8 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq

New York Times: 8 U.S. Soldiers Killed in 2 Iraq Bomb Attacks

We're still there and will be for a long time if John McCain has his way.

A Proposal For KBR Executives

Kellog, Brown, and Root (KBR), a former Halliburton subsidiary, has profited more than any other US contractor from the war in Iraq, obtaining more than $16-billion in contracts from 2004 to 2006. They accomplished this contracting victory while avoiding the payment of $500-million in Social Security and Medicare taxes.

If the above monetary outrage and allegations of gang-rape by former employees weren't enough, it turns out that KBR has been supplying troops with dirty, illness-inducing water (via ThinkProgress).

My proposal is this: KBR's leaders, including their board, need to be sent on a corporate retreat. Instead of a typical "rent a high-end hotel stocked with booze, prime rib, and prostitutes" week-long male bonding event, supply these guys with a canteen of KBR water, a knife, and cell phones that only dial Dick Cheney or the New York Times and drop them off in Baghdad for a week.

Five More Soldiers Die In Iraq

Even if the media in the US has largely forgotten it, there are still US soldiers dying in Iraq:

In Friday's bloodiest incident, four soldiers were killed by a roadside blast while on patrol northwest of the Iraqi capital, the U.S. military said in a statement. It blamed a deeply buried roadside bomb, a signature al Qaeda tactic.

Another soldier died in an explosion near his vehicle and three others were wounded near Tikrit in northern Iraq.

The Iraq Coalition Casualty Count keeps track of the dying troops that John McCain wants to keep in Iraq indefinitely.

Mercanenaries In Iraq

ABC News: Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR: "A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident."

This is one of the most disgusting incidents I've read about recently. This is how mercenaries behave when there is no rule of law applied to them. It has to stop.

Suddenly, I Don't Hate Australia (As Much)

It was nice to read this lead paragraph this morning:

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — Conservative Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia's combat troops from Iraq.

Sadly, Rudd is not in favor of marriage equality for everyone. However, he's an improvement over homophobic John Howard and favors laws that give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples (although, as we know, that tactic has been a failure in NJ).

PostBlog: Be sure to check out Jonathan's review of John Howard's deceptive cheerleading for the Iraq debacle.

Still Here

I know I said I wouldn't post again until late November, but it's really hard not to! Again, if someone feels like doing some guest blogging, let me know.

In the meantime, I wanted to remind people that the LGBTQ SciFi/Fantasy/Horror site DoorQ.com launches October 31st. There's sure to be lots of great reviews, intereviews, and original material.

And another thing, the Dems in congress really need to do what they were elected to do. One of those things is getting us out of the mess we've created in Iraq (because the Bush crew wants to be there forever). Another of those things is restoring Americans' civil liberties. Get a spine and use your power of majority!

There Won't Be Accountability

The Iraqi "government" can revoke Blackwater's license, they can protest Blackwater's killing of civilians, and they can demand that the US remove the company. Blackwater is in Iraq to stay, just like we are. Blackwater's mercenaries will continue to kill civilians and they'll take home orders of magnitude larger paychecks than our soldiers for doing it. From the LA Times:

BAGHDAD -- -- The security company Blackwater USA was approved Friday to resume escorting American officials in Baghdad, just days after the fatal shooting of 11 Iraqis galvanized the Iraqi government over the company's conduct and the immunity its employees enjoy from Iraqi law.

The decision by the U.S. Embassy came despite Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's insistence that the State Department sack the company and his government's demand that Blackwater and other such security firms be stripped of the immunity granted them in 2004 by L. Paul Bremer III, the administrator of the former U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. ...

A senior Iraqi lawmaker, Sami Askari, said officials would be informed of Blackwater's whereabouts, but Nantongo denied that the embassy would be providing them precise details of their missions.

"This time they will be restricted; they will be required to inform the Iraqi government about their movements until the end of the investigation," said Askari, an advisor to Maliki.

The embassy announced Tuesday that it had forbidden U.S. officials to travel outside the Green Zone, the fortress-like enclave harboring the Iraqi government and the diplomatic community, citing the increased threat of attacks after the incident involving Blackwater.

The U.S. and Iraqi governments have been in consultation since Sunday, when a Blackwater security detail killed 11 people in Nisoor Square in west Baghdad's Mansour district.

A preliminary Iraqi government investigation, carried out by the Interior Ministry, found that the armed guards had fired on Iraqi civilians without provocation. In turn, Blackwater and the State Department have said the security detail had been fired upon.

Nonetheless, nearly a week into the dispute, which has seen an unprecedented stand by the Iraqi government over the conduct of private security firms, Iraqi officials have retreated after initially declaring that they would take away security contractors' immunity.

Instead, the prime minister agreed Wednesday that a joint Iraqi-U.S. commission would review the status of security contractors and also receive the results of an Iraqi and U.S. military investigation.

The investigation of the incident Sunday has been complicated by the involvement of the embassy's own diplomatic security agents, who work with and supervise Blackwater. The embassy's security department has been accused by some diplomats of having failed to challenge Blackwater over questionable episodes.

Peter W. Singer, a Brookings Institution expert on security contractors, was skeptical about whether the joint commission would change the rules and hold Blackwater accountable for any misconduct in Iraq.

"Based on the past track record, I don't have a lot of evidence to base that hope on, but maybe this [event] changes the game," Singer said.

Singer criticized the embassy's insistence on conducting its own investigation, parallel to the Iraqi government's inquiry.

"It is utter silliness. All it does is guarantee we will have two versions of the story, and further the disconnect and sense of double standards," he said.

Think the joint investigation will find Blackwater responsible?

Same As It Ever Was

The Iraq troop reduction fairytale schema is this - Congress hold hearings, the media covers it, some serious political types nod approvingly, most yell about partisan politics, the president hints that he might bring home a small number of troops sometime in the distant future, the media headlines the president's non-plan as a very wise compromise that will bring our boys home, the undecided voter buys every bit of it, and we remain at war forever.

Greenwald Speaks

Glenn Greenwald on General "It's always sunny in Baghdad" Petraeus:

I'm not much on the eternally awkward video blogging format, but Mr. Greenwald makes some great points.

I'd add the question, "How many times can an alpha-presenting male lie to a swing/moderate/undecided male voter before the voter realizes that his daddy figures aren't heroes and that it's OK to say so?"

I'd estimate the answer hovers around 100. At that rate it should take us twenty to forty years to collectively realize that the wise old men of DC are dedicated to staying in Iraq forever and sugarcoating (a euphemism) the lack of progress (more here). This realization will be instantly forgotten upon initiation of the next war. War forever!

(h/t atrios)

Seven More Soldiers

Seven more soldiers have died in this useless war. Bush says, "we're kicking ass" in Iraq.

In a reality where Bush and his war make sense (Novakuland, WSJ editorial pages, FauxNews), those seven deaths are supporting evidence to Bush's thesis. Dead soldiers mean we're fighting them over there and not here. Failed reconstruction efforts mean more work for American contractors (hush hush on that one though). Every new crack in Iraq's fragile government is just democracy in action.

Smell the freedom, on to Iran.

Progress

President Bush was on the teevee this holiday weekend telling me about the great progress he observed during his surprise visit to Iraq (and he didn't even need to leave a secured air base to tell).

I know he wouldn't lie to us. I mean, I've seen him in his flight suit and he looks like a very well endowed he-man, and brother, they don't lie. So, I'll just have to designate to the realms of hysteria the recent independent report from the GAO that finds Iraq reconstruction efforts stalling and little change in daily attacks against Iraqis. Bush and his war in Iraq are teh awesome.

Awesome too will be our inevitable invasion of the new big bad, Iran (Qaeda is so post 9-11).

We are a village of doomed idiots.

A Sad Mess

Imagine a USA where this occurred daily:

BAGHDAD - Rescuers dug through the muddy wreckage of collapsed clay houses in northwest Iraq on Wednesday, uncovering victims of four suicide bombings that Iraqi officials said killed at least 200 people in one of the worst attacks of the war.

Six more soldiers died yesterday as well (and fifteen in the last three days). For what? For oil and construction contracts for friends of the Bush Crime family?

Pundits are still telling us to wait six more months. That's crap (and at this point even they must know it). It's not getting better (go look into Iraqi reconstruction projects, civil rights, local governments, hours of electricity that people have, or life outside the Green Zone). Daily suicide and truck bombings weren't happening before we invaded.

Costs

of going to war over lies told by a bunch of rich guys: dead Americans.

BAGHDAD - Four more U.S. soldiers were killed in roadside bombings in the Baghdad area, including three in a single strike, the military said Tuesday, raising to at least 19 the number of American troop deaths in the first week of August.

Money for Nothing

Iraq and Afghanistan are costing $10 billion and $2 billion a month, respectively. Imagine the good things that could be done domestically with $10 billion a month. Image the people who'd be alive if we weren't there.

Iraq

Death keeps rolling in Iraq:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A suicide car bomber targeting a busy market in a northern Iraqi village killed at least 117 people Saturday morning, a government official told CNN.

A truck laden with two tons of explosives detonated in an outdoor market in Amerli. The truck resembled an Iraqi military truck, according to an official at the Joint Coordination Center in the city of Tuz Khurmatu.

Amerli is a village predominantly populated by Shiite Turkmens and Kurds, about 100 miles north of Baghdad in Salaheddin province, near Tuz Khurmatu.

Some 265 people were wounded and at least 12 houses were badly damaged.

This wasn't happening before we invaded. How do members of the Bush Crime family sleep at night?

Deadly Iraq

Why did we invade Iraq? Why are we still there?

Six more troops were killed Friday. That makes ten on Thursday and Friday and twenty-three for July, so far. Forty-eight Iraqis were killed by suicide bombings on Friday and twenty-five people were killed by a car bomb today.

All that death is very depressing and, contrary to the spin of right-wing pundits, very real. Think mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers gone forever. People aren't collateral damage. It's real death that's a direct consequence of lies - though plenty of people were calling them lies, our politicians were, and some still are, too frightened to confront a Bush inflated from taking advantage of 9-11 deaths - told by over-privileged, self-proclaimed philosopher kings living in castles, castles off limits to the people they'd casually sacrifice for a contracting treasure quest.

If you're so inclined, look up your representatives and politely ask them why we're still there.

Grim Anniversary

As Atrios notes, it's the 4th anniversary of the frat-boy-in-command's, "bring em on" statement.

The military announced the deaths of five more soldiers today:

BAGHDAD, July 2 (Reuters) - Four U.S. soldiers and one Marine were killed in various attacks in Iraq on Sunday, the U.S. military said on Monday.

It said two soldiers and one Marine were killed in western Anbar province.

The military also said one soldier was killed by small arms fire in southern Baghdad. Another was killed by gunfire that followed a roadside bomb attack on his patrol in western Baghdad. Two Iraqi policemen were also wounded in that attack.

June was costly for U.S. forces, with 101 soldiers and Marines killed. That made the April-June quarter the bloodiest since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Around 3,580 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. Many tens of thousands of Iraqis have also lost their lives.

The deaths for April, May, and June are 117, 131, and 108 (via The Iraq Coalition Casualty Count).

PostBlog: Updates here and here.

Lieberman Gone Wild

(Think Progress)
Israel says that military action against Iran is always on the table, but that sanctions are a course of action to be intensified right now. Today brave Joe Lieberman out machos Israel's response to Iran:

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," ...

"If there's any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can't just talk to them."

Thank you oh brilliant Connecticut male independents and moderates.

Iraq and the Minimum Wage

Congress has passed the first increase in the minimum wage since September of 97. The increase was a part of the war spending bill passed by congress. It's great that the minimum wage will increase, but it's no excuse for the spineless act of giving Bush a blank check for Iraq with no time line:

(AP) America's lowest paid workers won a $2.10 raise Thursday, with Congress approving the first increase in the federal minimum wage in almost a decade.

President Bush was expected to sign the bill quickly, and workers who now make $5.15 an hour will see their paychecks go up by 70 cents per hour before the end of the summer. Another 70 cents will be added next year, and by summer 2009, all minimum wage jobs will pay no less than $7.25 an hour.

For years, the idea of increasing the minimum wage has been stalled by partisan bickering between Republicans and Democrats.

That almost became the fate of this year's proposal. Democratic leaders attached the provision to the $120 billion Iraq war spending bill, which was vetoed by the GOP-controlled White House on May 1 because Democrats insisted on a pullout date for American troops.

Democrats seem to be doing everything they can disenfranchise the people who voted them into congressional power for one reason: to stop the war. I'm sure that Democrats have some larger than life rationalization for continuing the funding of Iraq for all time. I'm sure that rationalization makes sense in DC and is something that a mere ordinary citizen like me couldn't hope to comprehend. But, what comes across America's teevees is that Democrats are weak and caved to Bush once again. People hate the Iraq war and hate Bush. Democrats should understand that and act on it. But they won't.

The votes for the Senate version of the bill are here. The votes for the House bill are here.

Iraq

Seventy-one US soldiers have died in Iraq this month, fifteen of them this weekend:

BAGHDAD - Bombings killed seven U.S. soldiers in Baghdad and a southern city, the U.S. military said Sunday, and the country's Sunni vice president spoke out against a proposed oil law, clouding the future of a key benchmark for assuring continued U.S. support for the government.

Six of the soldiers were killed Saturday in a bombing in western Baghdad, the military said in a statement. Their interpreter was also killed.

The other soldier died in a blast Saturday in Diwaniyah, a mostly Shiite city 80 miles south of the capital where radical Shiite militias operate. Two soldiers were wounded in that attack, the military said.

Those deaths brought the number of American troops killed in Iraq since Friday to at least 15 — eight of them in Baghdad. So far, at least 71 U.S. forces have died in Iraq this month — most of them from bombs.

Elsewhere, several explosions were heard from the area around the Green Zone in central Baghdad, but it was unclear if any were inside the U.S.-controlled area, which has increasingly come under mortar and rocket fire. The American military referred questions about the explosions to the U.S. Embassy, which did not respond.