BunkBlog

Thanks to ThrowingStarDNA on Livejournal for this article:
Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012

An excerpt:

bq. What made this all the more disheartening was the wretched performance of our forces in the Second Gulf War.[73] Consumed with ancillary and nontraditional missions, the military neglected its fundamental raison d’etre. As the Supreme Court succinctly put it more than a half century ago, the “primary business of armies and navies [is] to fight or be ready to fight wars should the occasion arise.”[74] When Iranian armies started pouring into the lower Gulf states in 2010, the US armed forces were ready to do anything but fight.

Preoccupation with humanitarian duties, narcotics interdiction, and all the rest of the peripheral missions left the military unfit to engage an authentic military opponent.

In a conversation with my mom this weekend (Hi mom), we were discussing the concept of holding Bush or Rumsfeld directly responsible for the actions of every single person who worked for them. Obviously, there is a level of abstraction in any sufficiently large organization, and it is unreasonable to assume that Bush or Rummy knew anything at all about the crimes at Abu Ghraib. That does *not* mean, however, that they are not responsible for those actions.

Truman made famous the phrase, “The Buck Stops Here” as a symbol of the enormous responsibility placed on his shoulders. The President is responsible for everything that is done in his name. And every official action of a military servicemember is done in the name of the President.

The enlistment oath I took four times:

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Notice, soldiers defend the Constitution first and foremost. Second, notice that they obey the orders of the President. Now, the actions of these people in Iraq are violating all kinds of laws and treaties, but some of them (weakminded as they were) had been led to believe that they were acting legally, as required by the interrogation teams that had been placed over them. This does not excuse their actions in the slightest, but they thought it was acceptable.

And, the President finding out about the Abu Ghraib from the news is absurd. If he didn’t know about these actions before then, he should have. If he is being shielded by Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld should be fired for exposing the President to such an extreme breach of ethics and honesty.

More than anything, though, the President needs to stop trying to pass that buck to everyone but himself. He is the President. His people did something awful. It’s his responsibility, whether it’s his fault or not.

Illuminating blacked-out words in redacted (edited/declassified) documents is actually possible with computers today.

Interesting, the government stopped using Courier in its documents recently because it’s ugly compared to Arial or Times New Roman. But, because Courier is a monospace font, it is actually harder to decipher with the method listed in the article. So, the government has made it easier to pierce the veil of secrecy they put around redacted documents. Fantastic.

This image found through the joy of random LJ image-hunting. Woohoo!

Stolen shamelessly from Pouk23, I give you the Holy Armor of God, on Bush.

Oh, the hypocrisy. Oh, the irony. Oh, the absurdity.

What is truly sad is this woman represents a large and important bloc of swing voters this fall. God help us all.

Bush and Cheney answer all questions

My favorite quote about the secret, not transcribed, unrecorded, closed-door session:

Bush said it was important for him and Cheney to appear together so that commission members could “see our body language… how we work together.”

I believe “body language” in this case is Dick pulling Dubya’s strings to make him talk, but I could be wrong.

The recent news from Richard Clarke and Sibel Edmonds regarding intelligence abuses (they aren’t failures – the intel geeks knew things they were apparently told to ignore) makes me wonder about the enforcement of nondisclosure agreements in the government. I have to sign an NDA every time I get read on to specific compartments of information, and these NDAs are supposed to be adhered to in perpetuity (To reduce paperwork storage requirements, they acknowledge that the NDA will be disposed of 75 years after it is signed. Even so, I don’t have any reasonable expectation of living to 108.).

Sibel Edmonds says she translated materials for the FBI from Turkish and Farsi into English. These materials sound like real corkers, too – details of locations and plans from the 9/11 terrorists. So, they would presumably be at least Secret and compartmented. Yet, she’s speaking with impunity about these documents? Sure, she claims that Ashcroft is out to get her and threatened her with jail. Um, yeah. You should be thrown in jail if you intentionally disclose highly classified information to unauthorized persons. That’s why you signed documents noting your legal understanding that you would get thrown in jail if you talked about this stuff. It’s the rules. You don’t have to sign the NDA – you just don’t get that cushy job as a translator for the FBI.

So why hasn’t the FBI at least arrested her for her security violations? I don’t get it.

BTW, I think Ashcroft is a jackass and should be investigated very thoroughly. But I still signed that NDA knowing I had to shut the hell up about things. Duh.

Ya gotta love Bill Maher. He’s got a little blurb up at Salon this week. Here’s a taste:

“Washington insider” is by definition a function of one’s proximity to the president. That’s you, Mr. Bush. You’re ground zero. Ever wonder, sir, why everyone stands and they play music when you enter a room? When you’re given check-writing privileges by the Federal Reserve, you just might be a Washington insider.

From Daily Kos, here’s an excerpt from the list of Bush flipflops. But, of course, we all know Bush has been consistent and it’s only his opponents who ever change their positions on things.

* Bush is against campaign finance reform; then he’s for it.
* Bush is against a Homeland Security Department; then he’s for it.
* Bush is against a 9/11 commission; then he’s for it.
* Bush is against an Iraq WMD investigation; then he’s for it.
* Bush is against nation building; then he’s for it.
* Bush is against deficits; then he’s for them.
* Bush is for free trade; then he’s for tariffs on steel; then he’s against them again.
* Bush is against the U.S. taking a role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict; then he pushes for a “road map” and a Palestinian State.
* Bush is for states right to decide on gay marriage, then he is for changing the constitution.

BillMaher: Georgey The Greek

According to the same finely-tuned analysis that led them to believe the stuff about the WMD, how we’d be greeted as liberators and the like, the White House now says the economy will create 2.6 million jobs in 2004. Not just jobs, but fantastic jobs. And leprechauns. I’m a tad skeptical of his powers of prognostication, however. You might remember last year when he told us if we passed all his tax cuts the economy would create 1.8 million new jobs last year and 3.7 million in 2004. Well, we did pass the tax cuts and we lost 53,000 jobs last year. But if you don’t believe we’ll have 2.6 million jobs in 2004, would you believe 3.6 million jobs in 2005? Well, they’re saying that, too. It’s like we’re watching a bad re-run of Get Smart.

I really don’t have anything to add to that. Just wanted to say, “bwahaha!”

Wesley Clark now says that Bush has created a new ‘axis of evil’. Even in this season of overinflated rhetoric, isn’t it a bit much to equate the perfidy, greed and cronyism of the Bush administration to actual evil? To make the implication that Bush is morally equivalent to Iraq and Syria is a bit too hard to swallow.

I wonder if the candidates are even trying to convince the fence-sitters and moderates any more. They seem to be preaching exclusively to the choir of late.

Infiltration of files seen as extensive

Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.

From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight — and with what tactics.

What do you think? I need to choose a different font, but I think it’s subtle enough…

Interesting interview with RFK’s son, the environmental lawyer.
Save the Earth — dump Bush

Many of our laws will remain on the books in one form or another. But we’ll be Mexico, which has these wonderful, even poetic, environmental laws, but nobody knows about them and nobody complies with them because they can’t be enforced.

The National Academy of Sciences predicts that 30,000 Americans a year will die because of the Bush decision. And that’s just one of the impacts.

Another is that airborne mercury contamination has made it dangerous to eat any freshwater fish in 28 states and the fish in most of our coastal waters. And that mercury is coming from those same power plants. Fifty percent of the lakes in the Adirondacks are now sterilized from acid rain that’s coming from those same power plants.

The Official Blog of the campaign to reelect the President. Way to go Movable Type! Yes, there is an RSS feed for ubergeeks.

According to the California Recall lineup, Arnold will be the new governor for our most populous state. Maybe now he’ll finally get around to producing more than vague statements using movie references. Perhaps, if they’re lucky, he’ll be a good leader, the moderate he seems to be.

Of course, I’m disappointed that Mary Carey only got 9500 votes. Amazingly, Arianna Huffington, who pulled out of the race, got 1 percent of the total ballots.

Competing for the title of lowest-ranking Democratic candidate, Carol Moseley Braun formally launches 2004 presidential bid. People across the country responded by saying, “huh?”

Seriously, she’s only like one percentage point above Al Sharpton in the Democratic polls. If she’s pulling 3 percent of the Dem vote, that means she’s got about zero name recognition outside the party. Why would you go through the hassle of running for an office that you know there’s nearly no chance of your winning?

According to a Newsweek Poll, Clark has become the frontrunner among Democratic candidates after only a few days in the race. Interestingly, 52 percent of those polled didn’t care that General Clark has never been elected to any office. I was sure that would hurt him more. Among all voters, Clark is seen to be just a few points shy of the President.
More »

It amazes me that the writer of this article, which lambasts Wes Clark for (as far as I can tell) having an ill-fitting suit, actually served in the United States Congress. It’s astounding to me that someone actually elected this guy. Maybe he only became completely unhinged and part of the lunatic fringe after he lost reelection…
Full text of article follows.
More »

I’m impressed as usual with Jason’s writing today, and his piece on
Religion as a mental illness is particularly good. When you think of how many wars have been waged in the name of a deity, you’d think someday we’d learn better.