Must-read material
Check out this at DailyKos about the short-sighted war build-up,
Rumsfeld argued that such nicities as heavy artillery and MLRS were unecessary in modern war -- that close air support could handle the task adequately. However, the Air Force has no interest in close air support -- it gets planes shot down and pilots killed. As a result, Army soldiers are doing the dying instead, and in much larger numbers.
this at TPM on three potential outcomes from someone who should know,
Here's something I'd like to share with you. This is an email I received this evening from a former career diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to a Muslim country. He also studied military strategy at the National War College with retired four-stars like Wes Clark, Hugh Shelton, and others.
As the author of the email himself says, many parts of it are speculative. Perhaps they'll prove correct, perhaps not. Who knows? But I found the discussion and predictions fascinating and full of insights, if profoundly ominous in their implications ...
this about the lack of reasons and truth-telling from the Bush/Blair regimes (thanks to Tom Spencer), and
Every day public statements on the war are made with great bravado by British and US leaders. A day later most of them turn out to be inaccurate or untrue. Political leaders are understandably evasive about the detailed military strategy, but these evasions and inaccuracies have nothing to do with the movements of the troops.…
The persistent inaccuracies, proclaimed so confidently, expose the great flaw of this war. President Bush and Tony Blair were never clear about why it was being conducted and what would happen once it had ended. If they were not clear in their own minds it is hardly surprising that their public statements fail to make much coherent sense.
this one about Fox network’s “freedom to distort and lie” successfully defended in court (I kid you not! Thanks to agonist)
On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.…
Fox argued from the first, and failed on three separate occasions, in front of three different judges, to have the case tossed out on the grounds there is no hard, fast, and written rule against deliberate distortion of the news. The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdock, argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves.
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