The look on the shiekh's face in that picture says to me he knew what was coming for that handshake....

Soldiers are required to do their jobs when politicians fail to do theirs

Sorry Booman.  I can't agree that our country is having a debate.  The debate is over.  Bushco lost.  Doesn't seem to have made much difference, does it?

to reality?

Surely you jest, Booman.

LOOK at those two.

I got yer "reality", right here.

Crime lords.

Appachin East.

A meet.

Sattar would stick a shiv in you for $50, and Bush looks like a lame ex-buttonman who got bumped up to a position of power during a shortage of criminal talent.

And the "reality" is that the entire system, from the Federal Government and most of the military...exceot of course the poor schlumps who are getting knocked off anf maimed...right on through the media and the corporate world is in on the scam.

This pumped up street robber gets offed, and here are the headlines:

Top Sunni sheikh fighting Qaeda in Iraq assassinated

Sunni sheik, a key US ally, is killed in blast

Top Sunni sheikh fighting Qaeda in Iraq assassinated

Prince or warrior, Anbar chieftain cut a Hollywood figure

Lord have mercy!!!

And what do our proud Dimwitcrat leaders do?

They dither.

They procrastinate.

They pose and speechify.

Tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

While criminal functionaries like Petraeus look away, bored to distraction by the whole charade. Doodling on their note paper in an attempt to try to look busy.

The Dim's real job? The only reason that they are allowed to pose as "investigators"? To act as a diversionary shield for these monsters.

Oh, the DEMS'll take keer'a things. Ain't that why we elected 'em?

Nope.

My disgust with this farce reaches epic proportions.

AG


Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.-Mae West

Screw Satar- How about the three- THAT IS THREE- soldiers that were part of the OP-ED writers?

The only ones claiming with any "certainty" that al-Qaeda was responsible are those who have a reason to want everyone to think it was al-Qaeda.

In the meantime, the drumbeat continues.

A U.S. general, meanwhile, said a fatal attack against the headquarters garrison of the American military in Iraq was carried out using a 240 mm rocket _ a type of weapon that he claimed Iran provided to Shiite extremists.

And how does he "know" it was provided by Iran?  Guess Iran is the only one in the world who could possible make a 240 mm rocket.

Any possibility that there could be a few 240 mm rockets floating around Iraq which might have been supplied by our government when we wanted to use Saddam as a counterbalance to potential Iranian expansion in the 80's?

Beat, beat, beat the drum.  Until the drumbeat is nothing but accepted background noise to the American public.  This conflating of disparate facts and events is being done for a reason.  Lace up your boots and tighten your belts, the day of war with Iran is coming.  With the Senate's unanimous consent they gave away the keys once again.

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity"

that they can do nothing to stop the war.

A bit off topic. Sorry.

Most people here know that the Dems could stop the war if they wanted to (all they would have to do is make clear that Bush will never get a war funding bill without timetables), but the press keeps on lapping up the Dem line that they can't stop the war, because they don't have the votes. I think that's interesting, because it shows that the corporate media doesn't just repeat Rethug lies without pointing out that they are lies: it does the same thing for Dems too, on occasion.

You'd think the Democrats would want to end the Iraq War before their likely retaking of the White House, but that's because you're a human being, not a politician. Politicians are happy to dispatch hundreds of young American men and women to certain death (along with thousands of Iraqis), if the bloodshed squeezes out an extra half percentage point at the polls. Reid and Pelosi prefer to run against a disastrous ongoing Republican war than point to a fragile Democratic-brokered peace.

Why are so many respected journalists parroting the Democratic party line? I suspect that corporate media culture, rather than Judith Miller-style malfeasance, is largely to blame. Ink-stained newsrooms have been replaced by bullpen offices indistinguishable from those of banks or insurance companies. Reporters used to come from the working classes. They distrusted politicians and businessmen, and politicians and businessmen loathed them. Today's journalists are products of cookie-cutter journalism schools. Because graduate schools rarely offer scholarships, few come from the lower or middle classes. They look like businessmen. When they meet a politician, they see a possible friend. They wear suits and ties. And when a U.S. senator like Joe Biden feeds them a line of crap, they gobble it up. (Ted Rall)

Picture kinda tells it all. Petraeus hiding in the corner, Condi talking and not paying attention to what's going on around her, a bunch of "blue bloods" hanging around W, and one Sunni knowing better not to look-up and be associated with everyone else.

Stunning resemblance.

It makes you wonder when the head of our military out there just gets up and tells lies that are exposed by even a cursory examination of a few news sites.
The decline of our officer corps to the level of that seen in a banana republic dictatorship would be incredibly humorous if it wasnt for the fact that people are dying because of it and whebn adventure in Iran starts even more people.
One of the unlearned lessons of Vietnam was that we are incapable of winning an insurgency. The denial of this irrefutable fact has done nothing but damage to our troops, military and country. In many ways the refusal of large sections of presumably intelligent members of our officer corps to learn the obvious has led directly to many thousands of deaths in our own militry. It is time for these political prostitute generals to stop plying the game, stop thinking about their own politcal aspirations, stop thinijng about the largesse they can gain in the military industrial complex when they reitre, stop thinking about their next promotion, stop thinkin about covering their butt and to start thinking about the country, the troops and the people they are both meant to protect, and whose tax dollars fund these losers.
I write this as disgusted ex-officer from long ago albeit it not a general.