Won’t happen – noone can hold a candle to our girl!!!! Congratulations! You are the best!

If the candidate speaks from their heart about who they are, what their background has been, what they value and how they plan to address the voter’s needs, then they’re in the race.

From Juan Cole:

That Iran is trying to destabilize the Shiite government in Baghdad is absurd. The Bush administration charge that Iran is the source of explosively formed projectiles is based on very little evidence and flies in the face of common sense; in fact these bombs are probably made in Iraq itself or perhaps come from Hizbullah in Lebanon.

The charges are frankly ridiculous, and certainly are so if proportionality is taken into account. That is, if one bomb was sold by an Iranian arms dealer to the Taliban for profit, a hundred bombs were given to the Taliban by Pakistan for tactical reasons. Likewise, the Shiite militias in Iraq have killed very few American troops when the US troops have left the Shiites alone; most attacks on the US come from Sunni Arabs.

The Senate Kyl-Lieberman resolution helped legitimize this new Bush policy, which is why the senators should not have voted for it. It took us one more step down the road to war with Iran.

I wonder if Juan Cole saw my posting about a month back on this very site (yes, it was an exclusive) where I analyzed the claims in the Pentagon’s report on these Explosively Formed Projectiles. By using the Pentagon’s own published database on the causes of US military deaths in Iraq I found that the assertions were simply beyond credulity.

The Pentagon asserted that Shiite militias (particularly renegade militias split off from Sadr) are responsible for ALL EFP attacks…and that these groups are supplied by Iran.

But here’s the problem. Although the Pentagon doesn’t reveal EFP stats in the database (only general roadside bomb attacks, which includes EFP’s) if their claims are true, then many of the EFP attacks have to be done by these militias in areas that are under absolute Sunni control. I was able to do this analysis because the localities of the attacks are listed (although Baghdad areas are often not listed by neighborhood making it difficult to determine if the area is Sunni or Shiite controlled, or mixed). I decided to attribute all explosive attacks to Shiites in Baghdad, since this assumption would be a “best case” for the Pentagons case.

But when I removed ALL Sunni and Kurdish townships, villages and regions from consideration as being localities of EFP attacks…there was a problem. The numbers given by the Pentagon for July for EFP attacks were far more than the TOTAL number of attacks using explosive devices in all the Shiite and mixed areas (including all of Baghdad)…SO SOME of the EFP’s had to be in the Sunni or Kurdish “controlled” zones.

That’s just far-fetched, because it would require teams of these rebel Shiites to sneak into Sunni areas, plant the devices unnoticed in public areas, and wait about to target and detonate their bombs when a US patrol drove by. They would have to WAIT around! That would be a suicide mission with a high probability that these guys would be vivisected by the local militias before they had a chance to plant their bomb.

And remember this…ALL the explosive attacks attributed to “Shiites” (including the groups daft enough to try the above) would

a) have had to have used these notorious “Formed” explosives.

b) never have used any other sort of explosive device that cause a coalition casuality (NEVER).

In addition

c) none of the attacks by explosive devices of any sort could have occurred by non-Shiites in Baghdad or it’s immediate vicinity (despite the fact that attacks using non-EFP’s were widespread and common in places like Fallujah, Anbar Province, etc.)

If the groups receiving EFP’s are exclusively rebellious Shiites…breakaways from Sadr’s militia then

d) Sadr’s militias were absolutely avoiding attacking US forces in July, and not responsible for a single attack by roadside bomb of any type during this period.

e) these breakaway “rebels” NEVER used any other types of explosives to attack coalition forces. They exclusively use EFP’s.

f) These breakaway militias actually have control over most of Baghdad…since they appear to freely plant EFP’s throughout the city, even in neighborhoods widely thought to be Sadr strongholds and in mixed neighborhoods.

And of course ALL of these EFP’s have to be derived from Iran, despite the fact that any competant welder that could fasion a calypso steel-drum could produce the “lens” that makes these so deadly.

THAT’s what the Pentagon would have you believe!

Of course, there is another explanation to these statistics. It’s a quite simple one.

Any time that a vehicle is attacked and there are fatalities the Pentagon looks at the area. If it’s a Sunni or Kurdish stronghold they say “not EFP”…but if it’s a Shiite or mixed Shiite area…well that’s gonna be an EFP. The problem is that there are some cases of attacks that are attrributed to EFPs based on EVIDENCE…and these are in the Sunni-controlled areas. So you end up with more EFP’s that Shiite attacks.

Ooops! The case of fudging the facts to fit the policy- the demonization of IRAN, suddenly becomes clear.

And what really stinks about this is the Pentagon asserts that they don’t want to release the EFP information because “the enemy will use it to assess their effectiveness of targetting”. Yet the Pentagon’s own spokesmen have asserted that these EFP’s are extremely deadly, with high mortality levels. That when compared to other explosive devices these are several hundred times more likely to cause death. What more would an insurgent need to hear?

Thestats are held in abeyance because they would show that the Pentagon has been manipulating who has been using these bombs.

It’s not just Shiites, it’s Kurds and Sunnis. And thus it’s utterly unlikely that we can attribute THESE groups to being IRANIAN-BACKED splinter groups off the Mahdi Army.

No! EFP’s, even those made by the Shiites, are far more likely to be domestically produced…or provided by NON-IRANIAN sources. Iran, at the very least, is not the sole supplier of these weapons, if they are at all. People can manufacture them. They could derive from Saudi Arabia, or Lebanon, or Jordan, or even Kuwait. The casings are not that hard to manufacture.

There’ve been times that I’ve thought I couldn’t last for long
But now I think I’m able to carry on
It’s been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come

Sam Cooke, 1964

Ya know, watching that above video with Barbara Boxer fawning over HoJo is really disturbing. This is one of our Liberal advocates in the Senate?!?

The intense contempt pouring out of her mouth and shooting out of eyes is unbelieveable! How dare you little people question us! This really says alot about what we’re dealing with now with Pelosi and Reid. Even the “liberals” in Congress are only concerned about protecting their little worlds.

Man, the power of CTBob and Maura focused in on Shays…does Christopher even stand a chance? With Shays’ quick temper, I’d love to see CTBob ask him questions….alot.

ATTACCKKKKK!!!

Shays’ lovefest with Erik the Red’s Blackwater is a classic that should bite Shays in the ass hard.

The intense contempt pouring out of her mouth and shooting out of eyes is unbelieveable! How dare you little people question us! This really says alot about what we’re dealing with now with Pelosi and Reid. Even the “liberals” in Congress are only concerned about protecting their little worlds.

Man, the power of CTBob and Maura focused in on Shays…does Christopher even stand a chance? With Shays’ quick temper, I’d love to see CTBob ask him questions….alot.

ATTACCKKKKK!!!

That Iran is trying to destabilize the Shiite government in Baghdad is absurd. The Bush administration charge that Iran is the source of explosively formed projectiles is based on very little evidence and flies in the face of common sense; in fact these bombs are probably made in Iraq itself or perhaps come from Hizbullah in Lebanon.

The charges are frankly ridiculous, and certainly are so if proportionality is taken into account. That is, if one bomb was sold by an Iranian arms dealer to the Taliban for profit, a hundred bombs were given to the Taliban by Pakistan for tactical reasons. Likewise, the Shiite militias in Iraq have killed very few American troops when the US troops have left the Shiites alone; most attacks on the US come from Sunni Arabs.

The Senate Kyl-Lieberman resolution helped legitimize this new Bush policy, which is why the senators should not have voted for it. It took us one more step down the road to war with Iran.

planetjanet @ 101

Congratulations, Maura. Your candidate is lucky to have you. Miss you in VA. DFV has never been the same without you.

Janet, wow! Janet from Occoquan?? So great to hear from you!! I’ve been rooting for you all n Virginia from afar this year — there are some great candidates running for House and Senate in VA this year, and I can’t wait to hear about your victories in 10 days!

I miss the whole DFV crew a lot. Hope you are well.

Sure hope you guys have success in Virginia next month, especially defeating Tom Davis’ wife!