for those of you that continue to insist

king george and his band of merry thugs is fighting the great fight on the 'war on terror' (which is THE lousiest name they could have picked mind you. it's incites our 'enemies' is the ONLY thing it does), here's how they're fighting it (by selling weapons to iran and goddess only knows where else)

Iran Using Fronts to Get Bomb Parts From U.S.
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Iranian businessman was looking for high-quality American electronics, but he had to act stealthily: The special parts he coveted were denied to Iranians, especially those seeking to make roadside bombs to kill U.S. troops in Iraq.

With a few e-mails, the problem was solved. A friendly Malaysian importer would buy the parts from a company in Linden, N.J., and forward them to Iran. All that was left was coming up with a fake name for the invoice. Perhaps a Malaysian engineering school? "Of course, you can use any other company as end-user that you think is better than this," the Iranian businessman, Ahmad Rahzad, wrote in an e-mail dated March 8, 2007.

The ruse succeeded in delivering nine sensors called inclinometers to Iran, the first of several such shipments that year and the latest example of what U.S. officials and weapons experts describe as Iran's skillful flouting of export laws intended to stop lethal technology from reaching the Islamic republic. ...........

so a couple of days ago, when our king said things were going swimmingly

who believed him? we all know i didn't. who did? how can we CONTINUE to sit by and allow this to happen?
19 Tense Hours in Sadr City Alongside the Mahdi Army
After Calm Year, Fighting Engulfs Shiite Enclave

By Sudarsan Raghavan Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD, March 28 -- The gunfire struck like thunderclaps, building to a steady rhythm. American soldiers in a Stryker armored vehicle fired away from one end of the block. At the other end, two groups of Shiite militiamen pounded back with heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. American helicopters circled above in the blue afternoon sky. As a heavy barrage erupted outside his parents' house, Abu Mustafa al-Thahabi, a political and military adviser to the Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, rushed through the purple gate and took shelter behind the thick walls. He had just spoken with a fighter by cellphone. "I told him not to use that weapon. It's not effective," he said, referring to a rocket-propelled grenade. "I told him to use the IED, the Iranian one," he added, using the shorthand for an improvised explosive device. "This is more effective."
After nearly a year of relative calm, U.S. troops and Shiite militiamen engaged in pitched battles this week, underscoring how quickly order can give way to chaos in Iraq. On this block in Sadr City, the cleric's sprawling stronghold, men and boys came out from nearly every house to fight, using powerful IEDs and rockets. ..........

uh oh

Pentagon Offers Zany Excuse for IED Foul-up

by Jacob Freeze

More than 1500 American soldiers have been killed by IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of these deaths wouldn't have happened if the soldiers had been riding in armored V-shaped vehicles. These things used to be called "Mine-protected Utility Vehicles/Rapid Deployable" (MUV-R), but now it's a "Mine Resistant Ambush Protected" vehicle (MRAP). The name changed because you can't call something "rapid deployable" when it still ain't there after 4 long years. Or can you?
As recently as October 2006, Senator Lindsay Graham was celebrating this foul-up as a brilliant success. "This is an example of where (the Pentagon) has gotten it right," Graham said. "They're doing it as fast as they can." (USA Today, 10/30/2006). It sounds like this problem just came up, and the Pentagon jumped right on it. hall
But even in March, 2004, when Rumsfeld visited Abu Ghraib, "military officials did not rely on a government-issued Humvee to transport him safely on the ground. Instead, they turned to Halliburton, the oil services contractor, which lent the Pentagon a rolling fortress of steel called the Rhino Runner." (M. Moss, NYTimes, 6/26/2005)
Nothing is too good for our boys at Halliburton, or the SecDef! But it has taken a very long time for the Pentagon to give anything like the same protection to the average grunt on the mean streets of Iraq. What's the excuse?
Unfortunately for the Pentagon, excuses for ultra-slow deployment aren't exactly easy to dream up, since MRAP vehicles have been deployed all over the world for decades. "The military in South Africa and Rhodesia have been using these vehicles for the past 30 years, steadily improving the technology," (Lt. Col. Gert de Wet, in a press release from USMC Camp Smith, Hawaii, June 24 2005) .........