More Bush White House game of musical chairs!

This is off the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 — President Bush has decided to name Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus as the top American military commander in Iraq, part of a broad revamping of the military team that will carry out the administration’s new Iraq strategy, administration officials said Thursday.

President George W. Bush has replaced General George Casey, seen here in June 2006, with Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, as the man in charge of all US and coalition forces in Iraq. (AFP/File/Brendan Smialowski)

In addition to the promotion of General Petraeus, who will replace Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the choice to succeed Gen. John P. Abizaid as the head of the Central Command is expected to be Adm. William J. Fallon, who is the top American military officer in the Pacific, officials said.

The changes are being made as the White House is considering an option to increase American combat power in Baghdad by five brigades as well as adding two battalions of reinforcements to the volatile province of Anbar in western Iraq.

President George W. Bush announced the replacement of the top US general in the Middle East, John Abizaid, seen here in 2006, and the senior general in Iraq, George Casey, media reported. Abizaid is being replaced by Adm. William J. Fallon. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Alex Wong)

[....]

Senior administration officials said that the choice of General Petraeus was part of a broader effort to change almost all of the top American officials in Iraq as Mr. Bush changes his strategy there.

“The idea is to put the whole new team in at roughly the same time, and send some clear messages that we are trying a new approach,” a senior administration official said Thursday.

Admiral William J. Fallon (L) and Lt. Gen. David Petraeus (R) in an undated composite image. President Bush is planning to name a new ambassador and military commanders for Iraq as he prepares to make a fresh start on a worsening problem that has mired his administration and threatens his legacy. (PACOM/DOD/Handout/Reuters)

In addition to the military changes, Mr. Bush intends to appoint the ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, as the new United States ambassador to the United Nations, a senior administration official said Thursday.

“It was clearly time to move the players around on the field,” said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Mr. Bush had yet to announce the changes. “This helps the president to make the case that this is a fresh start.”

There are a couple of items to note here. First, Casey was skeptical that a troop surge in Iraq would improve the situation. According to this December 20, 2006 International Herald Tribune story:

[Defense Secretary Robert] Gates said his talks with General George Casey Jr., the top ground commander in Iraq, and General John Abizaid, the top U.S. general for the Middle East, had included discussion of "the possibility of a surge and the potential for what it might accomplish."

But at a news conference with Gates standing next to him, Casey indicated he wanted to see a more thorough plan for how the additional troops would be used before he would endorse the idea.

"Additional troops have to be for a purpose," he said. "I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but what I want to see happen is, if we do bring more American troops here, they help us progress toward our strategic objectives."

My guess here is that Casey was open to a surge of American troops who would provide training for the Iraqi security forces. Once the training was completed, then the U.S. could start withdrawing its forces while having the Iraqi security forces police the country. However, the Bush White House decided to go the opposite direction of increasing American forces to provide security in Iraq. Casey became a liability to the Bush administration since he was not a "yes man" regarding the Bush strategy for the war. Consider this January 2, 2007 New York Times story:

President Bush began 2006 assuring the country that he had a “strategy for victory in Iraq.” He ended the year closeted with his war cabinet on his ranch trying to devise a new strategy, because the existing one had collapsed.

The original plan, championed by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Baghdad, and backed by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, called for turning over responsibility for security to the Iraqis, shrinking the number of American bases and beginning the gradual withdrawal of American troops. But the plan collided with Iraq’s ferocious unraveling, which took most of Mr. Bush’s war council by surprise.

In interviews in Washington and Baghdad, senior officials said the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department had also failed to take seriously warnings, including some from its own ambassador in Baghdad, that sectarian violence could rip the country apart and turn Mr. Bush’s promise to “clear, hold and build” Iraqi neighborhoods and towns into an empty slogan.

This left the president and his advisers constantly lagging a step or two behind events on the ground.

Over the past 12 months, as optimism collided with reality, Mr. Bush increasingly found himself uneasy with General Casey’s strategy. And now, as the image of Saddam Hussein at the gallows recedes, Mr. Bush seems all but certain not only to reverse the strategy that General Casey championed, but also to accelerate the general’s departure from Iraq, according to senior military officials.

General Casey repeatedly argued that his plan offered the best prospect for reducing the perception that the United States remained an occupier — and it was a path he thought matched Mr. Bush’s wishes. Earlier in the year, it had.

But as Baghdad spun further out of control, some of the president’s advisers now say, Mr. Bush grew concerned that General Casey, among others, had become more fixated on withdrawal than victory.

Now, having ousted Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Bush sees a chance to bring in a new commander as he announces a new strategy, senior military officials say. General Casey was scheduled to shift out of Iraq in the summer. But now it appears that it may happen in February or March.

By mid-September, Mr. Bush was disappointed with the results in Iraq and signed off on a complete review of Iraq strategy — a review centered in Washington, not in Baghdad. Whatever form the new strategy takes, it seems almost certain to include a “surge” in forces, something that General Casey insisted earlier this year he did not need and which might even be counterproductive.

In a telephone interview on Friday, General Casey continued to caution against a lengthy expansion in the American military role. “The longer we in the U.S. forces continue to bear the main burden of Iraq’s security, it lengthens the time that the government of Iraq has to take the hard decisions about reconciliation and dealing with the militias,” he said. “And the other thing is that they can continue to blame us for all of Iraq’s problems, which are at base their problems.”

Casey became a critic of the Bush administration's war strategy. Therefore, Casey had to go.

Gen. John P. Abizaid was also a critic of the Bush administration's Iraq war policy, but on a different level. In this August 3, 2006 New York Times story, Abizaid told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the sectarian violence in Iraq was causing the country to head towards a civil war:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 — The commander of American forces in the Middle East bluntly warned a Senate committee on Thursday that sectarian violence in Iraq, especially in the capital, Baghdad, had grown so severe that the nation could slide toward civil war.

he commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, also acknowledged that since the security situation remained so unstable, significant reductions in American forces were unlikely before the end of this year.

Asked by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, whether Iraq risked falling into civil war, General Abizaid replied, “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.”

In March, General Abizaid told the Senate Appropriations Committee that sectarian violence in Iraq was replacing the insurgency as the greatest threat to security and stability.

Now back in August of 2006, the Bush White House has been refusing to call Iraq a civil war--a complete contradiction to what the generals are saying. According to this August 3, 2006 ABC News story:

[President] Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have steadfastly refused to call the situation in Iraq a civil war, although Rumsfeld at a news conference on Wednesday acknowledged that the violence is increasing.

I'm starting to wonder if we're seeing the opening details of a massive Bush administration CYA plan for Iraq. The Bush administration has got to know now that the war in going in their favor. The Republicans lost control of Congress because of Iraq. The American people have turned against this war--according to the latest January 4, 2007 CBS News poll, an incredible 76 percent of the American public believe that President Bush even has a plan for Iraq, 72 percent of the American public disapprove of Bush's handling of the Iraq war, and President Bush's job approval rating is at 30 percent, with 63 percent of Americans disapproving of his performance. Bush may also be looking ahead as to what his legacy will be with history--especially considering how the Iraq war is descending further into chaos and disaster. What we could be seeing here is the start of a major CYA plan by the Bush White House. First, someone in the administration probably leaked the story of a proposed troop surge in Iraq, with the sacrifice theme, to both prepare the American people for President Bush's announcement to escalate this war, and perhaps to steal a little thunder from the Democrats opening day in Congress. Next we have this week's game of White House musical chairs—John Negroponte moving from intelligence czar to State, Harriet Miers resigning as White House counsel, and this sudden removal of both Generals Casey and Abizaid. Negroponte and Miers musical chairs may have been the result of protecting the Bush White House from the impending Democratic congressional investigations. The sacking of Casey and Abizaid was necessary to stifle any criticism of the Bush administration's war, and to replace those two with simple "yes men" generals to follow Bush. President Bush will outline his new plan for escalating the Iraq war during his State of the Union address--complete with sappy talk of sacrifice. And more Americans will be sent to their deaths in Iraq.

All of this is being played out to keep the U.S. in Iraq until Bush's second term ends. The new president will be stuck with cleaning up this mess, allowing Bush to claim that he didn't lose the war in Iraq. This CYA strategy also plays into the hands of the PNAC neocons still in the Bush White House. The PNAC neocons can still maintain the permanent U.S. bases in Iraq for the next two years, or perhaps longer--depending upon the 2008 president and still control the oil reserves in Iraq. It is all about control--control of Iraq, the war, the oil resources, the permanent bases, and especially time--time for George Bush to leave the White House and thrust the stinking pile of crap that is this Iraq war, into the hands of his 2008 successor. Any deviation from this strategy of control could force this administration to collapse upon its own incompetence and failures.

Friday Fun Stuff Double Feature--Take a look at the photo, and what do you see?

This photo provided by the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center shows a man sitting on a dead horse. The picture taken in Sheboygan sometime between 1876 and 1884 has sparked curiosity, speculation and jokes from people throughout the country, thanks to some newspaper publicity, the Internet and blogging. No one knows who the gentleman is, his occupation, or the exact circumstances surrounding it, said Beth Dipple, director of the Center. 'It is a great picture and every time I see it I just laugh,' she said. 'But this time the novelty is everybody else is seeing it for the first time. The whole world is seeing it now.' (AP Photo/Sheboygan County Historical Research Center)

While I was setting up this first Friday Fun Stuff story on our toilet thief, I came across this second story that just amazed me. It is a real mystery. Take a look at the photo above. Now, read the Yahoo News story below:

It's a 1870s picture of a mustachioed man in a suit and stovepipe hat who sits rakishly on an expired horse in the middle of a dusty, deserted street.

The picture was included in a newspaper's 2007 calendar and the response from readers prompted news articles. From there, it took off on the Internet.

"This thing has gotten more mileage than you can shake a stick at," said Scott Prescher, who has a copy of the dead horse photo in his Sheboygan restaurant.

"It is just a funny picture," Prescher said. "He is sitting on there with a top hat like he had somewhere special to go and his horse just croaked in the middle of the road."

No one knows who the gentleman is, exactly what year the picture was taken or the circumstances surrounding it, said Beth Dipple, director of the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center, which has had the picture in its collection for at least 20 years.

"It is a great picture and every time I see it I just laugh," she said. "But this time the novelty is everybody else is seeing it for the first time. The whole world is seeing it now."

After writing two stories about the picture, The Sheboygan Press received more than 50 calls and e-mails about it, including from a California genealogist.

Some of the ideas for what the picture depicts include the thoughtful — it was staged for a political campaign perhaps related to sanitation issues — to the bizarre — the horse is being helped to relieve "excess flatulence."

Dibble said the newspaper published the photo on Aug. 20, 1974, but mainly to focus attention on the nearby buildings. The caption said the man who provided the photo to the newspaper received it from a friend who had no idea about its origin.

A Web site sponsored a contest for readers to write the best caption for the photo and about 100 were submitted, including: "Lay still old girl, FEMA's on the way."

Dipple said about all that's known about the picture is it was taken at South Eighth Street and Indiana Avenue between 1876 and 1884 — based on the bridge over the Sheboygan River in the background and the lack of railroad tracks that were installed in 1884.

The city had laws on the books that required people to stay with their dead horses until they were picked up and disposed of, Dipple said.

"Who knows why somebody would take a picture of it?" she said. "People had weird senses of humor then just like they do now."

Someone had an interesting sense of photographic humor back then.

Friday Fun Stuff: Police hunt for man stealing public toilets

Police said on Friday they were hunting a man suspected of stealing a urinal from the Royal Oak Pub in Southampton. The suspected thief is seen leaving the toilets in these undated closed circuit television images. (Handout/ Hampshire police/Reuters)

Good Lord! I always had a feeling that crime could pay, but in crap? This is off Yahoo News:

LONDON (Reuters) - British police said Friday they were hunting a man who stole a urinal from a pub toilet.

The suspect walked into the Royal Oak pub in Southampton, on the English south coast, ordered half a pint of beer and then made several visits to the men's toilet.

There he carefully removed a white urinal from the wall, stuffed it into a rucksack and was captured on closed circuit television walking out with the bulging sack on his back.

"He made a very, very expert job of dismantling it from the wall and turning the water off. A very professional job," landlord Alan Dreja said in a video posted on the Southampton Daily Echo newspaper's Web site.

A police spokesman said the thief may have been a tradesman.

"One of the theories is the guy is some sort of cut-price plumber who is going round and stealing parts to order," he said.

Bush Administration: Warrantless mail searches may be allowed

I found this off MSNBC News:

WASHINGTON - A statement attached to postal legislation by President Bush last month may have opened the way for the government to open mail without a warrant.

The White House denies any change in policy, but civil libertarians are alarmed, saying the government has never publicly claimed that power before.

Federal law has long required a search warrant to open first class mail unless postal inspectors suspect it contains something dangerous, like a bomb or a hazardous chemical, reports NBC News' Pete Williams.

But in signing a postal bill just before Christmas, President Bush said federal law also gives the government authority to open the mail "for foreign intelligence collection."

White House spokesman Tony Snow said that's nothing new. “All this is saying is that there are provisions at law for — in exigent circumstances — for such inspections. It has been thus. This is not a change in law, this is not new.”

"What the signing statement indicates is what present law allows, in making it clear what the provisions are," Snow said Thursday in his daily briefing.

What do I say about this story that hasn't already been said regarding President Bush's incarceration and torture of terrorist suspects with no legal rights? What can I say about the numerous reports regarding President Bush's domestic spying program on American citizens? And now we have this new story where President Bush is claiming the right to open and look at any mail without a warrant--all under the guise of the stale Global War on Terror argument.

What is really scary here is that I can't even get angry at this story or at this latest transgression by our failure of a president. I can't even find a comment for this story--oh, I can say the same thing I've said so many other times at how the Bush administration is breaking the law, disregarding our civil liberties, or even turning this democracy of ours into the equivalent of a neo-Nazi totalitarian dictatorship. But I fear I'm getting tired of saying the same thing over and over again, as I hear more and more of these same stories and scandals coming out of this administration. There were three major stories in the Washington Post this week, detailing even more prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay. I read them. I should be angry at the stories, but I'm not. Have I become so numbed and desensitized by the constant stream of crap coming out from this Bush White House? Or have I become tired of reading these same stories, with the Bush White House exclaiming same, tired, PR-spin of denials, or the insistence that these programs are needed to fight the Global War on Terror, or accusing the critics of harboring terrorists for investigating these transgressions. It is almost like living in a broken record, seeing these same stories of the Bush White House engaging in spying and torture, listening to the same Bush PR-spin, and going nowhere.

The broken record has been playing for six long years. The one change I am looking forward to is the Democrats investigation and oversight into these Bush scandals. I hope the Democrats will use their subpoena power to obtain records, and to grill the Bush officials responsible for these scandals. Instead of listening to the constant PR-spin from this administration, I can enjoy listening to these officials contradict themselves in their own lies, under oath. Perhaps we'll see a little justice and oversight come back to our country.

McCain reaffirms support for US troop 'surge' in Iraq

This is a short Yahoo News story, which shows that Arizona Senator John McCain is so willing to support sending more American servicemen into the meat grinder that is Iraq:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Senator John McCain reaffirmed his support for the deployment of thousands of additional US troops in Iraq, a proposal expected to figure in President George W. Bush's upcoming reassessment of US strategy there.

"When I raise my hand and vote to send young men and women, American men and women into harm's way and fight a war, I am committing to accomplishing the mission," McCain, an early frontrunner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, told MSNBC.

US Senator John McCain, seen here in 2006, reaffirmed his support for the deployment of thousands of additional US troops in Iraq, a proposal expected to figure in President George W. Bush's upcoming reassessment of US strategy there.(AFP/POOL/File)

He said the fight against Islamic extremism must be joined with renewed fervor.

"The consequences of failure are chaos and disaster. And these people ... want to destroy the United States of America," McCain said.

His remarks came as Bush prepares to announce a shakeup of US Iraq policy, which reportedly could include sending tens of thousands of additional troops to supplement 140,000-strong US force already there.

But a troop surge has found little support in Congress, with McCain one of only very few voices speaking up in favor of such a policy.

McCain takes over this week as the top Republican in the Democrat-led Senate Armed Services Committee. The Democrats took control of the Senate and House of Representatives Thursday following their November elections triumph.

McCain said he believes US soldiers there are equally committed to the goal of fighting on in Iraq.

"I just recently visited them, including some who have been involuntarily extended," said McCain. "The morale is good. They understand what the mission is and they know what they need to do."

"I am convinced that if we leave and lose this conflict, the conflict will spread in the region, there will be chaos, and we will be sending in men and women into harm's way both in the region and other parts of the world," the former Navy pilot and former Vietnam prisoner of war told MSNBC.

"I've said for more than three years, it's long, hard, tough," McCain said.

"It's going to be very, very difficult. And we have to understand that. But we also have understand the sequences of failure."

I don't know what else I can say about this, than what I've already said here, or here. McCain is playing presidential politics, saying whatever he can to fulfill his own selfish goal of taking the White House in 2008. McCain will say and do anything that will help him get one step closer towards taking the Republican nomination for president. It is a complete courting of the Republican base, perhaps with a possible McCain fantasy of King George Bush transferring the White House crown to this extreme, ambitious heir. Indeed, I found this interesting MSNBC story, titled Sen. McCain taking criticism from all sides:

WASHINGTON - Everyone, it seems, is jabbing at John McCain these days — from a Republican rival for the presidential nomination to several potential Democratic candidates.

“When you’re the perceived front-runner, your head’s above the political trench and everyone takes shots at you,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist and presidential campaign veteran.

McCain, considered by many to be the Republican to beat, has largely remained silent about the criticism, which is somewhat uncharacteristic for the outspoken Arizona senator. His presidential exploratory committee on Wednesday declined to comment on the spate of reproaches over his stands on gay marriage and the Iraq war.

“He doesn’t have to respond yet,” said Rich Galen, a Republican consultant. “If I were advising McCain, I’d say wait until somebody makes a dent.”

John McCain is the front-runner for the Republican presidential ticket--regardless of whether McCain announces his intention of running or not. McCain will run. It is just a question of when he announces his candidacy. The real problem for McCain is that the longer he keeps quiet on his presidential ambitions, the more contradicts himself as he continues to court the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party with hard-lined conservative views for the Republican nomination, at the expense of potential moderate and independent voters he may need in the 2008 general election. Consider this in the MSNBC story:

On his right flank, the 2006 midterm campaign was barely over when a potential aspirant for the GOP presidential nomination, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, called McCain “disingenuous” on gay marriage. McCain has irked social conservatives with his opposition to a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. He says the issue should be left to the states.

“I believe in the sanctity and unique role of marriage between man and woman, but I certainly don’t believe in discriminating against any American,” McCain said in November. He added: “I believe that gay marriage should not be legal.”

Seeking to be seen as more conservative than McCain on issues dear to the right flank, Romney seized on the comments, saying: “That’s his position, and in my opinion, it’s disingenuous.

“Look, if somebody says they’re in favor of gay marriage, I respect that view. If someone says, like I do, that I oppose same-sex marriage, I respect that view. But those who try and pretend to have it both ways, I find it to be disingenuous,” Romney added.

And not only is McCain contradicting himself as he courts the right-wing of the Republican Party, but he's also targeting himself by the Democrats with his hard-lined support for the war. Also in the MSNBC story:

More recently, Democrats who are running for president have assailed McCain over his call for President Bush to send tens of thousands more U.S. troops to Iraq — a stance that conflicts sharply with public opinion about the unpopular war.

Just after announcing a second presidential run last week, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards criticized McCain’s position on Iraq — and gave it a name.

“It would be an enormous mistake to adopt the McCain doctrine and escalate the war,” Edwards said in Iowa, the first state to hold a presidential caucus. He later added that while he knows and likes McCain, the senator is “dead wrong.”

A few weeks earlier, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack made the same argument in New Hampshire, home to the nation’s first primary, during his campaign kickoff, saying: “I fundamentally disagree with Senator McCain on this. I think he is wrong. We cannot afford to make a big mistake bigger.”

Vilsack also sent a letter to that effect to McCain.

And New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat who is considering a presidential run, has weighed in as well. In a speech in New Hampshire last month, he said McCain’s plan would only provoke sectarian violence.

“There is no military solution. There’s got to be a political solution,” Richardson said.

If the Iraq war continues to be a disaster later on this year--even after Bush sends his surge of 20,000 more American troops in Iraq--McCain is going to have an impossible time trying to explain himself with his support for increasing American forces in Iraq, if such an increase fails. Even more, how will McCain explain himself to an American public that is both against the war, and wants the U.S. to pull out of Iraq? McCain is painting himself into a corner here. And it is going to come back to haunt him next yea

Democrats Take the Gavels in Congress

Newly elected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, holds up the gavel surrounded by children and grandchildren of members of Congress in the U.S. Capitol in Washington Thursday, Jan. 4, 2007. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Now we get to see what happens with the Democrats in control of Congress. From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 — Jubilant Democrats took the gavels in the Senate and House today for the first time in 12 years, pledging a new era in Congress and a new effort at bipartisan progress.

“I accept this gavel in the spirit of partnership, not partisanship,” said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California after her election as the first woman in the nation’s history to be Speaker of the House.

Ms. Pelosi, whose party has 233 of the 435 seats in the new House, said she looked forward to working with Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the new Republican minority leader, who said the gavel was “on loan from the American people,” and that Republicans and Democrats could “disagree without being disagreeable to each other.”

[....]

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the new Senate majority leader, sounded a similar theme. “With the opening of the 110th Congress and the beginning of new Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, it’s time to start moving America forward,” he said. “Guided by the spirit of bipartisanship, Democrats are ready to take this country in a new direction.”

New Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) (R), and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (2nd L) talk to reporters after a bipartisan caucus in the Old Senate Chamber on the first day of the 110th Congress at the Capitol in Washington January 4, 2007. Also pictured is Senator Trent Lott (R-MI) (L) new Minority Whip. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

But Ms. Pelosi made it quite clear earlier that her party intends to flex its newly acquired muscle, as she presided over the swearing-in of the leadership of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, headed by Representative Kendrick Meek of Florida.

“The Democrats are back, and the C.B.C. is in the lead, in the lead!” Ms. Pelosi exulted. Throwing a dart at Republicans, she envisioned “a new direction that is there for all of the people, not just the privileged few,” a direction that “builds and strengthens the middle class.”

As Ms. Pelosi assumed power, her predecessor sat quietly at his desk. Representative J. Dennis Hastert, who turned 65 on Tuesday, is now just a Republican congressman from Illinois, out of the Speaker’s chair and out of the leadership.

Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert(R) watches the nomination procedure of Speaker of the House-elect Nancy Pelosi from the back of the room during a swearing in ceremony for the 110th Congress in the House Chamber of the US Capitol in Washington, DC.(AFP/Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla)

The Democrats are back in power! Now the real work begins.

Some more thoughts on the upcoming Bush troop increase

I'd like to continue here on some of the comments I've made regarding President Bush's proposed troop increases. I originally started commenting on this issue through my posting of Keith Olbermann's Special Commentary on the American troop surge and Bush's proposed calls for "sacrifice." There are two major stories regarding this issue. The first is the breaking BBC story on this troop surge:

US President George W Bush intends to reveal a new Iraq strategy within days, the BBC has learnt.

The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq to focus on ways of bringing greater security, rather than training Iraqi forces.

The move comes with figures from Iraqi ministries suggesting that deaths among civilians are at record highs.

The US president arrived back in Washington on Monday after a week-long holiday at his ranch in Texas.

The BBC was told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush's Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week.

Its central theme will be sacrifice.

The speech, the BBC has been told, involves increasing troop numbers.

The exact mission of the extra troops in Iraq is still under discussion, according to officials, but it is likely to focus on providing security rather than training Iraqi forces.

The proposal, if it comes, will be highly controversial.

Already one senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland.

The need to find some way of pacifying Iraq has been underlined by statistics revealed by various ministries in the Iraqi government, suggesting that well over 1,000 civilians a month are dying.

First I want to say that I'm not surprised that the Bush administration is proposing this troop surge. There have been plenty of rumors and stories in the mainstream media, over the past couple of months, saying that the Bush White House is considering adding more troops. On January 1, 2007, I posted a story where the Bush administration was considering sending an increase of 20,000 American troops into Iraq, but that Marine Corps General James Conway wondered if there was a justifiable military reason for this increase. I also have a December 20, 2006 story, where Secretary of State Condi Rice said that President Bush was considering an increase of American troops in Iraq. And I have a December 19, 2006 story, where the Bush White House and the Joint Chiefs engaged in a major argument over the troop surge. So this proposed Bush troop surge has been bandied about for some time--perhaps ever since the Iraq Study Group's report has been released.

But the BBC story does present one incredible detail regarding this proposed surge. And that is the new Bush theme of "sacrifice." This sacrifice theme is just another Bush PR-ploy in continuing to sell this disaster of a war to the American people, even though the American people have expressed their desire for getting out of Iraq. The BBC story says that Bush will make a speech regarding this troop increase within days--probably during Bush's State of the Union Speech. The State of the Union speech is a perfect time for this announcement. Since this story of the troop surge has likely been leaked to the media by Bush officials, the mainstream media will spend a huge amount of time spinning this increase before Bush's SOTU address. Bush will certainly weave this theme of sacrifice in his SOTU speech, perhaps invoking a number of references from Franklin Roosevelt. I can certainly see Bush trying to equate his new theme of sacrifice in the global war on terror, with that of FDR asking the American people to make sacrifices during the Second World War. We'll have to see what happens when President Bush makes his SOTU address.

The second story I want to talk about here is this MSNBC story on the Bush troop surge:

WASHINGTON - Although nothing is final until President Bush puts his stamp on it, administration officials tell NBC News the president has all but decided on a temporary surge of additional American forces into Iraq in an effort to bring sectarian violence in Baghdad under control.

While no one is talking specific numbers, military officials believe it would involve some 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines.

Most of the increase would be achieved by extending the deployments of those troops already in Iraq by 90 days and accelerating the deployments for troops scheduled to deploy by sending them into Iraq sooner.

Administration and some military officials believe that without adequate security, particularly in Baghdad, any progress in Iraq would be difficult if not impossible.

Once the level of violence is brought under control, the U.S. military could then conceivably concentrate on accelerating the training for Iraqi security forces and the turnover of more territory to the Iraqis.

There are a couple of details in this story that is not found in the BBC story. First, there is the continued confirmation that this surge will be around 20,000 troops. This number has also been raised countless times over the past couple of months. The MSNBC story provides more details on this strategy, where the surge of American troops will be needed to provide greater security around Baghdad before the U.S. can provide accelerated training of Iraqi security forces. Instead of increasing American forces in Iraq to provide training, we get this complicated plan of increasing American troops to provide security before we can train the Iraqi forces. The big question to ask here is how long will it take for this small surge of 20,000 American troops can provide enough security in Iraq so that they can accelerate the training of Iraqi security forces? Because I don't think that an increase of 20,000 American troops will be enough to provide security in Iraq, or even Baghdad.

But there is more in this MSNBC story:

But administration officials stress the military option is only one part of a larger, more comprehensive strategy.

The plan also would throw more U.S. money at Iraq for reconstruction and a jobs program.

In addition, the U.S. would turn up the political heat by pressuring the Shiite-led government to aggressively crack down on the Shiite militias, particularly the Mahdi Army led by Muqtada al-Sadr, believed responsible for killing hundreds of Iraqi Sunnis in a bloody round of sectarian retributions.

At the same time the U.S. would appeal to moderate Sunnis to work harder to reach some kind of conciliation with the Shiite majority or risk being entirely shut out of any future government in Iraq.

The plan, of course, is fraught with peril. Some U.S. generals — and many experts outside the current military — warn that a short-term surge in forces will not have any long-term effect on the violence in Iraq. Even worse, they fear it will result in a dramatic increase in American casualties, just as the number of U.S. forces killed in the Iraq war has topped 3,000.

Talk about a huge contradiction here! First, the Bush administration wants the Iraqi government to crack down on the Shiite militias that are engaging in a civil war with the Sunnis. The Maliki government is not going to even attempt to crack down on Sadr's Mahdi Army--not unless Maliki wants to commit political suicide. Second, Bush is continuing to side with the Shiites in this ethnic civil war, mainly by continuing to support Maliki, over that of the Sunnis. There is no way the Sunnis are going to reconciliate with the U.S. here. Finally, if the Bush administration either forces Maliki to crack down on Sadr's army, or have U.S. troops attempt to crack down on the Shiite militias, then those U.S. soldiers in Iraq are going to be targeted by both Shiites and Sunnis. It is bad enough that U.S. forces are sitting in a county engaged in an ethnic and religious civil war, but it is going to be a real disaster if the U.S. starts picking sides in this war.

White House musical chairs: Miers resigns from White House counsel, Negroponte moves from Intel czar to No. 2 position at State

This is going to be a busy day for news at the Bush White House. We're seeing another game of musical chairs going on here. I'm going to start with this Washington Post story, titled Miers Resigns As White House Counsel:

WASHINGTON -- Harriet Miers, President Bush's failed Supreme Court nominee and longtime adviser, on Thursday submitted her resignation as White House counsel.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the president reluctantly accepted her resignation, which takes effect Jan. 31. He said a search for a successor is under way.

White House counsel Harriet Miers is seen in this October 20, 2005 file photo in Washington. Miers, whose nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court justice was withdrawn, has resigned effective Jan. 31, the White House said on Thursday. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts (UNITED STATES)

Bush nominated Miers in October 2005 to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, but she dropped out under fire from conservatives who questioned her qualifications and would not support her.

Asked why she was leaving, Snow said: "Basically, she has been here six years."

He said Miers, 61, a loyal adviser to the president for years, has been having conversations with White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten about leaving for some time and both agreed that it was time for a change at the White House office of legal counsel.

[....]

Snow said Miers' departure did not signal the beginning of an exodus of senior officials after six bruising years at the White House. Asked if other officials were poised to go, Snow said, "I'm aware of none and anticipate none."

You have to love this Tony Snow quote of how Bush officials are not leaving after six years--Sorry, no exodus here! They may not be leaving the administration, but they are certainly shifting their chairs here. We have Miers leaving the White House today, and just yesterday the news broke that intelligence czar John Negroponte is moving to the State Department. This is from the New York Times, titled Intelligence Chief to Shift to Deputy State Dept. Post:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 — John D. Negroponte, whom President Bush installed less than two years ago as the first director of national intelligence, will soon leave his post to become the State Department’s second-ranking official, administration officials said Wednesday.

Mr. Negroponte will fill a critical job that has been vacant for months, and he is expected to play a leading role in shaping policy in Iraq. But his transfer is another blow to an intelligence community that has seen little continuity at the top since the departure of George J. Tenet in 2004 as director of central intelligence.

Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte steps to the podium to deliver remarks at Georgetown University in Washington in this Friday, Feb. 17, 2006 file photo. Negroponte will resign after 20 months in the job to become the deputy secretary of state, two U.S. government officials said Wednesday night, Jan. 3, 2007. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

Mr. Negroponte had been brought to the intelligence job to help restore credibility and effectiveness to agencies whose reputations were badly damaged by failures related to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and mistaken prewar assessments of Iraq’s illicit weapons. He has maintained a low public profile but provides Mr. Bush with a briefing most mornings.

President Bush has hailed the establishment of the intelligence post as an essential step in helping prevent another terrorist attack. On paper, the director of national intelligence outranks the deputy secretary of state, raising questions about why the White House would seek — and why Mr. Negroponte would agree to — the shift.

The move, expected to be announced this week, comes as the president prepares to announce a new strategy for Iraq as sectarian violence worsens there and approval ratings sag at home.

The administration has had great difficulty filling the State Department position. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked several people who have turned down the post, according to senior State Department officials.

But administration officials interviewed on Wednesday would not say whether Mr. Negroponte was moving because the White House saw him as uniquely qualified for the diplomatic post, or because President Bush was dissatisfied with his performance as intelligence chief, or whether it was a combination of the two.

Mr. Negroponte has served as ambassador to the United Nations and to Iraq, and administration officials say Ms. Rice was trying to recruit him to bring more Iraq expertise to her office.

Administration officials from two different agencies said Wednesday that the leading candidate to become the new intelligence chief is J. Michael McConnell, a retired vice admiral who led the National Security Agency from 1992 to 1996. Admiral McConnell was head of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Gen. Colin L. Powell during the first Persian Gulf war, in 1991.

Something is going on here that I just can't put my finger on. Are the rats leaving this sinking Bush ship? Is there a power struggle going on in the Bush administration between the PNAC neocons and the newly arriving real politick people who served under Poppy Bush--think Robert Gates replacing Don Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary. Are we seeing another buildup of a siege mentality in the Bush White House--especially now that the Democrats are opening the new session of the 110th Congress, where investigations into the Bush scandals will be starting soon? I would even have to wonder if there is a connection between Negroponte's move to State and Bush's upcoming announcement of increasing American troops in the Iraq war, considering his "expertise" on Iraq that Secretary of State Condi Rice has never had.

Something is going on in the Bush White House. We'll just have to wait for more to come.

Pat Robertson: God told me of 'mass killing' in 2007

This is to be filed under What the Frack? From CNN.Com:

VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia (AP) -- Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday that God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would cause a "mass killing" late in 2007.

"I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

"The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."

Robertson said God told him about the impending tragedy during a recent prayer retreat.

God also said, he claims, that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.

I think what is even more amazing is that there are plenty religious wing-nuts who will believe Robertson's "prediction." And I would guess that they'll give even more money to Pat through his 700 Club.

Incredible.

Spiderman takes on the Bush administration!

Spiderman takes on the Bush administration in this latest Marvel Comics’ edition "Civil War."

I'm just going to post this story here--I'm not even sure how to comment on this. All I can say is that the last thing I would want to do is to piss off Spiderman. This is from the Examiner.com:

Spider-Man lassos White House in his web

It’s hard not to think of the Bush administration when thumbing through the latest “The Amazing Spider-Man” comic (#536).

First, some background (and you probably don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see the parallels): In Marvel Comics’ — ahem — “Civil War” story arc, the U.S. government passes the “Superhuman Registration Act” after hundreds of innocent American men, women and children become collateral damage in a superhero-related tragedy (the president of the United States even swings by the disaster site to assess the damage). The act mandates registration of all superheroes with the government. Spider-Man initially supports the act but then grows suspicious after discovering that unregistered captives are being held without civil rights at an off-shore prison called “the Negative Zone” (oh, and the prison was built with a no-bid contract). Detainees will remain there for life if they don’t register.

Now, to the present: In this latest Spider-Man comic, America’s favorite swinging web-slinger takes to New York City’s airwaves to publicly denounce the act.

“I’ve seen the very concept of justice destroyed,” Spidey begins (as written by J. Michael Straczynski). “I’ve seen heroes and bad guys alike — dangerous guys, no mistake, but still born in this country for the most part, denied due process, and imprisoned, potentially for the rest of their lives. … But there’s a point where the ends don’t justify the means, if the means require us to give up not just our identities, but who and what we are as a country.”

David Cassel, a Spider-Man fan and editor of 10zenmonkeys.com, said in response, “In thirty years of reading Spider-Man, I’ve never seen an attack so direct.”

No word yet if the Bush administration is actively courting the Batman vote in response.

Bush: What the Congress Can Do for America

President Bush has now written an editorial from the Wall Street Journal:

Tomorrow, members of the 110th Congress will take their oaths of office here in Washington. I will have the privilege of working with them for the next two years--one quarter of my presidency, plenty of time to accomplish important things for the American people.

Together, we have a chance to serve the American people by solving the complex problems that many don't expect us to tackle, let alone solve, in the partisan environment of today's Washington. To do that, however, we can't play politics as usual. Democrats will control the House and Senate, and therefore we share the responsibility for what we achieve.

In the days and weeks since the November elections, I have been encouraged by the productive meetings I've had with many of the new leaders in Congress from both parties. I am hopeful we can find common ground without compromising our principles.

You've got to love the Bush PR-spin here. For three quarters of his presidency, George Bush was responsible for creating the divisive, "partisan environment of today’s Washington." For three quarters of his presidency, George Bush chose politics over policy on the issues that this country faces. For three quarters of his presidency, George Bush has refused to compromise with the Democrats on any law, issue, or policy. For three quarters of his presidency, George Bush both ignored the Democrats' views on issues, and then demonized the Democrats for expressing opposition to his neoconservative ideology. For three quarters of his presidency, George Bush forced the Republicans in Congress to subvert themselves as a rubber-stamp to be used at George Bush's whim, rather than to be a co-equal branch of government.

And now look at what Bush is saying in this Journal article. With the Democrats now taking control of Congress, George Bush is asking the Democrats to not play partisan politics, when he has consistently done so. George Bush is asking the Democrats to compromise on their own principles, while he consistently refuses to do so. George Bush is asking the Democrats to continue being subservient to this administration--to continue playing the rubber-stamp Congress. The hypocrisy here is incredible.

I'm not saying that the Democrats in Congress should play the same partisan political games that the Bush administration forced upon them for the past six years. What the Democrats need to realize here is that this Bush editorial is nothing more than a fig leaf--President Bush has no intention of working with the Democratic Congress, or even compromising. The Democrats are going to have to find a way to force Bush to seriously compromise on legislation. They are going to have to throw out the rubber stamps, and start working as a co-equal branch of government--especially in investigating the six years of Bush scandals and corruption for which the Republicans have failed to perform any oversight on the president. This Bush administration has shown itself to play the political PR-spin game again and again on every issue. This editorial by the president is just another example of this PR-spin. The Democrats will need to demand that President Bush show concrete deeds and actions, rather than hollow words.

Because that is all we've been getting from this administration for the past six years.

McCain: The Ideological Flip-Flopper!

I found this story through Americablog, and I'll admit that it is incredible--but perhaps not surprising. What is surprising is that it is being reported through the original source, Vanity Fair:

John McCain has spent this whole day, this whole year, these whole last six years, trying to "fix it," trying to square the circle: that is, trying to make the maverick, freethinking impulses that first made him into a political star somehow compatible with the suck-it-up adherence to the orthodoxies required of a Republican presidential front-runner. McCain opposes a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, but supports a ballot measure that would do just that in his home state of Arizona. (It would fail in the midterm elections.) His short-term reward for the Hardball bunt on gay marriage? Boos from the audience and a headline on the Drudge Report, the right wing's favorite screechy early-warning system, reading, mccain: gay marriage should be allowed? McCain needs to square that circle, and the hell of it is, he just can't.

But God knows McCain is trying. He began this mid-October day in Sioux City, appearing at a fund-raising Siouxland Breakfast for Representative Steve King, an immigration hard-liner. Recently he had called McCain an "amnesty mercenary" for daring to work with Senator Ted Kennedy on a compromise bill that would provide an eventual path to citizenship for the millions of immigrant workers already in the United States illegally. A day earlier, in Milwaukee, in front of an audience of more sympathetic businessmen, McCain had been asked how debate over the immigration bill was playing politically. "In the short term, it probably galvanizes our base," he said. "In the long term, if you alienate the Hispanics, you'll pay a heavy price." Then he added, unable to help himself, "By the way, I think the fence is least effective. But I'll build the goddamned fence if they want it."

[....]

But the plain truth is that the Straight Talk Express, Version 2.008, is often a far cry from the Magic Bus of 2000.

"Let me give you a little straight talk," McCain tells the crowd at a house-party fund-raiser in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for Senator John Thune, the Christian conservative and self-styled "servant leader" who defeated the Senate's Democratic leader, Tom Daschle, in 2004. The minute Thune was elected, McCain says, he became an important figure in the Republican Party and the Senate.

That's not straight talk. That's partisan pap. Nor, presumably, was it straight talk last summer at an Aspen Institute discussion when McCain struggled to articulate his position on the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. At first, according to two people who were present, McCain said he believed that intelligent design, which proponents portray as a more intellectually respectable version of biblical creationism, should be taught in science classes. But then, in the face of intense skepticism from his listeners, he kept modifying his views—going into reverse evolution.

"Yes, he's a social conservative, but his heart isn't in this stuff," one former aide told me, referring to McCain's instinctual unwillingness to impose on others his personal views about issues such as religion, sexuality, and abortion. "But he has to pretend [that it is], and he's not a good enough actor to pull it off. He just can't fake it well enough."

The simple fact is this. John McCain's personal ambitions of becoming president in 2008 have blinded him from his obligations as a public servant to the American people for this job. McCain will lie to the American people, if it will help him get elected to the White House. McCain will pander to any interest group that will help him get elected--look at how McCain claims he's for intelligent design at the Aspen Institute's discussion, to make the religious right wing-nuts happy, and then reverses himself when confronted with skepticism by his audience? And now we're hearing from a McCain campaign aid that he is just faking it?

This is not the kind of man we need in the White House in 2008.

Olbermann: Our meaningless sacrifice in Iraq must stop!

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann just keeps getting better with his Special Comments here. Olbermann now attacks President Bush's "new Iraq strategy" of increasing American forces there by 20,000 more combat troops "for the stated purpose of increasing security in and around Baghdad, and giving an Iraqi government a chance to establish some kind of order." This story was first reported by the BBC News, which also revealed that the Bush White House is planning to wrap this troop increase in a PR-veil of "sacrifice" as a means of selling this latest disaster to the American people.

Here's Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on Countdown. I'll include the written transcript below. From YouTube:



There are a couple items in this commentary that really strike me. First, Olbermann gives warnings to both the Republican and Democratic parties regarding this war as the 110th Congress convenes today. For the Republicans, Olbermann asks that they break away from the divisive partisanship that President Bush has sown for the last six years, and call for the end of this war--the withdrawal of the troops. The American public has made their own intentions clear on Iraq through both the political polls and last November's elections. It is time for the U.S. to get out of Iraq. For if the Republicans continue this "stay the course" strategy, and even adopt President Bush's plan to increase the troops, the Republican Party could face even greater election losses in both Congress and the White House in 2008.

Olbermann also gives a warning to the Democrats. The Democrats are now in control of Congress. They are going to have to find a way to get out of Iraq. The American people want out of Iraq. Yet the Democratic Congress is in a tougher situation here. For if the bad news continues to get worst in Iraq, the Bush administration will find ways to place the entire blame of the war on the Democrats, rather than the Bush White House. The Bush White House still has a strong marketing and PR-team. While they may not be successful in marketing their war in Iraq, they can still shift their strategy and claim that it is the Democrats fault for losing the war. President Bush will try to keep this war going until the next president is sworn into office in 2009. Bush will then wash his hands of Iraq, and blame the 2009 president--especially if he or she is a Democrat--for causing the U.S. to lose Iraq.

That is really what this surge of troops is about. To continue on this senseless war. To keep history from blaming the Bush administration for losing Iraq. To keep President Bush's legacy intact! President Bush knows that if American troops are withdrawn from Iraq before his term expires, then the failure of this war is placed solely on his administration. This is something President Bush cannot accept. He's already had Daddy Bush offer him a bailout of his administration's failure in Iraq with Jim Baker's Iraq Study Group report, but Georgie Junior rejected it. To accept the Iraq Study Group's recommendations would mean that Daddy Bush was right in not going to Baghdad and finishing the job in the First Gulf War, that the PNAC Doctrine--which has been the cornerstone for this Bush administration's foreign policy--is a disaster as a foreign policy program, and that George W. Bush is both a failed son and a failed president, sitting under the shadow of his father George Herbert Walker Bush. So George W. Bush is going to do everything to keep this war alive for the next two years. He is willing to sacrifice thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and the wounded, for his own presidential legacy. He is willing to force others to sacrifice their own lives and limbs for his own ego.

That is what this war has now become.

Here is the transcript of Olbermann's Special Comment from MSNBC:

If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene?

Would you at least protest?

What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them?

What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them — and was then to announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more?

This is where we stand tonight with the BBC report of President Bush’s “new Iraq strategy,” and his impending speech to the nation, which, according to a quoted senior American official, will be about troop increases and “sacrifice.”

The president has delayed, dawdled and deferred for the month since the release of the Iraq Study Group.

He has seemingly heard out everybody, and listened to none of them.

If the BBC is right — and we can only pray it is not — he has settled on the only solution all the true experts agree cannot possibly work: more American personnel in Iraq, not as trainers for Iraqi troops, but as part of some flabby plan for “sacrifice.”

Sacrifice!

More American servicemen and women will have their lives risked.

More American servicemen and women will have their lives ended.

More American families will have to bear the unbearable and rationalize the unforgivable —“sacrifice” — sacrifice now, sacrifice tomorrow, sacrifice forever.

And more Americans — more even than the two-thirds who already believe we need fewer troops in Iraq, not more — will have to conclude the president does not have any idea what he’s doing — and that other Americans will have to die for that reason.

It must now be branded as propaganda — for even the president cannot truly feel that very many people still believe him to be competent in this area, let alone “the decider.”

But from our impeccable reporter at the Pentagon, Jim Miklaszewski, tonight comes confirmation of something called “surge and accelerate” — as many as 20,000 additional troops —f or “political purposes” ...

This, in line with what we had previously heard, that this will be proclaimed a short-term measure, for the stated purpose of increasing security in and around Baghdad, and giving an Iraqi government a chance to establish some kind of order.

This is palpable nonsense, Mr. Bush.

If this is your intention — if the centerpiece of your announcement next week will be “sacrifice” — sacrifice your intention, not more American lives!

As Sen. Joseph Biden has pointed out, the new troops might improve the ratio our forces face relative to those living in Baghdad (friend and foe), from 200 to 1, to just 100 to 1.

“Sacrifice?”

No.

A drop in the bucket.

The additional men and women you have sentenced to go there, sir, will serve only as targets.

They will not be there “short-term,” Mr. Bush; for many it will mean a year or more in death’s shadow.

This is not temporary, Mr. Bush.

For the Americans who will die because of you, it will be as permanent as it gets.

The various rationales for what Mr. Bush will reportedly re-christen “sacrifice” constitute a very thin gruel, indeed.

The former labor secretary, Robert Reich, says Sen. John McCain told him that the “surge” would help the “morale” of the troops already in Iraq.

If Mr. McCain truly said that, and truly believes it, he has either forgotten completely his own experience in Vietnam ... or he is unaware of the recent Military Times poll indicating only 38 percent of our active military want to see more troops sent ... or Mr. McCain has departed from reality.

Then there is the argument that to take any steps toward reducing troop numbers would show weakness to the enemy in Iraq, or to the terrorists around the world.

This simplistic logic ignores the inescapable fact that we have indeed already showed weakness to the enemy, and to the terrorists.

We have shown them that we will let our own people be killed for no good reason.

We have now shown them that we will continue to do so.

We have shown them our stupidity.

Mr. Bush, your judgment about Iraq — and now about “sacrifice” — is at variance with your people’s, to the point of delusion.

Your most respected generals see no value in a “surge” — they could not possibly see it in this madness of “sacrifice.”

The Iraq Study Group told you it would be a mistake.

Perhaps dozens more have told you it would be a mistake.

And you threw their wisdom back, until you finally heard what you wanted to hear, like some child drawing straws and then saying “best two out of three … best three out of five … hundredth one counts.”

Your citizens, the people for whom you work, have told you they do not want this, and moreover, they do not want you to do this.

Yet once again, sir, you have ignored all of us.

Mr. Bush, you do not own this country!

To those Republicans who have not broken free from the slavery of partisanship — those bonded still, to this president and this administration, and now bonded to this “sacrifice” —proceed at your own peril.

John McCain may still hear the applause of small crowds — he has somehow inured himself to the hypocrisy, and the tragedy, of a man who considers himself the ultimate realist, courting the votes of those who support the government telling visitors to the Grand Canyon that it was caused by the Great Flood.

That Mr. McCain is selling himself off to the irrational right, parcel by parcel, like some great landowner facing bankruptcy, seems to be obvious to everybody but himself.

Or, maybe it is obvious to him and he simply no longer cares.

But to the rest of you in the Republican Party:

We need you to speak up, right now, in defense of your country’s most precious assets — the lives of its citizens who are in harm’s way.

If you do not, you are not serving this nation’s interests — nor your own.

November should have told you this.

The opening of the new Congress on Wednesday and Thursday should tell you this.

Next time, those missing Republicans will be you.

And to the Democrats now yoked to the helm of this sinking ship, you proceed at your own peril, as well.

President Bush may not be very good at reality, but he and Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rove are still gifted at letting American troops be killed, and then turning their deaths to their own political advantage.

The equation is simple. This country does not want more troops in Iraq.

It wants fewer.

Go and make it happen, or go and look for other work.

Yet you Democrats must assume that even if you take the most obvious of courses, and cut off funding for the war, Mr. Bush will ignore you as long as possible, or will find the money elsewhere, or will spend the money meant to protect the troops, and re-purpose it to keep as many troops there as long as he can keep them there.

Because that’s what this is all about, is it not, Mr. Bush?

That is what this “sacrifice” has been for.

To continue this senseless, endless war.

You have dressed it up in the clothing, first of a hunt for weapons of mass destruction, then of liberation ... then of regional imperative ... then of oil prices ... and now in these new terms of “sacrifice” — it’s like a damned game of Colorforms, isn’t it, sir?

This senseless, endless war.

But — it has not been senseless in two ways.

It has succeeded, Mr. Bush, in enabling you to deaden the collective mind of this country to the pointlessness of endless war, against the wrong people, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

It has gotten many of us used to the idea — the virtual “white noise” — of conflict far away, of the deaths of young Americans, of vague “sacrifice” for some fluid cause, too complicated to be interpreted except in terms of the very important-sounding but ultimately meaningless phrase “the war on terror.”

And the war’s second accomplishment — your second accomplishment, sir — is to have taken money out of the pockets of every American, even out of the pockets of the dead soldiers on the battlefield, and their families, and to have given that money to the war profiteers.

Because if you sell the Army a thousand Humvees, you can’t sell them any more until the first thousand have been destroyed.

The service men and women are ancillary to the equation.

This is about the planned obsolescence of ordnance, isn’t, Mr. Bush? And the building of detention centers? And the design of a $125 million courtroom complex at Gitmo, complete with restaurants.

At least the war profiteers have made their money, sir.

And we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.

You have insisted, Mr. Bush, that we must not lose in Iraq, that if we don’t fight them there we will fight them here — as if the corollary were somehow true, that if by fighting them there we will not have to fight them here.

And yet you have re-made our country, and not re-made it for the better, on the premise that we need to be ready to “fight them here,” anyway, and always.

In point of fact even if the civil war in Iraq somehow ended tomorrow, and the risk to Americans there ended with it, we would have already suffered a defeat — not fatal, not world-changing, not, but for the lives lost, of enduring consequence.

But this country has already lost in Iraq, sir.

Your policy in Iraq has already had its crushing impact on our safety here.

You have already fomented new terrorism and new terrorists.

You have already stoked paranoia.

You have already pitted Americans, one against the other.

We ... will have to live with it.

We ... will have to live with what — of the fabric of our nation — you have already “sacrificed.”

The only object still admissible in this debate is the quickest and safest exit for our people there.

But you — and soon, Mr. Bush, it will be you and you alone — still insist otherwise.

And our sons and daughters and fathers and mothers will be sacrificed there tonight, sir, so that you can say you did not “lose in Iraq.”

Our policy in Iraq has been criticized for being indescribable, for being inscrutable, for being ineffable.

But it is all too easily understood now.

First we sent Americans to their deaths for your lie, Mr. Bush.

Now we are sending them to their deaths for your ego.

If what is reported is true — if your decision is made and the “sacrifice” is ordered — take a page instead from the man at whose funeral you so eloquently spoke this morning — Gerald Ford:

Put pragmatism and the healing of a nation ahead of some kind of misguided vision.

Atone.

Sacrifice, Mr. Bush?

No, sir, this is not “sacrifice.” This has now become “human sacrifice.”

And it must stop.

And you can stop it.

Next week, make us all look wrong.

Our meaningless sacrifice in Iraq must stop.

And you must stop it.

The latest in trend in law enforcement--Rent-A-Cops!

I found this off The Washington Post:

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Kevin Watt crouched down to search the rusted Cadillac he had stopped for cruising the parking lot of a Raleigh apartment complex with a broken light. He pulled out two open Bud Light cans, an empty Corona bottle, rolling papers, a knife, a hammer, a stereo speaker, and a car radio with wires sprouting out.

"Who's this belong to, man?" Watt asked the six young Latino men he had frisked and lined up behind the car. Five were too young to drink. None had a driver's license. One had under his hooded sweat shirt the tattoo of a Hispanic gang across his back.

A gang initiation, Watt thought.

With the sleeve patch on his black shirt, the 9mm gun on his hip and the blue light on his patrol car, he looked like an ordinary police officer as he stopped the car on a Friday night last month. Watt works, though, for a business called Capitol Special Police. It is one of dozens of private security companies given police powers by the state of North Carolina -- and part of a pattern across the United States in which public safety is shifting into private hands.

Private firms with outright police powers have been proliferating in some places -- and trying to expand their terrain. The "company police agencies," as businesses such as Capitol Special Police are called here, are lobbying the state legislature to broaden their jurisdiction, currently limited to the private property of those who hire them, to adjacent streets. Elsewhere -- including wealthy gated communities in South Florida and the Tri-Rail commuter trains between Miami and West Palm Beach -- private security patrols without police authority carry weapons, sometimes dress like SWAT teams and make citizen's arrests.

In other words, we've got private security firms patrolling public streets as regular police officers. This is disturbing. When you look at the above story, this security officer Kevin Watt is patrolling an area armed with a handgun. What kind of firearms training has Capitol Special Police given to Watt? If Watt had to draw his gun, shoot and kill one of the Latino men in a violently escalating situation, what would have been the consequences of this supposed shooting and killing? It is bad enough for police to be shooting, and possibly killing, suspects during the course of their law enforcement duties, but to have a private security office shoot and kill a suspect while engaging in duties reserved for law enforcement officials? Continuing with the WaPost story:

Private security guards have outnumbered police officers since the 1980s, predating the heightened concern about security brought on by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. What is new is that police forces, including the Durham Police Department here in North Carolina's Research Triangle, are increasingly turning to private companies for help. Moreover, private-sector security is expanding into spheres -- complex criminal investigations and patrols of downtown districts and residential neighborhoods -- that used to be the province of law enforcement agencies alone.

The more than 1 million contract security officers, and an equal number of guards estimated to work directly for U.S. corporations, dwarf the nearly 700,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the United States. The enormous Wackenhut Corp. guards the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and screens visitors to the Statue of Liberty.

"You can see the public police becoming like the public health system," said Thomas M. Seamon, a former deputy police commissioner for Philadelphia who is president of Hallcrest Systems Inc., a leading security consultant. "It's basically, the government provides a certain base level. If you want more than that, you pay for it yourself."

I'm not sure I like the idea of the public police becoming like the public health system. In our disaster of a public health system, the richer you are, the greater the quality and amount of health services you can get for your money. Those who are poor, or uninsured, have almost no health care, or they go to the emergency room for medical care at the state's expense. You can almost see where this will go regarding police services. Wealthy cities and towns will contract out more police services to private companies, while poorer cities and towns will rely solely on local police services--perhaps even cutting back on the local police budget when money is tight. With less police officers on the streets of poorer cities and towns, the crime rate may start to rise in those areas. Taxpayers in wealthy cities and towns will complain that their tax dollars are being used to subsidize law enforcement for the poorer cities, while they are paying for more law enforcement with their own local police services and the police services provided by the private contractors. Are we going to see a two-tiered police protection in our society--between the haves and have-nots?

And there is more here in the WaPost article:

The trend is triggering debate over whether the privatization of public safety is wise. Some police and many security officials say communities benefit from the extra eyes and ears. Yet civil libertarians, academics, tenants rights organizations and even a trade group that represents the nation's large security firms say some private security officers are not adequately trained or regulated. Ten states in the South and West do not regulate them at all.

Some warn, too, that the constitutional safeguards that cover police questioning and searches do not apply in the private sector. In Boston, tenants groups have complained that "special police," hired by property managers to keep low-income apartment complexes orderly, were overstepping their bounds, arresting young men who lived there for trespassing.

In 2005, three of the private officers were charged with assault after they approached a man talking on a cellphone outside his front door. They asked for identification and, when he refused, followed him inside and beat him in front of his wife and three children.

Lisa Thurau-Gray, director of the Juvenile Justice Center at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, said private police "are focusing on the priority of their employer, rather than the priority of public safety and individual rights." But Boston police Sgt. Raymond Mosher, who oversees licensing of special police, says such instances are rare.

Private security companies will have a greater interest in maintaining their profits, rather than performing a public service of policing public areas. The danger here is that if costs increase to the point of eroding their profit margin, then these companies are certainly going to start cutting costs on training new security officers--especially if there is a lack of state or federal regulations regarding the training programs for these new "private police officers." And if these security firms are publicly traded companies, then they are going to be under even more pressure by Wall Street to maintain their profit margins. There is the lack of constitutional safeguards which apply to these private police officers. Police officers in the United States operate under a defined criminal procedure, using probable cause as the standard for arresting a suspect. There is a specific legal system here in place in which a police officer must adhere to when performing his or her job duties. If an officer deviates from this system, then there are legal procedures to investigate or discipline the officer's conduct. A police officer cannot simply barge into a man's home and beat him up in front of his wife and children. What constitutional safeguards are there to protect the public from the use of excessive force from these rent-a-cops? And if these rent-a-cops do cross over the line, which provides constitutional protections to the public, what procedures are there to punish these rent-a-cops--especially if their actions result in the death of a suspect or other individuals? Even if these situations may be rare now, how often will these situations increase once more cities and towns contract more police services from these private companies? The worst-case scenario that I can think of is if several of these rent-a-cops end up killing an individual under suspicious circumstances, while acting as private police officers, how will the private company respond to this event? Will the company look towards the benefit of public safety, even if it would mean negative public exposure to the company or investigations into the company's operations and procedures? Or will the company put up a serious marketing and PR-spin as a means of CYA to the detriment of public safety?

Then there is the profit margin. Private security firms are going to charge the state, local governments, businesses or property owners for their private police officers and services. According to the WaPost:

Capitol Special Police's owner, Roy G. Taylor, was chief of three small nearby police departments and held state law enforcement jobs before starting the company in 2002. As Hispanic gangs were increasing, he said, "I saw a niche." The company has eight officers, some of whom are part time while working for area police departments.

They have used batons and pepper spray but have not fired a service weapon, Taylor said. Once, in an apartment complex where they worked in nearby Carrboro, Capt. Nicole Howard, Taylor's wife, dressed in plain clothes to attract a convicted rapist who had been peering in windows and stalking women. Then she arrested him for trespassing.

Today, charging $35 per hour, the firm has contracts with four apartment complexes, a bowling alley, two shopping centers and a pair of private nightclubs. A few weeks ago, two of the Taylors' employees, Capt. Kenny Mangum and Officer Matt Saylors, walked over to a car at the nightclub Black Tie to warn the men inside not to loiter in the parking lot. Catching a whiff of marijuana, they found seven rocks of crack cocaine in the ashtray and two handguns under the seat of the driver, who was a convicted felon. They called the Raleigh police to handle the arrest.

Because they are part of a private company, Taylor and his officers are mindful that customers are billed for the time they spend testifying in court.

Not only are these private police firms charging their clients for policing their client's premises, but they also charge their clients for the time the officers spend testifying in court. How long will it be for a private security firm to demand arrest quotas from their private police officers--especially if this security firm is contracted by a state or local government for these private police officers? The more arrests these private officers make, the more court trials they will attend to testify, and the more money the private security firm can charge the state or local government for their police services. If more private security firms enter this market of private police officers, the market becomes more competitive, and the prices for the services of these private police officers may start to drop. The private security firms may be forced to demand arrest quotas from their officers as a means to market just how better their officers are to the competition--Look! Our private police officers have made more arrests and have taken more criminals off the streets than our competitors! Therefore, our private police officers are better value at stopping crime! Send your law enforcement dollars to us!

This is a very disturbing trend.

Bronco's cornerback killed in drive-by shooting

Darrent Williams during a media appearance in Stillwater, Okla., Monday, Oct. 13, 2003. Sue Ogrocki / AP file

Good Lord! This is pretty sickening. From MSNBC News:

DENVER - Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting early Monday after an argument at a nightclub, his limousine sprayed with bullets in downtown Denver.

Team spokesman Jim Saccomano said police called him about 3 a.m. from the scene and told him three people had been shot, and the 24-year-old Williams had been killed. His death came hours after the Denver Broncos were eliminated from the playoff race.

A little after 2 a.m., a white Hummer limousine was fired on from a vehicle that pulled up along its side, police spokesman Sonny Jackson said. As many as a dozen bullet holes were visible on the driver’s side of the vehicle. One window was blown out and four others had bullet holes.

Three people in the limo were hit and taken to St. Anthony Central Hospital, where one man was pronounced dead, Jackson said. The other man and woman who were shot were not identified.

The Rocky Mountain News reported that wide receiver Javon Walker was one of the passengers but wasn’t wounded. It was unclear how many people were in the limo.

Jackson said there was a dispute at a nightclub several blocks from the shooting where Williams and his group had attended a New Year’s Eve party. He said the argument didn’t specifically involve Williams, according to witnesses.

“Why this happened, we’re not sure,” Jackson said. “There was some confrontation between a group of people in the vehicle and a group at the nightclub.”

First, Williams was killed after an argument in a nightclub. This makes me wonder who was involved in this argument with the group that Williams was with, at that nightclub, and what was the argument about? Did the argument have something to do with the Bronco's loss to the San Francisco 49ers, and their elimination in the playoff race? Or did the argument have to do with sex and picking up women in the nightclub? Or is there more? I can't say. But a further reading of the MSNBC story also revealed this interesting little bit of information:

In December, Williams spoke of returning to his hometown this offseason to talk to youngsters about staying out of gangs. Williams, who has two young children in the Fort Worth area, recently talked to Criss about establishing a free football camp for youth players.

And I found this through the Denver Post.com:

This article was originally posted on Sunday, Dec. 3, 2006.

Editor's note: Throughout the season, Broncos reporter Mike Klis and photographer Glenn Asakawa are helping readers get to know one of the team's players on a deeper level. Asakawa's photographs complement a weekly conversation with Klis about life, about work, and about play.

Klis: How old were you during your wild years?

Williams: Probably from the time I was 12 until I was 17. I was hanging around the wrong people. I was hanging around gang members. The local Crips had people I called friends.

Klis: Uh, excuse me while I gulp.

Williams: I wasn't really a Crip, or part of any gang, but some people might have thought I was because I was affiliated with some of them.

Klis: What pushed you away from that life?

Williams: I went to church one day and the preacher said something about praying every night. He said: "I know a lot of you go home and get drunk or whatever. But even if you don't have a simple life, try every day to pray to the Lord. Get a relationship with Him." And I started doing that. I started praying every day at my home, and even though I wasn't going to church all the time, I started believing more, and I think that's what stopped me from going down the wrong road.

Klis: Sounds like a song. Or good public-speaking material. Do you speak to kids, share your experiences?

Williams: I do that a lot here. What I want to do this offseason is go back home and talk to kids. It's hard back there because of all the violence, drugs. It's right there in your face. When I was growing up, there'd be people doing drugs right there in front of us kids. I just want to tell them they don't have to be like that. Believe in yourself.

I wonder if Williams' anti-gang talk started pissing off the Denver gangs there. In the Denver Post interview, Williams got a first-hand look at the gang activity, the violence and drugs. Williams was hanging around with the Crips gang, although he claimed he was not officially a member. And just as he started making his own career as a professional football star, Williams was also starting to use that star power to speak out against the gang activity.

Does that mean that the Crips or any other gang would put a hit out on Williams? I doubt that. But if Williams was starting to speak out against gang activity, then his remarks would have certainly angered the Denver gang members. Now let's go back to nightclub argument with Williams' party and the unknown opponents. Did these unknown opponents have some affiliation with the gangs? Did the combination of Williams anti-gang talk, the Bronco's loss to the 49ers, and perhaps some pickup of women or sex in the nightclub, cause whoever argued with Williams and his party, to seek revenge against Williams and his party? And if these individuals were affiliated with the gangs, I would say that they were armed to protect themselves from rival gangs. This comes to a second observation regarding the drive-by shooting. I would be especially curious to learn what type of weapon, or weapons, were used on Williams' limo. The MSNBC story reports that "As many as a dozen bullet holes were visible on the driver’s side of the vehicle." Was a semi-automatic pistol, or pistols, used on the limo--say a Glock, or Beretta? Or was a submachine gun used, say a Mac-10, or Tec-9. Most semi-automatic pistols have a magazine capacity of 7-9 rounds. Williams’ limo was hit by almost a dozen rounds. If it was one individual firing a semi-automatic pistol, then that individual would have had to empty one magazine into the limo, and then reload a second magazine to continue firing on that limo. There are some exceptions here with the Glock pistols, or the Beretta pistols. Glock pistols do come with high-capacity magazines containing anywhere from 11 rounds to 13, 15, 17, or even 33 rounds—depending upon the model. Beretta pistols can have magazine capacities of 14, or 17 rounds, depending upon the model. I’d say that at least two people were involved in this drive-by shooting--one person to drive the vehicle, and another to fire the weapon, perhaps one with a high capacity magazine. A second option here was that there was one driver and two shooters, using semi-automatic pistols, were involved in the drive-by shooting. If this was the case, then the Denver police will have two distinct bullets fired by two distinct guns here. The third option here is that there is one driver, and one shooter, using a submachine gun.

I'll admit that this is all speculation on my part. I don't have any other information to add to this, other than what is reported in the mainstream press. It is a tragedy to see such a young, rising star being cut down like this.

We're now at 3000 American deaths in Iraq

Here's a milestone to ring in the New Year. From the New York Times:

Jordan W. Hess was the unlikeliest of soldiers.

He could bench-press 300 pounds and then go home and write poetry. He learned the art of glass blowing because it seemed interesting and built a computer with only a magazine as his guide. Most recently, he fell in love with a woman from Brazil and took up digital photography, letting both sweep his heart away.

Specialist Hess, the seventh of eight children, was never keen on premonitions, but on Christmas of 2005, as his tight-knit family gathered on a beach for the weekend, he told each sibling and parent privately that he did not expect to come home from Iraq.

On Nov. 11, Specialist Hess, 26, freshly arrived in Iraq, was conducting a mission as the driver of an Abrams tank when an improvised explosive device, or I.E.D., blew up with brain-rattling force. The blast was so potent it penetrated the 67-ton tank, flinging him against the top and critically injuring his spine. His four crewmates survived. For three weeks, he hung on at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, long enough to utter a few words to his loved ones and absorb their kindness.

On Dec. 4, Specialist Hess slipped onto the ever-expanding list of American military fatalities in Iraq, one that has increased by an average of more than three a day since Oct. 1, the highest three-month toll in two years. On Sunday, with the announcement of the death in Baghdad of Specialist Dustin R. Donica, 22, of Spring, Tex., the list reached the somber milestone of at least 3,000 deaths since the March 2003 invasion.

And to give a little more perspective on this, here's the Bush White House Spin-Response:

President Bush did not specifically acknowledge reaching the milestone of 3,000 American deaths, but a White House spokesman, Scott Stanzel, said the president “grieves for each one that is lost” and would ensure that their sacrifices were not made in vain. The campaign against terrorism, Mr. Stanzel said, will be a long struggle.

You've got to love the spin. President Bush "grieves for each one that is lost," but will not pull out of this war that even the president will admit that the U.S. is not winning. Instead, the Bush White House plans to send more young American boys into the Iraq meat grinder:

(CBS News) WASHINGTON A White House laboring to find a new approach in Iraq said Tuesday it is considering sending more U.S. troops, an option that worries top generals because of its questionable payoff and potential backlash. President Bush said he is ready to boost the overall size of an American military overstretched by its efforts against worldwide terrorism.

The military's caution on temporarily shipping thousands of additional troops to Iraq is based on a fear that the move could be ineffective without bold new political and economic steps. Commanders are also concerned that the already stretched Army and Marine Corps would be even thinner once the surge ended, though Bush's decision to make the military larger could alleviate that worry.

Generals also question whether sending more troops to Iraq would feed a perception that the strife in Iraq is mainly a military problem; in their view it is largely political, fed by economic distress.

[....]

Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, said Saturday that one option under consideration by the president is sending five or more additional combat brigades, which equates to roughly 20,000 or more troops. Conway did not say he opposes that proposal, but he emphasized the potential drawbacks.

"We would fully support, I think, as the Joint Chiefs, the idea of putting more troops into Iraq if there is a solid military reason for doing that, if there is something to be gained," he said. "We do not believe that just adding numbers for the sake of adding numbers - just thickening the mix - is necessarily the way to go."

Happy New Year.