Category: dKo journal

We read now about an Al Qaeda prisoner whom we sent to Egypt to be tortured. He eventually came up with a fabricated story that Saddam Hussein had trained Al Qaeda members in chemical and germ warfare. This testimony became a favorite piece of smoking-gun evidence, cited repeatedly by top officials in favor of their…

Washington Post Without ever using the words “mistake” or “error,” Bush said the administration miscalculated by clearing insurgents out of a city and then moving onto another assignment, only to allow enemy forces to retake control. DKo: Could anyone have foreseen this? Just about anyone. However, it is never fair to criticize Mr. Bush for…

Washington Post A tearful [Ohio governor] Taft pleaded no contest Aug. 18 to misdemeanor charges. After vowing earlier not to tolerate ethics violations in his administration, he said he had failed to live up to his own standards and public expectations. “I am disappointed in myself,” said Taft, the son and grandson of U.S. senators…

Immaculate Conception is different from the Virgin Birth. Mary gave birth as a virgin, which precluded Original Sin from being transmitted from Joseph. But what about Original Sin being transmitted from Mary? Well, Mary, though not herself the offspring of a Virgin Birth, was also free from sin, because she was produced by Immaculate Conception.…

Especially when it’s only mere Iraqis who die. From the NYT Lack of Armor Proves Deadly for Iraqi Army “The Iraqis put quite a few more people in their trucks, and those trucks aren’t armored,” Major Warren said. “No armor plus more people in the truck equals a substantially higher casualty rate.” The Army unit…

These US soldiers in Iraq present such an excruciating paradox. On the one hand, we have seen how, with the right (i..e., wrong) people and setting, the slippery slope of prisoner abuse plummets deep into the abyss. But then there is the astonishing generosity, altruism, self-sacrifice that can show up, something that they almost take…