Officials said the reduced tour length will not apply to any soldiers currently serving in Iraq, Afghanistan or other war zones

Now that’s what I call some fine print!

No sane manager would continue to invest in this war with no timeframe for victory and better alternatives available.

Go to Africa and save thousands more people for one tenth of the price!

Good Morning Attaturk and thanks!
Nice of Georgie to eliminate the 15 month tour for soldiers, too bad it doesn’t apply to the soldiers actually there. Show’s what a thoughtful, caring man he is.

…
Crocker Petraeus press conference at 9:00 am on CSPAN 3.

And here’s what’s on Washington Journal this morning:
7:00 am - Newspaper Articles & Viewer Calls
7:30 am - Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) 13th District, Armed Services Committee Member
8:00 am - Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) 1st District, Armed Services Committee Member
8:30 am - Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD)
9:00 am - Fmr. Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA), 1995-2003
9:30 am - Newspaper Articles & Viewer Calls

LINK to submit questions for the guests

Call-In Numbers
Support Democrats:
(202) 737-0002
Support Republicans:
(202) 737-0001
Support Independents:
(202) 628-0205
Outside U.S.:
(202) 628-0184

out the door, see you pups later…

couple of things before I head out

first, think progress has a piece up that claims powell ok’d the torture of our prisoners

though I have been disapointed in the man for his failure standing up to this president, it is not easy for me to believe he gave his ok on toruring those we gathered in our occupation

I would like to see his defense of the nbc piece think prgress is linking to right now

the other thing is move on has an incredible youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....gress.org/

100 year war, 6 months at a time

this should make a very nice campaign peice for either candidate and I hope one or both of them adopt it, have a look

Good morning, pups. It’s Collins, Cohen and Kristof in the NYT today. La Collins’ column is titled “Pinochle Politics,” and she says it might be a good idea for all three presidential candidates to disavow in advance anything stupid a supporter, adviser or a staffer says for the rest of this year. (Maybe St. McCain should apologize up front for all his future mixing up of Sunni and Shi’ite…) Mr. Cohen writes about “Asia’s Republican Leanings,” and says China, India and Japan have all had reasons to view President Bush with favor, and all have nagging fears about a Democratic administration. Mr. Kristof has a “Memo to Bush on Darfur,” and says this week marks the 14th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. If President Bush wants to end his shameful passivity, he should take some concrete steps. I’m not going to hold my breath…

http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and the biscuits are out of the oven. There’s also some nice, crispy bacon so you can make yourself a bacon biscuit should the mood hit you. I’m having one of those with a second cup of tea. Have a great day.

here’s the link from raw story

In addition to Rice, the principals at the time included Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft, the report said.

the only surprise in there is powel, I think someone needs to ask him or his chief of staff directly the accuracy of this point

12 months but not if you are currently serving in Iraq War zone!
Catch 22 ,yup ,that’s the best catch we have.

ABC News accuses Rice, Ashcroft, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and Tenet of conspiring to commit war crimes: http://www.youtube.com/v/-5UyCQp-IM0&hl=en

let me take that back, while I am surprised and disapointed in powell, I am also surprised in tenet

shows, how bad my estimate of men

Amazing, I just cannot imagine the troops getting fucked. How could that possibly be, we should write some letters.

I hope D.C. is full of signs along the route to the Capitol and swearing in of our new President. Chimpy will be riding with Obama or Clinton, and Commander Guy will try not to look, but weary Americans can craft some eye-catching-soul-refreshers. “Is our war criminals learning?” comes to mind.

I hope that bells will ring all over the Land at the moment the new President is sworn in.

Good morning all. Perris I am surprised you are surprised about powell he is a sycophant, a snivelling, lying ass kissing prick….the same as all the people at the WH.. He knew perfectly well that there were no MWD, he knew damn well that the aluminium tubes and yellow cake stories were bullshit but he was happy to go along with them as long as it was good for him.

It’s pretty obvious that these thugs are trying to kick this down the road and dump it on the next likely dem administration and congress.

While they will get us out, it will will be a disaster and the real horrors will be even more obvious. I don’t know that the dems will be blamed for this entirely, but many enabled it for 8 years without screaming bloody murder.

It will be interesting to see is they can turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. It will be also interesting to see when the shit hits the fan if they try to pin this on the last administration and have some intense accountability moments. At least the real heat would be directed at the criminals of this administration. I sure hope they are not immune from prosecution in this country. A bunch of congressional hearings with apologies won’t cut it for me.

We’ve past thru a period of real criminal behavior both nationally and internationally by these thugs. We can’t move on without settling this up.

Chimpy will be riding with Obama or Clinton

No he should be riding in a prison wagon

Powell says he can’t specifically recall authorizing torture? I find that almost impossible to believe.

I’d certainly vote for a prison wagon, but it will take a while to lock him up, and in the meantime, we can have fun.

I’d certainly vote for a prison wagon, but it will take a while to lock him up, and in the meantime, we can have fun.

Rotten tomato(e)s (if the mods let it go!)

That’s because you are a sane, honest person, Marion. Powell thinks he can still get away with crap like that.

And when Chimpy drives to Andrews to fly home, maybe the people can line the streets armed with Truth or Consequences buzzers and stick their tongues out at the Decider. More signs and bronx cheers would be in order.

Coming soon to a theater near Yoo:

John Ashcroft starring as Mr. Gravitas.

Who would have thunk it?

I presume that he’ll be taken into custody at the end of the ceremony.

I presume that he’ll be taken into custody at the end of the ceremony.

Nope. Edwards withdrew from the race.

LOL, Allan!

Good morning.

I see there’s some day dreaming going on his this morning.

Re: Powell, there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to get ahead.
Tenet? Never ever had the patina of independence. Always wanted to come across as the hale fellow, well met, so he’d go along with everything W wanted.

Two quick points:
1) If they change the deployment rules soon enough, can’t someone be deployed and return before someone else who is already there? Sounds like a serious bummer!
2) I’ll just be glad when the whole bush thing is over. I keep having these nightmares about “terrorist attacks” requiring “marshal law” and “postponing” the election. After all the other crap this administration has pulled, I can’t quite dismiss this (or other similar) scenario(s)…

We had a coup, but a bunch of power hungry right wing ideologues who came to power by promising the MIC some big time sweet honey, finishing the job in the ME so that the DOD could have its image of invincibility restored and our boys could grasp control of the world’s oil market from OPEC, blow out Israel’s enemies, use all the high tech military hardware we has spend billions on and needed to be battle tested and of course replaced with more and newer. They exploited the religious right for their support of hegemony of Christianity over Islam, traded on racism, and the notion of patriotism and vengeance to drag the people to do their bidding, and massaged the corporate media to sell the war and make oodles of money doing it. Along they way they trashed our constitution, our system of checks and balances and rendered the congress and the justice system largely ineffective at preventing the nightmare which was their right wing agenda.

And to pay for all of these excessive they borrowed from the future generations, while ignore virtually all the human needs of our people, in NOLA, for health care, for infrastructure maintenance, for a sane environmental and energy policy, so that business could continue to make insane profits and Wall street could create all sorts of new ponzi schemes to transfer more wealth from the people to the uber rich.

It was a right wing coup alright and it was accomplished using all the tricks that worked in the past - fear of foreign invasion, trust in the wisdom and intention of the executive branch, and the mantra that private industry solves all problems better than government. We spied on our people, we tortured others, we rendered (anyone) to instill fear that you don’t mess around with Uncle Sam.

W squandered any good will the world had for the USA brand, including the support after 911. anthrax and Katrina events. We used the UN when we wanted to attack a sovereign country, bribed other nations to come along (or else), but trashed or ignored the UN when it sanctioned our actions.

W sent the US and the world economy into recession, heading for depression, while the uber rich multiplied the wealth.

Regime change will not come too soon in the country, but it may be too late to fix everything that these SOBs have done.

it’s only the senate appropriations committee, but hope someone asks mukasey today when the doj is going to start an investigation wrt the abc report.

No comment from Powell’s spokespeople. I suppose I will wait to see what Powell’s response is but I tend to think he caved in on this just as he did on all else. I’ve had no use for Powell after reading he accepted a Jaguar gift from Prince Bandar just days after leaving his position. It’s all so cozy & fuzzy warm in those circles.

i’d like all of them to get the chance to respond to the charges - but i’d like it to be under oath, because they all have a history of lying.

… and i just don’t see why powell wouldn’t go along. that’s what he’s always done (as far as i can see).

Let me see if I’ve got this straight: All non-combat tours of duty will be reduced from 15 months to 12 months. So the military will be able to send soldier currently stationed in Germany more readily to Iraq or Afghanistan where he can be stop-lossed indefinitely. Such a deal. What a lovely administration. Always looking out for the troops.

It was a right wing coup alright and it was accomplished using all the tricks that worked in the past

Including the support and financing of the DLC in order to take over the Dem party with, of course, the support of the power hungry clintons now manifesting itself with the “off the table” stance of whacky nancy and the “promotion” of Mccain over obama by clinton2

Apparently there is squabbling among 2 camps over McCain’s foreign policy. The name Kissinger crops up…

In the video of ABC’s report http://www.youtube.com/v/-5UyCQp-IM0&hl=en Powell is quoted as saying through spokesmen that there were hundreds of meetings of the NSC principals. He doesn’t remember these particular meetings, and if he did, he’d not be at liberty to discuss them.

pictures and reports from yesterday’s olympic torch protest

WOW! McCain’s foreign policy team:

Among those on the list are several prominent neoconservatives, including Robert Kagan, an author who helped write much of the foreign policy speech that Mr. McCain delivered in Los Angeles on March 26, in which he described himself as “a realistic idealist.” Others include the security analyst Max Boot and a former United Nations ambassador, John R. Bolton.

wigwam@33:
Well OK then. With hundreds of meetings it really is understandable one would forget a few on torture.

wigwam@33:
Well OK then. With hundreds of meetings it really is understandable one would forget a few on torture.

Especially the part about the thumbscrews.

Mornin’ all!

FWIW, one of the co-authors of the “Three Trillion-Dollar War,” economist Joe Stiglitz is coming up in the next segment on CNBC.

allan@37:
Heh.

Thank you for the picshure up top, Attaturk.

It’s time for that to be seen by the whole world.

Both Jack Balkin and Marty Lederman think that prosecution of the Bushies is unlikely:
– http://balkin.blogspot.com/200.....am-on.html
– http://balkin.blogspot.com/200.....uting.html
Per Balkin:

And putting aside the purely legal obstacles to a prosecution for war crimes, there’s also the political cost. Why would an Obama or Clinton Administration waste precious political capital early on with a politically divisive prosecution of former government officials? One can imagine the screaming of countless pundits arguing that the Democrats were trying to criminalize political disagreements about foreign policy. Such a prosecution would make politics extremely bitter and derail any chance for bipartisan cooperation on almost any significant issue. Obama or Clinton would rather get a health care bill passed, deal with the economy, or try to solve the Iraq mess, than have the first several years of their Administrations consumed by a prosecution for war crimes by officials in the Bush Administration.

I’m very disappointed, actually disgusted, but I think Jack and Marty are correct.

So, what I think should and will happen is that the top people in the Bush administration will be tried and convicted in absentia outside the U.S., and from then on they’ll not dare set foot in any country that extradites to the places where they’ve been convicted, i.e., most of the rest of the world.

Why would an Obama or Clinton Administration waste precious political capital early on with a politically divisive prosecution of former government officials?

the answer us they wouldn’t be spending political capitol they’d be gathering it

they would be marked among the greatest presidents ever to serve

the very question begs the question

Why would an Obama or Clinton Administration waste precious political capital early on with a politically divisive prosecution of former government officials?

Lord yes why would they do the right thing over the political thing after all it is not the ‘mercun way. Merca bombs the shit out of countries, murders millions of people, tortures people, stands by and watches hell in Darfur but will not lift one bloody finger to bring the murderers to account. Yep it is the mercun way.

the answer us they wouldn’t be spending political capitol they’d be gathering it

I completely agree, but I doubt you could convince Obama or Clinton or their advisors of that. (I hope, however, that I’m wrong, and I promise that I’ll everthing I can to make that prediction wrong.)

I am very disappointed and disgusted too.

Kissenger is still … traveling. Rumsfeld owns Mount Misery.

We’re doomed as a nation if Balkin’s notion is true.

Marines only do 7 months as it is.

ot - Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation May Join Yahoo Bid With Microsoft

ah, Kissinger, ah, sorry.

Everything is doomed always.

Apparently there is squabbling among 2 camps over McCain’s foreign policy. The name Kissinger crops up…

For another view on this "squabbling" see Hothead McCain by Richard Dryfuss in March 24 issue of The Nation.

Joining Scheunemann, a veteran neoconservative strategist and one of the chief architects of the Iraq War, are a panoply of like-minded neocons who’ve gathered to advise McCain, including Bill Kristol, James Woolsey, Robert Kagan, Max Boot, Gary Schmitt and Maj. Ralph Peters.

To go even farther back see McCain’s Vietnam that Dryfuss wrote during the 2000 primary campaign of McCain and he sees McCain this way

McCain is too willing to call on American military power to enforce US interests overseas. Angry in temperament and pugnacious in style, McCain exhibits a swaggering readiness to avenge America’s defeat in Vietnam.

Dryfuss cites McCains view that with the proper use of unleashed American airpower the Vietnam war could have been won and also many instances over the years where he has advocated an aggressive military posture. The New York Times article McCain’s foreign policy stresses some of  McCain’s past opposition to military actions, but the new Dryfuss article Hothead McCain says this about the evolution of McCains’s views

Earlier in his Congressional career, McCain was reluctant to engage in overseas adventures unless American interests were directly threatened. He opposed US involvement in Lebanon in the early 1980s, and in Haiti and the Balkan conflicts in the early 1990s. But as the post-cold war environment seemed increasingly to promise unchallenged American hegemony, McCain took up the neocons’ call for interventionism. His views crystallized in a 1999 speech, when he called for the United States to use tough sanctions and other pressure to roll back "rogue states" like Iraq and North Korea, adding, "We must be prepared to back up these measures with American military force if the existence of such rogue states threatens America’s interests and values." In referring to "values," McCain indicates his support for the notion that a selective crusade allegedly on behalf of freedom and democracy can provide a rationale for an aggressive new foreign policy outlook.

For another view on this “squabbling” see Hothead McCain by Richard Dryfuss in March 24 issue of The Nation.

Errr Ummmm. That’s Robert Dryfuss. Richard is the actor.

1,808 DAYZ AND THWE kILLIN’GOEZ ON AND ON AND..

Citizen perris:

I think that Obama will run somethin’ akin ta the “Peace and Reconcilliation” process that they had in South Africa. That’s more like Obama’s style and I think that a special investigator may be charged with issuin reports on specific areas in coordination with the Rocconcilliation Commission.

I think thaqt Obama will try and get the story out but not bog the process down with criminal investigations and prosecutions unless it’s engineered from the Congress.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION…LET’S GET RID OF THE BASTARDS FIRST!!

Smart men, both of them, though!

Neocons and PNACians be gone!

poof.

1,808 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Raven:

Quoth the Raven, “Everthng is doomed.”

Hang in there Brother Raven, things are gunna get worse before they get any better.

KEEP THE FAITH AND DON’T LET THE BASTARDS INTO YER YARD!!

Wow! There’s reason to be pessimistic, but it gets you no place. Those who criticize Powell for “going along” go along themselves as do I. We don’t do anything but bitch about the powers that be because at this point in time there’s nothing we can do. Jane got about fifty thousand signatures to protest McCain’s abuse of election spending laws. That’s fairly small potatoes in a country of 300 million. Fifty million signatures would be better. How might we manage that?

Good Morning Attaturk and Firedogs -

Powell and My Lai - Initally there were 2 independently written letters sent to superiors about the massacre - the 1st, written by Tom Glen was sent to Gen Abrams - this letter was not just about the village but overall counterproductive treatment of locals by US Forces, using My Lai as the most egregious example -Powell was assigned there and was charged with investigating -

he dismissed it with

“In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between Americal soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent.”

a second letter written by Ridenhour (a year after the crime) was initially ignored by all its recipients save Congressman Mo Udall - this eventually led to the trials of Calley and Medina

however . . .Powell admits to war crimes in ‘My American Journey ‘-

“I recall a phrase we used in the field, MAM, for military-age male,” Powell wrote. “If a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely suspicious, a possible MAM, the pilot would circle and fire in front of him. If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the next burst was not in front, but at him. Brutal? Maybe so. But an able battalion commander with whom I had served at Gelnhausen (West Germany), Lt. Col. Walter Pritchard, was killed by enemy sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter. And Pritchard was only one of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine perceptions of right and wrong.”

there ya go - ‘ok to kill unarmed civilians ’cause a buddy of mine was killed ‘

Is our Representatives impeaching yet?

This reduction in tour length is a sop before the elections. And, I suppose, an effort to entice more souls to enlist.

Criminal administration. Enabling congress.

Blast from the past.

Bush in January 2007:

MR. LEHRER: Is there a little bit of a broken egg problem here, Mr. President, that there is instability and there is violence in Iraq - sectarian violence, Iraqis killing other Iraqis, and now the United States helped create the broken egg and now says, okay, Iraqis, it’s your problem. You put the egg back together, and if you don’t do it quickly and you don’t do it well, then we’ll get the hell out.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah, you know, that’s an interesting question. I don’t quite view it as the broken egg; I view it as the cracked egg –

MR. LEHRER: Cracked egg?

PRESIDENT BUSH: — that - where we still have a chance to move beyond the broken egg. And I thought long and hard about the decision, Jim.

let me take that back, while I am surprised and disapointed in powell, I am also surprised in tenet

shows, how bad my estimate of men

Put nothing past any of those people, including Powell. He puts on a big show about how he resisted the administration on this or that, but at the end of the day he was with them the whole way. I wouldn’t be surprised at all about Tenet, after that 60 Minutes interview where he came off like a raging juvenile. The way he talked about how he wanted to respond to 9/11 was simple-minded vengeance, not the clear tactical mind required for a top leader in the intelligence community. These people are criminals and idiots, plain and simple.

I haven’t been so impressed by such sideshow gimmicks since I was nine. Who thinks up these sleight-of-hand-as-NEW-policy gimmicks?