Tag: Occupation

More Money Well Spent?

By now all have heard the news of the occupation of DC by Donny and his brand of crime fighting…..sad though that crime figures are down but that does not get in the way of this authoritarian d/bag to flex his sagging muscle.

More and more National Guard are being introduced to the streets of DC almost daily…..like his lame ass military parade is a huge waste of money and resources.

Last week, when Trump federalized Washington, DC’s police force and deployed the National Guard to occupy its streets, one of his main orders was to “end vagrancy” by destroying homeless encampments and arresting and forcibly relocating the people taking shelter there.

But according to an investigation published on Wednesday by Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project, in collaboration with The Intercept, deploying the National Guard and “getting rid of the slums” is costing far more than it would cost to simply provide housing to every homeless person in the city.

Governors from six US states have sent troops to Washington to help Trump’s effort, swelling the ranks to nearly 2,100 who will soon be on patrol.

According to previous reporting, National Guard deployments cost the US government $530 per guard member each day. Using that figure, Homestead estimated that it would cost just over $1.1 million.

She added that “the number of troops will likely continue to grow. And with no deadline for the DC deployment, those costs could add up for months or even years.”

According to the most recent data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are about 5,600 people experiencing either sheltered and unsheltered homelessness in DC on a given night. Operating an affordable housing unit for each one of them, the data shows, costs about $45.44 per person, per day, on average in DC.

Providing affordable housing to every homeless person in DC would cost an estimated $255,166, which is 4.3 times less than the cost of Trump’s military deployment.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-national-guard-housing-cost

At every turn the GOP and its choice of power brokers prove they are no more a fiscal conservative than I am dishwasher at Friday’s.

More of Donny’s wasting money that so many accuse the Dems of doing….this what we get when personality means more than policies.

Now the story is that Donny and his band of idiots are setting sights on Chicago for the next location to piss away more cash….Baltimore is also in the sights.

The GOP continues to prove what a quivering mass of waste and dysfunction.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Iraqi Debate

Once again the old debate on whether the invasion and then occupation of Iraq in 2003 was worth the cost…..plus the reason for the invasion in the first place…..

The debate returns because of a report that has been published……

As Iraqis mark 16 years since the US invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq on 20 March, the US Army has recently made public a long-awaited Iraq war study.

The study, though ready for release in 2016, had been delayed due to concerns over airing “dirty laundry” about decisions made by some of its leaders during the conflict.

The 1,300-page, two-volume history, which includes hundreds of declassified documents, highlights both the mistakes and successes of the US involvement in Iraq, from the 2003 invasion to the rise of the Islamic State (IS). It is a detailed testimony of the impact of the Iraq war on that nation and the entire Middle East. 

As someone with Iraqi origins, reading the entire two-volume history was an emotional journey – a painful testimony to the vicissitudes that have ravaged Iraq since 2003. Reading it as a historian, on the other hand, was gratifying, as it vindicates the value of the discipline of history.

https://middleeasteye.net/opinion/us-military-has-written-book-iraq-war-its-too-late
 
Why did the US invade?  Oil, WMDs or democracy?
 

Sixteen years after the United States invaded Iraq and left a trail of destruction and chaos in the country and the region, one aspect of the war remains criminally underexamined: why was it fought in the first place? What did the Bush administration hope to get out of the war?

The official, and widely-accepted, story remains that Washington was motivated by Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme. His nuclear capabilities, especially, were deemed sufficiently alarming to incite the war. As then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “We do not want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

Despite Saddam not having an active WMD programme, this explanation has found support among some International Relations scholars, who say that while the Bush administration was wrong about Saddam’s WMD capabilities, it was sincerely wrong. Intelligence is a complicated, murky enterprise, the argument goes, and given the foreboding shadow of the 9/11 attacks, the US government reasonably, if tragically, misread the evidence on the dangers Saddam posed.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/03/20/why-did-bush-go-war-iraq-answer-more-sinister-you-think

Of course we can always find someone who will justify the invasion and I will post them as I find them…..

Today is the 16th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and Twitter is alive with condemnations of the conflict — countered by precious few defenses. Yet I believed the Iraq War was just and proper in 2003, and I still believe that today. When Donald Trump condemned the war during the 2015 primary campaign and claimed that if Saddam was still in power we “wouldn’t have the problems you have right now,“ I believed he was dead wrong. As I argued then, from the moment Hussein took power until he was deposed in 2003, there were few greater instruments of instability in the world than Saddam Hussein.

Before he was allegedly “contained” by constant, substantial American military deployments, he invaded his neighbors, gassed his people, harbored and supported terrorists, and was responsible for not one but two of the largest conventional military conflicts since World War II — the horrific Iran–Iraq war and Operation Desert Storm. Even after American containment efforts attempted to lock into place and limit his malign reach, he was a prime supporter of a deadly Palestinian suicide-bombing campaign that caused proportionately more Israeli civilian casualties than American civilians lost on 9/11, he tried to assassinate an American president — George H. W. Bush — and he routinely fired on American pilots enforcing lawful no-fly zones. He violated the Gulf War cease-fire accords, interfered with weapons inspections, and hid away chemical weapons by the thousands. No, his WMD program wasn’t nearly as extensive as we thought, but it is fiction to believe his weapons were entirely gone. Americans were injured by Saddam’s chemicals during the war.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/iraq-war-just-cause-saddam-hussein-threat-stability/

I am watching and listening to the talking heads on the Tube….most are asking how did we get this so wrong?  A silly question!

These are the people that went before the nation and sold the public on a lie and Americans die.  They want to appear as if their hands are clean when in reality theirs are drenched in blood!

AS we recognize the 16th anniversary of the invasion we are still having the same excuses for the invasion…..none can be justified in my mind….but keep trying maybe they will hit on something that will resonate with me.

Peace Out!

Afghanistan: USSR’s Vietnam

More international stuff for my readers……

Afghanistan makes the news and not because of it being our longest war…..but rather the babbling of an ignorant president that wants to sound intelligent…..and he fails….

– President Donald Trump seemed to misstate the former Soviet Union’s involvement in Afghanistan on Wednesday with a convoluted account that sparked ridicule on Twitter.

“Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. “The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/01/02/president-trump-former-soviet-union-right-invade-afghanistan/2466897002/

The last day of the year and NO has mentioned that December of 1979 was the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union….I realize that most people are fixated on their treasures from the Christmas thing and the wait for the big party that ends another year….most people’s minds are numb right now….a good time for me to try and jump start the mental process.

39 years ago the troops of the USSR entered the country of Afghanistan in support of a new leader of the socialist persuasion….

Afghanistan was the ground for one of the last Cold War battles between the United States and the Soviet Union, after the Red Army rolled into the country on December 24, 1979.

Observers give a number of reasons for the Soviet invasion. Until 1973 Afghanistan was a monarchy led by King Mohammad Zahir Shah before he was overthrown by his cousin Mohammad Daoud, whose party consisted of pro-Communist elements.

Daoud was overthrown by the Afghan communists. Internal struggles among the communists led to another coup in which Hafizullah Amin took the reins of power. According to experts, the Soviets perceived Amin as a potential Tito – he was in touch with both China and the United States and the Soviets saw Afghanistan slipping out of its orbit.

https://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2003/04/2008410113842420760.html

This invasion is a great course for anyone going into diplomatic studies…….

It was to last nearly a decade and would plant the seeds for the rise of the Taliban and Islamic terrorism and the subsequent invasion by the U.S. more than 20 years later.  On December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union sent thousands of troops into Afghanistan and immediately assumed complete military and political control of Kabul and large portions of the country. It was the only time the Soviet Union invaded a country outside the Eastern Bloc.(It also nearly fit the 12-year pattern of major Soviet invasions — Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 1968.)

https://adst.org/2014/12/the-soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan-december-1979/

But now that Trump has opened mouth and inserted that small foot….maybe we should look at the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR……

There are plenty of reasons to seriously examine Russia’s role in Afghanistan, but too many articles fail to ask questions fundamental to making sense of Moscow’s aims. By refusing to closely scrutinize the facts on the ground, the role of China, and the logic of U.S. policy, the authors of many pieces can claim expertise but never be held accountable for their analysis. Russia is certainly an adversarial power for Washington, but Afghanistan deserves more than talking points from an aerial view.

https://thediplomat.com/2018/08/making-sense-of-russias-involvement-in-afghanistan/

Russia had their hands full with the opposition to their invasion…..and what made anyone in DC think that the Afghans would be open to another invasion and occupation?

Good question, huh?

The sad part with all the information available there will be those mental deficient that support Trump and will buy his version of the affair.

If Trump graduated from Wharton then I am a Mexican gardener named Jesus…..

How sad is that?

**************

Side note:  A pet peeve……the people of Afghanistan are Afghans not Afghanis…that is the currency of the country.

Now you know!

That Iraq War Study

After 14 years in Iraq the Pentagon has a study done on the war and what has been learned from the invasion and occupation….the problem is that it remains unpublished…and inquiring minds ask why?

It’s been praised by a number of top Army officials privy to it, and many think it’s a vital to make clear the lessons learned in the disastrous occupation of Iraq. But “The United States Army in the Iraq War” study remains unpublished, and may never see the light of day.

With officials citing the need to “relearn” many of the lessons of Vietnam at the start of the occupation of Iraq, Gen. Ray Odeirno commissioned the study in 2013. By 2015 it was completed, and had been compiled into a two-volume document.

Most Army officials on the record say it should be public, and some in Congress are also pushing for the completed document to finally be released. Yet there is a quiet resistance from senior leadership at the time, who are worried a report that declared the war “largely unsuccessful” will make them look bad.

The Army’s current position is that the study is “not an official history,” but that it would be published by the Army War College in the future. Whether it becomes publicly available then is uncertain, though it is clear that some simply prefer that the war’s failures remain unspoken.

(antiwar.com)

There is the rub……matter not the number of American dead and wounded but rather the reputations and egos of the morons in the leadership positions.

Publish the damn report!

Oh Blackwater

I could turn my readers onto a Doobie Brothers tune….but in this case I am talking about the private army of Eric Prince……

This organization by now has changed its name to out run bad press and the tax man many times……name changes but the boss remains……it is a private security firm, a private air force and a contracted intel gatherer…..I have been keeping my eye on the doings of this group……

Source: Blackwater Enters The World Of James Bond – In Saner Thought

Source: ‘Blackwater Air’ – In Saner Thought

The boss, Eric Prince has even been used by Trump and his cronies as a go between with Russia……

Days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Blackwater founder Erik Prince met with a Russian close to President Vladimir Putin in the Seychelles islands to create a communication back-channel between Trump and Russia, according to The Washington Post.

Officials with the United Arab Emirates brokered the January 11 meeting in the hopes of helping to encourage Russia to distance itself from Iran, a major Kremlin ally. The Trump administration has often expressed its skepticism of Iran, and Trump often derided the US nuclear deal with Iran on the campaign trail.

Source: Erik Prince set up secret meeting to create Trump/Russia backchannel – Business Insider

Now it seems the Prince has developed a plan for Afghanistan……

Lost in the cascade of stories of potential White House criminality and collusion with foreign governments is the Erik Prince affair. It is reported that Prince, the brother of controversial  Education Secretary Betsy Devos who established his power in Washington with his mercenary army Blackwater during the Iraq war, met with Russian intermediaries in an obscure Indian Ocean archipelago to establish back-channel communication with Moscow, possibly in coordination with the efforts of Jared Kushner, who last week was reported to have sought a White House back channel to the Kremlin.

Bloomberg reports that during the presidential transition late last year “Prince was very much a presence, providing advice to Trump’s inner circle, including his top national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn.” While President-elect Trump, in reality show style, paraded administration applicants through the gilded front doors of of Trump Tower for the gauntlet of cameras, Prince “entered Trump Tower through the back,” reports Bloomberg.

Source: Erik Prince’s dark plan for Afghanistan: Military occupation for profit, not security – Salon.com

This slug is a danger to the US and the world and all in the name of profit.

I will continue to monitor the doings of this mercenary and his deadly game….

Draft Of Pact To Keep Troops In Iraq

As reported in the NY Times:

Iraqi and American negotiators have agreed to a draft of a long-awaited security agreement to govern the presence of American troops in Iraq, American and Iraqi officials confirmed Wednesday night.

The agreement remains subject to approval by the political leaders in each country.

Negotiating teams have been working on the agreement for five months. The two sides have come close to an agreement before, only for their optimism to prove premature.

The difficulty in reaching a final agreement reflects its importance to Iraq and the United States. Technically, the document will provide the legal basis for American troops to remain in Iraq beyond 2008. But it will also amount to a political document, spelling out for the people of each nation the most difficult issues of this war, notably how long American troops will remain.

The main sticking points, in fact, are also the most delicate: setting a timeline for American troops to leave and declaring whether American forces would be granted immunity from Iraqi prosecution.

Another Statement Of The Obvious

How long will this continue? This is very old news, but yet they just keep firing away at it. Is there any intelligent people left that does know how badly the Iraq situation was handled? If there are, please, just leave them under their rock, we do not need them out and about.

A nearly 700-page study released Sunday by the Army found that “in the euphoria of early 2003,” U.S.-based commanders prematurely believed their goals in Iraq had been reached and did not send enough troops to handle the occupation.

The report said it wasn’t until July 16, 2003, that Franks’ successor, Gen. John Abizaid, said coalition forces were facing a classic guerrilla insurgency.

Even so, the coalition made some progress, only to have its optimism dashed after the insurgency boiled over in April 2004, when Sunni Arab insurgents and Shiite militias launched violent assaults in many parts of Iraq, the report said.

The authors said the Army had considerable experience and training for guerrilla wars but had not been in one like Iraq since 1992 in Somalia. They said former Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Franks “that he thought too few troops were envisioned in the (invasion) plan.”

Some commanders told the authors they asked about plans for making the country stable and got no answers.

The “post-war situation in Iraq was severely out of line with the suppositions made at nearly every level before the war,” the report said.

Its writers said it was clear in January 2005 that the Army would remain in Iraq for some time, the writers concluded. The report covered the period from May 2003 to January 2005.

OKay, we now know that the invasion and occupation were f*cked up! Can we please move on to solving the problem? Restating the obvious, over and over and over, does nothing to stop the killing of Americans in Iraq.