The Workday Liberal

Yesterday I posted regarding a piece of news I thought was so absurd that reading it would cause the normal reader to re-read and then triple read the information presented because the story defies belief. Today brings another such example, and oddly enough both stories revolve around the Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki.

First, regarding yesterdays post, we have further details regarding the origination of the plan to surge. Senator Smith carried on in some detail in yesterdays press conference and gives further confirmation that Maliki is the author of the plan. According to Smith:

"He (Bush) went at great length to say how impressed he was that Prime Minister Maliki would come to them with a plan as to what was needed to restore the political processes of Iraq," Smith said. Bush thought that "because this was their (the Iraqis') proposal, they would come through," Smith said.

Again... I can not IMAGINE the line of thinking taken by the Commander in Chief. Even if Maliki were the originator of this plan (which he is not, the call for more troops into Iraq has been made by many people since before the war began) having the President present the plan as originating from the Iraqi's rather than our own military, or even himself hardly inspires confidence. Conservative opinion has argued long and hard against giving control of American forces over to foreign influence. Yet now the President makes a big to-do about Maliki having given him the surge plan? Again... I find this unbelievable.

Maliki is part and parcel of the Shiite establishment in Iraq. I think it is beyond the pale that an ally of the Shiite death squads, and an ally of Iran, is the man our President claims is responsible for the idea of placing an additional 20,000 troops into harms way.

Today's stuff I can't make up comes directly from the fetid mouth of Maliki himself. He gave a press conference and was asked about reports that the Americans had requested that he postpone the execution of Saddam by 10 days in order to avoid a conflict with the start of the Sunni celebration of Eid. Maliki informs the world that he declined to delay the execution because... of tensions in Iraq!

"The situation in the country was shaky with many rumors about possible deals between Saddam and the government," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told reporters.

"These rumors, which were started by Saddam's defense lawyers, created tension among the people, and we felt the necessity of terminating this man who was troublesome in his life and troublesome in his death."

Hussein, 69, was hanged December 30 after being convicted for his role in a 1982 massacre in Dujail, a town north of Baghdad. (Full story)

Al-Maliki acknowledged that Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, asked him to postpone the execution by 10 days to two weeks.

"We refused because of what I described earlier: The tension in the country was high," al-Maliki said. "We didn't want to leave the door open for trouble, and we didn't want the victims' families to take to the streets in protest."

The absolute vapidity of this line of reasoning leads one to question the sanity of the one making the statement. Because of "tension" the Shiite dominated Government decided to execute Saddam on the day that Sunni's start the Eid celebration? Next, they can wait for Easter and make a mockery of executing a Christian with their little cell phones and what not.

Frankly if Maliki wishes to use the bad attitudes of his citizenry for justification, what could he not justify? Tension in Iraq? Who could have imagined!

Maliki's creativeness in describing the logic leading to Saddams execution ought to be expected. He is a creature of the Bush administration.