There is a ? terrorist ? in the Iraqi government? Really? Well, that isn't really new, is it Anderson? What are you going to do purport that the USA should invade the Iraqi Unity Government and through them all out? Is that what the Pandering Petraeus is going to do in Iraq? Start a larger war? Somehow all of a sudden we are supposed to redefine war in Iraq based on so called NEW information regarding 'betrayal' of Bush?
Nah.
Iraqi exiles ready to walk out on US (click on)
Some Iraqi exiles recruited by the Pentagon to help rebuild their homeland are pressing for a bigger role in reconstruction, saying they have been sidelined by Americans who view them as foot soldiers, not partners.
One prominent political scientist has resigned from the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council and others are threatening to leave if their concerns are not addressed.
Coalition officials say the grumbling is limited to a handful of about 130 Iraqi expatriates serving on the reconstruction council, formed by the Pentagon to assist in postwar planning.
But interviews with several council members and other Iraqis familiar with the reconstruction suggest the dissatisfaction is shared by more than a few and might reflect a management style that is contributing to anti-American sentiment in Iraq.
"The population of Iraq perceives correctly that it is the occupiers who are running things. Everybody else is there in some secondary or subservient role," said Chicago attorney Feisal Istrabadi, an adviser to Iraqi Governing Council member Adnan Pachachi.
AND WE ALL KNOW THIS GUY. Bush budgeted hundred of thousands of dollars for him to enjoy his Washington DC digs in order to legismasize Bush's illegal invasion into Iraq.
Chalabi has key role in Baghdad effort (click on)
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- One of the Iraq government's critical tasks to pacify the country is to rein in the excesses of de-Baathification.
The man in charge of the effort is Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial Iraqi Shiite ex-patriate who formerly headed the Iraqi National Congress, lobbied hard for regime change, and was a key link in the chain of inaccurate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction program.
A top State Department official told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Thursday that Chalabi's de-Baathification committee is not making the changes needed to ease the economic and political restrictions on former Baathists. Many were part of the Baath Party only because it was required of them by the regime but are now sidelined and are believed to be fueling the insurgency. Thousands of Iraq's most educated and capable technocrats, professors and industrial leaders were put out of work and told they had no future in Iraq when the United States issued the de-Baaatification order in June 2003.
"The initial outlinings of the reforms proposed, frankly, are not adequate to meet the needs of meaningful national reconciliation. They need to be changed," said Amb. David Satterfield,
"The prime minister has articulated, publicly, a very expansive intent with respect to de-Baathification reform. But (it)needs to be translated from rhetoric into reality, and it needs to happen soon," Satterfield said.
Committee chairman Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) expressed concern that so much is riding on Chalabi's leadership.
"I find him to be a duplicitous individual, and I have no faith -- and I think he's one of our giant problems and continues to be," Biden said.
Joking !
Michael Ware : ...Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, wants American intelligence now to share its information with Iraq's parliament, which could lift Jamal Jafar Mohammed's immunity from prosecution.
And let's see, Bush can't possibly declassify any information so the Iraqi Unity Government can effectively prosecute him because it's too sensitive. Just like the 'super secret' information about Iran and Iranians in Iraq.
Oh, wait. This IS the super secret information from the White House.
So all this is a surprise? No. This is just more leadership 'designed by Bush' that is similar in nature to the international criminal, Chalibi that dangled the carrot in front of the corrupt Cheney who needed to invent a way to satisfy Hallibuton stockholders.
The biggest enemy to the USA is within it's own borders and starts with people like Bremer. Now there is something the USA can realistically get it's teeth into and do something about. Corruption. It's as thick as honey in the Bush Administration and attracts as many criminals.
Waxman to Probe Iraq Contracting, Unaccounted-For $12 Billion (click on)
By Jay Newton-Small
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Representative Henry Waxman, kicking off hearings on government contracting, today will question former Ambassador L. Paul Bremer on what happened to as much as $12 billion in unaccounted-for cash spent when he was in charge of rebuilding Iraq.
A report from Waxman's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said the money represented more than half of Bremer's budget from May 2003 to June 2004. The report described contractors being told to bring big bags to collect shrink- wrapped bundles of money, and one episode where a Bremer staff member was allegedly told to spend $6.75 million in a week.
``We're going to look at whether there's profiteering going on against the government as a payer or against the consumers in this country,'' Waxman, a California Democrat, said in an interview.
Chalibi more than likely wants a government of militia leaders to protect himself from Bush.
The Rise and Fall of Chalabi: Bush's Mr. Wrong (click on)
Ahmad Chalabi may go down as one of the great con men of history. But his powerful American friends are on the defensive now, and Chalabi himself is under attack.
May 31 issue - For the hard-liners at the Defense Department, the raid came as a surprise. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his senior deputies, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, got the news from the media. When Iraqi police, guarded by American GIs, burst into the home and offices of Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, looking for evidence of kidnapping, embezzlement, torture and theft, the men who run the Pentagon were left asking some uncomfortable questions. "Who signed off on this raid?" wondered one very high-ranking official. "What were U.S. soldiers doing there?" asked another, according to a source who was present in the room.
... Chalabi, 59, is a Savile Row Shiite who has spent much more time in London than in Baghdad. His career as a banker has been a trail of lawsuits and investigations (and one conviction for fraud, in absentia by a military court, in Jordan; Chalabi says he was framed by Saddam Hussein). Along the way, Chalabi has worked as an American spy and enjoyed the life of bon vivant —and friend to the great. Though he plotted for years to overthrow Saddam, he was not taken seriously by the regime. NBC's Tom Brokaw recalled a conversation with a friend of the then Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz on a trip to Baghdad in the summer of 2002. "You guys can have Chalabi!" the Saddam flunky told the American newsman. "You can keep feeding him all the prime rib and expensive Scotch. He doesn't know anyone here. He hasn't been to Iraq in 25 years."
THAT is all there is in Iraq, CRIMINALS, and the Commander and Chief Criminal is in the White House. And Petraeus has made a 'nitch' for himself by pandering to Neocons that want to write history and not secure the nation. Petraeus is the last man to trust with Amreican National Security. He hobnobs it with politicians and is viewed as a man with vision that will mold history. Excuse me? The USA is not about putting generals portraits on the walls of West Point as the greatest general to ever 'run a campaign' of American domination. Generals are employed by the people of the USA to supply a defense for this nation. Maybe Anderson Cooper 360 has forgotten what happened on September 11th and departs from that reality at every turn to pander to Bush's false and criminal agenda.
Sounds right.
Petraeus is an ideogue. He is so unqualified to do anything in Iraq that the USA has enlisted the help of a stable Australian leadership. The USA military leadership is so fluid beginning with General Shinseki that there is no solid basis of understanding as to what should be done next. Petraeus openly ADMITS he has little knowledge of what the ground forces need and what the 'situation' is in Iraq. He states he has not been in the country for over 18 months and needs to 'retool' his ability to lead in regard to Iraq.
US drafts Australian to advise on Iraq push (click on)
AN AUSTRALIAN Army colonel who served in East Timor has been chosen by the new US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, to join a team of "warrior intellectuals" to advise him on strategy.
Lieutenant-Colonel David Kilcullen, who is on secondment to the US State Department, will advise General Petraeus on counter-insurgency in Iraq, The Washington Post reports.
General Petraeus, who was confirmed in his post last week, is believed to have specifically asked for Colonel Kilcullen after he read several papers by the Australian, who has just completed a draft counter-insurgency policy for the State Department.
Colonel Kilcullen, 39, has a doctorate in anthropology and wrote his thesis on successful and failed counter-insurgency operations in Indonesia.
"Warrior intellectuals" is another word for ideologue. They haven't got a clue as to what the issues are that confront the soldiers in the streets of Baghdad but they will give it 'one for the gipper' since they have 'big guns.'
Wow. Nothing like throwing away American lives and helicopters as well as American fiscal responsiblity just so the ideologues 'can play.'
Gen. Casey: Shinseki mistreated (click on)
Posted by Aamer Madhani at 6:15 am CST
For the record-and with quite a bit of prodding- Army chief of staff nominee Gen. George Casey made it known Thursday that he felt retired Gen. Eric Shinseki wasn’t treated all that nicely by the old guard in the Defense Department.
Shinkseki, of course, was the Army general who under persistent questioning from Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) less than month before the U.S. invasion of Iraq told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he thought it would take hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops to keep the peace in post-war Iraq.
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, would deride Shinseki as being wildly off-the-mark to speculate it would take more troops to occupy Iraq than to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The general, who was due to end his term as the chief of the army four months later, quietly retired after contradicting Rumsfeld’s plan to operate with a lighter force. Not one top civilian from the defense department attended his retirement ceremony, seen as a slap in the face by some top military officers.
Many critics of the White House’s handling of the war, including Levin, have pointed to Shinseki’s treatment as setting an atmosphere of fear among commanders on the ground in Iraq.
I SUPPOSE Casey's failed Iraq campaign should reflect how correct Shinseki was. At least Shinseki knew BEFORE the blood shed and illegal invasion that it was a hopeless set of circumstances. Shinseki was a moral man with complete confidence in what he knew and how he DEFENDED this country. The generals like Franks and those that followed simply put on a happy face and played politics with their best friends, the Neocons. As a matter of fact I doubt sincerely that Bush has many friends left except those that pander to his warring to make money and win esteem. The USA is in a sad state of affairs and it begins with Bush's incompetency. If the Iraqis like criminals in their government then they have taken good example from the last six years of the USA.
STILL TRYING TO HAVE THEIR WAY.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what happened, Anderson, was that a group of Senate Republicans who want to support the president didn't want this resolution to come to a vote.
The 'stalemate' of the Republican Senators is simply leading to the Democrats NUCLEAR OPTION, I suppose.
So, led by the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, they stood up and they said: Look, if we're going to consider this resolution, there's two others that we would like to bring a vote as well. One is the McCain-Graham resolution, which supports the increase in the number of troops, and also sets benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet.
THIS IS A TIME TABLE. Bush has already stated he will not put forth a time table and reiterated that as recent as yesterday. McCain is defeated before he starts.
The other one was kind of an out-of-left-field resolution from New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg, which would simply state that the president has the responsibility to commit troops into harm's way; Congress has the responsibility to fully fund those operations.
THIS IS attempting to undermine the USA Constitution and is treason. The legislature is the will of the people. If there is a Neocon in the Executive Branch that is so out of touch with the people's will of this country, the Repuglicans have no right to enslave this nation to a tyrannt of which his bill states.
Bush's job approval rating isn't just a popularity contest for winning elections, it is a clear indication that the leader of this nation is completely out of touch with the will of the people of this country. Newsweek has him at 30%, CBS at 28%. Jeeze. What does the media think this is all about? This is an American Democracy NOT the free will of a person whom crowned himself dictator and is in office because he played a congame via Rove. These people are dangerous. Chaney outed a CIA agent to stop the blood letting. He literally was afraid that with Wilson's Op-Ed there would be more of the same. Cheney didn't care what he had to do to stop THE TRUTH of the corruption of this administration even if it meant outing one of the most valuable CIA agents working on WMD this country had.
http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm
Cooper and pandering media outlets are the country's biggest joke. They actually think they are doing a valuable job? Nah. They are doing the dirty work for the government to insure their own sad incomes. This country needs a clean sweep of a lot of things including the 'head strong' Neocons at CNN, FOX and the radio DJs that actually think they are somebody.
THE DEPARTURE from war is only as innocuous as the fact that children are abducted out of their communities by lonely men. MORE OF THE BUSH CULTURE OF FEAR.
Devlin is probably one of the saddest cases I have ever heard of and while he was very controlling and seeking the companionship of young boys in what would seem to be long term relationships. I don't believe he was ever capable of murder, but, the question remains as to what would come of the children as they became men. Age 15 is about as close to men as they come, so it would seem passive behavior would be not only a survival tool but a way of life. There was also that strange case recently of a young women locked in a room for years by a man that would seek to keep a sex object in close confinement.
Devlin faces 71 more counts in kidnappings (click on)
By William C. Lhotka and Tim O'Neil
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
(MCT)
ST. LOUIS - Michael J. Devlin has admitted to numerous sexual assaults on the two boys who were rescued from his apartment in Kirkwood, Mo., on Jan. 12, according to 71 new charges filed Monday.
Devlin, 41, already had been charged with kidnapping in the two counties where the boys were abducted. Federal investigators continue to review the case for possible additional charges.
Police say Devlin abducted Shawn Hornbeck, then 11, on Oct. 6, 2002. Shawn was riding a bike near his home in Richwoods, about 60 miles southwest of St. Louis, at the time. Then on Jan. 8, police say, Devlin abducted William "Ben" Ownby, 13, moments after he stepped off a school bus near his home in Beaufort.
Shawn's family and friends maintained a high-profile search for the boy in the years after his abduction. Ben was the subject of a massive search when two Kirkwood police officers, who had gone to Devlin's building on another case, noticed a white pickup matching the description of a vehicle that may have been used in the abduction.
When officers returned the next day to Devlin's apartment, they were stunned to also find Shawn, now 15.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch outlined the 71 new charges in a news conference Monday. He didn't use the boys' names but linked the charges by initials and dates of kidnapping - obvious connections, given the overwhelming news coverage of the abductions and rescue.
"We recognize that overall, their identities are not a national secret," McCulloch said. That fact, he said, "makes it difficult to file these charges."
Traditionally, prosecutors do not identify victims of sexual assault in formal charges or to the press. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch does not name them, except in extraordinary circumstances.
The nature of their cases made the boys' names familiar worldwide. After their rescue, Shawn's parents speculated on national TV that Devlin had sexually assaulted him.
...For their parts, Franklin County already has charged Devlin with child kidnapping in the abduction of Ben, and Washington County has charged him with kidnapping and armed criminal action, allegedly for using a pistol to abduct Shawn.
..."In a high-profile case, it's generally a free-for-all," said Joy, who has worked as a private criminal defense attorney and helps run a defense clinic in St. Louis County. "It's not uncommon where the prosecutors try to be the first one to prosecute the case. "Normally, the first prosecution gets the most headlines, and state prosecutors are elected and they want to be in the headlines."
THIS CASE is a bit of why the media should not be involved.
Rape cases as well.
It has caused the case to take a characteristic that will add to the political clout of prosecutors while depriving the young men of their privacy. I have a feeling by the time the prosecutors get to court and through a trial the charges will be wittled down to something reasonable and will keep Devlin off the streets for sometime, but, at the same time it's a bit of an embarrassement to see the 'circus' now surrounding a case that is tragic in it's own right.
It would be nice to see justice work to protect the innocent while handling the guilty without a lot of political fanfare. There should never be any 'spin' from someone else's tragedy in cases like this, especially in these instances where sexual exploitation has a life long stigma. I can't help but wonder if some of the motivation for these young boys to be compliant to their kidnapper is mired in shame and discovery by others. If that is the case, then what society is doing is placing an incentive to cooperation by victims in a way that says they will be branded for life anyway. It's a possibility that might be erased if the prosecutors also realized 'their political' bonus may only insure the next successful kidnapping.
Consequences is something children understand. In the cases of incest it is the threat of telling Mommy if Daddy is the molester. Or the threat of hurting a mother or sister. Consequences of punishment is something children understand and the shame of others in regard to the trouble children may have caused. So for a kidnapper to be this successful there has to be a reason for the child to cooperate and it's the consequences of their behavior that is more than likely the reason.
Shame is a motivating factor for children and to embarrass a parent even if the child sees their life as affected by the kidnapping might be an incentive to 'keep the secret.' Any parent understand 'the void' of the parent/child relationship when it comes to sexuality. It is that void that I believe plays into successful long term abductions such as these.
There should be open and free communication between parents in regard to a child's body, the clothes they wear and choose and why. What are good feelings about their bodies and their emotions. When it seems 'wrong' and what to do about it. A child should never be made to fear any feelings they have in expression of their safety. Active participation by parents to eliminate shame regarding healthy bodies and 'the my space' of privacy and when invasion of that privacy is wrong is a start to have a child that will be determined to return home rather than be held captive. I have no problem in talking about sex and how it is related in healthy emotions from the time there are the first questions regarding these issues. Simple, concise understanding between children and parents of how 'right' growing up healthy, happy and fulfilled can be leaves little room for strangers to entice curiousity of the naive.
To exploit these cases for 'spin' or sensationalism and rating without fulling understanding the depth of the issue is to use lives for 'the fun' of it all. I don't know if society will ever solve these problems. There are too many variables in all lives involved. Parents with responsiblity outside the home, children as latch key kids, children ill prepared for such circumstances, people that develope these dangerous fetishes over time and hide them so incredibly. Devlin was employed by someone who trusted him implicitly and for a long, long time. His loneliness was driven by his sexual preferences. Yet, he was convinced he could successfully carry out long term relationships on all fronts and did for a long time. It's a strange story but it isn't as though it is unique. The odds. What are the odds of every 'curing' a society of it's ills?
I raised two sons nearly alone and never had a problem with open communication with anything at any time in their lives. Their questions regardless the nature were always met with acceptance and assurity that a wholesome answer existed. The boys grew to be really nice men. I like them. It all worked out, you know? I wish every parent had the joy I had. It doesn't stop either. They keep giving in very nice ways, and the openness is more than any one parent should be allowed in a lifetime. There are no emotional boundaries and their safety net is always, Mom. It's kinda nice.
enough
Nah.
Iraqi exiles ready to walk out on US (click on)
Some Iraqi exiles recruited by the Pentagon to help rebuild their homeland are pressing for a bigger role in reconstruction, saying they have been sidelined by Americans who view them as foot soldiers, not partners.
One prominent political scientist has resigned from the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council and others are threatening to leave if their concerns are not addressed.
Coalition officials say the grumbling is limited to a handful of about 130 Iraqi expatriates serving on the reconstruction council, formed by the Pentagon to assist in postwar planning.
But interviews with several council members and other Iraqis familiar with the reconstruction suggest the dissatisfaction is shared by more than a few and might reflect a management style that is contributing to anti-American sentiment in Iraq.
"The population of Iraq perceives correctly that it is the occupiers who are running things. Everybody else is there in some secondary or subservient role," said Chicago attorney Feisal Istrabadi, an adviser to Iraqi Governing Council member Adnan Pachachi.
AND WE ALL KNOW THIS GUY. Bush budgeted hundred of thousands of dollars for him to enjoy his Washington DC digs in order to legismasize Bush's illegal invasion into Iraq.
Chalabi has key role in Baghdad effort (click on)
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- One of the Iraq government's critical tasks to pacify the country is to rein in the excesses of de-Baathification.
The man in charge of the effort is Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial Iraqi Shiite ex-patriate who formerly headed the Iraqi National Congress, lobbied hard for regime change, and was a key link in the chain of inaccurate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction program.
A top State Department official told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Thursday that Chalabi's de-Baathification committee is not making the changes needed to ease the economic and political restrictions on former Baathists. Many were part of the Baath Party only because it was required of them by the regime but are now sidelined and are believed to be fueling the insurgency. Thousands of Iraq's most educated and capable technocrats, professors and industrial leaders were put out of work and told they had no future in Iraq when the United States issued the de-Baaatification order in June 2003.
"The initial outlinings of the reforms proposed, frankly, are not adequate to meet the needs of meaningful national reconciliation. They need to be changed," said Amb. David Satterfield,
"The prime minister has articulated, publicly, a very expansive intent with respect to de-Baathification reform. But (it)needs to be translated from rhetoric into reality, and it needs to happen soon," Satterfield said.
Committee chairman Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) expressed concern that so much is riding on Chalabi's leadership.
"I find him to be a duplicitous individual, and I have no faith -- and I think he's one of our giant problems and continues to be," Biden said.
Joking !
Michael Ware : ...Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, wants American intelligence now to share its information with Iraq's parliament, which could lift Jamal Jafar Mohammed's immunity from prosecution.
And let's see, Bush can't possibly declassify any information so the Iraqi Unity Government can effectively prosecute him because it's too sensitive. Just like the 'super secret' information about Iran and Iranians in Iraq.
Oh, wait. This IS the super secret information from the White House.
So all this is a surprise? No. This is just more leadership 'designed by Bush' that is similar in nature to the international criminal, Chalibi that dangled the carrot in front of the corrupt Cheney who needed to invent a way to satisfy Hallibuton stockholders.
The biggest enemy to the USA is within it's own borders and starts with people like Bremer. Now there is something the USA can realistically get it's teeth into and do something about. Corruption. It's as thick as honey in the Bush Administration and attracts as many criminals.
Waxman to Probe Iraq Contracting, Unaccounted-For $12 Billion (click on)
By Jay Newton-Small
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Representative Henry Waxman, kicking off hearings on government contracting, today will question former Ambassador L. Paul Bremer on what happened to as much as $12 billion in unaccounted-for cash spent when he was in charge of rebuilding Iraq.
A report from Waxman's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said the money represented more than half of Bremer's budget from May 2003 to June 2004. The report described contractors being told to bring big bags to collect shrink- wrapped bundles of money, and one episode where a Bremer staff member was allegedly told to spend $6.75 million in a week.
``We're going to look at whether there's profiteering going on against the government as a payer or against the consumers in this country,'' Waxman, a California Democrat, said in an interview.
Chalibi more than likely wants a government of militia leaders to protect himself from Bush.
The Rise and Fall of Chalabi: Bush's Mr. Wrong (click on)
Ahmad Chalabi may go down as one of the great con men of history. But his powerful American friends are on the defensive now, and Chalabi himself is under attack.
May 31 issue - For the hard-liners at the Defense Department, the raid came as a surprise. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his senior deputies, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, got the news from the media. When Iraqi police, guarded by American GIs, burst into the home and offices of Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, looking for evidence of kidnapping, embezzlement, torture and theft, the men who run the Pentagon were left asking some uncomfortable questions. "Who signed off on this raid?" wondered one very high-ranking official. "What were U.S. soldiers doing there?" asked another, according to a source who was present in the room.
... Chalabi, 59, is a Savile Row Shiite who has spent much more time in London than in Baghdad. His career as a banker has been a trail of lawsuits and investigations (and one conviction for fraud, in absentia by a military court, in Jordan; Chalabi says he was framed by Saddam Hussein). Along the way, Chalabi has worked as an American spy and enjoyed the life of bon vivant —and friend to the great. Though he plotted for years to overthrow Saddam, he was not taken seriously by the regime. NBC's Tom Brokaw recalled a conversation with a friend of the then Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz on a trip to Baghdad in the summer of 2002. "You guys can have Chalabi!" the Saddam flunky told the American newsman. "You can keep feeding him all the prime rib and expensive Scotch. He doesn't know anyone here. He hasn't been to Iraq in 25 years."
THAT is all there is in Iraq, CRIMINALS, and the Commander and Chief Criminal is in the White House. And Petraeus has made a 'nitch' for himself by pandering to Neocons that want to write history and not secure the nation. Petraeus is the last man to trust with Amreican National Security. He hobnobs it with politicians and is viewed as a man with vision that will mold history. Excuse me? The USA is not about putting generals portraits on the walls of West Point as the greatest general to ever 'run a campaign' of American domination. Generals are employed by the people of the USA to supply a defense for this nation. Maybe Anderson Cooper 360 has forgotten what happened on September 11th and departs from that reality at every turn to pander to Bush's false and criminal agenda.
Sounds right.
Petraeus is an ideogue. He is so unqualified to do anything in Iraq that the USA has enlisted the help of a stable Australian leadership. The USA military leadership is so fluid beginning with General Shinseki that there is no solid basis of understanding as to what should be done next. Petraeus openly ADMITS he has little knowledge of what the ground forces need and what the 'situation' is in Iraq. He states he has not been in the country for over 18 months and needs to 'retool' his ability to lead in regard to Iraq.
US drafts Australian to advise on Iraq push (click on)
AN AUSTRALIAN Army colonel who served in East Timor has been chosen by the new US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, to join a team of "warrior intellectuals" to advise him on strategy.
Lieutenant-Colonel David Kilcullen, who is on secondment to the US State Department, will advise General Petraeus on counter-insurgency in Iraq, The Washington Post reports.
General Petraeus, who was confirmed in his post last week, is believed to have specifically asked for Colonel Kilcullen after he read several papers by the Australian, who has just completed a draft counter-insurgency policy for the State Department.
Colonel Kilcullen, 39, has a doctorate in anthropology and wrote his thesis on successful and failed counter-insurgency operations in Indonesia.
"Warrior intellectuals" is another word for ideologue. They haven't got a clue as to what the issues are that confront the soldiers in the streets of Baghdad but they will give it 'one for the gipper' since they have 'big guns.'
Wow. Nothing like throwing away American lives and helicopters as well as American fiscal responsiblity just so the ideologues 'can play.'
Gen. Casey: Shinseki mistreated (click on)
Posted by Aamer Madhani at 6:15 am CST
For the record-and with quite a bit of prodding- Army chief of staff nominee Gen. George Casey made it known Thursday that he felt retired Gen. Eric Shinseki wasn’t treated all that nicely by the old guard in the Defense Department.
Shinkseki, of course, was the Army general who under persistent questioning from Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) less than month before the U.S. invasion of Iraq told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he thought it would take hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops to keep the peace in post-war Iraq.
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, would deride Shinseki as being wildly off-the-mark to speculate it would take more troops to occupy Iraq than to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The general, who was due to end his term as the chief of the army four months later, quietly retired after contradicting Rumsfeld’s plan to operate with a lighter force. Not one top civilian from the defense department attended his retirement ceremony, seen as a slap in the face by some top military officers.
Many critics of the White House’s handling of the war, including Levin, have pointed to Shinseki’s treatment as setting an atmosphere of fear among commanders on the ground in Iraq.
I SUPPOSE Casey's failed Iraq campaign should reflect how correct Shinseki was. At least Shinseki knew BEFORE the blood shed and illegal invasion that it was a hopeless set of circumstances. Shinseki was a moral man with complete confidence in what he knew and how he DEFENDED this country. The generals like Franks and those that followed simply put on a happy face and played politics with their best friends, the Neocons. As a matter of fact I doubt sincerely that Bush has many friends left except those that pander to his warring to make money and win esteem. The USA is in a sad state of affairs and it begins with Bush's incompetency. If the Iraqis like criminals in their government then they have taken good example from the last six years of the USA.
STILL TRYING TO HAVE THEIR WAY.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what happened, Anderson, was that a group of Senate Republicans who want to support the president didn't want this resolution to come to a vote.
The 'stalemate' of the Republican Senators is simply leading to the Democrats NUCLEAR OPTION, I suppose.
So, led by the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, they stood up and they said: Look, if we're going to consider this resolution, there's two others that we would like to bring a vote as well. One is the McCain-Graham resolution, which supports the increase in the number of troops, and also sets benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet.
THIS IS A TIME TABLE. Bush has already stated he will not put forth a time table and reiterated that as recent as yesterday. McCain is defeated before he starts.
The other one was kind of an out-of-left-field resolution from New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg, which would simply state that the president has the responsibility to commit troops into harm's way; Congress has the responsibility to fully fund those operations.
THIS IS attempting to undermine the USA Constitution and is treason. The legislature is the will of the people. If there is a Neocon in the Executive Branch that is so out of touch with the people's will of this country, the Repuglicans have no right to enslave this nation to a tyrannt of which his bill states.
Bush's job approval rating isn't just a popularity contest for winning elections, it is a clear indication that the leader of this nation is completely out of touch with the will of the people of this country. Newsweek has him at 30%, CBS at 28%. Jeeze. What does the media think this is all about? This is an American Democracy NOT the free will of a person whom crowned himself dictator and is in office because he played a congame via Rove. These people are dangerous. Chaney outed a CIA agent to stop the blood letting. He literally was afraid that with Wilson's Op-Ed there would be more of the same. Cheney didn't care what he had to do to stop THE TRUTH of the corruption of this administration even if it meant outing one of the most valuable CIA agents working on WMD this country had.
http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm
Cooper and pandering media outlets are the country's biggest joke. They actually think they are doing a valuable job? Nah. They are doing the dirty work for the government to insure their own sad incomes. This country needs a clean sweep of a lot of things including the 'head strong' Neocons at CNN, FOX and the radio DJs that actually think they are somebody.
THE DEPARTURE from war is only as innocuous as the fact that children are abducted out of their communities by lonely men. MORE OF THE BUSH CULTURE OF FEAR.
Devlin is probably one of the saddest cases I have ever heard of and while he was very controlling and seeking the companionship of young boys in what would seem to be long term relationships. I don't believe he was ever capable of murder, but, the question remains as to what would come of the children as they became men. Age 15 is about as close to men as they come, so it would seem passive behavior would be not only a survival tool but a way of life. There was also that strange case recently of a young women locked in a room for years by a man that would seek to keep a sex object in close confinement.
Devlin faces 71 more counts in kidnappings (click on)
By William C. Lhotka and Tim O'Neil
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
(MCT)
ST. LOUIS - Michael J. Devlin has admitted to numerous sexual assaults on the two boys who were rescued from his apartment in Kirkwood, Mo., on Jan. 12, according to 71 new charges filed Monday.
Devlin, 41, already had been charged with kidnapping in the two counties where the boys were abducted. Federal investigators continue to review the case for possible additional charges.
Police say Devlin abducted Shawn Hornbeck, then 11, on Oct. 6, 2002. Shawn was riding a bike near his home in Richwoods, about 60 miles southwest of St. Louis, at the time. Then on Jan. 8, police say, Devlin abducted William "Ben" Ownby, 13, moments after he stepped off a school bus near his home in Beaufort.
Shawn's family and friends maintained a high-profile search for the boy in the years after his abduction. Ben was the subject of a massive search when two Kirkwood police officers, who had gone to Devlin's building on another case, noticed a white pickup matching the description of a vehicle that may have been used in the abduction.
When officers returned the next day to Devlin's apartment, they were stunned to also find Shawn, now 15.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch outlined the 71 new charges in a news conference Monday. He didn't use the boys' names but linked the charges by initials and dates of kidnapping - obvious connections, given the overwhelming news coverage of the abductions and rescue.
"We recognize that overall, their identities are not a national secret," McCulloch said. That fact, he said, "makes it difficult to file these charges."
Traditionally, prosecutors do not identify victims of sexual assault in formal charges or to the press. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch does not name them, except in extraordinary circumstances.
The nature of their cases made the boys' names familiar worldwide. After their rescue, Shawn's parents speculated on national TV that Devlin had sexually assaulted him.
...For their parts, Franklin County already has charged Devlin with child kidnapping in the abduction of Ben, and Washington County has charged him with kidnapping and armed criminal action, allegedly for using a pistol to abduct Shawn.
..."In a high-profile case, it's generally a free-for-all," said Joy, who has worked as a private criminal defense attorney and helps run a defense clinic in St. Louis County. "It's not uncommon where the prosecutors try to be the first one to prosecute the case. "Normally, the first prosecution gets the most headlines, and state prosecutors are elected and they want to be in the headlines."
THIS CASE is a bit of why the media should not be involved.
Rape cases as well.
It has caused the case to take a characteristic that will add to the political clout of prosecutors while depriving the young men of their privacy. I have a feeling by the time the prosecutors get to court and through a trial the charges will be wittled down to something reasonable and will keep Devlin off the streets for sometime, but, at the same time it's a bit of an embarrassement to see the 'circus' now surrounding a case that is tragic in it's own right.
It would be nice to see justice work to protect the innocent while handling the guilty without a lot of political fanfare. There should never be any 'spin' from someone else's tragedy in cases like this, especially in these instances where sexual exploitation has a life long stigma. I can't help but wonder if some of the motivation for these young boys to be compliant to their kidnapper is mired in shame and discovery by others. If that is the case, then what society is doing is placing an incentive to cooperation by victims in a way that says they will be branded for life anyway. It's a possibility that might be erased if the prosecutors also realized 'their political' bonus may only insure the next successful kidnapping.
Consequences is something children understand. In the cases of incest it is the threat of telling Mommy if Daddy is the molester. Or the threat of hurting a mother or sister. Consequences of punishment is something children understand and the shame of others in regard to the trouble children may have caused. So for a kidnapper to be this successful there has to be a reason for the child to cooperate and it's the consequences of their behavior that is more than likely the reason.
Shame is a motivating factor for children and to embarrass a parent even if the child sees their life as affected by the kidnapping might be an incentive to 'keep the secret.' Any parent understand 'the void' of the parent/child relationship when it comes to sexuality. It is that void that I believe plays into successful long term abductions such as these.
There should be open and free communication between parents in regard to a child's body, the clothes they wear and choose and why. What are good feelings about their bodies and their emotions. When it seems 'wrong' and what to do about it. A child should never be made to fear any feelings they have in expression of their safety. Active participation by parents to eliminate shame regarding healthy bodies and 'the my space' of privacy and when invasion of that privacy is wrong is a start to have a child that will be determined to return home rather than be held captive. I have no problem in talking about sex and how it is related in healthy emotions from the time there are the first questions regarding these issues. Simple, concise understanding between children and parents of how 'right' growing up healthy, happy and fulfilled can be leaves little room for strangers to entice curiousity of the naive.
To exploit these cases for 'spin' or sensationalism and rating without fulling understanding the depth of the issue is to use lives for 'the fun' of it all. I don't know if society will ever solve these problems. There are too many variables in all lives involved. Parents with responsiblity outside the home, children as latch key kids, children ill prepared for such circumstances, people that develope these dangerous fetishes over time and hide them so incredibly. Devlin was employed by someone who trusted him implicitly and for a long, long time. His loneliness was driven by his sexual preferences. Yet, he was convinced he could successfully carry out long term relationships on all fronts and did for a long time. It's a strange story but it isn't as though it is unique. The odds. What are the odds of every 'curing' a society of it's ills?
I raised two sons nearly alone and never had a problem with open communication with anything at any time in their lives. Their questions regardless the nature were always met with acceptance and assurity that a wholesome answer existed. The boys grew to be really nice men. I like them. It all worked out, you know? I wish every parent had the joy I had. It doesn't stop either. They keep giving in very nice ways, and the openness is more than any one parent should be allowed in a lifetime. There are no emotional boundaries and their safety net is always, Mom. It's kinda nice.
enough
posted by The Revolt and Revolting at 10:10 PM
<< Home