Archive for the 'war' Category

Filed under: Action & Adventure, Lionsgate Films, Trailer Trash, War

Jason Statham reminds me a lot of Bruce Willis — sometimes. No, the British bad-ass doesn’t have an “everyman” sense of humor like Bruno did in the Die Hard flicks, but Statham just keeps popping up in action movies with his bald head and his gruff “likeability” … and he just reminds me of Willis. I’ve been a fan of the guy since Lock, Stock — and if I’m still a fan after sitting through Transporter 2, then I’ll probably be a fan for quite some time.

And the guy seems to have settled into quite the comfortable little action niche. In his next movie Statham will play a hardcore, revenge-driven FBI agent who decides he’s just got to kill an assassin called Rogue (as played by Jet Li). Up until a few weeks ago, this flick was actually called Rogue, but Lionsgate must have caught wind of that other (now missing) Rogue movie, and so now the Statham vs. Li action flick is known simply as War. Here’s the trailer.

So the trailer looks suitably packed with action, and that’s a good thing. Plus the supporting cast includes names like Devon Aoki, Luis Guzman and Saul Rubinek. On the other (less promising) hand, it looks like the director and both screenwriters … are all first-timers. Guess we’ll see how it all turns out on September 14.

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By now, you've all likely seen this Washington Post headline:

Shortages Threaten Guard's Capability
88 Percent of Units Rated 'Not Ready'

And it probably comes as no surprise to you. After all, it's practically become the secret Conventional Wisdom (if such a thing can possibly exist): George W. Bush is destroying America's Armed Forces.

And sure, we all knew this:

"We can't sustain the [National Guard and reserves] on the course we're on," said Arnold L. Punaro, chairman of the 13-member Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, established by Congress in 2005.

And this:

"The Department of Defense is not adequately equipping the National Guard for its domestic missions," the commission's report found. It faulted the Pentagon for a lack of budgeting for "civil support" in domestic emergencies, criticizing the "flawed assumption" that as long as the military is prepared to fight a major war, it is ready to respond to a disaster or emergency at home.

And this:

In the Washington area, Guard officials worry about a catastrophic attack. In the event of "a very large . . . chemical, biological or nuclear incident in the national capital region, I would need every truck I was authorized, and we don't have that," said Col. Robert Simpson, director of the joint staff for the Virginia National Guard. "We are definitely short trucks, all wheeled vehicles," as well as radios, bulldozers and other gear, Simpson said. The state Guard could handle ordinary contingencies such as "bad winter weather," he said.

But you only know that because you're a bunch of liberal moonbats, and you read "newspapers."

Well, traitor smarty-pants, did you know this?

Some employers, already pinched by mobilizations of workers who are in the National Guard or reserves, are saying privately they’ll be reluctant to hire new employee-reservists.

Discriminating against someone because of their military obligations is illegal, but 51 percent of employers who responded to an informal, online poll by Workforce Management magazine said they would not hire an employee who is a citizen-soldier "if they knew that a military reservist or National Guard member could be called up and taken away from their job for an indeterminate amount of time," as the question was posed.

Yes, that's right. The hard workin', job providin', beer-with-the-preznit wantin' backbone of 'merika -- not you, dummies, your bosses -- are at the point where they'd rather break the law (and hate on the troops, too) than put their money where their mouths are, and support Th' Decider.

Oh, they'll still tell you they do (though in ever-dwindling numbers). But they've got their fingers crossed behind their backs with one hand, and have a death grip on their wallets with the other hand.

Carry on your war, Mr. President. Just do it with someone else's workers.

When Condoleezza Rice told America on Sunday that the president would defy legislation restricting his options in continuing the war in Iraq, she may have sparked more questions than answers.

You may have asked yourself, "What business is it of the Secretary of State to issue a statement like that?" And that'd be a good question. You wouldn't be the first to wonder whether grafting the former National Security Adviser onto the Department of State had left us without a functioning diplomatic capacity.

Maybe you asked yourself on what grounds the president would feel entitled to defy an Act of Congress. We discussed that the other day.

Or maybe you asked yourself, "How does Rice know for sure that the president is going to do that?" The answer to that one is, because he's already done it.

From all indications, the plan proposed by Rep. Jack Murtha, the chairman of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, would include (among other things) restrictions on the use of DoD funds for the deployment of troops who haven't been afforded adequate time for resetting and retraining at home. Conservative Democrats, led by the so-called Blue Dogs, are reportedly nervous about Murtha's plan, and may be floating a less-confrontational approach that merely requires the president to affirmatively certify when he orders such a deployment.

But in the face of Rice's declaration, does either plan really stand a chance?

Not by themselves, if Bush's record can inform the matter.

Today, I have signed into law H.R. 1588, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004. The Act authorizes funding to defend the United States and its interests abroad and provides much- needed flexibility to manage effectively the personnel and taxpayer resources devoted to the national defense.

Section 541(a) of the Act amends section 991 of title 10 of the United States Code to purport to place limits on the number of days on which a member of the Armed Forces may be deployed, unless the Secretary of Defense or a senior civilian or military officer to whom the Secretary has delegated authority under section 541(a) approves the continued deployment. Section 1023 purports to place restrictions on use of the U.S. Armed Forces in certain operations. The executive branch shall construe the restrictions on deployment and use of the Armed Forces in sections 541(a) and 1023 as advisory in nature, so that the provisions are consistent with the President's constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and to supervise the unitary executive branch.

What you are looking at is George W. Bush's signing statement nullifying language in a duly-passed and signed Act of Congress, that appeared to require something considerably less embarrassing to the "administration" than what conservative House Democrats demand as an alternative to Murtha's outright prohibitions. As you can see, The Decider considers it to be within his "inherent powers" to ignore even this minimal inconvenience when he violates the readiness standards of our Armed Forces.

In other words, we've actually been down this road before -- and with almost-unanimous Republican support (minus Ron Paul) -- but to no avail.

Do the Blue Dogs, whose criticism of the Murtha plan is being led by Reps. Jim Matheson of Utah and Jim Cooper of Tennessee, really think they're onto something here? Given that Bush ignored even this kid glove treatment, do we really think the Blue Dogs think they're gonna put one past the president by "forcing" him to approve the deployments personally? Neither plan stands a chance at being accepted by the "administration," but at least Murtha's had the virtue of actually trying to do something about the president's continued violation of military readiness policy, even if some would consider it much less than necessary. For the president to defy Murtha's funding prohibitions sets up a direct constitutional conflict. For the president to defy the Blue Dog plan saves him some paperwork.

But maybe that's just what the Blue Dogs want. Because the president's rejection of the Murtha plan puts them right where they're most afraid to be: actually confronting the president on Iraq.

The House Democratic Caucus meets tonight to see if the Members can hash out a strategy that they can pursue with sufficient unity. The question the media will be covering, no doubt, is which plan, if any, emerges from that meeting with the leadership's blessing. The real story -- that all plans (even those approved by Republicans, like that in the 2004 bill) will suffer the same fate at the hands of a president who believes himself above constraint by Congress and the courts alike -- will likely get no coverage at all.

Just so you know:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged the Democratic-controlled Congress not to interfere in the conduct of the Iraq war today and suggested President George W. Bush would defy troop withdrawal legislation.

Many of you likely know this already from having watched the Sunday shows. And many of you knew it even without hearing it again today.

Of course, Democrats pushed back to some extent, too:

But Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said lawmakers would step up efforts to force Bush to change course. "The president needs a check and a balance," said Levin, D-Mich.

I agree. He needs a check and balance. And while I applaud Levin's efforts, I do so only because I know they kick the can further down the road we all know we're bound to travel here. Senator Levin says the president needs a check and balance, but I don't think he's hearing Secretary Rice. The president will defy your legislation.

The president will defy your legislation.

Now, that doesn't mean this isn't something Levin and his colleagues aren't going to want to see for themselves. But time's a-wastin'. Let's get this show on the road, already. We know what's going to happen, and we know what your choices are going to be at the end of the road: roll over, or impeach.

How do we know? Well, Rice says so. On what basis? Well, to the extent that she needs a basis for a statement like that, she's probably pointing to the fact that this "administration" believes Congress is literally powerless to stop the war.

Levin and his colleagues propose to repeal the 2002 AUMF, replacing it with a resolution that would restrict the use of American forces in Iraq and eventually force a withdrawal. On what grounds does the president plan to defy this? Well, he's got a multilayered strategy available to him. For one thing, he could opt to fall back on the 2001 AUMF -- the one originally passed to authorize the use of force in Afghanistan -- by claiming (as he's already done on numerous occasions) that Iraq is part of the greater war on terror, and that since al Qaeda is (now) operating in Iraq, the 2001 AUMF authorizes our continued presence there.

But couldn't we then amend the 2001 AUMF? Sure, assuming you could get the votes for it. But dig this: Bush doesn't think he needs the 2001 AUMF either. John Yoo tells us why:

In both the War Powers Resolution and the Joint Resolution [the AUMF], Congress has recognized the President's authority to use force in circumstances such as those created by the September 11 incidents.

Recognized. Not granted.

Neither statute, however, can place any limits on the President's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response. These decisions, under our Constitution, are for the President alone to make.

If this strikes you as familiar, it may be because I've shown it to you before.

And the same conclusion holds now as held then:

Yoo's theories having reduced Congress to a cipher, from the White House point of view, it hardly makes a difference how they opt to wait out the last two years of Bush's term.

If they'd like to spend it methodically demonstrating Yoo's point for the American public, that option is open to them, and the path runs through Congressional "oversight," subpoenas, repeal of the AUMF and all the other goodies that have been dangled before us as "alternatives" to impeachment.

Again, I applaud the effort to the extent that it hastens the inevitable, but I told you a month ago (and, for the record, several times before that) what Bush's response to this -- and everything else in the Democratic arsenal -- was going to be, and it'll be another month before Levin even puts himself in a position to get that answer.

Yes, I know impeachment is "off the table." But we'll cross paths with it soon enough, since Bush keeps pulling our chairs out from under us.

WaPo:

The Army's highest-ranking officer said Friday that he was unsure whether the U.S. military would capture or kill Osama bin Laden, adding, "I don't know that it's all that important, frankly."

"So we get him, and then what?" asked Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the outgoing Army chief of staff, at a Rotary Club of Fort Worth luncheon. "There's a temporary feeling of goodness, but in the long run, we may make him bigger than he is today.

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to why it "emboldens the enemy" in Iraq to say we're going to require that troops we send there have adequate armor and training, but it's "bold leadership" to say we just don't really care all that much about eliminating bin Laden?

Remind me, which one of these enemies "followed us home" again?

Now, has he got a point? Sure he does. Al Qaeda is bigger than just Osama bin Laden. And, as the article notes:

Schoomaker pointed to the capture of Saddam Hussein, the killings of his sons, Uday and Qusay, and the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as evidence that the capture or death of al-Qaeda's leader would have little effect on threats to the United States.

You have to admit, there's an element of truth to that. Of course, it's an element of truth that someone we know was ridiculed for making... three years ago:

Anti-war candidate Howard Dean said Monday "the capture of Saddam has not made America safer," directly contradicting President Bush and drawing the wrath of two Democratic presidential rivals.

And let's just be clear about what that says up there. It says two Democratic presidential rivals joined in bashing Dean on that point. And they were?

A forceful proponent of the war, Sen. Joe Lieberman, said Dean is in a "spider hole of denial," a reference to Saddam's ignominious hideout and Dean's assessment of the capture's impact.

[Sen. John] Kerry said the front-runner's speech "is still more proof that all the advisers in the world can't give Howard Dean the military and foreign policy experience, leadership skills, or diplomatic temperament necessary to lead this country through dangerous times."

Only one of the above Democratic rivals has come to see the error of his ways since then.

The other, of course, is no longer Democratic.

I've known for a long time that it's a waste of effort to read George Will, but every once in a while you like to remind yourself just how shameless even a fellow with Important Looking Glasses can be.

George Will knows well, and relishes, the role he plays in America's newspapers. And so it is, I am sure, with no shortage of delight that he uses the leverage he has as America's breakfast table pundit to announce The Bad News: After four years of George W. Bush getting everything he wants in Iraq, the Democrats are to blame for the failure of his plans.

Why? Because they've come to the realization that this incompetent boob of a president is never going to succeed, and the price of his continued grasping is the blood of American troops -- to say nothing (as Republicans do) of the lives of Iraqis we're "liberating" from the oppression of having a pulse. And it is the unfortunate curse of Congressional Democrats that they take that rather seriously.

Will kicks his column off with the charge that many in Congress, on both sides of the aisles, are engaging in "indiscriminate criticism" of the president -- Republicans of the Bush "administration's" nuclear deal with Pyongyang, and Democrats (and some Republicans who of late have come to take their jobs seriously) of Bush's having presided over the greatest foreign policy disaster in American history.

Frankly, that criticism doesn't sound all that indiscriminate to me, but then again, I'm not wearing a tie right now, so what do I know?

Will's treatment of the Pyongyang deal is a throwaway. Conservatives in Congress are disturbed essentially because they've bought the "administration's" rhetoric on North Korean to this point -- that is, that it's been a "serial liar" on this subject and ought not to be trusted. True or not, it's just another example of Bushista rhetoric making it impossible to actually pursue diplomatic solutions that are politically acceptable domestically. Having invested so much in framing the North Koreans as being both untrustworthy and led by a certifiable maniac (focus, people -- we're still talking about North Korea here), conservatives find it difficult to let go of that paradigm and accept a new one. Gosh, who would've believed that of conservatives? Well, besides the people over at Webster's, that is.

After Will's Asian jaunt, he gets to the meat (mostly gristle, really) of his accusations: Democrats are to blame for George Bush's spectacular failure of vision, leadership and just plain competence in Iraq, because they've peered down into the hole and suggested he stop digging. But here's how He of the Scholarly Spectacles puts it:

Regarding Iraq, the Democratic-controlled Congress could do what Democrats say a Democratic president would do: withdraw U.S. forces. A president could simply order that; Congress could defund military operations in Iraq. Congressional Democrats are, however, afraid to do that because they lack the courage of their (professed) conviction that Iraq would be made tranquil by withdrawal of U.S. forces.

As frequently as Will presumes to speak for Democrats, he's never gotten any better at it. And this column holds out no promise of improvement. Are Democrats "afraid" to defund military operations in Iraq? I'd have to let him have that one. They're certainly being incredibly cautious about it. But it's when we come to the why part -- you know, the analysis Will is presumably paid to provide -- that things begin to fall apart. To the extent that it's fair to say Democrats fear this undertaking, it's largely because they assume, quite rightly, that Republicans will demagogue the issue incessantly, and will characterize it as endangering the troops no matter how the funding withdrawal is structured, and how much explicit direction is given to maintaining their safety as they withdraw. In other words, it is not from a lack of courage of their convictions, but from an empirical certainty that their Republican colleagues will react entirely without convictions and opt instead to lie, pretending that the free flag that you get with your coffin amounts to supporting the troops. Will even flubs (intentionally) his guess at what Democratic convictions are. Democrats don't want to withdraw from Iraq because they think it will make that country tranquil. They want to withdraw because George W. Bush is using that theater to destroy the greatest military force in the world, and Democrats, like most Americans, would prefer he not do that.

Will goes on to complain that the funding restrictions proposed by Jack Murtha would "hamstring" the president (in much the same way taking away the allowance of a delinquent child "hamstrings" his ability to buy spray paint, I suppose), grousing as most Republicans do that requiring troops deployed to Iraq be fully rested, trained and armored is "disgusting" or "a plan for surrender." He then turns to the refusal of Senate Democrats to capitulate to GOP demands that they be permitted a vote on a resolution opposing such restrictions, and belittles it as "tiptoeing" toward... well, exactly what he began this section of his column by saying Democrats lacked the will to do.

He finally takes a turn toward the serious, though, in explaining the likely outcome of all this "tiptoeing":

Suppose Democrats write their restrictions on the use of forces into legislation that funds the war. And suppose the president signs the legislation but ignores the restrictions, calling them unconstitutional usurpations of his powers as commander in chief. What could Democrats do? Cross First Street NE and ask the Supreme Court to compel the president to acquiesce in congressional micromanagement of a war? The court probably would refuse to get involved on the grounds that this is a "political question."

Bang! Constitutional crisis. A conundrum with no easy exit. Either Congress caves and permits the war to continue to spiral out of control and destroy America's armed forces in this "cakewalk" gone awry, or it turns to the only remedy available to them in such a showdown: impeachment.

So, would you proceed with caution? Would you "tiptoe?" Not America's Bold Breakfast Table Pundit! He's for jumping in with both feet!

Yeah, right.

Will kindly ends his column by proving my earlier point: that Republicans will demagogue the issue to death. Which I suppose is appropriate, considering that they're already demagoguing the troops to death, in the most literal sense. Ending the war, he says, means Congress will "legislate decisive failure of the Iraq operation."

The failure of the Iraq operation, George, was written in the history books over the past four years and 3,000+ American deaths. Four years of blank checks from a Rubber Stamp Republican Congress Politburo, and four years of a virtual merry-go-round of Pentagon brass kept whirling as Commander Cuckoobananas fired anyone who wouldn't tell him that brazen carbombings of American bases, the now-weekly downing of billion dollar helicopters, and resort of the insurgency (in it's Last Throes^TM, mind you!) to the detonation of makeshift "dirty bombs" fueled with poison chlorine gas represents "progress."

The failure of the Iraq operation, Will would have us believe, becomes a legislative failure if Mommy and Daddy Congress are finally forced to ground Junior over four solid years of failing grades.