Steve Bell

  thanks to thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse

Bad, Bad, Bad Day...
Bad #1: Mosque shooting.
Bad #2: No water.
Bad #3: Rumsfeld.

Today in Al-Sha’ab area, a highly populated area of Baghdad, armed men pulled up to a mosque during morning prayer and opened fire on the people. It was horrific and chilling. Someone said 3 people died, but someone else said it was more… no one knows who they are or where they’re from, but it’s said that they were using semiautomatic machineguns (not a part of the army arsenal, as far as I know). And these were just ordinary people. It’s incomprehensible and nightmarish… if you are no longer safe in a shrine or a mosque, where *are* you safe?

No running water all day today. Horrible. Usually there are at least a few hours of running water, today there’s none. E. went out and asked if there was perhaps a pipe broken? The neighbors have no idea. Everyone is annoyed beyond reason.

A word of advice: never take water for granted. Every time you wash your hands in cold, clean, clear water- say a prayer of thanks to whatever deity you revere. Every time you drink fresh, odorless water- say the same prayer. Never throw out the clean water remaining in your glass- water a plant, give it to the cat, throw it out into the garden… whatever. Never take it for granted.
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The Arrogant Path to War
We Were Warned About This Chaos
by Robert Fisk

How arrogant was the path to war. As President Bush now desperately tries to cajole the old UN donkey to rescue him from Iraq--he who warned us that the UN was in danger of turning into a League of Nations "talking shop" if it declined him legitimacy for his invasion--we are supposed to believe that no one in Washington could have guessed the future.

Messrs Bush and Blair fantasised their way to war with all those mythical weapons of mass destruction and "imminent threats" from Iraq--whether of the 45-minute variety or not--and of the post-war "liberation", "democracy" and map-changing they were going to bestow upon the region. But the record shows just how many warnings the Bush administration received from sane and decent men in the days before we plunged into this terrible adventure.
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Ex-Envoy Criticizes Bush's Postwar Policy

A former U.S. commander for the Middle East who still consults for the State Department yesterday blasted the Bush administration's handling of postwar Iraq, saying it lacked a coherent strategy, a serious plan and sufficient resources.

"There is no strategy or mechanism for putting the pieces together," said retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, and so, he said, "we're in danger of failing."

In an impassioned speech to several hundred Marine and Navy officers and others, Zinni invoked the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1960s and '70s. "My contemporaries, our feelings and sensitivities were forged on the battlefields of Vietnam, where we heard the garbage and the lies, and we saw the sacrifice," said Zinni, who was severely wounded while serving as an infantry officer in that conflict. "I ask you, is it happening again?"
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Top U.S. security adviser in Iraq returns home; deputy to fill in

The Bush administration's top security adviser in Iraq has completed his stint and is returning to the United States, the Pentagon said Friday.
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This top security dude was there for 3 months. I can't imagine coming up to speed on a job of this magnitude in 3 months. Now they are waiting for replacement. They don't seem to be taking this security thing very seriously.

Security at Iraq Munitions Sites Is Vulnerable, U.S. Officials Say

Faulty Armor?
The Army’s prized Stryker wheeled troop carrier is supposed to spearhead America’s lighter, go-anywhere-fast force. But NEWSWEEK has learned that the vehicles may be flawed—and that the military has known about the problem for months

Remembrance of quotes past
by Molly Ivins

Shiites struggle for power
Slain Najaf cleric's family battling with upstart

The Big Lie Of Jessica Lynch
A $1 mil book deal, zero memory of any "rescue" and the worst book you'll read this year
by Mark Morford

Hey, remember that dramatic CNN footage of that big statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled by U.S. forces in that Baghdad square a few months back, during the "war"? Remember how powerfully symbolic it was supposed to be?

Remember, later, seeing the wide-angle shot on the Internet, the one of all the U.S. tanks surrounding the square and the whole bogus setup of how they staged the event, complete with a big crane and some strong cable and strategically positioned "citizens" cheering their "liberation" as the statue fell, as just off camera, a handful of genuine Iraqis loitered nearby, looking confused and bored?

Remember how you felt then? Like this little black worm had bored into your skin and was crawling around in your small intestine and you had the perpetual urge to go off into the corner and eat pie and slam double scotches and scream at the state of BushCo's nation?

The Jessica Lynch story is just like that, only much, much worse.
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