Saturday, August 05, 2006
Middle East and Secretary Lunatic
Has anyone noticed recently that the Middle East seems to be out of control?
Israel resumed its operations in Lebanon. A bomb hit some workers unloading refrigerated vegetables and killed about 28 of them. Two houses that were leveled by Israeli air strikes buried “more than 50” people, according to security officials. Five more Lebanese were killed in air strikes on the northern coast of Lebanon where Hezbollah has little control or presence.
Hezbollah retaliated with 200 poorly aimed rockets, killing four in Israel.
The bloody, day-to-day calculus of this struggle doesn’t change, as I have written before. Over 80 Lebanese civilians died today, compared to four Israelis killed. Several Hezbollah fighters also died and between three and six Israeli soldiers.
The UN also reminded the world in a report today that 175 Palestinians have died during Israeli incursions into Gaza and the West Bank since the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier over a month ago.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi marched in Baghdad today in a show of support for Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, Preznit Drinky decided that now was a good time for a vacation.
Representative Conyers, the ranking democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has assembled a 350 page report compiling the accumulated evidence that the Bush administration has thumbed its nose at the nation’s laws and the Constitution.
FAIR has assembled a beautiful summary of Tom Friedman’s never-ending six-month “window” for Iraq to stabilize. Friedman has finally decided that Iraq isn’t going to stabilize in the near future. Welcome to reality, dumbass. Donuts and coffee are in the back. How many Pulitzers have you won again?
Paul Krugman echoes what’s been on many of our minds for years: “centrism is for suckers.” That means you, Joementum.
Secretary Rumsfeld’s comments before Sen. Clinton deserve some exploration, because they are really incredible. The transcript’s at Raw News. I am, sadly enough, not making this up.
Senator Clinton: In Afghanistan, your Administration's credibility is also suspect. In December 2002, you said, “The Taliban are gone." In December 2004, President Bush said, the “Taliban no longer is in existence." However this February, DIA Director Lieutenant General Maples said that in 2005 attacks by the Taliban and other anti-coalition forces were up 20 percent from 2004 levels and these insurgents were a greater threat to the Afghan government's effort to expand its authority than in any time since 2001…
Secretary Rumsfeld: I don't know who said what about where the Taliban had gone, but in fact the Taliban that were running Afghanistan and ruling Afghanistan were replaced, and they were replaced by an election that took place in that country, and in terms of a government or a governing entity, they were gone - and that's a fact. Are there still Taliban around? You bet. Are they occupying safe havens in Afghanistan and other places, correction in Pakistan and other places? Certainly they are. Is the violence up? Yes. Does the violence tend to be up during the summer and spring, summer, and fall months? Yes it does. And it tends to decline during the winter period. Does that represent failed policy? I don't know, I would say not.
Are you an incompetent Secretary of Defense? Yes. Listen, ladies and gentleman, the Secretary of Defense seems to think that the increasing violence in Afghanistan is due to warm weather. The senator from New York also presented the secretary with some simple quotes: the president, for example, saying the “Taliban is no longer in existence.” The president did not say “the Taliban is no longer governing the country.” Secretary Rumsfeld said “the Taliban is gone.” He did not say “the Taliban is gone from government.”
Rumsfeld simply refuses to acknowledge errors in judgment and premature celebration.
As far as his estimation that warm weather is responsible for the upsurge in violence, in words of the secretary, “My goodness.” USA Today reports that for the first time since the invasion “Taliban-led militants regained effective control over large tracts of their southern heartland.” They have also “adopted destructive terrorist tactics seen in Iraq and have launched major attacks, this month even managing to briefly control two southern towns — unprecedented during the previous four years.” The USA Today characterization is echoed all over the place, but never fear. This is all due to a little seasonal variation in the air temperature.
Who is this idiot talking to? Honestly, I truly tire of Rumsfeld’s refusal to simply own up to his ridiculous predictions of the past, followed by blithe analysis that “some things are going bad, some things are going well. Do I have any idea how much progress we’ve made? No. Do I know how much longer this will take? Nope. Could the situation completely deteriorate? You bet. But we have very talented people working on this.”
This guy is throwing $110 billion of your taxpayer dollars every year into a country that might stabilize, or it might collapse. Whatever. We need another $110 billion, please.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 11:52 AM 
