Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Delusional Thinking, Part 2

There was a mortar attack on the Green Zone in Baghdad yesterday, with 20 or so rounds landing by one account and more than 30 by another. Apparently that’s a pretty much daily occurrence, but this attack caused some deaths which is not normal.

Statements like this from our leadership, though, utterly blow my mind,

A US Embassy spokesman said that he could not confirm whether the embassy was a target and that the frequent attacks on the Green Zone are not a barometer of the security situation in the capital. "There's fire into the Green Zone virtually every day, so I can't draw any conclusions about the security situation based on that," he said.

It astounds me that anyone can actually say that with a straight face. It reminds me of a elderly street person I was talking to in the ER who was in for eating Sterno. I asked him if he’d thought about Alcoholics Anonymous and he replied, “No, that’s for people who can’t control their drinking.”

If bombs were landing on the White House “virtually every day” would the spokesman say that we had Washington under control? Oh, wait, bombs are landing on the White House almost every day, but the explosions are of the non-bang type, the Administration has its eyes shut and its ear plugs in, and it does think it has Washington under control.

Anyway, back to Baghdad. If you “can’t draw any conclusions” from the fact that they are dropping mortars on your head on a daily basis, what exactly do you need upon which to base conclusions? I would think that having things going “BOOM” and shrapnel flying past your head are pretty good indications that all is not well.

Thinking that depends, though, on where your paycheck comes from.

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