This morning's New York Times carries a detailed account of how the U.S. relied on an Iraqi to distribute U.S.-supplied weapons, including AK-47 assault rifles, Glock pistols and heavy machine guns, to Iraqi police forces. Needless to say, the Iraqi "turned the armory into his own private arms bazaar with the seeming approval of some American officials and executives..."

News item: Sex with robots 'not far away'

Not coincidentally...

Republicans count on 'sex robots' to limit `08 convention sex scandals

I have been told here on a number of occasions that the libertarian philosophy is reflected broadly in the preferences of the voting public; that libertarianism (small "l") is really a mainstream philosophy that is supported by parts of the platforms of both major political parties.

Can anyone name a major Cheney-Bush policy that has worked out well for the American public?

• Iraq - $10-12 billion a month, 80-100 U.S. deaths a month, almost 20,000 injured, military stretched to the breaking point
• Oil/gas prices - Highest ever recorded
• Deficit - From a budget surplus to a current estimate of $9 trillion in debt with a renewed threat of inflation

Promoted by Brendan

I know this place is populated with a rich mix of viewpoints. There are plenty of free market advocates here. So I am wondering... How many people here own their own businesses?

Now, the oft-repeated phrase from economists of many stripes is that a majority of American jobs are created by small businesses. So, with the plethora of free market advocates we have on Swords Crossed, certainly there must be some real entrepreneurs in the bunch. You know, people who took big risks and let it all fly on a venture that wasn't a sure thing -- that kind of uniquely American risk-taking that has made this country what it is.

Or, at least he would if he judged himself by the standards he set out in the Army/Marine Counterinsurgency Field Manual...

As many here know, General David Petraeus was one of two authors of the U.S. Army/Marine Counterinsurgency Field Manual (caution: large pdf).

Petraeus' manual calls for a force-to-population ratio that would have required 120,000 troops (U.S. and Iraqi) in Baghdad in order to achieve success.

Petraeus admitted in confirmation hearings before implementation of the surge that it was undermanned. As Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, Sarah Sewall, wrote in The Washington Post at the time of the hearings:

According to the new counterinsurgency field manual, the proper "troop-to-task" ratio for Baghdad requires 120,000 U.S. and allied security forces. During his confirmation hearings, Petraeus carefully predicted that the present numbers will rise to 85,000, but only with some important caveats: if there is a full surge of 21,500 additional U.S. troops (recent administration hints of stopping deployments midway through the increase raise questions about this, however), and if you count all Iraqi security forces (which presumes that the troops both report for duty and prove capable -- both large assumptions). If you also count private American and foreign security contractors and the Iraqi guards that protect government ministries, the counterinsurgent numbers increase by tens of thousands.

Petraeus has never denied that the numbers didn't add up to the ideal. Instead, he has said that he could accomplish the security mission by using these forces differently than they have been used in the past, aggressively pushing them out among the population that they are supposed to secure. Petraeus may conclude -- consistent with the field manual -- that he needs more U.S. forces for a longer period of time. But given current political calculations in Washington, neither the administration nor Congress is likely to provide them.

Petraeus's counterinsurgency doctrine also holds that 80 percent of any counterinsurgency effort should be political. Yet the military has always been the 800-pound gorilla in Iraq. Petraeus is politely urging other government departments to play larger roles, and in particular to increase economic assistance to support the security effort. But the State Department can't even fill the civilian slots on the planned additional provincial reconstruction teams it is sending to Iraq; it has asked the Defense Department to provide military officers instead of foreign service officers. And no one has much confidence that State, Treasury or Justice Department support in Iraq will suddenly become effective -- particularly if security continues to disintegrate.

Some key points there:

• With the collapse and failure of Iraqi police units into sectarian militias, and with the inability of Iraqi military units to stand up as predicted (those that aren't either functioning as sectarian militias, or actually show up to their assignments), the surge is monumentally undermanned by Petraeus' own field manual.

John McCain, George Bush and nearly all of the other war apologists have been saying for the last three years that a "premature" exit of U.S. forces from Iraq will result in Islamic terrorists "following us home" to attack us on U.S. soil.

While experts disagree with this premise, a story coming over the wire today may signal that, in fact, George W. Bush and John McCain may be right...

As Brendan notes on the front page, exciting news on the space research front:

Potentially habitable planet found

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON - For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe."

What received less attention was this news item which followed quickly on the heels of the new planet announcement:

When the President, the Vice President and the military brass lie about how a soldier died on the battlefield, the soldier's family is betrayed, the soldier's fellow soldiers are betrayed and the people of the nation are betrayed.

So the question becomes, why do those in power lie about how the soldier died?

Today, we are getting some answers in a Congress that has decided to take seriously its responsibilities as a co-equal branch of government. (A responsibility all but ignored under Republican leadership.)

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, Republican `08 hopefuls have been tripping all over themselves attempting to curry favor from conservative gun nuts and the NRA.

But this latest story, just in over the wire from Iowa, was too much to take.

Thus, this entry...

Promoted by Brendan -- let the debate rage on! (Other perspectives here and here and here )

Don Imus is out of a job because giants of American capitalism like P&G and GM decided that he was no longer worth the investment of their advertising dollars.

So I find it highly ironic (and enjoyable) that free market capitalist conservatives are decrying his firing by MSNBC and CBS. What do these whining conservatives want? A socialist state where a bad investment like Imus is protected from the marketplace by some kind of socialist, politically-correct, government-mandated free speech maxims?

Today brings reports that American troops are now engaged in door-to-door fighting in Baghdad's city center with more of this fighting to come following Bush's expected escalation announcement this evening.

While this administration has not gotten much right on Iraq, Dick Cheney's Nostradamus-like prediction of what would happen, post-invasion, has come eerily true.

From today's New York Times :

BAGHDAD, Jan. 9 — More than 1,000 American and Iraqi troops, backed by Apache attack helicopters and fighter jets, battled insurgents all day Tuesday and late into the night in downtown Baghdad, in one of the most dramatic operations in the capital since the invasion nearly four years ago.

The first week of 2007 brought news of two exits: one emblematic of capitalism gone awry, the other, the tragic death of a 20-year-old man in Iraq.

Bob Nardelli was the CEO of Home Depot for six years. The company's stock went nowhwere during his tenure, but his compensation package skyrocketed. His reward for leaving? An exit package of $210 million.

Pfc. William R. Newgard, 20, of Arlington Heights, Illinois died on December 29, 2006 when his vehicle struck an IED in Iraq. His "exit package?" Less than 1/4 of 1% of Mr. Nardelli's going-away present.

So just how do we value life in this country?

The reports are everywhere now. Bush and his neocon crew fronted by Dick Cheney and backed by the same geniuses that brought us the Iraq debacle in the first place -- Fred Kagan, Bill Kristol and, no doubt, Richard Perle -- are all set to dictate military strategy to the military.

So much for Bush's oft-repeated mantra of, "I'll listen to the generals."

You have to admire their chutzpah. The sheer lunacy of allowing the same folks who drove us off the cliff now retaking the wheel while barreling toward a much steeper and deeper cliff (okay, let's call it what it is -- an abyss) would be mind-bendingly, comically absurd if the consequences of this lunacy weren't so devastating to our troops, the Iraqis, our military readiness and our nation's standing in the world.

Whatever genius strategy Bush and company cobble together for Iraq, we can be sure that a key piece of Bush mis/disinformation will be a claim that more American forces, specifically, more American trainers, will focus on getting Iraqi troops up-to-speed over the course of the next 12-18 months.

As we know, this is a charade. It is a stall tactic designed to help Bush "run out the clock" on Iraq during his presidency, leaving this epic disaster for the next president.

So presented here (for the benefit of our lazy media who likely won't question Bush's bogus assertions of past and potential successes in training Iraqi troops) are the cold, hard facts on past claims, and on the very dubious possibilities of future success.

President George "I-listen-to-the-generals-on-troop-levels" Bush is up against it.

Last Thursday, it was reported that the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Bush that they did NOT favor adding troops to Iraq .

Yet reports this weekend continued to suggest that Bush was considering boosting troop strength in Iraq by anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 to curb the insurgency.

A headline on the front page of today's New York Times made me laugh out loud, albeit in a sadly sardonic way:

Iraqis Consider Ways to Reduce Power of Cleric

The clueless misadventures of the Bush administration continue to roll out like some slapdash-awful Christmas comedy. Think of "The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause," except that this ticket sets you back half a trillion bucks, thousands and thousands of people die senselessly during the course of the film, and, ultimately, there is no "escape clause."

Like haystack (and many others on the right side of the political spectrum), David Brooks paints a scary doomsday scenario in his column today, portraying a future Middle East in chaos under the control of radical lunatics.

We have been told numerous times by the right that we liberals and Democrats "just don't get it" on Iraq and the Middle East; that we are staring down the barrel of a caliphate, world terrorism on an unimaginable scale, lost control of oil resources, world economic collapse, etc.

While I understand the desire of our resident conservatives and their conservative brethren to "stay the course" in Iraq, I note an inherent denial of reality in many of their posted comments.

Steve Foley's latest effort includes this statement:

The way I see it, this is the Bush plan! God forbid anyone saying so... but it's right there... We’ll stand down when they stand up!

And haystack adds this dramatic flourish in his diary :

The Speaker of the House calls the Iraq war a problem that needs a solution. She doesn't see this as a war that needs to find a victor. Her colleagues see our withdrawal BEFORE Iraq can secure itself as the best means to forcing them to pick up the pace in trying to do so.