"The President's Policies in Iraq Are Breaking the United States Army": " Mr. President, I rise once again to comment on the deeply disturbing consequences of the President's misguided policies in Iraq. I have spoken before about my grave concern that the Administration's Iraq policies are actually strengthening the hand of our enemies, fueling the insurgency's recruitment of foreign fighters and unifying elements of the insurgency that might otherwise turn on each other.

    

But today, Mr. President, I want to focus on a different and equally alarming issue - which is, that the Bush Administration's policies in Iraq are making America weaker. And none of us should stand by and allow this to continue.

    

It is shocking to me that this Senate has not found the time and energy to take up the Defense Authorization bill and give that bill the full debate and attention that it deserves. Our men and women in uniform, and our military families, continue to make real sacrifices every day in service to this country. They perform their duties with skill and honor, sometimes in the most difficult of circumstances. But the Senate has not performed its duties - and the state of the US military desperately needs our attention."

(Via t r u t h o u t.)

Martini Republic » Bill Bennett’s racist heart revealed at last: "Bill Bennett, yesterday:

…if you wanted to reduce crime, you could - if that were your sole purpose - abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.

Learn who you can do about that here.

No apologies need to be heard, however. We’ve heard enough. You can’t formulate such a construction without possessing a racist, hatemongering, hate-speech-tolerant heart. Bill Bennett needs to be removed from mainstream media."

(Via Martini Republic.)

t r u t h o u t - Eugene Robinson | Immoral Majority: "Ronald Reagan changed everything, shifting the nation's center of gravity to the right. In retrospect, whatever you thought of Reagan's policies - and I didn't like them - the man at least had a certain generosity of spirit. His idea of the black experience in America may have been Sammy Davis Jr.'s career, his views of women may have been antediluvian and his impression of gay people may have come exclusively from dining with Nancy's friends, but at least he had some experience of people unlike himself and an appreciation of their humanity.

    

The crowd now in control of Washington, thanks in part to DeLay's undeniable skills, could best be described as Reagan's illegitimate heirs.

    

Theirs is a greedy, small-minded conservatism. In their policies, they seek not to improve government, and certainly not to shrink it, but to ruin it - to starve the regulatory agencies with tax cuts, then spend so wildly on pork that there's nothing left to pay for actual government work such as, say, preparing for a hurricane.

    

The Republican Party's 'small government' rhetoric is hilarious, but while you're laughing, keep a grip on your wallet. Since 2000, the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled, to an astonishing 34,750. That's a lot of mouths at the trough."

(Via t r u t h o u t.)

Salon.com - War Room: "Month after month, as the Army missed its recruiting targets this year, Pentagon officials expressed confidence that the Army would get a summer surge of recruits and meet its goal of signing up 80,000 new soldiers by the time the fiscal year ended.

It didn't happen.

While the final numbers aren't in yet, the Associated Press says that the year ending today will be the worst for Army recruiting in more than 25 years."

(Via Salon.)

Lawmakers Call On Bush to Announce Plan For US Withdrawal From Iraq: "A small number of Republicans have joined Democrats supporting a bipartisan resolution calling on the president to announce a plan for beginning the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.

Congressman Walter Jones, who broke with the House Republican leadership earlier this year on Iraq, recalls a statement in 1999 by George W. Bush when he was governor of Texas, urging then President Clinton to put forward a plan for withdrawing U.S. forces from Kosovo.

'That is all we are doing with this bipartisan resolution, Republican and Democrat. We are saying to the president, we are asking you to do the same thing that you asked President Clinton to do in 1999,' Mr. Jones says.

Supporters of the resolution have managed to gather backing from only about 60 House members, most of them Democrats.

However, they were joined at a Capitol Hill news conference by retired Lieutenant General William Odom, a former director of the National Security Agency.

He asserts that a continuing, long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq, with no specific timetable for withdrawal, prevents the United States from getting the support it will need from others to address broader security concerns:

'We need a broad coalition of Europeans and our allies in Asia to put things in order from the eastern Mediterranean to the eastern borders of Afghanistan,' Mr. Odom says. ' We need a lot of strong countries on our side. We cannot do that as long as we are in Iraq. The precondition for a serious and effective strategic engagement to stabilize this region requires withdrawal and admittance to others that we may have made an error.

Also at the news conference was Chris Prebble, Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the CATO Institute in Washington:

'For many Americans, as long as necessary has proved too long. Numerous polls now show waning public support for the war in Iraq,' he says. 'And I think it is important that the public senses a strategic reality. It is not in our interest to sustain an indefinite military presence in Iraq."

(Via GlobalSecurity.org.)

Disappearing Antiwar Protests: "Hundreds of thousands of Americans around the country protested the Iraq War on the weekend of September 24-25, with the largest demonstration bringing between 100,000 and 300,000 to Washington, D.C. on Saturday.

But if you relied on television for your news, you'd hardly know the protests happened at all. According to the Nexis news database, the only mention on the network newscasts that Saturday came on the NBC Nightly News, where the massive march received all of 87 words. (ABC World News Tonight transcripts were not available for September 24, possibly due to pre-emption by college football.)

Cable coverage wasn't much better. CNN, for example, made only passing references to the weekend protests. CNN anchor Aaron Brown offered an interesting explanation (9/24/05):

'There was a huge 100,000 people in Washington protesting the war in Iraq today, and I sometimes today feel like I've heard from all 100,000 upset that they did not get any coverage, and it's true they didn't get any coverage. Many of them see conspiracy. I assure you there is none, but it's just the national story today and the national conversation today is the hurricane that put millions and millions of people at risk, and it's just kind of an accident of bad timing, and I know that won't satisfy anyone but that's the truth of it.'

To hear Brown tell it, a 24-hour cable news channel is somehow unable to cover more than one story at a time-- and the 'national conversation' is something that CNN just listens in on, rather than helping to determine through its coverage choices."

(Via Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.)

LewRockwell.com Blog: The 10 most dangerous jobs: "MSN featured this one today. I thought about how much nonsense we're fed about how dangerous being in law-enforcement is. We're told how these people lay their lives on the line every day, and when one of them does get killed, they're given a massive state funeral at taxpayer expense.

Yet, you never hear about how roofers and fishermen put theit lives on the line, even though their jobs are more dangerous. And, to be sure, we certainly get far more daily utility out of a good roof than out of any law enforcement agency.

In reality, law enforcement spends most of its time 'enforcing' counter-productive drug laws and citing us for petty traffic offenses. I worked on a cattle ranch when I was young, and I can assure you, I was never in grave danger more frequently than when I was around those horses and cows."

(Via LewRockwell.com Blog.)

LewRockwell.com Blog: Tom Delay Indictment: "I suspect that there will be much cheering from both Democrat and paleo circles about the indictment of Tom Delay, but I am not one of those cheering. This is not because I like or respect Delay -- I certainly do not -- but I do respect rule of law, no matter how much it has been destroyed in the United States of Amerika.

First, make no mistake about it: this is a political indictment. The crime with which he is charged is 'conspiracy' to violate the Texas law regarding corporate money and political contributions. The man behind the indictment is Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who is notorious for pursuing political indictments and is a symbol to me of everything that is wrong with law in the USA."

(Via LewRockwell.com Blog.)

AlterNet: Hurricane Katrina: Left to Die in a New Orleans Prison: "We're certainly not saying that those people drowned in the facility, but there are credible reports from inmates of being left in that facility in locked cells. And so we'd like to know from the Orleans Sheriff and from the Department of Corrections what happened to those 517 people."

...

"It's clear to us from talking to inmates in that facility -- and other lawyers in Louisiana have talked to well over 1,000 prisoners at this point -- that by Monday when the storm hit, guards were no longer in the facility. The inmates were left to fend for themselves during the storm.

The most disturbing thing is that the water began to rise in many of the buildings. Some inmates tell us that the water had come up to their chest level, and they were still in locked cells. Some other inmates helped them get out of those cells and escape the floodwaters to higher levels of the facility. They were also left there without any food or water for up to four days. There was no air circulation, and the toilets had started to back up. So the stench was unbearable for these prisoners. "

Emphasis Mine.

(Via AlterNet.)

Martini Republic » DeLay Indicted: "Ruthless and demagogic, Tom DeLay is the personification of bloodsport politics. He has been scrutinized by his own Republican House for breaches of ethics. His own PAC has been indicted for illegal donations. Now he’s been indicted

At last. Last November, the Republican House, acknowledging that this day was very likely to occur, repealed a law which would have required DeLay to step down as House leader if indicted. But Hastert has already recommended that DeLay step aside, and DeLay has said he will."

(Via Martini Republic.)

Walid Phares: "Al Qaida's TV" won't replace al Jazeera, it is the official archives: "Writing in the Washington Post (article), Daniel Williams announced that al Qaida has launched its own news bulletins via Internet. He referred it to an Italian news agency called Adnkonois, reporting from Dubai. He mentioned that the entire 16 minutes was available on an Italian web site. At first, one would be impressed by the news value of the 'story.' And indeed, in our current world of Global War on Terror, sensational pieces such as this one make headlines, inflame talking heads, and put writers on TV screens. If we agree that Terrorism and counter terrorism have produced an industry and consumers a headline such as 'al Qaida has its own newscast now' will open ears and eyes and drag mouses to click on links. But let's examine where is the real meat in this story, with a comparative analysis.."

(Via The Counterterrorism Blog.)

life goes on?!: 09/25/2005 - 10/01/2005: "That the nation's front-line emergency management believed the body count would resemble that of a bloody battle in a war is but one of scores of examples of myths about the Dome and the Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans' top officials, including the mayor and police superintendent. As the fog of warlike conditions in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath has cleared, the vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees have turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according to key military, law enforcement, medical and civilian officials in positions to know.

'I think 99 percent of it is bulls---,' said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Lachney, who played a key role in security and humanitarian work inside the Dome. 'Don't get me wrong, bad things happened, but I didn't see any killing and raping and cutting of throats or anything. ... Ninety-nine percent of the people in the Dome were very well-behaved.'"

...

"It's far easier to believe the worst of black people than not for many people. Even blacks."

...

This story needs to be repeated, amplified, and repeated again. These stories were circulated purposefully, and with great relish. They should be retracted as a smear on the honor of the people of New Orleans. This is simply unconscionable. Would New Yorkers have stood for being smeared and slandered after 9-11? They would have been justified to have rioted. Had I been locked into the hellhole of the Superdome, day after day, no rescue, no help , no food, water, sanitation, I would assume that I was being murdered, and would have devoted my efforts towards escape. The press needs to reform its lazy ways , get out, and "just the facts, man." Like that's going to happen. But it will happen, if people call them on it."

(Via life goes on?!.)

ArmsControlWonk | an arms control weblog: Who Needs Intercept Tests?: "In a pair of recent posts (12 JUN 2005 and 20 JUL 2005), I speculated the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) would scale back testing, largely to save itself embarrassment.

MDA’s Independent Review Team (IRT) issued a Final Report that recommended MDA meet suspiciously difficult criteria before conducting an integrated flight test (IFT). The reason? North Korea might get wind the damn thing doesn’t work"

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)

Salon.com - War Room: "Cindy Sheehan never got the meeting with George W. Bush she was requesting this summer. But today in Washington, the mother of a fallen Iraq War soldier got something else: Sheehan was arrested today during a protest just outside the White House.

According to the Associated Press, Sheehan was arrested after police told her and several dozen other protestors three times that they could not sit on the sidewalk in front of the White House."

(Via Salon.)

Salon.com Wire Story: "BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. and Iraqi authorities freed 500 detainees from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison on Monday in a goodwill gesture to Sunnis ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Earlier, insurgents killed at least 10 people with a suicide bomb targeting police and government workers.

After a brief ceremony outside the prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, the 500 freed detainees left the area on public buses. They were the first of 1,000 to be freed before Ramadan begins next week, the U.S. military said.

Abu Ghraib gained international notoriety after U.S. military personnel running the prison were charged with humiliating and assaulting detainees there."

(Via Salon.)

Church Scapegoating: "So gays will be banned from becoming priests from now on, in an effort to 'purify' the Church after the scandals.  You want to purify the Church?  Then ban everyone who's been an accessory after the fact to the crime of child rape.   You can start with the Archbishop you brought to Rome - far from US jurisdiction.

...

Even gay men (no women, remember?) who have never engaged in sex of any kind are forbidden.  This exposes a huge contradiction in their logic:  if being gay is innate, it's not a choice.  If it's not a choice, it's not a sin.   But if it's not a sin, where's that scapegoat when you need him?"

(Via Night Light.)