Twenty-four coalition troops dead in the first four days of October. Attacks on U.S. forces have dramatically escalated in recent weeks.
Suicide attacks increasing in the Republic of Kabul, the part of Afghanistan effectively governed by Hamid Karzai.
The Secretary of State tours middle east nations and reaps the whirlwind. That would be Condoleeza Rice, who for other reasons may not be long for this government.
And lest we forget, the combined brains of our government’s intelligence agencies concluded that the Iraq war has already made the threat from terrorism much worse. We might be able to verify that independently if the State Department still released an annual terrorism report but they don’t do that anymore. I wonder why that is.
Pb
But we’re winning the war, right? Freedom Party
’06’07?ThymeZone
Bill Maher had this right on CNN yesterday:
Bush says, can’t pull out now.
Bush, who along with his father has been wrong about EVERY SINGLE THING THEY HAVE SAID ABOUT IRAQ SINCE 1985.
“I won’t steer you wrong” Bush says, can’t pull out now.
Therefore, the only sane and prudent thing to do is to pull out now. Why in the world would anyone start listening to these people now?
Punchy
What’s this “Iraq” thang again you’re talking about? Did we threaten Saddam again? I tell ya, I’m betting that bastard is hiding some chem weapons….I’m guessing north, south, and west someways…
One day we need to take care of that despot. Until then…MORE FOLEY!!
Mike
Don’t forget Condi’s medal of freedom on the way out….
p.lukasiak
Condi’s not going anywhere. She’s the only cabinet member who is capable of making Rumsfeld look like something a little less than a complete embarrassment.
just sayin
Apparently AlQ has decided they don’t want the GOP in power any more.
And the best to be said about our Secretary of State is that she’s the other cabinet member who is a complete embarrassment.
Tsulagi
Yeah, Frist, bring the Taliban into the government. That’ll fix things. Good thing somebody told him how stupid that was so he could start waffling before sharing his plan with large numbers deployed there.
Suicide attacks in AF. Great. Suicide bombers getting proper indoctrination from al Qaeda in Pakistan and soon, if not already, sophisticated IEDs developed in Iraq. Republican free trade in action. Your military genius neocons at work.
This time around the winter there could be nasty. Snow could be used to hide IEDs along the roadside.
Tax Analyst
Condi’s 3rd trip to Iraq in about a year, isn’t it? Let’s see, once was to “tell them to govern” per GW Bush…really sage advice…like he would know…as far as I can tell these were/are just “show” appearances with nothing behind them. Attempts to show the folks back home that this Administration actually gives a damn. The Iraqi people are just props in these “Condi cameo/Photo-op” displays and I think some of them have figured that out by now. She’ll make some sort of nonsensical speech with no relation to reality from somewhere safe in the Green Zone and then just as quickly blow out of town to blow some more smoke up somebody’s skirts someplace else. She’s playing out the string on the lies of this fiasco because she’s so deep into the BS that she will be poison to any future Administration.
mrmobi
Well, TZ, at least GHW Bush was smart enough to listen to Colin Powell about the aftermath of Desert Storm.
You make an excellent point about their advice, though. Does anyone with a brain still believe these people?
Bush really fought against having Condi testify before Congress. I guess he didn’t want to put her in a position where she would have to lie, which is what it looks like she did. But that’s cause for Medal of Freedom for this bunch. They should keep her, I fear who might be her replacement.
Every day, a new low point.
ThymeZone
We’ll find that person right after we find the WMDs in Iraq, I think.
Dreggas
What do these two have in common?
George Bush and Mark Foley
Both refuse to pull out…
scarshapedstar
But: Fags ain’t gettin’ married!
ThymeZone
Heard on tv:
How do we know Mark Foley lost his bookmark?
He keeps bending over the pages.
Zifnab
That’ll just give her more time to work on her ’08 Presidential bid.
Pb
ThymeZone,
Yeah, that’s old, and unoriginal, but probably still worth a chuckle the first time you hear it. There’s so much potential for comedy here, I imagine we’ll see more of it over time.
SeesThroughIt
Has anybody compiled a list of all the reports, data, etc. that the Republicans are suppressing, if not outright eliminating? Like Tim mentions in this post that the State Department no longer releases its annual terror report (because the facts are biased against the president). They also are suppressing the Census data on poverty (again, facts are biased against the president). So what are the others?
Mike
Mastur-gate!!!
Darrell
Did Tenet warn Condi that an impending Al Queda attack was a “slam dunk”?
Tsulagi
In Iraq, we should have taken Sadr out years ago. When we had arrest warrants issued for him before our friend Chalabi convinced the Bush idiots to drop them. I think that was just before we issued arrest warrants for Chalabi when we found he sold us out to Iran. But the fluffers for Chalabi couldn’t stay mad at him so we dropped those too.
You could see Sadr was positioning for civil war before the very first vote in Iraq. He’s done nothing but foster that ever since.
Now people he chose have been elected into the Maliki government. So Sadr effectively is part of the elected government and was a power broker in getting Maliki chosen. We’ve told Maliki to crack down on militias like Sadr’s Medhi Army, but that’s not happening.
Over at PJ Media affliated Iraq the Model, a reliably pro-Bush blog written from Iraq by two brothers, they offered this last week about the recent curfew and barricading of Baghdad…
This guy has all the potential and desire to be the next Saddam in Iraq.
I also liked this description by the two brothers who write Iraq the Model of a typical early evening in Baghdad…
Like the trained apologists say, no different than Anytown, USA. A heckuva job. Stay the course.
Pb
SeesThroughIt,
I doubt you’ll ever see a comprehensive list. I’ll just mention the M3 money supply, the Fed stopped publishing that not too long ago.
chriskoz
Because Condi couldn’t recognize the danger unless it was presented as a basketball analogy?
Would “home run” or “slap shot” been dire enough?
Pb
Mission Accomplished!
jg
Weak. You’re obviously not a serious commenter.
Wil Morat
The “terrorists taking harbor in Iraq” – the “reason” the U.S. invaded Iraq – was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In a few years, with the help of the allegedly “liberal media,” everyone will simply take the Bush administration’s line as fact. They will have created their own reality, so to speak.
Such things as terrorism reports only make creating an alternative reality more difficult. The truth is what you make it.
Leo
Hmm, gee, a huge upswing in terrorist attacks in the weeks before the US election. It’s almost like they know that there is an election coming up or something.
lard lad
On the subject of White House bullshit, Keith Olbermann once again drops some serious science on Countdown.
Not to be missed.
sglover
Hey, lay off Condi. She’s in Baghdad to arrange the balloons and streamers for the big “Victory in Iraq” bash. You want Cheney to do the decorating?!?!
Therefore, the only sane and prudent thing to do is to pull out now. Why in the world would anyone start listening to these people now?
I recently heard a very good idea about Iraq from Brad DeLong. He points out that if we’re serious, we need to train and deploy 500,000 Arab-speaking MP’s. That will take a while, even assuming the assholes in Congress don’t fuck around with it. However, countries like, say, Egypt have the necessary manpower available. Maybe we should arrange for the largest mercenary arrangement in history? I’d be surpised if it cost any more than what we’re already pissing into the Tigris under the current “plan”.
Unfortunately, DeLong also points out that as long as President Fuckwit and his Clown Posse are in charge, things are going to drag on pretty much as they have. When 2009 rolls around — hopefully sooner — we need to extradite the entire top 2-3 tiers of the government to an international war crimes tribunal. I hope we can find one that follows the Texan approach to punishment, if you get my drift.
sglover
In Iraq, we should have taken Sadr out years ago. When we had arrest warrants issued for him before our friend Chalabi convinced the Bush idiots to drop them.
Errrrmmmmm…. I dunno about that. At the time we were playing chicken with Sadr, he could count on 100,000 followers to hit the streets on command. Last I heard, though, his influence has waned.
Anyway, it’s probably useless, now, to put too much emphasis on any one figure. It probably always was. We keep looking for an indigenous savior to pull our bacon out of the fire, or an evil mastermind who’s pulling the strings for “the insurgency”. It’s childish. In fact, we were always profoundly ignorant of Iraqi society. I don’t think we’ve ever had more than the dimmest idea of what’s really going on there.
BlogReeder
Tim F. you partisan ghoul!
No death tally during September? There weren’t enough dying for you? You don’t think this being Islam’s holy month of Ramadan has anything to do with it?
Like the last three years around this time when attacks increased.
Look, if you did something useful with your statistics that would be one thing.
Pb
BlogReeder,
You want some statistics? Fine, maybe this will get you started for once.
At least 23 US troops (and one Brit–a Lance Corporal in the Royal Army Medical Corps, lost to a mortar attack) died in the first four days of October 2006–that’s nearly six a day. Meanwhile, 72 US troops died in all of September 2006. 18 of them died in the first four days of September, which was probably also the bloodiest four day period of the month–4.5 per day as compared to the month-long average of 2.4 per day.
And that’s not even counting the Iraqis–a minimum of 27 Iraqi police/military and 246 Iraqi civilians have also died thus far, this month. And that’s not a comprehensive list–rather, it’s literally ripped from the headlines. This also exceeds September’s average. And as for consistent cyclical patterns in the data, if you know about any, I’d like to see them–feel free to share with the rest of the class!
Richard 23
BlogReeder’s got a good point! We’re winning!
BlogReeder
You want some statistics? Fine, maybe this will get you started for once.
You seem to have misread me. I said do something useful. Pb, you are also a partisan ghoul.
BlogReeder
This is a story about what is happening in Baghdad. See? It’s an operation. This is a story from the AP at that.
Ghouls are beings that feed on the dead. When you list just numbers without background as to what they were doing, I think ghoul is the appropiate term. Especially during October.
BlogReeder
I meant appropriate.
John S.
Yeah, in comic books.
Which presumably is the same source for your views on current events and foreign policy. Iraq is really going swell…because Superman is going to destroy the evil terrorists with his x-ray vision! That’s why we don’t need body armor…he’s bulletproof!
ThymeZone
Time magazine.
Tim F.
I see that you’re back to ad hominems again. Too bad, for a while it almost seemed like you threatened to become a reasonable person. Must have been a blip.
Pb
BlogReeder,
I think I’m going to die of shock. A source? Thank you, that is progress!
Now, on to step two: actually reading it. You see, then you might note that even this specific ‘operation’ isn’t new–actually, it’s been in place for months now. And the phenomenon isn’t new either. Check out this story from June:
Sound familiar? Well, we know how it turned out now, but it gets worse:
So there’s your history. It has been said that one sign of insanity is “repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results”. Well, that’s what we’re pointing out here. These strategies have been tried before, and if they have achieved anything, they have made things worse. The statistics we’re citing are basic metrics which clearly demonstrate how bad things have gotten and are getting.
Then I’d expect that your ‘ghouls’ would be quite welcome in today’s Iraq.
What’s the appropriate term for someone who spouts ridiculous, inappropriate, and unsubstantiated ad hominems without regard to reason, logic, or history?
Do tell. Halloween? Are Vampire attacks up too?
mrmobi
BlogReeder, yesterday’s good news…
Emphasis mine. Above is from Juan Cole today. He also points this out:
Emphasis mine. Yesterday, Rice’s flight was delayed because of mortar attacks on the airpoint. Three years in, and the airport is still not secured. During her meetings, there were power failures. Three years in, and there is still no reliable power in Baghdad.
BlogReeder, did you know that Ghoul is derived from Arabic legends?
If Tim were really a Ghoul, he would, like you, be reporting only the good news, (wherever that might be) because if he were a Ghoul, he would want us to do what we are doing. That is, denying the reality of the situation and allowing our courageous men and women to be caught in the middle of a civil war for no fucking good reason.
You must be drinking the strongest of the Kool-Aid to be unable to see that we have lost this struggle. Even Senator Warner said yesterday that the Iraqi government has “90 days” to get the violence under control. I thought the Party of Torture doesn’t believe in deadlines.
The truth is, the real Ghouls in this situation are the craven and incompetent originators of this catastrophic policy. Brave soldiers are dying while they desperately try to hold onto power. But be sure to vote Republican in November, because Nancy Pelosi is just too dangerous to be Speaker of the House.
ThymeZone
Excellent writeup, Mister Mobi, but you are making an appeal to reason, in hopes of persuading an unreasonable correspondent.
The gift that the BlogReeders and Darrells and Macs bring us is the gift of unreasonableness.
The “ghoul” thing is not a reasonable proposition, it’s just a schoolyard putdown. It’s the act of the machine, which wishes only to paint its adversary as bad with anything that will stick. If gay bashing works, use that. If weakness on defense works, use that. If a twisted “argument” that it is ghoulish to examine the only reality of war that truly describes war in the first place … casualties … if that works, use it.
Just win, baby.
mrmobi
Thanks TZ. Yep, right now, winning is very important.
I try to visit Juan Cole’s site every day. It can be grueling, but it’s very important to know what is happening in this catastrofuck, as Jon Stewart calls it.
I kind of feel bad for BlogReeder and Mac and Darrell these days. The wheels have fallen off, and the Party of Torture is reduced to throwing shit that they wouldn’t have bothered to pick up in their more powerful days. Stewart last night was really good, covering the Fox News mistake of identifying Foley as a Democrat.
This isn’t the October surprise I was expecting, but I hope we run with this all the way to a House majority. The beauty part is, we don’t have to do much, they are going to keep Hastert out in front on this and try to ride it out. It’s a beautiful thing.
ThymeZone
Iraq? The braniacs running the country now can’t even handle something as simple as a no-fly list.
Courtesy WaMo, a blurb from a Steve Kroft story.
If these geniuses can’t protect the airport in Centralia any better than this …. any wonder that they can’t secure the airport in Iraq in time for Condi’s plane to land on time?
I don’t know about you, but I feel a lot safer knowing that somewhere a guy named Robert Johnson is being strip searched to protect me from terrorists. Thanks, Bob.
Andrew
Sullivan has a really good point:
Condi got off the plane wearing a bullet proof vest.
They still haven’t secured the fucking airport?
Andrew
Oh, I see mrmobi has already made this point. Darn you, blogosphere!
sglover
I don’t understand why folks are actually bothering to read “blogreeder’s” comment, much less reply to them. The only people still shilling for the administration are flesh-craving zombies.
Pb
Indeed. Observing that our troops are still dying over there? Ghoulish. Ignoring this and doing nothing different whilst continuing to send them over to die? Patriotic. In other news, War is Peace, and Freedom is Slavery.
Punchy
Damn anti-Semite.
Signed,
JC
Pb
Andrew,
They haven’t secured the fucking airport, nor have they gotten basic utilities reliably up and running, not even for Condi, let alone the rest of Iraq. From the New York Times article:
The Other Steve
DO NOT WORRY!
WE HAVE A PLAN!
Andrew
That is a totally awesome plan. Still, I prefer my plan for Mideast peace, which involves everyone becoming a Scientologist and praying for the second coming of the Mad Overlord Xenu to unite us in out battle against the newly corporeal thetans.
Tsulagi
Good God. Yeah, that’ll work. Simply redraw the borders in a region. Fixed. They may bitch a little, but they’ll go along. Tommy DeLay did it with districts in Texas, why not there? And they call the left looney.
Tsulagi
For “THE PLAN,” we wouldn’t have to worry about Iraq. The Iraqi troops standing up while we stand down will take care of things. Well, that is unless they’re on vacation.
I have no doubt there are some in the Iraqi forces who desire a fair, democratic Iraq, but I liked the description of a typical Iraqi battalion in the Army Times…
Yep, we’ll stand down as they stand up. Unless there are too many incidents like one where the car of an Iraqi battalion commander blew up while he was in it and all but 30 of the 700 or so under his command decided to seek other employment while taking their weapons and other gear with them.
Okay, don’t be cynical. Push in on eyeballs until you see the vision. Stay the course.
BlogReeder
Tim F. sometimes you seem soo thin-skinned for someone who writes
I was using ghoul as a metaphor.
Last night I realized what was bothering me about all these death counts that are bandied about. You guys are just feeding on them. The more the better. You might say you’re aghast but it doesn’t look like it when you jump on any new total you can use for your cause.
These are American soldiers that are dying. They’re not just statistics. What they’re involved in is historically important. This is history in the making. Soldiers fight battles and when their deaths are reported, some space should be given to what they were doing. That’s all I’m saying. You are disrespecting them when you use them like that, IMO.
Generally when there is a spike in deaths, something is happening. Soldiers just don’t stand around. This is history, understand what they were doing. I’m not saying you have to agree.
Barry
” You guys are just feeding on them. The more the better. You might say you’re aghast but it doesn’t look like it when you jump on any new total you can use for your cause.”
And the supporter of treason decries pointing that treason out as treason….
Person of Choler
Balloon Juice, condensed:
Everything bad that happens is caused by Republicans in general and George Bush in particular.
Everything that happens is bad.
I am extremely intelligent and those of you who disagree with me are morons.