Sadly, No!

it’s… Fusilli Jimmy!

(Please also see this.)

AP reports:

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Bush administration cleared the way Wednesday to sell arms to Iraq just as it does to other allies, reversing the ban in place for much of Saddam Hussein’s regime. [Gee, when was that ban not in place? Oh yeah… -S,N!]

Bush made a presidential determination that the standard methods of engaging in munitions transfers with friendly nations are now appropriate in the case of Iraq and will promote democratic reforms, help achieve reconstruction and strengthen the Iraqi government.

Transferring munitions to Iraq = Promoting democratic reforms.
Transferring munitions to Iraq = Helping reconstruction.

Please explain the logic underlying the two propositions listed above in the comments. Danke.

Thanks to Blair for the link. (From now on known as TTBFTL.)

July 19, 2004:

US and Afghan authorities deny any links to the self-styled task force, describing them as vigilantes on a personal quest to fight terrorism.

July 22, 2004:

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – The U.S. military acknowledged Thursday it held an Afghan man for a month after taking custody of him from a trio of American counterterror vigilantes who have since been arrested on charges of torturing prisoners at a private jail they ran in the Afghan capital.

What a predicament!

Thanks to Blair for the link.

Added: No More Mister Nice Blog has more.

The Rant, home to Justin “The Hottest New Conservative Writer On The Web” Darr, offers this headline,:

which links to an article that begins thusly:

Official denies nuclear arms found in Iraq

Baghdad, Iraq, Jul. 21 (UPI) — A U.S. military official Wednesday denied a report of Iraqi missiles carrying nuclear warheads being found in a concrete trench northwest of Baghdad.

The daily al-Sabah newspaper Wednesday had quoted sources as saying three missiles armed with nuclear warheads were discovered in a trench near the city of Tikrit, the hometown of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

A U.S. military spokesman in Tikrit told United Press International that the report was untrue.

So did the Moonie Times change the headline, or are the good people at The Rant just really, really hoping that this is true?

Back in the days when we didn’t squander so much of our time appeasing terrorists, we used to feature a weekly Flash animation called Flash Friday. The most popular installment to date was our tribute to Dick Cheney’s “Undisclosed” location, also known as Site R. (Old post here, direct link to the animation (6MB) there.)

Earlier this week, we received an email from S.K.Johannesen, who recently published an essay on Site R in Queen’s Quarterly, a Canadian literary magazine published at Queen’s University in Ontario. (You know, one of the Canadian provinces.) With the author’s permission, we are happy to reproduce selected portions of the essay, titled “Undisclosed Location,” in the extended entry.
Read the rest of this entry »

To Michael B?rub?. Michael “teaches literature and cultural studies at Penn State,” although we do not know if he ever had the pleasure of having Miss Amber Pawlik in one of his classes.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – Three Americans accused of torturing Afghans in a private jail during a freelance counterterror mission went on trial Wednesday, with their ringleader denying any wrongdoing and claiming active U.S. government support.

Jonathan K. Idema, Brett Bennett and Edward Caraballo were arrested when Afghan security forces raided a house in Kabul on July 5. American and Afghan officials say they were vigilantes posing as U.S. special forces and had no official backing.

Appearing before a three-judge panel in a national security court, the three listened quietly to the charges including hostage-taking and torture, and as three of their ex-detainees described how they were beaten, doused with boiling water and deprived of food.

The Americans didn’t testify. But Idema said afterward that the abuse allegations were invented. He also said he was in regular phone and e-mail contact with Pentagon officials “at the highest level.”

Speaking to reporters crowding round the dock, Idema named a Pentagon official who allegedly asked the group to go “under contract” – an offer they refused. [Emphasis added]

Uh, what name did he give for fuck’s sake?

More on Idema here.

President Bush speaks:

After launching two wars, President Bush said on Tuesday he wanted to be a “peace president” and took swipes at his Democratic rivals for being lawyers and weak on defense.

With polls showing public support for the war in Iraq in decline, the Republican president cast himself as a reluctant warrior as he campaigned in the battleground state of Iowa against Democrat John Kerry and his running mate, former trial lawyer John Edwards. Bush lost the state in 2000 by only a few thousand votes. […]

“I’m not a lawyer, you’ll be happy to hear,” Bush said to cheers. “That’s the other team. This is the pro-small business team.”

He also lashed out at them for not backing an $87 billion funding for the U.S. military presence in Iraq and the country’s reconstruction. The two Democrats have said they opposed the funding in opposition to Bush’s Iraq policy. [Emphasis added]

Such a positive campaigner that President Bush. As to Reuters’ last sentence:

Kerry’s staff said he was trying to indicate his support for an amendment funding the appropriation from increased taxes on the wealthiest Americans. When that amendment failed, he voted against the bill.

and:

Kerry had said that he voted for an alternative Democratic version of the $87-billion package that would have paid for war supplies by repealing tax cuts for the wealthy.

Added: Frederick reviews Bush’s earlier enthusiasm about being a war president.

Following our post on the alleged detention of children by US forces in Iraq, we received an email from John Heacock, who served for nearly a year in Iraq with the 267th MP Company from the Tennessee National Guard. With his permission, we reprint here in full.

I hopped a link from Alterman’s blog and saw your publicizing of alleged children imprisoned and abused in Iraq. I spent almost a full year at the main prison in Iraq, Camp Bucca, which is near Um Qasr on the SE Iraq-Kuwaiti border.

There was a special compound for kids, defined as younger than 18, mainly those who were picked up with adults (generally relatives like Dads) for crimes or suspicions of crimes. I think the # peaked at around 60 or so.

I can’t comment on any alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib, except to note that my unit’s encounters with the 320th MP of PA (4 of whom got nailed for abuse early in the war) and the MD MPs now being pilloried were consistent with their reputation as unprofessional, hyper-aggressive cowboys (and cowgirls). The one common denominator I’ve seen among too aggressive guards and MPs is fear: the soldiers who don’t have the skills and tools to handle the prisoners with confidence resort to over-the-top intimidation to deter conflict. These yahoos appeared definitely afraid of the prisoners. The claim that a child was doused with water, driven around in the cold, and brought before his Dad to get information, is, sadly, quite believable. At the same time, I know as many soldiers who would have halted such actions if they’d known about it. Like any other work setting, people figure out who’s ethical and who’s a psycho pretty quickly, and adjust their behavior accordingly in their presence.

(BTW, you should also look into the story of the 18-year-old Iraqi girl who was held at Abu G for kissing her husband in public, after self-appointed morality police brought her there (her husband, of course, wasn’t held). It made the front page of Stars & Stripes. A textbook case of nobody having a plan, and nobody taking responsibility in the bureaucracy.)

Getting back to the kids: for the most part, the kids were treated better than the other prisoners. The majority spoke some level of English, which makes things easier for both guards and prisoners, and reduces miscommunication, confusion, and de-humanization. One of the biggest problems was adults trying to claim that they were under 18 so they could be held in the kid’s compound. They had different reasons for lying about their age, and none of them were good. The 2nd worst issue was the “Lord of the Flies” element of the kids forming groups/gangs/cliques, and conflicts between them, although flare-ups manifested themselves more in spats over food or cigarettes, or rough play during soccer games. The Syrian kids stuck together really well, causing some complaints and intimidation among the other, mainly Iraqi, kids.

Some of the kids clearly suffered from depression or other emotional problems, which shouldn’t be too surprising, given their circumstances. The guards had enough trouble maintaining order and safety in the camp, and lack the ability, training, or time to diagnose and treat emotional problems.

This goes for adult prisoners too: I remember one guy we nicknamed ?Osama? because he looked like Bin Laden. He was kept in our high-threat detention area, nicknamed “Iraqitraz,” which was actually nicer than it sounds: well-shaded, individual cells for those who’d tried to escape or attack guards or other prisoners (the latter being much more common than the former). Osama was clearly messed up: catatonic/psychotic, occasionally violent. The doctors tried to drug him up with what they had, but I don’t think they had the right meds. I talked with one doctor about him, and they were trying to find a medical facility or family to take him, but the doc predicted that he’d just be taken to Baghdad and let out somewhere. (Which, BTW, is how prisoners were released by us: load them on buses, drive them a few hundred miles away, give them $5 each, and drive off).

Back to the kids: I remember trying to see if we could get books or writing materials because some of the kids complained about being bored, and I suggested an informal school, which they liked. The people at the top of our pecking order were either the MI people, who were more interested in schmoozing with the captured Iraqi officers (a far cry from Abu Ghraib!), or the MP Battalion leadership, who avoided at all costs entering the camp or doing any real work. It fell on deaf ears.

The problems with the treatment of the kids at Camp Bucca was about the same as the flaws with the other prisoners: lack of a policy regarding standards of guilt or length of imprisonment, bureaucratic indifference, laziness of those of high rank whose job it was to process prisoners, scarce resources, and conflicting guidance from above. Consequently, we had hundreds if not thousands of prisoners that we didn’t know why they were being held, who would never be convicted of a crime under any civilized standard of proof, and who spent more time awaiting a hearing than they would have been held in prison if convicted. A typical example: men held for months for stealing gasoline or butting in lines, when their sentence would have been 2 weeks or 30 days. I once asked the sole JAG attorney (a 1st Lt., BTW, the lowest rank for JAG) why we weren’t following the Geneva Convention rules about hearings and length of incarceration, and he expressed shock; when I told him he could go to either the main camp or Iraqitraz to see the shortcomings for himself, he told me that the camp commander wouldn’t let him into either site. It’s hard to do your job ensuring that the military follows its rules when you can’t even see what’s going on.

I hope you are wrong in thinking the shit will really hit the fan when facts about how kids were treated get out, but I’m afraid that you are right. I hope that the story of the kid at Abu Ghraib is the only incident. We tried to treat our kids as well as we could, and keep them safe from other prisoners and each other, and did a B+ job. The fact that the Army doesn’t even admit holding juveniles is a telling reflection of how clueless it was about having some plan or philosophy of imprisonment.

–John Heacock

It was with a great deal of consternation that we learned yesterday that Amazon had deleted the customer reviews of My Pet Goat. Thanks to Tom and several readers however, we are happy to bring you… All The President’s Goats, 50 of the 53 reviews originally posted.