Iraq: Teh Success Is Killing Us

The WahPoo reports that yesterday provided further evidence of success in Iraq. In fact, that particular day in Iraq was so successful that we may not have an army left at all, if each day to come is exactly like that one.


Shoot, we may not have any Iraqis, either. Then we can just mosey on in there and suck up all the oil for our Hummers. According to the article,

Two bombings killed nearly 60 people Tuesday in parts of Iraq where U.S. and Iraqi forces have claimed significant success in combating Sunni insurgent groups.

Just imagine what the death toll might have been like if we weren't that successful.

Bombings took place in Baquba (Diyala province), Mosul, Ramadi (Anbar province), and Baghdad. Some 82 people were wounded, and the carnage inspired one Iraqi spokesman to add to our treasury of unforgettable quotes this particular remark:

"Half of the dead people are still at the Baqubah morgue because it is so hard to identify their bodies," Jassem said.

Being cursed with an overactive imagination, we're currently searching for our psychoactive meds while speculating on just why identification appears to be so elusive. Possibly, the difficulty of identifying a knee or a wrist is greater if it is no longer attached to the person one might know and love.

What a terrible thing this war is. Day after day, our purported "leaders" lie to us, until even the tinpot soldier in charge of the current efforts (since all the better men were forced out for daring to tell the truth about this misadventure) is forced to admit that no corners have been turned, there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and the "last throes" of the insurgents have persisted for three too many long, weary years even as the U.S. Army is in its last throes thanks to the throe-er's friends and cronies accumulating wealth by winning no-bid contracts to give our military insufficient arms and equipment and poisoning them with bad food and dirty water.

Some people are doing something about it. Some very courageous people. Grateful thanks to those of you speaking out against the war.

Crossposted over at ThePoliticalCat

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Politics: The Drumbeat For War in Iran

Persian Gulf regional map

Attention, people! The Bush/Cheney Misadministration is starting the drums beating for a war with Iran. Seymour Hersh warned us about this two years ago. Now that the elections are only six months away, what better present could the crooks and thugs in power deliver to John McInsane's presidential ambitions than to start yet another war?

Here's the evidence: Yesterday (April 11th, 2008), the Times told us that "new satellite photographs" have uncovered a secret launch site in Iran for long-range missiles. Iran has always claimed that this site and the launches therefrom are part of their civilian space program, by the way.

Yesterday (April 11th, 2008), AP informed us that a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Typhoon, trespassing in Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf (in order to access which body of water, vessels must first pass through the Straits of Hormuz, Iranian waters) "encountered"

... a small Iranian high-speed boat in the central Persian Gulf and warned it away by firing a flare, the Pentagon said Friday.

Two other similar Iranian boats in the area did not come as close.

The USS Typhoon tried unsuccessfully to establish radio contact with the Iranian boat after it came within an estimated 200 yards of the Typhoon on Thursday, outside Iranian territorial waters. A Navy official said the ship then fired the flare and continued on its way without incident.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said there were no signs any boat was armed.

Question: How exactly did the USS Typhoon "try unsuccessfully" to establish radio contact? Do they have Farsi speakers on board? Or was it the old tourist stratagem of "If they don't speak English just shout louder and slower"?

The Iranian authorities are claiming that there was no incident.

Today (April 12th, 2008), in the WahPoo, Staff Writer Karen deYoung tells us that Robert Gates, General Betrayus, and Ambassador Ryan Crockoshit have determined that Iran is the biggest threat to Iraq.

Consider this: Iraq is majority Shi'a. Iran is majority Shi'a. They are two of the very few majority Shi'a nations in the Islamic world.

The Sunni tribes of Iraq form the backbone of the "insurgency," about which not word one has been said of late. Saudi Arabia, home of Gee Dumbya's good friends, is Sunni. The Saudis follow the fundamentalist Wahhabiya flavour of Islam. Most of the hijackers who destroyed the twin towers were Saudi nationals.

Which of these players poses a greater threat to the U.S.?

We're fairly confident that, if asked, the Shi'a majority in Iraq would gladly embrace Iran as good friends and allies. It wasn't that long ago that Iranian President Ahmedi Nejad was greeted with flowers on an official visit to his good friend Nouri al-Maliki.

Don't let Gee Dumbya and his gang of thugs lie us into another war.

Crossposted over at ThePoliticalCat

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"He is Iraq's Katrina itself"

Just as New Orleans's Ninth War will still be a moonscape when Bush goes out of office, so will Iraq.

Sadly, it's looking less, and less, likely that we will see him exit the White House, handcuffed, in a perp walk - as he so richly deserves.

Mostly due to a brain-dead, Constitution-blinders-firmly-affixed-Congress (How big an outcry from our elected representatives have you heard about the bombshell news the other day, that the torture program was choreographed directly out of the Bush Grindhouse?), he gets to wear his real, and proverbial, flightsuit and play "The Commander Guy" for a number of dwindling months.

And inhabiting the Unreality Bubble he has ensconced himself in, Lord knows what further havoc he will reek.

Especially when he's running his policy speeches up the Neocon flagpole, before he gives them.

Wants to make sure, I suppose, there's enough warmongering in it.

Juan Cole writes/reports one of the best blogs on what's happening in Iraq (and the policies behind it; Another good one is Abu Aardvark).

Cole nails the Bush Legacy;

War turns Republics into dictatorships. The logic is actually quite simple. The Constitution says that the Congress is responsible for declaring war. But in 2002 Congress turned that responsibility over to Bush, gutting the constitution and allowing the American Right to start referring to him not as president but as 'commander in chief' (that is a function of the civilian presidency, not a title.)

So Congress abdicated to Bush. Bush has abdicated to the generals in the field.

That is not a Republic. That is a military dictatorship achieved not by coup but by moral laziness.

And, as Gene Robinson notes today, the Bush Grindhouse, cluelessly, is going through the motions, to pass this mess on to the next president.

Of course, Bush long ago lost any credibility with Congress and the American people on Iraq. It's understandable that he hides behind Petraeus's breastplate of medals and Crocker's thatch of gray hair, sending these loyal and able public servants to explicate the inexplicable: What realistic goal is the United States trying to achieve in Iraq? And in what parallel universe is this open-ended occupation making our nation safer?

Even the most basic question of any war is undefined: Who is the enemy? It was almost painful listening to Petraeus as he faced reporters yesterday and was asked whether Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army were friend or foe. His tortured answer, translated into English, was yes.

But thanks to Cole today, the Legacy Shopping is over.

Ironically, what officers like Petraeus need from Bush is not deference but vigorous leadership in the political realm. Bush needs to intervene to work for political reconciliation in Iraq if Petraeus's military achievements are to bear fruit. But Bush seems incapable of actually conducting policy, as opposed to starting wars. Bush happened to Iraq just as he happened to New Orleans. He cannot do the hard work of patiently addressing disasters and ameliorating them. He just wants to set people to fighting. Crush the Sadr Movement, perhaps the most popular political movement in Iraq? He's all for it. Risk provoking a wider conflagration in the Middle East by worsening relations with Iran? Sounds like a great idea to him. Bush campaigned on being a 'uniter not a divider' in 2000. In fact, he is the ultimate Divider, and leaves burning buildings, millions of refugees, and hundreds of thousands of cadavers in his wake. He is not Iraq's Brownie. He is Iraq's Katrina itself.

Just as New Orleans's Ninth War will still be a moonscape when Bush goes out of office, so will Iraq.

Phew!

That's a nutshell, alright ... A pretty, darned good nutshell I would say.

Last summer, The Garlic put forth a proposal - and it's still open and viable - that could end this madness.

Please, someone, step up and go for it!


Bonus Links

Amy Goodman: “Iraq Does Not Exist Anymore”: Journalist Nir Rosen on How the U.S. Invasion of Iraq Has Led to Ethnic Cleansing, a Worsening Refugee Crisis and the Destabilization of the Middle East

Bob Herbert: The $2 Trillion Nightmare

12 Former Army Captains: The Real Iraq We Knew

Wanted Dead Or ... Ahh, The Hell With It .. I'll Let The Next President Get'em ...

New Bush Export - Preemptive Horseshit!

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Ambassador Crocker Meets Eddie Izzard

Or, "The Lord almighty came down and sat in the middle of the table there and said ‘Mr. Ambassador you can eliminate every Al Qaeda source in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or every Al Qaeda personnel in Iraq,’ which would you pick?"

Sometime ago (nearly two-years) the Friedman Unit, after ol' Lead-Luvin' Tom, was established, designating the term to mark six-months as a unit of time for things to turn around in Iraq.

So, with the Golden Boy, General Petraeus yesterday, once again, calling for extra time, now 45-days (to evaluate things after they stop the troop pulldown), the question to be asked is what do you call it, in relation to the Friedman Unit.

The Petraeus Pint?

The Petraeus Horseshoe (both for his sunny optimism, and with a nod to Colt 45 Malt Liquor)?

The Bush Grindhouse's marketing seminar didn't go so well

In fact, if it were a sporting event, say, a basketball game, the various Senators can retire to the bench, and bring in the second team scrubs to mop up.

We have heard, for years, the bedrock principle for our being in Iraq (keep in mind, this has shifted many times), was that Iraq was the "Central Front on the War on Terror".

It was Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda, all the time.

If we moved one inch away from Iraq, teams of Al Qaeda would swoop in to that inch, and build a metropolis of terror in it.

Hell, even announcing that we would move that one inch out of Iraq, brought sordid tales of Al Qaeda, impatiently waiting at the border, moving van engines running.

Well, that got blown out of the water yesterday, and not by some "defeatocrat" or anybody "Feeling morally, intellectually confused?"

No, it came from the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker.

From Think Progress;

SEN. BIDEN: Mr. Ambassador, is Al Qaeda a greater threat to US interests in Iraq, or in the Afghan-Pakistan border region?

AMB. CROCKER: Mr. Chairman, Al Qaeda is a strategic threat to the United States wherever it is, in my view–

SEN. BIDEN: Where is most of it? If you could take it out? You had a choice: Lord almighty came down and sat in the middle of the table there and said ‘Mr. Ambassador you can eliminate every Al Qaeda source in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or every Al Qaeda personnel in Iraq,’ which would you pick?

AMB. CROCKER: Well given the progress that has been made again Al Qaeda in Iraq, the significant decrease in its capabilities, the fact that it is solidly on the defensive, and not in a position of–

SEN. BIDEN: Which would you pick, Mr. Ambassador?

AMB. CROCKER: I would therefore pick Al Qaeda in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area.

SEN BIDEN: That would be a smart choice.

Think Progress also has the video of it, so check it out;

And that brings us to our Eddie Izzard moment.

Writing in Salon today is Mark Benjamin, with "Sizing up Petraeus on Iraq; The top U.S. general gave Congress an upbeat assessment of the war Tuesday. Here's the reality behind the rhetoric".

And there's this gem;

Claim: The Iraqis have redesigned their flag -- which is a big deal because it suggests that Iraq is pulling together as a nation and that things will turn out well.

Crocker: "In January, a vote by the Council of Representatives to change the design of the Iraqi flag means the flag now flies in all parts of the country for the first time in years."

We now turn it over to Mr. Izzard.

Eddie Izzard - Do you have a flag?




Time to cue up Que Sera Sera...


Bonus Through The Looking Glass Links

Ezra Klein: A Superman Approach to Foreign Policy; Our nation's favorite comic book hero might have had the right idea: Use power sparingly and judiciously

Barry Crimmins: Prevarication Nation

Robert Scheer: Everything His President Wants to Hear

Nicole Belle/C&L: The Situation Room: Michael Ware On Who Wields Power In Iraq

"What If Spartacus Had To Account For 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols ..."

Tom Engelhardt: Launching Brand Petraeus

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