Let's be honest. It's painful listening to the news right now. It's not just our imaginations, things are getting worse, and this recent report from the BBC provides even more damning evidence that we're on a slippery slope in Iraq.

Hundreds of bodies showing signs of torture or execution arrive at the Baghdad mortuary each month, a senior UN official has told the BBC.

John Pace, until recently UN human rights chief in Iraq, told the BBC News website that up to 75% of the corpses showed signs of extrajudicial death.

Mr Pace blamed an "endemic" breakdown of security for increasing violence."Anyone with a gun who is reasonably well organised can do whatever they want with impunity," he said.

...But Mr Pace played down suggestions that Iraq was heading towards civil war, blaming a political vacuum and the collapse of law and order - rather than a generalised Shia-Sunni split - for the escalating violence.

Ah, if only this man was on TV every day... oh wait, he used to be! D'oh!

Phil Donahue was on the O’Reilly Factor yesterday, and he did an amazing job of defending the anti-war stance, reframing the issues, and generally not letting O’Reilly walk all over him. Check out Alternet's post about it.

Task Order 89, valid until April 30th 2006, will give Halliburton another $4.97 billion, which is on top of the $9.1 billion paid to them up until the end of May. (Article)

Linda Theis, a spokeswoman for U.S. Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Illinois, said the military signed the work order with Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown and Root in May.

The new deal, worth $4.97 billion over the next year, was not made public when it was signed because the Army did not consider such an announcement necessary, she said.

"We did not announce this task order as this is really not something we ever really thought about doing," said Theis.

The arrogance. How is $5 Billion in taxpayer money not worth telling anyone about? Let me guess: The deal was struck with a $900 aircraft-grade titanium pen on a $500,000 dollar conference table, then chortled about while chugging cases of '59 Dom Perignon?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Daily Show is one of the best tools we have in presenting our case against the Bush Administration.

Yes, I know it's a half hour comedy show. Yes, I know it's sandwiched between Chappelle's Show (RIP) and re-runs of Mannequin 2: On the Move. However, it took the Daily Show (not a real news show) to simply present to the wider American public the inconsistencies and lies the Administration has been feeding to us in an easily digestible format for our fast food culture. How? By simply replaying Bush and Co's own words.

Watch, laugh, and cry thanks to Overspun.com (maybe not in that order):



Windows Media File : Click Here to Play

It looks as the war drags on, and military recruitment continues to slump, that the Military is now going to build a database of high school and college students (as young as 16 years old) to help identify possible recruits.

I guess filling out the paperwork that prevents recruiters from going through you school records may no longer be enough.

And if you don't like privacy, you'll really like this, the Washington Post is reporting,

The system also gives the Pentagon the right, without notifying citizens, to share the data for numerous uses outside the military, including with law enforcement, state tax authorities and Congress.

Maybe that’s why the Republicans are to cutting student aid and get rid of affirmative action, its not that Republicans want to keep people down, its just

Via some really creepy folks citing a story in drudgereport.com here.

Perhaps in an effort to sit upon an investment that could help with future funding for regime change in other countries or just another semi-strategic war based on lies, the Pentagon is hopping mad that UK pulp's have gone and published more of their private stash of porn. Via ABC:

"Saddam's attorney said he would sue the newspaper "and everyone who helped in showing these pictures."

As part of the No Child Left Behind Act, all schools recieving federal funds are required to allow military recruiters access to their student's personal information. Since there has been a surge in unethinical behavior by recruiters, I wonder what educational merits the miltary has in this new landscape of "America at War".

Leading the fight against recruitment in public schools is our very own Garfield High. Go Bulldogs! And today the Seattle PI has a good article on Garfield's PTSA who came out yesterday with their fists up to debate with recruiters.

As today marks the day when recruitment is brought to a one day hault in order to train all 7,500 recruiters on proper conduct, I think we should talk about how we can help Garfield and other schools continue this fight.

Kellog, Brown and Root are under investigation of overcharging the Army for food and fuel, there is one hundered million dollars unaccounted for in Iraq money, KBR gets a 72 million bonus from the army, and the senate approved another 82 billion dollars without debate?

What the fuck?

Che

Hello all,

Now comes the time where we must discuss PFC Lynndie England. Of course, we all know who she is; it’s all over the news. I will talk further about the case at Abu Ghraib, but for right now I want to focus on her. In an effort to not be redundant, I will assume that all of you know about the case and her pleadings. Now, the judge threw out her guilty plea because he thinks she might not have known her actions were wrong at the time. Her lawyers stated that she had severe learning disabilities and mental health problems. What does all of this mean? What it points to is a flaw within our military’s recruiting process, that a person with mental problems and learning disabilities can not only become a soldier, but also have some type of authority over prisoners in a jail.

If it is found out that the defense is correct, that PFC England is all of the things that they claim, you have to assume how many people in the military are just like her. I remember my process of joining the military, you are tested again and again; first the ASVAB, which determines what kind of job you are suitable for in the military. Then, during your basic training you take practical application tests, written tests about first aid, the UCMJ, and other various nuggets of military knowledge. So how is it possible that a person with a severe learning disability slipped through the cracks? How is it possible that this person could not figure out that putting a leash around someone’s neck might not be a good thing if it’s not consensual? I’m sorry, but it doesn’t hold water with me. I think she knew full well what she was doing, and didn’t care about the consequences. Either way, it makes the army look incredibly stupid.

I am not sure if this is a victory or a defeat, but a new poll shows that Most Americans say the Iraq War was not worth it.

Fifty-seven percent of those polled said they did not believe it was worth going to war, versus 41 percent who said it was, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of 1,006 adults.

Were it to be that the US actually had $75,900,000,000.00 to spend I would be happy to let them spend it on something like crappy education, shittier health care, and inspiring economic recovery through a pretty lame reduction in taxes for the filthy rich or even more outsourcing to help inspire the American workforce.

But this is not the case.

George Bush may have created an issue that divides the nation for years to come

Polling data from the Gallup organization shows that more people think the US is winning the war in Iraq (Interesting spike right around the presidential election).

At the same time fewer say they support the war.

Continued..

For those of you wondering what life is like for American soldiers in Iraq, Frontline, has a pretty amazing show with some pretty amazing footage, from the month they spent with Dog Company in south Baghdad.

To give you a taste,

Rebuilding projects are halted when insurgents move into Baghdad, trying to distract U.S. forces from the battle in Fallujah. An ambush against the soldiers kills an Iraqi civilian.

The Misfits' gunner, Spc. Travis Babbitt, is killed in an ambush; the next day they are ordered back into battle. The following day the gunner who replaced Babbitt is wounded

Capt. Whiteley gets intelligence he is specifically targeted. Combat intensifies. A rocket hits the base. With the situation deterioriating, Lt. Col. Allen decides to confront a local sheikh from an area where attacks are being launched.

Following Spc. Babbitt's memorial, Lt. Col. Allen orders 8th Cav onto a three day offensive. New insurgents are forced out of the area, the Iraqi National Guard finds a large cache of weapons hidden in a Mosque, and dozens are arrested.

They also have one about life once the soldiers go home.

When you are finally back here, and you finally make connection with your safety, which is your family…that's when you begin to vibrate with the fact of where you were

Check out this clip from the Daily Show. I guess CIA director Porter Goss doesn’t believe Bush's when he says "We spend everyday gathering information to locate Osama bin Laden.."

(I totally stole this from Low Culture)

How President Bush spent his Wednesday:

How Sens. Barbara Boxer and Charles Schumer spent their Wednesday:

Below is an excerpt from a letter by a parent of a soldier in Iraq. He is responding to a conservative pundit named Jonah Goldberg who has ravenously advocated the Iraq war but who responded, when challenged about why he didn't then enlist to fight it, that "he has a daughter and his family needs his earnings." This, of course, is a terrible and cringe-worthy answer. The whole fight is part of an ongiojn debate between Goldberg and progressive, smart blogger Juan Cole of Informed Comment. you can check it out at: http://www.juancole.com/2005/02/goldberg-v.html

The letter by the parent. I found this particularly moving.

Subject: asses and killing zones
Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2005 02:15:03 -0500
From: James Finkelstein
To: JonahNRO@aol.com

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

Here's a compromise to your dilemma as to whether to get your ass into the killing zone (more accurately, the be killed, be shot, or be blown up zone). Go to the nearest Veterans Hospital you can find, go up to some soldier or Marine who lost a limb in Iraq because his reserve or National Guard unit wasn't equipped with body armor or armored vehicles, and explain to him why we had to go to war in Iraq on March 20, 2003, and why we couldn't (a) wait to see if actual evidence of WMD's ever surfaced, and (b) wait until our military was properly equipped for the war.