[squidly]

If our leaders did not forsee the local Islamic clerics, Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia sicking their filthy noses and hands into the stew of Iraq........ then our leaders did not have a "plan"...

Sure they would have foreseen it, they're not stupid, and they get input from the best and brightest. It's just that violence directly against Americans had dropped off in the last three months or so, only to have this sudden and what would have to be, in the long range view, unexpected flare-up here in the last week.

I'm just wondering if it indicates a renewed vigor on the part of the jihadists, and possibly a new offensive. Relatively speaking, they were licking their wounds following their offensive during Ramadan, up until now anyway.

It's also worth noting that this is going on simultaneous to a lot of troop rotation in and out of Iraq. That could be a factor somehow.

[LdSentinal]

April 9th will be the 1-year anniversary of the liberation of Baghdad.

[river rat]

I suspect the "renewed vigor" is a response to the success of violence in Spain..

They saw that a couple of hundred murdered Spaniards, resulted in a change of government...a change to one less hostile to Islamic lunatics.

The Islamists would dearly love to unset President Bush, and get Kerry,that weak kneed, French loving apologist - who hasn't figured out his position on anything - including his heritage and religion, who has already publicly paid total homage and allegiance to the corrupt Arab loving United Nations.

Semper Fi