Man, this is a blistering rebuke of the leadership of the War in Iraq. Lt. Col. Paul Yingling slams these folks for everything from advising the Administration on what to expect to the execution of the war. His article is in Armed Forces Journal. As the Washington Post notes, “Yingling’s comments are especially striking because his unit’s performance in securing the northwestern Iraqi city of Tall Afar was cited by President Bush in a March 2006 speech and provided the model for the new security plan underway in Baghdad.” The man Bush praised just a year ago is about to be flayed by all sorts of Republican media pundits.

But this article is a bomb and it is going to shake some foundations in the military. Armed Forces Journal is likely read by every single officer in the US military. Its publisher also publishes Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Corps Times, as well as many widely read defense related periodicals. This article will likely be read by vast swathes of our enlisted men and women as well, and they will heed what Lt. Col. Yingling has to say. Oh, there will be the Bushies who will say Yingling is a traitor, or worse, but his is a stunning and learned discussion.

This is going to be big. It will be big for our military, and it will be big for our politics as well.

Today, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling is the man to listen to. While he says he will be taking over a battalion at Fort Hood in the near future, watch for this guy testifying on Capital Hill very soon.

In yet another demonstration that the Bush regime’s “Global War on Terror” is nothing but a jingoistic paper sham, Luis Posada Carriles was released on bail yesterday, and has been flown to his Miami home under “house monitoring”.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Posada Carriles saga (ASZ has been covering it since 2005), click here – but the short story is that Posada Carriles has been convicted of blowing up a Cuban airliner several years ago, killing 73 people, and has been involved in a lot of Latin American skullduggery over the years as a paid CIA operative. But note that he was only detained on immigration charges when he re-entered the U.S. two years ago:

Posada was freed from a New Mexico jail after he posted $250,000 bond and his family put up another $100,000. He must wear an electronic monitoring device while under house arrest at his wife’s home in Miami pending his May 11 trial on immigration fraud charges…

Yes, Luis Posada Carriles is a terrorist with quite an impressive resume. In fact, Cuba has referred to him as the “Osama bin-Laden of the Western hemisphere”. But since it’s Cuba making the accusations, Posada Carriles’ history is marginalized.

It’s already established that he had long and deep and dark Latin American connections to George H.W. Bush’s CIA, and in particular, John Negroponte. So, with today’s release of Posada Carriles, perhaps this is a demonstration that there is honor among theives, after all…and that the Bush regime feels that terrorism is OK – as long as the guy is our terrorist.

We have a terrorist in our midst who blew an airliner out of the sky, killing 73 people, and no one in the U.S. government (or America, in general, for that matter) seems to give a shit. He was released on bail because the Bush regime DOJ declined to bring terrorism charges against a convicted terrorist, allegedly out of fear that he’d be extradited and tortured.

Who’da thunk it?

Update: If you are new to the Posada Carriles saga, I’d absolutely recommend a diary on Daily Kos by Meteor Blades, Estoy muy contento…. I missed it earlier today as I was drafting this post, but it’s about as close to perfect as one can get in terms of expressing the outrage that I feel.

Updated update: I’m not a big fan of A.N.S.W.E.R., but they’ve put together a decent YouTube summary of Posada Carriles’ background that really humanizes the victims of his brand of terrorism.

6 minutes of “must see” streaming and steaming video. Definitely worth watching.

If you’re a blogmaster, and can help push this story further out into the mainstream, you’d have my undying gratitude. I think it’s that important, on a lot of levels.

ASZ has been following the tale of the Bush regime’s favorite terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, for a couple of years now – in fact, the story has followed us through at least two iterations of All Spin Zone. Just to recap, the convicted terrorist has been in U.S. custody, and the DOJ won’t extradite Posada Carriles to Venezuela, because they’re afraid this guy, who masterminded the downing of a Cuban airliner killing 73 people, might be tortured by the Chavez government.

This morning, it’s revealed that a judge has ruled Posada Carriles is to be released on $350,000 bail pending resolution of his case, and confined to his Miami home under “house monitoring”. Alberto Gonzales is apparently personally involved in the prosecution of the case against Posada Carriles, and is amenable to the his release.

Mary MacElveen has a tremendous breakdown of the case on her blog, and saves me spewing my outrage about this continuing travesty regarding the Bush regime’s favorite terrorist. Please, check out her post, and take the actions that she recommends, if you’re as outraged as I am…

The 2006 midterm elections saw a tidal change in Washington politics, the likes of which has probably never washed over the I-495 beltway. That’s not hyperbole, either. Even Gingrich’s 1994 Republican Revolution sweep of congressional elections was not of the order of magnitude as the 2006 elections. The reason I believe the political dynamic has shifted more dramatically is because at least Bill Clinton recognized the reality of having to work with the opposition, while George Bush seems trapped in 2003-style denial.

ABC News, and in particular Brian Ross, played a pivotal role in the shift. Ross was, of course, the ABC reporter who broke the Mark Foley scandal at almost the precise moment that the Rovian noise machine was set to crank up the volume prior to the election. I think we can say that, without a doubt, the timing of the Foley scandal was absolutely key to the Democratic Party retaking the Senate. The House probably would have shifted to the Democratic side anyway, but two close races in the Senate were decided in the last days.

The GOP’s response to the Foley scandal resulted in a public perception of a massive coverup, and ultimately, the loss of their Senate majority. So, it’s great to read that Ross and ABC News received a Peabody (the broadcast news equivalent of a Pulitzer) for their breaking of the Foley scandal. My take is that they won the award not because of the scandal itself, which was truly minor in Washingtonian terms, but because of how it revealed a dark underbelly of congressional leadership in both the House and Senate.

BTW, anyone heard from or about Foley recently? Perhaps he’s writing his story? It’s hard to believe that cyberstalking charges have never been brought against him.