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Lawmakers want to end oil shipments to US reserve

May 13th, 2008 . by TexasFred

WASHINGTON (AP) - Amid daily bipartisan sniping over high gas prices, Democrats and Republicans appear to agree on at least one thing: With oil over $120 a barrel, President Bush ought to stop buying crude for the government emergency reserve.

Both the House and Senate are expected to approve, with bipartisan support, legislation Tuesday directing Bush to temporarily halt the shipment of about 70,000 barrels of oil a day to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Bush has refused to do so, arguing that this small amount of oil won’t impact prices and that for security reasons he wants to increase the stockpile to its full capacity of 726 million barrels. It now has about 701 million barrels, equal to nearly two months of oil imports.

Lawmakers’ search for a response to high gasoline and oil prices comes as Bush is preparing later this week to travel to Saudi Arabia where he is expected to try to convince the Saudis to increase oil production. So far, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries have refused to do so, arguing the high price of oil stems from other factors than a shortage of supply.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring up for a vote Tuesday a provision to halt oil shipments to the federal reserve until the end of the year. Senate Republicans said they want shipments halted for six months, but are expected to support the Democratic measure.

The House is taking up a similar provision later in the day that also is expected to get broad support.

By all accounts, the president is standing firm.

Full Story Here:
Lawmakers want to end oil shipments to US reserve

I would have thought that by now, at this late stage of the game, the Repubs and Dems in Washington would have caught on, dealing with George W. Bush, and trying to change his mind about anything, is like dealing with a spoiled 3 year old, once that mind is made up, no one is going to change it, he’s The Decider…

In the last 7 years Bush has done nothing to alleviate the looming energy crisis, now I have to admit, his hands have been tied by a bunch of ‘greenies‘ and global warming nuts, but Clinton did nothing to alleviate this coming crisis during his 8 years in the White House either, and the same goes for Bush 41 and Reagan, and all that have preceded them for the last 50 years that I know of…

Some conspiracy theorists are floating the idea that maybe Bush is tied in with the Saudis and gets an under the table kickback from them for buying their over priced product, maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, I don’t know and I doubt if I ever will and I am not going to throw accusations out there, especially ones that can’t be backed up and substantiated by fact and not just some theory, but after hearing the report on our local news about this last night, and after hearing the financial and economy people on FOX Business talking about how this could impact the price of gas by actually lowering it by .05 a gallon, well, that may not seem like a lot to Mr. Bush, but he’s not the one that’s having to pay for his gas, we are…

Now I don’t know about you, but a .05 a gallon increase or decrease isn’t going to make or break my personal bank account, but I wouldn’t turn down a decrease, and the economists may be right, a hold on buying oil for the strategic petroleum reserve might very well be a good move, but even if it were the most brilliant business decision ever made, if Bush thinks otherwise, you can forget it, The Decider is not going to change his mind…

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Posted in America 1st, Business, Business News, Commentary, Economy, Geo. W. Bush, News, Opinion, Politics | 6 Comments »
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Ex-State officials allege corruption cover up

May 12th, 2008 . by TexasFred

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.

Arthur Brennan, who briefly served in Baghdad as head of the department’s Office of Accountability and Transparency last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats on Monday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.

Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional staffer visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, the staffers were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers. The staffers’ workload had been cut dramatically because of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s “evisceration” of Iraq’s top anti-corruption office, he said.

The State Department’s policies “not only contradicted the anti-corruption mission but indirectly contributed to and has allowed corruption to fester at the highest levels of the Iraqi government,” Brennan told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

The U.S. embassy “effort against corruption - including its new centerpiece, the now-defunct Office of Accountability and Transparency - was little more than ‘window dressing,’” he added.

The Office of Accountability and Transparency, or “OAT” team, was intended to provide assistance and training to Iraq’s anti-corruption agencies. It was dismantled last December, after it alleged in a draft report leaked to the media that al-Maliki’s office had derailed or prevented investigations into Shiite-controlled agencies.

I, and many others have been trying to tell folks for quite some time now, all is not well in Baghdad, things may be cooling off a bit in the warfighting arena but corruption runs rampant in the Iraqi government, it always has and quite likely it always will…

Iraq is going to be an anchor around the neck of whoever inherits the job of POTUS and it’s going to sink them if there is not some immediate changes put into play, and not the sham changes of recent years past, real, hardline changes in accountability within the Iraqi government…

The draft report sparked hearings in Congress and prompted a showdown between Democrats and senior State Department officials on whether the public has a right to know the extent to which al-Maliki was involved in corruption cases.

My guess?? Up to his neck, standing on tippy toes just to keep his nose above water, but what do I know?? I don’t have any FOBBIT resources telling me how it should be, I just talk to the real guys that do the real front line, in your face kind of thing in Iraq…

al-Maliki is nothing more than a warlord that got himself elected to office under the protection of the U.S. military, I don’t know how al-Maliki got all the votes he did, were they bought or if they were garnered at the end of an Islamic rifle barrel, but he got the votes, and al-Maliki has now become the victim of The Peter Principle

Sen. Byron Dorgan, head of the Democratic Policy Committee, said the latest testimony is disheartening in light of al-Radhi’s previous estimate that corruption had cost Iraq - and U.S. taxpayers - some $18 billion.

“One would have expected that our own government would have been doing everything it could to support” Iraq’s anti-corruption efforts, said Dorgan, D-N.D.

An estimated $18 million of our tax dollars that have gone away, and not to the betterment of anything, but into the pockets of corrupt Iraqi officials and if I may be so bold, quite likely into the pockets of at least some Americans that turned and looked the other way…

Full Story Here:
Ex-State officials allege corruption cover up

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Rice: Hezbollah killing innocent civilians in Lebanon

May 9th, 2008 . by TexasFred

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, is killing and injuring innocent civilians in Lebanon.

Rice says that Hezbollah is trying to protect its “state-within-a-state.”

Her statement was read at a State Department briefing Friday.

In Lebanon Friday, Shiite Hezbollah gunmen seized control of key parts of Beirut from Sunnis loyal to the U.S.-backed government.

The move capped three days of street battles and gunfights that have killed at least 14 people and wounded 20. It has been the country’s worst sectarian fighting since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Rice says Hezbollah’s violence has demonstrated “contempt for its fellow Lebanese.”

SOURCE:
Rice: Hezbollah killing innocent civilians in Lebanon

Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe that this would be Condi’s version of the warning rattle before the strike, and if there is one it will likely take place as soon as the staff returns from Crawford and sobers up from the wedding party, I just hope Bush doesn’t screw this one up like he did the aftermath of the Debacle in Iraq…

I have personally felt that we were at war with Hezbollah since the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing on October 23, 1983, an attack that resulted in the death of 241 American servicemen…

Vice President George H.W. Bush came and toured the Marine bombing site on October 26 and said the U.S. “would not be cowed by terrorists.”, and the sad part is, basically, that was all that the USA did:

President Reagan assembled his national security team and planned to target the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, which housed Iranian Revolutionary Guards believed to be training Hezbollah fighters. Defense Secretary Weinberger lobbied successfully against the mission, because he was not certain that Iran was to blame for the attacks. SOURCE

Marines have never forgotten Beirut, and they never will!

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Posted in America 1st, Commentary, Geo. W. Bush, Lebanon, News, Opinion, Politics, Rumors of War | 8 Comments »
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Rice says Carter was warned against meeting with Hamas

April 22nd, 2008 . by TexasFred

KUWAIT CITY (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday the Bush administration explicitly warned former President Jimmy Carter against meeting with members of Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls the Gaza Strip and which is regarded by the U.S. as a terror group.

Rice, attending a regional meeting on Iraq’s security and future, contradicted Carter’s assertions that he never got a clear signal from the State Department. Rice told reporters that the U.S. thought the visit could confuse the message that the U.S. will not deal with Hamas.

“I just don’t want there to be any confusion,” Rice said. “The United States is not going to deal with Hamas and we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help” further a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Full story Here:
Rice says Carter was warned against meeting with Hamas

Dr. Rice needs to remind Mr. Bush, she needs to think back, if she has the ability to recall, many National Security advisers from DoD, CIA, NSA, as well as members of Congress and the Senate told Bush that Iraq was NOT where we needed to go!!

I’m not defending Carter, not in any way, I think he’s a disgusting old bastard that needs to be shot for his recent actions, but in ALL fairness, Bush was warned too, and HE ignored those warnings…

Pot, meet kettle…

The bookshelf of history is going to be a very crowded place in a few hundred years, you know, that bookshelf where they keep the award for WORST President in U.S. history, Carter and Bush will be side by side…

Remember this:


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Posted in America 1st, Commentary, Debacle in Iraq, Diplomacy, Geo. W. Bush, News, Opinion, Politics | 3 Comments »
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Pentagon institute calls Iraq war ‘a major debacle’ with outcome ‘in doubt’

April 18th, 2008 . by TexasFred

WASHINGTON — The war in Iraq has become “a major debacle” and the outcome “is in doubt” despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon’s premier military educational institute.

The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush’s projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.

The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations.

It was published by the university’s National Institute for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research center.

“Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle,” says the report’s opening line.

At the time the report was written last fall, more than 4,000 U.S. and foreign troops, more than 7,500 Iraqi security forces and as many as 82,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed and tens of thousands of others wounded, while the cost of the war since March 2003 was estimated at $450 billion .

Full Story Here:
Pentagon institute calls Iraq war ‘a major debacle’ with outcome ‘in doubt’

“Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle,” says the report’s opening line.

I’ll bet all the little Bush Bots just cringed when that one hit, it’s not some helter-skelter attack piece from a left wing moonbat nut job bunch that’s anti-war for the sake of being anti war, it’s from the Pentagon’s premier military educational institute, imagine that, from The University, and they say Iraq is a DEBACLE, the Pentagon institute, the most top shelf think tank the Pentagon has at it’s disposal, and they call Iraq a DEBACLE, I’ll just be damned, who would have ever thought??

As any regular reader of this blog knows, I have called this thing The Debacle in Iraq for a long time now, and the Bots all said I didn’t know what I was talking about, they said I never knew what really went on in Iraq and that I had no clear picture of The Debacle in Iraq, yep, that’s what they said, I wonder, what will they be saying now??

This report reads like it was written by me, of at least with me as a consultant or contributor, you see, this report has been coming for a long time, and some folks knew it was coming, it had to, the REAL tale of the tape HAD to be told, and we tried to tell folks that truth about what was really happening in Iraq, but the Bush Bots tried their very best to shout us down, to discredit me and a few others, simply because we didn’t kiss Bush’s ass and because we had the gall to speak the truth and not the feel good bullshit that gets handed out in the press briefings…

I suspect that the Queen of the Bush Bots will do her level best to discredit Joseph Collins, the author of the report, he will be called a demented detractor, a Bush hater,, an enemy of this nation, a closet Islamic supporter, and God forbid, he may be called a paid shill, one that was put in place by the Democrats just to try and make Bush look bad, like Bush needs help in that department…

OK, sarcasm aside, this report is nothing less than personal vindication, and it gives serious citation for MY statements and opinions as posted on this blog…

You see, some of us are in the know, some of us are still connected to the right people, people that are still in Baghdad, people that DO see the BIG picture, and this report has been long, long overdue, let the lamentations of the Bots begin, this report says almost everything I have been saying for months now, we never should have gone to Iraq, we can’t walk away from Iraq, and there appears to be NO end in sight to The Debacle in Iraq, not a satisfactory ending, not one that our current president is prepared to execute…

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Posted in America 1st, Commentary, Debacle in Iraq, Geo. W. Bush, Intelligence Report, Iraq, Military Intelligence, News, Opinion | 2 Comments »
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1,300 Iraqi Troops, Police Dismissed

April 13th, 2008 . by TexasFred

BAGHDAD (AP) - The Iraqi government has dismissed about 1,300 soldiers and policemen who deserted or refused to fight during last month’s offensive against Shiite militias and criminal gangs in Basra, officials said Sunday.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said 921 police and soldiers were fired in Basra. They included 37 senior police officers ranging in rank from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general.

The others were dismissed in Kut, one of the Shiite cities where the fight had spread.

Last month, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the security forces to confront armed groups in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city.

But they met fierce resistance and the attack quickly ground to a halt as fighting flared across the Shiite south and Baghdad.

Full Story Here:
1,300 Iraqi Troops, Police Dismissed

1,300 Iraqi troops and police are dismissed?? For desertion?? DISMISSED??

They deserted in time of WAR, they should be lined up and SHOT!!

That’s numbers coming close to being half of a combat brigade folks, a brigade is 3,500 troops, and we have many brigades in Iraq, and they are waiting on the Iraqi army to STAND UP so that they can come home, but the Iraqis have desertions in these kinds of numbers, and ALL that gets done is a dismissal, a mere slap on the wrist??

These are the people that OUR troops are fighting and dying for, our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, moms, dads, husbands and wives, and many friends as well, and this is what we can expect from the Iraqi army and police??

It’s time to re-think this Debacle in Iraq, I have NEVER voted for a Democrat in my life, but if that’s what it takes to get our troops OUT of Iraq, then by God I WILL vote Democrat this go round, and make NO mistake, I know that over all, a vote for the Dems is a bad thing, but voting for a Democrat is exactly what you’ll be doing if you vote for John McCain, a Democrat without the name, a candidate that is nothing more than a RINO, and the one thing that John McCain guarantees is this, we’re going to stay in Iraq, fighting and dying for a people that will NOT stand and fight for themselves…

We were attacked by the Taliban and their cohorts on 9-11-01, and I never balked so much as once when we went to Afghanistan to take on that bunch of thugs, but Iraq was NOT about the Taliban or al-Qaida, not in it’s inception, Iraq was simply George W. Bush having a temper tantrum because Saddam defied his wishes and threatened ‘Daddy’, and after several changes of mission statement and definition, we’re still there, in Iraq, an entire nation that is NOT worth the life of so much as ONE of our fine men and women in uniform…

I know there will be many that disagree with this post, but quite frankly, I DON’T CARE, if you can’t open your eyes and see what us being in Iraq has done to this nation, and what George W. Bush has brought upon this nation by taking us TO Iraq, then you are truly one of the blind Bush Bots, and if that offends you, feel free to click out of this blog and stay clicked out!!

I personally feel that those who support the Debacle in Iraq are doing a dis-service to our military members, if we are going to go to war, anywhere in this world, we owe it to our men and women in uniform to prosecute that war in the most expeditious manner possible, and to get them home safely, as soon as possible, and that has NOT been the case in Iraq, we are still conducting a tit for tat, a travesty which we have no apparent desire to end…

And once again the war fighting skills of the Iraqi army make it quite apparent as to exactly WHY we rolled over Saddam and his Republican Guard in such short order, the Iraqis WILL NOT FIGHT, they will conduct insurgent and guerrilla operations, they WILL persecute defenseless people, they will dominate and murder those that won’t fight back but IF there is a challenge made against the Iraqi army, they, as a whole, show their true colors and run like dogs…

Any nation or people that refuses to fight for it’s own freedom is NOT worth fighting FOR, not by us or any other nation, a people that will not stand in their own defense are not worth defending!!

Support Iraqi Freedom?? Screw Iraq AND it’s freedom, bring our troops home NOW, or deploy them to a place where they can actually do some good in the War on Terror, and not leave them act as stand-ins and IED fodder for some insurgency and their civil war!

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Posted in America 1st, American Heroes, Commentary, Decision '08, Geo. W. Bush, Iraq, Military, News, Opinion, Tax Dollars, Troop Support, War on Terror, al-Qaida | 9 Comments »
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