Bush supporters complain that the "good news" in Iraq isn’t being reported. They condemn the media for not talking about the number of schools open, and so on. Well, here’s some Iraqi school news: On Wednesday, armed insurgents burst into the classroom of Khidhir al-Mihallawi, an English teacher at Sajariyah High School, accused him of being an agent for the … Read More
Provoking A Confrontation
THE PRESIDENT: I think your premise — in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist — is that — I didn’t want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect — Q Everything — THE PRESIDENT: Hold on for a second, please. Q — everything I’ve heard … Read More
Scalia Recusal
According to Think Progress: Newsweek reports that in a controversial unpublicized March 8 speech, Scalia “dismissed the idea that the detainees have rights under the U.S. Constitution or international conventions.” “War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts,” he says … Read More
Bush Bites
(1) Tuesday, Bush said this: Mr. Zarqawi and al Qaeda, the very same people that attacked the United States, have made it clear that they want to drive us out of Iraq so they can plan, plot, and attack America again. This is just one of the many many things that Bush says that just floats across the screen into … Read More
Bush: Troops To Stay In Iraq Throughout His Presidency
Today’s press conference: REPORTER: Will there come a day, and I’m not asking you when — I’m not asking for a timetable — will there come a day when there will be no more American forces in Iraq? BUSH: That, of course, is an objective, and that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq. Looks like … Read More
What Connected Dots Look Like
Via Think Progress: Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, My FBI, pg. 289: But in theory – and I stress theory – if we had been able to do that, and if we had connected that information with the arrest the next month in Minnesota of Zacarias Moussaoui, the French-Moroccan who aroused a flight instructor’s suspicions when he asked to learn … Read More
Good News From Iraq Is Just Hope and Hooey
Yesterday, and again today, Bush says there is a lot of good news from Iraq that doesn’t get reported. He cites, as his Exhibit A, the success story of city of Tall Afar. The problem is, it’s B.S.: A Washington Post employee interviewing residents of Tall Afar found continuing anxiety in the streets. "Al-Qaeda has started to come back again," … Read More
Deja Vu
LA Times: U.S. intelligence officials, already focused on Iran’s potential for building nuclear weapons, are struggling to solve a more immediate mystery: the murky relationship between the new Tehran leadership and the contingent of Al Qaeda leaders residing in the country. Some officials, citing evidence from highly classified satellite feeds and electronic eavesdropping, believe the Iranian regime is playing host … Read More
“See? If You Just Shield Your Eyes Like This, It’s Easy!”
The AP headline: Bush Asks U.S. to Look Past Iraq Bloodshed The accompanying photo: I think the folks at AP are havin’ a little fun today.
Dubai Debacle II
Seeing as how the ports deal was such a hit, it looks like we’re in for a sequel. A Dubai company is now seeking to buy American arms manufacturers. Dubai, which agreed this month to sell its interest in U.S. ports, said its $1.2 billion takeover of a U.K. company with U.S. plants that make military equipment is delayed while … Read More
Iraq Timeline
Just in case you weren’t paying attention for the last 3 years. Three years since the Iraq War started. 2318 American soldiers dead.
Not Samarra
Well, we got snookered again. Turns out that the big air assault on Iraq was just a lot of smoke and sand: The press, flown in from Baghdad to this agricultural gridiron northeast of Samarra, huddled around the Iraqi officials and U.S. Army commanders who explained that the "largest air assault since 2003" in Iraq using over 50 helicopters to … Read More
Samarra
U.S. Launches Biggest Air Assault On Iraq Since Invasion Hello? Anybody remember "major military operations in Iraq have ended"? Anybody remember "last throes"? Jeez. As for the assault itself, I’m with Kevin: A review of military data shows that daily bombing runs and jet-missile launches have increased by more than 50 percent in the past five months, compared with the … Read More
Hindrocket Follies
You have to hand it to Powerline’s John Hindrocket, for combining so many lies, hypocrisy, and tortured logic into such a compact sentence. Here he was on CNN’s Reliable Sources this past weekend: KURTZ: OK. Let’s move — let’s move beyond the legal justification. You think the public doesn’t have a right to know because classified information is involved that … Read More
No Shit, Sherlock
Rumsfeld today on the subject of an Iraq civil war: "…I think until I’ve had a chance to think more about it and-and-uhh-I-I will say I don’t think it’ll look like-ahh- the United States’s civil war." Damn. And I was so hoping there would be a Shia/Sunni chess set one day.