It is a fairly esoteric as a whole, but someone had to have told them before they started advertising it.
--

Slade - Cum on feel the noize

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax (Don't Do It)

Dead or Alive - You Spin Me Round

Three songs that made it into the main stream that skirted around censorship in the states.

n/t

Incidents like this in which innocent victims get killed are unfortunate and deeply saddening.  You are snarking here, but Obama actually should feel responsible for deaths like these, for what it's worth.  He should also feel responsible for the consequences should he decide to pull our troops out.  He has to be evaluating which course is better on balance for the whole population of the region, and the world.  

Obama has chosen a policy which he believes is for the best on balance.  Will there it turn out to have been the right course?  Personally, I think it is too early to say.  

 It is not unlike "the surge", except for the fact that IMO Bush already had built up a track record of four years of incompetenece as Commander in Chief re: the Iraq War by the time the surge was announced, and Obama has no such baggage at this point.  And even there, despite my deep mistrust of Mr. Bush's abilities as a Commander in Chief, I tried to find a way to see the chances of the success of the surge, once it was clear it was going to be implemented:

When the "surge" happens, I hope it succeeds.

I just saw that the Military Times did a poll of U.S. Soldiers in Iraq... exactly 50% of soldiers answered that they still believe that success in the war in Iraq is "likely". This would imply that the other 50% of soldiers think that the prospects for success in Iraq is something less than likely.

I'm torn right down the middle too, fifty-fifty... My desire for success for America, Iraq, and the Middle East is still as strong as my conviction that we should have never gone into Iraq in the first place. This paints me into a tiny, cramped corner, and I'm going to try to come to terms with it in this diary... what is the correct way for me to approach the upcoming escalation? Should I continue to push for withdrawal, as the surge gets underway? Or should I back off and hope that the additional troops can somehow provide some security for Iraq?

I've decided, tentatively, that I'm going to take the "wait and see" stance, once the surge begins. If you care to see my reasoning behind this, read on...

The escalation, the "surge"-- I'm just going to assume it is going to happen at this point. The anecdotal evidence is overwhelming that President Bush has already decided upon escalation as his official policy. It is only the details that we do not know yet. If I were asked at this moment if the surge were a good idea, I would answer: 'No'; I would say that this strategy, in my best judgement, fails to provide adequate chances for success in Iraq to justify the costs.

That being said, I am no expert. Few of us are. Most of us are operating on incomplete information about a far away conflict in a land we have never visited, involving ideologies that we do not comprehend.

Nor am I blessed with perfect foresight. My inner crystal ball has been proved to be far from perfect. Here's just a couple of examples where I have been completely wrong in my assessments and predictions (these aren't really central to the diary, and can be skipped without missing my point):

Date: September 13th 1993

Event: Yithzak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shake hands at White House on a peace deal.

My view of situation at the time: This is a historic breakthrough! Peace is finally at hand for the long suffering people of the Middle East... this will surely usher in a new era of peace and prosperity around the globe... and with the Soviet Union dissolved, we may have seen the last major wars of my lifetime!

Actual outcome: The agreement was just one of many necessary steps... the other steps were never taken. World peace never broke out. Not even close.

Date: January 26th, 1998

Event: Bill Clinton tells press: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

My view of situation: A spectacular and forceful denial! No way that he's lying, he couldn't possibly issue such a direct and assertive statement if it were not the truth! Eat it, right wingers!

Actual outcome: Clinton was exposed as a liar.

Date: September 14th 2001

Event: Bush makes speech at Ground Zero: "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked down these buildings will hear all of us soon."

My view of situation at the time: Bush is setting the proper tone... Some good may come out of this tragedy, it could unite the world against extremism.

Actual outcome: Paranoia, disgrace, bungled and deadly wars. Extremism, in all its forms, thrives.

Date: Spring 2002

Event: The Bush Administration engages in serious saber-rattling against Iraq.

My view of situation: Well, Saddam is obviously no threat to the U.S., and he can't attack us, so what's the big deal? We can't possibly invade. The American public will never allow it. The Congress will never allow it.

Actual outcome: U.S. invades Iraq in March 2003.

So when the day of the escalation takes place, you tell me what I should do... continue to rant on about the uselessness of the effort with self-righteous certainty? Or to hold my judgement on the effort for at least some period of time, letting events play out, hoping for some happy accident to lead to something resembling a positive outcome?

The bottom line is that I want something good to come out of all this. And I have no illusion that the course of action that I prefer (disengagement) is far from a recipe for success in Iraq... in fact, my guess is that the security situation likely will deteriorate in the short term once we disengage.

On the other hand, in the aftermath of the invasion in 2003, it was very clear to me that what was missing was the overwhelming presence of mass numbers of U.S. troops, to secure and clear areas and keep armaments out of the hands of the populace. Well, to some extent, that is still the problem: there is no sufficent security force in the area to enforce some sort of order; militias have been allowed to consolidate their own power and support. In a perfect world with unquestioned U.S. credibility and unlimited military capacity, there would be no question in my mind that the correct approach at this moment in time would be to commit more of our forces to secure the country that we have broken.

It is not a perfect world of course; the Bush Administration has next to no credibility in Iraq, and our active forces are strained. There are legitimate questions as to whether we even have the capacity for an escalation of any significance, or whether Bush's lack of credibility precludes the success of any conceivable further action in Iraq.

But my hunch is that we will be able to scrape togehter enough troops for a "surge." And I'm going to answer the Bush credibility concern by saying that there are others besides George W. Bush involved in this effort: good people, wise people. I refuse to believe that everyone involved in leadership capacities in our armed forces are corrupt fools.

Will the smart people in our military be able to overcome poor civilian leadership? Will they be able to effectively use additional troops in Iraq? I can only conclude that it is possible.

While the small escalation that is assumed to be in the offing will certainly not represent the overwhelming U.S. troop presence that I and many others felt would have been necessary to enforce the peace after the initial invasion, is it possible that the modest escalation will be able to buy just enough security at the margins to allow the Iraqi security forces to find their footing?

I may be grasping at the thinnest of straws here, but given my past history of being wrong, I would have to conclude that yes, yes it is possible, no matter how unlikely, no matter how much fortune would have to smile upon us for it to succeed.

And I want us to succeed. I want Iraq to succeed. I deeply resent all of the people who say that people like me want us to fail in Iraq for our own political reasons, so that we can say "I told you so." That is NOT TRUE. They confuse the fact that I resent being put into this uncomfortable position by their side's arrogance and incompetence for defeatism and political calculation.

What say you, all snark aside, regarding Obama's policy of sending more troops into Afghanistan and the chances of success of this policy?

 to the past administration, how many families do you think President Bush was directly responsible for killing?

 War is hell, isn't it. We all know that. The cost is undeniable.

 I would posit that the biggest burden any President bears are the tragic casualties of war. The reality of seeing and knowing the true heartbreaking cost of conflict, should prod us all to seek ways to resolve these difficult conflicts so as to prevent these horrors from being repeated.

gains rate which is less than if it were taxed as income tax.

"Bush denies remembering" = maybe he's forgotten it

"pretty much debunks" = doesn't really debunk

This is still a case of he said/she said.

...the runways being shut down while the slick one has Christophe running his fingers through his silver locks.

It appears you are suffering from Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

heard about it out of the gate.

No one claimed he flew on AF1?

No one claimed he flew first class?

Just like no one claimed he was going to be in DC anyway, or any other personal information that only Skymutt knows!

Here's the Headline! Skymutt breaks national story and keeps it to himself! (Until forced to reveal it on SC!

You're more like Biden than I knew!

You guys are a joke.

Go play with your Bush push pin dolls, I'm done with it.