Making friends and influencing people

It seems we're doing a great job of winning friends and influencing people in the two countries we're leading on the great path to freedom. Karzai has condemned the US Troops' use of gunfire in quelling the anti-American rioting in Kabul last week, the Iraqi government is planning it's own investigation into the Haditha massacre, and the new Iraqi leader has declared a state of emergency in Basra (until recently, the one and only shining spot of "stability" in Iraq).

You're doing a great job, Bushie.

Meanwhile, the scope of the Haditha massacre and the associated cover-up is just beginning to sink in. Reportedly, the Pentagon fears that this will do even more harm to America's standing in Iraq than did the Abu Ghraib incidents. And, it appears the cover up had to include some of the highest ranking American officers in Iraq and, perhaps, at the Pentagon as well. This will almost certainly go down as the equivalent of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and may have even greater fallout than that did.

Predictably, of course, the right wing media are pooh poohing the importance of this. Just a few mis-guided kids who were scared and angry. No systemic problems. No problems in the chain of command. Nothing to see here, just move on. Everything in Iraq is going just fine, and the only reason we don't hear about it is that the left wing media won't report the good news.