Winning The Iraq War Debate With The Mentally Challenged

From Lee Camp
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How to win the Iraq war debate against your dumb friends.

Linked at DWT.

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Dubya's Iraq Boondoggle - Do The Math

Or Tom Tomorrow will do the math for ya.

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Nobel Winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz | "True Cost Of Iraq War"

Of course this won't matter to the Bushistas because this has -from day one- been a war for profiteering.

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Three trillion dollars - Nobel winning economist tabulates true cost of Iraq war

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize-winner in economics, says the Iraq war has cost $3 trillion so far. According to the Guardian, "three trillion could have fixed America's social security problem for half a century."

Some time in 2005, Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, who also served as an economic adviser under Clinton, noted that the official Congressional Budget Office estimate for the cost of the war so far was of the order of $500bn. The figure was so low, they didn't believe it, and decided to investigate. The paper they wrote together, and published in January 2006, revised the figure sharply upwards, to between $1 and $2 trillion. Even that, Stiglitz says now, was deliberately conservative: "We didn't want to sound outlandish."

Link.

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Following In Her Mother's Footsteps?

Has your mother shown any remorse for the fact that her vote cost Iraqis a million of their lives?” a student asked Chelsea Clinton on Monday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ms. Clinton replied: “She cast a vote based on the best available evidence. Perhaps you had clairvoyance then, and that’s extraordinary."

When I read this quote by Chelsea Clinton I was very disappointed. I had thought(or hoped) that the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton would be more aware, more compassionate, more in tune with what was right and wrong with the world even waaaay back in 2002. Without the blinders that(supposedly) kept her mother(and others) who could have thrown up some roadblocks to dubya's Iraqi bloodbath from seeing what was coming. You know like millions of us did waaaaayy back in 2002.
Sweet, shallow, protected Chelsea is apparently as aware of the political world as Brittany Spears. Below is Barry Crimmons who'll fill us in on what this all may mean. Be sure to go to Barry's web site and get the rest:

"..Back in 2002, I thought millions of others who also foresaw a calamitous quagmire in Iraq were just regular people, like me. I thought we'd simply drawn some sensible conclusions and then taken a principled stand. But according to charming child of privilege Chelsea Clinton, we were all much more special than that.."
-Barry Crimmons

Continue.
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Baghdad Burning Is Back

The good news is Baghdad Burning is okay, the bad news is she and her family are now refugees in Syria. At least they should be safer there. I wish them a safe stay, and I hope the insanity that George W. Bush unleashed on the people of Iraq is soon over and everyone can go back home safe and lead their live's in peace and dignity.
Here's Iraqi girl blogger:

Leaving Home...

"..The trip was long and uneventful, other than two checkpoints being run by masked men. They asked to see identification, took a cursory glance at the passports and asked where we were going. The same was done for the car behind us. Those checkpoints are terrifying but I’ve learned that the best technique is to avoid eye-contact, answer questions politely and pray under your breath. My mother and I had been careful not to wear any apparent jewelry, just in case, and we were both in long skirts and head scarves.

Syria is the only country, other than Jordan, that was allowing people in without a visa. The Jordanians are being horrible with refugees. Families risk being turned back at the Jordanian border, or denied entry at Amman Airport. It’s too high a risk for most families.

We waited for hours, in spite of the fact that the driver we were with had ‘connections’, which meant he’d been to Syria and back so many times, he knew all the right people to bribe for a safe passage through the borders. I sat nervously at the border. The tears had stopped about an hour after we’d left Baghdad. Just seeing the dirty streets, the ruins of buildings and houses, the smoke-filled horizon all helped me realize how fortunate I was to have a chance for something safer.

By the time we were out of Baghdad, my heart was no longer aching as it had been while we were still leaving it. The cars around us on the border were making me nervous. I hated being in the middle of so many possibly explosive vehicles. A part of me wanted to study the faces of the people around me, mostly families, and the other part of me, the one that’s been trained to stay out of trouble the last four years, told me to keep my eyes to myself- it was almost over.

It was finally our turn. I sat stiffly in the car and waited as money passed hands; our passports were looked over and finally stamped. We were ushered along and the driver smiled with satisfaction, “It’s been an easy trip, Alhamdulillah,” he said cheerfully.

As we crossed the border and saw the last of the Iraqi flags, the tears began again. The car was silent except for the prattling of the driver who was telling us stories of escapades he had while crossing the border. I sneaked a look at my mother sitting beside me and her tears were flowing as well. There was simply nothing to say as we left Iraq. I wanted to sob, but I didn’t want to seem like a baby. I didn’t want the driver to think I was ungrateful for the chance to leave what had become a hellish place over the last four and a half years.."

Continue here.

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Opinions From the People Who Fought

A NY Times article written by former US non-commissioned officers.

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The War as We Saw It

..A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias..

Continue.

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Regarding Bloody Dubya's Pet War

Scores killed today in Baghdad bombing.

On And On | More US Soldiers Dead

And on and on it goes. Our finest into the meatgrinder. For oil and corporations.

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Roadside bomb kills 6 U.S. soldiers in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, May 20 (Reuters) - Six U.S. soldiers and an interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad on Saturday, the U.S. military said in a statement on Sunday.
The soldiers were part of a unit uncovering arms caches around the capital.

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Meanwhile in Bushopotamia

From Antiwar.com
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Wednesday: 70 Iraqis Killed, 184 Wounded
Violence today was marked by heavy clashing in the Nasariya area and a chorine truck bomb in Abu Saida. At least 70 Iraqis were killed and 184 were injured in those and other attacks throughout the country. No foreign deaths were reported, but two were injured during shelling in the Green Zone. Also, new data shows that the increase in American troops has had little positive effect on violence.
Newly released U.S. data revealed that the increase in troops has had little to no effect on violence in Iraq. If anything, the surge has changed the tactics used. Instead of small armed attacks, large-scale bombings are now preferred.
A truck bomb carrying chlorine gas killed 45 people and wounded 60 last night in Abu Saida. Police denied the use of chlorine, but many of the victims reported breathing difficulties.

Bill Moyer's Journal and the Bushco/Media Buildup to Their War

Bill Moyers Journal last night pieced together the reporting that shows how the "News" media were complicit in shaping the "public mind" toward the war, and ask what's happened to the press' role as skeptical "watchdog" over government power. I watched most of it but I'm at work so I'll have to save my comments till later (hopefully). The Knight Ridder guys were good, there's STILL some reporters left in America. The former CNN head and Tim Russert are whores, naturally. Anyway here's a clip.

From YouTube:


Digby does some nice rounding out here.
And Glenn Greenwald gives some excellent background and meaning here.

Roberts | The War Goes Ever On

The War Goes Ever On

Is the Iraq war to become a permanent feature?

The war persists despite the opposition of a majority of Americans and Iraqis.

The war persists despite warnings from US generals that the stress is breaking the US Army.

The war persists despite its enormous cost in red ink and dependence on foreign loans.

The war persists despite its total failure.

The war persists despite the known fact that it was based on Bush administration lies and deception. (...)

what Bush has demonstrated to Muslims is that American democracy is unresponsive to citizens and voters. Bush has demonstrated to the world that the US government is controlled by a small oligopoly of vested interests, the public be damned. Democracy means a government that follows the will of the people. Bush is ignoring public opinion and has made it clear that he will continue the practice.

Bush has shown the world that the only difference between American dictatorship and other dictatorships is that, for now, Americans are permitted to remove their dictator after his term is served....

--Paul Craig Roberts

Wednesday on PBS | "Bill Moyers Journal" Probe of Press and Iraq

Bill Moyer's Journal sounds like a not to be missed slap to the MSM(main stream media), Wednesday at 9pm on PBS, set your alarms. This is from Greg Mitchell at Editor and Publisher:

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'Devastating' Bill Moyers Probe of Press and Iraq Coming This Week

The disgraceful press reaction to Colin Powell's presentation at the United Nations seems like something out of Monty Python, with one key British report cited by Powell being nothing more than a student's thesis, downloaded from the Web -- with the student later threatening to charge U.S. officials with "plagiarism."

Phil Donahue recalls that he was told he could not feature war dissenters alone on his MSNBC talk show and always had to have "two conservatives for every liberal." Moyers resurrects a leaked NBC memo about Donahue's firing that claimed he "presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

Moyers also throws some stats around: In the year before the invasion William Safire (who predicted a "quick war" with Iraqis cheering their liberators) wrote "a total of 27 opinion pieces fanning the sparks of war." The Washington Post carried at least 140 front-page stories in that same period making the administration's case for attack. In the six months leading to the invasion the Post would "editorialize in favor of the war at least 27 times."

Of the 414 Iraq stories broadcast on NBC, ABC and CBS nightly news in the six months before the war, almost all could be traced back to sources solely in the White House, Pentagon or State Dept., Moyers tells Russert, who offers no coherent reply.

The program closes on a sad note, with Moyers pointing out that "so many of the advocates and apologists for the war are still flourishing in the media." He then runs a pre-war clip of President Bush declaring, "We cannot wait for the final proof: the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." Then he explains: "The man who came up with it was Michael Gerson, President Bush's top speechwriter."

"He has left the White House and has been hired by the Washington Post as a columnist."

Memorial to Commemorate Iraq War Dead

Memorial in Louisville Kentucky commemorating the Iraq war dead.


Thanks to Hillbilly Report and Crooks and Liars.

The $2 Trillion Dollar War

The $2 Trillion Dollar War

Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize for economics, estimates the true cost of the war at $2.267 trillion. That includes the government's past and future spending for the war itself ($725 billion), health care and disability benefits for veterans ($127 billion), and hidden increases in defense spending ($160 billion). It also includes losses the economy will suffer from injured vets ($355 billion) and higher oil prices ($450 billion).

Full Report [PDF]

Thanks to Woods Lot.