Toilet "Humor"

Over the weekend, some serious backtracking went on re: did the military flush a Koran or didn't they? Juan Cole sifts through the shit (no pun intended), and notes that Newsweek's "retraction" wasn't quite the 180 degree turn now claimed:

Isikoff's source, in other words, stands by his report of the incident, but is merely tracing it to other paperwork. What difference does that make? Although Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita angrily denounced the source as no longer credible, in the real world you can't just get rid of a witness because the person made a minor mistake with regard to a text citation. It is like saying that we can't be sure someone has really read the Gospels because he said he read about Caiaphas in the Gospel of Mark rather than in the Gospel of John.

Cole goes on to note that the REAL reason the Pentagon is so miffed is that they've been using Guantanamo as their little psychological shop of horrors...well, that and the fact that, once again, we've demonstrated a startling degree of stupidity--stupidity that comes at a deadly cost.

Oh, and speaking of stupid--Condoleezza Rice swooped into Iraq--unannounced, of course--to proclaim "This war came to us, no the other way around," once again conflating Iraq with 9/11...ah, lies and the lying liars...

The very fact that officials like Rice have to smuggle themselves into the country should tell you pretty much everything you need to know about Operation Over Except for the Fact that Team Bush, to Save Face, is Willing to Let the Body Count Continue to Rise--excepting Themselves, Of Course.

And, sorry to burst the bubbles of the war/wing nuts, but Operation Matador, the latest "smashing success" (or was that "catastrophic success?"), turns out to be just another mirage in the desert:

After one battle May 8 that killed at least two Marines, a roadside bomb that claimed another six on Wednesday and days of fruitless hunting for the enemy, the Marines were ready for a fight. The remote village of Arabi, just two miles from the Syrian border, looked to be the place. If the Americans found Arabi in the hands of foreign fighters, said Marine Maj. Steve Lawson, commander of Lima Company in the 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, "we'll make it rubble."...

Minutes passed. Poised for the sounds of AK-47 assault rifle fire, bullets clinking on the metal of the armored vehicles and explosions, the Marines heard nothing. They saw no one on deserted streets...

Since May 8, when Operation Matador's scheduled start was accelerated by an unexpected but fierce clash at the riverside town of Ubaydi, the Marines had found no one to fight. But the insurgents left proxies to do the killing for them: meticulously rigged roadside bombs and mines, planted on dirt roads where wheels or tank treads would pass, or along bridges.

Primed for battle, the Marines found only booby traps. Sometimes they found them too late.

On Wednesday, two artillery rounds buried in the road detonated under an Amtrac, blowing a two-foot-wide hole in its armor plating. The explosion set off ammunition inside the vehicle, creating an inferno.

As the Amtrac burned, a 24-year-old Marine in a nearby vehicle grabbed his helmet in both fists and wrenched it. "I hate this country!" he screamed...

The mortar shell hit, and the young mother's face collapsed in fear. She clutched her child, giving up her efforts to reassure the girl by smiling bravely at the house full of armed foreign intruders.

With no Arabic speakers among the Marines, no English spoken among the villagers of Arabi, and Lima Company's already sparse crew of Iraqi interpreters reduced when one quit in mid-battle at Ubaydi, there was no way to tell her the mortar round was meant for others, the nuisance gunmen across the Euphrates...

Check out the entire article--and, for those who have a sense of history, make comparisons to another instance of this country engaging in imperial war.