You'd think that for millions of dollars in no-bid contracts they'd at least do a great job

Well, apparently not.

Pasta or chicken?

As in, what meal would you like on your flight back to the United States?

That's what Eric Peters was told would be his choice if he questioned the shoddy electrical wiring he found in buildings wired by Houston-based KBR, Inc., on bases in Iraq. Peters, licensed as a master electrician in nine states, worked for KBR in Iraq from February to April of this year.

Peters, along with Jim Childs, a former project manager in Iraq for the Army Corps of Engineers, and Charles Smith, the former head of the Army Field Support Command, testified today at the Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing regarding tens of millions of dollars in government bonus money paid to KBR, a contractor whose faulty work is said to have led to the electrocutions of American soldiers

Of course as we know, KBR (Kellogg, Brown and Root) is a subsidiary of Halliburton, and we well know how Halliburton got all those no-bid contracts.

But to hear that they may have (despite all that money) cut corners on costs and that because of it some American servicemembers may have died needlessly is terrible, and I hope this gets fully investigated.

The Biggest Crime

"Why is Bush's monumental crime ignored and the far lesser crime of torture yelled about from the roof tops?"

Torture? But There Is A Far, Far More Egregious Crime

Phil Vargas:

As important as the U.S. torture issue is, there is a far greater crime that needs to be strongly addressed: How George W. Bush and his cronies took our country into an extremely destructive and costly war on the basis of outright lies. The resulting harm is vast and incalculable for our country and for Iraq. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people including women and children have been killed, and millions of lives have been seriously disrupted and destroyed in a country that presented absolutely no threat to us. And killing and maiming in Iraq still goes on daily, all as a result of Bush's war!

And as well, thousands of American soldiers have given their lives and/or have been seriously wounded as a result of Bush's lies, for they genuinely believed that they were fighting for their country against a confirmed enemy, viz. Iraq's [alleged] involvement in the 9/11 attacks!

The case of such a monumental crime, probably the worst crime ever committed by a U.S. President, is amply substantiated by Vincent Bugliosi in his powerful book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. And the evidence of Bush's war lies is incontrovertible and beyond a reasonable doubt. Why, why is that horrific crime ignored by the media and all those pushing so hard for justice regarding the torture criminality, and the much bigger crime ignored? Nobody even mentions it but in passing, it seems. Why, why?

May 14, 2009

Iraq Coalition Casualty Count 4,294

Operation Enduring Freedom + 683

U. S. troop deaths, to date: 4,977

Bush Era: An Eight-Year-Long Ripoff

The Bush Era Has Been an Eight-Year-Long Madoff-Style Ripoff

It will be easier for us and Obama to push for a bold agenda if we demand accountability for the robbery and theft of the Bush years.

Frank Rich:

Three days after the world learned that $50 billion may have disappeared in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, The Times led its front page of Dec. 14 with the revelation of another $50 billion rip-off. This time the vanished loot belonged to American taxpayers. That was our collective contribution to the $117 billion spent (as of mid-2008) on Iraq reconstruction — a sinkhole of corruption, cronyism, incompetence and outright theft that epitomized Bush management at home and abroad.

The source for this news was a near-final draft of an as-yet-unpublished 513-page federal history of this nation-building fiasco. The document was assembled by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction — led by a Bush appointee, no less. It pinpoints, among other transgressions, a governmental Ponzi scheme concocted to bamboozle Americans into believing they were accruing steady dividends on their investment in a “new” Iraq. [...]

What’s most remarkable about the Times article, however, is how little stir it caused. When, in 1971, The Times got its hands on the Pentagon Papers, the internal federal history of the Vietnam disaster, the revelations caused a national uproar. But after eight years of battering by Bush, the nation has been rendered half-catatonic. The Iraq Pentagon Papers sank with barely a trace.

After all, next to big-ticket administration horrors like Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and the politicized hiring and firing at Alberto Gonzales’s Justice Department, the wreckage of Iraq reconstruction is what Ralph Kramden of “The Honeymooners” would dismiss as “a mere bag of shells.” The $50 billion also pales next to other sums that remain unaccounted for in the Bush era, from the $345 billion in lost tax revenue due to unpoliced offshore corporate tax havens to the far-from-transparent disposition of some $350 billion in Wall Street bailout money. In the old Pat Moynihan phrase, the Bush years have “defined deviancy down” in terms of how low a standard of ethical behavior we now tolerate as the norm from public officials.

Not even a good old-fashioned sex scandal could get our outrage going again. Indeed, a juicy one erupted last year in the Interior Department, where the inspector general found that officials “had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.” Two officials tasked with marketing oil on behalf of American taxpayers got so blotto at a daytime golf event sponsored by Shell that they became too incapacitated to drive and had to be put up by the oil company. [...]

It took 110 pages for the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan research organization, to compile the CliffsNotes inventory of the Bush wreckage last month. It found “125 systematic failures across the breadth of the federal government.” That accounting is conservative. There are still too many unanswered questions. [...]

Among those Americans still enraged about the Bush years, there are also calls for truth and reconciliation commissions, war crimes trials and, in a petition movement on Obama’s transition Web site, a special prosecutor in the Patrick Fitzgerald mode. One of the sharpest appointments yet made by the incoming president may support decisive action: Dawn Johnsen, a law professor and former Clinton administration official who last week was chosen to run the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice.

This is the same office where the Bush apparatchik John Yoo produced his infamous memos justifying torture. Johnsen is a fierce critic of such constitutional abuses. In articles for Slate last year, she wondered “where is the outrage, the public outcry” over a government that has acted lawlessly and that “does not respect the legal and moral bounds of human decency.” She asked, “How do we save our country’s honor, and our own?”

The last is not a rhetorical question. While our new president indeed must move on and address the urgent crises that cannot wait, Bush administration malfeasance can’t be merely forgotten or finessed. A new Justice Department must enforce the law; Congress must press outstanding subpoenas to smoke out potential criminal activity; every legal effort must be made to stop what seems like a wholesale effort by the outgoing White House to withhold, hide and possibly destroy huge chunks of its electronic and paper trail. As Johnsen wrote last March, we must also “resist Bush administration efforts to hide evidence of its wrongdoing through demands for retroactive immunity, assertions of state privilege, and implausible claims that openness will empower terrorists.”

As if to anticipate the current debate, she added that “we must avoid any temptation simply to move on,” because the national honor cannot be restored “without full disclosure.”

It appears that we do have a Pyrrhic' victory.' But don't let the right claim it is anything more than that.

Lately, it seems that the righties want to talk about Iraq. They claim that since the surge worked, that somehow that vindicates all the crap they've thrown out there about it during these past several years. Fine, let's talk about Iraq.

I beg to differ with the standard right wing analysis. It is true that violence in Iraq is way down (especially U.S. troop casualties) and that we appear to have driven al-Qaeda out of Iraq. The Al-Maliki government has won several battles against homegrown militia groups and appears to have control over nearly all of the country.

And while the right tends to exaggerate the part of this that is attributable to the surge, there is little doubt that U.S. forces played a major role in routing al-Qaeda and in helping the Sunni militias take control of their regions of Iraq, and also in supporting the government's offensives against the Sadrist militia and other similar groups. If the right is guilty of exaggeration by failing to acknowledge the contribution of former Sunni militias that we bought by the payment of cash as being very important to the overall success as the surge, then often we on the left are guilty of failing to acknowledge the plain fact that the surge worked.

But where the righty argument falls flat is when they try to extrapolate from that back to justifying the original invasion of Iraq. Several months ago I anticipated this argument in a post I wrote entitled, The BEST case scenario in Iraq: A Pyrrhic victory.

Now, as an American I'm glad that starting where we were we have achieved this best case scenario.

However if we add up the costs and gains of the Iraq war we find the following:

Gains:

1. Saddam Hussein is gone. Of course there are still many bloody dictatorships in the world including the leaders of the country right now hosting the Olympics and we cannot get rid of them all but certainly we got rid of one. In any case, Saddam was gone by six weeks into the war, and had been captured by nine months into the war, so this still doesn't justify the nearly five years we've been fighting since the capture of Saddam.

2. Iraq is now a democracy. And the first thing they did with the democracy we gave them was to ratify a Constitution that states that the official religion is Islam and that Sharia is a source of the law, and elect a parliament full of fundamentalists that immediately passed restrictions on the legal rights of women so that in matters like divorce, inheritance and custody disputes they have even less rights than they had under Saddam. Democracy is like anything else-- it has to be earned to be treasured, not handed down. That is why Poles value their democracy while Iraqis have elected a majority of members of their parliament who are committed to establishing Sharia. Luckily, the political gridlock in Iraq has had the effect of preventing their parliament from getting much done.


3. There are now at best a handful of al-Qaeda members in Iraq. Which is exactly how many there were back in March 2003 when we invaded (Saddam knew who he could trust, which was nobody.) So we've beaten al-Qaeda all the way back to where it was in the first place.

4. We now know for sure that Iraq was no longer making WMD's or stockpiling them. If Bush had waited for Hans Blix to finish doing his job then we'd have learned that for free.

Costs:

1. The five year detour into Iraq have al-Qaeda, almost destroyed (along with their Taliban allies) in Afghanistan by January 2003, a second chance-- and they have come roaring back. They now have far more power in both Afghanistan and in Pakistan than they have had at any time since we put that war on the back burner and went after Iraq instead in March 2003. Righty likes to compare their present status to where they were on September 11. But that is not a valid comparison. Bush could have made the final push in early 2003 to end the earth of the Taliban and rid their Afghan center of power of al-Qaeda (including bin Laden and al-Zawahri) but he chose to relax the pressure and go after Iraq instead. So the nature of our conflict against the Taliban and AQ changed fundamentally in early 2003 from one of offense to one of essentially attrition and guarding certain selected strongpoints (mostly cities and military bases.) This is exactly the strategy the Soviet Union pursued in Afghanistan and it failed then, and it has slowly been failing us over the past five years. Further, the next American President will get to deal with a weak government in Pakistan which is even less willing to support operations and go after al-Qaeda and the Taliban than the Musharraf government was-- and we now have evidence that the Pakistani intelligence service itself is full of Taliban sympathizers, making Pakistan an unreliable ally at best.

2. We have lost the support of the world that we enjoyed virtually unanimously after 9/11. Most righties tend to blow this one off, suggesting that unilateral action is better anyway, but in fact we are overstretched right now militarily (one reason Iran is so belligerent-- they know darn well that as long as we have 150,000 or so troops tied down in Iraq we lack the ground force to seriously threaten to invade them.) Thanks to the poor planning of what to do after the invasion and the years we stayed fighting in Iraq it's a safe bet that next time we need a coalition, be it for political or military reasons, we'll find lots of cheerleaders but very few willing to go out onto the field with us. And incidents like Abu Graib and the use of torture have destroyed a well-earned reputation and given us a black eye that will take decades to fade, even if they are not ever repeated.

3. 4,000 American lives. Yes, this is less than a tenth of the casualty total in Vietnam and only 1% of what we lost in World War II. But then we have to ask: 4,000 lives for what? It's not an insignificant number (for example it is more Americans than died on 9/11) and is it really inconsequential to ask why we had to lose them when there were opponents of Saddam who were willing to fight and die to overthrow him themselves (such as those who rose up in 1991) if we had just supported them?

4. The myth of American military invincibility. There was a time when the armed forces of small countries like Grenada, Haiti, Serbia or even Iraq (during the first Gulf War) would either drop their arms and surrender at the news that the Americans were on the way, or if they fought would be systematically run over and destroyed pretty much at the same rate as if they had dropped their arms. American military casualties from all conflicts that we fought, in total between the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 and the start of the Iraq war in 2003 were less than a thousand (and the majority of those were killed in either the Beirut bombing or the First Gulf War.) Because of the perception of American invincibility, we rarely had to use the 'big stick' to get other countries to do what we wanted to. We just had to tap on it a time or two, and they'd get the message. But that is no longer true. Iraq has made it not true. We've had to fight hard for five years just to win a war in a country no bigger than California, so it is little wonder that countries like Iran and Venezuela have become emboldened. In the movie, "Predator," Arnold Schwarzeneggar's character is emboldened when he discovers that he has wounded the alien creature. He says, "If it bleeds, we can kill it." Thanks to Bush's reckless misuse of the finest military machine in the history of the world, other countries will now have that attitude. Even the small wars in the future, we will have to fight them, not be able to win anymore just by showing up.

5. A trillion dollars at least, once all the costs of Iraq are tallied up. Even if our economy was sound, a trillion dollars of new debt (because it was all borrowed from the future) would be a big hit. But in the sick economy we have now, the trillion dollars of new federal debt (and corresponding drop in the dollar) is more than a big hit. It's more like a crippling hit.

6. Geopolitical winners: 1. Iran. Saddam (their biggest enemy) is gone. They have a friendly government in power in Baghdad (and just in case that changes the Badr brigades they had trained for years in case they needed to push an uprising against Saddam, has seamlessly melted into and put on the uniform of the Iraqi army.) The United States (their most powerful enemy) is no longer able to do more than bomb them, because we played the 'invasion and occupation' card. 2. China. As we decline thanks to Iraq (see #4) we should remember that history always shows us that as one power declines, another invariably rises to challenge its place. Just as we rose, reached parity with, and eventually eclipsed the power of a declining Great Britain. Anyone have any doubt as to what the next superpower will be (or maybe already is?)

As I said several months ago, the best outcome that was possible in Iraq was a Pyrrhic victory. Of course that is better than an outright loss (we've got the trophy, right?) but it in no way vindicates or justifies the stupid and poorly thought out decision to go to war in the first place.

McSame Mud Slinging, Stone Throwing Campaign

John McCain's week-long temper tantrum

John Aravosis:

You won't like him when he's angry.

• McCain Ad: Obama Is Responsible For Rising Gas Prices. [AP, 7/21/08]
  
  
  
• McCain Ad: Obama Voted Against Funding For Our Troops. [Politifact, 7/21/08]
  
  
  
• McCain Said That "Obama Would Rather Lose A War In Order To Win A Political Campaign" [Joe Klein, Time Magazine, 7/22/08]
  
  
  
• McCain Web Ad Linked Obama To Castro. [Politico, 7/24/08]
  
  
  
• McCain Adviser Said That The Obama Campaign's Attempt To Point Out That McCain Had His Facts Wrong On The Anbar Awakening Undermines "The American Troops And Their Sacrifice And Their Effort." [Talking Points Memo, 7/23/08]
  
  
  
• The McCain Campaign Implied That Obama's Commitment To Preventing Genocide Was Not Sincere And Attacked Him For His Comments At An Appearance At The Israeli Holocaust Memorial. [Huffington Post, 7/23/08; McCain release, 7/23/08]
  
  
  
• McCain's Campaign Released A Video Documentary Attacking Obama That Concludes That Obama's Position On Iraq Are Shaped By "Whatever The Politics Demand." [McCain release, 7/17/08]
  
  
  
• McCain Said Obama Has The "Most Extreme" Record In The Senate And When Asked If He Though McCain Was A Socialist, Said "I Don't Know." [Kansas City Star, 7/18/08]
  
  
  
• McCain Aides Said They Have Every Intention Of Continuing Their Attacks On Obama On His Overseas Trip. [CNN, 7/19/08]
  
  
  
• McCain Said Obama Is "Someone Who Has No Military Experience Whatsoever." [Politico, 7/21/08]
  
  
  

McCain's Foreign Policy Frustration

Joe Klein, Time:

You could see McCain's frustration building as Barack Obama traipsed elegantly through the Middle East while the pillars of McCain's bellicose regional policy crumbled in his wake. It wasn't only that the Iraqi government seemed to take Obama's side in the debate over when U.S. forces should leave (sooner rather than later). McCain was being undermined in Washington as well, by his old pal George W. Bush, who seemed to take Obama's side in the debate about whether to talk to Iran. Bush sent a ranking U.S. diplomat to negotiate with the Iranians on nuclear issues — and also let it be known that a U.S. Interests Section could soon be established in Tehran, the first U.S. diplomatic presence on Iranian soil since the 1979 hostage crisis. [snip]

McCain's greatest claim to the presidency — his overseas expertise — now seems squandered. He has appeared brittle and inflexible, slow to adapt to changes on the ground, slow to grasp the full implications not only of the improving situation in Iraq but also of the worsening situation in Afghanistan and especially Pakistan. Some will say this behavior raises questions about his age. I'll leave those to gerontologists. A more obvious explanation is that McCain has straitjacketed himself in an ideology focused more on enemies (real and imagined) than on opportunities. "It is impossible to ignore the many striking parallels between [McCain] and the so-called neoconservatives (many of whom are vocal and visible supporters of his candidacy)," writes the Democratic diplomat Richard Holbrooke in a forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs. "I don't know if John has become a neocon," says a longtime friend of the Senator's, "but he sure has surrounded himself with them."

From a glass house, the straight talker throws stones

Alex Koppelman, Salon War Room:

Remember when the right was complaining about the fact that Barack Obama's overseas trip was getting more coverage than John McCain's three recent overseas ventures had? Well, now the rhetoric has shifted, and the McCain campaign is slamming Obama for going abroad at all. In an interview he gave to NBC, McCain specifically questioned Obama's decision to give a speech in Berlin.

"I would rather speak at a rally or a political gathering anyplace outside of the country after I am president of the United States," McCain said during the interview, which will air Thursday night. "But that's a judgment that Sen. Obama and the American people will make."

Considering those three supposedly undercovered trips McCain went on, think there might be some hypocrisy at work? You bet.

Full Text Of Obama's Berlin Speech

Barack, Iraq, McSame Old McQuack

McCain Gets History Of The Surge Wrong, CBS Doesn't Air Footage
[Transcript and video at link]

During a CBS interview on Tuesday, John McCain made a stone cold error on a subject about which he claims expert knowledge: the "surge" strategy in Iraq. In an interview with anchor Katie Couric, the Arizona Republican said, inaccurately, that the surge strategy was responsible for the much-touted "Anbar Awakening," in which Sunni sheiks turned against Al Qaeda, helping in turn to reduce violence in the country.

McCain Makes False Claims On Iraq Timeline (VIDEO)

In an interview with CBS News' Katie Couric tonight, John McCain made the false assertion that the Surge brought about the so-called Anbar Awakening. Except, as MSNBC"s Keith Olbermann points out, the Surge was announced after the Awakening. Olbermann also explains that CBS News edited the gaffe out of the final interviewed that aired Tuesday night.

Not a Gaffe: A Fundamental Misunderstanding of Iraq

John McCain made a mistake this evening, which as far as I'm concerned, disqualifies him from being president. It is so appalling and so factually wrong that I'm actually sitting here wondering who McCain's advisers are. This isn't some gaffe where he talks about the Iraq-Pakistan border. It's a real misunderstanding of what has happened in Iraq over the past year. It is even more disturbing because according to John McCain, Iraq is the central front in the "war on terror." If we are going to have an Iraq-centric policy, he should at least understand what he is talking about.

JedReport's Latest Devastating Video: McCain's Neverending War"

Am I trying to say that there are some inconsistencies in McCain's backstory on Iraq? Uhm, yyyyyyyyyeeeeeessssss. And now Jed Lewison of JedReport.com has just released his latest video, an extremely comprehensive collection of McCain clips (never-before-seen for most people) which chart the Arizona Senator's position on Iraq over the last several years, and puncture one of the candidates central contentions.

Lewison writes:

My newest video features John McCain talking about the Iraq war from 2002 through the present, exposing -- in his own words -- the lie behind his claim that he was the war's "greatest critic." It demonstrates his chilling commitment to fighting this war no matter what the people of America -- or Iraq -- want.

It is long -- nine minutes, thirty seconds -- but much of the material it contains will likely be new to you...and devastating to McCain.

Take a look.

McCain Camp "Frustrated" With Obama's Trip: Reports

Is John McCain frustrated, or maybe a little of jealous, of Obama's headline grabbing trip? Looks like all signs point to yes as Iraq's Prime Minister gives new confidence to Obama's withdrawal plan, Bloomberg News says "Middle Eastern and European leaders are lining up to hear what Barack Obama has to say," and General Petraeus gave photographers fresh photo-ops with the Democratic leader.

Tell Me Again, Why Is Obama Being Popular With Our Allies a Bad Thing?

I understand why John McCain's campaign is desperately looking for negatives in Obama's overseas trip. But why have so many in the media internalized the McCain campaign's claptrap? [snip]

Of course, at no point does the McCain campaign or anyone in the media point out what, exactly, is the danger to America if our closest allies actually, you know, don't hate us.

They also fail to mention that along with being our allies, the European countries Obama is visiting are also democracies -- so it's a lot easier for their leaders to make nice with us if their constituents don't view our president as an object of disdain and ridicule. [snip]

It's also no surprise that McCain isn't willing to admit that our allies' antipathy toward Bush and his policies -- exacerbated by the contempt the Bushies always seemed to delight in directing at them (see Rummy on "Old Europe") -- has cost us dearly in blood, treasure, and goodwill. But it is a surprise that the media are so eagerly parroting the "popular is a problem" meme.

Thankfully, most Americans understand that having a president who is lauded around the world is infinitely better than having one who is loathed.

Iraq-Pakistan Border?

[ 0:34 ]
Ummm....

Senator Obama overseas

Obama: Iraq now needs a political solution
By DAVID ESPO –

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Tuesday that security in Iraq has improved and that the country's needs must now begin to be addressed politically and diplomatically.

"There is security progress, but now we need a political solution," Obama said in the first news conference of his highly publicized trip abroad.

He reiterated his goal of withdrawing combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of becoming president. But he said he would consult with military commanders to determine how many troops to keep in the country to protect diplomatic and humanitarian operations, to train Iraqis and to conduct counterterrorism operations against al-Qaida in Iraq.

"My goal is to no longer have U.S. troops engaged in combat operations in Iraq," he said.

Obama and his two traveling Senate companions, Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, emphasized the need to turn U.S. attention to Afghanistan and to help Pakistan confront a growing terrorist presence within its borders.

"The situation in Afghanistan is perilous and urgent," he said. "We must act now to reverse that deteriorating situation."

Afghanistan is now the "central front in the war against terrorism," he added.

Obama arrived in Jordan after a tour of war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq. He stepped off his military aircraft carrying body armor, orange earplugs sticking out of his ears.

His joint news conference with Reed and Hagel was at the Amman Citadel, an ancient hilltop ruin that bears evidence of settlements dating to 2000 B.C. The skyline of modern-day Amman, cement dwellings and the occasional mosque, formed a made-for-television backdrop.
Article link

Senator Obama's overseas trip has been a resounding success in my eyes. He has looked more Presidential then the Chimp in Chief or whatever he wants to be called, spoken more Presidential then Sen. McCain ever has, or will and represented his foreign policy skills very well. All those pundits that say he has a weakness in foreign policy, go screw, this man's foreign policy is far better then Sen. McCain's.

Zeitgeist From July 18

AlterNet's Weekly Zeitgeist:

Phony Drilling, Afghan Escalation, Never-Ending Financial Crisis and Much More

From Bush's oil hoax to the New Yorker's sorry attempt at satire, our Zeitgeist list tracks the progressive issues of the week.

This week's Zeitgeist rundown shows new issues have busted through to the consciousness of progressives, including the escalating war in Afghanistan (and with it the serious complexities of Pakistan), the rescinded presidential moratorium on offshore oil drilling, which critics say is all for show, and the huge brouhaha provoked by the New Yorker magazine's extremely provocative cover of Michelle and Barack Obama.

Still, the AlterNet Zeitgeist has some unfinished business, including the residue of anger about the newly passed FISA law, the constant reminder that Iraq is still all about the oil, and the ongoing debate about the future of feminism.

1. Phony drilling: once again the oilman in the White House is doing Big Oil's bidding

   ~ Faiz Shakir

2. Afghan War escalates: more American solders killed there than in Iraq

   ~ Tom Hayden

3. Our seemingly never-ending financial crisis

   ~ Paul Krugman

4. Provocative New Yorker cover jolts nation into heated debate

   ~ Don Hazen

5. Nuclear power is an illusion as a solution to the climate change crisis

   ~ Linda Gunter

6. Feminism's generational debate, provoked by the Hillary Clinton candidacy, is still going strong

   ~ Heidi Schnakenberg

7. In Iraq it is still about the oil

   ~ Noam Chomsky

8. Feds launch their annual reefer madness campaign

   ~ Sign On San Diego and Jim Hightower

9. Progressives licking their wounds over painful FISA defeat

   ~ Chris Hedges

10. Progressive audience keeping satirical flick "War, Inc." alive despite blackout

    ~ Joshua Holland

One year ago today

One year ago today, Sergeant Christopher Gonzalez died when his unit was ambushed near Salmon Pak, Iraq. I attended his funeral a few days later, and blogged on it A hero is buried and what his community still needs.

John Edwards used to speak about 'two Americas.' One is the America of plenty, where people are employed, have health coverage, have food on the table and can take basic services like electricity and running water for granted (though they still may have trouble paying for them.) Sergeant Gonzalez came from the other America.

I'd been visiting Birdsprings chapter regularly until I got a church calling and a time for church this year that overlaps chapter meetings. But I will try and make it to this Sunday's meeting anyway. I understand they have a new flagpole. They dedicated it to Sgt. Gonzalez yesterday.

They Volunteered. Thank God. Day 1790

There's No Dick Like Cheney

by Devilstower:

Deaths. Injuries. Long tense days never knowing what might happen next. The Iraq Invasion sure is hard... on George W. Bush.

Noting the burden placed on military families, the vice president said the biggest burden is carried by President George W. Bush, who made the decision to commit US troops to war, and reminded the public that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan volunteered for duty.

If any one sentence could hold all the contempt that the Republicans feel for the military and for military families, this is the one. Who is this war hardest on? Poor ol' George. What about the 4,000+ who have died? Hey, they volunteered.

Bush's Scary Gibberish

by Blue Intrigue:

Bush's three minute statement at the State Department yesterday was a parade of Bushisms, nonsense, and one veiled threat. Yet, somehow, the MSM is making it sound like grand oratory.

"One day, people will look back at this moment in history and say, 'Thank God there were courageous people willing to serve, because they laid the foundations for peace for generations to come,' " Bush told reporters after a meeting at the State Department.

Day 1790

by mcjoan:

The violence doesn't stop in recognition of any grim milestone reached.

* * * * *

And while the focus is on those 4,000 Americans, Brandon Friedman has an even more sobering assessment.

A bad harbinger looking forward to the next calendar milestone.

But there is hope, not while we have this President and not while we have this Congress. But if enough of the 26 and counting Democratic challengers who have signed onto the Responsible Plan to End the War win in November, and if their courage in staking the election on this issue infects our current crop of Representatives and Senators, maybe we won't be making these grim calculations after 2009.

4000 U.S. Deaths In Iraq

Iraq Coalition Casualties.org:

DoD Deaths Confirmed as of March 23, 2008 — 4,000

DHinMI:

People who oppose the war in Iraq have learned some lessons from Vietnam. We bend over backwards to avoid saying or doing anything that could be misrepresented as "not supporting the troops." We accept as a given that they are mis-led by the civilian leadership in the White House, the Pentagon and even by some of the uniformed office corps. But we tend we talk about them as if we assume all soldiers, or at least most, are patriotic idealists who enlisted and serve with pride because they are committed to the nation, the military and their fellow sisters and brothers in arms.

smintheus:

Four more Americans in uniform were killed today in Iraq. Four still anonymous soldiers, whose families soon will know the depths of grief that 3996 families before them have been borne down to. Now 4000 Americans are dead in this war.

* * * * *

It sickens the heart, the carnage that George W. Bush unleashed upon both our countries. No death is insignificant. The deaths of these four souls are just as lamentable as all those that have preceded, and all those that will surely follow while American forces remain in the midst of this civil war.

When will the President apologize for what he has wrought?

5 Years Of LA Times Iraq Editorials

Five years of Iraq editorials

What The Times had to say since it staked its

antiwar-without-the-U.N. position in 2003.

LA Times — March 21, 2008

In five years of war, The Times editorial board has written over 200 editorials discussing Iraq, from its early position against the war, penned on March 14, 2003, to last week's discussion of global insurgency and the fallout between Adm. William J. Fallon and Gen. David H. Petraeus. This Sunday the board will consider the status of the army as it fights two wars. Below are selections from editorials that appeared at the start of the war, and at every anniversary since.

On the eve of war, The Times editorial board remained persistent in its call for the United Nations to approve action against Iraq, even though it took the liberal hawkish position that Saddam Hussein needed to be disarmed for his tyranny and, The Times believed, his pursuit and possession of weapons of mass destruction. This still put it to the left of all the major papers. Below, we quote at length from that editorial, and its prescient consideration of costs and rising threats from North Korea and Iran.

Friday, March 14, 2003

The Right Way in Iraq

In a post- 9/11 world, the president argues, things are different. The nation must protect itself. Yes. So the question becomes, would an invasion of Iraq make the United States and the world safer? If the world community unites to do it, yes. But a U.S.-led invasion, without sanction from the United Nations, would make this nation and the world at large more dangerous.

Six days later, the war had begun. Noticing that "shock and awe" weren't happening, The Times hoped for a brief conflict with low casualties:

Thursday, March 20, 2003

The Beginnings of War

The limited early strikes contrasted sharply with what had been expected after Pentagon officers spoke of beginning the war with massive airstrikes designed to "shock and awe" or overwhelm Iraq....

The "gee whiz" effect of the most modern armaments should not cloak their result: death and destruction. The targets will be military and government installations; Pentagon planners say they have tried to minimize civilian casualties. But war brings carnage....

Exactly one year later, after the "Mission Accomplished" banner flew, after no weapons of mass destruction were found, and as an insurgency wore on, The Times reflected grimly on how the war had become a rallying point for terrorists:

Saturday, March 20, 2004

A War's Woeful Results

At least the president might score a debatable point in asserting that life in Iraq is far better without Saddam Hussein. But he's the president of the United States and leader of the free world. So it's fair to ask whether the war has made life better for this nation and its allies. In our assessment, it has not. Although ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction was the administration's major selling point for the war, it is now clear that Hussein's regime no longer possessed those weapons....

Spring of 2005 brought an occasion for optimism — many Iraqis risked much to vote for a National Assembly in January of that year — but The Times focused on the challenges Iraqis still faced:

Thursday, March 17, 2005

A Brief 'Bright Moment' in Iraq

The new National Assembly did meet Wednesday, but there was no new president, prime minister, speaker of the Assembly or other Cabinet officer to congratulate. No government formed to make the laws that might move the nation toward normality. It may have been a "bright moment," as President Bush described it in his Wednesday news conference, but moments are fleeting.

After announcements last week that the winning Shiite coalition and second-place Kurds had reached a tentative agreement on naming a Cabinet and forming the new government, the deal fell apart on the disputed point of Kurdish control of the oil city of Kirkuk, among other things....

By the following year, Iraq had devolved into violence after the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra. U.S. casualties were rising and public opinion was turning against the war. The Times bluntly listed the failures of war planners but also chided "revisionist" critics:

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Shock, awe and humility

Three years ago today, Iraqis were "shocked and awed" by the power of the U.S. military. Today, Americans are shocked and awed by its limits. [snip] Bush's messianic idealism was never justified, and in any event the administration's flawed execution would have undermined his purpose. The list of gaffes is by now distressingly familiar: the flawed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, the lack of sufficient troops, the tainted contracting process and so on.

To be fair, Washington has persevered in its quest to create a representative democracy in Iraq. But American surprise at the unfolding Sunni-Shiite schism, and our lack of preparedness to deal with the early dismantlement of the Iraqi military, have made the world's reigning superpower look, once again, oddly naive.

And though it pledges to "stay the course" in Iraq, the Bush administration has long since fled the battlefield of ideas. It embarrassingly resorts only to Orwellian talk of a "war on terror" instead of addressing real issues, and its claims of relentless success are not to be taken seriously.

Last year, The Times avoided an outright anniversary piece, noting instead at the end of March that Congress seemed ready to set withdrawal deadlines for spring 2008, even if picking a date was "arbitrary" and "purely symbolic," unlike a funding cut-off. The Times also plainly expressed its opinion of withdrawal — that Congress shouldn't micromanage, that criteria need to be met first, and that Iraqi leaders needed to be pressured:

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Endgame on Iraq

The withdrawal language is wrongheaded. As we have argued before, it is bad precedent and bad public policy for Congress to attempt to micromanage military operations in Iraq.... If the United States, through a last-ditch military effort combined with political initiatives, can quell the violence in Iraq and demonstrate progress, then a U.S. military presence for more than the congressionally approved year might be a good investment. But if the troop surge, after some months, fails to improve either the security or political situation, then a year would be too long to leave U.S. troops in Iraq.

Five Years and Ten Unpleasant Truths

Five Years and Counting:
Ten Unpleasant Truths About The War in Iraq

Stephen M. Walt:

…On the 5th anniversary of the invasion, here are ten unpleasant truths about past errors, present circumstances, and future choices.

Excerpts:

1. The invasion of Iraq may be the greatest self-inflicted blunder in the history of U.S. foreign policy. The case for war rested on false information, dubious assumptions and mendacious analysis. [snip] They were wrong on all counts, and their responsibility for this catastrophe should not be forgotten.

2. A smarter occupation would not have produced significantly better results. The Bush administration failed to plan the post-war occupation and compounded that error with numerous post-invasion blunders. [snip] The key mistake was the initial decision to invade, the subsequent errors merely made a bad situation worse.

3. The war has done enormous damage to U.S. interests in the Middle East. The invasion destabilized the region and enhanced Iran's influence and strategic position. It also contributed to the unprecedented rise in oil prices, discredited democracy, and further tarnished America's image in the Arab and Islamic world. We cannot escape these consequences until we reverse course. Civil war may occur after we withdraw, but that danger exists whenever we leave.

4. The war has been a major setback in the campaign against anti-American terrorism. The war diverted attention and resources from our efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, thereby helping Al Qaeda and the Taliban recover their strength.

5. The "surge" has failed as a strategy. Increased U.S. troop strength brought internal violence back down to 2005 levels, but political reconciliation did not occur and the level of violence is now rising. Judged by the administration's own criteria, the strategy has not worked.

6. The United States cannot win the war at an acceptable cost. America's ability to dictate political events in Iraq was never very great and is steadily declining. Iraqis will determine their country's future, not us, and prolonging the U.S. presence will not alter this fact.

7. The search for scapegoats is already underway. Civilians who now argue that the surge is "working" are trying to pin failure either on Bush's successor, or on those who have opposed the war from the beginning.

8. The war has done more damage to the armed forces than we know, and rebuilding them will be more difficult, costly, and time-consuming than we realize. U.S. troops have fought bravely and with dedication, and they deserve our gratitude. But the war has undermined overall U.S. readiness, degraded our equipment, and crippled recruitment and retention.

9. The next president faces a stark choice: bring a misguided war to an end, or inherit responsibility for it. For the next President, continuing the occupation means taking ownership of Bush's blunder.

10. The Iraq debacle reflects a broader pattern of failure among key American institutions. Although primary responsibility for the war rests with Bush, Cheney, and the neoconservatives who conceived and sold it, other important U.S. institutions performed poorly as well. [snip]

Even more remarkably, mainstream media organizations continue to rely on the same "talking heads" and inside-the-Beltway pundits whose judgment has proven consistently wrong since 2002. The implication is deeply troubling: if Americans do not learn from this experience and hold those responsible accountable, the Iraq debacle will not be our last.

5 Years Ago

Believe It or Not -- 5 Years Ago
Many Top Newspapers Opposed the War

Greg Mitchell:

You may be surprised to learn that, precisely five years ago, at least one-third of the top newspapers in this country came out against President Bush taking us to war at that time. Many of the papers may have fumbled the WMD coverage, and only timidly raised questions about the need for war, but when push came to shove five years ago they wanted to wait longer to move against Saddam, or not move at all.

"For apparently the first time in modern history, the U.S. government seems poised to go to war not only lacking the support of many of its key allies abroad but also without the enthusiastic backing of the majority of major newspapers at home," Ari Berman and I wrote at Editor & Publisher on March 19, 2003. Berman had just completed his fifth and (presumably) final prewar survey of the top 50 newspapers' editorial positions.

Following Bush's 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, newspapers took their last opportunity to sound off before the war started. Of the 44 papers publishing editorials about the war, roughly one-third reiterated strong support for the White House, one-third repeated their abiding opposition to it, and the rest -- with further debate now useless -- took a more philosophical approach.

But, in the end, the majority agreed that the Bush administration had badly mishandled the crisis. Most papers sharply criticized Washington's diplomatic efforts, putting the nation on the eve of a pre-emptive war without U.N. Security Council support -- and expressed fears for the future despite an inevitable victory.

Once equivocal editorial pages got straight to the point. "This war crowns a period of terrible diplomatic failure," The New York Times argued, "Washington's worst in at least a generation. The Bush administration now presides over unprecedented American might. What it risks squandering is not Americans' power, but an essential part of our glory."

Continue article here.

On The Iraqi Civil War

From our Red Letter Rev:

G'day, {{Y'all}}...

Yes, there has been civil strife between the Shi'ites and Sunnis for decades, if not centuries. We can thank British imperialism and redrawing up political maps for monetary gain for that. The administration should have realized how well nation-building and imperialism worked out for the British (not so well, actually) and taken a note from that. But nooOOOOOooo.

As rotten a sumbitch as Saddam was, he at least had a lid on it (equal-opportunity oppression). There was not the wholesale sort of slaughter during his regime as there is now. What ShrubCo did in removing him (IMHO because he quit playing ball and they wanted the oil), was to remove the cork from the bottle penning up the evil genie. Now instead of one dude committing the slaughter over there, they're all doing it (with our active participation) -- and our resident is responsible for allowing it to happen, if not actively inviting it to happen.

If Saddam had suddenly been offed by someone else (who'd'a missed him?) I believe the same civil strife would probably have started. But they didn't; our government did, and as the party responsible for releasing the genie from the bottle, the stank is on us. Otherwise, our hands would have been clean and the trillions of dollars spent on trying to clean up the wholly-predictable and inevitable mess would have stayed here in our pockets. Now, they're going to Cheneyburton, where ShrubCo wanted them to go all along.

From this end of the cheap seats, it looks like a carefully planned heist of taxpayer money.

No, we didn't start the civil war over there, but the buck clearly stops at the desk of our resident for concertedly and premeditatedly enabling it to resume in full force for the benefit of no-one but Cheneyburton with the American taxpayer footing the bill.

Just thinkin' out loud here, trying to find a middle ground.

It always slays me when someone talks about "winning" in Iraq. To win usually means to obtain something of value, with or without personal effort ("win" like lotto, no effort vs "win" like a basketball game, sweat-effort). Since we have been involved in an act of aggression, with neither the consent of Congress nor the American people, I have to ask what is it that we're supposed to "win"?

Peace? Hardly. There was a sort of peace in place before Shrub went in.

Protection from turristesses? Nope. Acts of terror (which were zero in Iraq before the invasion) increase on a weekly basis. Thousands of new terrorist training camps have sprung up in Africa and the Far East since and directly because of the invasion. We're in far more danger than ever because of the invasion.

To strike back at those who attacked us? Wrong! All but one of the attackers were Saudi -- y'know, Bush's handholding buddies, the ones his oil-buddies get a chunk of their profits from and the ones we sell arms to. Well, that makes a load of sense, dudnit (snark!). The funding for the attacks was laundered through Dubai -- y'know, the new home of Blackwater (offshore, where they can't easily be prosecuted for war crimes, how convenient). To attack Iraq in retribution for the attacks on 9/11 is the same as you stepping on my foot, then I go to your neighborhood and slap some poor sod down the street for it.

To combat Islamic Fundamentalism? To what end? Replace it with our own, equally nuts version of Christian Fundamentalism? Yah, there's a real improvement (again, snark!). I'd rather we keep a close eye on the volatile nutcases right here in our front yard than go stirring up somebody else's on top of the trouble and irritation we already have. There is absolutely no question that the invasion has done more to increase Islamic Fundamentalism, whilst cynically using Christian Fundamentalism to achieve that end.

To export democracy? It is philosophically and physically impossible to "export" democracy at the point of a gun. The concept is insane, even on the face of it. Then again (while I'm in a wry and snarky mood), why not? We're not using it much here. We allow obvious criminality in the administration and intelligence arms to go on in full view and unpunished. We allow election fraud and obvious rigging to go on in full view and unpunished. We allow torture and war crimes to go on in full view and unpunished. Our government then cynically uses doomsday-cult fringe-religion and a complicit media to justify it all.

Gee, except for the choice of religious writings, there's little difference between the government that the Islamic fundamentalists are trying to achieve over there and one that the Christian fundamentalists are trying to achieve here, with BushCo's full blessing and support. In either case, the only ones who benefit are of the plantation-owner class.

It's a funny twist of events to me (funny-crazy, not funny-haha). I was in the military during the Cold War and went through school during the 60's. These are exactly the actions for which we castigated Communist Russia and China. They were the Great Enemies, simply because their governments were doing exactly what ours is now. Yet, somehow, and completely inexplicably to me, these actions which were burn-for sins then are justifiable practice now. Isn't a sin still a sin?

I'm Quaker to the core; unprovoked acts of aggression are abhorrent to me, from the skin all the way to my soul. While, like my ancestors during the Revolutionary War, I will defend myself if I am the victim of unprovoked violence, I cannot understand how anyone who calls him/herself Christian can justify committing an unprovoked act of murderous aggression -- and still lay head to pillow at night or expect the rewards of Heaven later. From where I sit (and I may be completely biased due to my practice of faith), but cheering on a sin carries equal damnation to committing the sin itself.

The BEST CASE scenario in Iraq: a Pyrrhic victory

In 281 B.C., king Pyrrhus of Epirus (an island off the coast of Greece) landed in Tarentum with an army of about 30,000 men and 20 elephants. He was trying to defeat Rome, which was then threatening to conquer the southeastern end of the Italian peninsula, which had been colonized by Greek settlers. In 280 B.C., he won the battle of Heroclea, but according to the historian Dionysus at the cost of about 13,000 men including many of his best soldiers. The next year, he invaded Apulia and defeated the Romans in the battle of Asculum. He lost another 3,500 soldiers, including many of his best officers, from his already depleted army. After winning the battle, Pyrrhus is reputed to have said, "One more such victory will undo me!" In fact, after an unsuccessful foray into Sicily, Pyrrhus' army was no longer strong enough to even administer what he had conquered in Italy and he was forced to return to Epirus. He had simply taken too many casualties to be worth the relatively small tactical victories they had produced.

A victory of this type, in which the costs outweigh the gains has ever since been known as a 'Pyrrhic victory.' It is not limited to military battles (though the Germans won one famously in the Second World War, when they sacrificed their most dangerous unit, their airborne unit, in return for capturing the island of Crete from the British and the Greeks.) Other examples of what might be considered a Pyrrhic victory could be a football team that wins a regular season game but does so at the cost of an injury to a star quarterback who will be sorely missed come playoff time, a businessman who irretrievably damages his reputation by lying in order to close a business deal or perhaps a bidder at an auction who outbids his or her rivals but soon finds that the article is not worth at all what has been paid for it.

Lately we've heard the right claiming that the recent downturn in violence in Iraq portends some great 'victory.'

First, I'm not a bit convinced that the downturn is more than a temporary lull. We've seen downturns in violence there several times in the past, such as after the early 2005 offensive that retook Fallujah, and in the end it has proven a fleeting moment of relief. Other than al-Qaeda (which has however proven resilient in the past) all the other major players in Iraq-- Iran, the Shiite and Sunni militias, are still present and armed, and the Iraqi government has done absolutely nothing during the present 'breather' to make a breakthrough that will prevent a future civil war.

But let's even entertain for a moment the possibility that the right is right (I know, I know, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.) Suppose that in fact, everything does work out, that the Shiites and Sunnis do figure out their problems and that Iraq becomes stable. Let's even imagine a situation in which the Iraqi government comes together exactly as the Bush administration hopes it will.

Then let's consider what in this best case scenario the U.S. will have gained and lost from the Iraq war:

Gains:

* Saddam Hussein is gone. He would be seventy years old right now if we hadn't invaded.

* We inflict a military defeat on Al-Qaeda and reduce their numbers to maybe just a handful hiding out in a country where there only were a handful hiding out in 2003 anyway.

* American companies make a lot of money rebuilding Iraq and from exploiting Iraqi oil.

* We know for sure that there are no WMD in Iraq, and we didn't even need Hans Blix to finish looking for them to find that out.

* After a five year struggle, we can say that we won.


Losses:

* About 4,000 American troops dead, tens of thousands injured.

* $1.6 - 2 trillion (depending on the estimate) in combined actual outlays for the war and the effect of the cost of the war on our economy.

* Iran has become the most influential power in the region, and they get rid of their archenemy Saddam without firing a shot; an Iraqi government with close ties to Tehran, something the Iranians fought for a decade to achieve in the 1980's without success.

* Iran has become increasingly belligerent and been able to make substantial progress towards developing real WMD (nukes) while our army is tied down in Iraq and unable to seriously threaten Iran (as it will be for the foreseeable future even if this is a 'win'.)

* The aura of American military invincibility has been cast to the wind, guaranteeing more future challenges from who knows where (but we will be tested, of that you can be sure).

* Al-Qaeda given time and a chance to regroup (together with the Taliban) in the country where they were present before, because we shifted our focus to Iraq before the job was done in Afghanistan.

* The unquestioned international support for America which existed after 9/11 long since gone.

* With torture and other rights abuses practiced, America no longer has the moral authority to lead the world.

* Except for the 2001 tax cuts and the medicare drug giveaway, virtually none of the Bush administration and GOP domestic agenda realized as the administration spent virtually its entire political capital on stampeding into Iraq; for that matter even the tax cuts are still due to expire on schedule after the Republican Congress was unable to make them permanent. Now, granted I am a Democrat and don't mind seeing Republicans fail, but with it having been three quarters of a century since the previous time when the GOP had a majority in both houses of Congress and the White House (the 1952-1954 Senate was 50-50 with the GOP nominally in control by virtue of the Vice Presidency) they clearly sacrificed a great deal for getting us fixated on Iraq. Are you a Republican who voted GOP because you wanted to see Republicans reduce the size of the government for example? Then wait another LIFETIME, Buddy!

In other words, even if conservatives were for a change 100% right, and the reduction in violence we see right now in Iraq is a real 'victory' and not just another temporary lull in a continuing cycle, the best they can claim is a Pyrrhic victory.

It's Only a Matter of Time

Digby has a good post up on how George W. Bush is being disappeared from the presidential campaign and everyone's running against incumbent Hillary Clinton. Seems to be the GOP message.

Agitprop has a bit of different point of view on Georgie and what the Democratic message could be.

Meanwhile Bush is not being quiet....he wants his money for Iraq before Christmas. He said the soldiers deserve it, but it seems that a soldier was asked if the American endeavor in Iraq was worth his sacrifice to which Alarcon said no: "I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life."

The People are still marching across the country protesting and asking to end this war NOW!

How about the condition of the Soldiers?

Digby has a post on Gates' recommendation of a veto to a Senate proposal. Gates states the proposal of giving troops more rest between deployments in Iraq is a dangerous "backdoor way" to draw down forces.

Ask the question: If Pat Tillman was murdered, who didn't want him to come back alive?

Once again (in what we are learning is a story which seems to get worse every time we get closer to the truth,) we've learned some disturbing new details regarding the death of Pat Tillman.

Tillman, you may recall, was the NFL star who left a career worth millions of dollars per year to join the elite U.S. Army Rangers (along with his brother Kevin) after 9/11 so he could fight in Afghanistan against the people who had actually attacked us. After a stint in Iraq, where he told comrades that he opposed the Iraq war and believed that it served no purpose in the war against bin Laden and al-Qaeda, he was redeployed to Afghanistan where he died on April 22, 2004. Within hours, a heroic story about his death was put out, and he was even awarded a silver star. A nice touch, it turned out to what was even then known to be a big lie.

But in today's story, we learn much more. Much more disturbing.

SAN FRANCISCO - Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press.

"The medical evidence did not match up with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

The doctors, whose names were blacked out, said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away....

The documents show that a doctor who autopsied Tillman's body was suspicious of the three gunshot wounds to the forehead. The doctor said he took the unusual step of calling the Army's Human Resources Command and was rebuffed. He then asked an official at the Army's Criminal Investigation Division if it would consider opening a criminal case.

"He said he talked to his higher headquarters, and they had said no," the doctor testified.

We also learned this:

• No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene - no one was hit by enemy fire nor was any government equipment struck.

After their first set of lies was exposed, the Pentagon and the White House are still sticking stubbornly to their second story, that it was a friendly fire 'accident,' even now offering up the heads of several generals on a platter.

But the evidence is still there, that this was no accident. And the motivation is clear: Pat Tillman was well known to personally oppose the Iraq war, which was not the war he signed up to fight. And after his commitment was over, he'd have been a devastatingly effective opponent of that war. Even Ann Coulter would have had a tough time attacking Tillman after he got home from both Afghanistan and Iraq, and began speaking out against the Iraq war. April 2004 was the month that Iraq boiled over and it was clear that the U.S. would be there longer than Tillman's commitment. So suddenly he died, conveniently in the war he had volunteered for, and within hours the heroism story was out, carefully scripted and made to order, complete with silver star.

Mary Tillman is right, this doesn't pass the sniff test. There is more here that needs to be investigated. Let's hope that Congress demands to know the names of the doctors involved and determines why their suspicions that it was murder weren't acted on. It is true that the army did eventually conduct an inquiry in which they asked if any of the men in his unit disliked Tillman. But maybe that isn't the inquiry that needs to be asked in regard to what appears to be a cold blooded case of murder. Maybe the question needs to be asked, who was afraid of Pat Tillman, and how far would they go in order to prevent him from saying what he was going to say after he left the army?