Progress in Iraq? Not really

A Government Accounting Office report scheduled for delivery to Congress next week paints a bleak picture of the war in Iraq.

For several years now, the pro-war crowd has been telling us that we're just six months or so away from turning the corner in Iraq. Or they've conceded that all will be lost if victory isn't achieved in another six months. (Consider this report of six months ago this week.) Meanwhile, hundreds more lives and billions more dollars have been wasted.

We were told that the so-called surge would make a difference, but it's only been a big bust, and our prospects for victory in Iraq remain virtually non-existent.

When are we going to put an end to this tragic misadventure? True patriotism requires that we do it soon.

If you don't know Bo, you just don't know

Bo Diddley, one of the most underrated of rock's pioneers, has suffered a heart attack at age 78.

Here he is in Switzerland, performing one of his best at the tender age of 60:

A story of war profiteering

Have you ever heard of Earnest O. Robbins?

Neither had I, until I read this.

Two years ago today...

An occasion of national shame.

Funny, funny, funny

In the Miss Teen USA pageant, Miss South Carolina, Lauren Caitlin Upton, was asked why, in her opinion, one in five Americans can't find the United States on a world map.

Here's her reply (with subtitles):


Miss South Carolina With Subtitles - Watch more free videos

Well, I'll be dipped

A couple of days ago, I ran across an item about a column on an ostensibly respectable conservative Web site that argued in favor of the U.S. military killing the entire populace of Iraq and replacing it with Americans and George Bush declaring himself president for life.

I resisted the temptation to post anything on the matter, figuring that somebody was pulling somebody's leg.

Well, it now seems that the column at issue actually did appear on the Web site in question. Make of it what you will.

Will one of George Bush's school chums become Secretary of Homeland Security?

There was a time when conservative Republicans claimed to stand for professionalism, accountability and competence in government (not always accurately, but they usually claimed it).

That was before the Bush administration started hiring the president's old college drinking buddies or their cousins to fill important jobs.

The buzz in Washington today is that the incompetent Alberto Gonzales will be replaced as attorney general by the incompetent Michael Chertoff, who will be replaced as homeland security secretary by Clay Johnson III (left), whose resume includes his having attended both prep school and college with George W. Bush.

Can you imagine how this stuff must embarrass Bush's old man, who, for all his faults, tended to surround himself with professionals when he was in the White House?

Another GOP rightist busted

Another "family values" Republican has been arrested on a morals charge.

This time it's U.S. Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho. He pleaded guilty to making lewd advances to an undercover cop in an airport bathroom in Minneapolis.

Here are the details.

UPDATE: Twenty-five years ago, Craig denied having anything to do with a sex scandal involving young House pages. He's shown in this video of an ABC News report from back then:

UPDATE II: Daily Kos has lots more about Craig and about a story on his private life that apparently was spiked by a paper in Boise.

The war in a nutshell

The next time somebody at the water cooler or on the barstool next to yours says Bush's war seems to be turning a corner, tell them this:

U.S. military fatalities have been higher every month this year than in the same month last year.

The civilian death toll from sectarian attacks is twice as high this year.

More Iraqi civilians have fled the country than did last year.

The Iraqi government is falling apart and, for all practical purposes, doesn't really exist.

Oh, yeah. The war is going very well. If the American people will just be patient and allow our leaders to pursue their policies, victory is just around the corner.

Funny

Hat tip to Zaius Nation for this one:

How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?

The answer is seven:

* One to deny that a light bulb needs to be replaced.

* One to attack and question the patriotism of anyone who has questions about the light bulb.

* One to blame the previous administration for the need of a new light bulb.

* One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to have a secret stockpile of light bulbs.

* One to get together with Vice President Cheney and figure out how to pay Halliburton one million dollars for each light bulb.

* One to arrange a photo-op session showing Bush changing the light bulb while dressed in a flight suit and wrapped in an American flag.

* And finally, one to explain to Bush the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.

OUT ON HIS ASS

Alberto Gonzales has resigned as U.S. attorney general.

Frederick of Hollywood is a pessimist

Hey, Freddie. This is no way to get yourself elected president.

Tommy Franks and the Keystone Kops

Newsweek magazine is out tomorrow with an interesting piece on how Gen. Tommy Franks and other regular-army stiffs mishandled efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

The article includes this telling passage about the hunt for bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan:

The American effort to chase bin Laden into this forbidding realm was hobbled and clumsy from the start. While the terrain required deep local knowledge and small units, career officers in the U.S. military have long been wary of the Special Operations Forces best suited to the task. In the view of the regular military, such "snake eaters" have tended to be troublesome, resistant to spit-and-polish discipline and rulebooks. Rather than send the snake eaters to poke around mountain caves and mud-walled compounds, the U.S. military wanted to fight on a grander stage, where it could show off its mobility and firepower. To the civilian bosses at the Pentagon and the eager-to-please top brass, Iraq was a much better target. By invading Iraq, the United States would give the Islamists—and the wider world—an unforgettable lesson in American power. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was on Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board and, at the time, a close confidant of the SecDef. In November 2001, Gingrich told a NEWSWEEK reporter, "There's a feeling we've got to do something that counts—and bombing caves is not something that counts."

When Franks refused to send Army Rangers into the mountains at Tora Bora, he was already in the early stages of planning for the next war. By early 2002, new Predators—aerial drones that might have helped the search for bin Laden—were instead being diverted off the assembly line for possible use in Iraq. The military's most elite commando unit, Delta Force, was transferred from Afghanistan to prep for the invasion of Iraq.

Patron saint of skeptics

Today is Mother Teresa's 97th birthday, a good occasion on which to touch upon recent revelations that her religious faith was nowhere near as firm as the world had thought.

As a lapsed Catholic and an agnostic, I have to admit to taking pleasure in the fact that this celebrated woman had her own doubts about the existence of God. Those doubts show, at the very least, that unwavering religious faith is not a prerequisite for being a good person or leading an exemplary life.

It's important, too, that Teresa's doubts weren't just brief, isolated moments of spiritual loneliness. Rather, they lasted through most of her life.

It may turn out that Mother Teresa's greatest gift to the world was her example that conscientious religious skepticism is a natural tendency of human intelligence -- even if the gift is one she never intended to proffer.

Worse is better; up is down

The Pentagon is playing a shell game with the civilian death toll in Iraq.

According to the Associated Press, killings in Baghdad have declined since the start of the U.S. military surge, but the number of war-related deaths throughout the country as a whole is twice as high as a year ago.

The brass hats say the overall situation is better but offer no numbers to support their claim.

Surge schmurge!

Dan Froomkin states the case concisely and correctly.

Why does the Pentagon hate our troops?

The Defense Department promised that the troops in Iraq would get up to 3,000 special armored vehicles this year.

It turns out that they'll be lucky to get half that many.

Will bureaucratic heads roll over this matter? Will defense contractors be held to account?

Not likely.

Is the VFW more patriotic than thou?

Just asking.

So is this guy.

A conservative general speaks out

Retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste says "the bullheadedness of Congressional Republicans who argue for staying the course (in Iraq) runs contrary to conservative values."

He says a lot of other things as well. Read them here.

Seven brave soldiers

How long will it be before the patriotism of these guys is called into question?