ramblins of buddy don: this n that

sum thangs make me wunder whuts really a'gone on.

• fer instunts, thays this articull bout funds that wuz spozed to be spent fer the iraqi peoples benefit. turnt out twuznt dun till the las minute. did ye ever stop to thank how hard twood be to move $2.4 billions? ye kin read bout it in a articull name of U.S. was big spender in days before Iraq handover:

  Most of these funds came from frozen and seized assets and from the Development Fund for Iraq, which succeeded the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. After the U.S. invasion, the U.N. directed this money should be used by the CPA for the benefit of the Iraqi people.
  
  Cash was loaded onto giant pallets for shipment by plane to Iraq, and paid out to contractors who carried it away in duffel bags.
  
  The report, released at a House of Representatives committee hearing, said despite the huge amount of money, there was little U.S. scrutiny in how these assets were managed.
  
  "The disbursement of these funds was characterized by significant waste, fraud and abuse," said Waxman.

• corse, spendin all that money mus mean tiz wurth the investment, witch ye gut to wunder when tiz a'gone pay off. sum of them negativ folks thanks it aint fer sum reason. they git upset on a counta folks not findin them wmd. they dont lack how folks caint proov inny cunneckshun twixt saddam n osama. but at lease, we gut us a central frunt on the war on terror. that means we mus be gittin safer, rite? this articull name of Iraq May Be Prime Place for Training of Militants, C.I.A. Report Concludes splains all bout it:

  WASHINGTON, June 21 - A new classified assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency says Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in Al Qaeda's early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat.
  
  The assessment, completed last month and circulated among government agencies, was described in recent days by several Congressional and intelligence officials. The officials said it made clear that the war was likely to produce a dangerous legacy by dispersing to other countries Iraqi and foreign combatants more adept and better organized than they were before the conflict.
  
  Congressional and intelligence officials who described the assessment called it a thorough examination that included extensive discussion of the areas that might be particularly prone to infiltration by combatants from Iraq, either Iraqis or foreigners.
  
  They said the assessment had argued that Iraq, since the American invasion of 2003, had in many ways assumed the role played by Afghanistan during the rise of Al Qaeda during the 1980's and 1990's, as a magnet and a proving ground for Islamic extremists from Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries.

• mayhap i missed sumthin, but seems almos lack that thar war aint a'makin us safer. but is them insurgents a'larnin innythang? turns out they are larnin at lease one thang, witch thats how to make better bombs. ye kin read all bout it in this here articull name of Iraqi Rebels Refine Bomb Skills, Pushing Toll of G.I.'s Higher:

  WASHINGTON, June 21 - American casualties from bomb attacks in Iraq have reached new heights in the last two months as insurgents have begun to deploy devices that leave armored vehicles increasingly vulnerable, according to military records.
  
  Last month there were about 700 attacks against American forces using so-called improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s, the highest number since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to the American military command in Iraq and a senior Pentagon military official. Attacks on Iraqis also reached unprecedented levels, Lt. Gen. John Vines, a senior American ground commander in Iraq, told reporters on Tuesday.
  
  The surge in attacks, the officials say, has coincided with the appearance of significant advancements in bomb design, including the use of "shaped" charges that concentrate the blast and give it a better chance of penetrating armored vehicles, causing higher casualties.
  
  Another change, a senior military officer said, has been the detonation of explosives by infrared lasers, an innovation aimed at bypassing electronic jammers used to block radio-wave detonators.
  
  I.E.D.'s of all types caused 33 American deaths in May, and there have been at least 35 fatalities so far in June, the highest toll over a two-month period, according to statistics assembled by Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a Web site that tracks official figures.

• but shorely we good amurkins is a'gone give em time to git the job dun, rite? this here naysayer name of thomas oliphant dont seem to git it on a counta this articull he writ name of Patience running short on Iraq:

  THERE IS A reason why President Bush's aides are scrambling to come up with fresh justifications for the violence in Iraq, which mocks the latest protestations from the top that all is well.
  
  Bush has not just had a run of lousy polling results on his presidency, leadership, credibility, and his handling of the war. The political byproducts of three years of propaganda contradicted by the hard news of ceaseless insurgency are now coming as well from a Republican Congress that is beginning to stir.
  
  Earlier this month, with virtually no notice, the final version of the legislation sending another $85 billion to support the continued fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan contained an intriguing instruction to the administration to report on a list of ''measurable objectives" that would produce the beginning of US troop withdrawal if they are met.
  
  The instruction was noteworthy because it came from a proposal by a Democrat, Jim Moran of Virginia, but made it into the final report by House and Senate negotiators because it attracted considerable Republican support and there would have been a stink had it been dropped.

• ye gut to wunder why thangs turnt out thisaway. didnt we have a grate plan a'gone in? member our vice presdint splainin how good thangs wood go? heres a quote frum him (amung otherns) in a articull name of A turning point at home:

  June 23, 2005 | On Tuesday, network newscasts reported that the Pentagon claimed that 47 enemy fighters had been killed in Operation Spear in western Iraq. Last month, the Pentagon declared 125 insurgents killed in Operation Matador near the Syrian border. "We don't do body counts on other people," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated in November 2003.
  
  On Jan. 29, the day before the Iraqi election, President Bush announced it was the "turning point." On May 2, 2003, he stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln behind a banner reading "Mission Accomplished," and the next day he proclaimed that the "mission is completed." Three weeks ago, on June 2, he declared, "Our mission is clear there, as well, and that is to train the Iraqis so they can do the fighting." Last week, on June 18, Bush retreated to his ultimate justification: that Iraq had been invaded because Saddam Hussein was involved with the terrorists behind the Sept. 11 attacks, a notion believed by a majority of those who voted for him in 2004: "We went to war because we were attacked."
  
  On March 16, 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney had prophesied, "We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators ... I think it will go relatively quickly." Last month, on May 5, Cheney assured us that the insurgency in Iraq is in "the last throes." Yet on June 18, Gen. William Webster, the U.S. commander in Baghdad, said: "Certainly saying anything about 'breaking the back' or 'about to reach the end of the line' or those kinds of things do not apply to the insurgency at this point."
  
  Now the war has reached a turning point -- not in Iraq but in the United States. Every announcement of progress heightens the rising tide of public disillusionment with the war. Every reference to Sept. 11 strains the administration's credibility. Every revelation of how "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" for war (as in the Downing Street memo) shatters even Republicans' previously implacable faith.

ifn ye been a'readin this blog fer a while, ye know i gut a bruther thats cunsidderd insane due to skizofrenia. one thang i dun larnt durin a life a'studyin him n mental illness in genrull is this: when a person gits to bleevin his own lies, thankin them lies is ackshly true, then insanity is thonly possibull result. makes me wunder whuther our method of fitin terror aint a lil on the insane side of thangs.