Contractors are hired guns..who knew?
The title is tongue in cheek of course, we all know why the mercenaries are in Iraq and Afghanistan. But this piece in the NYT really lays it all out. From the writeup:
Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in [...]
And Still…Nothing Makes Sense
Folks griping about some redneck in Tennessee (well actually he was a CEO of Nashville’s tourism) comparing Michelle Obama to a chimpanzee. Makes sense if he was a politician but I suspect there are other things happening that need to have the public’s attention turned to this “outrageous behavior” and away from what we should [...]
America’s secret prisoners in Afghanistan.
Bagram Prison isn’t a secret, but evidently who is being held there IS a secret. There are, according to the article, secret prisons in Afghanistan. From The Nation:
One quiet, wintry night last year in the eastern Afghan town of Khost, a young government employee named Ismatullah simply vanished. He had last been seen in the [...]
Holocaust Memorial Day
65 years ago today – January 27, 1945 – the 322nd Rifle Division of the Red Army marched into an almost deserted outpost of the Nazis in Southern Poland and found 7,000 starving, sick and emaciated prisoners. What they also found was hundreds of thousands garments, suits, pairs of shoes, suitcases, eyeglasses, hairbrushes, and family [...]
I Think I Found Cheney’s “Last Throes”
Unsurprisingly, he seems to have got it wrong.
A few years back, before the loss of a few thousand additional Americans, the pecker with a pacemaker said that Iraq’s insurgency was in its “last throes,” a claim that promptly and irrefutably got blown away by the violence in Iraq. As a matter of fact, there is [...]
Fed Judge lets Blackwater murderers off the hook.
From the NYT via Crooks and Liars:
In a significant blow to the Justice Department, a federal judge on Thursday threw out the indictment of five former Blackwater security guards over a shooting in Baghdad in 2007 that left 17 Iraqis dead and about 20 wounded.
The judge cited misuse of statements made by the guards in [...]
War Bonds anyone?
Oh, this is rich:
Lawmakers in both houses of Congress have introduced legislation to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by using a method that’s a throwback to prior U.S. conflicts: war bonds.
Saying that it would “promote national shared sacrifice and responsibility,” Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., introduced a bill Wednesday in the House of [...]
The Truth!? I Can’t Handle The Truth!
Recently I was in Austin, TX hanging with an old friend and 2 new ones. The two I had just met are even younger than the woman we went to see but we hit it off good. The young man and I went to get some food and the conversation turned political. Sometime during the [...]
A Chilly Reception in Texas for Obama’s Afghan Troop Surge
“This war, destructive of humanity like all wars, is also supporting a corrupt, ineffective Afghani government, and has all likelihood of becoming an endless quagmire. ~ Joe Heyman, Border Peace Presence
El Paso TX, December 1. Downtown El Paso was uncharacteristically coated yesterday morning with a snow that closed the county offices and the University [...]
The Big O’s speechifying on Afghanistan
Where do you think his speech was on the Bullshit Meter? Off the fucking charts.
Well, what did you think of his plan man? Same shit, different President.
Did ya think he sold it to the majority of Americans? Oh hell no.
Do ya think it’s a war worth fighting for another eight fucking years? Not [...]
Cooking Thanksgiving dinner in Afghanistan
It’s no easy task evidently as this story from McClatchy shows:
Just getting the ingredients for Golf Company’s one-day-early Thanksgiving dinner was a military operation.
First, the Marines consulted their translators. Then the translators persuaded the Afghan border police to go to a market in what may be the most dangerous part of Helmand province.
Buying the $68 [...]
betmo’s thankful edition
it’s that time of year again where the leaves blow in the cold autumn wind and folks all over america suddenly get thankful for family and friends who get on their nerves the other 364 days a year. yep- it’s almost thanksgiving. in the interest of full disclosure, thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
i must say [...]
Now, the “Patriots” Will Howl
Those yellow-magnet “patriots” of the Rushpubliscum Party absolutely adore war. They loved it when their monkey marched into Afghanistan, and they were downright orgasmic when he attacked the heathen ay-rabs of Iraq for no reason at all. They did suffer a little disappointment when their monkey wasn’t allowed to start a third war in Iran, [...]
Is this really a surprise?
I damn near swallowed my tongue when I read this today.Not because it shocked me, but because people did a study on it and they were probably shocked by the findings.
To quote from the article: A survey of US soldiers in Afghanistan shows declining morale among army units and that troops facing three or more [...]
More often than not…
Happy belated birthday to the United States Marine Corps!
Cough.
I’m gonna go off a wee bit…okay?
Cool!
I have had enough of conservative pundits and politicians sporting American Flag jewelry and spewing ig’nant as hell rhetoric about [insert "other" determined to rile up the base].
Enough!
I am the grand daughter, daughter, niece and cousin of veterans. My grandfather, bless [...]
