LOGO: Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines. A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
2010 Webby Award Winner for Best Political Blog
 
May 25, 2012
Log in / Register

 Choose a size
Text Size

Trending:     gay marriage     barack obama     robert scheer     ndaa     chris hedges
Most Read

Do the Bain Hustle

What We Learned About Wall Street and Big Business From Facebook's IPO

Armed Drones: Coming to an Airspace Near You

Spending

OSHA Struggles When Tower Climbers Die

Most Comments
Most Emailed

Reports
 * NEW! * OSHA Struggles When Tower Climbers Die
Do the Bain Hustle
 * NEW! * How to Forget on Memorial Day

Ear to the Ground

A/V Booth

Arts & Culture
Better Than We Found It
The Good-Natured Dictator
A Beast Bent on Grace

Digs
Financial Meltdown 101

Truthdig Bazaar
Islam, South Asia, and the West

Islam, South Asia, and the West

By Francis Robinson
$29.95

Chicago’s South Side, 1946-1948 (Series in Contemporary Photography)

Chicago’s South Side, 1946-1948 (Series in Contemporary Photography)

By Orville Schell (Foreword), Wayne Miller
$29.95

more items

 
A/V Booth

Biden Does Baghdad, Finds Occupation ‘Delicious’

Email this item Email    Print this item Print   

Posted on Jul 4, 2010
Joe Biden

The vice president is spending his Independence Day in Iraq. Speaking from what he described as Saddam Hussein’s hunting lodge, Biden celebrated the toppling of the former Iraqi ruler, saying, “I find it delicious that that’s happened.”

Read Jill Biden’s blog post about their visit here.

Advertisement


New and Improved Comments

We are launching a major overhaul of our comments section.

In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread.

Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts.

Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with.

Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page.

By MrWebster, July 6, 2010 at 10:34 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Bizarre image.  War is cannibalism.  I image the Marquis de Sade would like the imagery. Bush was given Saddam’s pistol as his trophy.  Wonder what Biden took?  The pots and pans?

But you know, as much as I know about Biden, he is a warmonger and certainly a corporatist Democrat.

Report this

By Richard_Ralph_Roehl, July 5, 2010 at 11:45 am Link to this comment

Vice President Biden thinks the invasion of Iraq-NAM is delicious? Only a fool or an idiot would think dog turd to be a tasty treat.

Bad enough that Biden is okay with Amerika being Israel’s bitch… but he’s also okay that Amerika $uffers death by a thousand cuts in Iraq-NAM, Afghanstan-NAM, Yemen-NAM, Western Pak-A-Nuke-NAM, etc… all for the $ake of Perpetual War Profiteering.

Yesss… Rome is burning! Capitalist/fascist Amerika slowly fades and dies on foreign battlefields seeded from the hubris of imperialist eeego, while the nation’s geo-political foes patiently wait with glee and delight for the carcass to rot into insignificance and poverty.

The terrible, evil, war-mongering beast that Amerika has become deserves the righteous karma that is coming! EWE folks in Amerika shall reap what EWE $ow!

Report this

By samosamo, July 5, 2010 at 10:19 am Link to this comment

****************


By gstoddard, July 5 at 2:47 pm

I can and do appreciate your idea of troops being visited by the
people who helped put them in their current situation. But bite-
me’s mishmash of propaganda is more directed to the people or
the ‘dumbstream’ who regularly get their infotainment from the
msm which is highly regulated.

The idea of pulling ‘combat troops’ is applaudable, but does not
address the u.s. permanent presence via the permanent military
bases that will remain with troops which I rather think will be at
a moments notice, turned into combat troops. And less we not
forget the supposed larged foreign embassy(100 acres)

Here’s the link:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=4579

New embassy in Iraq a mystery

Baghdad locale, slated to be completed in 2007, to be largest of
its kind
The Associated Press
Updated: 5:45 p.m. ET April 14, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The fortress-like compound rising beside the
Tigris River here will be the largest of its kind in the world, the
size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own
defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious
perch at the heart of Iraq’s turbulent future.

The new U.S. Embassy also seems as cloaked in secrecy as the
ministate in Rome.

“We can’t talk about it. Security reasons,” Roberta Rossi, a
spokeswoman at the current embassy, said when asked for
information about the project.

A British tabloid even told readers the location was being kept
secret — news that would surprise Baghdadis who for months
have watched the forest of construction cranes at work across
the winding Tigris, at the very center of their city and within easy
mortar range of anti-U.S. forces in the capital, though fewer
explode there these days.

The embassy complex — 21 buildings on 104 acres, according
to a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report — is taking
shape on riverside parkland in the fortified “Green Zone,” just
east of al-Samoud, a former palace of Saddam Hussein’s, and
across the road from the building where the ex-dictator is now
on trial.

The Republican Palace, where U.S. Embassy functions are
temporarily housed in cubicles among the chandelier-hung
rooms, is less than a mile away in the 4-square-mile zone, an
enclave of American and Iraqi government offices and lodgings
ringed by miles of concrete barriers.

5,500 employees at the embassy
The 5,500 Americans and Iraqis working at the embassy, almost
half listed as security, are far more numerous than at any other
U.S. mission worldwide. They rarely venture out into the “Red
Zone,” that is, violence-torn Iraq.

This huge American contingent at the center of power has drawn
criticism.

“The presence of a massive U.S. embassy — by far the largest in
the world — co-located in the Green Zone with the Iraqi
government is seen by Iraqis as an indication of who actually
exercises power in their country,” the International Crisis Group,
a European-based research group, said in one of its periodic
reports on Iraq.

State Department spokesman Justin Higgins defended the size of
the embassy, old and new, saying it’s indicative of the work
facing the United States here.

“It’s somewhat self-evident that there’s going to be a fairly
sizable commitment to Iraq by the U.S. government in all forms
for several years,” he said in Washington.

Use the link to view the rest of the article.

Actually this place could very easily become the 51st state of the
u.s.a. or 52nd if izrael think themselves as part of the u.s.a.

Report this

By gstoddard, July 5, 2010 at 9:47 am Link to this comment

I am grateful that the vice president and his wife visited with our troops in Iraq
and expressed thanks on behalf of the nation for the sacrifice they are making.
We the people have not done much of any substance to show our support for
the troops beyond displaying ribbons and flags. This NY Times report is a must
read for those who support these wars or choose to remain apathetic (clearly a
majority).

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/world/27battalion.html?_r=1&hp;
We have been willing to place the entire burden of the wars on less that 1% of
we the people. That is unconscionable.

The current administration is committed to ending our involvement in Iraq as
responsibly as is possible. Having illegally invaded the country we have a moral
obligation to do what we can to help the new government establish itself. Hence
the vice president is meeting with Iraqi politicians to facilitate that process.

Regardless of the immediate outcome of these meetings the future of Iraq is in
Iraqi hands and we need to continue disengaging militarily.

I am not at all optimistic about the future in Iraq. The most likely long term
outcome it seems to me favors a greater role in the area for Iran, the nation
that will benefit the most from our tragic mistakes.

Report this

By James R. Bradach, July 5, 2010 at 7:32 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I’ve always found bush’s “mission accomplished” and “bring them on” just as statesmanlike. The latter mostly because my nephew Travis was killed in Iraq right after the former president belloed that horseshit. Joe you are an asshole! Change with my change please! Nothing accomplished. 7 fucked up years.

Report this
thebeerdoctor's avatar

By thebeerdoctor, July 5, 2010 at 4:17 am Link to this comment

The same Vice-President who finds a pile of unnecessary filth and suffering “delicious” also said when he visited Israel, that it was “good to be back home”.
What a perfectly honorable, rotten American, executive branch representative. With Biden about, who needs Dick Cheney?

Report this

By E.F., July 4, 2010 at 9:15 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Can anyone say NATION FLIPPING? EMPIRE BUILDING?

Oh yeah, the people of Iraq get to “vote” their representatives like we do, right?

Sure… I’m sure they too get to vote for either one of a two headed dragon like we do, huh?

I wonder / hope that this time around through the “sifting of the market” I like to call ( this current recession / depression / apocalyptic event / bankster and royal power grab ), more folks than ever WAKE UP from the mass feeding of mass programming… and figure out their dollars from sense.

... and Rome continues its assault on individuality, the family and personal rights… via its old avenues ( mass distractions and free bread ).

Have you discovered your financial education?

Report this

By myk, July 4, 2010 at 8:47 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Is he a cannibal?

Report this
Wounded and Dangerous's avatar

By Wounded and Dangerous, July 4, 2010 at 8:31 pm Link to this comment

I thought Democrats had more class than Republicans. Delicious?  How many thousands of Iraqis had to die so Joe Biden could grandstand on the Fourth of July? Iraq was an illegal invasion and war of aggression and not much else. Iraq is a war crime. I think most everybody knows that by now and are capable of reacting to this speech with the displeasure that it deserves. Is this any different than the Mission Accomplished gig by George Bush?  You know what the problem is?  Too many people are going to accept this speech on face value. And, you know why?  Because most Americans still believe in the idea of Empire. I say pride will kill everybody in the end.

Report this

By samosamo, July 4, 2010 at 5:36 pm Link to this comment

****************


By gstoddard, July 4 at 8:19 pm

It is too bad you support the people, or you may be one of
them, but support the people who put those soldiers in harms
way for their own personal greedy gains of money and political
‘capital’ as if that was something worth spending.

And the only thing I said about the troops was how much they
may have been paid to listen and clap for old bite-me who so
smoothly, at least for him, tried to tie saddam to all that
country’s ills and being part of the the ‘ghost war on terror’
which you indicate you approve of most strongly. But even if the
those troops weren’t paid extra, it is an old political trick to have
those creeps from the government, especially the potus and
vpotus, to talk to ‘select’ audiences even when they are our
troops. Hell, if I was there and offered money to clap and cheer I
would do so, but it isn’t easy for a 60+yr old person to join.

For someone who objected to military recruitment at
universities, I wonder what old joe doubleblow bite-me thinks
since he is so supportive of w & dicks old war and how well it
fills for old doubleblow to jump on the w & dick war wagon.

Report this

By Commune115, July 4, 2010 at 4:11 pm Link to this comment

gstoddard, you were near tears? Are you mentally ill? Why not shed some tears for the 1 million dead Iraqis? Thank you proving there’s nothing more poisonous than rabid state worship.

Report this
PatrickHenry's avatar

By PatrickHenry, July 4, 2010 at 3:30 pm Link to this comment

gstoddard,

Wrong holiday.

July 4 was all about declaration of independence from taxes and tyrannical government.

We need to throw all encumbents out of government office and start anew.

Especially Biden.

Report this

By gstoddard, July 4, 2010 at 3:19 pm Link to this comment

Wow! Even on this day when we celebrate our nation’s founding and honor our
brave soldiers who are in harm’s way, the hatred and disrespect has to be
expressed by samosamo.

Sad.

I was near tears when seeing the pictures of the Vice President’s wife, Dr. Biden,
visiting the women who sacrifice so much and I appreciate that she and her
husband could be with our soldiers today.

It is also encouraging to learn of the naturalization of those who sacrifice for all
of us even before they are citizens.

Report this

By samosamo, July 4, 2010 at 2:46 pm Link to this comment

****************


What a lying hypocritical creep calling his version, his buddy w’s
lie, a truth. One thing about bite-me, his oratory prowess is
severely lacking. Wonder what kind of bonus those troops in
audience were paid to not listen to bite-me’s dribble but to clap
for it.

Peaceful transition to .... what? Not in bite-me’s life time. But
just a note too say that I don’t think the Iraqis had better ever
since we illegally invaded their sovereign nation for their oil.

Report this
Newsletter

Get Truthdig in your inbox


 
 
 
Join the Liberal Blog Advertising Network
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2012 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.