The Iraq War: 5 Years Too Many

Comment is Free - The Iraq Legacy

The Independent - This is the war that started with lies, and continues with lie after lie after lie

The Guardian - What is the real death toll in Iraq?

NY Times - Baghdad, April 9, 2003: Fear, Euphoria and Hints of Things to Come

The Independent - Our legacy is a dark and forbidding place of militias

Posted without comment

From McClatchy Newspapers

An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam’s regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.

Quick quiz

Who said this (re Iraq)?

The whole thing has been a gigantic fuckup, obviously.

Daily Kos? Antiwar.com? Atrios? Democratic Underground? Juan Cole? Ken Livingston? Hugo Chavez? CAIR?

The answer will surprise you. I doubt Charles will link approvingly to that assesment.

Sunday silliness

We're a few days behind the loop on this one, but what with CJ's new-found support for sane, moderate politics, we're wondering whether he'll find the time to throw his lizard support behind the US judge who refused to extradite a mafioso to Italy lest he face undue duress in prison there.

Presumablye he deserves only the best that the US prison system has to offer (that would be the holiday resort of Guantanamo, Cuba, according to Charles).

A quick question

When is it ok to promote a Islamo-Stalinist-terrorist cult?

When they're being promoted as an anti-Iranian Islamo-Stalinist-terrorist cult by of course. Of course the main person behind the promotion of this terrorist group is 'too soft on Islam' according to the LGF lizards.

The hypocrisy of the extreme right has never been so obscene.

...and in other news.

1. Iraqi Deaths Spike 5 Months Into Surge

2. US 'Loses' 190,000 Weapons in Iraq

3. Civilian Deaths in Iraq Up One-Third in a Month

4. DC Antiwar Demonstrators Awarded $1 Million Over Unlawful Arrests

5. Violence Rages in Iraq as Sunni Bloc Leaves Cabinet

Déjà vu

Senior Military Analyst Charles Johnson approvingly quotes a U.S. Army sergeant, who writes,

The crazy thing of it all is that the American people have not even been asked to sacrifice a single thing. It’s not like World War II, where people rationed food and turned in cars to be made into metal for tanks. The American people have not been asked to sacrifice anything. Unless you are in the military or the family member of a servicemember, it's life as usual...the war doesn’t affect you.

Which sounds vaguely familiar.

Not that the mind-set of the average lizardoid has changed much over the past 1.5 years. To wit:

#17 Cartman 2/3/2007 09:49AM PST

Liberals just love sacrifice.

As long as it doesn't entail their own.

And when someone had the temerity to provide an accurate summary of Sgt. Jeffers' post thus:

#50 bos 2/3/2007 10:26AM PST

So, America has lost the will to fight for listening to the antiwar voices.

Also because they weren't asked to sacrifice.

That's pretty much the summary.

I sympathize with the writer's position, but I'm not sure this sort of message will get too far.

I've always felt that Bush never asked people to sacrifice. One of his first messages after 9/11 was to keep shopping.

the response was swift and unanimous: that the summarizer is a "moron" and an "idiotarian" and a "moby," worthy of being "bitch-slapped." And, moreover, that any effort to increase government revenue to support returning veterans is bound to fail, because "I know how to spend my money better than the government does."

Some World War IV this is turning out to be.