Quotes of the Morning: Fighting On Both Fronts

“Ok.. I was wrong. I admit it. I thought that this strategy…”
-Skippy

“The US military has embarked on a new and risky strategy in Iraq by arming Sunni insurgents in the hope that they will tackle the extremist al-Qaida in Iraq.
The US high command this month gave permission to its officers on the ground to negotiate arms deals with local leaders. Arms, ammunition, body armour and other equipment, as well as cash, pick-up trucks and fuel, have already been handed over in return for promises to turn on al-Qaida and not attack US troops.”
-Guardian (UK), June 12, 2007

“Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, a leader of the Sunni Dulaimi tribe who works in Anbar and Baghdad, said many of the fighters in Amiriyah belong to the Islamic Army, which includes former officers from Saddam Hussein's military and is more secular than other insurgent groups. The fighters have been organized and encouraged by local imams.”
-Washington Post, June 9, 2007

“…was going to be dangerous to the U.S. troops since we are basically, you know, arming the enemy. It turns out that it was more dangerous for the Sunni insurgents.”
-Skippy

“More than two years ago, Sheik Fasal al Gaood approached the U.S. military with what was then an unprecedented offer: His tribesmen were prepared to help American troops rout insurgents linked to al Qaida from Anbar province in western Iraq.
But the Sunni Muslim tribal leader and former provincial governor met one rebuff after another from American officers, he told McClatchy Newspapers at the time. Discouraged and angry, he warned that U.S. officers risked losing him as an ally.
The Americans eventually came around, and al Gaood renewed his offer. He helped turn some of Anbar's most prominent Sunni tribes into a force in the war against al Qaida's followers. That high-stakes partnership may have cost him his life: Al Gaood and 11 other Iraqis were killed Monday in a bombing at a Baghdad hotel where tribal sheiks who've joined forces with the U.S. were scheduled to meet.”
-McClatchy Newspapers, June 25, 2007

“So I think that that strategy is probably now ‘non-operable’. Meanwhile, back on the homefront..”
-Skippy

“A federal judge chastised the Interior Department's former No. 2 official and doubled his proposed prison term to 10 months Tuesday for lying to senators in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and making excuses about it in court.
J. Steven Griles was the department's deputy secretary and is the highest administration official sentenced in the probe. He pleaded guilty to obstructing a congressional investigation, but on Tuesday his lawyers tried to deflect blame for his faulty testimony.”
-New York Times, June 26, 2007

“Obstruction again.. So strange. Let’s see.. That gives us criminals in the Interior Department (Griles) and the Office of the Vice President (Libby) with a major scandal still underway in the Justice Department (Gonzales). It just goes to prove that while Fearless Leader’s Administration seems criminal and incompetent in it’s waging of the Iraq war and in international relations, it is also criminal and incompetent in dealing with internal matters. Good to know.
And now for something completely different.”
-Skippy

“Human-animal hybrid embryos conceived in the laboratory - so-called ‘chimeras’ - should be regarded as human and their mothers should be allowed to give birth to them, the Roman Catholic Church said yesterday.
Under draft Government legislation to be debated by Parliament later this year, scientists will be given permission for the first time to create such embryos for research as long as they destroy them within two weeks.
But the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, in a submission to the Parliamentary joint committee scrutinising the draft legislation, said that the genetic mothers of ‘chimeras’ should be able to raise them as their own children if they wished.
The bishops said that they did not see why these ‘interspecies’ embryos should be treated any differently than others.”
-Telegraph (UK), June 27, 2007

“Rosemary Woodhouse: What have you done to him? What have you done to his eyes, you maniacs!
Roman Castevet: He has his father's eyes.”
-Rosemary’s Baby