Here it comes. First, regarding the banner.

Larry J asks: Who hung the sign? Were they Bush operatives or were they the crew themselves? We they referring to the mission of the war in Iraq or the fact that the USS Abraham Lincoln's mission was in fact accomplished?

The implication there is that the Bush Administration is ignorant of the backgrounds against which the President gives speeches. It is insulting to ask someone to believe that. Neither is a "cruise" a "mission". A "cruise" may have a "mission", but it's not the cruise itself.

Now, as to the origin of the banner:

"Six months later, the word "quagmire" is sloshing around the public discourse just as "Top Gun" was back then. This week the president tried to disentangle himself from the message his photo-op created. He blamed the carrier crew for creating the dramatic "Mission Accomplished" banner that hung behind him when he spoke. His own staff members, he claimed, "weren't that ingenious."

"But the whole world knows the Bush media team is very ingenious indeed when it comes to that kind of less-than-subliminal background message. Bush's press secretary later admitted that the banner had been produced by the White House communications office - at the suggestion, he insisted, of unnamed crew members."

In my opinion you have been thoroughly discredited, but we'll continue. Either that or you have to say the White House was ignorant of the message, and didn't produce the banner.

LarryJ - "The words "major hostilies" never appear in Bush's speech, much less "major hostilities are over."

I didn't say he used those words. You can't find it, because it isn't there. And it was a victory speech. This speech came right after the US occupied the entire country, when Iraq had no military effectiveness, no civil authority. The country belonged to Bush (and Halliburton).

And he warned the US about a' Qaeda being wounded, not eliminated, and there was work ahead. Al-qaeda did not exist in Iraq.

So much for the "major hostilities" straw man.

Next:

LarryJ. - "As for your question, "And my question is, that if Iraq (country in Middle East, Muslim, vast oil reserves, Shia, Sunni and Kurdish) isn't a quagmire, what is a quagmire?"

"Well, how about places like the former Yugoslav republics where forces have been there for years with no possible end in sight."

What the hell does that have to do with Iraq being a quagmire? The topic was Iraq. Capice?

Migawd, sometimes one feels as if they are dealing with children who regard an adult as gullible as they. And sometimes one doesn't feel that way. Unfortunately, this is one.

Arf