This is how screwed up Iraq is

More details from the attacks today in Iraq, where Shiites burned Sunni worshippers alive with kerosene:

Police Capt. Jamil Hussein said Iraqi soldiers at a nearby army post failed to intervene in the burnings of Sunnis carried out by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia, or in subsequent attacks that torched four Sunni mosques and killed at least 19 other Sunnis, including women and children, in the same northwest Baghdad area....

In spite of the police and witness accounts, however, President Jamal Talabani appeared to discount the reports. He emerged from meetings with other Iraqi political leaders late Friday and said Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obaidi told him that the Hurriyah neighborhood had been quiet throughout the day.

According to Hussein, the police official, militiamen rampaged through the district, setting fire to several homes in addition to the four mosques that were bombed and burned.

Some residents claimed that the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has begun kidnapping and holding Sunni hostages in order to slaughter them at funerals of Shiite victims of Baghdad's sectarian violence.

George Bush has turned Iraq from a civil war into all-out barbarism. Let's tick off the salient details of just how much worse Iraq is today than yesterday:

1. They're now burning each other alive.

2. The Iraqi Army isn't worth squat, after all these years of training we gave them, and after all of these promises from Bush and the generals (and Condi, and Cheney, and Rummy) that the Iraqi Army was almost all ready to take over.

3. The Iraqi president, however, sounds quite ready to take over - he sounds just like any other third world despot, denying carnage that's taking place right under his nose (Vladimir Putin, anyone?).

4. You'll notice that Al Qaeda isn't mentioned even once amid all the carnage. This is all about Iraq and Iraqis hating each other, and killing each other. Iraq never had anything to do with the war on terror, and it sure as hell doesn't now. America is a full partner in a brutal religious and ethnic civil war. All because our president is an idiot, and 51% of our fellow Americans voted for that idiot a second time.

Congratulations, Republican America - you voted for it, you own it.

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BU College Republicans show why GOP has no clue

If this is the youth, it should come as no surprise that the GOP continues to fail when it comes to reaching out to African-Americans. Merit and economic need make sense but we still have a long way to go to have an all inclusive society. Living in Europe, I can see with my own eyes what happens when race is not part of the equation and those who watched the riots last year around France (or the race riots in America years ago) should have some idea what happens when this is not factored in. America is a better place and a stronger country for starting the process of inclusion years ago. Here is Europe, it's years away from even getting started and the longer it takes to get started the more difficult it will be.

What is so bad about diversity and why do Republicans hate it so much? This is what has made America a great place but the GOP wants to stay as white as the country clubs their daddies grew up with. If they want to debate the issue, fine, but stoking this fire goes nowhere and only shows the country that once again the GOP is a whites only party. Read the rest of this post...

Rumsfeld authorized Abu Ghraib abuses, former general says

I hope Rummy is getting some sweaters for Christmas - I hear the Hague is chilly this time of year.

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I wish the media would stop lying about Iraq

I think it's time someone took all the quotes from the Bush administration, their Republican lemmings in Congress, from Limbaugh, Hannity, and all the rest of their ilk, and from FOX News - you know, the quotes talking about how great everything is going in Iraq, but the media only reports the bad stuff, so we're tricked into thinking Iraq isn't going well. Take those quotes and start shoving them down Bush et. al.'s throats.

The American people have been lied to, over and over again, by this cabal of right-wing extremists that has taken over the Republican party. They tricked the American people into going along with this war and far more disastrous policies at home, and now these cheerleaders for disaster need to be held accountable for their lies and their propaganda.

Bring out the quotes from them all, and make them defend their lies.

It's time the liars running the Republican party, inside conservative Washington and within the right-wing newspapers, television stations, and Web sites, are held accountable for their utter lack of principle. The GOP has become the party of liars and incompetents. It's the party of order, but no law. It's the party that increasingly represents all that is wrong, and has been wrong, in the world. The rule of law, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, civil rights, human rights, justice, none of this matters to Republicans - it may have once, but it doesn't now. They don't respect the law, they respect order - so long as they're the ones giving the orders. It's a particularly un-American way of viewing the world, and it's an attitude that has caused far too many tragedies in the history of the world. It's time we started publicly defnining what the Republican party has become. They no longer represent American values, and we shouldn't be shy about saying so.

Until their ilk is exposed and purged, the Republicans will continue to be the party that tricks the American people into more patriotic disasters. Read the rest of this post...

Enemy death tolls are really all the rage

"We don't do body counts" is soooo Rumsfeld. We're in a new era now and daily body counts are splashing into the headlines. So does killing 23 insurgents mean we are winning? How 'bout killing a teenage boy or shooting a pregnant woman? Does that help? Since we are in a new era, I'm just trying to figure out where this is all going and what success is now supposed to be.

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Cheney is in Saudi Arabia to ask for help

Huh? They just thought of this idea three years later:

Cheney arrived Saturday in Saudi Arabia for talks with King Abdullah, apparently seeking the Sunni royal family's influence and tribal connections to calm Iraq. The vice president was not planning additional stops in the region.

I thought the Saudis were our BFFs. We're just asking for help now?

It's too convenient for Cheney to be in that region. What do you bet he really was supposed to make one of their famous "surprise visits" to Iraq? The violence was just too much this time.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread

Heading back to DC today...it's a long drive. 10+ hours without using my computer. Yikes. But, I drive so I can bring my dog. It's been a fun trip mostly consumed by the energies of a 6 year old (who just found out that she is leukemia free so we really did have a lot to be thankful for) and her three year old brother. Yesterday I had a great time meeting Kay in Maine for coffee. It's always good to do some scheming -- especially with a fellow Mainer.

Gotta go though. I need my routine back. And, I need news. Read the rest of this post...

Bomb thrower caught at door of Northern Ireland assembly

Northern Ireland tried opening their transitional assembly yesterday only to be shut down by a convicted (and released) murderer who tried crashing the gates armed with multiple weapons including a bomb. Tame stuff for Michael Stone, who was previously serving time for murdering three mourners at a funeral in 1988 but was released under the terms of the Good Friday agreement. It's 2006, almost 2007 and extremists from both sides can't manage to move on from their time warp. What's so difficult to see that the overwhelming majority prefers to live in peace?

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Open thread

I'm off to bed. Read the rest of this post...