Steven R. Hurst of AP filed a story an hour ago that confirms my pre-invasion position that al-Maliki and the Shiites had no vision for a secular Iraq or unified government and want complete, sectarian control to revenge their decades of oppression under Saddam and counter Sunni power in the region.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's most senior Sunni politician issued a desperate appeal Sunday for Arab nations to help stop what he called an "unprecedented genocide campaign" by Shiite militias armed, trained and controlled by Iran. The U.S. military reported five American soldiers were killed, apparently lured into an al-Qaida trap.

Adnan al-Dulaimi said "Persians" and "Safawis," Sunni terms for Iranian Shiites, were on the brink of total control in Baghdad and soon would threaten Sunni Arab regimes which predominate in the Mideast.

"It is a war that has started in Baghdad and they will not stop there but will expand it to all Arab lands," al-Dulaimi wrote in an impassioned broadside e-mailed to The Associated Press.

… But his fears of a Shiite takeover of Baghdad were not as farfetched. Mahdi Army militiamen have cleansed entire neighborhoods of Sunni residents and seized Sunni mosques. Day by day, hundreds have been killed and thousands have fled their homes, seeking safety in the shrinking number of majority Sunni districts.

… Sunni extremists, many with al-Qaida links, are responsible too, mainly through massive bombings, often carried out by suicide attackers.

… The outburst reflected growing anger in the Sunni establishment over perceptions of al-Maliki as a deeply biased sectarian leader with links to Iran.

… Major political figures were expected to hold a rare summit with al-Maliki this week in Baghdad to address the government crisis.

… At a news conference Sunday, al-Maliki defended his Iranian sojourn and said he would continue traveling to neighboring countries and asking for help to curb violence. He was expected to be in Syria next week, but the trip has not been announced.

GLENN- “Given its costs - in lives, American credibility, money, regional turmoil - as well as given its INHERENT unjustifiability, the Iraq war can never be "worth it," EVEN IF "the general assessment among the public and scholars" 25 years from now believes it is.”

I am among those that believed the war was doomed from its inception, but to charge that I and other war opponents did not want a more successful outcome is grossly insulting. Unlike the Jewish and Islamic war perpetrator’s that suckered, gullible, power hungry American Christian neocons into this war, my heart yearned daily that the costs of the war to America’s values, the Iraqi people and our military would be much less than envisioned. To my sorrow, it has been far worse.

Thanks to what I have learned from Glenn and other very wise commenters, my mind has been opened to how far our country has turned from a republic to an empire because very mean, dysfunctional leaders have trampled the American values I have treasured all my life. How you cestmoi123 can continue to defend them only proves how so many have been duped by so few.

The vast majority of our military and their families now know in their hearts that they, less than 1% of our population, who have sacrificed so much, have been led down a filthy, totally unnecessary path of sorrow and pain. And still they have to continue to fight daily in an ugly, lost war.

When the likes of you and your fellow trolls post your rubbish and insist on justifying the war’s agony by defaming me and those who cherish humane values and the best of what our nation has stood for against tyranny and oppression, you only defame yourself. If and when you do finally wake up, I expect you may have as much trouble sleeping as our military and their families do every day.

Here’s an article from a Brit reporter. Do Brit’s qualify?

Peter Beaumont in Baghdad, The Observer, Sunday August 12, 2007

Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq

Exhaustion and combat stress are besieging US troops in Iraq as they battle with a new type of warfare. Some even rely on Red Bull to get through the day. As desertions and absences increase, the military is struggling to cope with the crisis

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2147052,00.html

That’s the frustration with trying to have a discussion with closed minds, they aren’t kidding.

“…the only way to understand how the Bush administration operates is to dig beneath the presentation of "news" and how it ends up providing a framework which eventually becomes "the accepted consensus" which in turn gets regurgitated ad nauseum throught the mainstream outlets.”

Manipulation of the media is only one part of the Rove-Cheney master puppeteer operation. These two pull the strings for the president, neocons, GOP congressional members, fundamentalist Christians, and the right wing faithful even more skillfully than they do the M$M. The one group that they can’t manipulate, the Israelis, manipulate them and who knows maybe they were interns under one of their masters. For that matter the Saudis, Egyptians and some Iraqis have also pulled their strings successfully from time to time.

Now that Glenn has exposed the culpability of the M$M and other puppet groups, I look forward to who next goes under his intense spotlight.

"pull the strings for the president"

change for to of