costly Shorja Market photo-op that is not even terribly flattering
The absurdity of John McCain and Lindsey Graham’s photo op in Iraq — securing an area and employing 100 soldiers and snipers to keep the market safe — where Lindsey Graham purchased five rugs for five dollars — and so John McCain could announce that Iraq is safe because they could walk right in and — um — “go shopping” (what we need to do in the War on Terror). It was just like an open-air market in Indiana, or so said another figure in the delegation, Representative Mike Pence.
Yes. Much progress since, I suppose February when the market was attacked. 78 dead, 166 injured. That was then. The security has gotten better, I hear. At least when John McCain is walking around. Afterward, well…
The merchants are American collaborators now and 36 hours later… the place was attacked. All injuries and all deaths in that attack (which I cannot find the numbers off hand) are directly attributable to John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and company’s pointless stroll through the neighborhood to get a series of photographs that are not even particularly flattering. (Really. Go to the image of John McCain in the body vest. It doesn’t look impressive at all to his stated message.)
Such is the price of attempted political profiting from war.