Tag Archives: Iraq

Drain Clogs – 02-28-2011

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The Republican class war continues in Wisconsin, and has spread to Indiana and Maine.

The US has wasted tens of billions of dollars on contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, we must cut money from the poors, not these rich companies!

US Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) laughed along with the crowd when a supporter asked him when someone was going to shoot President Obama. I’m sure he laughed peacefully at the peaceful questioner who only wants Obama to be shot with a camera, and peacefully reported him to the secret service.

Fucking insane Georgia Republican state rep. Bobby Franklin wants to make miscarriages illegal. Every time a miscarriage happens, there will be a criminal investigation and the woman must prove she didn’t do it herself. Or she gets the death penalty. Culture of life, bitches! Considering like 1/3 of all pregnancies end in miscarriages (many without the woman even knowing), invest your money in death penalty chemicals!

I guess Georgia is sick of Arizona being the worst state in the Union…

South Dakota was going to make it legal to kill abortion doctors, but instead have decide to just make women who want to have abortions have “counseling”

(3) Provide the pregnant mother with the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of all pregnancy help centers that are registered with the South Dakota Department of Health pursuant to this Act, and provide her with written instructions that set forth the following:
(a) That prior to the day of any scheduled abortion the pregnant mother must have a consultation at a pregnancy help center at which the pregnancy help center shall inform her about what education, counseling, and other assistance is available to help the pregnant mother keep and care for her child, and have a private interview to discuss her circumstances that may subject her decision to coercion;
(b) That prior to signing a consent to an abortion, the physician shall first obtain from the pregnant mother, a written statement that she obtained a consultation with a pregnancy help center, which sets forth the name and address of the pregnancy help center, the date and time of the consultation, and the name of the counselor at the pregnancy help center with whom she consulted;

Why these are bad.
What South Dakota already requires women who want abortions to do:

(a) The name of the physician who will perform the abortion;
(b) That the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being;
(c) That the pregnant woman has an existing relationship with that unborn human being and that the relationship enjoys protection under the United States Constitution and under the laws of South Dakota;
(d) That by having an abortion, her existing relationship and her existing constitutional rights with regards to that relationship will be terminated;
(e) A description of all known medical risks of the procedure and statistically significant risk factors to which the pregnant woman would be subjected, including:
(i) Depression and related psychological distress;
(ii) Increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide;
(iii) A statement setting forth an accurate rate of deaths due to abortions, including all deaths in which the abortion procedure was a substantial contributing factor;
(iv) All other known medical risks to the physical health of the woman, including the risk of infection, hemorrhage, danger to subsequent pregnancies, and infertility;
(f) The probable gestational age of the unborn child at the time the abortion is to be performed, and a scientifically accurate statement describing the development of the unborn child at that age; and
(g) The statistically significant medical risks associated with carrying her child to term compared to undergoing an induced abortion.

Florida Senate teabag candidates are hiring assistants for over $100K/year:

But to help them do it they hired 61 assistants, each making more than a $100,000 a year. Salaries in the speaker’s office rose one and a half percent.

Cannon’s top aide, Matthew Bahl, makes $146,000 a year; that’s more than three-and-a-half times the speaker’s salary. Haridopolos’ top aide, Stephen MacNamara, makes more than $175,000, or more than four times the Senate president’s salary.

Fiscal Responsibility!

Cartoon of the Day:

Fake Iraq exit #2

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For fake exit #1, see this and this.

As for the second attempt:

Guardian

The last US combat troops have left Iraq, seven-and-a-half years after the US-led invasion, and two weeks ahead of President Obama’s 31 August deadline for withdrawal from the country.

The final troops to leave, 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, rolled in convoy across the border and into Kuwait this morning, officially ending combat operations which began in March 2003.

The Obama administration had pledged to withdraw troops to 50,000 by 31 August. CNN reported that according to the US military there are now 56,000 US troops in Iraq, meaning another 6,000 must leave if the US president is to meet his own deadline.

….

“By the end of this month, 50,000 troops will be serving in Iraq. As Iraqi security forces take responsibility for securing their country, our troops will move to an advise-and-assist role.

“And, consistent with our agreement with the Iraqi government, all of our troops will be out of Iraq by the end of next year.

Ah, notice that it says combat troops.  The agreement being referenced is the 2008 U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, which states:

All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011.

AP

KHABARI CROSSING, Kuwait — A line of heavily armored American military vehicles, their headlights twinkling in the pre-dawn desert, lumbered past the barbed wire and metal gates marking the border between Iraq and Kuwait early Thursday and rolled into history.

For the troops of the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, it was a moment of relief fraught with symbolism but lightened by the whoops and cheers of soldiers one step closer to going home. Seven years and five months after the U.S.-led invasion, the last American combat brigade was leaving Iraq, well ahead of President Barack Obama’s Aug. 31 deadline for ending U.S. combat operations there.

Makes for a nice photo-op.

Reuters

The U.S.-Iraq military pact that came into force in 2009 provides the legal basis for U.S. troops to be in Iraq. Under the agreement, all U.S. troops must be out by 2012. But U.S. negotiators say that even as the pact was being negotiated, it was considered likely it would be quietly revised later to allow a longer-term, although much smaller, force to remain.

There are currently 56,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, down from about 140,000 when Obama took office in January 2009.

With opinion polls showing Americans tired of nearly a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, any decision to extend U.S. military involvement in Iraq would be enormously risky for Obama, who is up for re-election in 2012.

….

Iraq’s military commander, Lieutenant-General Babakir Zebari, caused consternation last week when he said his troops would not be ready to protect the country until 2020, and that the United States should keep its forces there until then.

And then there’s the contractors:

….the State Department is planning to more than double its private security guards, up to as many as 7,000, according to administration officials who disclosed new details of the plan. Defending five fortified compounds across the country, the security contractors would operate radars to warn of enemy rocket attacks, search for roadside bombs, fly reconnaissance drones and even staff quick reaction forces to aid civilians in distress, the officials said.

This isn’t exactly going to fool the Iraqis, so it’s clear who the intended audience is.

Mercenary ops expanding in Indonesia and Iraq

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NYT: “U.S. Lifts Ban on Indonesian Special Forces Unit”

JAKARTA, Indonesia — The United States is lifting a ban of more than a decade on military contact with an elite Indonesian special forces unit implicated in past killings of civilians and other abuses, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced Thursday, after meeting here with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia.

The decision to lift the ban and to take steps toward training the unit, called Kopassus, was reached after intensive internal debate among the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department over whether it had truly left its brutal history behind.

“Training” usually means contractors and this case is no exception as it has already been happening in Indonesia:

Detachment 88 was established after the 2002 Bali bombings carried out by militant network Jemaah Islamiah, which firmly placed Indonesia as a frontline state in the U.S.-led “war on terror.”

But the Western funding of an anti-terrorism unit in the world’s most populous Muslim nation can be sensitive. There have been reports of U.S. intelligence officers in Jakarta helping tap cell phones and reading SMS text messages of Indonesian civilians.

A U.S. embassy spokesman in Jakarta declined to comment, but a U.S. government document showed the unit had received technical support, training and equipment under the State Department’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) program since 2003.

Jeremy Scahill has a post on the situation with Iraq

The State Department is asking Congress to approve funds to more than double the number of private security contractors in Iraq with a State Department official testifying in June at a hearing of the Wartime Contracting Commission that the Department wants “between 6,000 and 7,000 security contractors.” The Department also has asked the Pentagon for twenty-four Blackhawk helicopters, fifty Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles and other military equipment. “After the departure of U.S. Forces [from Iraq], we will continue to have a critical need for logistical and life support of a magnitude and scale of complexity that is unprecedented in the history of the Department of State,” wrote Patrick Kennedy, under secretary of state for management, in an April letter to the Pentagon. “And to keep our people secure, Diplomatic Security requires certain items of equipment that are only available from the military.”

What is unfolding is the face of President Obama’s scaled-down, rebranded mini-occupation of Iraq. Under the terms of the Status of Forces agreement, all US forces are supposed to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Using private forces is a backdoor way of continuing a substantial US presence under the cover of “diplomatic security.” The kind of paramilitary force that Obama and Clinton are trying to build in Iraq is, in large part, a byproduct of the monstrous colonial fortress the United States calls its embassy in Baghdad and other facilities the US will maintain throughout Iraq after the “withdrawal.” The State Department plans to operate five “Enduring Presence Posts” at current US military bases in Basrah, Diyala, Erbil, Kirkuk and Ninewa. The State Department has indicated that more sites may be created in the future, which would increase the demand for private forces. The US embassy in Baghdad is the size of Vatican City, comprised of twenty-one buildings on a 104-acres of land on the Tigris River.

Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) are treaties that have been used to keep military bases in countries for decades.  When the one with Iraq was signed, a brawl broke out in Parliament:

A session of Iraq’s Parliament collapsed in chaos on Wednesday, as a discussion among lawmakers about a three-year security agreement with the Americans boiled over into shouting and physical confrontation.

The session was dedicated to a second public reading of the agreement, which governs the presence of American troops in Iraq through 2011 and which the Parliament is scheduled to vote on Monday. Even before the session began, legislators were apprehensive.

No wonder.

Drain Clogs – 06-07-2010

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A man who admitted he leaked the Wikileaks Iraq tape that showed US troops killing civilians has been arrested. That makes much more sense than punishing the troops who murdered civilians!~

Helen Thomas has announced her immediate retirement as fallout from her recent very controversial comments over Israel.

In a story that broke Friday and I was too lazy to add to the Drain Clogs that day, an AZ school wanted to change faces on a mural at the school so they were lighter shades. The kids in the mural were actual students at the school. This prompted outrage, and now the mural will stay as it is and a jerkoff radio host who started the whole mess got fired.

SPLC goes over the three main groups behind the AZ SB 1070 law – FAIR, CIS and NumbersUSA

BP has hired Dick Cheney’s former campaign press secretary. That will make America love you just as much as we love Dick Cheney!

Nothing can go wrong here!

The most powerful man in this arid stretch of southern Afghanistan is not the provincial governor, nor the police chief, nor even the commander of the Afghan Army.

It is Matiullah Khan, the head of a private army that earns millions of dollars guarding NATO supply convoys and fights Taliban insurgents alongside American Special Forces.

In little more than two years, Mr. Matiullah, an illiterate former highway patrol commander, has grown stronger than the government of Oruzgan Province, not only supplanting its role in providing security but usurping its other functions, his rivals say, like appointing public employees and doling out government largess. His fighters run missions with American Special Forces officers, and when Afghan officials have confronted him, he has either rebuffed them or had them removed.

Cartoon of the Day: