WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 /USNewswire/ — President George Bush this week rejected a Congressional effort to bar the United States military from controlling Iraq’s oil resources.

In the authorization bill, Mr. Bush challenged four sections. One forbid the money from being used “to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq”; another required negotiations for an agreement by which Iraq would share some of the costs of the American military operations there.

The Friends Committee on National Legislation, a 65-year-old Quaker lobby, has worked with Congress for three years to pass legislation that bars the United States from building permanent military bases in Iraq or exercising control of Iraq’s oil resources. “We are dismayed that the president would deny the Iraqi people and its government the basic sovereign right to control their own natural resources. President Bush apparently believes that as commander in chief he is entitled to seize Iraq’s oil fields and control Iraqi oil if he should deem it necessary to protect U.S. national security,” said Jim Fine, a lobbyist for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. “It’s hard to see any other logic behind his signing statement. He has, in effect, declared himself — and any future U.S. presidents who fail to repudiate his outlandish claims — emperors of Iraq.”

President Bush has signed the restriction against controlling Iraqi oil into law five times since 2006, but has issued 2 signing statements this year asserting that banning U.S. control over Iraqi oil would violate the constitutional powers of the executive. He argues that his administration is not legally bound to abide by those provisions.

For more on FCNL’s Middle East program, see http://www.fcnl.org/iraq.

The Friends Committee on National Legislation, the oldest registered religious lobby in Washington, is a nonpartisan Quaker lobby in the public interest. FCNL works with a nationwide network of tens of thousands of people from every state in the U.S. to advocate for social and economic justice, peace, and good government. For more information, visit http://www.fcnl.org/.

I know how it is. You’ve had it up to here. There are only so many stories about blood and death and pain you can take, only so many times you can hear about random shootings and corporate malfeasance and how BushCo’s squad of scabrous flying monkeys have, say, supported torture or endorsed wiretapping or gouged the nation for another $200 billion to pay for a failed war. Your nerves are raw and your heart is tired and the media will just not shut the hell up already about the sadness and the war and the mayhem and the Cheney and the doom doom doom.

It is outrage fatigue, and it is epidemic. It’s that feeling that we are being hammered unlike any time in recent history with so many appalling and disgusting and violently un-American incidents and scandals and manipulations that our b.s.-detectors are smoking like an old V-8 engine on a hot summer’s day and it’s all we can do to get up every day without screaming.

Mark Morford’s column for today is worth reading in its entirety.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — The head of Iraq’s main humanitarian group said an 18-year-old approached him with a baby suffering from leukemia. The desperate mother said she’d do "anything" for treatment for her child — and then offered herself up for sex.

Said Ismail Hakki breaks down in tears as he recalls that story. Leukemia can be treatable to a degree in much of the world, but not in Iraq. The baby died two months later.

"It shook me like hell," said Hakki, the president of the Iraqi Red Crescent. "All my life I’ve been a surgeon. I’ve seen blood; I’ve seen death. That never shook me — none whatsoever. But when I see the suffering of those people, that really shook me."
The plight of Iraq’s children is nearing epidemic proportions, he said, with mothers and fathers abandoning their children "because they’re becoming a liability." The parents don’t do it out of convenience, they do it out of desperation. Video Watch the plight of Iraq’s children »

"When you become so desperate, you tend to just throw everything up and go," Hakki said.

"Every time I look at those children, I ask myself first, ‘What crime have those children committed?’"

Hakki says Red Crescent has the monumental task of treating and feeding more than 1.6 million children under the age of 12 who have become homeless in their own country. That’s roughly 70 percent of the estimated 2.3 million Iraqis who are homeless inside Iraq.

Go read the rest at the link at the top.  I’d say something here but frankly, I’m speechless.

Here is how he opened the discussion, in its entirety and verbatim: 

In 2006, we lost 822 American soldiers in Iraq. In 2006, 406 Americans were murdered in the city of Phialadelphia alone… a city completely dominated by liberal politicians. There hasn’t been a Republican Mayor in Philly in 55 years.

The crime stats are undeniable… those of you voting for liberal are putting your lives at risk in America’s big cities.

Read the full story here theconservativepost.com/WordPress/index.php

Would love to hear from anyone who disagrees…

What follows is what I said there to end my participation in the thread.  It is also what I wish I had said in my first comment.

This question, its phrasing, and basic thesis says a lot more about the kind of person who would post it than about the issue under discussion. This is a question by someone for whom society, politics, and crime have lost all meaning and become a game of "gotcha". I’ll ignore the actual title of the post since it’s an obvious attempt to get people to click and read the actual discussion and it was very effective as the comment count (currently at 78) shows.

Look at the basic statement itself: "In 2006, we lost 822 American soldiers in Iraq. In 2006, 406 Americans were murdered in the city of Phialadelphia(sic) alone… a city completely dominated by liberal politicians. There hasn’t been a Republican Mayor in Philly in 55 years." The numbers are not in doubt. They are easily verifiable, but I find the way they are used to be extremely distasteful. Those 802 soldiers and the 406 murder victims were living, breathing human beings. To have their deaths reduced to a Bill O’Reilly style talking point is offensive. It is offensive to the memory of the dead, it’s offensive to surviving family members of the dead, and it should be offensive to society as a whole.

There is nothing wrong with pointing out the loss of life in Iraq and Philadelphia. There is something wrong with reducing those lives to a bumper sticker. The fact that it’s done using stats that were selected for their emotional impact instead of a true desire to make a comparison is exceptionally dishonest on the part of ConservativePost.

ConservativePost chose these numbers so I will work with them. During most of 2006, the U.S. troop presence ranged from 126,000 to 135,000. (source: www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2007/ss_iraq_09_09.asp October 10, 2007). Because there is a range, to be generous I will use the high end of the range, 135,000. In 2000, the last year for which US census data is available, the Population of the city of Philadelphia – the city alone, not the outlying suburbs, was 1,517,550. However, to be generous again, I will use Wikipedia’s estimate of 1,448,394 for the Philadelphia city population for 2006. It’s a little lower than the 2000 census, but I want to do give ConservativePost every possible benefit of the doubt in terms of the numbers and facts. I am also going to let his 822 figure stand for US troops killed in Iraq for 2006 despite the numbers reported elsewhere, in detail by month, being higher at 869. I hate to do this, since those extra 47 people were individuals whose deaths should be counted and remembered, but maybe ConservativePost has a reason to exclude those people, so I will follow his lead. (source: www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm Jan2006-Dec2006) There were also 6580 troops wounded in action during that time frame in case anyone wondered.

Percent of the population killed in Philadelphia in 2006, rounded to nearest thousandth of a percent is 0.028% The percent of US troops in Iraq in 2006 that were killed is 0.609%. Many statisticians recognize that when looking at numbers that are only a fraction of one it helps to use a common multiplier to make the numbers more easily understood by the reader. So, in order to understand these percentages which reflect the number of people killed per one-hundred possible victims, I am going to consider the percentages as ratios. Just to be clear, for all I know, some of those 822 US casualties

In Philadelphia, 0.028 out of every 100 citizens was murdered.
In Iraq, 0.609 out of every 100 troops died.

This means that for every 1000 possible murder victims, Philadelphia 0.28 people were killed.
In Iraq, for every 1000 troops, 6.09 were killed.

Taking it one step further, to get everything into whole numbers, we can see that for every ten thousand Philadelphians, 2.8 were killed. For every ten thousand US troops in Iraq in 2006, 60.9 were killed.

Despite the shock value of ConservativePost’s initial discussion point, I think it is evident that his numbers have no real meaning as a basis for comparing murder victims in a large American city and troops who sacrificed their lives in service to their country. Their use in this context was pointless and rather mean spirited.

If he has really displayed any level of intellectual honesty in his premise that voting Liberal can get you killed, he would have compared Philadelphia to someplace like Garden Grove, California that was ranked ranked the 17th most conservative city in the US (source: newsminute.com/Stories/studyranksmostconservativeandliberaluscities.htm August 11, 2005) In the results of that same study, Philadelphia ranks 17th most liberal US city.   That makes it the best apples to apples comparison I can find.

Garden Grove had 4 murders within its population of 165,196 in 206.  That makes the percentage of the population murdered as %0.002, or .002 murders per 100 citizens, or 0.02 per thousand, or 0.2 per ten thousand that year. That kind of comparison may have made sense and would have actually had more meaning than the numbers created by abusing the memory of dead US soldiers and marines.  It would have also done a nice job of highlighting his point about Conservative cities havng a lower murder rate.

It doesn’t matter if you are liberal or conservative or if in favor of troop quick withdraws or in favor of an extended US military presence in Iraq, when we talk about US military causalities in Iraq we are talking about the sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers who made the ultimate sacrifice in performing the duties they took on for themselves. They deserve far better than to be used as a talking point or a tool in "gotcha politics".

I may despise Bush and the direction he has taken this nation. I may wish we had never invaded Iraq. I may be one of the most liberal people you could ever meet, but I would not be caught dead abusing the memory of our fallen troops the way that ConservativePost has these last ten days.  If you believe talk radio and most of the Fox News folks, its supposed to be the liberals who do not support and respect the citizens in our military.  Getting bashed as being anti-military or not supportive of our troops because of both my liberal political views and my dislike and distrust of G.W.B Bush is especially painful knowing that people like ConservativePost can display those traits and get a pass from other conservatives.

Katie got off to a  great start and chewed through the early questions quickly and confidently.  She only used one of her three "cheats" as she answered question after question correctly.  Over the course of the one hour show she racked up an impressive $300,000 US dollars in prize money with the help of her precocious classmates.  With two cheats left, and one question remaining for the $500.000 prize she was asked which nation opposed England in the Hundred Years War of the 14th and 15th centuries.

As is the norm on the show, the contestant was encouraged to talk out her reasoning before committing to an answer.  She spoke for a couple of minutes before committing to Spain as her answer.  She was wrong.  England fought France in the Hundred Years War.  By answering incorrectly, she had to give back all but $25,000 of her prize money.

Keep in mind that this contestant is 18 now in 2007.  Four years ago, when she was at the tender and impressionable age of 14, Republican Bob Ney was using his committee chair to change the name of French Fries and French Toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast in the House of Representative eateries.  His action reflected the anti-French sentiment among some lawmakers who felt President Jacques Chirac is betraying the US by opposing its policy on disarming Iraq.   In 2006, Ney took time off from France-bashing to plead guilty to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States and to a charge of falsifying financial disclosure forms.

Talk of French cowardice and nasty name calling like "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" was rampant at the time.  The surrender monkey term originated with The Simpsons in the 1990′s before being picked up and used predominantly by Republican American politicians and publications, led by Jonah Goldberg’s online column for the National Review.  These sentiments obviously took their toll on this young lady’s intellectual development.  In her vocalized reasoning for selecting Spain, she disqualified France with "I know its not France because the French aren’t any good at war and couldn’t have kept up a war for a hundred  years." She obviously failed to recall or learn about Napoleon’s many successful endeavors or about French support for the US in our War for Independence.

Our politicians need to remember that the children of America occasionally look away from their IM clients and cell phones and listen to what they say.

Blackwater License Being Revoked in Iraq (From AP Report)

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight civilians were killed and 13 were wounded when contractors believed to be working for Blackwater USA opened fire in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad.

“We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities,”

Khalaf said. The spokesman said witness reports pointed to Blackwater involvement but said the shooting was still under investigation. It was not immediately clear if the measure against Blackwater was intended to be temporary or permanent.

Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., provides security for many U.S. civilian operations in the country. The secretive company, run by a former Navy SEAL, has an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq and at least $800 million in government contracts. It is one of the most high-profile security firms in Iraq, with its fleet of “Little Bird” helicopters and armed door gunners swarming Baghdad and beyond.

From Rod Liddle’s review:

Blackwater is a private company that does the dirty work for America in various wars, both covert and those we know about all too well. It began only 10 years ago as a sort of cheerful paintball and shooting range in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina, but these days it has some 20,000 mercenaries on its books (the “whores of war”), not to mention a whole bunch of quasi-military aircraft, a military base, lots and lots of guns and connections with precisely the right people.

I doubt this will change any US Government contracts, but I hope it may help shed some more light on the actions of private security contractors operating in Iraq.  When a private contractor kills an Iraqi civilian, it is the US soldiers who will bear the brunt of any retaliation.

This woman has lost almost everything because she tried to help the US after the invastion.  She worked to help the families of Iraqi civilians killed by coalition troops to receive compensation.  She currently lives in Damascus, Syria, but has applied to emigrate to the United States. 

Despite what she did for us, her application is on hold.

I know that General Patraeus and Ambassador Crocker testifying to the House and the Senate this week is big news.  I just really HATE the timing.  Bush and Co. used 9/11 to drum up support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.  Instead of focusing on the internal issues in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where most of the hijackers originated, they decided to invade one of the most secular nations in the middle east. 

I wish, on this one day each year, the news media would focus on what happened on 9/11, on who was involved in planning and executing the attacks, and on WHY the attackers were wling to die to harm the United States.  President Bush says it’s because they hate our freedoms.  He may be half right.  I don’t think it has anything to do with our freedoms (the ones that  were curtailed in the name of the War on Terror).  If they hate our freedoms, it is our belief that we are free to do whatever we want outside our borders.  Propping up a corrupt royal family in Saudi Arabia is not the way to win the hearts and minds of Muslims around the world.

Bin Laden makes a fairly valid point.  He is smart not to include threats against the US homeland like he has in earlier videos.  Sadly, but understandably, people still will react viscerally to the fact that it is him speaking and probably won’t take the time to actually look at that he is saying.

The point he makes that I, grudgingly,  have to agree with is that the USA has not been a shining example of democracy in action.  We really need to get our house in order before we try exporting democracy to any more countries.

This week, President George W. Bush stood up before the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and unspooled a whole lot of odd analogies to make the case that we need to stay in Iraq for… well, forever, I guess. I’ve not been in Iraq for more than a year but it’s still a central focus of my reporting here in the Middle East. So, this week, let’s step away from Lebanon — which is depressing anyway — and focus on Bush and his fantasies about Mesopotamia.

Because some days he makes it just too easy.