The Truffle

I mean, look at one of their sources: Rafid Ahmed Alwan, aka Curveball. An Iraqi crackpot with a reputation as a total liar . Maybe Bushco should have checked this guy out before believing his tripe. If they had, they might have gotten the following character references. "He was corrupt," said a family friend who once employed him. "He always lied," said a fellow Burger King worker. They also would've learned that he accused a 16-year-old kid of smuggling WMDs. And that he couldn't hold a job because he was such a hopeless liar, thief, cheat, and general con artist. That he "told 5 or 10 stories a day." And that he also pretended to be spying for the Iraqi government. From the article: In early 2002, a year before the war, he told co-workers at the Burger King that he spied for Iraqi intelligence and would report any fellow Iraqi worker who criticized Hussein's regime. They couldn't decide if he was dangerous or crazy. "During b...

Guess, what, kids? As of today, 3,963 Americans have been killed in Iraq. Some out-of-touch wingnut think-tanker or neocon yahoo will claim that there's something good about "only" 4,000 or so dead Americans. Said yahoo will repeat the dumb excuse that "we're fighting them over there [in a country, that had nothing to do with 9/11] so we don't need to fight them over here." It's really easy to think that way when your house is still intact, your loved ones are still alive, and you don't have foreign troops in your country for a purpose even they can't figure out. It's even easier when you don't take into account the dead Iraqis. "Only" 4,000 Americans. I can't wait to see how the Kristolhammer contingent spins this one.

From Deb : It doesn't matter where, what, whom, or how illegal, we traipse through other countries leaving a trail of death and destruction without having to suffer consequences. So far. Iraq isn't going to expel Blackwater. Heck, they can't even get the US to admit that there is a problem. With over a 130,000 American troops in the country, the loss of a mercenary army might leave a "vacuum". Color me not surprised. It isn't like they are a sovereign country, they're more like a Middle Eastern Puerto Rico. Except with a lot more bombs.

GOP senators seem determined to cost the party more seats in 2008. This time, they've blocked an amendment that would allow more home leave for our overextended troops. John Warner, Republican from Virginia, backed away from supporting the amendment, offered by fellow Virginian Jim Webb. From Chuck Hagel--the money quote: The White House has been very effective of making this a loyalty test for the party. Oh yeah, and the Republicans also blocked efforts to restore habeas corpus. Keep showing your party loyalty, guys. Just to be on the safe side, some of you might want to start prepping your resumes for after 2008/2010.

Remember earlier this year, when President Stupid was accusing the mean Democrats of micromanaging the war? Well, what does this sound like to you? While "formidable challenges" remain in Iraq, President Bush said Saturday, the United States will start shifting more troops into support roles — in addition to the troop withdrawals announced earlier in the week. In December, the United States will begin a new military phase in Iraq — one in which "our troops will shift over time from leading operations to partnering with Iraqi forces, and eventually to overwatching those forces," Bush said in his weekly radio address. What exactly are these "support roles" and what kind of word is "overwatching"? Does the president mean "overseeing," perhaps? How do you partner and "overwatch" at the same time? Interestingly, the link includes a quote from Rep. Tom Lantos, saying that "Americans' patience with this war has run out....

He Who Probably Doesn't Need to Be Named is due to give his latest speech regarding Situation FUBAR. Already, Biden has appeared on Olbermann and, for once, he wasn't insufferable. Biden, needless to say, thinks Bush is full of it. He actually managed to make this point using less than 50,000 words. Wow. Meanwhile, for happier news, let's check out Awards Daily . Specifically, their Oscar forecast. Check out the left hand corner and you'll see Joseph Gordon-Levitt listed among the Oscar contenders. Jeff Daniels is also listed. Indie films rule.

Even a loony America-hater reality-based community member like yours truly admits that there are some differences between the Situation FUBAR of forty years ago (i.e., Vietnam) and the FUBAR of today. Not that the wingnutosphere will acknowledge this. It's 1967 all over again, and they're the righteous squares in the buzz cuts, wagging their fingers at the hippies eating mushrooms and painting peace signs on their faces. Buncha Communists, those kids. I mean, really, it's obvious they're still trying to fight a war that was basically lost in 1975. And they're sore that America lost. It still smarts for them, and they hide their wounded pride while shedding crocodile tears for the Vietnamese. ("When the US left and Saigon fell, the nation became a brutal dictatorship." Gee, Einstein, like the ones the US supported in Latin America during the Cold War? That talking point has been done to death.) Anyway, back to the hippies. I don't know why p...

Via Badtux , we find the US government honoring its selfless troops... by standing by while soldiers' parents ransack their retirement funds to care for their badly wounded children. Say, wingnuts, in all your whining about mean moonbats, did it ever occur to you that America's soldiers are being treated like shit? You're obviously too cowardly to enlist to fight, but the least you could do is show some outrage over soldiers lying in rat-infested VA hospitals and military families going bankrupt to support them. And don't say that it's "socialism." "Socialism" is your excuse whenever you don't want to contribute to America's basic infrastructure by paying the taxes everyone else pays. You don't even know that it means, and you sound like spoiled children when you whine about the money coming out of your paycheck. The cops keeping you safe have to eat. So do the military families--what, do you think they ate magnetic yellow rib...

Well, it looks like the main players in Situation FUBAR can't keep their stories straight. Al-Maliki says America is free to leave any time. Lee Hamilton disagrees. "There is no chance that the Iraqi forces could take over at any time, or certainly by the first of the year," Hamilton said in a nationally broadcast interview. "All of the support efforts, logistical and medical and so forth, they are not close to being able to meet," Hamilton said. "The most important is inclusivity," he added. "That is making sure that you include all elements of Iraqi society in the government," he said. "They're not close at all. The president gave them a satisfactory rating. But all they've done is create a committee" to work on a host of legislative issues aimed at completing the transition from the Saddam Hussein era. "I am extremely doubtful about it. He's had quite a bit of time now. He's known exactly what he's had ...

Iraq's prime minister says that US troops can leave "any time they want." That's nice...except that not everyone agrees with the guy. Al-Maliki said difficulty in enacting the measures was "natural" given Iraq's turmoil. But one of his top aides, Hassan al-Suneid, rankled at the assessment, saying the U.S. was treating Iraq like "an experiment in an American laboratory." He sharply criticised the U.S. military, saying it was committing human rights violations, embarrassing the Iraqi government with its tactics and cooperating with "gangs of killers" in its campaign against al-Qaida in Iraq. Come on. This is stupid. These guys can't make up their own minds, and we can't run their country for them. The general undercurrent in al-Maliki and al-Suneid's statements is the same: "We don't want the US here." You don't stay at a party after the host has told you to leave, so why continue to occupy a countr...

Try not to laugh at this headline. Bushco's gotten all the time in the world, and they still can't do anything right in Iraq. Give it up already.

One general doesn't know if the Iraqis can hold on to territory captured from the insurgents. The Iraqi military does not even have enough ammunition, said Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek: "They're not quite up to the job yet." His counterpart south of Baghdad seemed to agree, saying U.S. troops are too few to garrison the districts in the capital newly rid of insurgents. "It can't be coalition [U.S.] forces. We have what we have. There's got to be more Iraqi security forces," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch. The two commanders spoke after a deadly day for the U.S. military in Iraq. At least 12 soldiers were killed on Saturday from roadside bombings and other causes, raising the U.S. toll for the past week to at least 32. We've been in Iraq for how long? And Iraqi security forces still don't have enough ammo? Yup. Believe it. Brig. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard, commander of the Iraq Assistance Group, said "it'll take years" for Iraqi security f...

Guess which country is now the second-most failed state in the world? Iraq has emerged as the world's second most unstable country, behind Sudan, more than four years after President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, according to a survey released on Monday. The 2007 Failed States Index, produced by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace, said Iraq suffered a third straight year of deterioration in 2006 with diminished results across a range of social, economic, political and military indicators. Iraq ranked fourth last year. Okay, how long will it be before the Kristolhammer juggernaut turns up on Faux to complain about the America-haters at Foreign Policy who aren't reporting on the good news coming out of Iraq?

There's a big problem that usually arises when Americans try to form alliances with assorted factions in Iraq. First of all, the new allies often tend to be criminals, warlords, and other assorted unpleasant types. Second of all, these allies are sometimes unpopular among their own people. Third, the alliances don't hold because the Iraqis don't like being occupied by American troops any more than they like al Qaeda. And finally, these allies may turn out to be unreliable. For a complete rundown of all the above points, see this latest WaPo piece. As Swopa over at Needlenose puts it: I can't begin to count how many times the U.S. has been hoodwinked into backing one side or another of an internal Iraqi squabble just because someone told them what they wanted to hear -- in this case, that it was OK to cede control of Anbar to the Sunni locals so the insufficient level of American troops could fail in Baghdad instead for a change.

Every day, I feel more sorry for Iraqis. As noted in last month, Bush and other Republicans keep confusing Iraq with other countries. This time, they think that we can just keep a bunch of soldiers there like we have with South Korea. The Defeatists explain why this won't work. Korea, for those of you who skipped geography, is a peninsula with a lot of mountains, etc....Capitalist Buddhist Christian Confucian Japanese hating kimchee makers to the south; starving, lobotomized, goose-stepping animists ( I consider Kim Il Song and all the rest of the northern gang on a par with baboons...) to the north. The border is the most heavily mined, guarded, militarized stretch in the world. Makes the old Berlin Wall look like cheesecake. Makes the proposed wall on our southern border look like a turtle fence. There are constant probes, tunnels, etc, but for the most part bad guys to the north, our guys to the south. Iraq is, as we say about Texas, a whole other country. In Northern Irela...

While LiLo is off in rehab, soldiers and civilians in Iraq keep dying. The U.S. military announced Sunday that 14 American soldiers were killed over the past three days, including four in a single roadside bombing and another who was struck by a suicide bomber while on a foot patrol. The blast that killed the four U.S. soldiers occurred Sunday as the troops were conducting a cordon and search operation northwest of Baghdad, according to a statement. Two other soldiers were killed and five were wounded along with an Iraqi interpreter in two separate roadside bombings on Sunday, the military said. In the boldest attack, a U.S. soldier was killed Friday after the patrol approached two suspicious men for questioning near a mosque southwest of Baghdad, and one of the suspects blew himself up. Military spokesman Maj. Webster Wright said U.S. troops also fired at the second suspect after he began acting aggressively, and the gunfire detonated his suicide vest. "Our initial analysis is th...

One of the Preznit's tactics for justifying Situation FUBAR has been to compare it to invoke World War II and compare Iraq to the Axis nations. Why shouldn't 'Merica stay to help rebuild Iraq? We helped rebuild Germany and Japan after World War II, right? Okay, George, this one's a no-brainer: Germany and Japan were ethnically homogenous nations whose people hadn't been at each other's throats for centuries. They'd had at least a passing acquaintaince with democracy (Meiji Constitution anyone? Weimar Republic?), unlike Iraq, which has gone from colony to monarchy to crumbling wreck of a dictatorship. And finally, George, we didn't launch a pre-emptive war against those countries. In fact, I believe Japan attacked us first. Well, those are just some reasons, but here's a final reason: Saddam Hussein, crazy evil dictator though he was, wasn't Hitler. Maybe Daddy should've spent some money on an American history tutor for you. Well, it ...

Georgie Anne Geyer has written some excellent columns about Situation FUBAR. It helps that, as a foreign correspondent, she actually visited the Middle East and interviewed many of its leaders. It also helps that she is a real journalist and not a trained monkey of movement conservatism. For this week's column, she notes how fragmented, destabilized countries become ideal breeding grounds for terrorism. And so, on the one hand, you have weakened societies -- "only spaces" -- that have become vulnerable to the "new answers" of "new insurgencies," and on the other hand, you have Iraq set up as a school for terrorists with American troops and policy providing the constant inspiration for their fight. This, of course, is not the way the Bush administration -- despite everything that has gone so terribly wrong -- sees it. They see terrorists as born, not created by history, bearing the mark of Cain, not the mark of circumstance. There is a scarlet ...

Situation FUBAR is dragging down Bush's approval ratings. (CBS) Americans believe the war in Iraq is going badly and getting worse, and think it's time for the U.S. either to change its strategy or start getting out, according to a CBS News poll. Forty-three percent say the U.S. should keep fighting, but with new tactics, while 50 percent say the U.S. should begin to end its involvement altogether. Only 4 percent say the U.S. should keep fighting as it is doing now. Just 21 percent approve of President Bush's handling of the war, the lowest number he's ever received, and an 8-point drop from just a month ago. Most of that drop has been among Republicans and conservatives. Three-quarters of Americans disapprove of how the president is handling Iraq. (Emphasis mine) Who's this 21 percent who still approve, anyway?

...And I'm probably one of three people who doesn't care about Michael Richards. I'd already heard rumors that the guy was an asshat, so I wasn't too surprised by this meltdown. Maybe he and Mel Gibson could collaborate on a comedy about two politically incorrect grumps. Sounds like box office gold, doesn't it? Remember Richard Adelman? The loyal Bush foot soldier who kept his mouth shut for so long out of, erm, "loyalty" (read: the desire not to look stupid)? USA Today quotes Mr. Adelman in a piece on embarassed neocons trying to distance themselves from the Iraq debacle. Okay, so the good guys don't always win. Jean Schmidt still has a job to go back to. You have to wonder what color the sky is in Ohio's district 2... The Happy Feminist weighs in on the best analysis of Girls Gone Wild and similar raunch culture I've read in a long time. No, disliking Girls Gone Wild does not make you a prude. No, feminists do not have a probl...