NationStates Jolt Archive

I would like to make a request that everyone stops saying that the Invasion of Iraq is making it a better place, please?

1 example of a simple before and after:

Before invasion, no WMD equipment owned by Iraq (atleast not in Iraq anyway).

After Invasion, atleast one chemical weapons stash built (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300530.html)

If I could find them I'd show some suicide bombing statistics, but you allready know there were far fewer bombings (probably almost none) before the invasion, and now there seem to be quite a few each week.

Can't the Coalition admit they made a bad move? Or atleats stop saying you've made the place better?

Hmmmm looks over request form. It lookes like you forgot about the first amendment part. Request Denied

One big detail there that you're missing - that stuff is caused by the insurgents, not by the coalition.

Hmmmm looks over request form. It lookes like you forgot about the first amendment part. Request Denied

you assume your beloved first amendment applies to him,as he may not be an american citizen and america has no 'jurisdiction' regarding the rights of those outside its nation.

And what would the insurgents be doing if we hand't invaded? Just going about their every day buisness, making some money and living happily enough. I know Saddam wasn't a good guy, but if the people of Iraq really wanted rid of him so badly they could have tried to revolt on their own, or even contacted the USA to ask for help...

"US is Making Iraq a better place"?

Nope!

you assume your beloved first amendment applies to him,as he may not be an american citizen and america has no 'jurisdiction' regarding the rights of those outside its nation.

Woo, being English rocks!
Anyway, I understand you have the right to say what you want, you can run down the streat screaming George bush is a *several "You are black" racist comments later*, but you don't, because you know it's wrong.

you assume your beloved first amendment applies to him,as he may not be an american citizen and america has no 'jurisdiction' regarding the rights of those outside its nation.

But your forgeting that my beloved first amendment does apply to me so I can in fact deny his request and continue to say that the US is making Iraq a better place. :p

Nope!

Is that someone actually agreeing with me there Steph? Woo, it's good to be back!

And what would the insurgents be doing if we hand't invaded? Just going about their every day buisness, making some money and living happily enough. I know Saddam wasn't a good guy, but if the people of Iraq really wanted rid of him so badly they could have tried to revolt on their own, or even contacted the USA to ask for help...

You've got to be kidding me? You're making these sickos out like they were just regular joes with picket fences and poodles.

These guys are fighting because they're pissed off that we took away their fascist state.

The Iraqis DID ask the US to go over there. At least those who could speak. The ones who by hook or crook managed to get OUT of the tyrannical state and make it to the US for asylum.

Sunni areas of Anbar province is now de-facto "insurgent" ruled.

Depressing report.

Why is Rumsfeld not held accountable for the troop requirement projection?

Why is Cheney not grilled on his comments about the insurgency being in "last throes"?

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12476559.htm
FALLUJAH, Iraq — Insurgents in Anbar province, the center of guerrilla resistance in Iraq, have fought the U.S. military to a stalemate.

After repeated major combat offensives in Fallujah and Ramadi, and after losing hundreds of soldiers and Marines in Anbar during the past two years - including 75 since June 1 - many American officers and enlisted men assigned to Anbar have stopped talking about winning a military victory in Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland. Instead, they're trying to hold on to a handful of population centers and hit smaller towns in a series of quick-strike operations designed to disrupt insurgent activities temporarily.

"I don't think of this in terms of winning," said Col. Stephen Davis, who commands a task force of about 5,000 Marines in an area of some 24,000 square miles in the western portion of Anbar. Instead, he said, his Marines are fighting a war of attrition. "The frustrating part for the (American) audience, if you will, is they want finality. They want a fight for the town and in the end the guy with the white hat wins."

That's unlikely in Anbar, Davis said. He expects the insurgency to last for years, hitting American and Iraqi forces with quick ambushes, bombs and mines. Roadside bombs have hit vehicles Davis was riding in three times this year already.

"We understand counter-insurgency ... we paid for these lessons in blood in Vietnam," Davis said. "You'll get killed on a nice day when everything is quiet."

Most of Iraq is far quieter than Anbar. But Anbar is Iraq's largest province and home to the Arab Sunni minority, which dominated the government under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. It's the strategic center of the country, and failure to secure it could thwart the Bush administration's hopes of helping to create a functioning Iraqi democracy.

Military officials now frequently compare the fight in Anbar to the Vietnam War, saying that guerrilla fighters, who blend back into the population, are trying to break the will of the American military - rather than defeat it outright - and to erode public support for the war back home.

"If it were just killing people that would win this, it'd be easy," said Marine Maj. Nicholas Visconti, 35, of Brookfield, Conn., who served in southern Iraq in 2003. "But look at Vietnam. We killed millions, and they kept coming. It's a war of attrition. They're not trying to win. It's just like in Vietnam. They won a long, protracted fight that the American public did not have the stomach for. ... Killing people is not the answer; rebuilding the cities is."

Minutes after he spoke, two mortar rounds flew over the building where he's based in Hit. Visconti didn't flinch as the explosions rang out.

During three weeks of reporting along the Euphrates River valley, home to Anbar's main population centers and the core of insurgent activity, military officials offered three primary reasons that guerrilla fighters have held and gained ground: the enemy's growing sophistication, insufficient numbers of U.S. troops and the lack of trained and reliable Iraqi security forces.

They described an enemy who's intelligent and adaptive:

- Military officials in Ramadi said insurgents there had learned the times of their patrol shift changes. When one group of vehicles comes to relieve another, civilian traffic is pushed to the side of the road to allow the military to pass. Insurgents plan and use this opportunity, surrounded by other cars, to drop homemade bombs out their windows or through holes cut in the rear floor.

- The insurgents have figured out by trial and error the different viewing ranges of the optics systems in American tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Humvees.

"They've mapped it out. They go into the road and try to draw fire to see what our range is and then they make a note of it and start putting IEDs that far out," said Army Maj. Jason Pelletier, 32, of the 28th Infantry Division, referring to improvised explosive devices, the military's term for homemade bombs. "It's that cat-and-mouse game. They do something, we react and they note our reaction," said Pelletier, who's from Milton, Vt.

- Faced with the U.S. military's technological might, guerrilla fighters have relied on gathering intelligence and using cheap, effective devices to kill and maim.

Marines raided a home near their base in Hit and found three Sudanese insurgents with a crude map they'd drawn of the American base, including notes detailing when patrols left the gate, whether they were on foot or in vehicles and the numbers of Marines on the patrols.

The three men also had $11,000 in cash in an area in which insurgents pay locals $50 to plant bombs in the road.

The guerrilla fighters in Hit have used small, yellow and pink, Japanese star-shaped alarm clocks - similar to those popular with little girls in the United States - as timers to detonate rocket launchers and mortar systems aimed at Marine positions. They frequently use sawed-off curtain rods planted 50 or so yards away to calibrate the ranges to nearby bases. One of the two Marine positions in the city receives mortar fire almost daily. Patrols from the other base are hit by frequent roadside bombings.

Instead of referring to the enemy derisively as "terrorists" - as they used to - Marines and soldiers now give the insurgents a measure of respect by calling them "mujahedeen," an Arabic term meaning "holy warrior" that became popular during the Afghan guerrilla campaign against the Soviet Union.

Military commanders in Anbar hope to combat the insurgency through a multi-pronged strategy of political progress, reconstruction and training Iraqi security forces.

However, there's been less political progress in Anbar than in Iraq's Kurdish north and Shiite Muslim south, the violence there has stymied progress in rebuilding towns destroyed in the fighting and Iraqi forces are still a long way from being able to secure the province.

U.S. officials hope that a strong turnout in national elections in December will turn people away from violence. They expressed similar hopes before last January's elections. However, while those elections were a success in many parts of the nation, in Anbar the turnout was in the single digits.

"Some of the Iraqis say they want to vote but they're worried there'll be a bomb at the polling station," Marine Capt. James Haunty, 27, of Columbus, Ohio, said recently. "It's a legitimate fear, but I always tell them, just trust me."

Less than five minutes after Haunty spoke, near the town of Hit, a roadside bomb down the street produced a loud boom followed by a funnel of black smoke.

Many Sunnis in Anbar say they'll vote against the constitution in October, as they've felt excluded from the process of drafting the document.

While fighting has badly damaged many towns and precluded widespread reconstruction efforts, Marines in Fallujah are working to make that city a centerpiece of rebuilding. Fallujah residences sustained some $225 million in damage last November during a U.S. assault aimed at clearing the city of insurgents, according to Marine Lt. Col. Jim Haldeman, who oversees the civil military operations center in Fallujah.

Homeowners have received 20 percent of that amount to rebuild homes, and will get the next 20 percent in the coming weeks, Haldeman said. Families are walking the streets once again and shops have reopened. The sound of hammers is constant, and men line the streets mixing concrete and laying bricks out to dry.

Even so, of the 250,000 population before the fighting, just 150,000 residents have returned. And the insurgency has come back to the area.

Iraqis are still a long way from being able to provide their own security in Anbar. As with much of the province, Fallujah has no functioning police force. Police in Ramadi are confined to two heavily fortified stations, after insurgents destroyed or seriously damaged eight others.

The Iraqi national guard, heralded last year as the answer to local security, was dissolved because of incompetence and insurgent infiltration, as was the guard's predecessor, the civil defense corps.

The new Iraqi army has participated in all the Marines' recent sweeps in Anbar, in a limited way. While the Iraqi soldiers haven't thrown down their weapons and run, as they have in the past, many of them are still unable to operate without close U.S. supervision.

---

Tom Lasseter made regular trips to Fallujah in the summer and winter of 2003, interviewing tribal sheiks and residents there before the town fell to insurgents. He wrote extensively about the brewing unrest in the region, and the misunderstandings and conflicts between residents and the U.S. military units stationed there. During that period he was able to walk freely throughout the town with a translator.

He was last in Fallujah without military escort in early 2004 when insurgents overran the downtown police station. After men repeatedly pointed AK-47s at his chest and face and threatened to shoot him, he decided not to return except with American troops. Insurgents took over the town that April.

He reported on troops in Ramadi last summer, and wrote about the scaling back of patrols there and low morale among troops. He returned to Anbar province in November, when U.S. troops retook Fallujah in the worst urban combat since Vietnam. For this series of stories, Lasseter spent three weeks in the province this month embedded with Marine and Army units in Haqlaniya, Haditha, Hit, Ramadi and Fallujah.

And more depressingly, more than 1000 killed in a stampede yesterday.

Where is the coverage?

Where is the count of Iraqi dead?

But your forgeting that my beloved first amendment does apply to me so I can in fact deny his request and continue to say that the US is making Iraq a better place. :p

true,cant argue with that.

true,cant argue with that.

lol. The whole point for me posting in this thread isnt about if I do or do not believe that America is making Iraq a better place. I did the request denied thing because no matter what the original poster thinks anyone really has the right to voice their opinions. You may not agree with them but that does not mean that they can't speak their minds.

are you serious... fewer suicide bombings??? Well maybe its b/c they didnt suicide bomb their ppl.. they just shot them in the head!!! its a little hearder to do that to a Marine.

How about some before and after for you? :

before - a fascist torturous dictatorship regime
after - people are free (at least more free than before)

before -sunni's have all the power and oppress Kurds and Shiites (includes killing on site, raping women, torturing children... the works)
after - shared power among Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds and the makings of a constitution, some sort of order, and absolutely progress from Saddam's Regime

So dont tell me there's no progress, when there clearly is a lot of progress, and a lot of change that has helped Iraq. I hope you didnt think that we would go in there, and in a week Iraq would be filled with fields of flowers, paved roads, shopping malls, and nice cars blasting 50 Cent. Its going to take a while to get that done (at least the 50 Cent part... i heard the people there aren't that into Gangsta Rap :p ).

You've got to be kidding me? You're making these sickos out like they were just regular joes with picket fences and poodles.

These guys are fighting because they're pissed off that we took away their fascist state.

The Iraqis DID ask the US to go over there. At least those who could speak. The ones who by hook or crook managed to get OUT of the tyrannical state and make it to the US for asylum.

...I dont think they have poodles in Iraq...

Anyway, if someone invaded your country when your getting along with your life however you like and took control, say if every Chinese person mobilised against you and turned the States into a communist country, would you sit back and open a beer?

lol. The whole point for me posting in this thread isnt about if I do or do not believe that America is making Iraq a better place. I did the request denied thing because no matter what the original poster thinks anyone really has the right to voice their opinions. You may not agree with them but that does not mean that they can't speak their minds.

Fair point...

One big detail there that you're missing - that stuff is caused by the insurgents, not by the coalition.
Excuse-moi, I don't mean to seem rude, but the insurgents are rebelling against the coalition, who don't seem to take the hint that they aren't wanted. If the insurgents wanted the coalition in Iraq, they wouldn't cause so much trouble, would they?

I know Saddam wasn't a good guy, but if the people of Iraq really wanted rid of him so badly they could have tried to revolt on their own, or even contacted the USA to ask for help...
Very good point.

I'm with Aryavartha. Where is the count of the Iraqi dead? And how many of the Iraqi dead are innocent citizens?

And what would the insurgents be doing if we hand't invaded? Just going about their every day buisness, making some money and living happily enough. I know Saddam wasn't a good guy, but if the people of Iraq really wanted rid of him so badly they could have tried to revolt on their own, or even contacted the USA to ask for help...

I think they would be using their skills and lack of morals to do Saddam's dirty work when he gets too tired to shoot people himself. Probably continue killing the Kurds and Shi'ites, and locking away people for no reason in prisons where the only way out was in pieces.

And more depressingly, more than 1000 killed in a stampede yesterday.

Where is the coverage?

Where is the count of Iraqi dead?Came on German public news broadcasts today. Got about as much time of the 15 minutes as hurricane Katrina.

...I dont think they have poodles in Iraq...

Anyway, if someone invaded your country when your getting along with your life however you like and took control, say if every Chinese person mobilised against you and turned the States into a communist country, would you sit back and open a beer?


i hope you dont mind me sayinig this... but you're looking @ this from the completely wrong point of view... We freed the people (shiites and kurds) who were being oppressed by their fascist dictatorship of a government. They needed our help becuase they lived every day hoping to stay alive. You do not know what it feels like to live every day in fear of having some Sunni come to your house and kill you for no reason at all. Here there are laws and penalties, there, they could do whatever they want. They were not getting along with their lives fine before we came, they were struggling daily. So your example of the chinese coming here to take over our government is completely... off target.

And what would the insurgents be doing if we hand't invaded? Just going about their every day buisness, making some money and living happily enough. I know Saddam wasn't a good guy, but if the people of Iraq really wanted rid of him so badly they could have tried to revolt on their own, or even contacted the USA to ask for help...

Um...they DID try to revolt--right after the first Persian Gulf War, at the urging of the first Bush administration (who then turned around and left them hanging without any support whatsoever). You can guess how well that went over.

Excuse-moi, I don't mean to seem rude, but the insurgents are rebelling against the coalition, who don't seem to take the hint that they aren't wanted. If the insurgents wanted the coalition in Iraq, they wouldn't cause so much trouble, would they?


Very good point.

I'm with Aryavartha. Where is the count of the Iraqi dead? And how many of the Iraqi dead are innocent citizens?


and how many of the innocent civilians were killed by US troops... i can tell you not even close to as much as the number killed by the Iraqis themselves or raodside/suicide bombs. The coalition doesnt just leave because a few people dont want it. Let me define insrugent for you: a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government; especially : a rebel not recognized as a belligerent. If there was no coalition, there would be no insurgency, and then the people who are fighting the US troops would just have all the power, and it would turn into another dictatorship, where the Shiites and Kurds would get screwed again and the whole war would have been for nothing.

The fact is, the Sunnis who had the power, obviously dont want us in Iraq, becuase we took away the power that they had and abused, and distributed it rather equally among all the groups of people.. i mean wouldnt you be pissed if you could go around and take the law into your own hands, and kill who you want one day, and then you couldnt the next day? The rest of the people there want us there, becuase the US is the key to their social and political freedom and the end to their oppression.
They couldnt start a revolution because they are just farmers and religious people. They dont know how to fight, they dont have weapons. Saddam's regime had many weapons and had a trained armed force. All who opposed Saddam would be killed, and then Saddam would kill all of their family as well. So its not that easy to just pick up and revolt. Also becuase of his fascist ways, there was no way to organize, secretly or otehrwise, a revolt of any sort. So basically the US (no thanks to the "help" from the UN) to the initiative to help the innocent people of Iraq. And thats that.

no douchebag

the insurgents from Iraq (the ones who make up the majority of the insurgents) are targetting troops and the foreign fighters (the insurgent minority) are the terrorists who are blowing up civilians. This came from a US general.

so now do you see how wrong you are? Let me guess, you'll never believe it. ever.

no douchebag

the insurgents from Iraq (the ones who make up the majority of the insurgents) are targetting troops and the foreign fighters (the insurgent minority) are the terrorists who are blowing up civilians. This came from a US general.

so now do you see how wrong you are? Let me guess, you'll never believe it. ever.

But most of the insurgents are Sunni, the ones who had the power before.

Funny you say that the majority of insurgents target the coalition soldiers because I hear a lot of your buddies saying that over 30,000 Iraqis have died as a result of insurgent attacks yet just over 2,000 US Soldiers have died.

But most of the insurgents are Sunni, the ones who had the power before.

Funny you say that the majority of insurgents target the coalition soldiers because I hear a lot of your buddies saying that over 30,000 Iraqis have died as a result of insurgent attacks yet just over 2,000 US Soldiers have died.


my buddies? who would that be and could you quote them? I am just saying what I hear from a US General involved in the Iraq war. The majority of insurgents are in fact from Iraq and targeting soldiers. The forewign fighters like AQ are the ones deliberately bombing civilian targets.

If I could find them I'd show some suicide bombing statistics, but you allready know there were far fewer bombings (probably almost none) before the invasion, and now there seem to be quite a few each week.

and I take it those are worse than mass graves?

I Googled "Civillian deaths in Iraq" and this was the top one:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/07/318997.html

I have never seen this site before, and cant attest to its inpartiality.

It puts the death toll in Iraq at over 100,000 since the start of the Invasion, and Occupation.

There is one. And it even has a source, good enough for me.

There is one. And it even has a source, good enough for me.Indymedia claimed that NationStates was running amok with neo-nazis and was a primary recruiting ground. The whole article was based on pretty faulty research. Not exactly an "impartial" site in my memory.

There is one. And it even has a source, good enough for me.


Well that source shows:
Anti-occupation forces/insurgents killed 9% of civilian victims

and

US-led forces killed 37% of civilian victims

is that the source you want to rely on? Wouldn't you take what a US General said as truth, before that source? Personally I don't know what the truth is but I am willing to believe that foreigners (US and AQ) are more likely to target/kill civilians than other civilians.

Came on German public news broadcasts today. Got about as much time of the 15 minutes as hurricane Katrina.

I am currently in the US and I see no coverage at all. I understand that the Katrina news is bigger now, but still, the coverage of Iraqi dead in the US media is woefully less.

No mention of the stampede was made in this forum too. I bet that even now most are not even aware of more than 1000 Iraqis are dead in a stampede. :(

I am currently in the US and I see no coverage at all. I understand that the Katrina news is bigger now, but still, the coverage of Iraqi dead in the US media is woefully less.

No mention of the stampede was made in this forum too. I bet that even now most are not even aware of more than 1000 Iraqis are dead in a stampede. :(Yeah, Katrina is bigger news. I think that the reason why it hits German channels is because we have public ones that don't rely on commercials for a lot of their funding and in response their news is directed at what's going on and important and not what's going to sell. The private channels are affected by this somewhat (I wouldn't know how much, I don't watch their news broadcasts).
But Katrina did get a "Brennpunkt" (burning-point) show afterwards because it actually affects Germany too.

I am currently in the US and I see no coverage at all. I understand that the Katrina news is bigger now, but still, the coverage of Iraqi dead in the US media is woefully less.

No mention of the stampede was made in this forum too. I bet that even now most are not even aware of more than 1000 Iraqis are dead in a stampede. :(


I heard about that and it's aweful. People were also poisoning the civilians :(

I heard about that and it's aweful. People were also poisoning the civilians :(There's little known of what exactly is going on. There's the idea that "the Sunnis" wilfully spread "rumors" to cause the panic, which the Government is denying vehemently to avoid a civil war. It'll be hard to glean anything from that for a short while. The people drowning in the Tigris was awful... It was a lament march for Shia prophets or martyrs to begin with... :(

First, the insurgency, by anybodies count is the minority opinion in Iraq.

For every VBIED (carbomb) that makes it into its targeted position, 3 explode in route. That kills many civilians. I've seen insurgents fire off a few rounds at US convoys, and then dive into a crowd.

Does anybody here realize how tight of a strangle hold on the Iraqi people? Iraq was a police state. If any word got to saddam's secret police, you, your friends and family would disapear in the night. If you were killed, you were lucky.

BTW, there is more to Iraq than Baghdad. People were living in conditions in many areas that most westerners can't imagine. So yes, for many iraqi's, things are better now than they were under Saddam.

First things first. America is not using Mustard Gas in Iraq. This alone makes things better than they were under Saddam.

Second, you can not honestly or seriously compare some terrorist getting his wiener laughed at to what Saddam had done before, cutting up people’s family members, children first, wives second, husbands last, throwing each down from a high window to crowds gathered below to observe what could happen to them.

Third, “NO WMD’s” is a cheery slogan, but if there was even one “WMD”, be it the disease samples kept in a researcher’s home refrigerator when he was not testing them on political prisoners, be it the illegally acquired gas centrifuge buried under a rose bush, be it the warehouses filled with incorrectly labeled Mustard gas and Ricin components, be it the missile modification equipment, be it the Binary Sarin shell they foolishly miswired and detonated; each and every one of these makes “NO WMD” a dishonest statement. I can not say I have “NO MONEY” if I have even one cent in my pocket. You can not say you have “NO HIV” if you have One HIV Virus reproducing in you blood. You can not say you have used “NO DRUGS” if you smoked even one joint in college. No Implies Zero. Even One, does not Equal Zero.

Fourth, the original War in Iraq never ended. There was a “Cease Fire” and Iraq, never complied with the “Cease Fire’s” terms.

Fifth, there can be more than one person running for office in Iraq today. If you liked Iraqi Elections better before, maybe it would please you if the next election in America, only had “George W. Bush” on the ballot? After all, you are trying to equivocate him with Saddam right?

and how many of the innocent civilians were killed by US troops... i can tell you not even close to as much as the number killed by the Iraqis themselves or raodside/suicide bombs. The coalition doesnt just leave because a few people dont want it.
<snip>
The fact is, the Sunnis who had the power, obviously dont want us in Iraq, becuase we took away the power that they had and abused, and distributed it rather equally among all the groups of people.. i mean wouldnt you be pissed if you could go around and take the law into your own hands, and kill who you want one day, and then you couldnt the next day? The rest of the people there want us there, becuase the US is the key to their social and political freedom and the end to their oppression.
They couldnt start a revolution because they are just farmers and religious people. They dont know how to fight, they dont have weapons. Saddam's regime had many weapons and had a trained armed force. All who opposed Saddam would be killed, and then Saddam would kill all of their family as well. So its not that easy to just pick up and revolt. Also becuase of his fascist ways, there was no way to organize, secretly or otehrwise, a revolt of any sort. So basically the US (no thanks to the "help" from the UN) to the initiative to help the innocent people of Iraq. And thats that.


I quote Mahatma Gandhi here

What difference does it make to the dead... whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Tell me what difference does it make to the Iraqi dead if they were killed by Saddam or by the US "smart" bombs or by the sunni terrorists?

Is it not the duty of the US to provide security to the Iraqis?

I am well aware of the dynamics of pan-Islamist goals and objectives and its methodology to achieve its goal. I have also experienced islamist terrorism first hand when I was living in India and India remains the biggest victim of modern islamist terrorism with a death count of 40,000 and rising. Most of my threads in this forum deal with islamism.

But seriously, the Iraq thing , whichever way the Bush administration tries to spin, does not fit with the goal of defeating pan-Islamist terrorism. It is a distant priority when compared to the elimination of the leaders and the training camps and the funding routes - none of which was present in Saddam's Iraq but are now present in Iraq. It appears that the legitimate and necessary war against pan-islamist terrorism has been hijacked by the Bush administration to fit in with their agenda. I won't have a problem with that too, if they have been atleast doing the damn job properly.

It is clear that the terrorists are now in de-facto control over sunni provinces. Sunni population is not won over and are now alienated. The Shias are barely in control, largely due to Sistani's efforts and nothing else. God knows what will happen if the frail old man dies suddenly. The borders are not sealed and terrorists from Jordan, Syria and Saudia keep pouring in.

Is it too much to ask for accountability and transparency of the Bush administration?

Is it too much to ask for the adminsitration to do a better job at what they themselves claim to be doing?