The Military Times are four weekly newspapers that cater specifically to the military with the unimaginative names of the Air Force Times, Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times. While they share content under the Military Times name, each is tailored to the specific service on the masthead.

On Monday there will be an editorial calling for the removal of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.

As Charles of The Fulcrum says in his article, Why Don’t the Troops Support the Troops?, this is devastating.

Billmon of The Whiskey Bar worked for the group that published the Military Times before Gannett bought them out. He is troubled in his article, Unfriendly Fire, about the seeming attempt by the uniformed leaders to put all of the blame on Rumsfeld.

I share both views and have additional dread over the meaning of this.

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Billmon reviews his thinking on the conflicts surrounding the conflicts between Israel and both the Palestinians and the Lebanese in his article, God Wept.

Billmon gets it. The world isn’t a manicheaen construct. There is almost never an obviously right answer and there are too many “did you stop eating kittens” questions awaiting you.

There is an approach to the world I call the Jane Fonda Syndrome. That is when someone discovers that one of two entities involved in a conflict has lied. People with JFS automatically assume that the other entity is telling the truth. It doesn’t occur to a JFS sufferer that both may be lying, as is usually the case when the entities are nations.

Abraham Lincoln got it in his statement that both sides claim that G-d is on their side: “One must be, and both may be, wrong.”

Another case is when you discover that an entity has been generally truthful, but you know of at least one incident of lying. You can’t just put them in the box labeled “Truth Teller”, but do they deserve to be in the box labeled “Liar”?

There were some cold hard facts in the old days. Once upon a time no one was slightly dead. Today we have had to resort to “clinically dead”, because there isn’t even a definite line between life and death anymore.

There is still one hard fact in this world: Dick Cheney is evil. Anyone who can shoot a lawyer in the face and not only, not get sued, but receive an apology from the lawyer, has to be evil.

The Bart Simpson Award for Pathetic Excuses goes to neocons Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, and David Frum and their absurd claim that they had nothing to do with the Iraq War. As Mustang Bobby explains: it was the Shrubbery’s fault, because the Iraq War we wanted would have been a piece of cake, and cheap, and we would have been greeted as liberators, and we didn’t do it, and we weren’t there, and the dog ate our plans.

These people did their utmost to get the US involved in a country they knew nothing about, and they made no attempt to learn. The fact that they thought the Shrubbery’s team was the best assembled since Harry Truman shows the level of total ignorance these people possess.

Dr. Juan Cole of Informed Comment presents his list: Top Ten Ways We Know We Have Lost In Iraq.

From CNN: U.S. yanks Web site with reported nuclear secrets

In a statement Thursday night, a spokesman for National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said his office has suspended public access to the Web site “pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing.”

The action came after The New York Times raised questions about the contents of the government site, called the “Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal.” The Times‘ Web site reported Thursday night that weapons experts say documents posted on the government site in recent weeks provide dangerous detail about Iraq’s covert nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

“While strict criteria had already been established to govern posted documents, the material currently on the Web site, as well as the procedures used to post new documents, will be carefully reviewed before the site becomes available again,” said Negroponte’s spokesman, Chad Kolton.

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According to LiveJournal Status Report: LiveJournal has lost power to its servers and is working to correct the situation.

This has nothing to do with the Blogger problems, or the elections. There is nothing to see here citizens. So, move along and take your stainless steel colanders™^Anya with you.

Update: At least some of LiveJournal is back.