For 3 Years!
On Monday, the Israeli Knesset passed a law imposing a penalty of three years imprisonment on Israeli vehicle-owners who take their vehicles to mechanics in the West Bank.
I cannot even guess at the justification.
How Many McVeighs Will This War Create?
The crimes of war don’t stop on the battlefield. Here is an account of how fighting in the first Iraq war changed Timothy McVeigh:
McVeigh was assigned as a Bradley gunner, and his Army buddies report that he was “just thrilled” when he blew up his first Iraqi vehicle. McVeigh’s friend Kerry Kling reports, “He said when they were invading Iraq he saw an Iraqi soldier coming out of a bunker and that when the first round hit his head, it exploded. He was proud of that one shot. It was over eleven hundred meters, and shooting a guy in the head from that distance is impressive.” McVeigh’s mother reported that he was “totally changed” by his experience in the war, and that when he came home, “It was like he traded one Army for another.” Or, it might be added, it was like he failed to respect the carefully nurtured differentiation between “heroic” and “terrorist” violence (Lee Griffith, The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God, Eerdmans, 2002, pp. 150-151).
How Many McVeighs Will This Iraq War Create?
Anti-Yoo Campaign
These people have a campaign to get John Yoo fired from UC Berkeley’s Boalt Law School.
Ron Paul and General Petraeus
Ron Paul gets 5 minutes to question General Patraeus. Check it out.
A longer statement and questions will be submitted in writing and will be available within a day or so.
White House Choreographed Torture Sessions
ABC has a bombshell tonight about how Cheney and other top Bush administration officials would sit around in the White House and decide exactly how Muslim detainees would be tortured.
ABC noted: “The high-level discussions about these ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.”
Sitting around a table and deciding how many times each Muslim detainee can be whacked up side the head sounds like the ultimate NeoCon masturbatory fantasy.
Even prize-Constitution stomper John Ashcroft had qualms about the meetings, reportedly warning, “History will not judge this kindly.”
What does it take to get someone indicted for war crimes in this country any more?
Cost of War #31415
The talent pool of the military officers is shrinking :
The army is losing its best and brightest. West Point, the alma mater of American generals going back to Ulysses S. Grant, has seen a relentless rise in the number of officers who leave at the earliest opportunity. Whereas only about 35% of the West Point class of 2000 had quit after five years, for the class of 2001 the proportion rose to 46% and for the class of 2002 to 58%. Retention problems are particularly severe among captains and majors with 11-17 years’ experience—the potential future military leaders. The army currently has only half as many senior captains as it needs, and forecasts that it will suffer from a shortfall of 3,000 captains and majors (out of a cadre of 52,000) until at least 2013. The maximum age for recruits has been raised to 42, and fitness and educational standards have been lowered.
Last week’s Economist has a whole section on possible changes in American foreign policy after November 2008 .