Somehow, this does not look great to me…

An armed member of a Sunni Arab Awakening Council walks past children in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. The Iraqi government has taken over responsibility for paying members of the councils. [AFP via BBC’s Day in Pictures, October 1 2008]

I have caught several of Dexter Filkins‘ appearances for his new book, the title alluding to endless war… I did hear a comment from him, right at the end of his appearance on Charlie Rose, about how much he supports this war and “believes” in it.  I wondered at the very moment he said it, if he heard himself.  I think he has played it the other way round, frankly… and certainly the NYT book review pushes that posture.

The work Filkins accomplishes in “The Forever War” is one of the most effective antitoxins that the writing profession has produced to counter the administration’s fascinating contemporary public relations tactic. The political leadership’s method has been the dissemination of facts reversed 180 degrees toward the quadrant of lies, hitherto a magic bullet in their never-ending crusade to accomplish everything from stealing elections to starting ideological wars. Filkins uses the truth as observed firsthand to detail an arid, hopeless policy in an unpromising part of the world. His writing is one of the scant good things to come out of the war.

It reminded me of a C-Span panel I caught years ago, with Shadid, whose writing I had certainly read in the Wapo.  At one point he said of the actual invasion, take over of Baghdad (remember that flawless operation), that he thrilled to see the “power of my country”.

hmm Nationalism, jingoism, unnecessary regional war as thievery, murder, occupation, pure utter mindless destruction, deprivation and depravity… Well fine, Dexter, you belly right up to that bar.  Go ahead.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, of course, here, in this country, as the number of US casualties has declined, so has the attention in the media or in the public to the situation in Iraq, and everyone has now bought into the thought that things are getting better.

ROBERT FISK: Ha ha ha, yes. Look, the degree of ethnic cleansing that actually took place—genocidal, in some ways—and the fact that the Americans have now built walls through every community in every major city in Iraq, which has divided between the communities, means that there isn’t, in fact, any free flow of movement. There isn’t a country operating anymore.

But now, I mean, if you stand back a little bit and look at it like this, first of all, we went to Afghanistan, we won the war. Then we rushed off to Iraq and won the war. Then we lost the war in Iraq, or maybe we won it again. And then we’re going back to Afghanistan, where we seem to have lost the war, to win it all over again. And in due course, perhaps we’ll have to go back to Iraq. I mean, in my reports, I’m calling this Iraqistan. And now, we’ve actually got soldiers on foot turning up in Pakistan. I mean, has nobody actually stood back and said, “What on earth are we doing out there?” I mean, I calculated for our Sunday magazine that we now have twenty-two times as many military personnel per head of population as the Crusaders had in the twelfth century. You know, what are we doing?

It was a baker in Baghdad who asked me this very obvious question. He said, “Why are you”—“you” meaning Western military—“Why are you in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, French air base at Dushanbe running close as support for the British in Helmand province in Afghanistan? Why are your people going into Pakistan? Why are you in Afghanistan and Iraq? Why are you in Turkey? Why are you in Jordan and Egypt and Algeria? US Special Forces have a base outside Tamanrasset in the southern Sahara. Why are you in Bahrain? Why are you in Oman? Why are you in Yemen? Why are you in Qatar? Biggest US air base.” I didn’t have a reply.

We are so marketed.

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LOL  I read a sort of sideswipe about this in The Note this morning, but just caught up to it… Take it away Harry!!

From CNN — “Insurers plunge on Reid’s ‘bankrupt’ remark“:

Several big life insurance stocks fell sharply Thursday, dragged down by jitters about their role in the credit crisis and fears sparked by a comment from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Wednesday about a potential bankruptcy in the industry.

“We don’t have a lot of leeway on time. One of the individuals in the caucus today talked about a major insurance company. A major insurance company — one with a name that everyone knows that’s on the verge of going bankrupt. That’s what this is all about,” Reid said prior to the Senate’s approval of the $700 billion bailout bill.

Steven Schwartz, an analyst who covers insurance companies for Raymond James & Associates, said that even before Reid made his bankruptcy comment, investors were growing worried about life insurers’ exposure to real estate as well as “secondary exposure” via investments in troubled finance firms like Lehman Bros, Wachovia and Washington Mutual.

But the comment from Reid clearly caused even more fear. “Harry Reid didn’t help any,” Schwartz said.

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Other than that, Palin UP! I think all Biden has to do, if he can, is look straight forward, not bare and clench his teeth (if you have not seen it, it is quite something) — and be a man of few words.

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ADDED:  Wing Woman is Winged!

Via The Page off Politico:

Palin’s hand will be bandaged, following a spill while running at McCain’s Arizona ranch.