Ex-Iraq commander accuses Bush Administration of 'gross incompetence'

Filed by John Byrne

In a new memoir set to be published May 6, the former commander of US forces in Iraq provides new intimate details of the goings-on at high levels of the Bush Administration in the first year of the Iraq war.

His sharp tongued conclusion: "Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."

An excerpt from Sanchez's book, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story, published in TIME, buries the quotation on the third page of the article.

Full Article...

The Iranian Chessboard: Five Ways to Think About Iran Under the Gun

By Pepe Escobar
TomDispatch.com

More than two years ago, Seymour Hersh disclosed in the New Yorker how George W. Bush was considering strategic nuclear strikes against Iran. Ever since, a campaign to demonize that country has proceeded in a relentless, Terminator-like way, applying the same techniques and semantic contortions that were so familiar in the period before the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq.

The campaign's greatest hits are widely known: "The ayatollahs" are building a Shi'ite nuclear bomb; Iranian weapons are killing American soldiers in Iraq; Iranian gunboats are provoking U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf - Iran, in short, is the new al-Qaeda, a terror state aimed at the heart of the United States. It's idle to expect the American mainstream media to offer any tools that might put this orchestrated blitzkrieg in context.

Here are just a few recent instances of the ongoing campaign: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insists that Iran "is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons." Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admits that the Pentagon is planning for "potential military courses of action" when it comes to Iran. In tandem with U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus, Mullen denounces Iran's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq, although he claims to harbor "no expectations" of an attack on Iran "in the immediate future" and even admits he has "no smoking gun which could prove that the highest leadership [of Iran] is involved."

But keep in mind one thing the Great Saddam Take-out of 2003 proved: that a "smoking gun" is, in the end, irrelevant. And this week, the U.S. is ominously floating a second aircraft carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf.

But what of Iran itself under the blizzard of charges and threats? What to make of it? What does the world look like from Tehran? Here are five ways to think about Iran under the gun and to better decode the Iranian chessboard.

Keep reading about how to decode the Iranian Chessboard...

Georgie Bush Went to War - Political Parody Song

Nope, that's not me. But it's my kind of tune!

Consider the Consequences of Bombing Iran’s Nuclear Power Plants, and Pray

by Floyd Rudmin

www.globalresearch.ca

The US government has recently increased the belligerence of its tone towards Iran.

A string of reports in a variety of newspapers suggest war is on the way: the Mail & Guardian April 1, the Rutland Herald April 4, the Telegraph April 7, the International Herald Tribune April 11, the Washington Post April 12, the Washington Times April 16, the Progressive April 24, the Santa Monica Mirror April 24, Asia Times April 25, the International Herald Tribune April 25, the Toronto Star April 25, the Christian Science Monitor April 25, the Washington Post April 26, the Washington Times April 26, First Post April 26, Los Angeles Times April 26, the Washington Times April 26, and the Telegraph April 26.

Two offensive aircraft carriers fleets are now on station near Iran and another is reportedly en route. In late March, Saudi Arabia practiced how it will cope with nuclear fallout following a US attack on Iran. In early April, Israel practiced how it will cope with retaliatory missiles following a US attack on Iran. Everyone in the region is getting ready for the bombing of Iran’s nuclear power plant and enrichment facilities. Iran, too, is ready for war.

The US is said to have 10,000 targets in Iran. Primary among these are all nuclear facilities, including the nuclear power plant at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf coast near Kuwait, and the nuclear enrichment facilities in Natanz near Esfahan. Bushehr is an industrial city, with nearly 1 million residents. As many as 70,000 foreign engineers work in the region, which includes a large gas field. Natanz is Iran’s primary enrichment site, north of Esfahan, which also has nuclear research facilities. Esfahan is a world heritage city with a population of 2 million.

Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor has 82 tons of enriched uranium (U235) now loaded into it, according to Israeli and Chinese news reports. The plant is scheduled to become operational this summer, producing electricity. The Natanz enrichment facility is operating a full capacity, enriching uranium for use in reactors according to IAEA reports.

According to the Center for Disease Control, the uranium 235 used in nuclear reactors has a half life of 700 million years. As nuclear reactor fuel is used, it turns into uranium 238, which has a half life of 4.5 billion years. These radioactive isotopes are dangerous to health because they emit alpha particles and because they are chemically toxic. When inhaled, they damage lung tissue. When ingested, they damage kidneys and cause cancer in bones and in liver tissues. According to a recent review of medical research, uranium exposure causes babies to be deformed or born dead.

Never in history has it happened that nuclear power plants and nuclear enrichment facilities have been deliberately bombed. Such facilities, everywhere in the world, operate under severe safety conditions because the release of radioactive materials is deadly, immediately and also long after exposure. If the USA or Israel deliberately bomb a fully fueled nuclear power plant or nuclear fuel enrichment facilities, containment will be breached; radioactive elements will be released into the environment. There will be horrific deaths for families in the surrounding vicinity. The Union of Concerned Scientists has estimated 3 million deaths would result in 3 weeks from bombing the nuclear enrichment facilities near Esfahan, and the contamination would cover Afghanistan, Pakistan, all the way to India.

Keep Reading...

punditman says...File this one under the "Kiss our collective asses goodbye file." Unfortunately, I believe, as outlined in this article, that even the worst nightmare scenarios are possible as long as the Bushite criminals remain in charge of US ship of state. The word needs to go out: No War on Iran!

More than 100,000 sign petition to save journalist held in Afghanistan

By Jerome Starkey

www.independent.co.uk

The Independent's petition to save the Afghan student Sayed Pervez Kambaksh from the gallows has collected a staggering 100,000 signatures as the 23-year-old languishes in a cell in Kabul awaiting appeal.

Mr Kambaksh was arrested for distributing a pamphlet about women's rights, and tried and convicted without a defence lawyer, in a closed court in Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. His case led to international protests, led by the UN human rights chief, Louise Arbour, and Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State.

Last night, Mr Kambaksh's brother, Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, thanked The Independent's army of readers around the world. "If it wasn't for the petition we would be alone. There are a lot of pressures inside Afghanistan from the fundamentalists. They are trying to execute my brother," he said. "Fortunately, against them, there is pressure from the international community, and The Independent petition. I really believe it will help us."

Keep Reading...

punditman says...Remember, this Afghan government (under Hamid Karzai) are supposedly the "good guys" who deserve Western support--not to mention our treasure and the blood of our youth. So why, then, is Mr Kambaksh languishing in prison? Is this the sort of human rights and "democracy" we are supporting? A government where the rule of law remains a joke? From the article: "A moratorium on capital punishment ended last year when President Karzai ordered a mass execution." No wonder Bush likes him.

Sound The Alarm - Yell Fire!

punditman says...Who said the anti-war movement is dead? It is not so much that the people are silent, it's that the corporate media are deaf!

Petraeus promotion an ominous sign of possible war with Iran

by Farrah Hassen

www.progressive.org

The promotion of Gen. David Petraeus is another ominous sign that the Bush administration may attack Iran.

President Bush is nominating Petraeus, Commanding General of the Multi-National Force in Iraq, to replace Adm. William Fallon as head of Centcom: U.S. Central Command, which oversees the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Fallon was forced to resign last month after his outspoken opposition to an attack on Iran. Petraeus, by contrast, has been heating up the rhetoric against Iran.

Full Article...

Petraeus Promotion Frees Cheney to Threaten Iran

by Gareth Porter

The nomination of Gen. David Petraeus to be the new head of the Central Command not only ensures that he will be available to defend the George W. Bush administration's policies toward Iran and Iraq at least through the end of Bush's term and possibly even beyond.

It also gives Vice President Dick Cheney greater freedom of action to exploit the option of an air attack against Iran during the administration's final months.

Petraeus will take up the CENTCOM post in late summer or early fall, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The ability of the administration to threaten Iran with an attack both publicly and behind the scenes had been dramatically reduced in 2007 by opposition from the former CENTCOM commander, Adm. William Fallon, until he stepped down from the post under pressure from Gates and the White House last month.

Keep Reading...

punditman says...The Bush/Cheney administration will push anyone aside who challenges their agenda. According to the article, Admiral William Fallon's frustration about General Petraeus' de facto power over Middle East policy was the main reason he was ready to step down--an ominous development if you happen to live in Iran.

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

By DAVID BARSTOW
www.nytimes.com

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Keep Reading...

punditman says...Well worth the full read if you have any interest at all in the media-industrial-military complex. When you see so-called "experts" on TV, always check out who butters their bread. This applies to all topics on all networks throughout the known universe.

Punditman in Pain

Punditman has some cracked or badly bruised ribs from a hockey injury. He has decided to take a few days off from monitoring the international insanity and will post again when he feels up to it.

UPDATE: 4/20 (Ouch! That's Hitler's Birthday. So reflect for a moment on the massive evil. Now read on...)

Below is an explanation of the "event" of my injury for the curious, the hockey-minded and for those who may one day suffer a similar fate.

(Note: In these days of creeping fascism and prevalent social and economic decay, the mind quickly conjures numerous scenarios that may result in a cracked rib or two: truncheon blows, jackboot kicks, rubber bullets, jumping out your window after the bank forecloses, tripping over your stockpile of lima beans, leaping from a helicopter into some landing zone in the middle of some oil-rich nation; Feel free to create your own list).

So, consider this a public service announcement or perhaps a harbinger of your imminent future.

After decades of playing hockey, including some high-calibre, full-contact-minor hockey and lots of non-contact old timers' and recreational pick-up, pond and shinny hockey--I've never had this kind of injury; never can I recall hitting the boards with such force. How did this happen? And what can be done, in case you, dear reader, are maimed in a comparable manner?

I am glad you asked...

As I recall, the puck was in their zone and we had just lost control after "cycling it down low." My source of harm and ruin (who is 284 pounds) then did the unexpected: instead of high-tailing it up ice as he gained control of the puck, he peeled back within his own zone--into Yours Truly--as similarly, I tried to regain possession. I am told we were both moving at a decent pace and he must have caught me off balance. (The problem with non-contact hockey is that you can be lulled into the bad habit of not expecting to be hit and, even if this happens for a millisecond, it can have dire consequences). Kids, always expect to be plowed into the boards! Anyway, his shoulder hit mine--which would have been fine in and of itself--had it not catapulted me into the boards.

This injury is often caused as one braces one's self for sudden impact, which is what I did when I hit the boards. My left elbow went into my side as my left shoulder hit the boards. The doc said probable crack, maybe more than one rib, or they are very badly bruised.

They are reticent to do x-rays. I didn't ask, but I suspect it is not so much because of superfluous radiation, and despite lots of evidence that x-rays increase cancer rates, I would not be surprised if many MDs think that only flaky-new-age-earth-muffin-hippie-Luddites believe that each x-ray or CT scan you receive may significantly increase your cancer risk. The reason for no x-ray, I was told, was because what they do for cracked ribs is Nothing. So as long as you can gasp a few breaths, don't expect your cracked costa to ever be seen by a radiologist--that is, if the hospital happens to have a radiologist on duty. Rural folk take note.

Nope, you only get an x-ray if they detect a lung puncture, (I passed the lung test), if it is work-related and you want to file a claim for workers' compensation or if you are thinking of suing someone. Or, I might add, you are a professional athlete and your franchise wants to know when your multi-millionaire butt will be back in the lineup. Did I mention that I don't play in the NHL?

So, no x-ray, no matter. The doc said it takes six weeks for any bone to heal 80%. The worst part is clearing my throat, coughing, deep breaths, sneezing (allergy season arrived in perfect synchronicity with Friday's fateful puck pursuit) -- and laughing!

The drugs are doing sweet ~@*$-all!

Just past the hooch, I guess. I think I will watch Mad Max.

LOL...Ouch!