War children is just a shot away....

We dined at a local Indian Restaurant here in northwest DC the other night. I overheard the Indian owner discussing world politics with some customers at another table. It was his view that there would soon be a war between Pakistan and India. This may not qualify as "actionable intelligence" here in Washington. But, you never know.

The question of the day?

Ar least two dead in the Green Zone from rocket attacks. Bush out there talking about this being a test of the Iraqi government to control things. The question of the day:Is Baghdad burning?

IRAQ: Five years later. The quote of the day

Five years after the start of the war in Iraq here is the quote of the day:
After a reporter cited polls showing that two-thirds of Americans oppose the Iraq war, Cheney responded: "So?" -Washington Post

Numbers

FORWARD OPERATING BASE NORMANDY, Iraq, Jan. 10 -- The explosion of a booby-trapped house killed six American soldiers on Wednesday during an offensive against Sunni insurgents in Diyala province, making it the deadliest day for U.S. troops in Iraq since November

A new survey estimates that 151,000 Iraqis died from violence in the three years following the U.S.-led invasion of the country. Roughly 9 out of 10 of those deaths were a consequence of U.S. military operations, insurgent attacks and sectarian warfare.

BAGHDAD-(AP) -- U.S. bombers and jet fighters unleashed 40,000 pounds of explosives during a 10-minute airstrike Thursday, flattening what the military called al-Qaida in Iraq safe havens on the southern outskirts of the capital.

The War

Lately, I've been thinking about The War. Not the war in Iraq though it crosses my mind almost daily too. It's hard to not think about it when there are articles like in today's Washington Post. I remember a few years ago when a military official said that the Pentagon did not keep count of civilian deaths in Iraq. It's seems the military is now counting the dead as a metric to see if the surge is working. Grim business indeed. But, lately I am also thinking about THE WAR the Ken Burns documentary on PBS. Mostly I think of my Aunt out in the mid west. Eighty Four years old and still sharp as a tack. She enlisted in the Navy in World War II and was station in Norfolk. She preformed inspections on planes that were repaired and sent back into duty. She tells the story of getting into a recently repaired plane during the war with her clip board to do an in flight check of the repairs on some plane. Only to have the plane crash into the bay. Luckily, she and the crew were rescued. But, I also think of her in our last conversation about a month ago when she said. You know I want to throw everyone on Capitol Hill into the Potomic River. I told her I know the feeling.

Up in smoke?

"The U.S. military has paid $548 million over the past three years to two British security firms that protect the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on reconstruction projects, more than $200 million over the original budget, according to previously undisclosed data that show how the cost of private security in Iraq has mushroomed."-Washington Post

I smell smoke from the dollars that are on fire in the U.S. taxpayers wallets! Welcome to Baghdad.

P.S.
"It's your money! You paid for it!"- George W. Bush

The new Baghdad Bobs

Senator John McCain and fellow Republicans Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Representative Mike Pence of Indiana and Rep. Rick Renzi of Arizona are in Iraq and held a press conference. Like the laughable Baghdad Bob they tried to tried to paint a pretty picture of how things are going and blame the media for not painting pretty pictures for those of us in America paying for the mess that is Iraq. At a press conference they talked about going to a market and being able to buy things. But, never mentioned they were surrounded by about 100 U.S. troops and had three Blackhawk helicopters circling overhead providing security.

The White House of sand and fog.

We can only hope that the those who work in the White House and for the Bush administration begin to realize that there are consequences to lying as Scooter Libby has found out. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was spot on in calling what Libby did a "corrupt endeavor". It is ironic that the guilty verdicts for Scooter Fibby came down on March 6 2007. Four years earlier on March 6 2003 President Bush held his last press conference before the U.S. went to war in Iraq. At the press conference Bush said:

"We care about the suffering of the Iraqi people. I mentioned in my opening comments that there's a lot of food ready to go in. There's something like 55,000 oil-for-food distribution points in Iraq. We know where they are. We fully intend to make sure that they're -- got ample food. We know where their hospitals are; we want to make sure they've got ample medical supplies. The life of the Iraqi citizen is going to dramatically improve. "

-President Bush March 6, 2003

The Scooter Libby trail was not about Joe Wilson's wife, it was about an administration that was

obsessed about making the case for going to war in Iraq and destroying anyone who attempted to cast any doubt on their credibility or question their "facts". It was a PR program of sand and fog to push this country into war. In the end President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the Neocons got their war in Iraq. The life of Iraqi citizens did not dramatically improve and yesterday 10 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq. Yes, there are consequences to lying.

A job to die for?

"In a largely invisible cost of the war in Iraq, nearly 800 civilians working under contract to the Pentagon have been killed and more than 3,300 hurt doing jobs normally handled by the U.S. military, according to figures gathered by The Associated Press. "

Energy

I woke up this morning to a business report on WCBS Newsradio in New York that the U.S. consumption of oil increased by 2% last year. If President Bush would show some leadership on reducing U.S. oil consumption instead of just making speeches. He does the talk but, never does the walk. But, we should not expect much from oil men like Bush and Cheney. They can't leave office fast enough! Our energy consumption like the polices of this administration from the war to illegal immigration are going in the wrong direction.

Death, lies and videotape.

"What madness is this, inviting sable Death by warfare?

It always hovers close and comes unforeseen on silent steps."

-Tibullis

The war in Iraq is not a video game. Mistakes on the battlefield are deadly and as many war widows and families know the government and officials involved will lie to you and not just the top guys like Bush and Cheney. I came across these riveting videos on You Tube. If you want to know how sh^t happens in a place like Iraq these videos show how it occurs. These videos show death and remorse from the cockpit view:

Death from above

The Long Ride Home

Then of course far away from battlefield there is:

The Widow

and now we are about add tens of thousands of additional troops into this Hell Hole that is Iraq today. No doubt Death is rubbing his hands in anticipation.

Truth and Justice?

As Saddam Hussein counts down to his last hours or weeks depending on which news story you believe I came across two blogs that I found very interesting to read this day.
There is this one by Paul Craig Roberts on truth or the lack there of today:

"Recently, Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, said that freedom of speech is inconsistent with "the war on terror."

If it takes a police state to fight terror, the country is lost even if Muslim terrorists are defeated. Americans have far more to fear from a homeland police state than from terrorists."

"The challenges that America faces are not terrorism and oil supply. The challenges that we face are the police state that Bush has created and the disrespect for truth that is endemic in government, the universities, and the media. The US has entered a dark age of dogmas and
unaccountable power."

Then there is this commentary by Josh Marshal at Talking Points Memo on the justice of Saddam Husseins trial and how Bush's and America's legacy will be judged down the road by the pre ordained nature of the judgment that would have been one of the hallmarks of someone like Hussein himself:

"Try to dress this up as an Iraqi trial and it doesn't come close to cutting it -- the Iraqis only take possession of him for the final act, sort of like the Church always left execution itself to the 'secular arm'. Try pretending it's a war crimes trial but it's just more of the pretend mumbojumbo that makes this out to be World War IX or whatever number it is they're up to now. "

"This whole endeavor, from the very start, has been about taking tawdry, cheap acts and dressing them up in a papier-mache grandeur -- phony victory celebrations, ersatz democratization, reconstruction headed up by toadies, con artists and grifters. And this is no different. Hanging Saddam is easy. It's a job, for once, that these folks can actually see through to completion. So this execution, ironically and pathetically, becomes a stand-in for the failures, incompetence and general betrayal of country on every other front that President Bush has brought us"

Indeed, Truth and Justice have new meanings in Bushworld and it won't be long before freedom is no longer mentioned in the United States if things keep going they way they have in the past few years.