Month: July 2006

This weekend, I saw a TV ad from local car dealer Vic Alfonso advertising an H3 Hummer for $400 less than an Americanized Smart convertible.

DaimlerChrysler says that they’re going to start bringing the Smart into the US with base prices starting at $15,000, but not until 2008. You’ve gotta think that bold, innovative, forward thinking like that that comes from the Chrysler side of the company. Should be popular with the $5/gallon, irradiated gas then available from Iran.

I missed it, but Saturday was the 1,200th day of the conflict in Iraq. That led me to a quick calculation, and if I’m right, the day the Iraq war equals the length of US involvement in World War II (1,345 days from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day) falls on Thanksgiving.

If the Bush administration can’t even find out ahead of time whether the guy they nominated to head the Department of Homeland Security is a self-admitted crook with links to the mob, how can they claim to be able to find terrorists hiding in the shadows?

HENRY V: Where is the number of our English dead?
Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,
Sir Richard Kikely, Davy Gam, Esquire;
None else of name; and of all other men
But five and twenty. O God, thy arm was here!

— King Henry V, Act IV, Scene VIII, William Shakespeare

The story of how only 25 men died when the English defeated a much larger French force at Agincourt has always been one of the more preposterous historical notes in Shakespeare’s plays.

According to a June 15 Department of Defense press release, 452 operations were carried out in just over a week after the death of the late leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on 7 June. 143 of the operations (32%) were carried out solely by Iraqi forces. Another 255 operations (56%) were carried out by combined coalition and Iraqi forces (with the remaining 54 presumably handled by coalition forces alone). The operations are said to have “netted 759 anti-Iraq forces and killed 104 terrorists.” That’s just shy of two captures or kills per operation.

But in over 300 operations involving coalition forces against nearly 900 presumably dangerous adversaries, only one American soldier appears to have been killed.

Zarqawi, is said to have died in captivity after two 500lb. bombs had been dropped on a house where he was staying, an action that also reportedly killed a woman and a child as well as a couple of Zarqawi’s lieutenants. None of the reports I’ve seen mentioned any coalition casualties during the action against Zarqawi or in the mop-up when they inspected the site and recovered his body and papers that led to further operations against al-Qaeda in Iraq. In fact, despite the fact that ground units didn’t arrive for more than half an hour after the bombing, it was reported that they met little if any resistance.

This is the roster of casualties reported by the DOD between the day of Zarqawi’s death and that of the press release.

Date	Location	Service	Cause	Deaths
7 June	Ar Ramadi, Iraq	Army	combat operations, improvised explosive device (IED)	2
7 June	Mosul, Iraq	Army	dismounted combat operations, small arms fire	1
8 June	Buritz, Iraq	Army	combat operations, IED	1
8 June	Ar Ramadi, Iraq	Army	combat operations, indirect enemy fire in camp	2
8 June	Al Kut, Iraq	Army	combat operations, IED	1
8 June	Baghdad, Iraq	Army	combat operations, IED	1
9 June	Kirkuk, Iraq	Army	combat operations, IED	1
9 June	Ad Diwaniyah, Iraq	Army	combat operations, IED	1
9 June	Al Anbar Province, Iraq	Navy	combat operations, land mine	1
9 June	Al Anbar Province, Iraq	Marines	wounds received during combat operations	2
11 June	Ghanzi, Afghanistan	Army	combat operations, IED and small arms fire	1
12 June	Washington, D.C.	Army	non-combat related cause occurring June 5 in Kabul, Afghanistan	1
13 June	Korengel, Afghanistan	Army	small arms fire	1
14 June	Musa Qulah, Afghanistan	Army	combat operations, small arms fire	1
14 June	Al Anbar Province, Iraq	Marines	combat operations	1
15 June	Baghdad, Iraq	Army	combat operations, IED	1
15 June	Bagram, Afghanistan	Army	non-combat related cause, under investigation	1

That’s 20 dead. I’ve been scanning the releases for the last half of June for reports of any deaths in military hospitals from wounds received during that period and haven’t seen any.

Five of the reported deaths were in Afghanistan or the result of injuries there (in gray). Of the fifteen deaths in Iraq, two (8 June) were the result of a mortar attack on a coalition base. Eight of the Iraq deaths were from IEDs, where soldiers were in their vehicles (gold shading). The green-shaded Navy and Marine deaths on 9 June are the result of a single incident where a HMMWV hit a land mine.

Of the remaining two deaths, the 2,500th casualty in Iraq on 14 June was on a foot patrol.

Which — in my mind, anyway — raises some questions.

If the nearly nine hundred people the DOD press release claims were killed or captured were violent “anti-Iraqi forces” and “terrorists”, wouldn’t they have put up more of a fight? Obviously, they’re quite adept at placing explosive traps, but for dangerous killers they seem to just lie down and die or wait for the handcuffs to be put on once they’re found, if the numbers above are any indication. Perhaps the actions the coalition forces went on didn’t find any of the terrorists. Maybe the terrorists just never learned to post night watches and keep getting caught when they’re asleep. IF they’re not actually dangerous terrorists, then who’s getting killed? Something doesn’t add up.

Comment at Daily Kos

As you may remember, the New York Times and Washington pundits like David Broder spent the last week of May wondering — given their busy schedules and past personal problems — just how many times President Clinton and Senator Clinton do it. The Times article by Patrick Healy was said to be based on interviews with fifty Democrats concerned about the state of their relationship impacting on a potential Presidential run. Chris Matthews brought it up in an interview with DNC Chair Howard Dean, when he told Dean what party leaders are really worried about (i.e. not Iraq, the economy, etc.)

Well, I think we need look no further for one of Healy’s sources (only 49 to go).

In an article that does not mention the Clinton story whatsoever, Arianna Huffington writes about one potential Democratic hopeful’s attempt to portray himself as not so driven for the Presidency that he wouldn’t “rather be at home making love to my wife while the children are asleep”. She goes on to mention that the youngest of the children in question is 25, and that he has two sons in their 30s, but presumably the erstwhile campaigner is putting forth this information in order to show his dedication to his marriage. Huffington writes:

A … spokesman followed up by saying this shows that running for president “is not an egotistical pursuit” for … and that he is “totally in love with his wife.” [name deleted for dramatic effect]

I have my spokesmen tell that to strangers, as well.

So who, you ask, would make such a bizarre comment? What potential presidential candidate would be making a note of his matrimonial fidelity and virility, and might have the ear of people like Matthews and Broder enough to convince them that “Democrats” were concerned about the state of the Clinton marriage?

Did you guess Joe Biden? Smart you.

Comment at Daily Kos