Free Republic

...Physical separation is therefore the only way to limit the carnage. That process has begun, to some extent, because the violence is driving out the members of one sect or the other from the many mixed villages, towns and city districts. This is a painful and very costly way of interrupting the cycle of attacks and reprisals, but that is how civil war achieves its purpose of eventually bringing peace. ......the U.S. and its allies ...should disengage their troops from populated areas as much as possible, give up the intrusive checkpoints and patrols that are failing to contain the violence...

CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly resigned yesterday amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.

I was lectured on Freerepublic that I was supposed to "feel safer" because we captured Saddam -- even though there's no evidence that he was behind 9-11. Osama is the guy that Bush promised to get "dead or alive" -- but four years later, he's still out there, free as a jail bird.Maybe it's time to refocus on the mastermind and culprits who were behind 9-11? Prediction: I'll get flamed as a "DU provacateur" for advocating that we go after somebody who killed 3000-plus people on American soil.

In a startling example of mixed messages, Gen. John Abizaid, the top US commander in the Persian Gulf, gave testimony to Congress Thursday that directly contradicted recent statements by the vice president and the secretary of defense. Canada's Globe and Mail reports that Gen. Abizaid "conceded yesterday that the Iraqi insurgency is as strong as it was six months ago, countering declarations by Vice President Dick Cheney that the revolt is 'in its last throes.' " "In terms of the overall strength of the insurgency, I'd say it's about the same as it was," he said, declining to specifically criticize...

... In March, after Bush met with the leaders of France and Germany, Rice announced that the United States would support the European bid to offer Iran incentives such as the right to apply for World Trade Organization membership and to buy badly needed airplane parts in exchange for stopping any weapons program. "When a draft of the announcement was circulated through the interagency process," one U.S. official said, "Bolton's office wasn't on the list" of people asked to approve the wording. Bolton's departure also ultimately spelled the end of the administration's campaign against Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA director general...