The war in Iraq is a horror in which no US citizen is immune.

In a well-presented op/ed in the Los Angeles Times last week, Cy Bolton, a former TV news anchor and military affairs reporter, wrote of the lies Decider George and his cronies presented in getting the US involved in Iraq.
There is no ambiguity — no one else to blame for the fraud from the Oval Office:

• Another example is the now infamous nuclear reference from Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address: “Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Not only was this refuted twice in early 2002 — by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and by French intelligence — but the CIA’s National Intelligence Council investigated and told the White House four days before the address that “the Niger [Africa] story is baseless and should be laid to rest.” So the administration knew the claim was false, used it anyway and when caught, issued a collective “oops.” Although these speeches are vetted by Bush staffers, State, Defense, National Security and the CIA, it just slipped through. Riiiiight.
  …
  Space constraints don’t allow for a refutation of all the lies the president told about Iraq’s threat, their weapons and their link to Osama bin Laden. However, consider this final point: Our government spent nearly tens of millions of dollars to try to impeach a president for lying about consensual sex between two adults. Compare that to this abomination: George W. Bush knowingly lied to the American people in selling his case for a war that has directly led to the deaths of more than 4,000 Americans. They are deaths brought about by his lies, deceit and deception. It is an American atrocity of monumental proportion, followed closely by the heinous fact that no one has held him accountable. Where is the outrage?

And the shit continues more than five years later.
A collective ‘oops’ for a nasty incident Friday which claimed the life of a relative of Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, and opened a tear in the wound of so-called Iraqi sovereignty:

• Iraqi officials in Karbala said the operation began at dawn Friday, when U.S. aircraft delivered dozens of American troops to the rural Shiite Muslim town of Janaja, which is populated mostly by members of the Maliki tribe.
  Raed Shakir Jowdet, the Iraqi military commander of Karbala operations, said that four Apache helicopters and a jet fighter soared over the area. About 60 U.S. soldiers then stormed the town, “terrifying the families,” he said.
  Jowdet said that an unarmed civilian named Ali Abdulhussein was killed in his home. He added that the man detained in the operation, Hussein Nima, was visiting the area and didn’t reside in Karbala.
  …
  (Oqeil al) Khazaali, the U.S.-allied governor, denounced the operation at a news conference, saying the U.S. military hadn’t coordinated in advance with Iraqi forces, who assumed control of Karbala security in October 2007. The governor said the raid set “a dangerous precedent” for areas ostensibly under full Iraqi control.
  “The airdrop confuses the agreements, and America should answer for this violation,” Khazaali said.
  Khazaali said the raid was based on false intelligence and that the U.S. military should “submit a report to clarify all the circumstances and to point out the killers and hand over the names of everyone who participated in the military operation in order for them to appear before the Iraqi judicial system.”

Decider George’s war is starting to completely unravel.
The Iraqis are also justifiably angered over an incident last Wednesday where three people described by the Interior Ministry as bank employees on their way to work were shot and killed near the Baghdad airport when they tried to pass an American convoy.
History will not be proud of the situation developing with Iraqi sentiment.

• The reaction to the latest deaths signals that the Iraqi government is likely to push hard on the issue in the negotiations.
  These two shootings “are a violation of the law and an encroachment on Iraqi sovereignty,” said a statement from the General Command of the Iraqi armed forces. “We demand the coalition force to arrest their employees and refer them to the judiciary because their crimes were committed in cold blood.”

That there is some pretty harsh language: “crimes committed in cold blood.”

Negotiations my ass.
Two different agreements between the US and the Iraqi government — one the so-called Status of Forces Agreement, and the second (though the both are security-tied together) a gigantic oil contract between the Oil Ministry and four huge oil companies, including Exxon-Mobil, headquartered in the US — are appearing to head south more and more in Iraq.
Just about everyone, from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani down to the guy walking (or running) around Baghdad, loathes the US — and from one Iraqi politician in Washington earlier this month that probably 70 percent of Iraqis want the US out.

oops.