More horror from Baghdad today, with the Hotel Mount Lebanon destroyed by a car bomb, killing at least 27. There are rumors of Western casualties, but nothing's been confirmed yet.
Particularly ominous is this initial report from CNN:
Iraqi police and coalition soldiers cordoned off the area. U.S. soldiers from the nearby "Green Zone" attempted to go into the area to rescue victims but were driven back by angry Iraqis.Later, the troops were able to help the victims. The Bush Administration said this attack would not change its policy in Iraq. "We will meet this test with strength and resolve. Democracy is taking root in Iraq and there is no turning back," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. At least he didn't point to the dead and claim victory. CNN got in some irony points for juxtaposing footage from Baghdad with Vice President DIck Cheney's speech today (no transcript yet, sorry) at the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif., slamming Democractic challenger Sen. John F. Kerry on defense. While Cheney criticized Kerry and claimed he was "ungrateful" to those who served and faced danger, Kerry, in an earlier speech outlining his defense policy at George Washington University, proposed "temporarily" adding 40,000 troops to active duty:
The war in Iraq taught us that a lightening-fast information-age military can drive to Baghdad in three weeks, but the instability that follows requires a large force -- and we cannot rely on reservists alone to make up the difference. I propose to add 40,000 troops to the regular Army, not to send to Iraq, but to ease the burden on troops who have been deployed from one global hot spot to the next with no end in sight.Kerry is wrong on not sending them to Iraq. Another 40,000 might have allowed the U.S. to establish security quickly instead of letting the insurgency attain enough momentum to kill 567 U.S. troops, 101 other troops and God knows how many Iraqi civilians. This is a criminal failure of planning which the Bush Pentagon has yet to acknowledge. The people of Iraq are still paying the price for that failure a year later.
Cheney’s March 17th speech at the Reagan Library lambasting Kerry is here…
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040317-3.html
Keep it up, and you’re gonna make the religious right pro-abortion.
I’d like to hear what kind of government you’re in favor of… because you are decidedly pro Syria. Why don’t you find some victims elsewhere, or is your work already done here on earth already? You shit.
’ “We will meet this test with strength and resolve. Democracy is taking root in Iraq and there is no turning back,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. ‘
Chris: If this is McClellan’s (and by implication, Bush’s) idea of “democracy taking root”, they should be overjoyed at the thought of outright riots in the streets here. But to the contary, even peaceful protesters have been persecuted for expressing their dissenting views in full accordance with their First Amendment rights. This kind of fantasy-land — or should I just say, “Bizarro World”? — rhetoric they spout at the white House is enough to drive a sane person mad.
Also, here’s a news link you may well appreciate. Jay Garner has finally spoken out about his abrupt termination, and it’s not pretty. Hearing of his intentions now — ideas I always thought were the woefully absent, right ones — leads me to firmly conclude that the miserable stalemate of the past year in Iraq has been totally unnecessary. (But then, it always was.)
General Sacked by Bush Says He Wanted Early Elections
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0318-01.htm
’ Jay Garner, the US general abruptly dismissed as Iraq’s first occupation administrator after a month in the job, says he fell out with the Bush circle because he wanted free elections and rejected an imposed program of privatization….’
P.S. Obviously you get your share of rabid right WingNuts too, eh? ;-)