Surprise!! McCain's Bagdad Market now controlled by al Sadr

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Sunday March 16, 2008 · 8:09 PM PDT

2008/03/16 · 20:09

Quick Diary here... not much else to say other than that this is truly a fucked up situation, a major sign that the Surge is TOAST. Namely, John McCain today wasn't able to return to the al-Shorja market, once seen as a sign of the Surge's Success, which is now under the control of Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi army. From Andrew Sullivan...

We got close to that marketplace today, Jim, but our own security advisers here in Iraq did not want us to go there. They didn’t believe it was safe for an American to be in that area. We were in a thriving marketplace nearby... That one marketplace, as a matter of fact, you do see Iraqi police, you do see the Iraqi army, but in truth, that area is controlled by the radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi army.

Background from Think Progress tonight

On April 1, 2007, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) strolled through the open-air Shorja market in Baghdad in an effort to prove that Americans are “not getting the full picture” of what’s going on in Iraq. In a press conference after his Baghdad tour, McCain told a reporter that his visit to the market was proof that people could “walk freely” in parts of Baghdad.

What McCain failed to mention was that he was accompanied by “100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead.” He also appeared to be wearing a bulletproof vest during his visit.

Since that trip, McCain has claimed that the situation in Iraq has improved even more. A few months ago, McCain claimed that “we’ve succeeded militarily” in Iraq. Things, of course, are going so well, that he wants to keep U.S. troops there for at least 100 years.

Don't you wish we had a Nominee who was Free and Clear to Rail against this Shit?

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