It's July 2007 in Iraq...

Only a hundred and eight US/UK soldiers dead last month. Hooray!

Here's a story to ponder.

Meanwhile, one of the more encouraging stories of the war is Josh Rushing's: the former military mouthpiece seen in the documentary Control Room (which is about Al Jazeera) has become a journalist for Al Jazeera and a pretty articulate advocate of better communication with the Arab world:

http://www.motherjones.com/arts/books/2007/06/rushing_mission_al_jazeera.html

So Domenici is disenchanted. Well, to a point. Unintentionally funniest response -- Lopez on NRO with the whine, "Can't they just wait for Petraeus's September report?" Aw.

Meantime, whack those dudes. As Cunning Realist notes, " this is one of those incidents that we know about."

Presumably it will THEN be okay for the commentariat to advise us to leave – unless Bill Kristol can work that magic grin with greater dexterity than he's demonstrated lately.

Oh he's saying it's all adolescent moodiness anyway.

Hewitt and RedState are threatening primary defeats and other nonsense. Have fun with that!

Oh my god. That column gives a new definition to the phrase "pressing deadlines."

urgh fuckin Kristol how do I shot obnoxious neocon dynasty

Wow that was some of the most over-simplified garbage I have ever read.

Civilians: ARM YOURSELVES.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2747710.ece

The last few days have been all too telling with the Senatorial rumblings and the 'stay the course' nonsense and the etc. As before, it'd be perversely funny if it weren't for all the dead and maimed.

UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."

One mystery less.

Highlight of the Bush press conference.

"A new threat assessment from U.S. counterterrorism analysts says that al-Qaida has used its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border to restore its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001."

"Bush used the new threat assessment to show his administration's policies are the right course."

One of the craziest "black is white" arguments I have ever seen. I know he's delusional, but what non-Euclidian math did he use to spin grim paragraph A into rosy picture B?

some Ancient Ones/Cthulhu-style non-Euclidean math no doubt

OMG THE BADGER STORY!

"It is the size of a dog but his head is like a monkey"
Housewife Suad Hassan

Yeah, we're really on the right track:

Abu Sarhan's views illustrate the deep animosity toward Shiites that fuels so much of the sectarian violence in Iraq. His comments also suggested a more restrained view of the United States, which he considers an occupier but one that should not leave immediately.

"I personally don't have a hatred of the American people, and I respect American civilization," he said. "They have participated in the progress of all the nations of the world. They invented computers. Such people should be respected. But people who are crying over someone who died 1,400 years ago" -- referring to Shiites and their veneration of a leader killed in the 7th century -- "these should be eliminated, to clear the society of them, because they are simply trash."

So that's why they're called "bad guys."

'The carnage, the blown-up bodies I saw ... Why? What was this for?'

One of the craziest "black is white" arguments I have ever seen. I know he's delusional, but what non-Euclidian math did he use to spin grim paragraph A into rosy picture B?

It boggles the mind.

(Prediction: Pakistan is going to be very interesting over the next few years.)

Remember the dead:

"It's not like he was a patriot, or political. It was just something he wanted to do," Pelzer said quietly, speaking with a reporter for the first time. "He said, 'It's okay. I'll be fine, Mom.' "

It ebbs further:

“There was no pride left in his voice, just this robotic sense of despair,” she said, describing a telephone conversation with her son, Skyler, 24, an infantryman on his second tour of duty in Iraq. “Mom, we killed women on the street today. We killed kids on bikes. We had no choice,” she recounted his saying.

And on:

Mired in debt and strained by a sometimes difficult marriage, Mrs. Khan signed up with the military contracting giant KBR to do laundry for American forces in Iraq, a job that promised to triple the $16,000 a year she was earning at the school. Told her work would be restricted to the Green Zone in Baghdad, she convinced herself she would be safe.

Five weeks after arriving in Iraq, she was speeding down a Baghdad highway in a Chevy Tahoe when the driver swerved to avoid a box he feared was a bomb. The S.U.V. rolled five times, leaving Mrs. Khan suspended from her seat belt, unconscious with a crushed spinal cord. Doctors have told her she will not walk again.

She is not given to self-pity, but when asked what she looks forward to, Mrs. Khan’s eyes turn cloudy. “Nothing,” she said. “Now my life is almost over.”

Meanwhile, the surge worked so well it's time for a sequel:

Marine Gen. Peter Pace revealed that he and the chiefs of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force are developing their own assessment of the situation in Iraq, to be presented to Bush in September. That will be separate from the highly anticipated report to Congress that month by Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander for Iraq.

The Joint Chiefs are considering a range of actions, including another troop buildup, Pace said without making any predictions. He called it prudent planning to enable the services to be ready for Bush's decision.

The military must "be prepared for whatever it's going to look like two months from now," Pace said in an interview with two reporters traveling with him to Iraq from Washington.

"That way, if we need to plus up or come down" in numbers of troops in Iraq, the details will have been studied, he said.

NYT's David "The Ferret" Brooks, comes away from his interview with the Leader, surprised by his self confidence:

If Gen. David Petraeus comes back and says he needs more troops and more time, Bush will scrounge up the troops. If General Petraeus says he can get by with fewer, Bush will support that, too.

He feels no need to compromise to head off opposition from Capitol Hill and is confident that he can rebuild popular support. “I have the tools,” he said.

I left the 110-minute session thinking that far from being worn down by the past few years, Bush seems empowered.

All this will be taken as evidence by many that Bush is delusional. But Bush is not blind to the realities in Iraq. After all, he lives through the events we’re not supposed to report on: the trips to Walter Reed, the hours and hours spent weeping with or being rebuffed by the families of the dead.

Public support. I can rebuild it. I have the tools.

Bush is Oscar Madison. David Petraeus is Steve Austin. Condi is Jamie Summers. Ahmadinejad is Bigfoot.

After all, he lives through the events we’re not supposed to report on: the trips to Walter Reed, the hours and hours spent weeping with or being rebuffed by the families of the dead.

The stories that I've heard about from a variety of news sources time and again? Brooks maybe might want to read one of those newspaper things he's heard about.

I meant Bush is Oscar Goldman. But Bush in the Odd Couple...he has to share an apartment with Al Gore, who can't get him to recycle his bottles of near beer.

The Joint Chiefs are considering a range of actions, including another troop buildup, Pace said without making any predictions.

what like, another buildup, on top of the last one? Looks the draft is coming back!

Today's NYT column by David Brooks is an outrage, I nearly choked on my frosted mini-wheats. He's basically endorsing Bush as dictator! It really is anti-democratic, Brooks is playing to this crypto-fascist cult of personality around Bush. And this guff about how Bush sees the world in terms of leaders -- sure read Putin's soul didn't he -- just underscores how absolutely aristocratic/out of touch/insensitive to the point of callowness the guy is. as does this tidbit quoted above:

But Bush is not blind to the realities in Iraq. After all, he lives through the events we’re not supposed to report on: the trips to Walter Reed, the hours and hours spent weeping with or being rebuffed by the families of the dead.

as if news of "the events we're not supposed to report on" wasn't being surpressed by the white house itself. one thing that's particularly upset me this summer is the way Bush's calls for waiting till Sept and giving the Generals a chance etc never mention the loss of life involved or mention it only in the most perfunctory way. war to him is just another political game or maybe baseball recast as contact sport.

disgusting. since we can't get rid of Bush at present I've got half a mind to write the Times a letter demanding Brooks' impeachment.

of course this is the same david brooks who followed up mark shields' sputtering denunciation of bush's "mission accomplished" stunt on their PBS segment by saying "well I thought it was pretty neat!"

sorry but he deserves that over-used designation: DOUCHEBAGG

Meanwhile, hey, a partition ain't so bad, not when the alternative is worse.

Well the funny thing about that cult of personality around Bush -- seems to have eroded pretty badly of late.

that's what I thought. even coming from DB this column is sheer WTF

Don't worry, just imagine the huge bender he and Kristol will need soon enough.

This is hilarious! On Amtrack, no one can hear Bill Kristol preen.

hahaha maybe they'll bump into mr. self-confidence as he descends from the wagon WHAR YU GUZ DRINGINK THOSE PUSSY LIBERAL COSMOPOLITANBS

I do like the emblematic cover of the new WS:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Images/Thumbnails/12-42cvr.jpg

As in, he just stands there looking annoyed and depressed?

I'm sure you all have seen this already, I didn't see a thread about it

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2758829.ece

entire article here:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/hedges

that article is not at all surprising but immensely sad.

i was surprised...

"I felt like there was this enormous reduction in my compassion for people," said Sergeant Flanders. "The only thing that wound up mattering is myself and the guys that I was with. And everybody else be damned."

This is definitely Bush's War, right down to the nicknames.

Meantime, more stuff from the Stratfor elves:

---

Week out of Focus: Washington, Iraq and Al Qaeda
By George Friedman

Last week, the United States focused on the state of the war -- not just the one in Iraq, but the broader war against al Qaeda. A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was released asserting that al Qaeda has reconstituted itself in Pakistan and is either at or near its previous capabilities. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his gut told him there is an increased risk of an al Qaeda attack in the United States this summer. President George W. Bush said at a press conference that the July 15 status report on Iraq would show that progress is being made in the war. When the report actually was released, it revealed a somewhat more pessimistic picture in some areas. Meanwhile, the Republican Party was showing signs of internal strain over the war, while the Democrats were unable to formulate their own collective position. So, it was a week in which everyone focused on the war, but not one that made a whole lot of sense -- at least on the surface.

In some ways, the most startling assertion made was that al Qaeda has reconstituted itself in Pakistan. What is startling is that it appears to acknowledge that the primary U.S. mission in the war -- the destruction of al Qaeda -- not only has failed to achieve its goal, but also has done little more than force al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan. Chertoff's statement that there is a high threat of an attack this summer merely reinforces the idea that the administration is conceding the failure of its covert war against al Qaeda.

This is not an impossible idea. A recent book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tim Weiner, "Legacy of Ashes," provides an extraordinary chronicle of the CIA's progressive inability to carry out its mission. So the NIE claim might well have been an admission of failure. But it was an odd admission and was not couched as a failure.

What made this odd is that the administration is not known to concede failure lightly. During the same week, it continued to assert the more dubious proposition that it is making progress in Iraq. Why, therefore, was it releasing such pessimistic reports on al Qaeda, and why was Chertoff saying his gut tells him an attack this summer is possible? Why make the best-case scenario for Iraq and the worst-case scenario for al Qaeda?

There is nothing absurd about a gut call in intelligence, and much of the ridicule of Chertoff was absurd. Intelligence analysis -- particularly good intelligence analysis -- depends on gut calls. Analysts live in a world of incomplete and shifting intelligence, compelled to reach conclusions under the pressure of time and events. Intuition of experienced and gifted analysts is the bridge between leaving decision-makers without an analysis and providing the best guess available. The issue, as always, is how good the gut is.

We would assume that Chertoff was keying off of two things: the NIE's assertion that al Qaeda is back and the attacks possibly linked to al Qaeda in the United Kingdom. His gut told him that increased capabilities in Pakistan, coupled with what he saw in England and Scotland, would likely indicate a threat to the United States.

One question needs to be asked: What should be made of the NIE report and the events in the United Kingdom? It also is necessary to evaluate not only Chertoff's gut but also the gut intuitions of U.S. intelligence collectively. The NIE call is the most perplexing, partly because the day it appeared Stratfor issued a report downplaying al Qaeda's threat. But part of that could well be semantics. Precisely what do we mean when we say al Qaeda?

When U.S. forces talk about al Qaeda, they talk about large training camps that move thousands of trainees through them. Those are not the people we talk about when we discuss al Qaeda. The people who go through the camps generally are relatively uneducated young men being trained as paramilitaries. They learn to shoot. They learn to devise simple explosives. They learn infantry tactics. They are called al Qaeda but they are more like Taliban fighters. They are not trained in the covert arts of moving to the United States, surviving without detection while being trained in flying airliners, and then carrying out complex missions effectively. They are al Qaeda in name and, inside Afghanistan or Pakistan, they might be able to do well in a firefight, but they are nothing like the men who struck on 9/11, nor are they trained to be. When the U.S. government speaks about thousands of al Qaeda fighters, the vision is that the camps are filled with these thousands of men with the skill level of the 9/11 attackers. It is a scary vision, which the administration has pushed since 9/11, but it isn't true. These guys are local troops for the endless wars of the region.

When we think of al Qaeda, we think of the tiny group of skilled operatives who gathered around Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Mohammed Atef in the 1990s. That group was capable of planning attacks across continents, moving money and men around the world -- and doing so without being detected. Those people have been the target of U.S. intelligence. The goal has been to capture, kill or bottle up those men in inaccessible places in order to prevent another attack like 9/11 or worse.

If the NIE report meant to say this group has reconstituted itself, it would be startling news. One of the ways this group survived is that it did not recruit new members directly into the core organization. One of the ways Palestinian terrorist organizations have been destroyed is by allowing new personnel into the core. This allowed intelligence agencies to vector agents into the core, map them out and destroy them. Al Qaeda was not going to make the same mistake, so it was extremely reluctant to expand. This has limited its operations. It could not replace losses and therefore weakened as it was assaulted. But it did protect itself from penetration, which is why capturing surviving leaders has been so difficult.

If the NIE report is true, then the NIE is saying al Qaeda not only has been recruiting members into the core group, but also that it has been doing so for some time. If that is true then there have been excellent opportunities to penetrate and destroy what is left of it. But we don't think that is true, because al-Zawahiri and others, possibly bin Laden, are still on the loose. Therefore, we think the NIE is saying that the broad paramilitaries are active again and are now located in Pakistan.

Strange Week in Washington

Alternatively, the NIE is saying that a parallel covert group has been created in Pakistan, is using al Qaeda's name and is mounting new attacks. The attacks in the United Kingdom might have been part of its efforts, though they are an example of why we have always argued that terrorism is technically much more difficult to carry out than it might seem. Those attacks were botched from beginning to end. Unlike strikes by al Qaeda prime -- the core group -- these attacks, if they represent an effort by a new al Qaeda, should be a comfort. It was the gang that couldn't shoot straight operating globally. If Chertoff's gut is speaking about a secondary group in Pakistan carrying out attacks similar to those in the United Kingdom, then certainly there is cause for concern, but nothing like the concern that should be felt if al Qaeda prime is active again. But then we don't think it can be, unless it has recruited new members. And if it has been recruiting new members and U.S. intelligence hasn't slipped someone inside during the process, then that would be not only a shame but also the admission of a major intelligence fiasco. We don't think that is what the NIE is discussing. It is a warning that a group calling itself al Qaeda is operating in Pakistan. That can be called a revived al Qaeda, but only if one is careless with terminology.

It should also be remembered that the United States is placing heavy pressure on the Pakistanis. A report leaked early last week by the New York Times confirmed what Stratfor said as early as January 2004, that a major incursion into northwestern Pakistan had been planned by the United States but was called off at the last minute over fear of destabilizing President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Or, more precisely, it was called off after Musharraf promised to carry out the operation himself. He did so, but ineffectively and half-heartedly, so that al Qaeda prime was not rooted out.

By leaking the report of the planned incursion, the United States was reminding Musharraf of his guarantee. By issuing the NIE report, it was increasing pressure on Musharraf to do something decisive about militant Islamists in Pakistan -- or the United States would have to do something. Already heavily pressured by domestic forces, Musharraf ordered the raid on the Red Mosque last week, demonstrating his commitment to contain radical Islamism in Pakistan and root out al Qaeda -- or at least that part of al Qaeda that is not part of the isolated primary group. Between the implicit threat of invasion and the explicit report that Pakistan is the center of a new al Qaeda, Pakistan got the message. Whether Islamabad will be able to act on it is another question.

So the NIE report was meant to pressure Pakistan, even if it looked like an admission of the total failure of the intelligence community's mission. Chertoff's warning of attacks this summer was partly an attempt to warn that there might be attacks like those that happened in the United Kingdom -- to which the answer is that one can only hope that they would be exactly like those. Even had they been successful, they would not have risen to the level of 9/11 or even close. And they failed.

The fact is that, in a simple empirical sense, the one thing that has been successful in this war is that there has not been a single follow-on attack to 9/11 in the United States. The reason might be because al Qaeda either doesn't want to attack or lacks the resources. Another answer might be that it has been stopped by effective U.S. counterterrorism activities. This is a subject that needs analysis. In our view, it is the latter. But the simple fact is that the one mission achieved by the administration is that no attacks have occurred.

There have been numerous warnings of potential attacks. Such warnings are always interesting. They imply that the United States has sufficient intelligence to know that attacks are being planned but insufficient intelligence to block them. The usual basis of these warnings is an attack elsewhere. The second is access to a fragmentary bit of intelligence, human or electronic, indicating in a nonspecific way that an attack is possible. But such warnings usually are untrue because an effective terrorist group does not leak information. That is its primary defense. So chatter about attacks rarely indicates a serious one is imminent. Or, and this happens, a potential attack was aborted by the announcement and by increased security. We have no idea what Chertoff saw to lead him to make his announcement. But the fact is that there have been no attacks in six years -- and should there be a strategic attack now, it would represent not a continuation of the war but a new phase.

All of this neatly intersected with Bush's discussion of Iraq. He does not want to withdraw or announce a time line for withdrawal. His reason should be that a withdrawal from Iraq would open the door to Iranian domination of Iraq and a revolution in the geopolitics of the Arabian Peninsula. Bush has not stated that, but it is the best reason to oppose a withdrawal. Not announcing a timetable for withdrawal also makes sense because it would be tantamount to announcing a withdrawal. It tells Iran to simply sit tight and that, in due course, good things will come to it.

The primary U.S. hope for a solution to Iraq is an understanding with Iran. The administration both hates the idea and needs it. A withdrawal would make any such understanding unnecessary from the Iranian point of view and end any chance that Iran will reach an agreement. In our view, Iran appears to have decided not to continue the negotiating process it began precisely because it thinks the United States is leaving anyway. Therefore, Bush must try to convince the Iranians that this isn't so.

Bush has not given a straightforward justification for his concerns from the beginning, and he is not starting now, although the thought of an Iran-dominated Iraq should give anyone pause. But in arguing that the war in Iraq is a war against al Qaeda, and that al Qaeda is getting stronger, he justifies the continuation of the war. In fact, Bush explicitly said that the people who attacked the United States on 9/11 are the same ones bombing American troops in Iraq today. Therefore, the NIE report and Chertoff's warning of attacks are part of the administration's effort to build support for continuing the fight.

Bush's problem is that the idea that Iraq is linked to al Qaeda rests on semantic confusion -- many things are called al Qaeda, but they are different things. Something called al Qaeda is in Iraq, but it has little to do with the al Qaeda that attacked the United States on 9/11. They share little but the name.

U.S. policy on Iraq and the war is at a turning point. There would normally be a focusing down to core strategic issues, such as a withdrawal's consequences for the strategic balance of power. That not only is not happening, but Bush, for whom this is the strongest argument against withdrawing, also seems incapable of making the argument. As a result, the week saw an almost incoherent series of reports from the administration that, if examined carefully, amounted to saying that if you think the war in Iraq is going badly, you should take a look at the war against al Qaeda -- that is a total failure.

We simply don't think that is true. Of course, you can never prove a negative, and you cannot possibly prove there will be no more attacks against the United States by the original al Qaeda. Also, you can claim anything you want on a gut call and if it doesn't happen, people forget.

The intellectual chaos is intensifying -- and with it, the casualties on the ground.

----

That's pretty good! The best thing I've read in days.

The level of mendacity when Bush casually equates Al Queda with Al Queda in Iraq is staggering. It’s not that he can’t make an argument that AQI should now be considered a part of AQ, it’s that he intentionally misleads people into believing that AQI is composed of the same people that originally designed and executed the 09.11 attacks.

Meanwhile, Bush is perhaps even more disingenuous when discussing his preliminary report card on Iraq (sorry if this article in Slate, by Fred Kaplan, been linked to before; I didn’t spot it).

Major hilarity pointed out by Juan Cole (emphasis added for anyone skimming too quickly):

US to Block Assets of Iraq Destabilizers, US Exempted
By VOA News
17 July 2007

President Bush has signed an order that allows the U.S. government to block the assets of any person or group that threatens the stability of Iraq.

The order exempts the United States.

White House spokesman Tony Snow says the order targets terrorist and insurgent groups, including those supported by Syria and Iran, that are not covered by existing measures.

Mr. Bush's action allows the U.S. Treasury and other agencies to freeze the property and assets in the United States of people or entities deemed to be working to destabilize Iraq or undermine reconstruction or humanitarian efforts.

No person or entity was designated under the order when it was announced Tuesday.

http://www.monthlyreview.org/0607nc.htm

Chilling post courtesy of Obsidian Wings. A few lessons we learned in Iraq:

1) It seems to me that our country went slightly crazy after 9/11, and one of the manifestations of that craziness was a tendency to say, about anyone who suggested stopping to think about much of anything, that that person just hadn't absorbed the lessons of 9/11, hadn't been there, hadn't fully grasped how horrific it was. Anyone who has even the slightest iota of this tendency should, I think, engrave on his or her forehead: When something truly awful happens, and you find yourself in the presence of real danger, it is more important than ever to stop and think clearly about what you are about to do. The temptations to do something stupid are much greater than usual, and the risks are much higher. Going with the flow and doing what comes naturally might be winning strategies at a party; they are profoundly dangerous when considering going to war. Since the people who do stop and think are likely to be rarer than usual, in moments of national crisis they should be cherished, not abused or slandered.

(2) Never substitute impugning someone's character for impugning his or her argument. This was, if memory serves, a pretty standard move back in 2002: the fact of someone's opposition to the war was taken to be conclusive evidence that that person was not serious about the war on terror, and their supposed lack of seriousness meant that their arguments did not have to be taken seriously. There were, in addition, less obviously circular versions: I recall in particular the right-wing dismissal of Richard Clarke on the grounds that he was obviously a closet liberal after book royalties. The closet liberal made me laugh -- the guy seemed to me to have "Republican: subcategory, national security hawk" written all over him. And the book royalties part was just dumb: it amounts to the idea that no one who ever writes a book can ever be taken seriously again, since whatever they say, it could be that they are saying it to jack up their royalties. The possibility that people sometimes both write books and speak out publicly because they have something they think it's important to communicate, apparently, doesn't need to be taken seriously.

(3) One of the greatest strengths of our country is the fact that we allow debate and dissent. This means that if we choose to do so, we can debate policies before we adopt them, rather than first adopting them and only then, when it is too late, discovering the problems that a real debate might have made apparent. Before we went to war, there were people who were trying to shut debate down by marginalizing or slandering or, in some cases, threatening those who disagreed with them. (Dixie Chicks, anyone?) This is, of course, a hateful thing to do to those people. But it should now be obvious that it is also a profound disservice to our country. We would have been a lot better off if we had stayed true to our ideals of open debate and free speech.

(4) When the rest of the world thinks you're crazy, it's worth entertaining the possibility that they might be right. We should not defer to their judgment mindlessly, but we should have what Jefferson called "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."

(5) Beware of movements built on contempt. Many of the people who pushed for war had spent decades expressing their contempt for what you might call standard foreign policy -- the kind in which diplomacy is taken to be a useful instrument, not a snare for the weak-minded, and force is a last resort, not an all-purpose tool. Their own views had never been seriously tested (and no, Reagan doesn't count), and many of their spokesmen lacked any serious experience conducting foreign policy. Sometimes, groups of people who spend years muttering about how different things would be if they were in charge are right. Often, however, they are not. Absent a real track record on which to evaluate them, they should be approached with caution.

(6) Think very hard about the lessons of history. For every case like Munich, in which failing to confront a dictator more forcefully led to disaster, there is a Cuban Missile Crisis, in which a leader's unwillingness to make the most hawkish response to a dictator's provocation averted disaster. Trotting out Munich at every possible opportunity only ensures that the next time you find yourself in a Cuban Missile Crisis, your country will be turned to radioactive glass.

Iraq veterans "In Their Own Words" in The Nation, via Dennis Perrin's blog:

Veterans described reckless firing once they left their compounds. Some shot holes into cans of gasoline being sold along the roadside and then tossed grenades into the pools of gas to set them ablaze. Others opened fire on children. These shootings often enraged Iraqi witnesses.

In June 2003 Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejía's unit was pressed by a furious crowd in Ramadi. Sergeant Mejía, 31, a National Guardsman from Miami, served for six months beginning in April 2003 with the 1-124 Infantry Battalion, Fifty-Third Infantry Brigade. His squad opened fire on an Iraqi youth holding a grenade, riddling his body with bullets. Sergeant Mejía checked his clip afterward and calculated that he had personally fired eleven rounds into the young man.

"The frustration that resulted from our inability to get back at those who were attacking us led to tactics that seemed designed simply to punish the local population that was supporting them," Sergeant Mejía said.

We heard a few reports, in one case corroborated by photographs, that some soldiers had so lost their moral compass that they'd mocked or desecrated Iraqi corpses. One photo, among dozens turned over to The Nation during the investigation, shows an American soldier acting as if he is about to eat the spilled brains of a dead Iraqi man with his brown plastic Army-issue spoon.

"Take a picture of me and this motherfucker," a soldier who had been in Sergeant Mejía's squad said as he put his arm around the corpse. Sergeant Mejía recalls that the shroud covering the body fell away, revealing that the young man was wearing only his pants. There was a bullet hole in his chest.

"Damn, they really fucked you up, didn't they?" the soldier laughed.

The scene, Sergeant Mejía said, was witnessed by the dead man's brothers and cousins.

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20070730&s=hedges

Is this where the anti-war movement starts turning on the soldiers too?

Kerm, Kerm, Kerm.

Sorry. I just can't even get started on this stuff.

How does posting an article about what actually happened constitute 'turning on the soldiers,' though? You know that's not logical at all.

I for one, fully support our brain-eating troops

may they rape and pillage and murder children for all eternity

I didn't mean Morbs.

O. I don't get it then.

Another great day:

Iraq's largest Sunni Arab bloc said Wednesday it had suspended membership in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition government, a fresh setback to the Shiite leader's faltering efforts at national reconciliation.

The police development came on a day that saw two suicide car bombings strike soccer fans in Baghdad as they were celebrating Iraq's victory in the Asian Cup semifinal. At least 27 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in those attacks, officials said.

The Iraqi Accordance Front, which has six Cabinet seats and 44 of 275 in parliament, gave al-Maliki a week to meet its demands or see its six members officially quit the 14-month-old Cabinet.

"The Accordance Front announces the suspension of its membership in the government," Sheik Khalaf al-Elyan said at a news conference attended by the two other leaders of the three-party Accordance Front -- Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi of the Iraqi Islamic Party and Adnan al-Dulaimi of the Congress of the People of Iraq. Al-Elyan leads the National Dialogue Council.

Reading from a prepared statement, al-Elyan said the front's demands included a pardon for security detainees not charged with specific crimes, a firm commitment by the government to human rights, the disbanding of militias and the inclusion of all parties in the government in dealing with the country's security situation.

Meanwhile somewhere Michael Yon is doubtless typing up something along the lines of how a lot of soldiers concentrated in areas of trouble makes things quiet. Who'd've thought?

that nation article is an emotional gutshot

i wonder what this has to do with anything (iran and the us appearing to team up vs. sunnis):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/25/wiran125.xml

Quietly heeding the Iraq Report?

The distribution of unidentified bodies found dumped in Baghdad between June 18 and July 18, 2007.

ayiyiyi

Bush's speech today edited down to the most important bits:

The President: ----- --- ---. ------ -- ------. ----- ---, -------. ------ --- --- ----------- --- ---- ------------. -'- ----- -- -- ---- --- --- --- ----- -- --- --- -----, --- ----, --- -------, --- ---- --- --- ----- -----. ------ --- -------. ------ --- ------- --- ------- -- --- ------ ------ -- -------.

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The Morse Code part is where he summons Kang and Kodos.

that speech is a fake, Dubya never mentions Osama

Wau:

Iraqi leader tells Bush: Get Gen Petraeus out

By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:43am BST 29/07/2007

Iraqi leader tells Bush: Get Gen Petraeus out

Relations between the top United States general in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, the country's prime minister, are so bad that the Iraqi leader made a direct appeal for his removal to President George W Bush.

Although the call was rejected, aides to both men admit that Mr Maliki and Gen David Petraeus engage in frequent stand-up shouting matches, differing particularly over the US general's moves to arm Sunni tribesmen to fight al-Qa'eda.

One Iraqi source said Mr Maliki used a video conference with Mr Bush to call for the general's signature strategy to be scrapped. "He told Bush that if Petraeus continues, he would arm Shia militias," said the official. "Bush told Maliki to calm down."

At another meeting with Gen Petraeus, Mr Maliki said: "I can't deal with you any more. I will ask for someone else to replace you."

Gen Petraeus admitted that the relationship was stormy, saying: "We have not pulled punches with each other."

President Bush's support for Mr Maliki is deeply controversial within the US government because of the Iraqi's ties to Shia militias responsible for some of the worst sectarian violence.

The New York Times claimed yesterday that Saudi Arabia was refusing to work with Mr Maliki and has presented "evidence" that he was an Iranian intelligence agent to US officials. "Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia's counterproductive role in the war," it reported.

Alongside the firm support of Mr Bush, Mr Maliki also enjoys the backing of Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador and his predecessor, Zalmay Khalilzad, now America's representative at the United Nations.

Mr Khalilzad took a swipe at Saudi Arabia in an editorial published earlier this month that was widely seen as an appeal for a larger UN role in stabilising Iraq.

Mr Crocker, who attends Mr Maliki's stormy weekly meetings with Gen Petraeus, said the Iraqi leader was a strong partner of America.

"There is no leader in the world that is under more pressure than Nouri al-Maliki, without question," he said. "Sometimes he reflects that frustration. I don't blame him. I probably would too."

(from here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml;jsessionid=MQQMMRVEPDJELQFIQMGSFFOAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/07/28/wirq128.xml&site=5&page=0)

Architectural Digest toasts new american embassy in baghdad!

lol not rly

http://villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/baghdad-embassy399.jpg

It is a new month isn't it.