News from Afghanistan–that little-noticed disaster

An AP article (via Firedoglake.com) reports some, well, pretty messed stuff about the shooting death of former NFL star in the Afghan backcountry.  It turns out fragging may be the cause:

‘Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman’s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player’s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

“The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described,” a doctor who examined Tillman’s body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

The doctors – whose names were blacked out – said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.’

It appears that they’re fighting themselves over there so they don’t have to fight each other over here.

The Taliban were nowhere to be found.  No enemy bullets were found anywhere near.

Iraq and Afganistan are both going terribly, and have been for a while.  Time to withdraw from both and leave all this pointless killing behind.

Is Bob Kerrey as fake a Democrat as Joe Lieberman?

Think Progress sends a well-deserved rebuke to Bob Kerrey (while not even mentioning the shameful spectacle Kerrey made of himself during 9/11 Commission hearings by justifying and affirming the Iraq invasion to Condi Rice):

‘In calling for regime change, Kerrey displayed an inability to comprehend the predictable chaos that would ensue. The intelligence community warned the Bush administration in January 2003 that regime change “would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict.”

In December 2003, an undeterred Kerrey claimed that he had been vindicated and Iraq war critics would ultimately be proven wrong. “Twenty years from now, we’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who says it wasn’t worth the effort,” he wrote.

Today, Bob Kerrey (D-NE), unrepentant over his failed Iraq war predictions, returns to the Wall Street Journal op-ed page to blast “American liberals.” In making his argument that democracy can indeed be imposed by military force (apparently by overlooking the Iraq war), Kerrey writes:

American liberals need to face these truths … [A] unilateral withdrawal from Iraq would hand Osama bin Laden a substantial psychological victory.

Perhaps he should have thought about that before advocating regime change as “the only way” to “safely reduce our military commitment to the region.” By staying in Iraq as an occupying force, the U.S. is helping inflame the terrorist movement. But Bob Kerrey has never understood that from the beginning, so why would he understand that now?’