Many former supporters of the invasion share a bleak outlook on the country’s future prospects, though polls show general population retains hopes for the future.

Mr Saber spent eight years on death row during Saddam’s dictatorship before he was release in an eve of battle amnesty.

He had worked for Dr Allawi’s Iraq National Accord, which in the mid-1990s was based in the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq.

Before his arrest, Mr Saber dell latitude c400 battery,dell 4e369 battery was instrumental in orchestrating a failed coup within the senior military ranks in 1996.

Two tours and one Bronze Star later, you know how much she accomplished? The reopening of one eraser factory. Okay, that gave a few people jobs, but erasers won’t keep you warm on a freezing winter night.

She tried to do the job she was trained to do. She kept begging her superiors for the equipment and supplies she needed to do the job she was sent to do. All she got was buck passing. “I’m leaving, let the next commander deal with it.”

Bush talked about improving the lives of the Iraqi people, but that’s all it was, talk. He was never interested in helping anyone but himself.

Wow – General Dave sure is awesome!!

I sure wish I was dumb enough to buy any of this crap.

Not many people know that it was a staged photo-op — a propaganda performance.

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Witnessing death drives home cost of Iraq war
Friend’s killing puts devastating new face to Middle East conflict, struggle.

In my nightmares, the helicopters still come out of a dark sky, two black spots barely visible against the backdrop of night.

6 days
6 weeks
6 months

Ever get the feeling you may have been lied to?

45 minutes to a mushroom cloud Condi lying? Say it ain’t so!!

This was the most striking statement of the whole article I just quoted, because it brings into question the fundamental assertion that democracy can ever exist within a theocracy. Saddam’s leadership was distinctly secular, because he knew the inherent dangers of allowing religious leaders to gain control of the political levers of Iraq. The question, are the cultural and religious differences so great in Iraq that the concept of democracy is impossible, is asked because there apparently is no “fear” of an over-arching secular political leader, or governing body; power is divided along inequitable (and hence, undemocratic)lines, making any claims that the country is even on the path to democracy sound hopelessly naive. They will never elect a secular leader, even though that is the only sort that would ever have a chance. A political strongman – a sort of Iraqi LBJ, for instance, will not evolve in this climate.

JON MICHAEL TURNER [Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines]: On April 18, 2006, I had my first confirmed kill. This man was innocent. I don’t know his name. I called him “the fat man.” He was walking back to his house, and I shot him in front of his friend and his father. The first round didn’t kill him, after I had hit him up here in his neck area. And afterwards he started screaming and looked right into my eyes. So I looked at my friend, who I was on post with, and I said, “Well, I can’t let that happen.” So I took another shot and took him out. He was then carried away by the rest of his family. It took seven people to carry his body away.

We were all congratulated after we had our first kills, and that happened to have been mine. My company commander personally congratulated me, as he did everyone else in our company. This is the same individual who had stated that whoever gets their first kill by stabbing them to death will get a four-day pass when we return from Iraq.

…

On my wrist, there’s Arabic for “F you.” I got that put on my wrist just two weeks before we went to Iraq, because that was my choking hand, and any time I felt the need to take out aggression, I would go ahead and use it.

…

Next, that is the Fatima Mosque minaret. As you can see, it is ridden with bullet holes and holes in the top of it. Those were from mortars. And the next video that I’m going to show you is a tank round that went into that minaret, where we weren’t sure if we were taking fire or not. Actually, I’ll talk about this one. This is after one of the guys in a weapons company had gotten shot. This is a way that we would take out our aggression. For those of you who don’t know, it is illegal to shoot into a mosque, unless you were taking fire from it. There was no fire that was taken from that mosque. It was shot into because we were angry.

– Testimony from Winter Soldier, held last week in Silver Spring, Maryland and virtually ignored by the media.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/17/winter_soldier_us_vets_active_duty

From the recent history of elections like the one that replaced Hastert with a Dem, it looks like, at least in that light, the surge isn’t working at all.

Anyone who believes the surge is the reason violence has diminished doesn’t understand the effects of “ethnic cleansing equilibrium” and the fact that we bought-off more than one powerful warlord.

The surge was a US domestic political ploy, nothing more or less, and the only way it can be called successful is if it helps Republicans avoid that 50-State landslide that Rush spewed out about.

“The Surge” was created to help US Republican politicians this summer, not to help the Iraqis.

For a catalog of McCain’s erroneous statements, see:
“Forever Wrong: Five Years of John McCain on Iraq.”

Wonder if Dick or Lil Shrub will get the Saddam statue installed in their private garden in Paraguay?

…punctuated by horrific suicide bombs and rocket attacks?

We were so accustomed to everyday violence, we now consider intermittent violence a “lull.”

Just pointing out the way we all become so immune to the teroor others face, that we lose track of it’s true implications. One-a-day bombings have given way to once a week bombings. If it were happening in London or Rome or Amsterdam, or New York, we might not consider it a “lull.”

In a democratic and/or republican government, the ability to compromise always comes down to trusting the other party to forge alliances and deals that get the business of government done. Without that trust, we are seeing what doesn’t happen.

Governance.