And there is no limit to the innocent lives they are willing to take

Army Worried by Rising Stress of Return Tours to Iraq

WASHINGTON — Army leaders are expressing increased alarm about the mental health of soldiers who would be sent back to the front again and again under plans that call for troop numbers to be sustained at high levels in Iraq for this year and beyond.

Among combat troops sent to Iraq for the third or fourth time, more than one in four show signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress, according to an official Army survey of soldiers’ mental health.

Why is the military, well more specically why are the boots on the ground being used in such a deplorable manner (more here). Because the former failed business man, alcoholic and draft avoider says so,

Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Hear the words of Osama Bin Laden: “This Third World War is raging” in Iraq. “The whole world is watching this war.” He says it will end in “victory and glory, or misery and humiliation.”

The terrorists know that the outcome will leave them emboldened, or defeated. So they are waging a campaign of murder and destruction. And there is no limit to the innocent lives they are willing to take. ( Bush speech – Office of the Press Secretary, June 28, 2005)

If Iraq is a major front of the fight against terrorism and Bush is winning that war from the air conditioned safety of the Oval Office as the right-wing blogs and pundits regularly remind us, then how could this happen, British Muslims in airliner terror plot ‘talked of taking families on suicide missions’. According to Bush doing whatever it is we’re doing in Iraq should have left these losers feeling “defeated”, lying on the floor in a deep state of depression because of Bush and the Right’s deep conviction that  Iraq is where you drive the stake through the heart of terrorism that will kill it once and for all. Neocondom’s intellectual prince Bill Kristol recently assured us despite the figures that show an increase in  terror violence under Bush that history will prove Bush right. Recent events and even going back a few years to the Madrid plot prove that Bush can and has spent a trillion dollars in the “front” of the “war on terror” which has left any sociopath non-state actor to scheme to their hearts content. The Right genuinely has no clue how to fight terrorism. When will the MSM wake up and start pointing out that fact.

HONORING THE FALLEN: US Military KIA, Iraq/Afganistan

In particular Rosen highlights Lichtblau’s exploration of

* The broader costs of the Bush administration’s excesses for innocent victims and for the rule of law
* Memorable accounts of some of the 2,700 men locked up after 9/11 by American authorities; most of those men were never shown to have connections to terrorism
* The many innocent victims whose e-mail messages, phone calls and political activities were secretly surveilled
* [How] the Bush administration  . . . was ruthless in retaliating against its critics, in and out of government

Bush has been a Republican wet dream, everyone is guilty until maybe one day they decide you’re not.

Advertisement

Blue Cloudscape wallpaper

Blue Cloudscape wallpaper

Not even the Aztecs could escape death and taxes, Aztec Math Decoded, Reveals Woes of Ancient Tax Time

Today’s tax codes are complicated, but the ancient Aztecs likely shared your pain.

To measure tracts of taxable land, Aztec mathematicians had to develop their own specialized arithmetic, which has only now been decoded.

Senator McCain has admitted that he’s no economics guru. Kind of refreshing in a way to hear a politician at the federal level admit that they’re not a know-it-all about something. On the other hand he is selling himself as Bush and Cheney did, foreign policy wizards of the highest order, possessed of some supernatural insight mere mortals could never comprehend. McBush seems to be following the same well worn path and tripping over the pot holes,  Al Qaeda’s Zawahiri Rebuts McCain: It’s ‘In The Interest’ Of Al Qaeda To See Iran Fail

Recently, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has repeatedly claimed that Iran and al Qaeda are working together to defeat the United States in Iraq. During a March 18 press conference, for example, McCain claimed that Iranian operatives were “taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.

Al Qaeda begs to differ. Danger Room’s Noah Shachtman finds that in a new online Q&A session, Ayman al-Zawahiri  the terrorist organization’s number two leader  clearly states al Qaeda wants Iran to fail in Iraq:

The dispute between America and Iran is a real dispute based on the struggle over areas of influence, and the possibility of America striking Iran is a real possibility. As for what might happen in the region, I can only say that major changes will occur in the region, and the situation will be in the interest of the Mujahideen if the war saps both of them. If, however, one of them emerges victorious…

Who cares what the extremists think, right? Well as TP points out McCain has pointed to other statements issued by militants for talking points.