Well, the promise that Zap's bailout from Iraq would result in, like, peace and love and stuff, was broken by Moqtada Al Sadar's Shiite militia, who attacked Spanish patrols near Najaf twice within 24 hours. Ironically, it was the same bunch of guys who got attacked both times. They get shot at and kill two terrorists, get back home, go out the next day, get shot at, and kill six of them. Somebody ought to put these dudes in for a medal. That's pretty courageous, that is. The second shootout lasted more than two hours, when the patrol got ambushed by Al Sadar's men. They opened fire from their armored cars and called in reinforcements: soon fifty Spanish troops were on the scene. They took seven prisoners, four of whom were turned over to the Iraqi police and the other three, wounded, were taken to the Spanish base and given medical treatment. A large weapons cache, of explosives, grenade launchers and grenades, and machine-guns, was captured. The Spaniards took no casualties. Congratulations to these brave soldiers; I think they've demonstrated the Spanish Army can fight well. Too bad these proven troops who've seen battle are now being sent home. Our contempt for Zap certainly does not extend to the Spanish military and police forces.

La Vangua is reporting that the Americans have Fallujah surrounded and that there are about 2000 terrorists holding out inside, of whom some 200 are foreign "activists", one of whom is our friend Musab Al Zarqawi of Al Qaeda, a major suspect in the 3/11 bombings in Madrid. Mr. Al Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, is considered the brains behind the foreign Islamist presence in Iraq. He is also behind the brains of a planned chemical attack in Amman that might have killed tens of thousands of people; two weeks ago the Jordanian authorities rounded up six terrorists and sent four others to the land of 72 virgins. These guys had twenty tons of chemical explosives and poison gas that they were going to use against the secret service headquarters, the "Ministry of Information", and the prime minister's office.

La Vangua is also echoing the anti-Kerry campaign the Bushies are doing so well at encouraging. They point out Kerry's rotten record in the Senate on defense, opposing eight major defense systems (MX missiles, B-1 bomber, Apache helicopter, F-15 and F-14 planes, and Sparrow, Tomahawk, and Patriot missiles), opposing the first Gulf war, flipflopping on the Iraq war, and the personal questions about his character brought up by the "did he throw his medals away?" flap and his other political actions during the Vietnam War. Do the Dems really think this guy is electable? I see him as very vulnerable on his Senate record, where his votes have been lefty Democrat as a rule. I don't know how well lefty Democrat is going to play in Florida or Pennsylvania or Ohio or Michigan or any other of the battleground states.

Note for foreigners: to simplify matters, Kerry should win the Northeast and the West Coast. Bush should win the interior West, the Plains states, and the Southeast. The war is on in the Midwest, the triangular area between Minneapolis, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh, and Florida, which is atypical because everyone there has moved from somewhere else and the place is full of blacks, Cubans, crackers, old folks, Jews, and rootless suburbanites, all of which tend to run up big votes one way (Cubans, suburbanites, and crackers Republican, the rest Democrat) and wind up canceling one another out, so you never can predict what's going to happen.