And interesting, though half-hearted, endorsment
The Economist, a long-time conservative, Thatcher-Reaganite newspaper in England has endorsed John Kerry. It did so with reservations, saying the choice was "between two deeply-flawed men". But the reasons for NOT endosing Bush are very telling (and obvious to anyone paying attention).

``It was a difficult call, given that we endorsed George Bush in 2000 and supported the war in Iraq,'' Economist editor Bill Emmott, who wrote the editorial backing Kerry, said in a pre- publication e-mail. ``In the end we felt he has been too incompetent to deserve re-election.''

``America needs a president capable of admitting to mistakes, and of learning from them,'' Emmott wrote. ``Mr. Bush has steadfastly refused to admit to anything.''

Thanks to Hesiod for this story.

Hesiod also has a good post about those explosives that Bush let get away. Pictures of the explosives have now surfaced from a news crew that saw them with the US soldiers it was traveling with back on April 18, 2003. Unfortunately, I don't share Hesiod's optimism that this revelation will sink Bush for good...but it's a nice thought.

A reason to vote for Bush!
Thanks to our fearless "leader", there are now at least 100,000 fewer Iraqis in the world...many of them women and children.

And how many Iraqis has John Kerry killed?

(The above portion of today's entry contains sarcasm. If you don't understand this writing tool, don't blame the author.)

While the major causes of death before the invasion were heart attack, stroke, and chronic illness, the risk of dying from violence after the invasion was 58 times higher than in the period before the war.

Most people died from violence after the invasion, the survey said, with most of the households interviewed saying air strikes from coalition forces were to blame.

While the researchers said the sampling was small, in an editorial alongside the survey, Lancet editor Richard Horton said interviewing more households would have improved the precision of the report, "but at an enormous and unacceptable risk to the team of interviewers."

He added that the study's central observation -- that more civilians have died following air strikes -- is convincing.

"With the admitted benefit of hindsight and from a purely public-health perspective, it is clear that whatever planning did take place was grievously in error," said Horton.

More whining from freedom-hating meddlers!
Yesterday it was a bunch of hippies at Greenpeace, today it's some prissy English weenies complaining about torture. So they were held for more than two years without access to laywers or any charges being filed...so they were not allowed to sleep or eat for days at a time sometimes...what are they complaining about?!? After all, with names like "Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal Al-Harith ", they're lucky the US didn't just execute each of them AND their entire families.

(Note: This post contained some sarcasm...if you don't understand this writing tool, don't blame the author.)

The "Americanization" of the World.
The NRA can take pride that America's "sportsman" culture is spreading around the world...even to France!.

The difference between Republicans and Democrats
So, while Democrats are complaining about programs in swing states where Republican "operatives" will station themselves in various polling stations (primarily ones in minority neighborhoods) and "challenge voter eligibility" (ie, harrass voters and hold up the whole process),... (For more on this and a great cartoon, check out this post from Tom Tomorrow. Also, Arie over at the Daily Outrage has a comprehensive post with links on all the Republican fraud.

Republicans are complaining because Democrats are, get this, encouraging people to vote! Can you believe that...how utterly DEVIOUS of them! Actually encouraging potential voters to get out and vote, rather than trying to hinder ones already trying to vote...oh those DASTERDLY Democrats!


Meanwhile, some crazed group of tree-hugging enviro-nazis is criticizing the US for it's use of torture in Iraq. Don't they know we have BOMBS and we're not afraid to use them on anyone who disagrees with us (and by "us", I mean the Bush administration, which received less than half of the votes cast by voters in 2000, in an election in which less than half of eligible voters voted).

It just gets worse and worse.
So, the big news yesterday and today is exactly what Arie (over at The Daily Outrage) and I said SHOULD have been the big news more than a week ago. A whole butt-load of explosives has disappeared from Iraq SINCE the US-led invasion. (I'm not even bothering with a link...check any news site and you'll see one...as for commentary, check atrios's post here and the ones before it.)

So, just to sum things up for us: not only has the US-lead invasion of Iraq turned it into THE center for terrorism for the entire planet (when before, it was the source of no international terrorism), but now the occupying US forces have let more than 300 tons of explosives vanish...most likely falling into the hands of terrorist who have been using or will use it to kill people. Nice...and yet the latest poll I just saw on CNN showed that when asked: who can do a better job of fighting terrorism, they respond in favor of Bush by a margin of 55% to 35%!

I just saw a soundbite where some right-wing pundit had this disturbing comment on the news:
"People like John Kerry are going to torture this into some kind of political issue"

Wait...they let 4000 times as much explosives as Timothy McVeigh used in Oklahoma City disappear (very likely falling into terrorist hands, let's face it), and asking HOW such a horrible thing could happen is just "politics"?!?

This just gets more and more unvelievable.

What was Bush's response to this story yesterday? Well, he completely avoided the issue in his stump-speaches, but a spokesman said this: "John Kerry has no vision for fighting and winning the war on terror, so he is basing his attack on the headlines he wakes up to each day,"

In other words, they're CRITICIZING Kerry for keeping up on current events. I guess Bush was serious when he boasted a year or so back that he didn't read the news.

I guess when you keep your head stuck in the sand and ingore blatant, obvious failures, someone who reads the news is worth chiding.

Oh, and Bush is preparing to ask for 70 billion MORE dollars to plunder and blunder in Iraq. (Thanks to Atrios for the linke on that...I saw it on CNN, but can't find it on their website yet). As for the draft...well, they're not admiting that YET, but the Pentagon is asking for another 20,000 more US troops. But only "temporarily".

No future? Why not be cannon fodder?
It's going to get harder to convince young Iraqi men to enlist with the "new" Iraqi Army, when attacks like these are a very real future they face.

A group of at least 49 soldiers of the new Iraq Army were ambushed and killed while on their way home after graduating from training, a U.S. military official said.

Penhaul said the killings were part of a growing pattern in Iraq with insurgents aiming to deter men from joining the new Iraq army.


But have no fear. The Army may have had poor planning and disasterously-flawed intel, thanks to Rumsfeld, Chenney and Bush's lies and incompetence, but one thing the Army does have experience in is convincing young men to join up and sign their lives away. The key is to make sure that the everyday life these young men (and their families) face is even more threatening than a military life.

The Army recruits a large percentage of its soldiers (and if you're talking "front-line" soldiers, then it's a large majority of them) from poor neighborhoods...we all know that. The portion of Farenheit 9/11 where Micheal Moore followed two Army recruiters around a poor section of Michigan was revealing, but really nothing new.

But, here are some interesting quotes from Nester Fernendez, an Army recruiter specializing in the same poor neighborhoods from which he himself came:

Fernandez's message is simple: If you're from a low-income neighborhood, in which drug use, crime, high unemployment and dead-end jobs are rampant, enlisting is about escaping and taking advantage of the stability, skills training and scholarship money that the Army offers its recruits. In fact, before Fernandez offers any of the official, sleek Army literature, he often hands out a simple flier he has designed in the form of a job notice and which makes no mention of the Army. Instead, it announces "positions available" in bold type and offers guaranteed pay raises, travel and rent-free housing.

"I don't want these kids to make the Army a career," he says. "I want them to move in, prepare themselves for the future, and move the hell out. I want them to make something of themselves and do something for their families. No matter how you cut it, the Army is a job, and it is a good job."

Yes, it's a "good job" if the only other future you have ahead of you is stifling poverty, durg addiction, or jail time. Frenedez knows and admits this.

"...and I don't paint any pretty pictures of what he's facing. A kid will face dangerous situations on the front line, but no more dangerous than life on these streets.

...I want every last kid out of here," he says, "because the risks they take [in their own neighborhoods] are much greater than those in the Army, even if they are in combat. And I tell them that. I break it down in a way they can not misunderstand."

So, keep a large portion of the country (whether it's the US or Iraq) impoverished and living under the constant threat of violence, and your Army's ranks will never get too thin.


BETTER OFF DEAD?
And, on a related note, I came across this distressing story while researching this post. For those who will say "I don't feel sorry for those kids...no one holds a gun to their heads and says 'you have to join'...it's their choice. Don't give me that crap about poverty...it's still their choice."

Fine, even if you feel that way, you've still got to admit that treating soldiers like this is a disgrace.

Part of the warrior ethos, the soldier's creed of the U.S. Army, is to "never leave a fallen comrade."

"And it doesn't just pertain to the battlefield," Hagenbeck said. "It means, when we get them home they're a part of the Army family forever."

But Johnson now lives in his car. It is where he spends most of his days, all of his nights, in constant pain from his injuries and unwilling to burden his family...

Stories like Tyson Johnson's are not unique.

Many of the severely wounded soldiers returning from Iraq face the prospect of poverty and what they describe as official indifference and incompetence.

But it's not only those who ENTER the Army poor...

"Guys I've met, talking to people, they'd be better off financially for their families if they had died as opposed to coming back maimed," said Staff Sgt. Ryan Kelly, who served as a civil affairs specialist for the Army while in Iraq.

On July 14, 2003, the Abilene, Texas, native had been on his way to a meeting about rebuilding schools in Iraq when his unarmored Humvee was blown up. A piece of shrapnel the size of a TV remote took his right leg off, below the knee, almost completely, Kelly said.

Kelly attests to receiving excellent medical care at Ward 57, the amputee section of Walter Reed, but said he quickly realized that the military had no real plan for the injured soldiers. Many had to borrow money or depend on charities just to have relatives visit at Walter Reed, Kelly said.

"It's not what I expected to see when I got here," he said. "These guys having to, you know, basically panhandle for money to afford things."

Even those who'd achieved "The American Dream" through hard work and planning are not safe:

Staff Sgt. Larry Gill, a National Guardsman from Semmes, Ala., wonders whether his 20 dutiful years of military service have been adequately rewarded.

Last October, Gill injured his left leg when on patrol during a protest outside a mosque in Baghdad. A protester threw a hand grenade which left Gill, a former policeman, with leg intact, though useless. He received a Purple Heart from the military, but no program, plan or proposal of how to make a living in civilian life.

"It's not fair, and I'm not complaining," Gill said. "I'm not whining about it. You know, I just, I just don't think people really understand what we're being faced with.

Gill expects he will have to sell his home, the dream house he and his wife, Leah, designed and built, where they raised their children.

"I've never questioned my orders," he said. "I've slept with rats and stood in the rain and wondered why I was standing in the rain, and, you know, for my children to have to do without based on a lack of income from me, it's frustrating."

Leah Gill agreed. "I just don't feel we should have to uproot because of an injury that he received while he was serving the country," she said. "It shouldn't come down to that."

No, it shouldn't.

AWOL? Who do you think you are?
Another case of What's good for the Goof isn't good for the Cannon Fodder from CNN.


And isn't it a good thing that Bush and Co have made Iraq and Afghanistan SAFE for freedom and democracy.


And, for those soldiers who survive the debacle of Iraq and Afghanistan (and Iran...and Syria...and...?), they still have Gulf War sickness to worry about.

What did one pathological liar say to another?
Check out this story from Atrios...it's too bizarre. Apparently Bush promised Pat Robertson that the US would not suffer casualties in Iraq. Not only that, he also said "I've been to war" before...?

Americans to First Ladies: "Shut up and cook something!"
This is sad, but not suprising.

I guess we can take heart that the younger generation is slowly waking up, though:

By more than 2 to 1, those 65 and older say a first lady shouldn't hold an outside job, according to the nationwide survey. Those 30 to 64 are divided roughly evenly on the question. But younger Americans, 18 to 29, say by almost 2 to 1 that it would be fine.

Two miles and two generations down the road from the senior center, at Westminster Senior High School, students in Carol Richardson's issues class struggle to imagine why anyone would think that the first lady shouldn't work outside the White House.

"It's an awfully old-time way to think, to say she should know her role and the first lady has no power beyond making sure the flowers don't wilt," says Aaron Luce, 16.

"We're not in the 1900s any more," agrees Brianna Garvey, also 16, who hopes to become a nurse. "It takes your whole life to go with what you want to do. If you love your career -- and I think I will -- you don't want to give it up."