the Shackle Report

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

From the Times:

C.I.A. Said to Use Outsiders to Put Bombs on Drones

The role of [Blackwater] in the Predator program highlights the degree to which the C.I.A. now depends on outside contractors to perform some of the agency’s most important assignments. And it illustrates the resilience of Blackwater, now known as Xe (pronounced Zee) Services, though most people in and outside the company still refer to it as Blackwater.

—Or we’ll resilient your fucking ass.

In interviews on Thursday, current and former government officials provided new details about Blackwater’s association with the assassination program, which began in 2004 not long after Porter J. Goss took over at the C.I.A. The officials said that the spy agency did not dispatch the Blackwater executives with a “license to kill.” Instead, it ordered the contractors to begin collecting information on the whereabouts of Al Qaeda’s leaders, carry out surveillance and train for possible missions.

“The actual pulling of a trigger in some ways is the easiest part, and the part that requires the least expertise,” said one government official familiar with the canceled C.I.A. program. “It’s everything that leads up to it that’s the meat of the issue.”

—”I mean, we’re not gonna have the pathetic government drones with the great health care benefits and pension plans do the hard stuff. They’re not incentivized. They don’t have the fire in the belly. Anyway, the more the government gets involved with anything the worse it gets. You’ll have people waiting in lines, getting euthanized by beaurocrats sitting at computers… FREEEEEEDOOOOOM!”

A spokesman for the C.I.A. declined to comment for this article.

—Except to say; “What if Blackwater provides information on my whereabouts to a Predator?”

A spokeswoman for Blackwater did not respond to a request for comment.

—Because she doesn’t work for Blackwater. She works for Xe.

Blackwater employees assigned to the Predator bases receive training at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada to learn how to load Hellfire missiles and laser-guided smart bombs on the drones, according to current and former employees, who asked not to be identified for fear of upsetting the company.

—I’m running out of things to say myself.

The role of contractors in intelligence work expanded after the Sept. 11 attacks, as spy agencies were forced to fill gaps created when their work forces were reduced during the 1990s, after the end of the cold war.

—Fucking Clinton. That fucking guy’s legacy just seems to have no end. Ten years after he leaves office and we’re still suffering his sickening pacifism.

More than a quarter of the intelligence community’s current work force is made up of contractors, carrying out missions like intelligence collection and analysis and, until recently, interrogation of terrorist suspects.

“There are skills we don’t have in government that we may have an immediate requirement for,” Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who ran the C.I.A. from 2006 until early this year, said during a panel discussion on Thursday on the privatization of intelligence.

—”Pulling triggers, that’s what we do. We practice on our fingers.”

General Hayden, who succeeded Mr. Goss at the agency, acknowledged that the C.I.A. program continued under his watch, though it was not a priority. He said the program was never prominent during his time at the C.I.A., which was one reason he did not believe that he had to notify Congress.

—”I mean, c’mon people it’s no big deal. It’s not like we were hiring mercenaries we pay many times what we pay our own agents to torture people and provide us with the intelligence we need to drop bombs on people. Just because mercenaries work for whoever pays them best is no reason to get all worried. We’ll just always outbid everyone. Relax.”

Some background…or blackground…or backwash…

[Blackwater] announced on February 13, 2009, that it would operate under the new name “Xe”. In a memo sent to employees, President Gary Jackson wrote that the new name “reflects the change in company focus away from the business of providing private security.” A spokesman for the company stated that it feels the Blackwater name is too closely associated with the company’s work in Iraq.[9] Spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said there was no meaning in the new name, which the company spent over a year to arrive at in an internal search.[10]

—They’re nihilists, and it took a year of internal searching to figure that out.

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

From the Times:

Mental Stress Training Is Planned for U.S. Soldiers

The Army plans to require that all 1.1 million of its soldiers take intensive training in emotional resiliency, military officials say.

—Well, you may want to go easy at first. Too much of the “Drop and give me twenty feelings, soldier!” might break ‘em.

Usually taught in weekly 90-minute classes, the methods seek to defuse or expose common habits of thinking and flawed beliefs that can lead to anger and frustration — for example, the tendency to assume the worst. (“My wife didn’t answer the phone; she must be with someone else.”)

—Oh boy. That dear John letter’s gonna leave a mark.

In one role-playing exercise, Sgt. First Class James Cole of Fort Riley, Kan., and a classmate acted out Sergeant Cole’s thinking in response to an order late in the day to have his exhausted men do one last difficult assignment.
“Why is he tasking us again for this job?” the classmate asked. “It’s not fair.”
“Well, maybe,” Sergeant Cole responded. “Or maybe he’s hitting us because he knows we’re more reliable.”

—Or maybe he’s doing the other Sgt. and doesn’t want to lose his boy. Or maybe he just doesn’t like your attitude and would rather see you get killed. Or maybe the other guys have their boots off already. Or maybe he’s trying to build character by pushing you. Or maybe he wants to test your emotional resiliency by making you hate him and seeing if you’ll frag him. Or maybe he’s just inept as shit and it hasn’t registered that you’re exhausted. Or maybe he just doesn’t give a shit because he’s drunk, or stoned, or going home in a month. Sounds like you might be replacing possibly accurate thinking with some fresh, steaming tripe. But, whatever, as long as they’re more resilient. Didn’t the Bible used to take care of this kind of shit?

Col. Darryl Williams, the program’s deputy director said: “For years, the military has been saying, ‘Oh, my God, a suicide, what do we do now?…

—…oh, oh, I’m gonna kill myself!’ Now we’ve really decided to suck it up and get control of ourselves.”

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

From the Times:

2 U.S. Architects of Harsh Tactics in 9/11’s Wake

Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were military retirees and psychologists, on the lookout for business opportunities. They found an excellent customer in the Central Intelligence Agency, where in 2002 they became the architects of the most important interrogation program in the history of American counterterrorism.

They had never carried out a real interrogation, only mock sessions in the military training they had overseen. They had no relevant scholarship; their Ph.D. dissertations were on high blood pressure and family therapy. They had no language skills and no expertise on Al Qaeda.

…the two men wrote the first proposal to turn the enemy’s brutal techniques — slaps, stress positions, sleep deprivation, wall-slamming and waterboarding — into an American interrogation program.

With the backing of [the CIA] Dr. Mitchell ordered Mr. Zubaydah stripped, exposed to cold and blasted with rock music to prevent sleep.

Over about two weeks, Mr. Zubaydah was confined in a box, slammed into the wall and waterboarded 83 times. The brutal treatment stopped only after Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen themselves decided that Mr. Zubaydah had no more information to give up.

But top C.I.A. officials made no changes, and the methods would be used on at least 27 more prisoners, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times.

—The same two psychologists are also credited with coming up with the diagnosis; ‘closure’.

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

From The Times:

Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security

WASHINGTON — The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.

Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.
Recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change that could demand an American humanitarian relief or military response.

—Although…there’s this:

9 Dead After Copter and Plane Collide Over Hudson

—…and this:

Regional pilot’s life: Hardly glamorous
Investigation into N.Y. crash sheds light on problems

:

Alex Lapointe, a 25-year-old copilot for a regional airline, says he routinely lifts off knowing he has gotten less sleep than he needs. And once or twice a week, he says, he sees the captain next to him struggling to stay alert.

But many regional pilots, paid entry-level wages that are sometimes no better than a job at McDonald’s, can not afford even a crash pad.

“I know a guy who bought a car that barely ran and parked it in the employee lot at his base airport, and slept in his car six or seven times a month,” said Frank R. Graham Jr., a former regional pilot and airline safety director who runs a safety consulting firm in Charlotte, N.C.

—Seems more likely we’re all gonna die of pilot error.

—So let’s see…Africa, the Middle East, and Asia are in for a tough time…and just when things over there were really starting to settle down…

You know what I have to say to Climate Change? Bring it on!

This is fun
:

Iraqis Take the Lead, With U.S. Trailing

The Iraqi company’s sole armored Humvee, an American hand-me-down, had no spare tire, so they left it behind.
Marching up the canal under a scorching midday sun was hot work, and the Iraqis soon used up their water. The Americans replenished it for them.

“These guys are really competent, though.”

—They left the water behind because the bottle didn’t have a cap?

Now, he said, the challenge is for the Iraqis to take control after years of depending on the Americans. “We got to kick the crutch out from under them,” he said.

—Then you could tie a string across the doorway so a bucket of water falls on them. That’d be funny, too, since they forgot to bring some.

Judging from the weapons-hunting patrol, that kick is still a way off in reality, even if expectations on the Iraqi side have significantly changed.
At least Sergeant Jassim had already been trained on the metal detector.

—”I find Humvee!”

The goal was to sweep about two miles of canal bed; after a bit over one mile, the Iraqis stopped and insisted that it must have been about two miles by then. Then they complained that the saw grass was getting too thick to continue; one of the American sergeants urged them on, demonstrating how easy it was to break the brittle fronds and move them out of the way.
“We haven’t had our lunch yet,” one of the Iraqi soldiers said.

—Check the temperature on your wrist before you give them the bottle, Sarge.

Another Hurdle for the Jobless: Credit Inquiries :

Digging out of debt keeps getting harder for the unemployed as more companies use detailed credit checks to screen job prospects.

Business executives say that they have an obligation to be diligent and to protect themselves from employees who may be unreliable, unwise or too susceptible to temptation to steal, and that credit checks are a help.

“If I see too many negative things coming up on a credit check, it’s one of those things that raises a flag with me,” said Anita Orozco, director of human resources at Sonneborn, a petrochemical company based in Mahwah, N.J.

—If you look close, you’ll see the white flag raised by the applicant. And, uh, not to seem like too much of a pollyanna like I do so often, but isn’t it possible that someone who’s in dire financial straits might be a darn good hire, what with them needing money so bad? I mean, why aren’t you guys doing credit checks to see who’s so bad off they’ll work long hours for shit money just to get a paycheck? It’s just a version of what employers who hire immigrants do. Though, I guess that could set off a financial firestorm through the country where people renege on debts they could pay just to get a job. That wouldn’t be good. Also, hasn’t it been amply shown that financial wizards are anything but that, so somebody whose money life tanked isn’t necessarily someone with poor judgement? This sounds akin to the argument that we shouldn’t provide single-payer health care because all those damn gold-bricking poor folks will be running off to the doctor every time they get a boo-boo, and thus bankrupt the country. I know I’d enjoy being sick all the time if I knew it was free.

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

From Global Research:

BAILOUT THIS!
The Stabilization of the Financial Sector: The Holy Grail of Economic Salvation

Idiocy is usually described as “endlessly repeating the same process, hoping for a different result”.

—Is it? I thought that was insanity. Or life. Or being human. Or just me.

Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden et al are straining at the leash to get the Bailout Ball rolling once again. The stabilization of the financial sector, as elusive as it has been so far, has become the Holy Grail of Economic salvation… The Knights of the Oval Table are gathered to plan their mission as their beleaguered subjects are trying to batter down the castle gates….

—Oh, I get it, it’s like medieval times, you’re saying, but without the Black Plague and an average life-span of three months. And the country is being run by god-appointed monarchs and their cabal of the privileged, and everyone else is a filthy, illiterate, expendable serf. I don’t know. My credit cards still work, my car still runs, and I can still get a job. If I wanted to buy a cow and get to whatever status is just above peasant, I could, though it would stink up my apartment like crazy, though I could maybe sequester the methane and cook with it.

The question begs to be asked, and this is where the cynic in me dominates, what’s the plan?

—I wasn’t begging. I was waiting. Is it cynical to imply that the Dark Ages are returning? Might be just fuckin’ batshit.

When they [ the recipients of the TARP funds ] do fall will the Government nationalize the last one standing for the good of the country? This would be the coup of the millennium…To have this complete before the economy and society have completely broken down would be a good reason to declare a real National Emergency and declare Martial Law, the legislation, executive orders and infrastructure of which are already in place. How can one not be a cynic when we reflect on what has happened so far?

—You could start by slapping your inner cynic like you might a whimpering child. Sometimes corporal punishment works well. Then you could recall that America has gone through the boom and bust cycle of its economy since the outset, and we’re still here! And that corruption and cronyism and cooking the books have always been a sad but necessary and inevitable part of politics, and that transparency in government is always in part fictional. Or you could just take a xanax and calm the fuck down, and think about how far away from Martial Law the inauguration of this president was.

The numbers are in and the scam stands exposed to those who will look. Which way the story unfolds from here is anyone’s guess. But I am ready to bet that Congress will not include the OCC data in the upcoming debate on the next round of cash for the Banks.

—They probably won’t, but then, you already have the numbers so it would be kind of redundant and boring for you, so you’d have to change channels and watch Law and Order.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday, probably our last, dammit. Now we’ll have to watch jousting….hey…I like that idea…

—Scot Crawford

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

—Ah, the old “Old West” analogy. Would that it were accurate, and we could just hang you, you fucking idiot.

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

From the NY Times:

PURPLE HEART IS RULED OUT FOR TRAUMATIC STRESS

The Pentagon has decided that it will not award the Purple Heart, the hallowed medal given to those wounded or killed by enemy action, to war veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder because it is not a physical wound.

—Right. Brains aren’t physical. They’re like…dreams or something…

The disorder, which may go unrecognized for months or years, can include recurring nightmares, uncontrolled rage and, sometimes, severe depression and suicide. Soldiers grappling with PTSD are often unable to hold down jobs.

—Because they’re pussies. And we have to watch them, cuz they might shoot themselves in the head just to get that medal, and the great jobs that go along with it…

“I’m glad they finally got something right,” said Jeremy Rausch, an Army staff sergeant who saw some of the Iraq War’s fiercest fighting in Adhamiya in 2006 and 2007. “PTSD can be serious, but there is absolutely no way to prove that someone truly is suffering from it or faking it.”

—Never been a purple heart awarded to someone who faked a physical wound.

Kevin Owsley, 47, who served in the Ohio National Guard in 2004 as a gunner on a Humvee and who is being treated for PTSD and traumatic brain injury, said he disagreed with the Pentagon’s ruling.
Unable to hold a job, Mr. Owsley supports his family on disability payments. This week he told his Veterans Affairs doctor he was fighting back suicidal impulses, something he has struggled with since his return. “You relive it every night and every day,” he said. “You dream about it. You can see it, taste it, see people getting killed constantly over and over.”
“It is a soldier’s injury,” he said, angrily, in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

—Yeah? Prove it, smart guy. Whoa, put the gun down!

But a Pentagon-supported service group, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, has strongly opposed expanding the definition to include psychological symptoms, saying it would “debase” the honor.

—Fuckin’ A right. And after being one of the losers who manages to get wounded fighting a bunch of cavemen when you’ve got laser guided missiles, predator drones, f-16′s, battleships, aircraft carriers, nuclear warheads, body armor, tanks, Subway sandwich shops, Netflix, Dick Cheney, the Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders, nightvision goggles, and a $14 trillion dollar economy on your side, well, you don’t need any more debasement.

There have been recent changes in awarding Purple Hearts. The criteria was expanded in 2008 to include all prisoners of war who died in captivity, including those who were tortured. “There were wounds there,” Mr. Bircher said.
“You have to had shed blood by an instrument of war at the hands of the enemy of the United States,” he said. “Shedding blood is the objective.”

—Objective Accomplished! Where’s my aircraft carrier? Boy, we’re gonna run out of purple dye what with all the American troops being captured and tortured. It’s testament to the courage and fortitude of our troops that none of them have cracked and told the enemy how to make fire.

—Pesky question though, this medals thing. After all, the Purple Heart was originally given to troops who were good at soldiering, they didn’t have to get shot, like, back in the American Revolution days, when all of three soldiers were awarded the medal, George Washington’s “Badge of Military Merit” for “unusual gallantry” and “extraordinary fidelity and essential service.” Then, later, the military decided that you didn’t have to do anything but stand in the way of a bullet to get a medal. Wee debasement there, perhaps. Maybe the thing to do is come up with a new, debasement-proof medal, to be given to any soldier whose life is utterly destroyed by their service in pointless wars which have been totally misrepresented to them by their leaders! Like, the “Bloody Brain” for those with PTSD. The “Pallid Womb”for women who don’t conceive because their hubby got blown up by an IED. How about the ‘Torn Hair” for civilians whose government carries out policies over which they have not a speck of control!? We gotta open this thing up a little….

— Scot Crawford

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

From HuffPost

MIAMI — State troopers are looking for a charity to take thousands of shoes that were dumped on a Miami expressway, tying up rush hour traffic.

—Wow. Quite the press conference. Try the Islamic League of Journalists, they’ll take them.

Lt. Pat Santangelo says the Florida Highway Patrol received a call about the shoes Friday morning. Santangelo says he’s not sure where the shoes came from.

—Isn’t it obvious? They came from the feet of all the dead Islamic journalists our Special Forces guys eliminated. It’s a fucking warning: America never forgets. Not even the little shit.

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

I’m inspired. To kill myself…

DISSIDENT’S TALE OF EPIC ESCAPE FROM IRAN’S VISE

WASHINGTON — After three days on the run, Ahmad Batebi picked his way down a rocky slope to the stream that marked Iran’s border with Iraq. His Kurdish guides, who had led Mr. Batebi, an Iranian dissident, through minefields and dodged nighttime gunfire from border guards, passed him to a new team of shadowy human smugglers.

At the age of 31, after nearly eight years in Iranian prisons, subjected to torture and twice taken to the gallows and fitted with a noose, Mr. Batebi had fled.

His awakening began in fourth grade, when his teacher, fed up with the distortions of an official history textbook, burst out: “Go out and read other things to try to get the truth.”

A few weeks later came the stoning. Though forbidden by his mother, he slipped out of the house to see the commotion near his school. He saw a man, accused of adultery, buried to the waist, his head covered with a sack that turned red as Revolutionary Guards hurled chunks of concrete. A mullah standing atop a wall gave the orders, and an ambivalent crowd of neighbors looked on.

—I have an idea. Let’s invade Iran and kill all the religious leaders. And hey, let’s get the “ambivalent neighbors” too. Has anyone thought of that?

Years later, he would witness public hangings and dismemberments. “But nothing had the impact of that stoning,” he said. “I thought, This can’t be Islam.”

—Oh, but it is. When my country tortures people, especially innocent ones, I think; “This can’t be America.” But it is.

Mr. Batebi described 17 months in solitary confinement, including repeated torture by interrogators trying to force him to say on television that the famous T-shirt was stained with paint or animal blood.

His jailers thrashed him with a metal cable, beat his testicles and kicked in his teeth, he said. They held his face down in a pool of excrement. They tied his arms behind his back and hung him from the ceiling. At other times, strapping him to a chair, they kept him awake night after night, cutting him and rubbing salt into the wounds.

To stave off madness, he said, he fought back. “If the interrogator cursed me, I would curse him back,” he said. “If the interrogator hit me, I’d try to hit him back.”

—Hey, now, that’s the wrong approach to getting tortured. You’re supposed to get all pliable and helpful. I’ll send you the manual.

The United Nations was arranging a placement in Sweden when Ms. Mazahery called to say that the United States had granted Mr. Batebi’s request for “humanitarian parole,” a relatively rare measure used in cases of danger or political importance.

When his flight from Vienna landed at Dulles Airport in Virginia in late June, Mr. Batebi was astonished to see that the airport worker waving the jet into the gate was a Muslim woman wearing a tight head scarf.

—You were astonished? To see a symbol of Islam? Huh. I’d think you’d be all like, “Oh, fuck, Islam! Noooooooo!”

Mr. Batebi speaks of working from afar for peaceful change in Iran. He recoils when asked about the possibility of American military action against Iran, saying that if the United States attacked, “I might go back and fight for my country myself.”

—Well, ok. But we’ll have to torture you first. You know the drill.

He has some ordinary goals, the dreams of a man who spent most of his 20s in a prison cell. He wants to study politics and sociology, he said, and work as a photojournalist. He wants to play guitar. He thought for a moment, then he remembered one more modest ambition.

“I want to fish!” Mr. Batebi said, his face relaxing into a smile. “I’m going to go fishing!”

—Oh, great. So you’re gonna throw a baited hook in the water, jam it into a fish’s mouth, yank him from his environment, club him to death, and eat him. Gonna try and get some information from him? Because he might get mad and just fight back to keep from going insane. This can’t be Islam.

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

Makes it all seem worth it:

ATHLETES DISABLED BY WARS LEAD IRAQI TEAM IN WORLD GAMES

Iraqis love sports. Anyone who doubts it should consider the rat-a-tat of automatic weapons fired after every Iraqi soccer victory.

—Well, I’m not gonna doubt it unless they put the guns down. But maybe the shooting of the guns isn’t a good way to measure their enthusiasm. They seem to kind of do that whatever happens.

Yet after five years of war, Iraq’s chances of fielding a competitive Olympic team are vanishingly small.

—Give it time. When Head Drilling makes it out of the Special Olympics and into the big time, they’ll take the gold. Weird the Scots didn’t come up with that one.

And a blind athlete, Qasim Muttar, who was a promising player of goalball — soccer played with a ball that contains bells — died after being run over by an American convoy while crossing a street.

— Americans are notoriously competitive, you can tell by the missiles and bombs if you doubt it, and goalball is starting to really take off in America. Here they call it “Libertyball”, though.

The poverty that forced Rasul Kadhim to hawk nuts from an iron street cart in Sadr City, a Baghdad slum, as a child also paved his road to Beijing. In a story typical for the mostly poor, disabled men on his team, Mr. Kadhim, a weight lifter, sculptured his torso into pure muscle by pushing the 200-pound cart, though polio had paralyzed one of his legs. “I pushed the cart with only one leg,” he said. “But I always had the strength, the power.”
And in a sad twist, also not atypical, Mr. Kadhim’s older brother, who had inspired him to leave the cart and go into sports, was killed by a car bomb in 2006 on the same dusty street where Mr. Kadhim had worked.
“God willing, I will win a medal for Iraq,” he said.

—He’s shown himself to be pretty much on your side so far.

Two years ago, for example, all 18 members of the Olympic tae kwon do team were kidnapped and killed in Anbar Province in western Iraq while returning from a match.

—Ok, Ok, you guys love sports! Got it!

— Scot Crawford

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

Yet more peace:

JAPANESE WARSHIP VISITS CHINESE PORT

A Japanese destroyer docked at a heavily guarded naval base in Guangdong Province on Tuesday for a five-day port call, the first by a warship from Japan in China since World War II.

Said Gao Hong, director of the political research office of the Chinese Academy of Social Science’s Japanese Research Institute:“When a naval vessel visits, it sends a clear signal that the countries have buried the hatchet and are working for peace.”

Breaking news:

JAPANESE PEACE ENVOY BOMBED

A group of diplomats and academics visiting China from Japan to try to ameliorate friction between the two countries over their long and violent histories was shelled today, apparently by a Japanese warship.

Said a spokesperson for the Chinese: “We don’t know what happened. The peace people came, and we were waiting, and then, suddenly, bombs were falling, shrapnel was flying, it was chaos.”

A spokesperson for the Japanese said that: “Signals got crossed. Mixed messages were sent. It was supposed to be a fireworks display to commemorate this historic event, and somehow, they ended up shelling our own peace envoy. We will not fail to shame ourselves for this mistake. There will be suicides, and at least one kamikaze will strike our ship.”

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

Fair and Balanced:

IRAQ PUT HIS LIFE ON THE TRIGGER

BARDWELL, KY. — When Cody Alexander Morris returned from the war last fall, he carried home a burden — a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder — and a new way of playing with guns.

The gun game was called “Do You Trust Me?” Morris, 19, learned it from his Kentucky National Guard buddies in Iraq. He taught the game to his roommates: best friend and fellow guardsman Casey Lee Hall, 18, and a 16-year-old cousin, Cory Adams. The young men would point unloaded handguns at each other’s heads, ask “Do you trust me?” and pull the trigger.

Sometimes the guns came out while the teenagers drank alcohol, smoked marijuana and played violent video games. They called each other CWB, for “crazy white boy,” and had those three words tattooed on their necks.

“It fit us pretty good,” Morris said recently, “’cause we are crazy white boys. We were potheads — we’d just drink and smoke . . . and play-fight.”

But the carousing masked Morris’ troubled state.

—Um. Pretty thin mask. I guess if the game was called “I’m gonna blow your fucking head off”, alarms would have really gone off.

IRAQ WAR VETERAN WINS MR. CALIFORNIA USA PAGEANT

The new Mr. California USA’s girlfriend had a suitably fond comment after the gold crown was placed on his head.

“It’s really neat,” Yahira Rojo, 20, said when Jeremy Buraglia became the first recipient of the title. “It’s something new, but he’s been there before; we were the prom king and queen” in 2005.

The contestants are divided into four categories: Little Mr., ages 5 to 8; Junior Mr., from 9 to 12; Teen Mr. from 13 to 17; and Mr., ages 18 to 25.

—Next year they’re adding a few new categories: Mr. Deranged Sociopathic Murderer, Mr. Suicidal Depressive, Mr. Nightmares, and Mr. Convicted Felon.

— Scot Crawford

“

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

On the floodgates opening:

US GENERAL APOLOGIZES FOR DESECRATION OF KORAN

BAGHDAD — The commander of United States troops in Baghdad asked local leaders and tribal sheiks this weekend for their forgiveness after the discovery that a soldier had used a Koran for target practice at a shooting range.

Also as a gesture of apology, another American officer kissed a Koran and gave it to the tribal leaders, according to news agency reports.

—Sadly, it turns out that kissing the Koran is forbidden by Islamic law, especially if the kisser is a member of a foreign occupying force, so the Iraqi leaders walked out in a snit. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has gotten involved and offered to let the Iraqis shoot at Bibles, or a Danish cartoonist, as compensation. Presidential-hopeful Barack Obama has derided these offers as appeasement.

A statement Sunday from the American military called the desecration of the Koran “serious and deeply troubling” and said the soldier had been disciplined and sent out of Iraq.

Breaking news from the Shackle Report:

KORAN DESECRATION OUTBREAK IN IRAQ

Following news that an American serviceman had been sent out of Iraq for desecrating the Koran, the Pentagon has reported that hundreds, if not every single one, of the American military members posted in Iraq are desecrating the Koran.

“It’s turned into something of a frenzy,” admitted the spokesman. “Our guys are pissing on them, defecating on them, kissing them, playing keep-away with neighborhood kids. We have to rethink the policy of posting them somewhere else as punishment.”

The Pentagon said that one possible new way of dealing with the problem is printing thousands of fake Korans expressly for the purpose of desecrating them, but Muslims are apparently touchy about that, too. Another is having American soldiers just shoot Iraqis to express their frustration with their mission.

— Scot Crawford

“

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

hard times for us all:

MOST EXCLUSIVE MEN’S CLUB SEEKS TO CLEAR TREES FOR CASH

MONTE RIO, Calif. — At the end of the lane across the Russian River from this northwoods town, behind the “Keep Out” signs and the plainclothes security guards, lies Bohemian Grove, a mysterious summer playground of presidents, former presidents, princes, Cabinet members and titans of industry. The most exclusive men’s club in the world gathers each July for a secret conclave that begins with a nocturnal ceremony featuring torches, incantations, hooded robes of red velvet and the incineration of a coffin beneath a massive sculpture of an owl.

—Oh, the supreme court. I wondered what they did with their time off.

Which only deepens the dismay that has greeted the club’s request to the state of California for permission to log as much as 1 million board feet from the place to raise some cash.

—Like with most bohemians, cash is always a problem. And you can only chant to the gods for money for so long before they get pissy about it.

Club President Jay Mancini said that, like so much about the Bohemians, the effort to secure a non-industrial timber management plan is widely misunderstood: “We’re not secretive. We’re private…

—…but don’t tell anyone.”

“Good people in there to work for,” said a local carpenter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the value the club places on discretion. “They’re just in there having fun, like the rest of us do on our weekends, or on vacation…

—…this year we’re barbecuing my niece on Memorial Day weekend so the gods will stop the forest fires. She’s very excited. I’m Bob, by the way, I work for ‘Apocalypse Builders: Built to Last.’ We’re listed!”

Breaking news:

CALIFORNIA CARPENTER FOUND DEAD

Local police in Monte Rio California reported today that they had discovered the mutilated corpse of a local carpenter dangling from a redwood tree on property belonging to an organization called the Bohemian Club. Despite the grotesque, lurid nature of the crime, law enforcement officials said they had no leads, expected none to emerge and encouraged members of the press to just “let it go”, noting that since the time of Christ, carpenters have been found dangling from things routinely, so this event was hardly a story, especially in an election year.

“

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

From the Washington Post on a wee out-sourcing snafu:

SOME WAR DEAD WERE CREMATED AT FACILITY HANDLING PETS

The U.S. military has, since 2001, cremated some of the remains of American service members killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere at a Delaware facility that also cremates pets, a practice that ended yesterday when the Pentagon banned the arrangement.

Officials said they do not know the number of service members cremated at the facility, which is identified on a billboard as Friends Forever Pet Cremation Service.

—PETA is suing.

From the Shackle Report:

HOUSING PROBLEMS IN HEAVEN

The Pentagon division that handles housing for the military has reported confusion at their temporary facilities at the gates of Heaven.

“Some of our outgoing heros have been mistakenly housed with dogs, terrorists, even Blackwater guys,” said Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Patrick Gabriel. “We’re in the process of hiring an outside contractor to investigate what’s happening up there. Rest assured, the US military is fully committed to moving our soldiers from this earth to their eternal resting place in as dignified and expeditious a manner as possible.”

— Scot Crawford

“

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

I’m in shock:

DESPITE ALERT, FLAWED WIRING STILL KILLS G.I.’s

In October 2004, the United States Army issued an urgent bulletin titled “The Unexpected Killer” to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by contractors, the bulletin stated, soldiers at American bases in Iraq had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been electrocuted.

“We’ve had several shocks in showers and near misses here in Baghdad, as well as in other parts of the country,” Frank Trent, an expert with the Army Corps of Engineers, wrote in the bulletin. “As we install temporary and permanent power on our projects, we must ensure that we require contractors to properly ground electrical systems.”

—Maybe there are too many boots in the way.

The most recent fatality occurred on Jan. 2 in Baghdad, when a Green Beret died in a shower after an improperly grounded water pump short-circuited.

Breaking news from the Shackle Report:

GREEN BERET DIES A HERO, PENTAGON SAYS

The Pentagon today released a memo describing the combat death of a Green Beret:

“Al Qaeda has developed an insidious new tactic in their evil war on American forces trying to bring peace to Iraq; Accidental Shower Death, or what we like to call ‘ASD,’ or ‘Assed’,” said Pentagon spokesman Edwin D. Mendace. “They infiltrate our building contractors and sabotage the electrical wiring in our barracks. One of our heros today made the ultimate sacrifice defending our freedoms. There were other troops in that bathroom when he perished, and they survived the attacks when this soldier, while convulsing from electrical current pulsing through his body, threw himself on a bottle of Axe Body Spray – ‘Carnage Scent’, that could have had explosives in it. He will be missed.”

— Scot Crawford

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

From Slate on an open book:

OBAMA GETS PERSONAL

With 96 hours to go before the voting starts in Indiana and North Carolina, Barack Obama is coming home. He’s talking about himself and his family, and he’s returning to his campaign’s bedrock theme of political reform.

By returning to his core message of bringing people together and changing the Washington system, Obama challenged his audiences to not get distracted by recent controversies. “This election is bigger than flag pins and sniper fire and the comments of a former pastor,” he said.

—”I’m not an elitist,” he went on to say. “I’m just above petty issues like patriotism, credentials, and the wisdom and judgement questions that arise from associating with hyper-religious wingnuts. And pandering. And politics. And you. Join me?”

— Scot Crawford

Scot Crawford writes:

From the Huffington Post about a girl who just can’t do anything right:

CLINTON GAS TAX HOLIDAY: HILLARY ATTACKS ECONOMISTS

UPDATE: Former Clinton labor secretary, and now Obama supporter, Robert Reich, asks some Clinton economic advisers about her comments this morning:

When asked this morning by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos if she could name a single economist who backs her call for a gas tax holiday this summer, HRC said “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.”

I know several of the economists who have been advising Senator Clinton, so I phoned them right after I heard this. I reached two of them. One hadn’t heard her remark and said he couldn’t believe she’d say it. The other had heard it and shrugged it off as “politics as usual.”

That’s the problem: Politics as usual. The gas tax holiday is small potatoes relative to everything else. But it’s so economically stupid (it would increase demand for gas and cause prices to rise, eliminating any benefit to consumers while costing the Treasury more than $9 billion, and generate more pollution) and silly (even if she won, HRC won’t be president this summer) is worrisome. That HRC now says she doesn’t care that what economists think is even more troubling.

—You know, I’m beginning to think there might be a tinge of misogyny behind all the flak Hillary takes. I’m not against her taking flak, because I love to see her scrap, but it’s beginning to seem almost kind of excessive.

The woman has guts. Yeah, the suspended gas tax is motivated by politics, but she’s a politician. Political motivation is almost kind of…what’s the word? Oh! Necessary! She’s not talking to economists and political gabbers, at that moment. She’s talking to people whose votes she’s courting, the pathetic panderer. Gore and Kerry both went down, deservedly, because they were eggheads that were too stupid to pander to lower-class people effectively. Bush won because he convinced lower class people that he wasn’t one of the elite. And in certain ways, he isn’t. No one feels that he’s talking down to them. I think Bush has contempt for everyone who isn’t him, but the ones who feel his contempt are educated, or at least smart. I think Gore has contempt for everyone who disagrees with him, but the ones who feel the contempt are less educated, or at least smart. I think Hillary has contempt for Bush and all far-right people, neo-cons especially, and I like to see it on her face when she listens to Bush speak. She looks like someone just put a turd on her dinner plate. They did. But Bush managed to get an education at the high-toned school he went to; in how to win an election. Hillary seems to be pandering pretty well so far, she’s still in. I fault her for some things, for example not finding a Karl Rove to be her advisor, because we need one.

(more…)

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

From Stars and Stripes :

OFFICIALS WORRY THREATS, OPPORTUNITIES IN SOUTHERN COMMAND OBSCURED BY WARS:

“It’s a shame people don’t pay more attention to what’s going on in South America,” said Col. Jim Russell, Air Forces Southern director of operations. “It’s the Global War on Terror, not just the Middle East.”

—You know, goddamnit, that is a shame. What can we do? Ooh, ooh, I know! Let’s not fight wars in the Middle East anymore! Nah. That’s no fun.

The State Department’s international narcotics report released last month lists nearly every South and Central American country as a conduit for illegal drug trafficking.

—Dude, that is not good. Let’s hoover a few lines and go fuck these countries up. Asshole South Americans. You’d think they’d be nice to us after all our help during the Cold War. But noooo. They have to shove drugs into the flaccid, ignorant bodies of our children so we have to detox them before we send them to war. Then they come back, and they’re all fucked up in the head from killing people, and they get all strung out, and we have to detox them again. It’s really getting spendy.

In fact, officials say they’d like to see more interaction and more U.S. presence in the region. “We’re always looking for opportunities for what I call lily pads — places we can go in for a week or two and then get out,” said Lt. Gen. Norman Seip, commander of U.S. Air Forces Southern.

—Oh right, that’d be good. Go to the President of Ecuador and say; “Will you be my lily pad? Hoppity-hop-hop! Look at me, I’m a frog! And I have a big gun! Ribbit! Ribbit!” You could wear a frog suit.

“…It increases our presence, and makes us more unpredictable…”

—Oh, man, I think our unpredictability is pretty well established. So much so that we’re risking becoming so unpredictable, we’re verging on tediously repetitive quixoticism.

Russell said he’d like to see troops drawing down from Iraq reassigned to SOUTHCOM missions.

—That’ll teach those drug-dealing South American ingrates. Send our Iraq vets down there to fall into a crippling depression and off themselves. It’s the New Diplomacy.

“And I think, as we move ahead, we will see more of a shift of attention towards the region,” he said. “We’re seeing problems right at the mouth of Central America.”

—We could put a fence there. So, it’d be like, a lily pad, but with a fence. But we wouldn’t have to call it a fence. We could call it a pond. And, and, like, all the drug dealers and illegal immigrants? We could call them flies, so we’d be like, the frog on the lily pad catching the flies. And the Central American police forces? They could be the algea. Damn, this shit is sweet. You ever try a couple lines of this shit with a hit of X? Fuckin’ bad-ass, dude.

— Scot Crawford

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

From the NY Times on our military taking care of its own:

TALKING VETERANS DOWN FROM DESPAIR

The new National Veteran’s Hot-Line is part of a specialized effort by the Department of Veterans Affairs to reduce suicide by enabling counselors, for the first time, to instantly check a veteran’s medical records and then combine emergency response with local follow-up services.

—A step up from the old days, when there was a recording that said; “Hello, and welcome to Veteran’s Phone! If you would like to re-enlist, press or say 1! If you would like to re-enlist, press or say 2! If you would like to re-enlist, press or say 3! If you know the way you would like to kill yourself, press or say the first three letters of the method you’ve chosen! For example, for gunshot to the head, press 484!”

Kerri J. Childress, a department spokeswoman, said Monday that there were an average of 18 suicides a day among America’s 25 million veterans…experts agree that veterans are more likely, perhaps twice as much, to commit suicide as people who have never served in the military…

—Until the Bush years. Now civilians are offing themselves at nearly the clip of vets. So much for the carping about military people having to shoulder the whole burden for our neato wars. Anyway, it’s all good. Suicide is the new death.

“For years people thought that asking questions about suicide put the thought in people’s mind, but now we know that’s not true,” said Dr. Kemp, who travels throughout the country training V.A. staff.

—Yep, there’s the military. Ol’ Johnny-on-the-spot with current psychological thinking. I believe it was the famous psychologist Sigmund “Oooga-Booga, Mommy Touch My Spear” Freud who dispelled that notion in 60,000 BCE, with his cave drawings of people committing suicide because life just generally sucked Dad’s ass.

Some breaking news from the Shackle Report:

MILITARY TO DRAFT SUICIDAL VETS

In response to reports about the high rate of suicide among veterans of military service, the Pentagon has announced plans to send veterans with suicidal thoughts back into action.

Major General Corporal Admiral Dick “Fuck’em” Stalinski, the Pentagon’s new Soldier Czar who’s spearheading the new assault, unveiled the policy in Washington today:

“In keeping with the military’s long-standing ‘War on Waste’, we’re going to streamline our treatment of these little pussy-pants, namby-pamby, oh-I-want-to-die veterans and put them back where they can do the most good for their country – Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean, think about it. If they want to die, what better way to do it than sending them running through hostile fire? It’s way better than sending them running through friendly fire. We all know the results of that policy. This way, they can eliminate a few threats on their way out, their family gets a nice ribbon, and there’s no need for expensive hot lines and counselors. And it’s better than choking to death on your own vomit under a bridge. No one likes to see a US Soldier like that. A civilian, sure, whatever, do us all a favor and put a stop to your own whining. But a man in uniform? Bad for morale.”

— Scot Crawford

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

From the Washington Post on foresight:

AFGHAN COMMANDOS EMERGE

The commandos carry the best U.S. rifles, wear night-vision goggles and ride in armored Humvees, but they are not Americans, they’re Afghans — trained and advised by U.S. Special Forces teams that are seeking to create a sustainable combat force that will ultimately replace them in Afghanistan.

“This is our ticket out of here,” a Special Forces company commander said.

—He continued: “The sooner we can get home, the sooner we can start training to fight these guys in ten years.”

Commandos compete for selection and go through 12 weeks of initial training at Camp Morehead, south of Kabul.

The regimen hones the skills of commandos far beyond those of their Afghan army peers, U.S. combat advisers say. In marksmanship, for example, commandos fire more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition in their initial training alone, while the average Afghan soldier fires 60 rounds in training each year.

The commandos’ high-quality gear and training is an advantage that few regular Afghan security forces have.

The commandos also receive $50 in extra pay each month — raising the total pay of a junior sergeant, for example, to $200 — as well as better equipment than their regular army counterparts and a double ration of food.

—Smart. Very smart.

From The Shackle Report on new strife in Afghanistan:

AFGHAN MILITARY TURNS ON ITSELF

In a totally unforeseen and unwelcome development in Afghanistan, regular Afghan Army troops have attacked Afghan Special Forces troops in uncoordinated raids throughout the country that closely resemble anarchy.

“They get better food, more bullets, better training, nicer uniforms, it’s bullshit,” said one Afghan Army soldier through an American interpreter. “Fuck that.” He then went to join his comrades raiding Special Forces refrigerators, rifling closets, upending ammo boxes, and cavorting around like kids with toys.

“We’ll have to call in the Americans, I guess,” said one gloomy Afghan Special Forces soldier, after his platoon was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of dissaffected regular army troops. “Guess we’re not so special after all.”

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

The story of an alarming development from Haaretz:

NEW ANTI-DRUG CAMPAIGN EQUATES SMOKING POT WITH TERRORISM

Israel’s Anti-Drug Authority has launched a new campaign featuring Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, aimed at deterring Israelis from smoking marijuana.

Underneath the image, the poster reads: “Hezbollah is clearly planning to flood Israel with narcotics. Narcotics pose a strategic threat to Israeli society. Whoever uses narcotics is giving a hand to the next terrorist attack.”

—Oh, those fucking Muslim terrorist basta…

THREE ISRAELIS NABBED IN UK IN ONE OF WORLD’S LARGEST HASH RAIDS

Three Israelis were arrested on Wednesday at the Southampton port in Britain on suspicion of trying to smuggle over six tons of hashish, according to reports revealed on Wednesday.

—Oh, jeez…

The police have been on the trail of these three suspects for the last year and a half. The suspects were identified as Hazi Serbero, 57, Moshe Kaidar, 81, and Mordechai Hirsch, 67.

Five others are suspected of involvement in the crime – four of them Pakistani nationals and the fifth from the Balkans.

— Scot Crawford

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

From the NY Times about a peaceful transfer of power:

FIGHT FOR SADR CITY A PROVING GROUND FOR IRAQ MILITARY

Iraqi soldiers, suffering from a shortage of experienced noncommissioned officers, have often been firing wildly…

—Managed to hit their officers, apparently.

“In case I see a bad guy I will not arrest him,” the Iraqi soldier said through an American military interpreter. “I will kill him immediately to get revenge for my guys who were lost.”

“That is absolutely understandable,” Lieutenant Bowen responded. “If they have a weapon and if you ID them as a JAM member, eliminate the threat.”

—These Iraqis will never stand on their own if they can’t learn to talk like normal military people. What the hell does “kill him to get revenge” even mean?

The militias have their own unique way of signaling the presence of the foes. The Americans say the militias have been using trained pigeons to signal the presence of American and Iraqi troops.

—The tanks and planes and bombs and the reek of fear and frustration weren’t enough of a tip for them, I guess.

—I suppose this is the nature of our new kind of war. Soon our F-16s will be swooping around over Iraq engaged in dogfights with pigeons. Top Gun! Eliminate the threat!

But the American and Iraqi soldiers had a more immediate concern: stopping the sniper fire down a nearby ally.

“The Iraqi Army hasn’t cleared it because they don’t have enough troops,” Lieutenant Bowen said. “They don’t feel secure as they move down these alleyways. I think a lot of that is because they might be new. I think a lot of it is them being green.”

—I think a lot of it is them thinking “Hey, I don’t think I want to get my ass shot off by my cousin for thirty fucking bucks a month. Where’s an officer I can shoot?”

— Scot Crawford

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

Spitz – Her

It took me a while but I finally came up with something to say about the Spitzer whatever it is. My initial visceral reaction was; “Oh, for chissake, you fucking retard,” just like it was with Bill Clinton. Not that there’s ever a good time, but this is hardly the time for a prominent Democrat to make a scene that will be interpreted as a symbol of moral degeneracy among lefties by pious ninnies with too much influence and too big a stage.

I don’t care that he goes to prostitutes. He can even use taxpayer money to do it if he wants. His assertion in his resignation speech that much is expected of those to whom much is given is a wee bit dubious. I didn’t expect him to really change how politics is done in Albany any more than I think Obama can do that in Washington if he’s elected. I didn’t expect him to live up to some high moral standard that privileged people are supposed to. I didn’t expect any sort of transcendent figure, and I didn’t believe much of the hype surrounding his AG career to the effect that he’s some kind of crusader bringing wrong-doers to justice, any more than I believed that of Ghouliani. If either of them were crusaders they would have made some dents in the mortgage thingie before it went batshit and fucked the little people, again. (The little people who should have been smart enough to not trust government or lending institutions, and to do their own addition regarding how much money they have vs. how much they need. It’s barely even math.)
(more…)

The week’s reading, straight off the razor wire:

MONDAY

WITH A [POLITICAL] CONTEST IN CHAOS PREDICTIONS ARE FUTILE

In the parlance of physics, a result is entropy. In medical terminology, it is a trend line as flat as the EEG of a brain-dead pundit.

—In writing, it is a simile like road-kill on the information superhighway of death.

IN HARLEM, A PASTOR ENDORSES CLINTON

“Faith without works is dead,” Senator Clinton concluded to a standing ovation. “But works without faith is just too hard.”

—And here I’d put my faith in hard work.