It Was All Bullshit, Of Course

From the Washington Post:

"Stars and Stripes is blowing the whistle on President Bush's Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad, saying the cheering soldiers who met him were pre-screened and others showing up for a turkey dinner were turned away.
The newspaper, quoting two officials with the Army's 1st Armored Division in an article last week, reported that "for security reasons, only those preselected got into the facility during Bush's visit. . . . The soldiers who dined while the president visited were selected by their chain of command, and were notified a short time before the visit."
The paper also published a letter to the editor from Sgt. Loren Russell, who wrote of the heroism of his soldiers and then added: "Imagine their dismay when they walked 15 minutes to the Bob Hope Dining Facility, only to find that they were turned away from their evening meal because they were in the wrong unit. . . . They understand that President Bush ate there and that upgraded security was required. But why were only certain units turned away?"
Russell added that his soldiers "chose to complain amongst themselves and eat MREs, even after the chow hall was reopened for 'usual business' at 9 p.m. As a leader myself, I'd guess that other measures could have been taken to allow for proper security and still let the soldiers have their meal."

"President" Bush mut have learned this one from his dad, who pulled the same fake lunch thing in the DMZ when he was running in 1988. I wonder what Christmas dinner was like at the Bush household back in the day: A bunch of pre-screened people eating fake turkey?

Well, That's One Unelected Despot That Won't Terrorize The World Anymore...

Saddam Hussein was apparently just captured. Good. He's a madman and should go to trial for killing his own people. However, two things come quickly to mind in all of this.

1) Any legitimate trial will involve a defense and any workable defense will involve the history of this country's collaboration with Hussein, especially in the '80s when he was really doing the killing. That would make us look bad during an election year so you can probably expect that there will be no legitimate trial.

2) A lot of people are touting this as W's ticket back to office but I'm not so sure. The theory was that if Hussein is captured, the resistance will be decapitated. If the resistance isn't wiped out by this, W will have a political crisis on his hands by November and a lot more Americans will be killed.

My best guess is that W (Rove) will use this opprotunity to pull us out of Iraq or turn it over to the UN before the election. The only conflict is that this leaves US contractors exposed to the chaos once the armed forces leave so it's not clear which one will win out here: exploitation of Iraq greed or election greed.

Well, we attacked a country and finally captured its leader. Good, because he was a bad guy but bad because it was only to steal his oil. We must remember that this had nothing to do with 9/11. That guy was hiding out in a place called "Afghanistan" and things aren't looking too god there these days. Maybe we can turn our attention back there?

There's just one more unelected leader that I'd like to see go...