Statement from President George W. Bush regarding the shootings in VA

I'm sorry, but I can't resist sticking it to Bush.

THE PRESIDENT: Our nation is shocked and saddened by the news of the shootings at Virginia Tech today. The exact total has not yet been confirmed, but it appears that more than 30 people were killed and many more were wounded.

I've spoken with Governor Tim Kaine and Virginia Tech President Charles Steger. I told them that Laura and I and many across our nation are praying for the victims and their families and all the members of the university community who have been devastated by this terrible tragedy. I told them that my administration would do everything possible to assist with the investigation, and that I pledged that we would stand ready to help local
law enforcement and the local community in any way we can during this time of sorrow. [emphasis mine]

Hello? Katrina? Rita? Yeah, we know about your "help".

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Gunman kills 32, commits suicide in Va.

I wasn't gonna post about this, but I have several questions.

A gunman massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history Monday, cutting down his victims in two attacks two hours apart before the university could grasp what was happening and warn students.

The bloodbath ended with the gunman committing suicide, bringing the death toll to 33 and stamping the campus in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains with unspeakable tragedy, perhaps forever.

Investigators gave no motive for the attack. The gunman's name was not immediately released, and it was not known if he was a student.

"Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions," Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said. "The university is shocked and indeed horrified."

But he was also faced with difficult questions about the university's handling of the emergency and whether it did enough to warn students and protect them after the first burst of gunfire. Some students bitterly complained they got no warning from the university until an e-mail that arrived more than two hours after the first shots rang out.

They say it is the worst massacre in modern US history. There have been worse ones earlier?

What idiots are in charge who couldn't realize what was happening after the first attack which was followed by a second two hours later?

And how could anyone in their right mind decide email was the best way to warn students? They have no fucking campus wide public address system? If they don't, then someone did a piss poor job of setting up campus security.

This is a horrific tragedy made worse by the authorities in charge.

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A massacre and a new civil war

OK, now massacres are on the table? Just asking.

Folks, things are getting far too out of hand. Bush needs to bring the troops home now.

The massacre that occurred in Najaf, Iraq, last Sunday by now has been wildly deconstructed over the Arab press. What emerges has virtually nothing to do with the official Baghdad and Washington spin of Iraqi troops killing 250-odd heavily armed apocalyptic cultists dubbed "Soldiers of Heaven". They were said to be about to attack not only Shi'ite pilgrims but also the "Big Four" ayatollahs of Iraq - Ali al-Sistani, Bashir Najafi, Muhammad shaq Fayyad and Muhammad Said al-Hakim - who all sit in holy Najaf.

When the embattled Nuri al-Maliki government in Baghdad gloats in unison with the Pentagon and US President George W Bush about such a masterful display by the Iraqi army, supported by the lethal firepower of US tanks and F-16s, something is terribly off the mark. Especially as the "Iraqi army" in question is composed in its majority by the Badr Organization, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq's (SCIRI's) paramilitary wing, which is peppered with death squads.

Najaf Governor As'ad Abu Gilel, a high-ranking SCIRI politician himself, has told Najaf Radio FM that no fewer than "300 terrorists were killed, 650 detained and 121 wounded, while 11 Iraqi soldiers were killed and 27 wounded". One thousand "terrorist" casualties suggest firepower comparable to the US raids in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in December 2001.

The official Baghdad spin maintains that the battle was provoked by an evil mastermind, Ayatollah Ahmad al-Hasani al-Sarkhi, also called al-Yamani, born in Diwaniya, a charlatan with a background in fine arts and the leader of the Mahdi Mahdawiya millenarian movement (a splinter Sadrist movement). It's important to note that his offices in Najaf were closed 10 days before the massacre, and many of his aides arrested: this already suggests a government crackdown preceding the upcoming US surge/escalation.

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