WASHINGTON (AP) — Several hundred U.S. diplomats vented anger and frustration Wednesday about the State Department’s decision to force foreign service officers to take jobs in Iraq, with some likening it to a “potential death sentence.”

In a contentious hourlong town-hall meeting, they peppered officials responsible for the order with often hostile complaints about the largest diplomatic call-up since Vietnam. Announced last week, it will require some diplomats — under threat of dismissal — to serve at the embassy in Baghdad and in reconstruction teams in outlying provinces.

Many expressed serious concern about the ethics of sending diplomats against their will to serve in a war zone, where the embassy staff is largely confined to the protected “Green Zone,” and safety outside the area is uncertain while a review of the department’s use of private security contractors to protect its staff is underway.

“Incoming is coming in every day, rockets are hitting the Green Zone,” said Jack Croddy, a senior foreign service officer who once worked as a political adviser with NATO forces.

He and others confronted Foreign Service Director General Harry Thomas, who approved the move to “directed assignments” late last Friday to make up for a lack of volunteers willing to go to Iraq.

Full Story Here:
U.S. diplomats vent over forced Iraq duty

Our troops don’t have a choice, they have to be there, if you want PEACE then you have to have DIPLOMACY to make it happen, that endeavor requires diplomats, and that’s YOUR job, DO IT or get out of the business, suck it up and stop crying, life is NOT fair, this is the job YOU signed on for and you ALL sound like a bunch of wussies…

Anyone want to take bets as to how long before this bunch of cowardly asshats will be screaming that they REALLY DO need people like Blackwater USA to protect them??

“Who’s going to take care of our families if we get hurt or killed?”, that pretty much seems to be the biggest excuse we’re hearing for NOT wanting to go to Iraq and to that I have to say, why, the very same people that are taking care of our wounded troops and the families of our deceased troops, cheer up, you’re in good hands, don’t worry, YOUR government is in charge and will provide care for you…

As far as I am concerned the most serious point of this story would be the questions it poses??

Aren’t we being told, EVERY DAY, that Iraq is safer, Iraq is under control, we are winning hearts and minds, deaths and injuries are WAY down, we are IN CONTROL, isn’t that what the White House is telling us, every day?? Isn’t that what all the Bush Bots sites preach to us??

Isn’t that the rationale being used to BS the American people into being quiet as even MORE of our BILLIONS in tax dollars are wasted in an effort that is NOT going to end in our lifetime??

Well, my BIG question is this, IF Iraq is all those things, WHY are the guys in the Diplomatic Corps crying like little yard bitches that just got slapped?? You don’t suppose they actually know something that the Bush administration isn’t telling us do you?? Like maybe the REAL story about Iraq?? The story that I and many others have been trying to convince folks of for quite some time now??

Surely not…

Trackback URL:
http://texasfred.net/archives/684/trackback/

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The view from Kinh Nguyen’s front door these days is nothing like the “abandoned cemetery” she saw upon returning to her New Orleans neighborhood two months after Hurricane Katrina.

Gone are the blue tarps and plywood boards that covered storm-damaged homes in Village de l’Est, a mostly Vietnamese-American neighborhood. Nguyen’s lawn, which turned dark brown after briny floodwaters killed her grass, is now a lush green. Streets once littered with storm debris are as clean and pothole-free as any in the city.

“They’re all back,” Nguyen, a 45-year-old mother of four, said of her neighbors. “Every home looks nicer, newer.”

Village de l’Est’s rebound has been a remarkable success story in this misery-stricken city. At the same time, for better or worse, the hurricane has brought profound political and cultural change to the community.

Language and cultural barriers long kept Vietnamese-Americans on the sidelines of the city’s civic scene after they began flocking to New Orleans upon the fall of Saigon in 1975. Since Katrina, however, they have been emerging as a force in a city where politics is customarily viewed in black-and-white terms.

“In a short period of time, they’ve had a major impact in the community,” said Jefferson Parish Councilman John Young, who represents a New Orleans suburb with a significant Vietnamese population.

The Vietnamese can and do adapt to a new environment quite well, and in rapid fashion, they work in a fluid situation better than any group of people I have ever seen and I am guessing that they are going to become a force to be reckoned with in the New Orleans and Orleans parish government in the near future, and I have to say, I think that’s a wonderful emergence of community and dedication on their part.

An estimated 90 percent of the 25,000 Vietnamese-Americans who lived in southeastern Louisiana before Katrina had returned within two years of Katrina’s onslaught, according to community leaders. They were among the first to start rebuilding their homes and reopening their businesses, and their community is recovering much more rapidly than some other parts of New Orleans.

Like many of her neighbors, Kinh Nguyen didn’t wait for the government’s help to repair her home, a modest, ranch-style house. She moved her family back in in March 2006, about 18 months before she received a federal housing grant.

AT THE MOSUL DAM, Iraq – The largest dam in Iraq is in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country, according to new assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other U.S. officials.

Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed American officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet, said Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, the dam manager. “The Mosul dam is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability,” in the dry wording of an Army Corps of Engineers draft report.

At the same time, a U.S. reconstruction project to help shore up the dam in northern Iraq has been marred by incompetence and mismanagement, according to Iraqi officials and a report by a U.S. oversight agency to be released Tuesday. The reconstruction project, worth at least $27 million, was not intended to be a permanent solution to the dam’s deficiencies.

“In terms of internal erosion potential of the foundation, Mosul Dam is the most dangerous dam in the world,” the Army Corps concluded in September 2006, according to the report to be released Tuesday. “If a small problem [at] Mosul Dam occurs, failure is likely.”

Full Story Here:
Iraq dam failure could kill 500,000

If the Iraqis don’t think it’s unsafe, let them wait and see what it looks like when a wall of water hits their cities, and the Army Corps of Engineers knows a little bit about earthen structures giving way in over-stressed situations, you know, like levies and such…

Further reading in the original piece reveals that much has been done to stop gap the failure of this engineering debacle, not OUR debacle to be sure, but you can bet that if it fails, it’s going to somehow be OUR fault…

The Iraqis don’t want to spend the money to build a new dam and America shouldn’t have to spend the money to do it for them, it’s politics, plain and simple, throw in the fear factor to enforce the opinion, an earthen monstrosity that could possibly give way and kills a half million people, could possibly give way, possibly, and if it doesn’t give way the word on the street was, ‘It could have’…

I sincerely hope it doesn’t give way, some of that half million will be Americans if it does, but just how far do WE go to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq, especially given the fact that we have a rapidly aging and deteriorating infrastructure of our own that needs to be rebuilt??

America 1st… Every time…

Trackback URL:
http://texasfred.net/archives/680/trackback/

WASHINGTON (AP) – The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month’s deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned.

The immunity deal has delayed a criminal inquiry into the Sept. 16 killings and could undermine any effort to prosecute security contractors for their role in the incident that has infuriated the Iraqi government.

“Once you give immunity, you can’t take it away,” said a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.

State Department officials declined to confirm or deny that immunity had been granted. One official – who refused to be quoted by name- said: “If, in fact, such a decision was made, it was done without any input or authorization from any senior State Department official in Washington.”

This story is incredibly hilarious, I am guessing it’s an inside joke and you would just have to either be a part OF it or know exactly what the punch line is to fully understand the immense hilarity of it, but I have been rolling ever since I saw this one…

It appears that someone in State gave the Blackwater USA guys immunity?? Surely even the most uneducated can see the outrageous humor in THAT statement??

Look, I have known guys that were in the business, and they are rolling right now too, let’s face it, call them what you will, security contractors, hired guns, whatever, if you’re so stupid as to write a carte blanche check to a merc or a spook, you had better damn well believe he IS going to cash it, these guys aren’t out there for their health, they aren’t stupid, they don’t stay alive by being stupid, but someone in State is seriously in need of an education in how real life works…

Officials said the Blackwater bodyguards spoke only after receiving so-called “Garrity” protections, requiring that their statements only be used internally – and not for criminal prosecutions.

At that point, the Justice Department shifted the investigation to prosecutors in its national security division, sealing the guards’ statements and attempting to build a case based on other evidence from a crime scene that was then already two weeks old.

The FBI has re-interviewed some of the Blackwater employees, and one official said Monday that at least several of them have refused to answer questions, citing their constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination. Any statements that the guards give to the FBI could be used to bring criminal charges.

“Sir, I have NO knowledge of that event” or, try this one, “Sir, I don’t seem to recall that particular event”, because we all know that the memory is a fragile thing and can be shattered, at least temporarily, by the post stress of armed combat, and then there’s always the use of American Constitutional Law, my favorite, “I am invoking my rights under the 5th amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America…”, I just love that one, and what the hell, it’s worked so well over the years…

Blackwater’s contract with the State Department expires in May and there are questions whether it will remain as the primary contractor for diplomatic bodyguards. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said his Cabinet is drafting legislation that would force the State Department to replace Blackwater with another security company.

Again, I am laughing my ass off, this is rocket science at it’s very best, al-Maliki and the Iraqis are going to force State to replace Blackwater USA with another security firm?? Genius, sheer genius I tell you, why didn’t anyone else think of that?? Well, I’ll tell you why…

Every one of those guys that works for Blackwater USA already has a new job waiting for them with the new company, whoever it may be that will be brought in to replace Blackwater USA, high speed, low drag, 1st class operators are at a premium on todays market, and make no mistake about it, they are a high value item, there are only so many to go around, really competent and trustworthy ones that is, you can get hired cannons all day for a dime a dozen, wannabes that can’t think their way through an episode of ‘Are you Smarter than a 5th grader?’, yeah, those guys, literally, a dime a dozen, the ones you wouldn’t want guarding a bank in your home town, but 1st class professionals are a rare and beautiful thing and worth their weight in gold if they really are good enough to keep you alive…

And again I ask, how many diplomats has Blackwater USA lost under their watch?? Anyone??

It will be quite easy for these guys to slip back in under the noses of the Iraqis and go right back to work after a week or 2 off, and they can afford to take that week or 2, but can our diplomats and other officials afford to be without them for that long?? Can they afford to have their personal security compromised over some petty BS like this??

I think not, but that’s something the guys at State will have to decide for themselves the 1st time a diplomatic procession that’s NOT being protected by Blackwater USA comes under enemy attack, I can’t wait to hear the survivors screaming about lack of firepower or the operators inability to take effective action, if there ARE any survivors…

Full Story Here:
Immunity Deal Hampers Blackwater Inquiry

Trackback URL:
http://texasfred.net/archives/679/trackback/