Michael O'Hanlon's Phony Outrage

Have I told you lately...how much I love Think Progress? Let me count the ways...

Yesterday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) published an op-ed in the New York Times outlining his strategy to get out of Iraq. The Washington Post reports that Iraq war supporter Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution was “livid” after reading Obama’s op-ed:

“To say you’re going to get out on a certain schedule — regardless of what the Iraqis do, regardless of what our enemies do, regardless of what is happening on the ground — is the height of absurdity,” said O’Hanlon, who described himself as “livid.” “I’m not going to go to the next level of invective and say he shouldn’t be president. I’ll leave that to someone else.”

In 2004, however, O’Hanlon’s sentiments were strikingly similar to Obama’s. In an op-ed titled “Set a date to pull out,” O’Hanlon wrote that “our own enduring commitment to success in Iraq is beginning to work against us.” “Some will see this as cut-and-run,” he said. “It is not.”

O'Hanlon is more angry at the fact that no one calls him as often as they used to and that he doesn't get to go on television when he feels like it. He's gradually drifting, along with dozens of other neoconservative hacks and Republican Bushniks, into a hellish obscurity. O'Hanlon will soon be fighting for space in the Moonie Times, and he knows it. They all know it--and they knew it the moment McCain blurted out that we could stay in Iraq for a hundred years.

What O'Hanlon doesn't get is that the Iraq War is long since decided, and the US needs to leave. Nothing is going to change unless we can draft a 500,000 man Army out of thin air to stabilize the country entirely, take out Maliki, install a Sunni strongman, and turn the country into what it used to be, a bulwark against Shia Islam. Too late, suckers. Iraq is destined to be a client state of Iran, and we drove them there. Your phony surge accomplished nothing, other than kicking the can down the road, and the greatest military debacle in American history is permanently hung around the necks of the Republican Party.

--WS

The Frantic Conclusion of An Administration of Greed

Senator Ken Salazar injects some wisdom into the debate over energy policy with this editorial, and he reveals a simple grain of truth--the Bush Administration isn't interested in sound energy policy. It's only interested in making sure it can hand out freebies before they are driven from office in shame. This is the last gasp of a administration of greed and incompetence, trying to give their friends a few of the crumbs still left on the table.

According to Senator Salazar, the lure of quick profits from oil shale deposits has been with us for decades:

Bush and his fellow oil shale boosters claim that if only Western communities would stand aside, energy companies could begin extracting more than 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil from domestic shale deposits. If only the federal government immediately offered even more public lands for development, the technology to extract oil from rock would suddenly ripen, oil supplies would rise and gas prices would fall.

If only.

Since the 19th century, we in the West have been trying to extract oil from the vast oil shale riches that lie under our feet. It is no easy task, and past efforts have failed miserably. Commercial oil shale development would require not only immense financial investments but also an undetermined quantity of (scarce) water from the Colorado River basin and the construction of several multibillion-dollar power plants.

Sometimes it seems that we are getting close to overcoming these barriers. But each time we near a boom, we bust. The last bust, the infamous "Black Sunday" of 1982, left Western communities holding the bill long after the speculators, Beltway boosters and energy companies had taken off.

Sound familiar? The defense establishment has been paid off with a profitable war. Enron and MCI Worldcom got theirs and left everyone holding the bill. The environmental laws have been gutted to let the polluters have a free pass. The mortage industry got their handout and we're seeing that bailout happen before our eyes. Halliburton isn't through getting your money. The developers are getting theirs in New Orleans in the form of football condos for Alabama football boosters. The oil companies are going to get their offshore drilling rights, come hell or high water. The treasury is busted wide open and the vault is long empty. The rich have their tax cuts. The cronies are already out of the administration and raking in the dollars at whatever wingnut welfare job they could get before the dam bursts and releases tens of thousands of ideologically driven Bushies back into the real world. Who's left to get theirs? Fat young Republicans who haven't quite gotten out of college yet must be salivating at the ridiculous notion of a McCain Presidency--if they don't get in on all of this handout action soon, they're going to actually have to find jobs, and no one is prepared for that outcome.

Be prepared for the sickening final spectacle of the last Republican being dragged out of the building feet first, engorged and bloated, screaming for the last handout as the grease runs from his chin and the money falls out of his pockets.

--WS

The Sooner the Hayden Era Ends, the Better

Of course, the man who presided over the debacle of 9/11, the fallout over waterboarding, and the explosion of private contractors probably isn't the right guy for the job--and the sooner the Michael Hayden era ends, the better. He should never again be put in charge of any agency or any aspect of US intelligence.

Soon after accepting the post of CIA director two years ago, Michael V. Hayden set an unusual goal for his scandal-beset agency: virtual invisibility.

"CIA needs to get out of the news as source or subject," he said in an internal memo to his staff in 2006.

Two years later, that goal is far from met, as Hayden has tacitly acknowledged. In a retirement ceremony last month marking the end of his military career, the Air Force general stressed the need for the agency to "stay in the shadows" while ignoring what he called the "sometimes shrill and uninformed voices of criticism."

The comment reflected the difficulties that Hayden's CIA faces in trying to turn the corner on six years of controversy at the same time that it attempts sweeping internal changes. While the agency's leadership has sought a return to normal and has launched initiatives intended to improve ties with lawmakers and foreign allies, it finds itself in the cross hairs of a Congress determined to force a reckoning over the agency's past intelligence failures and its conduct in the fight against terrorism.

The quickest way for CIA to get out of the newspapers is for CIA to stop breaking the law, stop letting contractors do their dirty work, and for Hayden and his management style to depart. The next President needs to appoint someone who will reduce the contractor workforce, emphasize professionalism over politics, and get us back into the business of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) and get us out of the business of torturing people.

--WS

Wearing Out the Troops, Bush Administration Style

This is sickening to have to find out on the Thursday afternoon before a long holiday weekend--thanks for the News Dump, there, Pentagon Office of Public Affairs or whatever. These guys are NOT intended for long deployments and this is an ABUSE of the US Marine Corps.

The Pentagon has extended the tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan, after insisting for months the unit would come home on time.

Marine Col. David Lapan confirmed Thursday that the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is doing combat operations in the volatile south, will stay an extra 30 days and come home in early November rather than October.

Military leaders as recently as Wednesday stressed the need for additional troops in Afghanistan. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has repeatedly praised the work of the 24th MEU in fighting Taliban militants in Helmand Province.

So, all of this talk about war with Iran--is it a pipe dream? Because there are no troops left. The cupboard is bare and we've exhausted our military.

When Bush leaves office, there won't be a single US combat division--Army, Marines, or Reserve/National Guard component--available for combat at 100% strength. That's the worst shape our military has been in since the start of the Korean War. Even during and after Vietnam, we had divisions sitting in Germany that were ready to fight. And in all of their infinite wisdom, they knew this was going to happen and they're deliberately leaving the next President without ANY military forces available to him. NONE.

It's a disgrace unparalleled in our history. A disgrace.

--WS

Fighting Liberals Kick Wingnut Ass Every Time

I want to caution you--this is so earnest, so over-the-top, so bland in its assertions and so wild-eyed and fraught with self-deluding self-importance, you'll probably have a stomach-ache when you're done reading it:

Herodotus:

Things are indeed more complicated than a single bipolar axis. And you are right that few people want a purely libertarian system. I am among them. Here's where I stand:

In spite of the complexities of politics, there is a single axis that can be considered operative over the whole system. Forget the terms left and right, let's just say that at one end is an all-powerful state, and at the other end is no state at all. The "right" that I consider myself a part of is the right that believes that we should have a state that is just large enough to protect people's freedoms and rights, provide a reasonable level of security, and create an environment in which people are free to pursue their dreams, so long as they are not harming their neighbors in the process. That is an oversimplification of a complex issue, but that's where I stand, and that is where most of the people on my side---the people we call "conservatives"—stand. Pinochet allowed some capitalism, which was good, and he opposed the communists, which was good. Those things are both associated with my ideology. But a military ruler is not. There is nothing conservative, in my understanding of the term, in military dictatorship.

Put simply...

I am in favor of a reasonably small government that is limited in its coerciveness to the bare minimum required to create the climate I described above. I am in favor of free market capitalism. I am a classical liberal.

I oppose statism, an all-powerful government, severely reduced freedoms (even for some conception of a common good), and command economies.

Because of where the left comes down on both economic and governmental models, I oppose the left. Because of the way the left conducts itself across the globe, I oppose the left. Because wherever the left gets complete control, the result is slaughter, misery, and dystopia, I oppose the left. Because the Democrats in America have become increasingly associated with the left---and when added to their shameful slavery/segregation past—I oppose the Democrats.

The reason I do so so vigorously, with reference to metaphors like Thermopylae is this: the left does not play nice. It never has. It has no interest in compromise. That the Democrats are forced to compromise is because our system is brilliantly designed, and because they are a political party. But the ideology that seeks complete control over that party will never compromise. It never does. Two years ago, I would have agreed with you on all this "catch more flies with honey" stuff. but not now. I have learned too much. The ideology of the left must be destroyed...in all of its manifestations, in every corner of the globe, for all time. Not the people, mind you---the ideology. The people must be rescued, as I wrote here. Thanks, Herodotus. It's been great.
Posted by Christopher_Cook on 2008-06-27 10:31:54

Hey, thanks for the wankery. Let me clear something up for you--


Admiring someone like Pinochet reveals you to be a raving psychopath. His goons tortured, dismembered, abducted, disappeared and killed human beings for no reason other than that they could do it--probably the sort of thing that gives you instant wood. You'd love to torture and kill, wouldn't you, because your powerlessness is what informs you. Actual facts don't work. Living in the real world doesn't work. You have nothing but whatever bland occupation you inhabit to inform you, and because of that, you have lived a worthless, meaningless life of self-indulgence and debasement.

What causes all of that death, starvation and strife you talk about is extremism; that is, the absence of political parties that work together and the implementation of "mob rule" and "criminal thugs" taking over and subverting the rule of law. When you say you want to be an extremist and admire Pinochet and destroy liberalism, you've already lost the battle of ideas and entered into a madness that goes beyond being a mere sociopath.

Who subverted the rule of law in America? The Bush Administration. Who has used fearmongering, intimidation, and lawlessness to get what they want politically? The Bush administration. Who launched an unnecessary war against a country that didn't attack us? The Bush administration. Who let an American city drown? The Bush Administration. Who has cut benefits for wounded Veterans and cut health insurance for poor children? The Bush administration. You confuse GREED with austerity.

Who has brought back into our national discourse a responsible debate on privacy rights, habeas corpus, the rule of law, a fair and impartial judiciary, better benefits for Veterans, health care for poor children, relief for people affected by natural disasters, better pay for the working poor, and help for people who are being thrown out of their homes? The Democrats. Who favors the ultra-rich and fucks over anyone who has to work for a living? The Republicans.

You are a man-child with no life experience who is fundamentally ignorant of American political history. You have found yourself clinging desperately to lies your ignorant ass couldn't be bothered to sort on its own and you've set up shop on a sheet of loose sand, thinking it to be the foundation of actual knowledge and fact. You've grasped a kernel of nothing, thinking it to be the island on which you will live a grand and fantastic life. All your life, you will rail against liberals and find yourself with nothing to show for it. You will blink your dead eyes and pound small, soft fists onto soft surfaces and reach for junk food and chemicals and try to make your pain go away. All your life, you will blame everyone except yourself, because if you ever do take a look at the ridiculous shit you publish on your ridiculous blog, you'll see yourself holding a screaming hot conflagration of bullshit and ignorance like a tattered jack-off rag.

Try and "destroy" me in any sense, literal or figurative, and I'll laugh in your fat little face, dude. And you will know me by the trail of your various body parts that I leave behind me.

--WS

GAO Releases Report on Border Security

The timing of this report is critical because we are seeing a flurry of stories about the border region of Mexico and the US which suggests that the area is spinning out of control. The Department of Homeland Security is simply not up to the task of setting a long term agenda.
The GAO found that the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) was compliant with the majority of benchmarks, but failed to comply with a requirement that stated:

A description of how activities will further the objectives of SBI, as defined in the SBI strategic plan, and how the plan allocates funding to the highest-priority border security needs.

And that is the entire report in a nutshell--the GAO determined that DHS has no articulated plan that tells the American people how the SBI will achieve anything resembling a long term goal, like you know--securing the border. Without a long term plan, what's the point? How sad is it that the GAO, which has a pretty wide latitude with what it decides, ultimately had to decide that the DHS has no vision of how it will achieve anything?

Back in February, it was revealed that one of the components of the SBI, the virtual fence, was a failure:

The failure of the virtual fence was inevitable, a combination of an unrealistic and heavily politicized policy imperative, untested technology hastily fielded with little input from subject-matter experts, a contractor that understands airplanes a lot better than systems integration, and poor management by the federal government’s least experienced bureaucracy.

The only good news here is that the Department of Homeland Security was not building an airplane. The technology used to build the virtual fence was designed to rise only a few feet off the ground on a series of towers along the southwest and eventually the northern border. Its maiden voyage didn’t kill anyone, but it wasted millions of dollars that DHS can ill afford to lose.

So the question is: What do we do now? Given that the Bush administration will leave office in less than a year, picking up the pieces of this flawed project will largely fall to Congress and the next administration.

Well, I would argue that until we ELIMINATE the structure of the Department of Homeland Security--that is, break it up and put things back largely the way they were--we're never going to see meaningful progress. The DHS is the only agency that has never been under Democratic control and is entirely the creation of Joe Lieberman. In turn, Lieberman has failed to provide even the most basic example of oversight of DHS in the Senate. Years and years of incompetence, paralysis and wasteful spending have created the ultimate example of Republican governance--a terrible agency that can't do anything. Mission accomplished, Republican Party--you've proven that government can't do anything right. So, step aside while we fix the DHS problem.

Once that's done, we have to stop this crap--and you'll be excited to hear that corrupt broke-ass wingnut ex-Congressman J.D. Hayworth has dedicated himself to paying off his debts by hosting a radio show that gets everything wrong:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said three suspects arrested in a Monday morning Phoenix home invasion and homicide were not members of the Mexican Army.

"We have no indication whatsoever that any of the individuals were involved with formal military in Mexico," said Vincent Picard of ICE.

The incident at 8329 W. Cypress St. resulted in the death of the homeowner. Between 50 and 100 rounds were fired at the house.

While on the J.D. Hayworth show Tuesday, a top member of a Phoenix police union announced that the suspects were active members of the Mexican Army hired by drug cartels to perform home invasions and murders.

Phoenix Police Enforcement President Mark Spencer said a police officer told him that one of the men captured said they were completely prepared to ambush Phoenix police, but ran out of ammunition. Click Here to listen to the entire interview.

He added that all of them were dressed in military tactical gear and armed with AR-15 assault rifles. Three other men involved in the invasion escaped.

Way to go there, JD. The environment for any discussion of these issues is toxic, thanks in large part to the efforts of the right wing in this country to demonize people and lie through their teeth. It helps them justify paying billions to companies that fail to do what they've been contracted out to do. In order to cover up the incompetence and greed, the right wing has to whip people up in a frenzy and get them mad at the wrong issue and the wrong people.

In other words, is it January 20, 2009 yet?

Another Corrupt Army Officer Pleads Guilty

Are we ever going to get to the bottom of what went on in the early days of the Iraq war? How could our government funnel billions of dollars in cash into the country and not provide any basic oversight or control on what happened to the money?

An Army officer and his wife have pleaded guilty in a money laundering scheme involving contracts in Iraq, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday.

Maj. John Cockerham, 43, pleaded guilty to one count each of bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery and money laundering, the Justice Department said. His wife, Melissa, 41, pleaded guilty to a count of money laundering.

The pleas were taken on Jan. 31, but weren't unsealed until Tuesday, the Justice Department said.

John Cockerham admitted taking or being promised more than $9 million in bribes for awarding contracts while stationed in Kuwait, the Justice Department said. He was responsible for awarding contracts worth millions of dollars including those for bottled water.

Once he agreed to take the bribes, Cockerham told contractors to pay his wife, sister and others to hide the activity, the Justice Department said.

What's even worse is that, reportedly, two suicides in Kuwait can be linked to the investigation that caught Cockerham:

Although a Justice Department official said it was too early to know if the suspects in the corruption investigation operated independently or in a network, public records indicate that several served overlapping tours. At least two officers who worked at Camp Arifjan when Major Cockerham was there committed suicide after learning they would face bribery charges. One, Maj. Gloria D. Davis of Missouri, shot herself in December 2006, a day after admitting she took at least $225,000 in bribes, government officials said.

Here's how it all worked--allowing Cockerham to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars:

The camp, a $200 million logistics hub, stands like an island in the middle of the desert south of Kuwait City. Major Cockerham worked in a prefabricated two-story building with about 20 other military people and civilians, committing millions of dollars on the phone or with a few strokes on his computer in his cubicle.

Military officials said a major assigned to award such large contracts for the Army Contracting Agency should have at least 10 years of experience in “broad acquisition,” a minimum of four years of direct contracting experience and annual ethics training. But the procurement workload from the Iraq war grew so big so fast that the Pentagon was forced to rush people with virtually no training or experience into some of its most complicated contracting jobs, Army officials said.

“From what I understand, John didn’t get the courses he should have had for his assignment until his assignment was over,” said Mr. Parks, Major Cockerham’s lawyer.

Oversight was virtually nonexistent by design. There were no auditors at Camp Arifjan, and contracts worth more than $500,000 were the only ones requiring review in Washington. Most contracts were written for about $100,000. It was also common for contracting officers to use “blanket purchase agreements,” allowing them to open a line of credit with a company with little more than a promissory note, much like a customer at a small-town grocery store.

Ideally, Army officials said, the purchasing cycle would be divided among at least three contracting officers. One would take an order for supplies from a unit commander and seek bids from companies to fill the order. Another would award the contract, and a third would oversee delivery of the goods. That system, officials said, would allow each contracting officer to serve as a check on the others.

At Camp Arifjan, a single contracting officer handled all three parts of the process, giving the officers broad discretion and creating opportunities for unit commanders to join conspiracies by inflating their troops’ needs. What resulted, said Mr. Young, the Army Contracting Agency director, was “a web of deceit.”

The only thing that is shocking is that he got caught. Cockerham apparently kept ledgers of what he did in his home--a pretty clear indication that he knew what he was doing was wrong, he wanted to keep detailed records of what he was doing, and at the end of the day, proof positive that a person can be too smart for their own good.

Memo to all you wannabe criminal masterminds out there--don't keep a ledger of all of the the illegal things you do in your home.

Affirmative Action at The Justice Department

Here's the New York Times story on the issue of preferred hiring at the Department of Justice:

Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used “political or ideological” factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday.

The blistering report, prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general, is the first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year’s scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys. It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration.

“Many qualified candidates” were rejected for the department’s honors program because of what was perceived as a liberal bias, the report found. Those practices, the report concluded, “constituted misconduct and also violated the department’s policies and civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations.”

So it was affirmative action for the idiots who couldn't get into Harvard, Stanford, Yale or Duke, huh? Because, let's face it--the best and the brightest rise to the top no matter what. If you're a smart lawyer, no matter where you went to school, that will show--provided there isn't a biased old-boys network systematically fucking you over and denying you the opportunities you deserve. (Hence, the reason why affirmative action was, and is, and always will be a good idea.)

I thought the Republican Party and conservatives as a whole were against affirmative action. Did I miss the moment where they decided that they had to give the also-rans and the kids who weren't smart enough to get into a top tier law school that extra leg up, that extra little push to enter the legal profession through the programs offered at the Justice Department? Does anyone else smell the hypocrisy on these cheap-suit wearing fools?

As I said earlier today, they'd better get rid of every single one of those Liberty University Law School Jerry's Kids and issue a course correction here. You cannot leave any of those people in the ranks of the Justice Department. It would be like leaving Gomer Pyle in charge of a SEAL team.

--WS

Here's Why We Need a Truman Committee

I hate to write about something that's going to upset people so early in the morning, but how can anyone stomach the incompetence and the greed and the corruption of the political appointees of the Bush Administration?

A House investigative committee has learned that the American ambassador to Albania knew evidence of Chinese origins was being removed last year from an ammunition shipment before a U.S. contractor sent the material to Afghanistan, said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the panel.

This month, Maj. Larry Harrison, a Pentagon official at the U.S. Embassy in Albania, told staff members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that Ambassador John L. Withers II held a late-night meeting with Albania's defense minister. After the Nov. 19 meeting, the order was given to Albanian officers "to remove all evidence of Chinese packaging" from the ammunition, Waxman said in a letter sent yesterday to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In a June 9 appearance, Harrison told the committee that "the ambassador agreed that this would alleviate the suspicion of wrongdoing," Waxman wrote. Harrison also said "that he did not agree with the decision to remove the Chinese markings," Waxman said.

A federal grand jury on Friday indicted Efraim E. Diveroli, president of AEY Inc., the U.S. company involved, on 71 counts, including conspiracy to defraud the government on a $298 million U.S. Army contract to provide various types of ammunition to the government of Afghanistan.

Where do you start with something like that?

I hope Major Harrison's career doesn't come to an end because of this incident. Rarely does the person who speaks up and blows the whistle on the Bush Administration and their political appointees emerge unscathed from the act of thwarting their political goals and their rampant greed. Someone will likely take action against Harrison's career, and that's why we are seeing a military that is hollowed out, staffed with yes-men, and overrun by the God-boys who invite crazies to come to the Pentagon and give them briefings.

No matter how you look at this story, what emerges is a troubling incident of corruption and greed:

On March 27, The New York Times published an article that said Albanian documents showed that the Miami company had bought more than 100 million Chinese cartridges that were stored for decades in former cold war stockpiles.

Mr. Diveroli arranged to have them repacked in cardboard boxes, many of which split or decomposed after shipment to the war zones, according to the article. Different lots or types of ammunition were mixed. In some cases the ammunition was dirty, corroded or covered with a film.

The repackaging operation, carried out by an AEY subcontractor at the Rinas Airport in Tirana, has become the focus of the Congressional investigation.

According to the transcript excerpts released by the committee, Major Harrison told investigators that he did not agree with the decision to hide the boxes from the reporter, and said that he felt “very uncomfortable” during the meeting.

Major Harrison, who as the chief of the embassy’s office of defense cooperation was responsible for helping American efforts to train, equip and modernize Albania’s military, said that his suggestion to bar the reporter from visiting the Albania base was rejected.

In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the committee’s chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said Monday that there were signs that embassy officials in Tirana tried to cover up the November meeting once Mr. Waxman’s staff began an investigation into the arms company. The letter said the committee would seek to interview Mr. Withers and other embassy personnel.

This is the kind of thing that sets off warning bells. When Major Harrison realized what sort of ground he was standing on, he immediately took steps to protect himself--perhaps he already was savvy to how the Bush Administration treats people who get between them and their money:

After his hour-long interview, Harrison "expressed an interest in seeking advice of counsel" and a Pentagon attorney terminated the session, Waxman wrote. Three days later, Harrison's lawyer told the committee he needed at least two weeks to prepare for continuing the interview.

Waxman charged in his letter that "it appears" embassy officials kept from the committee information related to the ambassador's meeting in Albania. Harrison told the panel that he had "urged embassy officials to inform the committee," Waxman wrote, but embassy officials did not mention it in response to a prior request for information.

All this, so a few corrupt officials in Albania could dump Cold War-era ammunition into the hands of some Club-hopping trash from Florida, who could then make millions re-packaging it and sending it to the Middle East.

Perhaps the death penalty for war profiteers isn't harsh enough.

US Capitol Police Fire 15 "red flagged" Recruits

Psych!

There was a new controversy brewing inside the U.S. Capitol Police Department, News4 reported on Monday. News4's Jackie Bensen reported that 15 newly-hired officers have been fired. The officers were allowed into the recruiting class despite red flags in their applications. This is the third major flap in the past eight months for the department charged with protecting Capitol Hill.

Sources told News4 that Capitol Police recruiters should have been aware of any issues with the officers' psychological evaluations and criminal background checks, which were done, according to the sources, months before the 15 officers were hired -- then abruptly fired.

On Friday, officials abruptly informed the 15 new officers, Bensen reported -- one-third of a recruit class training at a facility in Georgia -- that they should return to DC because of problems revealed as a result of their criminal background checks and psychological evaluations. Sources said Monday morning, they were told to resign or be fired.

[SNIP]

Earlier this year, it was learned that bomb squad officers initially failed to locate potential explosives components in the pickup truck of a man who was stopped near the Capitol carrying a shotgun. Last November, an officer was terminated after a series of mysterious restroom fires.

This is how we protect the US Capitol? The process of hiring and training people to work for the Federal Government is broken and needs complete overhaul. The money spent training these officers is wasted--and can you imagine the feeling of resentment in someone who shouldn't have been hired in the first place being told that the job they're training for in another state is no longer theirs? Someone somewhere hasn't fired the right people yet.

--WS

We Will Know Them By Their Incompetence

The New York Times has a story about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and, sure enough, there's another reason to condemn the Bush administration buried in the details:

In the Hollywood cliché of Fox’s “24,” a torturer shouts questions at a bound terrorist while inflicting excruciating pain. The C.I.A. program worked differently. A paramilitary team put on the pressure, using cold temperatures, sleeplessness, pain and fear to force a prisoner to talk. When the prisoner signaled assent, the tormentors stepped aside. After a break that could be a day or even longer, Mr. Martinez or another interrogator took up the questioning.

Mr. Martinez’s success at building a rapport with the most ruthless of terrorists goes to the heart of the interrogation debate. Did it suggest that traditional methods alone might have obtained the same information or more? Or did Mr. Mohammed talk so expansively because he feared more of the brutal treatment he had already endured?

A definitive answer is unlikely under the Bush administration, which has insisted in court that not a single page of 7,000 documents on the program can be made public. The C.I.A. declined to provide information for this article, in part, a spokesman said, because the agency did not want to interfere with the military trials planned for Mr. Mohammed and four other Qaeda suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The two dozen current and former American and foreign intelligence officials interviewed for this article offered a tantalizing but incomplete description of the C.I.A. detention program. Most would speak of the highly classified program only on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Martinez declined to be interviewed; his role was described by colleagues. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, director of the C.I.A., and a lawyer representing Mr. Martinez asked that he not be named in this article, saying that the former interrogator believed that the use of his name would invade his privacy and might jeopardize his safety. The New York Times, noting that Mr. Martinez had never worked undercover and that others involved in the campaign against Al Qaeda have been named in news articles and books, declined the request...

The very fact that Mr. Martinez, a career narcotics analyst who did not speak the terrorists’ native languages and had no interrogation experience, would end up as a crucial player captures the ad-hoc nature of the program. Officials acknowledge that it was cobbled together under enormous pressure in 2002 by an agency nearly devoid of expertise in detention and interrogation.

“I asked, ‘What are we going to do with these guys when we get them?’ ” recalled A. B. Krongard, the No. 3 official at the C.I.A. from March 2001 until 2004. “I said, ‘We’ve never run a prison. We don’t have the languages. We don’t have the interrogators.’ ”

In its scramble, the agency made the momentous decision to use harsh methods the United States had long condemned. With little research or reflection, it borrowed its techniques from an American military training program modeled on the torture repertories of the Soviet Union and other cold-war adversaries, a lineage that would come to haunt the agency.

We kind of suspected this all along--when faced with the question of what to do when it came time to do what was necessary to defend America, the Bush Administration went with the Soviet option. Oh, and they videotaped it. And lost the videos, of course. But it was legal. Except it wasn't.

The fact that Condoleeza Rice was the National Security Advisor at the time--and is heralded by anyone who still believes it as an "expert" on the former Soviet Union--do you think she was the one who suggested that they go with the Soviet techniques? Do you think someone like Bob Woodward or David Broder would ask that question? Do you think anyone in the elite media is going to make that connection?

Is anyone paying attention when these little details emerge?

--WS

The GAO Reminds Us Why The Republicans Can't Be Trusted to Defend America

Are you safer today than you were eight years ago?

When the Government Accountability Office (GAO) decides to look at anything controlled by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), you might as well sit back and get out a few highlighters, because what you're going to get is enough to fill as many blog posts as you want to try to do in one day.

In testing ports of entry, undercover investigators carried counterfeit drivers' licenses, birth certificates, employee identification cards, and other documents, presented themselves at ports of entry and sought admittance to the United States dozens of times. They arrived in rental cars, on foot, by boat, and by airplane.

Oh, crap!

They attempted to enter in four states on the northern border (Washington, New York, Michigan, and Idaho), three states on the southern border (California, Arizona, and Texas), and two other states requiring international air travel (Florida and Virginia). In nearly every case, government inspectors accepted oral assertions and counterfeit identification provided by GAO investigators as proof of U.S. citizenship and allowed them to enter the country.

Double crap!

In total, undercover investigators made 42 crossings with a 93 percent success rate. On several occasions, while entering by foot from Mexico and by boat from Canada, investigators were not even asked to show identification. For example, at one border crossing in Texas in 2006, an undercover investigator attempted to show a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer his counterfeit driver's license, but the officer said, "That's fine, you can go" without looking at it.

Oh noes!

Here's a classic picture, one that should be hung on the wall of every wingnut in America:


What could possibly be in that duffel bag? A thermonuclear device? Dirty laundry? A bag of cash for someone who wants to build an Embassy in a Middle Eastern country?

I don't have the embed link, but here's the GAO video of these activities:

The GAO chronicles the absolute farce that is our border security. While the wingnuts go on Fox News and screech about a missile that Iran doesn't have that can carry a nuclear weapon Iran doesn't have, the people who run this administration have installed the most inept people in American History as leaders of the worst idea in American history--the Department of Homeland Security.

The next President should immediately disband and deactivate and disperse the Department of Homeland Security. DHS is a an unmitigated failure and a disgrace:

In contrast to our observations on the northern border, our investigators observed a large law enforcement and Army National Guard presence near a state road on the southern border, including unmanned aerial vehicles. On October 17, 2006, two of our investigators left a main U.S. route about a quarter mile from a U.S.–Mexico port of entry. Traveling on a dirt road that parallels the border, our investigators used a GPS system to get as close to the border as possible. Our investigators passed U.S. Border Patrol agents and U.S. Army National Guard units. In addition, our investigators spotted unmanned aerial vehicles and a helicopter flying parallel to the border. At the point where the dirt road ran closest to the U.S.–Mexico border, our investigators spotted additional U.S. Border Patrol vehicles parked in a covered position. About three-fourths of a mile from these vehicles, our investigators pulled off the road. One investigator exited the vehicle and proceeded on foot through several gulches and gullies toward the Mexican border. His intent was to find out whether he would be questioned by law enforcement agents about his activities. He returned to the vehicle after 15 minutes, at which time our investigators returned to the main road. Our investigators did not observe any public traffic on this road for the 1 hour that they were in the area, but none of the law enforcement units attempted to stop our investigators and find out what they were doing. According to CBP, because our investigators did not approach from the direction of Mexico, there would be no expectation for law enforcement units to question these activities.

The GAO also did this:

Took photographs of over half a dozen locations where state roads ended at the U.S.–Canada border

They noted that:

• No visible law enforcement response despite suspicious activity
• No observable electronic monitoring equipment
• CBP stated that our activities would not be grounds for a formal investigation

Then they:
Simulated the cross-border movement of radioactive materials or other contraband into the United States from Canada
And they noted that there was:

• No visible law enforcement response
• No observable electronic monitoring equipment

GAO's investigators also:
Simulated the cross-border movement of radioactive materials or other contraband into the United States from Canada
And recorded that:

• Some surveillance cameras and law enforcement presence noted along the road
• Investigators crossed the border into the United States in a spot that appeared to be unmanned and unmonitored, then returned to Canada

Here's a little more information about that "unmanned" border crossing station:

We also identified several ports of entry with posted daytime hours in one state on the northern border. During the daytime these ports of entry are staffed by CBP officers. During the night, CBP told us that it relies on surveillance systems to monitor, respond to, and attempt to interdict illegal border crossing activity. For example, on November 14, 2006, at about 11:00 p.m., our investigators arrived on the U.S. side of one port of entry that had closed for the night. Investigators observed that surveillance equipment was in operation but that the only visible preventive measure to stop an individual from entering the United States was a barrier across the road that could be driven around. CBP provided us with records that confirmed our observations about the barrier at this port of entry, indicating that on one occasion a cross-border violator drove around this type of barrier to illegally enter the United States. Although the violator was later caught by state law enforcement officers and arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol, we were concerned that these ports of entry were unmanned overnight.

So what we have, after seven and a half years of the Bush Administration being warned repeatedly to do something, is border security on the honor system.

We have, in effect, the Otis the Drunk rule as our policy of defending America:



Remember, terrorists--Andy leaves the jail unlocked and he leaves the key to your cell hanging on the wall. Lock yourself in for the night and sleep it off.

Tell me again why KBR still gets paid?

I really wish we could find out who--if anyone--realizes that when we unravel all of these things and figure out what was done, they're going to go to prison. Just kidding! Of course none of these people are going to go to prison. They're going to go to Disneyworld! And you, the taxpayer, are gonna pay for it.

Army auditors had determined that [Kellogg, Brown & Root--the Halliburton subsidiary] KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion in spending, so Mr. [Charles M.] Smith refused to sign off on the payments to the company. “They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn’t justify,” he said in an interview. “Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn’t going to do that.”

But he was suddenly replaced, he said, and his successors — after taking the unusual step of hiring an outside contractor to consider KBR’s claims — approved most of the payments he had tried to block.

Army officials denied that Mr. Smith had been removed because of the dispute, but confirmed that they had reversed his decision, arguing that blocking the payments to KBR would have eroded basic services to troops. They said that KBR had warned that if it was not paid, it would reduce payments to subcontractors, which in turn would cut back on services.

“You have to understand the circumstances at the time,” said Jeffrey P. Parsons, executive director of the Army Contracting Command. “We could not let operational support suffer because of some other things.”

Mr. Smith’s account fills in important gaps about the Pentagon’s handling of the KBR contract, which has cost more than $20 billion so far and has come under fierce criticism from lawmakers.

While it was previously reported that the Army had held up large payments to the company and then switched course, Mr. Smith has provided a glimpse of what happened inside the Army during the biggest showdown between the government and KBR. He is giving his account just as the Pentagon has recently awarded KBR part of a 10-year, $150 billion contract in Iraq.

No, Mr. Parsons--I don't "gotta understand" anything. When your flimsy excuse for incompetence is to try to say that "things were really, really bad back then" you really should just come out and tell everyone the truth: "wow, we screwed the pooch and that money is gone, baby gone."

I sure wish we had known this story in 2004. It might have helped a significant number of Americans make a more informed decision as to who to vote for in the Presidential election held that year.

Anyway, the whole article is an eye-opener and I just can't understand--where's the perp walk? Why did KBR get another massive contract? If I'm outraged, and if you're outraged, when do we see some justice?

--WS

The Specifics of Mortgage Fraud

This is how it's done:

Federal prosecutors said Thursday that owners of the Metropolitan Money Store targeted homeowners who risked losing their homes and then used straw buyers, fraudulently obtained loans and inflated real estate appraisals to strip equity from more than 100 homes in the Washington area.

The homeowners seeking help ended up losing whatever money they had invested and their homes.

[SNIP]

Maryland investigators began to hear complaints from homeowners about Metropolitan in 2006. According to the indictment, Metropolitan lured in strapped owners through ads on television, radio and in print. The owners were told they didn't qualify for a refinancing of their mortgage, and in return were offered a "Foreclosure Reversal Program."

Under the program, they signed away their title to third parties, but were supposed to get help from Metropolitan to obtain a better mortgage that would allow them to repurchase the home.

Instead, Metropolitan allegedly used the straw buyers, who were paid $10,000 each, to take out big loans on the homes using inflated appraisals. They then stripped any equity out of the homes - allegedly $10 million - and allowed the homes to fall into foreclosure.

What would have stopped them? Simple, basic regulation and oversight. At the first sign of an inflated appraisal, at the first sign of a foreclosed property, at the first instance of a complaint from a borrower, something should have clicked. The investigators got wind of the problem in 2006, but weren't able to indict until now--a delay which cost millions. If they had been able to move against this scheme more quickly, it seems likely that the scheme itself would never have progressed as far as it did. Instead of a handful of properties, a hundred were done. Had there been a thousand, what would be the difference?

So what did all of the money fleeced out of these people buy?

The 25-count indictment unsealed Thursday names Lanham-based Metropolitan Money Store and its president, Joy Jackson, 40, who allegedly used some of the money to pay for a lavish wedding for herself and Kurt Fordham, one of the other seven indicted. The wedding reportedly cost $800,000 and included a designer gown with a 40 foot train and a concert by Grammy-award winning singer Patti LaBelle

WBAL-TV 11 News reports that Jackson was a former exotic dancer turned mortgage broker and is alleged to have been the ringleader of the scheme prosecutors say defrauded homeowners and lenders.

The charges include conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors also seek the return of $35 million in fraudulent loans that the group allegedly took out from lenders. Each count of the conspiracy carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.

Ah, the gilded age. Only in America can an ex-stripper steal millions, pay for a lavish wedding, and probably get away with it. They called it the "Metropolitan Money Store" and they lavished the proceeds all over themselves like cheap, tawdry people without morals usually do. Who was paying attention? After all, they were doing this publicly, out in plain sight, out in plain view. One would think someone, anyone would have asked a couple of questions. Like...I don't know. Patti LaBelle? At your wedding?

I say probably get away with it, but the reality is that this case will probably languish in the courts, some of the money will be returned, most of it will never be repaid, a few hundred people will probably lose their homes, and at the end of the day, another scheme to defraud people will work its way through a system that is simply not flexible enough to stop the crooks.

Remember when Reagan said "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem"? It led to the kind of thinking that says that we can't have regulators and rules and bureaucrats watching over what goes on. It led to the kind of thinking that has brought us understaffed and overworked investigators and regulators all over the country. It has brought us to a point in our society when there's no one doing what is necessary to keep thieves from stealing millions by preying on desperate people who were already victims of a practice where people who weren't even indicted yesterday sold them homes they couldn't afford.

Reagan unleashed a predator society, an underclass of people who took the idea of anything goes and deregulation and, like virtually any good Republican usually does, he left us a hefty bill our grandchildren are going to have to pay off.

The FDA blows off the GAO

Typically, when the Government Accounting Office says that a government agency should do something, it does so with the best interests of the American people in mind. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) typically blows them off and does whatever it wants. Which is usually nothing.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for ensuring the safety of roughly 80 percent of the U.S. food supply, including $417 billion worth of domestic food and $49 billion in imported food annually. Changing demographics and consumption patterns along with an increase in imports have presented challenges to FDA. At the same time, recent outbreaks, such as E. coli from spinach and Salmonella from tomatoes, have undermined consumer confidence in the safety of the food supply.

In November 2007, FDA released its Food Protection Plan, which articulates a framework for improving food safety oversight.

In January 2008, GAO expressed concerns about FDA's capacity to implement the Food Protection Plan and noted that more specific information about the strategies and resources needed to implement the plan would facilitate congressional oversight. This testimony focuses on

(1) FDA's progress in implementing the Food Protection Plan,
(2) FDA's proposal to focus inspections based on risk, and
(3) FDA's implementation of previously issued GAO recommendations intended to improve food safety oversight.

To address these issues, GAO reviewed FDA documents, such as FDA's operations plan, and FDA data related to the plan. GAO also interviewed FDA officials regarding the progress made. GAO also analyzed FDA data on domestic and foreign food firm inspections. GAO also analyzed the status of past recommendations.

So that all sounds well and good, doesn't it? Hundreds of people have been sickened this past week--and the US tomato industry is collapsing.
What is the FDA doing to comply? To protect American citizens?

Since FDA's Food Protection Plan was first released in November 2007, FDA has added few details on the resources and strategies required to implement the plan. FDA plans to spend about $90 million over fiscal years 2008 and 2009 to implement several key actions, such as identifying food vulnerabilities and risk. From the information GAO has obtained on the Food Protection Plan, however, it is unclear what FDA's overall resource need is for implementing the plan, which could be significant.

For example, based on FDA estimates, if FDA were to inspect each of the approximately 65,500 domestic food firms regulated by FDA once, the total cost would be approximately $524 million. In addition, timelines for implementing the various strategies in the plan are also unclear, although a senior level FDA official estimated that the overall plan will take 5 years to complete.

Importantly, GAO has noted that public reporting is the means through which the federal government communicates the results of its work to the Congress and the American people. FDA officials told GAO that they had prepared a draft report on progress made in implementing the Food Protection Plan, but as of June 4, 2008, FDA told GAO that the Department of Health and Human Services had not cleared the report for release. The Food Protection Plan identifies the need to focus safety inspections based on risk, which is particularly important as the numbers of food firms have increased while inspections have decreased.

For example, between 2001 and 2007, the number of domestic firms under FDA's jurisdiction increased from about 51,000 to more than 65,500, while the number of firms inspected declined slightly, from 14,721 to 14,566. Thus, conducting safety inspections based on risk has the potential to be an efficient and effective approach for FDA to target scarce resources based on relative vulnerability and risk. FDA has implemented few of GAO's past recommendations to leverage its resources and improve food safety oversight.

Since 2004, GAO has made a total of 34 food safety related recommendations to FDA, and as of May 2008, FDA has implemented 7 of these recommendations.

Yep--the FDA is in compliance with about 21% of what the GAO recommends. That's a great track record. But--when all is said and done--it's a great metaphor for where we stand today. The American people are in danger because this administration cannot protect them from bad food supply issues that have already been identified and have already been submitted to them as recommendations. We're not talking about unknown threats, variables no one can anticipate or obscure issues that only affect a handful of people. We are talking about major problems facing millions of consumers that have been identified by the GAO.

And, sadly, that's the Bush administration--21% in the approval ratings, and 21% in the compliance ratings.

Office of the Special Counsel Under Investigation

This is never a good sign...usually, they give you til Friday to destroy the evidence and hide what you need to hide. What gives, Justice Department? I thought we had an "understanding?"

A multi-year investigation has led federal agents to search the Office of Special Counsel's building. Employees have alleged that the agency, which investigates whistleblower complaints by federal workers, was misused for political purposes.

Neither Office of Special Counsel head Scott Bloch nor anyone else has officially been charged with a crime. But the FBI secured a separate subpoena for Bloch's home.

According to a Wall Street Journal article from last year, Bloch used a private tech company — Geeks on Call — to delete e-mails instead of using his office's federal technicians.

Late Tuesday morning, the entire office's e-mail system was shut down — a fact that the San Francisco field office confirmed.

Other offices, including the one in Washington, did not respond to requests for comment.

I hate to tell Mr. Bloch this, but those Geeks on Call don't know what the fuck they're doing. See, they're comprised of people who can't get real IT jobs and, as anyone can tell you, good luck getting service from those bastards.

Anyhow, another day, another embarrassment. Another fruitless attempt at ferreting out lawbreaking and corruption. I guess Mukasey read our blog post and decided he had to move and move fast! Had this happened, oh, I dunno...TWO years ago? They might have actually, you know, 'caught' someone doing something. I'm not holding my breath.

[Here's how jaded I am--I had MORE fun combining the picture of Bloch with "Mr. Krabs" of Spongebob Squarepants than I've had all damned day...]

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER

Just so we know what we're talking about here...

Mr. Bloch had his computer's hard disk completely cleansed using a "seven-level" wipe: a thorough scrubbing that conforms to Defense Department data-security standards. The process makes it nearly impossible for forensics experts to restore the data later. He also directed Geeks on Call to erase laptop computers that had been used by his two top political deputies, who had recently left the agency.

Geeks on Call visited Mr. Bloch's government office in a nondescript office building on M Street in Washington twice, on Dec. 18 and Dec. 21, 2006, according to a receipt reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The total charge was $1,149, paid with an agency credit card, the receipt shows. The receipt says a seven-level wipe was performed but doesn't mention any computer virus.

Jeff Phelps, who runs Washington's Geeks on Call franchise, declined to talk about specific clients, but said calls placed directly by government officials are unusual. He also said erasing a drive is an unusual virus treatment. "We don't do a seven-level wipe for a virus," he said.

Mr. Bloch was a loyal member of the Bush administration, serving in the Justice Department's office of faith-based programs, when the president named him to head the Office of Special Counsel in 2003. Unlike many administration appointees, Mr. Bloch doesn't serve at the pleasure of the president. He has a fixed five-year term and may be removed only for malfeasance. That is supposed to ensure his agency has the independence to pursue any probe.

A "seven-level wipe" huh? Well, "blogger" won't let me post a picture of what they probably took off of his computer. How is it that this bastard wasn't arrested the moment it became clear that he destroyed evidence? Isn't anyone fucking paying any fucking attention anymore?

Spencer Ackerman Shows Sadr in a New Light

Rather than dismiss him as a fool and call him "Mookie" like the idiot warbloggers do, Spencer Ackerman comes up with a sobering assessment of Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr.

In Iraq, Moqtada Sadr is perhaps the most powerful single political actor. But in the United States, he is treated with derision and contempt by both officials and commentators. During a visit to Baghdad last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice all but called Sadr a coward, saying he was "sitting in Iran" while promising "all-out war for anybody but him." In the right-wing blogosphere, Sadr is commonly called "Mookie." Yet while the political fortunes of all other Iraqi Arab political figures have waxed and waned, only Sadr has consistently gained strength. That raises the question: Why?

My guess is that he is one of the few young Iraqis to actually have faced both Saddam and the United States. He is NOT a military man. He is NOT a leader in the way that we understand--hence, when it's not easy to pigeonhole him, the lesser minds of the right wing go ballistic because they cannot see past their own ideas of what war, insurgency and leadership are supposed to be.

One common explanation is that Sadr is the heir to a distinguished Shiite clerical line that offered the most potent and authentic resistance to Saddam Hussein. A complementary theory holds that Sadr's anti-occupation demagoguery provides all the adherent force he needs.

But a different interpretation -- not exclusive of the other two -- might hold the key to Sadr's continued success. Sadr is an insurgent figure who adopts key principles of counterinsurgency. His military strategy is complemented by an appealing political and economic strategy for securing the loyalties of the population. That would help explain why the counterinsurgents battling Sadr in Baghdad have consistently lost.

"While other individuals and parties sought U.S. support and bickered over the high-profile government ministries," A.J. Rossmiller, who spent 2005 in Baghdad as an analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, wrote an e-mail, "Sadrists quietly sought the three things most valuable in a political system: popular legitimacy, a patronage network and the ability to provide for the basic needs of citizens."

And that's why they can't understand him--he's not so much a military figure as he is a nationalist. And, at no time in the history of this country, have we ever been able to grasp what it is that motivates a true nationalist, whether we're talking Castro, Ho Chi Minh, or Milosevic. It's also the reason why we cannot understand Hamas or Hezbollah.

Some counterinsurgents believe that Sadr's own dexterity with counterinsurgency principles, combined with his deep political support in Iraq, make accommodation the only sensible strategy. "The best solution now," said longtime counterinsurgency advocate and former Army officer Terrence Daly, "is to try to coopt Sadr's forces." Defeating him, in other words, is beyond the U.S.'s capabilities.

The principles of counterinsurgency are diverse, but they could be summed up as methods of warfare used to draw a civilian population's political and personal allegiance away from a guerrilla force. A counterinsurgent force seeks to coordinate military and civilian methods to offer both material and ideological incentives to a population so it will support a government and reject that government's enemies.

Currently, the U.S. military and its civilian associates have launched a "population protection" strategy to defend Baghdad residents against sectarian and criminal gangs; to promote competent and responsible governance at the provincial as well as national levels; to jump start commerce; and to provide social services like education health care and sanitation.

But in the areas under his control, Sadr provides all these things -- and does so better than the Iraqi government.

No disagreement there--that's the best reading of this that I've seen.

It is true that Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, has been implicated in scores of sectarian murders of Sunni Iraqis, thereby expediting and deepening Iraq's civil war. But the Mahdi Army has also stood as a bulwark for Shiites against Sunni aggression or reprisal, patrolling neighborhoods when no other force was willing or able to protect inhabitants from violence. While Iraq's legal system has remained paralyzed since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Sadr established courts within months that -- while dealing out an illiberal brand of Islamic justice that has little respect for women's or minority rights -- adjudicated people's disputes. In 2004, when Sunni Iraqis in Fallujah were locked in a stand-off with U.S. Marines, Sadr organized a blood drive in Baghdad even as his own forces battled U.S. troops.

How many times have you heard it said in the media--In 2004, when Sunni Iraqis in Fallujah were locked in a stand-off with U.S. Marines, Sadr organized a blood drive in Baghdad even as his own forces battled U.S. troops. We're talking four years ago, obviously, but how much goodwill has Sadr been able to reap since then? Well, for starters, he ain't dead.

A new report from Refugees International, released Apr. 15, assessed that Sadr "provides shelter, food and non-food items to hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites in Iraq," making it "the main service provider in the country." Among Sadr's more recent efforts has been the active resettlement some of the two million Iraqis internally displaced by the continuing conflict. Refugees International found that while Maliki's efforts have been lacking, Sadr provides not just cost-free housing but also food and a modest income stipend. In other words, according to the report, Sadr provides better governance than the Iraqi government.

It is as if Sadr has read the Army and Marine Corps' 2006 field manual on counterinsurgency. Spearheaded by such respected counterinsurgents as Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the manual's central insight is that political and economic measures, and not simply military ones, are what defeats insurgencies. "Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; each side aims to get the people to accept its governance or authority as legitimate," the manual states. "Long-term success in COIN [counterinsurgency] depends on the people taking charge of their own affairs and consenting to the government’s rule. Achieving this condition requires the government to eliminate as many causes of the insurgency as feasible."

But Sadr's appeal is not strictly material. Even if he did not deliver the services he provides, he would still have two potent assets that no other Iraqi political figure jointly possesses. First is his uncompromising anti-occupation stance. Last year, his deputies in Parliament led an effort to demand a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops that won a parliamentary majority -- only to be ignored by Maliki.

I'd say he practices the manual. The US is pretending to practice it in Iraq. Every time there's a massive airstrike, it's one more nail in the coffin for COIN strategy in Iraq. We've said that here as often as it can be said.

More fundamentally, Sadr's family led the religious resistance to Saddam Hussein, with both his father and his uncle becoming high-profile victims of the regime. The Sadrist Current that he helms is a movement in Iraq with roots far deeper than any other organized political entity.

Sadr has also managed to overcome the few challenges to his religious authority. Iraq's supreme Shiite authority, the Najaf-based Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is the only cleric whose religious-political influence outshines Sadr's. While Sistani has receded from Iraqi politics since 2005, the Shiite parties still look to him to grant his imprimatur on controversial political moves. As a result, Sadr has sought to co-opt Sistani, even as Sistani has sought to co-opt Sadr. "The relationship is mutually opportunistic, but also pragmatic, since the two clerics have not been able to ignore each other," observed Babak Rahimi of the Jamestown Foundation in a widely-read analysis last year. He noted that the alliance of convenience "is bound to reshape Iraqi Shiite politics in the years to come." Additionally, Sadr is getting ecclesiastical training in the Iranian city of Qom, a vital step for bolstering his own religious prestige.

When faced with a powerful enemy who enjoys significant popular support, one approach counterinsurgents sometimes advise is co-optation. In 2007, with Robert Gates at the helm of the Pentagon and Petraeus at the helm of the Iraq war, there was a significant effort to signal that the U.S. had no real problem with Sadr.

In June 2007, Petraeus gave an interview to USA Today that conspicuously praised the cleric. "Actually, first of all I'd like to say that Muqtada al-Sadr issued a very constructive statement today in the wake of the Samarra attack calling for mourning for several days and calling for restraint," Petraeus said. "That continues the line of messages that he has put out since his return from Iran a couple weeks ago, in which he has ordered his followers not to attack Sunnis (or) other Iraqis, not to attack mosques and shrines."

Yeah, you don't hear warbloggers condemning Petraeus for trying to accomodate Sadr.

Who's really practicing COIN in Iraq? Who's the nationalist? And who's survived longer than anyone else? No one has been a player in Iraq longer than Sadr, at least at his level. Sanchez, Casey, Bremer, and all the rest have moved on. al-Maliki came afterwards. And Petraeus got where he is by failing upward.

Excellent article, and proof someone is at least thinking critically these days.

Failing to Actually Catch Terrorists

The Bush Administration will go down as the worst in history, in many categories, but one of the most important categories will be in "fighting terrorism." No one does it worse, and no one screws it up like they do:

Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials.

Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni who helped organize the plot to bomb the Cole as it refueled in this Yemeni port on Oct. 12, 2000, has broken out of prison twice. He was recaptured both times, but then secretly released by the government last fall. Yemeni authorities jailed him again after receiving complaints from Washington. But U.S. officials have so little faith that he's still in his cell that they have demanded the right to perform random inspections.

Two suspects, described as the key organizers, were captured outside Yemen and are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Many details of their alleged involvement remain classified. It is unclear when -- or if -- they will be tried by the military.

The collapse of the Cole investigation offers a revealing case study of the U.S. government's failure to bring al-Qaeda operatives and their leaders to justice for some of the most devastating attacks on American targets over the past decade.

A week after the Cole bombing, President Bill Clinton vowed to hunt down the plotters and promised, "Justice will prevail." In March 2002, President Bush said his administration was cooperating with Yemen to prevent it from becoming "a haven for terrorists." He added: "Every terrorist must be made to live as an international fugitive with no place to settle or organize, no place to hide, no governments to hide behind and not even a safe place to sleep."

Since then, Yemen has refused to extradite Badawi and an accomplice to the United States, where they have been indicted on murder charges. Other Cole conspirators have been freed after short prison terms. At least two went on to commit suicide attacks in Iraq.

"After we worked day and night to bring justice to the victims and prove that these Qaeda operatives were responsible, we're back to square one," said Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent and a lead investigator into the bombing. "Do they have laws over there or not? It's really frustrating what's happening."

We have laws here--we don't follow them, either. How can the United States of America lecture Yemen, or any other country, when we don't believe in the rule of law, we have no honor code, we don't have leaders who tell the truth, we don't reject torture, we don't even have Habeas Corpus anymore. We don't have privacy rights, we don't have oversight and we don't have a Justice Department that will actually investigate anything because of political affiliation, not the law.

Our moral authority has been pissed away. So when you see stories like this, it makes one wonder--how do you continue to support the Bush administration. How do you claim to be in that shrinking percentage of people who approve of the President's job? In short, what delusion makes one a wingnut in the face of the fact that actual terrorists who killed US sailors are running free because we couldn't get a foreign government to give them up?

When do we invade Yemen? Because they held then released terrorists who actually have attacked a US ship, not the theoretical ones that weren't even in Iraq.

KBR and A Case of Inadequate Oversight

One more reason to convene a Truman Commission:

A House committee is investigating accidental electrocutions of U.S. troops in Iraq to determine if inadequate oversight of government contracts played a role in the deaths.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, asked the Pentagon on Wednesday to provide details on 12 deaths in Iraq since 2003 that are believed to have been caused by electrocution.

In particular, the committee is interested in maintenance contracts for troops’ living areas to see if contractors have been slow to make repairs when electrical problems have been reported.

Once the information is in hand, the committee will decide how to proceed, aides said. Waxman’s committee does not have direct oversight of the military, but it does have power over federal contracting, and is considering revising some rules after finding a variety of problems with other Iraq-related contracts.

The committee investigation was prompted by the Jan. 2 accidental death of 24-year-old Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, who suffered cardiac arrest after being electrocuted while taking a shower in Iraq.

Army investigators found that Maseth’s death was the result of improper grounding of electrical wiring to the pump supplying water for living quarters at the Radwaniyah Palace Complex in Baghdad, Waxman said.

“When Staff Sergeant Maseth stepped into the shower and turned on the water, an electrical short in the pump sent an electrical current through the water pipes to the metal shower hose, and then through Staff Sergeant Maseth’s arm to his heart,” Waxman said.

That is just unacceptable. There's a huge difference between a legitimate accident and willful ignorance, incompetence, and misconduct. Failure to properly use ground wires--that most basic of simple, common sense procedures when running electricity into a facility--is what has been cited as a factor in virtually all of the deaths. And never forget that the US Embassy compound was wired up with that same mentality--fuck it, collect the money, and run. The next time Secretary Rice denigrates someone for saying Iraq is a potential "death sentence" all you have to do is cite just how poorly contractors have done their job.

If they don't kill you in the shower, they'll just kill you with contaminated water:

Halliburton Co. [which owns KBR] failed to protect the water supply it is paid to purify for U.S. soldiers throughout Iraq, in one instance missing contamination that could have caused “mass sickness or death,” an internal company report concluded.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said the company failed to assemble and use its own water purification equipment, allowing contaminated water directly from the Euphrates River to be used for washing and laundry at Camp Ar Ramadi in Ramadi, Iraq.

The problems discovered last year at that site — poor training, miscommunication and lax record keeping — occurred at Halliburton’s other operations throughout Iraq, the report said.

Bunnatine Greenhouse was demoted for simply saying it out loud--these people didn't know what they were doing and they were awarded their contracts with little or not oversight or review. Just another shameful episode that this Congress is trying to get a hold of, but is being lied to and stonewalled at every turn. It's called "oversight and compliance" and it's back in vogue, whether anyone likes it or not.

Lurita Doan Run Out Of Town on a Rail

Another embarrassing disgrace sent packing, several thousand more to go...

Lurita Doan, head of the General Services Administration, was forced to offer her resignation tonight, according to an e-mail she sent out this evening.

Doan was appointed in late May, 2006, becoming the first woman to serve as GSA Administrator. With 12,000 empioyees and a $20 billion annual budget, GSA has responsibilty for overseeing the thousands of building and properties owned by the federal government.

Doan became the subject of congressional scrutiny last year for allegedly using GSA to help Republican lawmakers win re-election. Doan denied the allegation, but her appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was disastrous. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the panel, called on Doan to resign over the allegations, but Doan refused to do so.

Here's the classic clip where Congressman Waxman nails her confused, ignorant wingnut carcass to the wall...



"...you remembered there were cookies..."

So long, and thanks for screwing up so badly, it'll take your replacement extra long to put things right.