Whereas Expose Obama regularly made my blood boil during the election season with is left-field hyperbole and circular logic, now, post-election, it’s just hilarious.

The latest Obamaniacal vast left wing conspiracy? Decimating our military by forcing bigots to consider to choose not to enlist.

From the latest EO emailer:

The language and purpose of the [Military Readiness Enhancement Act] is geared EXCLUSIVELY toward promoting open homosexuality in the Armed Forces!

The MREA’s purpose is, as it admits, to replace the current 16-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of tacit acceptance of secreted gayness with — as an increasing number of government agencies have — an explicit sexual orientation non-discrimination policy. But in Bigotland, simply permitting people to be openly gay is explicit promotion of homosexuality. Homosexuality is so damned insidious that the mere admission of being gay turns other men gay, and the logical conclusion of all that gayness is that the human race will die out, because there are no sperm banks and no test tube babies.

By repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy — which already allows gays in the military, just as long as they don’t admit it — the MREA:

WOULD FORCE GOOD MEN AND WOMEN OUT OF THE SERVICE!

How would it do this, you ask? Well, by way of allowing gays to admit their gayness, homophobes, which apparently comprise 24% of our military, would be BRUTALLY FORCED to CONSIDER to VOLUNTARILY NOT RE-ENLIST.

A recent poll by The Military Times [posed] the question; “If the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy is overturned and gays are allowed to serve openly, how would you respond?” According to the poll, a full 24 percent of respondents said they would not re-enlist or consider not re-enlisting!

What makes it all the more sinister and damnable is that:

Obama’s NOT calling it a “reduction in force,” nor is he giving ANY indication that the REAL AGENDA is the wholesale destruction of our military.

The fiend!

By branding the fiercest arm of the Iranian military as a terrorist group, the US government has made the first obvious and deliberate step towards confrontation with Iran.

There’s been a lot lately I’ve felt was blog-worthy, but haven’t scraped up the minutes to post about. (Like the Paula Zahn atheist slamfests, or how US troops drive through Baghdad like Massholes on a bad day, or Seattle’s frustrating pissing match over a fricking state highway.)

Anyway, this is about Hillary Clinton. I usually don’t pay her much attention. She’s gone from mildly annoying Southern Belle poseur to mildly annoying Upstate NooYock posah. Neither of which have much currency with me.

But if she’s going to be the front runner of Dean’s Democrats, she needs to learn: giving the progressives the finger is what got Gore not elected president. (Ironically, Gore would doubtlessly do better today among progressives than he did seven years ago, no small thanks to Inconvenient Truth.)

From Blue Hampshire:

Sen. Clinton is famously refusing to say “I was wrong” or otherwise apologize for voting in favor of the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq. She says that, had we known then what we know now, she would have opposed it — and it wouldn’t have even come to a vote.

That’s just great. Basically, says Clinton, hindsight is 20/20. So what about the progressives who saw the travesty before it happened, and who consistently called bullshit on the WMD rumors, or the laughable Saddam-Osama ties (while our own historical US-Saddam ties made Saddam-Osama look like Jackson-Presley), or the completely and blatantly fraudulent yellow cake nonsense?

The point: If you’d wanted foresight, Hil, you’d have gotten it, if you weren’t such a deplorable establishment Democrat.

There’s no reason at all that the U.S. got in this mess. We had a Democratic majority in Congress at the time the resolution was passed. We didn’t lose that majority until three months later. The problem is, most of the Democrats, including line-toeing Clinton, failed to check and balance the executive.

In fact, Clinton’s own words, on her floor speech, were: “Now, I believe the facts that have brought us to this fateful vote are not in doubt.“ (my bold) She then proceeded to lay out the administration’s case without a single crumb of disagreement. Her final argument was that we should only go ahead with the backing of a UN resolution — which George Bush I had advocated as well. She chides Bush Jr. for his anti-UN behavior, but ultimately, she votes for the war.

Now we all know what the progressives said from day one: there was no WMD, there was no Saddam-Osama collaboration, there was no yellow cake. Not only that, but also: the Iraqis will not fall in love with us, they will not give us free oil, and we will lose international respect. Frankly, I don’t know if anyone predicted the massive Sunni-Shiite civil war that our invasion opened the doors to, but I can’t say it’s all that surprising; though I’d have expected Iraqis to unite to expel the occupying foreigners.

Anyway. The establishment Democrats failed the progressives and in turn failed the country. They should apologize. Some have; Clinton won’t. She’s too damned proud.

Some argue that her position not to apologize is to avoid the damnable (and usually completely hypocritical) accusation of flip-flopping. Well, it’s really not about her changing her mind, but rather her admitting that she completely ignored the voices of her party’s ideological base and instead bit a big neocon hook. She can try to heap all the blame on Bush and play the “fool me once” line, but it’s hollow and obvious.

As it stands, I’m leaning Obama. Newbie or not, he’s untainted by this establishment Democrat blame-passing game. And in general, he’s not entirely full of shit.

North Korea’s only friend in this world was China… and now even China is saying, hey world, let’s do something about this little punk.

China urges UN action on N Korea
Beijing - traditionally Pyongyang’s closest ally - said it had not ruled out UN sanctions….
China’s UN ambassador, Wang Guangya, has said North Korea must face “some punitive actions” for conducting a nuclear test.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said: “This will no doubt have a negative impact on China and North Korea’s relations.”

Even Russia, another lukewarm NK associate, went cold.

Russia, which like China has resisted sanctions in the past, has said it is “ready to take part in joint efforts of the interested parties….”

Of course, this FR disaster on NK’s part only bolsters my (and others’) hypothesis that it was a trick — that NK will come out and say “well, it wasn’t really a nuclear device… but it COULD have been…” And I really don’t think that impoverished NK’s nuclear weapons program, working in a vacuum, would have managed to create and detonate (safely, underground, and with complete containment) a 5-to-15 megaton device. Did we already forget just how good their missile program is?

NK would be better off worldwide if they’d spent that kind of money, resources, and effort on finishing the damned hotel.

While it may be reasonable that there are those who believe that war is sometimes necessary, and perhaps forgiveable and repentable to believe that war is ultimately a good thing, it seems entirely deranged for there to be those who believe that war is the best thing that can happen to humankind. At dispensational millennialist (i.e. Left Behinders) blogs such as Rapture Ready, exactly this sort of people are currently creaming themselves (hey, you read them how you want) over the war breaking out between Israel and Jordan Lebanon. It’s bad enough that this is a direct analogue of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, and portends that other countries will follow the pre-emptive example of the Bush administration. It’s a whole other thing to eagerly and excitedly look forward to war. Some samples, courtesy of Harper’s:

“Praise God! We are chosen to be in these times and also watch and spread the word. Something inside me is exploding to get out, and I don’t know what it is.” (K: Now do you see where I got that metaphor from?)

“This is the busiest I’ve ever seen this website in a few years! I have been having rapture dreams and I can’t believe that this is really it! ”

“Tunnel ceiling collapsed on a car and killed a woman of faith, and we had the most terrifying storms I have ever seen here!! But, yes, oh happy day, like in your screen name , it is most indeed a time to be happy and excited, right there with ya!!”

And the most cultish, disturbing, Heaven’s Gate-like comment:

“I am excited beyond words that the struggle of this life may be over soon and I can finally be FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!”

Screw the Kool-Aid. Don’t drink the wine, either.

Tidbits from my skimming of the Supreme Court decision relating to Guantanamo detainee trials:

1. The Detainee Treatment Act specifically removes (or tries to remove) judicial review of pending Guantanamo military trials, and limits review of closed trials “exclusively” to the DC Circuit Court — excluding the Supreme Court from jurisdiction in any matter related to the trials.

2. The DC court ruled that violations of the Geneva Conventions can’t be dealt with because they are not enforceable. Contrarily, the Supreme Court ruled that they are, since armed forces regulations require following them.

3. You cannot be put on military trial if you are a POW. If you may be a POW, then you must be treated as a POW until a commission determines that you are not a POW.

4. Even if you are not a POW, “conspiracy” (the vague crime which Hamdan, Osama’s former driver, is charged with) is not a war crime under the Geneva conventions. As such, it must be decided by a court following a civilian-minded format (I’m paraphrasing), not a military tribunal.

5. Justice Thomas believes that you can’t make a Geneva claim about the violations of your trial until your trial has completed.

6. The government (and Justice Thomas) contend that Hamdan is not a POW, but he IS an enemy soldier, and therefore he can be tried for acts he committed. In any case, Thomas and Scalia seem to think the court’s job is to shut up and trust the president.

7. The government’s long-standing line that Geneva doesn’t apply because the enemy is al-Qaeda, and al-Qaeda is neither a nation nor a Geneva signatory, doesn’t wash. Firstly, territory is relevant, and the territory of conflict on which Hamdan was captured was that of Afghanistan, a signatory. Further, even if the parties in a conflict are not signatories, those that are signatories are compelled to uphold a minimum set of provisions for those who are not actively fighting (e.g. surrenderers).

For the daring, the 185-page ruling is here.

The military needs to be unfucked.

Soldiers (and airmen, and seamen, and marines) aren’t really trained to do the right job outside of an out-and-out front-facing combat situation. OK, maybe marines are trained a bit more infiltratively, but still as part of a forward assault.

What arm of the military is trained in policing? In community relations? In humanitarian assistance? In reconstruction?

More to the point, which military branch has the expertise in not shooting children and families? In not raping and exploiting convicts? In not blowing up historic structures? In not letting ancient treasures get stolen under their noses? In finding a single shred of any nuclear, chemical, or biological programs less than ten years old and not letting any such evidence theoretically drive right out of the country?

The military has been trained since… well, forever, in doing little more than blowing shit up and shooting the fuck out of things. And that’s war, right? Destroy defenses and infrastructure to bring about some form of political change. Fine. Okay. If that’s all you want, then don’t pretend that you give a shit about anything else.

The problem is that now we have these grizzled warriors doing things like policing communities, searches, investigations, trying to get services restored, etc. And despite the number of perfectly good engineers among the military ranks whose task it really is to do this, there’s lots of other troops around them whose core skill set is ultimately to break shit, or to support the effective breaking of shit.
So Abu Ghraib and now Haditha (and Bagram, My Lai, No Gun Ri, and frankly, any other similar incident by any other military [in Darfur, Kosovo, Rwanda, Nanking, the Crusades, etc.]) should surprise absolutely no one, except those who are misled to believe that soldiers (etc.) are trained to be honorable and moral, or somehow gain honor and morality through their experience in killing people and blowing shit up. (I suppose in all fairness that these are even odds. You either come back from such experience with a newfound sense of responsibility and respect for life and property… or you come back wanting more people to kill and more shit to blow up. See conquistador.)

Now, real troops do get some limited exposure to softer skills than fucking shit up. Career troops may get some training in such novel things as learning the local language and culture, sensitivity to civilians, etc. But the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have been repeatedly dipping into the pool of reservists, many of whom never really expected to be shipped off anywhere except maybe once when things are really bad. And some reservists have been over multiple times. So the question is, if career troops get community-facing soft skill training as an afterthought, what sort of training do reservists get on their one weekend a month? Answer: Reservists go back one weekend (2 days) each month (30 days) to make sure they still know how to shoot things, blow shit up, or assist in blowing shit up, in case they are ever sent to an entrenched guerilla war where they may have to do any of it. Aside from specialties (policing, building bridges, flying chinooks, that sort of thing), that’s the main thing.

What sucks even more is that reservists only get called in when things are really bad. They’re the least trained of any troops, yet they’re brought in only when help is badly needed. One might argue that reservists ought to be called in when things aren’t really bad; say, to take the load off the regular troops who are going to have to bear the brunt of what’s coming, or so they can be redeployed somewhere where things are bad.

Things are messy in war, apologists say. Well, maybe things are a lot more messy in a messy war, that is barely even a war, and isn’t even officialy so. I suppose the more tenuous a war is, the more messy it will be. And the US government and military certainly have made it as messy as possible, and it will just be a big mess to clean up (or not clean up) for a long time. One can only hope that someone will figure out that you don’t send in a demolition team to do a custodial job.