Say Anything Blog

A very disturbing article in today’s WaPo about our returning injured soldiers.  Not only are these men and women severely injured when they return, they then have to fight for their disability status.  Particularly disturbing is the fact that the doctors will use their past medical history of the soldiers to deny them disablity.  They knew their history when they enlisted but now it seems they use it to deny disability.

Since these men and women gave to this country their minds and their body parts, should the armed services now be able to kick these men and women to the curb?  The old adage, “you break it you own it”, while in some ways crude, aptly describes the plight of some of these men and women.  What will their futures be?

Read the entire article here

Update: Repairs on the hotel were started today. Read the article here

The famous or should I say infamous Victoria Toensing now comes out swinging that injustice is being done to poor Scooter Libby.

One remembers Ms. Toensing and her husband Joe diGenova during the Clinton impeachment days when they couldn’t get enough of appearing on virtually every cable news show justifying every investigation of President Clinton and stumping as leakers in chief for Kenneth Starr.

Thou doth protest too much Victoria, thou dost protest too much.

An interesting article in today’s WaPo from William Odom, a retired Army lieutenant general.  In the past he was head of Army Intelligence and director of the National Security Agency under President Ronald Reagan. He also served on the National Security Council under President Carter.

He writes: “the collision of the public’s clarity of mind, the president’s relentless pursuit of defeat and Congress’s anxiety has paralyzed us. We may be doomed to two more years of chasing the mirage of democracy in Iraq and possible widening the war to Iran. But this is not inevitable.  A congess, or a president, prepared to quit the game of ‘who gets the blame’ could begin to alter American strategy in ways that will vastly improve the prospects of a more stable Middle East.”

He makes these excellent points:

1. Getting out of Iraq is the precursor to finding and implementing new strategic options in Iraq. “Withdrawal will take away the conditions that allow our enemies iin the region to enjoy our pain.”

2. The U.S. cannot, itself, bring democracy to Iraq nor stabilize it.

3. Current U.S. policies are destablizing the region, not strengthening it.

4. Stabilizing the region, not bringing a democracy to Iraq needs to be the priority and goal of our involvment in Iraq.

And finally, he argues:

Realigning our diplomacy and military capabilities to achieve order will hugely reduce the numbers of our enemies and gain us new and important allies.  This cannot happen, however, until our forces are moving out of Iraq.  Why should Iran negotiate to relieve our pain as long as we are increasing its influence in Iraq and beyond?  Withdrawal will awaken most leaders in the region to their own need for US.-led diplomacy to stabilize their neighborhood. 

Food for thought and discussion.

read the entire article

So now the new House minority leader, Mr Boehner, refuses to hear the truth about the 2006 election and banned the predictor of the election outcome from the recent republican retreat.

Frank Luntz, well-known republican pollster was conspicuously absent from the recent republican tete-a-tete.  His crime du jour:  predicting the 2006 republican election disaster.

Which is actually good news for the democrats.  The talented Mr Luntz has recently penned a new tome entitled, “Words that Work”.  I am looking forward to reading it next week. 

Robert Novak’s recent column decries the casting out of Luntz. According to Novak: “The question is whether the party will heed warnings or follow the route of its leaders, who want to mainly trash Nancy Pelosi.

I think the republicans ignore Luntz at their peril.

Read the column here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/31/AR2007013101807.html

From the January 2007 NIE report:

The Intellignece Community judges that the term “civi war” does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qa’ida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces,and widespread criminally motivated violence.  Nonetheless, the term “civil war” accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements.

While the report discusses the dangers of rapid withdrawal it also points to three areas where, if implemented, could reverse the current course in Iraq:

1. Sunni acceptance of the current government structure as well as Iraqi federalism
2.  The Shia and Kurds would have to cede to the involvement of Sunnis in Iraqi federalism.
3.  working within the communities and with neighborhood watch groups to take control of their communities and start the reconciliation and rebuilding process.

These seem overwhelmingly difficult to accomplish considering the intransigency of the parties. The question is: Is this possible and if it is, how can it be accomplished in light of the civil war and ongoing violence?

The silence is deafening in the right wing blog world on the Libby trial.  Not nary a mention on Drudge or any rightwing blog.  Hm…. one would think that the rightwing bloggers all conspired to not blog on the Libby trial.

The news is interesting and not going well for Libby so far, but since his opening statement is that he was being made the fall guy for Rove, his defense should be very interesting. 

Since no right wing blogs are writing on this I will try to keep you all updated.