Thursday, May 19, 2005
Fall of Saigon, Part III or is it IV or....?
On the same day that the New York Times reports that U.S. military officials admit that maybe, just maybe they were wrong when they "concluded" that we had turned the corner a few weeks ago comes these bits of good news from the "front." PolitInfo.com reports more violence, "a senior oil ministry official was shot and killed outside his home in Baghdad, Thursday." This is in addition to a report that Brigadier General Ibrahim Khamas, a senior interior ministry official, was gunned down on Wednesday. One of the most troubling aspects of the NYT piece is this little bit about the effectiveness of all those Iraqi troops that Rove & Co. claimed were trained and ready for "combat."
Meanwhile the Senate continues to do the bidding of "Dr." Dobson, because, you know, we don't have any more pressing issues at hand. This whole filibuster "up or down vote" silliness is nothing more than a ruse (although a ruse with serious consequences) to distract the rest of us from a failing policy in Iraq, the fact that the Bush Admin. took us to war in Iraq on a fantasy of WMD and links to Osama Bin Laden (remeber him?), the failure of the Bush Admin. to deal with a nuclear North Korea, an economy that really isn't producing jobs (let alone good paying jobs), a deficit that is balloning out of control, a tax code that is being increasingly skewed to favor the idle rich instead of workers, etc. As long as the "up or down" vote silliness is sucking up airtime and column space there's little room to report on the fact that Iraq is still drowning in violence, that North Korea may be on the verge of testing a nuclear weapon, that more and more Americans don't have health insurance, etc.
On the same day that the New York Times reports that U.S. military officials admit that maybe, just maybe they were wrong when they "concluded" that we had turned the corner a few weeks ago comes these bits of good news from the "front." PolitInfo.com reports more violence, "a senior oil ministry official was shot and killed outside his home in Baghdad, Thursday." This is in addition to a report that Brigadier General Ibrahim Khamas, a senior interior ministry official, was gunned down on Wednesday. One of the most troubling aspects of the NYT piece is this little bit about the effectiveness of all those Iraqi troops that Rove & Co. claimed were trained and ready for "combat."
the buildup of Iraqi forces has been more disappointing than previously acknowledged, contributing to the absence of any Iraqi forces when a 1,000-member Marine battle group mounted an offensive last week against insurgent strongholds in the northwestern desert, along the border with Syria.
Meanwhile the Senate continues to do the bidding of "Dr." Dobson, because, you know, we don't have any more pressing issues at hand. This whole filibuster "up or down vote" silliness is nothing more than a ruse (although a ruse with serious consequences) to distract the rest of us from a failing policy in Iraq, the fact that the Bush Admin. took us to war in Iraq on a fantasy of WMD and links to Osama Bin Laden (remeber him?), the failure of the Bush Admin. to deal with a nuclear North Korea, an economy that really isn't producing jobs (let alone good paying jobs), a deficit that is balloning out of control, a tax code that is being increasingly skewed to favor the idle rich instead of workers, etc. As long as the "up or down" vote silliness is sucking up airtime and column space there's little room to report on the fact that Iraq is still drowning in violence, that North Korea may be on the verge of testing a nuclear weapon, that more and more Americans don't have health insurance, etc.