Libertarian Librarian

Finally, you start to sound like a libertarian.
 

Good post Nick I agree with most everything you say...well I guess that has nothing to do with it being a good post, many would consider my agreement a fatal flaw..but I digress.... Bush is a disaster, a clown, not a smart person (this is the biggest flaw... the leader of the pseudo-free world needs to not be stupid!!!!!!) the leader of anything on any level of any organization on the planet needs to not be stupid...but I digress... Kerry was a soulless (is that a word, or is it just spelled poorly?) manipulative evil etc etc etc... which brings me to your earlier efforts to start a grass roots movement for change..which by the way you are failing miserably... Charles Barkley..... not only a poor choice but you seem to have abandoned your efforts. so I will give you my long awaited suggestion for a candidate ...one that cannot win but can create a groundswell of support that will move people to rally for change and force the two evil entities to respect the 75% of us in the middle... John Stewart... very informed, very recognizable, NOT stupid or evil or manipulative or soulless (is that a word or is it...), loves to tell it like it is, is open-minded does not back down and will garner a cult-like following.. you want to mobilize the huge volume of young voters..he is your guy.... give up on the chuck wagon and get on the fake news ..thingy.

Ps. what a great football week:
The Badgers win,
The Mighty Vikes overcome sex boats, the worst coaching staff in the history of sports, and countless passes that were perfect "you can't defend a perfectly thrown ball" from your warrior drug adict QB. (whoops did I say that...sorry) to dominate and utterly destroy the Pack.
I win all three fantasy football games including the total domination of the hairballs... is that the best you got Nick????? dunn wasn't even close to catching the Mighty Knights of Ni.... I fart in your general direction

Go Bucks!!!!!! Milwaukee that is...
 

I agree with you that spending is too high. Part of that I attribute to things beyond our control (i.e. natural disasters), and the remainder I attribute to the seemingly instinctive way that, once an individual becomes an elected official, that person starts going full tilt for pork projects.

But, again, another big part of the problem is that most Americans aren't getting the all the information. Where was the MSM on Tom Coburn last week? Here was the perfect opportunity for the media to follow a "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" type of freshman senator from Oklahoma in his fight to rescind pork projects so that the money could be redirected to hurricane relief. It was, at the very least, a great human interest story with national impact. And, while it may not have been big bucks in Washington terms, it wasn't chump-change that he was targeting either.


The U.S. Senate voted 86-13 against three anti-pork spending amendments offered by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK. The Coburn amendments would have repealed $500,000 previously authorized for a sculpture park in Seattle, Washington, $200,000 to build an animal shelter in Westerly, RI, and $200,000 to build a parking lot in Omaha, Nebraska, and re-directed the funds to help pay instead for Hurricane Katrina recovery.

There's nearly one million. The thirteen in favor of Coburn's anti-pork amendments were Allen (R-VA), Burr (R-NC), Coburn (R-OK), DeMint (R-SC), Ensign (R-NV), Feingold (D-WI), Graham (R-SC), Hagel (R-NE), Kyl (R-AZ), McCain (R-AZ), Sessions (R-AL), Sununu (R-NH), and Talent (R-MO).

But there's more. There was also the
Coburn Amendment to the Transportation, Housing, & Urban Development appropriations bill (HR 3058) which would have redirected the $220 million for an Alaskan pork bridge project to the repair and reconstruction of the Twin Spans bridge in Louisiana. Unfortunately, that amendment also failed.

The fifteen who voted in favor of redirecting the pork funds for Alaska were Allard (R-CO), Allen (R-VA), Bayh (D-IN), Burr (R-NC), Coburn (R-OK), Conrad (D-ND), DeMint (R-SC), DeWine (R-OH), Feingold (D-WI), Graham (R-SC), Kyl (R-AZ), Landrieu (D-LA), Sessions (R-AL), Sununu (R-NH), and Vitter (R-LA).

Why hasn't this been covered extensively? The MSM can't get enough of the Plame story (which, if it does produce indictments, will most likely be Martha Stewartesque obstruction charges as opposed to the original focus of "outing an agent"), but roughly 80% of the Senate squashes an attempt to re-allocate nearly one-quarter-of-a-billion dollars to hurricane relief, and that skids right under the radar.

Don't vote out all incumbents. That's just throwing out the baby with the bath-water. Instead, contact those Senators who voted in favor of cutting/redirecting the pork and let them know that you're happy with their courage to take a stand against the wasteful pork culture of the Congress. Also, contact those who voted against cutting/redirecting the pork and let them know that you don't want your money wasted like that and that you will be considering their voting record heavily when it comes time for you to cast your vote as to whether or not they keep their job.
 

"dipshit Vinny Testastupid"

is still playing? What is he, 65 now?

Amazing.
 

And then there's my disagreement. I won't bother to argue the cronyism matter; we will just need to agree to disagree on that one. I will argue post-invasion Iraq and Abu Ghraib, though.

It has been two years and seven months since the war in Iraq started, and in that time we saw one of the fastest and most efficient military actions in history, a transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi Interim Government only fifteen months after the start of the invasion, elections only twenty-two months after the start of the invasion (seven months after the transfer of sovereignty), and a new constitution that has been ratified by the Iraqi people in less than three years after the start of the war (ten months after the initial elections). All-in-all, that's pretty damned impressive.

Add to that the training of a new Iraqi army and police force, continued security duties dealing primarily with foreign terrorists, and reconstruction of the infrastructure including hospital renovation and construction, primary healthcare facilities, municipal buildings and schools, water and wastewater treatment facilities, police stations and border forts, electrical power generation and distribution, roads, sea ports, airports, and courts and prisons.

According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division, today (26 Oct 2005) in Iraq 20,000 residents in Baghdad Province will benefit from a new sewer drainage network and 500 Iraqi school children will receive a better education in a newly refurbished 2,750 square-meter school building in Basrah Province.
Recent accomplishments in just the past week also include a newly renovated railway station in Ninewa, three newly renovated police stations in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Dhi Qar Provinces, 450 Iraqi school children receiving a better education in a newly refurbished 2,500 square-meter school building in Dhi Qar Province, nine teachers and 21 students facing a brighter future and a better education in a newly renovated school in Dahuk Province, 700 Iraqi school children receiving a better education in a newly refurbished school in Qadisiyah Province, and three renovated schools in Dahuk Province providing a brighter future and a better educational environment for 88 teachers and 1,787 students.

We don't hear about these successes. Instead we hear about a "milestone" in war deaths that was created wholly by the media and those opposing the war (see here for Lt. Col. Steve Boylan's view of that so-called milestone), or we hear about a "spectacular attack" on a hotel in Baghdad that has talking-heads wondering why we can't provide security against the mighty "insurgency" (completely ignoring that the attack, executed by an increasingly desperate terrorist infrastructure, failed in its goals to kill many and take the international press corps there hostage; and that the attack was repelled by the Iraqi police forces, with help from a U.S. quick reaction force arriving after the attack was underway and the terrorists were already being engaged by the Iraqis).

The information is out there. I'm not a professional journalist and I can find it with no difficulty, so the pros should surely be able to find this information and pass it on to the viewing/reading public. And they don't need to just do the positive, either. They could easily lead with the negative and follow it up with the positive ("... but it's not all doom-and-gloom, Tom."), or do just the opposite and lead with the positive and follow-up with the negative ("... but it's not all ice-cream-and-puppies, Mary."). Unfortunately, that isn't happening and, unless you are willing to look for the information yourself, you will not get the full story from the MSM.

Besides the successes not being covered, if something occurs that wasn't part of the game plan, then the administration/military are accused of not planning. Transversely, if something doesn't occur that was on the contingency list, then the administration/military are accused of wasting time and resources on wild (possibly xenophobic?) theories.

As for Abu Ghraib, I will not shed a tear for prisoners who received "torture" that is roughly equivalent to old frat-house initiations and the "incentive training" a recruit receives in boot camp. I reserve my tears for the 241 servicemen on a peacekeeping mission who were killed on a Sunday morning by a muslim suicide bomber crashing through the front gate and into their barracks, for children and others gunned down in a Rome airport because the muslim terrorists perpetrating the attack counted on acquiring more targets when people rushed in to help the wounded children, for the people on their way home for Christmas who were murdered when their aircraft blew apart over Scotland because of a bomb smuggled on-board by a muslim terrorist, and for those who are decapitated, slowly and painfully, by those who Michael Moore and his ilk call "freedom fighters."

Sometimes, in the world outside of the ivory towers, one must make a decision whether or not to trade the "moral high ground" for information; information that can and does save lives. We will not know for some time, if ever, how many people may have been saved by naked piles, barking dogs, leashes on prisoners, and panties on the head; but if people were saved from death or injury due to the embarrassment and anxiety of those prisoners, then I say that it was worth it.

There is speculation that if we had aggressively pursued and interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui in August of 2001, we may have garnered information that could have prevented 9/11. While that is pure speculation, if that had happened and 9/11 had not occurred, I can guarantee you that the government would have been hammered in the press if news of any possible civil-rights violations came out. The government could have claimed that thousands of Americans were saved from death, and tens-of-thousands more from injury, but most would not have cared if it meant that we had given up that sacrosanct "moral high ground." Of course, following 9/11, FBI Director Mueller was harshly criticized by those with the benefit of hindsight over the FBI's failure to more aggressively pursue Moussaoui.

And it would be nice if the media, every time it shows a picture of the frat-house "torture" from Abu Ghraib, would also show beside it a picture of Nick Berg's head being held up to the video camera after his beheading, or Paul Johnson's head resting on his chest, or the burned corpses hanging from the bridge in Fallujah, or maybe some pictures of four U.S. contractors being murdered from three days ago:


"Killing one of the men with a rifle round fired into the back of his head, they doused the other with petrol and set him alight," the paper reported.

"Barefoot children, yelping in delight, piled straw on to the screaming man's body to stoke the flames."

The crowd then "dragged their corpses through the street, chanting anti-U.S. slogans," the report said.

I'll take panties on the head rather than a bullet in the back of it, a leash around my neck instead of a knife through it, and barking dogs over my own screams as I'm burned alive. If you want to see torture, just look at the actions of our enemies in this war. I shed no tears for Abu Ghraib and the so-called torture that really isn't torture at all.
 

Mojo,

I have never said the progress in Iraq was non-existent, nor that we shouldn't take pride in what has been accomplished. But there are not enough boots on the ground in Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld prefers technology to manpower, and our PR efforts with the Iraqi people have been scattershot at best.

We have not failed in Iraq, and God willing we won't-- but things have been badly botched in a number of arenas because of upper level (ie, defense dept. and/or Commander-in-Chief) missteps and lack of planning.

As for Abu Ghraib-- torture is a notoriously unreliable means of extracting information. The recent NY subway scare is a case in point.

More importantly-- we have ALWAYS stood for something better in America. Washington refused to humiliate the British troops, Sherman (or was it Grant?) was respectful and non-punitory in his dealings with Davis and Lee. POWs have always been treated like people, and when they haven't (the Japanese interment camps of WWII) history has viewed such efforts as black marks on our country's honor.

If we abhor the notion that our opponent will kill and maim innocents. If we proclaim that such actions are wrong and that the world should denounce such actions. If we hold up our believe in the rule of law as the background of civilized society.

If we do all those things, how can we then turn around and torture people we suspect might be terrorists?

Do as we say, not as we do?

Interrogate people, yes. Absolutely. But the line between interrogation and torture has become significantly blurred during Bush's tenure. That should worry all of us-- because that is not us.

Or at least, it never has been before.
 

Mojo, a rocking awesome post, as in your norm. Nick, an uninspired and unsupported reply, which is not usually your norm.

Well, how about those disAstros? All these freaking years to get a World Series game in that greatest of all states, Texas, only to probably be swept?

Finally, Paul Edinger, I suggested Chelsea Clinton (and a constitutional amendment) for our candidate, only to be poo-pooed by these poohbahs.
 

First, I continue to contest that what happened at Abu Ghraib was torture. Torture is the infliction of intense mental or physical pain in order to punish or coerce. Abuse is inappropriate activity or physical maltreatment. Some of it was abuse, but I do not believe that any of it was torture.

In the official reports, the improper conduct was divided into two categories: intentional abuse and actions taken based on misinterpretations of, or confusion about, law or policy.

For the first category, those who were suspected of abuse were turned over to CID for investigation into criminal misconduct. Subsequent prosecution occurred if the facts showed actual violations of law, policy, or doctrine.

For the second category, the abuses included some cases of clothing removal (without any touching) and some uses of dogs in interrogations (uses without physical contact or extreme fear). Some of the investigated clothing removal cases were simply strip-searches which would have been authorized had members of the opposite gender not been present. At the time the acts took place, however, those in charge of the immediate situation may have honestly believed that the actions were condoned.

Lt. General Anthony R. Jones stated in his portion of the official record, reporting on Abu Graib and the 205th MI Brigade, that, "[n]either Defense nor Army doctrine caused any abuses. Abuses would not have occurred had doctrine been followed and mission training conducted. Nonetheless, certain facets of interrogation and detention operations doctrine need to be updated, refined or expanded, including, the concept, organization, and operations of a Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center (J1DC); guidance for interrogation techniques at both tactical and strategic levels; the roles, responsibilities and relationships between Military Police and Military Intelligence personnel at detention facilities; and, the establishment and organization of a Joint Task Force structure and in particular, its intelligence architecture."

Were there breakdowns regarding the internal command and control aspects of Abu Graib Prison? Absolutely. But those breakdowns, while they may have allowed some individuals to commit abuse against prisoners for a limited period of time, did not create an environment of torture. Those found to have committed criminal acts are/were prosecuted, policy directives were reviewed and revised to make sure that they were clear to all members of the command, and additional training was provided as needed.

With this in mind, if the activities at Abu Ghraib were torture, then there are a lot of torture cases that are about to hit the courts. Any recruit who was humiliated, was intimidated, or received some form of physical maltreatment in boot camp (as I think all of us in my platoon were subject to in some degree or another) has a case against the government for torture. Any frat house pledge who was humiliated, was intimidated, or received some form of physical maltreatment during pledge week (and we've all heard the stories of that one frat house that was just "brutal" with their pledges) has a case against the fraternity and, possibly, the school. Basically, if Abu Ghraib was torture, then anyone who has ever been humiliated, been intimidated, or received some form of physical maltreatment would be a victim of torture.

I re-assert that I'll take panties on the head rather than a bullet in the back of it, a leash around my neck instead of a knife through it, and barking dogs over my own screams as I'm burned alive. The former in each instance may be abuse, but the latter is definitely torture, sadistic murder, or a combination of the two.

Second, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. This is a commonly held fact.

Again, I must re-assert the notion that the argument regarding the "botched" planning seems to be that if there isn't a document that provides for a given contingency, then the administration/military failed to plan for it; but if there is a document that provides for a contingency that never happened, then the administration/military is wasting resources on things that never happened.

We could put more boots on the ground, but there are problems with that as well. In theater, more U.S. troops give the appearance of fortifying the "occupation," which is something that I have heard is neither desired nor necessary from those who have been or are "boots on the ground" in Iraq. It's a P.R. nightmare that we don't need, and the possible benefits are outweighed by the drawbacks. Also, a greater allocation of troops in theater draws from personnel and capabilities elsewhere, which will create another P.R. snafu if those troops are needed elsewhere and must be rotated.

I'll let the military leaders in the field and the brass in D.C. make those decisions. They may be criticized for them, but I have yet to see any hard facts presented by those detractors to support their position (not to mention any proactive suggestions; all those criticisms seem to be based on personal opinion and hindsight).

Regardless, I still think that what the majority of Americans receive is primarily the bad news from Iraq (bombings and the like) and negative editorial criticism. The good news is rarely, if ever, broadcast, and you tend not to see any positive editorial criticism unless you seek it out elsewhere.