stop being surprised

* there was a lengthy report on the teeve (cbs) about a war plane buildup in guam: "anyone can see - the US is getting ready" to attack nthkorea - explaining how much closer it is to nthkorea and much easier to attack ('eliminating the tyranny of distance'), and stock-counting the artillery et al. meanwhile, others (brithume) are playing up a make-believe story that the nthkoreans may or may not have moved some equipment.

* update: "The officer said that in two of the recent Baghdad bombings, investigators had found indications that the men driving the cars had been bound with duct tape before the attacks. He said the foot of one of the attackers, in a marketplace bombing last week that killed 22 people in south Baghdad, had been found taped to his vehicle's accelerator. In another case, the officer said, the attacker's hands were taped to the vehicle's wheel." LINK
i love this bollox.

* "General Abizaid, whose Central Command headquarters exercises oversight of the war, said the Iraqi police - accounting for 65,000 of the 160,000 Iraqis now trained and equipped in the $5.7 billion American effort to build up security forces - are "behind" in their ability to shoulder a major part of the war effort. He blamed a tendency among Iraqi police to operate as individuals rather than in cohesive units, and said this made them more vulnerable to insurgents' intimidation." LINK
ok - all we need to do is just add a dash of group cohesion and all will be solved.

* " As with the siege of Fallujah six months back, U.S. claims over the siege of the Iraqi town Al Qa'im are being challenged now by independent sources... ”We have not seen any outsiders. The fighters are from the area. They are resisting the occupation.”" LINK
the big question is why the egadmin still peddle that "foreign insurgent" nonsense. it seems that the answer is either: a) they want everyone (americans?) to think that the iraqis arent fighting the ams or b) they want to maintain the pretext so that they have an excuse to invade syria/iran/saudi arabia. the logic behind point a) being the answer is actually pretty weak - it may have made sense in the beginning, but now the general sense is simply 'iraq is going pretty bad', the public doesnt seem to be glomming onto the idea that the foreigners are the problem, despite the incredible message discipline wrt "foreign insurgents" for 2 years now. its true that people know of evil mastermind "jordanian-born zarqawi" - but i dont get the sense that americans really think that 'foreigners' are a large part of the problem... which leads me to think that point b) makes increasingly more sense. one things for sure, its difficult to pick up a paper without reading at length about foreign insurgents - so theres presumably a purpose that its there, and has been forever. i even read an embedded article from Matador and they quoted some amgrunt seraching a house 'we're looking for foreign insurgents. have u seen any?'. maybe theres a point c) to go with the other two possibilities - but i cant think of a good one atm.

* "To the question, "Is Iraq better off without Saddam Hussein?" the 'yes' answers broke down this way:
Sunnis: only 23 percent said "yes."
Shiites: 87 percent said "yes."
Kurds: 95 percent said "yes.""
LINK


* btw - if iraq is turning into a disaster, maybe its time to revisit the levin/warner letter to rice (pssst - its still in your back pocket).

* "U.S. officials acknowledged that they were pressing hard for Iraq to move ahead. Although Iraqis are making the choices, the officials said, Washington has "red lines" that its partners must not cross. For instance, the U.S. insists that the Iraqi government be democratic and that the country be pluralistic, yet united, one official said." LINK

* "US military sources as saying they handed over the (saddam ) photos in the hope of dealing a body blow to the resistance in Iraq." LINK
its odd that they released the saddam pix to the brits (murdoch), rather than direct to the ams. i wonder if it was for libel or other legal reasons - otherwise, its a pretty weird decision...

* "Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan began to assemble the equipment necessary to build a rudimentary biological weapons laboratory before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, letters released by the Defense Department show... The letters are among the documents recovered in late 2001..." LINK
who believes any of this nonsense?

* hersh: "The 10 official inquiries into Abu Ghraib are asking the wrong questions, at least in terms of apportioning ultimate responsibility for the treatment of prisoners. The question that never gets adequately answered is this: what did the president do after being told about Abu Ghraib? It is here that chronology becomes very important." LINK

* wow - people are really astonished by the reports of a couple of dead afghanis.
i wish these people would stop being surprised. remember a couple of years ago i went on a 'crusade' about this shit - trying to force a mindset where we asked to rest our expectations so that we could be 95% 'certain' that we wouldnt be surprised any more... if people are surprised about prisoners being tortured to death then they really havent been taking notes. please wake the fuck up. its important.