IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MCCAIN'S DISMAL RECORD ON IRAQ
The myth makers would have you believe that John McCain is a foreign policy expert, the kind of guy you want in charge during a foreign policy crisis. About the only real basis for that claim is that McCain served in the Vietnam war and was held by the North Vietnamese as a prisoner of war. It's a little like saying you've been in the hospital, so now you're qualified to do surgery. McCain has recently claimed that Bush's "surge" is working, but that we might be in Iraq for 100 years. This column by Walter C. Uhler is at www.walter-c-uhler.com:
In January 2003, the Arizona Senator with the supposedly impeccable national security credentials asserted: "I think the victory will be rapid, within about three weeks." In April, McCain claimed, "It's clear that the end is very much in sight." And in May 2003, a cheerleading McCain proclaimed, "the war in Iraq succeeded beyond the most optimistic expectations." That was almost five years ago!
In short, the Senator with the supposedly impeccable national security credentials has been wrong on Iraq since day one. Until recently, McCain said you should believe him when he claims the surge is working, but be prepared to stay in Iraq until America succeeds - whatever that means - even if we are there for a hundred years.
Recently, however -- apparently sensing that his "100 year thing" won't stand up against Obama's or Clinton's promise to get out of Iraq or impress the 60 percent of Americans who now believe the war was a mistake - the straight talker flip-flopped. Forget my words about "100 years." Instead: "My friends, the war will be over soon." I've been talking to my friend, Senator Lindsay Graham [another wrong-headed interventionist], who recently visited Baghdad. He says, "it's generally quiet" there.
ANOTHER KBR TAXPAYER RIP-OFF
Kellogg, Brown, and Root is the number one war contractor in Iraq. KBR has made a mint from a war that was never necessary or justified. They've been taking from United States taxpayers to fuel their profits. But that's not enough, evidently. They've also avoided paying United States taxes by creating phony offshore companies in the Cayman Islands. This story by Farah Stockman is at www.commondreams.org:
Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation’s top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven.
More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq - including about 10,500 Americans - are listed as employees of two companies that exist in a computer file on the fourth floor of a building on a palm-studded boulevard here in the Caribbean. Neither company has an office or phone number in the Cayman Islands.
The Defense Department has known since at least 2004 that KBR was avoiding taxes by declaring its American workers as employees of Cayman Islands shell companies, and officials said the move allowed KBR to perform the work more cheaply, saving Defense dollars.
