bustardblog

Wounded in Baghdad

As of 1:00 this afternoon New York Time, 7 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq thus far today.  According to a new report from the AP, this means that on average an additional 105 U.S. soldiers "have survived illness or injury."

Unlike previous wars, few of them have been shot. The signature weapon of this war — the improvised explosive device, or IED — has left a signature wound: traumatic brain injury...
     Soldiers hit in the head or knocked out by blasts — "getting your bell rung" is the military euphemism — sometimes have no visible wounds but a fog of war in their minds. They can be addled, irritable, depressed and unaware they are impaired...
     These are America's war wounded, a toll that has received less attention than the 3,500 troops killed in Iraq. Depending on how you count them, they number between 35,000 and 53,000.
     Some of those on active duty may have subtle brain damage that was missed when they were treated for more visible wounds. Half of those wounded in action returned to duty within 72 hours — before some brain injuries may have been apparent. The military just adopted new procedures to spot these cases, too....
     Most of these injuries are caused by IED blasts, which send a pressurized air wave through delicate tissues like the brain, sometimes send it smacking against the inside of the skull and shearing fragile nerve connections that control speech, vision, reasoning, memory and other functions. Lungs, eardrums, spinal cords — virtually anything — can be damaged by the pressure wave. Injuries also come from collapsing buildings, flying debris, heat, burns or inhaled gases and vapors.
      Many of these you can't see on an X-ray," such as glass shards that can cause internal bleeding, Scott said.
      In prior wars, one of every five to seven troops surviving a war-related wound had a traumatic brain injury, the military estimates. It's much higher in this war.
      A pilot project at Walter Reed in 2003 to screen 155 patients returning from Iraq found that 62 percent had a brain injury.

Another story in the A.P. noted that the Representative from Crawford, Chet Ellis, strongly criticized Bush for only agreeing to additional budget for the V.A. when it became obvious that the support for the bill was large enough to be veto proof. Rep. Ellis went on to say that "the administration and Republicans put a higher priority on tax cuts than on veterans' health care."

I doubt that he'll get Bush's vote in 2008.

(Thanks to Memeorandum.)

             

Ice Cream in the Park

Clicking on the image twice enlarges it.

Sitting on a wall and having Ice Cream in Union Square is
about as good as it gets.

This, and the previous three posts, are photos taken in one twenty minute walk around the park this afternoon. I did not take photos of the Farmers Market, the Outdoor Restaurant, the Saxophonist, nor the Dulcimer player - because I've made you  see them before.

Mr.BasketballMan in the Park

Double Clicking on the Images enlarges them.

Mr BasketballMan is a super hero, and by the end of his show has
saved the world from evil.  Before that he does lots of neat things with basketballs  - -

Like doing acrobatic stuff while spinning them.

I caught his act this afternoon in Union Square.

Jump Rope in the Park

DoubleClick the Image to Enlarge

Younger Girls were doing some amazing Jump-Roping. A passerby
who hadn't jumped in about 15 years wondered if she still had it.
She did.  This afternoon in Union Square Park

Painter in the Park

Pls Double Click to Enlarge

Male Artist, in Skirt, trying to paint as well as selling his
finished work, on a windy afternoon.
Today, in Union Square

Is Thomas Friedman an Anti-Semite?

Recently Thomas Friedman wrote an op-ed in the N.Y. Times entitled "A Boycott Built on Bias."  He wrote that he had just taken part in graduation ceremonies at Hebrew University, at the beautiful Mount Scopus campus in Jerusalem. His piece condemned the fact:

that Britain’s University and College Union had called on its members to consider a boycott of Israeli universities, accusing them of being complicit in Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

He bases his argument on the fact that other countries in the Mid East, like Syria and Sudan, are not also subject to a boycott.  And then he does what so many do when discussing Israel and calls those who boycott anti-Semites.

So to single out Israeli universities alone for a punitive boycott is rank anti-Semitism.

One of my most loyal readers has included in his comments that 'Jimmy Carter is widely considered an anti-Semite.'

There is no need for any direct evidence. Disagreeing with Israel is synonymous with anti-semitism. Israel has been violating the Geneva convention for close to forty years yet it cannot be criticized.

Friedman notes that the "vast majority" of Israelis are now against settlements in the occupied territories that they:

They not only approved Ariel Sharon’s unilateral uprooting of Israeli settlements in Gaza to help remedy it, but elected Ehud Olmert precisely to do the same in the West Bank.

Friedman himself has long been opposed to the settlements. (How come his long time opposition to the Israeli government's policies and actions did not merit his being called an anti-Semite?)

He seems particularly proud that Hebrew University awarded Ph.D's to "Arab students , two of whom were from East Jerusalem - i.e. the occupied territories." I'm just wondering when he expects Israel to end  the occupation of that particular territory - especially since Mt. Scopus is in North East Jerusalem, whcih some consider an occupied territory.

Heck of a Job

I'm betting that before the end of this week, we'll be seeing reports of Bush lauding the Secretary of State, saying "Condi, you're doing a heck of a job." Sort of like with "Brownie" of FEMA. (emphasis added)

BAGHDAD: "Slim chance of finding an Arabic speaker at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Of the 1,000 U.S. employees at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, only 10 have a working knowledge of Arabic, according to the State Department. "  (ABC)

SEATTLE: "more than 110,000 backlogged [Passport] applications are piled in closets, the supervisor's office and the break room. Many won't be touched for months. Half of the staff is trying to help the crowds jamming the lobby and spilling out the door.
Federal officials in Washington acknowledge that they failed to anticipate just how much the post-Sept. 11 travel regulations would fuel demand for passport"
(LA Times)

GAAZA: "America and its Middle Eastern allies have every reason to panic. The green flags of Hamas are furling over Gaza and the al-Fatah forces trained and financed by the United States have ignominiously fled. Fears are rife that Iranian-backed and Syrian-hosted terror will next achieve dominance over the West Bank and proceed to undermine the pro-Western governments of Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf." (Wall Street Journal)

Iraq: "142 persons were killed or found dead on Tuesday, and Wednesday morning two Sunni mosques in towns south of Baghdad were blown up"
(Juan Cole)

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia has begun delivering five MiG-31E interceptors to

Syria as part of an agreement concluded earlier this year, the Kommersant daily newspaper reported Tuesday. (AFP)
TEHRAN (AFP) - Russia on Wednesday bluntly told the United States it saw no threat from Iran's ballistic missiles and was perplexed how Washington could use this to justify a planned US defence system in Europe. (AFP)

KABUL: Afghanistan's surging violence left three Canadian soldiers and 21 suspected Taliban militants dead Wednesday, while insurgents grabbed control of another district headquarters in the south. (AP)

Can anyone tell me of a single accomplishment that could be credited to Condi?

There's a Presidential Medal of Freedom just waiting for her.
(h/t memeorandum)

Jimmy Carter is Right Again

A volcanic eruption of hysterical outrage from Michelle Malkin, Don Surber, Captains Quarters, Blue Crab Blvd etc etc, was the entirely predictable result of the honest and accurate comments made by Jimmy Carter today in Ireland.

Here's what he said:

Far from encouraging Hamas's move into parliamentary politics, Carter said the US and Israel, with European Union acquiescence, has sought to subvert the outcome by shunning Hamas and helping Abbas to keep the reins of political and military power.

"That action was criminal," he said in a news conference after his speech.

"The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people in Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah," he said.

Carter said the United States and others supplied the Fatah-controlled security forces in Gaza with vastly superior weaponry in hopes they would "conquer Hamas in Gaza" - but Hamas this month routed Fatah because of its "superior skills and discipline."

He said plans to reopen international aid to the West Bank, but clamp down on aid to Gaza, would imprison 1.4 million Gazans. He called for both territories to be treated equally.

Here's some of what they said:

Jimmy Carter today sides with Hamas in its struggle to eliminate Israel.
(Surber)

Of course, I would assume, given Carter's point about Hamas that if, say NYC would elect various mafia members to the city council and other elective positions that he would feel compelled to deal with them the same way he would any other elected government because, well, there were elections for heaven sake.
Elections don't legitimize thugs, criminals and terrorists Mr. Carter, although you spent most of your days trying to prove otherwise. (qando)

He should move in with his buddies [Hamas} at once. And leave this country alone. Go away, Jimmy. (bluecrab)

Carter has become an apologist for terrorists -- and in this case, a cheerleader for them. Carter has embarrassed his nation and solidified his status as the appeaser-in-chief who coddled radical Islam at its birth, and seems determined to midwife it at every successive turn. (Captainsquarters)

Carter’s shilling for Hamas has been going on for years. (michelle)

I could go on quoting these folk, but I think you get the picture. Carter opens his mouth; they start frothing.

Please remember that they are condemning him for saying that Hamas (which they have designated a terrorist group) should be treated the same as Al Fatah.(which they have designated a terrorist group)  Further complicating this picture is the fact that Hamas, by winning the most recent election, seems to be more representative of the Palestinian people than Al Fatah. Did I mention that for the last several years the dominant political party in Israel is the Likud, which was designated a terrorist group?

Like the Bush administration, these bloggers never, ever offer any solution to the problems facing Israel. They can only scream like banshees when a Carter says something, actually anything, that might lead to a solution. In 1950 there were less than a million Palestinian refugees - now there are over 4 million.  In Gaza, almost half a million live in refugee camps that were established in 1948 and 1949.

Wing-nuttia can call Hamas, or Al Fatah, all the names that they want, but there is no security without peace.  As their erstwhile hero Donald Rumsfeld might have said - you negotiate with the neighbors you have, not the ones you wish you had.

(P.S. I think what drives them so volcanically frothy is the fact that Carter is so often, so very, right.)

(h/t memeorandum)

 

Rudy: the Courage of Conviction

Rudy's ability to obtain deferments during Vietnam, although not as impressive as Dick Cheney's, meant that he never served in the military. His first request for a deferment was based on his opposition to the war in Vietnam. He felt that the war did not meet the Catholic Church's definition of a "just war."   This might seem inconsistent with his support for the war in Iraq. His serial, ongoing, adultery shows how devotedly he follows the dictates of the Church.
At least his position on service is consistent: as Newsday reminds us, other priorities, like greed, meant that he did not serve on the Iraq Study Group either. Nothing surprising in this. Nor is there anything surprising in Powerline's defense of his behavior. His failure to show up for meetings and subsequent resignation would be justified in their eyes, if he suspected that the Group might come back with a less than useful report. So much for the maxim that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. For Rudy and Powerline, when the going gets tough it's time to drop out.
If in fact he was concerned about the final report, he should have stayed on the job and worked even harder to make a better report. But honoring commitments and meeting one's obligations have never been Rudy's style.

(h/t memeorandum)

Sentencing Bush

I'm not a real fan of demanding that Bush be prosecuted and imprisoned for War Crimes. I'm also not a big proponent of throwing the bankrupt into debtor's prisons.  But if there were prison terms for the morally bankrupt, Bush and his neo-con friends would be looking at long sentences.

The total immorality of the pro-Iraq war position was amply proved by Pat Buchanan yesterday on The McLaughlin Group, as well as a recent article in the Weakest Standards by Messrs. Kristol and Kagan. 

When the Americans go, I'm convinced the Sunnis in Anbar and elsewhere are going to get rid of al Qaeda, because they've been murdering everybody, right, left and center. And they like them as an ally of convenience, but after this war is over, after we're out of it, I think al Qaeda is going to be run out of there.
- Buchanan-

local Sunnis in Baghdad recently rose up against al Qaeda, and even hard core Baathist insurgent groups have reached out to U.S. forces to cooperate in the fight against the terrorists. Far from being evidence of our desperation and danger, as some have claimed, this turn of events demonstrates the degree to which al Qaeda is repelling Iraqis. - Kristol & Kagan-

It has long been clear that most Iraqis want nothing to do with al Qaeda's religious and political views. They do not find the intolerant and occasionally ludicrous al Qaeda program appealing: Being required to segregate vegetables in a market by sex, as al Qaeda fighters have apparently demanded, appalls Iraqis just as it would America              - K,K    -

Iraq's Sunnis have tolerated al Qaeda's presence all these years for one reason: Terrorists are good fighters. As long as Iraq's Sunni Arab community thought that it could use violence to regain control of Iraq or felt that it faced an existential threat from the Shiite majority, al Qaeda was a useful if unpleasant ally.            -K,K    -

Many on the right quibbled with the 9/11 Commission's conclusion that the Sunni, Baathist, Saddam Hussein had no operational relationship with Al Qaeda.   Now that the neo-con luminaries Kristol and Kagan recognize that Al Qaeda  "appalls Iraqis just as it would America"  I can only hope that the war's supporters will finally shut up about Iraq and 9/11. All  talk of Islamicists banding together to destroy the West and create a world wide Caliphate is clearly pure crap.  Buchanan, Kristol and Kagan all agree that the sooner we leave Iraq, the sooner Al Qaeda will be driven out.

In 2001, Al Qaeda was a relatively small group of Islamic misfits and vicious killers. Instead of destroying that organization, Bush et al decided to invade Iraq -an invasion which has resulted in the death of almost 1 million Iraqis, as well as the creation of 4 million refugees. It has also killed and wounded far more Americans than 9/11. Our occupation of an Islamic country has also created more terrorists.  We're not talking about a failed policy of the Bush administration -  we're talking about a fatal lack of morality.

(with thnks to memeorandum)