The Bush Economic Record

I liked how Carpetbagger broke down the Bush Economic Record, as compared to the President's pronouncement at the CPAC Conference.

Here's an example:

* “[I]increased revenues from that growth have put us on track to a balance our budget by 2012.” First, we’re nowhere near “on track” to balance the budget by 2012; Bush’s own OMB projects deficits of over $400 billion in each of the next two years. Second, the increased-revenue argument sounds an awful lot like the ridiculous “tax fairy” nonsense Republicans are so fond of.

AF Academy hosts alleged former terrorists

Nice intersection of two of my favorite topics - the overabundance of religion in the military and the religious right's demonization of Islam. The 3 gents are now born again Christians who claim they were previously muslim terrorists.

Critics of the presentation include the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. This group, which is "suing the federal government to combat what it calls creeping evangelism in the armed forces, said it was typical of the Air Force Academy to invite born-again Christians to address cadets on terrorism rather than experts who could teach students about the Middle East."

Another critic quoted in the article, Douglas Howard, a professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., who teaches the history of the modern Middle East, says he heard one of the men speak last November at his college and reported, “It was just an old time gospel hour — ‘Jesus can change your life, he changed mine,’...mixed in with ‘Watch out America, wake up America, the danger of Islam is here.’ ”

U.S. Military loses Hamdan's records

Here's the link. And I should probably "conveniently" to that title. It's not usually the military behind these sorts of dirty tricks - or at least not JAGs. But I'm not optimistic that there's a simple or innocent explanation behind this. Any legal office involved in the equivalent of a court-martial that's been going on for 6 years (as Hamdan has) would have tracked down all records by now.

Still, the defense counsel does admit that, "All known records have been produced with the exception of the 2002 Gitmo records." So maybe it's more innocent that it looks at first glance.

Here's an interesting couple of lines from the article. The Justice Department is relying, for one of the charges against Hamdan, in part on the precedent of "an 1865 legal opinion from the U.S. Civil War era that authorized summary execution for 'banditti, jayhawkers' and others who join marauding bands." In response to that citation, "Hamdan's civilian lawyer, Joseph McMillan, said the law has since evolved and marauders may no longer be 'hunted down like wolves' and summarily executed." Unfortunately, I think the current occupants of the Justice Department tend to disagree with Mr. McMillan.

Don't say I never link to NRO

Here's the quote I like..."Forget the gaseous platitudes: in Dem terms, their choice on Super Duper Tuesday was deciding which candidate was Super Duper and which was merely Super. Over on the GOP side, it was a choice between Weak & Divisive or Weaker & Unacceptable. Doesn't bode well for November. "

Americans say leaving Iraq would help economy

Count me among the 48% of Americans who say a pullout [from Iraq] would help fix the country's economic problems "a great deal." An additional 20 percent say it would help at least somewhat.

Al-Qaida leader killed in Pakistan

http://news.lp.findlaw.com/ap_stories/i/1107/01-31-2008/20080131132047_044.html

Looks like this guy was a big deal in Afghanistan. He was taken out by "a missile hit [on] a compound about 2.5 miles outside Mir Ali in North Waziristan late Monday or early Tuesday."

U.S.-led coalition and NATO-led force in Afghanistan have not confirmed al-Libi's death or who was behind it.

Since he was taken out by a missile - not really much question who was behind it, though.

Musa Qala

Secretary Gates talks about the Taliban being routed from Afghanistan. Musa Qala is the area of Afghanistan that U.S. and Afghanistan forces concentrated on in the fall before the winter weather got too bad for sustained operations. I know from my vantage point at the Combined Air Operations Center at Al-Udeid that there was a heck of lot going on in Musa Qala. But I also know that Musa Qala is located in the south western part of the country, so it seems pretty unlikely that the operations there routed the Taliban from Afghanistan. From a purely geographic stand-point, it seems more likely that any Taliban that survived the operations in Musa Qala were more likely scattered within Afghanistan, rather than sent off to Pakistan or Iran.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/06/gates-taliban-no-longer-occupies-territory-in-afghanistan/