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A little blast from the past from Rep. Murtha. His interview on Meet the Press June 11th, 2006 where Rep. Murtha blasts chickenhawk Karl Rove for his "stay the course" rhetoric on Iraq. I've had my issues with Murtha but this appearance on Meet the Press and the day and a half he spent on the House floor taking on the Republicans over their Iraq "war" resolution was something to behold.

MR. RUSSERT: But first, Iraq. Joining us now is Democratic Congressman John Murtha.

Welcome back to MEET THE PRESS.

REP. JOHN MURTHA (D-PA): Nice to be back, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: The president says, “stay the course,” that within the next six months, Iraq will be secure under the direction of the new prime minister, and to do anything less now would be irresponsible.

REP. MURTHA: Well, “stay the course” is “stay and pay.” This is the thing that has worried me right along. We’re spending $8 billion dollars a month, $300 million dollars a day. And to give you some perspective of what that means, Gates said, “I’m going to quit the corporation, or I’m going to—less time with the corporation.” Well, you weigh $30 billion dollars. That’s four months of the cost of this war. This port security, if you want to spend more money, it’d would take 47 years the way we’re spending it. Education, the No Child Left Behind, a couple months of the war would pay for that. Whose going to, whose going to pay for this down the road? Our children and grandchildren are paying for this war. And then you have the, the, the emotional strain, the, the, the people who are being hurt.

On the floor the other day, you may have heard this, one fellow says, “We’re fighting this war.” We’re not fighting this war. One percent of the American people, these young men and women are fighting this war, with heavy packs, with 70 pounds of equipment, with helmets on in 130 degrees. That’s who’s fighting this war. And they say “stay the course.” There’s no plan. You open up this plan for victory, there’s no plan there. It’s just “stay the course.” That doesn’t solve any problem.

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(Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) outspoken critic of an endless war)

With the sudden death today of Rep. John Murtha of complications from gall bladder surgery, I'm reminded that his was the outspoken voice in opposition to our failed policy in Iraq when many weren't. A Marine himself, he didn't take our sacrifices lightly and suffered the smears from the opposition who were never in the place Murtha knew so well. His concern was, above all for the soldier, the grunt, the enlisted man or woman who gave and were abused for a cause that was never thought out, for a strategy that was never explained and for a goal that hasn't, almost ten years later, been achieved.

There are many addresses and interviews Murtha conducted in connection to our involvement in Iraq. Here is one press conference he did on November 17, 2005.

Rep. John Murtha: “The burden of this war has not been shared equally. The families are shouldering the burden. The military has been fighting this war in Iraq for over two and a half years. Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty. Our military captured Saddam Hussein, captured or killed his closest associates. But the war continues to intensify. Deaths and injuries are growing. And over 2,079 confirmed American deaths, over 15,000 have been seriously injured, half of them have been returned to duty. And its estimated over 50,000 will suffer from what I call Battle Fatigue. And there have been reports over 30,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed.”

RIP John Murtha.

The only thing more discouraging than Teh Surge 2.0 is the finding that our defense contracting is still as screwed up as ever. In eight years, given all the money pouring into Iraq and the knowledge that it was not well overseen, the US government now repeating the same mistakes in Afghanistan.

In the report released Friday, auditors with the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction blamed poor communication between U.S. officials and the two companies that are working on the majority of the projects.

While the U.S. Agency for International Development has relied on the companies, Louis Berger and Black & Veatch, for updates on projects, "that reporting has not always been timely or sufficient," the auditors said.

The companies also had trouble meeting deadlines for projects because of dangerous conditions.

In addition, Afghanistan began rebuilding its electrical grid without a concrete plan for how to approach such a complex effort, the auditors said.

In 2006, the USAID awarded the two U.S. companies a five-year, $1.4 billion joint contract to build many of the roads and energy projects that now are under way in Afghanistan.

Our government's defense accounting process is amazingly broken. Each service has its own accounting rules and procedures, and the auditing process isn't too effective. SecDef Gates is trying to improve the process, but it's like using band-aids to patch a dam that's leaking in multiple spots. We can't spend money on health or education, but there's no bottom to the defense bowl. Oh and Congress is completely unwilling to do anything about it, as long as the Repubs can throw up cuts in Medicare and Social Security instead.

Maybe President Obama can get around to this issue in his second term. No way he's going to touch it in the first term.

Rachel Maddow whacks the McCain campaign for putting clueless Sarah Palin and recent Fox News hire one step away from being President of the United States when they already knew that she wasn't qualified. While I have no desire to push Heilemann and Halperin's gossip rag of a book, the news that Steve Schmidt and other campaign staffers of McCain's weren't happy with Palin is nothing new and probably credible. And anyone with half a brain didn't need inside the beltway campaign gossip to see that their assertions were right and that Sister Sarah had no business being one bad heartbeat away from the Presidency and McCain should have known better than to select her.

As Rachel notes, no one gets to vote for the Vice Presidential candidate and it shows how much that person cares about the country with their selection, and McCain put his campaign before country as much as he might not like being called out for it now. He got pretty nasty with Matt Lauer for daring to ask him about the book. I'd hate to see how would act if anyone actually really got confrontational with him about it.

Could there ever be a Talk show Sunday without McCain or Lieberman? I think it's news when they don't appear, but CNN should be embarrassed for this "Exclusive" promotion.

This week, John's exclusive guests are Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) LIVE from Jerusalem. We'll get their insight on the foiled airline terror plot and President Obama's strategy on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I guess if McCain/Holy Joe travel to a new location then it makes them a hot item all over again. And doesn't the MSM realize that if it had been up to McCain, Lieberman would have been McCain's VP so in reality the networks are promoting the biggest f*&king losers of the 2008 election to an elevated media position? ABC has been a nonstop McCainathon, so CNN must have wanted in on the gagfest.

From Democracy Now--“Blackwatergate”–Private Military Firm in Firestorm of Controversy over Involvements in Iraq, Afghanistan and Germany:

Blackwater is all over the news. In the last seventy-two hours, a series of breaking developments involving the notorious private military firm have come to light, ranging from their involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even Germany, as well as legal cases here at home. We speak with investigative journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a leading member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, who is launching an investigation into why two Blackwater contractors were among the dead in the December 30 suicide bombing at the CIA station at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Blackwater is all over the news. In the last seventy-two hours, a series of breaking developments involving the notorious private military firm have come to light, ranging from their involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even Germany, as well as legal cases here at home.

In the latest news, two former Blackwater operatives were arrested yesterday on murder charges stemming from their alleged involvement in the shooting deaths of two Afghan civilians in Kabul in May.

The news broke just hours after it was revealed Blackwater had reached a settlement with Iraqi victims of a string of shootings, including the Nisoor Square massacre, who had sued the company for what they called “senseless slaughter.” Blackwater is reportedly paying $100,000 for each of the Iraqis killed by its forces and between $20,000 to $30,000 to each Iraqi wounded. News of the settlement came a week after a federal judge dismissed manslaughter charges against five Blackwater operatives involved in the Nisoor Square massacre that killed seventeen Iraqi civilians.

Then, on Wednesday, prosecutors in Germany announced they had launched a preliminary investigation into a report that the CIA and Blackwater had planned a secret operation in 2004 to assassinate a German citizen in Hamburg with suspected ties to al-Qaeda.

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Thom Hartmann debates Dinesh D'Souza about whether we had followed Jimmy Carter's proposed energy policy to get us off of foreign oil in 1977 we'd be in the mess we're in now almost 33 years later. He does actually get D'Souza to admit that we would not be in the Middle East were it not for our dependence on that oil

Thom wrote about this back in 2005. Carter Tried To Stop Bush's Energy Disasters - 28 Years Ago:

In his recent news conference, George Bush Jr. suggested that our nation's "problem" with high gasoline prices was caused by the lack of a national energy policy, and tried to blame it all on Bill Clinton. First, Junior said, "This is a problem that's been a long time in coming. We haven't had an energy policy in this country."

This was followed by, "That's exactly what I've been saying to the American people -- 10 years ago if we'd had an energy strategy, we would be able to diversify away from foreign dependence. And -- but we haven't done that. And now we find ourselves in the fix we're in." As is so often the case, Bush was lying.

Consider President Jimmy Carter's April 18, 1977 speech. Since it was given nearly three decades ago, when many of the reporters in Bush's White House were children, it's understandable that they don't remember it. But it's inexcusable that Bush and the mainstream media (which, after all, has the ability to do research) would completely ignore it. It was the speech that established the strategic petroleum reserve, birthed the modern solar power industry, led to the insulation of millions of American homes, and established America's first national energy policy. "With the exception of preventing war," said Jimmy Carter, a man of peace, "this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes."

He added: "It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. "We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren.

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I love that Hartmann makes these debates with conservatives a daily feature on his radio show. If they'd let Thom anywhere near our television screen and the cable news shows, they would have their collective IQ raised quite a few points immediately, but that's not going to happen any time soon.

Here's a tidbit on Dinesh D'Souza I'd never read before if his Wiki page is accurate:

Prior to his marriage in 1992, D'Souza had relationships with two well-known female conservatives, Laura Ingraham, a nationally syndicated radio commentator to whom he was engaged but never married, and best-selling conservative author and commentator Ann Coulter.

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January 07, 2010 CNN

Federal authorities have arrested two former Blackwater guards and charged them with murder in the deaths of two Afghans, the Associated Press reports.

Update at 2:41 p.m. ET: The AP says an indictment charges Justin Cannon, 27, and Chris Drotleff , 29, with second-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons charges. Both of them are in custody.

Both Cannon of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Drotleff of Virginia Beach, Va., told the AP recently that they were justified when they fired on a threatening vehicle last year in Kabul.

Blackwater, now known as Xe, fired both men after the shooting for failing to comply with the terms of their contract, the AP says.

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I'm cautiously optimistic that the administration so far appears to be reluctant to barreling into yet another war in Yemen, even if the beloved Joe Lieberman thinks it's a good idea. Starting a war in Yemen would be catastrophic, not the least because the country has urban areas surrounded by tribal, fundamentalist villages in difficult terrain. And as we've seen, American invasions only strengthen Islamic fundamentalism, they don't stop it:

SAN'A, Yemen -- The U.S. and Britain closed their embassies in Yemen on Sunday in the face of al-Qaida threats, after both countries announced an increase in aid to the government to fight the terror group linked to the failed attempt to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas.

The confrontation with al-Qaida's offshoot in Yemen has gained new urgency since the 23-year-old Nigerian accused in the attack, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told American investigators he received training and instructions from the group's operatives in Yemen. President Barack Obama said Saturday that the al-Qaida offshoot was behind the attempt.

The White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said the American Embassy, which was attacked twice in 2008, was shut Sunday because of an "active" al-Qaida threat. A statement on the embassy's Web site announcing the closure cited "ongoing threats" from the terror group and did not say how long it would remain closed.

In London, Britain's Foreign Office said its embassy was closed for security reasons. It said officials would decide later whether to reopen it on Monday.

The closure comes as Washington is dramatically stepping up aid to Yemen to fight al-Qaida, which has built up strongholds in remote parts of the impoverished, mountainous nation where government control outside the capital is weak.

The U.S. also provided intelligence and other help to back two Yemeni air and ground assaults on al-Qaida hideouts last month, reported to have killed more than 60 people. Yemeni authorities said more than 30 suspected militants were among the dead.

Obviously, this is going to do wonders for our image in Iraq:

WASHINGTON — In a significant blow to the Justice Department, a federal judge on Thursday threw out the indictment of five former Blackwater security guards over a shooting in Baghdad in 2007 that left 17 Iraqis dead and about 20 wounded.

The judge cited misuse of statements made by the guards in his decision, which brought to a sudden halt one of the highest-profile prosecutions to arise from the Iraq war. The shooting at Nisour Square frayed relations between the Iraqi government and the Bush administration and put a spotlight on the United States’ growing reliance on private security contractors in war zones.

Investigators concluded that the guards had indiscriminately fired on unarmed civilians in an unprovoked and unjustified assault near the crowded traffic circle on Sept. 16, 2007. The guards contended that they had been ambushed by insurgents and fired in self-defense.

A trial on manslaughter and firearm offenses was planned for February, and the preliminary proceedings had been closely watched in the United States and Iraq.

But in a 90-page opinion, Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of Federal District Court in Washington wrote that the government’s mishandling of the case “requires dismissal of the indictment against all the defendants.”

In a “reckless violation of the defendants’ constitutional rights,” the judge wrote, investigators, prosecutors and government witnesses had inappropriately relied on statements that the guards had been compelled to make in debriefings by the State Department shortly after the shootings. The State Department had hired the guards to protect its officials.

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We ran a story on Dec. 20th, when General Cucolo first banned pregnancies under his command. Well, he took it a step further.

The crazy that comes out of the military sometimes is breathtaking. I wonder if this General is connected to the C-Street gang known as The Family?

VELSHI: Twenty-two U.S. soldiers serving in northern Iraq have just gotten two new orders from their general. Rule one, don't get pregnant. Rule two, don't get another soldier pregnant. Break those rules and you will get court-martialed. The general, Anthony Cucolo, e-mailed CNN explaining his decision, telling us -- quote -- "I need every soldier I have got, especially since we are facing a drawdown of forces during our mission."

LISA BLOOM, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: In my view, this is patently unconstitutional, Ali. There's a long line of U.S. Supreme Court cases that says that the right to be a parent is a fundamental constitutional right. That means it's a right of the highest order and worthy of the highest protection.

Now, the military does get great deference from the courts, which means, if they want to redeploy a pregnant soldier, as they often do, they can do that in the way that a private employer could not do. But they cannot threaten with court-martial or jail a pregnant woman or a man who impregnates a woman. In my view, this will not pass any kind of constitutional muster.
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THOMAS KENNIFF, FORMER ARMY JAG OFFICE ATTORNEY: Well, first of all, I think he may be going into hiding soon, because I think this is a situation where you have a commanding general who is in charge of his own fiefdom in northern Iraq and probably thought that he could do this with the consent of his own JAG, who may -- we use a term in the military when JAGs are referred to as going native, meaning that they're basically acting as yes men for the commend.

I agree with Lisa fully that there are serious constitutional problems with this and military laws and military orders are not exempt from constitutional scrutiny. The Supreme Court weighs in on military case laws and military decisions all the time.

So, you know, I think when this gets more exposure, as it is now through the media, there's going to be some major fallout here, because there's no question in my mind this is a major violation of the right to privacy.

UPDATE: John Amato:

Four Democratic female Senators have demanded that this horrific policy by General Cucolo be rescinded immediately. This is insane stuff.

Four Democratic senators have written a letter to an Army general in Iraq asking him to rescind an order that threatened to court martial female soldiers who become pregnant while deployed in the war zone.
The policy by Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo III was instituted on Nov. 4, but it has triggered outrage among women's groups since it became publicly known in recent days.

"We can think of no greater deterrent to women contemplating a military career than the image of a pregnant woman being severely punished simply for conceiving a child," the senators wrote to Cucolo today. "This defies comprehension. As such, we urge you to immediately recind this policy."

The letter was signed by Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

UPDATE II: Now the general is saying that no soldier will actually be court martialed.

The commander who instituted a policy cracking down on pregnancy among soldiers defended it Tuesday as necessary to maintain troop strength, but said no soldier would ever be court-martialed for violating the directive. The policy -- which would punish soldiers who get pregnant or impregnate another soldier -- was included in Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo's orders to troops regarding conduct while deployed under his command in northern Iraq.

Cucolo said that as a former public affairs officer, he realized when he created the rule that it would be controversial for those outside the military.

"When I wrote this, I knew there would be public interest, and I also knew there would be a period of time when many folks would opine and give their own personal thoughts and blog about it. And I am fine with that. That's America," he said. "But I was also willing to deal with this attention because this is important. I am responsible and accountable for the fighting ability of my task force. I've got to take every measure to preserve my combat power, and that's the reason."

Yes General, we will blog about it and you got your fifteen minutes of shame, but in the end it's just another attack on the ladies when all is said and done no matter how you care to view this issue. I didn't realize that serving in battle was a lot like "Animal House."

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I'll repeat what Jeremy Scahill said about this. "What the hell is this idiot talking about?" Another non-reality based fake debate on MSNBC with both sides spouting ridiculous talking points.

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Jeremy Scahill joined Ed Schultz to discuss the recent column in the New York Times--Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret C.I.A. Raids:

WASHINGTON — Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.

Several former Blackwater guards said that their involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred. Instead of simply providing security for C.I.A. officers, they say, Blackwater personnel at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.

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Schultz asked Scahill if we had any idea of what kind of resources Blackwater had committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Scahill: Ed, this company was a plausible deniability machine. Erik Prince the owner of that company built a parallel infrastructure to the U.S. military. He had an air force with his own aircraft. He had a maritime division. He had Blackwater Select which was providing special operations guys. They were guarding and still do guard U.S. diplomats and ambassadors, including the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan right now.

Ed I also understand that Blackwater, because it’s owned by such an incredibly wealthy individual did some operations for free. That’s the ultimate deniability under the Bush administration. There were arrangements with Cheney, the C.I.A. and Special Forces where Blackwater’s guys were essentially working for free in operations funded by the owner of that company Erik Prince.

The story here though Ed that everyone seems to be missing is that Blackwater wasn’t just working for the C.I.A. They were working for the Joint Special Operations Command—the U.S. military and we talked about this on your show recently, including in Pakistan where Blackwater simultaneously worked for the C.I.A. and for JSOC. That story is a scandal that needs to be investigated much more thoroughly Ed.

Schultz: Is this relationship between Blackwater and the C.I.A. and the use of Blackwater still in existence under the Obama administration.

Scahill: It certainly is. In fact news breaking as I came on tonight that Leon Panetta the C.I.A. Director is trying to cancel Blackwater’s participation in the C.I.A. drone bombing campaign which has put its operatives on the ground not only in Pakistan but in Afghanistan as well. And so my understanding from both within Blackwater and from outside is that Blackwater remains very active with both U.S. Special Forces and the C.I.A.

Scahill tweeted this before going on Ed's show: #Blackwater is leaking the CIA ops for a reason. It also distracts from ongoing ops that are not CIA.

He also noted that ABC News confirmed his report tonight-Mercenaries? CIA Says Expanded Role for Contractors Legitimate.

You can find more from Scahill at his blog Rebel Reports.

Among the qualities that uniquely define Sarah Palin is that she doesn't know what she doesn't know. But as her confusion about climate change, the First Amendment and even Alaska's energy production showed, Palin's ignorance of a subject is no barrier to her speaking out with great conviction about it. So it is once again with talk of potential tax increases to fund the escalating war in Afghanistan. War time taxes are never necessary, Sarah Palin seemed to suggest this week, because during World War II "many Americans gave what little money they had to buy the war bonds that funded it all."

As Andrew Sullivan noted here and here, the Quittah from Wasilla used this week's anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to invent a new myth about how the United States mobilized and paid for the war which followed it. Palin wrote this December 7:

The attack on Pearl Harbor launched America into the Second World War, and our Greatest Generation did not hesitate when asked to sacrifice for their country. American men enlisted in droves, American women went to work in the factories that became our "Arsenal of Democracy," and many Americans gave what little money they had to buy the war bonds that funded it all.

Of course, in reality Americans funded the war through massive debt and massive tax increases (above).

As NPR recalled in August, Americans starting in 1942 began paying dramatically higher taxes, with the richest paying the most of all:

During World War II, tax rates for the wealthy soared as high as 94 percent. But poor and middle-class families also paid taxes at rates substantially higher than today's. Despite those high taxes, the vast majority of Americans surveyed by Gallup back then said the taxes they paid were fair.

Just two weeks ago, former Reagan Treasury Department economist Bruce Bartlett quantified those war time taxes and how that vast new burden was shared across the Greatest Generation:

During World War II, federal revenues roughly tripled as a share of the gross domestic product (GDP) and the number of people paying income taxes expanded tenfold, from 3% of the population in 1939 to 30% by 1943. In 1940, a family of four needed close to $80,000 of income in today's dollars before it paid any federal income taxes at all. By the war's end, it saw its effective tax rate rise from 1.5% to 15.1%. (Today such a family only pays a federal income tax rate of about 6%.) But taxes weren't the only way the war was paid for. Spending on nondefense programs was cut almost in half, from 8.1% of GDP in 1940 to 4.4% in 1945.

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SHORTER Fred Hiatt:

"There is no difference between GW Bush's Iraq surge in 2007 and Barack Obama's Afghan surge in 2010. Only silly Democrats could object to one but support the other."

Actually, Fred, there's a big difference between the two. The Bush administration and its supporters saw (continue to see?) Teh Surge 1.0 as essential to "winning" in Iraq, while most left-of-center military analysts saw it as a measure to protecting US troops but not really the central or sole contributer to stabilizing the country. With Teh Surge 2.0, once again, it isn't that this troop increase will allow the US government to "win" but it might be (again) one measure among many needed to stabilize Afghanistan. (no, Karl, it isn't to "fight terrorists." ).

But nuanced arguments about the reality of military operations aren't what Fred's all about. He'd rather continue his man-crush on GW and dream about the "success" that Iraq has become. And when the RNC supports the Afghan surge, you can be sure that it's more because they are still defending Teh Surge 1.0 of Iraq and not really thinking about how to finish operations in Afghanistan after Teh Surge 2.0.