Friday, December 10, 2004
"You go to war with the army you have...."
The Virgin Posh Spice? C'mon! Photo courtesy: MSNBC.com
Troops grill Rumsfeld over Iraq - someone please explain to me how Rumsfeld, arguably the most incompetent member of Bush's cabinet (outside of Bush himself), is the one guy who's managed to keep his job despite his inept execution of the Iraq war debacle? Plus, what happened to "Our men and women in the military have superb training and the best equipment and able commanders." (BBC News | Presidential 2004 Veteran's Day Speech at Arlington National Cemetery)
Almost two years into the war they are only now working on fixing the problem? Just checking: is this still Kerry's fault for voting against that infamous $87 billion appropriations bill? (Boston Globe)
And who's Rumsfeld think he is now: Tony Soprano? (Chicago Sun-Times)
Last month's U.S. assault on the insurgent-held city of Fallujah may have been a success, but the aftermath has been a disaster. On the highway to Baghdad's main airport, suicide bombings have gotten so frequent that last week the American Embassy officially declared the road off-limits to its personnel. Now, U.S. diplomatic staffers need helicopters to get to the airport from the Green Zone. Mosul, six times Fallujah's size, is now almost as much of a no-go zone as Fallujah ever was.from "How Many Boots on the Ground?" about how the U.S. is pushing the limits of their military deployment in Iraq. (Newsweek)
[S]enior officers insist the boost [in U.S. troop strength in Iraq by 12,000 to 150,000, more than it took to invade Iraq in the first place] is only temporary. Otherwise the Army is in for a desperate scramble. The brass is convinced that reneging on the "365 days" pledge would send re-enlistments plunging. And there simply are no remaining units stateside to replace those troops who are sent home.
Blue Lemur keeps the pressure on with ongoing coverage of the Clinton Curtis/vote rigging story.
Terror at the mini golf and water park?! Somehow I don't even think major intelligence reform can save us now. (USA Today)
Nativity scene brouhaha in the UK - this is why Christmas has become so nauseating to me. The most offensive thing about this story to me though is that have they depicted George Bush as one of the Three Wise Men.
[W]ho designed the Oil-for-Food Program? The United States and Britain [emphasis added]. They wrote the rules that allowed Saddam Hussein to choose his trading partners, banks and consultants. They vetted every one of the 30,000 contracts that passed through the program. They held up 5,000 over concerns about materials that could be used for weapons of mass destruction, but not one over concerns about corruption. Saddam's major revenues actually came from smuggling, which was an activity the United Nations was not mandated to stop. The only ones who could have stopped it were the ones with military force in the region—the United States and Britain. The truth is that Washington—during both the Clinton and the Bush years—cared little about Iraq's corruption. It cared only about its weapons.From "When the U.N. Fails, We All Do" by Fareed Zakaria. (Newsweek)
And spotted in the same article, a movie that really seems worth supporting: Hotel Rwanda
Finally, respect Wangari Maathai for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. (CNN International)
