The Zong

One of the “War At Home” news stories that I find interesting, if only as a means to take America’s temperature, is the story of Army First Lt. Ehren Watada, a soldier who enlisted shortly following 9/11, but who subsequently decided that the war in Iraq is an “illegal” war and refused to deploy when his unit was called to serve in Iraq last June. He is awaiting court-martial on four counts of conduct unbecoming an officer, for which he would be sentenced to 4 years in a military prison if convicted.

His case is an interesting one not because it sets any sort of precedent, but because of the conflict it exposes between Americans from either side of the Iraq debate. In contrast to accusations that anyone doesn’t “support” our troops, a lie about those on the left that the Neocons like to slip into their rhetoric from time to time, this is a real debate with some interesting points of view.

Congressman Mike Honda from San Jose wrote an editorial piece which ran yesterday in the San Francisco Chronicle basically justifiying the actions of Watada, although staying clear of declaring his innocence.

I voted against giving President Bush the authority to use military force in Iraq, and do not believe his justifications for taking us into war were even minimally adequate. As a duly elected member of Congress, I express my admiration for a young American who, in the same spirit, has heeded his conscience at tremendous risk to livelihood, reputation and personal freedom in order to right what he and the vast majority of his compatriots see as a tremendous wrong.

This case, and the subseqent editorial, gave rise to a rather heated discussion on talk radio today. Between the callers and the host, I could determine two different “camps” on this case. One camp was of the opinon that, as a volunteer serving in the military, Watada had basically given up any right to make such moral judgements. In other words, his ass belongs to Uncle Sam, so stop bitching and get in line. Folks in this camp included military family members, schoolteachers, and a veteran of World War II.

In the other camp were people like Congressman Honda, who support the soldier but don’t think he’ll be able to avoid conviction. In general, they admired his actions because of the discussion it brought to light, but none seemed willing to come out and say that he was innocent. In other words, his ass belongs to Uncle Sam, so have fun making big rocks into little rocks for four years.

Bleeding heart that I am, I still believe in a need for absolute military superiority so that I can continue to live the sheltered life that most Americans enjoy, writing this bullshit without any fear that we’re going to be invaded. I pay taxes that support the military that protects us, and I can say from a realistic standpoint that it’s a bad idea for us to let soldiers decide whether or not they want to obey the president. When the shit goes down, I really want everyone following orders so that we don’t all end up speaking Korean and going to marches on the weekends.

Nevertheless, like Congressman Honda and Watada, I think that the people who decided to get us into this war of choice broke domestic and international law more than a few times to get us there. I haven’t been a lawyer for a very long time, but one thing a lot of the folks on the radio seemed to forget was that we actually kicked Hans Blix and his crew of U.N.-sanctioned inspectors out of Iraq before they were done looking for WMD (and before they had found any), and then turned around and pointed out that everyone knew that Saddam had these weapons, that even Bill Clinton said he did and blah blah blah.

It’s all part of the Neocons’ political genius, a plan I like to call the “Are You Fucking Kidding Me? Doctrine.” It consists of basically doing something so completely ridiculous (like Bill Frist questioning the diagnosis of Terry Schiavo on the floor of the House based on some videotapes he saw) or saying something that is so obviously a lie (like Dick Cheney refusing to stop implying there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11) that everyone just kind of lets it go or believes it. Ergo, the Bush Administration kicks out the inspectors, then turns around and says “How the hell could we have known there were no WMD?” and then everyone just forgets about the inspectors.

But I digress. The point here is that I feel bad for First Lt. Watada, because his ass does belong to Uncle Sam and he probably won’t have fun making big rocks into little rocks. I’m not sure it’s worth it, because I don’t know if anything will really come of it other than a few more hours of talk radio fodder, because nobody has taken the time to bring anyone to justice for the illegality of this war, and so it remains legal as far as the Uniform Code is concerned.

The fact is, it’s tragic that the war has come to a point where this guy feels like it’s his job to martyr himself to do something about it, when in reality, we’re the ones that failed him and his fellow soldiers. It was our job to vote George W. Bush out of office in 2004, but we as a country fucked that up. We re-elected an administration that we already had a lot of evidence against, and by putting them back in office, it is We the People that hold the responsibility for what happened next. Actually, by “We the People” I really mean the morons who voted for him more than those of us who didn’t, but you can be damn sure we could have made more phone calls to Ohio or something. Wendell Phillips said “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” and the American voting public has lost a lot of both.

This obviously isn’t the first time an American soldier has refused to serve in a war in protest, but when someone enlists in the military, as Jim Webb said in his response to the State of the Union:

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues - those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death - we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm’s way. We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us - sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

We should remember these words the next time we elect our military’s Commander-in-Chief, because our lack of vigilance often deprives those troops we love and support so much of their liberty, and we owe them our own sound judgement and clear thinking.

It seemed like some of the reports coming out of Iraq yesterday might actually be good news. We learned that hundreds of Shiite militiamen were killed in a battle led by Iraqi forces who prevented a plan to assassinate a number of clerics during the climax of the observance of Ashura, an anniversary marking (ironically enough) a battle which consolidated “the schism between Shi’ite and Sunni Islam.”

The President wasted no time in seizing on a political opportunity, even before most details of the battle were fully available to the public (They still aren’t).

Bush was asked in a National Public Radio interview about an Iraqi raid Sunday, backed by U.S. helicopters, on a heavily armed Shiite cult that Iraqi officials said was poised to assassinate the country’s Shiite religious leadership. “This fight is an indication of what is taking place, and that is the Iraqis are beginning to take the lead,” Bush said. “So my first reaction on this report from the battlefield is that the Iraqis are beginning to show me something.”

My first thought was, right on! No matter how you look at it, Iraqis defending their own country from a bunch of evil bastards is good news for everyone (except the bastards). Today, however, the New York Times has some real details about the battle, and so we say “There’s the rub” for about the brazillionth time.

Iraqi forces were surprised and nearly overwhelmed by the ferocity of an obscure renegade militia in a weekend battle near the holy city of Najaf and needed far more help from American forces than previously disclosed, American and Iraqi officials said Monday.

OK, that kind of sucks. I wish I hadn’t gotten my hopes up.

They said American ground troops — and not just air support as reported Sunday — were mobilized to help the Iraqi soldiers, who appeared to have dangerously underestimated the strength of the militia, which calls itself the Soldiers of Heaven and had amassed hundreds of heavily armed fighters.

So this is the second time in two weeks that the military has “mischaracterized” their operations in initial dispatches. I can understand why they might do that while things are still going down, but damn, it really sucks to keep finding out what really happened.

A number of disconcerting questions arise from these development, not the least of which is “Are the Iraqis capable of defending themselves without American troops?” (a core principle behind the New Way Forward) Personally, I want to know how hundreds of heavily-armed fighters were able to get their shit together in such a way that an entire Iraqi battalion was beat back and pinned down, according to the Times.

The Iraqis initially sent a battalion from their Eighth Army Division, along with police forces, but they were quickly overwhelmed, according to an Iraqi commander at the scene. The battalion began to retreat but was soon surrounded and pinned down, and had to call in American air support to keep the enemy from overrunning its position.

Early accounts suggest that these fighters were basically a half-assed cult that nobody had ever heard of or knew existed until yesterday. This doesn’t bode well for Iraqi security.

Among the troubling questions raised is how hundreds of armed men were able to set up such an elaborate encampment, which Iraqi officials said included tunnels, trenches and a series of blockades, only 10 miles northeast of Najaf. After the fight was over, Iraqi officials said they discovered at least two antiaircraft weapons as well as 40 heavy machine guns.

Troubling indeed. Think about all the other little cults the Iraqis don’t know about. Were they there before we invaded and completely dismantled the Iraqi Army?

It’s still pretty early in the life of this news story, and perhaps details will emerge that will make this look better for the Iraqi forces. The destruction of this cult may be a positive development in that it prevented another sectarian attack, but it rings as a setback for the Iraqi Security Forces, who are charged with living up to what seem to be unrealistic expectations laid out by a clueless American Commander-In-Chief.

Speaking of Katrina, we totally all knew this was gonna happen:

It’s a football game, dickhead.

I’ll tell you what, you cowardly mouth-breathing dipshit. Go down to the Ninth Ward carrying that sign around during the Super Bowl and just see what happens. Oh wait, nobody’s there! Because they all died or lost their homes! Chicago wins!

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appeared today before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, chaired by Joe Lieberman. Barack Obama is also on the committee. He outlined a fairly comprehensive plan for further recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in his testimony, and as organized as it sounds it seems like an exercise in futility without the help of the federal government.

Although, I have outlined some of the steps we have taken to replace city services and discussed my administration’s commitment to speeding up our own recovery with whatever funding we can find, the reality is that it has been 17 months since Katrina, Rita and the flooding that followed and citizens are tired, frustrated and angry. Worst of all, they are losing hope. We need systemic, meaningful change now.

Rebuilding a city after a disaster such as Katrina is a tall order, but one that the President himself promised to fulfill even after his administration completely bungled the response to it. Perhaps he was being less than honest when he said that he’d do “whatever it takes” to help New Orleans rebuild, or perhaps his administration is just doing a heckuva job with the rebuilding efforts. I know I don’t remember hearing anything about it during the State of the Union.

“From my perspective, not having the resources at the local level is the absolute killer of this recovery,” Nagin told the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is looking into the government’s hurricane response.

As of Jan. 18, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has agreed to pay for $334 million for infrastructure repairs in New Orleans, but the state only has forwarded $145 million to the city so far.

Nagin is testifying to Congress, but what has the President done to assist in recovery efforts? Whatever it takes? Barack Obama, predictably, doesn’t seem to think so.

Obama echoed the criticism of the president’s speech, noting that Bush had vowed just 17 months earlier to do “whatever it takes” to rebuild the city.

But “17 months later, we heard not a single word, not one word in President Bush’s State of the Union address,” Obama said. “….Those of us who are concerned all across the country wonder if we’re in danger of forgetting about New Orleans and that’s shameful.”

What can the President do to stem more criticism on his administration’s ongoing Katrina response? Well, here’s some stuff he said today during an interview on NPR:

Well, I gave a speech that I thought was necessary to give. On the other hand, I had been talking a lot about Katrina and about the fact that I worked with the Congress to get about $110 billion sent down to both Mississippi and Louisiana to help them on their reconstruction efforts…If there’s bureaucratic slowdowns in Washington, we’ve got a man named Don Powell who is working to address them. But no, our response to the Katrina recovery has been very robust. And I appreciate the taxpayers of the United States helping the folks down there in Mississippi and Louisiana.

He certainly “had been” talking a lot about that $110 billion. Last year. Near the one-year anniversary of the hurricane. Since then, him and his boy Don Powell have been pleading patience.

Donald Powell, federal coordinator for Gulf Coast reconstruction for the Department of Homeland Security, said he was confident that when the history of the recovery effort is written “it will also be a story of modern renaissance.”

Doesn’t this sound all too familiar? Hasn’t the Bush Administration and its apologists told us time and time again that one day history will look back on the Iraq war as the beginning of a new age of democracy in the Middle East? There are a lot of future historians in the White House nowadays, and one hopes that their vision of the future is right on. As Bush himself put it:

My own view is that history will take care of itself. History has a long reach to it. I told people that last year I read three analyses of Washington’s administration, and my attitude is if they are still writing about the first president, the 43rd doesn’t need to worry about it.

Seems like the 44th is going to have to worry about it a lot, though.

Just about to sign off for the weekend, and here comes this somber report.

In perhaps the boldest and most sophisticated attack in four years of warfare, gunmen speaking English, wearing U.S. military uniforms and carrying American weapons abducted four U.S. soldiers last week at the provincial headquarters in the Shiite holy city of Karbala and then shot them to death.

This is certainly not the kind of thing that boosts troop morale as their numbers surge, via a plan that has been condemned all week by legislators from both parties. It appears that the military tried to supress details of the attack after initially reporting that the soldiers were killed “repelling” an attack. Most disturbing, however, is the apparent sophistication and coordination of the attack.

Within hours of the AP report that four of the five dead soldiers had been abducted and found dead or dying about 25 miles east of Karbala, the military issued a long account of what took place.

“The precision of the attack, the equipment used and the possible use of explosives to destroy the military vehicles in the compound suggests that the attack was well rehearsed prior to execution,” said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, spokesman for Multi-National Division-Baghdad.

“The attackers went straight to where Americans were located in the provincial government facility, bypassing the Iraqi police in the compound,” he said. “We are looking at all the evidence to determine who or what was responsible for the breakdown in security at the compound and the perpetration of the assault.”

Our military efforts to this point haven’t prevented a coordinated assault like this on a government facility almost four years into the war, and the insurgents seem to be getting better at attacking us. Still, we’re supposed to believe that there is some crucial advantage to be gained by sending a few more brigades into this quagmire.

Matier and Ross seem to think the Niners and Gavin Newsom are warming up to one another a little. I’ll believe that shit round about the twelfth of never.

Chronicle City Hall reporter Cecilia Vega asked the elder York how seriously the team was taking the city’s latest proposal.

York’s reply: “Hunters Point could be a viable backup site at this point.”

Vega then asked York the Younger for his take, and he replied: “Right now, it’s not even a backup site.”

They did, somehow, rather nicely sum up the level of credibility of the San Francisco Chronicle as far as newspapers go with this one hilarious illustration.

Like the sands through the hourglass…

Barry Zito was at the Giants’ Fanfest last Saturday. I didn’t go, but by all accounts it was a heartening look at how press conferences will go with this particular Barry in a Gigantes uniform for years to come.

Saturday, with fans focusing on who was there instead of who wasn’t, they were given a chance to participate in question-and-answer sessions with players, and Zito’s was particularly educational. The first question came from a guy in the front row wearing an A’s jacket.

“What’s it going to be like to pitch to Huddy (Tim Hudson) and (Mark) Mulder?” asked the fan, referring to Zito’s old buddies in the Oakland rotation who now work in the National League.

Zito: “We’ve been talking smack about that ever since we came up. I’m visualizing getting knocks off Huddy.”

Other questions centered on Zito’s music career (he blew a chance to jam with Santana because he didn’t bring a guitar to Tony La Russa’s recent animal shelter benefit — “a bad decision”), his contract (”I know more is expected out of me, and I expect to elevate my game”) and his workload (”As a veteran guy, I’m expecting to go seven innings, if not eight or nine”).

While it’s pretty laughable to think of Barry Bonds fielding questions from fans, it’s possible that the Giants, through the just-got-out-of-bed good looks of Barry Zito, will somehow one day in the next few years be known as a younger, more fan-friendly team that pays talented players to play baseball without cheating.

That day may come sooner rather than later. In case you didn’t know, Barry Bonds actually isn’t signed yet. The media asked a lot of questions that the fans didn’t cover.

The Giants just finished their strangest Fan Fest ever, a Saturday full of “When are you signing Barry Bonds?” and “Are you signing Barry Bonds?” and “What’s up with Barry Bonds?” questions hanging in the air, unharmed by as much as a single answer. Indeed, the Bonds contract issue has been downgraded by someone in a position to know as “a coin-flip.”

I think that this is good news, although I will definitely freak out when I see Pedro Feliz batting fourth on Opening Day. If Bonds is healthy, can still hit, and plays more than 3 times a week, I guess the Giants will be better off lineup-wise this year if they sign him. But if Magowan and Co. really want to demonstrate that they’ve had enough and really want to take the New Way Forward, they’ll tell Bonds to go pound sand.

I watched Barry play when I was still a kid, and I remember worshiping him through some of the thinnest years in San Francisco Giants history. It’s fair to say that he helped save this franchise from obscurity and even helped to build a great ballpark that will only add to the Giants’ legacy here, but doesn’t that make it even more despicable that he has single-handedly taken a wrecking ball to all of it with the last three years of bullshit?

Even in San Francisco, the fans’ patience is wearing thin.

“It’s like a bad relationship,” Gregory Imura, 27, said. “You kind of ride it out and hope the good times you had will come back again when he leaves.

I suppose I agree with that. All those good times are hard to remember with all those lawyers around.

In case you missed it over last weekend. This really is a news headline:

International concern over China’s satellite-killing growing

This headline deserves to be in the Eye-Catching Headline Hall of Fame, when they get around to building it in Ohio somewhere. Evidently, the “concern” about this kind of a thing is pretty serious.

China used a ground-based medium-range ballistic missile to destroy an aging weather satellite, the Feng Yun 1C polar orbit weather satellite, about 537 miles above Earth on 11 January. The U.S. National Security Council, which monitored the act, described the procedure used as “kinetic impact.”

Part of me wanted to say “Awesome!” when I first saw this. I mean, I’ve been saying for years that there are too many goddamn satellites all over the place, and we need to start killing them, big time. But then I read this:

The U.S. had carried out similar tests in the cold war era, but had abandoned it since 1985, mainly concerned with the accumulation of debris in the space and potential threat to other civilian and military satellites in orbit.

Then I thought that we’ve already screwed up the environment right here in our own atmosphere, and maybe we should try not to screw up space, too.

You know all those bumper stickers you see out here in NorCal and thereabouts that say “Keep Tahoe Blue?” I want someone (like maybe Tim Lillis over at Narwhal Creative) to design me a bumper sticker that says “Keep Space Black.” Then I’m gonna print a brazillion of them and use an old bomber to drop them over Red China. That’ll show those space-polluting commies!

The President’s State of the Union address had a real palm-pressing, cuddly bipartisan feel to it at the outset, didn’t it? I mean, there was the classy shout out to Nancy Pelosi and a lot of talk about moving forward together. Dick Cheney even wore a red-plus-blue-equals-purple tie.

Our citizens don’t much care which side of the aisle we sit on — as long as we’re willing to cross that aisle when there is work to be done.

Well, I guess that’s true. That’s why congressional Republicans are crossing the aisle in grand fashion today to vote on a resolution (nonbinding, mind you) to demonstrate in bipartisan fashion that your plan for Iraq blows.

One by one, even the most senior Republicans in the Senate are expressing doubts that the administration’s new war policy in Iraq will work.

“I am not confident that President Bush’s plan will succeed,” Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said in advance of a vote Wednesday on a resolution that opposes the president’s decision to send more troops into Iraq.

Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, planned to reject the resolution — but not before registering his own concerns. He suggested stepped-up oversight, including seeking assurances from the administration that it is planning for the possibility of failure.

“I say to my colleagues that we are selling our powers short with this resolution,” he said in prepared remarks.

At least eight other Republican senators say they now back legislative proposals condemning Bush’s decision to boost U.S. military strength in Iraq by 21,500 troops.

It is becoming more and more tiresome to hear that opposition to this escalation is a partisan issue, or to hear the president urge congress to support a plan that he himself rejected when John McCain suggested it well over a year earlier, when it might have actually made a difference. Meanwhile, the surge is under way, and any discussion or opposition to the plan seems purely academic.

Democrats haven’t agreed on a plan for Iraq either, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the burden of finding a solution rests on the White House.

“The president is the commander in chief. We don’t have the authority” to execute a plan for bringing American troops home from Iraq, Reid said.