Anyone who thinks they have all the Answers before they've even heard the Question - is Dangerously Deluded! Real Truth Requires Vigilance, Perseverance and Courage, regardless of Party and who wields Power. Left, Right, Center, Corporations, Government, Unions, Criminals or the Indifferent.
Olbermann reports on how Rudy Guiliani's single degree of seperation ties to 9/11 Mastermind - Khallid Sheik Muhammad.
Three weeks after 9/11, when the roar of fighter jets still haunted the city's skyline, the emir of gas-rich Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah al-Thani, toured Ground Zero. Although a member of the emir's own royal family had harbored the man who would later be identified as the mastermind of the attack—a man named Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, often referred to in intelligence circles by his initials, KSM, al-Thani rushed to New York in its aftermath, offering to make a $3 million donation, principally to the families of its victims. Rudy Giuliani, apparently unaware of what the FBI and CIA had long known about Qatari links to Al Qaeda, appeared on CNN with al-Thani that night and vouched for the emir when Larry King asked the mayor: "You are a friend of his, are you not?"
American Mayor, St. Rudy the First, the man who couldn't be bothered to attend meetings of the 9/11 Commission, because he was too busy cashing-in on 9/11, personally invited to Ground Zero a man who harboured one of the masterminds behind the plot?
What's most shocking is that Abdallah al-Thani has been widely accused of helping to spirit KSM out of Qatar in 1996, just as the FBI was closing in on him. Robert Baer, a former CIA supervisor in the region, contends in a 2003 memoir that the emir himself actually sanctioned tipping KSM. The staff of the 9/11 Commission, meanwhile, noted that the FBI and CIA "were reluctant to seek help from the Qatari government" in the arrest of KSM, "fearing that he might be tipped off." When Qatar's emir was finally "asked for his help" in January 1996, Qatari authorities "first reported that KSM was under surveillance," then "asked for an alternative plan that would conceal their aid to Americans," and finally "reported that KSM had disappeared."
Although there's been quite a brujah over Rudy's Shag Fun, aka Sex On the City, I strongly suggest that this story, which smacks at the very least of criminal cluelessness just might be much more dangerous to Rudy's Presidential hopes than his tendency to have the NYPD walk his mistresses Dog.
It's truly amazing to me that Kascich, who is a former Congressman, apparently doesn't know that the Secret Prisons were revealed in 2005 by the Washington Post and there are *Not* Gitmo. Some of them literally are in the Gulag's of the former Soviet Union.
He doesn't know that the CIA has openly admitted to using internationally banned techniques such as Waterboarding. They aren't just "holding" these combatants, they're torturing them.
He mentions that the courts have ruled against the President, but he doesn't seem to recognize that they ruled that "Enemy Combatants" ARE protected by Geneva.
If we've tortured them, and we have, it was (and is) a War Crime.
When Naomi mentions the rise of "private armies" - Kascich honestly doesn't think - Blackwater? C'mon. He knows better, he's just doing his good little Fox Faux News Duty of trying to backfill and cover Bush's well exposed hiney.
It's really amazing to me that this guys is a former Congressman and he doesn't even know about the Secret Prisons that were reported in the Washington Post in 2005.
These are NOT Guantanemo, they literally are in some cases - the Gulags of the former Soviet Union. They are "like" a Gulag - they're the original, real deal.
It shouldn't be a surprise to him that the CIA has openly admitted that it has tortured suspects and used techniques such as waterboarding which isn't similuated drowning - It's Real Drowning.
He should already know that the Supreme Court has determined that "Enemy Combatants" are indeed covered by the Geneva Conventions.
An economic and social strategy that was first pioneered by dictator and human rights criminal Agustus Pinoche? No wonder things have been slowly slip-sliding thier way to hell over the hal dozens years.
But if you were so unfortunate as to listen and actually believe Brit Hume, all the crazy people are Democrats.
This whole debate has this aura of unreality about it, at least on the Democratic side, because they keep talking about events in Iraq that do not comport with the reality on the ground over there. You hear it again and again. You hear it in the attitude they have, you know, they’re going to force troop withdrawals, impervious to the fact that troop withdrawals have already begun. It’s happening.
No, it is not happening. By removing the additional troops brought in for the surge and taking us back down to pre-surge levels, right where we were a year ago, Bush is doing the Hokey-Pokey - not implementing an actual Troop Withdrawal.
It should be noted that violence does seem to be going down in many parts of Iraq as a result of Sunni Tribal leaders turning against and fighting al Qeada, a trend that began four months before the Surge was even announced, but what should also be noted is that the Political Reconcilliation - which was the entire POINT of the surge - hasn't even begun yet, and isn't likely to begin anytime soon.
So is the violence down because of the Surge or the Sunnis?
Or was it possibly both? Were the Sunni's emboldened by America's new found commitment to their security? Well according to the Iraq NIE for 2007, not so much.
August 24, 2007 : Yesterday, the National Intelligence Estimate reported “measurable but uneven improvements” in the security situation in Iraq. While the White House has rushed to suggest that the modest gains were the result of escalation, the improvement can more plausibly be the product of Iraqi expectations of a U.S. withdrawal.
" “[F]earing a Coalition withdrawal, some tribal elements and Sunni groups probably will continue to seek accommodation with the Coalition to strengthen themselves for a post- Coalition security environment” [...]
“The IC assesses that the emergence of ‘bottom-up’ security initiatives, principally among Sunni Arabs and focused on combating AQI, represent the best prospect for improved security over the next six to 12 months, but we judge these initiatives will only translate into widespread political accommodation and enduring stability if the Iraqi Government accepts and supports them.”"
Now why would Iraqis have been anticipating a withdrawal of U.S. Troops - Four Months Before Bush initiated the Surge? Could it have been the fact that was September of 2006, just when the Democrats were poised to take control of both houses of Congress?
I think it could.
There is of course a secondary reason why violence levels have decreased - simply put - they're running out of Iraqis to kill.
Joe Christoff of the GAO: I think that’s [ethnic cleansing] an important consideration in even assessing the overall security situation in Iraq. You know, we look at the attack data going down, but it’s not taking into consideration that there might be fewer attacks because you have ethnically cleansed neighborhoods, particularly in the Baghdad area. [...]
Then there's the fact that those that haven't been killed outright - have simply fled.
BAGHDAD, Aug. 23 — The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has soared since the American troop increase began in February, according to data from two humanitarian groups, accelerating the partition of the country into sectarian enclaves.
The data track what are known as internally displaced Iraqis: those who have been driven from their neighborhoods and seek refuge elsewhere in the country rather than fleeing across the border. The effect of this vast migration is to drain religiously mixed areas in the center of Iraq, sending Shiite refugees toward the overwhelmingly Shiite areas to the south and Sunnis toward majority Sunni regions to the west and north.
All of this information was available two months ago when the NIE was released. Today we have the update that the withdrawal of British Troops from Basra has reduced the violence by 90%.
Britain's 5,000 troops moved out of a former Saddam Hussein palace at Basra's heart in early September, setting up a garrison at an airport on the city's edge. Since that pullback, there's been a "remarkable and dramatic drop in attacks," Binns said.
"The motivation for attacking us was gone, because we're no longer patrolling the streets," he said.
Last spring, British troops' daily patrols through central Basra led to "steady toe to toe battles with militias fighting some of the most tactically demanding battles of the war," Binns said. Now British forces rarely enter the city center, an area patrolled only by Iraqis.
In mid-December, British forces are scheduled to return control of Basra province back to Iraqi officials — officially ending Britain's combat role in Iraq.
So what all this tell us class?
That when you stop being a target, people stop shooting at you.
When people stop shooting, less people get killed.
When less people get killed, it tends to generally resemble at status often called "Peace", although "Victory" may also be an acceptable answer.
And lastly what does "The Surge" have to do with any of this?
That's right class - "NOTHING!"
Vyan
Update: One skeptical commenter to the Dkos version of this post stated.
Why for a minute there I was beginning to think that we may actually have a military command that was capable of deep analysis of the situation in Iraq and building a strategy of tactics based on those results........
What a waste of taxpayers money, all the US military command have to do is come here and read diaries like these and...voila they got the answer.....
In one of his first major public speeches since leaving the Army in late 2006, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez blamed the administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current “surge” strategy as a “desperate” move that will not achieve long-term stability.
“After more than fours years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism,” Mr. Sanchez said, at a gathering here of military reporters and editors.
“There was been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”
Mr. President you did not listen (to the Commanders on the Ground) and continue to persue a failed strategy that is breaking our great Army and Marine Corps.
...served up our great military a huge bowl of chicken feces...
Then there's the other 19 Retired Generals who've spoken out against the war.
In op-ed pieces, interviews and TV ads, more than 20 retired U.S. generals have broken ranks with the culture of salute and keep it in the family. Instead, they are criticizing the commander in chief and other top civilian leaders who led the nation into what the generals believe is a misbegotten and tragic war.
One question that silenced many of the officers was a simple one: Should the war have been fought?
“I honestly don’t know how I feel about that,” Major Powell said in a telephone conversation after the discussions at Leavenworth.
“That’s a big, open question,” General Caldwell said after a long pause.
And Active Duty Members of the 82nd Airborne who thoroughly rejected the idea that the Surge had been "successful".
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. […]
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.
To all this, particularly the call by at least 8 Generals for Rumsfeld to be fired, Bush said:
“My reaction,” Bush would recall of the so-called General’s Revolt, “was, ‘No military guy is gonna tell a civilian how to react.’”
the DC Examiner reports today that “a bunch of arm chair generals in Washington” from the American Enterprise Institute “almost single handedly convinced the White House to change its strategy” in weekend meetings last December. The AEI escalation plan reportedly “won out over plans from the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command”:
Is that kind of "deep analysis" you were speaking of?
