War Is Stupid

WASHINGTON – The Senate on Thursday passed a $91.3 billion military spending bill, shorn of money President Barack Obama wants to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but allowing him to significantly ramp up the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

The Senate voted 86-3 to pass the bill, which provides money for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, setting up House-Senate talks on a compromise measure to present to Obama next month.

The spending measure closely tracks Obama's request for war funds, although the $80 million he was seeking to close the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was dropped Wednesday. - Yahoo!

That's nuts.

Our Must-Win War (Not)

Later this month, the Obama administration will unveil a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan. This comes as most important indicators in Afghanistan are pointing in the wrong direction. President Obama's decision last month to deploy an additional 17,000 U.S. troops was an important step in the right direction, but a comprehensive overhaul of our war plan is needed, and quickly.

As the administration finalizes its policy review, we are troubled by calls in some quarters for the president to adopt a "minimalist" approach toward Afghanistan. Supporters of this course caution that the American people are tired of war and that an ambitious, long-term commitment to Afghanistan may be politically unfeasible. They warn that Afghanistan has always been a "graveyard of empires" and has never been governable. Instead, they suggest, we can protect our vital national interests in Afghanistan even while lowering our objectives and accepting more "realistic" goals there -- for instance, by scaling back our long-term commitment to helping the Afghan people build a better future in favor of a short-term focus on fighting terrorists. - The Washington Post

We are just making matters worse. Don't we understand yet...

Obama Approves Troop Surge in Afghan.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama approved adding some 17,000 U.S. troops for the flagging war in Afghanistan, his first significant move to change the course of a conflict that his closest military advisers have warned the United States is not winning.

"To meet urgent security needs, I approved a request from (Defense) Secretary Gates to deploy a Marine Expeditionary Brigade later this spring and an Army Stryker Brigade and the enabling forces necessary to support them later this summer," Obama said in a statement issued by the White House.

About 8,000 Marines are expected to go in first, followed by about 9,000 Army troops. Some 34,000 U.S. troops are already in Afghanistan. - MSNBC

Obama's already being an aggressor.

Obama's War on Terror Like Bush's

WASHINGTON — Even as it pulls back from harsh interrogations and other sharply debated aspects of George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism,” the Obama administration is quietly signaling continued support for other major elements of its predecessor’s approach to fighting Al Qaeda.

In little-noticed confirmation testimony recently, Obama nominees endorsed continuing the C.I.A.’s program of transferring prisoners to other countries without legal rights, and indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trials even if they were arrested far from a war zone.

The administration has also embraced the Bush legal team’s arguments that a lawsuit by former C.I.A. detainees should be shut down based on the “state secrets” doctrine. It has also left the door open to resuming military commission trials.

And earlier this month, after a British court cited pressure by the United States in declining to release information about the alleged torture of a detainee in American custody, the Obama administration issued a statement thanking the British government “for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information.” - New York Times

No change.

24 Soldiers Committed Suicide in January

From therawstory...

The Army's suicide rate is the highest it has been in three decades, and a week-long series of articles at Salon.com has been highlighting what it calls "habitual mistreatment behind the preventable deaths."

Paul Rieckhoff, the founder and executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Thursday, "In January, we lost approximately 24 soldiers in the Army to suicide. That's more folks than we lost in combat. ... We lost more soldiers to suicide than to al Qaeda."

"If we lost that many soldiers to an enemy weapon system, the entire country would be outraged," Rieckhoff continued. "The Pentagon would be scrambling to do something about it. We need the same level of urgency around these suicides."

As Bill Baer said, "Aiming to make anything look like New Jersey is setting the bar very, very low."(You have to read the entire story to get the reference)

The Real Guantanamo?

I recently visited the detention facilities at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was dismayed at what I saw. The place was nothing like what I expected, and I was struck by how little we Americans actually know about these facilities and the conduct of our personnel there. With every new interview and every new area walk-through I hoped to find some validation of the certainties I brought with me from the hundreds of articles, documentaries, and speeches presented to the American people by our intellectual superiors.

Instead, my experiences at Guantanamo Bay illustrate the thoroughness of the miseducation of the American people and our willingness to assume the worst about our men and women in uniform. Furthermore, the visit clearly demonstrated that there is a widespread ignorance of the complexity of the situation that we face in the current war against our terrorist enemies. This ignorance results in a focus on superficial issues instead of core questions, and a naive trust in false stories and an astonishing proclivity to be misled... - http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/a-firsthand-look-at-the-real-guantanamo/

This is the other side. Neo-cons can be dangerous. I tend to agree with one commenter Sean:

"Forget the Geneva convention, we have something called a Constitution. Gitmo was specifically created to get around the Constitution. I, for one, am sick of the Fear propaganda employed by the Bush Administration since 9/11 to wipe their asses with the Constitution and strip us of our Constitutional liberties. Our soldiers are fighting for our constitutional liberties and freedom? Really? That’s what they’re doing? Funny, considering since the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq we have less Constitutional freedoms and civil liberties in this Country."

Ron Paul on Gaza

Navy Announces Anti-Piracy Force

U.S. Navy officials have announced the formation of a new international force to fight piracy in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf Aden off the coast of Somalia.

A statement Thursday issued by the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet says the task force will include assets from 20 nations, and will be led by U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Terence McKnight. The statement did not name the specific nations participating in the force.

Warships from a number of nations including China, Malaysia and the European Union are already patrolling the region to secure the shipping lanes.

Better than this than to fight another kind of piracy.

Obama To End Gays in Military Taboo

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Sixteen years after Bill Clinton tried to end restrictions on gays in the military, the US armed forces under Barack Obama may be forced to give homosexuals the same welcome as non-gays.

Under president Clinton, the policy that once saw homosexuals discharged from US military service evolved to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," allowing gays to remain in the military so long as they did not reveal their sexual orientation.

Obama has pledged to overhaul current law.

Bill Hicks, please advise:

Iraq Update: Talabani Thanks U.S

Talabani thanked the United States for helping create a democratic Iraq "which will serve as a model for other peoples of the eastern world." He explicitly praised U.S. President George W. Bush for the "courageous and historic" decision to topple dictator Saddam.

U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker said the embassy's opening marked a new era for ties between the countries as "equals."

But some Iraqis, like Basim al-Hindi, 46, a security guard working in downtown Baghdad, saw more sinister motives behind the new coral-colored compound.

"They just want to retain their control in the heart of the Green Zone," he said. "The sovereignty is all America's."

U.S. forces on New Year's Day handed over responsibility to Iraqi troops for the Green Zone, a fortified compound in the heart of Baghdad off limits to most Iraqis. The new embassy, like the palace that housed it before, is located in the zone. - Yahoo! News

I wouldn't be surprised if Iraq is more democratic than the United States.

Troops To Stay National/Local

A new report from the U.S. Army War College discusses the use of
American troops to quell civil unrest brought about by a worsening
economic crisis.

The report from the War College’s Strategic Studies Institute warns
that the U.S. military must prepare for a “violent, strategic
dislocation inside the United States” that could be provoked by
“unforeseen economic collapse” or “loss of functioning political and
legal order.”

Entitled “Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in
Defense Strategy Development,” the report was produced by
Nathan Freier, a recently retired Army lieutenant colonel who is a
professor at the college — the Army’s main training institute for
prospective senior officers. - Global Research

It's better to have them home than overseas.

Russia to Increase Nuclear Missile Production

Russia has thrown down a new gauntlet to Barack Obama with an announcement that it will sharply increase production of strategic nuclear missiles.

In the latest of a series of combative moves by the Kremlin, a senior government official in Moscow said the Russian military would commission 70 strategic missiles over the next three years, as part of a massive rearmament programme which will also include short-range missiles, 300 tanks, 14 warships and 50 planes.

Military experts said the planned new arsenal was presumed to consist of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) rather than submarine-launched missiles. If this is the case, the plans represent a fourfold increase in the rate of ICBM deployment. The arsenal will include a new-generation, multiple-warhead ICBM called the RS-24. It was first test-fired in 2007, with first deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov boasting it was "capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defence systems". - Guardian

Dumb.

U.S Troops To Increase In Afghan.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The top U.S. military officer said Saturday that the Pentagon could double the number of American forces in Afghanistan by next summer to 60,000 - the largest estimate of potential reinforcements ever publicly suggested.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that between 20,000 and 30,000 additional U.S. troops could be sent to Afghanistan to bolster the 31,000 already there.

This year has been the deadliest for U.S. forces in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban for hosting al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Suicide attacks and roadside bombs have become more dangerous, and Taliban fighters have infiltrated wide swaths of countryside and now roam in provinces on Kabul's doorstep.

Shouldn't be double, but rather cut in half.

Funny Pic of the Day (12/04/08)

92 Nations Sign Cluster-Bomb Ban

OSLO, Norway -- An Afghan teenager who lost both legs in a cluster bomb explosion helped persuade his country to change its stance and join nearly 100 nations in signing a treaty Wednesday banning the disputed weapons.

Afghanistan was initially reluctant to join the pact which the United States and Russia have refused to support but agreed to after lobbying by victims maimed by cluster munitions, including 17-year-old Soraj Ghulan Habib. The teen, who uses a wheelchair, met with his country's ambassador to Norway, Jawed Ludin, at a two-day signing conference in Oslo.

"I explained to the ambassador my situation, and that the people of Afghanistan wanted a ban," Habib, who said he was crippled by a cluster bomb seven years ago, told The Associated Press. - AP

If only Habib could convince the United States and Russia...

Military To Bolster Homeland Security

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement. - Washington Post

Homeland insecurity as Chris would say. Count me in as one of those critics.

China Owns The U.S?

America outspends China on defense by a margin of more than six to one, the Pentagon estimates. [1] In another strategic dimension, though, China already holds a six-to-one advantage over the United States. Thirty-six million Chinese children study piano today, compared to only 6 million in the United States.[2] The numbers understate the difference, for musical study in China is more demanding.

It must be a conspiracy. Chinese parents are selling plasma-screen TVs to America, and saving their wages to buy their kids pianos - making American kids stupider and Chinese kids smarter. Watch out, Americans - a generation from now, your kid is going to fetch coffee for a Chinese boss. That is a bit of an exaggeration, of course - some of the bosses will be Indian. Americans really, really don’t have a clue what is coming down the pike. The present shift in intellectual capital in favor of the East has no precedent in world history. - Asia Times

It's not a competition! But yeah, Americans are dumb.

Rumsfield on Iraq Troop Surge

THE surge in Iraq has been one of the most impressive military accomplishments in recent years. It has been so successful that the emerging consensus is that what may now be needed in Afghanistan is a similar surge of American forces. President-elect Barack Obama campaigned on his intention to do so, as did his former opponent, John McCain.

As one who is occasionally — and incorrectly — portrayed as an opponent of the surge in Iraq, I believe that while the surge has been effective in Iraq, we must also recognize the conditions that made it successful. President Bush’s bold decision to deploy additional troops to support a broader counterinsurgency strategy of securing and protecting the Iraqi people was clearly the right decision. More important, though, it was the right decision at the right time. - New York Times

There's a such thing as an effective troop surge?

Iraq Safer Than Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) ― An estimated 125 people were shot and killed over the summer. That's nearly double the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq over the same time period.

In May, cbs2chicago.com began tracking city shootings and posting them on Google maps. Information compiled from our reporters, wire service reports and the Chicago Police Major Incidents log indicated that 125 people were shot and killed throughout the city between the start of Memorial Day weekend on May 26, and the end of Labor Day on Sept. 1.

According to the Defense Department, 65 U.S. soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq. About the same number were killed in Afghanistan over that same period. - Cbs2Chicago

Sucks for Chicago. This may just be a classic example of cherry picking, though.

Iraqi Leader: Get Out!

BAGHDAD (AP) - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki dug in his heels Monday on the future of the U.S. military in Iraq, insisting that all foreign soldiers leave the country by a specific date in 2011 and rejecting legal immunity for American troops.

Despite the tough words, al-Maliki's aides insisted a compromise could be found on the two main stumbling blocks to an accord governing the U.S. military presence in Iraq after a United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year.

Last week, U.S. and Iraqi officials said the two sides agreed tentatively to a schedule that includes a broad pullout of combat troops by the end of 2011 with the possibility that a residual U.S. force might stay behind to continue training and advising Iraqi security services.

Let's listen to the man, damnit!