Remind me again which party is supposed to represent fiscal responsibility?

Iraq war reconstruction funds graphically illustrated.

h/t to Digby

--the BB

6 gay men shot in Iraq after clerics urged crackdown on gays

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Six gay men were shot dead by members of their tribe in two separate incidents in the past 10 days, an official with Iraq's Interior ministry said.

In the most recent attack, two men were killed Thursday in Sadr City area of Baghdad after they were disowned by relatives, the official said.

As quoted by John Aravosis: "clerics urged a crackdown on a perceived spread of homosexuality."

What, they weren't Anglican?

Gotta love that "exporting democracy" thing, dontcha?

Homosexuality is prohibited almost everywhere in the Middle East, but conditions have become especially dangerous for gays and lesbians in Iraq since the rise of religious militias after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein six years ago.

Every time I hear a former Bush maladministration member say the world is a better or safer place with Saddam Hussein out of power I want to scream (and throw things at the radio or TV).

He was a beast, of course, but we have not made things better in Iraq.

Burn in hell, Bush, burn in hell.

h/t to John Aravosis at Americablog
--the BB

Worth it?

If you ever find yourself wondering whether the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been worth it, just remember the Dick Cheney thinks so. Billmon provides links and clues as to why he might think that.

--the BB

And what, exactly, is "progress" in Iraq?

The Guardian reports:

Authorities in the southern Iraqi city of Basra have admitted they are powerless to prevent 'honour killings' in the city following a 70 per cent increase in religious murders during the past year.

There has been no improvement in conviction rates for these killings. So far this year, 81 women in the city have been murdered for allegedly bringing shame on their families. Only five people have been convicted.

John Aravosis brought this to my attention. Have the police congratulated you on killing your daughter lately?

I do not believe this is about Islam. It is about barbaric tribal patriarchy. The sooner it is demolished the better. I believe we are in the midst of the death throes of the patriarchy. Something that has been around a good 6,000 years will not disappear suddenly or let go of power voluntarily. A lot of ugly, brutal struggle lies ahead.

Hmm, come to think about it, no wonder creationists think the world began 6,000 years ago. It began with the birth of patriarchy. Of course!

[Well, their world did, anyway. For the rest of us it has been a rather unattractive reality that is anything but divinely ordained.]
--the BB

News on Iraq

Iraq and the United States have finally agreed on a security pact which would mean that US forces would withdraw from Iraq by 2011, American and Iraqi officials said yesterday.

Obama's Iraq plans vindicated as US agrees to pull out by 2011
Independent - 4 hours ago
By Patrick Cockbur

Une guerre sans fin

Yes, it's 9-1/2 minutes long but we all need to feel the cumulative effect of McCain's own words and position on the occupation of Iraq. Watch at least part of it, if you can.

From Jed, the master of these videos.

h/t to Joe Sudbay at AmericaBlog

--the BB

Just how stupid are we?

That is the title of Rick Shenkman's book on why, as Juan Cole puts it, " the American People Were So Easily Bamboozled by the Bush Administration."

I commend to your attention the excerpt at Juan's place.

One key paragraph:

The answer is, I'm afraid, simple. Myths count more than facts in these debates because Americans don't know many facts and don't care to take the time to learn them. Unlike subjects with which they have first-hand experience--think gas prices--matters related to foreign countries are both exotic and incomprehensible to most Americans. This leaves them sitting ducks for wily pols who want to take advantage of their ignorance by playing on fear and patriotism.

--the BB

The answer depends on who you are

Derrick Z. Jackson sums it up nicely at the Boston Globe in his article "Big Oil and the war in Iraq."

IT TOOK five years, the deaths of 4,100 US soldiers, and the wounding of 30,000 more to make Iraq safe for Exxon. It is the inescapable open question since the reasons given by President Bush for the invasion and occupation did not exist, neither the weapons of mass destruction nor Saddam Hussein's ties to Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The New York Times reported last week that several Western oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell, Total, BP, and Chevron, are about to sign no-bid contracts with the Iraqi government. Western oil had a significant stake in Iraqi oil for much of the last century until the government nationalized the industry in 1972. The Associated Press quoted Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit as saying he believed the contracts were a first step toward production-sharing agreements. "These companies are in it for the money, not to make friends," Gheit said.

You can read the whole article here.

And don't forget Halliburton and its former subsidiary KBR and Blackwater and their ilk.

UPDATE:
I see that this is the 1500th post on this blog.
--the BB

While y'all are obsessing over Pennsylvania....

Just remember this.



h/t to Atrios who reminded me of this.

--the BB

Condi's "bring it on" moment

Prominent war criminal, fashionista, former Stanford Provost, and sometime namesake of the Altair Voyager Condoleezza Rice made one of her appearances in the Green Zone of Baghdad where she taunted Muqtada al Sadr about sending others to their death while remaining at a safe distance.

The mind reels.

There begin to be so many layers of irony, projection, and utter lack of self-awareness in the Bush Crime Machine that one would need a computer to track it all.

Of course when Bush, in his faux machismo, uttered "Bring it on," they did. And American troops died. Having a woman taunt Sadr so publicly seems designed to goad him into action, thereby inflaming an already tense and violent situation - hardly the stuff diplomacy is made of. More Iraqis and more US troops are likely to perish because of her remark.

She, of course, flies blithely back to DC, leaving the mess in Iraq behind her.

I have seen comments on this at several blogs. Dday covers it nicely at Hullabaloo.

Brandon Friedman, an Iraq War veteran, has this to say:

But it's not just about Rice's dismissive, provocative tone, either. It's also this continuing, obnoxious Bush-brand of hypocrisy that the whole world sees: If Sadr had said the same thing of Rice--that she's a Washington, D.C. bureaucrat who sends others to fight her own battles--the Bush administration would freak out. And that fact isn't lost on Iraqis.

As Rice is one who will not have to stay and fight the Mahdi Army side-by-side with our troops, I suggest that she keep her mouth shut if she's not going to say anything helpful. Because statements like these are certainly not.

In an update Friedman notes the NYT quoting Rice on Sadr thus:

“I don’t know whether to take him seriously or not,” Ms. Rice said.

If she doesn't take him seriously she is a damned fool, which is a genuine possibility based on her inept diplomacy hitherto. But since she is also a notorious liar, this could all be some elaborate game, one in which the cost is real human lives, variously ended or shattered.

Were she herself not so dangerous, I doubt that any sane person would take Rice seriously.

Of course, she belongs in prison, but it will take the world a while to catch up with her crimes.
--the BB

If you didn't see this chez Jane R, check it out.

Jane R at Acts of Hope pointed to Gary Kamiya's "Iraq: The ten commandments" at Salon. As the subhead at Salon puts it: "here are 10 lessons we should engrave on our foreign policy tablets."

They run from

Commandment I
Thou shalt not launch preventive wars.

to

Commandment X
Grow up and join the world.

with lots of good stuff in between, complete with pithy commentary. Excellent advice if you ask me.

Check 'em out!
--the BB

What might YOU do with $3,000,000,000,000?

Video courtesy of Robert Greenwald
--the BB

Friedman Units (FUs)

From Wikipedia:

The Friedman, or Friedman Unit (F.U.), is a tongue-in-cheek neologism coined by blogger Atrios (Duncan Black) on May 21, 2006.

A Friedman is a unit of time equal to six months in the future. The Huffington Post cited it as the "Best New Phrase" of 2006.

The term is in reference to a May 16, 2006 article by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) detailing journalist Thomas Friedman's repeated use of "the next six months" as the period in which, according to Friedman, "we're going to find out...whether a decent outcome is possible" in the Iraq War. As documented by FAIR, Friedman had been making such six-month predictions for a period of two and a half years, on at least fourteen different occasions, starting with a column in the November 30, 2003 edition of The New York Times, in which he stated: "The next six months in Iraq—which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there—are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time."

The term has been used in general to describe any pronouncement of a critical period for the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Such pronouncements have been made by numerous politicians and military officials involved in the war.

[Substantiating links in the original article - follow the link]



h/t Atrios
--the BB

Ah, those elusive corners

For years now we have heard that we were either about to turn the corner in Iraq or that we were turning a corner in Iraq. That meme has been part of the steady diet fed to the American public.

This is what Gen. Petraeus had to say about this yesterday.

And so we continue to pursue futility.

h/t to Blue Texan at Firedoglake.
--the BB

I don't think they were having a very good day

But then, the Iraqis don't have very many good days, either, and few of them can look forward to lucrative careers as consultants, lobbyists, and/or board members in their retirement.

While Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum were testifying before Congress today, Mother Jones reports on life back in the Green Zone.

...U.S. embassy officials in Baghdad have been ordered to take heightened security precautions in light of stepped-up attacks on the Green Zone, including one on Sunday that killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded 17 others.

Under this new security boost, says a U.S. Embassy official who asked not to be identified, embassy personnel have been told to remain under "hardened cover." Instructed to avoid their trailers, some embassy staffers are now sleeping in their offices and on cots in the new embassy building, currently under construction, according to a source who has spoken with embassy officials in Baghdad. Embassy personnel have also been cautioned to limit their trips outdoors and, when they must leave the protection of reinforced structures, to wear flak jackets, protective eyewear, and helmets.

h/t to John Aravosis at Americablog.

Since every piece of bad news we hear is spun as yet another sign of success, things must be going swimmingly.

Meanwhile, in DC, there were some challenging moments, such as when Sen. Biden forced Amb. Crocker to answer a very thorny question:

SEN. BIDEN: Mr. Ambassador, is Al Qaeda a greater threat to US interests in Iraq, or in the Afghan-Pakistan border region?

AMB. CROCKER: Mr. Chairman, Al Qaeda is a strategic threat to the United States wherever it is, in my view–

SEN. BIDEN: Where is most of it? If you could take it out? You had a choice: Lord almighty came down and sat in the middle of the tabel there and said mr ambassadro you can elimibnate every AQ source in afghanistan and pak, or every aq personell in Iraq, which would you pick?

AMB. CROCKER: Well given the progress that has been made again Al Qaeda in Iraq, the significant decrease in its capabilities, the fact that it is solidly on the defensive, and not in a position of–

SEN. BIDEN: Which would you pick, Mr. Ambassador?

AMB. CROCKER: I would therefore pick Al Qaeda in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area.

SEN BIDEN: That would be a smart choice.

[Emphasis mine. And yes, we have the video.]



h/t to dday at Daily Kos.

dday's comment seems not out of place:

You can actually end this hearing right now. We have all the information we need. Joe Biden made the entire Administration policy for 6 years look foolish.

Marcy had this to say at emptywheel:

I suspect because of the dynamics of the Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee actually seems to be making progress. So far this hearing, we have established:

1. Everyone has had it with this war--Republican and Democrat.
2. The biggest threat to the United States from Al Qaeda is in Pakistan and Afghanistan, not in Iraq (as Biden got Crocker, the former Ambassador to Pakistan, to admit).
3. Petraeus and Crocker agree with Barbara Boxer and a bunch of other Republican and Democratic Senators--and presumably will go tell Bush as much--that Iraq has got to start paying for its own militias.
4. We will never remove the threats of AQI and Iranian influence in Iraq, so the best end point we should strive for is to achieve some kind of stability in Iraq.

Sen. Obama executed some rather clean tactical strikes today.

Should we be successful in Mosul, should you continue, General, with the effective operations that you've been engaged in, assuming that in that narrow military effort we are successful, do we anticipate that there ever comes a time where Al Qaida in Iraq could not reconstitute itself?

[exchanges with Gen. Petraeus]

OBAMA: OK. I just want to be clear if I'm understanding. We don't anticipate that there's never going to be some individual or group of individuals in Iraq that might have sympathies toward Al Qaida. Our goal is not to hunt down and eliminate every single trace, but rather to create a manageable situation where they're not posing a threat to Iraq or using it as a base to launch attacks outside of Iraq. Is that accurate?

PETRAEUS: That is exactly right.

OBAMA: OK. And it's also fair to say that, in terms of our success dealing with Al Qaida, that the Sunni Awakening has been very important, as you've testified. The Sons of Iraq and other tribal groups have allied themselves with us.

There have been talks about integrating them into the central government. However, it's been somewhat slow, somewhat frustrating. And my understanding, at least, is, although there's been a promise of 20 to 30 percent of them being integrated into the Iraqi security forces, that has not yet been achieved; on the other hand, the Maliki government was very quick to say, "We're going to take another 10,000 Shias into the Iraqi security forces."

And I'm wondering, does that undermine confidence on the part of the Sunni tribal leaders, that they are actually going to be treated fairly and they will be able to incorporate some of these young men of military age into the Iraqi security forces?

...


OBAMA: OK, let me shift to Iran.

Just as -- and, Ambassador Crocker, if you want to address this, you can. Just as it's fair to say that we're not going to completely eliminate all traces of Al Qaida in Iraq, but we want to create a manageable situation, it's also true to say that we're not going to eliminate all influence of Iran in Iraq, correct?

That's not our goal. That can't be our definition of success, that Iran has no influence in Iraq.

So can you define more sharply what you think would be a legitimate or fair set of circumstances in the relationship between Iran and Iraq, that would make us feel comfortable drawing down our troops?

h/t to Paul Kiel at TPM.

The Senator knows how to ask good questions. It is also evident that, in the sharpest possible contrast with Sen. McCain, Obama knows who the players and what the issues in Iraq are.

The video of Obama's questions and comments, in two parts, may be seen here and here.
--the BB

Secret US plan for military future in Iraq

I used the headline from the article for my header here. Seumas Milne has an article in The Guardian today:

A confidential draft agreement covering the future of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, shows that provision is being made for an open-ended military presence in the country.

The draft strategic framework agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, dated March 7 and marked "secret" and "sensitive", is intended to replace the existing UN mandate and authorises the US to "conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security" without time limit.

The authorisation is described as "temporary" and the agreement says the US "does not desire permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq". But the absence of a time limit or restrictions on the US and other coalition forces - including the British - in the country means it is likely to be strongly opposed in Iraq and the US.

Iraqi critics point out that the agreement contains no limits on numbers of US forces, the weapons they are able to deploy, their legal status or powers over Iraqi citizens, going far beyond long-term US security agreements with other countries. The agreement is intended to govern the status of the US military and other members of the multinational force.

You may click above and read it all.

We have known for some time that Bush was trying to work out something along these lines, bypassing the Senate's duty and right to be consulted on treaties.

Might we get another article of impeachment out of this (to go with the bazillion others that Bush has justified hitherto)?

Just thought y'all should know about this.

I hope copies of the article are being handed to congresscritters right now, even as Petraeus is testifying.

h/t to the Ed Schultz Show (I heard about it on the radio this morning).
--the BB

"We were being ordered to hastily invade a country with too few troops and too little equipment."

Brandon Friedman has a great post up titled "I was Invading Iraq Five Years Ago (w/ photos)." He describes the equipment our troops had (or didn't have) when we invaded Iraq.

By now I hope y'all are familiar with the issue of up-armored humvees with the kind of reinforcement that can offer better protection to the troops inside. And how soldiers were taking scrap metal to create their own protection because better protection had not been planned for, or budgeted for, or scheduled for production, or shipped, or even ordered. There were all kinds of reasons and, as Rummy said, "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wished you had." (That's from memory, might not be an exact quote but I know it's not inaccurate on content.)

You can see the vinyl door on the vehicle in the photo above. That is the sort of protection our troops had as they rushed into Iraq. Flak jackets had front plates but most lacked back plates, so never turn your back in the direction from which a bullet might come (and good luck with that in urban environments).

They had suits for chemical and biological agents. As Brandon put it:

In the end, the irony is that we were well-protected against yellow cake from Niger, aluminum tubes, and anthrax missiles, but not 18-year-olds with AK-47s.

Brandon's conclusion:

Most of these problems were addressed in Iraq by 2004, however. So the purpose here isn’t to simply complain about being under-resourced. The point is to show that Americans have died in Iraq because the Bush administration was hell-bent on rushing to war against the better judgment of those who knew. And people shouldn't have to die because someone is in a hurry to start an unnecessary war.

Unfortunately, this is what you get when you elect people like George W. Bush and his neo-conservative friends into office. And this is what you'll get with a McCain administration.

[Emphasis mine]

Read it all here.

--the BB

Definitely a Safford

Senator Clinton spoke in Eugene, Oregon, on Saturday:

Clinton said that historians will judge if her decision was the right one, but she reminded voters that Obama’s voting record on the war is not very different than hers.

“When you want to compare, compare decisions so when Senator Obama came to the Senate, he and I voted exactly the same except for one vote and that happens to be the facts.”

Obama has been credited with foreseeing a troublesome war in Iraq primarily due to a speech he gave in 2002 while he was a state senator, where he spoke out against the war. Clinton said, “I started criticizing the war in Iraq before he did. So, I’m well aware that his entire campaign is premised on a speech he gave in 2002 and I give him credit for making that speech. But that was not a decision.” [Emphasis mine]

That's some fine criticizing, Senator Clinton.

Lefty Coaster adds this:

Here's how Hillary explained her vote for the War 14 months later after the war was already going very wrong.

Remarks by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton

December 15, 2003
Council on Foreign Relations

I was one who supported giving President Bush the authority, if necessary, to use force against Saddam Hussein. I believe that that was the right vote. I have had many disputes and disagreements with the administration over how that authority has been used, but I stand by the vote to provide the authority because I think it was a necessary step in order to maximize the outcome that did occur in the Security Council with the unanimous vote to send in inspectors. And I also knew that our military forces would be successful. But what we did not appreciate fully and what the administration was unprepared for was what would happen the day after.

Hillary was worried about maintaining support for the War in Iraq:

I worry a lot about how difficult it will be in the political arena to stay the course...

h/t to First Amendment

For the Safford reference, see here.

Update:
There is the unvetted health care story also. Tuzla is old hat by now but that was the beginning of a rolling snowball. I came across another story Saturday that is potentially very damaging but until I see it from multiple sources I am not going to give it credence.
--the BB

Don't lose this in the shuffle

JAMES RISEN and DAVID JOHNSTON at the New York Times remind us of the challenges faced when individuals or groups are not accountable to law.

WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials have told Congress that they face serious legal difficulties in pursuing criminal prosecutions of Blackwater security guards involved in a September shooting that left at least 17 Iraqis dead.

In a private briefing in mid-December, officials from the Justice and State Departments met with aides to the House Judiciary Committee and other Congressional staff members and warned them that there were major legal obstacles that might prevent any prosecution.
...
There are also questions about whether federal law applies to the Blackwater contractors.

Paul Kiel writes about this at TPM, citing the NYT article.

But that shouldn't bother us. It doesn't bother the folks at the State Department. According to AP:

The State Department says it will renew Blackwater USA's license to protect diplomats in Baghdad for one year, but a final decision about whether the private security company will keep the job is pending.

A top State Department official said that because the FBI is still investigating last year's fatal shooting of Baghdad civilians, there is no reason not to renew the contract when it comes due in May. Blackwater has a five-year deal to provide personal protection for diplomats, which is reauthorized each year.

Iraqis were outraged over a Sept. 16 shooting in which 17 civilians were killed in a Baghdad square. Blackwater said its guards were protecting diplomats under attack before they opened fire, but Iraqi investigators concluded the shooting was unprovoked. [Emphasis mine]

Don't you just love it? The FBI finds that Blackwater employees were unprovoked when they fired on Iraqi civilians but because the investigation is not completed THERE IS NO REASON NOT TO RENEW THE CONTRACT.

Federal agents investigating the Sept. 16 episode in which Blackwater security personnel shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, according to civilian and military officials briefed on the case....

Investigators have concluded that as many as five of the company’s guards opened fire during the shootings, at least some with automatic weapons. Investigators have focused on one guard, identified as “turret gunner No. 3,” who fired a large number of rounds and was responsible for several fatalities.

Investigators found no evidence to support assertions by Blackwater employees that they were fired upon by Iraqi civilians. That finding sharply contradicts initial assertions by Blackwater officials, who said that company employees fired in self-defense and that three company vehicles were damaged by gunfire. [NYT]

How about ensuring that these unregulated goons are governed by either Iraqi or US law (or both) before you renew the fucking contract, Condi? Maybe you could borrow some of the lawyers spending all their time trying to protect Bush and Cheney's criminal asses to help you iron out the contract.

Makes me mad enough to spit nails.

--the BB

"Collateral damage" means dead civilians; let's call a spade a spade

Last week in my Iraqi geography post I pointed out the location of Hillah without saying why I mentioned it. Amid the many posts I was juggling there was mention of some violence there, so I wanted y'all to be able to find it. Well, here is an unhappy follow-up on why I pointed to Hillah.

Jesse Wendel at the Group News Blog has put up a post titled "Children and Others Dying in Iraq Recently" with what might pass for a subtitle: "How Many Dead Babies Does It Take To Make Us Quit Killing Them?" The narrative data shared there are sobering, to say the least. Wendel's goal is to transform our awareness and behavior.

Gorilla Guide, quoted by Wendel, says this:

Babil Governorate:

More than 60 people allegedly all armed were killed in the American aerial bombardment of Al-Askari and Nader in central Hilla but there is a problem:

The problem is that it is a lie. It a STUPID lie. It’s the sort of STUPID LIE that only an American military spokesman would tell.

Were you stupid enough to believe anything the Americans are saying about them knowingly killing women and children?

The attack was by Apache aircraft on al-Askari, Ahmed Nader and Muhaizem neighbourhoods.

Gunmen like the children in the screen grab with caption from the Sadrist site nahrainet [that you see at the top of this post -- Jesse.]

Al Askari, Ahmed Nader, and Muhaizem are all heavily populated areas.

It is physically impossible to heavily bombard a densely populated civilian area without killing a lot civilians.

The Americans killed a lot of civilians.

Civilians like the women and children you see to the left. The caption incidentally cites “dozens” of dead women and children.

Eyewitness accounts speak of seeing 25 bodies, including many women and children. They also talk of 35 people being evacauted as seriously wounded and that again many if not most of these were women and children. Two doctors in the local hospital who refused to be identified said to one of our local correspondents that many of these were expected to die.

According to local people the scale of destruction is enormous, they speak of families being wiped out, there are reports of 6 houses turned to rubble, many other houses rendered uninhabitable and of multiple secondary explosions from the fuel tanks in cars.

It is worth noting that an American base is nearby. It is also worth noting that the local police are members of the Badr brigade and that they have repeatedly been reported as committing serious atrocities in the three neighbourhoods which are very deprived even by present day Iraki standards and are overwhelmingly Sadrist.

UPDATE: The GZG governor is trying negotiate with Sadrist leadership in Hilla. Local sources the fighting is as heavy as ever.

And according to the the American spokesman the people killed were 60 gunmen.

My posting this should not be understood as any kind of attack on American troops. They are caught up in the horrors of war. I pray for our troops, I respect our troops, and I support our troops by calling for decent pay, adequate equipment, proper training, sufficient rest, wise deployment, and top-notch medical and psychological care when they return, with the benefits they deserve. I thank vets for having served. I am in no way attempting to portray them as villains or monsters, nor do I see them that way.

I do wish to hold up the true nature of war, however, and the consequences of it, for those on all sides. The ugly reality is that more than shit happens in war; all hell is unleashed. Participants witness, and often are actors in, horrendous atrocities. Even when one tries to behave honorably that is not always an option. When facing a kill-or-be-killed situation, when defending one's siblings in arms, when trying simply to do a job and live to come home some day, the choices are often limited and frequently there are no good options.

More people should read Chris Hedges' book "What Every Person Should Know About War." It is full of very realistic, frank information. I just read how the tearing of a major artery can lead to sufficient loss of blood in one minute to die. Injury to a blood-rich organ like a liver could lead to bleeding to death within hours. Here is a tidbit to ponder:

How dangerous is war for civilians?
Very dangerous. Between 1900 and 1990, 43 million soldiers died in wars. During the same period, 62 million civilians were killed.... In the wars of the 1990s, civilian deaths constituted between 75 and 90 percent of all war deaths. (Hedges, page 7)

If a factual and cogent argument were being made that dropping bombs in Iraq is making us safer, I have not read it.

It is naive in the extreme to think that every casualty of our actions is a "terrorist" or "insurgent."

The American people needs to be aware of and face the reality of the Iraq War.

--the BB