Crooked Timber reminded me that yesterday it was Krauthammer day!

It’s now been exactly a decade since Charles Krauthammer told us that

Hans Blix had five months to find weapons. He found nothing. We’ve had five weeks. Come back to me in five months. If we haven’t found any, we will have a credibility problem.

Charles Krauthammer has not only had that five month period, but twenty-three other five month periods after that first one, for weapons of mass destruction to be found. It’s news to no-one that no weapons have been found. It’s news to no-one that the reason they haven’t been found is because they weren’t there in the first place.

It’s news to no one that Charles Krauthammer is still a columnist at the Washington Post, a syndicated columnist across the US, and a regular talking head on TV. It’s news to no-one that Fred Hiatt, his then-boss and fellow Iraq bullshit artist is still the editor of the Washington Post’s editorial page. Or that Jackson Diehl, who I heard at the time from Washington Post people was even worse than Hiatt, is still there too.

Conservatives and neocons attacked Hans Blix and every other Iraq war cautioner and dissenter with as much ink, talk and hatred that they could muster up and they didn't have to worry about any consequences for their actions because of their media accomplices. Atrios brought us the Friedman Unit after his laughable time tables.

The term is in reference to a May 16, 2006, article by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) detailing the repeated use by columnist Thomas Friedman of "the next six months" as the period in which, according to Friedman, "we're going to find out... whether a decent outcome is possible" in the Iraq War.[4]

So how many F.U.s have gone by so far since we attacked Iraq? What shall we call all those who fall into Krauthammer's paradigm?

Michael Moore, who was one of the few public figures willing to take the heat for protesting the Iraq invasion, is doing his best to help people remember exactly why. Calling Donald Rumsfeld a war criminal (as he certainly was) is guaranteed to make at least some people pay attention:

Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore bitterly complained Tuesday night that no major Bush administration figure faced serious consequences for the invasion of Iraq.

On the tenth anniversary of the war, Moore told CNN’s Piers Morgan that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was a “war criminal as far as I’m concerned.”

Moore has long maintained the Bush administration manipulated intelligence reports to make a case for war. The Bush administration claimed Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction and seeking to create a nuclear bomb, but following the invasion of the country no evidence of the weapons were found.

“I don’t understand why he, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz are still walking the streets,” Moore continued. “The whole way they are trying to revise history now is by saying, ‘Well, it was a mistake,’ or, ‘We were given bad information.’”

He doubted police would show him any leniency if he provided them with false information against one of his political targets, such as Goldman Sachs. “I think I would be arrested,” Moore remarked.

He warned the lack of repercussions against top Bush administration officials set a bad precedent for future presidents.

“The fact that no one has paid for this criminal act — why would an American, such as George W. Bush, send thousands of Americans off to their deaths? For what reason? And why doesn’t he have to answer for that?”

I saw this and I couldn't believe it. But then I thought, well, Boehner's only saying out loud what some Democrats seem to believe anyway: We can't afford the war AND Social Security, so naturally, Social Security's gotta get slashed.

Makes perfect sense, right? Because, you know, stopping the war would be simply unthinkable! (And wasn't it the Republicans who first promised us the Iraq invasion would pay for itself?)

Boehner's criticism of the Democratic agenda then moved to the recently-negotiated financial regulatory reform package, which he likened to "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon." According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Boehner argued that the financial system would be better served by "more transparency and better enforcement by regulators."

The minority leader also answered questions about Social Security, which he said could not remain solvent as it is currently structured.

Ensuring there's enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country's entitlement system, Boehner said. He said he'd favor increasing the Social Security retirement age to 70 for people who have at least 20 years until retirement, tying cost-of-living increases to the consumer price index rather than wage inflation and limiting payments to those who need them.

"We need to look at the American people and explain to them that we're broke," Boehner said. "If you have substantial non-Social Security income while you're retired, why are we paying you at a time when we're broke? We just need to be honest with people.

No, John. How about you being honest with people? Social Security is not broke. It's solvent through 2036 and can fund about 80% of its obligations after that. All we have to do to fix it is to raise the current tax by one percent, and remove the cap on earnings that made Republicans so happy. You know that.

You think we haven't noticed the class war in this country? You think we've forgotten that Social Security is pay-as-you-go, and doesn't have a damned thing to do with our national deficit. Why would you say something that's a bold-faced lie?

Because the Republicans have been dying to privatize the system ever since it began. They hate the idea of a financial transaction happening somewhere that doesn't make money for their corporate sponsors on Wall Street. (And let's not even get into what would have happened to a privatized system in the crash.)

They want workers to be desperate and disposable, grateful for crumbs.

That's why Republicans always want means-testing. They want to turn Social Security into a poverty program so it won't have such broad-based support.

They're trying to confuse and worry people with this manufactured deficit "crisis." And they're telling us it's much more important to keep the war going than to take care of the people in this country. You saw the unemployment vote last week -- that's the Republican agenda, in all its naked glory.

They want cheap, disposable labor with no security whatsoever. And if we don't do something soon to stop them, we'll have it.

Brave New Film's Rethink Afghanistan:

Today is the seventh anniversary of the Iraq invasion.

There's a temptation as we begin to end our combat presence in Iraq to search for a happy ending. But there has been no 'victory' in Iraq. We created this video as a reminder of the damage done to Iraq and to our country over the last seven years. We also know that there will be no economic recovery here at home as long as we're spending $100 billion a year on another war that isn't making us any safer - the war in Afghanistan.

That's why we're asking you to report the Afghanistan War as an example of waste, fraud and abuse on the White House's official economic recovery website, Recovery.gov, today. Simply scroll down to the field marked "What" and paste this message into the text box: "I'd like to report the waste of billions of dollars of our national wealth in Afghanistan on a war that doesn't make us safer. It's fraud to portray this as a war that increases our security, and it's abusive of U.S. troops and local civilians to drag out this war any longer. End the war so we can have real economic recovery."

As of today, iCasualties lists 4,703 allied servicemembers killed in Iraq and Iraq Body Count estimates that 95,680 - 104,382 Iraqi civilians (not insurgents/military/soldiers) have been killed. And that doesn't include injured veterans or those who committed suicide. Tens of thousands of families have been torn apart by the what we now know was the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. We've spent $747.3 BILLION in Iraq, with the full cooperation of the pearl-clutching deficit hawks in the Republican Party.

And not one of us can honestly claim that we are safer.

What a sad anniversary.

And yet, there are no consequences. It's unlikely anyone will ever stand trial for the slaughter of countless innocents in Iraq - but at least the truth is coming out in England. If only it would happen here:

Military commanders are expected to tell the inquiry into the Iraq war, which opens on Tuesday, that the invasion was ill-conceived and that preparations were sabotaged by Tony Blair's government's attempts to mislead the public.

They were so shocked by the lack of preparation for the aftermath of the invasion that they believe members of the British and US governments at the time could be prosecuted for war crimes by breaching the duty outlined in the Geneva convention to safeguard civilians in a conflict, the Guardian has been told.

The lengths the Blair government took to conceal the invasion plan and the extent of military commanders' anger at what they call the government's "appalling" failures emerged as Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry's chairman, promised to produce a "full and insightful" account of how Britain was drawn into the conflict.

Fresh evidence has emerged about how Blair misled MPs by claiming in 2002 that the goal was "disarmament, not regime change". Documents show the government wanted to hide its true intentions by informing only "very small numbers" of officials.

The documents, leaked to the Sunday Telegraph, are "post-operational reports" and "lessons learned" papers compiled by the army and its field commanders. They refer to a "rushed" operation that caused "significant risk" to troops and "critical failure" in the postwar period.

One commander said the government "missed a golden opportunity" to win support from Iraqis. Another commented: "It was not unlike 1750s colonialism where the military had to do everything ourselves". One, describing the supply chain, added: "I know for a fact that there was one container full of skis in the desert".

[...] Significantly, the documents support what officials have earlier admitted – that the army was not allowed to prepare properly for the Iraq invasion in 2002 so as not to alert parliament and the UN that Blair was already determined to go to war.

The documents add: "In Whitehall, the internal operational security regime, in which only very small numbers of officers and officials were allowed to become involved [in Iraq invasion preparations] constrained broader planning for combat operations and subsequent phases effectively until Dec 23 2002."

Blair had in effect promised George Bush that he would join the US-led invasion when, as late as July 2002, he was denying to MPs that preparations were being made for military action. The leaked documents reveal that "from March 2002 or May at the latest there was a significant possibility of a large-scale British operation".

Blah3: Poor Poppy gets an earful from some Arabs about how Junior inspires zero trust around the world. 

AlterNet: Scott Ritter, one of the only experts seen on scream TV who was right about the Iraq invasion, debunks Iran myths

Talk To Action: More about Eric Keroack, who seems to oppose birth control and sexual relationships outside of marriage largely because God wants him to do it.

NPR : Audio of the secret Gitmo tribunals in which the government produces no evidence of any sort, and relies on secret evidence which the accused is not allowed to see or even know about. The detainees are given the opportunity to rebut the secret evidence. But they are never told what the secret evidence is.  The Pentagon dismisses such criticisms, arguing that the tribunals are fair.

The Vanity Press: More thoughts on Charlie Rangel's notion of reinstating the draft .  We're sure all those chickenhawk, warflogging, mommie men are wetting themselves at the thought that they might someday have to walk their tough talk, but...

GRAB BAG: Proof that Tom DeLay is now officially just a rusty spot on the underpants of history...Right wing campus outreach...CBS owes Ed Bradley an apology...Fittingly, Lieberman hired an ideological contortionist as his communications director

Facing South: Government contracts going to tax cheats.

St. Patrick's Pact With Satan: Before anyone assumes this is a link to the Bob Jones U. website, it's humor...I think.

First Draft: On Monday the Rethugs proclaimed 'Budget Restraint' to be the theme for 2008. On Wednesday, the GOP Senate rejected a tight budget rule.

Hughes for America: Preserving white privlege in education.

DAYS: More 'time travel.' This one takes us back just days before the Iraq invasion.

Pam's House Blend: An article on Focus on the Family's website titled Inner Warrior: Suiting Up for Battle. Why the military metaphor? Does it take a nation of warriors to hold their johnsons back?DAYS: More 'time travel.' This one takes us back just days before the Iraq invasion.

Pam's House Blend: An article on Focus on the Family's website titled Inner Warrior: Suiting Up for Battle. Why the military metaphor? Does it take a nation of warriors to hold their johnsons back?

My Evacuation From Houston..harrowing first person account

Big And Easy Iraqi-Style Contracts Flood New Orleans... "the same flawed contracting strategy that produced disastrous results in Iraq,”

WallStreetJackass: Al-Jazeera has hired Josh Rushing, a former US Marine captain who was the military’s lead spokesman to Arabs during the Iraq invasion.

Fafblog! ...Update from the Gay Apocalypse
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Mccannta..thinks that Anderson Cooper is doing an incredible job reporting on Rita..

via Bulworth

In case you were lured into watching CNN's ghoulish ghoulfest "Life and Death: America Speaks Out" gongshow last night, a three hourish parade of absolute slimy gutterring gusterbunk, the network milking for one last time the Terri Schiavo media carnival, with its "priests for life" calling the Schiavo death a "killing" and a "judicial homicide", in case you got sucked into that, you might have missed the rolling out of the presidential bipartisan commission's report on how we and the media all got snuckered by the president's Iraq war propaganda, which, in the final analysis, after the war was over, and the two years since, has resulted in not one iota of evidence to sustain the "weapons of mass destruction" claim trumpted by the administration and used by its lackeys in the media into intimidating us all to support the immoral Iraq invasion....read on