9565. jexster - 8/19/2007 2:45:58 PM

The Bush Treason - Turning Over the Keys


Ahamdinejad to Visit Iraq

9566. jexster - 8/19/2007 6:33:17 PM

LONDON (AFP) - Radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has pledged to commit his forces and followers to help the United Nations were it to replace American and British troops in Iraq, in an interview published on Monday.


Speaking to The Independent newspaper from his movement's headquarters in Kufa, south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Sadr said that he would "support the UN if it comes and replaces the American and British occupiers."


Baby face
You got the cutest little BABY FACE!

The British have given-up and they know they will be leaving Iraq soon.. They are retreating because of the resistance they have faced. Without that, they would have stayed for much longer, there is no doubt.



Damned Cheshire eating surrender monkeys!

9567. jexster - 8/20/2007 8:38:39 AM

Bush Lies to Cover Treason...


Cole: The US military hasn't found any Iranian trainers in Iraq or any training camps, but like Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, that you can't find them doesn't mean they are not there. What I cannot understand is why the Pentagon needs Iranians in Iraq as a plot device. The Iraqi Badr Corps, tens of thousands strong, was trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and it has been alleged that some Badr corpsmen are still on the Iranian payroll. It is the paramilitary of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, America's chief ally in Iraq. What would the IRGC know that Badr does not? Why bother to send revolutionary guardsmen when the country is thick with Badr fighters anyway (who have all the same training)? I think the US is just embarrassed because Badr is its major ally in Iraq, and Pentagon spokesmen are over-compensating by imagining Iranian training camps inside Iraq. What an idea. I mean, don't we have, like, satellites that would see them? Wouldn't they be visible on google earth? Every day the Pentagon b.s. about Iran gets more fantastic and frantic. Methinks some people, like Patton, are upset that the politicians always pull them back and leave them one more war to fight.

9568. jexster - 8/22/2007 1:40:53 PM

Is Baghdad Burnt Yet?

The bridges sure are and there is method to it.... IraqSlogger's report costs 495 bucks


Here's the FREE summary via TPMC

9569. jexster - 8/22/2007 6:48:50 PM

Just as I predicted....



There Is No More Iraq

9570. jexster - 8/23/2007 9:20:08 AM

Military Coup Planned for Iraq?

GEORGE PACKER, The New Yorker: the government is, as one official said to me, not dysfunctional, it's nonfunctioning. It is practically collapsed.

9571. jexster - 8/23/2007 9:40:58 AM

US Intel Report Cites Grave Concerns About Iraqi Government (sic)

Ah those CIA boys...minds like fucking steel traps

9572. jexster - 8/23/2007 10:48:35 AM

Sadr's Army Proves Hard to Beat

That's a shocker

9573. jexster - 8/23/2007 12:49:40 PM

The Democracy Lie Dies


US Military Consdering Non-Democratic Alternatives for Iraq (CNN video)

9574. jexster - 8/25/2007 7:22:49 PM

Juan Cole at the New America Foundation

9575. jexster - 8/25/2007 8:16:01 PM

The Islamic Republics were invented by Bonaparte, furthered by Bush
Juan Cole
New America Fndn

9576. jexster - 8/25/2007 8:25:17 PM

The Surge in His Loins


Iraq Body Count Running at Double Pace

9577. jexster - 8/25/2007 9:41:11 PM

The United States invasion of Iraq has kicked off at least a decade or maybe two of major instability in a region that is the Western World's source of hydrocarbons


Heckuva job Jillary and Georgie

9578. robertjayb - 8/25/2007 10:42:38 PM

The Great Iraq Swindle...(Rolling Stone)

How Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors to Invade the U.S. Treasury.

According to the most reliable ­estimates, we have doled out more than $500 billion for the war, as well as $44 billion for the Iraqi reconstruction effort. And what did America's contractors give us for that money? They built big steaming shit piles, set brand-new trucks on fire, drove back and forth across the desert for no reason at all and dumped bags of nails in ditches. For the most part, nobody at home cared, because war on some level is always a waste. But what happened in Iraq went beyond inefficiency, beyond fraud even. This was about the business of government being corrupted by the profit motive to such an extraordinary degree that now we all have to wonder how we will ever be able to depend on the state to do its job in the future. If catastrophic failure is worth billions, where's the incentive to deliver success? There's no profit in patriotism, no cost-plus angle on common decency. Sixty years after America liberated Europe, those are just words, and words don't pay the bills.

9579. robertjayb - 8/26/2007 10:48:51 AM

Iraq whistle-blowers find hard road...

One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted.

Or worse.

For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.

9580. jexster - 8/26/2007 12:13:03 PM

Bush's Iraq options starting to decline

By Warren P. Strobel MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS WASHINGTON -- One way to look at the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq released this week is to review what it describes as the best-case scenario.

Sen Hillary Rod Ham
Co-sponsor
Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History


So much experience!

9581. jexster - 8/26/2007 8:33:47 PM

Seriously Desperate

The PetRaeus Squad has "rebranded" them "concered nationalists"

In TRUTH, in reality they are Saddamites...yes, Saddam Husein's people, Saddam the Holy Blissful Martyr.


Bush has given them guns and a new name

US "New Allies" in Hostages Threat - Times UK


Sen. Hillary Rod Ham
Co-Sponsor
Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History

9582. jexster - 8/27/2007 9:33:24 AM

The fruits of Hillary's Ripeness

Basra Decends into Chaos as Militia Takes Over Police Command Center on Brit Retreat

9583. jexster - 8/27/2007 10:29:45 AM

What's good for Haliburton is good for the 1920 Revolution Brigades

Iraqi insurgents taking cut of U.S. rebuilding money

BAGHDAD— Iraq's deadly insurgent groups have financed their war against U.S. troops in part with hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. rebuilding funds that they've extorted from Iraqi contractors in Anbar province.

9584. jexster - 8/28/2007 11:10:04 AM

Couldn't Have Turned Out Better If They'd Planned It


Iran says ready to fill vacuum in Iraq left by U.S






TEHRAN (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday the power of the United States was rapidly collapsing in Iraq and that Iran was ready to step in to help fill the vacuum, in comments likely to irritate Washington.

Heckuva job Shillary

9585. jexster - 8/29/2007 1:37:41 PM

How to Redeploy: Implementing a Responsible Drawdown of U.S. Forces from Iraq

By Lawrence J. Korb, Max Bergmann, Sean Duggan, Peter Juul

9586. jexster - 8/30/2007 4:52:05 PM

Bomb Em Back to the Stone Age


A catchy slogan from Vietnam daze

9587. jexster - 8/31/2007 8:30:24 AM

COLE: Arguments over Night of the Living Dead in Iraq

Arguing over a corpse


Secret USG Report: IraQ Profoundly Corrupt

9588. jexster - 9/6/2007 9:27:04 AM

Who Are The Fanatics?
by Paul Craig Roberts

President Jimmy Carter was demonized for pointing out in his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, that there are actually two sides to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Distinguished American scholars, such as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have suffered the same fate for documenting the excessive influence the Israel Lobby has on US foreign policy.

Americans would be astonished at the criticisms in the Israeli press of the Israeli government's policies toward the Palestinians and Arabs generally. In Israel facts are still part of the discussion. If the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, could replace Fox "News," CNN, New York Times and Washington Post, Americans would know the truth about US and Israeli policies in the Middle East and their likely consequences


The Jizzraelite Lobby's at it again

9589. jexster - 9/7/2007 8:48:11 AM

Review
The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy

9590. robertjayb - 9/7/2007 12:38:50 PM

The Horror! The cruelty of the man is staggering.

According to CNN/MSNBC prattling, Osama is suggesting
that Americans read books.

9591. concerned - 9/7/2007 12:49:07 PM

Hitler wanted people to read his book too.

9592. concerned - 9/7/2007 12:54:04 PM

Could 'Uncle Joe' Stalin even cipher text? But Lefties thought he was just capital for the longest time, even though he caused the deaths of tens of millions of his own countrypeople.

9593. concerned - 9/7/2007 1:01:03 PM

rjb thinks Snookums is just a widdle baby.

9594. jexster - 9/7/2007 4:08:46 PM

Snookums thinks George is just just a widdle bitch




Georgie wants Osama and his big Muslim dick and he'll take it in the bedroom the bathroom

DEAD OR ALIVE

9595. jexster - 9/7/2007 4:45:34 PM

CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden appeared for the first time in three years in a video Friday released ahead of the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, telling Americans they should convert to Islam if they want the war in Iraq to end.

9596. jexster - 9/7/2007 5:06:31 PM

Osama's lookn GOOD eh TD? Not dead and very much ALIVE

I bet you'd give your left nut to stick his Koran up your ass with the cat!

9597. jexster - 9/7/2007 7:25:18 PM

Bush Says Osama Tape Reminds of Dangers


I tell you what it reminds us of

9598. jexster - 9/7/2007 7:34:48 PM

Yo TD



Ain't No God But God

9599. concerned - 9/7/2007 7:41:39 PM

I see that jexster is swooning over the 'kinder, gentler' bin Laden, courtesy of GWB, btw.

9600. jexster - 9/7/2007 7:56:30 PM

Courtesy of GWB

Out of the mouths of morons


CONVERT OR DIE

9601. concerned - 9/7/2007 7:57:24 PM

You first, grasshopper.

9602. jexster - 9/7/2007 7:57:31 PM

Don't look like he been livin in caves and eatin wild honey and locusts does it!

Maybe Rove's been sending Bush reason for being a stipend

9603. jexster - 9/7/2007 8:00:16 PM

Praise to Allah and from his law is retaliation in kind - an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and the killer is killed...

I am talking to you about important matters that concern you [Americans], so give me your ears.

9604. concerned - 9/7/2007 8:01:49 PM

and the killer is killed...


....self epitaph?

9605. jexster - 9/7/2007 8:16:54 PM

I ain't gonna wait to find out....gonna git me one of them prayer rugs and thingies so the head don't hit the floor


How can you argue with results!


George Packer on Preparing for Defeat


The Petraeus-Crocker testimony is the kind of short-lived event on which the Administration has relied to shore up support for the war: the “Mission Accomplished” declaration, the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein, Saddam’s capture, the transfer of sovereignty, the three rounds of voting, the Plan for Victory, the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Every new milestone, however illusory, allows the Administration to avoid thinking ahead, to the years when the mistakes of Iraq will continue to haunt the U.S.

The media have largely followed the Administration’s myopic approach to the war, and there is likely to be intense coverage of the congressional testimony. But the inadequacy of the surge is already clear, if one honestly assesses the daily lives of Iraqis. . . .

9606. concerned - 9/7/2007 8:53:33 PM

Maybe George should set an example and just pack it in. He's a clueless LW defeatist.

9607. jexster - 9/8/2007 1:47:34 AM

Exactly....George Bush isn't worth dying for

9608. jexster - 9/8/2007 2:04:02 AM

Because George Bush is a liar

Bush Knew Iraq Had No WMD in 2002


Shoulda told Hillary

9609. jexster - 9/8/2007 9:40:37 AM

The More Things Change Eh TD!

"The real tragedy is that they had a good source that they misused," said one of the former CIA officers. "The fact is there was nothing there, no threat. But Bush wanted to hear what he wanted to hear."

9610. jexster - 9/8/2007 9:54:37 AM

Correct Link

9611. jexster - 9/8/2007 12:05:32 PM

Gee now this is a freakin surprise...Arming the Saddamites...real smart move..real desperate.

There is no strategy in Iraq only tactics. The only strategic objective, Bush stated - He wants to turn Presidential candidates to supporters of his aim to run out the clock and turn the mess over to someone else to clean up

Dying for Bush, Dying for Nothing

Dark side to the Iraq plan as the Sunnis turn


The US strategy of a "bottom up" revolt of Iraqi Sunnis against al-Qaeda extremists is risky and already riddled with problems, say senior American officers and General David Petraeus's own top counterinsurgency adviser.

9612. jexster - 9/9/2007 9:14:37 AM

Bush is His Bitch

The New Al-Qaeda Central
Far From Declining, the Network Has Rebuilt, With Fresh Faces and a Vigorous Media Arm

WaPo

9613. robertjayb - 9/9/2007 10:04:47 AM

Oh, this is smart, real smart...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Osama bin Laden is ''virtually impotent'' and does not appear to be triggering a new attack against the United States despite the release of a videotape with his first message in a year, President Bush's homeland security adviser said Sunday.

''This is about the best he can do,'' Frances Fragos Townsend said about the fugitive al-Qaida leader whose terrorist network is believed to be regrouping in the lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

''This is a man on a run, from a cave, who's virtually impotent other than these tapes,'' she said.

How clever. A taunting contest...

9614. jexster - 9/9/2007 11:56:49 AM

Don't look like he's in a cave to me.

CONVERT NOW BITCH

9615. jexster - 9/9/2007 11:58:27 AM

In a cave

9616. concerned - 9/9/2007 9:03:08 PM

I don't see why bin Laden wouldn't be happy living in a cave. After all, he has rocks in his little piggy head.

9617. concerned - 9/9/2007 10:14:24 PM

France can breathe a sigh of relief. The 'Rats are the new surrender monkeys.

9618. concerned - 9/9/2007 10:31:38 PM

I understand that Petraeus is going to call for troop drawdowns. What y'all Lefties complaining about?

9619. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 9/9/2007 10:49:50 PM

Haven't you heard connie?--there is no winning in Iraq and the strategy is to pass off the hot potato for the next guy.

You are either senile or in utter denial of the truth because you're a stubborn fool with your head up your ass--just like your Prez-O-Dunce.

9620. concerned - 9/9/2007 11:02:49 PM

WoW -

You're a born loser.

9621. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 9/9/2007 11:09:32 PM

Yeah? And you and Bush and all those dead kids are winners?

9622. jexster - 9/10/2007 2:12:01 PM

9520 Bush and TD are the losers..5 wars...five losses

Hard to top that TD
Except for a LYING LOSERS


WASHINGTON - Overwhelming numbers of Iraqis say the U.S. troop buildup has worsened security and the prospects for economic and political progress in their country, according to a poll released Monday that provides a strikingly bleak appraisal of the war.


Forty-seven percent want American forces and their coalition allies to leave the country immediately, the survey showed, 12 points more than said so in a March poll as the troop increase was beginning. And 57 percent — including nearly all Sunnis and half of Shiites — said they consider attacks on coalition forces acceptable, a slight increase over the past half year.


Seventy percent in the survey said they believe security has worsened where the added forces were sent, with another 11 percent saying the buildup has had no effect. Similar numbers said security in other parts of the country has deteriorated and that overall economic and political conditions have declined.

Only a quarter said their own communities have become safer in the past half year. Every person interviewed in Baghdad and Anbar province, a Sunni-dominated area where Bush recently visited and cited progress, said the troop increase has worsened security.


The poll was conducted August 17 to 24 and involved face-to-face interviews in Arabic or Kurdish with 2,212 randomly chosen adult Iraqis from across the country. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, and was conducted by D3 Systems of Vienna, Va., and KA Research Limited of Istanbul.


The AP article neglected to mention....


Big Picture

The big picture remains bleak. Six in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going badly, and even more, 78 percent, say things are going badly for the country overall - up 13 points from last winter. Expectations have crumbled; just 23 percent see improvement for Iraq in the year ahead, down from 40 percent last winter and 69 percent in November 2005.

More than six in 10 now call the U.S.-led invasion of their country wrong, up from 52 percent last winter. Fifty-seven percent call violence against U.S. forces acceptable, up six points. And despite the uncertainties of what might follow, 47 percent now favor the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq - a 12-point rise.

In a better result for the United States, fewer now blame U.S. or coalition forces directly for the violence occurring in Iraq - 19 percent, down from 31 percent six months ago; as many (21 percent) blame al Qaeda. (Eight percent blame George W. Bush personally.)

If the United States is unpopular, others fare no better. Seventy-nine percent of Iraqis believe Iran is actively engaged in encouraging sectarian violence in Iraq, up eight points; majorities also suspect Saudi Arabia and Syria of fomenting violence. And the poll finds almost unanimous opposition to most activities of al Qaeda in Iraq; the sole exception is its attacks on U.S. and other coalition forces


ABC News

9623. jexster - 9/10/2007 2:14:00 PM

According to the AP most Americans think Bush and TD are losers too!

9624. jexster - 9/10/2007 2:42:13 PM

Iraqi Civilian Casualties: 2007 More Deadly Than 2006


No wonder Iraqis long for the good old days of Saddam

9625. jexster - 9/10/2007 3:37:17 PM

What part of "LOSER" is TD having trouble with


Second Osama Video Coming

9626. jexster - 9/10/2007 4:21:48 PM

Almost nothing the Bush administration has said about Iraq has panned out.

There were no weapons of mass destruction.

Iraqis did not welcome American troops as "liberators" but as foreign occupiers.

The mission wasn't accomplished when Bush proclaimed an end to major combat from the deck of an aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003. Far from it. More than 3,700 members of the U.S. military have died since the war started in March 2003. Only the Revolutionary War and the Vietnam War have lasted longer.

Oil revenues have yet to allow post-Saddam Iraq to sustain itself financially. Billions of U.S. tax dollars are being spent to subsidize the fragile Iraqi government and economy.

A new constitution and national elections did not lead to a stable government that could "govern, sustain and defend itself," as Bush repeatedly intones.

The chances that Iraq will evolve into a pro-Western democracy seem slight, with anti-Americanism rampant throughout most of Iraq among most ethnic factions.

Tony Raum, AP


"Almost nothing"?

9627. jexster - 9/11/2007 2:22:40 AM

* AP Poll: Most see Iraq war as failure AP, 1 hour, 1 minute ago








* US surge has failed - Iraqi poll at BBC, Sep 10

9628. jexster - 9/11/2007 2:26:16 AM

9629. jexster - 9/11/2007 2:52:16 AM

BetrayUS

The view from Baghdad: Mounting death toll which makes a mockery of US optimism

By the time General PetRaeus had finished speaking yesterday the slaughter in Iraq for the previous 24 hours could be tallied. It was not an exceptionally violent day by the standards of Iraq: seven US soldiers lay dead and 11 injured in the capital; other instances of sectarian violence included a suicide bomb which had killed 10 and wounded scores near Mosul while 10 bodies were found in Baghdad. Three policemen were killed in clashes in Mosul, and a car bomb outside a hospital in the capital had exploded, killing two and wounding six.

In Baghdad, on the surface the overt violence appears to have diminished. There are fewer loud explosions. But, the city is now being partitioned by sectarian hatred and fear; by concrete walls and barbed wire. Claims that the US military strategy is paving the way for a stable society bear little resemblance to the reality on the ground.

9630. jexster - 9/11/2007 11:09:44 AM

Another top republican hoists the white flag

GOPer Walsh: It's Time to Get Out of Iraq
By Eric Kleefeld - September 11, 2007, 10:45AM

Representative Jim Walsh (R-NY) has returned from a trip to Iraq with a strong message: There is little evidence of any real progress being made there, and America should get out.

"Before I went, I was not prepared to say it's time to start bringing our troops home," said Walsh. "I am prepared to say that now. It's time."

9631. concerned - 9/11/2007 11:24:30 AM

Re. 9628 -

Buncha jackass Pelosers.

9632. jexster - 9/11/2007 11:44:11 AM

Say when is Georgie gonna give us the next Vision of Victory Speech, TD?

I'd set my TIVO


If I had one

9633. jexster - 9/11/2007 12:44:31 PM

Happy 6th Trifecta Day TD!

Karzai Pleads for Peace With the Taliban


Five wars, five losses

9634. jexster - 9/11/2007 5:59:47 PM

Bushie's New Hires!



Young Saddamites After Payday in al-Anbar Province


Sen Warner: General what is your mission doing to make America safer?

BetrayUS: Senator I don't know

9635. OhioSTOPAS - 9/11/2007 6:32:19 PM

The Bush/Petreaus plan to "withdraw" troops next summer is nothing more than the reality that we don't and won't have the troops available to maintain our current "surged" level. A plan with the honest title "Keep as many troops in Iraq as we physically can for as long as we can" would have EXACTLY the same result.

9636. jexster - 9/11/2007 6:34:05 PM

That's some "withdrawal" ain't it!

9637. OhioSTOPAS - 9/11/2007 7:04:55 PM

John Edwards has a good (and accurate) line:

"President Bush has stated that he will withdraw 30,000 troops by next summer. The truth is that because the president's Iraq policy has brought our military close to the breaking point, these forces would have been withdrawn anyway—unless the president planned to extend tours to an unconscionable 18 months.

"The president taking credit for this withdrawal is like taking credit for gravity."

9638. jexster - 9/11/2007 7:07:51 PM

Really! Anyone But Clinton....


Lookin Presidential




Sen Clinton realized in 2006 that Bush had screwed her in 2002 Xena Albright, Warrior Princess

9639. jexster - 9/11/2007 8:21:47 PM

Free At Last

Sen. John Warner of Virginia , one of the most influential Republicans on national security matters, asked Petraeus if his recommendations would make America safer. Petraeus initially evaded a direct answer, saying:

"Sir, I believe that this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq ."

Warner asked again.

"Sir, I don't know actually," Petraeus said. "I have not sat down and sorted out in my own mind. What I have focused on and been riveted on is how to accomplish the mission of the Multinational Force-Iraq."

9640. concerned - 9/11/2007 8:29:08 PM

The news we all have been waiting for: Officials: Bush to announce up to 30,000 troop cut by next summer

After a successful mission, we can begin disengaging from Iraq, secure in the knowledge that we've made the region freer and more secure.

Good job, George W. Bush.

9641. jexster - 9/11/2007 8:42:20 PM

TD..dumber than a sack of hammers

9642. jexster - 9/11/2007 8:43:16 PM

TD ...you wouldn't happen to be from Oklahoma would you?

9643. jexster - 9/11/2007 8:55:20 PM

Putting Lipstick on a Pig

The reason I ask. They do that often in Oklahoma and most of northern and wester Tejas. Quite common

As part of the surge-week PR offensive, the President will make a primetime address Thursday announcing that he intends to bring the surge to an end next summer. That means 30,000 U.S. troops will be rotated home without replacements. The White House--and most press reports--will describe this as a troop withdrawal, which is true in a very narrow sense. But this can't seem to be repeated often enough, if credulous press reports are any indication: the surge was only ever designed to be temporary and could not be sustained for any longer than next summer without seriously compromising overall U.S. military readiness. So the surge is coming to end, and troop levels will return to late 2006 levels. The White House can tout it as a troop withdrawal. Gen. Petraeus can claim it is his best professional military judgment. But bringing the surge to an end is a hard reality born of an overstretched military. They can smear all the lipstick they want on that pig, but it's still a pig.

--David Kurtz

9644. concerned - 9/11/2007 8:58:50 PM

Of course it's a troop withdrawal, you idiot.

9645. jexster - 9/11/2007 9:36:51 PM

9646. jexster - 9/11/2007 9:42:03 PM

CNN:

Dems Join GOP in Slamming BetrayUS - Stay the Course for Ten More Years of BushWar


My what a difference a little spine can make


I've said it since December 2000...the only way to deal with George Bush is to tell him to go fuck himself

9647. jexster - 9/11/2007 9:47:01 PM

I think Pelosi and the House Dems sandbagged the General

Lured the worm into a kessel

9648. jexster - 9/12/2007 11:05:25 AM

LAT: Bush Holds Secret Surrender Talks with Muqtada

9649. jexster - 9/12/2007 1:44:50 PM

Bush is Fucking Idiot and a Menace

And those who support him are idiot's of the Idiot


Heckuva Job assholes

BAGHDAD - The debate in Washington over troop numbers is intense. But in Baghdad, there's been little sense of alarm or urgency among the Iraqi politicians who would have the most to lose if the United States decides to begin a major pull back.


Both Sunni and Shiite leaders have been largely convinced for weeks that President Bush would press to keep forces in Iraq until he turns the White House over to a successor.

That has set up one of the grand ironies of the troop build-up that began early this year.

Washington threw more personnel and firepower into Iraq to give the Iraqi leadership more room to settle disputes and adopt U.S.-backed reforms.

But the signals this week of just modest troop withdrawals ahead — perhaps back to pre-surge levels of about 130,000 — mean the Shiite-led government feels little pressure to accelerate work toward true political reconciliation.

Instead, they are focusing their energy on shoring up their positions: outflanking political challengers, leaning on more-radical Shiite factions to behave and flirting with Sunni sheiks to build personal alliances.

9650. concerned - 9/12/2007 2:11:08 PM

As predictably as flies eat shit, Senate Moronity Leader Read and his pack o'Rats objected to Petraeus' and Bush's Iraq drawdown plan.

Since the BDS Democrats won't be satisfied until the Iraqi nutcases are left free to commit genocide, their comments don't deserve serious attention.

9651. concerned - 9/12/2007 2:11:50 PM

As predictably as flies eat shit, Senate Moronity Leader Reid and his pack o'Rats objected to Petraeus' and Bush's Iraq drawdown plan.

Since the BDS Democrats won't be satisfied until the Iraqi nutcases are left free to commit genocide, their comments don't deserve serious attention.

9652. jexster - 9/12/2007 2:13:26 PM

Now that Bush is negotiating surrender with Muqtada and nobody in Iraq is buying his bullshit drawdown, nothing is happening.

The Iraqis won't look a gift horse in the mouth

3 billion a month ..why should they?

9653. jexster - 9/12/2007 2:14:23 PM

Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is running for re-election. She joins the Democrats in calling the BushShit for what it is



Wow. That's a shocker

9654. jexster - 9/12/2007 2:19:26 PM

Reid to Bush: Fuck You

9655. concerned - 9/12/2007 2:24:18 PM

George W. Bush is not communicating with Porky at all.

9656. jexster - 9/12/2007 4:51:31 PM

Read 9648

And bite me

9657. jexster - 9/12/2007 4:56:40 PM

Two of the sargents who wrote the NyT Op-ed slamming Bush's failed Iraq War policy were killed in Baghdad.

9658. jexster - 9/12/2007 5:15:22 PM

“Thank you for the timetable. May I have another?”

-- Tom Matzzie, the Washington director of MoveOn, commenting to Think Progress on Bush's plan to withdraw 30,000 troops from Iraq by next July.

9659. jexster - 9/12/2007 6:11:33 PM

Yesterday Petraeus admitted that the surge deployments have to end. "Wrong!" says the White House press secretary.

Pathetic

They can't even keep their lies straight any more

Tony Snow's New Iraq Policy

Maybe it's the drugs

9660. jexster - 9/12/2007 6:13:49 PM

John oner: "Iraq is a small price to pay"

9661. jexster - 9/12/2007 6:14:00 PM

B oner

9662. jexster - 9/12/2007 6:16:07 PM

US Seeks Pact with Muqtada

9663. jexster - 9/12/2007 6:17:45 PM

Strange the resemblance to the Saddamite insurgents Bush has surrendered to in al-Anbar




Fucking embarrassment to the Good Ole USA, I'd say


Where's that Ole "Let's Roll" spirit TD?

9664. jexster - 9/12/2007 9:28:14 PM

While Bush fiddle fucks, paying off Saddamite hooligans and negotiating surrender terms with Muqtada, flopping about in his hellish quagmire....

Zbigniew Brzezinski

“To make critical judgments: that’s what America is about. Now I’m here today because I strongly believe that the next election is not just to choose a new president. It is much more than that. The choice that you will be making will define America’s role in a historically new era. That’s a fundamentally important choice. We have elections every four years but only once in a while is a new president facing the opportunity to shape a new sense of direction for America, for America in a dramatically changing world…

“In the early 1990s, 15 years ago, the United States emerged as the sole, the only, global superpower. And thus the United States has had since then the opportunity to be the spearhead of global progress in a world that is no longer passive, no longer submissive. We now live in a world which to an unprecedented degree is now politically awakened throughout all of mankind. All of humanity is political conscious, politically stirring, often political restless and resentful. And it is increasingly motivated by a new and very important sense of purpose… the recognition of personal dignity and of respect for diversity. That’s a new yearning. That is what the new world is about. And that’s where America has a unique opportunity to play a decisive and creative role. Tragically, tragically, that opportunity has been squandered by the self-destructive war in Iraq.”

:

“Instead of mobilizing global solidarity the United States has become engaged in a colonial war in the post colonial era.

“Just think of what that means…”

9665. robertjayb - 9/12/2007 10:20:13 PM

An ass-kissing little chickenshit? Not everyone loves Peaches...

WASHINGTON, Sep 12 (IPS) - In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.

Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.

9666. jexster - 9/12/2007 10:23:39 PM

TD..Little Georgie better start usin little tongue when kissin Muqtada's fat ass.

This farce may well not last his term no matter how many Republicans decide to jump of the cliff with him


Compromise on Iraq Oil Falls Apart

9667. jexster - 9/12/2007 10:27:05 PM

9665


And WHO told everyone this back last year when Bush appointed the weasel?

I DID

Is there any call I have missed on Iraq over the last 6 years?

9668. jexster - 9/12/2007 10:34:11 PM

Rice's Circular Colonial Logic
All Pressure off Reform in Baghdad after Crocker/Petraeus Report

Colonial logic is always circular. Thus, Condi Rice: the US needs to stay in Iraq to protect the US from Iraq. Also, the US needs to stay in Iraq to protect Iraq from Iran. The next part of the circle will be that the US needs to stay in Iran to accomplish both of these aims much more efficiently....

9669. concerned - 9/13/2007 10:50:34 AM

Re. 9667 -

In the real universe, almost all of them. In your own little world reality is whatever you imagine.

9670. jexster - 9/13/2007 11:13:00 AM

Say TD, is there any call I have missed on Iraq? Would you be so kind as to research the archive for us?

9671. jexster - 9/13/2007 11:16:00 AM

Someone at TPMMuckraker is using MY handle...I'm so fuckin good, Josh Marshall and Spencer Ackerman ought to write a story about me!

9672. concerned - 9/13/2007 11:21:53 AM

Well, a gimme is your predictions regarding the Iraqi government that are laughably wrong. It is still very much in place, and consolidating its position virtually by the day.

9673. jexster - 9/13/2007 11:36:00 AM

That's a good one!


Bush is arming the Saddamites. They don't even function. They can't pass the oil law and even Bush is talking about "bottom up" progress.

Guess you didn't hear Ambassador Crocker's testimony or even Hanoi John McCain's comments

But that's OK, you've never known what you are talking about and why should you?

Making crap up is SO much easier than dealing with the facts

Iraq Doesn't Exist Anymore


It's the Stateless Region of Mesopotamia

9674. jexster - 9/13/2007 11:36:08 AM

Try another

9675. jexster - 9/13/2007 11:36:56 AM

Bottom up progress = arming the Baathists


Even Bush misses Saddam

9676. jexster - 9/13/2007 11:38:24 AM

"Today, in Iraq, to die naturally is considered a blessing."

9677. jexster - 9/13/2007 11:43:02 AM

"Iraq is a small price"

Boner Opens Mouth, Inserts Foot - Reaps the Whirlwind

9678. jexster - 9/13/2007 11:45:09 AM

BLITZER: How much longer will U.S. taxpayers have to shell out $2 billion a week or $3 billion a week as some now are suggesting the cost is going to endure? The loss in blood, the Americans who are killed every month, how much longer do you think this commitment, this military commitment is going to require?

BOEHNER: I think General Petraeus outlined it pretty clearly. We’re making success. We need to firm up those successes. We need to continue our effort here because, Wolf, long term, the investment that we’re making today will be a small price if we’re able to stop al Qaeda here, if we’re able to stabilize the Middle East, it’s not only going to be a small price for the near future, but think about the future for our kids and their kids.

9679. jexster - 9/13/2007 12:22:26 PM

The shit don't flush no mo

Ah for the 911 trifecta campaigns of yesteryear!

PetRaeus Performances Haven't Moved Public Opinion One Bit
Poll

9680. jexster - 9/13/2007 12:36:20 PM

As Bush arms the Saddamites, the Congressional Research Service exposes yet another lie...

The PetRaeus Al-Qaeda Lie

He's arming the Baathists in a civil war with the government that WE are dying to defend.

Small price eh TD?

[Admiral] Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that",

9681. jexster - 9/13/2007 1:47:35 PM

John Boner says 1 trillion dollars and 30,000 US casualties are a "small price".


The Los Angeles Times has the real world take for Concerned, our resident Weapon of Massive Delusion



Another $100 billion for Iraq?

Eleven more months of surge would mean $100 billion that could be better spent elsewhere.

9682. jexster - 9/13/2007 6:34:01 PM

Bush's "Beacon of Hope" - RIP

9683. jexster - 9/13/2007 6:35:38 PM

Actually, he was hanged

9684. jexster - 9/13/2007 6:41:04 PM

9672


There is no functioning government in most of Iraq Thomas Ricks, Military Affairs Correspndent WaPo, author Fiasco

Any other calls you think I missed, let us know

9685. jexster - 9/13/2007 7:30:56 PM

A look at Bush's assertions about Iraq

Does anyone believe this worthless sack of shit any more?
TD????
Surely you're gullible enuf


By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer
Political realignment in Iraq's volatile Anbar province was Exhibit A for President Bush's argument Thursday that Iraq is a fight that the United States is winning.

A look at some of Bush's assertions.

___

BUSH SAID:

"Anbar province is a good example of how our strategy is working," Bush said, noting that just last year U.S. intelligence analysts had written off the Sunni area as "lost to al-Qaida."

FACT CHECK:

Early Thursday, the most prominent figure in a U.S.-backed revolt of Sunni sheiks against al-Qaida in Iraq was killed by a bomb planted near his home.....
Anbar is not secure, accounting for 18 percent of the U.S. deaths in Iraq so far this year — making it the second deadliest province after Baghdad.

___

BUSH SAID:

"We thank the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq and the many others who are helping that young democracy."

FACT CHECK:

There may well be 36 nations contributing to the cause, but the overwhelming majority of troops come from the United States. For example, Albania has 120 soldiers there and Bulgaria has 150 non-combat troops in Iraq. Bush visited both nations this summer as a thank you.

The United States has 168,000 troops in Iraq.

9686. jexster - 9/13/2007 8:34:17 PM

BUSH SAID:

Bush noted that the government has not met its own legislative benchmarks, but he pointed to limited political progress among Iraq's national leaders. He said Iraq has passed a budget and is sharing oil wealth.

FACT CHECK:

The Government Accountability Office reported last month that Iraq has only partially met a test involving reformation of its budget process, although the State Department, Pentagon and White House disputed the finding.

Some proceeds from Iraq's vast oil and gas resources are being shared among regions, but the country lacks a national framework agreement for the distribution of oil revenues.

A national oil law, which would also invite foreign investment, has been repeatedly promised by Iraq's leaders and frequently mentioned by U.S. officials as a crucial marker of the country's ability to reconcile its ethnic and religious groups.

Iraq's main political parties are deadlocked over the law and the legislation has been sent back to party leaders to see if they can salvage it, an official involved in the talks said Thursday.

___


As TD will recall, two weeks ago Iraqi leaders held a reconciliation conference - in FINLAND

9687. jexster - 9/13/2007 8:38:12 PM

WASHINGTON — Eight months after President Bush made public a plan he hailed as the "New Way Forward" in Iraq , he's announced a new plan, this one called "Return on Success."


RETURN ON SUCCESS?

Finally, he's run out of bumperstickers


Bush's Sad History of Saccharine Slogans

9688. jexster - 9/14/2007 8:20:07 AM

Shiek's Assassination Blows Apart Bush's Pacification Plan

Get it? Get it?

9689. jexster - 9/14/2007 8:21:52 AM

RIP


Any other calls you think I missed TD?

I didn't think there were any but there've been so many calls, so many years

9690. jexster - 9/14/2007 8:29:26 AM

Bush Surpasses Saddam in Mass Murder
One Million War Related Deaths

9691. jexster - 9/14/2007 8:37:30 AM

TD Can You Spell 'Fort Sumter'?

Didn't think so!


Cole

The NYT reports that the compromise on the draft petroleum bill crafted by oil minister Hussein Shahristani with the Kurdistan Regional Government appears to have collapsed amid acrimony. Passing an oil law was put forward by Bush last January as one of four benchmarks that had to be met by June. The Kurds are now demanding Shahristani's resignation, since he calls independently-negotiated oil deals struck by the Kurdistan government with Hunt and other oil companies 'illegal' because they were not cleared by Baghdad. Children, can you spell 'Fort Sumter'?

The Kurds are also upset that the referendum on adding oil-rich Kirkuk province to the Kurdistan Regional Government is certainly going to be postponed from the planned date of late 2007.

9692. jexster - 9/14/2007 8:55:44 AM

Many Jews Question the Existence of Jizzrael

9693. jexster - 9/14/2007 9:54:36 AM

The Democrats reaction was indeed PREDICTABLE TD

President Bush's TV address tonight was the worst speech he's ever given on the war in Iraq, and that's saying a lot. Every premise, every proposal, nearly every substantive point was sheer fiction. The only question is whether he was being deceptive or delusional.

9694. jexster - 9/14/2007 10:54:57 AM

Mote Pool

How much crap can Concerned swallow?

The President's Happy Talk

From The Politico:

In his testimony, Petraeus used the military science term “battlefield geometry” in describing how he figured out the number of troops he could afford to release. A top GOP Senate adviser complained after the speech: “The president needs better 'communication geometry' to prevent overreaching with happy talk."

9695. jexster - 9/14/2007 11:55:33 AM

TD - Some Republicans Put Their Money Where MY Mouth Is

What's particularly revealing is the cause of the breakdown. Last month the provincial government in Kurdistan, defying the central government, passed its own oil law; last week a Kurdish Web site announced that the provincial government had signed a production-sharing deal with the Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, and that seems to have been the last straw.

Now here's the thing: Ray L. Hunt, the chief executive and president of Hunt Oil, is a close political ally of Mr. Bush. More than that, Mr. Hunt is a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a key oversight body.

Some commentators have expressed surprise at the fact that a businessman with very close ties to the White House is undermining U.S. policy. But that isn't all that surprising, given this administration's history. Remember, Halliburton was still signing business deals with Iran years after Mr. Bush declared Iran a member of the "axis of evil."

No, what's interesting about this deal is the fact that Mr. Hunt, thanks to his policy position, is presumably as well-informed about the actual state of affairs in Iraq as anyone in the business world can be. By putting his money into a deal with the Kurds, despite Baghdad's disapproval, he's essentially betting that the Iraqi government - which hasn't met a single one of the major benchmarks Mr. Bush laid out in January - won't get its act together. Indeed, he's effectively betting against the survival of Iraq as a nation in any meaningful sense of the term.

9696. jexster - 9/14/2007 11:55:56 AM

Krugman

9697. concerned - 9/14/2007 12:14:24 PM

I got your happy talk right here, jexster.

Democrats will have nobody to blame but themselves when they attempt a thoughtless troop drawdown in Iraq and the genocide starts.

9698. jexster - 9/14/2007 12:19:58 PM

Heaven help us the War Party should take responsibility for the Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History that you and your fellow travelers lied America into.

Krugman continues with more truth...as TD just proved..the War Party's working on its "stab-in-the-back" legend..

ll in all, Mr. Bush's actions have not been those of a leader seriously trying to win a war. They have, however, been what you'd expect from a man whose plan is to keep up appearances for the next 16 months, never mind the cost in lives and money, then shift the blame for failure onto his successor.

In fact, that's my interpretation of something that startled many people: Mr. Bush's decision last month, after spending years denying that the Iraq war had anything in common with Vietnam, to suddenly embrace the parallel.

Here's how I see it: At this point, Mr. Bush is looking forward to replaying the political aftermath of Vietnam, in which the right wing eventually achieved a rewriting of history that would have made George Orwell proud, convincing millions of Americans that our soldiers had victory in their grasp but were stabbed in the back by the peaceniks back home.

What all this means is that the next president, even as he or she tries to extricate us from Iraq - and prevent the country's breakup from turning into a regional war - will have to deal with constant sniping from the people who lied us into an unnecessary war, then lost the war they started, but will never, ever, take responsibility for their failures.

9699. jexster - 9/14/2007 12:21:44 PM

Concerned's been lying since 2001. Why stop now?

And yes. I'd be delighted to list the lies

9700. jexster - 9/14/2007 12:49:13 PM

Burying the Latest Load of BushShit

With 1,000,000 deaths related to Bush's war of agression what's a couple more ragheads


Bush's Sheik Laid to Rest

9701. concerned - 9/14/2007 12:58:37 PM

Why the LW's opinions are so worthless - their 'solution' to Iraq is to make the problem there very much worse in an attempt to gain political advantage at home.

9702. jexster - 9/14/2007 2:08:24 PM

More BushShit from TD....

Your war we're trying to end it. More lies from TD and more mushroom clouds of smear and fearmongering

Troops may not shrink to pre-surge level

9703. jexster - 9/14/2007 2:11:16 PM

More than four years after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam, Iran's influence from trade links to political sway has never been greater —

And if Bush tries to do anything about it, the Shiite government we've bled for will have Revolutionary Guards protecting 1/2 million angry Iraqis in Najaf


Bush has had his way for over four years...lies and treasonable incompetence yesterday, today, tomorrow

America better pray the Lefties have their way

9704. jexster - 9/14/2007 2:26:54 PM

9701

War Crimes of George W. Bush - Conspiracy to Wage War of Agression (Nuremberg Charge

Iraq War Deaths May Top 1 Million - Los Angeles Times

Fuckin lefties

9705. concerned - 9/14/2007 2:34:48 PM

According to jexster's demented 'reasoning', since the US maintains military personnel in 130 countries, the US 'occupation' of these countries is related to over a billion deaths worldwide.

Such are the trash lies and deceptions that Lefties manufacture.

9706. jexster - 9/14/2007 4:03:03 PM

I don't know what you're talking about
, but neither do you.

I do applaud your CONCERN for the chaos that will erupt when the US ends its occupation of Iraq.

How very touching to see your heart bleed for 27 million muslims

Pardon us if we see through all this horseshit - right to another of your lies.

Or have you converted?

Miracles do happen. It is after all the beginning of Ramadan






BushKill: 1,000,000 Iraqis Deaths

9707. jexster - 9/14/2007 4:16:55 PM

Oh A THOUSAND PARDONS TD!

Cheney: chaos if U.S. pulls out too soon from Iraq Reuters

9708. jexster - 9/14/2007 4:18:57 PM

Bush "Misled" Blair Over Post Invasion Plans

9709. jexster - 9/14/2007 4:49:55 PM

By jexie's reasoning TD..

Somebody's gotta pay for yours and georgies big fuck up

Might as well be all of us

Go short in greenbacks

Dollar Retreat Triggers Fear of Collapse

9710. jexster - 9/14/2007 5:30:37 PM

By my reasoning TD, lies have consequences

Today, most of Baghdad's neighborhoods are being patrolled by coalition and Iraqi forces who live among the people they protect. Many schools and markets are reopening. Citizens are coming forward with vital intelligence. Sectarian killings are down. And ordinary life is beginning to return.

— President Bush in his speech Thursday on Iraq

9711. jexster - 9/14/2007 5:35:44 PM

Leave General Petraeus Alone!

9712. jexster - 9/14/2007 5:55:12 PM

Bush Betrays America - MoveOn

9713. concerned - 9/14/2007 9:41:22 PM

I really get a laugh out of jexster's position. His repeated assertions that we can simply scamper out of Iraq just like little children at the end of recess and not bear responsbility for the probable murderous consequences of our doing so because we can blame everything on George W. Bush are simply pathetic.

That's all jexster has to offer, when you think about it. It's not anywhere nearly enough for anyone with more brain cells than a fruit fly and any sort of personal integrity.

9714. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 9/15/2007 9:09:18 AM

An even bigger irony, connie, is your amusement over "jexster's position," while you overlook Bush & Company's responsibilty for the entire Iraq fiasco, misrepresenting the Democrat's willingness for gradual withdrawl, and deny the fact that you have supported a "position" that has caused, up to this point, the deaths of one million Iraqis, three thousand American soldiers and thirty thousand maimed and crippled veterans
What about those "muderous consequences?" You're no one to talk about quantity of brain cells and integrity. Amused fools like you still support and condone these tragedies while asuming a posture of courageous patriotism.

I'm a vet who served in a war, and I'm not amused by the cowards and phonies like you, Bush and the rest of the chickehawks who don't comprehend the sacrifice of our soldiers or the extent of the road-kill of innocent people in war.

You should be ashamed, but you oviously don't have the humilty or the brain cells.

9715. jexster - 9/15/2007 9:37:42 AM

Let's make this simple

No arguing with facts

1. George Bush lied in order to justify a war
2 George Bush invaded Iraq
3. George Bush lied in order to start the war and has lied repeatedly ever since to keep it going (Thursday nite one of teh more egregious efforts)
4.1,000,000 Iraqis died who would otherwise be alive
5. The US suffered over 30,000 casualites
6. The invasion and occupation destroyed civil society and government (Kudos to Howard Fineman for referring to Iraq by its new, proper name "Mesopotamia)

7 The illegal war will cost the US 1 trillion or more, spending now at the rate of 3 billion each week
8. There never was nor is there any sign now that Bush has any idea when or how he plans on leaving this mess
9. As a result of this disaster, US prestige and power in the world is the lowest it has been since WWII.
10 In the middle East, US the US ability to influence events outside of Israel is non-existent


WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush on Saturday defended plans for a limited draw-down of US forces from Iraq, one day after a White House report undercut claims of security and political progress there.

9716. jexster - 9/15/2007 9:40:30 AM

Only three things we need to know about counter-insurgency: 1. If you're counting bodies to determine if you're winning, you are losing. 2. If you are using artillery and airstrikes, you're losing. 3. If 60% of the population thinks attacks on you are 'justified', you've lost.

9717. jexster - 9/15/2007 9:48:58 AM

We've heard the "if we leave - chaos" argument now for over four years and each and every year is more chaotic than the last. The reason is clear -the Occupation. Each side now in what is a multi-sided civil war uses our dollars and our blood to sustain their positions. The government of Shiite militias has been doin so all along. The Kurds, the Iranians likewise have no real interest in seeing us leave as we do their dirty work for them and enhance their power


If the US leaves and there is chaos it will be becuase we have occupied a Muslim country as a neo-colonial power for four years now. We'll see how long it takes the Iraqis to get real when they have to defend themselves. The choice will be as stark as it is simple - Kill each other to your heart's content or get real.

Under every democratic plan, the redeployment is gradual and responsible but also certain - no more blank checks for Idiot George, Baathists, Kurds and Ayatollahs

9718. jexster - 9/15/2007 10:02:34 AM

Despite surge, Iraqi Religious violence is spiking

Fewer bodies in Baghdad because in the past year, most of the city has become Shiite

11. Over 4 million refugees, nearly 20% of the population - US terms - about 50 million

9719. jexster - 9/15/2007 10:05:15 AM

I realize TD is a little slow and more than willing to lie to himself and to others but the facts are clear. Every year we're told that if we leave things will get worse. Every year things get worse. Then we're told "see if we weren't there, just imagine what would happen!"

Fear of a future that they created they use to keep creating ever darker scenarios.

That's the lie dynamic..that's 'stay the course' to hell

9720. jexster - 9/15/2007 10:20:29 AM

Lipstick on a Pig -
The Bush "Withdrawal" Is a Lie

You have to ask with Chris Mathews and Fred Kaplan, "Does Bush really live in this world or does he just sell it?"

But that explanation doesn't jibe with the facts. No matter what the president or Gen. David Petraeus, the military point man of the surge, may now say about next spring's drawdown, it is not predicated on success. Bringing troops home is not a choice, but a fait accompli. It has been preordained since the beginning of the surge. In fact, the surge was always destined to end next spring because after that there will be no more troops with which to continue it, according to statements from Adm. Michael Mullen, the man Bush recently appointed as chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, not to mention statements from Gen. Petraeus himself.

9721. jexster - 9/15/2007 10:55:04 AM

The notion, TD's notion, that the US by force of arms could invade and occupy a Muslim country like Iraq, destroy the government and create a US friendly democracy was ridiculous on it's face

That's another call I got dead red

9722. jexster - 9/15/2007 10:56:25 AM

Bush's main problem is that he cannot influence the political process in Iraq, because no political process exists in Mesopotamia

Howard Fineman finally gets it

9723. jexster - 9/15/2007 10:57:14 AM

The single most powerful political figure in Iraq just pulled out of the Shiite Alliance

9724. jexster - 9/15/2007 11:37:50 AM

THe fact that Bush has no exit strategy now and never did raises another pre-war call I got right


Bush never intended to leave Iraq. It's all about the oil.

He finally admitted as much in his latest execrable spew of lies

9725. jexster - 9/15/2007 12:26:35 PM

TD"s lies have consequences


The Spoils of War: Billions Over Baghdad

Vanity Fair


Between April 2003 and June 2004, $12 billion in US currency - much of it belonging to the Iraqi people - was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Some of the cash went to pay for projects and keep ministries afloat, but, incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed. Following a trail that leads from a safe in one of Saddam's palaces to a house near San Diego, to a P.O. box in the Bahamas, the authors discover just how little anyone cared about how the money was handled.

9726. jexster - 9/15/2007 12:31:08 PM

And that was a lie...

Our stay in Iraq will be temporary. No longer than it takes to eliminate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and to establish stability and help Iraqis form a functioning government that respects the rule of law.
Gen Tommy Franks
2003

9727. jexster - 9/15/2007 1:03:45 PM

A Chicken-shit Ass Kisser

The Ambitious Delusions of G. Bush and D. Petraeus

9728. jexster - 9/15/2007 1:17:43 PM

Bush's Ten Year War


John Boner's "Small Price"


What's priceless is the War Party's stab in the back claim that 60+% of the country wants to get out of Bush's war "for political gain"

This from the crowd who lied us into war for political gain, rolling their war out, by their own admission, like a product to be marketed.

War criminals. That's what they are.

The Posse Gathers
Bush's War Crimes

9729. concerned - 9/15/2007 4:21:33 PM

The Democrats, if they have their way, would make things in Iraq very much worse by heedlessly pulling out, and they don't care if they do.

All one has to do is look at their sorry record in Southeast Asia where they ran away like chickenshit cowards. Vietnam - don't give a shit. Cambodia - don't give a shit. Sorry, 'Rats. You're busted.

I don't think Whacko of Weirdness knows what a coward and a phony is because he belongs to the party of cowards, phonies and frauds and morons besides.

9730. concerned - 9/15/2007 4:27:35 PM

All it takes is more brains than a fruit fly and more ethical sense than a worm has to know that the 'Rat 'policy' in Iraq is wrong.

9731. jexster - 9/15/2007 5:49:29 PM

Rant on. Not one fact. Lotsa spew. That's how you got us into this mess. Destroying a nation, occupying it, rebuilding it smack dab in the heart of the Arab east

"Brains of fruit fly"?

Fucking lying morons and lunatics. Traitors even

Your mess and everyone in Iraq is playing you for a fool
Look what Bushevik bravery has accomplished.


That's OK..over 60% of Americans including a majority of the military are "cowards" by your lights
bwak bwak

Who gives a fuck?

Nobody's listening to that shit anymore

I think your concern for the muslims is touching



Concerned breaks the fast

9732. jexster - 9/15/2007 5:50:40 PM

The original lie:
All one has to do is look at their sorry record in Southeast Asia where they ran away like chickenshit cowards. Vietnam - don't give a shit. Cambodia - don't give a shit. Sorry, 'Rats. You're busted.

Stab in the back legend of right wingers who lose wars. Not a shred of truth to it.

9733. jexster - 9/15/2007 5:52:27 PM

Bush Repackages Lies
Recasts War Rationale - Again


Five wars, five defeats speak for themselves

9734. jexster - 9/15/2007 5:57:11 PM

9729-9730 -Dolchstoßlegende

Called that one 2-3 years ago.

Add to your list

9735. concerned - 9/15/2007 6:02:37 PM

Re. 9732 -

I posted only truth. The debacle in Vietnam and Cambodia are direct results of the Congresional 'Rats throwing their weight around in US foreign policy.

What a disaster because of the Democrats, and thanks go to George W. Bush for resisting pressure by todays LW morons to repeat that disaster.

9736. concerned - 9/15/2007 6:04:13 PM

Re. 9733 -

Your 'five wars', 'five defeats' mantra is just just more of your feverish lies, jexster. No truth to it.

9737. concerned - 9/15/2007 6:14:05 PM

jexster provides an extreme example of the self contradictory illogic that can be spewed by a very confused partisan hack.

9738. concerned - 9/15/2007 6:20:20 PM

As to the meaning of the word 'withdrawal', let's suppose I had $5,000 in a savings account. Then, let's further suppose that I added $1,000 to the $5,000. At some later date, I took $1,100 out.

According to jexster and the anti Iraq wingnuts, that $1,100 would not constitute a withdrawal from my savings account, even though that's what the whole world has referred to it as up until now. The BDS Lefties haven't figured out a new word out for it yet, but their derangement is so severe that they would do anything to make George W. Bush look bad if they could.

9739. Wombat - 9/15/2007 6:32:17 PM

Nixon was elected in 1968 because he had a plan to withdraw from Vietnam. It was his policy actions that led to the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam.

The current manifestation of Bush Derangement Syndrome is best manifested by Concerned, as against every conceivable piece of evidence to the contrary, he thinks Bush actually knows what he is doing.

9740. jexster - 9/15/2007 6:34:55 PM

Let's not suppose you know anything about things military and leave you with that stupid fucking analogy

McCain: Bush was unrealistic about war

Like I said...the same dumb lying fucks who thought it was a great idea to invade iraq, destroy iraq, rebuild iraq

Dumb as a sack of hammers now the Republicans are eating themselves

9741. jexster - 9/15/2007 6:36:56 PM

Let's not "pretend" any more TD

Five years, five wars, five defeats are quite enough

9742. concerned - 9/15/2007 6:40:24 PM

Re. 9741 -

I'm not pretending.

9743. concerned - 9/15/2007 6:42:35 PM

Nixon was elected in 1968 because he had a plan to withdraw from Vietnam.

After he won the war, that is.

9744. concerned - 9/15/2007 6:49:08 PM

IAF reportedly hit NKorean nuke facility


...in Syria.

Clowns like jexster et al want to abandon the entire middle east to the likes of Iran and Syria.

9745. jexster - 9/15/2007 7:03:36 PM

Another lie

Nuclear Allegations Seemingly Hot Air


Syria hasn't got a bomb. Jizzraeli aggression - again


The first lie was that Syria had an AQ Kahn bomb - Busharaff's friend

Kahn Link - a Lie

9746. jexster - 9/15/2007 7:04:31 PM

Like I said, TD and his War Party's pretending is what got us into this mess to begin with

They have never told the truth and don't plan to start

9747. jexster - 9/15/2007 7:24:58 PM

Just after 9/11, the Bush/Cheney war cabal went to Jizzrael to present their plans for the invasion of Iraq. As I said at the time, this war had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein and everything to do with the neocon's bloody schemes for geopolitical dominance.

The Israelis laughed them out the room. "Iran is the danger. Invading Iraq is insane"

Bush/Cheney then promised the Likudites that in return for Jizzrael's support for the Iraq war, the US would attack Iran after Saddam was disposed of.

Well, things didn't go so well. Bush has destroyed the US military which is now bogged hopelessly in Iraq, a war that was long ago lost.

The neocon war cabal realizing this schemed to invade Lebanon, a pretext for an eventual invasion of Syria. When that turned into what the Winograd commission branded a colossal disaster for Jizzrael (a disaster made worse by US insistence that Israel press on in Lebanon), the Cabal found itself in one hell of a fix


Iran is now and has been for some time, the most influential power in the Gulf. It controls the Iraqi government and most importantly it controls the oil rich Southern provinces and Basra, Iraq's only port.

The Cabal thus began its Iran war mongering.


These criminals, now in charge of the US government but not for long, are desperate and truly dangerous. See

They're running out of time and running out of rope

9748. jexster - 9/15/2007 7:26:57 PM

TD pretends that the US still has a viable ground combat capability, pretends that the US still has the ability to influence, even control events in the Middle East


Neocon delusions from the get go

9749. jexster - 9/15/2007 7:30:43 PM

Over 60% of Iraqis want us dead. Similar numbers oppose AlQaeda Iraq, EXCEPT when they're killing occupation forces

9750. concerned - 9/15/2007 7:37:00 PM

Re. 9745 -

Only a hopeless incompetent would think a line like 'Syria doesn't have a bomb' has any meaning in this context. Relevant questions would be:

Does Syria have a nuclear program?
Does Syria plan to acquire weapons of mass destruction?

Such is the difference in basic competence between jexster and myself.

9751. concerned - 9/15/2007 7:49:06 PM

And I should include the following question to the above: Did Syria sponsor a nuclear research and/or development facility on its territory with the support of Iran and North Korea?

These are the types of questions that Left Wingers appear unable or unwilling to face because of their political ambitions.

They would rather run screaming away from the middle east and blame everthing on the most convenient Republican boogeyman.

9752. jexster - 9/15/2007 7:53:44 PM

The answer is ...that crap came from JOHN BOLTON and it has been proved a LIE

Concerned's singing that same old song..every time they need a war

The Relevant questions are

1. "Why are they lying again?"
2. "Why would anyone believe them?"

It would seem that the allegations that Syria is attempting to set up some sort of nuclear weapons program is buncombe. So says Joseph Cirincione in the Foreign Policy, below. But what other evidence is their that Bolton is shooting from the hip.

1. Bolton accused Syria of hiding Iraq's nuclear program even after the other spinners had given up on this claim.

2. Cyprus stopped a ship on its way from North Korea to Syria believing that it would contain evidence of nuclear cooperation, but the ship was carrying perfectly legal defensive missiles that Syria could use to protect itself from foreign attack.

3. Bolton accused Syria of buying nuclear technology from Pakistan through the Khan network. Baradei disproved this allegation and claimed it was nonsense.

4. Now Bolton is claiming Syria is importing nuclear technology again. His track record would suggest he is blowing hot air again.

Perhaps this raid was really about Lebanon after all, as some S.C. readers have suggested. A shot across the bow before the presidential elections. The US wants a pro-America president to be elected, which cannot happen unless the Lebanese opposition give up all the claims of increased representation. It is very unlikely they will do this. Syria probably does not have the power to pressure them to do this. Nevertheless, Washington is acting as if it believes that Damascus can order them to allow for a pro-US president.

Here are the remarks by Cirincione:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/6251North Korea-Syria nuclear ties: deja vu all over again?

9753. jexster - 9/15/2007 7:56:23 PM

Here are the remarks by Cirincione:
North Korea-Syria nuclear ties: deja vu all over again?


One more relevant question:

3. Are they too dumb to change their war bullshit or do they they think we're too dumb to believe John Bolton?

9754. jexster - 9/15/2007 7:58:03 PM

"dumb enough"

"dumb as sacks of hammers"


Sorry TD try again.

Maybe you can search again for even one call I have missed since 2001

9755. jexster - 9/15/2007 7:59:39 PM

Once again, this appears to be the work of a small group of officials leaking cherry-picked, unvetted “intelligence” to key reporters in order to promote a preexisting political agenda. If this sounds like the run-up to the war in Iraq, it should. This time it appears aimed at derailing the U.S.-North Korean agreement that administration hardliners think is appeasement. Some Israelis want to thwart any dialogue between the U.S. and Syria.


Joseph Cirincione

9756. jexster - 9/15/2007 8:02:38 PM

Score ZERO for Originality
Scared into Believing-THE GREAT MUSHROOM CLOUD

9757. jexster - 9/15/2007 8:04:46 PM

We cannot wait for the smoking gun..

9758. jexster - 9/15/2007 8:05:36 PM

Ain't YouTube GREAT!

Better than a lie detector

9759. jexster - 9/15/2007 8:06:15 PM

The Great "Pretenders"

9760. concerned - 9/15/2007 8:25:22 PM

Re. 9752 -

Your cite (which consists of nothing but outdated opinions) has been superceded by current events, jexster.

9761. jexster - 9/15/2007 8:27:38 PM

Oh really

There is a reason that Syria is not included in most proliferation studies, including mine: It doesn’t amount to much. Begun almost 40 years ago, the Syrian program is a rudimentary research program built around a tiny 30-kilowatt research reactor that produces isotopes and neutrons. It is nowhere near a program for nuclear weapons or nuclear fuel. Over a dozen countries have aided the program including Belgium, Germany, Russia, China, and the United States (where several Syrian scientists trained) as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). If North Korea gave them anything short of nuclear weapons it is of little consequence. Syria does not have the financial, technical or industrial base to develop a serious nuclear program anytime in the foreseeable future.

9762. jexster - 9/15/2007 8:29:05 PM

For information on the Syrian nuclear program


see the Web site of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.”


Next lie TD?

9763. jexster - 9/15/2007 8:29:54 PM

Weak bullshit.

Can't you morons do better?

9764. jexster - 9/15/2007 8:33:33 PM

Why don't you just be honest?

We want to conquer and subdue the entire Middle East and don't care what it costs or how many die in the process?

Why recycle that mushroom cloud crap. I didn't believe it first time around


That's been the hairball plan of the Project for a New American Century for a decade.


You must really think we're stupid

Called that one in 2002

9765. jexster - 9/15/2007 8:34:25 PM

Honesty is the best policy

Lies Have Consequences


And you've not told the truth in 6 years

9766. jexster - 9/15/2007 9:05:24 PM

Lest we forget, this is not only the same crowd who ginned up the mushroom cloud and the Iran - Second Holocaust crap, they're also the ones who got fucked by the Glorious Leader.


He NEVER had the nuclear program they claimed (more bad intel about bogus centrifuges). He did have a plutonium reactor (don't need enrichment for bombs when you've got that - we figured that out in 1945) which he RESTARTED after these crackpots started rattling sabers

NOW, cooler heads and China prevailing, Dear Kim Il fleeced Bush for more payoff money than Clinton had come up with and shut down a program that had been shut down all along

NOW, they want to queer the deal so they trotted out fucking John Bolton and TD expects we'll all miss his latest crackpot lies

9767. jexster - 9/15/2007 9:06:49 PM

The Executive Branch of the US government has been a refuge of the criminally insane for nearly 7 years and their time is running out...

Their bullshit ran out long ago

9768. jexster - 9/15/2007 10:54:44 PM

We can't afford any more return on successfrom TD and the Bush crowd of crackpot losers

9769. jexster - 9/15/2007 11:03:47 PM

On the sixth anniversary of the day that did not change everything, General Petraeus couldn't say we are safer because he knows we are not. Last Sunday, Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the C.I.A.'s Osama bin Laden unit, explained why. He wrote in The Daily News that Al Qaeda, under the de facto protection of Pervez Musharraf, is "on balance" more threatening today that it was on 9/11. And as goes Pakistan, so goes Afghanistan. On Tuesday, just as the Senate hearings began, Lisa Myers of NBC News reported on a Taliban camp near Kabul in an area nominally controlled by the Afghan government we installed. It is training bomb makers to attack America.

Little of this registered in or beyond the Beltway. New bin Laden tapes and the latest 9/11 memorial rites notwithstanding, we're back in a 9/10 mind-set. Bin Laden, said Frances Townsend, the top White House homeland security official, "is virtually impotent." Karen Hughes, the Bush crony in charge of America's P.R. in the jihadists' world, recently held a press conference anointing Cal Ripken Jr. our international "special sports envoy."

Frank Rich

9770. jexster - 9/15/2007 11:22:57 PM

Bush Setting Up War on Iran
Telegraph UK

9771. jexster - 9/15/2007 11:30:58 PM

Was Jizzraeli Raid on Syria Dry Run for IRan Attack?

9772. jexster - 9/16/2007 5:23:39 AM

Maliki Government Near Collapse - Iraqi Army Combat Capability Falls Dramatically

9773. jexster - 9/16/2007 5:42:36 AM

A message for you TD:

Only those paying more attention to the botched comeback of the "fat" lip-synching Britney Spears will be fooled by Petraeus, the iPod general - a player of what is fed by his master's voice, the White House.

9774. jexster - 9/16/2007 5:55:02 AM

The US and its troops cannot influence the political process in Iraq because it no longer exists

Unless we play make believe. Like those WMD's and Syria's nukes

9775. jexster - 9/16/2007 6:24:07 PM

All About the Oil - Greenspan

9776. jexster - 9/16/2007 6:30:09 PM

Desperate, Deadly, Demented

Bush setting America up for war with Iran


Senior American intelligence and defence officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

9777. jexster - 9/16/2007 6:33:51 PM

Iraqis Tell US to Monitor Its Own Progress

That's gratitude for ya

If we stopped throwing money and guns around to every Tom, Dick and Habib they'd throw us out in a Najaf nanosecond

9778. jexster - 9/16/2007 6:36:25 PM

Now on Encore cable

Guaranteed to piss you off

Iraq for Sale: War Profiteers
How Dick Cheney's Halliburton boys are ripping you and the troops off

9779. jexster - 9/16/2007 6:38:39 PM

Excerpts Banned in Congress

This clip was about to be shown to a congressional committee investigating BushWar corruption. Republicans objected and it was never shown

9780. jexster - 9/16/2007 6:45:22 PM

$99 a bag for laundry

Dick Cheney's gettin rich on this War

Daddy Warbuck$

9781. jexster - 9/16/2007 7:03:20 PM

The war was born in the original sins of deceptive salesmanship, divisive politics, and wishful thinking about the aftermath. The bitterness of that history continues to undermine American interests in Iraq and the Middle East today. President Bush will have his victory at any cost, with one eye on his next Churchillian speech and the other on his place in history, leaving the implementation of his war policy to an Administration that works at cross purposes with itself, promising freedom and delivering rubble. The opposition is plainly eager to hang a defeat around his neck and move on from what it always regarded as Bush's war. Before the U.S. can persuade the world to unite around a shared responsibility for Iraq, Americans will have to do it first. The problems created by the war will require solutions that don't belong to a single political party or President: the rise of Iranian power, the emergence of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the radicalization of populations, the huge refugee crisis, the damage to a new generation of Iraqis who are growing up amid the unimaginable. Whenever this country decides that the bloody experience in Iraq requires the departure of American troops, complete disengagement will be neither desirable nor possible. We might want to be rid of Iraq, but Iraq won't let it happen.

9782. jexster - 9/16/2007 8:09:06 PM

While TD Pretends....

Was Israeli raid a dry run for attack on Iran?
Peter Beaumont
Sunday September 16, 2007
The Observer

……Mystery surrounds last week's air foray into Syrian territory. The Observer's Foreign Affairs Editor attempts to unravel the truth behind Operation Orchard and allegations of nuclear subterfuge

Whatever the truth of the allegations against Syria - and Israel has a long history of employing complex deceptions in its operations - the message being delivered from Tel Aviv is clear: if Syria's ally, Iran, comes close to acquiring a nuclear weapon, and the world fails to prevent it, either through diplomatic or military means, then Israel will stop it on its own.

So Operation Orchard can be seen as a dry run, a raid using the same heavily modified long-range aircraft, procured specifically from the US with Iran's nuclear sites in mind. ....
Perhaps more worrying are the well-sourced claims from conservative thinktanks in the US that there have been 'instructions' by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney to roll out support for a war against Iran.

In the end there is no mystery. Only a frightening reminder. In a world of proxy threats and proxy actions, the threat of military action against Iran has far from disappeared from the agenda.

9783. concerned - 9/16/2007 10:25:16 PM

Re. 9765 -

It appears you may be delusional enough not to know what the truth is, jexster. That's a little child's statement regarding me, btw.

9784. concerned - 9/16/2007 11:12:14 PM

I just found out where jexster got his 'million' Iraqi deaths figure.

From professional liar Harry Reid, who got the figure from, get this, an online poll. IOW, Reid was regurgitating BDS vomit. This is a number that is off by, say, a factor of around 50, btw. This is a massively stupid lie that would embarrass Hitler, who was noted to not be shamefaced about telling big lies.

9785. concerned - 9/16/2007 11:19:16 PM

jexster's numbers would have requiree 150 Iraqis to be killed by car bombs each and every day on average for the last 4.5 years, something that is clearly not happening.

jexster, once again, not only pins the bullshit meter, he wraps the needle around stop.

jexster = BIG STUPID LIES

9786. concerned - 9/16/2007 11:20:46 PM

jexster's numbers would have required 150 Iraqis to be killed by car bombs each and every day on average for the last 4.5 years, something that has clearly not been happening.

jexster, once again, not only pins the bullshit meter, he wraps the needle around the stop.

jexster = BIG STUPID LIES

9787. concerned - 9/16/2007 11:26:03 PM

And also,

Harry Reid = BIG STUPID LIES

A Senate Majority Leader with such a tenuous hold on reality (probably giving him undue credit here) is deeply frightening.

9788. concerned - 9/16/2007 11:29:21 PM

Good ol' "Willing Suspension of Disbelief" Reid. Sucks jexster in every time.

9789. jexster - 9/17/2007 10:42:59 AM

There have never been 150 car bombs an hour

So your point is?


1 million dead

9790. jexster - 9/17/2007 10:43:30 AM

Let's not pretend with TD. Let's look at the facts for once

9791. jexster - 9/17/2007 10:44:24 AM

Shape of things to come

The Iraqi Government revoked the license of Bush's Blackwater Mercenary force to operate in Iraq.

9792. jexster - 9/17/2007 10:51:14 AM

And I didn't get my figure from TD's link needless to say. NEWSFLASH TD - car bombs aren't the principal cause of death in Iraq. The US is. All those airstrikes firefights etc...
The destruction of cities like Fallujah.

Car bombs! ROFLMAO

THe Los Angeles Times via Juan Cole Have posted before. Apparently TD missed it..So much easier to pretend:

Tina Susman reports the results of a recent British poll done in Iraq, which concludes that as many as a million Iraqis have died in war-related violence since late March of 2003. This estimate is higher than that in the Lancet study of last fall, since that study simply looked at excess deaths from all kinds of violence above what one would have expected from the baseline of 2002. That is, the Lancet study included criminal violence, tribal feuding, etc., not just military or guerrilla actions. The combination of the two, however, makes the Lancet study's conclusions seem unassailable and if anything conservative.

9793. jexster - 9/17/2007 10:52:28 AM

9794. jexster - 9/17/2007 10:55:48 AM

The next funniest:

BIG STUPID LES


From professional liar Harry Reid, who got the figure from, get this, an online poll. IOW, Reid was regurgitating BDS vomit. This is a number that is off by, say, a factor of around 50, btw. This is a massively stupid lie that would embarrass Hitler, who was noted to not be shamefaced about telling big lies


From TD who has made a single truthful statement about the Iraq war or EVEN HIS OWN shifting positions in five years

That's choice

No I didn't even know Harry Reid mentioned the poll and no it wasn't an online poll either

Made that up too

9795. jexster - 9/17/2007 10:56:20 AM

Stop the presses Alert CNN

The Bushies are lying again

9796. concerned - 9/17/2007 11:13:27 AM

jexster clearly has never heard of GIGO. He's pathetic - he'll use any garbage opinion poll based on completely uninformed opinion using made up and inflated numbers to make US policy look bad. There is no such thing as an 'unassailable poll' in this context, anyway.


What happened to using actual verifiable figures? jexster probably doesn't know what those are.

9797. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 9/17/2007 11:28:34 AM

Isn't it tragically predictable how lackeys of the rulling class, like conserned, lick the boots of those who kick most of humanity?

9798. concerned - 9/17/2007 11:58:12 AM

Weird or Whacked -

Even for you, 9797 is particularly idiotic, and that's saying something.

9799. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 9/17/2007 1:19:12 PM

9800. jexster - 9/17/2007 3:26:02 PM

Concerned apparently has trouble with the facts, and the truth

Speaking of GIGO, 99% of the garbage you spew is RNC talking points.

The one percent - you freelance as you did here
GIGO

9784. concerned - 9/17/2007 6:12:14 AM

I just found out where jexster got his 'million' Iraqi deaths figure.

From professional liar Harry Reid, who got the figure from, get this, an online poll. IOW, Reid was regurgitating BDS vomit. This is a number that is off by, say, a factor of around 50, btw. This is a massively stupid lie that would embarrass Hitler, who was noted to not be shamefaced about telling big lies.

9785. concerned - 9/17/2007 6:19:16 AM

jexster's numbers would have requiree 150 Iraqis to be killed by car bombs each and every day on average for the last 4.5 years, something that is clearly not happening.

9801. jexster - 9/17/2007 3:27:36 PM

Given the fact, that either recycled or freelanced, TD has not said one fucking thing that's true since 2001 the only real question for him

Why should anyone believe anything you or Bush say?

The answer is - 75% of Americans no longer do

9802. jexster - 9/17/2007 3:32:47 PM

Bush's Butchers

Blackwater Has a Record of War Crimes

9803. jexster - 9/17/2007 3:35:46 PM

The Truth About Bush's Blackwater Mercenaries




Any wonder 70% of Iraqis, 98% of Iraq's Sunnis approve of attacks on US troops?

9804. jexster - 9/17/2007 3:43:07 PM

Iraqis Order Bush's Blackwater Butchers out of Iraq -- But Will It Leave?

One million dead...actually the correct number = 1.2 million.

Those 4 million Iraqi refugees didn't leave home to sightsee. They left for their health.

In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.

Previous estimates, most noticeably the one published in the Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number (654,965 deaths).
These findings come from a poll released today by ORB, the British polling agency that has been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005. In conjunction with their Iraqi fieldwork agency a representative sample of 1,499 adults aged 18+ answered the following question:-

QHow many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean those who were actually living under your roof.

None 78%
One 16%
Two 5%
Three 1%
Four or more 0.002%

Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003.


Detailed analysis (which is available on our website) indicates that almost one in two households in Baghdad have lost a family member, significantly higher than in any other area of the country. The governorates of Diyala (42%) and Ninewa (35%) were next.

The poll also questioned the surviving relatives on the method in which their loved ones were killed. It reveals that 48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance. This is significant because more often that not it is car bombs and aerial bombardments that make the news – with gunshots rarely in the headlines.

As well as a murder rate that now exceeds the Rwanda genocide from 1994 (800,000 murdered), not only have more than one million been injured but our poll calculates that of the millions of Iraqis that have fled their neighbourhoods, 52% have moved within Iraq but 48% have crossed its borders, with Syria taking the bulk of refugees.

And for those left in Iraq, although 81% may describe the availability of basic groceries such as bread and fresh vegetables as “very/fairly good”, more than one in two (54%) consider them to be “expensive”.
Note:
The opinion poll was conducted by ORB and the survey details are as follows:

•Results are based on face-to-face interviews amongst a nationally representative sample of 1,720 adults aged 18+ throughout Iraq (1,499 agreed to answer the question on household deaths)
•The standard margin of error on the sample who answered (1,499) is +2.5%
•The methodology uses multi-stage random probability sampling and covers fifteen of the eighteen governorates within Iraq. For security reasons Karbala and Al Anbar were not included. Irbil was excluded as the authorities refused our field team a permit.
•Interviews conducted August 12th – 19th 2007.
•Full results and data tabulations are available at www.opinion.co.uk/newsroom.aspx
•ORB is a full member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules

9805. jexster - 9/17/2007 4:31:01 PM

Bush, Cheney, TD and what army???

Gen. Abizaid, Army COS, says we could live with a nuclear Iran


Hell no the US Army don't wanna go!

9806. jexster - 9/17/2007 4:34:03 PM

So TD can keep his lies up so they don't get "superceded by current events"

The Blowhard Bolton is no longer claiming that Jizzrael invaded Syrian airspace on account of some cock and bushshit about nukes

Bolton now concedes what I said - the Jizzraelites are rattling sabers at IRAN

9807. concerned - 9/17/2007 4:57:46 PM

The applicability depends on the accuracy of several factors, not a single one of which has been established in this case.

1) The sample is not representative
2) The answers are not individually verifiable
3) The results are not cross checked for accuracy against any other source of information.

All the above being the case, the poll estimates are worthless as far as estimating actual casualties in Iraq. It, as the polling organization admits, is an opinion poll.

9808. concerned - 9/17/2007 4:58:47 PM

It's worth about as much as a poll asking Democrats whether Hilliary or Hussein will be the Democrat Party candidate in 2008.

9809. jexster - 9/17/2007 5:06:39 PM

1) the sample is a multi-stage random sample with a margin of error of 2.5% =/-

2)2) The answers are not individually verifiable Gibberish! What the fuck are you talking about? It's a goddamn random sample POLL shit for brains..like the one's showing 65% of the US wants to cut and run..same thing

3) there is no sound methodological reason to "cross-check" but in fact as you can read above it confirms the Lancet study whose methodology as I have explained at length and as the British government itself acknowledges is unassailable


Wanna blow anything else out your lying ass, go for it

9810. jexster - 9/17/2007 5:07:54 PM

Maybe you need new glasses. The rose colored ones...trash em

Results are based on face-to-face interviews amongst a nationally representative sample of 1,720 adults aged 18+ throughout Iraq (1,499 agreed to answer the question on household deaths)
•The standard margin of error on the sample who answered (1,499) is +2.5%
•The methodology uses multi-stage random probability sampling and covers fifteen of the eighteen governorates within Iraq. For security reasons Karbala and Al Anbar were not included. Irbil was excluded as the authorities refused our field team a permit.
•Interviews conducted August 12th – 19th 2007.
•Full results and data tabulations are available at www.opinion.co.uk/newsroom.aspx
•ORB is a full member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules

9811. jexster - 9/17/2007 5:21:48 PM

One Million Murdered - Bush's Butchers

Blackwater's Crimes Unravel

CNN is featuring the president of another mercenary firm today. These assholes are stone cold war criminals

9812. jexster - 9/17/2007 5:23:34 PM

Results are based on face-to-face interviews amongst a nationally representative sample of 1,720 adults aged 18+ throughout Iraq (1,499 agreed to answer the question on household deaths)
•The standard margin of error on the sample who answered (1,499) is +2.5%
•The methodology uses multi-stage random probability sampling

9813. jexster - 9/17/2007 5:27:15 PM

BushKIll = One Million and counting....

"There have been so many innocent people they've killed over there, and they just keep doing it," said Katy Helvenston, the mother of Steve Helvenston, one of the Blackwater men killed in the ambush in Fallujah. "They have just a callous disregard for life.

9814. concerned - 9/17/2007 6:09:45 PM

Jexster -

be a man and tell us who 'they' are.

Hint: It's not anybody who has anything to do with the US forces.

9815. concerned - 9/17/2007 6:11:08 PM

Btw, I believe similar statistics were trotted out to 'prove' that the US had 3,000,000 homeless and that the Pantload had an IQ twice that of George W. Bush.

They're all lies, jexster.

9816. jexster - 9/17/2007 6:25:06 PM

They - BLACKWATER can't you read?

And shove the ad hominem up your ass..

That survey is fucking valid ...deal with it or don't


U crackpots are no longer relevant

9817. jexster - 9/17/2007 6:29:39 PM

George W. Bush promised freedom and delivered rubble

Packer

Roll the video tape..George Will has become a lefty

9818. jexster - 9/17/2007 6:48:31 PM

TD..pretending he knows what he's talking about - again

9819. jexster - 9/17/2007 7:22:46 PM

Colony Fights Back

Will Iraq Meet the Blackwater Test

9820. jexster - 9/17/2007 7:52:54 PM

The Bush/Cheney Treason

Iran and US Now Occupy IraQ


Told you so

9821. concerned - 9/17/2007 8:06:00 PM

Re. 9814 -

So you admit by default you aren't a man, jexster. All I did was ask you to tell the truth for a change.

9822. concerned - 9/17/2007 8:06:54 PM

Instead, all you do is pin everything in sight on 'Bush'.

9823. concerned - 9/17/2007 8:07:57 PM

Any wonder 70% of Iraqis, 98% of Iraq's Sunnis approve of attacks on US troops?

If that's so, they're even stupider than you are, jexster. Particularly the Sunnis.

9824. concerned - 9/17/2007 8:10:48 PM

The US Left has a mission. Preach peace, not war to the Iraqis.

Go to it, Lefties. Now.

9825. concerned - 9/17/2007 8:33:05 PM

jexster -

The Lancet is lying and you're a credulous fool to repeat their lies. The Lancet got caught in 2004 cooking the numbers and they're back to their same old tricks. And you're a fucking stupid mouthpiece for their fasehoods. Oh, and so is your cretinous Senate Manurity Leader.

The only reason that I don't call you a complete idiot, jexster, is that you're not all there.

9826. concerned - 9/17/2007 8:33:36 PM

...falsehoods....

9827. concerned - 9/17/2007 8:39:29 PM

You should be ashamed of yourself, jexster. But, OTOH, committed liars can't allow themselves to give in to shame.

9828. concerned - 9/17/2007 8:43:23 PM

9809-9812 are pure bullshit. Should I explain why?

9829. concerned - 9/17/2007 8:46:01 PM

'Lancet Lies with Statistics' or 'Johns Hopkins Takes Another Dump on the Truth'.

9830. concerned - 9/17/2007 8:53:08 PM

Even 'Iraq Body Count', an anti GWB organization if there ever was one, says jexster and the Lancet are fucking lying moronic scum.

9831. concerned - 9/17/2007 8:53:50 PM

jexster got fooled again. What a maroon.

9832. concerned - 9/17/2007 8:54:34 PM

jexster=total idiot
jexster=total idiot
jexster=total idiot
jexster=total idiot
jexster=total idiot
jexster=total idiot
jexster=total idiot
jexster=total idiot

9833. concerned - 9/17/2007 8:56:21 PM

Oh, and taking the Lancet's lies and doubling them yet again.....

Why should such liars ever be taken seriously?

9834. jexster - 9/17/2007 9:08:39 PM

Iraq Body count admits that they undercount

Do you know why they undercount?


There is no dispute. Even the Brits accept Lancet

Doesn't matter whether you hate Bush or not..most do..don't matter

9835. jexster - 9/17/2007 9:09:43 PM

9828. concerned - 9/18/2007 3:43:23 AM

9809-9812 are pure bullshit. Should I explain why?


Be my bitch

9836. concerned - 9/17/2007 9:18:06 PM

jexster, you're busted. But this ought to boost your spirits...



Now there's something that jexster can get into.

9837. concerned - 9/17/2007 10:00:15 PM

Today, now we learn that 1 million Iraqis have been killed since the war started. A million. That's pretty hard to comprehend.

Especially since it's a total lie, trumped up by about 20 times.

Hey, Lefties: how do hopelessly moronic asshats like Harry Reid who couldn't recognize a fact if it smacked him up along side his head gain so much influence in your party?

9838. jexster - 9/18/2007 1:18:31 AM

Say TD. Why should anyone believe you or Bush?

Who does?

Pretty hard for some crackpot in some Reno rag..weekly rag? to comprehend but it wasn't an "on-line" poll; the British government accepts Lancet/Johns-Hopkins because it is unassailable, and even John Bolton proved you a crackpot blowhard

"Bonaparte orders Dissidents Beheaded." And we thought beheading was only something al-Qaeda does.

9839. jexster - 9/18/2007 1:39:00 AM

Most Powerful Man in Iraq

Sadr demands ouster of 'criminal' security firms from Iraq

The last thing Saddam heard "Muqtada! Muqtada!"

Now that's gratitude eh TD?


Heckuva job you and your idiot Georgie did!!

Congratulations

You can be his bitch....My heart belongs to the ace of spades

9840. jexster - 9/18/2007 1:41:46 AM

This ought to help the cholera epidemic...on second thought...most Mesopotamia's doctors left a year ago

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb outside the Health Ministry in central Baghdad killed seven people and wounded 23 on Tuesday, police said.

9841. jexster - 9/18/2007 1:47:47 AM

Difficult to Comprehend

Annotate This… President Bush's Sept. 13 Speech to the Nation

• President Bush's TV address tonight was the worst speech he's ever given on the war in Iraq, and that's saying a lot. Every premise, every proposal, nearly every substantive point was sheer fiction. The only question is whether he was being deceptive or delusional. Fred Kaplan
  
  
• Does he live in that world or just sell it? Chris Mathews

9842. jexster - 9/18/2007 8:28:04 AM

Bush's Hired Thugs

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Hated by Iraqis who refer to them as "Mossad," Blackwater contractors are also mistrusted by fellow private security guards operating in Iraq who say they are arrogant, rude and dangerous.


"They kill innocent people in the street," Hameed Hussein, a pensioner in west Baghdad's Al-Maamoun neighbourhood said on Tuesday, two days after guards from the US security firm opened fire on civilians, killing 10 people and wounding 13.

"Where else in the world does this happen?" asked 60-year-old Hussein. "These are not security forces but rather forces to kill Iraqis. They are frenzied dogs.


These dogs are big GOP contributors

9843. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 9/18/2007 9:11:57 AM

So is this shithead . . .

9844. jexster - 9/18/2007 9:29:48 AM

Fucking Jizzraelite traitor

9845. jexster - 9/18/2007 9:31:13 AM

9828. concerned - 9/18/2007 3:43:23 AM

9809-9812 are pure bullshit. Should I explain why?

9846. jexster - 9/18/2007 9:36:10 AM

Juan Cole Drops Some Knowledge

Recently TPMtv connected with Juan Cole, professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan, and writer of the blog Informed Comment and the new book Napoleon's Egypt. In today's episode of TPMtv we ask Juan about what's really going on in al Anbar province (which the administration persistently cites as a glimmering example of the success of the surge), whether the Sunnis are ready to concede national reconciliation, and what might happen if and when we ever leave Iraq ...

9847. jexster - 9/18/2007 9:51:30 AM

It's great to talk to someone about Iraq who really knows what he's talking about, somewhat of a rarity...

9848. jexster - 9/18/2007 10:11:58 AM

Planning for Defeat

Shiite Taliban Arises as British Depart Basra

9849. concerned - 9/18/2007 10:13:24 AM

9850. jexster - 9/18/2007 10:31:03 AM

Not enough hostility!

That's why the approval numbers are lower than the Worst President in US history

9851. jexster - 9/18/2007 10:34:17 AM

Salazar Grows a Spine???


Senator Says Troops Want Congress To Cut Off War Funding

Support the troops! Get em the fuck out of Bush's qWagmire

9852. jexster - 9/18/2007 10:49:58 AM

Juan Cole, once again nails it. The US has NO power in Iraq to affect anything save at the margins. Too few troops. None to send to the Southern provinces where Iran has Bush by the balls.


It's just as the Council on Foreign Relations declared six months ago only now it is worse

Bush has us stuck in Iraq, responsible for outcomes, with no ability to affect them


Security Deteriorates in South as Brits Leave Basra


The Washington debate is, as it was in 2002, a total farce

9853. jexster - 9/18/2007 11:29:15 AM

He's got Little Georgie Bush by the balls

9854. concerned - 9/18/2007 11:38:40 AM

Porky's little pig pals.

9855. jexster - 9/18/2007 11:44:39 AM

Prepare for Defeat
Happy Ramadan TD

Adhan from Mecca

9856. jexster - 9/18/2007 12:00:18 PM

The Ole Bush Trifecta Ain't What It Usta Be...

Nobody save TD and a handful of other Kool-Aid drinking crackpots believe any of this shit any more

Petraeus is such a chicken shit ass kisser

Poll: 67% Say Petraeus Show Didn't Change Their Views Of Iraq


Reid is smart to postpone the Iraq funding debate until November. The Republicans should start squirming about then


Feel their pain

If only Daschle had done same in 2002, we'd not be in this hellish mess

9857. concerned - 9/18/2007 2:43:18 PM

Murtha: Post-Withdrawal Bloodbath Would Not Be Congress' Fault

What's a little silly old genocide between asshat 'Rats? Right, jexster?

9858. jexster - 9/18/2007 3:32:47 PM

That's right!

It'd be the fault of the invader and unavoidable but first you have to accept from the same liars that tried to scare us with mushroom clouds that

1. a bloodbath would take place
2. they give a shit


As Juan Cole correctly points out - they're gonna fight whether we are there or not

See Message # 9846

The US with 168,000 troops plus mercenaries isn't stopping any violence in Iraq! Five years, worse every year

The US bears the consequences, unable to afftect the outcome

9859. jexster - 9/18/2007 3:33:41 PM

But like I said above

Nobody believes Bush and his dwindling army of crackpots any more

9860. jexster - 9/18/2007 3:36:39 PM

Updating the report months ago, discussed here:

Thus, Americans are left with the same questions they faced at the start of the year:
• If the Iraqi political center cannot hold, then what purpose do U.S. military forces serve in Iraq?
• If these forces cannot reconstitute a unitary Iraqi state, what sort of pathway to withdrawal will be least costly to the United States and Iraq?
• In the interim between a decision to withdraw and the departure of the last GI, what should U.S. diplomatic and military priorities be?

The recommendations put forward by this report eight months ago still stand. The U.S. presence in Iraq is hostage to fortune. To withdraw in an orderly fashion, on a U.S. timetable, remains the best way to avoid being forced out, either by events on the ground in Iraq, or by a seismic shift in public opinion at home, or both. A panicked rush to the exits could carry a high price in blood and reputation. Moreover, the United States will
still have an abiding interest in Iraq, even if it cannot secure its interest militarily.

9861. jexster - 9/18/2007 3:36:54 PM

Right TD?

9862. jexster - 9/18/2007 3:40:10 PM

To believe otherwise requires you to accept the proposition, ridiculous from the beginning, that a US occupation force in a Muslim Arab land can build a nation.

Now it's even more ridiculous with 70% of the population approving of attacks on your forces, the society destroyed, the belief that the US can referee a multi-sided civil war is absurd

9863. jexster - 9/18/2007 3:44:31 PM

Cole said the same thing above that Simon wrote in his original report..we've been through this before TD. Not a damn thing has changed

The United States cannot determine political outcomes or achieve its remaining political aims via military means. American military forces have not brought the violence to an end or under control and will not do so in the future. In the absence of the understanding and the intelligence needed to operate effectively in the complex and violent political situation in Iraq, this should not be surprising.
• Leaving U.S. forces in Iraq under today’s circumstances means the United States is culpable but not capable—that is, Washington bears substantial
responsibility for developments within Iraq without the ability to shape those developments in a positive direction.

9864. jexster - 9/18/2007 4:20:04 PM

Planning for defeat




Beautiful & Unique Shia Adhan by Kazem Zadeh w/ English subtitles

9865. jexster - 9/18/2007 4:42:44 PM

Democrats Will Not Water Down Withdrawal Legislation - Reid


Let em vote against the Webb amendment. Let em vote to grind down the army and the troops


Fuck em!

Feel their pain

9866. jexster - 9/18/2007 5:24:06 PM

McCain really should take his aricept, get professional help and read the constitution

Reid said the bill will be considered as an amendment to a defense policy bill on the floor, along with a proposal by Feingold that would cut off money for combat operations next year and one by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., limiting combat tours.

McCain blasted Webb's amendment as "unconstitutional."

"The Congress of the United States has the right to declare war and to fund armies and navies. It says nothing about setting tours of duties," he said.

He doesn't have to read very much of it after all

Article I Section 8. The Congress shall have power to ....

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;


9867. jexster - 9/18/2007 5:25:16 PM

9868. jexster - 9/18/2007 5:56:58 PM

Murtha Predicts Republicans Will Bolt After Primaries
GOP Colleagues Confess Fear of Crackpots

9869. jexster - 9/18/2007 6:19:12 PM

Too bad the crackpots don't fight wars. TD might be of some use


And they wonder that the Big Bad Bush has lost five wars


BAGHDAD - The United States on Tuesday suspended all land travel by U.S. diplomats and other civilian officials in Iraq outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, amid mounting public outrage over the alleged killing of civilians by the U.S. Embassy's security provider Blackwater USA.


"We see the security firms ... doing whatever they want in the streets. They beat citizens and scorn them," Baghdad resident Halim Mashkoor told AP Television News. "If such a thing happened in America or Britain, would the American president or American citizens accept it?"


Losers

9870. jexster - 9/18/2007 7:54:48 PM

No Balls, No Re-election


Dem Leaders Not Going Far Enough - Pew

By nearly two-to-one, more say Democratic leaders in Congress are not going far enough, rather than too far, in challenging Bush's policies in Iraq (42% vs. 22%). A quarter of Americans believe that Democratic leaders are handling this about right.

Opinions about the Democrats' approach on Iraq have been largely stable since March. However, somewhat fewer Republicans say Democratic leaders are going too far than did so in July (50% today vs. 63% then). The current balance of opinion among Republicans is closer to where it stood in June and March.

Meanwhile, a 61% majority of Democrats think Congress is not doing enough, up from 54% in July. And by a wide margin, independents also would like to see Congress do more to challenge Bush on Iraq. Currently, 48% of independents say Congress is not going far enough in challenging Bush's Iraq policies, up from 43% in July.



Those numbers must be "cooked" too.

9871. jexster - 9/19/2007 6:04:42 AM

One Million Dead

Not doing this for the fun of it, doing it for their health

Bush with an assist from (concerned) promised prosperity and democracy, delivered chaos and rubble


Iraq's Vast Internal Migration

BAGHDAD, Sept. 18 — A vast internal migration is radically reshaping Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian landscape, according to new data collected by thousands of relief workers, but displacement in the most populous and mixed areas is surprisingly complex, suggesting that partitioning the country into semiautonomous Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish enclaves would not be easy.

The migration data, which are expected to be released this week by the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization but were given in advance to The New York Times, indicate that in Baghdad alone there are now nearly 170,000 families, accounting for almost a million people, that have fled their homes in search of security, shelter, water, electricity, functioning schools or jobs to support their families.

The figures show that many families move twice, three times or more, first fleeing immediate danger and then making more considered calculations based on the availability of city services or schools for their children. Finding neighbors of their own sect is just one of those considerations.

9872. jexster - 9/19/2007 6:06:43 AM

Although Iraqis of every income level, sect, ethnicity and region of the country have been caught up in this migration, perhaps the most tragic consequences turn up where enormous numbers of poor Iraqi villagers have collected in camps, shantytowns and urban slums after leaving behind almost everything they owned, said Dr. Said Hakki, a physician who is the president of the Red Crescent.

“It’s tragic, absolutely tragic,” Dr. Hakki said. “I have been a surgeon all my life, and I have seen death many times; that never scared me, never shook me. But when I saw the toll here in Iraq,” he said, referring to the groups of displaced people, “that definitely shook me.”

“How could a human let human beings suffer so much for so long?” Dr. Hakki said.

9873. concerned - 9/19/2007 9:22:43 AM

"How could a human let human beings suffer so much for so long?" Dr. Hakki asked his Muzzie terrorist buddies.

9874. jexster - 9/19/2007 11:03:41 AM

1000000 dead


And he's "concerned" about a "bloodbath"


You'll let us know when you stop lying

9875. jexster - 9/19/2007 11:12:02 AM

The Bush Cheney Treason
New York Review of Books
Oct 17 Issue



The Iranian Conundrum; The Victor is Iran
Peter Galbraith

The United States cannot now undo President Bush's strategic gift to Iran. But importantly, the most pro-Iranian Shi'ite political party is the one least hostile to the United States. In the battle now underway between the SIIC and Moqtada al-Sadr for control of southern Iraq and of the central government in Baghdad, the United States and Iran are on the same side. The U.S. has good reason to worry about Iran's activities in Iraq. But contrary to the Bush administration's allegations – supported by both General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker in their recent congressional testimony – Iran does not oppose Iraq's new political order. In fact, Iran is the major beneficiary of the American-induced changes in Iraq since 2003.

9876. jexster - 9/19/2007 11:55:45 AM

Treason?

They couldn't have aided and abetted Iranian interests any better if they tried. So if you assume reasonable competence, they're guilty of treason

On the other hand, they are treasonably incompetent

Either way Of all the unintended consequences of the Iraq war, Iran's strategic victory is the most far-reaching. In establishing the border between the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire in 1639, the Treaty of Qasr-i-Shirin demarcated the boundary between Sunni-ruled lands and Shi'ite-ruled lands. For eight years of brutal warfare in the 1980s, Iran tried to breach that line but could not. (At the time, the Reagan administration supported Saddam Hussein precisely because it feared the strategic consequences of an Iraq dominated by Iran's allies.) The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq accomplished what Khomeini's army could not. Today, the Shi'ite-controlled lands extend to the borders of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Bahrain, a Persian Gulf kingdom with a Shi'ite majority and a Sunni monarch, is most affected by these developments; but so is Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, which is home to most of the kingdom's Shi'ites. (They may even be a majority in the province but this is unknown as Saudi Arabia has not dared to conduct a census.) The U.S. Navy has its most important Persian Gulf base in Bahrain while most of Saudi Arabia's oil is under the Eastern Province.

Then there's the life line they threw Bashar Assad.

Of all the unintended consequences of the Iraq war, Iran's strategic victory is the most far-reaching. In establishing the border between the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire in 1639, the Treaty of Qasr-i-Shirin demarcated the boundary between Sunni-ruled lands and Shi'ite-ruled lands. For eight years of brutal warfare in the 1980s, Iran tried to breach that line but could not. (At the time, the Reagan administration supported Saddam Hussein precisely because it feared the strategic consequences of an Iraq dominated by Iran's allies.) The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq accomplished what Khomeini's army could not. Today, the Shi'ite-controlled lands extend to the borders of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Bahrain, a Persian Gulf kingdom with a Shi'ite majority and a Sunni monarch, is most affected by these developments; but so is Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, which is home to most of the kingdom's Shi'ites. (They may even be a majority in the province but this is unknown as Saudi Arabia has not dared to conduct a census.) The U.S. Navy has its most important Persian Gulf base in Bahrain while most of Saudi Arabia's oil is under the Eastern Province.

9877. jexster - 9/19/2007 11:56:43 AM

Bears repeating. TD is somewhat slow

9878. concerned - 9/19/2007 11:57:08 AM

These Muzzzie 'insurgents' appear to be the perfect Democrats. They can kill people without any human conscience and blame George W. Bush for it.

As far as that goes, up until now, jexster is only talking the talk.

9879. jexster - 9/19/2007 12:19:49 PM

That's right TD...Bush should be strapped to a fucking death gurney and given a hot shot for treason

9880. concerned - 9/19/2007 12:20:58 PM

But first, let's impeach the 11% Democrat Party.

9881. jexster - 9/19/2007 12:21:13 PM

Right now, the U.S. is in the worst possible position. It is identified with the most discredited part of the Iranian opposition and unwanted by the reformers who have the most appeal to Iranians. Many Iranians believe that the U.S. is fomenting violence inside their country, and this becomes a pretext for attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. And for its pains, the U.S. accomplishes nothing.

Treason by any other name deserves the death penalty

9882. concerned - 9/19/2007 12:22:27 PM

The Democrat Party is barely smart enough to suck air and deteriorating fast.

9883. jexster - 9/19/2007 12:31:25 PM

Pretty early to be drinking TD...Even Bob Novak is warning of at least a 5 Senate Seat Loss for the GrandOldPigpile

Hey! I hear Larry Craig's back at work


Iran and its Iraqi allies control, respectively, the Middle East's third- and second-largest oil reserves. Iran's influence now extends to the borders of the Saudi province that holds the world's largest oil reserves. President Bush has responded to these strategic changes wrought by his own policies by strongly supporting a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad and by arming and training the most pro-Iranian elements in the Iraqi military and police.

9884. concerned - 9/19/2007 12:32:33 PM

Not for you, I wager. Better toss a few more down so you can forget your pathetic 'Rat Congress for a while.

9885. jexster - 9/19/2007 12:40:19 PM

Maybe they'll nominate Shrillary and you'll get game again

Till then I suggest you get milk

9886. jexster - 9/19/2007 2:25:17 PM

British Poodle Refuses to Play Ball in Basra

That's Iranian territory now

What did you think of that Shia Call to Prayer TD??

9887. jexster - 9/19/2007 2:28:09 PM

What ever happened to Bush's War Czar?

Went the way of "Mission Accomplished" and "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq"?

9888. jexster - 9/19/2007 2:46:29 PM

Can't even keep his government behind him

Pentagon and State Dept Debunk Bush Iran Fabrications

Got what's left of the Grand Old Pigpile

9889. jexster - 9/19/2007 3:00:11 PM

What part of D-E-F-E-A-T-E-D is concerned having trouble with????


Peter Harling, the Damascus, Syria-based representative of the nongovernmental International Crisis Group, whose June report on Basra painted a grim picture of conditions there, said of the British: "I do believe this was a negotiated withdrawal." One indication of that, he said, was that the militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has stopped attacking British forces in their remaining airport enclave. "They've achieved what they wanted," Harling said of Sadr's followers, "and now see the British forces as essentially defeated. They have a point."

9890. concerned - 9/19/2007 3:37:57 PM

What part of 11% is jexster having trouble with?

9891. jexster - 9/19/2007 4:14:02 PM

Not a bit of it. The Democrats are pissed that we don't have Bush in jail by now

9892. jexster - 9/19/2007 4:15:00 PM

Meanwhile Muqtada could care less what Bushville does


He and Iran have won..Now the two of em can fight each other

9893. jexster - 9/19/2007 5:01:56 PM

So you think Bush has surged 160,000 troops into his Mesopotamian hell hole?

Think again. Try 340,000. That would be the equivalent in Vietnam canon fodder

Cost 3 billion a month for troops plus mercenary army...he's outsourced the national defense.

9894. jexster - 9/19/2007 6:01:57 PM

Planning for Defeat:

Congress Should Mandate and Fund Iraq Redeployment Plan

9895. jexster - 9/19/2007 6:11:27 PM

9896. jexster - 9/20/2007 7:59:33 PM

Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?

Cholera Spreads to Baghdad

Must be all those rotten roses and moldy candies in the Tigris

9897. concerned - 9/20/2007 9:52:56 PM

Re. 9893 -

Jexster -

You are truly a moron.

9898. concerned - 9/20/2007 9:57:48 PM

jexster apparently thinks the US should abandon all attempts at rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, according to his idiot post.

9899. jexster - 9/21/2007 5:24:53 AM

Don't tell me what I think

I tell YOU what I think


I think the US ought to withdraw its troops from Iraq
I think Bush promised freedom and brought rubble

So does this Iraqi. So do most Iraqis.

I think TD has been nothing more than a mouthpiece for crackpot lies that have led to the Greatest Disaster in US History.

In fact, I think TD lies each and every time he pretends to express concern for the welfare of the people of Iraq or the United States



The architects of Iraq

The impulse that drives United States policy in Iraq is reflected in the professional character of its leading military and diplomatic figures, says Tareq Y Ismael.

9900. jexster - 9/21/2007 5:26:23 AM

Cholera's reached Baghdad because the US military is holding up chloriine deliveries from jordan

9901. jexster - 9/21/2007 5:46:57 AM

Rebuilding Iraq

Embassy Makes Damning Report on Corruption Public

9902. jexster - 9/21/2007 9:24:02 AM

Told ya.


General David H Petraeus is an ambitious, intelligent officer who holds a doctorate in international relations from Princeton University. His first combat mission was the Iraqi invasion in 2003, where he served as the commander of the 101st airborne division. In post-invasion Iraq, General Petraeus has been charged with three roles, each ending in debacle.
Dr. Traqi Ismael
Uof Calgary

Soon as Bush appointed the little chicken-shit ass kisser, I told you another scam was goin down.


Tole ya

9903. jexster - 9/21/2007 11:54:25 AM

Can't say the Decider is impartially incompetent...
See I'm not always a Bush Hater

What's good for Baghdad is good for America!


Fear Drives Baghdad's Housing Bust: Under Threat and Desperate to Flee, Some Families Sell at Any Price

9904. jexster - 9/21/2007 1:05:24 PM

US GI's Protecting Sunnis from US Led, Trained, Funded Iraqi Army

The returns on success just keep on coming!

Let's pretend Iraq exists TD

9905. jexster - 9/21/2007 1:10:02 PM

Returns on Success?

Gates Not Sure Iraq War Was Worth It

9906. jexster - 9/21/2007 1:21:14 PM

Let's pretend that George Bush is Abraham Lincoln TD...
30,000 Casualties

A couple trillion bucks...US ground forces wasted..US power a world laughingstock

Let's pretend with TD and John Boner, it's a small price ..all these Returns on Success

Glued to Our Seats in the Theater of War: Tall Tales From the Annals of the Bush Administration

9907. jexster - 9/21/2007 4:41:32 PM

Is Terrorism a Mortal Threat?

9908. jexster - 9/21/2007 5:54:52 PM

Bush promised freedom and democracy

He delivered chaos and rubble


and cholera which has now spread to Basra


Can't seem to deliver chlorine

9909. jexster - 9/22/2007 5:37:46 AM

Bush's Butchers

The real story of Baghdad's Bloody Sunday

Six days ago, at least 28 civilians died in a shooting incident involving the US security company Blackwater. But what actually happened? Kim Sengupta reports from the scene of the massacre


The eruption of gunfire was sudden and ferocious, round after round mowing down terrified men women and children, slamming into cars as they collided and overturned with drivers frantically trying to escape. Some vehicles were set alight by exploding petrol tanks. A mother and her infant child died in one of them, trapped in the flames.

9910. jexster - 9/22/2007 8:40:54 AM

Worse than Saddam



BAGHDAD (AFP) - Nearly two million Iraqis have fled their homes for other parts of Iraq since the US invasion, creating a "unprecedented human tragedy," the country's Red Crescent said in a report.


The figure covers only those internally displaced and does not include the UN-estimated two million others who have also fled but left their homeland completely, to go to Syria, Jordan, other neighbouring countries and even to Europe.

As at August 31 this year, 1,930,946 people had left their homes to seek safety elsewhere within Iraq's borders since the March 2003 invasion, creating a record in the annals of Iraq's human upheaval, the humanitarian society said.

Most were women and children -- poor, sick, suffering from malnutrition and with little access to the country's health infrastructure or basic services.

"Heads of families have very often fled or joined an armed group... Rape, armed gangs, theft, drug addiction" were commonplace among internally displaced people, the Red Crescent said.

"The horror of daily slaughter and attacks has a serious impact on the psychological health of the women and children. The overall picture is that of a human tragedy unprecedented in Iraq's history."

9911. jexster - 9/22/2007 11:14:43 AM

One Million Slaughtered

None Dare Call It 'Genocide'

Promised freedom, democracy, flowers and candy...

9912. jexster - 9/22/2007 12:05:37 PM

BushKill USA

NO VACANCY
Military Cemetary Full Up

Small price
No Surrender
Stay the Course
Central Front in the War on Terror
Strategy for Victory
Mission Accomplished
Return on Success
Support the Troops

9913. jexster - 9/22/2007 5:36:23 PM

None Dare Call It 'Genocide'

there's one thing Americans don't talk about: the lives of Iraqis, or, rather, the deaths of Iraqis. It's interesting because we live in an age of extreme multiculturalism and global concern. We adore international aid workers, go on mission trips abroad, weep for the plight of those suffering from hunger and disease, volunteer in efforts to bring plumbing to Ecuador, mosquito nets to Rwanda, clean water to Malawi, human rights to Togo, and medicine to Bangladesh.

But when "we" cause the calamity, suddenly there is silence. There is something odd, suspicious, even disloyal about a person who would harp on the deaths of Iraqis since the US invasion in 2003. Maybe a person who would weep for Iraq is really a terrorist sympathizer. After all, most of the deaths resulted from "sectarian violence," and who can stop crazed Islamic sects from killing each other. Better each other than us, right?

Well, it's about time that we think about the numbers, even though the US military has decided that body counts are not worth their time. Opinion Research Business, a highly reputable polling firm in the UK, has just completed a detailed and rigorous survey of Iraqis. In the past, the company's results have been touted by the Bush administration whenever the data looks favorable to the US cause.

But their latest report received virtually no attention in the US.

Here is the grisly bottom line: more than one million people have been murdered in Iraq since the US invasion, according to the ORB.

9914. jexster - 9/23/2007 5:52:51 PM

Squid Eating Rust Picker

In an interview with Al Jazeera television the head of U.S. Central Command, Adm. William Fallon, also seemed keen to tone down the rhetoric. Asked if a war was on the cards, Fallon said: "No. I certainly hope not ... This constant drumbeat of conflict strikes me as not helpful and not useful."

Fallon's remarks to Al Jazeera were dubbed into Arabic.

Of course, the chicken-shit little ass kisser under his command doesn't answer to Admiral Fallon

9915. concerned - 9/24/2007 12:03:40 AM

Excerpted from the 'Daily Kos':

Why I Have A Little Crush on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

I know I’m a Jewish lesbian and he’d probably have me killed. But still, the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon...

Okay, I admit it. Part of it is that he just looks cuddly. Possibly cuddly enough to turn me straight. I think he kind of looks like Kermit the Frog. Sort of. With smaller eyes. But that’s not all...

I want to be very clear. There are certainly many things about Ahmadinejad that I abhor — locking up dissidents, executing of gay folks, denying the fact of the Holocaust, potentially adding another dangerous nuclear power to the world and, in general, stifling democracy. Even still, I can’t help but be turned on by his frank rhetoric calling out the horrors of the Bush Administration and, for that matter, generations of US foreign policy preceding.

If jexster moved to Iran, some of those burkha beauties might turn him straight.

jexster and this Ahmadinejad lover suffer from the same disease: Bush Derangement Syndrome. The symptoms include a complete loss of perspective, a willingness to reject reality and accept any inhuman calamitous inequitable belief system to spite Western Civilization.

9916. concerned - 9/24/2007 12:06:06 AM

You're one deranged little monkey, jexster. Throwing away any shred of credibility on that preposterous '1 million' Iraqi death lie.

9917. concerned - 9/24/2007 12:11:03 AM

Did I mention that Harry Reid is one incredibly stupid motherfucker for being sucked in by that ridiculous lie? How can he effectively formulate policy when he doesn't have the faintest clue what is actually happening?

9918. concerned - 9/24/2007 12:12:27 AM

Re. 9989 -

I think you're a delusional primate, jexster.

9919. concerned - 9/24/2007 12:14:35 AM

Re. 9899 -

You know what I really think? I think you're a delusional macaca, jexster.

9920. concerned - 9/24/2007 12:25:12 AM

Re. 9915 -

The attraction of this BDS sufferer to someone who wants to eliminate her and everything she professes to believe in because he is not George W. Bush is a testament to how mentally ill many in the Left are. Such as jexster.

9921. jexster - 9/24/2007 8:53:11 AM

He continues to believe that if it weren't for the left Bush would be Emperor

Over twenty retired generals have now spoken out against the Iraq War, a gut-wrenching decision for these highly conservative lifelong Republicans.

9922. jexster - 9/24/2007 8:56:45 AM

Still waiting for some fact based criticism of the Orb study.

What happened? Busheviks used to love quoting Orb opinion research

9923. jexster - 9/24/2007 8:57:52 AM

It is said that 50-60 million people died in WWII, generally accepted figure in fact. The Orb number 1.2 million at least is credible whether TD accepts it or not

9924. jexster - 9/24/2007 8:59:26 AM

I am not a Jewish lesbian but if I were in NyC I wear an I HEART Ahmadinejad shirt too

It's enuf that he's demon ju jour of the Crackpots and the Jizzraelites

9925. jexster - 9/24/2007 8:59:41 AM

du

9926. jexster - 9/24/2007 9:03:07 AM

And besides, can anyone think of any higher or greater testament to credibility than TD's proclamation that I have none?

Consider the record.

9927. jexster - 9/24/2007 9:06:20 AM

' The Bush-Cheney administration has surrendered much of Afghanistan to the Taliban and much of Pakistan to al-Qaida. They have turned most of Iraq over to Iran, creating the very danger over which they now threaten another disastrous war; they have strained the U.S. Armed Forces to the point of exhaustion, turned the Defense Department over to private contractors, the Justice Department over to the Republican National Committee, and the national debt over to foreign creditors, while leading a party whose single most basic belief is supposed to be that individuals must take personal responsibility for their actions. And they dare to lecture us on national security?'

9928. jexster - 9/24/2007 9:29:28 AM

As Bush prepares to ask for another $200 billion for his disastrous failures researchers estimate that his stay the course plans will cost 1.25 trillion

Veto child health care!

9929. jexster - 9/24/2007 9:47:05 AM

The Bush Kleptocracy: Graft Spread from Kuwait Base

9930. concerned - 9/24/2007 10:24:35 AM

Re. 9926 -

I'm just stating what everybody knows about you, jexster.

9931. jexster - 9/24/2007 10:26:18 AM

Pretending again

9932. jexster - 9/24/2007 10:27:06 AM

That's OK don't get me wrong. Thanks for the endorsement

9933. jexster - 9/24/2007 12:33:40 PM

9934. jexster - 9/24/2007 3:24:23 PM

Mission accomplished -- for Iran

The scale of Bush's strategic miscalculation in Iraq is striking, emboldening Iran to extend its influence in the Middle East

By Peter Galbraith

cross-post

9935. concerned - 9/24/2007 5:36:02 PM

Looks like jexster's man Mahmoud ran into some trouble at Columbia University

9936. concerned - 9/24/2007 5:38:11 PM

jexster -

What do you think of your man Mahmoud's claim that there are no gays in Iran?

Do you think he's wrong?

9937. jexster - 9/24/2007 6:45:29 PM

Are there any gays in the GrandOldPigpile

What do I think?

Free Larry Craig

9938. jexster - 9/24/2007 6:47:22 PM

Bush doesn't have the balls to speak at Columbia

9939. jexster - 9/24/2007 6:48:53 PM

Argentina Hosts Gay World Cup


Guess Iran won't be represented

9940. concerned - 9/24/2007 8:11:29 PM

Re. 9938 -

Columbia doesn't have the balls to invite George W. Bush.

9941. concerned - 9/24/2007 8:17:17 PM

George W. Bush probably doesn't has the time for Columbia, anyway. They trashed your boy Mahmoud much more effectively than he would have been allowed to, IAC.

9942. concerned - 9/24/2007 8:21:36 PM

Re. 9939 -

So you don't give a fuck for the plight of gays in Iran, do you? What a hypocrite.

9943. concerned - 9/24/2007 8:37:59 PM

Are there any gays in the GrandOldPigpile

If you don't know the answer to that, then you are stupider than dirt.

9944. concerned - 9/24/2007 8:43:10 PM

Know why there's no gays in Iran? Because they practice 'Do ask. Don't live'.

9945. concerned - 9/24/2007 8:43:54 PM

And jexster's on record on that being just peachy keen with him.

9946. concerned - 9/24/2007 8:44:55 PM

Of course, on the positive side, Iran doesn't have much of an AIDS problem.

9947. jexster - 9/24/2007 9:06:41 PM

Are you a peter puffer?

9948. concerned - 9/24/2007 11:06:11 PM

You apparently want a string of negatives to the same question, don't you?

9949. concerned - 9/24/2007 11:19:18 PM

Iraqi Prime Minister Breaks Fast at a Queens Mosque

While the nutcase Left Wing was greeting jexster's new hero Ahmadinejad, Maliki was backing up GWB's assertion that we are in large part fighting the same enemy in Iraq as was responsible for 9/11.

9950. jexster - 9/25/2007 4:41:55 AM

al Maliki's a puppet making a PR stop for Bush and a big friend of Ahmadinejad. Been to Tehran two or three times.
TD will believe anything

When will Najaf be safe enough to make the pilgrimage?” yelled out Azzam Mirza, a 60-year-old Indian-American.

“You can come with us now!” responded the prime minister.

“He said he wanted to visit, not to die there,” quipped Sheik Husham Al-Husainy, a visiting cleric from Dearborn.




Ahmedinejad isn't "my hero".

TD's pretending twice in one post! Three times actually because in addition to inventing bullshit about AlQaeda in Iraq being responsible for 9/11, he implies that he spoke out against Iran





Back in the Real World

LAT: Ahmadinejad hailed in Middle East

The president of Iran, who has made a point of defying the West and Israel, has won admiration even among Sunni nations.

9951. jexster - 9/25/2007 4:42:23 AM

How many ways can one President lose a war?

9952. concerned - 9/25/2007 8:42:35 AM

Your reading comprehension level is very low, jexster. I said nothing about 'AlQaeda in Iraq being responsible for 9/11' or speaking 'out against Iran' in that post.

Talk about inventing bullshit. And your boy Mahmoud is nothing else if he isn't the Iranian Mullahs' puppet.

9953. jexster - 9/25/2007 9:19:44 AM

Maliki was backing up GWB's assertion that we are in large part fighting the same enemy in Iraq as was responsible for 9/11.


Same old tired BushShit.

9954. jexster - 9/25/2007 9:30:24 AM

9/11 and Iraq ...Like I said, old, tired bullshit first used by Cheney but most notably at the UN five years ago. We got attacked, we have to act against Iraq

Old, tired lie

9955. jexster - 9/25/2007 9:33:03 AM

One picture kills ten thousand lies

9956. jexster - 9/25/2007 9:50:08 AM

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0924/p99s01-duts.html

9957. jexster - 9/25/2007 9:51:20 AM

OOPS
While TD pretends


US Moves Push Iran/Iraq Closer
CSM

9958. jexster - 9/25/2007 10:15:56 AM

M'am Jalal, sorry you've been colonized
Juan Cole


Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Tuesday declared the arrest in northern Iraq of an Iranian national by US forces "illegal" and again demanded his release.

"We have asked the US authorities to release the arrested man," Talabani told reporters in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah in Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region before leaving for New York for the UN General Assembly.

"Arresting a person in Kurdistan is illegal because his security file was under the jurisdiction of the provincial government," said Talabani, who is himself a Kurd.

Iran shut its border with Iraq on Monday in protest at the detention by US forces in Sulaimaniyah last Thursday of the Iranian, Mahmudi Farhadi.

9959. jexster - 9/25/2007 11:08:00 AM

Have a big Iftar planned for October 7 do ya TD?

So concerned about Iraqi's, surely you're hosting an al_Qadr (Night of Power) dinner!

Fucking Texans are total phonies...and you been hornswaggled by a Texas bullshit artist


How dumb is that!

9960. jexster - 9/25/2007 2:22:59 PM

Promised Freedom, Democracy, Peace, Flowers and Candy...

Bush lies....hundreds of thousands die

He's responsible as much Iraqi death as Saddam...Iran war included

Bush just kills faster

WHO: Cholera Outbreak in Iraq Spreading

9961. jexster - 9/25/2007 8:30:52 PM

How many times have you heard this over the past four years?

“The main reason behind all these attacks are the signs of improvement of the security situation mentioned in the Crocker-Petraeus report,” said Tahseen al-Sheikhly, the Iraqi spokesman for the security plan, in a reference to the recent Congressional testimony of General Petraeus and the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker.

9962. jexster - 9/26/2007 10:26:27 AM

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates will ask Congress Wednesday to approve nearly $190 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008, increasing initial projections by more than a third.

9963. jexster - 9/26/2007 10:54:28 AM

The Lies Concerned Peddles

Turns out that the Jizzraelite aggressors didn't strike any nucular facility in Syria. They struck ....get this!!!!

A Battery of North Korean NO DONG missiles

9964. jexster - 9/26/2007 2:00:45 PM

TD in the On Deck Circle

‘Fruitbat’ at Bat



We just can’t stop being nice to Iran.

Maureen Dowd


First, we break Iraq and hand it over to the Shiites, putting in a puppet who leans toward Iran and is aligned with the Shiite militias bankrolled by Iran. Then, as Peter Galbraith writes in The New York Review of Books, President Bush facilitates “the takeover of a large part of the country by an Iranian-backed militia,” with the ironic twist that “there is now substantially more personal freedom in Iran than in Southern Iraq.”

And on top of all that, we help build up the self-serving doofus Iranian president, a frontman with a Ph.D. in traffic management, into the sort of larger-than-life demon that the real powers in Iran — the mullahs — can love.

9965. jexster - 9/27/2007 2:39:41 PM

The Bush Kleptocracy Marches On

Bush's Blackwater Mercenaries Cost 4 times as Much, Half as Good

9966. jexster - 9/28/2007 11:49:31 AM

Allawi: Maliki's Campaign of Persecution "Worse Than Saddam"

1,000,000 dead..Iran in control...

The Americans seem to have gotten them­selves into an intractable mess in Iraq. They must now choose between a historical debacle if they hang on and a temporary setback if they let go.

"We cannot leave Iraq before it is stabilized," declared a former CIA officer. But to maintain a prolonged foreign occupation of Iraq is to destabilize it only further. Once the invader departs, there will no doubt be a civil war, which will accelerate the dismemberment of the nation, giving rise to a fundamentalist regime, which will make at least some people miss the era of Saddam.

9967. jexster - 9/28/2007 1:46:33 PM

concerned heard it here first..he certainly didn't read it in his Toilet Bowl Talking Points

Historian Roger Owen explains why Iraq is doomed to warlord rivalry and chaos in the short to medium term, whatever the US military does in that country. Via Cole

9968. jexster - 9/28/2007 5:55:40 PM

THis is our great counterinsurgency savior?

The bloody ass kisser's a butcher. Betrayus? Little chickenshit, a liar, a careerist and failure as military officer


US Helicopters Kill Seven Young Iraqis Playing a Game

9969. jexster - 9/28/2007 6:08:12 PM

While They Bloviate in Bushville


Turkey Would Consider Opening Border to US Exit

9970. jexster - 9/28/2007 6:14:00 PM

War Didn't GO Wrong
It WAS Wrong

Open Fire

The U.S. needlessly inflamed Iraq in the vain hope of sparking a democratic revolution. We got an inferno instead.
The American Conservative


That waa why concerned claimed he supported the Debacle

9971. jexster - 9/28/2007 6:31:51 PM

This is why the Aznar Tapes are so goddamned important. Schroeder explains:

Much of this—the priority the U.S. gave Iraq over Afghanistan and al-Qaeda and the choice of preventive war—is universally acknowledged. Astonishingly, however, the equally important and undeniable fact that its policy in 2002-03 deliberately rejected international methods for fire prevention in Iraq has still not been squarely faced, much less accepted. This gets ignored or swept aside by disputes over other questions, arguably interesting and important but not central—Saddam Hussein’s nature and intentions, Iraq’s capabilities, the existence or not of WMD, the motives and aims of America’s leaders, the quality and use of American intelligence, the genuine or deceptive character of arguments for military action, and so on.

This shell game, whether it represents a deliberate tactic or not, has led Americans to misunderstand the struggle at the UN that culminated in America’s failure to gain a Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq and its decision to proceed without one. The American public has been led to believe that the sole, decisive issue was whether Iraq possessed WMD or active programs to develop them. If so, military action would have automatically been justified and needed. This remains the administration’s defense of the decision for preventive war: along with other countries and on the basis of reasonable intelligence, it genuinely considered Saddam’s weapons a threat to which the only effective response was force.

9972. jexster - 9/28/2007 7:54:24 PM

after five years of counterproductive failure, the dominant American perspective on the Iraq War remains marked by endless vistas of myopia. Concentrating attention on tactical failures enables those who decided on and promoted this war to escape accountability and allows its current defenders to justify the original policy while condemning its execution and continuing the war. It lets Americans scapegoat the Iraqis for results for which they were not primarily responsible. The fact is that the U.S. destroyed the former Iraqi governmental apparatus and created a new government under conditions that virtually guaranteed that it would be dysfunctional. It broke the Iraqis’ legs and now complains because they cannot jump the high hurdles. Most importantly, emphasizing the tactical and contingent causes of failure promotes the idea that the war can still be won or further failure averted by changing tactics and adding resources and effort—the rationale behind the current surge. Similarly, concentrating on the immediate costs and dangers of the war for Americans encourages the belief that if these can be reduced to tolerable levels, the problem will basically be solved.

9973. jexster - 9/28/2007 8:20:50 PM

Equally striking is the mismatch between the goals of the war and the historical means and process supposed to achieve them. In Iraq, military conquest and armed occupation by Western forces were supposed quickly to produce a liberal, constitutional, democratic state with a free-market economy and a strong, stable civil society. Parts of the West, including the United States, have now more or less achieved these goals—but only through an historical process that, ignoring its roots in ancient Greece and Rome, took about a thousand years and involved numerous stages—medieval constitutionalism; the administered police (i.e. social discipline) state; the constitutional Rechtsstaat; the parliamentary state, liberal-representative but not democratic; and finally, liberal-constitutional democracy. The evolution involved deep, wrenching social, economic, intellectual, and cultural changes—religious reformation, class struggle, scientific discovery, technological innovation, massive developments in education, literacy, and the growth of a public sphere, industrialization, modernization, urbanization, and so on. It was tortuous, convoluted, and twisted almost beyond belief, full of blind alleys and wrong turns, choked with violence, war, imperialism, and revolution, marked by as many defeats and failures as victories and advances, costly and dangerous, with numerous times when the process seemed hopelessly stalled or defeated. Yet we proposed to bring about this transformation in Iraq through one short easy war. What were we thinking?

This is not to say, as some do, that Iraqis, Arabs, Muslims in general, or other non-Westerners cannot achieve liberal-constitutional representative democratic government because their religion, culture, ideology, values, and history render them unfit. I consider that view profoundly mistaken, if not a lie. Nor does this imply that non-Westerners can learn nothing from the Western experience. It is full of lessons, positive and negative, for West and East alike. I am saying only that if Iraqis and others are to gain the blessings of freedom and democracy, they cannot get them this way.

So why should we believe Bush, the War Party, Concerned or other lackeys of either party now?

9974. concerned - 10/1/2007 4:56:41 PM

Hey, jexster - your boy Mahmoud made the funny pages.

9975. jexster - 10/1/2007 5:11:33 PM

So anytime I don't join in with you hairballs in demonizing your next target of a criminal aggression, he becomes "my boy"


So be it

So what

9976. jexster - 10/1/2007 5:13:30 PM

Free Larry Craig.

9977. concerned - 10/2/2007 8:23:23 AM

Just as long as they don't put the noose around your neck in the men's room and make you jump off the porcelain throne, it's ok with you guys?


Well, I got news for you. More often than not, in Iran, it's open pit style.

9978. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 10/2/2007 9:36:44 AM

Petty things occupy petty minds.

9979. concerned - 10/2/2007 1:21:31 PM

Guess that makes jexster a petty liar, as well as a big liar.

9980. jexster - 10/3/2007 10:57:16 AM

So let me get the argument here. There a bunch of crazy mullahs in Iran who take a dump in holes in the ground. Haven't invaded other kingdoms or countries in 2000 years or so. Have a moron as President who really doesn't control much of anything and has squandered a goodly part of the strategic gold mine that Bush handed him and so we are supposed to bomb Iran because they are so evil


That about got it?

9981. concerned - 10/3/2007 1:49:36 PM

If you believe that Iran hasn't "invaded other kingdoms or countries for 2000 years or so", you don't know much. 'Course, they may have been too busy hanging gays for the last thousand years or so to do that much else.

9982. Wombat - 10/3/2007 4:34:14 PM

Gotta agree with Concerned on the "not having invaded anyone in the last 2000 years" bloomer. Otherwise Jex has about nailed the "argument."

9983. concerned - 10/3/2007 5:40:13 PM

moron as President who really doesn't control much of anything and has squandered a goodly part of the strategic gold mine that Bush handed him and so we are supposed to bomb Iran because they are so evil

Sure sounds like Hussein to me.

9984. jexster - 10/3/2007 6:22:41 PM

Aha! I stand corrected..The last of the Persian Peril


Sassanid Empire circa 610, then the Islamofascists wiped them out

9985. concerned - 10/4/2007 9:10:33 AM

Re. 9984 -

Wrong again.

9986. jexster - 10/4/2007 10:15:07 AM

I learn somethin new every day. Sometimes 2-3 things. Like this one

I didn't know that he said this:

If you want peace, always be prepared for war.
Hazrat-e Ali (peace be upon him)

9987. concerned - 10/4/2007 6:25:17 PM

More good surge news: Iraqi civilian deaths down by half in September

I'm cheering. Are you?

9988. jexster - 10/4/2007 8:07:00 PM

That is good news but somehow I doubt you much care

9989. jexster - 10/5/2007 11:09:22 AM

When you use airstrikes you've already lost the counterinsurgency. Petraeus is such a fraud. There has been no change to COIN tactics,much less a strategy!

Note the standard American response: We "have no knowledge" of civilian casualties"

No shit. That's true. They didn't have any knowledge that they killed "insurgents". They didn't even know how many people they killed. They were up in the sky fer crissakes that is the whole point


So fucking bogus


Double US air strike kills 25 in Iraq


A double US air strike on an Iraqi village killed around 25 suspected Iranian-linked insurgents on Friday, the military said, as Iraqi officials claimed women and children were among the dead.

The strikes on Jayzani Al-Imam, 30 miles (50 kilometres) north of the capital, came after a ground operation ran into trouble against insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades, the US military said.

The operation was launched to capture an insurgent commander linked to Iranian intelligence agents and believed to be smuggling weapons from Iran, accused by the US of fuelling sectarian conflict in Iraq, it said.

"There were two air strikes; one helicopter, one fixed-wing. There was continued fighting between the two air strikes," US Major Winfield Danielson later told AFP.

Iraqi police spokesman Khudhayir al-Timimi said women and children were among the dead and wounded in the raid, but the Americans said they had no knowledge of civilian casualties.

9990. concerned - 10/5/2007 12:26:54 PM

For Iraqi terrorists 'CYA' means hiding behind their women and children. Shows what kind of 'men' they are.

9991. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 10/5/2007 12:42:47 PM

. . . and speaking of what kind of men we have here . . .

9992. concerned - 10/5/2007 12:47:00 PM

You going to vote for a 'man' for president, Wiper?

9993. jexster - 10/5/2007 1:23:08 PM

The Chicken Shit Ass Kisser Syndrome

Saving the Military From Itself: Why Medals and Metrics Mislead


It's time to save the military from itself. I say this as a retired Air Force officer who served for twenty years, my last three in a "joint" assignment, working closely with Army, Marine, and Navy officers and enlisted men and women. As the Dean of Students at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, I saw hundreds of young troops cross the stage, graduating with new skills in Arabic and other strategic languages. With few exceptions, these (mostly) young men and women were highly motivated, committed to their service and country, and ready to go to war. They had no quit in them.

But in the words of Kenny Rogers, "You've got to know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run." The reference to his hit song, "The Gambler," is not facile. The Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz wrote that war, in its complexities and uncertainties, most resembles a game of cards - let's say Texas Hold'em in honor of the President's adopted state. Over the last four-plus years, we've shoved hundreds of billions of dollars into the Iraqi pot, suffered sobering losses in killed-in-action/wounded-in-action, yet we're still holding losing cards dealt from a stacked deck. Even so, the Bush administration has recently doubled-down instead of folding, hoping to hit an inside straight despite long odds.

Why are we spilling blood and treasure with such reckless abandon? One answer is the military itself. Our military is a funhouse reflection of ourselves - purpose-driven, results-oriented, can-do, never-say-die, win-at-any-cost. Many commentators have noted that, in his recent testimony before Congress, General David Petraeus was hardly likely to criticize his own strategy in Iraq or, more crucially, the performance of the troops under his command. I have no doubt, however, that his belief in the viability of his mission reaches far deeper than that. Indeed, it surely taps into a core belief within the military that we can - and must - prevail in any conflict. We've been seduced by our own hype about being the world's "sole superpower," as if nuclear and technological supremacy had made us omnipotent as well as omni-competent.

9994. jexster - 10/5/2007 5:01:46 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraq's national security adviser said on Friday he strongly opposed any military attack on Iran and, in contrast to the Bush administration's policy, said the option should not even be considered.


"Attacking Iran? I say a big fat no. It's a fatal mistake," Mowaffak al-Rubaie said. "It should never be an option at all.

9995. jexster - 10/6/2007 2:13:42 PM

More evidence, that the US public is clueless about Iraq..have been since forever..after one million dead you kinda get used to it



What's One More US Atrocity for Freedom:
Blackwater BFD for Iraqis


The shooting last month involving Blackwater security contractors remains big news in the United States. Not here though. Soon after the story broke, it faded from the front pages.

The truth is that no one in Baghdad was very surprised to learn that on Sept. 16 innocent civilians had been killed in a hail of American gunfire. They were more likely to be thinking, “Oh, not again.” Of course some were angered, but over the past three years too many like incidents like this one have dulled people’s outrage

9996. jexster - 10/6/2007 5:57:54 PM

Bush's Bloody Boondoggle

Even Sprinkler System Fails at New Embassy

9997. concerned - 10/7/2007 2:27:56 PM

From AFP:

Maid arrested after Saudi employer 'bewitched'


RIYADH (AFP) — Saudi Arabia's religious police have arrested a domestic worker accused of having put a spell on her employer, the Al-Madina newspaper reported on Sunday.

The arrest of the maid, whose nationality was not revealed, followed a complaint by the wife of the employer who she said had been "bewitched by the maid".

The woman said she suspected her husband had been put under a spell because he fiercely defended the maid from criticism every time she neglected her work.

Members of the religious police, known as Mutawas, discovered "talismans and products of charlatanism" in a search of the maid's quarters in the eastern city of Damman, the newspaper added.

The paper said the maid, who is to face trial, "admitted she took refuge in sorcery so as to make her employers like her".

"The bewitched husband adored the maid and carried out all her wishes, unbeknownst to his wife," the newspaper said.

Saudi's feared religious police are tasked with enforcing respect for public morals. Witchcraft is a capital offence in Saudi Arabia, where Sharia law is strictly applied.

Around two million domestic workers, mostly from Asian countries like Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, are employed in Saudi Arabia.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says many are sexually exploited and otherwise mistreated by their employers.

Another worthless, retrograde aspect of Islam - Sharia recognizes Witchcraft as a capital crime.

Islam - bringing ancient ignorance to the future.

9998. concerned - 10/7/2007 2:45:25 PM

From: Stolen Valor”—by B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley, Verity Press, 1998.

“During the ten-year period of the (Vietnam) war, 7,257 African-Americans died in Vietnam, or 12.5 percent of the KIAs, slightly under their proportion in the population of draft-aged males. Eighty-six percent of those killed were Caucasian; 1.5 percent were other races. (’Hispanics’ in those days were classed as either white, black, Native American, or Asian)An examination of the casualty records indicates the highest rate for black servicemen was 16 percent in 1965, and almost all of those killed were volunteers in elite units, not reluctant draftees involuntarily assigned to combat units. . .In 1969, the war’s peak, black deaths accounted for 11.4 percent of the total. . .”

9999. concerned - 10/7/2007 2:53:53 PM

Lean Times For 'Porky' al Sadr

Porky's playing pattycake with the Iraqi government and the Kurds, also.

10000. concerned - 10/7/2007 3:06:50 PM

Suicide bombers head to Iraq from Damascus

More proof that Islam can reduce your effective IQ by at least 50 points.

10001. jexster - 10/7/2007 7:14:29 PM

Five Wars, Five Losses


US Losing War on Terror - Oxford Research Group


Hell even a casual Motier with a 5 grade reading level or better knew that

10002. jexster - 10/7/2007 7:17:24 PM

Has Bush's Favorite Iranian Stooge Surrendered to Muqtada?

10003. concerned - 10/7/2007 8:10:21 PM

This Oxford Research Group is not affiliated with the University of Oxford in any way, and, in reality, is nothing but a charity. Your donations welcomed.

jexster proves once again what a charlatan he is.

10004. jexster - 10/7/2007 8:44:37 PM

Say WHAT?

10005. jexster - 10/7/2007 8:48:37 PM

Like I said, 5th grade reading level



Since 1982, Oxford Research Group has been building trust between policy-makers, academics, the military and civil society. Along with our internationally recognised consultants, we combine detailed knowledge of global security issues with an understanding of political decision-making, and many years expertise in facilitating constructive dialogue.


In other words not affiliated with George W BUsh, Rush Limbaugh or any other concerned nitwits with cats up their asses


Iraq and the War on Terror

10006. jexster - 10/7/2007 8:52:41 PM

Well double duh
Any casual Motier with a third grade or better reading comprehension could tell you this one



"We Lied" - Top British Military Advisor



The British government gave "false and inflated expectations" of what could be achieved by its military presence in Iraq, its top military adviser said in an interview published Monday.

Speaking to The Times, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the chief of the defence staff, acknowledged that only Iraqis could make Basra, in the south of the country, into a stable, secure and prosperous city.

"In my view, and contrary to what many people may think, the British military in the south of Iraq, against some quite daunting odds, has been successful, and the nonsense about the British having failed in Basra is completely misjudged," he told the daily.

"Of course, it does depend upon recognising what the mission was in the first place, and I'm afraid we did allow some false and inflated expectations to arise.

"But the mission for the military was to get the place and the people to the state where the Iraqis could run that bit of their country if they chose to."

Stirrup added: "I think we didn't do a good job, frankly, of setting out the strategic prospect ... and we have not done as well as we should have done at thinking strategically.

"I'm talking here not just about the military."

10007. jexster - 10/7/2007 9:05:33 PM

As the Taliban closes in on Kabul, British commander warns his troops "face decades in Afghanistan

He should live so long

Five wars, five losses

10008. concerned - 10/8/2007 12:15:26 AM

Re. 10005 -

Then you have a pre-school reading comprehension level, jexster.

The ORG describe themselves as a charity, for Christ's sake.

Their opinions on "global security issues" are no better informed than the Salvation Army's.

Based on his slack jawed credulous response to ORG's horseshit, jexster would be easy meat if he ran into Nigerian scammers. He'd buy into every one of their lies also.

10009. concerned - 10/8/2007 12:18:01 AM

Re. 10007 -

jexster - delusional idiot.

10010. jexster - 10/8/2007 9:45:41 AM

Forewarned is Forearmed

Stop him before he loses six wars

10011. jexster - 10/8/2007 9:50:33 AM

Charity means "non-profit", doesn't mean "salvation army"

10012. jexster - 10/8/2007 10:37:52 AM

Top Iraqis Pull Back From Key U.S. Goal
Reconciliation Seen Unattainable Amid Struggle for Power


Of course not! Duh. When each of the sides can play the other sides using US troops in a civil war, why shouldn't they?

Wouldn't you?

10013. jexster - 10/8/2007 10:51:00 AM

The Next Saddam?
With US Help, Sunni Warlords Gain Power

10014. concerned - 10/8/2007 11:29:19 AM

From m-w.com:

char·i·ty
Pronunciation: 'cher-&-tE, 'cha-r&-
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
2 a : generosity and helpfulness especially toward the needy or suffering; also : aid given to those in need b : an institution engaged in relief of the poor c : public provision for the relief of the needy

Like the Salvation Army. Which begs the question: What sort of charitable work is ORG doing?

10015. jexster - 10/8/2007 12:55:07 PM

It's British you moron

They tell you what they are Right here

Absolutely nothing in common with the Salvation Army.

FIve wars

Five losses

Think tank says 'war on terror' has been disaster
Belfast Telegraph, United Kingdom

10016. jexster - 10/8/2007 12:55:46 PM

It's getting harder and harder to live in BushWorld

10017. jexster - 10/8/2007 2:56:52 PM

Triple DUH!

Iraqis Say Basra Quieter After British Pullout


There goes the "chaos when the occupier leaves" lie

10018. jexster - 10/8/2007 3:47:16 PM

Five wars
Five losses
One Wrecked US Army

Army needs three to four years to recover from Iraq strains: chief

Flip-flops in the alley beat boots on the ground
William Lind

10019. concerned - 10/8/2007 5:46:34 PM

Re. 10015 -

Yeah, they're 'peace at any price' one-note pacifist losers who run a charity.

Of course jexster didn't agree with them on Kosovo. They're just there to be taken advantage of, as far as jexster is concerned.

10020. concerned - 10/8/2007 5:49:38 PM

Jexster can't name any 'five wars'. He just takes his lies that don't work and runs with them. Jexster's trying to out-Hitler Hitler in the big lie department, apparently.

10021. jexster - 10/8/2007 6:19:03 PM

1. Iraq
2. Afghanistan
3. Lebanon
4. Somalia
5 Terror

Five wars, five losses

10022. jexster - 10/8/2007 6:19:27 PM

One broken US Army

10023. jexster - 10/8/2007 6:22:55 PM

Peace at any price?


Five wars, Five Losses, One Broken US military

10024. jexster - 10/8/2007 8:00:51 PM

Failure No Matter What the Cost

Kurds, Turkey on the Brink
Time

The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, but the US military has done nothing to stop it from attacking a NATO ally (Turkey). The US also coddles the Mojahedin-e Khalq [MEK] terrorist group in Diyala province, which Saddam used against Iran, and which is probably the source for some of the wilder charges the US military makes against Iran.

It is one of the great ironies that in the wake of September 11 and the illegal war on Iraq, the Bush administration has ended up de facto giving safe harbor to two major terrorist groups in the Middle East

Juan Cole 10/8

10025. concerned - 10/8/2007 11:30:00 PM

Re. 10021 -

No troops, no war for 3 & 4. The others are in progress.

jexster has lost five out of five.

Next question?

10026. jexster - 10/9/2007 9:42:31 AM

4/5 Proxy...1,2,3 lost...


Five Wars, Five Losses

Bush Leak of AlQaeda Info Compromised Years of Intel Work

CNN reports that Bush lied when he said a combat brigade was coming home. They will be short one brigade for a while because Gates refused to rotate a brigade in Europe until they'd had 12 months rest

10027. jexster - 10/9/2007 10:57:19 AM

Five Wars
Five Defeats
One Broken Army

Our enemies...never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
– George W. Bush

10028. jexster - 10/9/2007 2:36:15 PM

Turk Govt to Seek Authority to Krush Kurds

10029. jexster - 10/9/2007 3:02:09 PM

Looks like instead of Turkey, we'll have a Kurducken for T'giving TD

Five wars
Five defeats
One wrecked military

10030. jexster - 10/9/2007 3:04:51 PM

Five Wars, Five Defeats
Even the British are Fleeing Iraq

10031. jexster - 10/9/2007 4:56:42 PM

Five Wars, Five Defeats


US Won't Buy Iraq Embassy, It's a "Turkey"


Like the whole fucking trillion dollar disaster. Can't we get our money back?

10032. jexster - 10/9/2007 5:06:22 PM

Jizzrael's Surging Right Wing

10033. jexster - 10/9/2007 8:10:03 PM

The Bush Humiliation Continues
The Rodney Dangerfield of International Affairs

Turks Warn Bush on Armenian Genocide Vote


Pretty damned pathetic.

What are the Republicans gonna do for an encore TD?

10034. jexster - 10/9/2007 9:52:08 PM

Failure at any Cost


Bush's "Coalition" Withering Fast

10035. concerned - 10/9/2007 9:54:32 PM

Re. 10033 -

The Turks were not warning Bush, you idiot.

10036. concerned - 10/9/2007 9:58:40 PM

If you read the article, they were warning the 'Rat controlled Congress.

10037. concerned - 10/9/2007 9:58:46 PM

If you read the article, they were warning the 'Rat controlled Congress.

10038. jexster - 10/10/2007 10:46:18 AM

The American Conservative: In Bushville, Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
The Old Guard Lines Up Behind War Party Candidates

Brunehilde's got the wussie warrior Holbrooke and Xena Warrior Princess Albright

Three Pussies has the NeoCon Psychotics

10039. jexster - 10/10/2007 10:53:23 AM

Treatin Old Glory like butt wipe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Turkish lawmakers visited Capitol Hill on Tuesday and their president has written to President George W. Bush, warning of damage to bilateral ties if Congress backs a bill recognizing the 1915 massacres of Armenians as genocide

10040. jexster - 10/10/2007 11:13:05 AM

Today George Bush proved that he is the Rodney Dangerfield of world affair sending Cunnilingus Rice out to denounce the Armeenian Genocide resolution. Do they support the Turk's extermination? No or so they say.


They're just scared of Turkey as well they should be...how pathetic

What part of "Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History" do you have trouble with TD?


Turkey Shells Northern Iraq

10041. jexster - 10/10/2007 11:19:13 AM

Turkish military trucks carry tanks on a road connecting Turkey's southeastern town of Cizre to Sirnak.

10042. jexster - 10/10/2007 1:00:53 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Wednesday urged U.S. lawmakers to reject a congressional resolution calling the 1915 massacres of Armenians genocide, saying it would do "great harm" to U.S. relations with Turkey.


"This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings," Bush told reporters at the White House







At least CheneyBush succeeded in achieving one goal

Raising the price of oil from 18 to 80/bbl

Better lay in some more winter garmets, blankets etc...

Let the bastards freeze in the dark

10043. jexster - 10/10/2007 1:17:38 PM

Iran: Putin Tells Bush, Sarkozy "A prick up your ass"

Hooy tebe v zhopu!

10044. jexster - 10/10/2007 2:14:57 PM

Jizzraeli Aggression Against Syria Kindles Split in Bush Regime


In the battle of the DickHead v. Cunninglingus, Crack Ho of Foggy Bottom, who you gonna bet on?


Meanwhile, as the Bushies bungle, there are something like 1.5 million Iraqi refugees huddling in Syria, the largest exodus in the ME since the Jizzraelites cleansed Palestine

10045. jexster - 10/10/2007 2:18:47 PM

NyT Link


And the WackWar Wing of the Wacko War Party had their little resident Mote Monkey dancing here just two weeks ago, cackling about mushroom clouds over Syria!

Called the scam then I did

10046. concerned - 10/10/2007 2:26:18 PM

Wet your diapers in your little sandbox, jexster?

10047. concerned - 10/10/2007 2:28:06 PM

The only mushroom clouds around here are inside your numbskull, jexster.

10048. jexster - 10/10/2007 2:36:33 PM

As Bush dances to the Turk's genocidal tune...


Concerned's going to tell us about the Syrian Nooklar threat

10049. concerned - 10/10/2007 2:39:40 PM

The Peloser/jexster crowd are the types of hypocritical ignorami who pretend to get their panties in a twist about nearly century old Middle East genocide, but are champing at the bit to start a new round of the same in Iraq.

10050. jexster - 10/10/2007 3:07:49 PM

TD, that is unintelligible. Total gibberish. Stop spiking your Kool-Aid with Stoli


Carter: Bush Lied - US Tortures

10051. jexster - 10/10/2007 3:31:07 PM

Tashack oglani


That's Turkish for

10052. jexster - 10/10/2007 5:45:19 PM

Ankara's Turducken



Turkey's Burgeoning Civil Society and Transforming Foreign Policy

10053. jexster - 10/10/2007 5:54:20 PM

Choices Few for the Tejas Turducken as Turkish forces launch attacks on Iraq

10054. jexster - 10/10/2007 7:30:16 PM

Bout time!


Time: Bush Surrenders Southern Iraq to Iran

10055. jexster - 10/10/2007 7:36:12 PM

I've been saying Iran won the war for four years


What took the Moron so long TD

10056. jexster - 10/10/2007 9:57:39 PM

US Marines Ready to Cut and Run

Press to Leave Iraq, Go to Afghanistan

Where they should have been all along

10057. jexster - 10/11/2007 2:49:19 PM

It's a start


UN Calls for War Crime Prosecutions of Bush Mercenaries

Next the asshole who hired them....

10058. jexster - 10/11/2007 7:13:24 PM

Erdogan's Bitch Stands Tall for Muzzie Genocide of Christians

10059. jexster - 10/11/2007 7:15:51 PM

From Armenia to Bush

Kunem ko hokey I fuck your soul

10060. jexster - 10/11/2007 8:55:59 PM

The Shame of Old Glory

Turkey Threatens USA

Blasts the Bleating Bush -
Orospunun dolu*!!


*Sperm of a whore

10061. jexster - 10/12/2007 12:12:35 PM

From the Lebanon Daily Star

Six Iraqi Groups Team Up to Drive US Out

10062. jexster - 10/12/2007 5:54:19 PM

Ex-general: Iraq `nightmare' for US

The U.S. mission in Iraq is a "nightmare with no end in sight" because of political misjudgments after the fall of Saddam Hussein and that continue today, a former chief of U.S.-led forces said Friday.

Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded coalition troops for a year beginning June 2003, cast a wide net of blame for both political and military shortcomings in Iraq that helped open the way for the insurgency — such as disbanding the Saddam-era military and failing to cement ties with tribal leaders and quickly establish civilian government after Saddam was toppled.

He called current strategies — including the deployment of 30,000 additional forces earlier this year — a "desperate attempt" to make up for years of misguided policies in Iraq.

"There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight," Sanchez told a group of journalists covering military affairs.

Sanchez avoided pointing his criticism at any single official or agency, but it appeared a broad indictment of White House policies and a lack of leadership in the Pentagon to oppose them. Such assessments — even by former Pentagon brass — are not new, but they have added resonance as debates over war strategy dominate the presidential campaign.

Sanchez went on to offer a pessimistic view on the current U.S. strategy against extremists will make lasting gains, but said a full-scale withdrawal also was not an option.

"The American military finds itself in an intractable situation ... America has no choice but to continue our efforts in Iraq," said Sanchez, who works as a consultant training U.S. generals.

10063. jexster - 10/13/2007 10:26:13 AM

The Son of Bush's best Iraqi buddy Ammar Hakim Calls for Total US Withdrawal and No Permanent Bases

That's gratitude for ya! The Rodney Dangerfield of World Politics

10064. jexster - 10/13/2007 10:32:43 AM

10065. jexster - 10/13/2007 2:01:24 PM

Leadership Dooms Iraq War Effort - Gen Sanchez


Gee sounds exactly like Harry Reid

10066. concerned - 10/13/2007 4:17:02 PM

Caught Jexster in Another One of His Lies

From theNYT: Analysts Find Israel Struck a Nuclear Project Inside Syria

That settles that, then. I was right and jexster was wrong.

10067. concerned - 10/13/2007 4:19:15 PM

fixing another jexster screwup.

10068. jexster - 10/13/2007 4:32:13 PM

Some nukoolar program..a half built reactor.


Fucking Jizzraelites...Should throw the lot of those scumbags into the sea

10069. jexster - 10/13/2007 4:35:20 PM

Jimmy Carter calls Cheney a "disaster" for U.S and on "wrong side of debate on Syria."

10070. jexster - 10/13/2007 4:36:38 PM

And of course Syria has every right to build nuclear reactors, is known to be doing so and is an oil importer

TD can't read

he attack on the reactor project has echoes of an Israeli raid more than a quarter century ago, in 1981, when Israel destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq shortly before it was to have begun operating. That attack was officially condemned by the Reagan administration, though Israelis consider it among their military’s finest moments, and, in the weeks before the Iraq war, Bush administration officials said they believed that attack set back Iraq’s nuclear ambitions by many years.

By contrast, the facility that the Israelis struck in Syria appears to have been much further from completion, the American and foreign officials said. They said it would have been years before the Syrians could have used the reactor to produce the spent nuclear fuel that could, through a series of additional steps, be reprocessed into bomb-grade plutonium.

Many details remain unclear, most notably how much progress the Syrians had made in construction before the Israelis struck, the role of any assistance provided by North Korea, and whether the Syrians could make a plausible case that the reactor was intended to produce electricity. In Washington and Israel, information about the raid has been wrapped in extraordinary secrecy and restricted to just a handful of officials, while the Israeli press has been prohibited from publishing information about the attack.

The New York Times reported this week that a debate had begun within the Bush administration about whether the information secretly cited by Israel to justify its attack should be interpreted by the United States as reason to toughen its approach to Syria and North Korea. In later interviews, officials made clear that the disagreements within the administration began this summer, as a debate about whether an Israeli attack on the incomplete reactor was warranted then.

10071. jexster - 10/13/2007 4:47:58 PM

And of course that leak conveniently follows the NyT article of a few days ago that Rice and the State Dept considered even this intelligence bogus


If there was no Jizzrael, the US would be better off

10072. jexster - 10/13/2007 7:37:36 PM

WARNING!!!

Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background,
The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out; what better way to start than at the highest level?

Please forward to everyone you know

10073. jexster - 10/13/2007 7:41:28 PM

An Army of "Phony Soldiers"?

At least a division of em

10074. jexster - 10/14/2007 9:52:30 AM

Cole

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq) returned to Baghdad from chemotherapy in Iran and was welcomed by a big crowd of admirers at his home in south Baghdad after Eid prayers.

His son, Ammar al-Hakim, who has been acting head of ISCI in his father's absence, preached a sermon in which he pledged to work against enduring US bases in Iraq. (On December 4, 2006, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim stood next to Bush in the Rose Garden and asked for US troops to remain in Iraq, so this pronouncement seems to be the beginnings of a reversal). Al-Hakim also argued for forging ahead with a Shiite provincial confederation in the south. He argued for a complete return of sovereignty to Iraq, according to AFP.

You have to wonder whether the recent Iran-brokered pact between al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr, plus the new ISCI / Sistani consensus on reining in the US military and ultimately pushing it out altogether are a sign of new Iranian and Iraqi Shiite strategizing about the future. It also seems to me that the constant US drumbeat against Iran may have alarmed the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is an Iranian client and which needs Iranian money and support to maintain its political position in Iraq. Iran is therefore working to position ISCI as anti-Occupation over the medium to long run, and as responsible and orderly (thus the pact with Sadr.)

10075. jexster - 10/14/2007 1:30:37 PM

First His Mercenary.....

Then His Invading Legions

BAGHDAD - U.S. and Iraqi officials are negotiating Baghdad's demand that security company Blackwater USA be expelled from the country within six months, and American diplomats appear to be working on how to fill the security gap if the company is phased out.

If the Congress won't end our national "nightmare" (thank you Gen Sanchez!), then our little brown brothers will

10076. concerned - 10/15/2007 9:55:12 AM

First jexster says there was no nuclear target in Syria, then he admits that the Israelis did strike a nuclear target. Sounds like he is the one who 'can't read'.

10077. jexster - 10/15/2007 10:09:46 AM

If you'll check I said that they had no nuclear bomb program and thus even by the article, the Jizzraelites proved once again that they are a rogue state which under the BUsh doctrine, does not have the right to exist

10078. jexster - 10/15/2007 10:10:56 AM

But then of course, if we wiped them off the map, we'd have to wipe the GO War Party out too!


mmmmmm
Getting bored with Iraq? Nothing ever changes? Well, how about war with Iran?

10079. jexster - 10/15/2007 10:16:55 AM

Akbar Ganji, Iran's leading political dissident, discusses Iran's theocratic regime, democratization and the United States.

Big surprise: he's not a fan of Dick Cheney and Bushism.

--Josh Marshall



Well damn neither am I

Our national nightmare
Lt Gen Sanchez

10080. jexster - 10/15/2007 11:23:40 AM

Shakespeare included the drunken Porter in Macbeth for comic relief; in the present version, the cognate role is played by US President George W Bush, who has begged Congress not to offend an important ally by stating the truth about what happened 100 years ago. The sorry spectacle of an American president begging Congress not to affirm what the whole civilized world knows to be true underlines the overall stupidity of US policy towards the Middle East. It is particularly despicable for a Western nation to avert its eyes from a Muslim genocide against a Christian population.


Even the French Had the Balls to Stand Up to the Turk!




She's got little Georgie Bush, by the balls!

10081. concerned - 10/15/2007 11:44:51 AM

From the WP: Al-Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled

Chalk that one up as a win for our side, not your side; right, jexster?

10082. jexster - 10/15/2007 12:50:02 PM

Since there were only 1500 of em and since it was all made up to begin with ..if you'll read the article the debate is whether to declare victory against a phantasm

All for "political reasons"

Ie more Bullshit

10083. jexster - 10/15/2007 12:58:22 PM

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's cabinet asked parliament on Monday for permission to launch attacks on Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq that Washington fears could destabilize one of the most peaceful areas of the country.

Any part of this you don't understand, you let me know. I'll try to use two syllable words and pictures

There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight. From a catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan, to the administration’s latest surge strategy, this administration has failed to employ and synchronize the political, economic and military powerThe administration, Congress and the entire inter-agency, especially the State Department, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure and the American people must hold them accountable.
Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez
Phony Soldier

10084. jexster - 10/15/2007 1:00:12 PM

Al-Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled
Many Officials, However, Warn Of Its Resilience


But as the White House and its military commanders plan the next phase of the war, other officials have cautioned against taking what they see as a premature step that could create strategic and political difficulties for the United States. Such a declaration could fuel criticism that the Iraq conflict has become a civil war in which U.S. combat forces should not be involved. At the same time, the intelligence community, and some in the military itself, worry about underestimating an enemy that has shown great resilience in the past.




In other words, more doublespeak...more bullshit

10085. jexster - 10/15/2007 1:11:10 PM

But if you really insist in "chaulking up" victories against ghosts, chaulk another up for Iran and the Shiites.

10086. jexster - 10/15/2007 1:41:43 PM

Nothing ever changes does it?


Like I said, anyone who'd believe ExxonBush's junk science; that Saddam had WMD's; that Bush's invasion of Iraq would trigger a pro-US revolution in the ME;that Syria had a nuclear weapons program; that Iran is months away from a bomb; that Jizzrael would wipe out Hezbollah; that "AlQaeda's on the run"; that AQI has been destroyed


Will believe anything...absolutely anything

10087. jexster - 10/15/2007 1:48:05 PM

Cole

The NYT has been pushing the story that the Israeli air strike on Syria on September 6 came in response to intelligence that Syria was building a nuclear reactor at the site with clandestine North Korean help. There are reasons to question the accuracy of the Israeli story, which at some points has included allegations that there was evidence of enriched nuclear material at the site; such material could only be produced at the end of a long research and construction project, not at the beginning. The Israelis are trigger-happy and their intelligence on the Arab world is most often sloppy (the then head of Mossad is still insisting that Iraq had WMD), so one cannot assume there was anything to their apprehensions. In the absence of any inspection of the bombed site, one cannot assume there wasn't, either. The strike probably killed the November peace process summit that Condi Rice had been working toward; Syria says it won't attend.

Retired CIA analyst of Arab affairs Ray Close tells us what he thinks about it all:

10088. jexster - 10/15/2007 1:48:28 PM

"This is my Monday morning (speculative) analysis of the mysterious Israeli air attack on Syria on September 6, 2007 . . :

1. The Israelis offered us intelligence that Syria is beginning to develop a nuclear capability based on North Korean technology. They urged the US to cooperate with them in mounting a military attack to destroy the Syrian site. The advantages of this action, as presented to the Bush administration with great urgency by the Israelis, would be:

a. To preempt a new and dangerous violation of Israeli and American proliferation red lines before the Syrian program gets too far along (citing the Iranian experience for justification) ;

b. To intimidate and embarrass Syria; throw a scare into Iran; and restore Israel's deterrence credibility. (The historic examples of dramatically successful and awe-inspiring Israeli operations at Entebbe and Osirak, among others, still have great psychological and emotional impact.)

2. The more cautious and thoughtful members of the Bush administration opposed offering Israel the full participatory collaboration of the United States on the grounds that:

a. The Israeli intelligence in this case was not entirely persuasive, recalling instances of flawed intelligence of similar origin that misinformed some key US actions before and during the Iraq war;

b. If covert US-Israeli collaboration in this operation (technically an act of war) were actually proffered, this would eventually become known. The accuracy and authenticity of the Israeli intelligence on which the operational decision was justified would (in the absence of more credible supporting evidence from independent US sources), become the subject of heated public debate all over the world, and opponents of the Bush administration would argue with potentially devastating effect that this was final proof that Bush neocons have continually (in fact, going back many years) been duped by deliberate Israeli disinformation operations aimed at scaring America into adopting a policy of more overt and aggressive military cooperation with Israel;

c. Even if the Israeli intelligence were finally revealed to contain some credible evidence of Syria's long-range ambitions to obtain nuclear weapons and of North Korea's culpability in abetting those plans, the revelation of US-Israeli covert military collaboration against Syria at this critical time would, over the short term, endanger George W. Bush’s desperate hopes of achieving some dramatic diplomatic successes before the end of his administration ---- most importantly with respect to North Korea and next month's planned Middle East Peace talks here in the US.

3. Ongoing heated arguments within the administration over whether or not to coordinate US and Israeli actions and reactions in this instance have been won, at least temporarily, by the side that gives higher priority to preserving and sustaining the diplomatic efforts, on the grounds that short-term progress in both the North Korean and Israeli-Palestinian situations should trump, at least for the time being, the acknowledged high value also attached to the more aggressive alternative measures urgently and vigorously advocated by the Olmert government in Israel and by Israel’s supporters here in the United States.

4. There are undoubtedly some Democratic notables, in key Congressional positions of leadership and on the electoral hustings, who have been officially briefed (or who have been independently informed by interested third parties) of the whole set of considerations outlined above, and who have, for reasons best known to themselves, decided to support the more cautious objective of keeping this potentially explosive issue under wraps for as long as possible. (I don't discount at all the possibility that some support, probably in the form of technical intelligence, was nevertheless indeed provided to the Israeli planners by the US before or during the bombing operation. That just qualifies as a small skeleton in the closet compared to the backlash we would suffer for active operational collaboration in such an undertaking. )

Personally, I believe that the most persuasive reason for studied silence on this subject, on the part of both Republicans and Democrats, is the reluctance (call it fear) of individual politicians that they might be put in a position of appearing to criticize Israel for poor judgment (or even deliberate deception), and thereby appearing to oppose intimate collaboration with Israel (yes, even in acts of illegitimate preemptive military action) against "supporters of terrorism".

I would add the following personal comments to my analysis of the situation:

Having dealt with Arabs for more than fifty years now, often in situations very similar to this one,I have no trouble understanding why the Syrian reaction to the Israeli bombing attack last month has been carefully muted. Asad cannot afford a military confrontation with Israel at this time. His air force and army could be effectively wiped out by the IDF in a few hours. And he has no desire to broadcast the fact that his air defense forces (some of which, I am told, consist of very expensive new ground-to-air rocketry purchased from Russia but not yet operational) were impotent to respond in the face of such a deep and brazen Israeli penetration of the Syrian motherland. It would be plainly foolhardy for the Syrians to attempt confrontation with the IDF when their military establishment is in such a parlous state as it is today. I therefore find it perfectly understandable that Asad has chosen not to fly off the handle over this incident, and why his Arab neighbors and supposed brothers in arms have likewise decided that the better part of valor is to pretend they haven't noticed.

I recall in the period right after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when I was in liaison with the Saudis, that the Israeli Air Force used to make frequent very low level runs over the Saudi airbase at Tobuk, in the northern part of the country. As they skimmed the "deck", they would drop empty fuel tanks on the runways, near where the Saudi fighter planes were lined up, just to remind those on the ground that the empty tanks could very easily have been 500-pound bombs. It was nothing more than an arrogant demonstration of contempt for Saudi impotence. It worked. The RSAF never fired a shot, and never scrambled a single interceptor. They would complain to me, and I would duly forward their protests to CIA HQS. We never got even a polite acknowledgement back from the Israelis, who, in their arrogance, were no doubt cynically amused. So I can easily imagine Bashar al-Asad's decision to play this current incident in a very low key! It is not a mark of cowardice, but of realism and prudence.

Similarly, I recall when Prince Fahd bin Abdal Aziz called me to a meeting very late one evening in the early days of the 1973 war and asked me to send an urgent personal message from him to Richard Nixon informing the president that he had felt obliged to contribute a brigade of Saudi troops to the Golan front to support the Syrian offensive there, but that he had personally instructed the commander of the unit not to fire a single shot. That, Fahd told me with considerable emotion and obvious sincerity, was his solemn promise to his American friend. Again, prudence, wisdom, and desire to maintain a traditional and mutually valuable relationship --- motives that were not, I regret to say, received in Washington with the respect and appreciation that they deserved. "

-Ray Close

10089. jexster - 10/15/2007 1:48:57 PM

Chaulk up another shit sandwich for Concerned

10090. concerned - 10/15/2007 1:56:09 PM

You can keep your shit sandwiches, jexster.


Got flies?

10091. concerned - 10/15/2007 1:56:34 PM

Btw, it's 'chalk', not 'chaulk', moron.

10092. jexster - 10/15/2007 2:06:59 PM

In other words, if there weren't imbeciles like you around we wouldn't be hearing all this bullshit

10093. jexster - 10/15/2007 2:07:47 PM

It takes a dupe to be duped

10094. concerned - 10/15/2007 2:10:27 PM

I think you've been eating too many shit sandwiches, jexster, and they've gone to your head.

10095. jexster - 10/15/2007 5:00:00 PM

You're right about that! It's so freakin obvious even a child could get this shit.....My ego is so easily fed

10096. jexster - 10/15/2007 7:00:54 PM

I mean really, with Phony Soldiers like Sanchez whining about a bunch of dune coons with AK 47's being our "national nightmare", how can we convince the Muzzies that the greatest superpower the world has ever known doesn't fight like a gang of girls?


Elect Brunehilde the Bold?

10097. jexster - 10/15/2007 8:08:12 PM

Thanks to Dan Abrams of MSNBC we now know that the General who wants to declare victory over AQI is the very same chicken shit ass kisser who proclaimed with Il Duce Mission Accomplished 1629 days ago

10098. jexster - 10/15/2007 10:07:42 PM

The Dair El Zor Hoax
Why are the Israelis lying about striking a "nuclear facility" in Syria?

I dunno TD..why ARE you lying again?

10099. jexster - 10/16/2007 8:52:41 AM

Phony Soldiers on Parade

Ex-Captains Want US Out of Iraq or a Draft

10100. jexster - 10/16/2007 1:06:46 PM

Beast Back, Has Bitch


Putin Warns Bush Against Attack on Iran

10101. jexster - 10/16/2007 1:35:49 PM

Phony Soldiers of America

Many in US Military Think Cheney and Bush are Out of Control
Der Spiegel

10102. jexster - 10/16/2007 4:37:27 PM

Putin and Iran
Hooy tebe v zhopu!**



*Pr*ck up your ass

10103. jexster - 10/17/2007 11:30:51 AM

Turkey Pisses on Bush from Extreme Height With Deadly Accuracy
Parliament Overhwhelmingly Approves Invasion of Iraq

Little Georgie left holding his pee pee

10104. jexster - 10/17/2007 12:33:05 PM

Syria Supports Turkish Invasion of Iraq

Send in Brunehilde the Bold to save us!

10105. jexster - 10/17/2007 1:23:20 PM

The IslamoFascists are Winning!
The IslamoFascists are Winning!

Shi'ite tribal leaders in Iraq say Islamism on rise


Shi'ite Islamist political parties are imposing strict Islamic rules in the oil-producing southern provinces of Iraq and using their armed wings to create a state of fear, a group of tribal Shi'ite leaders said.

The four tribal leaders approached Reuters on condition of anonymity, fearing assassination if their names or even their home provinces were made public.

"Fear rules the streets now," said one of the sheikhs. "We cannot speak our minds, people are not allowed to oppose them. They would immediately disappear or get killed. The evidence of that is I am talking about it but cannot use my name."

The fear is not unfounded -- two provincial governors and a police chief were blown up by roadside bombs in August, apparent victims of infighting between the Shi'ite parties for political dominance in the region, source of most of Iraq's oil wealth.

Aides to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the reclusive religious leader of Iraq's Shi'ites, have also been killed.

The sheikhs said the conservative religious attitudes meant only religious music was now allowed to be played in public places and dancing was forbidden, as was drinking alcohol. Women were also harassed for wearing clothing deemed inappropriate.

10106. jexster - 10/17/2007 9:10:36 PM

The Real Iraq We Knew

By 12 former Army captains


Today marks five years since the authorization of military force in Iraq, setting Operation Iraqi Freedom in motion. Five years on, the Iraq war is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the start. And, five years on, Iraq is in shambles.

As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we've seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it's like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it's time to get out.

10107. jexster - 10/18/2007 10:10:15 AM

Iran Won, Now Go Home


1. Report: Coalition has little influence in southern Iraq

2. Iraq Announces $1.1 Bn Electric Power Plant Deal with Iran, China

10108. concerned - 10/18/2007 10:22:19 AM

George W. Bush has Al Qaeda in Iraq on the run. Can Democrats save Al Qaeda in time?

10109. concerned - 10/18/2007 10:32:46 AM

Hell, Can Democrats save Al Gore in time?

10110. jexster - 10/18/2007 10:48:49 AM

Mission Accomplished

10111. jexster - 10/18/2007 10:52:15 AM

They Survived the Horns

Why We Took on the Israel Lobby
Interview with Steven Mearsheimer, John Walt

10112. jexster - 10/18/2007 10:59:56 AM

Crush the Terrorists

Turkish Envoy: Threat to Invade Iraq "Is No Joke"

10113. jexster - 10/18/2007 1:24:52 PM

Where the BushShit Ends...

New Gallup poll: Barely a third of Republicans say things are getting better in Iraq.

--David Kurtz

10114. jexster - 10/18/2007 2:58:15 PM

Mote Poll: Should ALL Republicans Receive Death Gurney Hot Shots for Treason?


You be the judge

Poll: Barely A Third Of Republicans Think Things Are Getting Better In Iraq
By Greg Sargent - October 18, 2007, 12:36PM
Now this is a very interesting number buried in the new Gallup poll released today:

All in all, do you think the situation in Iraq is -- getting better for the United States, staying about the same, or getting worse for the United States?
Republicans:

Better: 34%
About the same: 37%
Worse: 27%


Only a third of Republicans think things are getting better over there. Meanwhile, an astonishing 64% of Republicans think things aren't getting better or are getting worse; and more than a quarter of GOPers think things are deteriorating. Keep in mind that the GOP message for months now has been that things are getting better.

What makes these numbers even more intriguing is the fact that most polls show solid majorities of Republicans want the troops to remain in Iraq -- even though we now see that only a slim minority think things are trending towards a good outcome there. Go figure.

10115. jexster - 10/18/2007 2:59:12 PM

Maybe we will spare concerned......a useful idiot may be well ....useful.... from time to time

10116. jexster - 10/18/2007 6:48:23 PM

Say TD! The Iranians have not only agreed to give Iraq a free power plant, but they're also going to provide oil rich southern IraQ (where US forces dare not go for fear of Muqtada!) with electric power from Iran..


mmm...wonder if they'll provide any of that nuke stuff? Good for the ice caps!!

Ya think?


10117. jexster - 10/18/2007 9:15:54 PM

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush's warning that Iran must be denied nuclear arms to avoid "World War III" was just "a rhetorical point," not a prelude to Armageddon, his spokeswoman said Thursday.

10118. jexster - 10/20/2007 8:53:27 AM

US Report says buildup in Iraq gained little

10119. jexster - 10/20/2007 8:56:00 AM

NAILED IT
Nothing but net

Former Top Iraqi Envoy: "Functionally there is no government of Iraq"

10120. jexster - 10/20/2007 9:26:44 AM

Turkey is "more than ready" to rumble. The Kurd Kapo Barzani's rattling sabres. The PKK terrorists are threatening to blow up pipelines to Turkey and the Iraqi Parliament.


Well they tried a motion condemning Turkey but couldn't agree on the wording

10121. jexster - 10/20/2007 2:31:14 PM

Iran Dares Bush or Brunhilde to Attack

10122. jexster - 10/21/2007 9:45:17 AM

Iraq No Longer Exists

Feisal Istrabadi, former deputy ambassador of the Shiite government of Iraq to the United Nations, has resigned in disgust with the corruption and inefficiency of the Iraqi government and is now speaking out critically. Like Gen. Rick Sanchez, apparently he told the US media all those sunny things about the situation in Iraq despite his better judgment, because it was part of his job to be a good soldier. I know and admire Mr. Istrabadi, but I really wish more people such as he and Sanchez had started speaking out earlier (summer 2004 would have been good), since they in effect ended up running interference for Bush's reelection campaign and prolonged the agony for both countries. I debated Istrabadi more than once, as at the Lehrer Newshour, and also on radio shows such as Warren Olney's To the Point and have to wonder whether, despite our surface disagreements (with me playing the critic and pessimist), he actually agreed privately with much of what I was saying. Another issue is that far Rightwing and mostly very dishonest blogs such as Powerline used the testimony of Iraqis such as Istrabadi to bring sharply into question my own analyses. They used to charge that Cole was way off base since our generals and the Iraqi officials agreed with Bush about the 'improving' situation in Iraq. And all these brain dead Rightists are now crowing about the reduced casualty counts in Iraq, as though they weren't artificially achieved, as though they could possibly be sustained, and as though they meant anything in the absence of genuine political progress. Now that Sanchez and Istrabadi are revealing that they actually privately agreed with critics such as myself even at that time and all along, will the Rightwing blogs now apologize to those they smeared?

Juan Cole

10123. jexster - 10/21/2007 5:49:27 PM

The Sadism of the Israeli Occupation

10124. jexster - 10/22/2007 8:12:40 AM

Karl Rove has taken a speech writing gig?


Turkish Prime Minister warns US: we will attack Kurdish rebels in Iraq

Recep Tayyip Erdogan tells The Times that he needs nobody’s permission to defend his country

10125. jexster - 10/22/2007 8:23:12 AM

Mr Erdogan will speak in Oxford tonight and meet Gordon Brown tomorrow. He is likely to rebuke the US on several counts. He said that the war in Iraq had fuelled Turkish hostility towards the US. “There’s no success that I can see,” he said. “There’s only the deaths of tens of thousands of people. There’s just an Iraq whose entire infrastructure and superstructure has collapsed.”

10126. jexster - 10/22/2007 11:07:44 AM

Iraqi leaders may ask U.N. to restrict U.S. military

BAGHDAD -- Party leaders in the Iraqi parliament said today that they were setting up a committee to examine the continuing U.S. military presence in Iraq with an eye toward possibly restricting American activities, as the backlash continued over a U.S. raid Sunday in which the Iraqi government said 13 civilians were killed.

10127. jexster - 10/23/2007 2:37:25 PM

Not that more evidence is needed that Bush has lost the Iraq war, there's this from USA Today

US Airstrikes Up Five Fold

10128. jexster - 10/23/2007 4:13:38 PM

Why Muslims Think American Fight Like Girls

How Bush Lost the War on Iraq and the War on Terror: A Review of 12 Books

10129. jexster - 10/24/2007 9:16:14 AM

The collapse of Bush's foreign policy
From Turkey to Iraq to Pakistan, the mounting chaos proves the White House is just winging it.

By Juan Cole


The Bush administration once imagined that its presence in Afghanistan and Iraq would be anchored by friendly neighbors, Turkey to the west and Pakistan to the east. Last week, as the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan continued to deteriorate, the anchors themselves also came loose

10130. jexster - 10/24/2007 9:50:48 AM

The Turduquen is Ready


No logical reason for its existence but it sure is tasty!


Bush Offers to Bomb Kurds


Looks like the Turk prefers his own recipie!

10131. jexster - 10/24/2007 9:54:14 AM

Daily Show Senior Ottoman Correspondent Aasif Mandvi NAILED IT

10132. jexster - 10/24/2007 11:49:44 AM

Iraq Revokes Immunity for Bush's Mercenaries

10133. jexster - 10/24/2007 12:15:29 PM

It's hard being me TD..Imagine, instead of being full of horseshit all the time, I carry the burden of knowing what the fuck I'm talking about before I speak (or type)


Sideshow in the Desert

Adam Elkus Special to Defense and the National Interest




Strike Against Syria

Between September 5 and 6, Israel launched an airstrike, possibly aided by special forces on the ground, on Syria. Though details remain sketchy, there has been much speculation on whether the target of the strike was weapons bound for Hezbollah, nuclear components from North Korea, or Scud missiles. Whatever the target, the aim seems clear. As the Christian Science Monitor reported, Israel’s military decision-makers intended the strike as a signal to Iran and other enemies that Israel’s deterrence, devalued by its humiliating loss to Hezbollah in the August 2006 Lebanon war, “has been restored.” However, the strike does not demonstrate strength. It is only more evidence of Israel’s reliance on high-tech firepower that will not deal with graver threats to its security.


The Jizzraelites are rightly pissing their pants. With a truly free Iraq and the Rise of Iran, there'll be a shitload of shekels to fund 4GW forces arrayed against the Rogue State

10134. jexster - 10/24/2007 6:32:29 PM

A Well Roasted Turducken

10135. jexster - 10/25/2007 9:23:03 AM

Via Cole

Fred Kaplan on how the new air strike policy of dealing with Iraqi guerrillas is bad counter-insurgency and guaranteed to alienate the Iraqi population further from the US. See also my comments of yesterday.

Mine the day before that

Petraeus knows better. Petraeus is casualty averse nad his force is near exhaustion. That's why he's going airborne.

10136. jexster - 10/25/2007 12:37:45 PM

Turkey: US Will Not Take Care of Krudist Terrorists


But the Turk will baby...Turduquen Time!!!

10137. jexster - 10/25/2007 12:53:00 PM

We are totally determined to take all necessary steps to end this threat ... Iraq should not be a source of threat for its neighbors

Abdullah Gul

10138. jexster - 10/25/2007 1:00:16 PM

Phantoms Over Syria

Eveything Jizzrael wants you to know about its secret airstrike

by Philip Giraldi, The American Conservative

Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir,
so that every mouth can be fed.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir,
So that every mouth can be fed.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

My wife and my kids, they are packed up and leave me.
Darling, she said, I was yours to be seen.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

Shirt them a-tear up, trousers are gone.
I don't want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

After a storm there must be a calm.
They catch me in the farm. You sound the alarm.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

Poor me, the Israelite.
I wonder who I'm working for.
Poor me, Israelite,
I look a-down and out, sir.

10139. jexster - 10/25/2007 1:02:11 PM

10140. jexster - 10/26/2007 10:28:47 AM

The Bush/Cheney Treason

Iran Gains in Turduquen Crisis

10141. jexster - 10/26/2007 11:10:10 AM

No Logical Reason for Its Existence...

But it sure is delicious

But is sure is delicious!

US steering clear of Kurdish fight

The top U.S. military commander in northern Iraq said Friday he plans to do "absolutely nothing" to counter Kurdish rebels operating from the region and staging deadly cross-border attacks into Turkey.
Turkish leaders have threatened a large-scale offensive into Iraq if U.S. and Iraqi authorities don't stop the rebels.
But amid feverish diplomatic efforts to forestall an incursion, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon said it's not the U.S. military's responsibility to act. He said that he's sent no additional U.S. troops to the area and he's not tracking hiding places or logistics activities of the PKK rebels.
He also has not seen Kurdish authorities move against the rebels either, Mixon told Pentagon reporters by videoconference from a U.S. base near Tikrit in northern Iraq.
"I have not seen any overt action (by Kurdish authorities) ... But those are the types of activities that are managed and coordinated at higher levels than my own," he said.
Mixon did his best in a half-hour news conference to rebuff the idea that the U.S. has any military role to play in the spiraling crisis between Turkey and Iraq.
Asked if he has detected PKK supply lines running through his area that Kurdish authorities could curtail, he said, "That would be speculation ... I don't track the specific locations of the PKK. So you'd have to ask somebody else."


Chef Paul Prudhomme's Magic Recipes: Turducken
Recipe and helpful hints on preparing this elaborate dish.

10142. concerned - 10/26/2007 3:32:27 PM

War with Iran would be, in the best case, disastrous.

For those that resist the US, it would be. But, it's already worse than that in Iran, so just about anything would be an improvement.

10143. jexster - 10/26/2007 3:47:32 PM

HAHAHA

10144. jexster - 10/26/2007 3:48:51 PM

10145. jexster - 10/26/2007 3:49:52 PM

Yes and the suffering people of Iran are just waiting for Bush to drop bombs on their heads


Think we have enuf transport planes for all the flowers and candy TD?

10146. jexster - 10/26/2007 3:53:37 PM

Can we afford the fuel?

Oil breaches $92 on inventory concerns

By Javier Blas in London

Published: October 26 2007 07:49 | Last updated: October 26 2007 18:50

The prospect of oil prices hitting $100 a barrel moved ever closer on Friday as crude oil surged to a fresh record amid renewed geopolitical tension over Iran’s nuclear program and low inventories ahead of the winter.

West Texas Intermediate crude jumped to $92.22 a barrel although it later pared gains and traded 85 cents higher to $91.28 a barrel. Oil prices have now risen by about 50 per cent since the start of the year.

Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was president, he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude.

"I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply," Mr. Bush, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, told reporters here today.

"Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot."

Implicit in his comments was a criticism of the Clinton administration as failing to take advantage of the good will that the United States built with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Also implicit was that as the son of the president who built the coalition that drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait, Mr. Bush would be able to establish ties on a personal level that would persuade oil-producing nations that they owed the United States something in return.

"Ours is a nation that helped Kuwait and the Saudis, and you'd think we'd have the capital necessary to convince them to increase the crude supplies," he said.


Asked why the Clinton administration had not been able to use the power of personal persuasion, Mr. Bush said: "The fundamental question is, 'Will I be a successful president when it comes to foreign policy?'"


He went on to suggest, as he did in answer to other questions, that voters should simply trust him.


"I will be," he said in answer to his own question about whether he would be a successful president. "But until I'm the president, it's going to be hard for me to verify that I think I'll be more effective."

10147. jexster - 10/26/2007 5:43:43 PM

Ata Turk!

10148. jexster - 10/26/2007 5:59:21 PM

Better late than never?

Cunnilingus Seeks ME Advice from Jimmuh and Beeyul

10149. jexster - 10/26/2007 6:46:13 PM

5 Wars, 5 defeats

Why not make it an even 1/2 dozen eh TD!
Go out with a real bang as it were and send the GOP on the Way of the Whigs!


WASHINGTON - The State Department said Friday it will require some diplomats to serve in Iraq because of a lack of volunteers willing to work at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.


So what a few hundred thousand more Muzzies die. There's a silver lining to every dark Allah sends

10150. jexster - 10/26/2007 6:46:27 PM

cloud

10151. jexster - 10/26/2007 8:26:07 PM

PBS has an oil futures trader on tonight

$100/bbl before the end of the year

130-150 if the Maniac bombs Iran


Maybe TD can get a subprime loan to fill the gas tank

10152. jexster - 10/27/2007 10:09:03 AM

"Down with the USA, Down with the PKK"

Those who support terrorists and even those who turn a blind eye to them, are partners in crime. They share the responsibility for bloodshed and killings

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

10153. jexster - 10/27/2007 10:18:11 AM

'I Don't Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier's Life'
After 14 months in a Baghdad district torn by mounting sectarian violence, members of one U.S. unit are tired, bitter and skeptical.

10154. jexster - 10/27/2007 10:50:26 AM

10142

America’s third mistake was to overestimate how effective conventional military power would be in dealing with the weak states and networked transnational organisations that characterise international politics, at least in the broader Middle East. It is worth pondering why a country with more military power than any other in human history, and that spends as much on its military as virtually the rest of the world combined, cannot bring security to a small country of 24 million people after more than three years of occupation. At least part of the problem is that it is dealing with complex social forces that are not organised into centralised hierarchies that can enforce rules, and thus be deterred, coerced, or otherwise manipulated through conventional power.

Francis Fukuyama

10155. jexster - 10/27/2007 12:00:14 PM

Nap Turduquen with Sweet Potato/Eggplant Gravy!

Turkey: We will make Kurd rebels grieve

10156. jexster - 10/27/2007 1:54:01 PM

We are determined to make those who cause this sadness grieve with an intensity that they cannot imagine


Gen. Yasar Buyukanit

10157. jexster - 10/27/2007 4:15:50 PM

Old Pictures of Syrian Nuke Site Suggest “Refried Beans”



More questions are being raised about the solidity of Washington's allegations that the site in Syria hit by Israel was a nuclear plant. A 2003 photo of the site has just been published by the NY Times, which forces us to go back to the four year old debates over whther Syria was developing nuclear power. Bolton and his neocon hawks lost the debate at the time. The CIA and State Department intelligence prevailed over neocon allegations. They argued that the Syrian danger was either being inflated or misread.

In the intervening years, Bolton has tried to make the case for a nuclear Syria three times. Each time he was wrong

10158. tonedef - 10/28/2007 12:35:36 AM

desmond decker rules!

10159. jexster - 10/28/2007 12:57:16 PM

Continued Presence Pointless, Britsh Commander


Easy for him to say. But what about Bush's legacy?

10160. jexster - 10/28/2007 8:33:47 PM

The United States of Israel: Rogue Nations

WASHINGTON (AFP) - UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei Sunday accused the Israelis of taking "the law into their own hands" with a mysterious raid on Syria last month and demanded more information about what was hit.

Neither Israel nor the United States has furnished "any evidence at all" to prove that the Syrian site bombed in early September was a secret nuclear facility, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency told CNN.

10161. concerned - 10/28/2007 11:30:26 PM

jexster's total hypocrisy reveals itself because his total approval of the nearly 1 million people displaced in the Kosovo conflict as a direct result of NATO action. For him, that counted as a huge 'win'.

The truth is, jexster doesn't know shit about foreign policy.

10162. concerned - 10/28/2007 11:36:49 PM

jexster also approves of the nutcase Iranian regime, with its world's worst oppression of gays and women, simply because it visibly opposes a Republican Administration. Jexster is too shallow to consider that it would oppose any Democrat administration at least as vigorously.

Jexster is not just a hypocrite, he is a stupid, short sighted hypocrite.

10163. jexster - 10/29/2007 10:34:26 AM

There we go again. Same old prattle. Same old BushCheney Treason

I am a Saddamite
An Osamite
A Muqtadite
A Taliban
An Ahmadinejadite



Amazing thing is you still peddle that shit



Via Cole..Time to elect a Mormon!

The NYT says that Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq are thumbing their noses at Turkey. About the US dilemma in northern Iraq, where it is caught between its Kurdish and Turkish allies, Sabrina Tavernisse wickedly quotes a local Kurd: "The United States “is like a man with two wives,” said one Iraqi Kurd in Sulaimaniya. “They quarrel, but he doesn’t want to lose either of them.”

10164. jexster - 10/29/2007 10:39:42 AM

"The struggle that we have been leading for a long time, as a nation, against this terrorism curse is now being led with more determination,"
Abdullah Gul

And a Turduquenite!

Another Jex 3 pointer. Nothing but net. I'm so fuckin good you should do story about me TD




We're lucky. The snow will soon be on the Turduquen and the Blood bath will come in the Spring

10165. jexster - 10/29/2007 10:43:43 AM

The US of Israel - Rogue Nations

WH Leak: Cheney Plan for War on Iran Starts with Jizzraeli Missile Strike

10166. jexster - 10/29/2007 11:07:31 AM

No Evidence Iran Making Nukes - ElBaradei

10167. jexster - 10/29/2007 11:12:52 AM

International Herald Tribune

Much as George W. Bush's presidency was ineluctably shaped by Sept. 11, 2001, so the outbreak of the French Revolution was symbolized by the events of one fateful day, July 14, 1789. And though 18th-century France may seem impossibly distant to contemporary Americans, future historians examining Bush's presidency within the longer sweep of political and intellectual history may find the French Revolution useful in understanding his curious brand of 21st-century conservatism.


Bush Dangerous Radicalism


Der Speigel

Grandiose Plans, East and West

In the September strike, Israeli bombers were likely targeting a nuclear reactor under construction, parts of which are alleged to have come from North Korea. It is possible that key secretaries in the Bush cabinet even tried to stop Israel. To this day, the administration has neither confirmed nor commented on the attack.

Nevertheless, in Washington, Israel's strike against Syria has revived the specter of war with Iran. For the neoconservatives it could represent a glimmer of hope that the grandiose dream of a democratic Middle East has not yet been buried in the ashes of Iraq. But for realists in the corridors of the State Department and the Pentagon, military action against Iran is a nightmare they have sought to avert by asking a simple question: "What then?"

The Israeli strike, or something like it, could easily mark the beginning of the "World War III," which President Bush warned against last week. With his usual apocalyptic rhetoric, he said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could lead the region to a new world war if his nation builds a nuclear bomb.

Conditions do look ripe for disaster.

Time is running out for the Bushevik maniacs

10168. jexster - 10/29/2007 11:51:22 AM

Stop them before they lie again


Israel's Syria Raid Opens Rifts
Discord Stirs Among Allies
Over Response to Nuclear Threat - Wall Street Journal

10169. jexster - 10/29/2007 11:53:00 AM

"If Bush tries to attack Iran, the Pentagon will revolt - NBC Pentagon correspondent" Jim Mik-le-Pollack

10170. jexster - 10/29/2007 1:28:05 PM

The Congress needs to certify Bush and Cheney as clinically psychotic and have the Marines remove them from the premises



the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.

Meanwhile, the idea that bombing will bring the Iranian regime to its knees — and bombing is the only option, since we’ve run out of troops — is pure wishful thinking. Last year Israel tried to cripple Hezbollah with an air campaign, and ended up strengthening it instead. There’s every reason to believe that an attack on Iran would produce the same result, with the added effects of endangering U.S. forces in Iraq and driving oil prices well into triple digits.

Krugman

10171. concerned - 10/29/2007 1:35:13 PM

Maybe Israel should strike one or more Iranian nuclear sites just before GWB leaves office. Then the Congressional 'Rats will get in some practice rimming the Iranian Mullahs. Bet you'd like that a lot, jexster.

10172. jexster - 10/29/2007 1:36:36 PM

It's in the plan.


The maniacs only have 15 months left to finish the US and the GOP

10173. jexster - 10/29/2007 1:37:03 PM

But I think the Generals will have the both of them shot first

10174. concerned - 10/29/2007 1:38:54 PM

You're a nutburger, alright.

10175. jexster - 10/29/2007 1:41:03 PM

From what Jim Mikla-pollack says I wouldn't bet the cat in your ass it won't happen


BAGHDAD - A U.S. brigadier general was wounded in a roadside bombing Monday in northern Baghdad, the U.S. military reported. He was the highest-ranking American officer to be hurt since the conflict began in March 2003.

10176. jexster - 10/29/2007 1:47:38 PM

Reminds me of the Greek in Season Two, the Wire


BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Twenty decapitated bodies were found dumped near a police station on Monday west of the volatile city of Baquba in Iraq, police said.

10177. concerned - 10/29/2007 2:18:15 PM

Let's suppose Israel does take out some Iranian nuclear facilities. Then what?

It's not like Iran is going to do much about it, except spew incoherent threats.

10178. jexster - 10/29/2007 2:19:06 PM

Yeah right.

10179. jexster - 10/29/2007 2:23:39 PM

1. Israel cannot "take out Iran's nuclear facilities"
2. Iran effectively controls Basra and the oil producing regions of southern Iraq
3. Hezzbollah will rocket the shit out of Israel
4. Iran will strike Israel and the Arab governments will worry for their lives
5. The US will bomb Iran
6. The Badr Corps which runs most of Iraq's government will strike US forces
7. Iran will close the Persian Gulf
8. Turkey will move against the Kurds
9. The Sunni insurgents will take the arms Bush gave them and move against what's left of the IraQi government to protect the nation from "the Persians"


That's why the "realists" in the Pentagon and State Dept will line Bush/Cheney against a wall, shoot them, and send the GOP to the dustbin of history

10180. jexster - 10/29/2007 2:25:20 PM

And oil now approaching 100 bucks a barrel will move quickly past 150 on the way to 200.

If Iran is a crazy as the Busheviks would have us believe, it's all but certain they will blow what's left of Iraq away

10181. concerned - 10/29/2007 2:28:21 PM

I can see these Fundamentalist dead heads have you shaking in your sandals like the coward you are, jexster. Not much of a surprise - you're a virtual Islamist collaborator as it is.

10182. concerned - 10/29/2007 2:30:21 PM

If Iran is a crazy as the Busheviks would have us believe, it's all but certain they will blow what's left of Iraq away

No fear of that happening.

10183. wonkers2 - 10/29/2007 3:01:29 PM

Iran will establish hegemony over Iraq, thanks to Bush and the neocons.

10184. jexster - 10/29/2007 3:05:36 PM

Already has

Almost forgot - the fall of Afghanistan and Pakistan will quickly follow and the US will be finished as the world's superpower

10185. jexster - 10/29/2007 3:06:31 PM

That's why Bush's Wars are the greatest strategic disaster in the history of the US and why the Pentagon is in near revolt

10187. jexster - 10/29/2007 3:09:39 PM

Bush's best friend in the so-called Iraqi government is Abdul al-Hakim

Guess where he came from?

HINT: The same place as Bush's last best Iraqi friend Ahmad Chalabi


HINT: The same place that controls not only the so-called Iraqi government but the US lines of evacuation and communication...all of southern Iraq

10188. jexster - 10/29/2007 3:11:17 PM

Iran will probably join the Turk in an expedition to eliminate the terrorists from northern Iraq assuming the US/Israeli aggression does not happen before the Spring thaw

10189. concerned - 10/29/2007 3:54:40 PM

Almost forgot - the fall of Afghanistan and Pakistan will quickly follow and the US will be finished as the world's superpower

Bet you were burbling the same horseshit during the Vietnam war.

10190. concerned - 10/29/2007 3:55:39 PM

What if Israel commits an act of aggression against Iran all by itself?

Jexster will be fucked, then.

10191. concerned - 10/29/2007 3:58:03 PM

Almost forgot - the fall of Afghanistan and Pakistan will quickly follow and the US will be finished as the world's superpower

I look forward to your disappointment, you treasonous worm.

10192. jexster - 10/29/2007 4:48:39 PM

Just rememembered how the Jizzraelis had predicted that Iran would have a nuclear bomb ready by March 2007 and they were going to attack back then.

They aren't going to do shit unless Bush signs off

10193. jexster - 10/29/2007 4:54:54 PM

Wonk has a hot new car to sell you TD...flowers and candy optional

10194. jexster - 10/29/2007 4:59:16 PM

During the Vietnam War it was the war hawks who were doing the "burbling"

I knew Vietnam would fall as soon as Nixon began to Vietnamize and knew that nothing would happen when it did.



As usual, you've got things ass backwards but while you're burbling, wanna take a trip down memory lane to 200-2003?

10195. jexster - 10/29/2007 5:45:02 PM

Those who support terrorists and even those who turn a blind eye to them, are partners in crime. They share the responsibility for bloodshed and killings

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

10196. concerned - 10/29/2007 6:11:00 PM

Maybe Israel will wait until GWB is out of office and then bomb Iran. Who will the 'Rats blame then?

10197. jexster - 10/29/2007 6:31:01 PM

It's all part of the Cheney-Jizzraelite plan or so Der Spiegel claims


A plan I came up with a year ago

10198. jexster - 10/29/2007 6:31:24 PM

Krush the Kurd!
Let's roll

10199. concerned - 10/29/2007 11:47:12 PM

A Zogby poll shows that 52% of likely voters support an American strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon.

Now, I should point out that I have not supported an American strike against Iran, and I am not presently supporting an American strike against Iran. Even if I never support an American strike against Iran in the future, I'm sure a particular LW moron with a moniker starting with 'j' won't let that stop him from accusing me of supporting a US strike against Iran.

This is because he is a partisan moron. And he either is divorced from reality or simply has no respect for the truth.

10200. concerned - 10/29/2007 11:56:20 PM

Re. 10179 -

That's a chain of events that will not happen. If Israel strikes Iran's nuclear capability, Iran will basically just 'take it' without retaliating except verbally, of course.

10201. jexster - 10/30/2007 3:20:41 AM

78% oppose war with IRan....76 supported the Invasion of Iraq....


Bush Used Lonely Planet Guide to Plan for Post Invasion Iraq


But in any event the sequence HAS to happen for any strike to make any sense. Israel cannot accomplish the job without US participation. Too many sites. Too well protected. This is no repeat of Israel's Iraq attack.

10202. jexster - 10/30/2007 3:31:34 AM

Sorry

68% Oppose Bush Attack on Iran

CNN 10/24

10203. jexster - 10/30/2007 10:06:22 AM

Cole

Breaking News: Turkish Gunships fire into Iraq

Indian NDTV is reporting Tuesday morning that Turkish Cobra helicopter gunships have fired into Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) positions inside northern Iraq. The action comes after following on an engagement in the border region on the Turkish side that began on Monday and went late into the night. AP does not mention the strikes inside Iraq, but NDTV apparently has a reporter in the area. If the Indian account is true, it is a step up in the building Turkish-Kurdish confrontation.

10204. concerned - 10/30/2007 12:10:01 PM

From AP:

At least 34 American service members have died so far in October, nearly a third from non-combat causes.

It is the lowest number since 32 troops died in March 2006 and the second-lowest since 20 troop deaths in February 2004, according to an Associated Press count based on military figures.

That would be the second consecutive drop in monthly figures, after 65 Americans died in September and 84 in August.

According to jexster, now 'non-combat' casualties are a major contributor to 'ruining' the US military. Hey, jex, waking up in the morning can be hell, too.

What a doof.

10205. jexster - 10/30/2007 3:05:19 PM

It's not casualties that have ruined the US military. Not any of the 30,000 casualties

It's the demonstrable fact that the entire US ground capability both men and equipment have been tied up and ground down in Bush's Iraq adventure, the Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History.


That's why the 10 sargents in the NyTimes OpEd and the brigade in Baghdad reported in Saturday's WaPo basically said that Bush's war isn't worth one more US life and why the Pentagon is in near revolt against these numbnuts

Failure is obvious

America’s third mistake was to overestimate how effective conventional military power would be in dealing with the weak states and networked transnational organisations that characterise international politics, at least in the broader Middle East. It is worth pondering why a country with more military power than any other in human history, and that spends as much on its military as virtually the rest of the world combined, cannot bring security to a small country of 24 million people after more than three years of occupation. At least part of the problem is that it is dealing with complex social forces that are not organised into centralised hierarchies that can enforce rules, and thus be deterred, coerced, or otherwise manipulated through conventional power.

Francis Fukuyama

If you're going to quote me as an authority, the least you could do is get 1/2 right

10206. jexster - 10/30/2007 3:12:25 PM

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three U.S. soldiers were killed when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb southeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, the U.S. military said.

"I don't think this place is worth another Soldier's life"

After 14 months in a Baghdad district torn by mounting sectarian violence, members of one U.S. unit are tired, bitter and skeptical

3 more died for nothing

10207. jexster - 10/30/2007 3:41:46 PM

Michael Gerson who wrote most of Bush's Rosey Iraq speeches including the one announcing the start of US the war aggression, now admits that the war he helped sell has been "a failure" (CNN)

That's why those soldiers no longer wish to die for the Greater Glory of George Bush or his Grand Ole War Party

10208. jexster - 10/30/2007 3:42:38 PM

If TD is so all fired up for dying for nothing..sign the fuck up!

I hear they're relaxing requirements daily

10209. concerned - 10/30/2007 4:19:00 PM

jexster is obviously a charter member of the organization for chickens, fraidy cats, nervous wrecks, pantywaists, wimps, worriers, worrywarts, wusses, chicken littles and half assed morons.

10210. jexster - 10/30/2007 6:12:44 PM

What we call

a realist

10211. jexster - 10/30/2007 6:15:28 PM

As opposed to a Bushevik sometimes known as a neocon formerly known as trotskyites and jacobins


See Message # 10167

10212. jexster - 10/30/2007 6:48:11 PM

Krush the Kurd
Pulverize the Pesh
Mash the Merga


Turkey: Fighting with Kurds will surge

10213. jexster - 10/30/2007 9:41:48 PM

No Shit Sherlock

PHILADELPHIA - Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich questioned President Bush's mental health in light of comments he made about a nuclear Iran precipitating World War III.


"I seriously believe we have to start asking questions about his mental health," Kucinich, an Ohio congressman, said in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board on Tuesday. "There's something wrong. He does not seem to understand his words have real impact."

The man is either mental or hitting the white powder and booze again

10214. jexster - 10/31/2007 10:46:05 AM

Homecoming Suicides - the Next Big Thing

10215. jexster - 10/31/2007 11:27:44 AM

Five Wars
Five Defeats

Taliban Moves Near Khandahar for First Time Since 2001



We're outdoing friggin France here

10216. concerned - 10/31/2007 11:42:15 AM

'Don't Know Shit' jexster spews again.

10217. jexster - 10/31/2007 11:53:27 AM

Have some brie on me...Losers!

10218. jexster - 10/31/2007 12:12:37 PM

5 Wars
5 Defeats

Iran Now Controls Basra

Basra's police chief, Maj. Gen Jalil Khalaf, has admitted that Basra and the nearby port of Umm Qasr are basically under militia rule and that his policemen either cannot fight them or have been actively infiltrated by them Gasoline and kerosene smuggling are worth billions in that area.

Nevertheless, PM Nuri al-Maliki is insisting that his forces are in a position to take over the security command in Basra. Al-Maliki seems to define such readiness as willingness to take on the "terrorists" by which he means the tiny number of Sunni covert operatives in the deep south. He doesn't count the Shiite militias in that category.

(Cole)

10219. jexster - 10/31/2007 12:22:07 PM

The French Infection


WASHINGTON - Several hundred U.S. diplomats vented anger and frustration Wednesday about the State Department's decision to force foreign service officers to take jobs in Iraq, with some likening it to a "potential death sentence."

10220. jexster - 10/31/2007 12:34:17 PM

Five Wars
Five Defeats

Poland's Leaving

10221. jexster - 10/31/2007 1:15:26 PM

5 Wars
5 Defeats

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Wednesday urged Tehran to help defuse the crisis with Turkey over Kurdish rebels and called for Iran's support at a conference on Iraq this week.

10222. jexster - 10/31/2007 2:16:57 PM

Five Wars
Five Defeats



WASHINGTON -- While the White House dwells on Iran's nuclear program, senior U.S. diplomats and military officers fear that an incident on the ground in Iraq is a more likely trigger for a possible confrontation with the Islamic Republic.

In one sign of their concern, U.S. military policymakers are weighing whether to release some of the Iranian personnel they have taken into custody in Iraq. Doing so could reduce the risk that radical Iranian elements might seize U.S. military or diplomatic personnel to retaliate, thus raising the danger of an escalation, a senior Defense official said..

GWB - Making the French Surrender Monkey look like Medal of Honor material!

Wider Iranian threat is feared

Many U.S. officials believe small conflicts on the ground or at sea are potentially riskier than a nuclear program.

10223. jexster - 10/31/2007 2:49:45 PM

Attacking Iran for Jizzrael?

10224. jexster - 10/31/2007 6:52:21 PM

Stop Bush's Shanghai of Diplomats

Time to Close the US Embassy in IraQ

10225. jexster - 10/31/2007 7:54:53 PM

Phony Soldier Says Bush Broke the US Army

WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The Army began its recruiting year Oct. 1 with fewer signed up for basic training than in any year since it became an all-volunteer service in 1973, a top general said Wednesday.

Gen. William S. Wallace, whose duties as commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command include management of recruiting, told reporters at the Pentagon that the historic dip will make it harder to achieve the full-year recruiting goal — after just barely reaching it in the year ended Sept. 30.

Achieving the Army's recruiting goals — a challenge in the best of times — is not only more difficult now but also of more consequence. That is because the Army has decided that it must grow its active-duty force by several thousand soldiers a year in order to relieve strain on war-weary troops.

Wallace said he expects to reach the goal of 80,000 recruits, with extra effort by his recruiters.

"It's going to be another tough recruiting year," the four-star general said.


That's OK. The Jaish al Mahdi, Muqtada Sadr CIC is ready to take over

10226. concerned - 10/31/2007 8:33:57 PM

Now the lying cowards are saying that pulling little more than sentry duty makes troops 'war-weary'.

What's happening in Iraq is next to nothing compared to Vietnam, Korea or either of the World Wars and somehow the US survived those without significant trauma.

10227. concerned - 10/31/2007 8:38:48 PM

US troops may be overdeployed worldwide considering that we're keeping many tens of thousands in S. Korea, Japan and Germany, as well as in dozens of other countries; howevever, to blame everything on the US involvement in Iraq and/or Afghanistan is stupid and dishonest.

10228. concerned - 10/31/2007 8:55:47 PM

Reality check:

Lyndon Johnson's monthly death rates in Vietnam - 1968

Jan-1320


Feb-2293


Mar-1721


Apr-1543


May-2316


Jun-1310


Multiply by x3 to x5 times for casualties.

Iraq is nothing compared to this, let alone WWII.

10229. concerned - 10/31/2007 9:04:00 PM

Also, don't lose sight of the fact that in 1968, the US population was still under 200,000,000 compared to over 300,000,000 today.

That's more than a 50% increase, so the death and casualty ratio drop relative to the overall population is considerably larger than the numbers indicate.

10230. concerned - 10/31/2007 9:06:00 PM

IOW, the relative death and casualty rate at the height of the Vietnam War is almost 100 times greater than for US involvement in Iraq today.

10231. concerned - 10/31/2007 9:09:43 PM

That sentry duty sure suu...ure is wearying, if you believe the excrement jexster and other chickenshit cowards are peddling.

10232. jexster - 10/31/2007 9:11:38 PM

You insist on missing the point!!!


We don't have any Army left you moron


Casualty rates have little to do with it. I said so before..say it again 30,000 US casualties in Iraq aren't why the Army is broken

The Army is broken because 80% of its combat force is tied down in Iraq, using 180,000 mercenaries to bolster its force in a losing battle

It's troops are worn out from multiple deployments; its equipment is worn out; it takes 10 billion a month to sustain recruiting cannot meet goals; the surge cannot be sustained because we don't have the troops and the National Guard which was never used to such an extent during Vietnam is itself near exhaustion and the war is lost


Oh but what about Vietnam!

Sheesh what an obviously useless idiot you are.

This isn't as bad as Vietnam

This is worse

10233. jexster - 10/31/2007 9:12:10 PM

5 Wars
5 Defeats


The Vaunted Iraqi Army

10234. concerned - 10/31/2007 9:12:44 PM

And another thing. Iraq gets hot. And it's dusty and sandy. I'm getting weary just thinking about that.

10235. concerned - 10/31/2007 9:13:38 PM

DKS jexster dumped his usual load of excrement again, I see.

10236. jexster - 10/31/2007 9:13:52 PM

You aren't terribly bright are you TD? That's what makes you so fucking valuable to the War Party maniacs


Some months ago I got a call from a friend of mine, a U.S. Army general, with long experience in Iraq. He asked me my impression of the situation on the ground, and specifically of the chances that the surge of troops into Baghdad might succeed. I was pessimistic. I said, "Ten times zero is still zero. The patrols don't connect with the streets." I might as well have been speaking of embassies too. He seemed to agree, but rather than surrendering to despair, he proposed a first step in the form of a riddle.

"What do you do when you're digging yourself into a hole?"

I said, "You tell me."

He said, "You stop digging."

Mega Bunker

10237. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 10/31/2007 9:14:32 PM

10238. jexster - 10/31/2007 9:16:40 PM

Your "lying coward"?

Gen Casey, Army COS

Gen. William S. Wallace
Commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command

In other words, anyone with even a remote idea of what he is talking about

10239. jexster - 10/31/2007 9:20:05 PM

Bush has fucked the Army so bad, the the Marines have asked that they be allowed to cut and run

There's no shortage of useful idiots in the Bush Regime

10240. jexster - 10/31/2007 9:21:36 PM

Lying cowards, phony soldiers

10241. concerned - 10/31/2007 9:51:13 PM

jexster climbs out from under his rock, lifts other rocks and finds like-minded nervous nellies and professional cowards to whine about Iraq.

So we're not 'connecting with the street' in Iraq?


Ooooh! I'm shakin'.....not!

10242. concerned - 10/31/2007 9:52:05 PM

DKS jexster endorses mob rule. Shows where his tiny brain is at.

10243. concerned - 10/31/2007 9:57:42 PM

Here's an (original in this forum) idea! Let's continue to build infrastructure in Iraq and deprive DKS jexster's anti-US looneytoons any pretensions of mob rule power.

Sound good?

Great!

10244. jexster - 11/1/2007 9:40:57 AM

When you find yourself digging a hole - stop


Trouble is we've been destroying infrastructure now for nearly 5 years. Every year worst than the last. I guess TD's been asleep for 5 years


We're in a multi-sided civil war surrounded by a populationthat hates us.

Vital Oil Port City of Basra Under Control of Militias

10245. jexster - 11/1/2007 9:44:14 AM

It has been 5 years and TD's been asleep. So I thought Rip van Winkle might could use an update


5 Wars
5 Defeats

So Why Did We Go to War on Iraq?



Must have been to grow Iran because they won TD!

10246. jexster - 11/1/2007 9:54:28 AM

Iraq Asks for Iran's Help in Calming Kurdish Crisis

And Iran is likely to demand that Iraq stop allowing Kurdistan to be used as a base for PKK and US-backed MEQ Saddamite terrorists.


What is Bush going to do when Iran throws his 180,000 mercenaries out?

10247. jexster - 11/1/2007 9:56:20 AM

10241

Never said anything of the kind of course.


I don't know how to put this politely, but concerned is lying again and all he has to do to prove me wrong...show us where I said what he said I said

10248. jexster - 11/1/2007 10:19:25 AM

$96

10249. jexster - 11/1/2007 10:28:53 AM

Krush the Krud

Pulverize the Pesh


The Thunder of Turkish War Drums

10250. jexster - 11/1/2007 10:49:44 AM

That is origninal TD!!
Here's an (original in this forum) idea! Let's continue to build infrastructure in Iraq and deprive DKS jexster's anti-US looneytoons any pretensions of mob rule power.

Sound good?

Great!

How about a slogan! Every BushWar needs a slogan


Whaddya say?

10251. jexster - 11/1/2007 11:29:14 AM

"I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life"
Phony Soldier, Sgt Victor Alacron
1st Regiment, 18th Batallion, 1st Army Div.
"Big Red One"
Baghdad

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Insurgents killed three US soldiers and wounded another two in separate attacks in northern Iraq, the military said Thursday.


Two soldiers died and two were wounded in an explosion near their vehicle as they were conducting operations in Nineveh province, and another soldier died in a similar blast near his vehicle in Salaheddin province, it said.

10252. jexster - 11/1/2007 11:35:47 AM

Heckuva Job Georgie


Why the Turks No Longer Love the US

About 9% last poll

10253. concerned - 11/1/2007 12:07:31 PM

Re. 10247 -

You certainly don't know to put it politely, let alone correctly.

I said you crawled out from under a rock, not that your whine made any sense.

10254. wonkers2 - 11/1/2007 12:15:53 PM

Requiem for the last soldier to die in Iraq

10255. jexster - 11/1/2007 1:07:39 PM

The last one to die will have been the most fortunate because he will have been the last to die for GeorgeW Bush

10256. jexster - 11/1/2007 1:08:28 PM

10253

Still waiting for TD to prove he's not lying again


But not holding my breath

10257. jexster - 11/1/2007 1:27:09 PM

Shut that Fucker Down!


Retired Foreign Service Officer: More on the Need to Close the Imperial Embassy in Baghdad

Write your worst congressthing ever

10258. jexster - 11/1/2007 6:47:18 PM

5 Wars
5 Defeats


Worse than the effing French!
Maybe not...now they're surrendering to Leslie Stahl

WAT, Pakistan - Muslim extremists are expanding their control of northern Pakistan, challenging the U.S.-backed government of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and adding to the lands where terrorists allied with Osama bin Laden find refuge.


Once restricted to pockets in the mountains along the Afghanistan border, radical mullahs and their followers now wield power in vast areas of northwest Pakistan. They have moved in the past few months beyond the tribal regions and into northern Pakistan cities and the Swat Valley.

The increased influence of the Islamic radicals was highlighted this week by intense fighting between local gunmen and government troops. The government said about 180 people have been killed, mostly militants, in violence including bombings, abductions and shootouts.

10259. jexster - 11/1/2007 8:21:12 PM

Huelga!

More dangerous than Saigon....

Foreign Service Officers Assn.: Hell No We Won't Go


Newshour

10260. jexster - 11/1/2007 10:22:41 PM

Quote of the Day

The idiotic policies of the United States in Iraq have led to the killing of its troops
Ayatollah Ali Khameni

In farsi

[Allahu Akbar A-holes]

10261. jexster - 11/2/2007 1:10:58 PM

5 Wars
5 Defeats

Bush Special Envoy Resigns, Says Bush Driving Turkey and Iran Together

Heckuva job

10262. jexster - 11/2/2007 1:12:41 PM

Looks TD like it is about time to send in the French.

10263. jexster - 11/2/2007 1:42:34 PM

5 Defeats

How Iraq’s Elections Set Back Democracy

By AYAD ALLAWI



Told you so in 2005..check the archive

10264. concerned - 11/2/2007 1:55:36 PM

More bad news for DKS jexster:

US Sees Decline in Bombs in Iraq

10265. jexster - 11/2/2007 2:42:51 PM

believes everything Bush tells him

10266. jexster - 11/2/2007 2:46:03 PM

Deadly Month Dulls US Claims of Iraq
Progress


Even as our troops are being defeated by a bunch of dune coons, it is comforting to that Curveball's leading the good life

TD believed that too

10267. jexster - 11/2/2007 2:47:04 PM

Hey Phony Soldiers, Stop Whining!

10268. jexster - 11/2/2007 2:50:01 PM

PS TD's "Scoop" should read

US Sees Decline in IRAN linked bombs


Since it was bullshit to begin with, it's not hard to see a decline is it

Send in the French before its too late!

10269. jexster - 11/2/2007 2:52:33 PM

Bush says that the Iraqis are "taking back Iraq"

From whom

Looks like they're picking our pockets!

Anbar Sheiks Demand Billions for the Bush "Miracle"

10270. concerned - 11/2/2007 5:30:56 PM

Quote of the Day

The idiotic policies of the United States in Iraq have led to the killing of its troops

Ayatollah Ali Khameni

DKS jexster admits it: Lip service to the anti-freedom cheap seats by conscienceless Islamist nutcases is what he finds most admirable.

10271. jexster - 11/2/2007 5:53:01 PM

You can say that again!

10272. jexster - 11/2/2007 5:53:58 PM

10273. concerned - 11/3/2007 12:09:05 AM

Figuring why Khameni is affecting such public concern about the deaths of US troops.

Way too deep for DKS jexster.

10274. jexster - 11/3/2007 5:32:38 AM

Because Bush is trying to set them up for an attack to distract attention from the disaster next door

DUH

I thought it was obvious.

He wasn't affecting "concern" but then again neither do you

Acceptable Cost - Phoney Soldiers
Six Percent of Combatants Have Traumatic Brain Injuries

10275. jexster - 11/3/2007 9:59:32 AM

The Disaster continues...Pervez Busharaff just declared martial law in Pakistan. And Bush had asked him so nicely not to do that

Bush can't
The Taliban can

10276. jexster - 11/3/2007 10:32:17 AM

10277. jexster - 11/3/2007 12:37:18 PM

Sounds like a plan!


Iran calls on Baghdad to draw up plan on US withdrawal 2 hours, 12 minutes ago



Baghdad and the United Nations should draw up a plan for the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces from Iraq, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Saturday.

"The withdrawal of the foreign forces from Iraq must take place based on a plan that is introduced by the government of Iraq," Mottaki told reporters on the sidelines of a multinational conference here on Iraqi security.

"Based on that plan, the United Nations should make a decision to end the mission of the foreign forces on an agreed date," he said.


And it has the extra added advantage for the Traitorous Cheney/Bush that they won't have to publically expose their treason in a formal surrender ceremony to the Shiite ayatollahs!

10278. jexster - 11/3/2007 12:54:12 PM

I don't know about you TD, but I had a very productive IslamoFascist Awareness Week!


I didn't know that Muzzies were shiftless and lazy. But it stands to reason don't it? Why else would they be known as "dune coons"?

From the Desk of Donald Rumsfeld ...


Thursday 01 November 2007


In a series of internal musings and memos to his staff, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued that Muslims avoid "physical labor" and wrote of the need to "keep elevating the threat," "link Iraq to Iran" and develop "bumper sticker statements" to rally public support for an increasingly unpopular war.

10279. jexster - 11/3/2007 1:24:15 PM

George Bush By the Balls...

The Continuing Chronicle of LOTUS - Loser of the US

Krud Warlord Barzani Sponsors PKK Terror, Defies the Turk

10280. jexster - 11/3/2007 2:19:31 PM

The Agony of Defeat
Hats off to William Lind who called defeat in Afghanistan and the collapse of Pakistan two years ago. Now you can see why I listened to Taft's defense LA instead of Sam Nunn's on DoD matters.


Militants seize 120 police, soldiers in Pakistan by S.H. Khan




Islamic militants took about 120 police and paramilitary soldiers hostage overnight in northwest Pakistan but released them Saturday after disarming them, a rebel spokesman said.

The men were seized in the town of Matta in the scenic Swat valley in North West Frontier Province after militants besieged their post late Friday.

"Around 120 policemen and paramilitary soldiers surrendered after they were surrounded," spokesman Sirajuddin said.

"We released them on Saturday because they agreed to return to their homes and not to fight with Muslim brothers," the spokesman, who goes by one name only, told AFP.

"Our mujahedeen (holy warriors) are in control of the police station."

It was the second time in a week militants loyal to pro-Taliban cleric Mullah Fazlullah have taken security personnel captive

10281. jexster - 11/3/2007 9:08:39 PM

How many ways can you say LOSER TD?

Rice's Mission to Turkey is a Failure

10282. jexster - 11/3/2007 9:17:36 PM

The lack of U.S. action against the PKK also has inflamed anti-American opinion in Turkey , a NATO ally. Recent public opinion polls have shown only 2 percent of Turks agree with American foreign policy....

Turkey wants to trust the U.S., but we feel we have been very patient in dealing with a national threat, and the current mood is not simply that we have been ignored by the U.S. in this matter, but that we have been betrayed," said Faruk Logoglu, a former Turkish ambassador to the United States .

Turkish nationalists — who are not in power but have a strong voice here— have suggested recently that Turkey's interests are more in line with Russia , Iran and China than with the United States . Retired U.S. Army Gen. Joseph Ralston , who stepped down recently as the State Department's special envoy on the PKK issue, told McClatchy Newspapers last week that he feared U.S. policy was pushing Turkey toward aligning itself with Iran .

10283. jexster - 11/3/2007 9:19:15 PM

Only now are we beginning to see the ultimate reach of the Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History...


Live Blog from Islamabad

10284. concerned - 11/5/2007 12:01:29 PM

Re. 10281 -

More to the point, I surely know lots of ways to say 'jexster doesn't like Bush Administration policies'.

10285. jexster - 11/5/2007 12:04:20 PM

Yea..Bush administration foreign policy has collapsed from Pakistan to the Mediterranean..what's not to like?


But the Muzzies have gone too far. Busharaff is beating lawyers in the streets of Lahore. And my brothers are in LAWYER UNIFORM as they get clubbed.

Time I made a little jihad

10286. concerned - 11/5/2007 2:49:34 PM

Time I made a little jihad

The Mideast is the zoo to do that in.

10287. jexster - 11/6/2007 10:42:03 AM

2007 Deadliest Since Iraq Invasion

10288. jexster - 11/6/2007 12:12:32 PM

5 Wars
5 Defeats

Taliban Seize Third Western Afghanistan District

10289. concerned - 11/6/2007 2:01:33 PM

DKS jexster has 5 brain cells.
5 brain cells on drugs.

10290. jexster - 11/6/2007 2:23:59 PM

5 Wars - 5 defeats = O

10291. jexster - 11/6/2007 2:29:00 PM

Found your missing IED's TD. Still looking for the game you lost November 5, 2006

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Six American troops have been killed in bomb attacks in Iraq, the US military said on Tuesday, making 2007 the deadliest year for the American forces since the invasion.

5 Wars
5 Defeats Brought to you by

10292. jexster - 11/7/2007 10:40:21 AM

60,000 US Casualties in IraQ

' US military occupation forces in Iraq suffered at least 178 combat casulties in the six days ending Nov. 6, as total casualties reached at least 61,596. The total includes 31,596 killed or wounded by what the Pentagon classifies as "hostile" causes and 30,294 (as of Oct. 1) dead and injured from "non-hostile" causes.

US media divert attention from the actual cost in American life and limb by routinely reporting only the total killed (3,855 as of Nov. 6) and rarely mentioning the 28,451 wounded in combat. To further minimize public perception of the cost, they cover for the Pentagon by ignoring the 30,294 (as of Oct. 1) military victims of accidents and illness serious enough to require medical evacuation, although the 3,855 reported deaths include 710 (up one since Oct. 31) who died from those same causes, including 130 suicides. '

The "Non-Combat" Deaths Lie

10293. jexster - 11/7/2007 1:09:27 PM

Cannoli Eating Surrender Monkey

Italian PM: Iran Has the Right to Nuclear Program

10294. jexster - 11/7/2007 1:40:47 PM

5 Wars
9 Defeats

Adding China,Russia,Pakistan and IRan to the list

Picking up after failed war on terror
Bush's campaign to wipe out terrorism is a costly mess. Here are five steps to move on.
By Andrew J. Bacevich

10295. concerned - 11/8/2007 1:36:34 AM

47,235 Wars
792,865,371 Defeats

10296. concerned - 11/8/2007 1:37:53 AM

My numbers are mathematically just as accurate as DKS jexster's.

10297. jexster - 11/8/2007 10:15:25 AM

SO which wars are you counting?


Iraq
Lebanon
Somalia
Afghanistan
Pakistan
China
Russia
Iran
Terror

10298. jexster - 11/8/2007 10:15:44 AM

those the 9 defeats

10299. jexster - 11/8/2007 12:41:42 PM

CNN reports that their latest poll shows support for BushWar at an all time low with "growing majority" favoring speedy withdrawal of the troops

What have we become TD? A nation of chili dog eating surrender monkeys?

The Muzzies must think we're a nation that fights like little girls or worse, like little French girls

10300. jexster - 11/8/2007 12:43:50 PM

63% oppose airstrikes on Iran
74% oppose ground force attack

10301. concerned - 11/8/2007 9:32:14 PM

Don't do things half assed, jexster. Come right out and state that you believe that George W. Bush failed with every country in the world. You obviously are deranged enough by him to buy into something like that. Then you can jack your loss numbers up to 150-200 or so. And why not include every attempted terrorist incident during the last seven years as a separate war? Then you could have at least dozens of your so-called 'wars'.

Go ahead. Tell your stupid lies really big, not half assed. You're certainly demented enough to take that step. We already know that you're DKS jexster the idiot, so be the biggest idiot you can be. Why not?

10302. jexster - 11/8/2007 9:53:25 PM

Don't do things half assed, jexster. Come right out and state that you believe that George W. Bush failed with every country in the world.

I do believe I have said that a few times or what part of "greatest strategic disaster in US history" are you having trouble with?


I know what you are having trouble with
You know

Everyone knows


5 wars...9 defeats...1 Bush

10303. jexster - 11/8/2007 9:56:58 PM

Wars:

Iraq
Lebanon
Somalia
Afghanistan
Terror


Defeats:

Iraq
Lebanon
Somalia
Afghanistan
Terror
Russia
Iran
Pakistan
China

and I am not even counting the fleecing, the taepo dong job that the Dear Leader pulled on his sorry ass





George W. Bush's foreign and national security policy has failed miserably...ALL OVER THE PLANET

Do not make me repeat again

10304. wonkers2 - 11/9/2007 10:53:42 AM

Sad but true! As my grandfather would have said, "They should have knocked him in the head at birth!"

10305. jexster - 11/9/2007 1:59:30 PM

5 Wars
9 Defeats

That is a message that wussy ass Democrats just can't seem to get. But it resonates with us Manly Men....

New Crises Sap Bush's War on Terror

by Jim Lobe
Just as the White House claims that it has finally turned the corner in what it defines as the "central front" in the war on terror – Iraq – it has found itself desperately trying to contain new crises in the war's "periphery" stretching east to Pakistan, west to Turkey, and south to the Horn of Africa.

10306. jexster - 11/10/2007 10:37:47 AM

The Treason of George Walker Bush and Richard Bruce Cheney

TEHRAN (AFP) - A senior Iraqi Shiite leader said on Saturday he had information from US officials that more Iranians were due to be released soon, after the US army freed nine of their compatriots.



"A number of Iranians detained in Iraq by the Americans will be released soon," Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), was quoted as saying by Iran's official news agency IRNA

10307. jexster - 11/10/2007 10:45:21 AM

5 Wars
9 Defeats
2 Treasons

UNITED NATIONS - Against a backdrop of heavy fighting and growing insecurity, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opposed the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers to Somalia and suggested instead a multinational force.



In August, the U.N. Security Council called on the secretary-general to begin planning for the possible deployment of U.N. peacekeepers to replace an African Union force that has struggled to put troops in the chaotic country.

10308. jexster - 11/12/2007 11:57:41 AM

For 10 billion a month, you'd think we'd know the answer

Who exactly are we fighting in IraQ?

10309. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/12/2007 1:47:28 PM

An informative analysis of Islamophobia . . .

10310. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/12/2007 1:57:56 PM

Now compare that with the imbeciles on the Right who think we should be proud of waterboarding . . .

10311. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/12/2007 1:59:11 PM

Toys!

10312. robertjayb - 11/12/2007 1:59:44 PM

Iraqis have pulled immunity for Blackwater, et al. They will have to obey trafic regs, stop at checkpoints, and submit to searches, the radio said this morning, or maybe it was CNN.

Even a glimpse of spine is encouraging, no matter where it appears.

10313. jexster - 11/13/2007 11:33:12 AM

Could be the start of something. If the Sunnis stay bought off and the Madhi army continues its cease-fire, then the groundwork for a nationalist coalition might be workable. They'd have to hold new parliamentary elections, provinicial elections, defer the Kruds indefinitely and probably revamp the constitution's electoral scheme but hey at least that's a roadmap to kicking the US out ..the only orderly one.

10314. jexster - 11/13/2007 12:46:40 PM

Pay to Play!

JURF AL SAKHR, Iraq — In this desolate tiny town in what was once called the Triangle of Death, signs of the violent past mix oddly with evidence of today's more tranquil life.

Large plots of land emptied by car bombs sit next to refurbished buildings. A new water treatment plant looks out to blast walls that haven't been necessary for months. A newly opened clothes shop is next to one that's been shut for ages.

The U.S. calls this former al Qaida stronghold a paragon of post-surge Iraq . Violence has come to a near-standstill. Yet the government that's emerged is far from the democratic republic that the Bush administration once promised.

The town is run by deals among its anointed leaders, nearly all of them former Sunni Muslim insurgents. None was elected. No one pays any mind to what might be happening in Iraq's Shiite-dominated parliament in Baghdad . In fact, residents assume that the elected central government will never help them.

Instead, the insurgents-turned-leaders depend on an influx of money from the U.S. or from the provincial government to keep Islamic extremists from dominating the town again. So far, the U.S. military has spent $1 million , the cost of one of the military's newest armored vehicles, on reconstruction projects and salaries for residents to secure the town and its surrounding area— 30,000 people in all. If the U.S. plan works, the next million will come from the Shiite-led provincial government


No wonder Maliki's Shiites are shitting bricks..hehehe

10315. jexster - 11/13/2007 3:02:05 PM

No shit

The World Can Live with a Nuclear Iran
Martin van Creveld (Hebe U, JewRusalem

10316. jexster - 11/13/2007 10:16:04 PM

In the Mideast, America Casts an Imperial Shadow

By Rashid Khalidi

since 2000, no one in a position of power in Washington seems to have bothered to read any history. Believing that the demise of the Soviet Union meant an end to checks and balances at home and to limits abroad, and seduced by the blandishments of shallow-minded theorists who believe that the rules that applied to all previous great powers do not apply to the United States, the current administration has plunged into not one but two land wars in Asia.

10317. jexster - 11/14/2007 6:58:50 PM

Either Rank Treason or Criminal Stupidity

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration's courtship of the biggest Shi'ite party in Iraq could worsen a dangerous rift between rival Shi'ite groups and ultimately give Iran a greater political role, a think tank said on Wednesday.


The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, or SIIC, a cornerstone of the political alliance behind Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, has enjoyed close relations with Washington since the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003, unlike the rival Shi'ite movement led by anti-American cleric Moqtada al Sadr.

But the International Crisis Group urged the United States to adopt a more evenhanded approach to the majority Shi'ite community, saying in a report that Shi'ite rivalries are likely to have more influence on Iraq's future than the sectarian conflict between Shi'ites and Sunnis.

The U.S. has fully backed (SIIC) in this rivalry. This is a risky gambit," the Belgium-based think tank said.

It warned that U.S. reliance on fighters from SIIC's Badr Organization as a counterweight to Sadr's Mehdi Army militia is "bound to backfire, polarizing the Shi'ite community and creating the foundations for endemic intra-Shi'ite strife."

"While Washington is intent on stabilizing Iraq, for example, (SIIC) is bent on ruling it," the report said.

10318. jexster - 11/17/2007 11:42:14 AM

The Stateless Region of Mesopotamia

For Kurds, Iraq is a Distant Memory

OOOPS..that's the nation Bush is trying to build


from scratch

10319. jexster - 11/17/2007 7:49:43 PM

Biddle's Best Case (Marc Lynch, GWU)

I attended a talk today by Stephen Biddle, a first-rate military strategist who has been working with General Petraeus, about military progress in Iraq (Nora Bensahel of RAND and Lawrence Korb of CAP also spoke). I had to leave before the Q+A, so can't say anything about the full event, only about his half-hour long opening remarks. Overall, he presented a rosier portrait than I would have, based on his recent ten day visit to Iraq, but he's a serious guy so I take him seriously - though I noticed that he concentrated almost exclusively on the local level progress and hardly mentioned Maliki or the national political level at all. Without getting in to his arguments or my reservations, I just wanted to lay out Biddle's best case scenario as he presented it: if everything goes right and if the US continues to "hit the lottery" with the spread of local ceasefires and none of a dozen different spoilers happens, then a patchwork of local ceasefires between heavily armed, mistrustful communities could possibly hold if and only if the US keeps 80,000-100,000 troops in Iraq for the next twenty to thirty years. And that's the best case scenario of one of the current strategy's smartest supporters. Man.

10320. jexster - 11/19/2007 7:27:01 PM

Heckuva Job George

250,000 bullets for every insurgent killed

An Economist Examines the Opportunity Cost of BushWar

10321. jexster - 11/24/2007 2:32:36 PM

So what can a Middle East correspondent write on a Saturday morning except that the world in the Middle East is growing darker and darker by the hour. Pakistan. Afghanistan. Iraq. "Palestine". Lebanon. From the borders of Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean, we – we Westerners that is – are creating (as I have said before) a hell disaster. Next week, we are supposed to believe in peace in Annapolis, between the colourless American apparatchik and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister who has no more interest in a Palestinian state than his predecessor Ariel Sharon.

And what hell disasters are we creating? Let me quote a letter from a reader in Bristol. She asks me to quote a professor at Baghdad University, a respected man in his community who tells a story of real hell; you should read it. Here are his own words:

"'A'adhamiya Knights' is a new force that has started its task with the Americans to lead them to al-Qa'ida and Tawheed and Jihad militants. This 300-fighter force started their raids very early at dawn wearing their black uniform and black masks to hide their faces. Their tours started three days ago, arresting about 150 citizens from A'adhamiya. The 'Knight' leads the Americans to a citizen who might be one of his colleagues who used to fight the Americans with him. These acts resulted in violent reactions of al-Qa'ida. Its militants and the militants of Tawheed and Jihad distributed banners on mosques' walls, especially on Imam Abu Hanifa mosque, threatening the Islamic Party, al-Ishreen revolution groups and Sunni endowment Diwan with death because these three groups took part in establishing 'A'adhamiya Knights'. Some crimes happened accordingly, targeting two from Sunni Diwan staff and one from the Islamic Party.

"Al-Qa'ida militants are distributed through the streets, stopping the people and asking about their IDs ... they carry lists of names. Anyone whose name is on these lists is kidnapped and taken to an unknown place. Eleven persons have been kidnapped up to now from Omar Bin Abdul Aziz Street."

The writer describes how her professor friend was kidnapped and taken to a prison. "They helped me sit on a chair (I was blindfolded) and someone came and held my hand saying, 'We are Muhajeen, we know you but we don't know where you are from.' They did not take my wallet nor did they search me. They only asked me if I have a gun. An hour or so later, one of them came and asked me to come with them. They drove me towards where my car was in the street and they said no more." So who are the A'adhamiya Knights? Who is paying them? What are we doing in the Middle East?

Darkness Falls on the Middle East
Robert Fisk

10322. concerned - 11/24/2007 3:21:47 PM

Robert Fisk is the kind of guy who believes Saddam Hussein is a beam of heavenly light.

10323. jexster - 11/24/2007 3:24:16 PM

And you're the kinda guy who believes that George W. Bush knew what the fuck he was doing invading Iraq

10324. jexster - 11/24/2007 3:26:56 PM

And Osama's the kind of guy who knows he's winning

Osama Talks of Victory, Not Defeat
Michael Sheuer


Whatever else you wish to say about Robert Fisk, you can't say that he issn't right

5 Wars, 9 Defeats

10325. jexster - 11/24/2007 3:40:18 PM

The world has stood stunned, amazed, delighted and wonder-struck" over the Iraqi mujahideen's effectiveness and perseverance,"Watching America the tyrannical: watching its legions breaking apart under your strikes, its brigades being wiped out in front of your raids and its battalions being obliterated by the pounding of your squadrons ... O people of Iraq ... O eminent ones of the Turks, Kurds and Arabs: the affair of unbelief [the US occupation] has been shaken and confused, and the time of his fleeing is nigh, so increase his confusion and disarray, and strike some more at his neck and hit it with a bone-cutting sword. The bearer of the banner of the cross has increased his soldiers and claimed that he will defeat the soldiers of faith, so be resolute - may Allah be merciful to you - and remember Him much, for he is watching you ... You have done well by carrying out one of the greatest of duties which few carry out: repelling the attacking enemy.

Osama Bin Laden
2007

10326. concerned - 11/24/2007 3:46:11 PM

Fisk is one of the wrongest hacks I know.

10327. Max Macks - 11/24/2007 6:25:13 PM

curious reactions to one of the most
knowledgeabe people in the US re. the Middle east

10328. jexster - 11/24/2007 7:03:37 PM

You are so right Max. Now we're starting to see what sort of people PetRaeus is cutting deals with...three months with Muqtada; that butcher in the Fisk piece; the Shiite Army of Heaven Cult that recently marched on Najaf to kill Sistani and guys like this...another 3 month deal:

Al-Hayat writing in Arabic profiles Sa'd Uraibi al-Ubaidi, known as "Abu Abd", the 'tribal awakening' leader who, it claims, now controls most of the Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baghdad. Al-Ubaidi, 35, had served as an officer in the Baath Army. He joined the guerrilla movement against the Americans, being active in the "Islamic Army." He then joined a 'tribal council' and allied with the Americans against the Salafi radicals, some of whom style themselves 'al-Qaeda.' He told al-Hayat that he had had no choice but to ally with the Americans once "al-Qaeda" turned into Iraq's 'biggest enemy.' He said he and his companions had once fought the Americans "honorably," but that they now conclude 3-month-long security agreements with them, which can be renewed.

Six months ago, Abu Abd formed and began heading the Awakening Council of the Knights of Mesopotamia, most of the 600 members of which had earlier belonged to the 'Islamic Army.' It is based in the Baghdad districts of al-Amiriya, al-Khadra, al-Jami'a, and al-Adhamiya. He said that the US needs "resistance units" to control hot districts so as to establish security in them, something that Iraqis, he said, need as well. Al-Hayat maintains that his 600 fighters receive a monthly salary of $360 from the US, and that recently 300 of them were regularized as members of the al-Amiriya district police force after they passed medical exams. ....(Cole)

Now I don't mind who they pay off if it'll keep the peace even for a while provided we get the fuck outta there. That's how Osama got his start - the US playing colonial games. Now it's even worse. We're paying off enemies of the US and each other

10329. David Ehrenstein - 11/24/2007 7:16:44 PM

10330. jexster - 11/25/2007 12:03:45 PM

Five Wars
Nine Defeats

Don't take my word for it....Take Bush's!

Never thought I'd say that!


U.S. Notes Limited Progress in Afghan War
Strategic Goals Unmet, White House Concludes

10331. jexster - 11/25/2007 1:01:02 PM

US Backed Killer Militias Strut Across Iraq

10332. jexster - 11/25/2007 4:06:35 PM

The Unfolding Treason of CheneyBush - World's Bitch




Iraq's most influential Shiite politician said Sunday that the U.S had not backed up claims that Iran is fueling violence here, underscoring a wide gap on the issue between Washington and the Shiite-led Baghdad government.

A draft bill to ease curbs on ex-Saddam Hussein loyalists in government services also drew sharp criticism from Shiite lawmakers, opening old wounds at a time when the United States is pressing the Iraqis for compromise for the sake of national unity.

The Americans have long accused the Iranians of arming and training Shiite militias, including some linked to the U.S.-backed government of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

U.S. officials have also alleged that Iran has provided weapons used to kill Americans — a charge the Iranians vehemently deny.

"These are only accusations raised by the multinational forces and I think these accusations need more proof," Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraq Council, told reporters.

Al-Hakim, who has been undergoing treatment for lung cancer in Iran, said the Iranians have insisted in meetings with Iraqi officials that "their true will is to support the Iraqi government" and to promote stability.

"They have a long history of standing by the Iraqi people and that is their official stance that is presented to the press without any hesitation," he said.

10333. jexster - 11/25/2007 8:35:03 PM

Anglican leader blasts US over Iraq





Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, criticized the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in an interview published Sunday, saying it was worse than the British land grabs of the colonial era.

The spiritual leader of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion described the situation in Iraq as the "the worst of all worlds," and compared it to the time when Britain was at the height of its imperial power.

"It is one thing to take over a territory and even pour energy and resources into administrating it and normalizing it," said Williams. "Rightly or wrongly, that's what the British Empire did — in India for example."

"It's another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put back together — Iraq, for example," he told the Muslim lifestyle magazine Emel.

"We have only one global hegemonic power at the moment," Williams said. "It is not accumulating territory; it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That's not working."

A long-standing critic of the Iraq war, Williams has said the U.S. lost the widespread moral support it enjoyed worldwide in the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.

Last year, around Christmas, Williams wrote a scathing commentary in The London Times saying the U.S.-led coalition's "shortsightedness and ignorance" in Iraq endangered the lives of Christians across the Middle East.

10334. jexster - 11/26/2007 11:45:08 AM

Finally he's stopped trying to move the goal posts.

Bush has decided to take them down altogether

10335. jexster - 11/26/2007 1:21:32 PM

Bush to Complete the Treason

Cuts Deal With Maliki to Protect Iranian Puppets Against Coup

10336. concerned - 11/26/2007 2:35:23 PM

Just when DKS jexster was fooling himself that his bullshit meant something: Iraqis may offer US deal to stay longer

This puts the lie to the 'We are just there for the oil' and 'US involvement in Iraq is a total disaster' canards, of course.

10337. jexster - 11/26/2007 3:16:11 PM

Treason is as Treason Does TD...Read the post just above idiot.

White House Releases "Principles" for Permanent Iraqi Presence
By Spencer Ackerman - November 26, 2007, 11:12AM
So it begins. After years of obfuscation and denial on the length of the U.S.'s stay in Iraq, the White House and the Maliki government have released a joint declaration of "principles" for "friendship and cooperation." Apparently President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed the declaration during a morning teleconference.

Naturally, the declaration is euphemistic, and doesn't refer explicitly to any U.S. military presence.

-- Iraq's leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America, and we seek an enduring relationship with a democratic Iraq. We are ready to build that relationship in a sustainable way that protects our mutual interests, promotes regional stability, and requires fewer Coalition forces.
-- In response, this Declaration is the first step in a three-step process that will normalize U.S.-Iraqi relations in a way which is consistent with Iraq's sovereignty and will help Iraq regain its rightful status in the international community – something both we and the Iraqis seek. The second step is the renewal of the Multinational Force-Iraq's Chapter VII United Nations mandate for a final year, followed by the third step, the negotiation of the detailed arrangements that will codify our bilateral relationship after the Chapter VII mandate expires.


A "democratic Iraq" here means the Shiite-led Iraqi government. The current political arrangement will receive U.S. military protection against coups or any other internal subversion. That's something the Iraqi government wants desperately: not only is it massively unpopular, even among Iraqi Shiites, but the increasing U.S.-Sunni security cooperation strikes the Shiite government -- with some justification -- as a recipe for a future coup.

Notice also the timetable. The U.S. and Iraq will negotiate another year-long United Nations mandate for foreign troops in Iraq, which will expire (I think) in late December 2008. According to today's declaration, following the forthcoming renewal at the U.N., "we will begin negotiation of a framework that will govern the future of our bilateral relationship." That means that during Bush's last year in office, the administration will work out the terms of the U.S.'s stay in Iraq in order to, at the very least, seriously constrain the next administration's options for ending the U.S. presence. Even if Bush doesn't take the audacious step of signing a so-called Status of Forces Agreement -- the basic document for garrisoning U.S. forces on foreign soil -- while he's a lame duck, the simple fact of negotiations will create a diplomatic expectation that his successor will find difficult to reverse.

The White House is also taking steps to argue that there's nothing unusual about what it intends for Iraq. Here's that fact sheet again:

Treason is as treason does

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq (ISCI), has denied that Iran has behaved disruptively in Iraq. Al-Hakim lived much of his adult life in exile in Tehran and is still close to the ayatollahs.

10338. jexster - 11/26/2007 3:19:36 PM

Only the most useful of idiots can believe that staying the course for the next 20 years of occupation is in the interests of the US

10339. jexster - 11/26/2007 3:22:28 PM

62% of Americans Say Bush War on Iraq a Mistake

Well duh

10340. jexster - 11/26/2007 3:48:11 PM

TD Your Turnip Truck is Waiting

The Future Iraq: Can't stay forever
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

Hans Blix was right about the weapons. While we hope he is mistaken in his fear that the U.S. government plans to keep permanent bases in Iraq, his track record is pretty good.

Not long after visiting the University of Washington in October, Blix was in Australia, where the former U.N. weapons inspector received the Sydney Peace Prize and raised the bases idea. Associated Press and AFP news reports quoted him as saying, "One fear I would have is that the U.S. has a hidden thought to remain in Iraq. One reason why they wanted in was that they felt they must leave Saudi Arabia."

Blix went on to say, "When they felt they could no longer stay in Saudi Arabia, Iraq was the next best place because it was more secularized than Saudi Arabia and had the second-biggest oil reserves in the region." He also said there might be a desire to have troops close to Iran, Iraq's neighbor.

To some degree, this sounds like speculation on Blix's part. But he has experience in taking evidence, using common sense and expertise and drawing sound conclusions.

Americans were misled that U.S. troops would be greeted with flowers in the streets of Iraq. There's almost no scenario we can imagine where permanent U.S. bases in Iraq would contribute to our security, Middle Eastern trust or the promotion of democracy. Blix spoke without citing concrete evidence. But there's a lot of permanent-looking concrete on the current U.S. bases and in that gargantuan embassy in Baghdad that the Bush administration built. We hope that, if the Bush administration won't foreswear permanent bases, the election campaign will clarify that this country has no intention of an extended imperial presence in Iraq. We have no right to subjugate Iraq's future to our dilettante calculations and miscalculations about oil, power and politics in the Middle East.

10341. concerned - 11/26/2007 4:20:03 PM

Speaking of 'permanent bases', Iraq is just as good or better a candidate for them than Germany, Japan or S. Korea AFAIC.

10342. jexster - 11/26/2007 4:24:39 PM

The Lies Continue


Today the US command announced that the goalposts had moved again. Seems the promises the US made concerning provinces to be turned over to Iraqi forces not 3 months ago

Will not be met

10343. jexster - 11/26/2007 4:25:36 PM

13040

And just how do you figure that shit for brains

10344. jexster - 11/26/2007 4:27:10 PM

The same way you figured on Democray in Iraq? Saddam as Hitler? WMD?

That there even is such a thing as Iraq?

10345. David Ehrenstein - 11/26/2007 4:29:18 PM

10346. jexster - 11/26/2007 4:29:29 PM

Loser Bush cutting deals on the telephone with Maliki's not even as real as the love I make with Jesse Plemons with my right hand

10347. jexster - 11/26/2007 4:30:46 PM

But we can be thankful...The self-absorbed little Idiot just gave the Democrats another big time election issue


Fuck the GOP ..no wonder Trent Lott and Denny Hastert can't wait to get out of Bushville

10348. jexster - 11/26/2007 4:32:25 PM

Standing by...


OBL(PBUH) is about to broadcast a message to Europe


5 wars
9 defeats
1 treason

10349. jexster - 11/26/2007 6:43:26 PM

"The only country in the world waging TWO, count em, TWO wars is holding a middle east peace summit. I think it's as transparent as plastic wrap"

Jack Cafferty
CNN

10350. concerned - 11/26/2007 6:52:20 PM

Re. 10348 -

Who cares what Obama Kamlfukr has to say?

10351. concerned - 11/26/2007 6:54:43 PM

DKS jexster's philosophy -

'Whine loudly and carry a toothpick'.

10352. jexster - 11/26/2007 7:14:09 PM

You can almost hear it now




GWB...The World's Bitch
SQUEAL LIKE A PIG

10353. jexster - 11/26/2007 7:48:39 PM

Spencer Ackerman's comment leads to a rare moment of self-examination!

TD I apologize for not giving Bush credit for finally telling the truth!

Credit the administration with a sudden candor. For the first time in four years, it's admitting that its conception of a normal Iraq is one in which the U.S. military operates there forever and ever and ever. It's not quite 6 p.m. Are there any other conspiracy theories sure to arouse anti-American sentiment in the Middle East that the administration would like to confirm before quitting time?

10354. jexster - 11/26/2007 9:19:26 PM

War Czar: Permanent Iraq Bases Won't Require Senate Ratification
By Spencer Ackerman - November 26, 2007, 12:54PM

Could Congress stop a Bush administration-brokered deal to garrison U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely? Not according to General Douglas Lute, the so-called "war czar." Here's Lute at today's gaggle:

Q General, will the White House seek any congressional input on this?

GENERAL LUTE: In the course of negotiations like this, it's not -- it is typical that there will be a dialogue between congressional leaders at the negotiating table, which will be run out of the Department of State. We don't anticipate now that these negotiations will lead to the status of a formal treaty which would then bring us to formal negotiations or formal inputs from the Congress.

Q Is the purpose of avoiding the treaty avoiding congressional input?

GENERAL LUTE: No, as I said, we have about a hundred agreements similar to the one envisioned for the U.S. and Iraq already in place, and the vast majority of those are below the level of a treaty.

Lute said the White House intends to conclude negotiations on an enduring security guarantee with the Maliki government in July. Permanent military bases and residual troop levels will be specified in the final accord, he said.

10355. jexster - 11/27/2007 10:50:33 AM

The CheneyBush Treason

Perhaps this explains the need to jump start Dick Cheney's heart..direct from Tehran bearing orders


BAGHDAD (AFP) - Powerful Iraqi Shiite leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim left for a visit to the United States to discuss the latest security and political developments in Iraq, his party said in a statement on Tuesday. Hakim heads the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), the party leading the Shiite alliance ruling Baghdad. He went with several of his aides on an "official invitation from the American administration," SIIC said.

10356. jexster - 11/27/2007 12:01:24 PM

Bush's Lies Continue
Constitution Shmonstitution


So it seems the Iraqi constitution says the Iraqi parliamentary would need to approve the new 'US troops in Iraq forever' deal by a two-thirds margin. And since the idea of a permanent US occupation is really unpopular in Iraq, that seems really unlikely.

On the other hand, apparently we're going to try to do it extra-constitutionally over here too. So do we really think we'll be more punctilious over there than we are here?

--Josh Marshall

10357. Max Macks - 11/27/2007 8:37:12 PM

Where is Dick Cheney these days?

the least scene of any VP
that I can recall

10358. wonkers2 - 11/27/2007 11:05:12 PM

Cheney's in getting his pacemaker tuned up.

10359. concerned - 11/28/2007 2:49:03 AM

US, Iraq agree on permanent US bases in Iraq, Leftbots Choke to Death on Own Vomit.

I'd call that a win-win situation.

10360. concerned - 11/28/2007 2:52:06 AM

This is cool because all you Lefties are hoping Cheney will die.

10361. concerned - 11/28/2007 3:03:14 AM

I just figured out what the real problem is with Islam!





Details coming soon....

10362. jexster - 11/28/2007 10:49:55 AM

Cheney got a jump start!

Iraqi Politicians Oppose Bush-Maliki Deal

10363. jexster - 11/28/2007 11:02:30 AM

Yesterday GWB was Abraham Lincoln...today he's Jimmuh Cahtuh.

TD's gonna need a jump start too

10364. jexster - 11/28/2007 1:27:51 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 90 percent of U.S. journalists in Iraq say much of Baghdad is still too dangerous to visit, despite a recent drop in violence attributed to the build-up of U.S. forces, a poll released on Wednesday said.

The survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center showed that many U.S. journalists believe coverage has painted too rosy a picture of the conflict.


Friday Prayers, Friday Follies

10365. jexster - 11/28/2007 2:05:47 PM

10366. Max Macks - 11/28/2007 3:11:54 PM

So Musharaf actually took off his army uniform

will it stay off is the question.

10367. jexster - 11/29/2007 10:17:56 AM

In the Fox's Lair: William S. Lind

10368. jexster - 11/29/2007 10:38:03 AM

Permanent Bases in Iraq? How About Permanent Civil War?
Arkin WaPo


If anyone doubted the Bush administration's intent to pass the Iraq war on to the next president, or if anyone still believed the rhetoric about the withdrawal of American forces as Iraq "stood up," then yesterday's agreement between the United States and Iraq should disabuse them of those notions.

For many, including Talking Point Memo and Keith Olbermann, the agreement reverses earlier pledges that the U.S. would not seek permanent bases. It thus becomes part of another Bush lie.

Yet it's not as if Cakewalk & Co. intended, after four and a half years, to have more troops in Iraq than they started with and an Iraqi government that can't govern or defend itself. Iraq has been a disaster, absolutely. But there is no evidence -- none -- that the Pentagon went to war with the intent of establishing new permanent bases. (BULLSHIT - Wolfowitz testified that relocating bases from Saudi Arabia was an objective)

At the same time, the declaration signed yesterday is worse than a secret pledge to establish bases. It's a pledge to permanently guarantee the Baghdad government's security -- from external and internal threats. It is, in short, America's commitment to fight in Iraq's civil war.

10369. jexster - 11/29/2007 10:48:24 AM

LIARS

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House denied Thursday that the United States seeks permanent military bases in Iraq, days after the US "war czar" said that would be part of talks next year on long-term security ties.

10370. jexster - 11/29/2007 12:50:01 PM

TD don't know much about algebra
Don't know what a slide rule is for


In 1805, the French army out maneuvered, outsmarted, and outfought the combined armies of Russia and Austria at Austerlitz. Three years later it would flounder against a rag-tag collection of Spanish guerrillas.

In 1967, it took six days for the Israeli army to smash Egypt, Jordan, and Syria and seize the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. In 2006, a Shi'ite militia fought the mightiest army in the Middle East to a bloody standstill in Lebanon.

In 1991, it took four days of ground combat for the United States to crush Saddam Hussein's army in the Gulf War. U.S. losses were 148 dead and 647 wounded. After more than five years of war in Iraq, U.S. losses are approaching 4,000, with over 50,000 wounded; 2007 is already the deadliest year of the war for the United States.

In each case, a great army won a decisive victory only to see that victory canceled out by what T.E. Lawrence once called the "algebra of occupation."

10371. jexster - 11/29/2007 4:34:46 PM

It's hard to tell these days whether the sands shift faster on the Tigris or on the Potomac. Four and a half years ago we invaded Iraq to disarm Saddam, or so we were told. When we found out Saddam had secretly gotten rid of his weapons of mass destruction, the justification for the invasion became to plant the seeds of democracy. Now, with intractable political gridlock in Baghdad, the reason it seems we're in Iraq is to promote a "tribal awakening" - unite Iraq's Shia and Sunni tribes in some grand tribal confederation. We're going to fight terrorism by turning the clock back to 7th century Arabia.



If I hadn't read it in Tuesday's White House press briefing, I would have taken the whole thing as a hoax. But indeed, on Tuesday Bush met with the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Abd al-Aziz Hakim, to discuss the "tribal awakening."


Never mind that the last thing Hakim wants to do is hand power over to the tribes, his real objective being to turn Iraq into a Shi'a Islamic republic...



Time Magazine Explores the Bush-Cheney Treason

10372. jexster - 11/29/2007 8:38:24 PM

CANBERRA (Reuters) - About 550 Australian combat troops in Iraq should be withdrawn by about the middle of next year, Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd said on Friday, setting a broad timetable for the soldiers to return home.

10373. concerned - 11/30/2007 12:18:46 AM

DKS jexster finally gets something right. The Al Qaeda camelfucker's Iraq concession speech was worth it after all.

Even a blind squirrel sometimes will find an acorn. Being who he is, however, DKS jexster immediately dropped it like a hot potato because it didn't serve his propaganda objective of trashing the Bush Administration.

10374. jexster - 11/30/2007 10:51:31 AM

I just had other things to put up. There was a great quote in it which your nose needs to be rubbed in apparently.


All in due time


This is for MAX!!!!

13066 - Here you go

10375. jexster - 11/30/2007 10:55:55 AM

And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tuckerbag

The events of Manhattan were retaliation against the American-Israeli alliance's aggression against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, and I am the only one responsible for it. The Afghan people and government knew nothing about it. America knows that....


Come and git me assholes

10376. jexster - 12/1/2007 11:03:21 AM

Kiss of the Toxic Bush

Bush "Declaration of Priniciples" Weakens Maliki Further

10377. jexster - 12/1/2007 11:37:20 AM

Turkey Invades

10378. jexster - 12/1/2007 2:22:17 PM

Winter Soldier II
US War Vets to Speak Publicly About Iraq War Crimes

10379. jexster - 12/2/2007 11:04:52 AM

Iraq's government has long been collapsing in slow time

To the point where "Iraq" is nothing more than a Bush talking point

10380. jexster - 12/2/2007 1:50:27 PM

Quote of the Day: May the Farce Be With You

Abu Mazen (Abbas) represents the Palestinians as much as I represent Norway
Minister for Apartheid Affairs Avigdor Lieberman,
Chairman Yisrael Beitenu

10381. jexster - 12/2/2007 10:15:56 PM

Heckuva Job Georgie _ The Purge

Sixty Minutes - Vicar: Dire Times For Iraq's Christians

As his flock is murdered and dispersed, the vicar of Baghdad says Christians are worse off now than under Saddam or perhaps ever in history. Scott Pelley reports on the persecution of Iraq's Christians.


Most have fled or been killed. The Anglicans hold secret services.

Worst ever...worst since St Thomas brought Christianity to Iraq 2000 years ago

10382. wonkers2 - 12/2/2007 10:20:29 PM

I think we have more Iraqi Christians in Detroit than they have in Iraq. Most of them are Chaldeans which I gather qualifies as RC. They have been here for a couple or three generations and are quite well assimiliated. We also have a lot of Muslims who also are pretty well assimilated although they have been facing a fair amount of prejudice since 9-11.

10383. jexster - 12/2/2007 10:31:48 PM

That guy was powerful. Has MS

Pelly asked him what does he tell his congregants when they ask where's God in their slaughter?

"I tell them God is right here with you. I am here with you and neither God nor I will ever leave you"

10384. jexster - 12/2/2007 10:32:48 PM

"Religion has failed. Religion has run amok. When that happens people get killed"

10385. wonkers2 - 12/2/2007 10:35:23 PM

Where is St. Thomas when we need him?!

10386. alistairconnor - 12/3/2007 12:57:39 PM

Jeezus... the Ackroyd/Connor theory of middle-east war gets another run...

A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb.
The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to be major factor in the tense international negotiations aimed at getting Iran to halt its nuclear energy program, and they come in the middle of a presidential campaign during which a possible military strike against Iran’s nuclear program has been discussed.

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran’s ultimate intentions about gaining a nuclear weapon remain unclear, but that Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.”

So Ahmadinnerjacket, who claims they're not trying to make a bomb, while giving out signals that really they are secretly trying to make a bomb, is double-bluffing... just like Saddam and his weapons of mass delusion...

This sort of insolence will not be tolerated. Immediate invasion is called for.

But only on the condition that the UN Security Council decides against it.

10387. jexster - 12/3/2007 2:08:22 PM

The Bush Cheney Treason is Complete

The National Intelligence estimate says that Iran stopped its nuclear bomb program in 2003.

10388. jexster - 12/3/2007 2:15:02 PM

beat me to it AC!

But it is obvious what has happened. Bush has surrendered to Shiite Islamofascism and the Islamic Republic as I have been saying for a year now

10389. jexster - 12/3/2007 2:15:41 PM

Honest Abe don't look too happy do he!

10390. jexster - 12/3/2007 4:08:26 PM

IraN; Bush Bitch Slapped

10391. jexster - 12/3/2007 4:37:03 PM

Iran NIE Finished a Year Ago

10392. robertjayb - 12/3/2007 5:48:52 PM

I bow in awe and admiration to the bushies who step forward in broad daylight and claim that today's clearly contradictory NIE revelations support their position. Here's Stephen Hadley;

Today's National Intelligence Estimate offers some positive news," Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley said in a statement.

"It confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons. It tells us that we have made progress in trying to ensure that this does not happen," he said.

These guys are good. Chutzpah is way inadequate.

10393. jexster - 12/3/2007 6:57:58 PM

10394. jexster - 12/3/2007 7:22:04 PM

Like Iraq, US intel on Iran faulty

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

First Iraq, now Iran. The United States has operated under a cloud of faulty intelligence in both countries.

In a bombshell intelligence assessment, the United States has backed away from its once-ironclad assertion that Tehran is intent on building nuclear bombs.

Where there once was certainty, there now is doubt. "We do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons," the new estimate said Monday.

Compare that with what then-National Intelligence Director John Negroponte told Congress on Jan. 1. "Our assessment is that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons."

Just last month, President Bush, at a news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said, "We talked about Iran and the desire to work jointly to convince the Iranian regime to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions, for the sake of peace."

More ominously, Bush told a news conference Oct. 17, "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

Asked then if he definitely believed that Iran wanted to build a nuclear bomb, Bush said, "Yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon."

10395. jexster - 12/4/2007 10:46:24 AM

Did an Iranian Spy Clear Tehran of Nuclear Ambitions?

10396. jexster - 12/4/2007 10:48:50 AM

Nucular Meltdown
Fred Kaplan

10397. jexster - 12/4/2007 10:55:44 AM

Now we know why Cheney needed a jump start the other day


For those who have doubts about miracles, a double one occurred today. An honest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program has been issued, and its "Key Judgments" were made public.

With redraft after redraft, it was what the Germans call eine schwere Geburt – a difficult birth, 10 months in gestation.

I do not know how often Vice President Dick Cheney visited CIA headquarters during the gestation period, but I am told he voiced his displeasure as soon as he saw the first sonogram/draft very early this year and is so displeased with what issued that he has refused to be the godfather.




Ray McGovern

10398. jexster - 12/4/2007 3:25:21 PM

Muqtada to Bush; Get the Hell Out of My Country

10399. jexster - 12/4/2007 6:03:23 PM

Hersh: White House Sat on Iran Intel for a Year

Don't let em fool ya TD.

It's all part of an elaborate CIA plot to expose the BushCheney treasona and/or give Dick a fatal heart attack

10400. wonkers2 - 12/4/2007 6:06:58 PM

This means that Cheney's nuts have been cut off!

10401. jexster - 12/4/2007 7:09:28 PM

THat's what they WANT you to think. I personally believe it is all part of an elaborate ruse to cover and complete the Bush/Cheney treason. The two sold Iraq to Iran in 2003


WASHINGTON - U.S. leverage over Iran all but evaporated this week, along with some of the international credibility and goodwill the Bush administration has worked to rebuild since the phantom weapons debacle in Iraq.

Debacle: US Loses Leverage Over Iran



As you know, Concerned and I have been following this story closely for over a year now. I am sure he agrees with me.

10402. jexster - 12/4/2007 8:08:08 PM

Treason

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The fourth round of US-Iranian talks on curbing violence in Iraq may take place in the next few days, powerful Iraqi Shiite leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim said Tuesday at the end of a US visit.


Hakim, who met with US President George W. Bush last week, said the newly released US intelligence report saying Iran halted its nuclear bomb program in 2003 would help the dialogue between the two foes.

"I suppose that Iraq should host in the coming few days this fourth round of the dialogue. We are seeking to see a constructive dialogue," Hakim said at a news conference.

"We welcome this (US intelligence) report and we think that it is going to contribute in preparing a more positive and proper environment to advance forward in the dialogue between the two countries," he said through an interpreter.

10403. alistairconnor - 12/5/2007 6:26:41 AM

The amusing thing to watch will be the reactions of the cuckolded Europeans, who have been browbeaten into diminishing their lucrative direct involvement in Iran's economy. Now the sanctions will do the house of cards trick.

Peugeot, Total etc. will be rubbing their hands.

10404. jexster - 12/5/2007 10:51:46 AM

UR right about that! Esp your M Le Martinette President


Is Bush Loaded Again?



Gareth Porter reported that
'A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch". Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, "You know what choices I have. I'm a professional." Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box." '

10405. jexster - 12/5/2007 11:04:46 AM

Not sure anyone has picked this up but a snippet of Bush's press conference escaped my mute button trigger finger yesterday and it was a whopper!

Bush expressed appreciation for the fine work done on the NIE and then went out of his way to contrast this product with the 2002 Iraq NIE. Seems that thanks to his intelligence reforms "we are taking these estimates more seriously"

Holy moly

10406. jexster - 12/5/2007 11:07:32 AM

10407. jexster - 12/5/2007 11:08:34 AM

VGS Day Celebration, December 4th


Victory Over the Great Satan Day

10408. jexster - 12/5/2007 11:11:27 AM

Rogue NIE Validates 2003 Euro Diplomacy

10409. alistairconnor - 12/5/2007 11:30:26 AM

The sad thing is, if the US had decided to negotiate with Iran at that point, Ahmadinnerjacket would never even have been elected. The prospect of war with the US was a key factor in his surprise election.

10410. jexster - 12/5/2007 11:34:41 AM

Spot on. Back then Cheney.Bush preparing invasions of Syria and Iran..then France

10411. jexster - 12/5/2007 11:49:01 AM

George Bush tried his moron act again today (i.e., “I didn’t find out about this until last week.”) but this time the turd ain’t floating.

NeoCons Go Ape

10412. jexster - 12/5/2007 11:53:46 AM

Ahmadinejad revels in US intelligence 'victory'

10413. jexster - 12/5/2007 11:54:05 AM

5 wars
9 defeats

10414. jexster - 12/5/2007 12:11:44 PM

Four bombs greet Gates on unannounced visit

You think the insurgents might know something Bush don't!

10415. jexster - 12/5/2007 12:36:00 PM

Inside the Iran Bamboozle

10416. jexster - 12/6/2007 11:01:15 AM

Seen this movie b4?


It Turns Out Ahmadinejad Was the Truthful One

10417. jexster - 12/7/2007 9:14:07 AM

The Treason is Complete

JerusalemPost: Cheney Surrenders

10418. wonkers2 - 12/7/2007 9:55:44 AM

Cheney has been partially neutered.

10419. alistairconnor - 12/7/2007 11:15:49 AM

well they should cut the other one off too.

10420. jexster - 12/7/2007 1:22:00 PM

Financial Times: Middle East Should Bag the Greenback

10421. jexster - 12/7/2007 1:58:52 PM

Muqtada Dispenses Allah's Justice

10422. jexster - 12/7/2007 8:46:52 PM

What if Bush gave a war....

World war four is off: time to bargain with Iran?
Financial Times


And only Rudy came?

10423. jexster - 12/8/2007 10:03:33 AM

Honkers makes fun of it but Kazahkstan's 29 troops are about all that remains of our allies in IraQ. the other monkeys have surrendered

10424. jexster - 12/8/2007 4:57:07 PM

Axis of Evil

10425. jexster - 12/9/2007 7:18:48 PM

Iraq to Bush: Surrender Bitch

MANAMA, Bahrain - The Iraqi government on Sunday said the U.S. needed to take bolder steps to interact directly with Iran in order to improve security across the Middle East.


Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie warned Washington that a strategy of aligning its Sunni Gulf allies against Iran would only further exacerbate tensions in the region.

"The United States, until they seriously engage with Iran ... the long-term regional security will be in doubt," al-Rubaie said on the final day of a regional security summit in the Bahraini capital Manama.

10426. jexster - 12/11/2007 9:31:00 AM

GOP Treason

Giuliani, Reagan, and Kissing up to Ayatollahs with fancy Cakes

10427. jexster - 12/11/2007 9:38:32 AM

Cole:

Sam Dagher of the Christian Science Monitor is a good reason to subscribe to CSM. He reports on the way Muqtada al-Sadr is using his 'freeze' on Mahdi Army activities to organize cadres and turn his organization into something like Hizbullah in Lebanon. Dagher also provides the most connected and detailed count I have seen of the struggles in Karbala between the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps paramilitary of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). The big question in my mind is whether a big organized Mahdi Army helps sweep Muqtada to power in the next provincial elections and in the 2009 elections for the federal parliament. By then the US military may be much weaker in the country, and the Sadrists may be in a position to push them out altogether.

10428. jexster - 12/11/2007 9:55:46 AM

Iraq rejects permanent U.S. bases: adviser


Iraq will never allow the United States to have permanent military bases on its soil, the government's national security adviser said.

"We need the United States in our war against terrorism, we need them to guard our border sometimes, we need them for economic support and we need them for diplomatic and political support," Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said.

"But I say one thing, permanent forces or bases in Iraq for any foreign forces is a red line that cannot be accepted by any nationalist Iraqi," he told Dubai-based al Arabiya television in an interview broadcast late on Monday.

10429. jexster - 12/14/2007 10:24:58 AM

British Hail Secret Surrender Talks With Taliban

10430. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/14/2007 12:18:42 PM

10431. David Ehrenstein - 12/14/2007 1:04:36 PM

Don't Ask!

10432. jexster - 12/16/2007 4:38:52 PM

Infernal Whine, Eternal Victims

Israel: US report on Iran may spark war



Israel's public security minister warned Saturday that a U.S. intelligence report that said Iran is no longer developing nuclear arms could lead to a regional war that would threaten the Jewish state.

In his remarks — Israel's harshest criticism yet of the U.S. report — Avi Dichter said the assessment also cast doubt on American intelligence in general, including information about Palestinian security forces' crackdown on militant groups. The Palestinian action is required as part of a U.S.-backed renewal of peace talks with Israel this month.

Dichter cautioned that a refusal to recognize Iran's intentions to build weapons of mass destruction could lead to armed conflict in the Middle East.

He compared the possibility of such fighting to a surprise attack on Israel in 1973 by its Arab neighbors, which came to be known in Israel for the Yom Kippur Jewish holy day on which it began.

"The American misconception concerning Iran's nuclear weapons is liable to lead to a regional Yom Kippur where Israel will be among the countries that are threatened," Dichter said in a speech in a suburb south of Tel Aviv, according to his spokesman, Mati Gil. "Something went wrong in the American blueprint for analyzing the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat."

....
Iran says its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes.

Israel will work to change the American intelligence agencies' view of Iran, said Dichter, a former chief of Israel's Shin Bet secret service agency.

"A misconception by the world's leading superpower is not just an internal American occurrence," Dichter said.

Any future faulty U.S. intelligence on the actions of Palestinian security forces could damage peace efforts, Dichter said.

"Those same (intelligence) arms in the U.S. are apt to make a mistake and declare that the Palestinians have fulfilled their commitments, which would carry with it very serious consequences from Israel's vantage point," Dichter said

10433. jexster - 12/17/2007 3:08:04 PM

Stilton Eating Surrender Monkeys


Brits Bow Out of 5 Year War They Never Could Have Won

10434. David Ehrenstein - 12/18/2007 10:33:41 AM

SURGE!!!!!

10435. alistairconnor - 12/18/2007 11:46:34 AM

Heard a program on French radio recently : apparently Saddam's Iraq was a paradise for gays...

10436. David Ehrenstein - 12/18/2007 12:03:23 PM

How so?

10437. jexster - 12/18/2007 7:59:37 PM

Turkey: Another US Ally Lost

10438. jexster - 12/19/2007 10:18:47 AM

5 wars
9 defeats


World Embarrasses Bush With Failure to Punish Iranian Banks

10439. David Ehrenstein - 12/19/2007 7:07:59 PM

10440. jexster - 12/20/2007 10:27:01 AM

Uniter Not a Divider & His "Change Agent" - Heckuva Job

All Iraqi Groups Blame U.S. Invasion for Discord, Study Shows



Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of "occupying forces" as the key to national reconciliation, according to focus groups conducted for the U.S. military last month.

That is good news, according to a military analysis of the results. At the very least, analysts optimistically concluded, the findings indicate that Iraqis hold some "shared beliefs" that may eventually allow them to surmount the divisions that have led to a civil war.


I must agree. Well at least seeing as I have been saying since 2003 that the only hope for Iraq's survival was for its various groups to unite against the Occupier, I can hardly disagree now.

10441. David Ehrenstein - 12/20/2007 3:54:40 PM

Morocco

10442. wonkers2 - 12/20/2007 8:12:52 PM

I clicked on Morocco and got "Bad Request."

10443. jexster - 12/21/2007 10:12:04 AM

Iraq, Afghan War Costs Top Vietnam

10444. jexster - 12/21/2007 10:14:26 AM

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush said Thursday that his biggest concern about Afghanistan was that US allies would get "tired" and abandon the strife-torn country.



"My biggest concern is that people say 'well, we're kind of tired of Afghanistan, therefore we think we're going to leave,'" the US president said at a year-end press conference.

Reluctant US allies must understand that "it's going to take a while, it's going to take time, for this democratic experiment in Afghanistan to work. And I believe it will," Bush said.

10445. jexster - 12/21/2007 12:48:19 PM

History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
– Ronald Reagan

10446. jexster - 12/22/2007 11:32:58 AM

US Unit Mutinies in Iraq

10447. jexster - 12/22/2007 11:35:14 AM

5 Wars
9 Defeats


Karzai: Give US Troops At Least Another Decade

10448. jexster - 12/22/2007 11:35:46 AM

By then he'll have his pension and grass shack in Bora Bora

10449. jexster - 12/22/2007 4:16:54 PM

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billibong

And Australia's out of Iraq by June 2008

10450. David Ehrenstein - 12/23/2007 8:41:11 AM

THIS POSTER HAS BEEN BANNED BY THE MPAA

10451. jexster - 12/24/2007 9:56:28 AM

It is absolutely astounding how well our compliant free media with all its thousands of outlets and multiple medium (even accounting for centralizing corportate ownership) has managed a monochrome propaganda for this war..far more effective than any overtly state run communications

10452. jexster - 12/24/2007 9:57:23 AM

War Strain on Armed Forces May Force Deeper Troop Cuts in 2008

10453. jexster - 12/24/2007 10:09:34 AM

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Jewish immigration to Israel continued to slide in 2007 with the number of newcomers at just 19,700, the lowest level in 20 years, according to figures published on Monday.


Just a matter of time before YHWH eliminates our Nation's problem ....but can we wait that long?

10454. David Ehrenstein - 12/25/2007 10:25:09 AM

Yes Virginia there is a War on Terror.

10455. jexster - 12/27/2007 10:41:15 AM

(Cole) The banner under all CNN stories on Iraq on Wednesday in the US was "Progress in Iraq 2008," with the 'reduction in violence' the subtext. This is not news, it is propaganda. CNN can't know what 2008 in Iraq will be like, and this 'progress' banner gives a positive impression of what is still a dreadful situation. I mean, really, this is a Fox Cable News sort of tactic. And, they did not even report most of the actual news in Iraq(see below)

10456. jexster - 12/27/2007 10:52:03 AM

I told you so!!!

Iraqis know we don't really have a government. All we have is chess pieces," said Dr. Abbas Haider, who runs Saba al Bor's clinic.


US Begins First Halting Steps to De-Colonization

10457. jexster - 12/27/2007 7:31:40 PM

Even as they hate our values!


Iraqi Hairdressers Forced Underground


No Justice
No Peace

10458. jexster - 1/5/2008 10:05:36 AM

The BushCheney Treason

Why US Policy on Iran is Crumbling

10459. jexster - 1/9/2008 6:45:40 PM

Bush Has Slaughtered 104,000 - 223,000 Since 2003 - WHO
New England Journal of Medicine

10460. concerned - 1/9/2008 7:27:49 PM

WHO's numbers are wrong, wrong, wrong. Bush has slaughtered at least 4,320,000,000 - 6,187,000,000 since 2003.

10461. jexster - 1/9/2008 7:40:25 PM

Only good Muzzie's a dead muzzie


Heckuva job Doofus

10462. jexster - 1/9/2008 8:24:09 PM

That would be from March 2003 to June 2006

Mid range estimate 150,000

Looks like Lancet was conservative

10463. concerned - 1/9/2008 9:50:48 PM

Same lies, different wrapper.

10464. jexster - 1/10/2008 10:27:12 AM

The Kool Aid Klaque demaned confirmation

Now they have it


We killed lotsa Muzzies for nothing except for the inherent nobility of klling Muzzies of course

10465. jexster - 1/10/2008 11:20:23 AM

Juan Cole:

I am often struck by how clueless the American public is to the vast destruction we have wrought on Iraq and its people, directly or indirectly. It strikes me as a bitter joke that 4 million are displaced, often facing hunger and disease, and the rightwing periodicals and presidential candidates are talking about how the "surge" has "turned things around." For whom? How many orphans have we created? How many widows? How many people who weep and cry every night while trying to fall asleep on straw mats? I estimate on the basis of a UN study of refugees in Syria that as many as 600,000 or 700,000 Baghdadis were ethnically cleansed from the capital under the nose of the American troops implementing the surge.

There is an old Chinese proverb, "Children throw stones at frogs in jest, but the frogs die in earnest."

Message # 10463

So are we Juan

10466. jexster - 1/10/2008 1:36:10 PM

US Drops 40 Tons of Bombs North of Baghdad

Destroying the country to save it. Heckuva job Billary!

10467. jexster - 1/10/2008 2:50:02 PM

#
NC-Pres (D)
Jan 10 PPP (D)
Clinton 31%, Obama 29%, Edwards 27% ...

10468. jexster - 1/10/2008 7:07:51 PM

With our usual charming naiveté, we seem to think the Sunnis have become our friends. But they are merely using us to help them get ready for the next round with the Shi'ites and, in the case of Kirkuk, the Kurds.

In fact, kicking the can down the road, more formally a strategy of delay, makes good sense in the face of Iraqi realities – provided we do something with the time gained. Regrettably, it appears we are doing little but sitting on our bayonets, waiting, like Mr. McCawber, for something to turn up.

What might we do with this pause between phases of the Iraqi civil war? Obviously, get out.


Kicking the Can Down the Road
William Lind

10469. jexster - 1/10/2008 8:27:16 PM

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives southeast of Baghdad on Thursday in a series of airstrikes that underscored the tenuousness of U.S. progress against Islamic extremists in Iraq .


The targets were near the town of Arab Jabour, a Sunni Muslim-dominated district on Baghdad's outskirts that American officials recently held up as a security success and an example of how local Sunni tribesmen known as "concerned local citizens" had turned against al Qaida in Iraq .

10470. jexster - 1/11/2008 5:55:13 AM

Turks Give Kruds a Little Taste of the Canister


Three hours worth

10471. jexster - 1/11/2008 11:20:30 AM

Stop the presses

Bush Lied Again

For U.S., The Goal Is Now 'Iraqi Solutions'
Approach Acknowledges Benchmarks Aren't Met

10472. jexster - 1/11/2008 11:24:52 AM

Did Iranian speed boats attack the US Navy???


Seems ridiculous don't it


Navy Fabricated "Attack" Video

10473. wonkers2 - 1/11/2008 11:44:23 AM

Like an ant crawling up an elephant's leg intent on rape.

10474. jexster - 1/18/2008 10:37:42 AM

The Corpse on the Gurney: The 'Success' Mantra in Iraq

10475. jexster - 1/18/2008 3:28:57 PM

As surge fails to produce real results, a battle is brewing between Bush's flim-flam man Betraeus and his joint chiefs of staff over the US Military's Wreckage

10476. jexster - 1/20/2008 10:44:11 PM

Bout time


Nationalists Stirring in Iraq

10477. jexster - 1/22/2008 11:32:55 AM

We Have Al Qaeda on the Run in IraQ
But They Always Come Back

10478. jexster - 1/23/2008 11:20:24 AM

Tear Down That Wall!



Palestinians in Gaza Escape Israeli Concentration Camp Flee to Egypt for Food

10479. jexster - 1/24/2008 10:55:36 AM

Conquering Hero

Ahmadinejad to Visit Baghdad

10480. jexster - 1/24/2008 11:03:35 AM

Mr. Olmert, Tear Down this Wall

10481. jexster - 1/24/2008 12:22:40 PM

'Awakening Councils' Falling Apart

10482. jexster - 1/24/2008 2:33:03 PM

Exodus: Movement of the People

Tear down all Jizzrael's fuckin walls!

From Trickle to a Flood

10483. jexster - 1/25/2008 11:31:19 AM

The People in Gaza Challenge Sham Peace Process

10484. jexster - 1/25/2008 12:48:18 PM

"In the Name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate.

"'Verily, We have granted thee a manifest Victory.' (Koranic verse, Al-Fath 48:1)

"Statement Number 134

"Week for Avenging Gaza

"As stated in the authenticated Hadith, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, stated: 'Believers are supporting each other, like a structured building. Then, the Prophet, peace be upon him, crossed his fingers.' Ibn Kathir, may god enfold him in His mercy, stated: 'When God mentioned the notorious attributes of the hypocrites, He coupled that with mentioning the good attributes of the believers by saying: The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another (Koranic verse, Al-Tawbah 9:71).' (Ibn Kathir's explanation of the Holy Koran; volume 2, page 370).

"Pursuant to these divine instructions, and due to the economic embargo and military aggression that are condoned by the American enemy and that our people are suffering in Gaza, the Al-Fatah al-Islami Command, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement, HAMAS-Iraq, has decided to dedicate the current week to avenging Gaza. In this statement, the command calls on all military sectors to exert the maximum effort to inflict the heaviest casualties on the occupation and its quislings, considering the loss among the American enemy ranks a loss among the Zionist entity occupation forces.

"God is the Greatest. But honor belongs to Allah and His Messenger, and to the Believers; but the Hypocrites know not.' (partial Koranic verse, Al-Munafiqun 63:08)

"The Media Center

"Islamic Resistance Movement

"HAMAS-Iraq

"11 Muharram 1429, corresponding to 19 January 2008."

10485. jexster - 1/30/2008 11:44:41 AM

Jizzrael Admits It Lost Lebanon War

10486. jexster - 2/2/2008 10:31:51 AM

Treason
BushWars Boosted Iran - Amb Khalilzad

10487. concerned - 2/12/2008 11:46:51 PM

Well, it looks as if it is almost all over but the shouting in Iraq. Troop and Iraqi citizen casualties are down 80% from what they were a year and a half ago which puts the former in the same ballpark as normal attrition due to military training and handling weaponry.

This truly seems to be the military victory that nobody really wants very much and that those suffering from BDS will even refuse to admit, to protect what is left of their sanity.

Hats off to George W. Bush for being right, being perspicacious enough to know when he was right, and for having the stones to stay the course in the face of all public calumny.

10488. concerned - 2/13/2008 12:08:44 AM

Think about it. If George Bush was a political shithead, he could declare vectory in Iraq right now and go home.

Wait....that's the Democrat platform.

10489. concerned - 2/13/2008 12:19:26 AM

Of course, if one is terminally stupid, one would apologize to the world for our victory in Iraq and then go home.

10490. concerned - 2/13/2008 12:25:57 AM

I mean that quite literally. Such an action would be an obvious plea to "Destroy my worthless conflicted self as well as every concept that makes my society unique."

That is terminally pathetic as well as idiotic.

10491. jexster - 2/23/2008 2:23:16 PM

The new invasion of Iraq

Up to 10,000 Turkish troops launch an incursion which threatens to destabilise the country's only peaceful region

10492. jexster - 2/23/2008 2:24:33 PM

Dumbing Down Victory in Iraq

10493. jexster - 2/23/2008 2:27:18 PM

Turkey Invades Iraq; Sadr Renews Freeze;
Bombings in Baghdad, Green Zone

Well, it looks as if it is almost all over but the shouting in Iraq....
Think about it. If George Bush was a political shithead, he could declare vectory in Iraq right now and go home.

Indeed Declare Vectory

10494. jexster - 2/23/2008 2:33:44 PM

Let's declare Vectory and bring say - 30,000 troops home eh TD?

Ominous Signs in City Run by Iraqis
WELCOME TO BASRA

Now Declare Vectory and Come Home

10495. jexster - 2/23/2008 2:39:47 PM

Thanks be to Allah, he's not a "political shithead"

10496. jexster - 2/24/2008 12:54:38 PM

Victoring to Vectory



Baghdad (dpa) - A suicide bomber killed 40 people and injured 60 in a centre for Shiite pilgrims in the Iraqi town of Alexandria, south of Baghdad, police and medical sources said.



The bomber wearing an explosive belt blew himself up inside a centre for pilgrims who were on the way to the southern city of Karbala.

The city hosts a religious festival every year to mark the end of 40 days of mourning for the Prophet Mohammed's grandson, Imam Hussein, who was killed by rival co-religionists in 681.

Pilgrims from the north often stop in Alexandria in the province of Babil, 60 kilometres south of Baghdad, which is on the way to Karbala.

The bombing was the second attack targeting pilgrims on Sunday. The first was in Baghdad's southern district of Dourra, where at least three people were killed and 45 injured by gunmen.

10497. Max Macks - 2/24/2008 7:41:22 PM

where was te surg ??

10498. concerned - 2/25/2008 1:31:08 AM

I see jexster is having all kinds of fun with a single misspelling of mine.

10499. jexster - 2/25/2008 9:21:13 AM

On a Victor to Vectory ...just getting warmed up for Mission Accomplished DayV

10500. jexster - 2/25/2008 11:28:37 AM

Veni
Vidi
Vectori

The Myth of the Surge

Hoping to turn enemies into allies, U.S. forces are arming Iraqis who fought with the insurgents. But it's already starting to backfire. A report from the front lines of the new Iraq

10501. jexster - 2/25/2008 12:25:08 PM

Vectors of Treason

Tehran Signs Pact to Rebuild Baghdad

10502. concerned - 2/26/2008 12:21:03 AM

Iraq's still there as a unified country under a single government. Our foreign policy success there has got to be frying Jexster's lying ass, since he has spent years of his life denying and disparaging it.

What an ignorant little liar Jexster is.

10503. concerned - 2/26/2008 12:22:11 AM

Pathetic.

10504. jexster - 2/27/2008 5:59:59 PM

Iraq isn't a unified country....hasn't been for 3 years

It is a figment of BushWar imagination


Just ask the Turks

10505. concerned - 2/27/2008 11:09:27 PM

Read everything jexster posts about Iraq if you want to study the anatomy of a bigtime loser. Jexster is about as wrong as a human being can be about anything wrt his whole stance on Iraq.

10506. jexster - 2/28/2008 9:56:51 AM

Well this vector to victory didn't take long to fall apart


Sunni Forces Losing Patience With U.S.
Citing Lack of Support, Frustrated Iraqi Volunteers Are Abandoning Posts


I know its only 300 bucks a month (x80,000) but still,have these camel traders no regard for the sacrifices of the US taxpayers, their children and their childrens's chirrens?


Iraq is a mental state

10507. jexster - 2/28/2008 9:57:39 AM

I hope the Dems can rid themselves of the Clintons in time for a proper Mission Accomplished Day 5 observance

10508. jexster - 2/28/2008 10:01:14 AM

Mayor of Kabul

US Confirms Karzai Controls 1/3 of Afghanistan - Taliban Continue Gains

The Pentagon after scoffing have now confirmed the accuracy of Obama's claim that a platoon of US troops was left scavenging Taliban weaponry because theirs was sent to Iraq

10509. jexster - 2/29/2008 10:25:21 AM

Pies of Lies in the Sky: Fact Checking McCain's Claims of Progress in Iraq

10510. jexster - 2/29/2008 2:11:35 PM

The first elemental requirement for a REAL nation state is that it has a monopoly over the means of coercion

Iraq is not a state
It is a stateless region

Gunmen seize Chaldean archbishop in Iraq: security official 1 hour, 15 minutes ago



A Chaldean Catholic archbishop was kidnapped by gunmen in Iraq's restive northern city of Mosul on Friday after a shootout that killed his three companions, a local Iraqi army commander said.

Faraj-Farraj Rahhu, the archbishop of Mosul, was kidnapped after a shootout in the eastern Nur district of the city, said Brigadier General Khalid Abd al-Sattar.

Two bodyguards and his driver were killed, said Sattar, who had earlier described the kidnap victim as a priest. Rahhu was seized while on his way home after delivering mass.

Iraq's Christians, with the Chaldean rite making up by far the largest community, were said to number as many as 800,000 before the US-led invasion in March 2003.

Associated with the "Crusader" invaders and regarded as well-off, they are now victims of sectarian cleansing, killings and kidnappings at the hands of both Sunni and Shiite Islamists, as well as criminal gangs.

Their churches have been bombed and homes confiscated.

Without their own militia to defend them, the community is believed to have shrunk to half its previous number, with more joining the exodus each day, although in far smaller numbers than Iraq's vast Muslim majority.

Case closed

10511. jexster - 2/29/2008 8:42:32 PM

WASHINGTON — None of the 26 buildings in the new $740 million U.S. Embassy complex in Baghdad is ready to be occupied. Fire alarms intended to safeguard more than 1,000 U.S. government employees aren't working. Kitchens in some of the buildings are fire hazards.


BushMcCain War: Mind Blowing Incompetence

10512. jexster - 3/1/2008 8:09:39 AM

To the victor belong the spoils of BushMcCain War

Ahmadinejad Touts Iraq Ties in Advance of Historic Visit to Baghdad

10513. David Ehrenstein - 3/1/2008 8:01:25 PM

Is that scud in your pocket or are ya . . .glad ta see me ?

10514. jexster - 3/1/2008 8:16:48 PM

Photoshop..hasta be

10515. jexster - 3/1/2008 8:18:07 PM

PREVIEW: Red carpet awaits Ahmadinejad in Baghdad's Green Zone


That would be the Heavily Fortified Green Zone

500 Billion and counting....a bargain at twice the price

10516. concerned - 3/1/2008 8:32:02 PM

I see Iran is letting its Loonies into Iraq.

10517. jexster - 3/1/2008 8:33:15 PM

I see IraQ is rolling out the red carpet

10518. jexster - 3/1/2008 8:33:31 PM

To the victor belong the spoils

10519. jexster - 3/1/2008 8:35:59 PM

Ahmadinejad Due in Baghdad
Islamic Republic News Agency Special Report

10520. concerned - 3/1/2008 8:40:57 PM

So, besides being a congenital liar, now you're a mouthpiece for one of the most repressive regimes on earth simply because you hate US conservatives.

10521. concerned - 3/1/2008 9:31:32 PM

from Taheri 2/28:

Ahmadinejad believes the United States lacks the staying power to consolidate its victory in Iraq. Encouraged by Sen. Barack Obama's promise to withdraw all US troops by the end of 2009 if he wins the White House (which the Iranians expect him to do), Ahmadinejad's message to Iraqis is simple: The Americans are leaving, wouldn't you like to join our side?

During his visit, Ahmadinejad is expected to offer billions in aid and investment. (Still unknown: Will he travel to Samarrah, where the "Hidden Imam" is believed to have disappeared in a well in 941 AD? Al Qaeda destroyed the golden-domed mosque housing the well more than two years ago. Ahmadinejad, who claims the "Hidden Imam" blesses his administration, has promised to rebuild it.)

Ahmadinejad will also offer military assistance, including troops, to replace "the fleeing Americans."

Obama is actually proud that he does not have any 'staying power' in foreign affairs.

Another reason that Hussein is wrong for the US presidency. He is anxious to hand Iraq over to Iranian control.

10522. concerned - 3/1/2008 9:34:08 PM

Thusly, Obama would intentionally become one of the worst offenders in history of US foreign policy if given the chance, throwing away the US investment in Iraqi freedom, causing much unnecessary suffering for Iraqis and encouraging Muslim extremism worldwide.

10523. jexster - 3/2/2008 9:43:33 AM

Cole

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Baghdad on Sunday morning, to be greeted by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. Ahmadinejad was invited by President Jalal Talabani (who, like Zebari, is Kurdish). Talabani has old links of clientelage with Tehran. Ahmadinejad's visit is designed to help shore up the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of the Islamic Call (Da'wa Islamiyyah) Party. Bilateral agreements in 10 fields of endeavor are expected to be signed.

Although the US keeps accusing the Iranian government of deliberately trying to destabilize Iraq, President Talabani and PM al-Maliki steadfastly deny Washington's accusations. And, of course, it does not in fact make sense that Iran would try to topple the first friendly Shiite regime ever to come to power in Baghdad.

Millions of Iranians come to Iraq every year on pilgrimage to holy cities like Karbala and Najaf, and Iran is funding an airport to allow them to fly into Najaf directly. The Iranian pilgrimage trade could eventually be worth billions. Iran in the past has pledged aid, including allowing Iraq to use Iranian ports for transshipping goods and outright grants of $2 bn.














click here to learn more

10524. jexster - 3/2/2008 9:46:04 AM

Ahamadinejad Visit Challenges US Interests


And he doesn't have to fly in secretly during the dark of night

BushMcCain drove the bus into the ditch...and that's the all the reason you need to elect Barack Obama

10525. jexster - 3/2/2008 10:34:25 AM

5 Wars
5 Defeats

My message to Iran is that the international community is serious about isolating them

GWB on Ahmadinejad's hisotric visit to Baghdad

10526. jexster - 3/2/2008 12:16:46 PM

Ahamadinejad on Ahmadinejad's Historic Visit to Baghdad

IraQ Does Not Want the US

10527. jexster - 3/2/2008 12:21:57 PM

Still no WMD

Flowers and Candy Found

Greeted by Sweets and Flowers!
Just not for us.

From Reuters (courtesy of TPM Reader BKS) ...

Pomp and ceremony greeted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his arrival in Iraq on Sunday, the fanfare a stark contrast to the rushed and secretive visits of his bitter rival U.S. President George W. Bush.
Ahmadinejad held hands with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani as they walked down a red carpet to the tune of their countries' national anthems, his visit the first by an Iranian president since the two neighbours fought a ruinous war in the 1980s.

His warm reception, in which he was hugged and kissed by Iraqi officials and presented with flowers by children, was Iraq's first full state welcome for any leader since the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.


--Josh Marshall

10528. jexster - 3/2/2008 1:27:28 PM

George W. Bush - Laughinstock of the Middle East