The Mercenary’s Cookbook

One of the more entertaining reactions by the Press to Scott McClellan’s very critical new book about his days in the Bush Administration, has been this claim that they had been tough all along. David Gregory defended his profession by claiming, “I think the questions were asked.” Those of us who turned elsewhere for our information remember things a bit differently.

Eric Alterman expressed the frustration many felt at the time when he wrote an entire column basically asking the questions he wished reporters would ask that turned out to be rather prescient.  And he wrote it in 2002. Here’s the list of just some of the questions Eric Alterman wanted asked in 2002:

Why did the Bush national security team ignore the Al Qaeda briefing it received from President Clinton’s National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, in the fall of 2000?

Why has no one, apparently, been fired, anywhere, despite a clear systemwide breakdown?

Who besides Rudy Giuliani thought it was a smart idea to build a terrorism crisis control center inside an obvious terrorist target?

What about those detention camps Ashcroft wanted for the purposes of indefinitely incarcerating US citizens deemed to be “enemy combatants,” while stripping them of all constitutional rights, including the right to trial? Is that still happening? That sounds kinda bad.

How did Bush decide on war with Iraq without consulting the uniformed military, the intelligence agencies, the UN, NATO, the Republican national security establishment–including both of his dad’s secretaries of state and his National Security Adviser–the Republican Party in Congress, the Democratic majority or just about anyone who did not already want to go to war with Iraq?

Got any real evidence about those nukes Saddam is building? Got any real evidence regarding his CBW and WMD delivery capabilities? Why is he not deterrable again?

What happens with Iran if Iraq collapses? 

But this one has to be the kicker: “Is anybody thinking about this stuff?”

Yes. They just didn’t have jobs in DC.

Update: Digby reminds us of Mr. Wolcott’s efforts.

Update II: And Greenwald reminds us of what happened to Donahue.

Progressivefuture has been interviewing an Iraqi veteran all week about the abuses she witnessed firsthand by contractors. Take a look.

Contractors Aren’t Free

 

Sewage in with the Bathwater

 

Witness Weighs in on KBR Water Scandal Reports

 

The Trauma of Silence

 

Contractor Accountability

Today’s NYT:

WASHINGTON — In October 2004, the United States Army issued an urgent bulletin to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by contractors, the bulletin stated, soldiers at American bases in Iraq had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been electrocuted.

The bulletin, with the headline “The Unexpected Killer,” was issued after the horrific deaths of two soldiers who were caught in water — one in a shower, the other in a swimming pool — that was suddenly electrified after poorly grounded wiring short-circuited.

_____________________________

Since that warning, at least two more American soldiers have been electrocuted in similar circumstances. In all, at least a dozen American military personnel have been electrocuted in Iraq, according to the Pentagon and Congressional investigators.

The hissy fit McCain’s been throwing over the DNC and MoveOn ads”, one would think those clips make him a tad bit nervous.  The ads show clips of a townhall meeting where McCain shrugged off a questioner’s assertion that Bush would keep forces in Iraq for 50 years, and said, ”maybe 100″.

Here is the transcript:

Offscreen voice: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years.
On screen graphic: Senator McCain. President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years.
McCain: Maybe a hundred. That’d be fine with me.
On screen: 100 years in Iraq.
On screen: 5 years. $500 billion. Over 4,000 dead.
Offscreen voice: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years.
McCain: Maybe 100.
Narrator: If all he offers is more of the same, is John McCain the right choice for America’s future?
On screen: Is John McCain the right choice for America’s future?
Narrator: The Democratic National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.
 

McCain tried to explain away his remarks this way:

John McCain defended his now infamous “100 years in Iraq” comments made at a town hall back in January, contending the Democrats are deliberately distorting his remarks. He explained today that those who say he wants to fight in Iraq for 100 years are making a “direct falsification” and apologized that campaigns “have to deteriorate in this fashion.”

On a purely rational level, this argument is strange. It is impossible for McCain to say the ad “deliberately distorted” his words, unless he’s claiming the videotape was altered (which Republicans, at least, are not shy about doing).  Especially, when McCain is deliberately distorting what the ad says – there is no mention of “war” anywhere, only McCain’s answer.

What McCain is essentially saying is, “It’s outrageous to suggest I’d be willing to fight a war in Iraq for 100 years, when I clearly said we’d stay 100 years after we won the war.”  How long will that take? As long as it takes. Even if it takes 100 years.

Yet, the whining from GOP circles has been so ear-piercing that they even Factcheck wagged their fingers at an ad because they hadn’t done enough to spin what McCain actually meant by this. To make matters worse, the McCain camp duped the media into portraying his words as a “gaffe” when he not only repeated the claim, but extended it to 1,000, 10,000, even a million years when confronted about his comments days later.

If there is any argument at all, it is that McCain’s quote, clipped short, leaves an impression that McCain wants war. If the Democrats have a point, it is that McCain clearly implies he’s willing to stay under present circumstances, unless he’s completely bonkers and thinks we’re only a short time away from zero US casualties. By Factcheck’s own standards, their post is as irresponsible a distortion as the DNC because their “correction” implies  McCain would not stay in Iraq if the violence continues, when he has gone out of his way to suggest the opposite. I don’t think there’s a journalist, regardless of whether or not they are claiming McCain’s words were taken out of context, who is under any dellussions McCain would leave Iraq — which is precisely the message implied by both those ads that McCain wants to shoot down. He wants to shoot them down, not because they distort his position, but because it states all too clearly what his position actually is — which is why the “don’t cut-and-run” crowd are those objecting the loudest.

John H. McFadden had an interesting post on the tactics of guilty-by-association yesterday, in relation to the Rev. Wright controversy. Basically, he says even arguing why Obama didn’t leave the church has an implied message: “Because he stayed in that church, he must be a closet black radical.”

 I see a similar strategy at work here. Politics argues in poetry. What is said is often just a metaphore for the real argument — the one we aren’t allowed to have.

So when can we start the countdown on McCain’s 100 year war? He won’t say, and no one will ask. The implication being that it’s taboo to mention the elephant in the living room.

McCain doesn’t want to leave. So you better not say it.

In a new tell-all by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier’s Story, the former Commander of U.S. Forces in Iraq takes his turn finger-pointing over where Iraq went wrong. Considering this Administration’s track record for punishing prescience and promoting loyal incompetence among its ranks, the fact that the three-star general took the fall for Abu Ghraib speaks in his favor. (Because, as we all know, it’s the soldier’s fault a few Bad Apples got “out of hand” — if by Bad Apples you mean, the White House.)

It might surprise you to learn (/snark) Sanchez thinks Rumsfeld might have had something to do with the failures of the first year:

“Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty.”

With all that’s going down “Over There”, it’s good to know someone is looking out for the kitties.