Matthew Yglesias on The Lost Opportunity

"I liked Barack Obama's summation of the big strategic picture in late 2001, and the massive lost opportunity of the Bush/McCain strategy:"

Imagine, for a moment, what we could have done in those days, and months, and years after 9/11.

• We could have deployed the full force of American power to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and all of the terrorists responsible for 9/11, while supporting real security in Afghanistan.
• We could have secured loose nuclear materials around the world, and updated a 20th century non-proliferation framework to meet the challenges of the 21st.
• We could have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in alternative sources of energy to grow our economy, save our planet, and end the tyranny of oil.
• We could have strengthened old alliances, formed new partnerships, and renewed international institutions to advance peace and prosperity.
• We could have called on a new generation to step into the strong currents of history, and to serve their country as troops and teachers, Peace Corps volunteers and police officers.
• We could have secured our homeland—investing in sophisticated new protection for our ports, our trains and our power plants.
• We could have rebuilt our roads and bridges, laid down new rail and broadband and electricity systems, and made college affordable for every American to strengthen our ability to compete.

We could have done that. Instead, we have lost thousands of American lives, spent nearly a trillion dollars, alienated allies and neglected emerging threats – all in the cause of fighting a war for well over five years in a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

Follow the Bouncing Ball

How many years did he say?

Maybe this is dementia?

Read it and weep.

Please read this post over at ThinkProgress.org and try not to get sick:

• Ten Years Ago, Bin Laden Demanded Barrel Of Oil Should Cost $144

Well said!

This is a great post by Jim Henley over at Unqualified Offerings:

"The practical meaning of "The Surge" has changed while the pretended meaning has stayed the same. The pretended meaning is, The US increased troop strength in Iraq for a period of time beginning in 2007. The actual meaning is, the US increased troop strength WHILE ramping up a program to pay off Sunni resistance leaders WHILE Iraq’s warring ethno-religious factions finished completely remaking Iraq’s demographic patterns, owing to tens-to-hundreds of thousands of dead and millions of exiled and internally displaced, WHILE the US turned the capital into a warren of barricades. The net result of all those changes has been a less obtrusively violent Iraq for the time being, and the whole arrangement is "The Surge" in practice, but the cheerleaders talk as if it was all due to The Surge in pretense. Meanwhile Iraq’s "calm" would count as calamity almost anywhere on earth but Darfur or Zimbabwe. That’s leaving aside the essential truth that The Surge is not The War and The War remains a massive waste and a monstrous crime."

That other war is getting bigger in our rear view mirror.

Remember Afghanistan?

ThinkProgress.org also has a post on a recent report by NBC Nightly News Anchor Brian Williams. Check it out.

On NBC Nightly News last night, anchor Brian Williams reported that on a recent trip to Afghansistan, “several U.S. commanders complained” to NBC that they lack “resources, aircraft, soldiers and support because of the war in Iraq.” Williams noted that the commanders’ complaints were echoed earlier in the day by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, who said that the military’s resources are “constrained” because of Iraq. As Williams noted, Mullen told reporters yesterday that in Afghanistan, “violence is up this year by every single measure.” Mullen then said that “we don’t have enough forces” to deal with the challenges there because of troop commitments in Iraq.

Welcome to the Hellmouth ...

This is so cool ...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer saved the world and the sanity of NPR's Jamie Tarabay while she was in Baghdad. Tarabay explores why she needed the slayer during her time in Iraq.

Silly Time Wasters

I think it was the great Atrios of Philly who coined the blogosphere term "Friedman Unit" for the six month wait-and-see period in Iraq that the wise men (and women) of Washington are always calling for. Six months here, six months there, and so on, and so on ... watch this short vid ...

Thank you, MoveOn.org.

Blood on their hands.

Artist Nico Pitney created a photo mosaic using photos of the soldiers who have died in Iraq.

In remembrance of the 4,000 brave men and women who sacrificed everything for us -- and the two men who would continue this great tragedy, despite the cost to our soldiers, our military, and our nation.

Click on the image to see the larger version.

Playing Catch Up

OMG! Way too busy to blog lately. I empathize with the bloggers who do this professionally and crank out stuff hour after hour, day after day. There is too much to write about now, but here are some interesting links, go check them out!

• "Stuck in the Iraq Loop" A Newsweek article by Fareed Zakaria
  We have achieved some security in Iraq. But we have not built a sustainable security architecture.
• "Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War" A photo essay by Reuters. Warning: some graphic images.
• "A Responsible Plan to End the War"
• Various reactions to Obama's speech on Tuesday from TPM Cafe.
• From DailyKos, author David Brin (Earth, Startide Rising) pays tribute to his colleague Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey) who died this week.
• Coming soon! Photos of our incredibly cute new puppy and kitten!!!!

Imagine 50 Million on the Move in America

This is from Tom Dispatch via Altercation:

Today, perhaps 4.5 million (or one of every six) Iraqis is either a refugee in another country or an internally displaced person. If the Iraqi refugee crisis, the worst on the planet at this moment, were recomputed in terms of the U.S. population, an unimaginable 50 million Americans would have either streamed across the Canadian and Mexican borders or be out of their homes but still inside the country. This is the essence of what the Bush administration let loose with its invasion and subsequent occupation policies in Iraq.

If they say it's working ... it ain't working.

The real accomplishment of Bush's last year in office will be:

Operation Dump This Mess on the Next President

Lies R Us!

Over at TPM Muckraker, Paul Kiel says:

Somebody had to do it. And hooray to the Center for Public Integrity and Fund for Independence in Journalism for doing it. The groups counted and documented every Bush administration false statement made in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. Every one. It was a bit like counting snowflakes, to be sure, but here's what they came up with:

They documented 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Dancing on a Corpse

Over at Media Matters, Eric Alterman highlights an outstanding post by Tom Engelhardt about the absurdity of the discussions in the media and elsewhere related to the perceived "success" of the President's surge strategy in Iraq.

"So, here's a simple reality check: The whole discussion of, and argument about, "success" in Iraq is, in fact, obscene. Given what has already happened to that country -- and will continue to happen as long as the U.S. remains an occupying power there -- the very category of "success" is an obscenity. If violence actually does stay down there, that may be a modest godsend for Iraqis, but it can hardly be considered a sign of American "success." ... Folks, it's obscene. We're doing victory laps around, and dancing upon, a corpse."

Stretched too thin? Nuke 'em!

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, the true costs of Bush/Cheney mess comes to light. The question is, while our Army and Marines have their hands full over there, what happens if a new conflict requires our immediate attention? An article in the Marine Corps Times has some perspective:

"If the U.S. were to face a new conventional threat, its military could not respond effectively without turning to air power, officials and analysts say. That is the ultimate upshot of the war in Iraq: a response elsewhere would consist largely of U.S. fighters and bombers — even, perhaps, some degree of nuclear strike — because so many ground troops are tied up in Operation Iraqi Freedom. And that leaves at least some senior U.S. leaders and analysts crossing their fingers."

Yes. Let's all cross our fingers. That should do it.

Wounded Warriors on the Home Front

A heartbreaking story in The New York Times today.

"Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: “Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.” Pierre, S.D.: “Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.” Colorado Springs: “Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.” Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak. The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction."

Whether it is a lack of proper body armor, IED-hardened vehicles, extended tours of duty, or post-deployment mental health care, the Bush/Cheney administration continues to be negligent in truly supporting the troops.