Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 104

11 Years Ago: Warnings, As U.S. Was About to Take Baghdad

Looking through article in the NYT eleven years ago today one is struck by how many were already noting that we were not being greeted as liberators and tough times were ahead, though none recognized the true scope of the problem (and the crime of the invasion to start with).  "Chaos" and "looting" were also beginning, amid false U.S. reports that "barrels" of chemical agents had been found, a possible "smoking gun," as one official put it.

Thomas Friedman, later rightly mocked for his prediction, over and over, for years, that things would be turning around there within six months, was pretty clear-eyed in a column titled 'Hold Your Applause," that closed with:

America broke Iraq; now America owns Iraq, and it owns the primary responsibility for normalizing it. If the water doesn't flow, if the food doesn't arrive, if the rains don't come and if the sun doesn't shine, it's now America's fault. We'd better get used to it, we'd better make things right, we'd better do it soon, and we'd better get all the help we can get.

Greg Mitchell's new book on Iraq and media malpractice is "So Wrong for So Long."   

Feelin' Haggard

For his 77th birthday, Hag recalls when the bottle let him down, then great song by his friend Iris Dement. And link here for Hag in his prime doing his great "Sing Me Back Home" (a Gram Parsons favorite)--as good as it gets.

Seymour, an Introduction (To Syria and Sarin)

Mr. Hersh with a piece at the London Review of Books and as usual a bit different than the usual media take on this subject.   Also, the Joints Chief supposedly "knew" it was a "bullshit" claim that only the Assad forces had sarin.

The former intelligence official said that many in the US national security establishment had long been troubled by the president’s red line: ‘The joint chiefs asked the White House, “What does red line mean? How does that translate into military orders? Troops on the ground? Massive strike? Limited strike?” They tasked military intelligence to study how we could carry out the threat. They learned nothing more about the president’s reasoning.’

In the aftermath of the 21 August attack Obama ordered the Pentagon to draw up targets for bombing. Early in the process, the former intelligence official said, ‘the White House rejected 35 target sets provided by the joint chiefs of staff as being insufficiently “painful” to the Assad regime.’ The original targets included only military sites and nothing by way of civilian infrastructure. Under White House pressure, the US attack plan evolved into ‘a monster strike’: two wings of B-52 bombers were shifted to airbases close to Syria, and navy submarines and ships equipped with Tomahawk missiles were deployed. ‘Every day the target list was getting longer,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘The Pentagon planners said we can’t use only Tomahawks to strike at Syria’s missile sites because their warheads are buried too far below ground, so the two B-52 air wings with two-thousand pound bombs were assigned to the mission. Then we’ll need standby search-and-rescue teams to recover downed pilots and drones for target selection. It became huge.’ The new target list was meant to ‘completely eradicate any military capabilities Assad had’, the former intelligence official said. The core targets included electric power grids, oil and gas depots, all known logistic and weapons depots, all known command and control facilities, and all known military and intelligence buildings.

By the Time We Got to Woodstock...

We were feelin' pretty strong...for screening of our film Following the Ninth tonight.  Great turnout and questions from audience, and the theater staff, this being Woodstock, all played instruments and volunteered to have a go at the "Ode to Joy," which they did well, with many in audience joining in to sing Billy Bragg's new lyrics (featured in the film).   You'll see them in photo down below after we pay tribute to the main road to town--now named after Levon Helm--and my latest visit to Big Pink and its famous basement, one of the most hallowed locales in rock 'n roll history and....still pink. (Very isolated place, by the way, and down rocky dirt road.)  At bottom, bonus: rare angle view of Big Pink.  Extra bonus: entire Music from Big Pink , which merely changed the direction of Americana music.  Thanks to Becca and the gang.

When It Was Time for His Bootheels To Be a Wanderin'

One of the great obsessive Dylan things I've seen lately--based on a famous contact sheet of pictures taken by Jim Marshall (who I knew a bit from Crawdaddy days) as Bob walked around the Village, right near two places where I lived, with Dave Van Ronk and girlfriend Suze in 1963.   It's impossible to describe so just take a look.  Bob finally made it to a cafe, and played with cat.

Before You Got Sick of It

Leonard Cohen, live 1988, before the flood...of other versions.  Backup singer Perla just posted on Facebook recalling how they ate squid and drank red wine afterward.

Friday Night Music Pick

This Image Missing in Dubya Portfolio

As the media continue to fawn over George W. Bush's crappy paintings, no one seems to ask where's  his portrait of this too typical Iraqi child after his invasion. 

A Colbert Report on Letterman Succession

UPDATE:  NYT adds credence to Colbert leading field.  Who would have thought Stephen had timed his Comedy Central contracts to Letterman's?

Earlier:

Mashable claims Stephen is CBS's top choice to succeed Dave (forget the lobbying for a woman) and that Colbert is "into it."  But no confirmation of any sort so don't bank on it. "Colbert's contract to host The Colbert Report on Comedy Central runs through the end of 2014, which would free him up in time to move over to CBS when Letterman ends his 33-year run in late-night TV. Letterman left the exact date of his departure vague while announcing his retirement plans on Thursday."

Well, it would make some sense as Stephen surely is ready to move on from his aging faux Fox blowhard persona, which caused him a bit of trouble in the past week or so.

Hamm and Cheese

Mother Jones unearthed this brief video of Jon Hamm, 25, merely a "waiter" pre-Draper, on a TV dating show, being impossibly lame and "fabulously" goofy.  And unlike Don, he DOES NOT get the girl.