Bush's Shrinking Safety Zone

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by wolf

If it's that moron Joe Hoeffel, please, think of the Commonwealth and vote for Santorum.

Beg me!

[tw]

Originally Posted by wolf

If it's that moron Joe Hoeffel, please, think of the Commonwealth and vote for Santorum.

Even Alfred E Neuman could not be a greater moron than Santorum. Santorum imposes his religious beliefs on others. That means he is little different from bin Laden - both who use worship of pagan gods for their political agenda.

Nothing nice should be said of any politician anywhere who uses his religious beliefs to justify his politics. Even the Catholic Church is starting to back away from that anti-American concept of having religion determine what is moral in government. Santorum is a religious extremist which is why he also endorsed policies that promoted torture. Torture demonstrates what happens when religious extremists attempt to subvert secular governments with their religion.

Voters in PA are also encouraged to vote against most every incumbent in their legislature. PA's Congressmen slipped in an 'almost secret law' that made them the second highest paid Congress in the nation. This from a government in a third to last growing state in the nation.

Unfortunately PA residents are easily brainwashed. They routinely reelect 98% of incumbents which would explain why PA residents might have something good to say even about Rick Santorum - a man who would impose his religion on all others. A man who encouraged religious extremists in Dover PA.

Even Alfred E Neuman would be a better Congressman. Notice how moral Alfred is - as demonstrated by how he sweats – which is more than we can say about Santorum:

[Happy Monkey]

I dunno, Santorum always seems to be in a cold sweat.

[tw]

To justify wiretapping without judical review, senior administration officials declared that Americans have no expectation of privacy; that the Constitution provides no such protection. Meanwhile government, lead by a man who fears transparency, has different rights.

From the NY Times of 20 Feb 2006:

U.S. Reclassifies Many Documents in Secret Review
In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians. ...

But because the reclassification program is itself shrouded in secrecy - governed by a still-classified memorandum that prohibits the National Archives even from saying which agencies are involved - it continued virtually without outside notice until December. That was when an intelligence historian, Matthew M. Aid, noticed that dozens of documents he had copied years ago had been withdrawn from the archives' open shelves. ...

After Mr. Aid and other historians complained, the archives' Information Security Oversight Office, which oversees government classification, began an audit of the reclassification program, said J. William Leonard, director of the office.

Mr. Leonard said he ordered the audit after reviewing 16 withdrawn documents and concluding that none should be secret. ...

Among the 50 withdrawn documents that Mr. Aid found in his own files is a 1948 memorandum on a C.I.A. scheme to float balloons over countries behind the Iron Curtain and drop propaganda leaflets. It was reclassified in 2001 even though it had been published by the State Department in 1996.

Another historian, William Burr, found a dozen documents he had copied years ago whose reclassification he considers "silly," including a 1962 telegram from George F. Kennan, then ambassador to Yugoslavia, containing an English translation of a Belgrade newspaper article on China's nuclear weapons program.

Under existing guidelines, government documents are supposed to be declassified after 25 years unless there is particular reason to keep them secret. While some of the choices made by the security reviewers at the archives are baffling, others seem guided by an old bureaucratic reflex: to cover up embarrassments, even if they occurred a half-century ago.

One reclassified document in Mr. Aid's files, for instance, gives the C.I.A.'s assessment on Oct. 12, 1950, that Chinese intervention in the Korean War was "not probable in 1950." Just two weeks later, on Oct. 27, some 300,000 Chinese troops crossed into Korea. ...

The document removals have not been reported to the Information Security Oversight Office, as the law has required for formal reclassifications since 2003.

hmmmf! Makes me wonder about the staff at the National Archives. I can't remember if it was there or at the Library of Congress that I was actually allowed to check out one of Thomas Jefferson's journels - yes, the original, written in Mr. Jefferson's own hand - for two hours. I had to give every bit of ID I had and call on professional courtesy as an academic librarian to do it. So someone is scarfing up stuff off the shelves of the archives and no one knew about it? Most odd, I must say!

[xoxoxoBruce]

I don't think they've gone missing, just classified secret and withdrawn from public view.

[tw]

Does this sound like a war where Americans are on the offensive?
From the Washington Post of 26 Feb 2006:

Faces of the 101st In the Battle for Baghdad, U.S. Turns War on Insurgents
Here in the area south and west of Baghdad, the push by the Army's 4th Infantry was launched in recent months to give the capital some breathing space. "My job, above all things, is to keep them out of Baghdad," said Capt. Andre Rivier, the Swiss-American commander of Patrol Base Swamp. "The important thing is to keep them fighting here. That's really the crux of the fight." By taking the battle to rural-based insurgents, the Army hopes to gain the initiative, pressuring the enemy at a time and place of the Americans' choosing, rather than simply trying to catch suicide bombers as they drive into the capital.

Despite its proximity to the city, this area was visited surprisingly sporadically by U.S. troops over the last three years. Even now there are pockets where no American faces have been seen, and there still are no-go areas for U.S. troops where the roads are heavily seeded with bombs. Following counterinsurgency doctrine, Ebel doesn't want to take areas and then leave them.

But George Jr administration spin is that the military already has sufficient troops? Why would we have to leave?

It's like trying to track down a bunch of ghosts," said Sgt. Chad Wendel, sitting on an Army cot under a window frame shielded by a blanket.

"I think it's the way we're losing more soldiers" that is most bothersome, added Spec. Frank Moore, a medic from Lynchburg, Va. "It makes you wonder, what do you gain by sticking around?"

"I don't like anything about being here," agreed Spec. Matthew Ness.

Vietnam Deja Vue.

The war here has gone through three distinct phases, each with its own feel and style of operation.

The first period, from May 2003 to July 2004, was characterized by drift and wishful thinking, military insiders say, with top U.S. officials at first refusing to recognize they were facing an insurgency and then committing a series of policy and tactical blunders that appear to have enflamed opposition to the U.S. occupation.

The second phase began in the summer of 2004, when Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. replaced Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez as the top U.S. commander in Iraq and developed -- for the first time -- a U.S. campaign plan. That plan, which looked forward from August 2004 to December 2005, gave U.S. operations a new coherence, directing a series of actions intended to clear the way for Iraqi voters to establish a new government.

Now, after parliamentary elections held in December, the U.S. effort has entered a third stage. The current emphasis is on reducing the U.S. role in the war, putting Iraq army and police forces in the forefront as much as possible -- but not so fast that it breaks them, as it did in April 2004, when a battalion ordered to Fallujah mutinied.

Mutinied? When did the George Jr administration mention that when they also claimed by this time 30 Iraqi battalions would be capable of independent operation? Latest Pentagon assesment changes that number from one down to zero.

... noted Gentile, who holds a doctorate in American history from Stanford. "Two years ago I would have spent all my time talking to sheiks."

IOW getting public support (ie to identify their neighbors who man that mortar by daylight) is no longer an option. Americans have now fallen back on rebuilding military and police forces that the George Jr administration disbanded - in direct violation even of principles in "Art of War". The one common factor that all insurgent groups and the population agree on: Americans are undesirable. Especially repeated are comment about how American drive through towns shooting indiscriminately. Anyone gets within 300 yards can have their radiator shot out. Yes, this makes friends.

I realize the underlying concepts are repetitive. But the same concepts demonstrate how new facts only point in one direction. The Mission Accomplished war is not being won.

I am struck as how honest so many commanders were in that Frontline report "The Insurgency". One said that he cannot lose this war. But he cannot win this war either. Mission Accomplished?

... noted Gentile, who holds a doctorate in American history from Stanford. "Two years ago I would have spent all my time talking to sheiks." ...

The biggest difference in Baghdad from two or three years ago is the nearly total absence of U.S. troops on its streets. In a major gamble, the city largely has been turned over to Iraqi police and army troops. ... The streets of the capital already feel as unsafe as at any time since the 2003 invasion. As one U.S. major put it, Baghdad now resembles a pure Hobbesian state where all are at war against all others and any security is self-provided.

Army Reserve Capt. A. Heather Coyne, an outspoken former White House counterterrorism official, said, "There is a total lack of security in the streets, partly because of the insurgents, partly because of criminals, and partly because the security forces can be dangerous to Iraqi citizens too."

In their first deployment, the 101st Airborne took Mosul. Since Brennen and the George Jr administration had no plans for peace for 7 months and since American bureaucrats never came to Mosul, then this Commander commandeered other funds to start his own nation building. He knew that without such programs, all military victory would be lost. Mosul had no insurgency when the 101st left. After those 101st rebuilding programs terminated, an insurgency started in Mosul.

Ironic that the 101st is now deployed in a country that is what its commander feared. Not only did we not have enough troops. We did not have enough intelligence in the George Jr administration to understand "Mission Accomplished" had never happened yet – phase one of the war. Too little too late because George Jr said Americans don't do nation building. Mission Accomplished. We have met the enemy and he is us. Vietnam deja vue. The president says we are winning this 'Mission Accomplished' war - details be damned - just like an MBA.

[tw]

How does this differ from a concentration camp? From the NY Times of 26 Feb 2006:

A Growing Afghan Prison Rivals Bleak Guantanamo
... one Defense Department official who has toured the detention center. Comparing the prison with Guantanamo, the official added, "Anyone who has been to Bagram would tell you it's worse."

... or where to move Guantanamo prisoners when the Supreme Court finally orders Guantanamo to conform to American and International laws.

C.I.A.'s effort to unload some detainees from its so-called black sites had provoked tension among some officials at the Pentagon, who have frequently objected to taking responsibility for terror suspects cast off by the intelligence agency.

But the administration says those black sites did not exist. Is somebody lying?

[tw]

The Democratic process did not save S Vietnam. Deja Vue. Suddenly it will save Iraq and Afghanistan? Do these people learn from history?
From Washington Post of 1 Mar 2006:

Growing Threat Seen In Afghan Insurgency
The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency told Congress yesterday that the insurgency in Afghanistan is growing and will increase this spring, presenting a greater threat to the central government's expansion of authority "than at any point since late 2001."

"Despite significant progress on the political front, the Taliban-dominated insurgency remains a capable and resilient threat," Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples said in a statement presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee at its annual hearing on national security threats. ...

Negroponte, in his prepared remarks, acknowledged that "the volume and geographic scope of attacks increased last year," but he added, "the Taliban and other militants have not been able to stop the democratic process" being undertaken by the central government of President Hamid Karzai.

[tw]

He should be up for impeachment, another example of why MBA educated executives are THE reason for failure.
Notice every news service - including international ones - are posting stream after stream of examples - George Jr is the worst American president in generations - maybe in history. Also note silence from those who had less intelligence and therefore voted for him.

Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina
Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

The footage along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Linked by secure video, Bush expressed a confidence on Aug. 28 that starkly contrasted with the dire warnings his disaster chief and numerous federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

"I'm concerned about - their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe," Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall. ...

The article then quotes some adminstration bullshit that are obviously classic lies. Don't even bother to read their Rush Limbaugh spin. It only insults your own intelligence. Instead, back to reality -

Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. He later clarified, saying officials believed, wrongly, after the storm passed that the levees had survived. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility even before the storm and Bush was worried too.

Oh, so he lied again. I guess his god says that lying is OK - just like his supporters in Dover PA.

Video footage of the Aug. 28 briefing, the final one before Katrina struck, showed an intense Brown voicing concerns from the government's disaster operation center and imploring colleagues to do whatever was necessary to help victims.

"We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event," Brown warned. He called the storm "a bad one, a big one" and implored federal agencies to cut through red tape to help people, bending rules if necessary.

Bush appeared from a narrow, windowless room at his vacation ranch in Texas, with his elbows on a table. Hagin was sitting alongside him. Neither asked questions in the Aug. 28 briefing.

"I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm," the president said.

Don't forget to read that Chicago Tribune report of 4 Sept 2005 - every available resource? I bet he did not even pray to his god because that is what political extremist politicians do - lie.

"They're not taking patients out of hospitals, taking prisoners out of prisons and they're leaving hotels open in downtown New Orleans. So I'm very concerned about that," Brown said.

Despite the concerns, it ultimately took days for search and rescue teams to reach some hospitals and nursing homes.

Brown also told colleagues one of his top concerns was whether evacuees who went to the New Orleans Superdome which became a symbol of the failed Katrina response would be safe and have adequate medical care.

An aircraft carrier capable of making 100,000 gallons of fresh water every day, feeding tens of thousands every day, with six operating rooms and up to 400 hospital beds, and electric power to recharge all New Orleans emergency radios sat at sea unused for five days. Five days it was not allowed to help Katrina victims because top management - the preident - an MBA who is told what to do by god - could not be bothered to help those people. "...we are fully prepared to not only help you..." But then as usual, I don't make this stuff up. George Jr is that anti-American as are people who support this fool:
From the Chicago Tribune of 4 Sept 2005. Register to read this article for free.
Navy ship nearby underused

ON THE USS BATAAN -- While federal and state emergency planners scramble to get more military relief to Gulf Coast communities stricken by Hurricane Katrina, a massive naval goodwill station has been cruising offshore, underused and waiting for a larger role in the effort.

[tw]

From the NY Times of 2 Mar 2006:

U.S. Is Reducing Safety Penalties for Mine Flaws
In its drive to foster a more cooperative relationship with mining companies, the Bush administration has decreased major fines for safety violations since 2001, and in nearly half the cases, it has not collected the fines, according to a data analysis by The New York Times.

Federal records also show that in the last two years the federal mine safety agency has failed to hand over any delinquent cases to the Treasury Department for further collection efforts, as is supposed to occur after 180 days. ...

At a House oversight hearing on Wednesday, agency officials repeatedly cited the frequency of fines against Sago in the year before the accident as proof of aggressive enforcement. Exasperated, Representative Lynn Woolsey, Democrat of California, replied that maybe those fines had little effect because many were for $60. That point set off applause from audience members.] ...

"Operators know that it's cheaper to pay the fine than to fix the problem," Mr. Addington said. "But they also know the cheapest of all routes is to not pay at all. It's pretty galling."

So while relations between government and industry get better, some trapped men in a Sago mine did not even have 55 gallon barrels storing 24 hours of emergency oxygen. Why should they? It's not required by law. They only had two hours worth of oxygen - whatever they had carried with them. Yes nobody thought the levees would be breached. That too is about good relations rather than being product oriented - solving problems.

Rush Limbaugh is also about good relations. Its called propaganda.

[tw]

From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on 1 Mar 2006:

Poll finds that most U.S. troops are in favor of withdrawal
Nearly 3 out of 4 U.S. troops serving in Iraq think U.S. forces should withdraw within a year, and more than 1 in 4 say the United States should leave immediately, according to a new poll published Tuesday.

The poll, conducted by Zogby International and the Center for Peace and Global Studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y., was a rare effort to determine the views of U.S. troops serving in a ground war.

Of those surveyed, 29 percent said U.S. forces should leave Iraq immediately, 22 percent said they should leave within six months and 21 percent said within six to 12 months. Twenty-three percent agreed with President Bush's call for troops to stay "as long as they are needed" and 5 percent were unsure.

David Segal, a military sociologist at the University of Maryland, said that although most service members are more conservative than society as a whole, it wasn't surprising to see them reflect attitudes similar to civilians, who increasingly oppose the war. ...

The survey was conducted without the Pentagon's permission.

So when do we start going after bin Laden?

[tw]

From the NY Times of 7 Mar 2006 is a report that only repeats what every decent American has long known. Only enlisted men buy dog collars to torture prisoners. General Miller types don't institute torture first in Guantanamo, and then in two cell blocks in Abu Ghraid:

Amnesty Report on 14,000 Finds Prisoner Abuse Continues in Iraq
Amnesty International accused the United States and its allies on Monday of committing widespread abuses in Iraq, including torture and the continued detention of thousands of prisoners without charge or trial. ...

In its report, "Beyond Abu Ghraib: Detention and Torture in Iraq," Amnesty International also said the level of abuse by Iraqi forces since the transfer of power in June 2004 was increasing .

The United States and its allies, the report said, have "established procedures which deprive detainees of human rights guaranteed in international law and standards."

US routinely condones torture and outright violations of basic human rights. Nothing new here.

At the end of November 2005, the report said, quoting coalition figures, more than 14,000 prisoners were held in Iraq

We can trust George Jr to be honest - to claim these are only criminals. After all, would god's chosen president lie to us? Just look at the videotape of Katrina.

Good thing the abuse is increasing. Otherwise Americans might be at greater risk.

Ironic that N Korea kidnapped citizens from other countries and America stays silent. Instead we name it to make it legal: rendition. No nation does this more rendition than America. And nobody expected the Spanish Inquistion. Once upon a time, that was a joke. Then god selected America's president.

[tw]

From the BBC of 10 Mar 2006:

Doctors attack US over Guantanamo
More than 250 medical experts have signed a letter condemning the US for force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The doctors said physicians at the military prison had to respect inmates' right to refuse treatment.

The letter, in the medical journal, the Lancet, said doctors who used restraints and force-feeding should be punished by their professional bodies.

Let's see. The citizens of Oregon voted for euthanasia. But big brother - fringe extremist whose religion knows what is better for Oregon - decided that Oregaonians are too stupid to authorize euthenasia. Even the Supreme Court chastised a mental midget administration for dictatorial actions. Ironic these same dictators approve of and promote torture. So now victims of another Spanish Inquisition want to die. Again, only George Jr - champion mental midget - knows that is wrong.

When did god so hate you and me to give us George Jr? What is wrong with this logic? Well, it assumes god exists. Only satan would give us George Jr - the worst president since ... well Nixon was only a crook.

The open letter in the Lancet was signed by more than 250 top doctors from seven countries - the UK, the US, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands.

Those prisioners may be fed by pushing tubes up their noses.

Dr David Nicholl, a UK neurologist ... told the Reuters news agency the allegations of force-feeding represented "a challenge" to the American Medical Association, which is a signatory to the World Medical Association's code of conduct.

"Are they going to obey those declarations [forbidding force-feeding], or are... [they] literally not worth the paper they are written on?" he asked.

[tw]

As long time Cellar Dwellers read here, Brent Scowcroft, adviser to and close friend of George Sr, worried long about a potential for Civil War in Iraq. Most back then who read that here probably totally discounted it. Scowcroft was also one of the few among Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfovitz (they initially opposed the rescue) who correctly identified the invasion of Kuwait as a smoking gun. Scowcroft was noted by this author because he tends to see reality. Most readers probably discounted his warnings.

George Jr insists we were winning some fictitious war on terror. Now even George Jr's Sec of Defense is answering what we will do if and when an impending Civil War breaks out.

Another in a long list of citations of facts and reality, ABC News of 10 Mar 2006:

Rumsfeld: Iraqis Would Deal With Civil War
Dealing with a civil war in Iraq would be the responsibility of Iraq's own security forces, at least initially, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress on Thursday.

Testifying alongside senior military leaders and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Rumsfeld said he did not believe Iraq would descend into all-out civil war, though he acknowledged that sectarian strife had worsened.

So Iraqis will deal with a Civil War that is not happening. How can this be? The president said we were winning the "Mission Accomplished" war. A latest Defense Department assessment puts the number of independently operating Iraqi battalions from one down to zero. So how will Iraqi troops alone quell a Civil War? Deja Vue Vietnam.

Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, said the situation in Iraq had evolved to the point where Sunni-Shiite violence was more of a threat to U.S. success there than the insurgency, ...

So an insurgency that was growing by hundreds of percents every year is not as much a threat? Clearly America is winning this "Misson Accomplished" war while threatening to attack Iran.

Someone please show us sanity in any of this. Oh.. This was god's chosen government. And nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition - except this author how many years ago? Yes I am pissed at how our leaders and so many citizens have so much contempt for America and her principles. Clearly we are not torturing people. That would not be Christian .... extremist.

Rumsfeld previously had been reluctant to say what the U.S. military would do in the event of civil war, but in an appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee he was pressed on the matter by Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.

"The plan is to prevent a civil war, and to the extent one were to occur, to have the from a security standpoint have the Iraqi security forces deal with it, to the extent they are able to," Rumsfeld told the committee.

Silly me. The solution was so obvious. Deny it will happen.