Sad, But Not Unexpected

Ever since Zarqawi was killed I have been waiting for the new tactic and a new age of terror for our troops ensues. Our guys are going to have go around in squads of no less than ten in order to have enough manpower to resist an ambush whose aim is to capture, not kill the soldiers. Then they are dragged off to be tortured and killed at al-Qaeda's leisure.

ABC News is the only one reporting that these soldiers were beheaded, the Washington Post uses the term "barbarically" killed. Once again the soldiers pay for the administrations hubris. Parading Zarqawi's head shot on tv for days on end only inflamed them and increased the severity of their retribution. The NY Times reports that the message claiming responsibility for kidnapping the soldiers was short and didn't have any pictures. Well duh, the administration and the military ran around bragging about catching Zarqawi from the last video he did. These guys aren't stupid, they won't make the same mistake twice. Which is more than I can say for us. Next time al-Qaeda will probably use a blue screen and a backdrop of the Oval office.

MSNBC reports more on how we conducted the search, hard to believe we didn't find them. CNN is trying to put the best face on it by trying to leave open the possiblity that the soldiers died peacefully in their sleep. What do all of these links have in common? They all started from the same Associated Press story. The frame is the same on all the sites but the story was manipulated to match the ideological slant of the editorial board. I'm not even going to Fox News (no link).

The insurgency isn't getting weaker, they are getting bolder. Cheney can claim last throes all he wants (and does) but it wasn't true 13 months ago and it isn't true now. Bill Frist can babble on about victory is the only solution, but we are making more enemies by the day and have less support to show for it according to CBS News. The "insurgents" feel emboldened and aren't shy about taunting us about our inability to find our troops.

There will be no victory in this war. The longer we stay the more likely the populace will help out the home team. We supposedly went there to remove Hussein from power and to remove weapons of mass destruction. Hussein is standing trial, there were no WMDs, the price of oil has risen tremendously, the infrastructure of Iraq is destroyed, religious infighting has taken over the country and we are losing troops for no discernible reason. Is there a plan? If so, it needs to be revised since the odds of everybody laying down their weapons, joining hands and singing "Kumbayah" are slim to nonexistent.

This is now a civil war that is best handled by the people involved, the Iraqis. We have other problems. While we posture and bellow over Iraq and Iran, North Korea has been active and Afghanistan is heating up again. Do we care? No, not really. Iraq must be a victory.

Anybody seen Osama bin forgotten lately?

Tags: Iraq, soldiers, hostages, Osama, Zarqawi, al-Qaeda, Cheney, Bill Frist,