MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Vice President Cheney just said that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a "successful endeavor."

The above graphic agrees.

655,000 dead people disagree.

My head is unavailable for comment because it just imploded.

--Junichi

PERMISSION TO SPEAK

Suppressing the truth? Mission accomplished.

Wired is reporting that soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been ordered to stop posting to blogs or sending email messages without first getting approval from a superior.

This is infuriating on multiple levels.

For starters, the soldiers' reports from the frontlines have provided the only honest, unfiltered assessment of the reality of our war, in contrast to Senator McCain's rosy assessment of our so-called success in Iraq.

Moreover, I don't believe for a second that the army is really concerned about protecting military secrets. (Does anybody know of any soldier blogs that revealed sensitive information or otherwise damaged national interests?)

With soldiers turning on the Bush Administration -- four years later and still no protective armor, can you blame them? -- silencing them is the White House's only hope for winning the War on Bad PR.

What really chaps my civilian hide is that the regulations even apply to civilians working for the military, Army contractors, and soldiers' families (!), according to the Wired article.

We already deny our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan proper protective equipment. We deny them proper health care when they return to America. When they die, we don't even honor them with our flags at half mast.

And now, we're denying their constitutional right to freedom of speech.

This is just a dumb decision that can't be good for a morale that is already so depressed into the fertile crescent that new craters are being formed for the next Saddam Hussein to hide in.

On a related note, I wish I could poll our troops in Iraq and ask them to rank the following in order of likelihood of lowering troop morale:

A. The army removes your First Amendment rights.

B. The Secretary of Defense extends your tour of duty.

C. You learn that veterans' hospitals are delivering inadequate health care and mental health care to soldiers who make it back home alive.

D. Your President still can't articulate an exit strategy.

E. An openly gay soldier volunteers for duty and fights alongside you.

I'm guessing that even the most homophobic soldiers would rank E last.

But now that their blogs are effectively being shut down, we'll never know.

--Junichi

THE OTHER BLOODY MASSACRE

Foreigners kill again

Wonkette said it best:

Normal life came to a screeching halt today in America as news of an awful mass murder spread across the nation. Politicians canceled rallies, Congress delayed impeachment proceedings and office workers stopped their usual banal chit-chat about teevee shows or whatever for impassioned if still ill-informed discussions of gun control, violence and the dangers of creative-writing programs.

Ha ha, just kidding! This massacre happened in Iraq, which we totally ignore even though it’s all our fault.

Indeed, a staggering 200 people were murdered in the Iraqi capital today in four separate bombings, one that constituted the single deadliest attack in Baghdad since our invasion of Iraq began.

For those who like math, 200 = [Monday's death count at Virgina Tech] x 6.

Sadly, this tragedy probably won't make it above the fold in tomorrow's papers because the media finds it more urgent to psycho-analyze the Collective Soul song that Cho Sueng-Hui blasted on repeat before he went on a rampage.

Not to diminish the utterly devastating tragedy at Virgina Tech, but I do think these two massacres highlight the gross imbalance that we, as a country, place on Iraqi vs. American lives, even when we, as a country, are directly responsible for the death of the Iraqi lives.

Again, for those who like math, 1 American life ÷ 100 = 1 Iraqi life.

All in all, what a horrific week this has been. And it's only hump-day. (Sigh.)

--Junichi

UNDER-EXAGGERATION MUCH?

Not Greeting Us as Liberators

It's practically a tradition for government agencies like the National Park Service to grossly underestimate the number of participants at a protest, while organizers of the demonstration over-exaggerate the size of the crowd.

But the discrepancy in numbers regarding yesterday's march in Iraq is especially ridiculous.

According to the U.S. Army, "5,000 to 7,000" people marched in Moqtada al-Sadr's anti-U.S. rally in Najaf to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

The AP, however, says "tens of thousands."

The BBC says "hundreds of thousands."

Obviously, I have no idea who is right.

But I know the crowd in the photo above probably couldn't fit into the Greek Theatre in L.A., which has a capacity of less than 7,000 people.

Plus, given that our military leaders estimated that our efforts in Iraq would take "four days tops," I'm going to guess that our government's math-related intelligence is a little fuzzy.


Hattip: MoJo

--Junichi