John Kerry: fifth columnist, or idiot? Go read it. He calls that fat gangster al Sadr a "legitimate voice". It isn't Scrappleface satire - he was speaking to NPR.

If the man had paid five minutes attention to the situation in Iraq, he would have known what al Sadr is - an ignorant, unlearned thug who runs his organization off of Iranian terror-money and extortion from moderate Shi'a mosques. Either Kerry hasn't been paying attention to the news, or else he's just embraced a terrorizing gangster. You tell me - idiot, or jackass?

Fuck it, I'm voting Bush. For the first time ever.

If you're wondering why I haven't been posting, it's because I'm hanging out at in the comments sections of Rantburg and Command Post. Touch and go, but I believe in our guys and girls.

The soldier writing the journal behind that last link, BTW, is a Buffy fanfic writer (sounds like she writes Spike material, to judge from the draft about two weeks down the page) who *was* posted in al Kut, before they evacuated. She just spent the night pinned down under fire with the Ukrainians. Sounds like one royal cock-up from one end to the other. I can't be sure about the rest of the south, but that province is Injun Country right now.