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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NickSE who wrote (4807)	8/12/2003 11:10:20 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793618

What a great idea...diverting the bomb from a military target into the surrounding area where it can possibly kill and mame innocent civilians and cause collaterl damage...gg From reading the article, this is a standard, "chaff against radar" defense. It is designed to stop artillery shells, but methods to misdirect bombs are being worked on. Since the beginning of warfare, the battle has always been weapon/counterweapon.

To: NickSE who wrote (4807)	8/12/2003 11:45:02 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793618

The perfect Christmas Toy. :>) Coming to Reelection Campaigns and Toy Boxes Near You By Dana Milbank Tuesday, August 12, 2003; Page A11 Holy photo op, Batman! The president of the United States has become a military action figure. When President Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln three months ago in a naval flight suit, many commentators believed that the image of the vigorous president on the aircraft carrier would figure prominently in his reelection campaign. What the commentators did not predict is that Bush would become his own G.I. Joe doll. Coming soon to a store near you: a foot-tall likeness of the president called "Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush -- U.S. President and Naval Aviator." Blue Box Toys, a Hong Kong-based company, will be distributing the Bush dolls through KB Toys starting Sept. 15. "Exacting in detail and fully equipped with authentic gear, this limited-edition action figure is a meticulous 1:6 scale recreation of the Commander-in-Chief's appearance during his historic Aircraft Carrier landing," states the breathless promotion. For just $39.99, you get a plastic model of Bush wearing flight suit, survival vest and parachute harness, jauntily carrying helmet and oxygen mask -- just as Bush did on May 1 after climbing out of his S-3B Viking aircraft. The Bush doll joins many other Navy Seals, Blue Angels and World War II aviators in Blue Box's "Elite Force" series. Bush is the first president to be so honored, "and maybe the last," said the company's spokeswoman, Lauri Aibel, who notes that some complaints have already been received. "We don't condone or endorse the president, but he fit the criteria of our Elite Force collection. . . . It would have to be somebody in uniform, a military hero of some kind, or depicting a military uniform." Aibel said advance orders for the Bush doll are coming in at a record clip, though Blue Box has done no publicity or advertising yet. Blue Box Toys did not request permission from the White House for use of Bush's likeness, and a White House spokeswoman had no comment yesterday. The company recommends that only those 14 and older use the Bush doll, which it says is an "adult collectible item" and emphatically not a toy. It may, in fact, pose a choking hazard for the president's Democratic opponents. One person unlikely to order a Bush action figure is Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who retired in March after working as a Middle East and North Africa specialist at the Pentagon before the Iraq war. In an op-ed attacking the decision-making leading to war in Iraq, Kwiatkowski said the Bush administration will be found "to have caused a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress." Based on her nine months working under the Pentagon's undersecretary for policy, Douglas J. Feith, Kwiatkowski concludes that civil servants and active-duty military personnel were "noticeably uninvolved" in Middle East issues, shut out by "cross-agency cliques" of hawks from the Pentagon, State Department, National Security Council and vice president's office who engaged in "uncritical acceptance" of isolated opinions. "What I saw was aberrant, pervasive, and contrary to good order and discipline," she wrote in the op-ed, distributed by the Knight Ridder service. Since her retirement after 20 years in the Air Force, Kwiatkowski has become a self-described "gnat," pestering the administration about Iraq in more than 30 articles she has written for a libertarian, antiwar Web site. Is she merely grinding an axe? "It is true that I don't like those guys," she allows, but "I initially supported Bush." washingtonpost.com