Paint A Vulgar Picture.

I've previously touched on the outrageous behavior that the Pentagon apparently engaged in when embellishing (to put it kindly) the story of how Pat Tillman died in Afghanistan, and they repeated such chicanery with Jessica Lynch's rescue in Iraq a few months later. Both Lynch and Tillman's brother Kevin testified in front of Congress today, and so did another one of Tillman's Army Ranger comrades. Ryan O'Neal stated that he was told not to tell the family that Tillman had died in a friendly fire incident.

Kevin Tillman was in a convoy behind his older brother, a former NFL star, on April 22, 2004, when Pat Tillman was mistakenly shot by other Army Rangers who had just emerged from a canyon where they'd been fired upon. Kevin Tillman didn't see what happened. O'Neal said he was ordered not to tell him by then-Lt. Col. Jeff Bailey, the battalion commander who oversaw Tillman's platoon.

"He basically just said, sir, that uh, 'Do not let Kevin know, he's probably in a bad place knowing that his brother's dead,"' O'Neal testified. "He made it known that I would get in trouble, sir, if I spoke with Kevin."

Both Kevin Tillman and Jessica Lynch testified to deliberate fabrications in both cases. ESPN's investigative reporter Mike Fish has put together a nice four-part series on Tillman for ESPN Mag, and I suppose this stuck out at me more than anything in the first part:

[Lt. Col Ralph] Kauzlarich, now a battalion commanding officer at Fort Riley in Kansas, further suggested the Tillman family's unhappiness with the findings of past investigations might be because of the absence of a Christian faith in their lives.

In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: "When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don't believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don't know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough."

Asked by ESPN.com whether the Tillmans' religious beliefs are a factor in the ongoing investigation, Kauzlarich said, "I think so. There is not a whole lot of trust in the system or faith in the system [by the Tillmans]. So that is my personal opinion, knowing what I know."

If you don't know how an atheist would think, it's probably better not to say anything, really.

the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy.

When a career water-carrier/scumbag like John Negroponte (one of many Iran-Contra folks who somehow were allowed to crawl back into the appointments at various levels of government) won't sign on to a CIA covert operations plan as director of national intelligence and may have even resigned the position to avoid doing so, maybe that's a sign that the idea is a little off the rails. Quoth Seymour Hersh in an excellent article on current covert operations in the Middle East:

The Bush Administration’s reliance on clandestine operations that have not been reported to Congress and its dealings with intermediaries with questionable agendas have recalled, for some in Washington, an earlier chapter in history. Two decades ago, the Reagan Administration attempted to fund the Nicaraguan contras illegally, with the help of secret arms sales to Iran. Saudi money was involved in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal, and a few of the players back then—notably Prince Bandar and Elliott Abrams—are involved in today’s dealings.

Iran-Contra was the subject of an informal “lessons learned” discussion two years ago among veterans of the scandal. Abrams led the discussion. One conclusion was that even though the program was eventually exposed, it had been possible to execute it without telling Congress. As to what the experience taught them, in terms of future covert operations, the participants found: “One, you can’t trust our friends. Two, the C.I.A. has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can’t trust the uniformed military, and four, it’s got to be run out of the Vice-President’s office”—a reference to Cheney’s role, the former senior intelligence official said.

I was subsequently told by the two government consultants and the former senior intelligence official that the echoes of Iran-Contra were a factor in Negroponte’s decision to resign from the National Intelligence directorship and accept a sub-Cabinet position of Deputy Secretary of State. (Negroponte declined to comment.)

The former senior intelligence official also told me that Negroponte did not want a repeat of his experience in the Reagan Administration, when he served as Ambassador to Honduras. “Negroponte said, ‘No way. I’m not going down that road again, with the N.S.C. running operations off the books, with no finding.’ ” (In the case of covert C.I.A. operations, the President must issue a written finding and inform Congress.) Negroponte stayed on as Deputy Secretary of State, he added, because “he believes he can influence the government in a positive way.”

Figures Abrams would be involved. What sort of insanity allows people who were involved in very nasty political scandals to get government jobs again? The whole article reeks of stupidity in the name of ideology -- has no one remembered that the Saudis fund religious extremism to stay in power?

trust but verify.

Last night's presidential address would have been funny, like out of Dr. Strangelove-funny, if it weren't quite so damned serious -- the man is sending 21K+ troops as IED fodder. I don't want to be quite that much of a downer, but given the passage from the transcript below, could you blame me?

In earlier operations, political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectarian violence. This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter these neighborhoods. And Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.

Problem #1 - Maliki owes his position to Shi'ite insurgents. "Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that Sunni political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated." Fixed.

We will help the Iraqis build a larger and better-equipped Army, and we will accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, which remains the essential U.S. security mission in Iraq.

Problem #2 - Said Iraqi forces and police are also mostly insurgents of any stripe, dependent upon what region you are in. Mildly related to problem #1.

Sometimes you can just hear the clusterfuck in the policy as it's being announced. Apparently most of the country thinks so, too. Your move, Democrats -- don't fuck it up. Hm. Maybe that might be expecting too much.

(Ack, this gets more and more like Kubrick -- apparently U.S. troops have raided the Iranian consulate in Iraq.)

all the surprise is gone.

New rule for presidential speeches involving major details of policy on general war: when you are planning to give an address to the nation in the evening, it is best if the details of what you plan to do are not common knowledge 24 hours or more prior to it.

I know the proposals within need to be tested with members of Congress, etc., but it would probably serve the purpose better and keep some of the suspense in your speech if the policy proposals and minutiae had not been already predicted, leaked, or analyzed to death by Wednesday morning.

It doesn't help if your mind is an open book as far as these things go, and when it comes to Iraq stances, the president's book has been read multiple times, with the pages fraying by this point.

we're only gonna die from our own arrogance.

A White House official is now admitting that sending more troops to Iraq is "more of a political solution."

Early man walked away
As modern man took control.
Their minds weren't all the same,
To conquer was his big goal.

So he built his great empire,
And he slaughtered his own kind.
Then he died a confused man,
Killed himself with his own mind.

- Bad Religion