And I’ll keep kicking the crap till it’s gone

Yea OK, there is some speculation or rather thinking out loud here, The Zarqawi docs… seriously, now.. Nothing wrong with speculation or at least that is the impression I get from the right, ranging from The Weekly Standard to the Op-Ed page of The WSJ. It is all too often the case that the fringe conservative right's speculation today becomes urban legend tomorrow. So when Mr Aardvark speculates that all may not be well as far as the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi documents cache, he may not be completely wrong. After all Bush and Crew did play around with the wording on the National Intelligence Estimate and that is not speculation, that is a liberal bias for the facts. Aardvark points us to this piece in WaPo, Maliki Aide Who Discussed Amnesty Leaves Job

The authenticity of the document, which closely echoes accounts of insurgent strategy offered by Iraq's Shiite political leaders, could not be independently verified. It was written in a style different from typical statements issued by al-Qaeda in Iraq, which refer to Shiites as "rejectionists" or "dogs" and to U.S. forces as "crusaders."

It may turn out that most of the documents found have yielded some real actionable intelligence and even if they do not I would still mark it up to a psych-ops victory for all the parties involved from the CIA, Army, etc. Good for them for getting a bad guy and throwing a little scare into Al-Queda.

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With a name like The Existentialist Cowboy for your blog you run the chance of not living up to high expectations, but Len manages very well in this post about Bush and the dumping down of America's moral center, How America lost its moral authority throughout the world

I am frankly surprised that Bush maintained the pretense when he has since arrogated unto himself the power to define terrorists. "Terrorists" are what Bush says they are. Bush is the judge and jury. Detainees are never charged and, by Bushs' own words, "suspects" are caused to be "…no longer a problem". Others are "terrorists" not because they are "terrorists" but because Bush —the decider —says they are. Some may be combatants. Some may be "evil doers". Others may be innocent. No matter. Bush —the all powerful decider —has thrown them all in the same wire cage, the same suicide factory.

No one thinks that known terrorists should be set free, the disturbing part is that we don't know which of the detainees at Gitmo are innocents that have been caught just being in the wrong place at the wrong time or are truly enemy combatants. Since Bush's supporters have a knee jerk habit of accusing anyone that questions the decider-in-chief's decisions of being pro terrorist it is little wonder that many Americans are questioning whether Bush and conservatives, our current ministers of power, are rational enough to decide who is a terrorist and who isn't. ( Paige calls NEA 'terrorist organization'). There is that mindset that thinks along the lines that anyone arrested/taken into custody must have done something wrong, combined with a blind faith in Bush's infallibility, and maybe the inability to feel compassion for some nameless faceless guy in Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, or some other prison speaks to a moral vacuum in America. A cadre of political partisans that is all too willing to give into their most base instincts for reasons that cannot be justified in terms of humanity or strategy.

I don't know quite how to describe this site, an interesting mix of parody, music and a grab bag of assorted goings-on, DailySonic

I'm much better off, the way things are
Much much better off, better by far
So keep on calling me names, keep on, keep on
And I'll keep kicking the crap till it's gone
If you keep on killing, you could get me to settle
And as soon as I settle, I bet I'll be
Able to move on
How can I fight, when we're on the same side
How can I fight beside you
So keep on calling me names, keep on, keep on
Ans I'll keep on kicking the crap will it's gone
If you keep on killing, you could get me to settle
And as soon as I settle, I bet I'll be
Able to move on
lyrics from The Way Things Are by Fiona Apple