Quotes of the Morning: The Rest of the Story

“Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari criticized U.S. and multinational forces for shooting at Iraqi civilians who act suspiciously near patrols or military areas, but a spokesman for the U.S. command blamed the problem on the growing use of suicide car bombs as an insurgent weapon.
‘Terrorists, through use of suicide (vehicles), have caused this predicament,’ said Lt. Col. Steven Boylan. ‘They have affected the normal level of trust that people have for one another and have made it difficult to distinguish between normal traffic and a grave potential threat.’"
-Associated Press, July 10, 2005

“Iraq’s former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi has warned that his country is facing civil war and has predicted dire consequences for Europe and America as well as the Middle East if the crisis is not resolved.
‘The problem is that the Americans have no vision and no clear policy on how to go about in Iraq,’ said Allawi, a long-time ally of Washington.
In an interview with The Sunday Times last week as he visited Amman, the Jordanian capital, he said: ‘The policy should be of building national unity in Iraq. Without this we will most certainly slip into a civil war. We are practically in stage one of a civil war as we speak.’”
-The Sunday Times, July 10, 2005

“Wow.. civil war. Its like we’re turning the country into a bigger war zone deliberately by not putting enough troops in place or initially securing all of those weapons (or by starting this war in the first place).”
-Skippy

“We will stay on the offense, fighting the terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them at home.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, July 9, 2005

“Except, of course, our allies in London. They really aren’t Amurican anyway though, so I guess it doesn’t matter. That’s the reason for the war, eh? To give the terrorists a new target other than us? To fight them overseas instead of here? I’m sure that our troops, those people who have apparently been sent into that meat grinder as terrorist bait, will appreciate what you’ve done.”
-Skippy

“According to documents released at recent meetings of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs committees, the VA hospital in White River Junction, Vt., was forced to shut its operating rooms temporarily because of a lack of maintenance funds to repair a broken heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. Hospitals in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana and eastern Texas stopped scheduling appointments for many veterans. The VA medical center in San Diego, with a waiting list of 750 veterans, diverted $3.5 million in maintenance funds to partially cover operating expenses and delayed filling 131 vacancies for three months to cover operating expenses. The Portland, Ore., hospital delayed non-emergency surgery for at least six months, and 7,000 veterans who use the VA facility in Bay Pines, Fla., are waiting longer than 30 days for a primary care appointment.”
-Washington Post, July 11, 2005

“Dang. Shooting civilians. Civil war in Iraq. Our injured soldiers returning to underfunded medical care. What I wouldn’t give for some old folksie radio announcer to come on and give me some optimistic Americana. I could use a little chicken soup for the soul (assuming of course that liberals such as myself actually have a soul… I think some of the conservatives out there doubt it. Ann Coulter, I’m talking to you.).”
-Skippy

"We didn't come this far because we're made of sugar candy. Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and across this continent by giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. That was biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on to grab this land from whomever.
And we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves. So it goes with most great nation-states, which - feeling guilty about their savage pasts - eventually civilize themselves out of business and wind up invaded and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry up-and-coming who are not made of sugar candy."
-Paul Harvey, June 23, 2005

“And now you know… the rest of the story.”
-Skippy