Category — Uncategorized

Just so no one misunderstands my position about the Middle East. The governments and political entities of all types from the Arabian Sea to the Mediterranean are a bunch of murderous, misogynist bastards, without regard to their proclaimed religious affiliations. I don’t want to hang out with any of these people, and wouldn’t trust them with a nickel.

I’m not talking about the ordinary people, who have almost no voice in what happens, but their political “leaders” who all think violence isn’t simply the best solution, but the only solution. They all work on the basest level of human feelings to find justification for their atrocities. They all deal in hatred and death.

All of these people support murder as a matter of policy, and participate with money, weapons, and training to increase the pool of assassins. The Sunni officials support Sunni killers, the Shi’ia officials support Shi’ia killers, the Jewish officials support Jewish killers, and Christian officials support Christian killers. From time to time they will all support the killers of another faith to assist the murder of people they don’t like. Violent death is the official policy of the entire crowd.

The only reasonable course of action for the United States is to get out and stay out of the area. We should be spending our wealth on weaning ourselves from the only thing we currently need from the area, oil. We should have learned from the Oil Embargo that we cannot depend on Middle Eastern oil being available. The area has never been stable, and there isn’t much hope that stability is on the horizon. We have wasted years and hundreds of billions of dollars with nothing except death and destruction to show for it.

Force is not the answer, and until someone in the area figures that out, there is no point in engaging with any of them beyond normal diplomatic relations. We need to reduce their importance in our lives, because they have no reason to wish us well. A curse on all of their houses.

Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on this day in 1809.

[Update: see Fonts Again up above for corrections and more information.]

This a chart of the Persian/Farsi alphabet. It has a few more sounds and letters than Arabic, but the alphabets are very similar. Like Arabic and Hebrew it is written and read from right to left, the reverse of English. Today’s date would be written 7002/21/20 5831/11/32 in Farsi numbers. [My bad, I forgot that Iran has its own solar calendar, as they should since they started the whole solar calendar craze. Other Islamic countries tend to use the Muslim lunar calendar.]

Don’t expect people to believe that Ahmadinejad made a particular bomb in his basement because you have stenciled “Made in Iran” on the side. If you are claiming to trace serial numbers, those numbers had better be in the Farsi alphabet, not the Latin alphabet.

Pierre Tristam’s article on the Baghdad dog and pony show, Bush Junta Locks and Loads has a picture of some of the “proof” of Iranian involvement, an RPG-7 round. The RPG-7 was introduced by the Soviets in 1961 and has been manufactured in many countries, including IRAQ, but with obvious ENGLISH markings, I would guess it was produced in Pakistan faked by Americans.

[Update I corrected the sample date to show the calendar differences, but then I looked at the markings again and saw “Lot: 5-31-2006” and it took me a bit to realize that the Pakistanis, like the Brits and most Europeans use day-month-year when writing dates in numbers. The US is rather unique in the world in using month-day-year. That rocket propelled grenade was probably stenciled by an American.]

In their headline CNN says: U.S. ties Iranian leader to bombs killing U.S. troops. If you read the report you have to accept so many unsupported claims to get there that I have a bridge I what to talk to you about as soon as you get your fortune from Nigeria.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — The U.S. military Sunday presented evidence it says shows an elite Iranian force under the command of Iran’s supreme leader is behind bombings that have killed at least 170 U.S. troops in Iraq.

U.S. officials have made general statements in the past year about Iranian involvement in Iraq, but haven’t provided many details.

The charges came at a Baghdad briefing by a senior defense official, a senior defense analyst and an explosives expert, all of whom asked to remain unnamed.

Juan Cole has a slightly different headline: NYT Falls for Bogus Iran Weapons Charges. The professor looks at the casualty reports and says no way, uh-uh, not even close.

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I noticed in the coverage of the Air Pelosi non-event no one mentioned that when the media flies on government aircraft, like Air Force One, they get charged for the ride. If Speaker Pelosi brings guests, they are going to get a bill – that’s how the system works, just ask the White House press corps.

Oh, if she brings Jack Murtha, he doesn’t get charged. Retired military can fly “space available” on military aircraft for free. It’s a benefit.

Updated: to reflect new information on aircraft types

The Secret Service and House Sergeant at Arms want the Speaker to fly on military aircraft with secure communications and no intermediate stops. This is in response to 9/11 and recognition that the Speaker becomes the President if both the President and Vice President are unable, for any reason, to continue to serve.

This was the procedure when Republican Dennis Hastert was Speaker, and the House Sergeant at Arms, a Republican appointee, believes the practice should continue.

Rep. Hastert is from outside of Chicago, approximately 598 air miles from Washington, DC. Speaker Pelosi is from San Francisco, approximately 2449 air miles from Washington.

Rep. Hastert used a C-21A, a military version of the Learjet 35A, which is based at Scott AFB, in southern Illinois. Pilots have to be qualified in the aircraft they fly, so crews would either have had to deploy to Washington with their aircraft, or they were flying from Scott to Washington one day and then flying from Washington to Chicago and then back to Scott the next day. I assume they deployed two aircraft and associated personnel to Andrews AFB on a temporary duty [TDY] basis. The range on the aircraft is 2,300 miles and the Air Force is removing them from service.

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Amphibious Assault

This will teach them the folly of not protecting their ports.

[Editor: for Ellroon of Rants from the Rookery who recognizes the danger.]

Update on 02/10 – Juan Cole reviews Feith in the Situation Room: Three Lies.

Update 2 – Here’s the transcript of the Alex Chadwick interview with Feith on Day to Day.

Listen to Douglas Feith Responds to Criticism on NPR’s Day to Day to hear an amazing thing, an on air NPR reporter arguing with a Republican.

The audio is available now, and a transcript will be available later.

Feith tried to spin things and the host had the documents in front of him and called Feith on the spin.

If you’re interested, Feith claims that they weren’t generating intelligence, they were just criticizing intelligence.

Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog was wondering how long this latest attack would continue on the Edwards campaign, when he noticed that the MSM has switched to 24/7 coverage of a celebrity death.

For those who don’t know, William Donohue has at various times claimed a membership of 300,000 in his organization. That’s an impressive number if you don’t know that there are 66.4 million self-identified Catholics in the United States. Representing less than one-half of one percent of American Catholics shouldn’t give you much of a voice, but he has made it on to the Rolodexes of the media bookers, so he becomes an “expert.”

I’m sorry I thought that Tim Russert was important enough to have been included in the Valerie Plame outing. I was embarrassed for him when it came out that he wasn’t even significant enough to be included with the rest of the press corps when the White House wanted to broadcast a leak. Even worse, Scooter Libby thought he would be too embarrassed to admit he was out of the loop.

I’m sorry I thought that it was possible for Jonah Goldberg to finally act like a mensch and pay up after an apology to Juan Cole. As usual, other people had to clean up after him.

Most of all I’m sorry that I live in a time and place where the media have lost their connection to the truth. With all of the resources available via the Internet that once required weeks of research, those whose function is to report the truth make no effort to verify what they are told. It is sad when the average newsletter is more apt to be accurate that the major news organizations.

ter·ror – fear [Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French terrour, from Latin terror, from terrEre to frighten; akin to Greek trein to be afraid]

ter·ror·ism – the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion

The Catholic League’s president, William Donohue, has stated on multiple occasions that he has a problem with “secular Jews” in Hollywood, and Michelle Malkin thinks interning the Japanese Americans during World War II was such a great idea, that the camps should be opened for all of the Muslims in the United States.

I don’t know for sure, but Amanda’s last name, Marcotte, and Melissa McEwan’s references to attending Loyola would tend to make me believe that both were raised as Catholics at a minimum.

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Glenn Greenwald comments on the hearings by the always serious Henry Waxman in A New Beltway Term — “Oversight”. Representative Henry Waxman and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are looking at the activities of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Digby goes to a portion of the hearings that really interested me, Viceroy Autoteller, i.e. Mr. Bremer’s passing out BILLIONS OF US DOLLARS IN CASH. Bremer said he was faced with a country without banks and a need to pay people working in the various government agencies, so he needed cash.

Okay, this is beyond stupid. In occupations, check your history, the occupation forces issue “script”, limited use money, to pay people. This is how it’s done, and for very good financial reasons.

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Lurch of Main and Central notes in Stoking the Furnace of War that between the unguarded munitions dumps of the early part of the invasion and the Iraqi security forces selling their weapons and equipment on the Black Market, it is really silly to claim the Iranians are supplying the militias. The country is awash in weapons, or have they forgotten about the CPA order that every house could have an AK-47 and pistol for security, because the US wasn’t providing any?

With the 4 military helicopters downed¹ in the past couple of weeks, more than 50 helicopters have been downed in Iraq since May 2003. About half were downed by enemy fire. People have started talking about SA-7s, shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles coming in via Iran. Aircrews should be so lucky, as military helicopters have defenses against those, but there is no defense for flying low and fast into a hail of automatic weapons fire from the ground.

One of the things that is supposedly going to “improve” the situation in Iraq is the appointment of General David Petraeus, because he was the lead author on the Army manual on counter-insurgency. Well, that might prove of some value in Anbar province where there is an insurgency, but what about the civil war in central Iraq, and the ethnic cleansing in the north? Where is the manual on those forms of unpleasantness?

Actually, if we just get out of Anbar, the problem will be over. Let the Iraqi government deal with that, as it is going to involve deals with the various tribes, and the tribes aren’t likely to make deals with groups that are the target of multiple blood feuds, like the US military.

I’m still waiting for the clear statement of what the US military is supposed to be doing in Iraq. What are the goals and how are they going to be achieved – you know, the strategy?

1. From First Draft

Over at Crooks and Liars they have a clip of an appearance by William Kristol in which “Pistol” Kristol says: “Look, if I were a Sunni extremist and was worried, which I would be, about a doubling of U.S. forces in Baghdad, what would I do? I would try to convey an impression of chaos.”

Kristol has no idea what anyone outside of his “support group” thinks about anything, because none of these people seems capable of understanding the motives of others. They can’t put themselves in the position of others, so they make nonsensical comments. These are the people who think torture works, because they know it would work on them. These guys would apparently sell their families into slavery on the threat of a paper cut, and can’t understand that some people are made of sterner stuff.

It doesn’t occur to Kristol that the upsurge in violence is a result of the Shi’ia militias disappearing from the streets. It is a tactical response by the Sunnis to take revenge while they can. Baghdad is fast being “cleansed” of Sunnis by the Shi’ia militias, so this is an opening for the Sunnis. The main Sunni area of operations is Anbar province. I guess Kristol missed the memo about the Sunnis of Baghdad welcoming the American surge as they view it as a way to halt the Shi’ia attacks.

Kristol has been consistently wrong about everything, but he keeps getting air time to give his opinion. You would think that the media would occasionally scheduled someone who was right, just for the shock value.