U.S. forces, backing up Iraqi troops battling Shiite militants, bombed Basra today as about 40 Iraqi police commandos based in Baghdad deserted to join a militia.

I am so happy the surge is working. Are our troops any closer to coming home? So this billion dollars a week we are paying for the war will finally start to go away.

In 7 months when things are essentially unchanged, will you still be saying the surge is working?

Nobody gives a shit about the surge. We paid off the militias and that is why the violence is down. While I don't mind my tax dollars going to protect our forces, I am a little tired of us bribing these thugs that will one day be our enemies again. What a pointless war.

A friend from Department of State yesterday told me two American citizens were killed last week from rockets fired into the Green Zone. They were not soldiers, one was a federal employee, the other a contractor. They wil not be counted becasue they werent troops, they were civilians.