast:  Read more 

Last September 10, as David Petraeus was giving Congress a rosy evaluation of the situation in Iraq, a poll of Iraqi public opinion was released that belied Petraeus’ reporting. The poll received little attention amid the media’s love-fest for David Petraeus. But the findings of the poll should send shivers down the spine of anyone concerned with the lives of Iraqis and American in Iraq.

The poll (conducted in August 2007) found increasing resistance to the occupation, especially when compared to Iraqi public opinion polling from five months earlier (March 2007). Among the poll’s findings:  Read more 

From the Dept. of “Lambert Can’t be Cynical Enough,” comes this blood boiling reminder that Republicans are Scum of the very first order. There just isn’t invective strong enough for this:

Retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks was paid $100,000 - out of donations made to wounded veterans - for allowing his name to be used on fundraising appeals by a charity that has come under increasing scrutiny for the way it handles its money.
Lawmakers questioned the ethics of the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes Foundation not only for using donors’ money to pay Franks, but for failing to disclose to potential donors who received the mail solicitations that Franks was paid for his endorsement.
… ”If we disclose, we’d be out of business,” [president Roger] Chapin said.
“Your words are wonderful, because if the public knew, they wouldn’t donate,” said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn.
Chapin acknowledged that his organization has used inflated numbers in its mailings when describing what percentage of donations actually helps veterans.
While some mailings have stated that 92 percent or even 100 percent of donations have gone to veterans, the real figure is closer to 25 percent, according to a congressional study.

I think that soon, we’ll find ourselves needing to come up with a new word, one that describes “domestic post-battlefield fragging.” Franks better not go into any VFW halls anytime soon. This was in “Military Times,” so word is going to get out. Asshole.

It’s all lies. Or distortion. Or confabulation. Or misdirection. But I found this example rather egregious. I bet you DFHs remember this sort of thing from back in the day:

Radio Sawa broadcast on December 11 the good news from the American forces that the regions of Arab Jabour and Al-Buaitha had been definitively cleared of the last vestiges of AlQaeda. Here’s what their website reported that day

Joseph Inge, fourth brigade, third American infantry division, said his forces with the aid of the Awakening forces had been able to clear out the last strongholds of AlQaeda in the regions of Arab Jabour and Al-Buaitha south of Baghdad. He told Radio Sawa: “We have secured the area by freeing it from the threat of AlQaeda, with the assistance of local citizens”. And Captain Inge called on the families that had fled to return to their homes in those areas, promising every type of support and assistance to those families.

On Thursday 40 “targets”—described by the miitary as “reported AlQaeda safe-havens”—were hit by a total of 40,000 pounds of bombs dropped on Arab Jabour in a 10-minute raid by the American Air Force assisted by another brigade, the second, of the same third American infantry division that had invited families back into the area only three weeks ago. The military had no information on how many people it killed.  Read more 

 Read more 

I didn’t put hero in quotes, but I hope you know that I never rejoice when people kill each other. And I’m 1000% sure more of this has already happened, and more will continue to happen. The solution is for US troops to come home. It’s really just that simple.

Inter Press Service
By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Jan 7 (IPS) - The recent killing of two U.S. soldiers by their Iraqi colleague has raised disturbing questions about U.S. military relations with the Iraqis they work with.

On Dec. 26, an Iraqi soldier opened fire on U.S. soldiers accompanying him during a joint military patrol in the northern Iraqi city Mosul. He killed the U.S. captain and another sergeant, and wounded three others, including an Iraqi interpreter.

Conflicting versions of the killing have arisen. Col. Hazim al-Juboory, uncle of the attacker Kaissar Saady al-Juboory, told IPS that his nephew at first watched the U.S. soldiers beat up an Iraqi woman. When he asked them to stop, they refused, so he opened fire.

“Kaissar is a professional soldier who revolted against the Americans when they dragged a woman by her hair in a brutal way,” Col. Juboory said. “He is a tribal man, and an Arab with honour who would not accept such behaviour. He killed his captain and sergeant knowing that he would be executed.”

Others gave IPS a similar account. “I was there when the American captain and his soldiers raided a neighbourhood and started shouting at women to tell them where some men they wanted were,” a resident of Mosul, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS on phone. “The women told them they did not know, and their men did not do anything wrong, and started crying in fear.”  Read more 

They’re asking questions over at MoA. Questions I like to think upon:

Suicide Bombing in Iraq continues unabated:

A suicide bombing Wednesday in the city of Baqouba killed seven people and wounded 22, police said, while authorities increased the death toll from a Baghdad suicide attack at a funeral the previous day to 36.

Could just be me, but it seems like the SCLM has made a very concerted effort not to speak about Iraq. Good, bad, schools painted…no, forget all that. We’re told, daily, that “Iraq is no longer the #1 issue to voters.” Right. Because ’the voters’ are too stupid to understand that 1/2 trillion Over There = a shitty economy over here. Whatever.

The wikipedia list of suicide attacks in Iraq ends in October. There were more than one bombing every two days throughout 2007 except for October where only 11 are listed (October may be incomplete.)

The bombings are usually attributed to ’Al Qaida in Iraq’. At the same time:

[A] spokesman for Iraq’s Interior Ministry said Saturday that U.S. and Iraqi forces had destroyed 75% of the Al Qaeda in Iraq network

This begs some questions:  Read more 

But never fear, 90% of the agenda was “accomplished.”

Heroes in the Beltway:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, despite their pledges to continue pushing to end the war in Iraq, face growing pressure from their rank-and-file Democrats to focus more attention on domestic, “pocketbook” issues in the upcoming election year.

Junior Democrats describe an “Iraq fatigue” setting in among some members after dozens of successful withdrawal votes failed to drive a wedge between Republicans and President Bush on the war strategy….

[Baird:] “The entire policy has been dictated by the ’Out of Iraq
Caucus’ … What are we going to do, have another 40 withdrawal votes?”

Folks enjoying Christmas in Iraq:

Exhaustion and combat stress are besieging US troops in Iraq as they battle with a new type of warfare. Some even rely on Red Bull to get through the day. As desertions and absences increase, the military is struggling to cope with the crisis.

Lieutenant Clay Hanna looks sick and white. Like his colleagues he does not seem to sleep. Hanna says he catches up by napping on a cot between operations in the command centre, amid the noise of radio. He is up at 6am and tries to go to sleep by 2am or 3am. But there are operations to go on, planning to be done and after-action reports that need to be written. And war interposes its own deadly agenda that requires his attention and wakes him up.  Read more 

So several times I have argued that at least some of the violence going on in Iraq is the result of actions by “the good guys.” That is, folks being paid with your tax money to “bring security” to Iraq. I think not a few of them are bringing security to their own bank accounts, running little kingdoms of debauchery and evil, and in many ways revisiting the White Man’s favorite narrative in war, Heart of Darkness. It seems I’m not alone.

Asked who could be behind the killing of women, Athari said: “We cannot accuse anybody. But I can say that these gangs are linked to international intelligence agencies.”

“Or they are linked to movements that want to accuse the Sadrist trend of this,” he said.  Read more 

A friend sent me an email this morning:

The Administration is timing results in Iraq to best influence results in 2008 elections. They have paid members of the Iraqi Parliament to delay development of a government and have made closed-door deals with various factions. Look for gradual developments towards resolutions to be parceled out starting in March. Throughout the Spring and Summer, a variety of already scripted announcements will be unveiled and will lead to some kind of reasonably stable arrangement in Iraq. Democrats will be placed in a very difficult situation and Mike Huckabee will be the next president. Also, oil prices will drop back to $50-60 a barrel.

You heard it here first…  Read more 

Via The Agonist, here’s a letter that I think needs to get sent to a few spineless “Democrats.” You already know all this stuff, but for those who don’t (or choose to ignore it), it’s rather cock-punchingly stern. The Seattle Papers sure are putting out some red meat good stuff these days:

By Brian J. Sullivan
Special to The Times
HILLAH, Iraq — My military tour of duty in Iraq ends in several weeks. We return home during a period of military success, to a decidedly anti-war nation and to an unclear future Iraq policy.

There is a certain pressure for those returning from this war to thump our chests, make proud claims of success, honor the fallen and extol a positive military spirit. Returning is a time to wave the flag; it’s hard not to get caught up in those feelings of pride and conclusion.

My unit will focus on pinning medals and awards on returning soldiers, speeches by the generals, and maybe a homecoming event or parade.

But, tough questions will be on the minds of many as their flights leave Baghdad International Airport.

Was it worth it? Is the nation of Iraq we are attempting to assist worth the sacrifice? Will Iraq be different tomorrow because of our blood, sweat and a trillion dollars?

After serving here, I strongly disagree with the most common justification for the war.

U.S. Sen. John McCain has often commented, to paraphrase, “If we don’t kill the enemy in Iraq, they will follow us home to America.”

From the several hundred detainees I’ve seen here, and others I am aware of, I conclude it’s unlikely that many of these illiterate dirt farmers and thugs caught planting roadside bombs, men who can barely feed themselves, or their children, would be able to mount a successful jihad against North America.

A closer look at the 9/11 terrorists should stiffen our resolve against radicalized, sophisticated, Westernized Muslims, from nations like Saudi Arabia, not Iraq.  Read more 

The Grey Lord correctly notes that “everything is designed to ensure we stay.” Beyond all the rhetoric,  Read more 

5

I had been stirred after only shreds of sleep, I was woken up by the persistent piercing chirp of a beeper. I was up and on the phone shortly, a guest at the Ghraib was about to get some quality time. They needed me to be on hand. I was out the door in 15 minutes and to the Zoo in record time. They had choppered him in.

Before the coffee had even begun to work on its consciousness, I was in the “White Room,” the tiled cold place where people are talked to at the Zoo. An arab man with a long beard growth is brought in. He is in an orange jumper, and is earing arm and leg irons. He has not been badly beaten yet, and does not look like he’s even been roughly questioned.  Read more 

Wrong on so many levels. But unexpected, in an age in which arms dealers and the oil execs that keep their machines humming along rule our world.

Iraq has ordered $100 million worth of light military equipment from China for its police force, contending that the United States was unable to provide the materiel and is too slow to deliver arms shipments, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said yesterday.  Read more