The scale moving away from peace towards chaos is about as clear as it gets.
A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is using as a barometer of civil conflict.
A one-page slide shown at the Oct. 18 briefing provides a rare glimpse into how the military command that oversees the war is trying to track its trajectory, particularly in terms of sectarian fighting.
The slide includes a color-coded bar chart that is used to illustrate an “Index of Civil Conflict.” It shows a sharp escalation in sectarian violence since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February, and tracks a further worsening this month despite a concerted American push to tamp down the violence in Baghdad.
Why does the military hate the troops so much?
Ok Kerry has apologized…what do the democratic talking points tell you to do now Ollie?
LOOK BEHIND YOU A THREE HEADED MONKEY
Answer the question….
What in God’s name are you yammering on about now?
Pedro takes two posts to get off topic. Is that a new record?
Hey, DrPedo, how do you feel about Bush abandoning a soldier to die in Iraq?
He apologised for a botched joke, not for slandering the troops. Because he didn’t slander the troops. Cons are just being stupid on purpose. Again. I guess the Michael J. Fox stuff wasn’t working out for them so they had to manufacture another outrage. Heaven forbid if Hannity/Limbaugh had to talk about iraq or the issues.
“What is surprising is how strong a response Sen Kerry has put out. I’m reproducing it in full, because if he had been this tough in ‘04 he would have won”
Oliver Willis
Well now Kerry has apologized…essentially admitting that his “tough” response was a mistake. Unlike most recent democrats, it didn’t take him years to come to the conclusion that he had made a mistake.
Now, how long will it take Ollie to admit that his ridiculous “take no prisoners” attitude doesn’t help this country?
Are you aware you’re in the wrong thread?
People, don’t answer him. The Kerry discussion is ongoing IN THE ORIGINAL THREAD. Pedro’s just trying to distract us. Don’t let him succeed.
Oh Gosh! John Kerry said something! Let’s ignore George Bush abandoning a kidnapped soldier.
“John Kerry said something! Let’s ignore George Bush abandoning a kidnapped soldier.”
The one thing conservatives are good at is manufacutred outrage.
Unfortunately, the things they are bad at include governing the country and prosecuting a war.
I’m sure pedro would love to chime in about why it’s more important to bash kerry than ask why the Bush administration thought it was a good idea to give operation control of US troops to Muqtada al-Sadr’s man in Baghdad, Prime Minister Maliki.
A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command….
Putting aside for a minute what you think about the execution of the Iraq policy, aren’t any of you outraged that the Times published a classified document?
Or was all of that kwelling about the “outing” of Valerie Plame just a partisan show?
What’s the difference, except that it’s becoming more clear every day that Plame wasn’t covert.
From the latest filings in the Libby case:
Putting aside for a minute what you think about the execution of the Iraq policy
And yet again, the con contingent tries to change the subject.
Why should anybody put aside, even for a minute, what we think of the disastrous execution of the Iraq War?
Shorter Rat: “look over here!”
Tuco’s got a half million Iraqis on his conscience. Have some compassion for the poor, desperate guy. He really needs to distract himself from the moral abyss yawning beneath his feet.
I post about Kerry here because I know Ollie doesn’t have the stones to explain how wrong he was on this issue.
By the way, looks like Ben Cardin and Ford agree that an apology was in order…Looks like Ollie and his Band of Merry Hangers-On didn’t get the memo this morning…You might want to talk to the Good Doctor about that….
Pedro, there’s another thread currently active where you can post about Ollie’s lack of stones on the Kerry gaffe. Is it that hard to move your scroll wheel down the page?
You, on the other hand, seem to lack the stones to talk about the war itself, instead of just poorly phrased quips about how the war has been handled.
Anything and everything to not talk about the failure of the president’s central foreign policy initiative: the war in Iraq. Way to go guys.
“…how long will it take Ollie to admit that his ridiculous “take no prisoners” attitude doesn’t help this country?”
Ah yes, because it was Kerry’s mistatement that was “hurting the country” not the conservatives’ deliberate distortion to imply that Kerry really believed what he said.
Obviously, the best thing for the country as Iraq burns is manufactured outrage over non-events.
Your comments are laughable but predictable.
The left spent the last few years peddling the Plame story as a signature event that was going to result in the indictments of Rove and maybe Cheney, but it fizzled just like every other partisan nothingburger it ran up the flagpole.
Now, when called on it, suddenly there’s only one subject that’s important. All others are off the table.
I’ll come back if someone decides to answer the question.
Your comments are laughable but predictable.
The right spent the last few years peddling Iraq as a signature event that was going to result in the democracy in the middle east, but it’s become a horrible cluster fuck just like every other partisan foreign policy nothingburger it ran up the flagpole.
Now, when called on it, suddenly there’s only one subject that’s important, John Kerry. All others are off the table.
I’ll come back if someone decides to answer the question.
Here’s what we know for certain now:
Attacking democrats is more important than fixing Iraq.
Awesome.
One out of context chart. How do you know that chart was not a ‘least optimum’ scenario chart. How do you know it isn’t a weekly update and that those arrows, other weeks, have been much better. The Iraq war is arguable but not via short cut cheap shots like this. Afraid to argue the war on its real merits or demerits?
By the way Senate candidate Ford has called on military-hating Kerry to apologize. When do progressives realize that have got a real ‘hate-the-military’ problem?
“When do progressives realize that have got a real ‘hate-the-military’ problem?”
Just as soon as conservatives realize that they’ve got a real ‘hate reality’ problem.
Dugger your comments on the chart are totally ridiculous. Did you bother to read the article?
And even Dugger strikes to change the subject. The grasping-at-straws strategy of changing the focus to anything except the war itself smacks of sad desperation.
Does it make conservatives feel all big and manly to ensnare John Kerry in his language slip-ups because they seem unable to capture Osama bin Laden?
BD, how could ask such a question? Of course it makes them feel big and manly. Indeed, for conservatives, capturing Kerry in a gaffe is MORE important than capturing Bin Laden. The war on terror is all about destroying the “enemy within.” They actually need the enemy without to make than happen.
Republicans really hate the military. Dugger, why do you want our soldiers to die? Time and time again you try to paint rosy pictures of the situation in Iraq. Bush just abandoned a US soldier to his kidnappers and made the US look weak in the region. Nice. John Kerry botched a joke, and the funny thing is with the military drastically lowering its standards because nobody wants to join, Kerry was still right.
dugger, do you know who Jason Franco is? He’s an 18-year old Marine that was killed in Iraq yesterday. Maybe you can explain to his mother that you thought what John Kerry said was more important to this country than him dying from a needless war.
Again, “they have to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men”.
Look no further than Pedro’s first post for proof.
Hell, jody, look at all of drpedo’s posts.
midder,
I have never painted a ‘rosy” picture of Iraq. You are evidently insufficiently sophisticated intellectually to differentiate between a judgement that comapred to other wars, this one isn’t bad, but that in a general sense all wars are bad.
frame
You have gone from excess, hyperbolic verbosity to evident paranoia: ‘The war on terror is all about destroying the “enemy within.” They actually need the enemy without to make than happen.’
factcheck,
Bullsh*t. Kerry insulted the military - irregardless of what happened in Iraq. These rich millionaire Democratic elite senators seem to have a habit of insulting our heroic men and women in uniform - Durbin with his Nazi analogy and now Kerry.
Are you kidding me? I would KILL to debate even a strawman! With the leftists here everytime you raise a point, they ask some other completely unrelated question. It is sort of a topical ADD, once they get backed into a rhetorical corner, they escape with a non-sequitor….
But jody, don’t you consider Ollie a real man? I mean, my first post asked him a direct question?
Dr pedo feigns outrage over a botched joke, then calls our troops “non sequitors”. Excellent.
Kerry insulted Bush. If you had any integrity, Dugger, you’d admit that. Are you so dishonest and low-down in all your dealings, Dugger?
“You have gone from excess, hyperbolic verbosity to evident paranoia …”
And yet here we have a situationin which during the same 24 hour period, a dem senator bothced a joke and the Iraqi prime minister ordered US troops to cease and desist in their search for both a missing comrade and a dangerous death squad leader.
I don’t need to tell you which story conservatives think was the most important news of the day? And why did they think this? Not because of Kerry as an individual, but because they want to use Kerry’s mistake to label an entire political party and an entire political philosophy, liberalism, as anti-American.
Am I being paranoid? Not if they’re really out to get us.
Still avoiding the original topic…by golly you’re right Fact.
I especially love how he’s getting all indignant about how, in our referring to his original post, we are now changing the subject.
Eeven Dugger is trying to stir Pedro’s shit up in some feeble attempt to draw attention away from the fact that Iraq is descending into chaos-and his boy in the Whitehouse is responsible, with his ignorant and troop-endangering ’stay the course’ crap.
My mistake. He’s far more embarrassing than I had supposed, and that’s saying something.
“they escape with a non-sequitor….”
Again, pedro writes this in all serious even as he and conservatives in general have moved hell and earth to shift the debate from what’s happening in Iraq today to Kerry’s botched joke.
Midderpidge’s earlier post makes a fine point. One I’ll posit in the form of a question:
“Which is more newsworthy: the U.S. military withdrawing from Sadr City and closing down the efforts to find a kidnapped American soldier, LEAVING HIM BEHIND,
…or John Kerry screwing up his lines?”
Seriously. Tell me which one’s more important.
Bullsh*t. Kerry insulted the military - irregardless of what happened in Iraq. These rich millionaire Democratic elite senators seem to have a habit of insulting our heroic men and women in uniform - Durbin with his Nazi analogy and now Kerry.
Somebody who bemoans a lack of intellectual sophistication should know that there is no such word as “irregardless.” But that’s beside the point, because after all, anybody can make a language gaffe.
As for the tired accusation that Kerry and Durbin insulted the “heroic men and women in uniform,” you’d have to note that you don’t seem to have the sophistication to understand that merely putting on a uniform doesn’t make one heroic, any more than simply putting on a priest’s collar makes one a pious Christian.
Durbin was referring to very specific personnel who behaved atrociously; thereby besmirching the uniform you claim to hold in such regard. A group of our soldiers has admitted guilt in the recent horrific rape and murder of a 14 year-old Iraqi girl and her entire family. I’ll be damned if I’ll call those particular soldiers “heroic” just because they put on a uniform.
Seriously. Tell me which one’s more important
Seriously, Jody, kiss my patooi.
BD, re ‘irregardles’ Then you had better talk with Merriam Webster:
“There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.”
I could be nastier, but won’t. We all make mistakes.
Uh, Duggre?
Somebody who bemoans a lack of intellectual sophistication should know that there is no such word as “patooi.” It’s “patootie”but that’s beside the point, because after all, anybody can make a language gaffe.
30 lashes with a wet-noodle…
“Seriously, Jody, kiss my patooi.”
Okay, Dugger’s drinking again …
“Seriously, Jody, kiss my patooi.”
I might also ad, not one conservative idiot has yet bothered to comment on a very real, very serious turn of events in Iraq. Not one.
They’d much rather drag Kerry over the coals for a verbal gaffe than hold anyone accountable for something that really impacts our troops in harms way, particularly the one US soldier who is still missing in Sadr City.
Wow.
Dugger, I believe Pedro would like to have a word with you about how cowards throw non-sequitors around when backed into a rhetorical corner.
Iraq is going to shit, and you’re sitting there snivelling about Kerry. When forced to acknowledge that, you throw churlish insults around. That’s just despicable.
Dugger, you have two options. Answer Jody’s question like an adult, or admit (directly or impliity) that you’re completely bankrupt of individual morality, defining everything by Us and Them instead of Right and Wrong.
Go.
I wish you lefties had been as interested in the military when it wasn’t as politically correct. I spent my years in the military primarily under wild bill’s command watching our budgets get cut, our flight hours get cut and our deployments lengthen, all while there was no significant fighting going on.
It is really nauseating to watch you people using the military as a political tool when it suits you. Fortunately, history remembers your behavior during the times when you didn’t think it carried any political capital.
And now a little trivia question for all the lefties:
How many men died on the FIRST DAY of the invasion of Iwo Jima?
And here’s a trivia question for you, Pedro:
In which circle of Hell will the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice be tormented for all eternity for having murdered a half-million Iraqis?
In case you’re having trouble, Pedro, I’ll make it multiple choice!
“Eighth Circle. The fraudulent—those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil—are located in a circle named Malebolge (”Evil Pockets”), divided into ten ditches, with bridges spanning the ditches.”
“Bolgia 1: Panderers and seducers walk in separate lines in opposite directions, whipped by demons.”
“Bolgia 5: Corrupt politicians (barrators) are immersed in a lake of boiling pitch, guarded by devils, the Malebranche (”Evil Claws”).”
“Bolgia 8: Fraudulent advisors are encased in individual flames.”
“Bolgia 9: A sword-wielding devil hacks at the sowers of discord. As they make their rounds the wounds heal, only to have the devil tear apart their bodies again.”
“Ninth Circle. Traitors, distinguished from the “merely” fraudulent in that their acts involve betraying one in a special relationship to the betrayer, are frozen in a lake of ice known as Cocytus. Each group of traitors is encased in ice to a different height, ranging from only the waist down to complete immersion.”
“Zone 2: Traitors to political entities, such as party, city, or country, are located here.”
O lord when will I be able to get a lefty to answer a question with anything other than a non-sequitor question?
Are you people really THAT incapable of maintaining a cogent argument?
You want a straight answer, I’ll give you an answer.
6,821.
You said this is just trvial, why do think so? And why are you bringing it up?
Dugger, your quotation makes it pretty clear that “irregardless” is poor English form.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have written “there’s no such word,” since technically any word, once written, is a word. Lewis Carroll knew that.
“Irregardless” is as much a word as “ain’t” is. All I know is that any English professor would make the same comment I did, and would still mark you off despite your snarky attempts to defend it with Webster.
Pedro, what your point seems to be is that you can’t tell the difference between Iwo Jima in February of 1945 and Baghdad in 2003-2006.
You can’t determine that there’s a world of variables between an American military attempting to take control of an island, in which 22,000 Japanese soldiers were entrenched; and a country that we currently occupy after having defeated the regular army.
Of COURSE there were going to be heavier casualties at Iwo Jima. The numbers don’t tell the whole story…the issue is that there is no good explanation as to why we’re still taking this many casualties several years after we conquered the place.
There’s explanations, yes. Just not good ones.
Dugger will not answer my question, and Pedro will do his usual chicken dance, running around, arms flailing, all the while shrieking “YOU’RE WRONG! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!LALALA!!!”
They are both trolls of the first order, not here to argue a point, but merely to argue, to get us riled up, to make people feel as hateful as they feel.
I’ve been coming here off and on for years, and I’m always amazed that I’ll see Dugger sitting there spewing his puke as Pedro dances around in it like a kid in a sprinkler.
Now either of you children answer me: which one is more newsworthy? Help each other out if you have to, as I understand that it might take half a brain to cobble together a response that doesn’t accuse us of switching to non-sequitors.
Mr Pedo said
“I spent my years in the military primarily under wild bill’s command watching our budgets get cut, our flight hours get cut and our deployments lengthen, all while there was no significant fighting going on.”
Wait a minute, I thought you said you were a navy surgeon on a ship? Now you’re telling me you were a pilot?
Why don’t you admit now that you never served and that you’re not a doctor. Fraud.
Pedro, why are you so scared to answer my question about which circle of hell the Bush administration is destined for?
And for that matter, I called him out on his lies about his record. Paging Mr. Pedo…
BD,
The dictionary says I’m right. I’ll leave it at that. I have no desire to attack personally on this.
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