Iranian Agents, Karbala Attack, Michael Ware Interview, A Stupid Sentence, And Mountain Lions-Oh My! (Friday's Show)

We begin tonight with me laughing at (and feeling a little sorry for) Larry King, who has just confused ESP and ESPN. I'll say one thing, that show is never dull. Anyway, John King is our anchor tonight because Anderson is...somewhere that is not here. I don't know. I'm not his mother. Our first piece of the night is from Ed Henry on the new US policy allowing troops to kill and capture Iranian agents inside Iraq. By one estimate there are currently over 100,000 of the agents in Iraq. Whoa, seriously? Well that's quite an underreported little bit of news. The democrats are suspicious that the new policy is meant to drum up war with Iran, so they can distract from Iraq. Oh, that's just crazy talk. Who in their right mind would start a war for a stupid reason like that? Oh, right. Yeah, I'll just be over here crying in the corner. But buck up comrades because there is some good news. It seems are preznit has given himself a little promotion. He's not "the decider" anymore; he's "the decision maker"! God help us all.

Next we've got some discussion with Christiane Amanpour on how the Iranians are viewing all this. Guess what. They're not happy. Shocker I know. Christiane states that the general consensus is that Iran is meddling in Iraq, but the Iranians say they have no interest in the country. Right. And I have no interest in winning the Power Ball. John wants to know why we waited until now to start kicking Iranian butt and Christiane thinks it's probably mostly due to the rise in Iranian power in the region.

On now to a Tom Foreman piece that acts as an update on the recent Karbala attack. Okay funny story, except not really funny at all. See, we were told five US soldiers were killed when men dressed as Americans made it through Iraqi checkpoints and open fire with guns and grenades. That in itself is fairly horrific, but apparently not the real story. As it turns out only one soldier was killed at the scene while the four others were abducted. This pretty much makes it worse because when you get taken in Iraq you're not going to play tea party. Anyway, after the abuction the men made it through another Iraqi checkpoint, but these Iraqi soldiers became suspicious and followed them. This lead to them abandoning their vehicles. Three soldiers were then found dead and the fourth died later. And here's my question: in our world of instant communication and technology how the hell did they get it so wrong? Unless of course they didn't get it wrong at all. Bush has a "surge" to sell is all I'm saying.

Transitioning now to an interview Anderson did with Michael Ware in which they sit down to play some sort of warped board game. Okay, actually what happens is Michael tells us his seriously scary story of how he was almost executed. Yes, executed. At the time of the incident Al Qaeda in Iraq had put up banners in the center of Baghdad, signifying their control. Michael wanted to go there, so he got an invite from a mid ranking insurgent commander. The insurgents are nationalists and don't much like the foreign fighters coming into the mix, but you won't hear that from Bush who likes to paint them all with one "evildoer" shaded coat of paint. On the day he went into the territory Michael was pulled from his vehicle by men who had grenades with the pins pulled out. They planned to film his execution with Michael's own camera, but the insurgent he was with balked. The insurgent believed that to kill Michael would be an insult since he invited him and in the end Al Qaeda opted not to get involved in a local war. So basically, an Iraqi insurgent saved Michael Ware's live. Craziness.

At this point the sheer magnitude of Michael's story causes my cable to momentarily freakout. Once it composes itself, Michael is talking about how after the incident he was reluctant to leave his room. Dude, if that happened to me I would still be in my room. Yet Michael returned to Haifa Street only a few days later. What a total badass. I mean, it's not like I'm saying he's the kind of guy that would kill a man in Reno just to watch him die...right after he bought said man a couple of drinks, but...no actually, that's exactly what I'm saying. Somebody should make one of those Chuck Norris pages, except for Michael. You know: Michael Ware doesn't need to wear a kevlar vest; the bullets see him coming and reverse direction. Okay, I'm actually not very good at that. Someone else would have to do it. In any regards, I love ya Michael. Please stop making me be afraid for you.

ANYway, way off track there. Back in the interview Michael explains that Iran has actually been involved in Iraq since the very beginning and actually since Saddam launched his vicious war in the 80's Iran has had legitimate security issues with Iraq. Basically what happened is that under Saddam a bunch of Iraqi Shia fled to Iran and then Iran used these same Shia during the US invasion. At that time those that had fled actually went back in with advisors who were the equivalent of US green berets. Now those same Shia have pretty much taken over the Iraqi government. That's diabolical! And okay, how the hell did we let that all happen? It's like we got played by Iran! And did Ahmad Chalabi orchestrate the whole thing or what? One interesting thing is that Muqtadr al-Sadr never left the country, so he used that as a very powerful tool to win supporters. However, Iran is pretty much backing him now, so there ya go. The interview pretty much cuts off here, though it's apparent Anderson and Michael were still talking. I feel cheated. Seriously, I could have listened to that stuff for a whole hour. So interesting and some of it very underreported.

Transitioning now to a Rick Sanchez piece on Genarlow Wilson, a young man sentenced to 10 years in prison for, uh, how do I put this? When Genarlow was 17 he got with this consenting 15 year old girl and she performed what the kids these days are calling a type of job. Oral sex. There I said it. You see, in Georgia there is this outdated statute that anyone who recieves oral sex from someone under 16 will be charged with child molestation. What's funny is that if they had gone all the way and had intercourse Genarlow would only be charged with a misdemeanor. Makes sense to me. Man, what is up with our country and BJ's? Oh hold up, I just got an email from Bill Clinton. It says, "Dear Eliza, you are preaching to the choir." Strange.

Jeffrey Toobin then joins us for the legal low down. Apparently there are all sorts of stupid laws on the books; it's just that they usually don't get prosecuted. Jeffrey stresses that that's why those kind of jobs are so important. Poor Genarlow can't even get a pardon from the governor due to how Georgia's system is set up. That bites, but it sounds like with the press attention they might be able to get him a lesser sentence or off all together. The Shot tonight is of a dude who in Costa Rica who plays with crocodiles for a living. Okay then.

On now to a piece from Dan Simon on a mountain lion attack. We hear a couple of attack stories including one in which a woman beat the crap out of a mountain lion that was attacking her husband. Whoa, don't mess with that lady. We're then joined by Jeff Corwin for tips on how to stop a mountain lion attack. As someone who lives in the suburbs of St. Louis, I can't tell you just how relevant this is to my life. Okay, so the main thing you shouldn't do is run because that just turns you into a human ball of yarn and I assume that means the lion will unravel you. So instead you should do what the woman in Dan's piece did and just beat the crap out of it. I often find that when in doubt beating the crap out of something works in a pinch anyway. These attacks are really rare (like so rare the fact that we're talking about this makes me want to beat the crap out of something), but they're happening because humans are up in the mountain lions's pads. That's do it. Pretty good tonight and I loved the Michael Ware interview. B

Screencaps by stormi0611