There is No More Iraq

post from TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed on 22 August 2007 12:57:16 PM. © TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed

Even President Bush is likening Iraq to images of Vietnam -- but in an opposite way from the Iraq War's critics. Bush has suggested at the National Convention for the Veterans of Foreign Wars that...

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Rise and Fall of Chemical Ali

post from IraqSlogger.com on 22 August 2007 12:55:41 PM. © IraqSlogger.com

Baghdad, Aug 22, (VOI) - Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and a key convict in the Anfal case, has recently grabbed media attention after appearing, along with 14 other former officials and Baath leaders, before Iraq's Higher Criminal Court on Tuesday on charges of crimes against humanity for the crushing of a Shiite uprising after the 1991 Gulf War.

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Sick Day, Open Thread

post from TalkLeft on 22 August 2007 12:43:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Last night, as I was walking into a local tv studio to do Dan Abram's MSNBC show, I tripped on an uneven sidewalk and splattered myself on the concrete. I'm nursing a swollen wrist and bloody cuts on both knees and palms. Whose responsibility is it anyway to keep sidewalks in good repair? Or are we just supposed to walk with our heads down all the time looking for danger spots?

I'm also writing an op-ed for tomorrow's Washington Examiner on the myth of the immigrant crime wave (the topic of my MSNBC segment last night, which you can view here, but you'll need to turn the sound up on your computer to hear it. My YouTube-ing skills apparently don't include the ability to make the sound on the video match that on the tape I'm recording from.)

So, here's an open thread for you.

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Got Secrecy

post from Cafe Politico on 22 August 2007 12:41:44 PM. © Cafe Politico

The fact of the matter is, that Presidential accountability requires some level of cooperation with Congress, the public and different agencies. But Bush and Cheney have brought the level of executive secrecy to a new level- one that benefits neither the Executive Branch nor the public in the long-run. Not to mention, it’s [...]

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John Bolton Peddles New Wars More than Democracy

post from The Washington Note on 22 August 2007 12:34:00 PM. © The Washington Note

John Bolton talks a lot about democracy but seems more about igniting wars -- particularly with North Korea, Iran, Cuba and/or China. Bolton was in Taiwan recently speaking on American foreign policy and his experiences in the Bush administration...

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John Bolton Pedals New Wars More than Democracy

post from The Washington Note on 22 August 2007 12:34:00 PM. © The Washington Note

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Open thread from the motherland

post from AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth on 22 August 2007 12:31:00 PM. © AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth

My parents and I are in Greece for the next two weeks. I haven't been here in 20 years, and haven't been here with parents since I was 13. My mom was born here, as were all of my grandparents. I'm finally getting to take the trip visiting all the old relatives and all the old villages when I actually care about the family history (let's face it, villages and old relatives get old when you're 13). I'm really looking forward to it - have my camera, audio recorder, and a book, ready to capture the family history. We have a pretty cool family history in Greece - an old relative was a war hero in the battle for independence in the early 1800s, his uniform is on display in a national museum in Athens. Another uncle, whom we're going to visit, was the former Defense Secretary, Deputy Prime Minister and UN ambassador in the 1980s (he was also a lead dissident who was locked up the military government that we supported). I visited him 20 years ago when I was still a Republican. I suspect he'll be pleased at the transformation. I'm also hoping to set up a meeting with some of the top people in the left-wing party while I'm here - talk about blogs and online advocacy, something that isn't as common here as it is in the states.

Anyway, I'm wondering if it's worth trying to do an AMERICAblog meet-up in Athens once I get back from visiting the villages - say Sept 3 or 4th? Anyone in town?

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SPP Protest Update

post from The Liberal Journal on 22 August 2007 12:29:00 PM. © The Liberal Journal

Protesters at the SPP summit astutely identified three police provocateurs who intended to incite a riot to make the protesters look like out of control "kooks."

The three men wore bandanas over their faces and refused to take them off. One held a rock in his hand. They stood silently as the protester asked them if they were police. They gradually lined themselves next to each other and, having been exposed, the three men were quickly enveloped by fellow officers in riot gear and taken away:

video details and more

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Post-War Bush Forgets Pre-War Bushs Lessons Of
Vietnam

Prior the Iraq war, George W. Bush claimed that he had learned some powerful lessons from the Vietnam war. Among those lessons were the fact that U.S. must be “slow to engage troops.” “We can never again ask the military to fight a political war,” Bush said, adding that “the cause must be just”:

A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam: When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear and the victory must be overwhelming. [Bush address to RNC convention, 8/4/00]
The Republican presidential front-runner also says he learned “the lesson of Vietnam.” “Our nation should be slow to engage troops. But when we do so, we must do so with ferocity. We must not go into a conflict unless we go in committed to win. We can never again ask the military to fight a political war,” Bush wrote. [AP, 11/15/99, reporting on Bush’s biography A Charge To Keep]

Forgetting entirely the lessons that he claimed to have learned from a war in which he did not serve, Bush invaded Iraq in March 2003 hastily, without just cause, and lacking a clear goal. For years, he maintained Iraq and Vietnam had no similarities. In April 2004, he said:

QUESTION: How do you answer the Vietnam comparison?
BUSH: I think the analogy is false. I also happen to think that analogy sends the wrong message to our troops, and sends the wrong message to the enemy.

Today, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Bush accepted the fact that Vietnam does have lessons for Iraq. But the lesson, according to Bush, is that it is a mistake to pull out of a quagmire. “[O]ne unmistakable legacy of Vietnam,” Bush said, is that “the price of America’s withdrawal” is steep and painful. Watch it:

Bush’s lessons learned from Vietnam have shifted as frequently as his justifications for staying in Iraq. With the present and the future course of Iraq on a disastrous course, Bush’s only alternative is to change history.

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http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/22/bush-lessons-of-vietnam/

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International criminal flew U.S. supply missions
in Iraq.

“The U.S. government paid a wanted international criminal roughly $60 million to fly supplies into Iraq in support of the war effort,” alleges the new book “Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Plans, and the Man Who Makes War Possible.” Arms merchant and international trafficker Viktor Bout is considered “one of the greatest threats to U.S. interests,” yet in 2003, he managed to get a job with KBR “flying supplies into newly-invaded Iraq as a subcontractor to U.S. military contractors.”

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http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/22/international-criminal-flew-us-supply-mission
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