Uneven Progress

Study: Iraqi security forces not ready - 5 Sep 2007 at 1:08pm - WASHINGTON -- Iraq's security forces have made "uneven progress" and will be unable to take over security on their own in the next 12 to 18 months, according to an independent assessment.

Once again, why is development of Iraqi security forces not the United States' top priority?

4 GIs among 15 killed in Iraq attacks - 5 Sep 2007 at 8:51am - A roadside bomb rocked an eastern Baghdad Shiite neighborhood early Wednesday, killing at least 11 people and injuring 19 others when it exploded next to buses used by morning commuters, police and hospital officials said.

DHS ends criticized data-mining program - 5 Sep 2007 at 10:43am - WASHINGTON -- The Homeland Security Department has given up on one of its broadest anti-terrorism data-mining tools after investigators found it was tested with information about real people without the required privacy safeguards.

Judge scolds U.S. on wiretapping records - 5 Sep 2007 at 2:15pm - WASHINGTON -- A federal judge scolded the Bush administration Wednesday for responding with sometimes blanket secrecy to a request for documents on its warrantless wiretapping program.

Thought for the day:
A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to. -Granville Hicks (1901 - 1982)

I Will Once Again Explain the Consequences Of Failure

U.S. opposition to Iraq war hits new high: poll - 10 Jul 2007 at 8:38am - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Opposition to the Iraq war has climbed to a record high and President George W. Bush's approval rating dropped to a new low amid growing dissent from members of his own Republican party over his war strategy, according to a new USAToday/Gallup poll.

Snow says more time needed for Iraq - 10 Jul 2007 at 8:56am - A report citing a lack of progress by the Baghdad government is only "a look at the starting line" of the U.S. troop surge and shouldn't be used by critics to demand withdrawal, President Bush's spokesman said Tuesday.

Moving targets we're used to, but this moveable starting line is kind of a new twist.

Report: Gonzales Knew Of FBI Abuses - 10 Jul 2007 at 9:30am - U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales received reports detailing legal or procedural violations of the USA Patriot Act by FBI agents in the months before he told senators that no such abuses had occurred, The Washington post reported.

It all depends on what the definition of "abuses" is?

Dems call for combat to end by 2008 - 10 Jul 2007 at 11:45am - WASHINGTON -- A senior Democrat said Tuesday it was obvious the Iraqi government has made no progress and the only way to propel it was to begin pulling out U.S. troops....President Bush said he won't succumb to political pressure. During a visit to Parma, Ohio on Tuesday, he reiterated that troop levels in Iraq "will be decided by our commanders on the ground, not by political figures in Washington, D.C." "I fully understand that this is a difficult war. It's hard on the American people but I will once again explain the consequences of failure," he said.

He cannot admit that persisting in combat is itself failure. Are we not already seeing its consequences?

Bush prods Congress on domestic agenda - 10 Jul 2007 at 11:42am - PARMA, Ohio -- President Bush, clashing with Congress on several fronts, tried to pressure lawmakers Tuesday into taking up what's left of his shrinking domestic agenda.

Should his domestic agenda, whatever it may be, have a higher priority than changing course in Iraq?

Former Bush surgeon general says he was muzzled - 10 Jul 2007 at 1:18pm - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The first U.S. surgeon general appointed by President George W. Bush accused the administration on Tuesday of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research. "Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried," Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the nation's top doctor from 2002 until 2006, told a House of Representatives committee.

If only we could say this were shocking news.

Now is not time for withdrawal: Downer - 10 Jul 2007 at 3:00pm - The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, says now is not the time for a sudden withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

The war apologists seem always to characterise withdrawal as "sudden". Is now the time for gradual withdrawal?

Thought for the day:
"Love your enemies just in case your friends turn out to be a bunch of bastards." -R. A. Dickson

It'd Be a Mess

Court nixes suit against spy program - 6 Jul 2007 at 11:20am - CINCINNATI (AP) — A federal appeals court Friday ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging President Bush's domestic spying program, saying the plaintiffs had no standing to sue. The 2-1 ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel vacated a 2006 order by a lower court in Detroit, which had found the post-Sept. 11 warrantless surveillance aimed at uncovering terrorist activity to be unconstitutional, violating rights to privacy and free speech and the separation of powers.

So, in the eyes of the court, as long as it's not known precisely who has been subject to the illegal wiretapping, it may as well be legal?

US general warns against Iraq withdrawal - 6 Jul 2007 at 11:55am - WASHINGTON -- As pressure builds for a change in Iraq policy, a top U.S. commander there warned Friday that drawing down troops too soon would leave the country "a mess." "You'd find the enemy regaining ground, re-establishing sanctuary, building more" roadside bombs, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch told a Pentagon news conference. "The violence would escalate. It'd be a mess."

But he doesn't seem to address how much more of a mess it would be than if U.S. troops were to remain at current levels; nor whether the benefit of keeping troops there (whatever he thinks it is) is worth the cost.

Thought for the day:
"Television is the first truly democratic culture -- the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want." -Clive Barnes