The Xsociate Files

Two years to the day after Vice President Dick Cheney said that the insurgency in Iraq was in its "last throes" comes word from Sen. Joe Lieberman that the surge could be the straw to finally break the back of this incessant camel. This rose colored assessment came while Lieby made a surprise visit to Baghdad, no doubt spurred on by a hot tip on some similarly shaded Oakleys by his pals McCain and Graham.

But sadly Joe wasn't greeted as a liberator by the troops he so audaciously wished to have a photo-op with. Via McClatchy:

Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, Mass., had two note cards in his pocket Wednesday afternoon as he waited for Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Williams serves in the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., the first of the five "surge" brigades to arrive in Iraq, and he was chosen to join the Independent from Connecticut for lunch at a U.S. field base in Baghdad.

The night before, 30 other soldiers crowded around him with questions for the senator.

He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:

"When are we going to get out of here?"...

...Spc. Will Hedin, 21, of Chester, Conn., thought about what he was going to say.

"We're not making any progress," Hedin said, as he recalled a comrade who was shot by a sniper last week. "It just seems like we drive around and wait to get shot at."

But as he waited two chairs down from where Lieberman would sit, Hedin said he'd never voice his true feelings to the senator.

"I think I'd be a private if I did," he joked. "It's just more troops, more targets."

As we learned yesterday, there will be many more years of target practice for these brave men. And all, it seems, because of those who continue to refuse to take off their shades and endure the harsh light of reality.

Meme more.

(Filed at State of the Day)

Posted by The Xsociate on Thursday, May 31, 2007 | Permalink