Support

One thing we know about the Republican leadership in the Cheney/Bush White House: they sure know how to cudgel any opposition with the phrase, "Support the Troops."

That's the myth.

How does this Administration actually treat the valiant?:

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments. To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

Since this story went live there's been some ass-covering from the Pentagon, but it's not good enough:

From Rep. Jason Altmire:

I am heartened by Brigadier General Michael S. Tucker’s announcement of the Army’s policy that it will not ask for repayment of bonuses paid to those soldiers who are injured in the line of duty. However, I am disappointed that the policy does not go further by stating that wounded soldiers will also receive the remaining balance of future bonus payments. It is preposterous for our government to have a policy that says that a soldier who has sustained serious injuries in the field of battle has not fulfilled his or her service obligation.

Y'know, every four years the GOP accuses the Democratic Presidential candidate of calling for a class war, and then something like this pops up and I think, isn't that war already on?

Balancing the Federal budget on the backs of broken service men and women instead while allowing Blackwater and Halliburton to pillage the Treasury, not to mention the outrageous oil industry subsidies?

Support the Troops! Support Our Troops!

Here's how to really support 'em.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Nutjob

Mister Bush compares Iraq to Vietnam and misinterprets the anti-colonial Graham Greene classic, The Quiet American. Is he a mo-ron?

Is this the climax of the Karl Rove experience, his whole career with Bush leading to this?

Is this really where Bush or Cheney wants the Stop Iraq War debate to go?

You can watch Bush here. You can watch Ret. Major General Paul Eaton on MSNBC who leads off with "It is a very unfortunate trip back into history," before taking apart Bush's comparison and labeling it bad for, as in not-supportive of, the troops.

The best take-down is by David Shuster. He zeros in on Bush puppet's mangling of the Cambodia chronology -- he pretends the Pol Pot nightmare there happened because we ended the war, while it all began when Nixon starting bombing Cambodia.

You know, like could happen if we start bombing Iran.

Serviced

Just the other day Nettertainment endorsed Rudy Giuliani for the Republican Presidential nomination, which came several weeks after endorsing Mitt Romney for the same. While we look forward to endorsing more of these brilliant GOP candidates for the same nomination, events from today continue to reinforce the first of our endorsements. Mitt really is "the bomb!"

Today at a forum in Iowa when asked by Rachel Griffiths (read her dailykos diary about the event HERE) whether any of his 5 sons is serving in the military and if not, how they intend to, Mitt said the following:

"The good news is that we have a volunteer Army and that's the way we're going to keep it," Romney told some 200 people gathered in an abbey near the Mississippi River that had been converted into a hotel. "My sons are all adults and they've made decisions about their careers and they've chosen not to serve in the military and active duty and I respect their decision in that regard."

He added: "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president."

Good comparison, Mitt! Your next generation of chickenhawks compared to men and women serving in uniform in Iraq right now. You know, soldiers like these.

Romney's sons sure look healthy enough, and the right age. They even have their own blog for him (service!). But, let's face it, Mitt as Chief Executive would be such a gift to the nation, we should thank him for having others serve in their place, whether fathers or mothers, too. It's kinda like back in the U.S. Civil War, when rich folks could buy their way out of serving:

The Union established a draft with the 1863 Enrolment Act. Section 13 allowed draftees to avoid service by paying a $300 commutation fee or by hiring a substitute. The commutation rule was abandoned the following year, but substitutions continued for the duration of the war.

Mitty's campaign claimed that the quote was taken out of context. Judge for yourself. But was it really smart for them to ask that the whole transcript be considered?

"It’s remarkable how we can show our support for our nation and one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected, because they think I’d be a great president. My son, Josh, bought the family Winnebago and has visited 99 counties, most of them with his three kids and his wife. And I respect that and respect all of those in the way they serve this great country."

He's right about the out-of-context thing. The context, as with his fellow service-dodging Republican George W. Bush, is wealth.

A vote for Mitt is a vote for privilege. And narcissism, on the personal level and, per his own words, as a family trait.

I'm sure the Romneys know all about servants.

I mean, service.

Whoopsie!

The Republicans are clearly better than the Democrats on national security and running wars:

Some 190,000 assault rifles and pistols supplied by the US to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005 have gone missing, according to a report issued here yesterday, and may have fallen into the possession of insurgents.

The embarrassing disclosure, by the watchdog Government Accountability office (GAO), means that the Pentagon does not know what happened to roughly a third of the arms it has provided to train and equip Iraqi forces - an effort whose success is crucial to restoring some semblance of order in the country.

Wow, nice number. And there's more.

In addition, some 135,000 pieces of body armour and 115,000 helmets have also vanished, again perhaps to end up in the hands of insurgents.

So the Cheney Administration has actually handed weapons and armor to those very enemies who kill our brave soldiers? Is this what they mean when they say, "Support the Troops?"

Relax! It was just a "clerical error":

Bookkeeping deficiencies allowed thousands of weapons issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005 to then go missing, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said yesterday.

Wait. Was that the same General Petraeus who is supposed to prop up the war with his report in September?

But the affair could be even more problematic for the White House, given that, during the two years under scrutiny, the programme was headed by General David Petraeus, now the top US commander in Iraq, in charge of the current troop "surge". President George Bush now lauds his talents on an almost daily basis, as the man who will finally give the US the upper hand against the insurgents.

This should make for some fun during his report to Congress. Does the spin start tomorrow?

Somehow this massive number of guns, 190,000, reminds me of a famous scene from The Matrix:

"Guns. Lots of guns."

Heckuva job.

Heckuva.

Tipping Point?

It's not like the latest news from surged-up Iraq is unusual or unexpected, although certainly hoped against, but I'm wondering if maybe support for Bush/Cheney's GOP policy there won't go further down the drain, with Republican Senators and Reps switching out well before September. Leaving just Joe Lieberman supporting those criminals and traitors.

Yes, May was the third worst month for U.S. soldier deaths (127) in Iraq since the start of the war (the worst since November 2004) and June is starting out just as badly.

Y'see, you put more of our soldiers (surge) into their civil war, you get more young American men and women killed. Not to mention Iraqi civilian slaughter (@ 2000 -- 29% over April).

So how do the Commanders in the field feel about the escalation (surge) so far (NY Times)?:

Three months after the start of the Baghdad security plan that has added thousands of American and Iraqi troops to the capital, they control fewer than one-third of the city’s neighborhoods, far short of the initial goal for the operation, according to some commanders and an internal military assessment...

...while military planners had expected to make greater gains by now, that has not been possible in large part because Iraqi police and army units, which were expected to handle basic security tasks, like manning checkpoints and conducting patrols, have not provided all the forces promised, and in some cases have performed poorly.That is forcing American commanders to conduct operations to remove insurgents from some areas multiple times...

...American commanders have also had to send troops outside the capital, to deal with a sharp rise in violence in Diyala Province and to search for American soldiers kidnapped south of the capital...

Is it a house of cards or too little too late?

Is this political death by a thousand cuts to El Presidente's greatest narcissism project?

Will enough Senators (67 needed) finally stop the madness?

Support the Troops: Get Out

It's a very unhappy Memorial Day, with 103 U.S. soldiers killed this month and three days to go. At this rate, we may hit 4000 dead by the end of October. Total wounded, by the way, is up to 25,242.

Glenn Greenwald had a great piece on Saturday on the myth of "Supporting the Troops" by supporting the Bush/Cheney Administration's bankrupt-from-beginning failed war policy. Greenwald's post is driven by a post-mortem on the Democratic cave-in last week, but it's important to sift through for the future debates.

After all, more and more, the troops want us out as well (NY Times):

With few reliable surveys of soldiers’ attitudes, it is impossible to simply extrapolate from the small number of soldiers in the company. But in interviews with more than a dozen soldiers in this 83-man unit over a one-week period, most said they were disillusioned by repeated deployments, by what they saw as the abysmal performance of Iraqi security forces and by a conflict that they considered a civil war, one they had no ability to stop.

They had seen shadowy militia commanders installed as Iraqi Army officers, they said, had come under increasing attack from roadside bombs — planted within sight of Iraqi Army checkpoints — and had fought against Iraqi soldiers whom they thought were their allies.

“In 2003, 2004, 100 percent of the soldiers wanted to be here, to fight this war,” said Sgt. First Class David Moore, a self-described “conservative Texas Republican” and platoon sergeant who strongly advocates an American withdrawal. “Now, 95 percent of my platoon agrees with me.”

Meanwhile, CBS Chief Foreign Correspondent, Lara Logan, returned to Iraq after a six week breather, and finds it markedly worse than when she left it:

Schieffer: "What's your assessment at this point, is it better, worse, or about the the same as when you left?"

Logan: "Well, I can tell you Bob, I've only been gone for about six weeks and just the drive from the airport into Baghdad itself was really visually disturbing. You could sense there is a dramatic change in the feeling in the city itself. It looks like a wasteland. The drive really reminded me of something out of Armageddon."

I'm thinking, the Bible story or the movie?

Not only that, but the war has indeed turned out to be one big training camp/university for terrorism (NY Times again):

Estimating the number of fighters leaving Iraq is at least as difficult as it has been to count foreign militants joining the insurgency. But early signs of an exodus are clear, and officials in the United States and the Middle East say the potential for veterans of the insurgency to spread far beyond Iraq is significant.

Maj. Gen. Achraf Rifi, general director of the Internal Security Forces in Lebanon, said in a recent interview that “if any country says it is safe from this, they are putting their heads in the sand.”

That's right; we're fighting them over there so that we will have to fight them over here.

Heckuva job, Bushie.