In Iraq: Is US Diplomacy Being Shortchanged?

Some people might think so... Some might even think others are "willfully negligent or criminal" in their mismanagement of the job in Iraq:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sat before senators on Capitol Hill Wednesday to urge a State Department budget increase of 8.5% and the hiring of 1,100 new staff. Unusually, some lawmakers wished she'd have asked for even more. Senator Russ Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat, told Rice that her request was "small compared to the overall needs." and that U.S. diplomacy was still getting "shortchanged."

snip

A former top Republican congressional aide who this month completed an assignment as an adviser to Ambassador Ryan Crocker in Iraq blasted the State Department's performance there in a valedictory memo. "The foreign service is not competent to do the job that they have undertaken in Iraq," wrote Manuel Miranda, citing "an excuse-making culture," "willfully negligent if not criminal" management, a "built-in attention deficit disorder," and "information hoarding."

Even more might think so after reading that article from Time Magazine. (h/t buzzflash)

Meanwhile, in other Iraq news:

Anger grew on Sunday at an overnight air raid by US forces on a village in central Iraq that a tribal leader said killed three members of an American-backed anti-Qaeda "Awakening" front.

The helicopter attack on the village of Jurf al-Sakher, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of Baghdad, on Saturday provoked furious members of the group to quit en masse, according to their tribal leader Sabah al-Janabi.

"It was the third incident in a month. We have lost 19 men while 12 have been injured because of coalition attacks," Janabi said.

"The group, which comprises 110 members, resigned in protest at organised assassinations by the coalition forces," Janabi added.

"We have been badly affected and are very angry at this aggression," said Rariri. "Whether it was an error or intentional, it proves that the coalition is not worried about the stability of our area."

Another member, Abdallah al-Janabi, 29, accused the US military of deliberately sowing disorder so that they can stay in Iraq "for as long as possible."

"They ensure that chaos and terrorism continues by all possible means," he charged. "But we remain vigilant against those who want to kill our children and our families."

And St. McCain says he wants another 100 years of this... Think about that.

100 years more of Republican terrorism. Heck! Maybe even ten thousand years...

John McCain in 2008!
The best of the worst the GOP has to offer!

"The jobs are never coming back,
the illegals are never going home,
but we’re gonna have a lot more wars."

The Republican party is insane enough to ALMOST make me want to join the Democratic party.

[update] ThePoliticalCat has some thoughts on this and other things:

Damn, all this successful successin' is just too fucking confusing for us. There must be somebody out there who can figure out just who the fuck our friends are and who our enemies are in this unholy mess.

Meanwhile, in other late-breaking news, a woman suicide bomber has blown herself up in a Baghdad shopping mall; a suicide bomber killed 80 people in the southern Afghani town of Kandahar; and the Pentagon states that there will be more U.S. troops in Iraq after the "drawdown" (huh?).

And Bush's friend, Prince Bandar of the House of Saud (whose country generously supplied 15 of the 19 terrorists responsible for the September 11th attacks on the U.S.), has been doing some stenchful deals for military might with U.K. companies, and threatening the UK with terrorist attacks if they investigate bribes that were paid to him.

The Boston Globe tells us that the Saudi government provided the September 11th terrorists with financial and logistics support in their quest to destroy the Twin Towers. While the New Yorker (Seymour Hersh, the most trusted name in news) tells us that the Saudi government has given a great deal of financial support to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Why is the Bush family personal friends with these people?

Bush friends with the terrorist financier Bandar who?

President George W. Bush meets with Saudi Arabian

Ambassador and terrorist Prince Bandar bin Sultan at the Bush
Ranch in Crawford, Texas, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2002