This weekend saw several noteworthy things, including Contraleeza Rice insisting that we will always be at war with Eurasia (or was that Eastasia?)--which has the unfortunate problem of being the exact opposite of what Team Bush barked before the beginning of Operation-Now-That-It's-Totally-FUBAR'ed--can anyone find a way to blame the libruls?
Re: blaming the libruls, James Wolcott cites someone named Gerard van der Leun--hmmm, what sort of name is that?--who posted a mouth frothing essay attacking--well, attacking some sort of straw man figure he refers to as "fifth column/fifth estate," and then, perhaps realizing the innate batshittedness of that, goes on to blame the American public for lacking the guts to carry out the program. Oddly, he even takes a swipe at the Great Dubya (after groveling up to the GOP with a claim that the November election was a "mandate" to pursue the war on terror, as opposed to a denunciation of "man dates" by the religious right). Leun concludes with what amounts to a desire for more 9/11's--the idea being that that's what it will take to finally embark on
Wolcott responds thusly:
He should set his imagination on the window sill to cool, then close the window.
Duncan Hunter, as we all know, is jealous of the great chow served up to the prisoners at Gitmo--god only knows what he'd think if the inmates had cable tv or weights--but he's surprisingly quiet about this incident and the subsequent lawsuit:
A U.S. military policeman who was beaten by fellow MPs during a botched training drill at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison for detainees has sued the Pentagon for $15 million, alleging that the incident violated his constitutional rights.
Spc. Sean D. Baker, 38, was assaulted in January 2003 after he volunteered to wear an orange jumpsuit and portray an uncooperative detainee. Baker said the MPs, who were told that he was an unruly detainee who had assaulted an American sergeant, inflicted a beating that resulted in a traumatic brain injury...
The Pentagon initially said that Baker's hospitalization following the training incident was not related to the beating. Later, officials conceded that he was treated for injuries suffered when a five-man MP "internal reaction force" choked him, slammed his head several times against a concrete floor and sprayed him with pepper gas.
The drill took place in a prison isolation wing reserved for suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees who were disruptive or had attacked MPs.
Baker said he put on the jumpsuit and squeezed under a prison bunk after being told by a lieutenant that he would be portraying an unruly detainee. He said he was assured that MPs conducting the "extraction drill" knew it was a training exercise and that Baker was an American soldier.
As he was being choked and beaten, Baker said, he screamed a code word, "red," and shouted: "I'm a U.S. soldier! I'm a U.S. soldier!" He said the beating continued until the jumpsuit was yanked down during the struggle, revealing his military uniform.
The lawsuit says of the extraction team: "Armed with the highly inflammatory, false, incendiary and misleading information that had been loaded into their psyches by their platoon leader, these perceptions and fears … became their operative reality, and they acted upon these fears, all to the detriment of Sean Baker."
No one has been disciplined or punished for the assault, said Baker's lawyer, T. Bruce Simpson Jr.
Last June, a military spokesman said an internal investigation in February 2003 had concluded that no one was liable for Baker's injuries. He said training procedures at Guantanamo had been reviewed after the incident.
"While it is unfortunate that Spc. Baker was injured, the standards of professionalism we expect of our soldiers mandate that our training be as realistic as possible," the spokesman said.
I'm waiting for Hunter to come out with something like "these enemy combatants have received the best brain injuries of their lives--better than any brain injury they might have gotten in Afghanistan. And we give them prayer beads and Korans to boot...um, I don't mean boot...literally, that is."
Oh, and Chris Wallace finally got his full-fledged genuine Fox News Reporter badge/decoder ring. Way to go, Chris...your father must be really proud of you.
Over in Iraq, the term "last throes" has taken on quite an unusual meaning--apparently it means "insurgents have thoroughly infiltrated the Iraqi armed forces and can cause problems nationwide." I'm glad Veep Cheney cleared that up.
On the "Where's Osama" front, hmmmm. You've got this from last night, while this morning Porter Goss gets all diplomatic, talking about sovereignty as if Team Bush actually gave a shit. However, between what I've seen or read this weekend, I'm beginning to wonder if the neo-cons decided to turn over the doubling cube despite the abundantly clear evidence that they've, um, fucked it up badly in Iraq, and generated a backlash across the border in Iran.
Of course, neo-cons being neo-cons, we all know that the chances of introspection--or even good old fashioned 'taking responsibility'--are zero. Hell, they won't even fight the war they clamored for in Iraq, and that one was supposed to be easy. Still, Steve Gilliard and General JC Christian are trying their best to inspire the chickenhawks into enlisting...which has about as much a chance of happening as seeing PFC Jenna Bush and SPC Not Jenna Bush (or, for that matter Pvt. Dubya). See, neo-cons are kind of like consultants--they don't actually DO what they tell businesses to do, they just TELL them what to do. Nice work if you can get it.
Sort of like making jokes about Weapons of Mass Destruction.
No comments:
Post a Comment