Recently in War Category

This is from McClatchy Newspapers:

"Mohammed Akhtiar was among the more than 770 terrorism suspects imprisoned at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They are the men the Bush administration described as "the worst of the worst."

"But Akhtiar was no terrorist. American troops had dragged him out of his Afghanistan home in 2003 and held him in Guantanamo for three years in the belief that he was an insurgent involved in rocket attacks on U.S. forces. But they had the wrong guy. Local anti-government insurgents had fed false information to U.S. troops."

The newspaper chain's Washington Bureau has conducted an extensive investigation into the prisoners detained in the war of terrorism and concluded that in many cases, our government is detaining the wrong people.

Here's more:

"An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men -- and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds -- whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.

"McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials -- primarily in Afghanistan -- and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.

"This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.

"The investigation also found that despite the uncertainty about whom they were holding, U.S. soldiers beat and abused many prisoners."

Read the whole series here.

You know, the more we do this kind of stuff, the less safe we are. Besides, we're Americans. We don't do this kind of thing.

Remember this?

How's that working out?

As a bonus, here's John McCain on the topic. As you can see, he's been wrong about, well, everything, and then later denies that he was wrong. And he has a crazy preacher supporting him.

Those are the words used by the author of a study of the Iraq war.

And what left-wing think tank did this come from?

The Pentagon's own National Defense University.

The study begins: "Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle."

Read about it here.

The big news this week has been about a governor getting his freak on with expensive hookers and a former vice presidential candidate melting down after launching a racist attack against Democratic front-runner Barack Obama.

Meanwhile, this week, in Iraq, 13 more soldiers have been killed.

Thirteen more families mourning.

Thirteen more soldiers sacrificed for no good reason.

The death toll in Iraq now stands at 3,987.

Just thought you should know.

The Associated Press reported: "A study by two non-profit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks."

The AP reported, "The study concluded that the statements 'were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.'"

The study documented the lies and counted them up and in the two years leading up to the launch of the war, it found that President Dubya and his minions made 935 false statements about Iraq.

Nine-hundred and thirty-five?

Seems kind of low.

As has been previously reported, the mercenaries in the employ of Blackwater, a private security firm doing business in Iraq on our behalf, have gotten into hot water over shooting random civilians in the course of their duty, which seems to be shooting random civilians.

But now, they've gone too far.

They shot the New York Times' dog.

Reuters reports: "Staff at the newspaper’s Baghdad bureau said Blackwater bodyguards shot (the dog named) Hentish dead last week before a visit by a U.S. diplomat to the Times compound.

"Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the dog had attacked one of Blackwater’s bomb-sniffer dogs while a security team was sweeping the compound for explosives.

"'The K-9 handler made several unsuccessful attempts to get the dog to retreat, including placing himself between the dogs. When those efforts failed, the K-9 handler unfortunately was forced to use a pistol to protect the company’s K-9 and himself,' she said in an e-mail to Reuters.

OK, killing civilians is one thing. Killing a dog is another. I predict Blackwater will be in a world of trouble over this one.

Here is a video of the original "Christmas in Fallujah," written by my friend Jeff Lebo two years ago and performed by Jefferson Pepper and the Varmints in Heaven.

I think it's better than Billy Joel's version, but then again, since I played on it, I'm not exactly objective about it. Still, it's a good video, dedicated to Jeff's neighbor and friend, David, an Army medic.

Former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld used to send out between 40 and 60 memos a day to his staff, a level of craziness that is difficult to comprehend.

He called these little memos, containing his wisdom, "snowflakes."

Courtesy of the Washington Post, here are some excerpts:

"I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started."

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."

"There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist."

The guy was hilarious.

And nuts.

The New York Times had a piece about the Blackwater mercenaries who are contracted to provide security in Iraq describing a shooting by one of the mercs, who was described as being very drunk.

Here is an excerpt:

"The acting ambassador at the United States Embassy in Baghdad suggested that Blackwater apologize for the shooting and pay the dead Iraqi man’s family $250,000, lest the Iraqi government bar Blackwater from working there, the report said. Blackwater eventually paid the family $15,000, according to the report, after an embassy diplomatic security official complained that the 'crazy sums' proposed by the ambassador could encourage Iraqis to try to 'get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family’s future.'"

Unbelievable.

Who thought privatizing the war was a good idea?

So Gen. David Petraeus' long-awaited report on the Iraq war has been delivered and what's the conclusion.

Sure, he's recommended withdrawing 30,000 troops by next summer, meaning that by next summer, we'll be at the same point we were in January.

There's a phrase for this: Two steps forward, two steps back.

This thing's never going to end.

Turns out that Petraeus is apparently Greek for Westmoreland -- Westmoreland being the Gen. William Westmoreland, the fall guy for our failure in Vietnam.

Westmoreland, if you'll recall, offered dozens of rosy predictions about how Vietnam was playing out, right up to the bitter end.

And now, it's Petraeus' turn.

Speaking about Iraq before a group of contractors, President Dubya said, "Either we'll succeed, or we won't succeed."

Really? Are you sure there isn't a third option?

First Lady Laura Bush, asked about the Iraq war in an interview with the "Today" show's Ann Curry said, "No one suffers more than their president and I do."

Just off the top of my head, I can think of at least 3,300 people who have.

Switzerland invaded Liechtenstein.

By accident.

My favorite part of the story is nobody noticed.

From the Associated Press:

ZURICH, Switzerland -- What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.

According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers wandered 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.

A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.

''We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem,'' Daniel Reist told The Associated Press.

Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident.

Interior ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. ''It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something,'' he said.

OK, England announces it's withdrawing its troops from Iraq just days after reports surface that Prince Harry -- heir to the throne and a member of the Army -- will be deployed.

How can we get the Bush twins to get with the program?

The Brittish are reducing the number of troops they have deployed to Iraq and are looking toward withdrawing altogether from the great quagmire in the sandbox.

So how long before some wingnut in Congress insists we change the name of English muffins to freedom muffins?