oh and lest we forget.....

ILLEGALLY, where the FUCK are the town hall protesters now? where were they when king georgeIMMORALLY AND UNJUSTLY invaded a country that NEVER did us harm nor MEANT to do us harm? where where where where?


Blasts Kill at Least 53 in Iraq
Attacks in Capital, North Add to Ethnic, Political Tensions

By Ernesto Londoño and Dlovan Brwari

Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, Aug. 10 -- Two truck bombings in northern Iraq and attacks targeting day laborers in western Baghdad killed at least 53 people and wounded scores of others early Monday, exacerbating ethnic and political tensions in this country.

The truck bombings in a small village north of Mosul, in northern Iraq, marked one of the deadliest attacks in an area controlled by the autonomous Kurdish government. At least 35 people were killed and more than 110 were wounded in the attack, according to the U.S. military........

this sentence struck me funny

............"Full-body massages are forbidden, to eliminate the possibility of sexual conduct between soldiers and salon employees. Soldiers in Iraq are prohibited from having sex with foreigners. "............


and not funny ha ha either.

our hero deployed military members can't get busy, yet every stiff (i couldn't resist) on wall street (some of whom we threw our hard earned money at) can bang to their heart's content WITH their corporate credit cards by their sides. what's wrong with THAT picture?

On a Base in Iraq, The Pedi-Cure
Salon in Still-Volatile Area Refreshes Hands, Feet and Exhausted Spirits

By Ernesto Londoño

Washington Post Foreign Service

MOSUL -- Pfc. Cortez Hamilton of St. Louis smiled blissfully as a 20-year-old beautician from Kyrgyzstan rubbed lotion on his left foot after spending a half-hour scraping off dead skin.

"It relaxes you," the 29-year-old cavalry soldier said halfway through a recent pedicure at Forward Operating Base Marez in this still-volatile northern Iraqi city. "You just go to sleep and it feels so good."

Marez, after six years of war, has become a cosmopolitan city within a city. Soldiers can buy tailored suits and knockoff designer purses, cigars and DVDs, lattes and burgers. After a long day of soldiering, a 30-minute, $17 back rub hits all the right spots.

"If not a need, there's certainly a demand," said Maj. Amanda Emmens-Rossi, a frequent customer at the beauty salon. "You come here on the weekend, and there's always Joes lined up to get manis and pedis. Just because you're deployed doesn't mean you have to look like a ragbag."..........

ahhhhhhhhhhhh

they just make this shite up as they go along. if it's going 'good' they have one story. if it gets a little bad, they have another. if it worsens, yet another. then if it's over the edge, they start pointing fingers at phantoms. he did it. no, she did it. no, he. no, that one. no him. no her. and on and on. when i say going good, i only mean no us troop deaths. i do NOT in any circumstance mean going good for the iraqi people. we've disrupted their lives and their country for generations to come.
if it's al-qaeda or iran or whomever, WE DID IT. we are 100% responsible.

Iran Top Threat To Iraq, U.S. Says
Focus on Al-Qaeda Now Diminishing

By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer
Last week's violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials.
Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran's "malign" influence, the officials said.
The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.
In congressional hearings this week, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said the U.S. military has driven al-Qaeda from Baghdad, Anbar province and central Iraq, and he depicted the group as now largely concentrated in a reduced territory around the northern city of Mosul.
During their Washington visit, Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker barely mentioned al-Qaeda in Iraq but spoke extensively of Iran. .....

iraq

will NEVER be the same AND it will NEVER BE SAFE
Mosul now more dangerous than two years ago, soldier says
As the war in Iraq largely slips from the front of Americans' minds, a new report from Mosul demonstrates the daily hardships and constant threat of attack still faced by US troops trying to pacify the country.
NBC's Richard Engel is in the middle of an interview with one member of the Army's 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment when their combat outpost in Mosul comes under attack. Engel and the soldier he is interviewing -- both outfitted in helmets and body armor -- flinch as the first bullets fly toward the makeshift base.
"It's clear the war here is as intense as ever," Engel says, narrating his piece.
He asks the soldier if the attacks are a "constant problem."
"Yes," the soldier says grimly..........

stories like these aren't headlines any more

just yesterday there was another one and the day before as well (where i believe at least 7 died in a bombing AT A FUNERAL). i'm not going to let it go and i don't think this country should let it go either. we're DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE

At Least 15 Iraqis Die As Building Explodes
Attack Highlights Problems in North

By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service
BAGHDAD, Jan. 23 -- A building rigged with explosives detonated Wednesday in Mosul, creating a thunderous blast that killed at least 15 people in the northern Iraqi city, which has become a gathering point and growing target for Sunni insurgents.
The late-afternoon explosion, which also wounded at least 132 people, took place as Iraqi soldiers were investigating reports that weapons had been stockpiled in the three-story building, located in a densely populated area of western Mosul near a soft-drink factory, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
The dead consisted of 12 Iraqi citizens and three Iraqi soldiers, the U.S. military reported. Emergency services worked into the evening to take the injured to the hospital...........

sahar hussein ali al-haydari, hero?

or was she just like you and me? woman, mother, patriot, journalist, neighbor

heros ARE ordinary people

she gave her life to tell a story AND to save her country (and so did 105 OTHER journalists in iraq since 2003)

A Reporter Pays Iraq's Final Price

By Anthony Borden

We do not know why Sahar went that last time to Mosul. But we do know why she was killed. A democrat, a journalist and a woman -- it's a lethal combination in Iraq.
Sahar Hussein Ali al-Haydari, 44, was fearless in writing about attempts by extremists to establish an Iraqi Islamic emirate based around her home town of Mosul. She was harsh on efforts to foment sectarian conflict: The last article we received was a Romeo and Juliet tale of a girl stoned to death for converting from Yezidism (a Kurdish sect) to Islam because she fell in love with a Muslim boy. She wrote, too, about restrictions placed on women by religiously driven insurgents........