POST SCRIPTS

"Whopper No. 7: Our troops are all coming home as psychos victimized by their participation in military atrocities.

Tell it to the Marines."

Or I could tell it to our new recruits tagging tanks in Baghdad with LA Gang Graffiti. Those fellows are going to be a whole lot of fun to deal with when they get home.

Look to the NY Post to publish such a clown. I mean, first we got our blinders, then we got our 20-20 hindsight (always a great help in assessing the current situation), and our wildly inflammatory prose.

Can't you find somebody more sedate and thoughtful to quote? Cause there has been improvement: we hear that people are feeling secure enough to rat out militia members and expose weapons caches, which is good.

On the other hand, we got members of the Iraqi government who take issue with reports made by our soldiers during city council meetings ... and shoot them dead.

It's not all beer and skittles, no it isn't.

Wow Libby, you really have captured a complete picture of our fighting men and women from your humble abode in the Bay Area.

Wasn't it you who said that career soldiers are compassion-less and that the Montgomery GI Bill was merely substitution for pillaging?

I notice that once again you didn't address any of the central points mentioned, probably a smart move given the facts (Note: When I say "facts" I mean actual "facts" as in "truths" as in "verifiable evidence" not "Libby facts" which still have no apparent definition greater than "What ever Libby wishes were true").

And how exactly do you compare war atrocities to tagging with a straight face?

Dont get me wrong, I'm not in favor of either, but I'm also not naive enough to think that they are any where near the same ball park.

You are right about one thing, I too am fairly certain that it isn't all "beer and skittles".

we got members of the Iraqi government who take issue with reports made by our soldiers during city council meetings ... and shoot them dead.

Please, Libby, if you feel you must make allegations of this nature you could at least list your source (with a URL) for our readers. They deserve to have the opportunity to judge for themselves. Otherwise you just sound like one of those kook fringe types.

Just for you, Tina.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/23/iraq.main/?iref=mpstoryview

But if you'd Google news'd "Iraq city council shooting" you would have got it.

I do not make things up.

"And how exactly do you compare war atrocities to tagging with a straight face?"

And where on earth did you get the idea that I was? I re-read my paragraphs and I just can't see it.

Libby I did not accuse you of "making things up". I asked you to provide a URL for the benefit of our readers.

Now for the benefit of our readers...so they can judge for themselves:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/23/iraq.main/?iref=mpstoryview

"BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An Iraqi city council member opened fire on U.S. forces outside Baghdad on Monday, killing two soldiers, U.S. officials said. *** Two U.S. soldiers were killed in a small arms fire attack near Salman Pak early Monday afternoon, the U.S. military said in a statement. Three others soldiers and an interpreter were wounded, the statement said, which added that soldiers killed the gunman.
The attack happened as the soldiers were leaving the Salman Pak Nahia Council building, the military said. *** An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said the incident happened after U.S. soldiers and local officials had attended a ceremony to open a park in al-Madaen, also known as Salman Pak. *** After the soldiers entered al-Madaen's city council building, a city council member opened fire on the soldiers with an AK-47, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said. *** The U.S. forces returned fire, killing the city council member, according to two Interior Ministry officials."

Libby is shocked that during a war people sometimes pretend to be something other than what they are. Notice an Iraqi Interior Ministry Official reported what happened. Notice also they were attending a "park opening" ceremony.

Libby your expectations for absolute perfection are rediculous. I imagine the park was one the military helped to build. Our soldiers have done an incredible job and you cannot bare to think about that so you look for niggling examples to make the effort seem horrid.

Ungrateful and petty is what I'd call it.

Listen, you were doing your usual crowing about non-existent political progress in Iraq. I supplied evidence to the contrary, and you bitch at me.

Is it my fault that some Iraqi councilman decides that the way to deal with political opposition is to go get his gun? It is not. It is, unhappily, the reality on the ground in Iraq.

The surge seems to have been successful in driving the career gun wielders to ground (for the moment), but if Iraqi city councilmen behave the same way ....

We should leave.

"...you were doing your usual crowing about non-existent political progress in Iraq. I supplied evidence to the contrary..."

If one incident means absolutely no progress then it's absolutely true that you expect more than is humanly possible for any country...just look at the "progress" that Pelosi and gang have made since taking over. And you bet I crow. With people like you trashing even our successes it's imperitive to crow every chance I get just to counter the lies and BS.

"Is it my fault that some Iraqi councilman decides that the way to deal with political opposition is to go get his gun? It is not."

No one said it was...you are the one who brought it up as an example of total failure, what did you expect...apologies? Fergit it!

"The surge seems to have been successful in driving the career gun wielders to ground (for the moment), but if Iraqi city councilmen behave the same way ...."

You just won't give an inch. Typical of progressives.

You did, however, manage to avoid this inconvenient truth:

"Take a gander at Obama's senior foreign-policy advisers: Madeleine Albright (71), Warren Christopher (82), Anthony Lake (69), Lee Hamilton (77), Richard Clarke (57) . . .If you added up their ages and fed the number into a time-machine, you'd land in Europe in the middle of the Black Death. ** More important: These are the people whose watch saw the first attack on the World Trade Center, Mogadishu, Rwanda, the Srebrenica massacre, a pass for the Russians on Chechnya, the Khobar Towers bombing, the attacks on our embassies in Africa, the near-sinking of the USS Cole - oh, and the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. ** Their legacy climaxed on 9/11. You couldn't assemble a team in Washington with more strategic failures to its credit."

What can I say? I am inclined to ignore the silly stuff.

How is taking consulting people who have worked hard at their professions for a long, long time a bad thing? Consulting sages is a whole nother thing from expecting a sage to be able to deal with the pressure-cooker that is our White House, without fading fast.

And to assert that any of these people were somehow responsible for that collection of global violences ... I could make a similar collection from the last 7.5 years and lay it at the feet of you-know-who. What on earth would be the point?