Good Morning!

Marion, thanks for the biscuits. I need hot chocolate!
.

I just finished watching CSPANs Q & A:

Charles Ferguson filmaker
No End In Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq

The replay isn’t up yet but it’s worth watching when it does get posted, here’s the transcript

can’t wait to see the movie.

That film and Q and A segment will make for great holiday gifts.

katherine Graham Cracker @ 229

fatuous militarist Jack Jacobs said everyone knew Valerie Plame was an agent –”widely known around the beltway”…he said

what an ass

I guess the question to ask would be, when was that known and by exactly whom? Both Fitzgerald and Plame say that prior to the Novak disclosure that was not the case.

Would that be due to Judy Miller’s 2 hour discussion/lunch with Libby. Or her conversations about Plame with others?

A suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up Monday among recruits gathered outside a police camp in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 27 people and wounding 20, police and hospital officials said.

In southern Iraq, meanwhile, the U.S. military turned over security responsibilities to Iraqi authorities in the mainly Shiite province of Karbala, the eighth of the nation’s 18 provinces to revert to Iraqi control.

http://www.searchforvideo.com/…..down:david Shuster tucker Carls

cinnamon ape @ 11:37 -

Wrt your story about drive-by shootings of animals:

Front page yesterday in the nearest daily paper and less than a half-hour up the road had news of a mother and her young child found dead along with an ex-Marine. Early days in the investigation but thoughts are female and child were killed by the guy who then shot himself.

Did I forget to mention he had three tours in Iraq? :-(

This type of misery is likely to become epidemic. I greatly fear, in the years to come.

I agree, especially in bad economic times…and if, as I strongly suspect, the war continues to go badly. Imagine if we end up going to war with Iran. I don’t think that anyone except the most insane would stick around for a fourth tour.

And this whole thing of sending unwilling Foreign Service employees off to serve in the huge embassy in Iraq is foreboding. Makes one wonder if Bush will start to draft others in other sectors of the government to serve over there. National Park Ranger or Border Service…you may have to protect the border of Iraq. Work in a Federal Penitentiary…may have to go and deal with Iraqi prisoners. Probably we’ll find some clause in the Heimat Security Agency contracts that one signs that says they can reassign you to do security at Federal installations overseas.

I’ve got it on the skinny that US diplomats in other countries are worried about the number of qualified staff in their areas are already plummeting, and this is affecting interactions and activities in places like Africa, S. America, and Asia. US influence is dropping as the ability to make commercial arrangements, provide business and student visas, and even to interact with the host countries officials becomes impaired. Diplomats trained for Japan, China, Brazil and Kenya are having to completely learn new languages and skills. And the old station loses them and generally gets untrained replacements.

The obsession with Iraq is drawing off resources elsewhere. That opens the door for other countries, like China, to make the commercial links that we were unable to.

So we are gonna bleed at home and abroad because Bush is so obsessed with with his legacy in Iraq (and IRAN).