ECUSA, the Global South and change

Why bother to try to write something up when the Green Knight does it so well.

thoughtful and well-meaning people have said that the Northern churches need to slow down and wait for the Southern churches to "catch up." The argument is that the North is imposing things on the South for which the South is simply not ready.

Here's why that argument is wrong.

First, the argument is based on a false idea of what the Anglican Communion is. It is not actually a worldwide church in the same way that the Roman Catholic Church is; it is instead a fairly loose affiliation of national churches that have traditions and historical roots in common.

On the contrary, the Southern churches have reacted in an unprecedented way, by interfering with the Northern churches. They have, for example, ordained anti-bishops and sent them into the Northern churches in order to undermine the authority of legitimate Northern bishops.

Second, the idea that the South has to be permitted to "catch up" is based on a false idea of historical progress. It is based on the false assumption, as the philosopher John Gray puts it, that modernity is always and everywhere the same:

So if they have to go their own way, then fine. We can't stop them and shouldn't try, especially not at the expense of justice. We've got to listen to what we think the Spirit is telling us, not what a group of people is telling us. They have to do the same thing. There's really nothing else we can do and remain truthful to what we believe to be right.

Anyhow, if there is a formal schism it's not the end of the world. Christendom has never really been united despite what some people claim; sectarian breakups have happened before and will happen again. It's inevitable in a world of differences and change. That's not a disaster. It's just a little thing called life.

Al-Sadr Call for Restraint is not a Good Sign

The radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr , who's private army was involved in two uprisings against the American occupation of Iraq, is urging Iraqis to show self-restraint.

He is a man who has used violence, still thinks violence is a legitimate choice, and had a great desire to establish an Islamic state.

Yet.

At this time the direction of the country and the current situation is such that he is encouraging self-restraint. I suspect that the Iraq he envisions, is not one that most of us would be happy to see, and he knows that the Iraq of his dream is where they are headed.

Nice work George.

Support Paul Hackett in his race for Congress

He is running in Ohio 2nd district. This spot opened when Rob Portman (R) resigned to take another government job. Paul is a marine officer, served in Iraq, with some hard work he could take this hard core republican seat.

The Democrats have a chance to take back a seat in the house. Want to help?

Go to his web site and see how you can pitch in and help to turn the tide.

So, how many times has Karl Rove's story changed

in the last week. I have lost track, but Think Progress is trying to keep track.

At last we are getting information from someone other the Rove, and his lawyer. Matthew Cooper speaks out.

Taxpayer money well spent

The FBI admits it has been monitoring the ACLU, Greenpeace and god only knows who else.

You have to wonder if they have also been 'monitoring' the US Chamber of Commerce or Americans for Job Security?

Miles to go till I sleep?

Your Travel Profile:

You Are Very Well Traveled in the Midwestern United States (75%)

You Are Very Well Traveled in the Southern United States (69%)

You Are Well Traveled in the Northeastern United States (57%)

You Are Well Traveled in the Western United States (42%)

You Are Somewhat Well Traveled in Western Europe (36%)

You Are Somewhat Well Traveled in the United Kingdom (25%)

You Are Mostly Untraveled in Canada (20%)

You Are Mostly Untraveled in Eastern Europe (20%)

You Are Mostly Untraveled in Latin America (20%)

You Are Untraveled in Africa (0%)

You Are Untraveled in Asia (0%)

You Are Untraveled in Australia (0%)

You Are Untraveled in New Zealand (0%)

You Are Untraveled in Scandinavia (0%)

You Are Untraveled in Southern Europe (0%)

You Are Untraveled in the Middle East (0%)

How Well Traveled Are You?

More Truth from Iraq

Bush has repeated his promise that we will leave as soon as Iraqis can defend themselves. On the cover this appears a reasonable and rational position to take. We have been in control of Iraq for over 2 years now. We have spent billions of dollars in developing the defense forces that Iraq will need to defend themselves. One could convince themselves that it is months, not years till we can depart.

Then we hear the truth, and not 'the truth' that the 'truth tour' is trying to promote, but real truth.

We have been working for over 24 months to develop a standing army, and viable police forces in Iraq. At this time we hear the Bush administration make claims of hundreds of thousands of troops now serving.

The cold water of reality then comes crashing down.

A tidal wave of corruption may ensure the Iraqi army and police will be too few and too poorly armed to replace American and British forces fighting anti-government insurgents. That could frustrate plans in Washington and London to reduce their forces in Iraq.

The Iraqi armed forces are full of "ghost battalions" in which officers pocket the pay of soldiers who never existed or have gone home. "I know of at least one unit which was meant to be 2,200 but the real figure was only 300 men," said a veteran Iraqi politician and member of parliament, Mahmoud Othman. "The US talks about 150,000 Iraqis in the security forces but I doubt if there are more than 40,000."

And it isn't just manpower.

The army and police are poorly armed despite heavy expenditure. "The interim government spent $5.2bn (£2.6bn) on the ministry of defence and ministry of the interior during six months but there is little to show for it," said a senior Iraqi official who did not want his name published.

He cited the case of more than $300m spent on buying 24 military helicopters and other equipment from Poland. When Iraqi experts examined the helicopters they found them to be 28 years old - and their manufacturer recommended that they be scrapped after 25 years. Iraq is now trying to get its money back.

The corruption started under the US-run Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003 when Iraqis, often with little experience, were appointed to senior positions in ministries. The Iraqis did not act alone. "The Americans were the partners of the Iraqis in all this corruption," says Dr Othman. The results of the failure to buy effective arms are visible at every Iraqi police or army checkpoint. The weapons on display are often ageing Kalashnikovs. The supposedly elite police commandos drive about in elderly pick-ups with no armour. The ministry of the interior was recently unable to provide a presidential guard with 50 pistols.

Yet, we were spending money so wildly that we still can not account for nine billion dollars.

What is real funny is to comparer this story as is was presented in the UK against the same basic story in the local rag. While the UK edition covers both the manpower and the equipment issue, the US story make no mention of the Iraqi manpower corruption (the bigger issue), and focuses on corruption alone.

99 Degrees in the Canadian arctic

Who would have thought the arctic circle would be a great place to sell window units.

Kuujjuaraapik suffers under 37°C heat

If you wanted to find someone in Kuujjuaraapik earlier this week, the best place to look was along the shores of the Great Whale River.

As two sea-doos bounced around in the cool water, the river was an ideal place for residents of this Nunavik community to escape from the oppressive heat.

"Half the community is there, I've never seen so many people in the water before," said one woman who confessed to going to work wearing a wet swimsuit under her clothes to keep cool.

Temperatures in this Eastern Hudson Bay community hit 36.6 C on Monday, making Kuujjuaraapik the hottest place in Quebec and breaking the previous record of 29.4 C, set in 1969.

But Tuesday was even hotter. The day's high climbed to 37 C, breaking the previous record high of 28.3 C set in 1998.

They are breaking the old records by more than 16 degrees (Fahrenheit).

Falluja, again

But Falluja is approaching a turning point, American officials acknowledge, precariously balanced between rebuilding or degenerating into the urban battlefield it once was.

Despite being attacked twice, overrun and destroyed once, and locked down by US and Iraqi troops since it's destruction, insurgents are moving back in to town.

Bush seems determined to prove that resistance this strong can't be beaten by force.

Bush war on Science continues

From the Union of Concerned Scientists who surveyed over 400 National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration fisheries biologists, ecologists, botanists and other science to get this data.

More than one third of respondents positioned to make such recommendations (37 percent) have “been directed, for non-scientific reasons, to refrain from making findings that are protective” of marine life and nearly one in four (24 percent) of those conducting such work reported being “directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information from a NOAA Fisheries scientific document;”

More than half of all respondents (53 percent) knew of cases where “commercial interests have inappropriately induced the reversal or withdrawal of scientific conclusions or decisions through political intervention;” and

More than half of the scientists (58 percent) knew of cases “where high-level U.S. Department of Commerce administrators and appointees have inappropriately altered NOAA Fisheries determinations.” A substantial minority (42 percent) also cited incidents where members of Congress “inappropriately influenced NOAA Fisheries determinations.”

and much more.

Science will not stand in the way of commerce or religion.

More truth, without the Iraq Truth Tour's help

A interesting story about a trip to visit Camp Lima Base in Karbala.

It tells of how a drive of 60 miles can take over four hours. We learn how hard the US forces are working, but how their best efforts don't meet Iraqi over-hopeful expectations. It is amazing to see some of the US forces still justifying the war on WMD claims, and then assert that we are still looking for them.

The causal attitude the military has about recovering sent munitions is displayed in the tragic death of Ali Hamza. But most confusing about the whole bit is in the last paragraph.

On the way out of Camp Lima Base were two latrines, one marked "Iraqis Only" and the other "No Iraqis -- Americans Only". Asked for an explanation, Major Booth replied that this was due to 'cultural differences'.

How many of our other difficulties, including the very start of the war, can be based in 'cultural differences', and the Bush Administration's failure to understand them.

Friday's places to visit.

Click over and check them out.

The Green Knight has noticed what may be one of the biggest failures in the Bush 'War on Terror'

Skippy has noted that JAG did not approve of the Bush administrations plans to ease torture rules. The suburban guerilla points out that Gen. Miller may have Lies to Congress about this. Andrew Sullivan recaps some of this mess.

It is funny how when the truth is presented, claims of Christian persecution tend to fall apart, as noted Outside the Tent.

Think Progress has a quick guide to the lies the republicans are using to shield Karl Rove. The Sloppy reporting on the Rove case if the focus of AMERICABlog. Of course, Tom Burka has his own take on the White House response.

And Roger Alies notices that Duke Cunningham is going to take the money and not run. It appears that after getting millions in creative gifts from his supporters, he at last has enough to retire.

The Iraq Torture was approved in DC and began in Guantanamo

Absolute sickening.

The interrogations went on for up to 20 hours a day, day after day. The prisoner was told his mother and sisters were whores. He was forced to wear a bra and put a thong on his head. At one point, an interrogator tied a leash to him and forced him to conduct a series of dog tricks.

It all took place at the U.S. detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in an effort to get suspected al-Qaeda member Mohamed al-Kahtani to co-operate with his interrogators.

But here is the kicker (emphasis added)

According to General Bantz Craddock, head of the U.S. Southern Command which oversees Guantanamo, when Mr. al-Kahtani resisted "standard" questioning methods for several months, approval was obtained from higher authorities to use "more aggressive interrogation techniques."

Please note this, the officer in chagre at Guantanamo, Major General Geoffrey Miller, was later placed in charge of Abu Ghraib.

It is interesting how the abuse at Abu Ghraib appeared to start only after Gen. Miller's arrival in Iraq. How, even US army reports find violation of US Army policy and the Geneva Accords, but the Army and the administration still insist that this was all the action of a few low ranking bad apples.

A Good idea about right now.

You Are an Irish Coffee

At your best, you are: wild, spontaneous, and outgoing At your worst, you are: too extreme and reckless You drink coffee when: you want to keep drinking booze Your caffeine addiction level: low

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

What is the truth about the situation in Iraq?

Some on the left think that the media are not focused enough on the cruelty of war. Some on the right know that the media wants to show the US in the worse light. One group of right wing activist are on a so called 'truth tour' to bring, what they consider, the real picture home.

A Knight Ridder editorialist in Minnesota, Mark Yost, attacked the 'negative reporting' coming out of Iraq as intentionally false and negative. A couple of Knight Ridder reporters, stationed in Baghdad, replied to Mark, the self professed Iraq expert, living comfortably in Minnesota.

From Clark Hoyt:

It's astonishing that Mark Yost, from the distance and safety of St. Paul, Minnesota, presumes to know what's going on in Iraq. He knows the reporting of hundreds of brave journalists, presumably including his own Knight Ridder colleagues Hannah Allam and Tom Lassetter, is bad because his Marine colonel buddy tells him so.

Yost asks why you don't read about progress being made in the power grid, which the colonel oversaw. Maybe it's because there is no progress. Iraqis currently have electricity for an average of nine hours a day. A year ago, they averaged 10 hours of electricity. Iraq's oil production is still below pre-war levels. The unemployment rate is between 30 and 40 percent. New cases of hepatitis have doubled over the rate of 2002, largely because of problems with getting clean drinking water and disposing of sewage.

The "unfiltered news" Yost gets from his military friends is in fact filtered by their isolation in the Green Zone and on American military bases from the Iraqi population, an isolation made necessary by the ferocity of the insurgency. To say that isn't to argue that their perspective is invalid. It's just limited and incomplete.

And

From Hannah Allam:

It saddens me to read Mark Yost's editorial in the Pioneer Press, the Knight Ridder paper that hired me as a rookie reporter and taught me valuable lessons in life and journalism during the four years I spent there before heading to Iraq.

I invite Mr. Yost to spend a week in our Baghdad bureau, where he can see our Iraqi staff members' toothbrushes lined up in the bathroom because they have no running water at home. I frequently find them camping out in the office overnight because electricity is still only sporadic in their sweltering neighborhoods, despite what I'm sure are the best-intentioned efforts of people like his Marine buddy working on the electrical grid.

Mr. Yost could have come with me today as I visited one of my own military buddies, who like most officers doesn't leave the protected Green Zone compound except by helicopter or massive convoy. The Army official picked me up in his air-conditioned Explorer, took me to Burger King for lunch and showed me photos of the family he misses so terribly. The official is a great guy, and like so many other soldiers, it's not politics that blind him from seeing the real Iraq. The compound's maze of tall blast wall and miles of concertina wire obscure the view, too.

Mr. Yost can listen to our bureau's morning planning meetings, where we orchestrate a trip to buy bottled water (the tap water is contaminated, when it works) as if we're plotting a military operation. I wonder whether he prefers riding in the first car -- the most exposed to shrapnel and bullets -- or the chase car, which is designed to act as a buffer between us and potential kidnappers.

Perhaps Mr. Yost would be moved by our office's tribute wall to Yasser Salihee, our brave and wonderful colleague, who at age 30 joined the ranks of Iraqi civilians shot to death by American soldiers. Mr. Yost would have appreciated one of Yasser's last stories -- a rare good-news piece about humanitarian aid reaching the holy city of Najaf.

Mr. Yost's contention that 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces are stable is pure fantasy. On his visit to Baghdhad, he can check that by chatting with our resident British security consultant, who every day receives a province-by-province breakdown of the roadside bombs, ambushes, assassinations and other violence throughout the country.

If Baghdad is too far for Mr. Yost to travel (and I don't blame him, given the treacherous airport road to reach our fortress-like hotel), why not just head to Oklahoma? There, he can meet my former Iraqi translator, Ban Adil, and her young son. They're rebuilding their lives under political asylum after insurgents in Baghdad followed Ban's family home one night and gunned down her 4-year-old daughter, her husband and her elderly mother in law.

Freshly painted schools and a new desalination plant might add up to "mission accomplished" for some people. Too bad Ban's daughter never got to enjoy those fruits of her liberation.

From Editor and Publisher.

Bush's poll numbers still look bad.

The approval numbers are in the same old area, piss poor, but the honesty numbers have tanked. A reminder, this was taken before Karl Rove story broke. It will be entertaining to see what impact that has on both of these.

WASHINGTON - The last two weeks certainly have been eventful ones in America and across the globe: President Bush gave a prime-time speech on Iraq and attended a G-8 summit in Scotland; Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement from the Supreme Court (with perhaps another retirement on the way); and suicide bombers killed approximately 50 people in London. After these events, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that Bush's overall job rating has slipped and that his rating for being "honest and straightforward" has dropped to its lowest point.

Regarding Bush's upcoming pick to replace O'Connor on the court, moreover, the poll shows that strong majorities believe Bush would be taking a step in the right direction if he appointed a woman and someone who supports references to God in public life. But a majority also thinks that Bush would take a wrong step if he chose someone who would vote to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

The survey, which was conducted from July 8-11 among 1,009 adults, and which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, finds that respondents, by a 49 percent-to-46 percent margin, disapprove of Bush's job performance. That's a drop from the last NBC/Journal poll in May, when 47 percent approved and 47 percent disapproved. In addition, the only time when Bush's job rating has been worse was in June 2004, when 45 percent approved of his performance.

Nevada Young Republican Leader is in Trouble

It seems his little party in Vegas was a financial failure.

Nevada's chapter of the Young Republicans has basically imploded, leaving its chairman with up to $25,000 in personal debt and allegations that he mishandled money.

All but three people have resigned from the statewide group, but the fallout could prove increasingly embarrassing to the entire state Republican Party.

Today, the chairman of the group, Reno resident Nathan Taylor, plans to hold a press conference attacking three of the state's party leaders -- Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Jim Gibbons and Rep. Jon Porter.

Taylor argues that the state's Republican delegation should have helped him fund the national Young Republican convention held last week at Mandalay Bay.

"I've got bills at the hotel I can't pay," said Taylor, a 29-year-old political science senior at UNR who said he had to quit his food service job and drop classes to plan the convention.

Taylor estimates that the convention, attended by about 600 people from around the nation, is at least $10,000 -- and up to $25,000 -- in the red.

As the chairman, he said he'll personally have to cough up the cash.

Somebody (Jesus' General maybe) should get in touch with him. I am sure he supports the war, and I under the army has some nice signing bonuses.

Swiss study claims 39,000 Iraqi civilians killed in war.

Nearly 40,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since the US-led invasion. It is a figure considerably higher than previous estimates, a Swiss institute reported yesterday.

The public database Iraqi Body Count, by comparison, estimates that between 22,787 and 25,814 Iraqi civilians have died since the March 2003 invasion, based on reports from at least two media sources.

No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued, although military deaths in the US-led coalition forces are closely tracked and now total 1937.

The new estimate of more than 39,000 was made by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies and published in its latest annual small arms survey.

More is at The Age.

The reality is we will never know the true number of civilians killed, in part because the Bush Administration ordered that such a count NOT be kept.

Republican Talking Points on Rove Destroyed

Thanks to the efforts of The Left Coaster.

TALKING POINT: Valerie Plame (Joseph Wilson's wife) was not covert.
FACT: She was.

TALKING POINT: Karl Rove did not leak Valerie Plame's name.
FACT: Please. Her name was not the secret, her identity was (which is the issue here) and he leaked that. (also see here and here).

TALKING POINT: Karl Rove was "not the leaker".
FACT: Rove's attorney's statement and Cooper's email shows this claim is false. Rove did leak Plame's identity. (Whether or not this is found to be prosecutable is another matter).
P.S. It's not like this is the first time Rove has been in the spotlight for leaking secrets.

TALKING POINT: Karl Rove has never lied about his role in this matter.
FACT: Yes, he has.

HT to Seeing the Forest

Carl Cameron and Fox News again lie to Protect Bush

This is just disgusting.

Carl, Fox's lead White House reporter, went out of his way (including presenting 1 supporting sound bite) in claiming that Bush never said he would fire the Plame leaker.

Fox, and it's supporters, are some of the most dishonest people in this nation.

John Stewart does Karl Rove

and, no one could do it better. Visit Crooks and Liars for the video.

Just think about it, Chief Justice Karl Rove.

A look back, who is Valerie Plame ?

As noted by The Green Knight, and others, the Republican talking points on the Rove affair have been leaked. These points try to spin Karl's traitorous actions by hiding behind partisianship and by attacking both Wilson, and His wife Valerie Plame.

The standard attack is that this is all Wilson's and Plame's fault. They attack those two, and even question their service to our nation. One commenter on this site tried to argue that we don't even know if she was covert.

One of Valerie Plame's ex-coworkers offers this information about her.

The misinformation being spread in the media about the Plame affair is alarming and damaging to the longterm security interests of the United States. Republicans' talking points are trying to savage Joe Wilson and, by implication, his wife, Valerie Plame as liars. That is the truly big lie.

For starters, Valerie Plame was an undercover operations officer until outed in the press by Robert Novak. Novak's column was not an isolated attack. It was in fact part of a coordinated, orchestrated smear that we now know includes at least Karl Rove.

Valerie Plame was a classmate of mine from the day she started with the CIA. I entered on duty at the CIA in September 1985. All of my classmates were undercover--in other words, we told our family and friends that we were working for other overt U.S. Government agencies. We had official cover. That means we had a black passport--i.e., a diplomatic passport. If we were caught overseas engaged in espionage activity the black passport was a get out of jail free card.

A few of my classmates, and Valerie was one of these, became a non-official cover officer. That meant she agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport. If caught in that status she would have been executed.

The lies by people like Victoria Toensing, Representative Peter King, and P. J. O'Rourke insist that Valerie was nothing, just a desk jockey. Yet, until Robert Novak betrayed her she was still undercover and the company that was her front was still a secret to the world. When Novak outed Valerie he also compromised her company and every individual overseas who had been in contact with that company and with her.

This paints a clear picture of just how treasonous Karl Roves action was.

Only the Grunts will be punished

The rest will be shielded and protected, in the US, RHIP.

general rejects call to penalize ex-guantanamo prison chief

Military investigators recommended that the former commander of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, be reprimanded for his role in detainee mistreatment at the facility, but a top Army general rejected the conclusion, defense and congressional sources said Tuesday.

Investigators had recommended a reprimand for Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who ran the Guantanamo Bay prison until March 2004 and was sent to Iraq the next month to overhaul a dysfunctional U.S. military prison system there, shortly before the Abu Ghraib prison scandal became public.

This man oversaw two of the greatest scandals in US military penal history. Only in the Bush world does this decision make sense.

whereas schmidt and furlow recommended that miller be disciplined for his failure to monitor the interrogation, craddock rejected that conclusion on the grounds that miller did not violate u.s. "law or policy," according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because portions of the investigation were classified.

So, abuse, and violations of the Geneva Convention DO NOT violate US Law or Policy. Not a surprise, but very disappointing.

A hat tip to Local Tint who add this.

See, this is why phrases like "self-regulation" are meaningless to me. Here's a good one:

Craddock concluded that Miller did not violate any U.S. laws or policies, the report said, according to the aide.

yet:

The investigation also found that interrogators violated the Geneva Convention and Army regulations three times at the base, the aide said.

So, once again, someone in Bushland is either criminal or woefully ignorant about the goings-on on their watch. Did this many people really come to this many positions of power by being this incompetent? Either way, we have a problem.

A not so Quick Review of Current Republican Fraud

Lets start with Iraq, where we sill can not find 9 Billion dollars. This isn't new news, but what is interesting is no one in DC seems to care about the missing money.

In San Diego, we have Duke Cunningham, who Sold his home to M. Wade, while living on Mr. Wades Boat, Since he had sold his yacht to Thomas T. Kontogiannis. The trouble is, Duke still filed paperwork with the Coast Guard claiming ownership of the boat.

Ohio is still learning about the interesting fiscal decisions made by the Republicans in charge. This will take time, since the Republican leadership is still trying to cover up their corruption. The end result is predictable, Injured workers' drug benefits cut by state bureau
.

Ralph Reid efforts to get elected in Georgia are being impacted by the Abramoff investigation. This has also touched Bob Ney, back to Ohio. Of course, the name Tom DeLay is now synonymous with corruption, and he is a close friend and business associate of Tom Abramoff.

And, in Kentucky three close associates of the Republican Governor have been indicted for crimes involving discrimination based on political alliances.

Of course we can not forget the whole Karl Rove mess. Just more in the Republican Culture of Corruption.

Falwell had decided that I am not a Christian

and it appears I am not the only person who had that mistaken belief.

Last month, a new leftist religious organization announced its inception to battle the alleged domination that Dr. James Dobson, Pat Robertson and I have on modern-day politics. This organization, the Christian Alliance for Progress, is hardly "Christian."

But, there is hope. Fr. Jake has stood up and defended my (and many others) Christianity .



Thanks Father Jake.

Army's own report indicates it is Stretched Thin.

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has consistently rejected any contention that the Army is stretched too thin in fighting simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But a new Army study has concluded the service is so strained that the United States will soon "need to decide what military capabilities the Army should have and what risks may be prudent to assume."

Numerous critics and outside defense policy groups have warned that the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has taxed the Army so badly that it will have difficulty meeting any new crises elsewhere, but the new assessment comes from an in-house undertaking prepared by the RAND Corp.'s Arroyo Center, the Army's own federally funded research institute.

"The challenge the Army faces is profound," senior RAND analyst Lynn Davis, lead author of the report, said in a statement accompanying the study's completion. "Any approach is fraught with risks and uncertainties, along with significant costs and some possible changes in the Army's long-term goals."

Right not we are in a very dangerous position. Our standing army is under high pressure. Private Contractor are skimming the many of the best of experienced troops. The Guard and Reserve have been damaged by 2 years of hard use. Recruiting for the Army is still well off target, and the Marine Corp is also under target.

As this report makes clear, we are in trouble.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Army National Guard, a cornerstone of the U.S. force in Iraq, missed its recruiting goal for at least the ninth straight month in June and is nearly 19,000 soldiers below its authorized strength, military officials said Monday.

The Army Guard was seeking 5,032 new soldiers in June but signed up only 4,337, a 14 percent shortfall, according to statistics released Monday by the Pentagon. It is more than 10,000 soldiers behind its year-to-date goal of almost 45,000 recruits, and has missed its recruiting target during at least 17 of the last 18 months.

All of this because of a war of choice, a war based on lies, a war that has made the world less safe. If George had been trying, I don't think he could have screwed up any worse.

Rove, I Want to see This

Karl, the traitor, Rove deserves no less.



So we ask What did Rove know and when did he know it?

Can Bush now be committed?

There is only one course of action. We will continue to take this fight to the enemy and we will fight until this enemy is defeated.

Bush speaking today about the 'war on terror'.


Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
-- Albert Einstein

Karl Rove's lawyer took payment in Gold Bars

This is just too funny


Karl's lawyer is Robert D. Luskin.

One case that jumps out at you is his representation of Stephen A. Saccoccia.

Saccoccia and his wife Donna were eventually convicted of laundering more than a hundred million dollars for various Colombian drug kingpins. Stephen is currently serving a 660 year sentence. Their racket was laundering drug money through companies which traded in precious metals.

Saccoccia was convicted in 1993. And Luskin took up his case on appeal.

Eventually the Feds got the idea that the money Saccoccia had paid Luskin and his other attorneys for their services was itself part of the $137 million in drug money he was ordered to forfeit. Now, on the face of it this seems a bit unfair since under our system everyone is entitled to good representation and how was Luskin to know it was tainted money.

Well, the prosecutors thought he should have gotten some inkling when Saccoccia started paying Luskin's attorney's fees in gold bars.

Yep, you heard that right. Luskin got paid more than $500,000 of his attorney's fees in gold bars from his client who was trying to appeal his conviction on charges that he laundered drug money through precious metals dealers. Who woulda thought that was drug money?

Anything for a buck, any lie to get more power, it all fits into the Republican's Culture of Corruption.

Skippy's blogiversary.

Drop by today and congratulate them.