Beatles
“Happy Birthday”

Happy Birthday Bro! If you’re feeling old, just remember, you’ll always be younger than me!

Karl Rove said he never would have confirmed the information he confirmed about Valerie Plame if he knew that Novak was going to use it as a confirmation. Later: Matt Cooper says Rove leaked the info to him, and that what Rove said before was not honest. 8/19/07.

Sapped by nearly six years of war, the Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force and its options if the Bush administration decides to extend the Iraq buildup beyond next spring.

The Army’s 38 available combat units are deployed, just returning home or already tapped to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, leaving no fresh troops to replace five extra brigades that President Bush sent to Baghdad this year, according to interviews and military documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

That presents the Pentagon with several painful choices if the U.S. wants to maintain higher troop levels beyond the spring of 2008:

-Using National Guard units on an accelerated schedule.

-Breaking the military’s pledge to keep soldiers in Iraq for no longer than 15 months.

-Breaching a commitment to give soldiers a full year at home before sending them back to war

Read more at the Associated Press

An Op-ed in the New York Times today, from a group of returing sergeants and specialists, titled “The War as We Saw It.” A must read. These are the people we NEED to hear from.

Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers- expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

Continue reading at the NYTimes

They don’t care if they’re trained properly. Just rush them to Iraq, let them stay for 15 months and get PTSD and then bring them home and don’t take care of their health needs, and then send them back again…..with PTSD. What an operation……..

The US Army, struggling to cope with stepped-up operations and extended deployments of its soldiers to Iraq, has shortened the duration of several of its bedrock training courses so that troops can return to fighting units on the front lines more quickly, according to senior training officials.

One training course that is considered the “first step” in educating newly minted sergeants — the noncommissioned officers considered the backbone of Army units — has been cut in half to 15 days. Meanwhile, an intensive program designed to prepare young officers for advanced leadership has been compressed from eight months to less than five months so that the Army can fill positions in constant demand from commanders in the Middle East.

In a series of interviews in recent weeks, Army training officials expressed confidence that soldiers are able to master the skills they need to perform their jobs, and stressed that their units are gaining invaluable, real-time experience in both wars. But they also acknowledged that it is becoming increasingly difficult to prepare them for all the missions they are assigned, such as tank crews and artillery battalions that are participating in patrols and counterinsurgency operations.

More at the Boston Globe

Rove, Rove and more Rove……….

Sunday Talk
* MTP: Karl Rove on his plans and the future of the GOP; roundtable of LATimes’ Ron Brownstein, Portfolio’s Matt Cooper, WSJ/CNBC’s John Harwood, and National Review’s Kate O’Beirne on 2008
* FTN: Karl Rove
* This Week: Dem debate in IA
* FNS: Karl Rove
* Late Edition: Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) and Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) on Iraq; Iraqi Parliament Member Mahmoud Othman; Howard Wolfson (Clinton campaign); Chris Kofinis (Edwards campaign); roundtable of Suzanne Malveaux, Jessica Yellin & Mark Preston
Note: The Dem debate in IA that airs on This Week will be re-broadcast on C-SPAN at 6:30 and 9:30pm (EDT) on 8/19.

TV ALERTS

* Political Capital w/ Al Hunt (Bloomberg, repeats throughout weekends): Mike Huckabee (R-AR)
* Chris Matthews Show 8/18-8/19: Dan Rather, Michele Norris, Ryan Lizza, Kathleen Parker discuss “Does Barack Obama have the stuff to beat Hillary? Did Karl Rove fail?”Quotes here.
* Newsmakers (C-SPAN, 10am, Sunday): Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) on transportation issues
* 60 Minutes 8/19: US Coast Guard; global warming & Antarctica; Simon Cowell
* Charlie Rose: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) 8/20
* The Daily Show: Rob Riggle dispatches from Iraq (really taped in Iraq); Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) 8/22;
* The Colbert Report: Nathan Sawaya 8/20; Michael Shermer 8/21; Richard Branson 8/22; Joe Klein 8/23; reruns for 2 weeks
* Leno: Chris Matthews (rerun) 8/22
* Tavis Smiley (PBS): CBN’s David Brody 8/23
* Letterman: Kristen Gore 8/24

Source: Newsie8200

Oh the compassion…….

From the AP:

Israel said Sunday it would turn away refugees from the wartorn Darfur region of Sudan in an effort to stop the flow of Africans across Israel’s southern border with Egypt.

Overnight, Israel expelled to Egypt about 50 Africans who had entered Israel through Egypt’s Sinai desert, Israeli government spokesman David Baker said. It was not immediately clear if any of those sent back were from Darfur, he said.

“The policy of returning back anyone who enters Israel illegally will pertain to everyone, including those from Darfur,” Baker said.

Israel has until now accepted about 400 refugees from the Darfur region, according to Eytan Schwartz, an advocate for Darfur refugees in Israel. Fighting between ethnic African rebels and pro-government militias in the Western Sudanese region has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million since February 2003.

The refugees are among 1,160 Sudanese and a total of 2,800 Africans who have entered Israel in recent years.

The Associated Press

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - Evangelist Billy Graham was in fair condition Saturday and resting comfortably in a hospital near his home after he was admitted for evaluation and treatment of an intestinal bleed, hospital officials said.

Graham, 88, was fully alert, and his doctors don’t think his condition is life-threatening, said his spokesman, Larry Ross.

“The priority right now is rest,” Ross said.

Graham’s blood pressure was good and there were no signs of new bleeding Saturday night, according to a statement released by Mission Health & Hospitals in Asheville.

He was expected to sleep well overnight, the hospital said.

The hospital said in a statement that Graham’s condition had stabilized following his admission, and an initial endoscopy and a bleeding scan found no areas of bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract.

“It stopped as quickly as it began,” Ross said.

Ross estimated the ailing preacher could be released from the hospital in a couple of days.

The hospital said the initial bleeding may have been caused by diverticuli, or small pouches that can form in the lower intestine. A diverticular bleed often begins suddenly and may stop on its own, the hospital said.

read more HERE