Interesting and Depressing: 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. The payments, in return for the insurgents’ allowing supplies to move and construction work to begin, have taken place since …
Archives for August 2007
Calvinball at Q and O
McQ, attacking Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who is getting impatient with the surge: He’s been talking 9 to 10 years for quite some time. So have many people. This isn’t a crisis that is going to solve itself by September or election day. This is a long term project, just like Germany and Japan were. …
Adios, Alberto
Gonzales to resign. *** Update *** Best quote so far from the blogosphere- Steve Clemons: The inevitable certaily does take a long time in this administration.
Streets Without Joy, 2007
The Intel Dump draws some unpleasant comparisons regarding the latest Allawi/Maliki US-endorsed jockeying.
Welcome To Bedwetter Nation
We are now officially a nation of hysterics: Two people who sprinkled flour in a parking lot to mark a trail for their offbeat running club inadvertently caused a bioterrorism scare and now face a felony charge. The sprinkled powder forced hundreds to evacuate an IKEA furniture store Thursday. New Haven ophthalmologist Daniel Salchow, 36, …
The Path To Victory
Is more “good news”: Shaping the Bush administration’s message on the Iraq war has taken on new fervor, just as anticipation is building for the September progress report from top military advisers. For the Pentagon, getting out Iraq information will now include a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week Iraq Communications Desk that will pump out data from Baghdad …
Classifiying the Wrongdoing
Radley Balko: The thing to take away from this post by Jacob Sullum is that the Bush administration’s concession that it classifies information that presents no security risk at all but that would be politically damaging to the president. Actually, it’s worse than that. They think that any information that could be politically damaging to …