Author: stormbear

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson

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One thing I find remarkable is the plantation owners of colonial America never stumbled on the idea of burqas for their slaves. Instead, the Klan wore them.

However, they still seem to be in heavy use in Afghanistan almost six years after America invaded the nation in an effort to drive out the Taleban.

Chicago Tribune’s Kim Barker has a great story on this issue.

Sharifa Hamrah does not go to work much anymore. Her job is just too dangerous, considering the rocket attacks, the threats on her life and the would-be suicide bomber who disguised himself as a woman in an attempt to get to her office.

She is no soldier. She carries no gun. Yet Hamrah, 48, a short woman with a sly smile and a head scarf, has become an unwilling participant in a war, a potential target like the other women who work for the Women’s Affairs Ministry in Afghanistan.

“Our problem is we cannot go out,” said Hamrah, who is head of women’s affairs in troubled southern Paktika province but spends much of her time in Kabul. “We cannot go to the districts. We cannot go to the villages. We cannot talk to village elders. We cannot even talk to women.”

This is the same old thing that was going on before the U.S. invasion. The Taleban had outlawed skin care products, comic books, or damn near everything you can buy at a Wal Mart. Women could not be seen in public and if they were, the penalty was death, typically by stoning. They had to wear a burqa to comply with the law. Men got off easy, they were not allowed to shave.

 Now, women have more freedom, more jobs. In the streets of Kabul, many women have stopped wearing burqas, favoring business jackets, long skirts and head scarves. They work in government offices. More than 25 percent of the parliamentary seats are reserved for women.

But one outspoken female lawmaker sleeps in a different house every night or two, to make sure her enemies cannot find her. Only one out of 25 Cabinet ministers is a woman–and she runs the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Of the 4,600 teachers in Afghan colleges, only 600 are women. The head of women’s affairs in the troubled southern province of Zabul won a chance to go to India for training; her husband, a doctor, forbade it.

::snip::

In the last two months, insurgents have left two leaflets threatening Hamrah. She said police have warned her four times of potential suicide bombers. In December, a man, hidden under a burqa, tried to get in to see Hamrah. Police searched him because his high-pitched voice sounded fake, Hamrah said. The man was strapped with explosives. He was arrested and the bombs were defused.

“They’ve said they can easily kill me,” Hamrah said. “Why should I doubt them? They killed the secretary of the governor. They killed the provincial judge. They killed many people.”

Bush’s failure isn’t only in Iraq. Bush’s failure isn’t limited to equal rights in America or Kabul. Bush has failed at everything.

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson

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Now, many years after the comments of the Dixie Chicks concerning their shame that Bush is from their home state, hate still brews for them in the American South.

Since the Dixie Chicks spoke their mind about President Bush just days before the United States’ invasion of Iraq, the country trio has all but disappeared from Southwest Florida country radio stations.

As a fan of country music and a fan of many of the Dixie Chicks’ older songs, I realized that I wasn’t hearing their famous tunes anymore. Hits like “Cowboy Take Me Away,” “Travelin’ Soldier,” “Wide Open Spaces” and the hilarious “Goodbye Earl” — all gone, absent, AWOL from the country airwaves.

It is sad that this is our America – even as we celebrate the accomplishments of Martin Luther King, Jr., hate still seems to be a family value. Even after all this time and now as most of America abhor Bush and his policies, the Dixie Chicks are still considered traitors.

It’s not that the remark itself was shocking or even terribly provocative. But the backlash from the country music industry, from the South, from the core of the Chicks’ fan base was just stunning in its vitriol and hypocrisy. The same people who are so proud to live in a country where freedom of speech is an inalienable right wanted to silence these women – and worse.

Hypocrisy, the right is choked with it. Here is America the freedom of speech is fundamental, yet the right, especially the religious right – America’s evangelicals, hate it. Whether they are banning sex education, Harry Potter or the Dixie Chicks, they don’t give a damn about the Bill of Rights.

They also don’t care about this list of soldiers that all died on January 7, 2007.

Spc. Eric T. Caldwell, 22, of Salisbury, Md., died Jan 7 in Iraq of wounds sustained when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using small arms fire.  He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Cpl. Stephen J. Raderstorf, 21, of Peoria, Ariz., died Jan. 7 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds sustained during combat operations. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

Tech. Sgt. Timothy R. Weiner, 35, of Tamarac, Fla. killed Jan. 7 by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device while performing duties in the Baghdad area supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Weiner was assigned to the 775th Civil Engineer Squadron, Hill Air Force Base, Utah.

Senior Airman Elizabeth A. Loncki, 23, of New Castle, Del. killed Jan. 7 by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device while performing duties in the Baghdad area supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Loncki was assigned to the 775th Civil Engineer Squadron, Hill Air Force Base, Utah.

Senior Airman Daniel B. Miller Jr., 24, Galesburg, Ill. killed Jan. 7 by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device while performing duties in the Baghdad area supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Miller was assigned to the 775th Civil Engineer Squadron, Hill Air Force Base, Utah.
Is banning the Dixie Chicks any way to honor their deaths?

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson

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The carnival of the clueless continued at the White House this past weekend.

As more and more of the details of the escalation are discovered, the more this plan looks to be an unmitigated disaster.

From Mark Seibel:

President Bush and his aides, explaining their reasons for sending more American troops to Iraq, are offering an incomplete, oversimplified and possibly untrue version of events there that raises new questions about the accuracy of the administration’s statements about Iraq.

Oh this won’t be the first time Bush has lied to us… that started with the bullshit about WMD’s and then it was on to Yellowcake and so forth. And, those are just the lies about Iraq.

But the president’s account understates by at least 15 months when Shiite death squads began targeting Sunni politicians and clerics. It also ignores the role that Iranian-backed Shiite groups had in death squad activities prior to the Samarra bombing.

Blaming the start of sectarian violence in Iraq on the Golden Dome bombing risks policy errors because it underestimates the depth of sectarian hatred in Iraq and overlooks the conflict’s root causes. The Bush account also fails to acknowledge that Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite groups stoked the conflict.

President Bush met at the White House in November with the head of one of those groups: Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. SCIRI’s Badr Organization militia is widely reported to have infiltrated Iraq’s security forces and to be involved in death squad activities.

Bush’s account of everything is never the truth, it never even approaches the truth. Why should we believe him now? Why should we sacrifice more American lives for Bush’s credibility?

No one can save George W. Bush. But Congress can save America from him.

It is called impeachment.

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson

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One of the Democrats first promises, passing a minimum wage bill, was filled this past week with 82 Republicans voting yes in an effort to save their political necks. The Senate is expected to do the same soon. However, 116 Republicans voted no. One of those leading the way was North Carolina’s own Virginia Foxx.

Foxx has a history of supporting legislation that directly supports Bush’s goals but is counter-productive to helping her constituents in North Carolina’s Fifth District. In fact, a rule of thumb can be applied to Congresswoman Foxx – if a bill hurts the Fifth District, she will vote for it. She always has.

Since Reagan left office, the Fifth District, as well as the rest of North Carolina, lost all three of its top industries – tobacco, furniture and textiles. Typically a state can lose one of its top industries and still manage to remain stable, but not all three.

But under the tender guiding hand of North Carolina’s elected Republicans such as Richard Burr, Elizabeth Dole, Jesse Helms, Virginia Foxx and Howard Coble, North Carolina has done nothing but suffer.

I keep hearing NC politicians speaking about how bio-tech is the answer to saving the North Carolina economy. Well, here is the way I see it. How many people do you know with cochlear implants? Now, how many people do you know that wear blue jeans?

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson

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It must be the drugs.

I watched Bush’s robotic and unemotional stance on adding more soldiers to Iraq with utter puzzlement. Haven’t we gone door-to-door before, like three times before? Aren’t these troops really just replacements for the International troops from the now defunct Coalition of the Willing who have already bugged out? If this is just for Baghdad, won’t this push the insurgents out to the rest of Iraq? Where are the troops to mop that up? Are we turning Baghdad into Gaza?

Evidently, I am not the only one asking these questions.

Sydney Morning Herald:

The Democratic congressional leadership rejected Mr Bush’s plan, arguing that it would endanger US national security, by stretching the armed forces further. They called for a phased withdrawal of the troops.

The Democratic whip in the Senate, Dick Durbin, said 20,000 extra troops were too few to end the violence and too many lives to risk.

The undeclared presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who has been cautious about her attitude to the war, said: “I cannot support his proposed escalation.”

The 2000 Republican contender John McCain, who has been the leading proponent of increasing troops numbers, nevertheless warned of more US deaths. “Is it going to be a strain on the military? Absolutely. Casualties are going to go up.”

Bloomberg:

Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he expected that “almost all of the fighting in Baghdad” will fall to U.S. troops.

“This is presented as an Iraqi plan with Iraqi forces in the lead and the U.S. in support,” Cordesman said. “The reality is it’s an American plan where the U.S. forces are in the lead, and it is unclear how much support U.S. forces are going to get.”

Lastly, Bush brought Syria and Iran into this. And it looks like that push has already started.

U.S.-led multinational forces detained six Iranians Thursday in a raid on Tehran’s diplomatic mission in the northern city of Irbil, Iraqi officials said, hours after U.S. President George W. Bush accused Iran and Syria of aiding militants in Iraq and promised to “interrupt” the flow of support as part of his new war strategy.

The U.S. military issued a statement saying it had taken six people into custody in the Irbil region but made no mention of a raid on the Iranian consulate. It declined further comment on the raid.

The forces stormed the building at about 3 a.m., detaining the Iranians and confiscating computers and documents, two senior local Kurdish officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. Irbil is a city in the Kurdish-controlled north, 350 kilometers (220 miles) from Baghdad.

Worst. President. Ever.

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson

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The Iraq preview of the State of the Union Address is tonight and I dread it like a visit to the dentist.

Maybe I will be surprised! Maybe Bush will announce that his warmongering is a complete failure. Maybe Bush will announce the world’s largest airlift to evacuate Americans out of Iraq.

And maybe not.

From MSNBC:

U.S. military planners have reportedly concluded that a large and lengthy troop buildup in Iraq will require a reversal in Pentagon policy.  As it stands, National Guard and reserve units have been limited to two years of mobilization for the Iraq war.  That means most reserve units that have already served in Iraq are ineligible to return.  But according to the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff has concluded that a significant buildup would require Guard and reserve units to serve additional year-long tours.

This cannot continue. According to relief organizations like Books For Soldiers the troops are ragged and morale is low.

And Bing West, Assistant Sec Def under Reagan agrees,

The issue isn’t sending more troops – at least for a short time – it’s what those troops would do that is different from what U.S. troops have been doing for almost four years.

<snip>
West, an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, said he was concerned that U.S. morale could waver.

“It’s basically the feeling that there’s a reason (for escalation) and you can understand how you’re going to prevail. That’s very important,” West said.

The Army and Marines try to give active-duty troops two years at home for every year abroad. But in the last couple of years both services have fallen short of that goal.

And we can’t get them from the Guard. The numbers simply aren’t there.

Ordering Guard units to serve again in Iraq could bring the nation’s governors into this already combustible debate, because governors share authority over the Guard.

In any case, administration officials said Tuesday that the first wave of additional troops will move into Iraq by the end of the month. That means that in the struggle between a president set on escalating the war and a Congress trying to stop him, the race is on.

We are in a miserable way and our President is just playing at war. His own little private war game.

And we all are on the front lines.

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson

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With another Saddam snuff film on the Internet, he is beginning to compete with Tupac for postmortem video releases.

If Bush cannot control the execution of Saddam with any level of confidence why should we expect anything more from anything else he has done or promised? Same old, same old. Yawn.

From the Toronto Star:

If he had the mordant wit of a Jack Kennedy, George W. Bush would be thinking, “I invaded Iraq, and all I got was this lousy video.”

As war trophies go, the grainy film clip of Saddam Hussein’s execution last Saturday doesn’t compare with prising California from the Mexicans or the liberation of Paris. But it will have to do in the absence of any other success to derive from “Operation Enduring Freedom.”

The grisly video that documents Saddam’s final moments on Earth runs just over two minutes, but tells a powerful, nuanced story of ethnic hatred that curses so much of the planet, and would be instructive to the U.S. president but for his poor powers of comprehension.

Indeed, what have we gotten from Iraq except lies, corruption and death? According to the Pentagon, the only thing coming down the pike is more of the same. Saddam’s videos have shown the simple abundance of everything that America used to stand against. We used to pride ourselves with holding the high ground. No matter how terrible an enemy was, we never stooped to their level.

Now we have, and we can’t stop.

An October 2006 report in the U.K. medical journal Lancet puts the number of “excess deaths” in Iraq due to the invasion at 654,965, with 601,027 of these resulting from post-invasion violence. The Lancet numbers were disputed by other experts who variously put the civilian death toll as low as 57,980 (the Iraqi Body Count website) and 30,000 (Bush Jr., in a guesstimate during a Philadelphia speech in December 2005.)

Regardless of how the carnage is quantified, sectarian violence has only intensified since Yehya Hassan expressed his hope that the emergence of Saddam from his “spider hole” near Tikrit presaged a new enlightened beginning for Iraq. Boy Bush told fellow Americans in 2003 that the cost of Saddam’s removal would not top $60 billion (U.S.), a sum that Iraqis would pay out of their own oil revenues. And those revenues might indeed have burgeoned, as the White House had predicted, but for the entirely foreseeable insurgency that crippled Iraq’s petroleum infrastructure within weeks of the invasion, and has kept it that way for almost four years. (The Iraqis, after all, managed in their rapid retreat from Kuwait to torch hundreds of its oilfields.) By the recent estimate of former World Bank chief economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University professor of public policy Linda Bilmes, the U.S. tab for the Iraq war and occupation is certain to exceed $1 trillion (U.S.).

The Saddam execution video is now the most expensive movie ever made. It makes Titanic’s $200 million price tag cheap by comparison.