Ski Masks: Not Just For Robbing Liquor Stores

As this Christian Science Monitor article points out (note: I might be the only person on the planet who ever used a ski mask for actual skiing--I must have been quite a sight at Cascade Mountain, clad in a leather biker jacket, ski-mask, and blue jeans, while I snow plowed down the easy slopes--hey, don't laugh. My only other skiing experience was as a teenager, and that behind a motor boat on False River)--anyway, ski-masks are now being used BY THE COPS in Iraq. Seems as if it hides their identity:

The choice of headgear is in response to being targeted as never before. Since October, four Iraqi police and national guardsmen have died for every American soldier killed, based on a Monitor tabulation. As more and more police and guards hit the streets, that ratio appears to be going up. In the first 10 days of January, at least 108 Iraqi guardsmen and police have been killed compared with 23 US casualties.

That doesn't bode all that well for Bush's "Iraqification" plan...but, as Maureen Dowd notes, this simply means that "winning" will most likely be defined downward...to the extent that it wouldn't surprise me if Bush eventually awarded HIMSELF a Medal of Freedom.

However, another op-ed writer at the Times, Bob Herbert, isn't buying it:

Mr. Bush's so-called pre-emptive war, which has already cost so many lives, is being enveloped by the foul and unmistakable odor of failure. That's why the Pentagon is dispatching a retired four-star general, Gary Luck, to Iraq to assess the entire wretched operation. The hope in Washington is that he will pull a rabbit out of a hat. His mission is to review the military's entire Iraq policy, and do it quickly.

Good luck, um, General Luck...

Herbert concludes:

The Pentagon is also considering plans to further change the rules about mobilizing members of the National Guard and Reserve. Right now they cannot be called up for more than 24 months of active service. That limit would be scrapped, which would permit the Army to call them up as frequently as required.

That's not a back-door draft. It's a brutal, in-your-face draft that's unfairly limited to a small segment of the population. It would make a mockery of the idea of an all-volunteer Army.

Something's got to give. The nation's locked in a war that's going badly. The military is strained to the breaking point. And it's looking more and more like the amateur hour in the places that are supposed to provide leadership in perilous times - the Pentagon and the White House.

And I'LL conclude with the umpteenth link to Billmon, who reopened The Whiskey Bar to note the Salvadoran Option. Check out the quotes and links he makes. I guess I'll have to call my Salvadoran friend (who survived the death squads by a miraculous stroke of luck) and ask him what he thinks of the new Bush plan (oh, and, to go back to Jesus' General for just a moment, here's what the Freepers think. Short version: they think it's a jolly good idea--nothing like revealing your true nature, eh? All that talk of democracy is, well...you know. Their REAL opinion of Iraqis is along the lines of what Dick Cheney told Pat Leahy about a year ago.)