Fact-esque

Gingrich, the Village, and the CIA: Zombies Support a Vampire Over a Corpse

Amanda Terkel (any relation to Studs, one wonders idly?) at Think Progress notes that Gingrich calling for Nancy Pelosi's resignation just because she called the CIA liars is more than a little pot/kettle behaviour. (Via Jane Hamsher at FDL)

Gingrich himself has accused the CIA, among other U.S. intelligence agencies, of misleading Congress and undermining the president. In response to the release of the 2007 Iran National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) — which concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program — Gingrich said that he believed the NIE and its authors were “damaging to our own national security.” He said that the document was “a deliberate attempt to undermine the policies of President Bush by members of his own government by suggesting that Iran no longer poses a serious threat to U.S. national security.”

But there's a much bigger hypocrisy here that neither Terkel nor Hamsher seems to be aware of and I think it's worth taking a moment for a recap.

In the mid-90's Gingrich made a series of speeches at the American Enterprise Institute castigating both the CIA's intelligence-gathering and its analyses of what it gathered. He accused the analysts in particular not just of lying but of forging and hiding evidence that Saddam Hussein was the kingpin of global terrorism. Seymour Hersh (via BuzzFlash):

A Bad Day at Black Rock, Iraq

WARNING: Probably not work-safe language but no violence.

What you're about to watch is at best frustrating and at worst tragic. It is a US soldier taking out his frustrations with the Middle East: indirection, multiple loyalties, and a reluctance to fight for a foreign aggressor. It is more or less what a lot of us said was going to happen before the illegal invasion of Iraq, so it's not a surprise. But that sargeant doesn't know it and it's driving him crazy. It ain't gonna do you much good, either. (Via Thomas at newsrack)

This is not the only model, of course. Thomas Ricks at Foreign Policy points to a completely different way of motivating troops.

The problem is, of course, that there's a lot more of the first than there is of the second. US troops' frustration level is no doubt extremely high, as the first vid shows, but they are in an impossible situation, clearing the same roads, the same areas, every single day, fighting the same insurgents, some of whom probably were standing in front of him. It is a No-Win Situation of the deadliest.

The answer is obvious. We never should have been there in the first place. It's way past time to get out.

A Not Insignificant Bit of Trivia: The top vid has been on YouTube, Thomas says, since January. Are you wondering why you haven't seen it before now?

"I'm Not Bush. I'm NOT, I Tell You!"

Jon Stewart is confused about whether or not BO plans to actually end the Second Gulf War.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mess O'Potamia - The Iraq War Is Over

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Why Does My Blog Hate Me?

It looks like my blog is choosing sides between the people who post here.  I'm noticing that Mick, the clear favorite, is able to post comments while I am not.  My apologies to anyone else who is having this problem.  I reached the limit of my understanding of how to solve it when I checked to see if the Comments Open switch wasn't mistakenly toggled to Closed.  It was not.  So now I'm waiting to hear from the smarties at Typepad, who will help me get into the good graces of my blog again.

As a special present to make up for the techno-snarl, which, I'm sure is responsible for the lack of comments around here, enjoy the brilliant and lovely Robert Newman:

You can watch the whole thing at Google Videos, which won't let me embed.  Bah.

Drive-by Posting

As the literal and metaphorical shoes fly, BushCo finally answers the moral questions brought on by his Flypaper Doctrine.

Patrick finds a perfect juxtapositioning of headlines in the NYT.

A Victory Lap Without a Victory, How Bushian

The Emperor is going out in style - the same blind, self-backpatting style he started with. This weekend he snuck into Iraq to declare, "The war is not over...[but]...it is decisively on it's way to being won." An Iraqi threw shoes at his head. (video)

On an Iraq trip shrouded in secrecy and marred by dissent, President George W. Bush on Sunday hailed progress in the war that defines his presidency and got a size-10 reminder of his unpopularity when a man hurled two shoes at him during a news conference.

"This is the end!" shouted the protester, later identified as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt.

Bush ducked both shoes as they whizzed past his head and landed with a thud against the wall behind him.

***

In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt.

Mr al-Zeidi was immediately airlifted to a special CIA camp in Turkmenistan for re-education. Meanwhile "[a]t least 55 people were killed Thursday in a suicide bombing in a restaurant near Kirkuk."

This is by actual count the 113th time that Bush has declared victory since the invasion five years ago. One of these days I suppose (hope) it will be true.

But not today.

If You Want It

When asked by a cynical NYT reporter how much the billboard campaign cost, Lennon replied, "Not as much as a human life."

And Lennon Laughs Approvingly

You have probably read the story of the 1.2 million copies of the prank NYT being handed out in NYC. Don't miss this video of reactions to the paper.  And whom exactly did the NYT send out to talk about it?  Or was it just some random (and apparently really dumb) worker who decided to jump into the breach to defend the Gray Lady's honor?  Note to random dumb guy: defending what isn't there is a zen exercise at best and takes more commitment than what you show.

New York Times Special Edition Video News Release - Nov. 12, 2008 from H Schweppes on Vimeo.

Bush Keeps Gitmo Open...Because It Might Embarrass Him to Close It

I kid you not.

A story by Steven Lee Myers in today's NYT signals a turnaround (we hope) in the NYT's 8-year "Cheerleaders for Bush" Phase because he doesn't even begin to pull punches, spin the truth so it sounds better for Bush, or ignore the implications. The fire is in the very first graf.

Despite his stated desire to close the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, President Bush has decided not to do so, and never considered proposals drafted in the State Department and the Pentagon that outlined options for transferring the detainees elsewhere, according to senior administration officials.

Is that a departure from the usual semi-quasi-propaganda the NYT has been dishing out under Nagourney and the like, or what? Myers avoids actually calling Bush a liar by simply connecting the dots made by facts (something the blogs have had to do since the day the would-be Emperor was selected because the press was too afraid to): he said he was going to close Gitmo and then didn't. What is that if it wasn't a lie? Confirmation: he didn't even bother to look at the plans the Pentagon drew up for the demobbing.

This is the sort of stuff that, until recently, you had to go to the foreign press to get. All of a sudden the NYT, which granted was never the war and Bush booster the WaPo has been, allowed somebody to lay out the facts without manipulating them or whitewashing Bush and His Gas House White House Gang. I was beginning to think I wouldn't live to see one of our last remaining major papers turn back to genuine journalism. It was a very pleasant surprise to be wrong - assuming, of course, that this isn't a one-off that slipped by the publisher's blue pencil.

I'd like to see a lot more 'cause it gets better.

Get Out of Afghanistan

We never should have sent troops into Afghanistan:

A coded French diplomatic cable leaked to a French newspaper quotes the British ambassador in Afghanistan as predicting that the NATO-led military campaign against the Taliban will fail. That was not all. The best solution for the country, the ambassador said, would be installing an “acceptable dictator,” according to the newspaper.

“The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust,” the British envoy, Sherard Cowper-Coles, was quoted as saying by the author of the cable, François Fitou, the French deputy ambassador to Kabul.

The two-page cable — which was sent to the Élysée Palace and the French Foreign Ministry on Sept. 2, and was leaked to the investigative and satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, which printed excerpts in its Wednesday issue — said that the NATO-led military presence was making it harder to stabilize the country.

“The presence of the coalition, in particular its military presence, is part of the problem, not part of its solution,” Sir Sherard was quoted as saying. “Foreign forces are the lifeline of a regime that would rapidly collapse without them. As such, they slow down and complicate a possible emergence from the crisis.”

Within 5 to 10 years, the only “realistic” way to unite Afghanistan would be for it to be “governed by an acceptable dictator,” the cable said, adding, “We should think of preparing our public opinion” for such an outcome.

The Brits pushed for a strongman in Iraq but somehow that idea got derailed.  I guess it would make complicate the Eternal War doctrine if regime change happened too easily.   As for Afghanistan, nobody wins in Afghanistan.  It makes me crazy when I hear Obama going on about sending more troops there to "win."   Just stupid.  But he's got to get his war on somewhere.