12 month warning

Don't like the Senate now? Think about the number 60.

The view from Gandamak

Is getting a lot better. A lot better.

In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3,000 Iraqi families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence has dropped, the government said Saturday.

Saad al-Azawi, his wife and four children are among them. They fled to Syria six months ago, leaving behind what had become one of the capital's more dangerous districts—west Baghdad's largely Sunni Khadra region.

The family had been living inside a vicious and bloody turf battle between al-Qaida in Iraq and Mahdi Army militiamen. But Azawi said things began changing, becoming more peaceful, in August when radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army fighters to stand down nationwide.

About the same time, the Khadra neighborhood Awakening Council rose up against brutal al-Qaida control—the imposition of its austere interpretation of Islam, along with the murder and torture of those who would not comply.

The uprising originated in Iraq's west and flowed into the capital. Earlier this year, the Sunni tribes and clans in the vast Anbar province began their own revolt and have successfully rid the largely desert region of al-Qaida control.

SECDEF puts NATO on warning

Could the SECDEF be reading CDR Salamander??? Naw....but still.

Gates said before the NATO session that he was not satisfied with the allies' efforts. In Heidelberg he was more direct and specific, telling the army chiefs that the stakes in Afghanistan were great.

"If an alliance of the world's greatest democracies cannot summon the will to get the job done in a mission that we agree is morally just and vital to our security," he told the European army generals, "then our citizens may begin to question both the worth of the mission and the utility of the 60-year-old trans-Atlantic security project itself," referring to NATO, which was created in 1949.

Time to end the "American occupation of Europe?" From the Left and right - many would buy off on it. Screw up AFG - and you just may get that.

PRT for Valour IT

Xformed is doing his best to get Team Navy/USCG on the right path, but - alas...

That is me 6th from the left. Eagle1, on the far right. Unquestionably that is Lex 4th from the left - 180deg out of phase again ... and there is SteeljawScribe having some Cold War Sovietologist flashbacks 3rd from right - the old Russian dance habits are hard to part with.


Help us out here. We need more training. Check out the Navy/USMC auctions, or click the ValourIT button on the starboard frame or below.

The 800# Iraqi gorilla

That no one is talking about. If you are a stock trader or better yet an economist - you don't need me to say any more.

Of course, don't that get in the way of a pre-packaged deal at the AP. 2007 toll nears highest for US in Iraq.
Hat tip Soldier's Dad.

Why?

...am I posting this?


Because if I don't laugh, I might scream or cry because of these misogynistic, child-abusing, retrograde, stunted, evil people. That's why.
Hat tip HotAir.

Sunday Funnies