Category: Iraq War

The following video showing the generation chickenhawks brave college Republicans at a national convention was originally produced by Max Blumenthal and posted at the HuffingtonPost.

In my view it offers a sad commentary on the mental health of and the ability to reason by a good many of our elitist college chickenhawk generation. These are the type of people who are being groomed to show leadership ability and to lead our nation within a few years. Yet, all they can manage to do when asked questions about the war in Iraq is to spit out Republican talking points.

I heard the same simple minded reasoning about the war in Vietnam. “If we don’t fight them there (the Vietcong) we will fight them here”. Like the poor Vietnamese had the means to invade the US. All they wanted was to have their own country back and to run it their own way. Isn’t that what the Iraqis and Afghans want?

God help us all. The United States is in big trouble from the rot within. Perhaps a return of the draft would bring a good dose of reality back into the American “homeland”. I confess that without the draft I would have never served in Vietnam. But because I did serve I know first hand that war is an ugly business that destroys and ends a lot of lives. Armed with that deep understanding I believe that if I ever had the responsibily for war planning, unlike chickenhawks Donald Rumsfield and Dick Cheney, I would do all in my power to prevent a conflict, not fire one up just because I could.

The long delayed American embassy fortress in Baghdad has been declared a fire risk by teams of safety inspection officials.

“This is serious enough to get someone killed,” said a State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation. “The fire systems are the tip of the iceberg. That is the most visible. But no one has ever inspected the electrical system, the power plant and other parts of the embassy complex, which will house more than 1,000 people and is vulnerable to mortar attacks.”

The largest embassy in the world the American Embassy in Baghdad has long been troubled by poor planning, shoddy workmanship and design changes that have added to the cost. The Justice Department is reportedly conducting a criminal investigation of the contract and related subcontracts.

Originally expected to be completed by July 1, 2007, at a cost of $592 million, the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world has been plagued by troubles from start to finish. One problem is that it is not yet finished and fit for occupation. The cost has now escalated to an estimated $736 million with additional expenses sure to follow. Much of the construction is of such poor quality that a considerable amount of rework will have to be completed before the complex can be safety occupied.

Construction management has not been the only State Department problem with the Embassy. The State Department has had difficulty in getting State Department personnel to accept assignments to the embassy in Baghdad. Some career diplomat and support personnel have commented that being sent to Baghdad is like receiving a death sentence.

The Turkish air raids against PPK fighters in Northern Iraq were approved by the US according to Turkey’s top general, Yasar Buyukanit.

Turkish air force jets targeted the Kurdish rebel PKK in areas near but inside the Iraq border. The Turkish media said up to 50 planes were used. The Turks have build up their troop strength along the Turkey - Iraq border for some time. Whether a Turkish troop invasion will take place as a follow up to the air strikes remains to be seen.

General Buyukanit said the US “gave intelligence” that aided the operation. “But what is more important is that the United States last night opened northern Iraqi airspace to us. By doing that, the United States approved the operation,” he said.

The air attack by Turkey places the United States in an awkward position to say the least. The US is supposed to be supporting the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government has summoned the Turkish ambassador in Baghdad and demanded an immediate halt to the strikes. Yet the US by opening up the airspace according to the Turks gave its approval to the attacks.

It looks to me that the friction between the US and the Iraqi government that we are supposed to be supporting is only increasing with time. Turkish military forces operating in Iraq will only add to the complications already existing in the war torn country.

How will the Kurds with their independent militia and the Iraq government respond if the air attacks are followed up by a Turkish troop ground assault is an open question? As bad as things are in Iraq they may be about to become far more complicated.

Military healthcare became a bonanza for contractors when the Pentagon, under the leadership of the now dismissed and discredited Donald Rumsfield, former Secretary of Defense, started outsourcing so many of the functions that used to be performed by the military to civilian contractors.

The policy of outsourcing may have helped to slim down the military into the agile strike force that Rumsfield wanted and kept the number of troops in uniform at artificially low levels. However, it transferred many support functions, such as healthcare, from the military to private contractors.

Rumsfield set the stage for a bonanza in lucrative Pentagon contracts and established a culture of cronyism in privatized military healthcare. Military healthcare is a lucrative wartime bazaar for private contractors that is largely free of oversight and avoids Halliburton or Blackwater type of unfavorable headlines.

Salon has a story that is typical of this new way of doing military business and the contract bidding practices that have developed. In the example used by Salon a contract was awarded to a company with tight personal connections to the Pentagon that was $100 million more than the low bid.

One reason that the war in Iraq is so difficult to stop is that so many well connected Americans are making obscene amounts of money from it. From truck drivers making $150,000 tax free dollars a year to Blackwater mercenaries making $15,000 a month or more, to contracting firms banking hundreds of millions a year, to investors owning shares of Halliburton stock, the Iraq war is a money feast for the well connected and for those civilians who are willing to undertake dangerous jobs in a war zone.

Iraq news about America staying in Iraq basically forever is in the news again.

Of course, that is not what it is called. President Bush talks about the “Korean Model”. In Korea, America still has about 40,000 troops garrisoned near the DMZ even though the cease fire started in 1953.

The Republicans, as you might expect, go along with just about anything Bush wants. And the Democrats come up with a few half baked ideas about withdrawing all but a few thousand, or is it a few tens of thousands, of troops and call it a plan.

The Democrats talk about starting the draw down of troops right away. Troops remaining in Iraq would be restricted to three missions: counter terrorism, training Iraqi security forces and protecting U.S. assets, including diplomats. Perhaps we should say especially diplomats as the monstrous America Embassy in Baghdad, the largest in the world, will need a lot of protection. It is considered such a dangerous posting the State Department is having to force diplomatic personnel to accept assignments there.

Once again there is widespread disagreement about how many troops the Democrats are talking about for near term withdrawal. Is it 10,000 or is it 70,000? No one can provide a clean answer because no one really knows how the Iraq mess will play out. One thing we do know is that the US has built and is expanding a number of mega bases in Iraq. It is highly unlikely we will ever give up these strategic bases in the Middle East unless we are at the wrong end of a massive number of AK47’s and are driven out.