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Tuesday, July 11, 2006
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"I'm generally not against what Bush is doing in principle, but I am totally opposed to the way he has gone about it. As I've said a thousand times before, think long term people. You might be one of the Kool Aid drinkers who thinks that George W. Bush has the light of God shooting out of his asshole, but what is going to happen the next time a liberal Democrat gets elected? What are you going to say when President Hillary decides to spy on the American people, and uses Bush as a precedent? I imagine all of these self-styled 'conservatives' are suddenly going to remember that old Constitution thing from way back.
Freedom and liberty are, at least in my mind, not negotiable, no matter which party is in power. The right in this country is split. On the one hand there are people like me who still give a shit about the concepts of limited government and individual liberty, and then there's the other side, for whom making sure queers can't marry and getting Adam and Eve into science class ranks a close second to blindly supporting anything a president does, provided he has an R after his name," - blogger Lee at Right-Thinking from the Left Coast. 
(Via Daily Dish.)
11:11:24 PM 
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John Hinderaker at Power Line writes: "I think the over-the-top coverage of Abu Ghraib, the prison where no one died after it was reclaimed from Saddam Hussein, is the definitive proof of the American media's bias against its own soldiers."
Does Hinderaker consider this person, murdered by the C.I.A. at Abu Ghraib, dead?
Money quote: Al-Jamadi died in a prison shower room during about a half-hour of questioning, before interrogators could extract any information, according to the documents, which consist of statements from Army prison guards to investigators with the military and the CIA’s Inspector General’s office.
One Army guard, Sgt. Jeffery Frost, said the prisoner's arms were stretched behind him in a way he had never before seen. Frost told investigators he was surprised al-Jamadi's arms 'didn't pop out of their sockets,' according to a summary of his interview.
Frost and other guards had been summoned to reposition al-Jamadi, who an interrogator said was not cooperating. As the guards released the shackles and lowered al-Jamadi, blood gushed from his mouth 'as if a faucet had been turned on,' according to the interview summary.
The military pathologist who ruled the case a homicide found several broken ribs and concluded al-Jamadi died from pressure to the chest and difficulty breathing.
The fact that one of the most popular conservative bloggers is still in denial about Abu Ghraib, let alone the dozens of other torture-facilities set up by this administration, speaks volumes. 
(Via Daily Dish.)
11:09:45 PM
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U.S. forces patrolled Amiriyah last year, the year before that, and the year before that. Today, many of them know the neighborhood as well as they know their own. They also know what will come when they depart, which 1-10 Mtn will do in a few weeks, with no one coming to replace it. "Many Iraqis feel more comfortable with a U.S. presence," says the 1-10 Mtn commander, Colonel Jeffrey Snow. "I think we are the buffer here." In Washington, however, it's 1971 all over again--after support for the war in Vietnam collapsed and not long before America's efforts to salvage it did. Neatly summarizing prevailing wisdom, Democratic campaign adviser Robert Shrum recently told The Washington Post, "The war in Iraq is over except for the dying." For all its testimonials to American resolve, the Bush administration can barely wait to devise the fig leaf that will permit the United States to withdraw. Quietly, but inexorably, the administration is "moving in the direction of downsizing our forces," as American Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has put it, having already cut troop levels to 127,000 with a plan to cut another 7,000 this summer.
So how do the Armed Forces feel about fighting a war that is "over except for the dying"? Responding to strategic rather than political imperatives, they operate at the same frenetic pace they always have. Anything less, commanders say, and the country would collapse around them. In a fine bit of solidarity with the soldiers dying there, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid calls Iraq "George Bush's war." Actually, it's now the U.S. Army's war. As its sense of ownership grows deeper with each year it spends here, the Army has created its own universe in Iraq--an ecosystem with its own values, requirements, and purposes. The din of politicians speechifying about the war, the faux moral posturing of opinion-makers who claim to speak in the name of "the troops," everything that Iraq has come to represent in the American imagination--it all melts away in the 115-degree heat. What's left is the machinery of a war that, having been called into being by civilians, no longer bears a relation to anything they say.
Jeez, this is so depressing. And not the least because it was so predictable and predicted by so many. What a stain.
10:55:03 PM
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Well, we all knew that, but Jonathan Coulton wrote a catchy song about the fact.
10:05:52 AM
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Syd Barrett, the former lead singer of Pink Floyd and one of the key figures of the 60s, has died at the Cambridgeshire home to which he retreated as a recluse more than 30 years ago.
(Via Expecting Rain.)
8:49:49 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Steve Michel.
Last update: 8/1/2006; 8:56:19 AM.
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