WAR

“war” is what neo-con Republicans want every American to call the situation in Iraq, because this one word gives them more power than they could possibly get any other way.

It is time we stop calling it “the war in Iraq,” and time we start calling it what it is: the military occupation of Iraq. This is not just semantics. It is a matter of life and death.

From Dangerous Intersection



Senator John McCain says he felt safe walking out into Baghdad. He should have, standing in the middle of a couple of reinforced rifle companies, thick air cover and in body armor. It was grandstanding and opportunism at it most egregious.


David Brooks of the New York Times comments that McCain's single minded support of the surge from the near sighted focus on the role of the US military has too little regard for the needs and the unremitting suffering of the Iraqi people. The pacification efforts have provided a checkerboard of safe market days and some small joy in children's play grounds, but the squares empty of death and destruction today become the targets tomorrow.

The situation on the ground now is not what our very fine infantry was trained for. It is very much a very successful organization of rolling death and destruction. It was not meant to be a well armed nanny. It is now being held in place only to suffer a thousand cuts and then a thousand more. It is tragically noble on the part of the individual G.I.s but a sinister gambit of opportunism by the W administration.

The daily accumulation of reportage of the thousand cuts is to be found here.

The daily carnage is spread across the Iraqi canvas like a painting by Jackson Pollock.

My wifes niece is now being readied to join the surge. She has a one year old girl child.


(click on pic for larger view)

From Com_Bat_Ra_Coon

. . .they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

A. Lincoln
A portion of the Gettysburg address