mccain's delusions

[bishop]

McCain insists 'signs of progress' in Iraq - CNN.com

"But today, we are where we are, and I believe we are making progress," he said. "These are small signs of progress. They are not large signs of progress. We will know [more] when we get more of our surge over there." McCain has been engaged in damage control over remarks he made after visiting Baghdad's outdoor Shorja market on April 1.

let's see how we're really doing, rather than listen to the ramblings of a delusional old man who recently said that anyone could stroll down the streets of baghdad without wearing body armor - or without a worry at all..

4/1

Car bombs and gunfire killed more than two dozen civilians and wounded more than 60 in attacks throughout Iraq on Saturday, officials said. The attacks came as the Interior Ministry said that more than 1,800 Iraqi civilians died in sectarian and insurgent violence in Iraq in March. There were 226 more civilian deaths in March than in February, the data show. On Saturday, five civilians were killed and 22 wounded in a car-bomb explosion near Sadrayn Hospital in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood at 10 a.m., a Baghdad police official said. South of Baghdad in Hilla, four people were killed and 20 were wounded when a car bomb exploded near people lining up at a gas station, Babil police said. A car bomb killed two day laborers and wounded 11 others who were gathered north of the capital in the Salaheddin province city of Tuz Khurmatu on Saturday morning, a Tikrit police official said. Eight people were killed and one wounded about 1:30 p.m. Saturday when gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying workers on a road near Hawija, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) northeast of Tikrit. The workers were employed at a U.S. military base near Hawija, an Interior Ministry official said. Three people were killed and five wounded in a roadside bombing about noon at a shopping area in Suwayrah, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Baghdad, according to an Interior Ministry official. Police also found five other bodies in Suwayrah. Six people were hurt when a bomb in a parked car exploded in Mosul. In Baghdad, an employee of Iraqiya state television was gunned down Saturday while driving his car. Another person died and one was wounded when gunmen opened fire on people standing outside a house in southwestern Baghdad's Amil neighborhood. Thirteen bullet-riddled bodies were found across the capital. Two people -- a contractor working at a U.S. base and his son -- were killed when gunmen stormed a shop in Diwaniyah about noon Saturday.

4/4

Gunmen killed 11 electricity plant workers in northern Iraq on Wednesday after stopping their vehicle and machine gunning them as they sat inside, Iraqi police and army officials said. Police also said 18 goat herders from an extended Shiite family were kidnapped near the holy Shiite city of Karbala, 70 miles (110 kilometers) southwest of Baghdad, on Tuesday. It was the second mass kidnapping in a week. <snip> On Sunday, 19 men from a Shiite village were kidnapped by gunmen at a fake checkpoint north of Baghdad. Their bodies were found on Monday near Baquba, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) north of Baghdad.

4/5

Ten coalition troops were killed in Iraq over the last two days, four of them in the deadliest attack on British troops since November, the U.S. and British militaries said Thursday. The four British troops and a civilian translator were ambushed early Thursday as they returned from a mission west of the southern city of Basra, British military spokesman Lt. Col. Kevin Stratford-Wright said.

4/14

Bombings in Karbala and the Baghdad area killed at least 56 people and wounded scores of others Saturday morning, police and medical officials said. A car bomb blast in a crowded shopping area of central Karbala, a holy Shiite city about 70 miles southwest of Baghdad, killed at least 43 people and wounded 55, according to an official at Hussein Hospital in Karbala. <snip> A short time later, a car bomb exploded on the Jadriya bridge, which spans the Tigris River in southern Baghdad, killing at least 10 people and wounding 15 others, Iraqi police said. It was not immediately clear how badly the bridge was damaged. The Jadriya bridge attack came two days after a suicide car bomb detonated on the Sarafiya bridge, which crosses the Tigris in northern Baghdad, also killing 10 people. Two large sections of the bridge collapsed into the river. <snip> In other violence Saturday morning, a roadside bomb blast that targeted a police patrol in Madaan killed two Iraqi police officers and one civilian. Madaan is about 12 miles southeast of Baghdad. Four police officers and four civilians were also hurt. Also, gunmen attacked the home of a Sunni member of Iraq's parliament Saturday morning. Five guards were wounded in the half-hour battle at the western Baghdad residence of Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the Sunni political party known as the General Conference of People of Iraq. Five other Iraqis were wounded in two separate roadside bomb explosions in Baghdad.

mccain's ramblings are hardly convincing whatsoever given reality, something that seems to be lost on the old man..

[Technosoul]

Quote by: bishop McCain insists 'signs of progress' in Iraq - CNN.com let's see how we're really doing, rather than listen to the ramblings of a delusional old man who recently said that anyone could stroll down the streets of baghdad without wearing body armor - or without a worry at all.. 4/1 4/4 4/5 4/14 mccain's ramblings are hardly convincing whatsoever given reality, something that seems to be lost on the old man..

.

Now the combative forces set off some bombs inside the green zone where the Iraq governmental authorities were conducting a meeting, this took place I believe after security for the Green Zone the new Iraqi police force assumed duties to protect that area instead of the U.S. military.

[sevendogs]

Yes, everyday news show not progress at all. McCain is still clinging to "conservative base", which is much out of style now. American conservatives showed their ugly face by electing Bush and equally ugly Congress. This was a blunder of historical proportion for sure. McCain has no chance, just wasting time and money.

[bishop]

republicans in general have attached themselves to the "stay the course" policy.. that is their achilles heel for sure.

as it currently stands, this "surge" is going to last at least 1 year - i.e. it has an indefinite length and because of this, it should be characterized as an escalation rather than a surge. and, despite the escalation, the only genuine progress being made comes from the fantasies that people like mccain preach. in reality, iraq is little better now than before bush opted for this escalation.

[Slevin57]

You are passing judgment before even 50% of the troops are in place.

If you call failure before anyone has even had a chance, how could anyone such as yourself expect things to get better.

Congress started asking, what can we do to make it better. Instead of meeting with military officials to strategize and come up with a new plan, we decided to just leave. That doesn't fix anything, that leaves them to fend on their own. Do we really need a repeat lesson of Vietnam?

[gw120]

You are passing judgment before even 50% of the troops are in place.

10000 troops aren't going to fix Iraq.

If you call failure before anyone has even had a chance, how could anyone such as yourself expect things to get better.

What the fuck are you talking about "not having a chance." They had their chance for four years, and it hasn't worked yet, so there's no use to keep trying the exact same thing we've tried for 4 years and expect a different outcome than the outcome we've had in the past 4 years.

[bishop]

Quote by: slevin Do we really need a repeat lesson of Vietnam?

i believe that's exactly what has been going on since the start of the war.. it was a war based on lies, a war of choice, a war where u.s. soldiers were placed in the middle of a civil war, a war with no clear objective, etc., etc... this war is a repeat lesson of vietnam, which was a bogus war that too far too long to end.

also, this surge is not the military's brainchild - it's bush's... too many military leaders publicly voiced opposition to bush's "surge" for any rational person to believe that this policy wasn't bush's idea. the military is focused on three things as far as i can tell - extending tours to ensure that it can support bush's war, minimizing u.s. casualties, and doing what the "commander in chief" says... regarding the latter, if the white house wants to pursue a policy of debaathification, capturing iranian diplomats, capturing iraqis off the street for "interrogation", etc. - the military will do what it's told.

you also mention that the full escalation force hasn't yet arrived.. true - and additionally, the extra battery of patriot missiles and the extra aircraft carrier battlegroup haven't been put in place either.. the uss nimitz left its port at san diego just a few days ago.. i'm definitely interested to see how patriot missiles and the extra CSG is going to combat the insurgency...

but i digress... even with these some 2/5 of the troops in place, i'm not particularly impressed by the "progress" highlighted by the links i posted at the start of the thread.. civilian deaths increased this past month. that is hardly what i'd call progress.

i also don't see any progress with regard to u.s. casualties.. the spin-doctors, like mccain, say that u.s. casualties are down compared to previous months. no disagreement there, of course, march has historically been a low month as far as casualties are concerned. the trend is clear as day:

iCasualties: OIF US Fatalities by month

and, going by the average number of casualties from march 2003 to march 2006, this past month has resulted in roughly double the number of u.s. casualties...

like i said, this babble about "progress" has no factual support at all. it's just another exercise in spewing propaganda and hoping that a mentally lazy u.s. public (and media) buys into it - just as they did when bush claimed iraq had wmd's and active wmd programs.

[Jack]

McCain still has a year and a half to decide what his opinion on Iraq is going to be. No doubt "the wind" will change directions several times before the election.

His credibility has really bottomed out.

[bishop]

i dunno about that... mccain's inextricably tied himself to this surge and the indefinite continuation of the war. his opponents, while also spouting the same "stay the course" ramblings to appease the base, have not so tightly tied themselves to this war.

when the surge/escalation fails to yield any noticeable success, the first political casualty will be mccain imo. (general patrias strolling around in an unarmored humvee indeed!) the remaining casualties depend on how the republican primaries go.. if the base really does want an escalation and indefinite timeline to this war, then mccain's competitors will have to appear much more hawkish than they have to date. the problem with that, as far as the republicans are concerned, is that a majority of the country doesn't support this war anymore - so a pro-war candidate stands to lose in the general election.

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: Slevin57 You are passing judgment before even 50% of the troops are in place. If you call failure before anyone has even had a chance, how could anyone such as yourself expect things to get better. Congress started asking, what can we do to make it better. Instead of meeting with military officials to strategize and come up with a new plan, we decided to just leave. That doesn't fix anything, that leaves them to fend on their own. Do we really need a repeat lesson of Vietnam?

"Two months into the U.S.-led Baghdad Security Plan, at least 289 people were killed and injured across Iraq on Saturday, including 37 dead in a car bomb attack in the holy Shiite city of Karbala. The carnage of a crowd teeming with women and children set off an angry mob of hundreds against the governor and police.

Aqeel al-Khazaali, the governor of Karbala, blamed the Baghdad Security Plan for the attack inside the relatively safe southern city. Karbala is about 50 miles south of Baghdad.

"The Baghdad crackdown and the tribes in Ramadi are forcing the terrorists to leave their cities," he said. "Now Karbala is under fire from terrorists, and the central government has to take the necessary steps to help us to protect the holy city."" Nearly 300 Iraqis killed, hurt in 1 day | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Are we going to "surge" in every Iraqi city? Wasn't the decrease in violence in Baghdad expected to cause a "surge" in violence in other cities? I guess one good surge deserves another.

[bishop]

another day, another sign of "progress"..

Dozens dead, wounded in bombings across Iraq - CNN.com

A string of car bombs and suicide attacks across Iraq on Sunday killed and wounded dozens in what has been a bloody weekend for the war-ravaged nation. Reports of the attacks came as the British Ministry of Defense announced that two British military helicopters apparently collided and crashed Sunday in a rural area on the northern outskirts of Baghdad, killing two British troops and injuring four others, including one seriously. Initial reports suggest that the crash was an accident and enemy fire was not involved, Defense Secretary Des Browne said. The Puma choppers went down near Taji, a town 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. <snip> Also Sunday morning, two car bombs exploded within minutes of each other in a shopping and dining area of southwest Baghdad, killing at least 18 people and wounding another 52 people, according to Baghdad police. <snip> Later, in northwestern Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest on a small bus, killing six people and wounding 11, Baghdad police said. The bus was traveling between the predominantly Shiite neighborhoods of Autaifiya and Kadhimiya. In central Baghdad's Karrada district, a minibus packed with explosives blew up on a commercial road, killing 11 people and wounding 15 others, a Baghdad police official said. Also in the capital Sunday, small-arms fire killed an American soldier backing an Iraqi national police unit near a mosque, the U.S. military said. An Iraqi civilian also was wounded, the military said. On Saturday, a U.S. soldier was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near troops conducting a foot patrol in southern Baghdad, the military said. Also Saturday a U.S. Marine died during combat operations in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, the military said. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, 3,301 U.S. military personnel have died in the war, including seven Defense Department civilians. In Baiji, north of Baghdad, four Iraqi soldiers were killed and five others were wounded Sunday when a suicide car bomber slammed into an army checkpoint, a Tikrit police official said. <snip> In a separate attack, gunmen wounded the commander of Iraq's border police in Salaheddin province and killed four border police officers in an ambush on the commander's convoy Sunday afternoon. In the northern city of Mosul, four people were killed and 16 others were wounded Sunday when two suicide car bombs exploded in quick succession at an Iraqi army base, police said. Two Iraqi soldiers were among the dead, a police official said. Also in Mosul, four Iraqi soldiers were critically wounded when a car bomb detonated near their patrol, the official said. <snip> Ten women and 10 children were among those killed by the blast near a bus station and just 200 yards from the Imam Hussein shrine, where the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed is buried. Karbala is a holy Shiite city about 70 miles (113 kilometers) southwest of Baghdad. A short time later, a car bomb exploded on the Jadriya bridge, which spans the Tigris River in southern Baghdad, killing at least 10 people and wounding 15 others, Iraqi police said. That bridge attack came two days after a suicide car bomb detonated on the Sarafiya bridge, which crosses the Tigris in northern Baghdad, also killing 10 people. Two large sections of the bridge collapsed into the river. Also Saturday, Baghdad police reported finding 14 bullet-riddled bodies around the Iraqi capital.

politicians have no business trying to paint an optimistic perspective to this debacle.. the false hope that we can militarily solve this disaster only serves to get more americans killed, and billions of taxpayer dollars flushed down the toilet.

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: Slevin57 You are passing judgment before even 50% of the troops are in place. If you call failure before anyone has even had a chance, how could anyone such as yourself expect things to get better.

Gee, I can hardly wait to see what bush is planning for his next "success".

"U.S. troops dying at highest rate of war

Over the past six months, U.S. troops have died in Iraq at the highest rate of the war, an indication that the conflict is becoming increasingly dangerous for U.S. forces even after more than four years of fighting.

From October 2006 through last month, 532 American soldiers were killed, the most during any six-month period of the war. March also marked the first time that the U.S. military suffered four consecutive months of 80 or more fatalities. April, with at least 58 service members killed through Monday, is on pace to be one of the deadliest months of the conflict for American forces. " U.S. troops dying at highest rate of war | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Latest News


Seven more Americans dead Monday. What utter insanity.

[bishop]

yet another sign of failure for our delusional politicians to characterize as progress... and, another example of the sort of results that this surge/escalation can be expected to produce.

FOXNews.com - Four Blasts Rock Baghdad, Kill More Than 180 - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

Suspected Sunni insurgents penetrated the Baghdad security net Wednesday, hitting Shiite targets with four bomb attacks that killed 183 people — the bloodiest day since the U.S. troop surge began nine weeks ago. Late Wednesday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the arrest of the Iraqi army colonel who was in charge of security in the area around the Sadriyah market where at least 127 people died and 148 were wounded in the deadliest bombing of the day. It was the second massive blast at the market since Feb. 3. Nationwide, the number of people killed or found dead on Wednesday was 233, which equaled the highest daily death toll since The Associated Press began keeping records in May 2005.

[bishop]

according to the link below, roughly 12 iraqis and 1 u.s. troops died yesterday. they also discovered a new stash of about 20 dead iraqis.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L20362862.htm


and in other news, mccain's making jokes about bombing iran.

McCain Jokes About Bombing Iran (phillyBurbs.com) | Presidential


this is not the stuff i want to see from a would-be president.

[Osborn F Enready]

Did anyone watch McCain crucify himself on the Daily Show interview with John Stewart?

Priceless.

This guy couldn't be more out of touch with reality if he were sniffing glue between crack hits and morphine doses that never ended.


Link:
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherl...&is_large=true

[bishop]

i'm guessing that mccain's still trying to appear to be the "cool" old guy that people used to perceive him to be..

the man's inextricably tied himself to this unpopular war to the point where there's no chance he can win. for that matter, any candidate who stands for either escalation or more of the same is virtually guaranteed to lose in the general election imo.

[rcne]

I did watch the Daily Show with McCain, and though he was in a hostile environment, he still stuck to his campaign lines.

He is betting too much on the surge in Iraq and it surely will cost him, but I still like the guy. I hope he can come up with a more meaningful platform in the next year or so.

This two year run-up to the election is really going to be a marathon. Pointless really, the party people already have chosen their candidate (unless they totally screw-up) and the undecideds don't choose until the last 30 days. That means we have many months of the same old repetitious talking heads filling the time.

[Osborn F Enready]

RCNE said: That means we have many months of the same old repetitious talking heads filling the time.

Thats good to me. More time for the public to see through their lies of integrity, and to the truth of their corruption, at least along the major party lines canidates, which is about all that can be guilty of corruption since they control it all.

[bishop]

it's been a few weeks... let's remember what good ol' mccain said about the surge:

Quote by: mccain "But today, we are where we are, and I believe we are making progress," he said. "These are small signs of progress. They are not large signs of progress. We will know [more] when we get more of our surge over there."

more signs of that progress here..

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BAGHDAD — The death toll for Iraqi civilians and American forces rose Saturday as a car bomb ripped through crowds of worshipers in the Shiite shrine city of Karbala, killing at least 60 people, and U.S. military authorities reported the deaths of nine soldiers and Marines. U.S. deaths have surged in April, contributing to a grim statistic: 343 U.S. troops have been killed this year, 53% more than the 224 killed during the first four months of last year, according to the website icasualties.org. Details of the Karbala attack, the second in the city this month, were sketchy. The car bomb exploded at what apparently was the checkpoint closest to one of the holiest shrines in Shiite Islam. The streets around the shrine are constantly filled with pilgrims. Authorities said 170 people were injured.

apparently the only surge going on here is a surge in dead americans and iraqi civilians..