Well, yeah, because daily reports of 50 or 60 bodies lying along side the road with their hands tied behind their backs and bullets in their brains wouldn't even slow down traffic in a typical American city.

Oh, National Review Online only slight less wingnutty than Human Events Online.

Most of the cited improvements are just Haliburton and co. rebuilding the stuff we bombed the hell out of so that they could rebuild it.
Back then I thought all the excessive bombing was just to give Cheyney's pals work, but perhaps they were wiley enough to do it precisely to give themselves something relatively easy to accomplish after the war.
Oh and don't forget the new mammoth embassy. What Iraqi could deny that is an improvement.

...for Halliburton."

I suppose it depends on how you define "better". If you define "better" as descending into civil war 3 years after the "end of major combat operations", then sure. If you define "better" as producing even less oil now than they did when Hussein was under a strict oil embargo, then this is better. If you define "better" as being completely unsafe for journalists and westerners outside of the green zone (and somewhat questionable even inside the green zone), then this is better. If you define "better" as blowing up mosques and historical sites on an almost weekly basis, then this is better. If you define "better" as the occasional assassination of government officials at all levels, then this is better.

C'mon. Stop being so negative. Rumsfeld is going a great job. One might even say he's doing a heckofa job.

that news was a reprint of a vietnam war press release with some slightly changed names. hearts and minds always blown away by statistics indicating progress. though there's that whole "facts on the ground" problem...

Civil war is bad. so the american civil war was bad too i guess. can't free the balckman during the 1800s without a war knuckleheads. and I'm talking it takes a war , revolution and blood too change s#$t man. No peace protests in 1800s gonna make any blackman come to your side hippie. Union was the choice they had and good for them. you gonna put down the white and blackman teaming up to battle the south(who ended up southern democrats and a lot of em were kkk backers-put that in your pipe and smoker..)anyway the Iraq situation is ood cause they got rid of saddam.they can vote with something without a gun to their head.Its up to them now and their culture to put down their guns and get along. We just push them to do something thats all.and if it takes a hard push so be it. Its better than gettn pushed. I hate bullys. so screw it i'm gonna say it. It plays out like the sopranos. Bush being Tony that is.
GBH 'Give me Valhalla'

Pablo, like all other right-wing nutjobs, you mix "tough-guy" rhetoric w/ "fairy-dust" optimism. Also, like all other right-wing nutjobs, your ability to express yourself verbally is at the 2nd grade level. I'll bet your maturity stopped there as well.

So you're happy the Iraqis can vote, huh? Nice hippy-dippy, pie-in-the-sky optimism that doesn't have a shred of reality to back it up. How would you feel if the party you voted for had their main candidates shot, with no possibility of their attackers ever seeing justice? This, and far worse things are happening every day in Iraq, making the pathetic benefit of 'voting' about as important as the right to wear a red clown nose.

Iraq right now is a failed state. The basic infrastructure that even the most despotic dictator provides: hospitals, schools, electricity, transportation, police, firefighters, these either do not exist or exist under such thin conditions that it's almost as if they didn't.

The truth hurts, and this is it: No matter how bad Hussein was, (and he was a very, very bad person), Iraq was better under him than it is now. At least it functioned as a state. The current violence in Iraq is an indicator that the brutal, strong-arm tactics of Hussein was the best way to make the country work.

Yes, it is possible that Iraq can develop from this horrific, blood-filled, sadistically insane chaos into a working society. However, everything this administration has done over the past three years pretty much guaranteed that that _wouldn't_ happen, for at least a generation. The Bush cabal has made America responsible for the fate of Iraq, and that responsibility will most likely bankrupt this nation. We're already on the hook for debt that won't get paid off for 20-30 years, and in the mean-time, that debt has put the US in a vulnerable position, where those who own that debt, (China, et al.) can manipulate us for the next half century at the very least.

I understand that this is difficult to swallow, and Pablo & his ilk like to hide their heads in the sand of their "tough-guy" rhetoric. But there really is no escaping the horrible truth: The Bush cabal, with their invasion of Iraq, is the greatest disaster that has happened to America, and more than likely will spell the end of our Super Power status.

Until you get the terrorists like Zarqawi out, you cannot call it a civil war.

And then you will also have to deport the Iranian instigators out of Iraq before you can call it a civil war.

Iraq, whether you like it or not, is the site of WWIV and we are in it now.

right! outside agitators! and what, then, are americans? fuck you and your world war. if this is a world war, why is it not a single nation has declared war on the us? who are the bad guys? arabs in general? no? ok, then how are you going to separate the "good" from the "bad" arabs except by reducing the entire middle east into... strategic hamlets?

Yeah, Comte, because no one is ever murdered, assaulted or killed here in the States.

This war is stupid and the US does need to be more aggressive about pursuing a tactful withdrawl and handover. But does it ever occur to anyone that, instead of throwing up their hands and letting things happen, that the personnel in Iraq may actually learn something everyday from all the attacks and bombings, and take constructive action to improve their approach and preventative measures? Unlike, say, all the unproductive bitching and whining that happens in places like here in Seattle?

I'll tell that to the guys I see every time I go to the VA Medical Hospital each week, I'm sure they'll be thrilled to know noone cares about how many of them are getting severely wounded (permanently) or suffer from PTSDs.

Not.

Gomez, that's a falacious argument, and you should know better.

And of course the troops learn something. They learn that trying to pacify a populace harboring centuries-old ethno-religious vendettas without some sort of comprehensive strategy to de-escalate the inevitable (and thoroughly predictable) internecine conflicts is an exercise in futility; one that is very likely to get them killed or severely maimed in the process.

That, and that the only people coming out on top of this debacle are Oil Sheiks and Halliburton stockholders.

I don't disagree in the least that this war is indeed stupid, and we need to figure out some sort of exit strategy, before we end up bankrupting our patrimony for the next half-century, as QueQueg points out. But, that's only going to happen if or when the idiots who got us into this mess in the first place either admit they botched the job (unlikely), or someone else steps in to do the dirty cleanup work they've left in their wake (much more likely).

Once a soldier, always a soldier. I'm sticking by my Comander and chief. I'm not going to turn my back on the work me and my platoon did over their. My battalion got rid of the bad mojo in tikrit and its up to the Iraqis to figure out that their future is a lot brighter than it was. Its easy to dispatch the thugs over there once they realize ........thats all the insurgents are.... thugs. And it wasn't choice that I had to camp in a building for 3 days with depleted uranium glowing green at night with some knucklehead 18 year old lobbing motars at our position because he has no idea that we are there to help his country,not destroy it. And you know what he does after he can't kill us. He goes after his own people just so he can get a kill for Allah. Not for his countries future but for his notion of Gods wrath. I realized we were more like therapists inside an insane asylum than the worlds policemen as some would call it.
GBH 'Give me Valhalla'

Nice that you get the leave the depleted Uranium behind, Pablo, and return home. Where did that stuff come from, anyway? And did you clean it up? I wonder if that might have anything to do with why there are so many "knuckleheads" who didn't appreciate you? Why, I wonder, can't they see who the real thugs are? They must be fucking idiots.

I didn't drop that s@$t. That was the Air Force man!Besides picking up radioactive material wasn't my mo if you know what I mean.
GBH 'Give me Valhalla'

and we always we report it up to higher and someone comes and polices it anyway so dont worry your self about it. The U.S.A. always cleans up its messes.We learn from the past that its not cool, it makes liberals and hippies upset, and is just bad all around for everybody.
Warlocks 'Come save us'

"U.S.A. always cleans up its messes"

That's rich. You are a funny guy, Pablo, but not much of a historian. You should take a trip to the Plain of Jars in Laos where we didn't clean up one of our messes. We dropped more bombs in Southeast Asia than we did in all of WWII so it's a BIG mess. Unexploded ordinance are blowing up under childrens feet all the time. We'll see how "clean" the mess we are leaving in Iarq is after we pull out. I'm sure it will be Shangra La and we'll all be vacationing in Mesopotamia in 2010.

We're in there to help? You could have fooled me. Didn't we use that same lie in Nam?

This isn't like Nam. At least we were fighting something political then and not this religious do or die BS. This is different because we are trying to give them a voluntary democracy that they can choose and keep the religion out of it there political landscape. If they want to succeed as a nation they better by it. Or they'll just remain a third world with theocracy running their lives.
Like I said my platoon did good by those people and they appreciated us being there. We have more praise there than we do back here. somethins wrong with me now though and its affecting my mind. maybe its all the negative campaign against something I fought for, and I know sometimes your right and sometimes your wrong. I don't like people bringing down our President when he's just trying to lead us . Can't we stand by our commander.It reminds me of the time our platoons were turning on our captain over in Iraq because he was volunteering us for more and more missions. I could understand the resentment of him, but I said once to my section sergeant "what did we come for here anyway?!... too sit on our a@$%ses?'
He said the captain just wants a promotion and recognition and would risk our blood to get it. But isn't that what wars about,? I don't know, i just follow orders and get the job done. I know first hand what happens when people lose faith in their superiors in a dire situation. Can't we just have some faith....? and I'm not bi-polar....

I served faithfully in the army for 15 years and they sent me to a civilian psycho hospital for 3 weeks after I got back from overseas. The doctors said I was Bi-polar and the army sent me home with an Honorable discharge with personality disorder written on block 14 on my papers. And you know what.....I still am loyal to my country and President because they are always right. There is propbably something wrong with me. They don't want robots ,they want intelligence. I'm just stupid soldier who was more loyal too his wife who was terminally ill than going back overseas I guess.... AAAAAArgh. sorry y'all just drinthinkin and ....... I just miss my platoon thats all.

anyway better now. I think Batanga Nortena cheers the soul with some tequila

wow.

Yeah, that explains a lot.

I'll tell that to the guys I see every time I go to the VA Medical Hospital each week, I'm sure they'll be thrilled to know noone cares about how many of them are getting severely wounded (permanently) or suffer from PTSDs.

Great argument, Will. Because no one ever got maimed or injured in any other war. NO SHIT soliders get maimed and killed. This is the peril and consequences of war. Don't wanna face it? Don't enlist.

And loss of life is tragic, but this Iraq War is not nearly the tragedy it was in Vietnam (57,000 American soliders lost) or WWII (2,500 dead soldiers a DAY... we haven't lost 2500 soldiers in Iraq PERIOD). The deaths that do happen just get magnified today thanks to media proliferation. What would happen if we were losing 2500 soliders a day in Iraq? Would your heads explode?

Our president may be evil but even he wouldn't leave the pitcher in the game if we were accomplishing absolutely nothing in Iraq. To sit here and say we are doing nothing useful there isn't exactly a fair assessment.

And Comte still thinks we're there only for oil. Somebody pull this guy out of 2003 and get him up to date.