JosephH

I suspect the EU, if pressed by the Russians via natural gas supply issues looming over this winter, would allow the Turks to squeeze the US operations in Iraq just because at this point we've created such a mess for everyone and everyone is a bit pissed at the prospect of cleaning up our mess over the long haul (except of course the Chinese who are relishing the prospect of bankrolling all the infrastructure repairs...).

All the Russians need to do is to prod the Turks to respond to our latest affront to them a bit harsher than the EU is currently giving them lattitude to do. Something like 75% of the material support for our operations in Iraq go through Turkey - if the Turks tighten or simply slow their sphincter down to say 50%, we will end up in a mild chaos in Iraq and far too distracted to take on anything else.

True, he did it largely by having Karl Rove lying his ass off to fiscal and religious conservatives, while simultaneously fear and race mongering. And of course, he was also ushered in by one of the most activist, anti-states rights opinion the SCOTUS has ever produced, but hey, he was elected - you just couldn't say fair and square. And you've actually read the Bush v Gore SCOTUS opinion and dissents, right? They aren't long. The SCOTUS decision was to Conservatives' beliefs on States Rights pretty much what Iraq is to their beliefs on 'no nation building' - extreme and explicit hipocrisy. Bush v Gore Majority Opinion, Stevens Dissent, Souter Dissent, Ginsberg Dissent, Breyer Dissent,

...you mean elected...not to mention re-elected with 49 of 50 states. Exactly, pretty much like the current band of treasonous felons esconced in the Whitehouse and pretty much the same "gang-who-couldn't-shoot-straight" incompetency across the board.

That's exactly the common fairy tale from the Right I was speaking of. Hey, they were history regardless of our spending. The 'accelerant' effect was trivial compared to natural forces already hard at work before Reagan and his merry band of felons descended upon us. Reagan was simply smart enough to not overly f#ck up our response as it folded. Funny how all those claiming this great legacy of the defeat of the mighty Soviet Union are pretty much the same band of treasonous clowns who somehow couldn't manage poor little Iraq. Maybe it's because they used the same strategy - give a lot of money to our friends and hope for the best. It panned out for Reagan, who really didn't have to do much besides wait; it has been a disaster for the United States in Iraq which actually required an plan to have had any chance at all.

Gorbachev ended the Soviet Union, Reagan's main contribution was being open to the possibility there could be a different relationship between the two states. Beyond that his contribution is wildly overstated by many on the Right.

Microlending = economic development Green-Belts = reforestation & clean drinking water

Well, well, well - something KKK and I agree on for a change. I think two years of national service at age 18 for all citizens should be mandatory with no exceptions. Out of that you could run a lottery for military service.

Primarily to establish known replacement dates for all the anchors so there won't be question about how old they are in the future (and hey, both the old and new bolts are technically yours!). That, and to have the heavier, directly rappable hangers. Folks may not agree, but that was the reasoning. I have two of the modified Lost Arrow "tuning forks" if anyone does want to borrow them to remove old buttonhead split-shanks.

Serenity, we've exchanged a couple of emails now, but I wanted to publicly state here that my issues have nothing to do with the performance of men and women trying to do their job and stay alive on the ground in Iraq and elsewhere, but, as Bill reiterated, with the decisions taken in Washington by the politicians who are responsible for the grim and increasingly stark realities our people in the region are attempting to deal with on a daily basis. They all deserve much better from our senior leadership and from us as citizens in general.

Don't underestimate those split-shanks! In replacing anchors out at Beacon I tried to cut one of those babies - it destroyed two brand new saw blades with nary a nick in the sucker - and one of those same saw blades will cut Powers 1/2", 5-piece bolts all day long like so many cheese sticks. The damn thing is still there. The issue with these things when you run across them isn't so much the split-shanks themselves as the decaying, homemade hanger that's on them. If it were the bolts alone I'd trust them anytime.

Not to necessarily put you on the spot, but as another aside, and in illustration of the administration's true support of our troops, maybe you could explain to the folks here what the DoD having deliberately cut 729-day orders means to 1,162 members of the Minnesota Guard who just returned from Iraq.

Serenity - I'm not so sure it's the flipside of the coin so much as we're constantly talking at, and speaking of, different scales and scopes. As I said, I think it's a matter of differing scopes and scales with regards to 'the current Middle East experience'. Look, I have no problem whatsoever deferring to your perceptions of the situtation and experiences of contract security personnel on the ground in Iraq or elsewhere. And I have nothing but I high respect for the skills, experience, and capabilities they bring to bear on the situation - I just would never wield those resources in the manner they are currently deployed. But that's not the real issue from my perspective. The real issue isn't how they perform in their current context, but rather how it is that context has come to exist. And, as a side point, I'm not 'insinuating' we are now an occupation force - we are one. The 'war', short and sweet as it was, is long since over. Now you, like the administration, can continuously redefine both the mission and the definition of this 'war' to be some form of strategic geopolitical/cultural chess game, but even in that attempt and context you simply make Iraq into an end game of pawn moves without end in-country and a locked, static piece with no good move regionally. You also basically further cast Iraq as another Vietnam (in it's Cold War role), albiet with more active internal and external players. And if we are still at 'war' then that is an even more devastating indictment of the incompetence of the administration's ability to wield our military might. WWII lasted 1,244 days - Iraq is now going on 1,666 days as of today (Vietnam was 3,918 days). Call it what you will, but that ain't winning. I have no doubt whatsoever it feels like a war to anyone on the ground in Iraq given you can't get from one side of of the GZ to the other, or to the airport, with any confidence - but, again, if it is war, we lost long ago while daily grasping for a new definition of 'winning' in the face of a grim and contrary reality. I guess in general, my comments in this thread fall into a few catagories of very different scopes than I believe you are discussing: The long-term political intriques and prelude to the war (Neocon fantasies of a ME that never was, nor ever will be) The extraordinary grasping and extension of Executive power based on the John Yoo's doctrine (Unitary Executive Theory) The planning and prosecution of the war (Tragically incompetent weilding of U.S. military might) The execution of a long-awaited and explicitly planned dismantling of institutional oversight and the imposition of privatization on basically every government agency and institution of our government (Outsourcing for a smaller gov't) Taken together, the above administration activities establish a context of broader scale and scope that have, in essence, led to the very situations and circumstances you say a person on the ground in Iraq experiences and deals with every day. They are also directly responsible for a strategic, operational, and tactical situation in Iraq - and now the region - that are in every way detrimental to the long-term, strategic interests of the United States and also entirely self-inflicted. Did you read my comments on Iraq from 2005? Hey, I fought in a war that [officially] began when I was 12 years old - it was equally misguided and incompetently prosecuted. That's one reason I've said I believe the day the first serviceman or woman is put in harms way for our nation is the day we better pull out all the stops and attack with overwhelming force for a quick and decisive victory. Failure to do so was merely the first [Neocon] mistake. Their biggest mistake was not learning the lessons of previous U.S wars; primarily that the use of military might is the easiest aspect of wielding power and a method-of-last-resort for achieving the nation's goals for good reasons. Managing strategic geopolitical, post-war outcomes to our advantage is the real objective in the game of war - and in that the administration has failed catastrophically. We might as well have poured a trillion dollars directly into Iran's central bank and hung a sign in Mandarin on Hawaii facing West that says "kick me". I have no problem with these assertions in the context of the intent and realities deliberately set in play by the administration. My comments are about how those realities could have, and should have, been far different had our intent been to wage a 'war' that resulted in net geopolitical gains for the United States. And that isn't an analysis in hindsight, I've held these views way before the war began. In the final analysis, I believe it will be concluded the administration used the pretext of 9/11 to act on longstanding Neocon beliefs that the Middle East simply needed a domino-like 'first' push and that, once executed, a favorable, strategic geopolitical outcome for the United States was a foregone conclusion. That 'leap of faith' led directly to Rumsfeld and Cheney's 'lite' approach to the war and the near total absence of postwar planning in the face of a nearly universal contradictory opinion held by career military, intelligence, and diplomatic officers and personnel. Unnecessarily squandering the power and prestige of the United States on the hope, the hope of a positive outcome from a theoretical Neocon scenario in the Middle East will cause this presidency to be considered an abysmal failure; and the manner in which that fantasy was perpetrated will forever taint this presidency with scandal and the suspicion of treason, regardless of how well-meaning their intent. Personally, I think we're on the same side in all this, you are dealing with what is, I'm saying things didn't have to be this way. That and I'm personally outraged at how shabbily the military has been treated throughout this whole sad affair.

I didn't say you couldn't debate - in fact, I answered your racist remark and just in general ask you to take off the blinders and deal in facts. I'm also saying I have enough of the requisite experience and knowledge of sufficient scope and detail to make a pretty damn good call on why the administration has organized this war the way they have. Look, I'm a big supporter of having a strong and effective military which is wielded wisely and with restraint, but once put into play it should be used to devastating effect. "Effective" and "wisely" are the key words above. The military should be allowed to do what does best and not be called on to do what it was never designed to do. In the case of Iraq we should have gone in with overwhelming force levels, secured the borders, removed a small, select cadre of Baathists, fixed what we broke, and left fairly quickly with the understanding we wanted things run with a modicum of cooperation. The explicit plan to dismantle Iraq's governing, administrative, and security institutions while simultaneously looting the 'reconstruction' funding pretty much doomed this war failure before a single boot ever hit the ground. The failure is due directly to an unbelievable combination of gross incompetence and systemic corruption on the part of this adminstration.

Here in Albuquerque this week all I can see is a large heerd of balloons - many were striped, none were zebras - some were, however, trampled by a stampede of high winds...

The vast MARJORITY of private [highly paid] SECURITY contractors ARE NOT local nationals. Don't obfusticate Security contractors with the bulk of local utility contractors. I don't need experience with this type of work to figure out the scam and the specific intent of the administration in availing themselves of this type of resource. One of those Navy years was spent preparing all the intelligence briefings for COMPACFLT and you won't convince me much significant has changed relative to the relationships between the military, intel, and executive in the interim - in fact, the Iraq war clear signals it's worse than ever in almost every respect. And I contracted extensively with DoS/USAID in that 30 years, spending plenty of time working in U.S. Embassies to know what's going on that side of things as well. Bottom line is I've hung out with enough private security folks, military attaches, and spooks in the interim to know just how little has changed on one hand and what a complete rape of our nation is happening by a corrupt, imperial executive on the other. If anyone is naive here it's you.

Don't confuse a subset of concurrent and aligned interests with a single identity for two separate groups. Neocons are in no way a Jewish or Israeli entity regardless of the alignment of a subset of their individual interests. There are, however, hawkish Zionists who buy and sell the Neocon line and act as leaders among the Neocons. My clearly stated opinion is that Israeli interests are not by default U.S. interests despite what Israel, AIPAC, and the Neocons would have you believe. I would go futher in saying the strict Zionist within the Israeli Right to both Israel and the U.S. no end to harm. This is the same crew who have of late been pushing for a U.S. attack on Iran. Now that is a broken record... And I don't talk in conspiracies - I talk facts. One only need peruse their website - New American Century - to allow the Neocons to speak conspiracy in their own words. ============================================ Or, here is their letter to President Clinton from 1998 which tells you all you need to know about why Iraq was invaded and that it was in fact, a long-standing Neocon objective simply waiting for a conveniently plausible [but false] pretext: [i]January 26, 1998 The Honorable William J. Clinton President of the United States Washington, DC Dear Mr. President: We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor. The policy of "containment" of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections. Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished. Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq's chemical and biological weapons production. The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam's secrets. As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons. Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world's supply of oil will all be put at hazard. As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat. Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy. We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council. We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk. Sincerely, Elliott Abrams / Richard L. Armitage / William J. Bennett Jeffrey Bergner / John Bolton / Paula Dobriansky Francis Fukuyama / Robert Kagan / Zalmay Khalilzad William Kristol / Richard Perle / Peter W. Rodman Donald Rumsfeld / William Schneider, Jr./ Vin Weber Paul Wolfowitz / R. James Woolsey / Robert B. Zoellick[/i] ============================================ Or, how about their 1997 Statement of Principles (And bold principles they are - for a bunch of draft dodging cowards...) [i]June 3, 1997 American foreign and defense policy is adrift. Conservatives have criticized the incoherent policies of the Clinton Administration. They have also resisted isolationist impulses from within their own ranks. But conservatives have not confidently advanced a strategic vision of America's role in the world. They have not set forth guiding principles for American foreign policy. They have allowed differences over tactics to obscure potential agreement on strategic objectives. And they have not fought for a defense budget that would maintain American security and advance American interests in the new century. We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership. As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests? We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge. We are living off the capital -- both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements -- built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation's ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead. We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities. Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership. Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences: * we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future; * we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values; * we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad; * we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles. Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next. Elliott Abrams / Gary Bauer / William J. Bennett / Jeb Bush Dick Cheney / Eliot A. Cohen / Midge Decter / Paula Dobriansky / Steve Forbes Aaron Friedberg / Francis Fukuyama / Frank Gaffney / Fred C. Ikle Donald Kagan / Zalmay Khalilzad / I. Lewis Libby / Norman Podhoretz Dan Quayle / Peter W. Rodman / Stephen P. Rosen / Henry S. Rowen Donald Rumsfeld / Vin Weber / George Weigel / Paul Wolfowitz[/i] ============================================ All in all - and for all their bold talk - never in the history of our nation has any group of men so incompetently wielded U.S. military might. Aside from being treasonous felons - this is the original '[i]Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight[/i]' - incompetent poseurs to a person.

I expect that you know, better than I, how lethargically the Government moves. I don't think the DSS, or the DoS, could produce fully trained agents in the timeframe necessary. Sort of like personnel armor and MRAPs - they knew they were starting this war and had plenty of time upfront to ramp up the necessary resources - if, in fact, Rumsfeld and Cheney felt they were necessary. Funny how contract security and intelligence contractors were considered necessary from the outset, but armor and MRAPs weren't. The government was fully capable of redesigning DS/DSS and ramping up hiring the very folks Blackwater and others hired for the same amount of money in the same amount of time. It's simply a question of will on the part of the Congress and Executive.

Look, the argument that there is no way the U.S. government can provide these services is ridiculous on the face of it. The answer wasn't privatizing these roles, it was expanding government services to include them. The U.S. government is fully capable of funding, recruiting, training, and deploying such services if it had an interest in fulfilling what the administration claims is a vital need. The DS and DSS could be completely revamped and possibly setup out from under DoS if necessary and it could just as easily be home for all that Blackwater does. And now that Blackwater and others have established themselves and their U.S. government contracts with costly U.S. ex-military personnel, just how long do you think it will be before they start replacing many of those high-cost U.S. resources with foreign ex-military resources who will work for some fraction of the current crew? Think it unlikely? Hell, it's already begun and it will be an inevitable move in the long run. No matter how you slice it - this kind of outsourcing is incredibly bad policy unless you are into fostering corruption and having unaccountable resources at your disposal for tasks you'd rather not be associated with. Contract interrogators in particular are an abhorent concept which, like rendition, is simply a way of simultaneously denying and promoting torture. The entire affair is beneath the U.S. and simply part of a broad criminal conspiracy of neocon traitors. Simply put, all of these policies along with numerous administration efforts eroding the Constitution are an inexorable and despicable abdication to terror, not a defense against it.

Not so much ethics, but Tommy and Beth camped out on and worked the hard pitches on the Nose to death over a long period of time such that their sends are almost deadpoints compared to the ascent Lynn and Brooke did. Both proud sends no doubt, but I'd take Lynn and Brooke's style over Tommy and Beth's in the matchup. I'm not too into personalities so I'd have to say everyone's personal best regardless of the route or difficulty gets my vote. I think that's another aspect of climbing that's changed considerably over the years - the focus on personalities versus the routes (as predicted by Warren Harding in 'Downward Bound'). This is a staple of our media in general and good for the business of climbing, but maybe not so good for climbing itself I think.

Mexico is in the oil business and if that switches to the EU as now seems likely, then Mexico would be hard pressed to not follow suit - if they were so inclined to incur all the hassle of using another currency, which I doubt. But, another eight years of an administration like this one and we'll all be using the Renminbi.

That is one of the saddest points of all this - we'll have basically squandered a trillion dollars by the time this is over. And, not unlike the Internet boom and bust, whose only outcome after a trillion dollars traded hands was to teach a generation that content is "free", the sole beneficiaries of this trillion dollars is our advesaries: China, Iran, OBL, and the very terrorists we presumably set out after. We will have further destablized and inflamed the Middle East and, due to a complete failure to bolster defenses at home, left our country more vunerable than ever to terrorist attacks. Again, the scope and scale of the economic, geopolitical, and military incompetence displayed by this administration in their blind pursuit of a neocon fantasy is absolutely breathtaking. This level of incompetence alone - devoid of intent and deception - could almost be considered treasonous.

Blackwater was to guard the FBI team heading to Iraq to investigate Blackwater. -------------------------------------------------- Some farces, it turns out, can be avoided. The FBI team traveling to Iraq at the behest of the State Department to assist in the investigation of Blackwater's September 16 shooting at Nisour Square was supposed to be guarded by... Blackwater. However, the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security realized yesterday that the ensuing conflict of interest would be just too egregious. Under Blackwater's State Department contract, the company provides security for all official travel outside the U.S.-protected Green Zone. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that security for the team would be handled by the department's Diplomatic Security Service. Of course, the DSS needed a bit of prompting, which is perhaps to be expected after chief Richard Griffin's vigorous defense of Blackwater on Tuesday. In a letter, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) urged Condoleezza Rice to step back from the precipice of absurdity.

<<>>

Now there's a genuine nugget of good news amidst all the drama of the latest episode of PRG-Oh. Glad to hear it; are you bringing Mark back with you...?