Baghdad is in its "final throes"...

[kentuck]

[xultar]

1. Is there a story to go along with the picture or am I missing something.

I mean I know Iraq is in a civil war and all but what is the story behind the photo.

[kentuck]

3. A picture is worth a thousand words...

Isn't it?

[Quakerfriend]

2. We have no news. And, no word on how our soldiers are

dealing with this.

Prayers for the people of Iraq.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

4. And the sad fact of the matter is...

...the "architects" of this mess...Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and to a lesser degree Bush, because he's simply a fucking idiot and could never fully "plan" an atrocity like this...don't give a rat's ass about Iraq, its people, our troops, or our country.

They really, really don't.

[kentuck]

8. link to this photo:

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/

About 8-10 paragraphs down with several inner-links...

[Warren Stupidity]

11. wow that blog is one scary summary.

I think we are on the precipice here, but of what? Luckily our Great Leaders with their Stalwart Vision will guide us through this storm. We are so fucked. The planet is so fucked.

[RazzleDazzle]

24. can't be bothered to post the permalink?

takes absolutely no more time than posting the main page of firedoglake. Just right click on the timestamp, and select copy shortcut (or whatever).

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_19_firedoglake_archive.html#114088985271000719


I just dont get it and it absolutely infuriates me, esp. coming from someone who's been here as long as you have. No excuse for it.

[truth2power]

26. I understand your frustration, Razzle, but...

Ya' know...I've been here a long time, too, and I didn't know how to post a permalink on a blog. I learned something new, though. thanks. :)

[kentuck]

30. Well, excuse me....

smartass! :)

[OldLeftieLawyer]

9. They never did

Their eyes were on power and oil.

They got neither, and are directly responsible for thousands of murders. Murders of Americans and Iraqis.

Just like Henry Kissinger and Robert McNamara, LBJ and Nixon, Dean Rusk, et al. in Vietnam.

They're war criminals, and should be tried as such.

Bastards.

[central scrutinizer]

17. NO!

Do not discount Bush as an idiot. He is a shrewd conman and everything he does is an act. He may be incurious and easily bored, but he is not an idiot. Do not misunderestimate this slimy son of a bitch. He is completely responsible for the debacle in Iraq. It was a political calculation that would make Machiavelli proud. Remember this interview where he let the veil slip a little and said:

"As a matter of fact, in interviews in 1999 with respected journalist and long-time Bush family friend, Mickey Herskowitz, then Governor George Bush stated, 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as commander in chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.'

"It looks like George Bush was ready to lead this country into an avoidable war even before he became President.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0829-22.htm

[WinkyDink]

18. Correctamundo. If all Iraqis died, e.g., Iraq would be easier to loot.

[Maat]

5. Yes, I'd like to know also.

On edit:

Just went and talked to my hubby. I just got back from taking the California Bar Examination (3 all-day long testing days).

I guess quite a bit happened while I was gone!

Sheesh! I'm having to catch up.

(By the way, things went well at the Exam; too bad I'm now depressed after seeing this.)

[WinkyDink]

19. Kudos about your exam!

Fight for the good guys, whoever they are!

[Maat]

23. Exactly!

I won't hear for three months about the results, but I felt good about it!

[welshTerrier2]

6. the bright blaze of Lady Liberty's torch ...

can we go home now?

[NanceGreggs]

7. So it's all going good, then?

I guess we can all be grateful that (a) this war paid for itself and cost the American taxpayers nothing, (b) it didn't last very long - six to eight weeks, tops, (c) we were greeted as 'liberators', (d) this would spread democracy throughout the Middle East, and (e) the insurgiency was in its 'last throes' months ago!

Thank God this administration was RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!!!!!!

[barb162]

10. and we found all the WMD

[Hardrada]

15. And the 'bitter enders" have realized the Divine and Benevolent

Intentions of W and are surrendering in droves.

[barb162]

25. and the dead enders

(the whole thing is going in accord with my worst nightmares before we went in)

[Hardrada]

29. I told them all they would be very sorry to the umpteenth power

if they invaded. I marched in numerous protest parades but GW invaded anyway. O facilis descensus Averno (easy is the descent to Hell).

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. Just waiting for the choppers on the embassy roof.

Then the revisionists can moan about the "anti-war leftist traitors" who made them fight "with one hand tied behind their back" and the other usual BS.

[bobbieinok]

22. remember how the right in Germany blamed their loss of WWI on

a 'stab in the back' by socialists and Jews????

one source for info on this legend

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~shaked/Holocaust/lectures/lec5.html

....

*Legend of the stab in the back

German unaccustomed to defeat, & the “stab-in-the-back’ myth arose.

After the German defeat in the first world war, the German generals, in order to save face and deflect criticism of their handling of the war, began spreading the myth that Germany had lost because they had been "stabbed in the back" (dolchstosslegende).

Who had stabbed them in the back? Jewish business and political leaders!

*General Paul von Ludendorff explained that Germany had not lost the war, but the German army was defeated in 1918 by internal enemy - had been stabbed it in the back by politicians -Democrats, Catholic Center party, Socialists, Jews & radicals at home. Germany's military defeat in 1918 was blamed on the Jews and the Socialists. German nationalists saw ‘Jewification’ of the new democratic republic.

*The stab-in-the-back legend was later used by Hitler to undermine the government.

....

[barb162]

27. That scene has been coming into my mind more and more

as I watch the two sides in Iraq starting to kill each other.

[kentuck]

13. here is an interesting paragraph from Jane Hamsher...

from the link:

<snip>

Until someone can point out the inherent logic to me of the John Dickerson's of the world who have concluded that we early opponents of the war were wrong to be right even as the warmongers were right in their wrongness, I think it's valid to keep harping on the scorecard. If not only to knock the struts out from underneath the GOP's plan to run on "national security" in 2006, then surely to figure out who should be listened to from here on in based on who has had a clear-eyed vision of this mess from the start, as distinct from those who most certainly have not.

posted by Jane Hamsher

[kentuck]

14. and another interesting snip from the link...

<snip>

The neocon monsters had an awful lot of help bringing the world to this awful place. They could not have done it without the help of compliant -- and one can only assume willfully ignorant -- journalists. May it be tied to their tails like a tin can for all eternity.

posted by Jane Hamsher

[msongs]

16. plus the democrats who voted for it :-) nt

[Ksec]

20. mission accomplished. nt

[kentuck]

21. Very succinct comment....

there....Ksec.

[Disturbed]

28. The Amerikan Neo Fascist Regime will never leave Iraq.

"The terrorists want to control the oil. Our way of life will be at risk". George W. Bush (Nov. 2005)

[Zhade]

31. Oh, I disagree.

We couldn't stay in Viet Nam, we won't be allowed to stay there.

We'll be driven out, one way or the other.