Hey, Break.com is great! Here's one of their videos showing an Iraqi kid throwing a grenade at a US troop convoy.

Just in case anyone is sarcasm impaired, I don't think it's great that the kid threw a grenade at US troops. Nor am I offended by Break.com.

I do think, though, that the clip shows the kind of conditions that eventually lead to atrocities like Haditha.

For our troops in Iraq for months on end, where even the young civilians on the street might have grenades they're ready to lob at you, the line between civilian and enemy fighter probably, and tragically, starts to blur.

Obligatory.

I do think, though, that the clip shows the kind of conditions that eventually lead to atrocities like Haditha.

For our troops in Iraq for months on end, where even the young civilians on the street might have grenades they're ready to lob at you, the line between civilian and enemy fighter probably, and tragically, starts to blur.

Does 'blur' really describe the state of mind that leads to the killing of several toddlers?

Hell of a way to greet the liberators.

where even the young civilians on the street might have grenades they're ready to lob at you

Just shoot 'em all, right? That's your "preemption doctrine" in a nutshell.

GB, what conditions do you think might eventually lead civilian Iraqis to take up arms against US soldiers? Are they capable of snapping under stressful conditions too, or of succumbing to the same type of blurring? Are they just bad people?

Teenagers in any country don't always need a whole lot of reasons to do stupid, even criminal stuff. A better question might be, how did this kid get a grenade?

Presumably, an insurgent fighter gave it to him and told him to go drive out the infidel Americans from his homeland. So we appear to be up against an enemy who, like the Palestinians, has no qualms about sending children out to do its dirty work.

No, that doesn't explain why a Marine would kill a toddler, but maybe it suggests how he started down that particular road to madness.

No, that doesn't explain why a Marine would kill a toddler, but maybe it suggests how he started down that particular road to madness.

What I'm trying to point out GB is that while it's humane and natural to want to cut our soldiers some slack based on the conditions they're under and what they've been through, Iraqi civilians have been under appalling conditions for a very long time and have been through a hell of a lot too, a good amount of it at least plausibly attributable to the US military presence in Iraq.

It's completely horrible that someone would give a child a grenade and encourage them to go use it, and it's unjustifiable, but perhaps it is understandable, in the same way that a U.S. Marine killing a child is unjustifiable, but perhaps, given the conditions, understandable.

Iraqi civilians have been under appalling conditions for a very long time and have been through a hell of a lot too, a good amount of it at least plausibly attributable to the US military presence in Iraq

I know this may be controversial, but I take the position that almost all of the hardship and appalling conditions Iraqis are now enduring is the fault of the insurgents and other militant factions who decided, after Baghdad fell and Saddam was defeated, to start fighting a new terrorist/guerilla/civil war, largely in populated areas.

Imagine if all the resources of the US military in Iraq could be dedicated to building up the country, instead of responding to and trying to prevent suicide bombings and wanton violence, and you get some idea of how much damage and waste the insurgents have caused.

But to America's critics, an insurgent suicide-bombing that kills Iraqi civilians is every bit as much America's fault as the Haditha killings.

I suspect that most Iraqis feel caught like pawns between two sides, much as they have been throughout the past fifteen years, and don't spend much time deciding which of the two has the better moral argument. Regardless, when you invade and occupy a country whose language, culture, and religion you don't share, armed resistance is inevitable. So I don't think we get some kind of free pass to say, "If those people would just friggin' submit to our domination, none of this would be happening. It ain't our fault."

Anyhow, you're all missing the more important point here: rollerskating monkey!

I know this is controversial, but, I contend that the insurgency that is destroying Iraq and killing US soliders didn't exist 'til the US military showed up.

Imagine if all the resources of America could be used to shore up free markets and open socieities all over the globe, instead of putting out a fire we chose to start.

America's critics?

Gimme' an f'n break. (Failed) GOP policies are not equal to "America". Those of us who are truly outraged at the violence are placing blame where it belongs.

Where is the "personal responsibility" of which Republicans see so little evidence in their political scapegoats, I mean...

Monkey, indeed.

I totally love that clip.

(Failed) GOP policies are not equal to "America"

Right now, like it or not, what America is doing in Iraq is America's foreign policy.

insurgency that is destroying Iraq and killing US soliders didn't exist 'til the US military showed up.

I guess you really liked those kite-flying scenes in Farenheit 9-11. You make the US entry into Iraq sound like Chris Rock's description of crack coming to the ghetto: Everything was wonderful there until we came along and screwed it all up.

That soldier is lucky he only got punched by a monkey instead of karate-kicked by a chimpanzee.

Right now, like it or not, dude, the policies are the wrong ones. You guys never stuck by Clinton, on Anything. At. All. Not sayin' I even the like the guy, just pointing out the bologna of the stand by our man argument.

And I never watched FaHrenheit 9-11. I have no need to support delusional wing nuts of any variety.

IMNSHO, your argument that the insurgency is less bad because Iraq was a mess anyway is true. Can't imagine why we get blamed for that either. And you'll notice I'm not playing partisan here, unlike you.

It all gets back to what the 'pos wrote already- you can't invade a country and expect anything less than armed resistance.

In short, your reasoning stinks.

Republicans [PNAC and the WHIG] planned it.
Republicans shaped the intelligence to fit the policy.
Republicans [Bush, Cheney and Powell] advocated it knowing of the false pretenses.
Republicans [Rummy] fucked it up.

and now it's America's problem? Why do republicans hate America?

Presenting the muse of the modern republican with the three sentences that will get you through life:
"Number one, 'cover for me.'
Number two, 'oh, good idea, boss. '
Number three, 'it was like that when I got here."

So, Sterling, there is no difference between invading a free democracy (as in your Red Dawn link), and deposing a murderous dictator to bring democracy to a country?

Your argument seems to say that's the case. It's just six of one and half a dozen of the other, eh?

Why should we accord the same deference to the "soveriegnty" of a state whose ruler maintains control by brute, bloody force, that we do to states with representative governments? By analogy, when parents abuse their children, we don't stand idly by and say, "Oh well, it's none of our business. It's their kid, they can do what they want with it." We take the kids somewhere safe and put the parents in jail.

I can agree that there were problems with the planning of the Iraq invasion and the occupation, but I cannot agree that the invasion was wrong in principle because of some supposedly universal rule that "you can't invade a country and expect anything less than armed resistance" from its people, no matter what the circumstances surrounding the invasion. What, exactly, are the insurgents resisting?

Oh, and I almost forgot: Monkey monkey monkey.

You illustrate my point so well, GB. You are the one who can't see that the thesis of Red Dawn is "you come in here and we'll kick your f&cking a$s!".

Why would the Iraqis be any different?

Imposing "democracy" at gunpoint on another country is an oxymoronic concept.

Having the PNAC gang push this notion as "foreign policy" when they don't even remotely respect democratic principles at home is parody in the abstract, and horrific in execution.

The history of mankind is replete with instances of countries standing idly by while terrible things happen. You republicans, however, didn't stand idly by when Saddam was killing lots of people. Reagan and Rumsfeld helped him do it.

"There is no difference.."

There is no difference to the civilians of that country. If you truly believe in the rightness of democracy- that a country belongs to its citizens- then you are a hypocrite to imply that soveriegnty is revoked because, oh well, you guys let the wrong guy in power.

And we invaded to promote democracy? What? Be honest- are you really seriously that forgetful?

I am outraged. OUTRAGED!!!!!!!!!!shift1!!!

Whether Republican, or Democrat, you have a civic duty, people. Stop the tyranny. That F*CK monkey is flashing the Hitler salute in the second video link. WAKE UP! It only takes a prehensile tail to fire a gun.

If you truly believe in the rightness of democracy- that a country belongs to its citizens- then you are a hypocrite to imply that soveriegnty is revoked because, oh well, you guys let the wrong guy in power.

No, because when Saddam was in power, Iraq did not belong to its citizens. It belonged to Saddam.

I just read this account of one reporter's experiences in Iraq over the past couple of years. It's definitely worth a read.

That was definitely worth reading. I liked this part:

In November I asked a close Shiite friend if -- considering all this violence, crime and radicalism in Iraq -- life had not been better under Hussein.

"No," he said definitively. "They could level all of Baghdad and it would still be better than Saddam. At least we have hope."

Of course, the reporter immediately follows that by saying the same person wrote in an email a few weeks later that he feared a civil war would break out; the reporter says this more or less happened when the Samarra Mosque was blown up earlier this year. But it's still amazing to see just how much Iraqis hated life under Saddam.

Comma tee!

GB, Nir Rosen is a colleague of Steve Clemons (The Washington Note blog) at the New America Foundation:

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001406.php

He's an Israeli who was born in NYC who has reportedly adopted leftist politics. Whatever his politics, the guy has balls. As a dark-skinned Arab speaker apparently he has been able to pass in Iraq, where he has spent two of the past three years reporting from outside of the Green Zone.

Whatever his politics, the guy has balls.

For the record, I have not cast any aspersions on the volume of Mr. Rosen's balls, which is by all appearances formidable.