I'm not terribly crazy about Hitch, either.

They both still think that playing war games with the lives of the Iraqi people is a good idea.

Wish I could dump the both of them in downtown Baghdad and give them a taste of the "freedom" they're so willing to spread.


Actually, he's been to Iraq and specifically Baghdad(both before and after the war). In fact, it was visiting the Kurds after the first Gulf war that changed his mind to support the war from then on. It's the fact that he interviewed a terrorist in Baghdad from a government office while Saddam was still in power that leaves him insistent that Saddam supported terrorism. Hitchens has spent more time in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iran and North Korea too boot, than most journalists any major news organization puts up, and it's a shame so many dismiss him simply because they disagree with his conclusions.

That woman drives me nuts.

I'm not terribly crazy about Hitch, either.

They both still think that playing war games with the lives of the Iraqi people is a good idea.

Wish I could dump the both of them in downtown Baghdad and give them a taste of the "freedom" they're so willing to spread.

Maddow is twice the interviewer and five times the human being that Ingraham could ever hope to be.

* long when you get a chance (over 10 min.)

I agree with him that the surge was overrated, but I think there were other factors in addition to the ethnic cleansing that contributed to the declining violence (walling off sections of Baghdad and establishing hard checkpoints, clever use of Predator surveillance, etc.)

Still, the strategy of the surge itself is sound for securing a relatively small area like a city but it's absolutely ludicrous to try to attempt it on a country-wide scale as McCain seems to be suggesting. The number of troops required to do that would probably exceed the population of the U.S.

The reporter is absolutely right about Pakistan, and I like his analogy. We could turn Afghanistan into paradise, but the foothills of the Afghan/Pakistan border are turning out to be the new terrorist training center and there doesn't seem to be anything the current Pakistan government can do to stop it.

^ Totally agree.

As if anybody in Basra or Baghdad were responsible for America's ills.

But "Typewriters, baby! Typewriters!" He got that one right.

Friedman's a weird bird.

He goes from an incredibly thoughtful person when talking about climate change or economics, but then he also can be one of the biggest assholes on the planet, as in the runup to the invasion of Iraq.

The blogosphere has been measuring 6-month periods of the US occupying Iraq as a "Friedman unit", due to him telling us every six months or so, that we're going to only need another six months in Iraq to "turn it around" etc.

And his worst quote must be the infamous "suck on this".

In an interview with Charlie Rose in 2003, Friedman said:

"What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?" You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna to let it grow? Well, Suck. On. This."

>> ^Farhad2000:
Camp Virginia is to the North of Kuwait City in an area called Jahra, I guess it was the staging ground and crossing point for the maneuver warfare plan of General Mattis and coalition forces because it's the closest point to entry into Basra, Nassariya and the oil wells.
Camp Arifijan is to the South of Kuwait City, near the Ali Al Salem airbase and serves as a logistics base, motor pool, helicopter support base and repair base for any elements in the Southwest Asian Theater.
Camp Victory is located near the Baghdad International Airport, this is where most of USO come through, also features a Subway and Pizza Hut.
I wonder where they do deployments now. Makes sense to just shuttle people into Baghdad but I don't think that is possible logistically.



Hmm.. maybe it wasn't camp Victory. I was in Kuwait both before and after.

[edit] I'm pretty sure it was. I see Victory closed in 2006. I was there in 2005.

Camp Virginia is to the North of Kuwait City in an area called Jahra, I guess it was the staging ground and crossing point for the maneuver warfare plan of General Mattis and coalition forces because it's the closest point to entry into Basra, Nassariya and the oil wells.

Camp Arifijan is to the South of Kuwait City, near the Ali Al Salem airbase and serves as a logistics base, motor pool, helicopter support base and repair base for any elements in the Southwest Asian Theater.

Camp Victory is located near the Baghdad International Airport, this is where most of USO come through, also features a Subway and Pizza Hut.

I wonder where they do deployments now. Makes sense to just shuttle people into Baghdad but I don't think that is possible logistically.

Also, I wonder if Al-Maliki is still walking through Baghdad, handing thousands of dollars to people.

@CaptCraig:

Body count
Problem is that nobody seems to be either bothered or capable of keeping track, but it is somewhere between 3,000 Iraqi civilians every month (that’s civilians only) according to the Iraq Study Group Report in Dec 06, or 655,000 according to The Lancet in Jul 06 (and a lot of less reliable sources giving numbers between 80,000 and 1,2m)
Electricity
“The Iraqi government is not effectively providing its people with basic services: electricity, drinking water, sewage, health care, and education. In many sectors, production is below or hovers around prewar levels. In Baghdad and other unstable areas, the situation is much worse.” (source: Iraq Study Group Report)
Refugees
Approximately two million Iraqis according to the CIA World Fact Book.

But then, who cares as long as some Iraqi's can afford parrots...?

Dear rougy,
According to my IQ results I can unequivocally state that I am not a bonehead and I do know that my mother is a Homo Sapien and not of the canine species thereby rendering your first sentence less than credible.
By whose standard is Iraq worse now than it ever was? Lets see some qualified analysis to back up that statement.
Wow! Over a million dead since we went in and 3 million are refugees. lets see some credible source for those ridiculous numbers.
Electricity in Baghdad is rationed but they are getting more than what you state but the problem is 1950's infrastructure that cannot be upgraded overnight plus the problem of a now free and open market that the Iraqis are taking advantage of and adding a tremendous load to the antiquated grid. When pet shops are selling $2500.00 parrots the folks are doing far better than you think http://www.fortmilltimes.com/106/story/275868.html
last but not least, using a tired and hackneyed profanity only shows insecurity, inability to communicate honestly and a pathetic sense of self importance.

Iraq is worse now than it's ever been you boneheaded son of a bitch.

I can't believe that so many Americans are stupid enough to swallow this shit.

Over 1,000,000 Iraqi's are dead since our invasion.

About 3,000,000 are living as refugees.

To this day Baghdad still only gets about 2 to 3 hours of electricity per day.

Get fucking real.

Its the Berlin (read: Baghdad) wall all over again.

With regard to "the surge," don't you think the fact that they've got the entire city of Baghdad literally split into pieces with 12 foot high partitions between Sunni and Shiite? Is it possible that these partitions are the real reason for this "success" and not the surge of troops?

So this is what McCain meant when he said that Baghdad was as safe as some cities in the US.

Ill make a quote of some one, named Paul J Bremer, quote is taken from Jeremy Scahill's book (democracy now) Blackwater:

"'There is no doubt in my mind that i cannot succeed in this mission without the help of god,'" Bremer said a month after arriving in Baghdad. "The job is simple to big and complex for any one person or any group of people to carry out successfully...we need god's help and seek it constantly" - Scahill's book references it from Mark Zimmermann "Iraq Envoy Says Faith Gives Him Strength" Catholic Standard, june 19 2003.

See what faith in god hath wrought? Iraq?
Death of soldiers and civilians. Some righteous bullshit for your faith.