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Bill Kristol pretends the Republicans ever had any desire for bipartisanship and recites the tired old talking point that there was no outreach to Republicans on the stimulus bill, even though the bill included tax cuts put in to appease Republicans. And as our own Jon Perr noted this week, the Republicans have absolutely no desire for bipartisanship.

So what does Bill Kristol turn to as proof that the Republicans care about bipartisanship? They supported the troop surge in Afghanistan. What a great example Bill -- being willing to send more troops for cannon fodder. I guess Bill forgot about their recent stunt where they were willing to delay defense spending to hold up the health care bill.

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This Week with George Stephanopoulos marks the passings of Roy E. Disney, Iranian Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, evangelist Oral Roberts and actress/art patron Jennifer Jones. In addition, the Pentagon released the names of three servicemembers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Army PFC Jaiciae L Pauley, 29, of Austell, GA
Army PVT Jhanner A Tello, 29, of Los Angeles, CA
Air Force TSgt Anthony C Campbell Jr, 35, of Florence, KY

According to iCasualties, the total number of allied servicemembers killed in Iraq is 4,689; in Afghanistan, 1,545. Iraq Body Count lists 168 Iraqi civilians killed during this same period, including 127 killed by car bombs in Baghdad in a single day. And as long as we're listing war casualties, Yemen rebels say that US air raids are responsible for 120 killed in their country, apparently in an effort to target Al Qaeda.

Pic of the week via Towleroad, h/t Rev. Phat:

[British] Trooper Ben Rakestrow is speaking out about his time in the British Army and his service in Afghanistan, where he came out to his fellow soldiers... 'They couldn't believe it.' But Trooper Rakestrow, from Exeter, said it was the best decision of his life, adding that he was accepted and treated as an equal. He said: 'I get banter from them all the time, but it's good banter. They all want to know about my life, they ask a lot of questions. I don't find it hard to talk about it.'

You've gotta be really comfortable to be out and proud in the barracks with a Zac Efron quilt!

I really think we underestimate the generosity and humanity of ALL our military when we think they won't accept a fellow soldier for who he or she is. Ben Rakestrow is living, serving proof of that.

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December 16, 2009 ABC NIGHTLINE

GIBSON: I've always been fascinated by this question of -- of what it takes and what you have to go through internally to send kids off, as you said a few moments -- when you were in the Nobel speech, you said some will kill and some will be killed.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: It's an enormous responsibility. And before Gulf War I, I went to Kuwait, and I talked to the commanders, Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and I asked them, what does it feel like to commit kids to war? And they all said, "We don't. The president does. It's his job. We just carry out his order."

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: And I thought, "Holy God, what a weight that is on your shoulders."

OBAMA: It is tough. And, you know, probably the most powerful moment of my year was when I traveled up to Dover and not only met with the families who were there in the middle of the night waiting for their loved ones to come home in caskets, but walking up the ramp of the transport plane by myself and seeing those caskets, it's -- it's -- it's indescribable, and it reminds you of the extraordinary courage and sacrifice that these young men and women are willing to make, but it also reminds you that you have the solemn obligation to make the best possible decision that you can make and that there is an element of tragedy involved in war that is inevitable, and that was the topic of what I spoke about last week. And if you don't understand that, if you think that this is all chest-beating and glory, then you're probably not making the best decision as possible.

GIBSON: As you went through that assessment in recent weeks, is there a calculus in your mind? Do you have to go through it? What is this worth in terms of human life?

OBAMA: Yes.

GIBSON: Is this goal worth 500 lives, 1,000 lives, 1,500 lives? Does that go through your head?

OBAMA: I don't think that you make a decision trying to weigh the value of 1 or 10 or 100 lives, because every life is precious. I think you make decisions based on an assessment of America's national security, the potential for additional lives, thousands of lives potentially being lost if we're not making the right decisions that preserve that national security.

What you want to make sure of is that, in these decisions, you are not making them based on abstractions, notions of, you know, of a battalion here or a battalion there, a brigade here, a brigade there, without understanding that in each of those battalions, in each of those brigades, there are young men and women with their lives ahead of them who you are committing.

And so that is a constant ballast, I think, to making the best possible decisions. But, look, part of the decision I have to make is also what is the absolute best way for us to prevent another 9/11 from happening. What is you know, how do we make sure that we're not in a situation in which a major American city is threatened?

So all these things go into the calculus. In the end, the best you can do is make sure that you've heard every opinion, that you have evaluated and analyzed every aspect of your decision, that you have clarity about what your choices are, understanding that the choices that you have are very rarely the ideal choice versus a terrible choice, but rather a range of choices, all of which have problems with them. From ABC News

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December 14, 2009 CNN

BROWN: Tonight, we begin our special series "Band of Sisters," focusing on women at war and the challenges they face on and off the battlefield.

One in 10 American troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are women. And thousands of them are falling victim to an injury with all the power of a bullet or a roadside bomb, an injury that's long haunted men in combat, post-traumatic stress disorder.

In a few moments, we will talk about some of the reasons women may have it tougher than men when it comes to PTSD. But, first, I want you to meet some of the moms, wives and daughters who have faced the emotional and psychological anguish.

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This Week with George Stephanopoulos marks the passings of Metropolitan Museum of Art Director Thomas Hoving, Reagan envoy William A. Wilson and actor Gene Barry. In addition, the Pentagon released the names of four servicemembers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Army SGT Elijah J Rao, 26, of Lake Oswego, OR
Marine Cpl Xhacob Latorre, 21, of Waterbury, CT
Army SSG Dennis J Hansen, 31, of Panama City, FL
Marine Sgt Ralph Anthony Webb Frietas, 23, of Detroit, MI

This brings the total number of allied servicepeople killed in Iraq to 4,689; in Afghanistan, 1,538. During this same period, Iraq Body Count lists 191 Iraqi civilians killed, which includes 127 people killed and 519 wounded by car bombs in Fallujah on a single day.

Schoolhouse Rock - Three is a Magic Number

Okay, maybe not three, but would you believe that when it comes to Afghanistan, 30 is the magic number? As Moon of Alabama notes, each time a battle in Afghanistan is described, the losses are always around 30. Megan Carpentier of Air America suggests that it may be that the Pentagon's cold calculus is that 30 civilian deaths is the maximum we Americans will tolerate without questioning the wisdom of the battles:

In other words, the Pentagon determined that 30 casualties, even if they were civilian, were too few to matter politically or to attract the attention of the press for more than a few words. If commanders expected more civilian casualties than that, political leaders had to sign off on the attack in advance to make sure they were prepared for the PR fall-out.

That PR calculus of how many deaths matter to the average American has apparently carried over from the Bush Administration to the Obama Adminstration, at least insofar as ground commanders are concerned. But the American people deserve the truth about how many Afghans--civilian and otherwise--are being killed by our forces. Just because senior officials at the Pentagon think that killing 30 people doesn't warrant their attention doesn't mean they're right.

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Jeremy Scahill joined Ed Schultz to discuss the recent column in the New York Times--Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret C.I.A. Raids:

WASHINGTON — Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.

Several former Blackwater guards said that their involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred. Instead of simply providing security for C.I.A. officers, they say, Blackwater personnel at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.

Continue reading...

Schultz asked Scahill if we had any idea of what kind of resources Blackwater had committed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Scahill: Ed, this company was a plausible deniability machine. Erik Prince the owner of that company built a parallel infrastructure to the U.S. military. He had an air force with his own aircraft. He had a maritime division. He had Blackwater Select which was providing special operations guys. They were guarding and still do guard U.S. diplomats and ambassadors, including the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan right now.

Ed I also understand that Blackwater, because it’s owned by such an incredibly wealthy individual did some operations for free. That’s the ultimate deniability under the Bush administration. There were arrangements with Cheney, the C.I.A. and Special Forces where Blackwater’s guys were essentially working for free in operations funded by the owner of that company Erik Prince.

The story here though Ed that everyone seems to be missing is that Blackwater wasn’t just working for the C.I.A. They were working for the Joint Special Operations Command—the U.S. military and we talked about this on your show recently, including in Pakistan where Blackwater simultaneously worked for the C.I.A. and for JSOC. That story is a scandal that needs to be investigated much more thoroughly Ed.

Schultz: Is this relationship between Blackwater and the C.I.A. and the use of Blackwater still in existence under the Obama administration.

Scahill: It certainly is. In fact news breaking as I came on tonight that Leon Panetta the C.I.A. Director is trying to cancel Blackwater’s participation in the C.I.A. drone bombing campaign which has put its operatives on the ground not only in Pakistan but in Afghanistan as well. And so my understanding from both within Blackwater and from outside is that Blackwater remains very active with both U.S. Special Forces and the C.I.A.

Scahill tweeted this before going on Ed's show: #Blackwater is leaking the CIA ops for a reason. It also distracts from ongoing ops that are not CIA.

He also noted that ABC News confirmed his report tonight-Mercenaries? CIA Says Expanded Role for Contractors Legitimate.

You can find more from Scahill at his blog Rebel Reports.

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December 10, 2009 C-SPAN

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich plans to force a House of Representatives vote early next year on whether to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Cleveland Democrat announced Wednesday that he has begun circulating a letter to colleagues that asks if they'd be willing to co-sponsor his two resolutions to "trigger a timeline for a timely withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Pakistan." Read more at Cleveland Dot Com

Among the qualities that uniquely define Sarah Palin is that she doesn't know what she doesn't know. But as her confusion about climate change, the First Amendment and even Alaska's energy production showed, Palin's ignorance of a subject is no barrier to her speaking out with great conviction about it. So it is once again with talk of potential tax increases to fund the escalating war in Afghanistan. War time taxes are never necessary, Sarah Palin seemed to suggest this week, because during World War II "many Americans gave what little money they had to buy the war bonds that funded it all."

As Andrew Sullivan noted here and here, the Quittah from Wasilla used this week's anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to invent a new myth about how the United States mobilized and paid for the war which followed it. Palin wrote this December 7:

The attack on Pearl Harbor launched America into the Second World War, and our Greatest Generation did not hesitate when asked to sacrifice for their country. American men enlisted in droves, American women went to work in the factories that became our "Arsenal of Democracy," and many Americans gave what little money they had to buy the war bonds that funded it all.

Of course, in reality Americans funded the war through massive debt and massive tax increases (above).

As NPR recalled in August, Americans starting in 1942 began paying dramatically higher taxes, with the richest paying the most of all:

During World War II, tax rates for the wealthy soared as high as 94 percent. But poor and middle-class families also paid taxes at rates substantially higher than today's. Despite those high taxes, the vast majority of Americans surveyed by Gallup back then said the taxes they paid were fair.

Just two weeks ago, former Reagan Treasury Department economist Bruce Bartlett quantified those war time taxes and how that vast new burden was shared across the Greatest Generation:

During World War II, federal revenues roughly tripled as a share of the gross domestic product (GDP) and the number of people paying income taxes expanded tenfold, from 3% of the population in 1939 to 30% by 1943. In 1940, a family of four needed close to $80,000 of income in today's dollars before it paid any federal income taxes at all. By the war's end, it saw its effective tax rate rise from 1.5% to 15.1%. (Today such a family only pays a federal income tax rate of about 6%.) But taxes weren't the only way the war was paid for. Spending on nondefense programs was cut almost in half, from 8.1% of GDP in 1940 to 4.4% in 1945.

Continue reading »

Work has been a little heavier than usual, perhaps as government agencies try to complete their projects before the Christmas holiday incapacitates Washington DC. So I'm glad that Spencer Ackerman is on the job, watching the congressional hearings on Afghanistan.

But both McChrystal and Eikenberry replied that the administration was ultimately providing a long-term commitment to Afghanistan, even if the U.S.-led combat phase would diminish over time. McChrystal said setting the date for beginning a “conditions-based” transition would help navigate Afghans’ complex feelings about the presence of foreign troops on their soil. “The guarantee that we, the coalition, will support them but not stay too long is actually a positive,” McChrystal testified. Eikenberry emphasized that the Obama administration envisioned a “long-term relationship with Afghanistan, a diplomatic relationship, a long-term economic assistance relationship” after the ultimate departure of U.S. troops.

The general said he expressed such confidence in his strategy because the Taliban was “not credible as a political entity,” earning acquiescence from Afghans only through the lack of a credible alternative from the Afghan government and its NATO allies. As the U.S. flows forces into southern and eastern Afghanistan to establish “contiguous security” for the population, “the next 18 months will likely be decisive,” McChrystal said. “Rolling back the Taliban is a prerequisite to the ultimate defeat of al-Qaeda.”
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In an attempt to quash media speculation about a chilly relationship between Eikenberry and McChrystal, the two men made a show of their professional partnership. Eikenberry saw his internal doubts about a U.S. troop increase leak to the media last month. But ambassador said that he firmly supported the administration’s strategy and was “exactly aligned with Gen. McChrystal.” The general returned the compliment by gesturing to Eikenberry and saying, “The person I listen to most is about three feet on my right.”

Ahhhhhh... harmony. Isn't it swell? Now if only the Republican politicians at the hearing would act as responsibly as those two, we might just get somewhere. But lost in this discussion, in the hearings and, who knows, perhaps even in the White House, is the damning fact that no number of additional troops in Afghanistan will fix the non-military factors that remain outstanding. Oh, yeah, and this guy is still running around free and easy after eight-plus years...

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Markos Moulitsas joined Keith Olbermann to discuss the President's decision to escalate troops in Afghanistan and the political implications if he does not start to withdraw troops before 2011. Keith asked Kos for his reaction on the latest news that the Senate has finally come to a tentative agreement on the health care bill and the AP report that the public option is out, the Medicare buy-in is in and the bill is being scored by the CBO.

Moulitsas: I think I would have to see the details to really have a full understanding of what's going on but I've been under the assumption for a while that the Senate is the non-functioning governmental body. It cannot do its job which is to reform and improve the lives of Americans.

It is broken and it's completely bought and paid for by the insurance companies and I think it's indicative that we just found out today that the insurance companies are claiming victory on this battle --supposedly not over -- they're already claiming victory because they're going to have a mandate forcing people to buy their crappy products with few restrictions on their ability to do the sort of business practices, the unethical business practices that have created this problem in the first place.

Olbermann: Any hope in that Medicare buy-in?

Moulitsas: Well the initial reports are that it's what, 50, 55?

Olbermann: 55.

Moulitsas: Yeah, 55. It doesn't do anybody under 55 any good and in fact what it seems to do is it takes away some of the most expensive potential customers from the insurance companies, the older, and gives them, basically off to the government. So we need something that applies to all Americans, not just the elderly.

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December 09, 2009 NBC Jimmy Fallon Show

Would more people pay attention to Afghanistan if we drafted Tiger Woods? Click here for larger image.

Open Thread below...

SHORTER Fred Hiatt:

"There is no difference between GW Bush's Iraq surge in 2007 and Barack Obama's Afghan surge in 2010. Only silly Democrats could object to one but support the other."

Actually, Fred, there's a big difference between the two. The Bush administration and its supporters saw (continue to see?) Teh Surge 1.0 as essential to "winning" in Iraq, while most left-of-center military analysts saw it as a measure to protecting US troops but not really the central or sole contributer to stabilizing the country. With Teh Surge 2.0, once again, it isn't that this troop increase will allow the US government to "win" but it might be (again) one measure among many needed to stabilize Afghanistan. (no, Karl, it isn't to "fight terrorists." ).

But nuanced arguments about the reality of military operations aren't what Fred's all about. He'd rather continue his man-crush on GW and dream about the "success" that Iraq has become. And when the RNC supports the Afghan surge, you can be sure that it's more because they are still defending Teh Surge 1.0 of Iraq and not really thinking about how to finish operations in Afghanistan after Teh Surge 2.0.