General Odierno, our number two guy in Iraq, needs a sit down with Benjamin Franklin.  He has the symptoms of insanity.  Franklin apparently was the first to note that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” (others credit Albert Einstein with this insight; I don’t know, let’s thank both of them).  Having learned nothing from the battles of Fallujah, Ramadi, and Tall Afar, U.S. Generals launched another feckless attack on alleged Al Qaeda insurgents in Baquba this week.  The New York Times Michael Gordon reports:

In an otherwise upbeat assessment, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the second-ranking American commander in Iraq, told reporters that leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia

had been alerted to the Baquba offensive by widespread public
discussion of the American plan to clear the city before the attack
began. He portrayed the Qaeda leaders’ escape as cowardice, saying that
“when the fight comes, they leave,” abandoning “midlevel” Qaeda leaders
and fighters to face the might of American troops — just, he said, as
they did in Falluja.

Let me see if I have this straight?  We go after a supposed concentration of Al Qaeda.  We encircle a city filled with civilians.  We blow the living shit out of the place.  And guess what?  The terrorists aka insurgents beat feet and melt away.  The so-called cowards won’t “stand and fight”.  Well, looks to me like those cowards are much faster learners then we are.