I'm so glad someone who has been there has finally said it:

(I)n a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, (former Marine Corps Captain Matthew) Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

The reaction to Hoh's letter was immediate. Senior U.S. officials, concerned that they would lose an outstanding officer and perhaps gain a prominent critic, appealed to him to stay.

U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry brought him to Kabul and offered him a job on his senior embassy staff. Hoh declined. From there, he was flown home for a face-to-face meeting with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer," Holbrooke said in an interview. "We all thought that given how serious his letter was, how much commitment there was, and his prior track record, we should pay close attention to him."

While he did not share Hoh's view that the war "wasn't worth the fight," Holbrooke said, "I agreed with much of his analysis." He asked Hoh to join his team in Washington, saying that "if he really wanted to affect policy and help reduce the cost of the war on lives and treasure," why not be "inside the building, rather than outside, where you can get a lot of attention but you won't have the same political impact?"

Hoh is quick to say he's not some hippie peace-nik. Sigh. Why does he make that sound like a bad thing? But Hoh does feel that our presence does nothing but escalate violence and turmoil with the Afghans.

(M)any Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there -- a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.

As the White House deliberates over whether to deploy more troops, Hoh said he decided to speak out publicly because "I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, 'Listen, I don't think this is right.' "

"I realize what I'm getting into . . . what people are going to say about me," he said. "I never thought I would be doing this."

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Rachel Maddow and Paul Krugman weigh in on Sarah Palin’s misguided talking points in her recent speech to financial executives in Hong Kong. Palin apparently thinks that the solution to our economic mess in the United States is less government regulation rather than more to rein the bankers and Wall Street in for their bad behavior.

As Krugman notes we need more regulation and consumer protections and if we can’t even fix the simple things that should be a no brainer like consumer protections, how are we going to fix the bigger problems?

From Think Progress-Delegates walk out of Palin’s first international speech:

Sarah Palin made her international debut today in a closed-door speech at the CLSA Investors’ Forum in Hong Kong. AFP reports that Palin’s speech, which touched on issues like international terrorism and the U.S. debt, “divided” the audience and even prompted a few delegates to leave in disgust:

Former US vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin divided an international audience of financial big-hitters at her first speech outside North America on Wednesday with some leaving in disgust. [...]

Some listeners praised her forthright views on government social and economic intervention but others walked out early citing boredom or disgust. [...]

A US delegate leaving early with a colleague said: “it was awful, we couldn’t stand it any longer.”

As Krugman noted during this interview unfortunately Sarah Palin is not that far out of the mainstream of the Republican Party with her views on regulation.

I know that old Rush "Oxycontin" Limbaugh's a little upset these days, what with Glenn Beck on the cover of TIME and all. But this is bad, even for him. Time to call the advertisers and radio stations:

In a remark extraordinary even by the standards of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing radio heavyweight declared on his program Wednesday that the United States needed to return to racially segregated buses.

Referring to an incident in which a white student was beaten by black students on a bus, Limbaugh said: “I think the guy’s wrong. I think not only it was racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that’s the lesson we’re being taught here today. Kid shouldn’t have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses — it was invading space and stuff. This is Obama’s America.”

A full transcript of Limbaugh’s comments on his radio show is available at MediaMatters.org.

Limbaugh’s comments came after a called complained to say that local law enforcement said the attack probably wasn’t racially motivated. The incident had been hyped by the conservative Drudge Report, which posted a video of the fracas.

“Police initially said the beating of the white student by two black students appeared to be racially motivated,” the Associated Press wrote. “But police on Tuesday backed away from that.”

That didn’t stop Limbaugh from making his comments Wednesday.

“In Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, ‘Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,” Limbaugh also said. “I wonder if Obama’s going to come to come to the defense of the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard.”

“White Americans are racists who have created what they call free markets that really just enslave the rest of America and her trading partners,” Limbaugh also mocked. “I mean, it was white Americans that ran off Van Jones. No, look, let’s just follow Eric Holder’s advice and not be cowards about all this. Let’s have an open conversation, an honest conversation about all of our typical white grandmothers. You had one, I had one. Obama had one. They’re racists just like our students are. ACORN — hey, nothing but racism fueling the pursuit of ACORN.”

Limbaugh also suggested that racism itself was acceptable.

“If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable?” the talk show host asked. “I’m sorry — I mean, this is the way my mind works. But apparently now we don’t choose racism, we just are racists. We are born that way. We don’t choose it. So shouldn’t it be acceptable, excuse — this is according to the way the left thinks about things.”

Really, isn't it time that decent people just said NO to Rush Limbaugh?

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Good little torture advocate Joe Scarborough seems to think that anything the United States does is justified, if it works. I'd like to know just what Joe Scarborough and the rest of his guests would ever find objectionable enough that it finally goes over the line for any of them? Scar starts out feigning indignation for the poor demoralized CIA that got their feelings hurt by that mean old Amnesty International and the ACLU for letting the public know they tortured prisoners. He's completely unfazed by her report and at the end of course questions whether it's even true.

Mitchell: Well when they looked at the details and when they looked at some of the more gruesome aspects of this program, they say, they believed they had to uphold...

Scarborough: Now when you say gruesome, what are you talking about gruesome. Uhhhmm....

Mitchell: Well we don't know frankly. Pete Williams and I went through all this and we're told that we don't even know some of the worst cases that were still censored. So....

Scarborough: Well the cases we do know is somebody turned on a drill and made a detainee think that they were going to get drilled...

Mitchell: Well...

Scarborough: And then somebody fired a gun in an adjoining room. Have we heard of anything worse than that right now?

Mitchell: Yes we have.

Scarborough: What have we heard?

Mitchell: We've heard of threats to, we will bring your mother in here and we'll bring your children here and we'll kill your children when the children were in custody of the U.S. Military. So we will rape your mother in front of you. These are things that, this is not, you know, me talking. This is the Geneva Conventions. You've got a lot of...

Scarborough: We will rape your mother in front of you. Who is suggesting that was said by an interrogator?

Mitchell: Yes, exactly.

Scarborough: Okay. And when are we going to get that information released?

Mitchell: Well, we're not sure that we're going to ever get that information released. There are a lot of lawsuits out there and some of the plantiffs are still complaining, Amnesty, ACLU said what was released yesterday still has too many blacked out sections.

Scarborough: Okay. Andrea...ah...it is, this is absolutely fascinating.

Mitchell: It's a mess. There's no question it's a mess. And it's really damaging morale at the agency. There's no questions about that.

Scarborough: Listen, I personally believe it's a nightmare moving forward. I know David Ignatius has said as much. We're going to have him on and talk to him for about thirty minutes.

Scarborough and Richard Haas then go on to more or less say that the CIA cannot do it's job if they're not allowed to torture people, and carry water for that "torture saved us from terrorist attacks" canard.

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July 23, 2009 BBC World

The Satirical Political Report: Why Sarah Palin's resignation is DEVASTATING to the GOP.  Naturally, on Independence Day, one day after she quit her job, this narcissist insisted that we pay attention to her on the internet.

Newshoggers: Where's my monkey wrench?

Seeing the Forest: It Was About The Oil

Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog: The Enemy Within? 

Raw Dawg Buffalo: united states of entertainment

onegoodmove: Buncha kewel links

It is curious that this AP article left out one giant aspect of the UBS scandal -- the role former GOP Senator Phil Gramm may have played in their illegal activity.

MIAMI – Swiss bank UBS AG "systematically and deliberately" violated U.S. law by dispatching private bankers to recruit wealthy Americans interested in evading taxes and must be forced to reveal the identities of 52,000 of those clients, the Justice Department said in a court filing Tuesday.

The filing, which comes amid several published reports that the case may be near settlement, urges U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold to hold UBS accountable for conducting years of illegal business on U.S. soil — business that earned the bank more than $100 million in fees but cost the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes.

"It is time for UBS to face the consequences that it has brought upon itself," said Justice Department tax attorney Stuart Gibson in the 55-page filing. "The United States has proven its case for enforcement."

As Jon Perr wrote earlier this year, Gramm was instrumental in handcuffing the IRS while he was in the Senate, and may have paved the way for UBS to commit their crimes once he became their Vice Chairman in 2002.

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Good God. They really are wishing and hoping for a terrorist attack.

Michael Scheuer, on Glenn Beck's show last night:

Scheuer: The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it's going to take a grass-roots, bottom-up pressure. Because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. It's an absurd situation again. Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.

Beck: Which is why, I was thinking this weekend, if I were him, that would be the last thing I would do right now.

I guess the wingnuts have given up the pretense of decency and normalcy. Now they're rooting for another terrorist attack, so that we stoopid Americans will finally WAKE UP! to the nature of the evil that conspires against us ...

Actually, we're becoming quite awake indeed. And it isn't bin Laden who scares us right now. More like Glenn Beck and his guests.

So we'll see. It's quite a mess we've created over there, and this is only the first step on the long road back to anything approaching normal:

BAGHDAD, June 30 -- This is no longer America's war.

Iraqis danced in the streets and set off fireworks Monday in impromptu celebrations of a pivotal moment in their nation's troubled history: Six years and three months after the March 2003 invasion, the United States on Tuesday is withdrawing its remaining combat troops from Iraq's cities and turning over security to Iraqi police and soldiers.

While more than 130,000 U.S. troops remain in the country, patrols by heavily armed soldiers in hulking vehicles as of Wednesday will largely disappear from Baghdad, Mosul and Iraq's other urban centers.

"The Army of the U.S. is out of my country," said Ibrahim Algurabi, 34, a dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen now living in Arizona who attended a concert of celebration in Baghdad's Zawra Park. "People are ready for this change. There are a lot of opportunities to rebuild our country, to forget the past and think about the future."

On Monday, as the withdrawal deadline loomed, four U.S. troops were killed in the Iraqi capital, the military announced Tuesday. No details about the deaths were provided. Another soldier was killed Sunday in a separate attack.

Some American troops have expressed concern about becoming more exposed after the withdrawal, because Iraqis will have unprecedented authority over U.S. military operations. U.S. commanders have said they were bracing for an uptick of attacks from extremist groups during the transition period, which occur almost daily, and will rely heavily on Iraq's security forces for protection in the months ahead.

The withdrawal has also created enormous fear and uncertainty among many Iraqis, who believe that the U.S. military pullback will open the door for insurgents to increase their attacks. On Monday, some normally congested streets were virtually deserted after dark, as Iraqis appeared to heed warnings of impending attacks by insurgents. But city streets were also largely empty of Humvees and U.S. troops.

Those Iraqis who ventured out were in the mood to party, celebrating a moment that the Iraqi government has said represents its return to full sovereignty.

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Pat Buchanan on MSNBC during a break in their wall to wall Michael Jackson coverage fear mongering over the energy bill that just passed the House.

Witt: Why doesn't anyone want to call it a climate bill?

Buchanan: Well, because the science is suggesting that maybe all of this isn't really happening or it's not really dangerous or it's not really man made. Barack Obama, the President is right when he said we shouldn't be afraid of the future. That is how this bill got passed through fear. We're all going to change. The climate's going to change. The oceans are going to rise. Our cities are going to be under water.

But more and more scientists are coming forward to say this is a hoax and a scam which is designed to transfer wealth and power from the private sector to the government sector and from the government of the United States to a world government. Which is what we're going to get in Copenhagen when we get this Kyoto two agreement.

Witt: Okay, here come the emails.

Alex, no one believes you didn't fully expect Buchanan to say something outrageous before you and your producers allowed him on the air. Don't go whining after it's too late about getting nasty emails for doing it. Buchanan fails to specify, and Witt fails to ask him just who these scientists are.

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While discussing what the United States should do if the crisis in Iran turns into another Tiananmen Square, McCain responds that the U.S. should follow the lead of the French, who we all know Republicans love so much, the Germans and the Brits. McCain says that the death of Neda might be a defining moment in history and the end of the tyrannical regime in Iran.

When asked if we should negotiate with them if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remains in power, of course Mr. Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran doesn't think so. McCain also says the we can't trust the Iranians because they've "violated fundamental human rights upon which this nation (The United States) was founded".

As someone who formerly chaired and remains a member of the Indian Affairs Committee in the Senate, I wonder if Senator McCain has ever asked any of his American Indian constituents if they'd agree with that statement? He might want to ask the African American community as well. I don't think being kept as slaves qualifies as honoring someone's basic human rights.

John McCain made some similar statements and additional history revision on Sean Hannity's show last week.

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And let's give credit to the Dems who put the "bi" in bipartisan on this issue! Yes, let's hear it for those Dems who live and die by the prevailing winds of public opinion - who would never dream of actually educating the voters instead of knuckling under to their uninformed emotions. You go, Weathervane Dems! Woo hoo!

The Obama administration has all but abandoned plans to allow Guantanamo Bay detainees who have been cleared for release to live in the United States, administration officials said yesterday, a decision that reflects bipartisan congressional opposition to admitting such prisoners but complicates efforts to persuade European allies to accept them.

Four Uighur detainees, Chinese Muslims who were incarcerated at the U.S. military prison in Cuba for more than seven years, arrived early yesterday in Bermuda, where they will become foreign guest workers. An administration official said the United States is engaged in negotiations with other countries, including Palau, an island nation in the western Pacific, to find places for the remaining 13 Uighurs held at Guantanamo.

The Uighurs, who were ordered released by a federal judge last year, never counted America as an enemy, according to the men's lawyers and human rights groups, giving the administration grounds to argue that they should live in the United States. Picked up in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2002, the Uighurs were later cleared of the "enemy combatant" label but remained in minimum-security confinement at Guantanamo.

Attempting to settle non-Uighur detainees in the United States would generate even greater congressional opposition, and the administration has decided not to pursue it broadly, an administration official said yesterday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. But he said there may yet be "a few" candidates for settlement in the United States among the dozens of Guantanamo detainees who have been cleared for release.

Congressional Democrats yesterday reached agreement on a war-funding bill that would allow detainees to be sent to the United States for trial. The draft bill included no provision for prolonged detention without trial, a step that President Obama has said will be necessary to incarcerate detainees who are too dangerous to release but who cannot be prosecuted.

An American journalist who spent four months in an Iranian prison was greeted Friday afternoon with cheers and hugs from friends as she returned to the United States. (May 22)

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From Countdown's WTF!! segment. Keith considers what would happen to Texas if their wingnut Governor got his wish it did secede from the United States. You'd better be careful what you wish for Governor Perry since leaving, as Keith notes, would be pretty expensive for Texas.

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Brit Hume and Bill Kristol were in usual form on Fox News Sunday crying about the release of the torture memos by the Obama administration. Without blinking an eye Bill Kristol dismisses the methods used in the interrogations.

Wallace: As you read the memos and you learn what we did and how top Justice Department officials justified it, are you struck by how brutal we were or how careful we were?

Kristol: How careful. I mean has any other country at war gotten memos from the Justice Department? Extremely carefully of recent I would say. Especially the Steve Bradbury 2005 memos before going ahead and trying to deal with the rather small number of terrorists who had been involved in murdering thousands of Americans and were very much intending to do more of that..I think..you read those memos, you think that's what everyone's so upset about.

Kristol goes on to rant about the memos being released and decry the potential investigations that can come from it. I'd like to know how anyone could read the things that were in those memos and have that kind of response?

Brit Hume thinks that this is just old news now since the Obama administration has decided to stop torturing prisoners and can't understand what possible benefit can come from the specifics being released to the terrorists. Brit I hate to tell you this but I think the gist of what was in those memos has been out in the public domain for some time now for those terrorists to read.

All of these talking heads today had a couple of themes with their arguments. One that if torturing prisoners "worked" and we got some vital information from them, then it's just fine to violate the law and it justifies this brutality. The other is the we need to look forward argument and that there's no need to dwell on what happened because the Obama administration says using these methods has stopped. Would they ever apply that same argument to defend some drug dealer on the street that killed someone or to any street crime that occurs in the United States for that matter? Somehow I doubt it.

I wonder just how "careful" Kristol would think anyone was being if he was waterboarded an average of over six times a day for a month? And if it didn't work the first five or ten times even, what are you going to get from anyone from waterboarding them that many times other than some sadistic pleasure from knowing you're punishing the person being waterboarded? I wonder how "careful" he would think they were if it was his child being tortured in front of him because someone thought he was a terrorist? I wonder how "careful" he would think they were if it was his head getting knocked in?

We have laws on the books that don't allow policemen to beat confessions out of people in the United States for a reason. Why these clowns can't manage to bring the same reasoning to this debate is beyond me.