except on the web. I think people know that there was bad information .... but I think it is a mistake to think that "the american people" -- who poll such appalling number wrt Saddam's involvement in 09/11 -- have crossed the bridge that includes deliberate deception .... I think there is an assumption of "good faith" or "plausible deniability" -- Americans don't want to know.

I think it's easy to think that "the public" is farther along than they are. It's part of the echo chamber effect of the internet and the extremely "partisan" nature of our social interactions....

There are shitloads of brainwashing to be overcome ... like those oft-cited guess-timates of how much of our nation annual budget goes to "foreign aid" (nevermind how little of that small amount is given without concessions and other strings attached) ((That CARE story of this week should have been a blockbuster ... but it got swept away by trapped miners ...))

Americans "believe" they are at the forefront of "freedom" and "democracy" because that's what they are told ... the number of international treaties/agreements we have refused to even consider belies this.

As was remarked upon in the "lefty press", at the time we were reviling Saddam for being less than cooperative with inspectors, we were refusing ALL inspections and the legality of both the "sanctions" and the "no fly zone" by most accounts was nonexistent.

The idea that our government lies to us regularly will be hard to "get across" ... I think part of the timidity of Congress is fear of crossing that bizarre line of "civility."

I was comforted last night watching Judgement at Nuremberg, aside from hearing basic human rights affirmed, to realize how relatively quickly Germany re-entered the league of law-abiding, rights-acknowledging nations... and from such a low point... it wasn't until this afternoon that I realized that was only possible AFTER a decisive, humbling, crippling defeat.

It's so hard to know what to wish for these days.

thanks sysprog ...

The movie for me, last night, was overwhelming in its nuanced compassion for people who suffered both a government run amok and the humiliation of defeat and occupation ... not to ignore the panorama of destruction shown in the outdoors filming. I was so impressed by the depth and layers ... truly "humanitarian" in perspective. Spencer Tracy is/was a national treasure ... and the other performances ...

I often feel that America lost her compassion back in the Reagan era when even small communities "learned" to ignore the homeless, the vets and the mentally ill. Truly, I despair.

did I miss it or has there been no response to the NYT article of yesterday indicating that --- ooops --- congress when when approved that FISA thingy while rushign out the door for their vacations -- actually expanded FISA and gave Bush powers he hadn't even asked for? and that the excuse, such that it was, was that no one had had time to study it before voting on it???

I swear to god the Democrats are blowing this every change TeamBush gives them ...

the gift that keeps on giving ....

I recommend two Wikipedia entries ...

the first on Fallujah the city ... which greeted the American invasion with open arms and organized itself admirably in the days following to deal with looting and the released prisoners of Abu Ghraib ... they were upset when coalition forces commandeered a local school, interrupting classes ... they publically demonstrated with disasterous results ....

url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah

interestingly, the final paragraph/update:

In December 2006, enough control had been exerted over the city to transfer operational control of the city from American forces to the 1st Iraqi Army Division. During the same month, the Fallujah police force began major offensive operations under their new chief. Coalition Forces, as of May 2007, are operating in direct support of the Iraqi Security Forces in the city. The city is one of Anbar province's centers of gravity in a newfound optimism among American and Iraqi leadership about the state of the counterinsurgency in the region.[13][14]

In June 2007, Regimental Combat Team 6 began Operation Alljah, a security plan modeled on a successful operation in Ramadi. After segmenting districts of the city, Iraqi Police and Coalition Forces established police district headquarters in order to further localize the law enforcement capabilites of the Iraqi Police.[15]

Read about Operation Alljah here:

url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Alljah

it ran from 06/17 - 08/14/2007...

There's no indication as to what occurred between December 2006 and June 2007 as to why such a program was required in Fallujah, that twice brutally pacified city, but the city is now physically divided into sectors ... the better to control its citizens movement.

No one seems to have much idea of how many people are living there ... nor can I find if they enjoy electricity, running water, sewers, and the other utilities which were completely destroyed in 2004 and were to be replaced ...

yes, there's a lot left out and Operation Alljah (apparently part of the surge) is just finished. The operation represented quite an allocation of resources for a town deemed just 6 months ago to be successfully under Iraqi control.

tell me more.

in March/April of this year, apparently Maliki/Parliament became aware that the United States forces were building walls to partition sections of Baghdad ... they angrily demanded we stop .. which we did, reluctantly.

(shortly thereafter "insurgents" took out two major bridges in Baghdad -- making traffic and "doing business" a nightmare but removing two major inflow/outflow sites ... coincidence? I'm really not sure.)

Anyhow, it's an grim prospect ... imagine your town sectored off by walls with fixed sentries ... In baghdad, it was compared to a prison.

My hunch is that plan for "the surge" began as something quite different than what we are seeing.... something that involved more walls and fixed installations ...

strange because fixed installations appear -- mostly anyhow -- to be an Achilles heel in this sort of guerrilla warfare/occuation ... they become fixed targets instead.

as goes fallujah, so goes Iraq?