Bush/Maliki: The Last Two Optimists?
Bush made another of his "Iraq-Is-Gonna-Work-Out-Fine" speeches again this morning. Meanwhile, here in the real world... A State Department worker died of injuries suffered in one of the many mortar and rocket attacks of the past few days in the safest place in Iraq: The Green Zone!
Al Sadr's militia is once again ready to fight. Al Maliki, Bush's puppet in Iraq, vowed today to fight to the end!
Well, as the sign carried by the homeless guy on the corner reads: "The End Is Near!"
The "President" of Iraq says his "army" will fight 'til the end!
It reminds me of the scene from "Braveheart" when William Wallace's fellow fighter who claims to OWN Ireland says not to worry about the Irish as they are running and screaming toward Wallace's forces. Just as they reach each other, the Irish and Scots stop in the center of the battlefield. Laugh, shake hands, greet each other happily then, in unison, both forces turn to defeat Longshanks stunned supporters.
Think about it... The Iraqi "army" under the flawed leadership of Maliki who has sold his nationalism to Bush for cash and "players to be named later," flooding toward Basra to fight their countrymen to the "end." Sound plausible to you?
I'm afraid our "Idiot-In-Chief" is about to be shown how truly flawed his surge strategy was. More Americans will be wounded and killed as Iraqis turn as one to fight for their nation. Who could have figured such a thing?
Then again, using the words "Bush" and "Strategy" in the same sentence was probably not wise given the history of this administration's handling of foreign affairs.
I'd sure like someone to explain to me what we're actually doing in Iraq...
I mean, from what I understand, we're supposed to be there to stop civil war from breaking out. It seems we've stepped a number of steps beyond that point.
March 27, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
cscs?!?!?! Ours is not to question "why..."
King George just sends our kids to "do or die."
March 27, 2008 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
George isn't an optimist - he's delusional. He's so out of touch he believes that there are people in the real world who still listen to him or believe him if they do listen. He's truly a prime subject for a psychological study of aberrant behavior.
March 27, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Georgie" is the Wizard of Oz and he doesn't realize we can all see that the curtain has been removed.
March 27, 2008 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Military prosecutors dropped all charges on Friday against a Marine accused of killing unarmed Iraqi women and children at Haditha in 2005, abruptly dismissing the case on the eve of trial with little explanation.
Lance Cpl Stephen B. Tatum became the fifth Haditha defendant out of eight to see charges dropped in a case that brought international condemnation on U.S. troops in Iraq. Three Marines, including accused ringleader Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, still face court-martial later this year.
Though prosecutors had reportedly offered Tatum, 26, immunity to testify against Wuterich, defense attorneys said no such deal had been struck.
"Lance Corporal Tatum is not trading his testimony for this dismissal," defense attorney Jack Zimmermann told Reuters in an interview. "He may very well be called as a witness for the prosecution or the defense, but he is going to be a neutral witness and will tell the truth, as he's always done."
Zimmermann said he believed the case was abandoned because it was "weak from the start." He described his client and the man's family as "relieved" and tearful at the news.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2844311120080328
March 28, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Military prosecutors dropped all charges on Friday against a Marine accused of killing unarmed Iraqi women and children at Haditha in 2005, abruptly dismissing the case on the eve of trial with little explanation.
Lance Cpl Stephen B. Tatum became the fifth Haditha defendant out of eight to see charges dropped in a case that brought international condemnation on U.S. troops in Iraq. Three Marines, including accused ringleader Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, still face court-martial later this year.
Though prosecutors had reportedly offered Tatum, 26, immunity to testify against Wuterich, defense attorneys said no such deal had been struck.
"Lance Corporal Tatum is not trading his testimony for this dismissal," defense attorney Jack Zimmermann told Reuters in an interview. "He may very well be called as a witness for the prosecution or the defense, but he is going to be a neutral witness and will tell the truth, as he's always done."
Zimmermann said he believed the case was abandoned because it was "weak from the start." He described his client and the man's family as "relieved" and tearful at the news.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2844311120080328
March 28, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Military prosecutors dropped all charges on Friday against a Marine accused of killing unarmed Iraqi women and children at Haditha in 2005, abruptly dismissing the case on the eve of trial with little explanation.
Lance Cpl Stephen B. Tatum became the fifth Haditha defendant out of eight to see charges dropped in a case that brought international condemnation on U.S. troops in Iraq. Three Marines, including accused ringleader Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, still face court-martial later this year.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2844311120080328
March 28, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
THE COLLECTED TALES OF AMERICAN ATROCITIES, WHICH LEFTISTS RELY UPON THE WAY OTHERS SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES FOR SOLACE, is getting shorter. Like allegations of torture at Guantanamo, Koran desecration, and detainee murders in Afghanistan, the Haditha “massacre” is increasingly being exposed as a fairy tale. Unfortunately, this canard was invented and popularized, not by terrorist propagandists to discredit an enemy army, but by American politicians to demonize U.S. soldiers and drain their own nation's will to fight an ongoing war – a war which we are winning and which the same politicians voted to authorize.
Last Friday, the government dismissed all charges against the third of four defendants accused of perpetrating the aforementioned atrocities in Haditha. All charges against Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum, 26, were dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning Tatum cannot be tried again for the incident, although by the time the trial commenced, the Haditha “massacre” had already shrunken considerably.
Tatum and three others stood accused, not of murdering “innocent civilians in cold blood” as Congressman John Murtha characterized it, but of failing to properly identify every target before opening fire. In reality, terrorists had fired on the squad from inside the house, and the room where innocent people had been killed was smoke-filled; moreover, according to multiple witnesses, everyone heard an AK-47 “racking” – that is, getting ready to fire upon them. A positive identification would have been both impossible and suicidal. The investigating officers report further observed, according to the prosecution's case, Tatum would have been absolved of throwing a grenade into the room without positively identifying everyone inside, but not firing his rifle. The government ultimately found his actions had not violated the rules of engagement.
That did not mean accusations of premeditation had not been leveled. The prosecution’s star witness, Lance Cpl. Humberto Mendoza, testified that Tatum ordered him to murder the innocent members of the household, then Tatum did it himself when Mendoza refused. Tatum denied the charge. Tatum also passed his lie detector test, while Mendoza failed his. And at the time Mendoza, a native of Venezuela, was “trying to get his application for U.S. citizenship released by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which is holding up his papers.”
Nonetheless, the accused was not unrepentant for his actions, inadvertent of not. Far from the emotionless warmonger often depicted by the leftist press, Tatum nearly broke down on the stand last July, telling the judge: “I am not comfortable with the fact that I might have shot a child…That is a burden I will have to bear.”
Ultimately, the case could not stand. The Marines' statement declared prosecutors acted “in order to continue to pursue the truth-seeking process into the Haditha incident.” Although some have speculated Tatum struck a bargain to testify against the remaining defendant, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, Tatum's lawyer Jack Zimmerman insists, “Absolutely, there is no deal.”
Tatum is the third of four suspects to have all charges dropped, demolishing the Haditha myth.
Last April, the government dropped charges against Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz in exchange for his testimony. However, defense attorneys noted that Dela Cruz had discredited himself, changing his story five times.
Last August 9, Lt. Gen. James Mattis went further in his ruling clearing Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt of all charges, including “unpremeditated murder,” finding Sharratt not merely “not guilty” but “innocent.” Gen. Mattis concluded his statement by noting Sharratt “has always remained cloaked in the presumption of innocence, with this dismissal of charges, he remains in the eyes of the law – and in my eyes – innocent.”
Of the four charged in the Haditha incident, only Frank Wuterich has yet to be exonerated. He faces nine counts, including “manslaughter, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, and obstruction of justice.”
This should have come as no surprise. Indeed, as early as March 2006, military investigators concluded, “there is no evidence that the Marines intentionally set out to target, engage, and kill non-combatants.”
Nonetheless, as David Horowitz and I note in our new book Party of Defeat, the Haditha myth would become one of the most erroneous, and shameful, incidents of domestic political sniping. Two full months after this report, Jack Murtha seized upon the investigation as a way to promote his bill to withdraw all troops from Iraq in six months. Late the previous year, he had asserted the war was “unwinnable” and the military “broken.” On May 17, 2006, citing inside sources, Murtha insisted, “Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” In his view, the strapped military had gone crazy from the president's unnecessary war, and only withdrawal could prevent future atrocities from being committed by American men in uniform.
The Left's media echo chamber quickly spread news of the alleged slaughter. A June 5, 2006, editorial in The Nation, the flagship publication of the Left, asserted:
Enough details have emerged from survivors and military personnel to conclude that in the town of Haditha last November, members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment perpetrated a massacre...Marine payoffs to survivors imply a cover-up that may extend far up the chain of command...Whatever the responsibility of the unit commanders in Haditha, it is George W. Bush as Commander in Chief who has sent the clear message that human rights abuses and violations of international law are justified in the “war on terror.”...[T]he moral damage from the Iraq War is broader than a single debased unit. That is what so powerfully motivates Murtha, a Marine and Vietnam veteran.
What actually motivated the Left was two-fold. Many noted the Left's desire to topple an opposing party's president, even at the cost of establishing a terrorist base-of-operations in oil-rich Baghdad. However, more dangerous was its deep-seated view that the American military, and the Bush administration, are evil incarnate. Haditha filled a need for the Left it had long pined to fill. Months before the Haditha story broke, on Face the Nation, John Kerry accused U.S. troops of of “going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children – you know, women.” (He added, “Iraqis should be doing that.”)
This followed, and preceded, endless accusations of mistreatment of detainees around the world, some literally taken from the al-Qaeda handbook.
If leftists genuinely cared about U.S. troops, they would have protested the conditions of the Haditha soldiers' interrogations. Investigators refused to provide attorneys when requested, questioned the men for 12 hours at a time, and did not allow them to take bathroom breaks, forcing the men to relieve themselves into bottles. This far outstrips most of the accusations made against U.S. soldiers. Nonetheless, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate would compare U.S. soldiers, and not Islamist terrorists, to Pol Pot and the Nazis.
Such an invidious comparison can only be made, during a time of war, if an ideologically charged opposition has broken the traditional boundaries of dissent and cast its lot against its own country.
April 2, 2008 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Friday's development in the Haditha case -- the dismissal of charges related to the deaths of innocent civilians in that Iraqi town in 2005 against Marine Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum -- makes it five of the eight Marines charged in those deaths who have had all charges dropped. Tatum is the third Marine charged with murder at Haditha to be cleared.
Charges had already been reduced against Tatum from murder to involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault. Four Marines were charged with murder during a firefight following an insurgent ambush in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005. Four officers were charged with covering up the incident.
On that November day, a Marine convoy of the Camp Pendletonbased Kilo Company, Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment, was passing through the town of Haditha in the hotly contested Iraqi province. A roadside improvised explosive device (IED) went off, killing Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Texas, who was on his second tour of duty.
With the evidence against the Haditha Marines so flimsy and exculpatory evidence so abundant, the question is why charges were ever brought.
"The hysteria and firestorm over Abu Ghraib and the Pat Tillman investigations led to fear of a similar media reaction to the Haditha incident, causing the military's civilian bosses to set up this shadow oversight body," says Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center.
The anti-war left wingers thought they had their Iraqi My Lai, and the Defense Department wanted to give it to them.
The "shadow body" Thompson speaks of is Legal Team Charlie, set up by the Pentagon and composed of military lawyers reassigned from other units, and reserve officers reactivated for the sole purpose of prosecuting this case.
In addition, the director of the Naval Criminal Investigation Service admitted that more than 65 investigators were assigned to the case, which in his opinion was the largest investigative effort in NCIS history.
Thompson, whose firm represents Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, whose case we have commented on, called these actions "highly unusual." Chessani is one of the three whose cases remain open. He is charged with "dereliction of duty" and "orders" violations for allegedly failing to properly report and investigate the incident.
Among the key defense weapons was an eight-hour taped deposition given by Lt. Jeffrey Dinsmore, the battalion intelligence officer. His evidence included a PowerPoint after-action report supported by photographic evidence, logs of all the day's radio transmissions and an almost minute-by-minute narrative of the day's events.
The military prosecutors tried to block the testimony of Dinsmore, who monitored the day's events via radio transmissions and an overhead video surveillance drone. His evidence and testimony confirmed the Marines' account that they did take hostile fire from buildings in Haditha and that civilians killed had been used as human shields.
Interestingly, the charges against the Haditha Marines weren't filed until Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., publicly accused the Marines of killing the 15 civilians who died that day not in a firefight, but in "cold blood."
As we have noted, military judge Stephen Folsom, a Marine colonel, has denied a defense motion requesting that Murtha be deposed, in effect denying Chessani and the other Marines the cherished right to confront one of their more famous accusers.
The government's case is slowly and mercifully unraveling as the truth about Haditha comes out. But many in the mainstream media and on the left can't handle the truth.
The evidence clearly confirms the Marines' story that they were merely doing what they were trained to do -- responding to a perceived threat with overwhelming force. Semper fi.
Investors Business Daily
http://www.aina.org/news/20080402043046.htm
April 2, 2008 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
WASHINGTON — A key adviser to Senator Obama’s campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010, a plan at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.
The paper, obtained by The New York Sun, was written by Colin Kahl for the center-left Center for a New American Security. In “Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement,” Mr. Kahl writes that through negotiations with the Iraqi government “the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000–80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground).”
Mr. Kahl is the day-to-day coordinator of the Obama campaign’s working group on Iraq. A shorter and less detailed version of this paper appeared on the center’s Web site as a policy brief.
Both Mr. Kahl and a senior Obama campaign adviser reached yesterday said the paper does not represent the campaign’s Iraq position. Nonetheless, the paper could provide clues as to the ultimate size of the residual American force the candidate has said would remain in Iraq after the withdrawal of combat brigades. The campaign has not publicly discussed the size of such a force in the past.
This is not the first time the opinion of an adviser to the Obama campaign has differed with the candidate’s stated Iraq policy. In February, Mr. Obama’s first foreign policy tutor, Samantha Power, told BBC that the senator’s current Iraq plan would likely change based on the advice of military commanders in 2009. She has since resigned her position as a formal adviser.
April 4, 2008 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seventeen Iraq combat veterans are running for House seats as Republicans, pledging to continue the war once in Congress and linking themselves to Sen. John McCain's candidacy for president.
As Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, prepares to go to Capitol Hill Tuesday to discuss his record there, some of the vets also came to Washington to link themselves to the general whose 2007 troop surge they believe has improved America's prospects for victory.
In 2006, the Democrats had some success with a slate of veterans who used their military credentials to argue against the war. The Republican veterans argue that such antiwar vets are the exception and, even though the public is still against the war, they will be able to make the case that the country is succeeding and should commit the resources to achieve victory.
"Iraq's going to be a tough issue for everybody, but we're going to be uniquely positioned to deal with it," says former Marine Cpl. Keiran Lalor, a Republican running in the Hudson Valley of New York. "The Democrats went around and found the exception to the rule: They found the Iraq vets against the war."
The Republican vets have linked themselves to Sen. McCain's presidential bid and hope to ride to victory on his coattails. They hope that if independents decide to support Sen. McCain and his commitment to finish the job in Iraq, they will vote that way down-ballot as well.
While most of the group, calling themselves Iraq Veterans for Congress, are running against incumbent Democrats, four are in primary contests for seats currently held by Republicans. In two of these races, the veterans are challenging incumbents the national party would prefer to run again. An additional vet has already won the primary for an open Republican seat.
Several members of Iraq Veterans for Congress, founded by Mr. Lalor, are running in districts considered safe for Democratic incumbents, making their candidacies largely symbolic. Mr. Lalor faces Democratic freshman Rep. John Hall, a former rock singer with the 1970s group Orleans.
Mr. Lalor says he is running to represent Gen. Petraeus, who was born in Cornwall, N.Y., a town in the 19th district, and whose alma mater, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, is also in the district.
Even symbolic candidacies could influence the debate in swing states. Former Army Lt. Col. William Russell is running against Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha, one of the top Democrats in the House. Mr. Russell says Rep. Murtha has "emboldened the enemy" with remarks about the Marines accused of killing civilians in Haditha, Iraq. At an event with other members of the group Monday, he called Gen. Petraeus "a consummate warrior" and said he would stake his own life on the general's integrity.
In two districts in Ohio and New Jersey, Iraq veterans are running for seats being vacated by Republicans. Democrats almost won both two years ago, and this time both Democratic challengers, boasting more name recognition and money, are gunning for a rematch.
The Iraq vets' efforts have gained the most headway in Ohio's 15th district, where the first of the 17 members of the organization to win a primary race is State Sen. Steve Stivers. While he says he admires both Sen. McCain and Gen. Petraeus, he isn't making Iraq policy the centerpiece of his campaign. "I'll talk about Iraq with anyone who asks me, but now it's not the first issue on people's minds," the 43-year-old Ohio native says. "Jobs and the economy are where my focus is."
After several prominent Republicans declined to run this year, Mr. Stivers threw his hat into the ring to succeed retiring Rep. Deborah Pryce. He won the March 4 primary with 66% of the vote, but his prospects in November are dicey. Sen. Barack Obama, who has trumpeted his antiwar record, carried the counties that compose most of Mr. Stivers's district, including the Columbus suburbs, where Sen. Obama beat Sen. Hillary Clinton by 14 points. The district is also home to the main campus of Ohio State University, where a Republican candidate's call to "complete the mission" in Iraq is more likely to drive turnout for the Democrats than for Mr. Stivers.
Other primary races could cause problems for the national Republican party. Two veterans are challenging sitting congressmen -- Bill Sali in Idaho's First District, and Doug Lamborn in Colorado's Fifth. Mr. Sali angered party loyalists by winning what many called a nasty campaign in 2006, and his malapropisms, once he was in office, became frequent fodder for Boise newspaper columnists.
Doug Lamborn engendered such rancor in his 2006 Colorado primary that Joel Hefley, the outgoing Republican congressman, refused to endorse him. Mr. Lamborn's district includes Fort Carson, an Army post that has suffered hundreds of casualties in Iraq. He is being challenged in his party's primary by retired Air Force Gen. Bentley Rayburn, who served in two Iraq wars.
In a normal year, both Messrs. Sali and Lamborn could feel safe, even though both are House freshmen who embittered local Republicans on the way to winning their seats. But challenges by Iraq veterans may swing hard-core Republicans against both men in this year's primaries. That would leave the national party with a dilemma: no incumbent to support in the November election.
In New Jersey, Tom Roughneen is running in the primary in the Seventh District, which retiring Rep. Mike Ferguson barely held in 2006 against Democrat Linda Stender. Mr. Roughneen, a civil-affairs captain in Iraq and Essex County assistant prosecutor, knows he is a dark horse in a field that includes Kate Whitman, the daughter of former New Jersey governor and Bush cabinet member Christie Todd Whitman. But as the only Iraq veteran in the race, he says he is best equipped to fend off Democrats' charges that the Iraq war has been a mistake.
"The way for the party to hold this district is for a veteran to represent the party," says the 38-year-old New Jersey native. "Against a veteran, Linda Stender will look foolish trying to convince voters the success we've had in Iraq has been a waste of lives."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120761362590096605.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
April 8, 2008 7:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Chuck,
Cheney sends his best...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHkOFlbvStw
April 17, 2008 9:01 PM | Reply | Permalink