You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1818)

PLAYS: (6557)

Lawrence O'Donnell tears into Liz Cheney for her remarks criticizing President Obama for his visit to Dover AFB. Liz Cheney lies again. Chip off the old block.

O'DONNELL: When President Obama honored our Afghanistan war dead by taking part in a military ritual at Dover Air Force Base yesterday, it was easily predictable that a Republican would criticize him for it. And in our fourth story on the Countdown, the former Vice President's pet attack dog, his daughter Liz Cheney, has now done just that. And once again, she wasn't going to let the facts get in the way.

On the John Gibson radio show yesterday, Ms. Cheney was rehashing her father's fact-free critique of President Obama's war in Afghanistan, and then Mr. Gibson asked her about the President's appearance at Dover Air Force Base.

LIZ CHENEY (RADIO AUDIO): I don't know why he went to Dover. I mean, I think that clearly it is very important for a commander-in-chief, whenever he can in whatever way it possible, to pay tribute to our fallen soldiers, our fallen military folks. But, I think, you know, what President Bush used to do was do it without the cameras, and I don't understand sort of showing up with the White House Press Pool with photographers and asking the family if you can take pictures. I just... that's really hard for me to get my head around—I think it's an honorable and important thing for us to pay tribute. There's no greater sacrifice people make to the nation. But, it was a surprising way for the President to choose to do it.

O'DONNELL: As we mentioned yesterday, President Bush never went to Dover Air Force Base to honor dead American soldiers on their final journey. And Vice President Cheney... never did either.

Hey Liz, have you ever lost a relative in battle? I have. My cousin Johnny, West Point graduate like his father before him. I wish the President or the Vice President had met his casket on the way home.

You know what 'never' means, Liz? It means zero. It means that in over seven years of two wars, your dad never left the comfort of his White House office or the Vice President's mansion and got himself up to Dover to bear witness to how his warmongering fell on families of dead American soldiers. Never, not once.

Continue reading »

American Street: The GOP plan to break the backs of suffering Americans

the talking dog:: Really old school

Alternate Brain: Support the Troops? NIMBY!

Scott Horton: Power Shortage for the National Security State

Inside Higher Ed: Organized against labor

INSTAPUTZ: Althouse Putziness

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1232)

PLAYS: (1391)

I suppose Bill Kristol fancies himself the "grown up" during this argument on Fox News Sunday. While discussing whether President Obama should be increasing troop levels in Afghanistan or not, Juan Williams points out that President Obama already gave Gen. McChrystal 21,000 additional troops this year, and the result has been nothing but increased casualties. Later in the segment Kristol responds.

Wallace: I know there are political pressures but I would like to think that this President—I do think that this President is trying to make the right decision. There is no guarantee if you give McChrystal the 60,000 troops that it’s going to work…(crosstalk) …particularly given the nature of the government that is in control in Afghanistan.

Kristol: Look, what is better about giving him, “giving him”—I like that—why do we have to use that formulation?—The President is sending as many troops as he thinks he should send, as many troops as he thinks best to accomplish the mission—unless he wants to abandon the mission. But he doesn’t want to abandon the mission. What argument… what serious grown up argument is there that sending 15,000 is any better than sending 40,000 troops when the generals, Gen. McChrystal and Gen. Petraeus think 40,000 is what we need to adequately resource the counter-insurgency.

Maybe we shouldn’t send so many bullets either—we shouldn’t send too many vehicles. They’re very expensive. I mean this notion that we’re sending—that we’re going to have more casualties is ridiculous Juan. Short term of course when you engage the enemy you might have more casualties. Ask any soldier or marine over there, “Would you prefer to have 110,000 of you or 70,000 of you?”—that we are stretched too thin. If we’re going to fight, let’s fight the war.

So when are you signing up to go over there Bill? Liz? Both of you ready to suit up and go put your lives on the line over there? I think if you asked those soldiers what they'd rather be doing, most of them would rather be home. Not on their third, fourth and fifth tours of duty.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (65)

PLAYS: (81)

September 21, 2009 C-SPAN

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (68)

PLAYS: (80)

John McCain thinks it's just amazing that a Colonel decided to volunteer for his sixth, yes, his sixth tour of duty in Iraq. Isn't that wonderful? Incredible in McCain's words. Well, I agree, but not for the same reason McCain does. It horribly incredible that anyone is over there for a sixth tour of duty.

I agree with Thom Hartmann who thinks that Afghanistan is going to be Obama's Vietnam if we don't get the hell out of there. Any time I hear Mr. "I Know How to Win Wars" John McCain agreeing with the President on anything I figure we're pretty well screwed.

Stephanopoulos points out the strain this is putting on the enlisted military and their families, but that doesn't seem to phase McCain and his insistence that somehow our military can sustain that kind of prolonged presence in the region.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How do you answer the argument, though, of others who say that adding more troops now to Afghanistan is a fool's errand in nation-building? That we can achieve the goal of denying a safe haven to al Qaeda by letting the Afghan government take the lead and taking them out with drones when necessary?

MCCAIN: Well, I say with respect, and I understand that argument, but that was the same argument under Rumsfeld and Casey that didn't work. I think the fundamental to success of a counterinsurgency is to clear and hold and secure an environment for people so that the political and economic progress can be made.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That's a 40-year effort, isn't it?

MCCAIN: I think within a year to 18 months you could start to see progress. It's very hard. It's very tough. We're facing a very determined enemy that will stand and fight in some instances that are very adaptable, and obviously with safe havens in Pakistan.

But as the president described it in the campaign, this is a good war and one that we have to win. And I think he'll hold to that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We're seeing now that the American public is turning against the war.

MCCAIN: Yes.

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (72)

PLAYS: (136)

From The Cafferty File:

Tomorrow marks an historic day for Iraq — the deadline for U.S. combat troops to pull out of its cities — and Iraqis are reacting with mixed feelings. The government has declared it a national holiday, with celebrations and military parades planned.

Many Iraqis say they’re glad to see Americans gone… that they will feel freedom and liberation. But, others aren’t so sure… One Baghdad resident says she feels “fear and horror”… and says many Iraqis will be “afraid of each other.” Others say they have come to depend on U.S. troops.

More than six-years after the invasion — the U-S says Iraqi forces are ready to take control of security in the cities. We’ll see soon enough. The last 10 days have seen several bomb attacks and assorted violence which has left more than 200 Iraqis dead and hundreds more wounded. Iraqi and U.S. officials had warned of an expected rise in attacks around this withdrawal date.

After the handover — U.S. forces will have to get permission from Iraq to go into cities or carry out operations in urban areas. There will be a small number of U.S. troops remaining in cities to train and advise Iraqi forces — but most of them will be in bases outside city limits.

There are about 131,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq. Most are supposed to leave the country by next summer, with all forces gone by the end of 2011.

Here’s my question to you: What is life likely to be like in Iraq without the presence of U.S. combat forces in its cities?

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (771)

PLAYS: (1083)

Wolf Blitzer talks to Michael Ware about the increase in violence as the deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq's major cities nears. As Michael points out, it's not that people have not been dying there all year.

Our press in the United States just hasn't been covering it. Maybe John McCain and Lindsey Graham can go over and visit the markets in Baghdad for another rug shopping excursion and tell all of us how wonderful everything is there right now.

I'm sure they'll do their best to blame what's happening now on the Obama administration, rather than the fact the people such as themselves thought it was such a great idea to go in there in the first place and blow up and occupy a country that wasn't a threat to us, despite Dick Cheney and his daughter's best attempts to convince the public otherwise. I'm also sure our American media will give both of them ample time on the air to make those criticisms.

When we quit building and occupying Vatican City sized embassies in Iraq and Afghanistan we can do more than pretend we really have any intention of getting our military out of either country.

BLITZER: A bloody wave of violence is washing over Iraq with scores of people across the country killed in a series of gruesome bombings this past week. And it all comes only days before U.S. forces are scheduled to withdraw from all major Iraqi cities.

Let's go to Baghdad, CNN's Michael Ware, who's standing by. The deadline is Tuesday for U.S. combat forces to leave the cities. Michael, what's likely to happen?

WARE: Well, on the morning of July 1st, not a great deal to be honest, Wolf. This withdrawal has been going on since January. Now you're still going to see some odd Americans out on the streets. You're going to have U.S. advisers embedded with Iraqi units. You'll still see them occasionally. There's going to be some partnered operations. There's some partner patrols, some joint events. But by and large, you're not going to see the presence of U.S. forces that we've become so accustomed to.

Because as you point out, as of Tuesday, all U.S. forces by then have to have had retreated to predesignated bases. They're allowed to operate in the green belt around Baghdad. They're allowed to around in the desert, but they're not allowed in the cities or the townships without the true commanders of the Iraq War as of Tuesday, the Iraqis.

Continue reading »

December 26, 2008 News Corp

  Two of McCain/Palin's most effective (and vile) smears about Obama are are that he voted to raise taxes on those making $42,000 a year, and that he voted to "cut off funding for our troops in the field." Obama refuted McCain on the later in the first debate, but he let the second one slide. Obama can learn a lot from Biden about how to diasrm this line of attack.

First on taxes:

The charge is absolutely not true. Barack Obama did not vote to raise taxes. The vote she's referring to, John McCain voted the exact same way. It was a budget procedural vote. John McCain voted the same way. It did not raise taxes. Number two, using the standard that the governor uses, John McCain voted 477 times to raise taxes. It's a bogus standard.

Now, on funding for the troops:

With regard to Barack Obama not quote funding the troops, John McCain voted the exact same way. John McCain voted against funding the troops because of an amendment he voted against had a timeline in it to draw down American troops. And John said I'm not going to fund the troops if in fact there's a time line. [...]

John McCain voted to cut off funding for the troops. Let me say that again. John McCain voted against an amendment containing $1 billion, $600 million that I had gotten to get MRAPS, those things that are protecting the governor's son and pray god my son and a lot of other sons and daughters. He voted against it. He voted against funding because he said the amendment had a time line in it to end this war. He didn't like that.

These smears are so transparently false, it's almost surprising that they're still repeated ad nauseum. Almost because attacks and smears are all the GOP has left. The troop funding one really irks me. While it's technically true that Obama voted no on a funding bill that provided money for the troops, he didn't vote against it on that basis. Biden did a hell of a job pointing out that McCain "voted against funding for the troops" too when he voted against the bill that included a time line. But that's a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans. While you can twist and distort a vote to accuse your opponent of hating the military, the Democrats choose not to. I wish McCain's "honorable" campaign compelled him to adhere to the same standard.

He told the troops to keep quiet in voicing their opinions when it comes to the presidential race:

The highest-ranking U.S. military officer has written an unusual open letter to all those in uniform, warning them to stay out of politics as the United States approaches a presidential election in which the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a central, and certainly divisive, issue.

"Keeping our politics private is a good first step," he added. "The only things we should be wearing on our sleeves are our military insignia."

Mullen said he was inspired to write the essay after receiving a constant stream of legitimate, if troubling, questions while visiting U.S. military personnel around the world, including, "What if a Democrat wins?" and, "What will that do to the mission in Iraq?"

But I don't buy that line because Kyra Phillips reported that:

Download | Play

CNN’s Kyra Phillips speaks to some Iraqi soldiers about the U.S. presidential election and democracy in Iraq. While they spoke enthusiastically about the American soldiers teaching them discipline and how to effectively combat their enemies in Iraq, the soldiers were less effusive in their praise for those managing the war and their plans for bringing about democracy. Phillips tried in vain to locate any McCain supporters among the group.

“Just to be perfectly clear here, I did ask them are you following any of the republican candidates?…Do you want to talk about John McCain? Within that whole group, not one wanted a republican in the US presidential seat. They were all for a democrat. They were all for that type of change because they said they were living a republican war.”

We all know that they keep an eye out on the media and do not want to see any more reports like this one. What say you?

(I'd like to welcome Jon Soltz to the pages of C&L---John Amato)

It's great to be guest blogging here at C&L, one of the blogs I check every day. Yesterday, the Senate passed the Webb-Hagel GI Bill with an overwhelming majority, which was no small feat. VoteVets.org had been in overdrive to support this bill, getting members to write over 16,000 letters to the Senate, over 1000 letters to the editor, and gathering over 30,000 signatures on a petition in support of the bill.

Oh yeah, and we ran these ads.

I think we hit a nerve. Senator Lindsey Graham went ballistic in a press conference, calling it "a stupid ad," while Senator John Cornyn on the floor of the Senate twice called the ad "phony." His spokesperson oddly maintained that we veterans were using ourselves as a political football.

Oh, speaking of football, John McCain skipped the vote on the bill. He was out in California raising money at events held by Alex Spanos, the owner of the Chargers. I love money and football as much as the next guy, but sometimes you need to have your priorities right in life. So, I'd put education benefits for troops ahead of raising cash and talking about the benefits of the 4-3 defense over the 3-4.

Anyway, back to the action on the Hill; if Senators opposed to the bill were a nuclear power plant, they had a meltdown. A complete meltdown.

Honestly, though, I can see why. How do you go back to your constituents and tell them that you're not going to back a bill that simply keeps the old GI Bill of Rights current with the cost of education? How do you tell them that it's too generous to give our troops full education benefits, and you only will give them a fraction? The short answer is that you don't.

That was what these Senators hoped to avoid, when they signed on to the watered down bill crafted by Senator McCain. What they didn't count on is that we'd expose their sham bill right at the starting gate.

Now, the bill has one final vote to pass in the House, and then it will go to the President, who has voiced opposition to the bill. I expect him to veto it, probably citing the other spending included in the bill. And then it will go back to Congress, where both Houses have passed the GI Bill with a veto-proof majority.

Once again, it will be up to us to set the stage for the debate, before the President's allies in Congress do. They'll try to blur lines, conflate arguments, and anything else they can do, to create an opening for Members to uphold the veto. We cannot let that happen. VoteVets.org will be right there, as active as ever.

I hope we can count on all of you to join us. Together, we can show who really supports our troops

On The Chris Matthews show, Richard Stengel, the managing editor of TIME gives us a chilling new report that the Pentagon is releasing about the serious head injuries our troops are sustaining in Iraq.

Download | play Download | play

Stengel: When we got into the Iraq war we didn't know how long it would last. When we got into the Iraq war we didn't know how much it would cost. It's lasted longer, it's cost more than we ever expected. The real toll is coming out now. The Pentagon is releasing a report saying, one in five American serviceman and women who have been in Iraq are coming back with brain injuries. Mild, traumatic brain injuries. More than 250,000 people. That legacy of that will last all of our life times and it's incalculable.

It is incalculable and unforgivable, but it would appear that Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney still sleep very well at night. Does Stengel really believe all the spin that BushCo. fed the public and the media before we attacked Iraq? I believe Cheney told us on Meet the Press that it wouldn't be very long at all and we'd be greeted as liberators. Andrew Natsios told us it would cost US taxpayers about 1.7 billion for reconstruction that was later scrubbed from the WH website. ...I believe we were told that it wouldn't cost all that much and Wolfowitz told us that Iraqi oil would pay for it anyway.

Continue reading »

I'm sure this Washington Post article about soldiers admitting they're not very happy to be in Iraq will outrage the Citizen Journalists of the right wing blogosphere.

When we first got here, all the shops were open. There were women and children walking out on the street," Alarcon said this week. "The women were in Western clothing. It was our favorite street to go down because of all the hot chicks."

That was 14 long months ago, when the soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, arrived in southwestern Baghdad. It was before their partners in the Iraqi National Police became their enemies and before Shiite militiamen, aligned with the police, attempted to exterminate a neighborhood of middle-class Sunni families.

Next month, the U.S. soldiers will complete their tour in Iraq. Their experience in Sadiyah has left many of them deeply discouraged, by both the unabated hatred between rival sectarian fighters and the questionable will of the Iraqi government to work toward peaceful solutions.

Asked if the American endeavor here was worth their sacrifice -- 20 soldiers from the battalion have been killed in Baghdad -- Alarcon said no: "I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life."

Looks like Limbaugh will have more"phony soldiers" to talk about. John Cole simulates how the right wing bloggers would attack this article...It's a little spooky, but he has it down.

 Let the GOP attacks begin! Sen. Lindsey Graham wasted no time reminding the American people how awful retired General Sanchez' tenure was in Iraq. He joined Blitzer this morning and commented about the General after he came out and criticized the Iraq war policy. The key phrase you'll hear is that they appreciate his service, but....I wonder if Graham violated the Cornyn amendment?

Download | play Download | play

Sanchez: There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight," he told reporters in Arlington, Virginia.

GRAHAM: I appreciate his service, but Abu Ghraib got out of control under his watch, the war in general got out of control under his watch. And it's not time to blame people, but his criticism is a bit astounding to me given his role in the war itself.---They were poorly trained. They got overwhelmed by circumstance. And we certainly didn't have situational awareness on his watch. 

The surge is a direct result of having to make up for mistakes early on. As far as I'm concerned, he was part of that mistake by being a commander who did not express now -- then what he's saying now. And I know he was asked because I asked him. 

Krauthammer on FNS this morning compared his skills to that of General McClellan of the Union army during the civil war: "He chronically overestimated the strength of enemy units and was reluctant to apply principles of mass, frequently leaving large portions of his army unengaged at decisive points."  Full transcript via CNN below the fold.

Continue reading »