We've always heard of the so-called "law of unintended consequences" -- well, now it seems to have merged with another old favorite, the "self-fulfilling prophecy".

Maybe we need a new wrinkle -- I'll suggest calling it the "law of prophetic consequences", in which you darkly warn of dire results, then go busily about the process of CAUSING those awful results. It's not too much of a stretch, though -- seems we've always known about the practice of identifying an enemy (real, or too often, imagined) who then provides the unifying force justifying an "Us versus Them" mentality.

In this case, though, we've succeeded in conjuring up an even more effective "Them" than in our wildest nightmares. Good job, Bushies -- MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!

...is nursery, playground, and bank.

Such is the result of the Republican 'strength' doctrine.

Now we know what happened to the shrink-wrapped $9 Billion in crisp $100 bills that disappeared upon arrival in Iraq: Directly to our staunch ally in the pre-emptive war on terror: Pakistan. Wow, what fantastic allies. I don't know how we do it...

"Now we know what happened to the shrink-wrapped $9 Billion in crisp $100 bills that disappeared upon arrival in Iraq."

Holy crap. Any chance that could actually be true? Yes, I realize it's a glib comment, but where is that $9 billion???

was 4+ years of an immoral war, almost 4ooo dead US soldiers, at least 4000 private dead contractors, 40,000+ dead Iraqis (if anyone were keeping count), and 4 gagillion US taxpayer dollars spent. But hey! At least the Bush administration was right!

Speaking of links, is Lebanon cleaning house in order to keep Israel just in Gaza? Or is Israel taking the opportunity to duck under the Lebanese headlines and clean house a bit itself?

And does any of this have anything to do with all the Taliban that have been getting caught lately?

Hot Dog! I knew all of you liberals were wrong...see there was a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida...it just took us a while to find it...the WMD's will be found any day now...I'm sure of it. See that, the blowhards on Faux News were right afterall.

Nobody really knows where the billions of lost dollars in Iraq went; most of it was payoff money, meant to grease the wheels of honest government. Government-by-graft never quite works out the way it's intended, eh?

And with all of those private contractors grubbing at the trough, even harder for there to be actual oversight of the money the US government has pumped over there. As one contractor put it "everybody's getting rich over here, except the enlisted soldiers."

I can easily see a payoff/protection racket scheme where we pay somebody in Iraq who's ostensibly on our side, and they pay money to insurgents and/or Al Qaeda for protection. That's the way to win a war, eh? But who's winning, and who's losing?

Now our comedy and tragedy come mixed together in the news. So in a way, our lives have been made more efficient by this travesty of a war.

The announcements of all these Taliban leaders getting captured are all P.R. from a desperate administration. Most of those leaders were captured months before any announcement was made. They just get their pals in the media to announce it when they need another smoke screen or need to deflect heat. You can't believe anything this White House puts out.

It seems that Al Qaida is financed by sums that went missing from the Millions of US funds paid out to and misteriouly disappearing from Iraqi government accounts. Afghanistan all over again, where bin Laden got US funds to fight the Russians. Well done,Mr. President, starting an illegal war of aggression and financing the enemy to keep it going? Keep sending more young Americans to be killed or maimed, not to mention Iraqi casualties, CRIMINAL!!!