Apparently bin Laden wants Zarqwai's body released.  We're certainly willing to let you pick it up.  Please call ahead so that we can be ready for you.

Kevin Drum ably picks apart Andrew Sullivan's lament that while he doesn't think we can win in Iraq (especially with the crew in charge) and although things appear to be getting worse not better that nonetheless he can't support the alternative because things could get worse.  What's interesting is that this was the gist of John McCain's speech on the floor of the Senate the other day as well and as I listened to a clip on the radio I was struck by the notion that we are going to continue on the present untenable course not for any obvious hope of success, but so that those who brought us to this point and who shamelessly play politics with our foreign policy and national security can somehow feel that they've saved face in some inexplicable way.  Billions of dollars, thousands dead, unaddressed threats around the globe and a failed state in the heart of the Middle East for lord knows how long not so that we will avoid dishonoring the sacrifice of so many young Americans and Iraqis,  but so the current Administration and its lock-step supporters in Congress can avoid bruising their outsized egos.  That's just wrong. 

They don't have a plan, never have, nor have supporters of our failed policy offered to rethink our involvement and formulate a practical framework for making this enterprise actually succeed.  Instead they choose to engage in decrepit "stab in the back" type metaphors and empty platitudes about freedom and democracy at cheap political photo-ops and meaningless legislative debates while the President has already decided that he's going to let his successor sort this all out?  No one's asking what either the American or Iraqi people want.  After all what's our policy if the Iraqi government suddenly says take off, we don't want you here anymore or, heaven forbid, asks us to negotiate a timetable for withdrawal, what then?  Is it okay or do we stay the course regardless?  Sadly, America deserves so much better.  What a waste...

Craig Crawford's latest reminds us of Einstein's definition of insanity and how it is a apt description of President Bush's so-call "Iraq policy":

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Unless the Iraqis are saying one thing in public and another in private, it looks like someone isn't telling the truth....

God, get a load of this damn hippie screaming about Iraq:

Just ask yourself: Given that Iran is the real looming threat in that region, are we better placed now to deal with that threat than we would have been absent an Iraq war? If we could ask President Ahmadinejad whether he thinks we are better placed, what would his honest answer be?

We are not controlling events in Iraq. Events in Iraq are controlling us. We are the puppet; the street gangs of Baghdad and Basra are the puppet-masters, aided and abetted by an unsavory assortment of confidence men, bazaar traders, scheming clerics, ethnic front men, and Iranian agents. With all our wealth and power and idealism, we have submitted to become the plaything of a rabble, and a Middle Eastern rabble at that. Instead of rubbling, we have ourselves been rabbled. The lazy-minded evangelico-romanticism of George W. Bush, the bureaucratic will to power of Donald Rumsfeld, the avuncular condescension of Dick Cheney, and the reflexive military deference of Colin Powell combined to get us into a situation we never wanted to be in, a situation no self-respecting nation ought to be in, a situation we don’t know how to get out of. It’s not inconceivable that, with a run of sheer good luck, we might yet escape without too much egg on our faces, but it’s not likely. The place we are at is surely not a place anyone in 2003 wanted us to be at—not even Vic Davis Hanson.

Let 'em have it Hippie!

We are stuck there in that wretched place with no way out that would not involve massive loss of geostrategic face. Getting on for 3,000 of our troops have been killed, and close to 20,000 maimed. We’ve spent untold billions of dollars. For what?

What?  That's John Derbyshire?  The National Review Corner?  wow.  Another member of the Cut and Run Club. . .

We report, you decide...

A truly bad man is finally dead and good riddance.  Unfortunately, its difficult to say how much of an impact it will have on events in Iraq.  Most assessments this morning have been pretty sober which is understandable given how many similar corners we've turned in the last four years.  Nor is it really going to be easy to assess the effects of Zarqawi's death given that the Pentagon purposely inflated his role in the ongoing violence to heights not seen probably since Emmanuel Goldstein graced the pages of 1984.  What is clear is the sectarian violence he sought to inflame has taken on a life of its own and truly hampers the prospects for peace, reconciliation and rebuilding. 

Yes, Zarqawi was our boogeyman, at times responsible for everything while more recently painted as inept, but its hard not to also wonder what other evil-mastermind we'd be talking about if we hadn't passed up three clear opportunities to kill Zarqawi back in 2002.  That's a lot of dead Americans and Iraqis racked up for the sake of not undercutting the political rationale for invading Iraq.

Zarqawi is dead, let's hope his replacement isn't worse.

Joe is having a hard time of it up there in Connecticut.  Seems Ned Lamont is giving him a surprise challenge for the Democratic nomination. 

Joe's reaction?  He's going negative.  In June.  In a primary.  What does Lieberman know that we don't?

Joe has apparently pushed the panic button.

He has "gone negative" with two TV ads that are harsh and mean spirited.

Usually incumbent senators regard primary challengers with Olympian detachment and bemusement. (At least that is the public pose.)

Lieberman is trying to take Lamont out.

Whose gonna pay for the massive deficits which have plauged Bush's America?  You are:

Of course, the most critical link in the system is the United States and its mounting deficits, which have reached a staggering 7 percent of GDP. Pessimists have been warning about this for years to no avail. But after the April 22 meeting of the Group of Seven top industrial countries, the concluding statement had a surprise: the leaders acknowledged for the first time that currencies have to adjust to help rebalance the world economy. Put simply, the United States needs a cheaper dollar to pay its dollar debts. The rule of thumb is that the dollar has to fall 10 percent to cut the current account deficit by 1 percentage point of GDP, which means another 30 to 40 percent to cut the deficit in half. The trick will be for the markets and policymakers to produce a smooth decline, not a mad scramble out of the dollar. "We need to suck out liquidity without slipping into recession," warns Joseph Quinlan, chief market strategist for Bank of America.

That's right.  They want to pay their dollar debts by making the dollar in your hand worth less.

The number of civilians being shot and killed at U.S. military checkpoints in Iraq has dropped significantly in the last year from 7 deaths per week in July 2005 to 1 death per week in May 2006.  Evidently no one kept any statisitics on this before July 2005 so we have to assume these numbers are another example of steady progress in Iraq.

Since we looked at 2006 violent death/homicide statistics for our two newsworthy capital cities a couple weeks ago maybe its time to update.

May 2006:

Washington D.C.      15 homicides

Baghdad, Iraq          1,398 violent deaths

What, there's a problem of scale between the two?  Well lets try Los Angeles, then.

May 2006:

Los Angele, CA         41 homicides

Baghdad, Iraq           1, 398 violent deaths

Can we cut the crap, now?