The Iraq War turns four

News You Can Use
Can you believe it's been four years now since the beginning of the war in Iraq? In fact, it's been damn near as long since the president landed on that aircraft carrier and announced "Mission Accomplished." Since then, something like 3,000 of our troops plus god knows how many Iraqis have been killed.

But President Bush Mengele gave a speech the other day to mark the occasion and announced that we can't leave just yet. His Surge plan to secure Baghdad hasn't had enough time to work its magic, and if we don't get them over there, they might get us over here.

To wit:

"The terrorists could emerge from the chaos with a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they had in Afghanistan which they used to plan the attacks of September 11, 2001. For the safety of the American people we cannot allow this to happen."

Which of course doesn't make sense in the sense that how come the terrorists couldn't just plot in any ol' crazed Arab country (like wherever the fuck Osama bin Laden is), or over the Internets, for that matter?

My position on this hasn't changed since 2003, but I'll go ahead and repeat it here, for posterity: Let's go ahead and expend the troops we already have over there, and then pull out immediately. Nullus.

JUSTICE FOR SEAN BELL?

The other day three of the five cops who shot and killed Sean Bell on his wedding day were indicted by a grand jury and yesterday they turned themselves into police. The two who fired the vast majority of the shots (31 and 11 of 50 total) were brought up on felony manslaughter charges while one guy who fired 4 shots was charged with misdemeanor endangerment. The other two, who fired four shots between them, weren't indicted.

I guess this is a good sign, but I know better than to believe shit until anyone's actually convicted and given hard time. If you look at the history of such cases, the cops almost always get off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, regardless of how egregious the crime is.