~

This Two-Holer page is designed specifically for any and all of those cafe denizens here in our presence who wish to dump whatever they damn well please from locations in other ongoing discussion threads, that's deemed a bunch of bunk, disruptive and/or totally off-topic.

If it moves you, feel free to bookmark this page and then direct other's to this page who are interrupting and causing disruptions and eruptions in your on-going discussion.

A little note with the link may go something like this:

Hey! Stop interrupting and go dump that load over here.

Also, if it better suits you,  please feel free to cut & paste anyone else's trash to this thread you deem to be a steamin' pile that doesn't belong in your ongoing discussion thread. Please attach a link from where the trash came from.

NOTE: You must provide your own reading material. And take it with you when you leave. In addition: You'll find the corncob on the covered box between the holes.

WARNING: For your safety and the safety of the surrounding community, DO NOT drop cigarettes, cigars or other forms of smoldering by-products in the pile.

~OGD~

ps: Hi Howard

~

Geez ... At least he was dressed to look the part.

I hope he had plenty of sunscreen . . .

Read on . . .

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, Mass., had two note cards in his pocket Wednesday afternoon as he waited for Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Williams serves in the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., the first of the five "surge" brigades to arrive in Iraq, and he was chosen to join the Independent from Connecticut for lunch at a U.S. field base in Baghdad.

The night before, 30 other soldiers crowded around him with questions for the senator.

He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:

"When are we going to get out of here?"

Read on read on . . .

>Lieberman talks to troops in Baghdad
Leila Fadel/McClatchy | May 30, 2007

~OGD~

Here at the cafe, there has been much bandwidth used and keystrokes struck related to complaints of the news coverage or lack thereof of the ground truth from Iraq. Following is one lone soldier's personal take from his first hand experiences. In addition he also points out that his take is not in lock step with many of his fellow services members, and his perspective on why that is...

U.S. media report fairly on success, failure in Iraq

By Gian P. Gentile

From my foxhole-view as a tactical battalion commander in western Baghdad in 2006, the American press, although not perfect, has reported the reality of the Iraq war.

Contrary to what most believe in the American military, as well as some conservative columnists and a few politicians, the American press does give a reasonably full, fair and balanced picture of what is happening in Iraq.

The war in Iraq is complex, difficult, deadly and heartbreaking, with glimmers of hope and success that sometimes shine through the death and violence. Do we expect the press to report only the good and not the bad? Now, sadly, the bad tends to outweigh the good, and I, as a soldier and citizen, want the press to report the war accordingly.

I saw with my own eyes in Baghdad the brutal face of sectarian war; I saw the still-undefeated Sunni insurgency attack Iraqi security forces and coalition forces; I saw firsthand many of our coalition forces’ successes. I also saw our lack of progress in certain areas.

I saw these things by being out on patrol, by conducting operations with my soldiers and by interacting with the local people and learning from them.

And during my tour in 2006, I spent about two hours every day reading about Iraq through stories told by reporters from the major national and local newspapers and news services and, at times, watching TV newscasts from the major networks. The stories in the American press, for the most part, matched what I saw happening on the ground. It was
my sense that the embedded reporters who spent time with my unit during 2006 really tried to tell the story of what we saw as our successes.

My armored reconnaissance squadron was responsible for the Sunni-dominated district known as Ameriyah, a critical area in Baghdad that was home to insurgency leaders.

As an example of what I saw as the even-handedness of American media covering the war in Iraq, in early September, shortly after a substantial clearing effort in Ameriyah, a CNN crew spent a day on patrol with us. That day, with the CNN crew, we sadly came across an Ameriyah resident lying dead on the street from sectarian violence. That man’s body represented in a discrete way failure on our part to stop the sectarian violence. The CNN crew could have focused its story on the image of the dead body and how things were not working in our favor. However, their report instead portrayed the success we were having in employing locals to clean up garbage and used quotes from interviews with locals on the street that conditions in Ameriyah were improving.

I also came to believe that the embedded journalists who spent time with my unit had a deep concern for the welfare of the American soldiers serving in Iraq. Their courage under dangerous conditions to get their story is beyond question. The insurgent attack last spring on an American patrol in Baghdad that seriously injured CBS correspondent Kim Dozier attests to the journalists’ courage and commitment.

My position that the American press has reported the reality of the war in a balanced way is not a common one within the American military; in fact, it is a radical one.

It is my opinion that the American military’s ongoing condemnation of the American press’s reporting of the Iraq war has more to do with its own mistaken belief that the American media lost the Vietnam War and has less to do with the current reporting on Iraq. I also believe that because the American military fears so deeply the loss of support of the American people over Iraq as an outgrowth of Vietnam it tends, wrongly, to allay these fears by blaming the American press for not reporting enough of its successes in Iraq.

But as I looked around Baghdad from my foxhole in 2006, I saw, by and large, fair and balanced reporting. This is a minority view within the American military, but it was and still is my foxhole view.

The author is an active-duty Army lieutenant colonel. He commanded an armored reconnaissance squadron in the 4th Infantry Division in West Baghdad in 2006.

http://www.armytimes.com/community/opinion/airforce_opinions_gentile_070430/

~OGD~

A poet's words that opens the minds, binds the wounds and sooths the hearts...

“We are Virginia Tech.

We are sad today and we will be sad for quite awhile. WE are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning.

We are Virginia Tech.

We are strong enough to know when to cry and sad enough to know we must laugh again.

We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did not deserve it but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, but neither do the invisible children walking the night to avoid being captured by a rogue army. Neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory; neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

We are Virginia Tech.

The Hokier Nation embraces our own with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think, not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness.

We are the Hokies.

We will prevail, we will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech. "

The world is Virginia Tech!

~OGD~

Small snippets of press and pundit quotes related to the previous status of Valerie Wilson Plame:

Washington Post editorial: “The trial has provided…no evidence that she was, in fact, covert.” [Washington Post, 3/7/07]

Mort Kondracke: “I frankly don’t think since Valerie Plame was not a covert officer that there was a crime here.” [Fox, 3/9/07]

Sean Hannity: “She did not meet the criteria, in any way, shape, matter or form as a covert agent.” [Fox, 3/6/07]

Robert Novak: “No evidence that she was a covert agent was ever presented to the jury.” [Fox, 3/6/07]

Brit Hume: “Whether the woman was covert, Valerie Plame was covert within the meaning of the law, remains at this point, still unclear. Unlikely she was.” [Fox, 3/6/07]

Victoria Toensing: “Plame was not covert. She worked at CIA headquarters and had not been stationed abroad within five years of the date of Novak’s column.” [Washington Post, 2/18/07]

Jonah Goldberg: “Wilson’s wife is a desk jockey and much of the Washington cocktail circuit knew that already.” [9/30/03]

Well, let's see what Valerie Wilson Plame personally had to say today about all this knowledge that the press and pundits were parroting, while carrying the water for the White House propaganda machine.

But first: In relationship to this apologist for the scumbags, and this apologist for the scumbags that haunt these TPM Cafe pages, just keep cutting and pasting the following in your replies so as not to waste your time playing tit-for-tat with these TPM Cafe bullshit artists.

“In the run-up to the war with Iraq, I worked in the Counterproliferation Division of the CIA, still as a covert officer whose affiliation with the CIA was classified...” Valerie Plame Wilson

“While I helped to manage and run secret worldwide operations against this WMD target from CIA headquarters in Washington, I also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions to find vital intelligence.” Valerie Plame Wilson

“It was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit that everyone knew where I worked.” Valerie Plame Wilson

Before the House Oversight Committee March 16, 2007

Have a great weekend ... you can all have fun playing tit-for-tat with the apologists for the scumbags till your eyes glaze over.

~OGD~

Updates of remarks from the apologists for the scumbags will be added in the comments section here.

~