Saturday - February 24, 2007
Attention Span Hyper Disorder (ASHD)
As far as the Celebrity Death Spiral Race is going, Anna Nicole Smith is now officially out of the running, having dropped out early. The current front-runner is Britney Spears who seems more than determined to be next to drop out. Sounds ghoulish, don’t it?
Yet we eagerly sit back and watch the race continue. Who will be next? Who will dig up the juicy details? Will we ever get enough of this bullshit? Yep. Some of us have. I have to admit I lost interest in the Anna Nicole circus the day she died. I didn’t know her personally and I’m afraid I’m one of very few men in this country who does not claim to be the father of her child.
Make no mistake, I regret her passing as I do anyone’s death but our trash voyeurism culture is just too obsessed with these celebrity flameouts. While you sit there clued to the TV set awaiting a verdict on the disposition of Anna’s body, the Mad Mullahs in Iran are plotting your demise. Do you think they will be glued to their TV’s watching every detail of our doom when a suitcase nuke goes off in New York or Los Angeles? Probably. Human nature can be a sick, twisted, morbid, ugly thing at times. As Mr. Spock would say, “Fascinating” ....
Voyeurism Unleashed
-- by Michael Reagan
Listening to the Broward County, Fla. coroner warn that the still-unburied remains of the late Anna Nicole Smith were getting a bit ripe reminded me of one of Ambrose Bierce’s more notorious remarks.
Speaking of a deceased actress in whose lifetime, he noted, was famous for her composure, Bierce, 19th century journalism’s precursor of our beloved Ann Coulter, said that unfortunately, the lady was now “quite decomposed.”
I can’t help but wonder what Bierce would have said about the current media mania concerning the aftermath of Miss Smith’s death, the disposal of her body, and the identity of the father of her last child.
How would he have reacted to the endless television coverage of the trial which is supposed to resolve the question of who will gain possession of her body before it falls apart? And what about the proceeding morphing into a showcase for the dramatic talents of the trial judge, who appears to lust after a career as a male Judge Judy and is accused of using the trial as a screen test?
“He is not as pretty as Judge Judy, but he is cut from the same tooth,’’ Vinnie Politan, co-host of Court TV’s weekday morning show “Bloom & Politan,” told The Miami Herald. “We here at Court TV love him. This is going to put him on the map, and he knows it.”
It is not too much of a reach to say that Broward County Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin has turned the proceedings into something of a circus, where he stars as the high-wire trapeze performer. Nor to note that television has encouraged his theatrics by covering the trial almost from dawn ‘til dusk.
I agree with whoever it was that said his honor is suffering from an advanced case of Itoitis, recalling the jurist in the O.J. Simpson case. Judge Seidlin, however, unlike Judge Ito, is amusing.
Cam Cardow - The Ottawa Citizen
The endless coverage has been so intense that it has all but drowned out the comings and goings of Britney whatsername as she meanders from rehab to rehab having shorn her golden locks and tattooed the nape of her neck in what the media diagnoses as a cry for help. Previous cries, such as her refusal to don underwear and her penchant for making it obvious, have gone unheeded.
Perhaps the only person on this planet who has to be delighted by the media’s continuing focus on the question of the disposal of Miss Smith’s remains is the lovesick astronaut who has all but disappeared from America’s TV screens thanks to the circus in Broward County. Thanks to the trial, we haven’t heard a whisper lately about her having driven 900 miles wearing a diaper, which come to think about it, might suggest an alternative to the undergarments Britney can’t bring herself to wear.
I don’t think people are waking up in the morning desperate to learn what’s going on in a Broward County courtroom. I don’t think they are racing to turn on the TV to see live pictures of the judge and the other actors in this low-interest drama. I don’t think they could care less about who gets the body of a gold-digging stripper who appears to have died of the same drugs which killed her son.
If the public has any interest at all, I think it would be that somebody, anybody, get that corpse in the ground before it turns to dust. In the end, what we have it is a further example of the mass voyeurism which the TV executives think is now afflicting the nation and which they are determined to satisfy.
Today it’s Anna Nicole Smith. Tomorrow it will be some other unfortunate female celebrity—a Britney or Paris, for example—who devoted her life to an orgy of self-destruction and paid the price.
There seems to be an endless supply of them out there.
Mike Reagan, the eldest son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Radio America Network. Look for Mike’s newest book, “Twice Adopted.” E-mail comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. ©2007 Mike Reagan.
on 02/24/2007 at 11:43 AM
Celebrities • Editorials • Trackbacks (0) • Permalink
Weekend Eye Candy
Question: What does a prison guard, a construction worker and a fireman have in common?
Answer: They’re all this weekend’s Eye Candy.
Make no mistake these gals are all professionals and work hard at their “day jobs”. Not every beautiful woman gets to lay around the Playboy mansion all day and cavort with Hef all day and all night (lucky guy!). Some of them have to work for a living. No, these are not models posing in uniforms. These gals are the real deal in the workforce ... and I don’t mean on street corners.
So what are you waiting for? Click the thumbnails and enter the gallery. The usual warnings apply: NSFW.
Moonshine
Chuck Asay - The Colorado Springs Gazette
Friday - February 23, 2007
Lost!
Naw, trust me on this, sweetie! I got a feeling we won’t be welcome down there. Let’s hop on over that four-lane highway and see what’s cooking at that other USAF base up there. Yeah, that one by the river ....
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(Photos from Google Earth Desktop)
click here.
Motivational Poster Of The Day
How to end a career in one short day
Jim Zumbo had it all. A long career as a hunting writer, sponsors, free trips to hunt, equipment, all of it. He threw it away in one short blog post, showing the world that second amendment supporters are more than just hunters.
What did he do exactly? Here is his blog post from last weekend: (since removed)
I must be living in a vacuum. The guides on our hunt tell me that the use of AR and AK rifles have a rapidly growing following among hunters, especially prairie dog hunters. I had no clue. Only once in my life have I ever seen anyone using one of these firearms.
I call them “assault” rifles, which may upset some people. Excuse me, maybe I’m a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity. I’ll go so far as to call them “terrorist” rifles. They tell me that some companies are producing assault rifles that are “tackdrivers.”
Sorry, folks, in my humble opinion, these things have no place in hunting. We don’t need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them, which is an obvious concern. I’ve always been comfortable with the statement that hunters don’t use assault rifles. We’ve always been proud of our “sporting firearms.”
This really has me concerned. As hunters, we don’t need the image of walking around the woods carrying one of these weapons. To most of the public, an assault rifle is a terrifying thing. Let’s divorce ourselves from them. I say game departments should ban them from the praries and woods.”
[emphasis mine-ed.]
For the less-nuanced among us, you may not find anything terribly wrong with Jimbo’s comment. We, the second amendment supporters, though take great exception with his declaration that an AR-15 is a “terrorist rifle”. Did he realize that outside of his hunting fraternity, there are tens of thousands of good, law-abiding people who actually use AR and AK rifles for fun, sport and personal protection? No, he didn’t.....until the letters started pouring in.
First his employer, Outdoor Life, took a stand.
Outdoor Life And Jim Zumbo Part Ways
By Todd. W. Smith
Editor-in-Chief
Outdoor Life magazine Editor-in-Chief Todd Smith released the following statement today regarding writer Jim Zumbo:
February 2007
In light of comments made by Jim Zumbo in his February 16, 2007 blog posting on the magazine’s website, Mr. Zumbo has offered to terminate his association with Outdoor Life, and the magazine has accepted his offer. Accordingly, he will no longer be contributing to the magazine in print or online. His final column with Outdoor Life will appear in the April 2007 issue, which has already gone to press.
We respect Mr. Zumbo’s First Amendment right to free speech, and we acknowledge his subsequent apology and admission of error. However, Outdoor Life has always been, and will always be, a steadfast supporter of all aspects of the shooting sports and our Second Amendment rights, which do not make distinctions based on the appearance of the firearms we choose to own, shoot or hunt with.
We regret this turn of events, as Mr. Zumbo has been a good friend to this magazine and lifelong advocate for hunters and hunting rights.
We appreciate the comments we’ve received from our loyal readers about this matter and encourage them to continue to correspond with us.
Then, when the sponsors realized they were going to be the target of the ire of the shooting world, they quickly disassociated themselves with him. Remington, Cabellas and others have already canceled their contracts with Zumbo.
How did Jim respond? With a tart “apology” claiming he was tired. Too bad.
Tired or not, he showed us his true stripes. That as long as he and his “hunting fraternity” can use their long rifles and shotguns, he is perfectly fine restricting the gun rights of everyone else. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a hunter and a sportsman as well, but I am a defender of our constitution....all of it...first.
******* Update ********
Jim Zumbo Finnaly gets it. After two false starts at an apology, Zumbo finally gets it right.
From Ted Nugent’s forum:
Thank you all for letting me speak. Yes, I know the 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting and hunting guns, and yes, I promise you I am now dedicated to educate all shooters that we must all stick together regardless of our gun choices, and also tolerate the firearms others may choose to use if they are dissimilar to ours. I will do everything I can, within my power as a journalist and public speaker, to protect the 2nd Amendment and America’s gun owners.
Yes, Jim Zumbo, if he is honest, and I think he is, finally understands why the outrage was all pointed at him with both barrels
Back from the Grave
Good afternoon dear readers. Just a short note to let you know that Mr. Christian is back in the saddle. The Skipper found me drifting on some flotsom and rescued me back to civilization. Expect to see some postings about my favorite topics, Firearms and Politics as often as I can find them. For those who haven’t heard about “Zumbogate” this week, that will be the first order of business.
Carry on.
Joe In The Balance
The Law Of Unintended Consequences may be about to strike Democrats in the Senate. They have been secretly putting together a bill to take back part of the authorization they gave President Bush to invade Iraq and further tie the administration’s hands in the War On Terror.
Now, Joe Lieberman is making noises that if they follow through with their evil plan, he may pull out the knife the Donks stuck in his back last Fall and move over to the Republican Party.
You realize of course that that would put Republicans in the majority in the Senate again, which could radically alter the political landscape in Washington once more. Stay tuned. We’ll soon find out if the Donks are willing to risk it and if Joe is serious.
Lieberman Says War Vote Could Prompt Party Switch
(POLITICO) - February 22, 2007 06:33 PM EST
Lieberman, a self-styled independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has been among the strongest supporters of the war and President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 combat troops into Iraq to help quell the violence there.
“I have no desire to change parties,” Lieberman said in a telephone interview. “If that ever happens, it is because I feel the majority of Democrats have gone in a direction that I don’t feel comfortable with.”
Asked whether that hasn’t already happened with Iraq, Lieberman said: “We will see how that plays out in the coming months,” specifically how the party approaches the issue of continued funding for the war.
He suggested, however, that the forthcoming showdown over new funding could be a deciding factor that would lure him to the Republican Party. “I hope we don’t get to that point,” Lieberman said. “That’s about all I will say on it today. That would hurt.”
Republicans have long targeted Lieberman to switch – a move that would give them control of the Senate. And Time magazine is set to report Friday that there is a “remote” chance Lieberman would join the GOP.
Carpetbaggers
After the Civil War the South had to suffer the greed and evil of a group of people called ”carpetbaggers”. These people went south with only one purpose - strip the South of its wealth for personal advantage and to gain power.
Now one state, Arkansas, is getting revenge on the Damn Yankees. They first sent the Clintons to Washington to make a mess of things there and then as a final insult they pawned the Dastardly Duo off on New York state. Take that, damn yankees!
You ain’t heard nothing yet though. Since leaving office Ol’ Slick Willie has been making money hand over fist giving speeches to groups who should know better than to pay $150,000 for a twenty minute pack of lies from Bill, followed by some arm-twisting to donate $300,000 to Hillary’s campaign war chest.
Throw in a couple of seven-figure book deals for books that don’t even make for good bathroom reading and you’ve got a couple of carpetbaggers gouging the yankees for everything they’re worth. To make matters worse, Slick Willie took his show on the road over the last six years out west and overseas making nearly $40 million - a figure that only baseball and basketball players could command before now.
And that’s just the speaking and book income. Lord knows how many millions the pair have squeezed out of those companies and individuals in campaign contributions to Hillary and her political action committees. I guess the North will think twice the next time they decide to rape the South. Payback is a bitch, ain’t it?
For Clinton, New Wealth In Speeches
Fees in 6 Years Total Nearly $40 Million
(WASHINGTON POST) - Friday, February 23, 2007
Last year, one of his most lucrative since he left the presidency, Clinton earned $9 million to $10 million on the lecture circuit. He averaged almost a speech a day—352 for the year—but only about 20 percent were for personal income. The others were given for no fee or for donations to the William J. Clinton Foundation, the nonprofit group he founded to pursue causes such as the fight against AIDS.
His paid speeches included $150,000 appearances before landlord groups, biotechnology firms and food distributors, as well as speeches in England, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia that together netted him more than $1.6 million. On one particularly good day in Canada, Clinton made $475,000 for two speeches, more than double his annual salary as president.
“I never had a nickel to my name until I got out of the White House, and now I’m a millionaire, the most favored person for the Washington Republicans,” Clinton told a friendly audience in Kentucky last fall. “I get a tax cut every year, no matter what our needs are.”
Indeed, the Clintons—who left the White House with an estimated $12 million in legal debts rung up during the Whitewater, campaign fundraising and Monica S. Lewinsky investigations—are worth an estimated $10 million to $50 million, according to Hillary Clinton’s most recent disclosure form. That is attributable primarily to the speaking fees and to the seven-figure book deals that both Clintons signed shortly after leaving the White House.
The fortune they have amassed gives the Clintons a nest egg for the first time, and it allows them to tap into that wealth for a campaign if Hillary Clinton, as expected, forgoes public financing in her race for president. It also suggests a sometimes close connection between their personal finances and her political career.
Many of Bill Clinton’s six-figure speeches have been made to companies whose employees and political action committees have been among Hillary Clinton’s top backers in her Senate campaigns. The New York investment giant Goldman Sachs paid him $650,000 for four speeches in recent years. Its employees and PAC have given her $270,000 since 2000—putting it second on the list of her most generous political patrons.
The banking firm Citigroup, whose employees and PAC have been Hillary Clinton’s top source of campaign donations, with more than $320,000, paid her husband $250,000 for a speech in France in 2004. Last year, it committed $5.5 million for Clinton’s Global Initiative to help encourage entrepreneurship and financial education among the poor.
Asked about the companies and their relationship to the Clintons, Jay Carson, a spokesman for the former president, said, “It certainly makes sense that reputable New York companies who support the policies and works of President Clinton and his foundation would also be supportive of their senator.”
- More ...
on 02/23/2007 at 09:39 AM
Corruption and Greed • Hildabeast • Trackbacks (0) • Permalink
Full Coverage
Michael Ramirez - Investors Business Daily
Thursday - February 22, 2007
Bank Of America Defiant
Are you a legal American citizen who works hard for your money, pays your taxes and follows the rules? Do you still have a bank account or credit card with Bank Of America? Why?
Not only are they determined to give credit cards to illegal aliens but they really don’t care what you may think about it. My accounts are all closed and moved to another bank. What are you waiting for?
Bank Of America Defends Immigrant Card Program
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thu Feb 22, 2007 2:45PM EST
It has spurred opposition in Congress and from grass-roots groups who say many illegal immigrants could benefit, and that the program might foster identity theft, money laundering and terrorism.
Bank of America Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis defended the program on Thursday in The Wall Street Journal. This came after some groups called for a boycott of the No. 2 U.S. bank by assets. They say their efforts are bearing fruit.
William Gheen, director of the National Illegal Immigration Boycott Coalition, said his group has collected hundreds of e-mails from people vowing to cancel accounts and move mortgages. The group said it has more than 11,000 signatures on its petition calling for a boycott of Bank of America.
“What Bank of America is doing is illegal, or should be,” Gheen said. For its part, Bank of America has not seen “any unusual business activity” resulting from responses to the pilot program, spokeswoman Alexandra Trower said.
“Some (customers) are very supportive, while others are not supportive,” she said. “That is why we undertake pilots.” The Pew Hispanic Center estimated there were 11.5 million to 12 million illegal immigrants nationwide a year ago.
That’s up from the Census Bureau’s 8.7 million estimate for 2000. The total population is 301.2 million, the bureau said. Bank of America’s roots date to San Francisco in 1904. That year, Amedeo Giannini, a son of Italian immigrants, founded the Bank of Italy to serve “the little guys,” including immigrants that other banks wouldn’t touch.
In his Thursday opinion piece, Lewis admitted it is not pleasant to be caught a century later in the “heated” national immigration debate, and that he was “feeling the passion.”
Still, he pledged to continue the card program, which he said complies with the USA Patriot Act and other laws. Lewis said illegal immigrants can obtain cards at many U.S. banks and businesses, and that Bank of America requires other identification to open accounts.
on 02/22/2007 at 04:16 PM
Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • Trackbacks (1) • Permalink
Lost!
WHOA, Sparky! That ain’t no Air Force base down there. I hear military chatter on the radio but it don’t sound like zoomies. I know I’m over CONUS but it sure is warm outside and those white sandy beaches down there look awfully inviting. Wait a minute! I know where I am. Unless I miss my guess, that base down there also has one of the coolest Aviation Museums in the world. I know. I been here and visited that museum. Lower the landing gear, co-pilot! Let’s hope those flyboys down there don’t jump up here and blow us out of the sky! YEEEHAAWWW!!
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(Photo from Google Earth Desktop)
Democratic Party Cat Fight
I’ve been watching this three-ring circus for the last day or two and have been laughing my butt off at the Donk cat-fight going on. Obama and his supporters better watch out though. The Clintons don’t take kindly to any criticism and critics have been known to disappear. I read Mad Maureen Dowd’s column, excerpted below, and collapsed laughing.
David Geffen hit the nail on the head with his comments and Ol’ Slick Willy had a conniption fit. The Obama campaign staff’s reply was a precious gem: “It’s ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when he was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln Bedroom.”, and I’m still laughing over that one.
I’ll let James Taranto at WSJ’s Best Of The Web Today fill you in on this continuing soap opera ...
Dem Death Match
“An increasingly acrimonious competition between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton to enlist the Democratic Party’s leading fundraisers and operatives burst into the open yesterday,” the Washington Post reports:
The back-and-forth between the two campaigns has largely been fodder for political insiders. Yesterday, however, David Geffen, the music and film producer who is one of the party’s most prominent donors, made the fight more public. In an interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Geffen said that Clinton is “the easiest to beat” of the Democratic field and skewered her unwillingness to apologize for her 2002 vote to use force in Iraq. “It’s not a very big thing to say ‘I made a mistake’ on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can’t,” Geffen said.
Geffen, who was a co-host of an Obama fundraiser Tuesday night in Los Angeles, saved even sharper criticism for former president Bill Clinton, to whom he was close before a falling-out over the pardoning of financier Marc Rich at the end of Clinton’s second term. “I don’t think anybody believes that in the last six years, all of a sudden Bill Clinton has become a different person,” Geffen said in an oblique reference to questions surrounding the former president’s private life.We never thought we’d say this, but we’re glad someone reads Maureen Dowd. Geffen was once a big supporter of Mr. Clinton, so this is personal. Editor & Publisher, quotes Dowd’s inaccessible column:
They fell out in 2001, when Mr. Clinton gave a pardon to Marc Rich after rebuffing Mr. Geffen’s request for one for Leonard Peltier. “Marc Rich getting pardoned? An oil-profiteer expatriate who left the country rather than pay taxes or face justice?” Mr. Geffen says. “Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in. Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”We’ve got to defend Mr. Clinton here. Whatever you may think of Marc Rich’s pardon--and we didn’t think much of it at the time--at least he didn’t murder two FBI agents, as Peltier did.
As for the Hillary-Obama contretemps, it reminds us of what Henry Kissinger supposedly said about the Iran-Iraq war: It’s a pity both sides can’t lose.
on 02/22/2007 at 02:46 PM
Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Trackbacks (0) • Permalink
Motivational Poster Of The Day
The Eternal Pessimists At The NY TIMES
Media bias? Anti-Americanism? Defeatism? Insulting our allies? Whatever you want the NY TIMES has got it in 12pt Times font across a hundred pages of recycled paper, every day, day in and day out. All for the price of a cup of coffee. And as an extra special bonus they’ll even throw in an arrogant, insulting cartoon like the one here at right so the elite Liberals out in the Hamptons can snicker over their foie gras at those “poor, poor Brits who were fooled by Bush.”
I may have to assign one of you to read the SLIMES each day and report back to us. This is starting to make me real depressed reading this obnoxious shit every day. And they have the nerve to call themselves the “newspaper of record”. It must be a 45rpm single in a continuous loop from what I see.
Take the two editorials below (please). The first one is from the editors themselves and right off the bat they spin it as a bad thing for President Bush. Then they go on to describe how the Brits have been “cut-and-running” since Day One and finally throw in their clinical observation that Dick Cheney is fruit loops.
Then they throw at you a “guest editorial” from a Brit with a truly appropriate last name. This is probably done to assure you that there are Brits that agree with the TIMES arrogant, defeatist bullshit. Mr. Bull simply repeats the TIMES liberal mantra and obliges us with a recollection of a recent visit to the south of Iraq where he discussed pesticides with date palm farmers, ostensibly to promote British agricultural prowess.
Mr. Bull winds up his bull with a clear statement that his British mates in the field never intended to “win” anything and were only biding time until they could slink away in the dead of night while no one was looking.
Ahem! Bulldog, if you’re reading this I’ll -uh- be willing to buy you and your lads a night on the town if you can see your way to break this chaps legs. Nothing serious, you know. Just a friendly kick in the shins will do. We’ll take care of the NY TIMES over here. Their circulation is already down to three monkeys, four chimps and a small group of Manahtten hoi-poloi with over-inflated egos.
Britain Cuts Its Losses
EDITORIAL (NY TIMES) - February 22, 2007
Spin it any way you like, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s announcement that Britain will be withdrawing up to 1,600 of its 7,100 remaining troops in Iraq can’t be welcome military or political news for President Bush.
This isn’t the first reduction in the British contingent, which originally numbered 40,000. But it comes at a time of spiraling violence in Iraq and emboldened opposition in Washington to Mr. Bush’s disastrous war. It also comes as Mr. Blair is preparing to leave office, painfully aware that popular fury over the war threatens to overwhelm his entire legacy.
The British announcement has already served as the catalyst for other departures. Denmark, with 460 troops under British command, announced yesterday that it would leave by August. With the Pentagon already straining to find enough soldiers for Iraq, a troop drawdown by its most militarily capable ally can only add to the strain — and to the clamor for bringing American forces home as well.
The White House strove to cast Mr. Blair’s political necessity as a sign of “some progress in Basra,” Iraq’s second-largest city, which British forces have had military responsibility for since the invasion. Vice President Dick Cheney — even more disconnected from reality — chimed in that the British pullback shows that there are some parts of Iraq where “things are going pretty well.”
Whether it is Basra with fewer British troops or Baghdad with more Americans, nothing in Iraq is “going pretty well.”
The End of the Alliance
--By BARTLE BREESE BULL
LONDON (NY TIMES) - February 22, 2007
Yesterday’s announcement by Prime Minister Tony Blair that Britain will cut its troops in Iraq by 30 percent over the next six months and perhaps fully withdraw in 2008, followed by the news that the Danish contingent is also heading home, may seem like the death knell of the so-called coalition of the willing and a severe blow to American hopes.
Still — and I am well aware of how unpopular the presence of British troops in Iraq is among his electorate — Mr. Blair’s decision may have as much to do with strategic good sense as it does with domestic politics.
The truth is that the British gave up trying to win their war in southern Iraq a long time ago, and they probably accomplished as much as they could. Contrary to the grumbling among many Americans, they have done a lot of good work in southern Iraq. I have seen British troops on patrol in the marshes and countryside, watched grateful Iraqis rush to ask for their help in mediating tribal disputes or providing more protection from the militias.
Thanks to British oversight and protection, Saddam Hussein’s cruel efforts to drain the country’s southern marshes have been completely reversed. The marshes are now back to about 40 percent of their original size, with parts visibly flourishing. (With 75 percent of the water of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers now siphoned off by neighboring countries before it gets to Iraq, it is unlikely that the marshes will ever recover fully.)
When I visited a date palm plantation near Basra last year, Iraqi farmers told me that British aircraft had sprayed almost 100,000 trees with insecticide, helping their production to double since the days of Saddam Hussein’s rule. (One of the men also insisted that I visit the old British cemetery in Baghdad. It was beautiful, he said: a sanctuary, a paradise. “And the gravestones are safe,” he assured me. “I have removed them, so no one will destroy them.”)
The British successes have also been political. In the south, Iraq’s elections and constitutional processes have been far more successful in terms of security and turnout than almost anywhere else in the country. There was never a popular uprising against the British presence.
True, after the Coldstream Guards stormed a Basra police station in 2005 to free two special operations troops being held captive, a photograph of a guardsman on fire atop his armored vehicle led newspapers around the world, giving the impression of a city and a region in flames. But the reality was quite different: that day, the angry crowd numbered only 200 — this in a city of two million, after two years of war.
Even over the last 12 months, the British military posture in the south has not been as passive as has widely been perceived outside of Iraq. One night last December, in a successful effort to capture weapons caches and terrorist leaders, more than 1,000 British troops in Basra, using high-speed landing craft and dozens of armored vehicles and tanks, carried out the largest coalition “strike operation” since the invasion.
But despite these successes, it seems the British never intended to “win” the war in southern Iraq. The British withdrawal from Iraq began almost immediately after the invasion. The British presence in the south, which was 46,000 troops in April 2003, has been under 10,000 since May 2004.
Unwilling or unable to rid the streets and farmland of Maysan, Dhi Qar, Muthanna and Basra of the militias who are the main threats to order in the largely Shiite south, the British troops’ goal has been to keep a lid on things until they could leave. They have not had the resources or the mandate to win a war against either the Iran-backed Badr Brigades or the more nationalist Mahdi Army of Moktada al-Sadr. And if those rival Shiite forces were to begin a fratricidal conflict, there is little the Britons would be able to do to intervene.
Riddle Me This!
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