The first desert storm casualty

The remains of the first US serviceman to die in operation Desert Storm were identified today, ending an 18 year search. It is good that the family has some closure after what must have been an awful experience.

A monster gets life

This man, a disgrace to anyone who has ever been a soldier, not to mention his entire nation, has been given life in prison for some truly horrific crimes in Iraq.

Blackwater's immunity is gone

Yes, finally, Blackwater et. al have to operate within the confines of the law in Iraq. They had previously been given immunity from any crime they committed, including the killing of innocent people.

Iraq wants us out - soon

The Iraqi government has voted for the US to be out of Iraqi cities by June 30 and completely out of the country by 2011. This is good news. Just think that several months ago, we had a major presidential candidate (John McCain) arguing that we should stay in the country for 100 years if necessary.

What's best about this new agreement is that it will be enforced even if conditions on the ground deteriorate. With an Obama administration wanting us out too, I'd say I'm cautiously hopeful that we will be out of Baghdad by the 4th of July. And what a great Independence Day that would be.

Anthrax Redux

Almost 7 years ago, a month after 9/11, we were hit with anthrax attacks. How did our leaders react?

McCain used it as a talking point as to why we should invade Iraq.

There are only two questions:
1. Did this guy act alone?
2. Was it a suicide?

Think about it: government employee takes anthrax out of ultra-secure laboratory, mails it to congressional offices. People die. Republicans use it as a reason to invade Iraq (remember, Iraq supposedly had WMD's like anthrax). We go into Iraq, over 4,000 soldiers die, and we find no WMD's. The FBI takes 7 years to even attempt to indict this guy, he is not arrested, and now supposedly commits suicide.

I'm not one to promote conspiracy theories, but those who do are going to go nuts over this one.

McCain: Worse than Bush?

Hopefully we will never know the answer to the title of this post, but in order to inform the undecided, we need to visit this issue.  Would a McCain presidency be worse than Bush?  

When George W. Bush was first elected president in 2000, we were at the peak of the internet boom.  The business cycles has since been on a downward spin, most likely because we have not had a positive technological shock since the dot.com boom of the late 90's.  Whether we will have another such shock in the next 8 years is anyone's guess, but it is likely as these cycles run over 15-20 years.  

No matter if Bush or Gore was elected president, we would likely have faced a minor recession sometime over the past 8 years.  What would not have been predicted, however, is the massive cost of the Iraq War, which has been a major factor in the spike in oil prices, the fall of the dollar, and the loss of our rights to privacy, jury, and other freedoms.  

How would John McCain or Barack Obama confront such issues?

When it comes to the Iraq War, currently McCain is more gung-ho about it than even George Bush.  While the White House has recently flirted with the idea of setting a vague timetable for withdrawal, McCain remains steadfast that we should maintain permanent bases in Iraq, against the wishes of the Iraqis and more than 50% of Americans.  McCain's wishes would likely lead to at least a $1,000,000,000 level of spending over his presidency, from this issue alone.  

When it comes to oil prices, McCain favors "offshore drilling" and not much else.  Offshore drilling was already allowed, oil companies did not choose to partake in it.  All Bush just did was open up some more areas.  That point is moot, since we do not have enough refineries to keep up with this, so even if we did strike oil (this would take 5-10 years), we would have to have it made into gasoline by another country and then re-import it.  Even conservative oil-man T Boone Pickens does not see oil as the future.  Instead, he proposes we use a combination of wind power and natural gas.  I also think that geothermal power, nuclear power, and solar power have to be added to the first two to be our new backbone of electricity, which could power a new generation of vehicles.  McCain talks about alternative energies, but seems to be continuing Bush's legacy of paying lip service to alternatives while just drilling for more oil to further fuck up our planet.

McCain worse than Bush?  Maybe, but hopefully we will never know the answer.

Iraq wants us out

The prime minister of Iraq has officially asked for a US timetable for withdrawal of our troops, and specifically said that they do not want another Korea, in which we would build bases and remain there forever.  

Bush will likely ignore the request, meaning that we will be seen as occupying the country in which a new government that we helped secure power now wants us out.  This situation will only embolden radical elements and increase the likelihood of attacks on both the US and its allies.  

John McCain is also going to look a lot more like Bush, and a lot more likely to end up on the losing end of a landslide come the election.

One thing worth pointing out is that this issue could be McCain's first big flip-flop.  In 2004, he said that if an elected Iraqi government wanted us out, we could not stay.  Today he says that the president is just "being a politician" and that while they will look out for their interests "we will look out for ours."  

Yet another reason to leave Iraq

The only way we can stay is if we keep paying Blackwater hundreds of millions of dollars to act as mercenaries in Iraq.  Blackwater is based in North Carolina and employers formal soldiers.  Its soldiers are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, and are immune from any prosecution.  They can kill, rape, etc. and not get in trouble.  Last year they did just that, kill a bunch of innocent people.  No charges were filed.

Why?

Courtesy of the NYT:

"State Department officials said Friday that they did not believe they had any alternative to Blackwater, which supplies about 800 guards to the department to provide security for diplomats in Baghdad. Officials say only three companies in the world meet their requirements for protective services in Iraq, and the other two do not have the capability to take on Blackwater’s role in Baghdad. After the shooting in September, the State Department did not even open talks with the other two companies, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, to see if they could take over from Blackwater, which is based in North Carolina.

“We cannot operate without private security firms in Iraq,” said Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management. “If the contractors were removed, we would have to leave Iraq.”

I think that last line says it all.

We can't win

Today General Petraeus (also called Betray-US) said that the security situation in Iraq is "fragile" so we can't leave.  We were told last year that it was too violent to leave and now it is more peaceful but we still can't leave.  Like Senator Obama said today, we keep moving the goal post back and forth.  If they had world peace there, we would still find and excuse to stay there and continue to antagonize the Muslim world, which makes things bad for us and our allies like Israel.

How would anyone define victory in this war?  This situation is much different from WWII.  When that war ended, we signed a treaty with Germany, a country that had rational people that could be controlled.  The people in Iraq simply don't want us there.  There is no government to sign a peace accord with, since we set up their current, fundamentalist government.  We are fighting a guerilla war and the only way to stop people from attacking us there is to either leave or destroy the whole country.  Obviously the second choice is not something we'd want to do.  

Maybe victory is when all of our troops are safe at home.