What did they (they meaning the clowns in the Shrub administration and their tame spokesrobots) expect? They go in, take the roof off, and then expect that rain won't fall.

'Iraq' was created by the British and French at Versailles. It yokes together people who don't trust each other, and whose reasons for distrust have increased over the decades since 1919. The Hashemite kingdom, Qassim, the brothers Arif, and Saddam held it together by force (largely through keeping the loyalty of the military as long as possible, with the support of external actors like the British and the US). With that force taken away, did they seriously expect that things would change peacefully and constitutionally?

And, more to the point, did they expect that an occupying army would behave properly in the conditions of post-Saddam Iraq? Especially when the invasion was carried out with too few troops for a proper occupation.

In effect -- as happened in Lebanon back in 83 -- the US military has become one of the factions in the circular shooting match. It isn't surprising that some of the soldiers should behave as if there is no law -- they're part of an institution that has effectively stripped law from Iraq.

Durka durka durka democracy
Durka durka here to help you...

#3 of about 11,000 Google hits:

http://www.onehorseshy.com/clearance/democracy/

Apropos of the links more than the main story, but NPR this morning had a disturbing segment on the incredible upswing of radical prudery in Iraq. Shepards have been shot because their male goats aren't wearing diapers as orderd by local imams (apparently the sight of a male goat's package is dangerously arousing, which probably says more about the clerics than the goats...) Grocers are warned against suggestive arrangements of fruits and vegetables. At least one was firebombed for putting celery stalks next to ripe tomatos.

I think this is the correct story (my work computer lacks speakers or headphones to confirm it)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5622900

Ouch.

I'm probably the only semiregular whose first reaction to the title of this post was "the EP from the Lonelies? Kewl!"

But then, the album itself is not entirely unrelated...

Shepards have been shot because their male goats aren't wearing diapers as orderd by local imams (apparently the sight of a male goat's package is dangerously arousing, which probably says more about the clerics than the goats...)

A male goat's package is actually not visible to the casual observer. Either they meant some other animal, like bulls or horses, or they are thoroughly deranged, or it's completely made up.

Laurence:

or perhaps they aren't casual observers...

Seriously, I only know what I heard, but this does appear to be in line with other idiocy coming from the mullahs in Iraq.

I heard the goat story and thought, Someone is pulling someone else's... er...leg. Or maybe not.

As for rallying cries, I think I prefer one of the many from MY misspent youth -- "Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll!"

Tom S & Laurence: I was under the impression that it was the female genitalia they sought to have hidden.

This is getting more and more like the sheep story.

Why does this concern for goat genitalia sound like something from the brain of Buck Henry?

As for the goats and vegetables story…

I think it was about 8 years ago that some girls perished in a fire at their school in Saudi Arabia. It was the same types of people who make these rulings that kept fathers from rescuing their daughters because the girls weren't properly clothed. There was also some discussion that the religious police kept the girls in the burning building as well.

Indeed, fifteen girls died when they were prevented from leaving a burning building without their headscarves. The story is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1874471.stm

But, back to the main story: War is terrible; terrible things happen. Occupation can be even worse. The person who decides to start that war takes full responsibility for all the terrible things that happen. So George Bush is in the position of saying, "Yes! Getting me re-elected was worth having a fourteen-year-old girl raped and murdered, and her family shot to death!"

James Macdonald: Not to mention having every gay man in Iraq targeted. Legitimating 'honour killing' and making 'Iraqi democracy' the kind of oxymoron that only a moron could love. And that's without brutalising and demoralising the American military.

You're all looking that downside, folks.

Real Americans, the "can-do" folks who conquered this wild land and drove the plow that broke the plains, would read this thread and think:

"Man, we can make a fortune selling goat diapers to our Iraqi friends!"

Not to mention having every gay man in Iraq targeted.

Shucks -- George probably wouldn't see that as a bad thing. He'd do it right here if he could. Most of 'em vote Democrat anyway.

So . . .

How long before the sociopathic Private Green becomes the unfairly prosecuted cause celebre de jour among Conservatives?

(If there are already people rallying to his defense and raising money for his legal fees . . . please don't let us know until tomorrow. Monday sucks enough on its own.)

What's sickening is that the 14 year old girl has become another statistic covering for god know how many children (or have we forgetten that in this country the rapist of a 14 year old is a pedophile) female or male have been raped, maimed, killed by sick soldiers.

So fucking children is American's importation of American values and democracy (and killing entire families including babies, mothers and grandmothers). This country has become such a piece of shit. The real terrorists must think they won. They got America, a democratic nation, to kneel (we can't even call ourselves victims - we are still giving them the power without protest) to religious fuckups. Why should we blame the fanatics in the Middle East or elsewhere when the fundamentals on our own soil want to shove Jesus down our throats?

The BBC report of today's trial events is here. It makes pretty gruesome reading.

That guy, Steven Green, who with his friends raped the girl and killed her & her family? A reporter talked to him about six weeks earlier.

Stefan Jones: I think this is the kind of thing you meant.

Cricket's corner is a complete knucklehead:

It has been 4.5 years since September 11, 2001. My first reaction when US soil was terrorised by evil was; Why did our intelligence not know that this plot was underway?
For weeks I questioned our nation's security.
...
My mind & heart were put to ease by implementations of Homeland Security. I felt safe that they were "listening to chatter."

(note: The kool-aid must have been double-dosed on this one.)

Now liberal activists are saying that their right to privacy is being encroached upon. If national security organizations want to listen in on phone conversations with suspected terrorists, that live outside of the US or known terrorists cells in the US, I say this should not only be expected but more so demanded by the US people.

(Note: due process is completely swept under the carpet. the government will never do anything wrong, so if they say its a terrorist, then its a terrorist)

Why didn't this go on prior to 9-11-2001? If it had could 3000 + innocent lives been saved?

(Note: emotional pleading, for the sake of the children. Also note that this ignores those widow "witches" that Coulter hates so much, that argued against most of the crap Cricket boy is arguing for.)

My right to live free from fear of terrorism outweighs my desire to wonder if my phone conversations are being tapped.

(Note: Good, then send the NSA tapes of your phone conversations and let due process and checks-and-balances do what they're supposed to do.)

I question the motivation of those that are in an uproar over this?

(Note: You mean, like, people who actually had family members die on 9-11? Rather than some chicken-shit coward who sits behind an anonymous blog and spouts "The sky is falling! The Patriot Act will save us!" all day?)

I have yet to come up with a logical conclusion to their reasoning, even after listening to their debates & rhetoric.

(Note: Picture Rush Limbaugh sticking his fingers in his ears going "You keep talking, but I'm not listening!" over and over)

My safety & my children's safety is more important than anything, including my right to privacy.

(Note: Because "safety" here is someone else's safety, whom cricket doesn't give a damn about. When his name ends up on the wrong no-fly list or his bank accounts and credit is frozen because the government makes a mistake, and see how much he'll cry about missing checks and balances)

(Note: this guy is so afraid and is so willing to sell out everyone around him to placate his fear that he's one step from shitting his own pants. comlete moronic coward.)

Greg London: I agree wholeheartedly.

Reading this ("As the trial of Steven D. Green gets underway, and his victims are remembered, and his actions are chronicled in a court of law, I will also remember Steven D. Green as a casualty of war.") made me wonder at the writer's sanity and humanity.

A law instructor I know spotted this in http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060807/ts_nm/iraq_mahmudiya_dc :

A fifth soldier, Sergeant Anthony Yribe, is charged with dereliction of duty and making a false statement and will also appear at the hearing at a U.S. base in Baghdad.

Defense Attorney Captain Jimmie Culp was blowing chewing gum bubbles while Yribe, sitting to his left, began sucking on a red lollipop during the testimony.

Y'know, I've seen this technique in horror. When something horrendous is going on, convey your character's self-defensive schizophrenic withdrawal from reality by having him fix on a specific incongruous detail, and let its unexpected presence serve as a microcosm of the skull-bursting wrongness of the scene as a whole.

Well, when it comes to war crimes, let's not forget that after My Lai, only one of the twenty-six soldiers who took part was prosecuted, Lt. Calley - and he received the terrible sentence, in the end, of three and a half years of house arrest.

Returning from the past, for those who're wondering how it all turned out:

Yribe testified he was charged with dereliction of duty and making a false official statement for not telling military investigators about his conversation with Green. He said that as part of a deal with prosecutors, the charges were dismissed and he accepted an other-than-honorable discharge from the Army in 2008.