Reading Clancy as an Ops-Manual

CNN reported tonight that Deborah Palfrey, the most recent *Beltway Madam* to stand accused of operating a high-end D.C. escort service, dropped a name in court today that sent shockwaves throughout the capital.

According to Ms. Palfrey, Harlan K. Ullman was a regular customer (she still denies the sex-selling part, but she named a regular customer? [ /incredulity] )

Ullman is a former Naval commander, and the chief architect of “shock and awe” – the humanitarian of the year who advocated “softening up” the country of Iraq by bombing the piss out of civilian populations. He advertises himself as a highly respected and widely recognized expert in national security whose advice is sought by governments and businesses."

He was, of course, outraged at the allegation – like every high-profile man caught boinking hookers has been since the dawn of journalism. "The allegations do not dignify a response," Ullman told CNN. "I'm a private, not a public, citizen. Any further questions are referred to my attorneys." (His attorney is Marc Mukasey of Bracewell & Giuliani in New York)

Now here is my question –

What about this guys clearance? Revoked? It should be. These are serious allegations.

Do you have any idea what kind of hay a Chinese, Iranian or Russian intelligence operative could make with that kind of information?

Can you even conceive of what could happen if a high level DoD war planner was compromised with a callgirl?

It's the stuff of Tom Clancy. Unfortunately, these fuckups read Clancy – and though it was an ops manual.

The ICRC explains it all

The International Committee of the Red Cross released a report on the humanitarian situation in Iraq yesterday.

Eight of the most heartbreakingly depressing pages I have ever endured - and I read the entire Lancet study. It isn’t even that it tells us anything we didn’t already know. It’s that it puts it all in a common box and stamps it with an unimpeachable seal of damning veracity. You doubt the findings of the ICRC like you doubt the witness account of a stationwagon full of nuns.

So what is confirmed by the report? (Besides pretty much everything, I mean.)

That virtually every Iraqi has been adversely affected by the violence that has gripped the country. This violence has ratcheted up in the wake of the Sammara mosque bombing in February 2006. Civilians comprise the bulk of the victims and the poor security conditions have disrupted the livelihoods, and the live, of millions of Iraqis.

Dozens die daily, and scores more are wounded as seemingly random bombings and sniper attacks in marketplaces, targeted abductions, sectarian attacks, assassinations and murders, and all form of violence sweep the country. Then there are the victims caught in the crossfire of warring factions.

Approximately two million Iraqi’s have been internally displaced, scattered throughout the countryside and taking shelter with friends and relatives who are ill equipped to take in those who have fled, but do anyway. Those who have no one to take shelter with, and who lack the resources to flee the country make up a growing population of squatters who move into abandoned buildings and the homes abandoned by those who have fled.

Food shortages are becoming more prevalent. Hunger is on the increase and the incidence of malnutrition among the population has spiked upward. Infrastructure is in shambles, and the lack of potable water is nearly at crisis levels in some areas. Untreated sewage and the lack of fresh water is a bellwether for a coming epidemic of communicable disease that, if it were to happen, could be the straw the breaks the camels back, so to speak, and just finishes off the remaining vestiges of a former near-first-world society.

As violence has increased steadily, the healthcare system has been stretched to the limit. Mass casualties occur daily. Sick and injured Iraqis avoid seeking healthcare because the facilities, those who utilize them and the professional medical staff are often targets of violence designed to spread terror. Medical supplies are a precious commodity, especially in a lawless state and a bandit culture. A hospital director in Baghdad told the ICRC that poor security conditions were preventing staff from providing medical services. Checkpoints and roadblocks keep doctors and patients from reaching one another in time

Fully half of the nation’s healthcare providers have fled the country in the wake of kidnappings and murders of their colleagues. Those who remain and are still practicing are the bravest patriots in Iraq, without a doubt. I’m don’t think I am worthy of calling them my professional colleagues. I have never sacrificed like that to work a trauma, and I have never dealt with a mass casualty that wasn’t a drill.

The failure to observe the sanctity of medical personnel in this conflict is especially heinous and troubling. Attacking the helping professionals belies a pathological and depraved desire to rend the very fabric of society itself to tatters.

It’s a hell of a mess that they made, isn’t it? Sucked the ‘civil’ right out of the cradle of civilization, they did.

Heckuva job…

An Attack in the Green Zone

.

It finally happened.I awoke to the cheery news this morning that a suicide bomber had blown himself up in the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament building, killing several (the body count is eight so far).

But the horror I felt was not at the bombing – it was at the cold realization that I had realistically been expecting something like this to happen – especially after that dog-and-pony-show McCain, Graham and Pence treated us to. (Question: How many clowns can you fit in a Company of soldiers? Answer…Three.)

The last week of March, a rocket slammed into the fortified area and killed two Americans. The casualties were unusual, but not the rocket. (Rockets and mortars often get lobbed toward the Green Zone. But usually nobody dies.)

When the news broke on April 1 that two unexploded suicide vests were found in the green zone, my husband and I just looked at one another with dismay. “I give it thirty days – but something bad is going to happen.” I said. “Something really earth-shattering. Something that will shift everything.”

He said I was being generous, that something bad was barreling down the pike all right, but it would be sooner, not later. He also said that things like that are like mice…For every one you see, there are fifty more. He was, of course and as per usual, correct on all counts – which by the way is a very infuriating trait in a spouse – just so everyone knows what a saint I am…

It is easy to see something like this as pure brinksmanship. “We will see your stroll through the market, and raise you 21 executions and a suicide bombing in Parliament itself.”

Jolly good show - George, John. Jolly good show indeed.

An *Outing* at the Pentagon

It isn’t often that my husband finishes whatever he is reading and casts a smug look my way and says something like “Gates is steppin’ all over his dick on this one.” And launches into what passes for a tirade in the most reflective, responsible person on the entire face of the earth. (This is the guy you want in a missile silo, okay? I mean, if they are going to be out there, this is the guy you trust with that duty. When he rants, people listen.)

Call him the anti aWol.

He gets no jollies from the misfortune of others, as a general rule. But he really loathes George Bush, as only a veteran can. While aWol was AWOL, he was holding a draft card and dreading trips to the mailbox. While aWol was drunk in a gutter, he was an enlisted Airman with a heavy-duty AFSC. While aWol was running his first oil company into the ground, he was bootstrapping an engineering degree. While aWol was cutting a swath of fecklessness across Texas, he was restoring the integrity of the officer corps and rebuilding a military decimated by lies and politics during the Vietnam era. While aWol was stumbling through life, he was stitching back together the tattered remnants of the Honor Code. (I also have a brother who fits that description, except for the draft-card bit. When I say I see things differently, that view isn’t from the belfry.)

I listened when he pointed out days ago that there was an extension coming, and that Gates was going to get caught with his pants down on this matter. When aWol threatened that tours might have to be extended if the funding battle drags on, he looked at me and said “Gates just got fucked. Extensions are already a done deal. Watch this unfold. Gates may be losing his touch. But look for him to try to frame Inman anyway.” When the insider Contra-gate jokes come out, he's overdosing on Schadenfreude...

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates complained bitterly today that "some very thoughtless person" at the Pentagon leaked word about duty extensions for Army units in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gates said that the leak robbed the Army "the opportunity to notify unit commanders who could then talk to their troops 48 hours before we made a public announcement."

We all know that they would have liked to keep that ace in the hole for the funding battle, but it didn’t work out that way.

So plan B…Take advantage of the Friday News Dump, like they did last week with the redeployment of the Guardsmen. But that didn’t work out so swell, either. The push-back is well underway, it would seem.

If I were a betting woman, I would put my money on that leak coming from a low-level Captain at the Pentagon who has done a tour. Or a civilian with some skin in the game.

Here is the deal – most of the people at the Pentagon are non-partisan professionals. They are just people, doing their jobs and collecting their pay. Lots of folks who do 20 or more rotate through the Pentagon, and there are tons of civilians who work there. Most of the people who work there are civilians, in fact. So stop being afeared of the Pentagon. It isn’t some magical, mystical, evil place. It’s a big building with an interesting geometric shape, and it happens to be the headquarters for the nation’s defense services. It has an aura that isn’t really deserved. And it smells funny - or at least it did when I was a kid.

For every “famous” person who has an office in the Pentagon, there are, at minimum, a couple of thousand who are actually making things work and who never hold a presser. Those folks are going to be there after this criminal crew is banished to the cruel, fickle hands of history. They see the devastation this petulant, brain-damaged president and his craven, capitulating minions, have wrought, and they are quietly pushing back against the tide of mendacity.

And you know what? Evil doesn’t win when good people do something.

So step up. Take stock of your abilities, and then do something.

Lot's of contact information, readily available on your left.

UPDATE: If it turns out that it was Senior Brass who leaked, I will owe Larry Johnson a beer. The email exchange has been archived for future examination by relevant congressional committees.

Because Tom the Dancing Bug illustrated one of my husband's tirades

"Can you see me and George Bush, about eight years old? He's the stupid mother fucker who would pick up a stick and whack the hornets nest. And as soon as the stinging stopped, I would just have to kick his ass. Someone should have. Maybe then this clusterfuck could have been avoided."

Kurt Vonnegut: 1922 - 2007

November 11, 1922 - April 11, 2007

"To whom it may concern: It is springtime.
It is late afternoon."

***

"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover
that your high school class is running the country."

***

"By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees,
am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers
fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale,
like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces.
They are being treated, as I never was,
like toys a rich kid got for Christmas in December."