Uncle Osama

Link via Lead Balloons at Bad Attitudes
Nathan Newman cites a Reuters article that says Al Qaeda has "more than 18,000 militants ready to strike at the US in Iraq." How's that for meeting recruitment goals?


He's LAUGHING at us.

And the soldiers on the ground STILL don't have the kind of intelligence that would allow them to distinguish between friend or foe, much less know whether the enemy is local or foreign. Among other things, that makes the nighttime raids less a surgical strike and more of a hit-or-miss scenario--which guarantees plenty of folks will be completely pissed off at us.

The wingnuts have NO legitimate fallback position for these "mistakes," because the mistake was thinking we'd be greeted warmly--much like in the movie Animal House, the nuts thought "wait till the Iraqis see us. They LOVE us!"

They love us enough to pretty much anticipate our moves, and respond accordingly--if we beef up security around the Green Zone, they go after the pipelines. If we garrison the troops, they shoot at the "civilian contractors" in their big SUV's.

You know, I just realized another terrible irony regarding the vulnerability of the "contractors." They're almost in the exact opposite situation vis-a-vis a hostile Middle East population as your average stereotyped Middle Easterner is here when working at a convenience store. I know I've heard more than a few sick "jokes" about how the night-shift folks at the Circle K might as well be wearing targets on their shirts. Funny how it isn't funny when the tables are turned.

Lastly, Billmon has some thoughts about the CPA's decision to give the "new, improved Iraqi government" control of Baghdad International Airport. His point, in summation, is that it's not such a good idea to give away the line of retreat, especially considering that the "new, improved security forces" are actually the NON foreigners who've been fighting us since the insurgency began.

Team Bush really put the nit in nitwit.