They like him, they really like him

When the Bush administration took us to war, supporters gushed that we would be greeted as liberators across the country and that the grateful Iraqis would erect a statue to Bush in the central square Baghdad. That's not quite how things have worked out. The country has been in almost total chaos for the last six years. Much of the violence has been aimed at the US and the new government that we put in place. Just three weeks ago, thousands gathered in the central square Baghdad to burn Bush in effigy (giving hundreds of headline writers the excuse to use a "burning bush" pun).

Today, Bush made another of his surprise visits to Baghdad to admire his work. The reception was not what he might have hoped for. At press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a television journalist named Muthathar al Zaidi threw his shoes at Bush shouting "This is a farewell kiss, you dog." CNN correspondent Michael Ware reported that:

it just sailed past his head and while the man was dragged out of the room, President Bush is said to have remarked that, "This was a size 10 shoe he threw at me you may want to know," even as the man was heard screaming in the hallway.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino apparently received a black eye in the scuffle while her boss was making jokes. While assaulting a foreign leader is no trivial matter in any country, I hope some of the Baghdad foreign correspondents keep track of the fate of al Zaidi. How he is treated and whether he receives due process will be a very real measure of the success of Bush's claims to be able to spread democracy at the tip of a bayonet. My own feeling is that foreign press attention is al Zaidi's only hope of surviving this.

Punished for their service

If true, this is one of the most disgusting things I've heard in a long time.

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

The Pentagon's shabby treatment of the wounded started soon after the war began when it was reported that injured soldiers were having their pay docked to pay for their hospital meals. Since then it has been one thing after another till this. Each time they say "oops, it was a mistake" and then commit the same type of "mistake" again and again. This kind of systemic callousness is the sort of thing that goes to the top and can only be cured by change at the top.

Accidental honesty

This is a surprisingly honest answer.

Senator Warner (R - VA): Are you able to say at this time if we continue what you have laid before the congress here,this strategy. do you feel that that is making America safer?

General Petraeus: Sir, I believe this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq.

Warner: Does that make America safer?

Petraeus: Sir, I don't know actually.

Didn't he get the memo that the script for today is "9/11, al Qayda, 9/11, al Qayda, 9/11, al Qayda, 9/11, al Qayda"?

This should be the leading clip on all of the newscasts tonight. And yet, I don't really expect to see it.

The war gets wierd

A new combatant has joined the fray in Iraq.

Word spread among the populace [of Basra] that UK troops had introduced strange man-eating, bear-like beasts into the area to sow panic.

But several of the creatures, caught and killed by local farmers, have been identified by experts as honey badgers.

The rumours spread because the animals had appeared near the British base at Basra airport.

UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area.

The honey badger, or ratel (Mellivora capensis), is a seperate species and genus related to the American and European badgers. It's range spreads from Southern Africa to Northwestern India and has historically included Iraq. They haven't been seen in the Basra area for many years, but the restoring of the marshes has caused them to move to dryer ground, including land around the city. They are omnivorous (but mostly carnivorous) and eat many animals that other hunters leave alone, including porcupines, poisonous snakes, and small crocodiles. Because they will take on such prey, they have a reputation for fearlessness. The males can grow to about thirty pounds. They wouldn't hunt a human, but they could carve one up pretty badly if cornered. They are also cute as the dickens.

The Basra Badgers would be great name for a sports franchise.


Is this the face of a maneater?

I can't wait for the White House to tie the badgers to al Qayda. After that it would only be a matter of time before al Qayda sent out a podcast to say "we don't need no stinking badgers to bring down the decadent West."

How many is normal for this time of year?

General Petraeus on things getting better in Baghdad:

If you drive around Baghdad, you'll find astonishing signs of normalcy in perhaps half to two-thirds of the city.... In fact, the car bomb numbers have come down fairly steadily as well until just a couple of days ago, and we'll see if we can get those coming down again.

What Petraeus fails to take into account is that the numbers of car bombings always go down around this time of year as they begin to run out of cars, but the numbers will be back up next fall, after the new models come out.

Iraq goes NIMBY

Republican politicians and conservative pundits have been refreshingly open over he last few years about our strategy in Iraq: it has been to invite all of the terrorists in the world to come to Iraq and spill Iraqi blood rather than coming to America and spilling American blood. This "fight them over there" strategy might sound good to some cowardly or consciousless Americans, but the Iraqis are less than fond of their role in that plan. Today, their democratically elected parliament asked for a change in that strategy.

A majority of Iraqi lawmakers endorsed a draft bill calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops and demanding a freeze on the number already in the country, lawmakers said Thursday.

The legislation was being discussed even as U.S. lawmakers were locked in a dispute with the White House over their call to start reducing the size of the U.S. force in the coming months.

The proposed Iraqi legislation, drafted by the parliamentary bloc loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was signed by 144 members of the 275-member house, said Nassar al-Rubaie, the leader of the Sadrist bloc.

The Sadrist bloc, which holds 30 parliamentary seats and sees the U.S.-led forces as an occupying army, has pushed similar bills before, but this was the first time it garnered the support of a majority of lawmakers.

This would appear to be a put up or shut up time in our relationship with Iraq. Is Iraq a free and sovereign democracy whose people are allowed to decide what their best interests are and how to pursue them? Or is Iraq a US puppet whose governing bodies are for show only? Of course, there is a third choice that avoids the showdown. Bush could use this as a teaching moment to instruct al Maliki in the theory of the unitary executive and the generous use of signing statements. Let the people and their representatives say whatever they want while the executive will do whatever he (or his owners) want. It's a win-win situation; the people get to have their say and Bush gets to have his way.