Iraq Going Well (Bush Right Again!!!)

“I think a lot of the time in rock music people confuse a band’s effect on mainstream music with talent. This is why I laugh at people who say Nirvana was a musically talented group. Ha! Yet they changed the face of music in a very short period of time. Same with Metalica but they did have more talent than Nirvana. There are a lot better bands thaqn Metalica that simply never got recognized or made it big.”

“The elephant repellant is working pretty well too.”

“The elephant r
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last edited: 5/16/06 3:25:02 PM”

“Talent doesn't matter when you don't put it to good use. Death Metal? Come on Nigal!!! ;)”

“I'd pic ,'death metal' before 'weather report' anytime.”

“Nigal...Bob Dylan would reply "Rumblekinn, murpho . comoithonsnoggger...fompromeerk."

VERBATIM”

“That’s what makes Opeth so great. They aren’t just death metal. They mix it with other styles to come up with something unique. Ya can’t just judge it on the gravely vocals that are used half the time. It’s the music, the structure and precision of execution too.

Probably the most musically talented groups even was Dream Theater. Every group has that “anchor” guy like Eddie VanHalen, Jimmie Hendrix, Neal Pert, ect. Dream Theater is like that only all five guys are masters at their chosen instrument. Metalica isn't even worthy enough to chew their jock straps. But even they have fallen off in the last few years and albums.”

““Nigal...Bob Dylan would reply "Rumblekinn, murpho . comoithonsnoggger...fompromeerk."

VERBATIM”

Haha! But then again, I don't think Frank Zappa was all that either.”

“Frank invented fusion jazz.”

“Sorry but I spent some DA^n good money to see him and could not understand a WORD he sang.”

“Sorry but I spent some DA^n good money to see him and could not understand a WORD he sang.”

“If talking about Frank, he had no incentive until latter with the jazz .Don't ever think he couldn't when he wanted. His work with fusion bands was what I try to remember him by.In the eastern block there are parks still maintained in his honor.You're not the first to feel ripped. Dylan is a wino,plain and simply.”

“Zappa was that...but what THAT was is open to interpretation (LOL).

I hate to ask this...but does it seem to anyone else that the Two major parties are seeming more and more like Zappa and Dylan?”

“Yeah, but anyone who can pen "the pump don't work 'cause the vandals stole the handle" has to be a genius.”

“Xl, I'll give you answer after I swim out and get the parking ticket off my mast.”

“Bob took short naps on each step to the top. When he rolled back down he made a dent in the bottom landing, but never spilled a drop.”

“Publication:The New York Sun; Date:May 16, 2006; Section:New York; Page:3


Spinning The Reality Of Iraq War

Alicia Colon



It’s that time of year when New Yorkers start making their summer vacation plans. Renting a place in the Hamptons? Nah, been there, done that. How about a Parisian jaunt? Noooo. Too many riots. Well, how about visiting a country that’s ancient, historic, beautiful and exotic — Iraq? Sure, there’s a little war going on there, but when you look at the violent death statistics in the world, it’s safer than a number of other popular travel destinations. Believe it or not.

I happened to catch Rep. Steve King, a Republican of Iowa, on C-span last week and he rattled off some startling figures that demonstrate how off-base journalists are when it comes to reporting on the war in Iraq. According to Mr. King, the violent death rate in Iraq is 25.71 per 100,000. That may sound high, but not when you compare it to places like Colombia (61.7), South Africa (49.6), Jamaica (32.4), and Venezuela (31.6). How about the violent death rates in American cities? New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina was 53.1. FBI statistics for 2004-05 have Washington at 45.9, Baltimore at 37.7, and Atlanta at 34.9.

The point Mr.King was making is that if journalists covered only the violence in these other cities and countries, as they do in Iraq, our perceptions of these places would also be highly negative.

Of course, I’m not serious about Iraq being a prime vacation spot, at least not yet. However, while this country of very brave people has made enormous strides in a relatively short time, it is hardly being reported to the American people. Why?

On a daily basis, mainstream journalists are spewing out anything they can that is negative about the Bush administration, regardless of whether the information threatens our national security. Leaking highly classified information to the public during a war should be grounds for criminal investigations. Instead,it’s been deemed worthy of reward.

Dana Priest of the Washington Post received a Pulitzer for reporting that the CIA was holding terrorist suspects in secret European prisons. The New YorkTimes exposed intimate details of the CIA charter flights ferrying prisoners overseas. The names of the charter companies were disclosed and the Times even ran a picture displaying the identification number of one of the aircraft. Al Qaeda must be so grateful to these newspapers for doing all their legwork.

Now the big brouhaha is about the phone-number database that the government maintains, and we’re supposed to get upset that our civil rights are being invaded. I don’t care if the FBI has my phone number — Radio Shack, Macy’s, and the New YorkTimes have it as well. Besides, the phone companies that are cooperating with the government are furnishing only numbers, not names and addresses. NSA is looking for patterns to detect terrorist activity, not to record your conversations with your mother.

Before the phone database furor, there was the “wiretap” uproar. Let’s be clear: Wiretapping is what Democrat Robert Kennedy did to Martin Luther King Jr. There is a huge difference between that activity and eavesdropping on communications between America and other countries to thwart potential terrorist attacks.

The thinking public knows this, and recognizes that national security trumps our right to privacy, which has always been ignored by the IRS anyhow. Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell said it best in a January column at Townhall.com headlined “Fourth estate or Fifth Column?” He writes: “With all the turmoil and bloodshed in Iraq, both military and civilian people returning from that country are increasingly expressing amazement at the difference between what they have seen with their own eyes and the far worse, one-sided picture that the media presents to the public here.”

It’s not just the war that gets spun out of reality. Another Pulitzer went to the Times-Picayune of New Orleans, which tied with a paper in Biloxi, Miss., for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina. That much of the coverage was a pack of lies meant absolutely nothing to the Pulitzer panel. Nevertheless, the distorted coverage did its job. The nation was outraged at the horrific images conjured up by the newspapers. Forty bodies were stacked in freezers, reporter Brian Thevenot wrote — or were they? Mr.Thevenot later admitted that he never verified that information before rushing it into print. His reporting, too, won a Pulitzer.

Maybe we should start awarding a new journalism award for uncovering the absolute truth, regardless of who’s in office. Wouldn’t that be unique?

The reality is that the Iraqi people and the coalition forces are winning the battle to rid the country of the murderous Islamofascists. In a few years, tourists will be flocking to Iraq, site of the most famous ancient city, Babylon, and other cultural treasures. That’s the truth — believe it or not.

acolon@nysun.com”

“Deadly bombs hit Iraqi markets
Motorcycle bomb kills at least 18 in Baquba; six more die in Hilla

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Bombs exploded in two crowded markets Monday, leaving at least 18 dead in one Iraqi city and six in another, police and Iraqi officials said.

A motorcycle packed with explosives detonated in the middle of a crowded market in Baquba, killing at least 18 people and wounding 20 others Monday evening, Iraqi police said.

The blast happened in a square surrounded by coffee shops and stores at 9:30 p.m. Monday, a time when many Iraqis were gathered there, police said.

The square is considered a Shiite holy place, and many of the victims were believed to be Shiite women and children. Baquba is about 65 miles north of Baghdad.

A short time earlier, a bomb exploded in a Hilla market, killing at least six people and wounding at least 56 others, police said.

Hilla is a mostly Shiite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad.

The attacks were the latest in a spate of bombing and shootings Monday that killed 14 others and wounded 16, Iraqi police said.

Also, a U.S. Marine died Monday after being wounded during "enemy action" in Iraq's Anbar province, the U.S. military said. This brings to 2,513 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died in the Iraq war, according to U.S. military reports. Seven American civilian contractors of the military also have died in the conflict.

In western Baghdad on Monday, police said a suicide bomber detonated a belt of explosives at a military checkpoint, killing two Iraqi police commandos. Two other commandos and two civilians were hurt in the blast, police said.

Gunmen targeted a convoy rolling through the Yarmouk section of southern Baghdad, police said, killing a bodyguard for one of Iraq's leading Sunni politicians, Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of the General Council for the People of Iraq.

Al-Dulaimi wasn't in the convoy, police said.

Also in Yarmouk, gunmen fired on an army checkpoint, killing two Iraqi soldiers and wounding another, police said.

In a dramatic kidnapping, armed men stormed a building in central Baghdad's Karada section and abducted 10 Iraqis, mostly students, police said.

To the north, in the Baghdad neighborhood of Amiriya, five Iraqi soldiers died in a car bomb explosion, according to police.

In the southern part of the capital, a roadside bomb blast killed a civilian and hurt five others in the New Baghdad neighborhood, police said.

In other violence in Baquba, two civilians died and one was wounded in the two separate gun assaults at a market, according to an official with the Diyala Joint Coordination Center:

Iraqi police rushing to the shooting scene at the market were hit by a roadside bomb, the official said. Three police officers and two civilians were wounded by the bomb, the official said.

Another bomb exploded outside a children's toy shop east of Baquba, the official said, wounding no one.

Other developments

A group linked to al Qaeda said it has killed four Russian diplomats it had held hostage, according to a statement and video on a Web site Sunday. The group -- the Mujahedeen Shura Council -- said it had beheaded three of the men and shot one to death. Russian officials were trying to verify the development.”

“So there's still time for us to lose this thing then? Sa-weet!”

“Why do you hate America, Nige?”

“keeetn - I am guessing...sarcasm.
Buddah...I know you and your Buds are just drooling at the dream of that happening in say...downtown New York, or better yet Chicago. Then you could demand more controls on rights, like your buddy Franklin Roosevelt did in World War II.

I prefer the Isreali method...force met with force.”

“"I prefer the Isreali method...force met with force.”

Ha! Now that is some sarcasm there. If we were to take the Israeli tact we'd be giving Al Quada the state of Virginia. I'm 100% against land for peace but I'm even more opposed to land for more violence.”

“My friends and I drool at the dream of you bucking up soldier, and signing up to go fight for your country, you cowardly non-patriot, and letting some poor kid who's in the military to make some money, defend his country, and start a career path come home.

Ahhhhh, but alas, you don't give a rats arse about our troops, so go listen to Rush, and keep blabbering away here on TT. I hope you are proud of yourself.”

“So I'm still not on ignore yet? If ya need help figuring out how to work a web board let me know. LOL!

So sitting in your nice safe home in Ohio while telling the troops they aren't making a difference makes you a true patriot then?
last edited: 6/28/06 6:36:53 AM”

“'Fahrenheit 9/11' Marine killed in Iraq

DETROIT (AP) -- A U.S. Marine and one-time recruiter who appeared in Michael Moore's acclaimed documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" has died in a roadside bombing in Iraq.

Although Staff Sgt. Raymond J. Plouhar willingly appeared in a segment of the 2004 film, his father, Raymond, said Tuesday that his son did not realize that it was for a movie critical of the war.

The 57-year-old Plouhar said his son took four years off from active duty to serve as a recruiter in Michigan after donating one of his kidneys to his uncle.

During that time, the Marine was filmed as part of "Fahrenheit 9/11," about the Bush administration's actions after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Raymond Plouhar said that all his 30-year-old son ever wanted to do was serve his country.

The younger Plouhar died Monday of wounds suffered while conducting combat operations in Anbar province of Iraq, the Defense Department announced Tuesday.

He signed up for the Marines immediately after graduating from high school, his father said in a telephone interview.

"I'm devastated, sad and proud," Plouhar said. "This just makes me devoted even more to his belief that people need help in Iraq, and he felt that he was helping."

--CNN”

“BAGHDAD, July 9 — A mob of gunmen went on a brazen daytime rampage through a predominantly Sunni Arab district of western Baghdad on Sunday, pulling people from their cars and homes and killing them in what officials and residents called a spasm of revenge by Shiite militias for the bombing of a Shiite mosque on Saturday. Hours later, two car bombs exploded beside a Shiite mosque in another Baghdad neighborhood in a deadly act of what appeared to be retaliation.

While Baghdad has been ravaged by Sunni-Shiite bloodletting in recent months, even by recent standards the violence here on Sunday was frightening, delivered with impunity by gun-wielding vigilantes on the street. In the culture of revenge that has seized Iraq, residents all over the city braced for an escalation in the cycle of retributive mayhem between the Shiites and Sunnis that has threatened to expand into civil war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/10/world/middleeast/10iraq.html?ei=5094&en=c0d890b26275a078&hp=&ex=1152590400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print”

“gun-wielding vigilantes

Yeah... right.
last edited: 7/10/06 10:36:36 AM”

“Violin...don't know if you noticed but that could also refernce a DRUG REVENGE killing here in the Good Ole USA”

“I say let 'em fight it out!”

“Well you know...if we would sit back and supply arms to the two factions....it would be fun.”

“Yup, sounds like a typical US neighborhood. Freedom is on the march! *eyeroll*



BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Gunmen roaming a Baghdad neighborhood on Sunday killed at least 42 unarmed Iraqis as soon as they identified them as Sunnis, emergency police said.

Ala'a Makki, a spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party -- Iraq's main Sunni political movement -- said the victims included women and children.

He called the killings in Hay al Jihad "one of the biggest massacres of Sunnis."

Later Sunday, two car bombs detonated simultaneously at a market in Baghdad's Karsa neighborhood, killing at least 19 and wounding 59, police said.

The market is close to the Tammimi Hussainiye, a Shiite prayer site.

In the Hay al Jihad rampage, gunmen -- mostly "young reckless teenagers" -- started to pick up Sunni youth and execute them in public, while others went door-to-door looking for Sunni families who stayed behind, Makki said.

After warning one Iraqi woman she had 10 seconds to leave, the gunmen killed her and her children, Makki said.

A member of the Iraqi Islamic Party was dragged out of his house at 7 a.m. and executed, he said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/09/iraq.main/index.html”

“But it's good to see someone come out in favor of slaughtering women and children.

What 'fun'
last edited: 7/10/06 12:29:48 PM”

“Want a quick rundown of say Downtown LA on a quiet weekend?

Heck Ireland went through this for years. But the Brits stuck it out. Note howerver they have stopped hitting American and Iraqi units except as a collateral event?

I compare this to Hitler switching from Military to Civilian targets in the Battle Of Britain. This could be the last straw.”

“But it's good to see someone come out in favor of slaughtering women and children.

Like your outspoken support of the Palis?”

“Or to Quote Teddy Kennedy on the sinking ship "F*^K the women and children."

To which Bill Clinton replied,"Do you think there's time?"”

““"And Mutt... you are so predictable and such a bad troll, that I barely even notice that you exist."
- matt, the webmaster
1:05:46 PM
6/19/06”

“Ha, struck a nerve! Cranky being back at work after vacation? I know I would be.”

“Yeah you guys! Shut the hell up! I'm with Violin. There's still a change we can lose this thing and as long as there's that chance I'm holding out and hoping for it. Well, unless it goes passed the 08 election and a democrat gets into the Whitehouse. In that case me and v will be the most patriotic sonsabltches you ever saw and it will be wall to wall "Go USA!!!".”

“LOL@Mutt”

“LOL@NIGAL!!!!

Are you saying this is not the Libs being unpatriotic? YOu mean that this WHOLE thing is still their tizzy over Florida in 2000? NAH>....Nigal do you mean if Say Hyram YUTSBAZH (D) was President and was sending troops into combat the media MIGHT be positive?

But that would mean that libs are disingenuous, that they would willingly sacrifice our heroes in the interest of political gains...kinda like the Nazis or Soviets? OH MY that COULDN'T BE.

I prefer to see them as lost...but to even suggest that the ANTI war types could be "fake" well thats like a President who can turn on and off emotions...like if he was going into the funeral of a "close friend" and giggling and laughing until he saw say...at TV camera then he started crying....”

“libs are disingenuous?????


Knock me over with a feather!
LOL”

“No KL. All I'm saying is that me, V and anyone else with a vagina will NOT be defeated in our pursuite of defeat. Well, ok, we might settle for a draw that leads us to pull out...but we'll still say we lost!”

“Want a quick rundown of say Downtown LA on a quiet weekend?

yes”

“Even by the degraded standards of everyday life in Baghdad, this report from CNN's Nic Robertson comes as a shock:

One international official told me of reports among his staff that a 15-year-old girl had been beheaded and a dog's head sewn on her body in its place; and of a young child who had had his hands drilled and bolted together before being killed.

From its gruesome particulars, the report goes on to describe the fear that has gripped even the most hardened Iraqis during this latest round of sectarian bloodletting. Robertson's dispatch points to a revolting truth about the war in Iraq--one that American officers discovered long ago, but which has yet to penetrate fully the imaginations of theoreticians writing from a distant remove. The fact is, there is very little that we can do to dampen the sectarian rage and pathologies tearing Iraq apart at the seams. Did the Army make a mistake when it banished "counterinsurgency" from the lexicon of military affairs? Absolutely. Does it matter in Iraq? Probably not. How can you win over the heart and mind of someone who sews a dog's head on a girl? Would more U.S. troops alter Iraq's homicidal dynamic? Not really, given that, on the question of sectarian rage, America is now largely beside the point. True, U.S. troops can be--and have been--a vital buffer between Iraq's warring sects. But they cannot reprogram their coarsened and brittle cultures. Even if America had arrived in Iraq with a detailed post-war plan, twice the number of troops, and all the counterinsurgency expertise in the world, my guess is that we would have found ourselves in exactly the same spot. The Iraqis, after all, still would have had the final say.

--Lawrence Kaplan http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=24150”

“A dog head on violink would be an improvement.”

“I like Violin better when he sticks to shopped pictures of fish.”

“I want to know how the US being in Iraq and Afghanistan is responsible for the TERRORIST BOMBING....sorry Islamic Terrorist (almost need one with the other) Bombing in India.

130+ dead...wow but I am sure that the Lib media will not yet recognize this is a WORLD WAR that needs to be finished. It needs to have (like the approach to Nazi and Japanese Fascisim in the 1930's) a world wide response.”

“Cut-n-run violin.”

“You policy experts have to know who Lawrence Kaplan is, don't you?

You're just playing dumb aren't you?

I mean… when one of the leading neocon voices who argued strenuously (and effectively) for invasion comes out and says things are hopelessly #&%!$ed up and the whole project was probably doomed from the beginning, one has to think a little... doesn't one?
last edited: 7/11/06 1:23:25 PM”

“You've got to be kiddin', Violin!”