PART THE FIRST: I hate to say something that will make me sound like I have some opinion which I don't, but I wonder what the long-term public opinion is going to look like in regard to a "wow, it really does take a ruthless bastard to hold Iraq together. If only we could empower one..." mindset.

PART THE SECOND: Fryer and Flyer get pardoned. Pictured here: Lyer and Dyer.

There are two turkeys in that picture.

Damn, beat me to it.

Every angle I look at for Iraq is pretty scary. Another dictator that oppresses in order to stop the killing gets us back to square 1. Carving the country up might stop it, but I think parts of the country will form very close alliances with Syria and Iran, something I think the West isn't too keen on at the moment. With Lebanon destabalised as well, who knows what's going to happen next. I just hope it doesn't kick off like the whole Ethiopia/Somalia/Sudan region looks to be...

The bird on the plate was a plastic decoration

Hey, at least the Iraqis are free. Sure, they're not free to leave their own homes anymore, but THEY HAD AN ELECTION!!

I'm starting to think a closer parallel to Iraq isn't so much Vietnam as it is Yugoslavia, which was another country that just sort of glommed together ethnic groups that hate each other with no consideration.

These bombings are looking more and more like ethnic cleansing.

I don't wanna nitpick but the article you linked to said "A contractor had roasted and primped the turkey to adorn the buffet line, while the 600 soldiers were served from cafeteria-style steam trays"
Why would they roast a plastic turkey?Oops.

That's my old unit patch, man that's just 1 more reason I don't like Bush...

My little brother was in Sadr City; I was in Baghdad. Both of us are out now, him because he got in trouble, me because I slipped through the cracks and made it out before they Stoploss'ed me, making me stay in for another 4 years. I'm just glad I'm not there anymore.

I was there in 2003 and Iraqis were sick and tired of us by the time I left in November. 3 years later and we're still there... go figure.

Besides the bombings directed at the US, there really isn't a way to make Shei and Sunni live together peacefully. You'll always have the bright individual who thinks that it's his calling to blow himself up along with a bunch of women and children.

I'm just left wondering how they're going to make it work... and IF they can make it work.

All I know is that the US soldier is no longer seen as a peace keeper but an occupier. We don't have enough troops to stop the violence there, only enough to keep it going.

We don't have enough manpower in the military to send more troops. With Stop-Loss, IRR, misuse od National Guard and Reserves, high recruiting budget with lower recruiting standards, WHO THEY HELL IS GOING TO FIGHT?

The kids going right out of high school that are 18 years old were watched the planes hit the towers on tv when they were 13 years old.

We can't afford to take care of the veterans we have and only 75% of the troops that have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan are still in the active military and not part of the veteran community yet.

Time to pull out of Iraq, unless other countries and the rest of America is willing to invest in Iraq's stabalization.

sounds like "legionnaire" either isnt an American or dosn't consider himself a "gluttonous American"; so he must be in a morally superior position to judge everyone else.
So are you a French legionaire; the kind that has never won a single war or even a bar fight with a drunk handicapped kid? The kind that France sends overseas to do its dirty work and point fingers at America. Ahh the french still hiding behind foreigners to do the fighting for them.
The French Foreign Leigon - hiding and hiring Nazi's, Murderers and thugs to do France's fighting. They even attempted a coup de teat against the French government in 1972. a fine bunch of fellows to sit in jugement of the rest of the world.

Thank you so much for your service. You are one of the truely brave.

you mean the French that you relied on in the American war of independence? the French to whom America owes it's freedom from the British empire?

Sorry, I seem to have forgotten; what did Saddam Hussein (who didn't get on with Osama bin Laden) and his alledged chemical weapons factories have to do with 9/11 again?

I think it might be something more to do with Oil countries changing from Dollars to Euros maybe, which would mean the US having to give loads of gold it's "looking after" for oil producing countries back to middle eastern countries so they can lend it to someone in Europe instead. I'm sure George wouldn't have got you guys into $8.6 TRILLION dollars of debt, just because of a few chemical weapons and highly dubious links if there wasn't money in it for either the US in general, or him and a few close buddies. His buddies have already made some extra cash in price rises.

PLEASE NOTE: this isn't an attack on you personally; I'm sure you joined the army for noble reasons and have to do a very hard job for the man who seems to be one of the biggest threats to world peace. At least his crazy mate's resigned now

I'm also not implying the UK is much better since we sold him the chemical weapons he gassed the Kurds with, and kept selling it to him knowingly afterwards. It's only when we can't find his own chem weapons factories that we suddenly became all moralistic and supposedly had originally invaded "for moral reasons" and for the good of people like the Kurds. Yeah, right!

"Prove to me sir that you are not French."