jon stewart's take on the pentagon budget increase (0.00 / 0)

http://www.hulu.com/watch/6715...
http://www.thedailyshow.com/vi...

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by: The Big Hurt @ Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 18:01:49 PM CDT

and stephen colbert (0.00 / 0)

http://www.hulu.com/watch/6730...
http://www.colbertnation.com/t...

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by: The Big Hurt @ Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 18:53:58 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

What's the difference between 3 Teenage Pirates and China? (2.00 / 2)

Navy snipers killed three teenage pirates at a distance of 85 feet, and AdamGreen compares it to a Reagan-era standoff with China!

Harharharhar!!!

The Navy deserves congratulations, Obama gets a pass for staying out of their way, and Adam Green deserves an Oscar for "Most Ridiculous Exaggeration in a Low-Concept Diary."

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by: Jacob Freeze @ Mon Apr 13, 2009 at 07:58:23 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Ah, yes (4.00 / 2)

it would be good to get other examples of Republican incompetence on military affairs out on the table

Well, y'know, there was that whole Iraq/War on Terrorism ordeal.

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by: digitall565 @ Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 18:38:04 PM CDT

indeed. (0.00 / 0)

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by: AdamGreen @ Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 18:43:23 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Doesn't count (0.00 / 0)

because as the rethuglicans continue to remind us, "the whole world" knew Saddam had WMD. It was merely a further sign of Bush's strength and leadership that America took the lead when all other nations were cowering.

In all seriousness, it seems most Republican voters really do lack a basic understanding of the difference between strength/toughness and competency/effectiveness. Or maybe they just don't care.  

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by: Oaktown Girl @ Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 18:58:11 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

. (4.00 / 1)

beruit bombings followed by Iran-Contra

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by: NeonBlack @ Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 19:37:58 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

one more (4.00 / 1)

It remains one of the most intolerable and vile acts of terrorism on the high seas. 1985: Four PLO hijackers seized the cruise ship Achille Lauro off the coast of Egypt, demanding the release of prisoners held by Israel. After Syria denied them permission to dock at the port of Tartus, the terrorists executed a disabled Jewish American passenger named Leon Klinghoffer, shooting him twice as he sat in his wheelchair. They dumped his body and wheelchair overboard.

Egypt's president Mubarak then offered the hijackers safe passage by air to their headquarters in Tunisia, but American warplanes forced the Boeing 737 to land at a NATO airbase on Sicily. Though a U.S. citizen has been murdered, the Italian authorities refused to let Navy SEALs board the terrorists' plane and apprehend the hijackers.

After a tense armed standoff between Italian Carabinieri and American special forces lasting through the night, President Ronald Reagan ordered U.S. troops to stand down. The Italians allowed Abu Abbas, the mastermind of the hijacking, to escape to Yugoslavia. He remained free until his capture in Iraq in 2003.

Remember this story when you hear Glenn Beck's minions bray about conservative vigilance in the pursuit of murderous pirates.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo...

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by: The Big Hurt @ Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 23:11:22 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

CAP's 'Fact Sheet on Proposed Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Budget' (4.00 / 1)

http://www.americanprogress.or...

Increases

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: The F-35 is less costly than the F-22 and gives the United States the capability to maintain air superiority for the foreseeable future.
...
Reductions

F-22 Raptor: This incredibly costly fighter is a plane without an enemy and has never been used in either Iraq or Afghanistan. The Air Force will still get 187 of these planes, four more than the number that the Bush administration approved in 2005.
...
Jobs

This proposal will not significantly affect U.S. jobs in aerospace or shipbuilding. In fact, these proposals will provide a net increase in direct employment in the aerospace industry.

   * Currently, 24,000 workers are directly employed in producing the F-22 for Lockheed Martin. This number will be reduced to 11,000 by the end of 2011 when the economy is expected to be on more stable ground. However, these losses will be dramatically offset by jobs created by the increase in F-35 production.
   * The F-35 program, also administered by Lockheed Martin, currently employs 38,000 people. According to Secretary Gates, more than doubling F-35 production in FY2010 will mean adding 44,000 American jobs next year, to bring the total F-35 workforce in that year to 82,000.
   * While ending production of the F-22 will mean that some workers will have to change jobs, increased production of the F-35 should give current F-22 employees an opportunity to transition from one program to another. In some cases, workers on these planes already operate closely together.
   * Following the cancellation of the DDG-1000 destroyer, that project's workforce can transition to work on the restarted DDG-51 production line, as well as work on the Littoral Combat Ships which Gates plans to buy in large quantities. The Pentagon has agreed on a plan to distribute work on the DDG-51 between the contractors currently assigned to the DDG-1000.

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by: The Big Hurt @ Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 19:21:41 PM CDT

thats why (4.00 / 1)

they are called chickenhawks, all talk no walk.

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by: pc @ Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 19:46:11 PM CDT

Reagan withdrawing from Lebanon after terrorists bombed the Marine barracks (4.00 / 1)

and attacking the British territory of Granada as a distraction without even telling the British (according to Tip O'Neil's recount of a furious Margaret Thatcher in MAN OF THE HOUSE) - which Richard Clarke points out as showing US weakness and cut-and-run mentality to the emerging Islamic terrorist movement.

Oh and then negotiating with a terrorist Iranian regime by trading weapons for hostages, weapons that could be used against the US - and then right after Iran holds US hostages for 444 days, dismantling Carter's solar bank project that would have freed us from Middle Eastern oil, lifting the embargo on Iran, and pumping billions right back to the terrorists for their oil.

G.W. Bush completely ignoring the Cole bombing and deciding it was not US sailors who were killed, but Clinton's political capital and doing NOTHING. Not to mention all the hemming and hawing whenever Clinton had a military operation against Bin Laden. That was all "wag the dog" stuff with Republicans, right past the PDB and up to 9/11.

And of course - 9/11!!!

Help support "CRASHING THE STATES"--a Netroots Film!

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by: Reality Bites Back @ Sun Apr 12, 2009 at 20:38:42 PM CDT

Many more (4.00 / 1)

1) Osama bin Laden is literally allowed to walk away into Pakistan by bribing our "allies" from the Northern Alliance. (George W. Bush)

2) Billions are lost in Iraq with no accounting.

3) Mercenaries at Abu Gharab direct torture and hang the blame on lower paid enlisted US troops.  (George W. Bush)  Why are mercenaries making policy

4) Condi Rice insists on replacing US Marine guards with Blackwater scum.  Semper stupid Condi.

5) Ronald Reagan saends Dick Cheney to Iraq to arm Saddam Hussein to get back at Iran.  That worked out really well, huh.  Three wars and at least two million dead later both countries hate us.

6)  The US rescue of the container ship SS Mayaguez, seized by the Khmer Rouge rsults in 18 dead and 41 wounded US military.  All the casualties occurred after the crew was released (unknown to our forces).  (Jerry Ford)

7) The evacuation of Saigon is a disorganized mob scene with many US friends stranded (Jerry Ford)

8) Eisenhower stages a CIA coup in Iran that removes the dempcratically elected leader of IRan, Mossadegh, and installed the Shah.  We have been hated in Iran for the sicceeding 55 years. The only winner?  Exxon (then Esso) gets half the British oil concession in Iran.  

9) Eisenhower intervenes in Lebanon in 1956.  Another long term disaster.

10) Eisenhower decides that the US should "inherit" the French position in Vietnam after the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu.  Conclusion:  Eisenhower was a good theater commander but he was carried by FDR and Marshall.  His strategic sense was sucky.

11) My favorite.  Herbert Hoover unleashes US Army troopos under the command of Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur to put down unemployed World War I veterans who were protesting to get their retirement checks early considering the Depression was going on.  This was a sorry use of US troops.  

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by: David Kowalski @ Mon Apr 13, 2009 at 00:05:01 AM CDT

Semi OT (4.00 / 3)

But I had to run screaming earlier from the bloodthirsty, very Republicanesque, "Obama 1 - Pirates 0", life and death as spectator sport, cheerleading over the shooting of some of the Somali "pirates" in the Navy rescue operation over at Huffpo.

Now, of course, I in no way endorse hostage-taking and threatening of a hostage's life.

But the sad fact is, no one is talking about WHY these so-called "pirates" started attacking ships off the Somali coast in the first place. Namely, that European countries are taking advantage of the lack of an organized Somali state to illegally dump nuclear and toxic waste off their coast, making coastal inhabitants sick. Or the REAL piracy of foreign fishing boats invading Somali coastal waters and stealing one of the very few sources of food left to these people.

But the fact is, if that were happening to my country, it's not hard for me to imagine resorting to the same tactics when all else fails to, if nothing else, get the world's attention.

We could be helping the Somalis. We could be assisting them in the defense of their coastal waters. We fail to do so at our peril, because groups like al Qaida would be more than happy to step in and gain their allegiance. But instead, too many want to cheer on the killing of more poor brown people, as if each head shot were a 3 pointer from mid-court. Especially if it gives Obama the chance to out-do Republicans in the killing of poor brown people. And that just makes me ill.

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by: Helzapoppin @ Mon Apr 13, 2009 at 01:15:28 AM CDT

D. Kos was frightening on this as well. (4.00 / 1)

Damn disappointing among "progressives."

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by: sb @ Mon Apr 13, 2009 at 06:28:51 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Easy money (0.00 / 0)

Piracy is the easiest money ever to come to Somalia.  Little or no risk and the pay is millions.  This is not about skin color, it is about international commerce being blocked by a thousand jerks with RPGS and lifeboats.  We stopped pirates in the Carribean once and for all in 1826 and in the Mediteranean even earlier (Barbary Pirates).

Obama can't let his administration go down the drain the way Jimmy Careter's did on the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979-80.  And he did not.

This poor brown people deserve what they get for stealing relief supplies.  Our $149 billion a year Navy would be a joke if it followed your plan.  And it should be disbanded as a cost saving if that was the course.  These people had plenty of chances to surrender to overwhelming force.  Don't forget it.

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by: David Kowalski @ Mon Apr 13, 2009 at 06:47:10 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

There are more important things in the world (4.00 / 1)

than international commerce.

You make me sad.

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by: Helzapoppin @ Mon Apr 13, 2009 at 07:37:03 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Please offer some links (0.00 / 0)

Hellzapoppin could you please put up some links to this info you gave.  I have heard some of this from a somali women.  I personally believe that Somalia deserves no help what so ever.  Yet I am quite open to learn and change my mind.  Thanks in advance.

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by: yolo @ Mon Apr 13, 2009 at 08:05:23 AM CDT

Here is a recent Independent UK column on the subject (4.00 / 1)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
(Obviously, I caught the reprint at Huff Po.)
And FDL had a great discussion yesterday:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake....

I'd particularly recommend reading the bibliography of links in support of Hari's piece that Sara links to in the comments. I'd paste it here, but I can't get it to copy, and I have to run. The UN report on the dumping of nuclear waste is especially worthwhile.

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by: sb @ Mon Apr 13, 2009 at 08:49:14 AM CDT

[ Parent ]