Yeah, this pretty much smacks of the total disrespect that the 1600 Crew has for the men and women of the Armed Forces. A real leader would take umbrage at the thought of this happening. Not our Boy King. He's the Commander Guy after all.

So the brass at every level from the Pentagram on down should be ashamed that this even happened.

So many Fort Lewis soldiers are being killed in Iraq the Army base will no longer hold individual memorial services.

Starting next month Fort Lewis says it will hold one memorial a month for all the dead soldiers.

And if they have some limp-dick excuse about being "too hard" well fuck them. I don't think it was particularly easy to face a trip to Iraq, and come home wearing a "transfer tube" instead of a uniform.

Support our Troops, except well, when they're dead and can't be speak for themselves. The 1600 Crew way.

It's getting worse and worse in BushAmerica, aka Fascist Land. A Marine who used his Constitutional Rights to speak out and essentially petition his government for redress of his greivances (i.e. Mess O'Potamia) is being persecuted in the form of a petty prosecution solely to be made an example of.

An Iraq war veteran could lose his honorable discharge status after being photographed wearing fatigues at an anti-war protest.

Marine Cpl. Adam Kokesh and other veterans marked the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq in March by wearing their uniforms - with military insignia removed - and roaming around the nation's capital on a mock patrol.

After Kokesh was identified in a photo cutline in The Washington Post, a superior officer sent him a letter saying he might have violated a rule prohibiting troops from wearing uniforms without authorization.

Kokesh, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, responded with an obscenity.

Now, a military panel has been scheduled to meet with Kokesh on Monday to decide whether his discharge status should be changed from "honorable" to "other than honorable."

"This is clearly a case of selective prosecution and intimidation of veterans who speak out against the war," Kokesh said. "To suggest that while as a veteran you don't have freedom of speech is absurd."
...
Kokesh argues that he was not representing the military at the protest in Washington, and he made that clear by removing his name tag and other military insignia from his uniform.

Lebowitz said Kokesh technically is a civilian unless recalled to active duty and had the right to be disrespectful in his response to the officer. He called the proceedings against Kokesh highly unusual and said the military usually seeks to change a veteran's discharge status only if a crime has been committed.

If his discharge status is changed, Kokesh said he could lose some health benefits and be forced to repay about $10,800 he received to obtain his undergraduate degree on the GI Bill.

I suspect that the shit would summarily hit the fan then. Big time.

Yet another example of how the 1600 Crew "supports our troops" (oh, and our freedoms).

Interestingly, he might have found an unique way to avoid a return trip to the sandbox...

He was supposed to go to Iraq a second time, but was demoted from sergeant to corporal and not allowed to return after it was learned that he brought a pistol back after his first tour in 2004.

I guess if you brought home an RPG you'd probably not be allowed to go back either, and I'm sure the NRA would fight to the death for your right to keep it.

We still have, unfortunately, new reasons to commemorate the fallen because they are still, well, dying.

Thanks a lot you two draft-dodging sons-of-bitches and your enablers. None of the men and women killed will have a chance to grow old and filthy rich like Five-deferment Dick or become President. Instead they get to die in some shit-hole country caught in a millenia-old civil war that will certainly not be ended this year or next or even a decade or more from now.

And to think, they have you two to thank for that.

The "contractors" in Iraq were born out of the Rumsfeldian/Norquistian drive to privatize the military and just about every other aspect of the Federal government. After all, "security contractors" who were in country could not be counted as troops, fill jobs (up to and including, no shit, MEDEVAC) that were normally done by organic assets of a fighting force (supply, medicine, REMF functionality). Contracts (and contractors) meant rewarding political supporters, as well as keeping the heat off of the 1600 Crew for ramping up troop levels (well, until the surge).

The Contractors in Iraq started as an unstructured, unaccountable force that just sort of appeared in response to what Rumsfeld seemed to want as a step in his "force transformation" strategery. They filled a need that he created for a quasi-soldier, but with no accountability to anyone but their mercenary bosses sitting back in the US or whereever. Until Fallujah, the contractors were pretty low key as far as everyone was concerned. More attention was paid to the no-bid contracts that CheneyBurton/KBR received for providing, than what was going on the streets of Baghdad with the armed security "contractors". Then came Fallujah, and the response by Mr. "I listen to my Commanders in the Field", who pretty much told Bunnypants that going into Fallujah on a Revenge Mission was a bad idea, with a capital "B".

So now, four-plus years into Mess O'Potamia we find ourselves (and I think it's really us saddled with the consequences of the actions of the "contractors". We've moved beyond Kos' "Fuck the Mercenaries" moment to a point where some examination of these extra-national (for want of a better word) contractors operate, and whether or not we want them representing our country within Iraq (and anywhere else they operate on our behalf).

Employees of Blackwater USA, a private security firm under contract to the State Department, opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days last week, and one of the incidents provoked a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

A Blackwater guard shot and killed an Iraqi driver Thursday near the Interior Ministry, according to three U.S. officials and one Iraqi official who were briefed on the incident but spoke on condition of anonymity because of a pending investigation. On Wednesday, a Blackwater-protected convoy was ambushed in downtown Baghdad, triggering a furious battle in which the security contractors, U.S. and Iraqi troops and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were firing in a congested area.

Blackwater USA was co-founded by former Navy Seal Erik Prince, a "billionaire right-wing fundamentalist Christian from a powerful Michigan Republican family. A major Republican campaign contributor, he interned in the White House of President George H.W. Bush and campaigned for Pat Buchanan in 1992. He founded the mercenary firm Blackwater USA in 1997 with Gary Jackson, another former Navy SEAL."
...
Erik Prince, Blackwater's founder, is a former SEAL who is deeply involved in Republican Party politics. Since 1998, he has funneled roughly $200,000 to GOP committees and candidates, including President Bush. In 2004, Blackwater retained the Alexander Strategy Group, the PR and lobbying firm that closed down earlier this year due to its embarrassing ties to Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay. (Paul Behrends, a former national security adviser to Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, handled the account for Alexander. After the firm shut down, Behrends moved on to a firm called C&M Capitolink, and took the Blackwater account with him.)

The 37-year-old Prince is brother of Betsy DeVos, former chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, and brother-in-law of former GOP gubernatorial nominee Dick DeVos, R-Ada Township. Prince's Moyock, N.C.-based company has received at least $800 million in federal contracts over the past five years, according to government records.

Would I say that in the free market a Blackwater has no place? No. But as a shadow, and unaccountable instrument of foreign policy I'd say there is absolutely no place for a Blackwater when the mission of the State Department (with whom Blackwater has a 100-plus million dollar "security" contract in Iraq) to function without absolute and transparent accountability.

Perhaps a place for the spineless Democrats to start is by building some rules for the accountability of these contractors, and limiting what they can and can't do, and what resources they are allowed to use in the field. I don't see that my tax dollars are especially well-spent providing air support to a group of folks who have no accountability for the actions that might cause them to need said air support in the first place.

A service person getting stationed anywhere in the world is told that they are a "representative" of the US. I don't know why we allow contractors to go overseas on our dime without an understanding that they face both responsibility and accountability for their actions if not from the US government, then the government of the host country. I have to suspect that such an understanding would result in better if not more rational behavior.

1. The Disgrace
   
2. These Sick Bastards, These Sick Days
   
3. Memorial Day
   
4. Always been a bad idea, now it's worse