Maybe Limbaugh was high on drugs again

That's what we're thinking....hmmmm, maybe it's the oxy getting to him. You know what they
(family values folks, and the GOP) say..."Once a junkie, always a junkie."

Well, I don’t know. Maybe he was just high on his drugs again. I don’t know whether he was or not. If so, he ought to let us know. But that shouldn’t be an excuse.

Blackwater Video - Who are they, anyway?

Blackwater is accused of "killing for sport" - especially this last week, with the Iraqis pushing back on what's going on in Baghdad. Here's a 5 min video intro:

Is General Patraeus a White House Stooge?

Get a clue.

Duh. The guy is totally stuck between Iraq and a hard place, for sure. He is certainly distinguished and we honor our military. But, yikes, what a place he's found himself....doing the bidding of George Bush. During his testimony, the White House calls him after his dumb comment about not knowing if the Iraq war makes us safer....and he changes his testimony. Ah, that's a stooge, puppet, whatever.

The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, hit back Wednesday at anti-war critics who accused him of being a White House stooge during an emotive two days of testimony at Congress.

As Petraeus and Baghdad ambassador Ryan Crocker prepared to deliver their appraisal of Iraq to US lawmakers on Monday, left-wing group MoveOn.org took out a full-page newspaper advertisement to denounce "General Betray Us."

At a news conference following the gruelling sessions in Congress, Petraeus said an old friend had sent him a copy of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" -- which speaks of treating those "two impostors," triumph and defeat, just the same.

OR - is this just to buy time and they all know we're invading Iran soon?

National Review Cruise to Cruise Missles

Get a CLUE!

The Iraq war has been an amazing success, global warming is just a myth – and as for Guantanamo Bay, it's practically a holiday camp... The annual cruise organised by the 'National Review', mouthpiece of right-wing America, is a parallel universe populated by straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republicans.

We are NOT Republicans nor conservatives. However, we do pine away for the conservatives of old...those we can recognize. Like Goldwater, Nixon, William Buckley, George Will. You know, the good old days. Now the conservatives and Republicans are dirtied by the neoconartist rhetoric that is fear mongering and ugly - and slipping into the American discourse via right wing talk radio. Here's one of the best articles we've seen in ages exposing the failings of the current batch of conservative sheep who are following a broken leader. Read the whole thing-it's very enlightening.

Bush NOT sorry over CIA leak

Who's NOT sorry now?

That would be GW Bush. Hey, folks, he's not sorry about much...he's going to get his oil sharing revenues out of Iraq - which is why he's there - he's going to continue stonewalling Congress on their investigations - and he's not sorry he knows who outed CIA agent Valerie Plame.

The president, who had vowed to fire anyone who leaked Plame's identity to the media and later said that any lawbreakers would be "taken care of," suggested without naming names that a quick confession might have been best.

"I'm aware of the fact that perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person, and I've often thought about what would have happened had that person come forth and said, 'I did it,'" he said.

"Would we have had this, you know, endless hours of investigation and a lot of money being spent on this matter? But it's been a tough issue for a lot of people in the White House, and it's run its course and now we're going to move on," he said.

It was unclear whether Bush was referring to Libby, senior White House political strategist Karl Rove, or former press secretary Ari Fleischer, all of whom discussed Plame with reporters.

But the comment seemed directed at former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, who with Rove was a source of the July 2003 newspaper column that named Plame and her CIA job, touching off the investigation.

'We're in Iraq for the oil'

Finally, some politician tells the truth....what no one else will say. Of course, he's Australian, and he'll probably get his his head handed to him politically, but at least it's out there...

The government has admitted the need to secure oil supplies is a factor in Australia's continued military involvement in Iraq.

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said on Thursday oil was a factor in Australia's contribution to the unpopular war, as "energy security" and stability in the Middle East would be crucial to the nation's future. Speaking ahead of a key foreign policy speech by Prime Minister John Howard, Dr Nelson said defence was about protecting the economy as well as physical security, and it was important to support the "prestige" of the US and UK.

Blair Apologizes for Iraq War Video

Who's Apologizing Now?

Tony Blair, Former PM of Britian, apologizes for the "dangers troops face" in Iraq.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, his decade in power drawing to a close, said Wednesday he is sorry for the peril faced by British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he made no apologies for supporting the United States in taking military action there.

Blair faced the House of Commons for a last time before going to Buckingham Palace to resign as prime minister, clearing the way for Treasury chief Gordon Brown to take command of the government.

Cheney's Shadow Presidency

Get a clue.

Like this is news? Well, no, however the details are quite juicy....and scary. But, hey, anyone who shoots his friend in the face on a druken quail shoot in Texas is suspect in the first place.

Is the president surprised or worried? Hell, no. This is what Cheney was hired for...to do the dirty work of ripping off the American people, get into Iraq, etc. Meanwhile, the press, the people, the world are all bamboozled....and we're now the sorry ones....WaPo is doing a bang-up job on exposing the VP:

Dick Cheney is the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office of vice president. This series examines Cheney's largely hidden and little-understood role in crafting policies for the War on Terror, the economy and the environment.

Sudnday: Part 1 Working in the Background - A master of bureaucracy and detail, Cheney exerts most of his influence out of public view.

Monday: Part 2 Wars and Interrogations - Convinced that the "war on terror" required "robust interrogations" of captured suspects, Dick Cheney pressed the Bush administration to carve out exceptions to the Geneva Conventions.

A Short Guide to Iraq (i-RAHK)

Get a clue.

Wonkette has an intriguing little handbook from....1943! Hey, that was when Americans were respectful of other people's culture and cared how the world saw them. And this handy book is quite something...especially in light of AbuGrahib, etc etc etc....Oh, for the America of yesteryear:

• But you will also find out quickly that the Iraqi is one of the most cheerful and friendly people in the world. Few people you have seen get so much fun out of work and everyday living.
• You aren’t going to Iraq to change the Iraqis. Just the opposite. We are fighting this war to preserve the principle of “Live and let live.”
• Right now Iraq is threatened with invasion — as America is now. The Iraqis have some religious and tribal differences themselves. Hitler has been trying to use those differences to his own ends.
• Iraq has great military importance for its oil fields, with their pipelines to the Mediterranean Sea. Yes, Iraq is a hot spot in more ways than one.

US Embassy in Iraq - DISCLOSED!

Get a clue.

Ok, so everyone's up in arms about the uber OIL embassy in Iraq - the ONLY reason we're there - because the designs being made available on the architect's site.

Berger, Divine, and Yaeger's site was down because of this faux pas. Here's a link to the images from Norwegainity. Whatever. The scandal here is that this fortress, er, embassy - the largest US embassy in the WORLD- is all about protecting the oil interests of the US based multinational oil companies, and the Bush, Cheney, Rice cabal. Is this a bad thing? Not if you're in the oil business. Or a contractor.

But if you're a hapless US army guy or a US Marine, it bites. What are they doing all day every day? Protecting the highway from the Baghdad airport into Baghdad. Why? The supply lines that feed the embassy project are running 24/7 on that highway. The surge? Need more people to protect the building of the embassy and getting the oil fields ready to pump once Bush is out of office. Duh.

DC Madam Names Video

What's got everyone's underware in a bunch in Washington DC?

The Iraq war funding bill? Nah, Dems are happy to get minimum wage hike.

The Immigration Bill? Nah, crocodile tears from Boner, er Boehner. How many times did we counsel the GOP to DROP the immigration issue? Millions!

Nope. What's got everyone on edge is when those damn names are coming out? Here's a fun video that asks more questions than it answers....but combine this with WMR - who we love, because he's digging (who cares if he's weird....), and this is the ONLY hot topic in DC. It combines Abramoff, the US Attorney firings, Porter Goss and Dusty Foggo (sleaze bag gamblers and johns from the CIA), and the biggest dick of all, Dick Cheney, who's name "is not NOT on the list".

Troops in Iraq for DECADES

Get a clue.

This President is hellbent on digging in and staying in Iraq. Any one who believes different is smoking something funny. We are in, we are in big, we are staying in for a LOOOONNNNGGGG time:

In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee this month, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace uttered a “carefully worded” statement revealing that the Pentagon had no plans to fully withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq if legislation passes Congress mandating troop redeployment:

PACE: Sir, we have published no orders directing the planning for the overall withdrawal of forces. We do have ongoing replacements of forces, and we do change the size of the force over time so that that system is available to either plus-up or draw down, but we have published no orders saying come up with a complete plan for total drawdown.

Sailor surprises son video

Get out your handkerchief, seriously. This is the sweetest thing we've seen in years....awwwwww......

SMART enemy outstrip the US in Iraq and Afghanistan

Who's losing the war now?

Hate to say it, folks, but we are only reporting what Bush's beloved "Generals on the Ground" are saying - we're losing in Iraq and Afghanistan to a small, smart insurgency who's blasting our multbillion dollar military and military equipment with the push of a cell phone button:

OBS In a bleak analysis, senior officers described the fighters they were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan 'as smart, agile and cunning'....What is more devastating now is that the world's only superpower is in danger of being driven back by a few tens of thousands of lightly armed irregulars, who have developed tactics capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles and aircraft.

By contrast, the US military is said to have been slow to respond to the challenges of fighting an insurgency. The senior officers described the insurgents as being able to adapt rapidly to exploit American rules of engagement and turn them against US forces, and quickly disseminate ways of destroying or disabling armoured vehicles.

Commanders apologize for Walter Reed

Who's apologizing now? The commanders who have the Walter Reed blood on their hands. Shame on them. And shame on all loudmouthed right wing talkers (that's you! Hannity, Hume, Savage, Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin, Hewitt. You who will NEVER SERVE your country, shame on you, to a person.) who 'support the troop's but don't have a clue!

WaPo Senior Army commanders today apologized for failures that forced some wounded outpatient soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to live in substandard conditions and wage lengthy bureaucratic battles over their treatment, and they vowed to improve a system that they said had been overwhelmed by the numbers of wounded combatants and the complexity of their injuries. Here's a short video to watch about today's proceedings:

John McCain apologizes for "lives wasted" comment

Who's apologizing now?

Senator John McCain, for his idiotic comments about American lives being "wasted" in Iraq. He's right about that, BTW, but what's idiotic is he says that kind of thing in public. That is not presidental. We've been predicting this for weeks....he's going to go Howard Dean any minute, and that will be the end of JM. Then we'll turn out attention to Rudi, who's running for President of 9/11.

Here's the clip and below his apology the next day.

Last evening, I referred to American casualties in Iraq as wasted. I should have used the word, sacrificed, as I have in the past. No one appreciates and honors more than I do the selfless patriotism of American servicemen and women in the Iraq War. We owe them a debt we can never fully repay. And America’s leaders owe them, as well as the American people, our best judgment and honest appraisal of the progress of the war, in which they continue to sacrifice.

End of killers for hire in Iraq?

Who's sorry now?

The contract killers in Iraq we posted about month ago here: License to Kill. Here's an article on Iraqslogger worth reading about the beginning of the end for these mercs:

IS Currently there is no clear estimate of how many security contractors are in Iraq. The numbers range from 70,000 from the PSCAI to the IPOA's conservative estimate of 5,000 maximum. Non security contractors hover around 100,000 to 60,000 depending on the source of the estimate. Currently Aegis estimates they have 1000 contractors in country of which two thirds are expats, the rest are Iraqi's....Slogger is getting reports that the new round of RFP's for major security and training contracts in Iraq have a new wrinkle: Complete handover to Iraqis at end of contract.

One of the major bids that have contracting companies locked away working on bids is the largest single security contract currently run by Aegis.

Where's al Sadr?

Or Osama, or Waldo for that matter. The US military sure has a hard time keeping track of important figures....or does it?

So, is he or isn't he (Sadr) in Iraq? Didn't they just close the borders to Syria and Iran? Hey, wait a minute....is this just some of the Pentagon's "mis-information"? Ohhh, this is a prelude to 'prove' that Iran and Iraq are linked.......

AP Lawmakers and officials linked to al-Sadr have denied that he had left the country, with one saying the cleric had met with government officials late Tuesday in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.

An Iraqi government official said al-Sadr was in Najaf as recently as Tuesday night, when he received delegates from several government departments. The official, who is familiar with one of those meetings, spoke on condition of anonymity because he has no authority to disclose information on his department's activities.

Obama apologizes

Who's apologizing now?

Barack Obama - boy, this was quick! Pretty early in the Presidential race for apologizing, but, hey, at least he's stepping up.

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is apologizing for saying the lives of the more than 3,000 U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war were "wasted." During his first campaign trip this weekend, the Illinois senator told a crowd in Iowa: "We now have spent $400 billion and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted."

He immediately apologized on Sunday, saying the remark was "a slip of the tongue." During an appearance Monday in Nashua, N.H., he apologized again, telling reporters he meant to criticize the civilian leadership of the war, not those serving in the military.

"Even as I said it, I realized I had misspoken," Obama said. "It is not at all what I intended to say, and I would absolutely apologize if any (military families) felt that in some ways it had diminished the enormous courage and sacrifice that they'd shown." Obama made his second visit to New Hampshire on Monday, following his speech Saturday announcing his candidacy in Illinois on Saturday and a visit to first-caucus state Iowa.

IED's from Iran? Gen. Pace doesn't think so...

HOW LUCKY FOR THE US MEDIA THAT THIS BOMB SUPPOSEDLY MADE IN IRAN BEARS ENGLISH MARKINGS

Get a clue.

VOA The top American military officer, General Peter Pace, declined Monday to endorse the conclusions of U.S. military officers in Baghdad, who told reporters on Sunday that the Iranian government is providing high-powered roadside bombs to insurgents in Iraq.

The newly manufactured war on Iran is a sorry repeat of the faked Iraq nonesense. BTW, one day we'll all look back on the news reports running up to the invasion in 2003 and scratch our heads at how DUMB we could all be. The collective head in the sand syndrome.

Remember, the Neo-ConArtists have been planning conflict with Iran for years, published in the Clean Break Strategy, blah blah. The latest is to claim that the IEDs killing people in Iraq today are Iranian. Well, maybe.

But WE DOUBT IT. And so does General Peter Pace. This is a good sign. Let's keep our fingers crossed that more level headed generals and other important influencers will take the stand that apparently the Dems can't take, the American people can't take, the intelligence community can't take....are Bill Kristol, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, et al really that powerful? They seem like schoolyard bullies to us, but we're not nearly close enough to get the full view.