One Utah

Want a draft? More wars of aggression? Vote McCain!
The Bush Doctrine, which Gov. Sarah Palin just found out about and Senator McCain has refused to condemn, isn’t about pre-emptive war. It’s a doctrine of preventive war, which is totally unacceptable in the civilized world. The Bush Doctrine is why the USA [...]

Chuck Norris’ debate tactics illustrates perfectly the infantile techniques used by the right-wing.
After Arianna crushes him at every turn, he resorts to laughing and calling her “so liberal.”
Is it possible Chuck Norris really believes 2 visits to Iraq means he can say, ‘I done two tours in Iraq’

h/t Huffington Post

This is basically a re-post from Think Progress, for which I apologize. However, the message is important: Senator John McCain hasn’t got a clue about Iraq strategy. I can cite specifics, but why take it from me? Listen to CNN’s Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware, who has been closely following developments in Iraq [...]

H/t Bob S. for the reminder. THIS is the future of the republican party?

Ouch!

While the Presidential campaigners make their rounds talking about victory in “eye-rack,” they are careful to say nothing whatsoever about Afghanistan. Unlike the unbelievably costly and pointless Iraq fiasco, the Afghanistan/Pakistan war matters greatly to U.S. national security.

Fraidoon Pooyaa/Associated Press
In Azizabad, an Afghan boy carried his belongings amid the ruins of his home, which [...]

If you missed “60 Minutes,” then you ought to watch this now. Scott Pelley interviewed Bob Woodward about his new book on the so-called “surge” in Iraq.
Now, normally I wouldn’t hit the keyboard to run the risk of helping Woodward– he’s a smug s.o.b. who wrote adulatory books about President Bush until [...]

The New York Times reports that helicopter-borne American Special Operations forces attacked al-Qaeda militants in a Pakistani village in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan, close to the border with Afghanistan early Wednesday.
“What you’re seeing is perhaps a stepping up of activity against militants in sanctuaries in the tribal areas that pose a direct [...]

Flag of Iraqi Kurdistan
While the U.S. presidential election is about to go into full swing, few Americans know that the Iraqi elections originally scheduled for this October have been postponed indefinitely. They may have a war instead.
Jonathan Steele of The Guardian reports that growing tensions between Nouri al-Maliki’s Green Zone Government [...]

In the L.A. Times, Andrew Bacevich tells it like it is:

Will the next president actually bring about Big Change? Don’t get your hopes up.
Regardless of who wins Nov. 4, we should temper our expectations of what George W. Bush’s successor will accomplish, especially on foreign policy.
In reality, presidents don’t make policy; administrations do. To judge [...]

Condi Rice has agreed to a troop withdrawal timetable to end the occupation of Iraq.
The cowardly defeatocrats and cut ‘n’ runners have kicked ass. Declaring that the deal means “the left won the Iraq debate,” Spencer Ackerman notes that the withdrawal plan is nearly identical to the plan offered by the Center for [...]

This post is for Bob S. He made a great suggestion yesterday:

Let’s debate the issues shall we? Pick a point and I’ll tell you what I agree with or disagree with it, from both candidates. Let’s talk about what matters…
The Democrats and Republicans haven’t even held their conventions yet, but the Presidential election is [...]

Last night, Bill Moyers interviewed Andrew Bacevich, author of The Limits of Power. It’s worth the time to read the whole transcript. In particular I was struck by this exchange - it began with Moyers reading a quote from Bacevich’s book:
BILL MOYERS: I was in the White House, back in the early 60s, [...]