Just not THIS Iraqi neighborhood!

[Mephisto]

Why are those Iraqi insurgents so damn intent on adversely affecting a Republican candidate's chances in 2008? Why do they hate John McCain so much?

Suicide truck bomb kills 20 in Ramadi

POSTED: 5:29 a.m. EDT, April 6, 2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Twenty people were killed and 30 others wounded when a suicide truck bomber slammed into an Iraqi police checkpoint in a western Ramadi neighborhood Friday morning, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official told CNN.

Two police officers were among the dead, the official said, and two were wounded.

Ramadi is the provincial capital of the volatile Anbar province and is located about 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, Iraqi and U.S. security forces conducted house-to-house searches Friday morning in Diwaniya, a Shiite-dominated city south of Baghdad, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official told CNN.

The operation was aimed at curbing Shiite militias loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Diwaniya, located about 112 miles south of Baghdad, is a known Shiite militia stronghold.

By 1 p.m. (5 a.m. ET) the official said the operation had been ongoing for eight hours and was not yet completed.

Clashes between the militias and the joint U.S.-Iraqi forces have erupted in some parts of Diwaniya, wounding at least 17 -- including three militia members, the official said. A senior militia member has also been arrested.

Iraqi authorities in the city imposed a curfew early Friday, and the official said the curfew is ongoing until further notice.

Deadly days for the coalition

Ten coalition troops were killed in Iraq over the last two days, four of them in the deadliest attack on British troops since November, the U.S. and British militaries said Thursday.

The four British troops and a civilian translator were ambushed early Thursday as they returned from a mission west of the southern city of Basra, British military spokesman Lt. Col. Kevin Stratford-Wright said.

Insurgents wielding small arms and rocket-propelled grenades attacked the troops' armored Humvee about 340 miles (547 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, said Stratford-Wright. A roadside bomb also was employed in the attack, he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/06/iraq.main/index.html

You know if McCain hadn't been so smug about his assertions that "things are getting better," it would be a lot easier to let him off the hook on this:

McCain’s credibility on Iraq ‘has now been left out hanging to dry’

If there were any justice, yesterday’s edition of CNN’s Situation Room would be a campaign-altering moment that would dog Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for the next two years. In just a matter of minutes, he was exposed as a fraud.

On Monday, McCain appeared on Bill Bennett’s radio program, toeing the right-wing line on “progress” in Iraq. “There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today,” McCain told Bennett. “The U.S. is beginning to succeed in Iraq.”

Yesterday, Wolf Blitzer asked McCain about the comments, and why they appear to contradict everything we know about conditions in Baghdad. McCain, with an air of smugness and condescension, basically called Blitzer an idiot and blamed the media for public misconceptions.

BLITZER: Everything we hear, that if you leave the so-called Green Zone, the international zone, and you go outside of that secure area, relatively speaking, you’re in trouble if you’re an American.

MCCAIN: You know, that’s where you ought to catch up on things, Wolf. General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in a non-armed Humvee. I think you ought to catch up. You see, you are giving the old line of three months ago. I understand it. You certainly don’t get it through the filter of some of the media.

Blitzer turned to CNN Iraq correspondent Michael Ware, who does extraordinary work for the network, to see if McCain’s rhetoric matched Baghdad’s reality. Trust me, you’ll really want to watch this. (transcript below)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10338.html

 

[webfusion]

There was no mention made in that OP, referring to the methodology used in this attack, but it was a chemical attack. (chlorine gas)

 

[Darth Rotor]

There was no mention made in that OP, referring to the methodology used in this attack, but it was a chemical attack. (chlorine gas)

WMD in Iraq for fity, Alex.

DR

 

[Pardalis]

Strange that a news about a vicious cowardly attack is being used for political partisanry.

What does McCain have to do with it?

 

[ImaginalDisc]

WMD in Iraq for fity, Alex.

DR

That would be false. By your logic the napalm I could cook up with the things under my sink constitute a WMD.

 

[Darth Rotor]

That would be false. By your logic the napalm I could cook up with the things under my sink constitute a WMD.

1. It was a joke.
2. Napalm isn't a WMD, as it is not classed as Nuclear, Biological, nor Chemical. WMD comes from a Russian term for the class of unconventional weapons referred to for decades as NBC: nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

Napalm is a garden variety incendiary. Sticks to babies real nice, I hear.

DR

 

[Mephisto]

WMD in Iraq for fity, Alex.

DR

What is Weapons of Mass Disinfection?

 

[Mephisto]

Strange that a news about a vicious cowardly attack is being used for political partisanry.

What does McCain have to do with it?

I guess you missed the part where he's peddling BS that no one is buying.

MCCAIN: You know, that’s where you ought to catch up on things, Wolf. General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in a non-armed Humvee. I think you ought to catch up. You see, you are giving the old line of three months ago. I understand it. You certainly don’t get it through the filter of some of the media.

Hence the subject title - just not THIS neighborhood.

I guess you also missed the part about his comments drawing laughter from troops down the line.

To suggest that there’s any neighborhood in this city where an American can walk freely is beyond ludicrous. I’d love Sen. McCain to tell me where that neighborhood is and he and I can go for a stroll.

And to think that Gen. David Petraeus travels this city in an unarmed humvee? I mean, in the hour since Sen. McCain’s said this, I’ve spoken to military sources and there was laughter down the line.

Don't you think that perhaps McCain's ridiculous statement was belittling the danger our troops face every day in Iraq?

 

[Pardalis]

I guess you missed the part where he's peddling BS that no one is buying.

Hence the subject title - just not THIS neighborhood.

I guess you also missed the part about his comments drawing laughter from troops down the line.

Don't you think that perhaps McCain's ridiculous statement was belittling the danger our troops face every day in Iraq?

This is not about McCain, but about savages who are killing innocent people.

If anything, this proves that the ennemi is still dangerous and that the Iraqis still need help.