A GENUINE IRAQI MARTYR:

ARCHBISHOP PAULOS FARAJ RAHHO, Chaldean Bishop of Mosul, was found dead today, after having been kidnapped two weeks ago and held for an enormous ransom of weapons and money. He had just finished saying the Stations of the Cross at the Church of the Holy Spirit, and was about leave in a car with three unarmed companions, all of whom were killed when their car was attacked. The Archbishop was then kidnapped at gunpoint.

As a man in need of medication for a heart condition, it was thought that he might have died from his chronic ill health, but

Church officials said Thursday, however, that Archbishop Rahho was shot in the leg when he was abducted on Feb. 29. Gunmen sprayed his car with bullets, killed two bodyguards and shoved the archbishop into the trunk of a car, the church officials said. In the darkness, he managed to pull out his cellphone and call the church, telling officials not to pay a ransom for his release, they said.

“He believed that this money would not be paid for good works and would be used for killing and more evil actions,” the officials said. [h/t New York Times]

Appeals from the Vatican and the Iraqi government for his safe return were ignored. If there were formal appeals from the U.S. government they did not make headlines, but American soldiers accompanied Iraqi special forces in the hunt for the Archbishop.

Authorities were tipped off by the Archbishop's murderers about the location of his body, which was found in a shallow grave outside Mosul. He had been dead for as much as five days.

Looks like a real trouble-maker, doesn't he? Oh, yeah, this guy had to go.

Gotta hand it to those geniuses in Al Qaeda-- they really know how to advance their cause. Dick Cheney got ahead of himself a few years ago (no, really?) , but it seems pretty clear that the rubbish at AQI have finally become bona fide 'dead-enders.' This was a desperate, pathetic pointless killing -- their stock-in-trade, actually, so no news there.

A statement of disgust and condemnation of this crime, issued by the Ramadan Foundation, a British organization of Muslim Youth, is welcomed -- let's hear more of this from you folks in the R.O.P. (Religion o' Peace)

For the repose of the soul of Archbishop Rahho:



Barring anything nuclear, Winefred bids farewell from now until the dawn of Resurrection.


Easter music of Jachet de Berchem -- O Jesu Christe

SOMETIMES JON STEWART GETS IT, LIKE, TOTALLY RIGHT



AND SOMETIMES A GUY NAMED "WRIGHT" GETS IT ALL WRONG



"Jesus was a poor black man...." Well, I guess that's a lie of convenience when, like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, you've given honors to Louis Farrakhan, who has some, er, problems with Jews and their "gutter religion".....

Note: It is everywhere claimed that Farrakhan never actually called Judaism a "gutter religion" -- only a "dirty religion." Well that's completely different. One customer/reviewer of Arthur J. Magida's Prophet of Rage: A Life of Louis Farrakhan and His Nation, over at Amazon.com, sets us straight on the origin of this apocryphal insult. What Minister Farrakhan really said was,

...to practice judaism, which is following the doctrine of the law of moses the lawgiver in the old testament of the bible, according to orthodox jews is the true judaism. To exploit people, particularly BLACK people, feeding on them and taking money out of the BLACK community charging exorbitant prices for cheaply made goods and services, is someone that is practicing a gutter religion by using BLACK people to enrich the jewish community.

Ah. You see how these things can get blown all out of proportion?


GOOD THING NOBODY AT THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN HAS NOTICED ANY OF THIS RACE STUFF GOING ON AT OBAMA'S CHRISTIAN MADRASSA PARISH, OR ANYTHING RACIAL OR BLACK OR DIVISIVE OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT, EVER, EVER, EVER.





WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?




Army Spc. MONICA BROWN, a medic, wins the Silver Star for Valor for saving lives in Afghanistan.

Maybe we won't have a woman president this time around, but maybe, maybe......


WHILE, ON THE OTHER HAND....
WHAT GENIUS SUGGESTED THIS GUY TO
HEAD UP THE MIDDLE EAST COMMAND?

Admiral William "Fox" Fallon was promoted from his job as chief underminer of U.S./China policy at the Pacific Command, to undermining U.S. Middle East policy over at CINCCENT. Now he be outta here. "Resigned" was the euphemism, I think.

Max Boot weighs in as to why he got the boot, at the L.A. Times. Fred Kaplan gives the broad picture at Slate.com. Everybody would have us believe that Fallon's no fool, but the fact that he invited Esquire magazine to lick his toes, and that he seems to have a Nancy Pelosi-esque grasp of the success of the Surge, makes us wonder if it depends on what your definition of "fool" is. (Especially if his disdain of the surge has more to do with disdain for General Petraeus than for the facts on the ground.)

Maybe we'll get the real story if Fallon gives another interview at AL-FREAKING-JAZEERA.

What genius, I ask you? Why, I believe it's that Bob Gates fellow, who all in all would probably rather be at A & M. He has struck me as a bit weenie from the get-go, and seems to be determined to fulfill my worst nightmare that he's just another failed Texas crony of W's. Oy. Well, at least Fallon resigned instead of staying on, lying low, and then whining publicly about bad ideas that weren't his fault (see Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez --- WA-A-A-A-A-H-H-H-H! )

WHERE THE BUCK REALLY STOPS IN THIS MAN'S ARMY -- and debriefing