The Hollywood Liberal

Heres the latest from Bush’s quagmire/civil war in Iraq. There is a story from Solidiers for The Truth, a webiste by soldiers for soldiers. It seems that they have also ruled out the possibility for victory in Iraq.

15 more killed in attacks across Iraq

AP
BAGHDAD, Iraq – At least 15 people were killed in attacks Friday around Iraq, including the commander of a battalion of special Interior Ministry police and six women and two girls who were shot south of Baghdad.
The women and young girls were killed by unidentified gunmen on the western outskirts of Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, police Lt. Mohammed al-Shammari said. Two other teenage girls were kidnapped, he said.
In Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, a bomb planted in the Interior Ministry police headquarters killed Col. Salam al-Maamouri, commander of the Scorpion police battalion, and his aide, while wounding seven others, police Lt. Osama Ahmed said.

It Just Keeps Dragging On

Soldiers For The Truth
Excerpt
During that same two years, we have also heard from several retired Army and Marine Corps generals who informed the Congress and the nation at large that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been mismanaged from the outset and by no less a person than the Secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld. This is the man who refused to provide sufficient force levels to both remove Saddam Hussein’s evil regime and then, after the conquest, garrison and pacify the country. From the beginning, troops on the ground were totally and completely ill-equipped in the way of body armor and the soft-sided vehicles they used to patrol in became nothing more than death traps and flaming coffins as insurgents used new and very lethal explosives to compensate for their numerical disadvantages.

Recently, Major General John Batiste, U.S. Army (retired) testified before the Senate’s Democratic Policy Committee. In his testimony, General Batiste rebuked the Defense Department and the Secretary of Defense for their ineptitude in planning, operational conduct of the war and the insurgency and dismissal of honest dissent. Lest anyone think that General Batiste’s comments were partisan in nature, be assured that they were not. As he testified before select members of the Senate, all Democrats, he pointed out to them that he was a life-long Republican, leading one to understand that his words were those spoken by a man concerned for the future of the Army he loved and the nation he had served for his entire adult life.

Report: Iraq Study Group Will Rule Out Victory In Iraq, Propose Redeployment

Think Progress.org
Excerpt

A 10-member bipartisan commission that is charged with assessing Bush’s Iraq strategy has reportedly “ruled out the prospect for victory.” The New York Sun reports:

A commission formed to assess the Iraq war and recommend a new course has ruled out the prospect of victory for America, according to draft policy options shared with The New York Sun by commission officials.

Currently, the 10-member commission — headed by former secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush, James Baker — is considering two option papers, “Stability First” and “Redeploy and Contain,” both of which rule out any prospect of making Iraq a stable democracy in the near term.

The commission was established at the instigation of Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), and was intended to “devise a fresh set of policies to help the president chart a new course.” Bush noted at his press conference this week that he “supported the idea” of the so-called Iraq Study Group and that he “looks forward to listening” to the commission’s recommendations. Among the leading options being considered by the task force is a redeployment plan:

The Army is so afraid of anti-war protesters like the Quakers, students, and Hollywood Liberals. Maybe if they worried less about us and more about the idiot who sends them into these quagmires they’d be better off. I understand they have a job to do, and didn’t choose to be there, but we are just trying to get them home.

Documents Reveal Scope of U.S. Database on Antiwar Protests

NY Times
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 — Internal military documents released Thursday provided new details about the Defense Department’s collection of information on demonstrations nationwide last year by students, Quakers and others opposed to the Iraq war.

The documents, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, show, for instance, that military officials labeled as “potential terrorist activity” events like a “Stop the War Now” rally in Akron, Ohio, in March 2005.

The Defense Department acknowledged last year that its analysts had maintained records on war protests in an internal database past the 90 days its guidelines allowed, and even after it was determined there was no threat.

H.L.s Take:
Potential Terrorist Threats?? Once again ass backward Bush gets it wrong. I have met several WW2 Veterans at these events, not to mention even more Vietnam Vets. I guess these guys are terrorists too.

Speaking of Which

U.S. Out of Iraq Now! We Are the Majority!
End Colonial Occupation from Iraq, to Palestine, Haiti, and Everywhere!

October 28 National Day of Action
Locally Coordinated Anti-War Protests from Coast to Coast

Vote With Your Feet … and Your Voices, and Banners, and Signs!Let Every Politician Feel the Power of the People! 

Click here for information on the San Francisco October 28 action.

Click here for information on the Los Angeles October 28 action.

Click here for information on the Chicago October 28 action.

Click here for information on the New York City October 28 action.

The people of this country should have the right to vote on the continuation of the war against Iraq. If this was a government of, by and for the people, the November 2006 election would be a referendum on Iraq. The popular will of the people is to end the war against Iraq. But the question of Iraq is not on the ballot. Most people will only have the chance to vote for politicians from one of the Twin Parties of Militarism. Neither represent the sentiment of the people who favor the immediate end to a criminal enterprise the selling of which has been based on lie, after lie, after lie.

Iraq is bleeding.  Hundreds of thousands of people have died. U.S. soldiers are killing and being killed in a war of aggression, and taxpayers are spending $2 billion each week for a repeat of Vietnam. 

Another one goes down.

Rep. Bob Ney pleads guilty to bribery

AP
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON – Rep. Bob Ney pleaded guilty Friday in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling investigation, the first lawmaker to confess to crimes in a scandal that has stained the Republican-controlled Congress and the Bush administration.
Standing before Judge Ellen S. Huvelle, Ney pleaded guilty to conspiracy and making false statements. He acknowledged taking money, gifts and favors in return for official actions on behalf of Abramoff and his clients.
The 52-year-old lawmaker faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. Huvelle said prosecutors had agreed to recommend a term of 27 months, and said federal guidelines suggest a fine of between $5,000 and $60,000.

H.L.s Take:
H.L.s Comics Yet Again Successfully Predicts The Future
We had Ney in the cell 6 months ago. Even I didn’t come up with the plot to ship Ken Lay off to the Bahamas however. This is the second panel of GOP Jail

Keith Olbermann shows how The Bush administration pretends to cater to the religious right, but really just uses them for their votes, and laughs at them behind their backs. They are catching on and are pissed.

Bush’s Tough-Talkin’ Korean Bungle

Consortium News
Excerpt:
Months before 9/11 and the “global war on terror” – and two years before the Iraq War – George W. Bush tested out his tough-talkin’ diplomacy on communist North Korea. Bush combined harsh rhetoric and intimidating tactics to demonstrate to Pyongyang that there was a swaggering new sheriff in town.

In his first weeks in office, Bush cast aside the Clinton administration’s delicate negotiations that had hemmed in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. The new President then brushed aside worries of Secretary of State Colin Powell and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung about dangerous consequences from a confrontation.

At a March 2001 summit, Bush rejected Kim Dae Jung’s détente strategy for dealing with North Korea, a humiliation for both Kim, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Powell, who wanted to continue pursuing the negotiation track. Instead, Bush cut off nuclear talks with North Korea and stepped up spending on a “Star Wars” missile shield.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush got tougher still, vowing to “rid the world of evil” and listing North Korea as part of the “axis of evil.”

Seems like lots of Republicans knew about Mark Foley, and his solicitation of underaged Congressional pages for sex. They just didn’t say or do anything about it. Typical of the GOP
(Gay or Pedophile)

Page-board member says GOP leaders hid Foley approaches to teen boys

NY Times
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — The House ethics committee Thursday questioned a Republican member of the House page board who said afterward that GOP leaders hid from her Rep. Mark Foley’s inappropriate approaches to teenage male pages.

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said after the closed-door session, “I’m a member of the page board who was not informed of the e-mail messages that were sent. I want the investigation to go forth quickly and reach a conclusion

Keeping Capito out of the loop would raise questions about whether other Republicans tried to tell as few people as possible about Foley as part of a cover up. She is one of three members of Congress who serve on the page board.

Rep. Dale Kildee of Michigan, the lone Democrat, also said he was not told about Foley.

H.L.s Take
Its not the crime that gets them, its the coverup