Two American Soldiers were brutally tortured, and murdered. Where’s the Outrage? Here, and here, for starters. ( Bless you BOTH!! ) Oh, and here, too! ;-D ( Morning- 6/22- PLEASE see the end of this essay for an IMPORTANT update…

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone say that *anything* that comes from the military’s PR department has to be assumed to be a *lie* and that milbloggers *lie* and that the president *lies*… so how, exactly, are any of these supposed to publicize the good news?

Well they *do* but if you aren’t listening or don’t believe they tell the truth just because of your prejudices, it’s not reasonable to say that the fact that you refused to listen to the good news (whoever you are) is proof that there isn’t any.

Not all milbloggers are singing the praises of the Iraqis and the Iraqi bloggers aren’t all singing the praises of the Americans, the picture painted isn’t all roses. It’s messy and real. Sort of like life but moreso. The military regularly releases reports about what their civil affairs people are up to. They point out the encouraging stuff but they don’t make it up. If you (whoever you are) refuse to be encouraged, that’s a choice you made of your own free will.

The best bits, IMO, are the little pictures of Iraqi (or Afghan) life. The description of a single Iraqi military leader, be he impressive or a hopeless crook doesn’t prove that Iraq will prevail but it does remind you (whoever you are) that we’re dealing with real, honest to goodness, sinful messed up people, just like other people, and it’s wrong to expect them to be perfect or assume that they can’t prevail because they aren’t perfect.

We’ve already lost?

In what reality? The make believe one without real people in it?

Start looking at some of that information you’ve (whoever the heck you are) discounted because it came from the wrong sources… namely military sources, official and unofficial. Start thinking, realistically, about the chaos involved in reordering a society and how long that’s likely to take, and think about what needs to be done now to succeed. A free an prosperous Iraq is an incredibly valuable thing, for us, and for them.

I honestly don’t care what Bush said that isn’t true because what matters is the future of a country smack dab in the center of the middle east and I see people who would gladly watch it rot in hell with all its citizens if they can only score points here at home… or on a blog.

We were watching Wag the Dog –a brilliant film that perfectly captured the cynical, manipulative and devious ways of a President gone “fishing”– when SlickWilly’s Show started. We got back to the film later that night… a few days later –wow. Life imitating Art.

Oh yeah, SlickWilly and HyperGore were incredible leaders when they had the opportunity… DADT, DOMA, OBL sets up Taliban, border security eviscerated, military preparedness imperiled, etc etc.

That was because it was already known that the only thing those strikes were hitting were camps that had been evacuated weeks earlier.

What we couldn’t figure out was why Clinton waited, especially when a) we knew where the camps were, b) we knew when and how many people were moving out of them, and c) we had a pretty darned good case that bin Laden was involved within hours of the bombing.

Now, you can try to explain why, given that we knew all that, that we didn’t hit bin Laden’s camps BEFORE he was able to evacuate and empty them — like when the explosions might have actually done something.

Meanwhile, we notice the fact that missiles came raining down on those empty camps right after Clinton had to admit on TV that he lied to the American public and that he was having sex during work hours in the Oval Office with an intern.

When BC launched strikes at OBL, the right screamed and frothed at the lips that he was trying to distract them from Monicagate and was trying to wag the dog.
I love the way you guys are saying he didn’t do enough.

I am still waiting for the headline that liberals are undermining the war from here. The war was prosecuted very poorly. The commanders and the Pentagon should be held responisble for the war going badly. I am against pre-emptive war and I still want us to win, I’m just wondering why our leaders don’t want to…. They have the tools, the might and supposedly the military training to plan a successfull operation why didn’t they?

It has always been the case. The insurgents are not ‘freedom fighters’ but they are also not the work of al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has always been a minor play in the insurgency which has been mostly native Iraqis who (1) pro-Baathist or (2) Shiite or Sunni Islamic fundamentalists that want a theocracy. This does not include the Badr militia that few people want to talk about.

The fact that some one is a thug or a dictator is not really a valid reason to invade, if it were then we would have invaded Saudi Arabia a long time ago. Also, Saudi Arabia ‘crackdown’ is largely window dressing.

Keep spinning the lies. It is funny to read comments from my fellow Americans talk about the Middle East as if they really had a clue how things work.

I want to know where the so-called human rights groups on the murders of these soldiers?

Why don’t you email them and ask them?

It is my understanding that the “so-called human rights groups” primarily direct their attention to violations of what they consider to be human rights conducted by governments, not by perpetrators who are not related to the governments.

Unless, of course, the governments give their tacit imprimatur and encouragement to the perpetrators by not bothering to try to track them down and prosecute them. As with death squads in, for example, Guatemala.

Where are those who demand adherence to the Geneva Convention?

Sorry to have to disabuse you of your implicit notion, but the fact is that the Geneva Convention only adheres to the contracting states. The text of the Convention is here. As has been made clear many times before by the Bush II administration, persons such as the likely abductors, would be most likely considered “enemy combatants” (as with those who the American government verschleppt from Afghanistan to Guantanimo) and would not be entitled to Prisoner of War protections in the Convention. Even in the unlikely event that the abductors would adhere to the Geneva Convention, it would be a bit much to expect that they would after the Bush II administration made it clear that it would not apply the Convention to them.

In other words, tit-for-tat.

While the libs are pissing themselves over the treatment of Club Gitmo patrons, why don’t they give a fuck about how al-Qaeda treats their prisoners?

How are we supposed to believe that liberals give a single solitary DAMN about Iraqi civilians, be it 8,000 or 100,000? They never cared before the war and they obviously don’t care now since they demand our surrender and an Iraqi bloodbath.

The simple fact is that the American left could give a fuck about Americans or Iraqis. They care about themselves and, for some reason, their plantation owners of the DNC. These sick bastards will use the deaths of either for their own advantage, but the reality is that they just don’t give a damn. Just look at their words and deeds.

It’s sick, sad, classless, tasteless, pathetic, disturbing not to mention uncompassionate.

As horrible as these murders are, it is important to note that it is one of the few times Al Quaeda has succeeded in directly attacking coalition soldiers in Iraq.

While IED’s attacks are providing a large number of the casualties, very many are also due to “direct” attacks in the form of small arms fire, mortar rounds, etc. There have been a number of significant incidents, including the unfortunate annihilation of some Marine sniper squads in this manner. Also IED attacks are usually followed up with small arms and rocket propelled grenade attacks. Casualties and deaths from secondary fire in these attacks tend to get lumped in with those from the actual blast.

What this is however, is a rare example of the capture of American troops, although there have been a lot of civilian kidnappings.

I will also point out that so far it appears that Al Quaeda has apparently failed in this incident to do one of their televised orgies in media depravity. It is a small thing, but it is something to be grateful for and I pray this continues to be the case.

Wow, Ann Coulter guest blogging at Agitprop! Thanks for stopping by Ann. Always a pleasure, thanks for having me blogenfreude, you godless liberal scumbag. [adjusts flamethrower]: Privates First Class Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker were members of…

And let’s not forget the Kurds. They now probably can’t survive without US protection.

That may be true, but, if it is, it is primarily because Turkey and Iran believe that the Kurds in Iraq will try to join with the Kurds in southeastern Turkey and western Iraq to form a new Kurdistan. Thereby inviting retaliation from Turkey and Iran, and thereby destabilizing the entire region. Which was one reason for my objection to Bush’s war on Iraq.

Question for the Bush malAdministration apologists here: if the Kurds from Iraq start attacking Turkey–an American Nato ally–will the American military come to the defense of Turkey? I have no reason to believe that it will.

Someone asked “And where did you learn of the numerous successes in Iraq?”

Answer: From milblogs.

Oh, that’s nice–milblogs. So, tell me once again. Why doesn’t the US military take the US news media out to show them their successes? It seems to me that, if things were going as swimmingly in Iraq as you seem to believe, the US military would be all excited about showing it to the US media. The fact that they apparently don’t do that suggests to me that things aren’t going as swimmingly as your milblogs might want you to believe.

Heck, even during Vietnam, the US military tried to seduce the US media into reporting that things were going swimmingly. Now, the US gov’t appears to be trying to browbeat the US media into reporting that things are going swimmingly, even though they have provided no evidence that they are. Of course, the US media being the sheep that they are, will go along with the Bush malAdministration’s line.

raj baby writes: “They studiously ignore the fact that, if their Bush malAdministration hadn’t invaded Iraq in the first place, the murdered soldiers would not have been in Iraq to be murdered.”

This is a joke, right?

Actually, it should be self-evident. Even to a 2-L. Even to a 2-L who gained admittance under AA (affirmative action).

On the other hand, it might not be self-evident to a legacy. You weren’t a “legacy” admission, were you?

The actual Lancet study said “between 8,000 and 200,000″ — a range so wide it’s meaningless — and the MSM settled on 100,000 as a nice round number that was in between.

Actually, it was the Lancet study that settled on the 100,000 number, not the “MSM.” If you understand statistics, you might want to root around Tim Lambert’s site (he actually understands statitstics) which has postings on the Lancet study that are available through http://timlambert.org/category/lancetiraq/ and http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/lancetiraq/

In any event, the Lancet study estimates the number of excess Iraqi deaths following the American invasion over the number prior to the American invasion. Of course, the latter would include the number of Iraqi deaths during Saddam’s regime, including those that may be attributed to US sanctions. So regardless of whether the excess is 8000, 100,000 or a million, that would still mean the number above those under Saddam. Which is something that people often forget.

Let’s review the ongoing progress - only the most important points:

- 2003, removal of an evil tyrant who had completely destroyed Iraqi civil society and reduced it to nothing. Mass graves exposed.

- 2004, sovereignty restored to a native Iraqi government

- 2005, three major elections create a democratic constitution and let the people elect parties. Well-trained native Iraqi forces start participating in operations and taking over bases and provinces from Coalition forces.

- 2006, more native Iraqi forces come online, as the parties form a government committed to fighting the terrorists. The U.S. begins its troop drawdown - already, just in June 2006, we have 30,000 fewer troops in Iraq than six months ago.

- 2007: More troop drawdowns to come.

#49 - Ed - Sorry, but no.

It may be true TODAY that most of the insurgents are native Iraqis. Because the Coalition, including native Iraqi forces, have successfully killed or captured the majority of the foreign al Qaeda terrorists that were in Iraq. Ummm, that’s good news, Ed.

As for invading Saudi Arabia: Why would we do that? They have been cracking down on their al Qaeda.

Terrorism was and is highly international. As of 9-11-01, six Middle Eastern states were most heavily involved in it: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia. After 9-11, three of them undertook to shift in a good direction: Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia. The other three did not. See if you can name them and whether than has had anything to do with the pattern of Bush Middle Eastern policy.

I was watching FOX last night, after getting home from work, and was appalled by the news of the slaughter of those 2 brave soldiers. Will our Military finally get to finish these bastards off for good so the Iraqi…