General Petraeus' testimony would have had a different tone if it was held now, after suspension of travel outside the Green Zone.

Dubya and Petraeus got real lucky with timing. The MoveOn ad would still be sophomoric but not as controversial.

Here's a realistic look at Iraq, an article worth reading -

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001514.html

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001517.html

but...but...but....general Be Tray Us just told us things were soooooooo much better over there?

It's clear that this is not working! Get us out of there! Why do our officials need an entourage of murdererous thugs? Isn't that what the mob does? Then again, our officials could be called a mob. Which brings to mind a quote I heard years ago, "A mob is a group of heads with no brains." Clearly, our leadership is devoid of functioning brain cells.

iraq will fall apart

Hypocrite Hillary(DC Experience Matters?JFK & Bill HAD LIL

This Video Is Showing That Hillary is a hypocrite for saying obama has no experience

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBy3AKn_2Fk

The American taxpayer is paying for the Blackwater mercenaries. And it costs a bunch more than a regular Army soldier does no matter how you slice it or dice it.

This is what is called war profiteering.

If we don't have enough soldiers we should commence a draft. But for some strange reason our leaders choose instead to burden the taxpayer, most of whom are dead set against this boondoggle anyway, with extra billions in charges so they can line the pocket of the ex-military private contract killers.

Immoral. Why? Because the sons and daughters of the coward Republicans are sitting around on their chickenshit rear-ends while their Mommies and Daddies hire private commandos from their friends security firms.

It's no different than charter schools. Buddied up rich guys getting stinking rich off of taxpayer money. We already have a school sysytem. This how the criminals on the right operate. They want to remove every red cent from the Treasury and then they'll demand you pay more taxes.

Plus they kill babies in Iraq. They just spray gunfire at random all around them. Who cares who they hit? They have to get home to spend those big paychecks on dora. Disgusting.

Oh...glad you took the bait above! I figured there must be one jobless Jew-hating asshole on Huffpo-and I was right. It's Y-O-U!!!I'm off to pick up my new car...ta ta!!!

Last week the American public was fed a bushel full of crap about how safe Baghdad was after the surge; this week all American travel outside the Green Zone, in the heart of Baghdad, is suspended.

I'm not interested in the "25 percenters" who will never cede their position concerning Bush and his war; I'm interested in why the remaining 75 percent aren't calling for this administrations blood and also demanding that the Democratically held Congress get off their collective asses and pull the plug on the Bush's Iraq war.

No matter how you slice it, there's going to be a blood bath at the end of this fiasco...and this sits squarely on the head of Bush and all those who voted for him in 2004.

The other news out of Iraq, that ambassador Crocker is freaking out (I do not use that term lightly...he is really freaking out) because the US is not vetting the asylum of Iraqis who have assisted the American occupation forces; knowing full well that the blood bath is going to start with them (just as it did in Viet Nam)...this is the first real indication that those responsible for this disaster realize that there is no tenable solution to the mess they have created in Iraq.

I may be confused here. What is the difference between US and other allied mercenaries, and the foreign fighters in the insurgency? Neither is under any law and just seem to fight for fun and profit.

The surge and all of the contractors have really made things much more safe in the big city huh. Still don't think that the govt(?) of Iraq has the balls to tell Blackwater to hit the bricks and don't come back. Wonder how much (and who) we paid to forget the whole mess?

Why don't we just erect a security wall like the Israeli wall? - it would be our Green Zone Security Wall. Then we can feel really safe occupying Arab lands - and we can just send our planes and artillery out to assault those terrorist Ayrabs who are trying to kick us off our permanent bases and out of their country.

It's simply a matter of security - our security - it's all about our security while we bend Arabia over and do her. We are the chosen overlords of these ignorant terrorist muzzies who hate us for our Pizza Huts back home and inside our new walls. They don't hate us for stealing their country - they're too silly to even have such thoughts - they hate us because they don't like being free to go Pizza Huts themselves. Since they won't recognize our right to occupy them and kill them whenever we feel like it - we'll just have to kill them more anytime they fight back and presto then we can use that as the excuse to kill them some more. It's fun being sadistic - hell- it's better than fun - it's a rush

Good. I noticed that the statement quoted by CBS News indicated no "official State Department employees" were allowed outside the GZ. That means that all the C.I.A. types, official or NOC, are out there ... so that ought to make it easier for the locals to identify who is really whom?
Blackwater, and the other "security contractors" have skimmed the Special Operations types from the military's roles. I read the very first job requirements posting Blackwater had, very early in the war. It was specific: one HAD to be a Special Operator, and some were clear that they were talking about Special Forces; Rangers; Navy SEALs; Delta Force types.
Yet, four Blackwater guys were ambushed and burned to death in Fallujah. Bush was so honked off, he called for Fallujah to be creamed. It was. The rest is history.

Holly Crap, no civilian travel outside the green zone!! Cant I even pick my kids up from school today?

"Details of the weekend shootings haven't been released, but the New York Times reported late Tuesday that a preliminary review by Iraq's Ministry of Interior found that violence erupted as Blackwater security guards fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman's call to stop, killing a couple and their infant."

Oh oh......

This one is big. Notice the complete lack of any details coming from The Coalition. That means massive cover ups and payoffs.

Now they have suspended ALL travel for civilians and diplomats outside the Green Zone.

Is that because it's so secure now?

Queue "My Way" by Sinatra for El Presidente'.

Private military companies supply bodyguards... build detention camps at Guantanamo Bay...They operate the intelligence and communications systems at the United States Northern Command in Colorado...The push to privatize such operations became prevalent during the administration of George H. W. Bush. It has resulted in PMCs becoming an over $100 billion a year industry.

Events involving PMCs in Iraq: Employees of private military company CACI were involved in the Iraq Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2003, and 2004.

On March 28, 2005, 16 American contractors and three Iraqi aides from Zapata Engineering, under contract to the US Army Corps of Engineers to manage an ammunition storage depot, were detained following two incidents in which they allegedly fired upon U.S. Marine checkpoint. While later released, the civilian contractors have levied complaints of mistreatment against the Marines who detained them.
http://www.reference.com/search?q=private%20military%20company


On June 5, 2005, colonel Theodore S. Westhusing committed suicide, after writing a report exonerating US Investigations Services of allegations of fraud, waste and abuse he received in an anonymous letter in May.

_____________

The circumstances surrounding Col. Westhusing's "suicide" are very suspicious:

"Although Westhusing initially wrote to his commander, only seven days before his death, that the allegations in the letter were false, there is evidence that something happened in those remaining seven days that caused him to turn angrily upon the contractors, referring to them with intense disgust as "money grubbing". His anger soon extended to his own commanders for taking no action on his recommendations to bring honesty and efficiency to the Army's training of Iraqis, with particular reference to USIS' role in that training. These commanders included the current Commander of Multinational Force - Iraq, 4-star General David Petraeus (then a 3-star General in charge of U.S. operations in northern Iraq)."

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Theodore_S._Westhusing