Moment of Silence

Stanfurd wins Big Game, capping Cal's collapse

"We're serious about the security this time"

CNN, "Rove: Reporters slam politicians to save selves":

"Some decry the professional role of politics. They would like to see it disappear," Rove told graduating students at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management. "Some argue political professionals are ruining American politics -- trapping candidates in daily competition for the news cycle instead of long-term strategic thinking in the best interest of the country."

NYT, "Pentagon Extends Tour for 4,000 Troops, Increasing Number in Iraq":

The tours of 4,000 American soldiers who had been scheduled to leave Iraq in the coming weeks have been extended for up to four months, signaling that there would almost certainly be no significant troop pullout before the year’s end, military officials and analysts said Saturday.

...

“People are now talking about 2009 as the goal for achieving really serious security,”

Rove:

"It's odd to me that most of these critics are journalists and columnists," he said. "Perhaps they don't like sharing the field of play. Perhaps they want to draw attention away from the corrosive role their coverage has played focusing attention on process and not substance."

NYT, Audit Finds U.S. Hid Cost of Iraq Projects:

The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found.

Rove:

"There are some in politics who hold that voters are dumb, ill informed and easily misled, that voters can be manipulated by a clever ad or a smart line," said Rove, who is credited with President Bush's victories in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Bush, State of the Union (1/28/2003):

Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack.

With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region.

...

And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country -- your enemy is ruling your country. (Applause.) And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation.

Rove:

But he said voters are able to watch campaigns and candidates closely and "this messy and imperfect process has produced great leaders."

Bush, about Chinese President Hu Jintao, to another world leader:

"It takes him eight hours to fly home. Eight hours. Russia's big and so is China."

Fourteen Thousand Civilian Casualties

...in the past six months:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- More than 14,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq in the first half of this year, an ominous figure reflecting the fact that "killings, kidnappings and torture remain widespread" in the war-torn country, a United Nations report says.

Killings of civilians are on "an upward trend," with more than 5,800 deaths and more than 5,700 injuries reported in May and June alone, it says.

Maybe most ominous about this (although one-upping 100+ deaths a day requires quite a feat) is how quickly it was filed away in the Big Media Archive. CNN.com had the story on their front page for about a couple hours in the afternoon, and upon checking again after a long day at work, we are aptly informed of the impending marriage between Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock, the ascending popularity of yoga for soldiers and sailors, and something about a monkey mumbling into a microphone-- the Iraqi story, filed furtively away, faired no better with other news outlets. With bloodied hands, we sweep yet another pile of filth under the rug.

No news is good news, but bad news is obviously no news. Plotting the trend of civilian deaths per month over the last year paints another rosy picture:




I forecasted the trend to highlight the continuing decay of security that nation is seeing (that's a rate of 236 additional heads over each previous month), and for readers to imagine how the coming months might look in Iraq.

Efforts to promote a rule of law and secure an interest in peace are being brutally torn asunder by sectarian violence between two peoples:

The blast scattered bodies and street vendors’ carts, blackened nearby walls, dyed the ground red with blood and ignited pandemonium in the street.When Iraqi police officers arrived, the crowd pelted them with stones. According to The Associated Press, many demanded that the militia loyal to Mr. Sadr, the cleric, take over security of the city.

Mr. Sadr counts an enormous following among the Shiite poor and dispossessed in Baghdad and southern Iraq. The militia loyal to him, the Mahdi Army, has been blamed for many recent kidnappings and assassinations of Sunni Arabs.

It's oft repeated to me by those of other political beliefs that certain nouns are simply inappropriate to use in the context of Iraq. I will do my best to appease these people, and ask readers to please respond with some of their favorite synonyms for Quagmire and Civil War.