Our phalanx of researchers has been pushed to the limit this week, folks. Horrors continue as more Afghani children fall victim to US military bluster. James Baker is assigned to "fix" Iraq while the Pentagon tries its damndest to keep it broken. Nixon complains that Reagan is unpleasant. And, of course, things are rounded out by Halliburton bilking, well, everybody.

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Solid Intelligence

Claims by Coalition of the Willing officials that they had successfully attacked and killed Taliban fugitive Mullah Wazir, surprise, surprise, turn out to be wrong. The lone adult killed in the assault was an uncle of two of the children, although other reports have merely described him as a "laborer," which seems to carry with it an underlying connotation that, well, he's "unimportant" so killing him isn't all that bad. Locals said that Wazir had not been seen in the area for weeks while US military officials insist that their intelligence is solid.

No sooner did the dust settle on the graves of those 10 people when another assault, launched to knock out Taliban commander, Mullah Jalani, resulted in the collateral deaths of six children and two adults. Naturally, Jalani got away. It is hard to imagine what kind of dead soul one needs in order to be able to explain all this with phrases like, "We had no indication there were noncombatants", or even worse, "I can't guarantee that we will not injure more civilians," but Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty seems to qualify. Note how deftly military-speak turns children in to "noncombatants" and that future horrors will likely be a certainty, which seems to carry with it the implied message of "get ready to suck it up."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/08/international/asia/08AFGH.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52212-2003Dec10.html/

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Uh, What did I say?

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ought take up the position of spokeman as he rapidly proves he's worthy of a role which generally demands the speaker say close to nothing while talking. And, if at all possible, confuse the listener to the point that they will be unable to ask more irksome questions about the deaths of children and such. The BHC, however, takes up the Myers' challenge to drill down to the meaning of his barren statements:

"But I would offer, and would offer again, that both in Afghanistan and Iraq, that the amount of force brought to bear, that the progress that was made, the success we've had, has never been done with more care about bringing innocents into the line of fire. And that will continue."

Confused? Yes, we know. But with a little redaction, the BHC attempts to hack through this otherwise impenetrable thicket of consonants and vowels:

"But I would offer [...] that the amount of force brought to bear [...] has never been done with more care about bringing innocents into the line of fire."

Read that aloud. We trimmed a lot of superfluous chuff out of the, uh, sentence, in order to bring into focus the kernel of what is being said...or not being said. It sure sounds like the good general is saying that they are taking care to bring innocents into the line of fire, doesn't it? To say the meaning here is ambiguous is understating things a tad, something akin to "if we shoot civilians or we don't, we are either trying to or not. So there."

We report, you decide.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52212-2003Dec10.html/

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The Assassination Bureau

In an odd reversal of roles, it seems that US special forces are being trained as assassins by the Israeli Defence Force(IDF). Usually it's the US doing the training. And, of course, we don't call them assassins because they are "good" assassins, so they are counter-insurgency squads which focus on "neutralisation." More frighteningly, God's jihadist, William "Jerry" Boykin, is one of the planners behind this sordid scheme. Readers will recall that Boykin is the guy who claimed to have God on his side in his titanic struggle against the evil forces of Islam.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4815008-103681,00.html

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Nightmare Scenario

The rabid right continues to wail about the so-called liberal media because those damned leftist reporters insist on reporting all the bad stuff happening in Iraq and won't tell Americans about all the good stuff, which, as the BHC has observed previously, is just plain weird. When does the media ever not report bad stuff, especially when such bad stuff is mayhem and death? Well, just in case anyone doubts the veracity of this "liberal media" claim, an interesting NBC memo turned up describing the "problem" of Phil Donahue's show on MSNBC, which was cancelled after only a few weeks on the air. The memo claims Donahue's show offered a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.... He seems to delight in presenting guests who are antiwar, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The memo further bemoans the show becoming "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
So there it is, the liberal media in full liberal, saddam-loving swing.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1201-13.htm

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Baker's Dozen

Bush has appointed James Baker, the man who claims to have "fixed" the Florida election, to restructure Iraqi debt. This is also the same man whose law firm, Baker Botts, is so diligently working to prevent the 9/11 commission from finding out anything about Saudi Arabia's connections to Al-Qaeda. Now, think about this. Iraq owe's some $40+ billion to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is James Baker's client. Which country do you think is going to make out in this upcoming debt restructuring? Of course, all of this manuevering seems missplaced since Bush has no legal authority to control Iraq's assets or debt. Now international law has never been Bush's strong suit, so such technicalities will not likely persuade him down another, more legally sanctioned avenue. Ah but wait. In fact, those clever Bushies are merely "responding to a request from the Iraqi Governing Council." Yeah, those guys. The ones Bush appointed. Nice move.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9571

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No Troops, No Perks

Bush and his band of mirthless boobs stepped into another international cowpie this week when the Pentagon announced the decision to bar countries that did not support the war in Iraq from competing for major U.S.-funded reconstruction contracts. Firstly, why in the world is the Pentagon making such announcements? Well, no matter, it drew angry complaints from Europe and Canada and is quite possibly in conflict with American treaty obligations under international law. Of course, these countries, especially Russia, immediately responded by threatening to take a hard line on debt restructuring should this policy continue. Many have pointed out how squarely at odds this policy is with the stated desire to have Iraq's debt largely forgiven in the Baker-lead restructuring effort. The White House is now scrambling, trying to recover from such bizarrely conflicting policies, mostly by saying, well, ha, those Pentagon people didn't really mean it.

Even more interesting but completely unnoticed these days is what White House spokesman Scott McClellan said:

"[it was] appropriate and reasonable that prime contracts for reconstruction funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars should go to the Iraqi people and those countries who are working with the United States on the difficult task of helping to build a free, democratic and prosperous Iraq."

Now, there is an enormous, tacit assumption in this statement which too many of the media, as usual, are just letting slide. The assumption is that it is appropriate and reasonable that the US taxpayer fund all this reconstruction. Remember when the White House was claiming that Iraqi oil revenues were going to pay for everything and reconstruction would cost the US taxpayers nothing? Ahh, those were heady days.

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Point Moot Point

Responding to a surprisingly pointed question about US intelligence on WMD from Wolf Blitzer during CNN's Late Edition, White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, simply says that, well, it doesn't matter whether WMD are found or not:

BLITZER: Was U.S. intelligence going into the war faulty?

CARD: Well, intelligence -- I think, [...blah, blah, blah,...]

But when you go there today and you see some of the mass graves that are there, where he murdered his own people, you just can't help but think that we are much better off with Saddam there. So, I think that's a moot point.

Did he just say we are "better off with Saddam there"? Where, exactly, is there? I'm wondering if the transcript is accurate because this just makes no sense. Of course, placing doubt in the transcript gives the benefit of the doubt to the White House and that almost never works out well, now does it? But let us assume that he meant to say "without," then this just becomes the standard line from the White House administration these days: we can't find what we "knew" we would find, or at least what we told you we "knew" we would find, but our intelligence is "very, very good" and we're all now better off so WMD, while turning out to be an unknown known, or maybe a known unknown, or possibly even an unknown unknown, is really a non-issue.

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0312/07/le.00.html

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House of Card

From what hellmouth did Andrew Card spring? Further in this interview, Blitzer clobbers him but good but Card, demon-beast that he is, barely notices the hit. Seemingly impervious to body-shots of logic which might very well incapacitate mere mortals, Card seems to possess the strength of ten White House chiefs of staff. Blitzer presents a Republican National Committee tv ad which is now airing in various places and continues,

BLITZER: The president has suggested earlier that he was not going to use this issue of terrorism, the fight against terrorism, in a political context. Is it appropriate for the RNC to be doing precisely that?

CARD: Well, the Republican National Committee is not the president's reelection campaign. It's the Republican National Committee.

BLITZER: But the president's in charge of the Republican Party.

KaBam! Blitzer scores a hit. But, it barely registers on Card. He is clearly superhuman in his ability to not grasp the logical argument being made. Card continues the party line blather with narry a concern for engagement of the question. And since Blitzer is employed by the "liberal media", he let's him slide.

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0312/07/le.00.html

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Call to Arms

Taiwan's democratically elected president, Chen Shui-bian proposes to hold a referendum asking his citizens to call on China to remove the 500 missiles it has positioned in range of Taiwan and to renounce the use of force.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao proclaims, "We will not sit by and do nothing when faced with provocative activities,"

Think about that. The Chinese regard being asked to put away their missiles as "provocative." Let's reconfigure the dialogue:

Taiwan: "Please, put away your missiles."
China: "What?! 3-2-1...Fire!" (or whatever the chinese word is for "fire")

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51214-2003Dec9.html

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Pot and Kettle

White House tape recordings from the Nixon administration were released this week by the National Archives. Apparently, in a conversation between Nixon and then White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, Ronald Reagan, though he does not recall it, made an appearance: "On a personal basis, Rockefeller is a pretty nice guy," Nixon said. "Reagan on a personal basis, is terrible. He just isn't pleasant to be around."

Like the allegedly libelous CBS "biography" of Reagan the GOP effectively shutdown, The BHC can imagine they will be trying to ban this pretty soon, too. Or maybe not. Coming from Nixon, just how much credence can one place in this opinion? Nixon, after all, is universally vilified as a sweaty, underhanded, power-mad creep, so who would believe anything he said?

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Stop the Counting

Iraq's Health Ministry apparently ordered a halt to a count of civilians killed during the war and told its statistics department not to release figures compiled so far, the official who oversaw the count told The Associated Press today.

This recalls the mentality of the former Soviet Union when presented with alarming measurements of the befouled Moscow air, instructed those making the measurements to stop making the measurements. This enabled the claim that the air was fine. But wait, the US defeated the "evil empire." That kind of politicking can't be happening now, can it? Of course, refusing to count civilian casualties is infinitely more insidious than refusing to measure bad air.


http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1071054618118&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968705899037

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Halliburton Howling

This was an AP story two months ago when Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and John Dingell, D-Mich., wrote the Bush administration that the company's KBR subsidiary is billing the Army between $1.62 and $1.70 per gallon, while Iraqis are charged between 4 cents and 15 cents at the pump. (http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/10/273360.shtml). Largely ignored by the usual yapping heads, most likely because it was just a couple of Democrats raising the stink, there is new import to the story now that the Pentagon is taking a stand against the nonsense. Of course, Halliburton's position is that this is all just a silly ol' $61 million mistake. One Pentagon official put it off as a "miscommunication error". The BHC is not at all sure what a miscommunication error is, but logically it would imply that there was a mistake in Halliburton's lying.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57520-2003Dec11.html

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Now there's a full plate of bonehead.