I'm sure all those feminists will soon be venting their outrage at those who would deny girls their rightful education.

[sarcasm off] If this doesn't show how insidiously evil Al Qaeda is, then nothing will. This kind of attack would be no different from the Klan doing the same thing to a school full of African-American children. In fact, it's somewhat reminiscent of the infamous terrorist act that inspired the movie Four Little Girls.

Mark, I think this could be part of the "What Media Bias?" series. Have you seen this in the MSM? On the other hand, if this attack had been carried out, you can bet it would be in the front pages.

Thank God that the attack was stopped.

The war was lost before it ever began because we had no legal justification to invade.

The Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441 that found Iraq in material breach of prior resolutions and warned of “severe consequences” if Iraq didn’t conform. But that resolution also explicitly stated that the Security Council remained seized of the issue and the United States assured the other members that Resolution 1441 did not authorize it to attack Iraq; the U.S. would have to return to the Security Council for another resolution before it could attack Iraq. In early 2003, the United States did return to the Security Council with a resolution authorizing an attack on Iraq. When it became clear that the proposed resolution could not muster a majority, the United States withdrew the resolution and attacked Iraq anyway. There is no crime more serious than illegally starting a war.

Trying to pull on the heart strings to justify an illegal invasion and subsequent war crimes just won't fly. Due to our invastion, Iraq now has the highest infant mortality rate in the Middle-East. It had the lowest before the sanctions.

I have been against this war from the start. However, now that we are there, I feel that the resolution of this conflict will not come from setting definite withdrawal time lines. The best (and probably only) chance of ‘wininng’ this war will come when the Iraqi people have had enough of insurgent inspired carnage and decide that it to their benefit to not to provide aide and to those who are killing them. This seems to be happening by the increasing reports of Iraqis reporting the whereabouts of the insurgents and their weapons. Without the support of the general populace, defeating a homegrown insurgency will be extremely difficult, if not impossible. We have just seen a domestic example of this with the Fort Dix plot. This was brought to light by the diligence of a common citizen. Without that lead, we might have been reading a different headline today.

Unfortunately, local support is going to take more time and require us to tread carefully. This needed time can’t be gained by imposing immediate withdrawal time lines. Yes, I know we’ve been there for years now and many issues have not been handled well to this point, but even the ‘MSM’ has lately been reporting encouraging news regarding the Iraqi people’s willingness to help themselves against the insurgency.

The point of whether it was worth it in the first place to conduct this war is another issue for another debate. However, I believe that at this point too much has already been invested there to come out of it with nothing. Therefore, I think this war is ‘winnable’ in the context of providing Iraqi with a reasonably stable, self sustaining situation if (a big if…) we can convince the Iraqi people that we are, at the least, the lesser of the evils.

Speaking of cold hearted lefists, anyone see the NYT article about the Iraqi security advisor meeting with the Defeatocratic leadership to state his government's position? As you might expect, their cold, black hearts were unmoved by his pleas to not destroy all the good that has been done in Iraq by setting timetables for withdrawal. Murtha and Levin were featured... p*ss on them, I hope they rot in the hell they want for Iraq.

yes - i bet iraqis are rejoicing now that saddam is gone and they have this wonderful future ahead of them. suprised they have not erected more statues of bush to honor his great mission to bring their country into such a flourishing period of progress.

wb - who are these 'defeatocrats' you mention? i checked the article myself but saw no mention of 'defeatocrats'... as i understand, over half the iraqi parliament are callig for timetables for US withdrawal:

On Tuesday, without note in the U.S. media, more than half of the members of Iraq’s parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country. 144 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, according to Nassar Al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Al Sadr movement, the nationalist Shia group that sponsored the petition.

are you having a hard time with reading comprehension or am i just misinterpreting what is being reported today?

DemocRATS don't give a flip about these girls and their potential horrific demise. It doesn't suit their political agenda.

Baby seals or shampoo testing on a rodent? Now that stuff gets them completely up in arms.

Anybody see how friggin' pathetic that truly is? Don't the 'Rats see how their craven disregard for the innocent makes their cry of "bring the soldiers home because we care so much" ring as hollow as Wade's cranium?

one more time GOP4ME - in the words of fabled dick morris on the complicit fox news network yesterday:

MORRIS: I think that withdrawal from Iraq — it obviously gives al Qaeda a huge victory. Huge victory. On the other hand, if we stay in Iraq, it gives them the opportunity to kill more Americans, which they really like.

One of the things, though, that I think the antiwar crowd has not considered is that, if we’re putting the Americans right within their arms’ reach, they don’t have to come to Wall Street to kill Americans. They don’t have to knock down the trade center. They can do it around the corner, and convenience is a big factor when you’re a terrorist.

how very convenient indeed. screaming and banging the table to keep the troops in the middle of the killing fields where they can continue to be convenient targets is called supporting the troops in your twisted little world. bringing them home is not. my oh my - what precarious logic we cling to.

Consciptor, I think you have the wrong idea about our military. It is their job to fight these jihadists. Every soldier over there is a volunteer. It is their job to be a target. EVERY soldier is a target. They kill people and are killed by people. Also I wouldnt call a US soldier a convenient target. To al-queda a convieneint target a bus full of civilians. A group of soldiers would slaughter any terrorist they come across. Thats not convienent.

If we leave Iraq prematurely, al queda WILL get the biggest victory they have ever had.

Our soldiers over there will WILLINGLY give their own life to save their buddy standing next to them. You Libs cant seem to understand that.

Our boys are finally seeing progress and it seems the closer we get to stabilizing Iraq, the more the far-left screams we need to get out. What are you guys afraid of? WHEN we are successful, you guys will look extremely weak. And when our boys come home as the victors, you guys will have 100,000+ "swift-boaters" to deal with. Ouch.

Hmm Mark - I seem to remember something about sometimes having to do things that hurt people because you love them so much? Remember that?

Apparently the best way to help people in other countries is to overthrow their government (having no viable plan for after the war), continue failed policies out of sheer stubbornest, and then blame the problem on the people that never wanted to go to war on the first place. Classic Mark. Just classic

jbic - the question to be debated however is whether or not progress is actually happening and it would appear from US casualty counts, and daily violent events that we are nowhere near qualifying the the last two months as having made progress. one could argue we've been regressing since the inception of the surge. what kind of data do we want to analyze?

i suppose it all boils down to whether or not we want to be realistic about what we are trying to do over there. the goal posts have been moved so often i don't think anyone can honestly describe the conditions that constitute 'victory' or 'success' - even bush claimed the other day that iraqis have to find an acceptable level of violence (something kerry was castigated for a few years back) - as if to indicate that that would be an indication of mission accomplished.

personally, i think this whole "you either support the troops or you don't" is strawman's game. admittedly i get caught up in it to make obvious the mere ludicrousness of using the troops' welfare as an argument for or against staying in iraq. in my mind, fighting a long war will not only tax our armed forces to beyond breaking point, it will tax you and i and every other american who will ultimately have to shoulder the additional debt required to finance this war. so from my mind it's a personal evaluation of weighing the costs and benefits of each outcome and taking a stand on one side. in other words - at what cost?

Murtha and Levin were featured... p*ss on them, I hope they rot in the hell they want for Iraq.

WB, you are my soul brother--or sister. I despise these pukes, and will gladly p*ss on their graves if they depart this earth before I do.

btw, don't let constripper bother you--he's in love with Dr. Rerun, who's in love with Handora...

Since the U.S. freed the Iraqis from Saddam so they can have a democracy, why don’t we let the People of Iraq exercise their new freedom with a referendum. Let Iraqis decide if they want to U.S. to stay or leave. We can have those purple fingers all over again! But I can guess how they will vote based upon a study conducted over the past three years.

“A comprehensive Iraqi survey has been conducted by ABC (American Broadcasting Co) News, USAToday, the British Broadcasting Corp and ARD annually over the past three years. Its findings illuminate the most important trends in Iraqi politics. They show that by this March, no fewer than 78% of Iraqis opposed the presence of US forces, compared with 65% in November 2005 and 51% in February 2004. In the latter year, only 17% of the population thought that violence against US forces was acceptable, while by 2007 the figure had risen to 51%. This pool of people sympathetic to Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite militias was so large as to make it difficult to control and impossible to eliminate them.”

Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IE10Ak02.html

conscriptor: jbic - the question to be debated however is whether or not progress is actually happening and it would appear from US casualty counts, and daily violent events that we are nowhere near qualifying the the last two months as having made progress. one could argue we've been regressing since the inception of the surge. what kind of data do we want to analyze?

I would argue that, in the long run, the real "data" or "benchmarks", or "milestones" have nothing (or at least very little) to do with military success or lack thereof, but on what the Iraqi gov't does. It might be effectively argued that I don't know what the heck I'm talking about, but the same meme comes up ALL THE TIME, be it from left wing politicians or pundits, from right wing politicians (okay, not so much from right wing pundits) or -- perhaps most importantly -- from "the commanders on the ground". According to the article just cited: Although the military can help curtail violence, U.S. commanders say, Iraqi leaders must ultimately forge political compromises in order to create an enduring peace. "They have to pass a certain amount of key legislation for all of this to move forward. If they don't, we could secure all we want but it's not going to be successful," Odierno said, adding that "the jury's still out" on whether Iraq's leaders will act in the national interest.

Odierno, by the way, is the day-to-day commander for U.S. military operations in Iraq. And his sentiments are in no way unusual. The real way forward it not about guns and bullets, but buns and mullets. So to speak.

recently, some republicans have been saying that we should give the surge until September to see if it works. Depending on what happens, we may have to withdraw then. So, the republicans are now siding with the terrorists, telling them how to go about winning, undermining the troops. etc. or does that only apply when Democrats do it?

Go read mark's blathering about morals in the other posts, and try not to giggle at the master of situational ethics postering.

And this is who the democrats want us to surrender too.

Mark says
"We're there, and we have to win - and we will win, if we can just hold off the American left long enough to allow the troops to prevail."

Except that everyone from your beloved George Bush to his sidekicks Cheney/Condi, to your savior in uniform Petraus to your evil adversarys Pelosi/Reid/Clinton all agree on one thing

The fight to win Iraq is altimately a political one not a military one

MARK,
thanks for reminding us again how ignorant you are about Iraq, the true political dynamics of that situation and what the military can/can’t do in that country or what it would actually take for "victory".

The fight to win Iraq is altimately a political one not a military one

So, ScAmp, is "altimately" a cross between alternate and ultimately?

Thanks for reminding us how ignorant you are, about everything...

Great retort to a misguided war - spelling suggestions. That's about the similar level of microscopic examination I'm sure Mr Bush has given it also