Before getting to the details, let's consider the overarching premiss: that the choice we now face is whether to keep fighting and ultimately prevail, or to withdraw and abandon the Iraqis to their fate. As I see it, this premiss is completely false. If we keep fighting, there is no reason whatsoever to think that we will "prevail", and every reason to think that we will simply sacrifice a lot of American and Iraqi lives for nothing.

I agree that Bush's speech sucked and he would be more persuasive if he addressed the core issue as stated above. The core question is whether or not there is a reason to think that we will "prevail." The correct answer is that it is simply not possible to know right now, because we've changed tactics, and the new tactical approach won't pan out enough to tell if its working until the middle of next month. Both sides seem to be intensely interested in positioning a conclusion about whether or not that tactical approach works in advance of having any evidence. This is corrupt.

For example, Hillary Clinton is positioning that we're going to withdraw even if the evidence demonstrates that if we keep fighting we'll succeed.

We've begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Al Anbar Province, it's working. We're just years too late changing our tactics.

Media Matters, who position themselves as an antidote to political spin, actually engage in political spin on this very topic!

Zuckerman did not offer any evidence to support his claim that "the consensus is that the surge is working." In fact, members of Congress, administration officials, and experts have all stated that political reconciliation, which the Bush administration identified as a key to the success of its escalation strategy, has not occurred.

There is no relationship whatsoever between an observation about the political reconciliation and an observation about the success or failure of a military tactic. It is dishonest to conflate them. Its like saying: Zuckerman did not offer any evidence to support his claim that "the consensus is that humans evolved from lower organisms." In fact, members of Congress, administrations officials, and experts have all stated that there is no proof of global warming, another scientific "theory."

We should have changed tactics two to three years ago, and we would have if the presidential election had been carried differently. There was, in fact, every reason to change horses in the middle of that particular stream. The horses did not change, and so the strategy did not change, until after the 2006 election. You cannot undo the fact that we went to war in Iraq by pulling out. You have a potentially viable change in tactics that was the fruit of the fact that people finally got around to firing some Republicans. Now you might have an opportunity to do things right going forward, and you're not interested. You're not going to take it. You are doing everything you can to shoot it down before you know whether or not its viable. Why? Because you are too trapped by the extremism of your own political rhetoric to make the right decision?

If the surge report is positive and yet the US pulls out of Iraq anyway it will be, frankly, just as irrational and tragic as the decision to go in in the first place. Perhaps thats the history we deserve, but it just goes to show you that it really, deeply, doesn't matter which political party is in charge.

RE: Obsidian Wings: Bush's Speech

This really, really makes me angry.

Quebec provincial police admitted Thursday

...after denying it for 24 hours...

that their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators during the protests at the North American leaders summit in Montebello, Que.

"In no time did the police of the Surete du Quebec act as instigators or commit criminal acts," the news release states in French.

Well, actually, the press release says a bit more than that. What it says is:

Les policiers ont été repérés par les manifestants au moment où ils ont refusé de lancer des projectiles.

In english thats: "The police officers were located by the demonstrators when they refused to launch projectiles." The word "lancer" means to throw aggressively or launch. Now, in the video, it is extremely clear that the protesters are not telling the cop to launch the rock. They are telling the cop to put the rock down, and they are identified as cops because they refused to put the rock down. The cop even violently shoves the person who is telling him to put the rock down. There really is absolutely no question about that. Which, in turn, leaves little doubt that the Quebec police are complicit.

Quebec police blatently lie about Montebello protest

Bing bang bing bong bing!

YouTube - Korki Buchek - Bing Bang Song

Acidus had a project mentioned offhandedly on the Daily Show a few months ago but Virgil has seriously raised the bar by actually getting his picture on the Colbert report! We now have a new standard for leetness around here. If you haven't been personally denounced by Steven Colbert, you just aren't that important...

WikiScanner on the Colbert Report

The ruling was the result of a lawsuit filed by three sets of parents. Greg Hampel and Ed Swaya of Seattle had feared taking their daughter back to Oklahoma to visit her birth mother. Heather Finstuen and Anne Magro feared that non-biological mom Finstuen couldn't sign medical releases and other forms. Lucy and Jennifer Doel, who live in Oklahoma, had felt the impact of the misguided law: When their little girl had to be rushed to a hospital, the ambulance crew said only "the mother" could go along.

Good. Oklahoma not ok!

AlterNet: Federal Ruling Protects Kids of Gay Parents

A whole new level of fame for Virgil. He did something that made Penny Arcade. :)

Wikipedia Scanner on Penny Arcade

THREAT LEVEL's Kevin Poulsen is ruling the cable lines today, explaining what's going on with the hunt to de-anonymize self-serving Wikipedia edits. He taped an appearance for Fox News earlier today and then at 5:30 PST, he'll be on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

This was yesterday. They are currently 168 articles about this on Google News.

Virgil's project on TV news

"Quest for Bush," a.k.a. "Night of Bush Capturing," is a free online game released by the Global Islamic Media Front, a radical organization that has ties with al-Qaeda. Armed with a rifle, a shotgun or a grenade launcher, players navigate various missions that include "Jihad Growing Up," "Americans' Hell" and "Bush Hunted Like a Rat." In the final stage, you fight Bush.

This is an old article, but worth noting in regard to this notion.

Way Radical, Dude - washingtonpost.com

The whole experience of being hit by a bullet is very interesting and I think it is worth describing in detail.

George Orwell is Shot by Fascist Sniper in the Spanish Civil War

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