[Its getting wild there. And I saw on TV the other night a firefight between NATO troops and Taliban in Afghanistan where they killed 80 of the enemy. But… the important thing is that the Taliban and anti-Western forces in Afghanistan are on the rise…. after all those years of being quiet.

Imagine if the USA retreats from Iraq and Afghanistan… the Muslims will be on a high… filled with confidence and just ready to pick even more fights.

The USA is already not going to attack Iran. So there are huge Muslim victories in the offing. The Arabs will be drunk from victory and overconfidence.

But if the USA retreats… that’s ok… as long as the USA prepares to fight in another form. Its better to extricate oneself than fight a losing war. (I still believe all these ragheads can be beaten – even in Iraq and Afghanistan – but the US Public is not ready for the nasty things one needs to do in order to win).

But retreating is still cool, if you catch the ragheads when they try to bring their terrorism elsewhere. If they could be caught at the BORDERS… that would still make it quite an easy battle.

It appears to me that almost all America’s wars will be fought now by special CIA teams and also by the secret funding of Third Parties by the CIA. It is almost like the final days of Rome when the Romans did not want to fight any more and they hired Barbarian mercenaries to fight on their behalf.

In this Cold War II, it appears we are seeing the Third World ravaged by a new set of revolutions and terrorist wars sponsored once again by the same old sides – the USA on the one hand versus Russia/China/Middle-East/Axis of Evil.

I hope we see some action. This is getting boring. Jan]

By Qais Al-Bashir
The Associated Press

Saturday 02 December 2006

Baghdad, Iraq – At least 91 people died and more than 40 were wounded as three parked car bombs exploded near an area packed with vendors in central Baghdad on Saturday, officials said.

The bombs were about 100 yards apart in the busy al-Sadriyah shopping district and exploded nearly simultaneously, according to police Lt. Ali Muhsin. At least 10 other parked vehicles were destroyed in the area, where vendors sell fruit, vegetables and other items such as soap.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, gunmen attacked the main gate of Yarmouk Hospital, killing one policeman and wounding three, and the bodies of 12 people who had been handcuffed and shot to death were found by police, they said.

Violence also occurred north and south of Baghdad on Saturday.

U.S. and Iraqi forces began an offensive operation in Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, where fierce fighting has raged for a week between Sunni insurgents and police, the U.S. command said.

At least 36 suspected militants were detained during one pre-dawn raid in Baqouba, police said. Later in the day, state-run Iraqiya television said one al-Qaida in Iraq insurgent was killed and 43 detained, including two foreigners.

But attacks by suspected insurgents continued outside Baqouba. Drive-by shootings in two nearby towns killed two civilians and wounded five, police said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of concern for their own security.

Saturday’s operation was launched two days after the U.S. military said Baqouba was fully operational, despite media reports that fighting had cleared its streets of cars and pedestrians.

The U.S. command’s statement said government offices, mosques and stores were open in the city, with Iraqi police and soldiers manning 11 checkpoints across the provincial capital. However, the military acknowledged insurgents had leveled a police station and forced officers to flee.

Elsewhere, a truck driving at high speed slammed into a bus stop in al-Wahada, 22 miles south of Baghdad, killing about 20 people waiting for buses to the capital and wounding 15, police said.

Police Lt. Muhammed Al-Shemari said the crash did not appear to be accidental because the truck, an empty fuel tanker, had no obvious mechanical problems.

The driver fled the overturned truck but was caught by witnesses and turned over to police, Al-Shemari said. Other witnesses found a body in the vehicle’s cabin, he said.

Another police officer said the driver blamed brake failure. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the probe.

Scores of people are killed each week in Iraq by roadside bombs and car bombs, but there have been few reports of attacks during which a driver has plowed into a crowd in a vehicle without explosives hidden inside.

Farther to the south, U.S. forces killed an insurgent who was caught planting a roadside bomb on a major highway about 40 miles south of Baghdad, said police Capt. Muthanna Khalid said.

A roadside bomb also hit a police patrol in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Iraq’s capital, killing one policeman and wounding six, police 1st Lt. Mohammed Kheyoun said.

A U.S. Army soldier also was killed in fighting in the volatile Anbar province on Friday, the military said, raising to at least 2,887 the number of service members who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003.

In Jordan, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, a senior Iraqi Shiite leader who is to meet with President Bush in Washington on Monday, said he opposes a proposed international conference on Iraq.

Al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, said Iraq’s conflict is “political,” not sectarian, and he disagreed with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s suggestion last week that such a conference could be useful if the political parties involved met outside Iraq.

In Doha, Qatar, where the Iraqi athletes were competing at the 15th Asian Games, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge appealed for the release of Iraqi Olympic officials who were kidnapped in Iraq in July.