Iraq: When the best we can do isn’t very good
Firefighters respond to a bombing near the Iraqi Foreign Ministry in Baghdad Wednesday. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
BAGHDAD — A string of attacks in Baghdad, including two bombings near prominent government buildings, killed at least 95 people and wounded more than 530 Wednesday morning in the bloodiest day in the capital since the withdrawal of U.S. troops from cities.
The attacks happened in close succession late Wednesday morning. The two deadliest bombings targeted the finance and foreign ministries, which are among the most heavily guarded buildings in Baghdad, Iraqi authorities said.
Separately, at least six mortars rained down on two heavily transited locations in central Baghdad, Iraqi officials said. Three mortars targeted the Green Zone, the fortified enclave in Baghdad that contains the U.S. Embassy and many Iraqi government offices.
The bloodiest of the day’s attacks was a bombing just outside the Foreign Ministry that killed at least 47 people and wounded 195, officials said. The massive blast, apparently from a vehicle packed with explosives, was particularly deadly because the government recently removed some of the concrete walls that the U.S. military had erected to protect against car bombs.
The explosion just feet from the ministry building, which is near the Green Zone and close to the Iraqi parliament, left a crater about 80 feet wide and 12 feet deep. Maj. Gen. Jihad al-Jaberi, the head of the Baghdad bomb squad, said the bomb had two tons of explosives.
Unfortunately, I think this kind of thing will go on for a long, long time in Iraq. The surge bought us important time, and that time was put to good use in creating at least a semblance of an Iraqi governing structure and military. But none of Iraq’s basic political problems and ethnic and religious differences have been resolved; if you look back at the benchmarks of progress that President Bush established in his 2006 speech announcing the surge, few have been achieved. There’s still no oil law, no de-Bathification law, no resolution of the situation in Kirkuk and the Kurdish area. In fact, U.S. Gen. Ray Odierno wants to move U.S. troops into that area in hopes of easing the violence there, even as American forces are supposed to be winding down their involvement.
There are some situations in which the best we can do simply isn’t very good. Iraq is proving to be such a situation, and so may Afghanistan.
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233 comments Add your comment
GreenJeans
August 19th, 2009
4:01 pm
Folks, the last few days here have been rollicking! All this pent-up frustration in our country, ideological warfare in these pages, guns toted to Town Hall meetings…I for one am daily thankful for our freedom to wrestle in this public mud.
On Iraq: There were plenty of us asking, before the invasion, what happens afterward? How do we drop freedom and democracy into that hole and expect them to sprout and look like us? Two-hundred forty-some-odd years later, even we don’t look like us.
The answer, if memory serves, is that the PNAC (whose membership seems to be evaporating, after a quick weekend check) expected that we’d stay there to tend the farm. Permanently. I believed then, and now, that this group and their ilk wanted to recreate Rome…never expecting we’d have our tails handed to us be shown the door.
Only the un-reality-based community was surprised.
And because the PNAC and their ilk do not like to have their tails handed to them and be shown the door, we’re now seeing all of those metal pen!ses being flashed at the Town Hall meetings. But that’s another thread.
On Dan Rather and the CBS documents: If memory serves again, the content was never questioned by those close to the matter, only the fact that it had been reproduced on a word processor. A technical foul, but a foul nonetheless. Follow the money/power trails leading away from that stink bomb, and we’ve got a case study in all things wrong with politicians and politics.
Peace.
RW-(the original)
August 19th, 2009
4:01 pm
Facts are such pesky things….
Paul,
Yes they are.
Dusty
August 19th, 2009
4:03 pm
boschie,
We don’t celebrate war just because we fight. We celebrate the people brave enough to fight for our country and our protection.. It is called appreciation.
Paul
August 19th, 2009
4:04 pm
RW-(the original)
Make that, facts are such really pesky things!
Bart S.
August 19th, 2009
4:05 pm
Dave R., except that proof of Obama’s American birth HAS been verified with all the documentation and witnesses that anyone else is asked or expected to provide. So… not the same thing. Also, Bush’s service or lack thereof would not have been an issue had his campaign not actively attacked the service of a man who WAS actually in the war. Glass houses, stones, and the inability to trust the surly kid down the block who throws rocks.
RW-(the original)
August 19th, 2009
4:05 pm
Sad thing about those polls are – GOP numbers ain’t gone up.
Bosch,
You’ve really got to quit believing all the pap Jay B serves up.
Republican candidates have now matched their biggest lead over Democrats of the past several years on the Generic Congressional Ballot.
Taxpayer
August 19th, 2009
4:08 pm
Dave R.
August 19th, 2009
3:48 pm
Taxcheat, I don’t care what you want to be called. Get over it.
Two. You claimed that Bush didn’t attend his Guard training. That claim has never been proven. I pointed out to you that even CBS could not prove it.
I simply pointed out to you that your claim has never been proven.
Get over it.
Get over yourself, DaveR. Further, try showing a little respect for other bloggers if you want to see any in return. Finally, I made no such claims, you did. Go back and re-read my post… again. Better yet, find someone to read it and explain it to you. Keep trying, son, though I must let you know that even I can only tolerate so much of your childishness and I am a very patient person.
Dave R.
August 19th, 2009
4:08 pm
Taxcheat, did you or did you not write the following at 2:05?
“A self-proclaimed “fighter pilot” that could not even show up when he was supposed to but perhaps I’m just being too picky, demanding the truth and what not.”
I quote: “Could not even show up when he was supposed to.” Really? Do you have proof about that? CBS couldn’t prove it, but the almighty Taxcheat has the proof!
‘Nuff said.
And yes, my referring to you as Taxcheat is a sign of disrespect. Glad you could at least figure that out. I have no respect for those who blindly attack others without facts to back their points up. That is your way of life on this blog, Taxcheat. Try doing something different, and maybe I’ll show you some respect – if you earn it.
number1ninja
August 19th, 2009
4:12 pm
The “lunatic left fringe” is anybody who is in power according to the idiots. Anybody who thinks the tools of the status quo will ever be “liberal” is a moron.
Dave R.
August 19th, 2009
4:13 pm
Bart, you are correct – now. Why it took Hope & Change so long to do so is beyond me.
And I will point out that while supporters of Bush certainly attacked Long Jawn for his somewhat questionable service (see Swift Boaters), the Bush campaign did not to my recollection.
Taxpayer
August 19th, 2009
4:18 pm
Dave R.
August 19th, 2009
4:08 pm
Taxcheat, did you or did you not write the following at 2:05?
“A self-proclaimed “fighter pilot” that could not even show up when he was supposed to but perhaps I’m just being too picky, demanding the truth and what not.”
I quote: “Could not even show up when he was supposed to.” Really? Do you have proof about that? CBS couldn’t prove it, but the almighty Taxcheat has the proof!
‘Nuff said.
And yes, my referring to you as Taxcheat is a sign of disrespect. Glad you could at least figure that out. I have no respect for those who blindly attack others without facts to back their points up. That is your way of life on this blog, Taxcheat. Try doing something different, and maybe I’ll show you some respect – if you earn it.
Well, DaveR, since you have now openly admitted that you intentionally display disrespect toward someone that you don’t even know while simultaneously demanding an explanation for your errors, over and over and over, I will no longer respond to your utter ignorance and stupidity. So, have fun jerking off, jerkoff. As a reminder of this, I will occassionally post a copy of this message whenever you post one of your disrespectful messages addressed to taxcheat or whomever. Don’t say that I did not give you a chance, again, son.
AmVet
August 19th, 2009
4:20 pm
Yeah the Republicans are ahead!
NO wait! It’s the Democrats!
No wait again! It’s the Republicans!
NO! This poll says its the Democrats!
You dolts.
How many decades is it gonna take for some of you to wake the f up?
How many more debacles like the one last September? How many more botched invasions? How many more years of injustice and lies?
They OWN you. YOU work for THEM. There’s a gnat’s ass difference between the two and all you do is have pissin’ contests back and forth about which is the worst.
NO ONE hsa the temerity to claim they are great. Or even effective anymore.
They are both failures and you are too f’ing stupid to even realize it while you are getting royally hosed by the very people you cheer for.
Man, am I glad I’m getting near the autumn of my days…
Dave R.
August 19th, 2009
4:28 pm
Taxcheat,
And I would care about you posting your hatred . . . why?
number1ninja
August 19th, 2009
4:41 pm
Soooooo, did anybody think Obama was really going to pull the troops out? And why are the Bushies complaining about it, isn’t that what they wanted? So bizarre.
roger
August 19th, 2009
4:45 pm
“Man, am I glad I’m getting near the autumn of my days…’
Go get some end of life counseling and come on back.
Taxpayer
August 19th, 2009
4:48 pm
Taxpayer
August 19th, 2009
4:18 pm
Dave R.
August 19th, 2009
4:08 pm
Taxcheat, did you or did you not write the following at 2:05?
“A self-proclaimed “fighter pilot” that could not even show up when he was supposed to but perhaps I’m just being too picky, demanding the truth and what not.”
I quote: “Could not even show up when he was supposed to.” Really? Do you have proof about that? CBS couldn’t prove it, but the almighty Taxcheat has the proof!
‘Nuff said.
And yes, my referring to you as Taxcheat is a sign of disrespect. Glad you could at least figure that out. I have no respect for those who blindly attack others without facts to back their points up. That is your way of life on this blog, Taxcheat. Try doing something different, and maybe I’ll show you some respect – if you earn it.
Well, DaveR, since you have now openly admitted that you intentionally display disrespect toward someone that you don’t even know while simultaneously demanding an explanation for your errors, over and over and over, I will no longer respond to your utter ignorance and stupidity. So, have fun jerking off, jerkoff. As a reminder of this, I will occassionally post a copy of this message whenever you post one of your disrespectful messages addressed to taxcheat or whomever. Don’t say that I did not give you a chance, again, son.
ralph
August 19th, 2009
4:49 pm
“Man, am I glad I’m getting near the autumn of my days…’
There is a God.
GreenJeans
August 19th, 2009
5:04 pm
“Man, am I glad I’m getting near the autumn of my days…”
I get his toys!!
Seriously, AmVet, sometimes it does feel like we are one swirl short of a final flush. And then I get the creepy feeling that a hunnart years from now our descendents will be arguing in much the same way, over many of the same things. Oh sure, fashion, politics, countries may change, but you can’t read ancient literature without recognizing our human selves.
And don’t go cocktailing the medicin bottles; it wouldn’t be the same without ya in here.
hopey changey
August 19th, 2009
5:07 pm
Here ya go amvet: http://yfrog.com/5hshovelready2j
Dave R.
August 19th, 2009
5:20 pm
Taxcheat at 4:18:
“I will no longer respond to your utter ignorance and stupidity.”
And yet, I thought you’d really mean it this time.
Ahhh, well. C’est la vie!
hope and change?
August 19th, 2009
5:23 pm
“So, have fun jerking off, jerkoff.”
Your stupid is showing.
md
August 19th, 2009
6:18 pm
Dave R, you are trying to argue with someone that only sees one side – his. He’s so entrenched on the left that he can’t see other views even if he wanted to. Also, notice a pattern. If he gets called on his made up allegations, he spends the rest of the day spinning and twisting in an attempt to make the one that called him out look like the one that was wrong. He’s either very lost or playing games.
Dave R.
August 19th, 2009
6:28 pm
Yeah, md. It’s nice to know that there are some things in this world that can’t change.
Taxcheat is one of them. Never answers questions asked of him. Never strays from his hatred of all things Republican and Bush. Never backs up his assertions with facts. Always picks up his marbles (those that fall out of his cranium) and cries when caught.
Dave R.
August 19th, 2009
6:50 pm
You know, Bookman might just be on to something with the title of his post.
“Iraq: When the best we can do isn’t very good ”
If the best we’ve got is President Hope & Change, then it isn’t very good. Thanks, Jay! You’re coming around to the thinking side!
David Hume
August 19th, 2009
7:30 pm
When you read the posts by conservatives here, listen to the circus barkers of talk radio, the screaming heads of Fox television, and many of their elected officials, such as the half-wit Palin, it is easy to see why the GOP is shrinking into an island apart from the mainstream and consists more and more of increasingly embittered and ignorant people. Entertainers and fatuous blowhards such as Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck none of whom has a degree of any kind, no journalistic training, research, writing, or reporting experience and who haven’t read fifty books among them, are actually taken seriously by millions of disgruntled, angry, people who think that they have something to say. The GOP has become the most unintelligent laughing stock of a major political party in the Western world.
Keep it up with the “birther,” “tea party escapades,” Hitler comparisons, and crazy rants at politicians in Town Hall meetings, and you will wander in the political wilderness for years, which is where the GOP in its present dumbed down to the core configuration belongs.
oh noes
August 19th, 2009
7:37 pm
TELEPROMPTER JESUS
If you’ve got a problem,
Or even think you might,
Just tell him, and he’s on it
He’ll make everything all right.
He’s the D.C. Santa Claus,
He’ll meet every need,
He can stop the polar thaws,
cause the oceans to recede.
(Voter Chorus)
Give us everything we want,
We know you want to please us,
If they type it, you will read it,
You’re the Teleprompter Jesus !
Cash For Clunkers, Bailouts,
Porkulus and TARP !
Took G.M. and Chrysler,
and he’s still looking sharp !
Geithner and Pelosi,
Biden, Harry Reid,
Gonna work together to get
Everything we need.
(Children’s Chorus, groaning under the weight of debt)
Give them everything they want,
But if you want to please us,
Make our parents pay their share,
You’re the Teleprompter Jesus !
Nine Trillion, Ten Trillion,
Eleven Trillion debt,
As long as China’s lending,
Then he ain’t finished yet.
Spending all this money,
It’s really not so hard,
When he puts the charges on
our childrens’ credit card.
(Groaning Chorus of Debtor-Fetuses)
Give them just a little less,
We know you want to please us,
Don’t read everything they type,
Dear Teleprompter Jesus !
Jesus fed five thousand
With some fishes and some bread,
Our Man could print a trillion bucks
With one nod of his head.
Gonna spread the wealth around
At least that’s the plan,
It won’t cost you a penny,
You don’t make two-fifty grand.
(Final Chorus, repeat and fade)
Give us everything we want,
We know you want to please us,
If they type it, you will read it,
You’re the Teleprompter Jesus !
TnGelding
August 19th, 2009
8:03 pm
Dave R.
August 19th, 2009
6:50 pm
Isn’t Obama just letting Bush’s exit strategy continue? Aren’t you really denigrating the military and Gates instead of him?
It was mission imposssible at the beginning and still probably is.
David Hume
August 19th, 2009
8:56 pm
I agree Tn. When Bush and Rumsfeld ignored the advice of generals who told them that they would need a large peacekeeping force from the very outset to provide the necessary security to develop stable democratic political institutions (which were alien to their history) any subsequent efforts were rendered nugatory. It increasingly appears to be an irremediable situation in Iraq and the U.S. should pull out after over six years there and see what can be accomplished in Afghanistan which remains a real threat to others.
On a different note “axpayer,” (we are all taxpayers so you hardly individuate yourself with such a handle) the Lt. Governor of Texas admitted, on record and with regret, that he assisted Bush in leapfrogging over hundreds of applicants to the Air National Guard. That was commonplace at the time and I know people who used political influence to gain admission ahead of others to avoid Vietnam. However, Bush claimed that he supported the war, so why didn’t he, like Kerry volunteer to fight the North Vietnamese who were not in Texas or Alabama but ten thousand miles away? I would politely suggest cowardice. It took the Bush administration a week to scare up one person who claimed he saw Bush show up in Alabama for duty and they failed to produce paperwork showing that he did anything other than draw a check. And not showing up at that time, and being paid nonetheless, was also commonplace as many have written as such with their own first hand experience.
Bush was a disaster, an utterly failed commander in chief who presented a bogus case of WMD which was utterly disproved by the CIA and U.N. inspections. The only people who continue to defend him are diehards who are impervious to the harm his policies did and are dogmatically locked into their political ideology such that they cannot listen to reason, argument, or evidence. Similar to that woman who Barney Frank put in her place today..” trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.” The same applies to at least a third of the Republican Party’s membership. And if one doubts that listen to Fox, Limbaugh, Paul Broun, and the people who write here. With a few more brains they would be halfwits.
david hume is on crack
August 20th, 2009
7:17 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYrlDlrLDSQ
N.J.
August 20th, 2009
12:27 pm
Latest poll of disapproval of Republicans is rather high, and their approval ratings are dropping…again:
Quinnipiac University Poll. July 27-Aug. 3, 2009. N=2,409 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 2.
.
“Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Republicans in Congress are handling their job?”
7/27 – 8/3/09
Approve 29 Disapprove 59 Unsure 12
http://www.pollingreport.com/cong_rep.htm
On the issue of health care it is even worse:
“Do you generally approve or disapprove of the way that Republicans in Congress are handling the issue of health care reform?
8/15-17/09
Approve 21 Disapprove 62 Unsure 17
http://www.pollingreport.com/health.htm
N.J.
August 20th, 2009
12:30 pm
As far as Iraq goes, to suggest Obama has anything to so with that is again, a large joke. Had the United States done it his way, we never would have been there at all.
N.J.
August 20th, 2009
9:24 pm
And Obama. like every other Middle East specialist with years of experience on Iraq stated from the start that it would be impossible to create any sort of democracy in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
The idea that anything close to democracy can be superimposed on other cultures, particularly those that had no part in the European enlightenment of the late 18th century is completely daft.
AmVet
August 23rd, 2009
1:24 pm
http://www.imeem.com/artists/dire_straits/music/Umbib3Ya/dire-straits-love-over-gold-album-version/