Thinking further about Mr Bush’s tap dance today at Annapolis, I had some thoughts about troop withdrawal. What if we have to go out the way we came in?

Shooting.

Martin van Creveld is a professor of military history at Hebrew University and the author of a number of very insightful books. Two in particular convey a very serious message to a United States trying to create an overseas empire in the Middle East. His 1991 Transformation of War and his 1999 The Rise and Decline of the State are very troubling examinations of where we are, and where we are trying to go, as a nation. He’s got a think piece in The Forward that can curl your nose hairs as he compares Iraq to Viet Nam:

"Whereas North Vietnam at least had a government with which it was possible to arrange a cease-fire, in Iraq the opponent consists of shadowy groups of terrorists with no central organization or command authority. And whereas in the early 1970s equipment was still relatively plentiful, today's armed forces are the products of a technology-driven revolution in military affairs. Whether that revolution has contributed to anything besides America's national debt is open to debate. What is beyond question, though, is that the new weapons are so few and so expensive that even the world's largest and richest power can afford only to field a relative handful of them. "Therefore, simply abandoning equipment or handing it over to the Iraqis, as was done in Vietnam, is simply not an option. And even if it were, the new Iraqi army is by all accounts much weaker, less skilled, less cohesive and less loyal to its government than even the South Vietnamese army was. For all intents and purposes, Washington might just as well hand over its weapons directly to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Clearly, then, the thing to do is to forget about face-saving and conduct a classic withdrawal."

In a retreat like that, the soft logistic “tail” must be evacuated first, if possible. Truck drivers, doctors and nurses in large hospital facilities, cooks and bakers, engineers, supply clerks, all the myriad support units needed to supply a fighting Corps have to leave while the battalions fight and slowly close in on the evacuation point.

The last time US forces had to do this sort of maneuver was in Korea, when the 1st Marine Division earned undying fame retreating from “Frozen Chosin” protecting the rest of 10th US Army as it moved south to the port of Hungnam for evacuation. Approximately 4,200 Marines fought off 120,000 Chinese troops. While researching for specifics, I discovered an order that Mao Dze-Dung issued to one of his commanders, General Song Shilun:

"The American Marine First Division has the highest combat effectiveness in the American armed forces. It seems not enough for our four divisions to surround and annihilate its two regiments. (You) should have one or two more divisions as a reserve force."

Can we do this in Iraq?

No.

We don’t have a lot of truck drivers, cooks and bakers, engineers, supply clerks, etc. What we’ve got is Halliburton, and Bechtel, and the other civilian recipients of Republican Party largesse, and they employ Philippinos, Bahrainis, Indians, Sri Lankans, and who knows what other nationalities to operate our logistical tail. In a retreat like Korea, the English-speaking bosses and managers of Halliburton and Bechtel will be long gone, and US troops will be stumbling over the workers, many of whom probably have limited English, at best. Not to sound racist, but it would be like a Chinese fire drill.

During the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, mechanized US troops drove on so fast they outstripped the supply reach of the civilianized logistical tail. Remember all the stories of troops limited to 1 and 2 liters of water per day? One MRE per day? Some units even had ammo shortages. It took weeks for a bloated but unprepared civilian supply system to catch up.

A mechanized unit can carry no more than 3 to 4 days supplies in their organic units. In the mobile attack, it’s possible to bypass strong defensive points, and pick them off later. You can’t do that in the fighting retreat. You’ve got to fight for your life every time you encounter resistance during the withdrawal. That’s high expenditure of ammunition and fuel, in theory at every village, crossroads, ridgeline, and any other geographic point where defense is possible.

A fighting withdrawal could be difficult.

Martin van Creveld:

"Handing over their bases or demolishing them if necessary, American forces will have to fall back on Baghdad. From Baghdad they will have to make their way to the southern port city of Basra, and from there back to Kuwait, where the whole misguided adventure began. When Prime Minister Ehud Barak pulled Israel out of Lebanon in 2000, the military was able to carry out the operation in a single night without incurring any casualties. That, however, is not how things will happen in Iraq.
"Not only are American forces perhaps 30 times larger, but so is the country they have to traverse. A withdrawal probably will require several months and incur a sizable number of casualties. As the pullout proceeds, Iraq almost certainly will sink into an all-out civil war from which it will take the country a long time to emerge — if, indeed, it can do so at all. All this is inevitable and will take place whether George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice like it or not."

I don’t want to see this happen.

So, our selected Commander-in-Chief (there can be but one) appeared at another venue guaranteed to present our 21st century Happy Warrior with a favorable, applauding audience. The Brigade of Midshipmen were pleased to be excused from classes so that they could listen to our Steely Eyed Rocket Man explain the latest spin on how we’re gonna pretend to get Iraq on its feet while making sure the Big Bucks Republican recipients of our tax dollars continue to gorge on the public largesse. I often wonder whether he realizes how specious the entire charade is. Probably. He’s not as stupid as many people think. He’s just inarticulate when he has to lie in public without a script.

Some kind of psychological block, I assume.

I didn’t hear the entire speech, mercifully. Daily therapy is a demanding master and it was quickly time for the torture of the body to replace the torture of the mind.

George Bush begins his fighting retreat.

Mr Wolcott has an interesting take on the whole thing:

Everyone seems to agree that despite Bush's vainglorious posturing about achieving victory in Iraq (his "determined jaw" sure must be getting tired), he's going to be presiding over a backdoor bug-out choreographed to look like an orderly withdrawal which will fool no one except the remaining lemmings at Lucianne.com

He refers to Fred Kaplan writing in Slate.com:

"The question is: How does [Bush] plan to do it? Which troops will come out first? How quickly? Where will they go? Under what circumstances will they be put back in? Which troops will remain, and what will they do? How will they keep a profile low enough to make the Iraqi government seem genuinely autonomous yet high enough to help deter or stave off internal threats? Who will keep the borders secure, a task for which the Iraqi army doesn't even pretend to have the slightest capability? What kinds of diplomatic arrangements will he make with Iraq's neighbors—who have their own conflicting interests in the country's future—to assure an international peace?"

Some troops have to be withdrawn, certainly. The political realities of a Republican Party, is disarray over myriad ethical and criminal investigations and shattered by loss of public confidence requires a reassignment of morally exhausted troops back to the US. I think we’ll see some sort of relief in the stop-loss requirements for the troops withdrawn, too.

The States, which really like to keep their Reserve and National Guard troops local for emergencies, have been bitching a lot, behind the scenes. I suspect the WH is tired of hearing complaints from Governors.

I think they will do what they did in Viet Nam. Back during Mr Nixon’s famous “drawdown” when “units” were withdrawn, what happened was that some short-timers were transferred to the units selected to return to the US. Long-term troops were transferred out to replace them. Americans got to see lots of footage of GIs trooping the colors, and then marching off to waiting planes, as regimental colors were ceremoniously furled and also flown back to the US. Technically, 3 or 4 brigades were “drawn down” this way within 3 months, as I remember. Realistically, about 3,000 troops with less than 45 days left in country got early returns.

So we may see some Reserve units ceremoniously returned, too.

The numbers game is a possible interim strategy although you’re not going to be able to mix active duty and reserve component units so easily.

The other trick, of course, is to hunker down in these massively reinforced “enduring bases” we were told about. No one’s seen them and reported about them, but that might be because it’s a death warrant for any press to venture outside the Green Zone in Baghdad. No American print or electronic media leave to out into “Injun territory” which is now the 437,072 square kilometers of Iraq, less the 2 square kilometers of the Green Zone. That’s a lot of area to hide 14 enduring bases in, right? I mean, it’s the size of California. (That’s a handy factoid I remember from when we were being alibi’d on why no one had found the phantom Weapons of Mass Disappearance that were so earnestly sought by Judith Miller, and her loyal vassals in the 75th Exploitation Task Force.)

In the above paragraph I emphasize "American Media" because our national media is in the bag for the Republican Party. Stuff reported in media from other countries is verboten inside the US. Only happy news, please, unless you want us to get the FCC to stomp all your plans for further amalgamation!

Those bases have to be out there, somewhere. I mean, there’s like $15 Billion unaccounted for in the Iraq investment for Big Oil. All of that $15 Billion couldn’t have ended up in bank accounts in Bahrain, Liechtenstein, and the Bahamas, surely. Some of it must have been spent on something, right?

How dare they embolden the political process!

"The people of Fallujah love Cindy Sheehan," declared Farouk Abd-Muhammed, a candidate for National Assembly in Dec. 15 elections, referring to the mother of a slain Marine who became a U.S. antiwar activist. He spoke Tuesday at a pre-election meeting of local leaders in Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, scene of the largest U.S. offensive of the war in November 2004.

Abd-Muhammed described watching recent television reports with his family showing Americans waving banners that read "Stop the war in Iraq."

"I salute the American people because we know after watching them on satellite that they are ready to leave," Abd-Muhammed said.

"We know that there are now voices, even in the Congress, that want America to leave Iraq as soon as possible," said Fawzi Muhammed, an engineer who is the deputy chairman of Fallujah's reconstruction committee. "It makes us feel very happy and comfortable because it is the only solution to the problems in Iraq."

Unlike Fallujah -- seen now by some U.S. commanders as a model of cooperation between Sunni leaders and the military -- people in Ramadi appear to know comparatively little of the debate in the United States over the war. Fighting here, including insurgent bomb attacks, knocked out most of the provincial capital's communications to the outside world, and U.S. forces were able to restore a vital fiber-optics cable only this month.

Reality sure must suck if you're a Republican.

(Cross-posted at Nitpicker.)

I'm still seething over the idea of "Duke" Cunningham giving special favors to contractors supplying services and/or equipment to our troops, so I think that, once his plea agreement with the DoJ has been completed, he needs to be handed over to the military for trial. (This is long, but I can't seem to get the extended entry to work. I apologize.)

You see, the Uniform Code of Military Justice applies not only to active duty service members, but also to "retired members of a regular component of the armed forces who are entitled to pay." Duke retired from the Navy, which clearly puts him in that category.

While it is the DoJ's responsibility to conduct fraud investigations involving government contractors (according to the Army's Field Manual on criminal investigations), it is not within the DoJ's purview to restore the honor of the Navy. Justice did not include in its plea agreement a violation of Title 18, USC, Section 207, which states that retirees that can be punished by up to a year in jail for scamming the government for their own gain.

I believe that an example must be made of Cunningham that proves even war heroes cannot risk our service member's lives by subverting the contracting processes. Do I know that people were hurt or put at risk by Cunningham's specific actions? Honestly, no, but that's beside the point. Trust was placed in Cunningham as an officer and as a congressman to follow the rules which exist to protect both public funds and the lives of our service members. He violated that trust. Therefore, the Navy should begin court martial proceedings against Cunningham, charging him with "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman," Article 133 of the UCMJ, and those proceedings should decide whether or not Cunningham should keep his rank and his retirement pay.

Is this harsh? Damn straight.

But it's also supported by law. In 1987--the year Cunningham retired, incidentally--the Court of Military appeals reminded everyone of the following in their finding in Overton v. the United States of America.

Retired army and naval officers have been subject to court-martial jurisdiction since the Civil War. Act of Aug. 3, 1861, ch. 42, Sections 18, 24, 12 Stat. 290, 291; Rev. Stat. Sections 1256, 1457 (1878 ed.). Article 2(a)(6), in particular, traces its lineage to the Naval Service Appropriations Act of 1916, ch. 417, 39 Stat. 589-591. See also Naval Reserve and Marine Corps Reserve Act of 1925, ch. 374, Sections 6, 10, 43 Stat. 1081-1082, 1083; Naval Reserve Act of 1938, ch. 690, Section 6, 52 Stat. 1176. Before enacting Article 2(a)(6) of the UCMJ in 1950, Congress considered the testimony of several witnesses that court-martial jurisdiction over persons in an inactive duty status was unnecessary and unfair and should be limited. Uniform Code of Military Justice: Hearings on H.R. 2498 Before a Subcomm. of the House Comm. on Armed Services, 81st Cong., 1st Sess. 706, 749, 864-870 (1949); Hearings on S. 857 and H.R. 4080 Before a Subcomm. of the Senate Comm. on Armed Services, 81st Cong., 1st Sess. 329-330 (1949). Congress rejected the argument that these persons were simply pensioners who were no longer members of the armed forces in favor of the conclusion that these persons were still members of the military who receive lesser pay for current but reduced services and thus should continue to be subject to court-martial jurisdiction. Because "Congress has primary responsibility for the delicate task of balancing the rights of servicemen against the needs of the military" (Solorio v. United States, slip op. 12) and because "'judicial deference * * * is at its apogee when legislative action under the congressional authority to raise and support armies and make rules and regulations for their governance is challenged'" (ibid. (citation omitted)), Congress's judgment on this subject is entitled to respect from the courts.

Update: Comments are must read! Overton's defense attorney (and a fellow blogger) comments and argues that I'm off-track in that a court martial could violate the double jeopardy clause.

Randall “Duke” Cunningham, lays it down, gives it up, and prepares to move on with his life:

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2005/11/a_rising_tide_o.html Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) pleaded guilty today to fraud, conspiracy to commit bribery and tax evasion. Shortly after entering his plea, Cunningham announced that he is immediately resigning his seat, though he had already announced that he would not seek reelection next year.

According to The Associated Press, Cunningham admitted "he took $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to conspirators." The defense contracting firm at the center of the scandal is MZM Inc., which is run by Mitchell Wade. Here's one of many Post stories from earlier this year with background on Wade's ties to Cunningham.

Bad Randy. Bad. Oh well, there’s always a bad apple somewhere, right?

Whoops….

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/13262742.htm WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department's wide-ranging investigation of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has entered a highly active phase as prosecutors are beginning to move on evidence pointing to possible corruption in Congress and in executive branch agencies, lawyers involved in the case said.
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is one of the members under scrutiny, the sources said. Prosecutors have already told Rep. Robert Ney, R-Ohio, and his former chief of staff that they are preparing a bribery case against them, according to two sources knowledgeable about the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/21/AR2005112101059.html WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An ex-aide to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and partner to a powerful Republican lobbyist pleaded guilty to conspiracy on Monday under a deal in which he is cooperating with prosecutors probing alleged influence-buying involving the lobbyist and lawmakers.
Michael Scanlon, 35, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy in defrauding Indian tribes of millions of dollars and lavishing gifts upon a member of the U.S. Congress.

Fortunately we still have the Fourth Estate to protect the Republic by keeping a skeptical eye on corrupt politicians, and valiantly alerting the citizenry when there’s evil afoot.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112801683.html The reporter for Time magazine who recently agreed to testify in the CIA leak case is central to White House senior adviser Karl Rove's effort to fend off an indictment in the two-year-old investigation, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Viveca Novak, who has written intermittently about the leak case for Time, has been asked to provide sworn testimony to Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald in the next few weeks after Rove attorney Robert Luskin told Fitzgerald about a conversation he had with her, the two sources said.

It could not be learned what Luskin and Novak, who are friends, discussed that could help prove Rove did nothing illegal in the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters and the subsequent investigation of it.

Good grief!! Even the press is corrupt. If this keeps up, the Invisible Cloud Being is going to send us a message of his/her/its disapproval.

Nov 28, 2005 — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A chunk of marble fell from near the roof of the U.S. Supreme Court onto the stairs in the front of the building but no one was injured, a court spokeswoman said on Monday.
The marble was above the inscription near the top of the building saying, "Equal Justice Under Law" and above the allegorical figure representing "Order," one of nine sculptured figures on the pediment.
[Spokeswoman Kathy Arberg] had no explanation why it fell, but said it was not related to the construction work occurring as part of the renovation of the building. She said no work is currently taking place on the front the building, which faces the U.S. Capitol.

Because it is getting so hard to keep track of these “few bad apples” Wayne Madsen Report has thoughtfully prepared a program.

Every once in a while some of us, Progressives, Liberals, Democrats, whatever label you want to apply to the oxygen breathers on Planet Earth who believe that economic and social progress are absolutely necessary to water Democracy, stop, stand up, scratch their heads, and say, “WTF? I’ve been giving the fight the best I’ve got and it looks like I just can’t climb out of the ditch of mud and dung created by the righties. Am I wasting my time here?” An alternative might be, “Just how expensive are houses in Canada, anyway?”

Many of you know the feeling: this has been a long hard struggle to beat back the organized forces of the rightwing political and social assault on the America that the Founding Fathers envisioned. Fatigue and burnout affect the reality based community much more than it does the fantasists.

While this online magazine was established to discuss veterans’ affairs, and matter relating to that topic, the intermixture of politics, social matters, the VRWC, and fighting back the aggressions of the POTL are impossible to avoid. Veterans of past wars view the veterans of the Iraq quagmire and cringe at the cruelties imposed by a cabal of criminals that sent them to fight with no plan of success, improper and inadequate equipment, food, water, and an inefficient logistical system. We see them come home, maimed, savaged by war, and billed for the food they are fed in hospitals, not paid for months at a time, refused needed follow up treatment by a Veterans Affairs department more interested in budget trimming than in care and support.

We don’t see our dead brothers and sisters though. A malAdministration more interested in public relations and maximizing the profits of corporations has decreed Americans may not see the many flag draped coffins returned to our soil, observed only by the ceremonial guard of honor at Dover and Travis Air Bases. Parents and wives who requested to meet their loved ones at the air bases have been callously refused this courtesy. They are denied the chance to honor their loved ones at the point of entry in the country they ostensibly died for.

This is shameful.

They sneak them into the country as if the bodies of our brothers and sisters were some sort of contraband. They are offloaded in the dead of night, quickly transshipped to their final destination, most often a civilian funeral director, or directly to a cemetery for interment.

Have you seen the film Gardens of Stone? If not, do so. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093073/ If you have, watch it again. An idealistic young man believes in the struggle his country has involved itself in, and eagerly goes to fight in a war older hands tell him is unwinnable.

Over on Daily Kos there’s an interesting diary entry. Low and middle level officers are deciding this thing in Iraq has become a debacle. My limited experience tells me that if the officers are thinking this way, so are many of the EM. (Thanks to wkm for pointing this out on a comment.)

Brian at One Veteran’s Voice points us to a revealing article in the LA Times about how the EM has decided this catastrophe must stop. (registration required)

We’re losing. The Iraqis want us out, and say it’s all right to kill the Coalition (principally American) occupiers until they leave.

How many more Americans must die to enrich the oil companies?

Time to go, before it becomes a fighting retreat.

As much as I never thought the Iraq war was a good idea or even remotely necessary, I have to be of the opinion that if we are going to do it, then we should place a premium on winning and reducing the threat to our troops. Take your blood pressure medicine and then go read this. As a matter of fact, you might just want to take a cruise around the site and see what else the children of those without influence have to say about the war.

...

There is so much. I could go on forever. the worst thing, which we have discussed, is that they are playing these bullshit numbers games to fool America about troop strength. If they stopped paying KBR employees $100,000 to do the job of a $28,000 soldier, maybe they'd have enough money to send us enough soldiers to do the job. As it stands we have no offensive capability in the most dangerous city on earth. General Shinseki should write an Op/Ed that basically says, "I told you so." Idiots.

...

I wish every american could see this for him/herself. Registering your frustration at the ballot box isn't nearly enough. There should be jail terms for this.

CAFKIA

Via The American Street, attention is drawn to an LA Times article which has some fascinating details and some appalling conclusions for the cynical:

Col. Ted Westhusing, a military ethicist who volunteered to go to Iraq, was upset by what he saw. His apparent suicide raises questions.

If you google the word “ethicist” or run it down in a dictionary you learn that there is a profession dedicated to teaching ‘right’ and wrong, and explaining why ‘right’ is better. In a sense, religious leaders and teachers once filled this function but that day seems to have sadly passed. All too many of Western religious organizations seem to have been overtaken by sectarian hatreds, sexual depravity, political advocacy, bigotry and all around general failure of their original intended goals. In a bit of historical serendipity the secular society has again discovered this field, and it is growing. There’s a degree of irony in finding an ethicist among the military. Who knew ethics could be applied to the killing of your fellow human?

But COL Westhusing seems to have been not just this odd duck in the Army, but apparently a valued member. He taught the subject of ethics at West Point. It's not easy to become a professor at the Point. The Army looks for the brightest, sharpest, most knowledgable because these are the men who create tomorrow's leaders. Those are the leaders who will be charged with the protection and succeess of the Army's future. Selection to the faculty is a high mark of approval. While these professors will never climb to the highest levels of command, it is understood they are training tomorrow's generals, and thereby influencing and shaping the future.

Westhusing, 44, was no ordinary officer. He was one of the Army’s leading scholars of military ethics, a full professor at West Point who volunteered to serve in Iraq to be able to better teach his students. He had a doctorate in philosophy; his dissertation was an extended meditation on the meaning of honor.

In the new, streamlined 21st century America envisioned by Bu$hCo, PNAC, the Republican Party, which has been documented as evil and corrupt at many different levels, in many different jurisdictions, there is no place for quaint and outmoded concepts like “honor”. In a setting in which civilians are deliberately targeted, homes and places of religious worship intentionally destroyed, and ‘suspects’ rounded up in the thousands before transportation to hidden, secret corners all around the world for years of torture, with no word of them for grieving families, how can there be any honor?

A note found in his trailer seemed to offer clues. Written in what the Army determined was his handwriting, the colonel appeared to be struggling with a final question.

How is honor possible in a war like the one in Iraq?

Holy Crap. This is some serious shit, and it's not being talked about much...or I've been sleeping waaaay too long.

The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world.

The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.

Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the data-sharing amendment would still give the Pentagon much greater access to the FBI's massive collection of data, including information on citizens not connected to terrorism or espionage.

The measure, she said, "removes one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies." She said the Pentagon's "intelligence agencies are quietly expanding their domestic presence without any public debate."
...
In addition, each of the military services has begun its own post-9/11 collection of domestic intelligence, primarily aimed at gathering data on potential terrorist threats to bases and other military facilities at home and abroad. For example, Eagle Eyes is a program set up by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which "enlists the eyes and ears of Air Force members and citizens in the war on terror," according to the program's Web site.

So with this blog post, on this most American of Holidays...I'll sum this up with a blast from the past.

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich-Marshall at the Nuremberg Trials

2006 Can Not Come Soon Enough.

Over on the Eschaton webpage there's a small mention of computer technobabble that seems fascinating, listed inder the title "Robots.txt":

Was searching for something and randomly came across the White House's robot.txt file which discourages search engines and archive.org from searching/providing a cache of the web pages in it. No idea if this is a new exciting discovery.

Always interested in learning something about the Black Arts of computer stuff, I clicked the link and if I understand correctly what I saw, I get the impression that OUR White House website has been thingamy-jiggered to prevent Google and a lot of other cache sites from keeping historical records of what's put up on the webpage.

Because, you know, the interpretation of history changes all the time.

Maybe the WH website is an exciting, dynamic, ongoing electronic event that keeps changing?

Or something.

Ryan Timmins just got back from Nam Iraq. He's still processing it all and working through the contradictions.

My political views began to falter. I no longer could swallow what the public was being told. I knew it was different than what the talking heads on the news and the spin-doctors in the government were saying it was.

I remember a lot of guys whose political views changed after seeing life in the raw. Change is part of life, but you have to be prepared to accept that change as a positive element in your life. Usually you get the psychic shock and think it all out later, after the stress has passed, and that's when you figure out you've crossed a hurdle, learned some new truth, gained a better insight into your soul. That's when you figure out the bastards lied to you. Psychologists call it "maturation" I think.

I was trying to talk to my friends at home and they didn’t quite get it. They tried to understand but nothing could put it into terms they could grasp. This went on for several months, but I never quite connected with anyone well enough to explain it. I began to feel isolated and alone.

For me, personally this was just about the most painful part of the lesson. One professional brain twister termed it a variant on the Stockholm Syndrome - that remarkable bit of inner brain rationalization that leads to feelings of guilt because you survived.

As we made the turn onto the road leading to Camp Casey, a knot formed in my stomach. I began to wonder if I was doing the right thing. Am I supposed to be here? Am I betraying my brothers in arms like the media says? Is this the right thing to do? I couldn't answer the questions. So I drove on.

Screw the media, Ryan. They're professional liars, like the politicians. Trust your eyes and ears, and that inner sense we seem to develop. That's a survival skill.

My buddy saw the whole exchange, but I'm not sure that he got it all. I saw in the other vet’s eyes that he knew exactly where I was without even asking. I saw that he understood my pain. He shared the demons I have. I said more to him in five minutes than I have to anyone since I got back six months ago. My healing began at that point.

This simple trip made me realize that I had a duty as a soldier to get the word out. There are other soldiers out there that need to have an experience that I did. They need to start the healing process. On top of that, the American people needed to know what was really going on. People needed to see what was happening in Iraq.

Let us never forget.

Robert Fisk writes about Iraq and death and about those left behind, and 350 years ago, John Milton replies:

NEW YORK -- I sit in one of the dives on 44th Street, uncertain how to approach Sue Niederer and Celeste Zappala, afraid that their stories can be too easily turned into tears, their message lost after the Veterans Day march. They were put at the back of the New York parade, humiliated, with their little crowd of anti-war veterans and their memories of boys who left young wives for Iraq and came back in coffins.

Sue's voice rises in indignation above the noise of the New York diner, angry and brave and drowning out the joshing of two vets at the other end of the table. "I remember very clearly my son's last words before he went back after his two weeks' vacation. "I don't know who my enemy is,' he said. "It's a worthless, senseless war, a war of religion. We'll never win it.' He wasn't killed. He was murdered. He was murdered by the U.S. administration. He was out looking for IEDs. He found one, stopped his convoy and was blown up. I regard it as a suicide mission."

“But now, my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run.”

Celeste's son Sherwood was killed on April 26 last year, his end as tragic as it was unnecessary. He was protecting a group of military inspectors hunting for President Bush's mythical weapons of mass destruction when a perfume factory they were searching in Baghdad suddenly exploded. "He was getting out of the cab of his truck to help the wounded when some debris came crashing out of the sky and hit him," Celeste says. "When they left on their mission, they were supposed to have a lorry with them with equipment that would explode bombs by radio before they reached the scene. But that day, the lorry broke down and a British officer told them to set off on the mission without it. I will always remember that my son died just a month after George W. Bush made that videotape in front of the press -- the one where he made a joke about looking for weapons of mass destruction and pretended to search under his desk for the weapons. He was making fun of the fact he hadn't found them but my son died looking for them and they didn't exist."

“But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason.”

Up on a giant television screen, Vice-President Dick Cheney -- he who went on lying about the non-existent links between Saddam and 9/11 long after the invasion -- is solemnly bowing his head in the Arlington cemetery.

Ah yes, he is honoring the fallen. And I wonder if he will ever understand his betrayal of the men and women back on 44th Street.

“Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?”

“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

For those of you who have been lulled into near-coma by tryptophan overdose, here's the first part of some thoughts on where we were as a nation, where we want to go, and where we might or might not end up.

Historically, The US has been the acknowledged leader in the trans-Atlantic partnership forged after the end of WWII. The massive economic engine created by the manufacturing needs of a modernized military, as well as being the most technologically advanced survivor of the conflict, left the US in a position of tremendous political power, and national leaders used their clout to create strong bonds in western Europe. The formation of NATO carried great implications for a Europe exhausted by 6 years of warfare. The presence of American occupation forces served as the foundation of strength in order to create an image of resistance to Soviet desires for expansion to the industrial heartland of the Ruhr, the economic powerhouse of central Europe, as well as the prize desired by Russia since the early 1700s – warm weather ports with access to the Atlantic and Mediterranean.

The Marshall Plan supplied the financing to rebuild the shattered economic base of Germany, France and Italy. It was rightly understood that military force can only be served by a strong, vital economy, and in that day heavy manufacturing was needed.

NATO established the skeleton of partnership, mostly under American leadership, that presented a united front to the perception of an ominously posed Soviet threat to engulf the rest of the Euro-Asian continental mass at the first opportunity. The permanent position of American ground and air assets served as symbols of US determination and strengthened the will of western Europe. Under the occasionally insistent urging of the US Europe rebuilt their armies, with the German Bundeswehr forming the lynchpin of the alliance. This was mandated by the strategic belief that the next war would be fought on German soil.

As time passed and strategic theories mutated after the loss of the American nuclear monopoly, the concept of a strong central European defensive military became even more important. The bugaboo of the monolithic Soviet bear was a major force in driving the expansion of the US military-industrial complex that has been praised and derided in so many ways. A more prosperous Europe, shrinking from the horrors of early and mid-20th century conflict, began the steps of political affiliation that resulted in the European Union. NATO was the building block, and military partnership the entry key to the economic participation and growth.

The growing European Union discovered that, with the political collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite allies, the US had become superfluous to a great extent. Some came to consider the US an economic competitor.

One of our regular contributors, Jeff Huber, has posted some interesting ideas about the future of power alliances in the 21st century. You can find them here, here, and here

Next up: Some thoughts on how to get demoted from the Varsity to the JV.

Just sent an email to Col. Danny Bubp, the Ohio State Representative whose derogatory comments toward Rep. Jack Murtha were repeated on the US House of Representatives floor by Rep. Jean Schmidt (OH-02). Text follows:

Rep. Bubp,

Sir, as a fellow Marine, I thought we were brothers. I thought that brothers looked after one another. Unfortunately, with your recent comments toward Rep. Jack Murtha, himself one of “our” brothers, it appears that you have forgotten the Marine Corps Motto Semper Fidelis. If you are still intent on being a US Marine, it would behoove you to go back through your Marine Corps history lessons and again learn the meaning of the phrase. Semper Fidelis means being Always Faithful to God, Country, and Corps. Your comments relayed by Rep. Schmidt seem to have betrayed that faith. If this is how you feel about your brothers, I urge you to resign you commission in the Marine Corps Reserve and go join the Army Reserve. They don’t rely on that brotherhood as we do. They do not have the same personal integrity as Marines do. But one thing you can count on, sir, is that they have no problem with cutting down one of their own like you have recently done with Col. Murtha. Have an excellent day, sir, and hopefully you reconsider your remarks toward Col. Murtha.

Sincerely,
LCpl Bulldog* (’92-’96)

*Last name omitted for privacy purposes.

**I know that there are those of you who read this who are/were in the Army/Army Reserves. The above was not meant to be a slam against your service, rather a testament to how most Marines view themselves compared to the other services; a little inter-service rivalry if you will. Everybody knows we're cocky bastards who think Army stands for Aint Ready to be Marines Yet. So for those of you who have taken offense to the above, I apologize.

R.J. Matson is a political cartoonist published in the St Louis Post Dispatch.

http://images.stltoday.com/stltoday/resources/matson111505.jpg

Via Military.com we learn that

WASHINGTON - The military is recalling more than 18,000 protective vests because they did not meet ballistic test standards when the body armor was made up to five years ago. It is the second recall in about six months.

Marine Corps spokesman Maj. Douglas Powell and Army spokesman Paul Boyce said no Marines or soldiers were at risk because the vest met field test requirements. The vests did not meet the higher manufacturing standards. Officials discovered the problems in September.

The Marines said they recalled the vests to alleviate any doubts caused by a story in the Marine Corps Times, but service officials insisted they did not believe the vests are faulty. Most of the Point Blank vests passed the tests, but several fell short of the Marines' standards during testing in 2004. At the time, the company said it stands by its products and that there had been no reported failures in the field. The vests are designed to withstand small arms munitions fired at a certain velocity. The contract specification is higher than the potential threat level in the field, Boyce and Powell said, and therefore there were no incidents where troops were injured because the vest failed.

I’m appalled that Marine Corps standards are higher than the Army’s. Glad for the Marines, disgusted otherwise.

Almost 2100 dead and not one of these killed by a failure of a vest that has been recalled for deficiencies?

The rule of the 6 Ps: Proper Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.

The military - Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force train for war and hope (pray) for peace. We all understand that. Military would rather train than fight, because it's better for us, our wives, and children.

But there is a "war" of sorts in the US. It's been a traditional, annual event, and it embodies some of the best qualities of the American spirit: courage, strength, loyalty, honor and brotherhood.

I'm talking of course, about the annual Army-Navy game which is a Thanksgiving Day tradition as wonderful and exciting as the various parades throughout the country. This game is a bit special, because each service has won 49 games.

This service rivalry has a long history, and there has been much written about it over the years. One of the finest sights I've ever seen was watching the Corps of Cadets and Brigade of Midshipmen honoring each other after the game.

If you're going to the game in person be sure to give Operation Gratitude a hand and bring a comfort item for a troop who's not at home with his family. If you're going to watch the game on TV from your living room, how about donating a few bucks to help our brothers and sisters in uniform?

Gooooooo Army!

Some Thoughts From Chicago

Driftglass, a writer in Chicago, has a post today about John McCain, and yellow elephants, and human nature, and humanity, and decency, and The People of the Lie.

Excerpts:

Because McCain has no fixed ceiling on what he is willing to pay to be President…and, I would argue, on an almost metabolic level, on what he is willing to pay to stop the government from using torture as a tool of statecraft.

I don't pretend for a minute to understand what John McCain went through during his 5 ½ years in Hanoi but it’s safe to say it left the deepest possible mark on him that an experience can leave on a human. An episode that laid scar tissue down into the marrow. It....reformatted him into different kind of man.

However high the wall around this Administration may be, however tightly tuckpointed the stones, the groundwater in every direction now stinks of their deathcult lies and madness. However tightly they squeeze, they can't control it and it scares the shit out of them.

“You must decide in your own heart what you are truly willing to pay, and then truly be willing to turn your back and walk away from it without regret if the price is just high.”

Good stuff. Well worth reading.

Twice.

I've been trying to point out to many people over the past week that I'm not a "cut and run" guy, but a guy who wants this job done as soon as possible and, yes, with mechanisms left in place to come to Iraqis' aid when need be.

But screw that. It's time to go.

Leaders of Iraq's sharply divided Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis called Monday for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces in the country and said Iraq's opposition had a "legitimate right" of resistance.

The final communique, hammered out at the end of three days of negotiations at a preparatory reconciliation conference under the auspices of the Arab League, condemned terrorism, but was a clear acknowledgment of the Sunni position that insurgents should not be labeled as terrorists if their operations do not target innocent civilians or institutions designed to provide for the welfare of Iraqi citizens. (Emphasis Nitpicker's.)

Pop smoke.

More on the communique at AMERICAblog.

GEN Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer yesterday, and they discussed US troop levels in Iraq.

General Pace, Lieutenant General John Vines, a top U.S. military commander in Iraq, quoted in today's New York Times as saying this: "Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the second-ranking officer in Iraq, used a telephone interview during the Capitol Hill debate to say that American troop levels could fall by 50,000 by the end of 2006, to below 100,000." About 150,000, 160,000 troops in Iraq right now. Is that the game plan?

And GEN Pace had a loyal response:

The commanders on the ground, General Abizaid, General Casey, General Vines, continuously review the size of the force that they have right now, and they look at both how they might need to increase in case certain factors come into play, and how they might be able to decrease. And they do that across the board.

But it is certainly true that the commanders on the ground are always looking at both how to ramp up and how to ramp down, given circumstances on the ground.

Translation: We’re always keeping an eye on the troop levels and we adjust as we feel is necessary, based upon the recommendations of commanders in place.

There seems to be a little problem here, though, because the “commanders in place” don’t actually work at the tip of the spear. Time has an article this week regarding troop levels which disputes what GEN Pace is saying.

In an unusual closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill last week, Virginia's John Warner, joined by Democratic Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Mark Dayton of Minnesota, sat across the table from 10 military officers chosen for their experience on the battlefield rather than in the political arena. Warner rounded up the battalion commanders to get at what the military calls "ground truth"--the unvarnished story of what's going on in Iraq. "We wanted the view from men who had been on the tip of the spear, and we got it," said John Ullyot, a Warner spokesman who declined to comment on what was said at the meeting but confirmed that some Capitol Hill staff members were also present. According to two sources with knowledge of the meeting, the Army and Marine officers were blunt. In contrast to the Pentagon's stock answer that there are enough troops on the ground in Iraq, the commanders said that they not only needed more manpower but also had repeatedly asked for it. Indeed, military sources told TIME that as recently as August 2005, a senior military official requested more troops but got turned down flat.

[T]he battalion commanders, according to sources close to last week's meeting, said that because there are not enough troops, they have to "leapfrog" around Iraq to keep insurgents from returning to towns that have been cleared out. The officers also stressed that the lack of manpower--rather than of protective armor or signal jammers--posed one of the biggest obstacles in dealing with roadside bombs, which have caused the majority of U.S. casualties in Iraq. The commanders, according to the meeting sources, said there are simply "never enough" explosives experts on the ground. So far, no officer has been willing to go on record to complain about the need for more troops. But there is one positive sign: the Army recently decided to double the number of explosive experts to 2,500 over the next few years.

And of course, even at the battalion level it’s understood that we’re not leaving Iraq anytime soon, since the Army plans an expansion of the EOD personnel “over the next few years.”

Wolf Blitzer had some visitors on his “CNN Late Edition” yesterday. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and GEN Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stopped by to wrap their little strings around the top and zitz a bit more spin on things.

Blitzer, who is nothing if not up to the minute with his finger on the pulse of American politics, said in his introduction:

Debate and tempers reached a fever pitch during a rare Friday night session of the U.S. House of Representatives, which overwhelmingly rejected a resolution to immediately withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. Just a short while ago, I spoke with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and the new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Marine Corps General Peter Pace.

The interview was videotaped, presumably because Mr Rumsfeld had pressing business to attend to at some Eastern European torture prison Allied nation. Blitzer, being the man of the moment that he is, said,

John Murtha, the ranking Democrat of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, had strong words this week, caused a huge uproar in Washington. Listen to this.

Following this, Congressman Murtha’s by now familiar statement that the military has done what it could and let’s bring the survivors home. And Blitzer asked Mr Rumsfeld, “How about that shit?” Rumsfeld’s reply is interesting.

I think it's important to say a couple of things about that sound bite that you just gave us. First of all, in a democracy, people can have a good debate and a discussion and have views, and that's fair enough. That was true in World War II. There was a debate and disagreement. It was true in the Korean War, the Vietnam War. And it's true in this war.

I think the interesting thing about the sound bite you just showed us is that very few Democrats or Republicans supported it. And I think that's an important message for our troops.

The really interesting thing about the resolution, of course, is that the Murtha resolution was rewritten by the Republicans, as was ably pointed out by Bulldog in his post about Strawmen.

So, what we saw was more of the usual Republican legerdemain, quick change behind the curtain, and be sure to watch the magician’s right hand, pay no attention to what the left hand is doing. Is it any surprise that the Republicans ignored Mr Murtha’s for a sensible drawdown? They needed a situation where they could claim Mr Murtha was all alone out there in the wilderness.

The fake resolution passed overwhelmingly, with only 3 dissents.
And Mr Rumsfeld lied through his teeth once again to Blitzer.

The important -- the important thing is that very little support went to Jack Murtha. The Democrats didn't step up and support it, and Republicans didn't step up and support it. And I think it's important for our troops to know that.

Was it smart for the Republicans to ask for that resolution, in effect embarrassing Murtha?

The death of a thousand cuts.

Well, it looks like the Republicans are claiming victory over the house vote for the immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. And what a victory it was too. But for who? The House vote was NOT, I repeat NOT, the resolution that Congressman Murtha brought to the floor. The version voted on, with a final tally of 403-3, was actually brought to the floor by Rep. Duncan Hunter of California. Here's what was actually being voted on:

It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

My plan calls:

To immediately redeploy U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces.
To create a quick reaction force in the region.
To create an over- the- horizon presence of Marines.
To diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq

The U.S. generals running the war in Iraq presented a new assessment of the military situation in public comments and sworn testimony this week: The 149,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are increasingly part of the problem.

During a trip to Washington, the generals said the presence of U.S. forces was fueling the insurgency, fostering an undesirable dependency on American troops among the nascent Iraqi military, and energizing terrorists across the Middle East.

For all these reasons, they said, a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops is imperative.

[snip]

During his congressional testimony, Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, also said that troop reductions were required to "take away one of the elements that fuels the insurgency, that of the coalition forces as an occupying force."

As the title of this post states, the straw men (wiki) that Republicans are setting up need to be torched. Democrats need to stand united in their support of Rep. Jack Murtha, a fine Marine in his own right, and in their fight against the Republican smear machine when it comes to Iraq.

cross-posted at The Bulldog Says...