Comedic War Machine
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The scenario would be hilarious if death wasn’t the outcome.
Gen. David Petraeus, Decider George’s head lackey in Iraq, went on NBC Tuesday morning with a tongue-wrapping excuse to continue the horror that’s Iraq.
“We think we won’t know that we’ve reached a turning point until we’re six months past it. We have repeatedly said that there is no lights at the end of the tunnel that we’re seeing. We’re certainly not dancing in the end zone or anything like that.”
Another pile of the same bullshit that’s been ongoing for nearly eight years.
- A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”
The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.
“In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.”
Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.
Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq’s links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell’s 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.
The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.
“The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war,” the study concluded.
“Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, ‘independent’ validation of the Bush administration’s false statements about Iraq,” it said.
– Associated Press, (1/22/08)
When we read the above report for the first time yesterday, there was a sense of being incredulous, of not being able to fully grasp the words. Although all the information has been broadcast before in one form or another, to see it in one spot and upfront has a created a kind of retroactive bombshell. The Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism put the operation in motion.
The New York Times explained it this morning:
- The Center for Public Integrity, a research group that focuses on ethics in government and public policy, designed the new Web site to allow simple searches for specific phrases, such as “mushroom cloud” or “yellowcake uranium,” in transcripts and documents totaling some 380,000 words, including remarks by President Bush and most of his top advisers in the two years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks…
There is no startling new information in the archive, because all the documents have been published previously. But the new computer tool is remarkable for its scope, and its replay of the crescendo of statements that led to the war. Muckrakers may find browsing the site reminiscent of what Richard M Nixon used to dismissively call “wallowing in Watergate.”
The difference in Watergate and Decider George’s various nefarious military enterprises is the wanton destruction, death, hideous and prolonged, that has cut a swath across not only the Mid East, but the world as a whole. Planet earth is an armed camp. Nixon was a crook, thug and liar and allowed the Vietnam war to continue just for the sake of politics, but Watergate was (compared to the now) a near-frivolous, white-collar romp.
All those lying phrases on the run up to the war continues even as we type.
Decider George’s little sashay around the Persian Gulf last week included a stop in Kuwait to give Petraeus a little tongue-wrapping. “Quite the contrary,” he snorted to reporters when asked about any possible down-sizing of the US presence in Iraq. Plus, the Iraqi Defense minister played footloose with the calendar: The country would “not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018.”
The plot here is perpetual US presence in Iraq a long, long time.
And the US peoples are being massaged with the message.
- A nation-building project launched in the confident expectation that the United States would repeat in Iraq the successes it had achieved in Germany and Japan after 1945 instead compares unfavorably with the U.S. response to Hurricane Katrina. Even today, Iraqi electrical generation meets barely half the daily national requirements. Baghdad households now receive power an average of 12 hours each day — six hours fewer than when Saddam Hussein ruled. Oil production still has not returned to pre-invasion levels. Reports of widespread fraud, waste and sheer ineptitude in the administration of U.S. aid have become so commonplace that they barely last a news cycle. (Recall, for example, the 110,000 AK-47s, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armor and 115,000 helmets intended for Iraqi security forces that, according to the Government Accountability Office, the Pentagon cannot account for.) U.S. officials repeatedly complain, to little avail, about the paralyzing squabbling inside the Iraqi parliament and the rampant corruption within Iraqi ministries. If a primary function of government is to provide services, then the government of Iraq can hardly be said to exist…
In only one respect has the surge achieved undeniable success: It has ensured that U.S. troops won’t be coming home anytime soon. This was one of the main points of the exercise in the first place. As AEI military analyst Thomas Donnelly has acknowledged with admirable candor, “part of the purpose of the surge was to redefine the Washington narrative,” thereby deflecting calls for a complete withdrawal of U.S. combat forces. Hawks who had pooh-poohed the risks of invasion now portrayed the risks of withdrawal as too awful to contemplate. But a prerequisite to perpetuating the war — and leaving it to the next president — was to get Iraq off the front pages and out of the nightly news. At least in this context, the surge qualifies as a masterstroke…
In reality, the war’s effects are precisely the inverse of those that Bush and his lieutenants expected. Baghdad has become a strategic cul-de-sac. Only the truly blinkered will imagine at this late date that Iraq has shown the United States to be the “stronger horse.” In fact, the war has revealed the very real limits of U.S. power. And for good measure, it has boosted anti-Americanism to record levels, recruited untold numbers of new jihadists, enhanced the standing of adversaries such as Iran and diverted resources and attention from Afghanistan, a theater of war far more directly relevant to the threat posed byal-Qaeda. Instead of draining the jihadist swamp, the Iraq war is continuously replenishing it.
– Andrew J. Bacevich, The Washington Post, (1/20/08)
As the squabbling presidential candidates play-out the jack-ass-race to the White House, the deteriorating worldwide situation get second-fiddle to it’s the economy, stupid.
- But military officers say that the American public should not be fooled: the relative quiet in Iraq – and it is, after all, only a “relative quiet” – does not mean the “surge” has worked, or that the problems facing the US military have somehow magically gone away. Quite the opposite. For while the American public is consumed by the campaign for the presidency, the American military is not. Instead, they are as obsessed now, in January of 2008, with the war in Iraq as they were then, in 2003 – except that now, many military officers admit, the host of problems they face may, in fact, be much more intractable.
“Don’t let the quiet fool you,” a senior defense official says. “There’s still a huge chasm between how the White House views Iraq and how we [in the Pentagon] view Iraq. The White House would like to have you believe the ‘surge’ has worked, that we somehow defeated the insurgency. That’s just ludicrous. There’s increasing quiet in Iraq, but that’s happened because of our shift in strategy – the ‘surge’ had nothing to do with it.”
– Mark Perry, Asia Times, (1/22/08)
And what about the US military?
- The National Priorities Project said the percent of “high-quality” recruits – those with a high school diploma who scored in the top half on the military’s qualification test – declined from budget years 2004 to 2007. In that period, the number of high-quality recruits fell from about 61 percent to nearly 45 percent, the group said.
It also found that in the 2007 budget year, upper middle- and high-income neighborhoods were underrepresented by an even larger margin than three years earlier.
– Associated Press, (1/22/08)
And add this to the Strangelove-fuel for the fire:
- Russia’s military chief of staff said Saturday that Moscow could use nuclear weapons in preventive strikes to protect itself and its allies, the latest aggressive remarks from increasingly assertive Russian authorities.
Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky’s comment did not mark a policy shift, military analysts said. Amid disputes with the West over security issues, it may have been meant as a warning that Russia is prepared to use its nuclear might.
“We do not intend to attack anyone, but we consider it necessary for all our partners in the world community to clearly understand … that to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its allies, military forces will be used, including preventively, including with the use of nuclear weapons,” Baluyevsky said at a military conference in a remark broadcast on state-run cable channel Vesti-24.
– AP, (1/19/08)
Decider George and his hilarious-horrific agenda: “And thank-you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you’re at it, why don’t you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it. We’re closed!”
– Miracle Max, The Princess Bride
Frankenstein’s Mirror
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Happy Frankenstein Month!
We here at Compatible Creatures adore creative ideas, especially those creative ideas engaging our most-disturbing interest as of late: The Catastrophic Legacy of Decider George.
One of the most creative ideas to catch our eyes in recent memory was a piece by Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks, which appeared Thursday under the title “Monsters of our own making,” in which Brooks compares Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein to the monster shit-fire Decider George has created in all corners of the globe.
This month marks the 190th anniversary of the first publication of Shelly’s ode to free-thinking science, and Brooks crafted a much-parted creature from the failures of Decider George.
- “Start with this week’s big story from Pakistan. According to Tuesday’s New York Times, Islamic militant groups funded and nurtured for years by the Pakistani intelligence services — with U.S. backing, in the 1980s — are now completely out of control. The Pakistani government, which hoped to use militant groups to further its own interests in Afghanistan and the Kashmir region, now finds that the militants have instead “turned on their former handlers,” carrying out “a record number of suicide attacks last year, including some aimed directly at army and intelligence units.
Making matters worse, many analysts say that the Pakistani intelligence services are riddled with agents who support the militants and their extremist agenda. Despite this, the Bush administration continues to shower Pakistan’s military and intelligence services with aid, even as Pakistan sinks further into chaos. Long-term U.S. strategy? None. Score: Monster, 100; Frankenstein, 0.”
Brooks, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center with experience traveling the world with such groups as the US Department of State, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International USA, carries the column from Pakistan to nearby Afghanistan and finally to the horror that is Iraq.
- “Then there’s Iraq. Deaths are thankfully down somewhat, but the lack of political progress has left a tenuous, still-violent stalemate, sustainable only if U.S. troops remain indefinitely. On Tuesday, Iraq’s defense minister said Iraq couldn’t provide internal security until at least 2012 and wouldn’t be able to defend its borders until at least 2018.
Iraq was supposed to be a beacon of peace, democracy and stability. Instead, it turned into a recruiting beacon for Islamic militants, a black hole for taxpayer dollars and a quagmire for our troops.”
And Brooks concludes:
- “So here’s my proposal: Let’s join together to mark Frankenstein Month, a national period of reflection on foreign policy hubris and unintended consequences. President Bush has established National Mentoring Month, National Farm-City Week and Great Outdoors Month — so why not Frankenstein Month?
Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein built his monster out of body parts pilfered from corpses, and the monsters created by our reckless foreign policies also reek of the charnel house. Of course, in Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein is tormented by guilt when he realizes what a horror he has unwittingly unleashed on the world, and he tries desperately to undo the damage he’s done. There might be some lessons here for the White House.”
Decider George ‘tormented by guilt’? As if… One wonders if Frankenstein/Decider George ever looks hard in the mirror at himself. Read Brooks’ entire column at www.latimes.com/news/columnists. A tidy, well-executed piece.
And so the legacy continues:
- The Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) said the Taliban’s “easy departure” in 2001, when a US-led invasion drove them from power, was more of a strategic retreat than an actual military defeat.
“A few years from now, 2007 will likely be looked back upon as the year in which the Taliban seriously rejoined the fight and the hopes of a rapid end to conflict were finally set aside by all but the most optimistic,” ANSO said.
– heraldsun.com.au, (1/19/08)
- Violence left nearly 50 people dead in two major southern cities Friday when members of a shadowy, messianic cult attacked police and fellow Shiite worshippers — a year after a similar plot was foiled during Shiite Islam’s most important holiday.
Iraqi authorities said at least 36 people were reported killed in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, and at least 10 in Nasiriyah, where witnesses said U.S.-led coalition jet fighters and helicopter gunships targeted a police station seized by cult gunmen.
U.S. military spokesman Maj. Brad Leighton said an Iraqi request for air support in the area was approved, but he could not confirm whether airstrikes were carried out. Some clashes raged into the night, raising the possibility of more casualties.
– Associated Press, (1/18/08)
And this first-person piece about a Shia returning to her Baghdad home in a Sunni neighborhood:
- “I realised then they were the second Sunni family to have lived in our house in the year since we left.
At this point I looked at his wife – she looked ashamed. She told her husband to give me some money to help me out. He did so unwillingly – giving me less than 1% of what he should have done. He warned me not to come back.
I walked back to the bridge that connects the two neighbourhoods. I was so preoccupied, I forgot to wait at the checkpoint. I was walking through when I heard an American soldier call out “taftish” (search) in bad Arabic.
He searched me and I walked back into the Shia neighbourhood.
The whole experience had been so surreal. I felt drained.”
– BBCArabic.com, (1/18/08)
Upon reading the entire account of this woman, one gets the dreaded sense Iraq is finished as a nation.
True Lies In The Sand
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Despite the talk about US troops leaving Iraq as soon as the disheveled country can defend itself, the real timeline is blowing in the wind, and it’s a long-range wind. Although Decider George’s so-called “surge” has seen some improvements, Iraq will most likely never be able to stand on it own two feet.
- The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend its borders from external threat until at least 2018.
Those comments from the minister, Abdul Qadir, were among the most specific public projections of a timeline for the American commitment in Iraq by officials in either Washington or Baghdad. And they suggested a longer commitment than either government had previously indicated.
Pentagon officials expressed no surprise at Mr. Qadir’s projections, which were even less optimistic than those he made last year.
President Bush has never given a date for a military withdrawal from Iraq but has repeatedly said that American forces would stand down as Iraqi forces stand up. Given Mr. Qadir’s assessment of Iraq’s military capabilities on Monday, such a withdrawal appeared to be quite distant, and further away than any American officials have previously stated in public.
– New York Times, (1/15/08)
As Decider George trips across the Mid East this week running his arrogant, ignorant mouth, he’s exposed as a guy out of touch with reality. Even undermining his own country.
- In public, President Bush has been careful to reassure Israel and other allies that he still sees Iran as a threat, while not disavowing his administration’s recent National Intelligence Estimate. That NIE, made public Dec. 3, embarrassed the administration by concluding that Tehran had halted its weapons program in 2003, which seemed to undermine years of bellicose rhetoric from Bush and other senior officials about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But in private conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week, the president all but disowned the document, said a senior administration official who accompanied Bush on his six-nation trip to the Mideast. “He told the Israelis that he can’t control what the intelligence community says, but that [the NIE's] conclusions don’t reflect his own views” about Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, said the official, who would discuss intelligence matters only on the condition of anonymity.
– Newsweek, (1/21/08 issue)
“His own views…” There doesn’t seem to be any connection between democracy and Decider George.
As he dines in decadent opulence in lavish tents and jeweled mansions of oil-rich sheiks on the Persian Gulf, the New York Times ran a well-researched piece on the downside of war at home. The article said at least 121 GIs have been involved in killings since arriving back stateside from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. “In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction,” the Times story read. The long, detailed Times piece should be required reading for all US peoples.
Which leads to this:
- On Dec. 12, Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, called a hearing on “Stopping Suicides: Mental Health Challenges Within the Department of Veterans Affairs.” At that hearing suggestions were raised and conversations begun that hopefully will bear fruit.
But I find myself extremely anxious in the face of some of these new suggestions, specifically what is being called the Psychological Kevlar Act of 2007 and use of the drug propranalol to treat the symptoms of post-traumatic stress injuries. Though both, at least in theory, sound entirely reasonable, even desirable, in the wrong hands, under the wrong leadership, they could make the sci-fi fantasies of Blade Runner seem prescient.
The Psychological Kevlar Act “directs the secretary of defense to develop and implement a plan to incorporate preventive and early-intervention measures, practices or procedures that reduce the likelihood that personnel in combat will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other stress-related psychopathologies, including substance use conditions. (Kevlar, a DuPont fiber, is an essential component of U.S. military helmets and bullet-proof vests advertised to be “five times stronger than steel.”) The stated purpose of this legislation is to make American soldiers less vulnerable to the combat stressors that so often result in psychic injuries.
– Penny Coleman, Alternet, 1/10/08
Not only have both theaters of war gone badly in the field, the horrors of participation have come home and will fester in the American psyche for a generation.
And in an interview with ABC News earlier this week, Decider George came across as someone that’s either near-about insane, or just doesn’t give a fat-rat’s ass:
- In Riyadh today, the president participated in a traditional sword dance with one of the princes of the royal family. It was a public — and a little awkward — display of affection, all part of Bush’s first visit to Saudi Arabia aimed at repairing strained relations between the world’s biggest oil producer and the world’s biggest oil consumer.
“My image [is] ‘Bush wants to fight Muslims.’ And, yes, I’m concerned about it. Not because of me, personally. I’m concerned because I want most people to understand the great generosity and compassion of Americans,” he said.
“I’m sure people view me as a warmonger and I view myself as peacemaker,” the president said. “They view me as so pro-Israeli I can’t be open-minded about Palestinian peace, and yet I’m the only president ever to have articulated a two-state solution. And you just have to fight through stereotypes by actions.”
Bush said despite Saudi Arabia’s connection to some of the Sept. 11 hijackers and terrorism ideology in general, he views the Saudis as “our friends.” He spoke of meeting with Saudi entrepreneurs and business leaders during his trip who worry that Americans view them as enemies, not friends.
“There’s a lot of really good people here,” Bush said. “Look, you can’t deny the fact that some, a majority, of the terrorists came from Saudi, but you should not condemn an entire society based upon the actions of a handful of killers.”
When asked to respond to the fact that many Americans do not view him as a peacemaker, the president replied, “We’ll see what history says. I happen to believe that the actions I’ve taken were necessary to protect ourselves and lay the foundation for peace. That’s what I believe. But history — I’ve often said this — I don’t think the history of my administration is going to be written during your time as a newscaster, or my time on Earth. I believe that it’s going to take a while for people to determine whether or not the foundation of peace has truly been laid.”
– ABC News, (1/15/08)
Most Americans, however, do view Decider George as a failure. In the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll released this week, just 32 percent approve of the way President Bush is handling his job. The summary rating had been stuck at 33 percent from July to December.
The president has not enjoyed an approval rating above 50 percent since January of 2005, and those disapproving “strongly” continue to outnumber strong approvers by greater than 3 to 1.
Why do US peoples dislike Decider George? Outside of the fact everything he touches turns to lethal dog shit? One point that’s catching on — he’s a half-truth-sayer of complete lies:
- Bush heaped praise on his hosts, the rulers of the United Arab Emirates, for luring foreign investment and “building a prosperous society out of the desert.”
Left out, noted analyst Manar Shorbagy, an associate professor who teaches a course on U.S. politics at the American University in Cairo, was the ill-fitting fact that Iran is the country’s No. 1 trade partner.
Also unmentioned was the UAE’s role as an important conduit for Iranian imports in spite of U.S.-backed economic sanctions. Moreover, a large and thriving Iranian expatriate community is central to commerce and society in Abu Dhabi and its more glamorous sister city, the commercial hub of Dubai.
– McClatchy Newspapers, (1/13/08)
One waits with frustration and impatience for Decider George to return next year to his own Texas sandbox.
Massacre No-News
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As we scanned the online news sources this morning there was nothing at all about this in any of the US mainstream or alternate news operations:
- Hamas has blamed George Bush’s tour of the Middle East for Israel’s latest deadly incursion into the Gaza Strip that has left at least 16 Palestinians dead and at least 50 others injured.
David Chater, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Jerusalem, said the “major” Israeli incursion began late on Monday night.
He said: “Apache helicopter gunships, armoured bulldozers, tanks and ground troops were all involved in this incursion.
“There are also reports of another incursion in the industrial zone near the Erez crossing.”
Ehud Olmert, the Isaeli prime minister, has reportedly ordered a series of “sharp and short” incursions, Chater said
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said: “What happened today is a massacre, a slaughter against the Palestinian people.
Our people cannot keep silent over these massacres. These massacres cannot bring peace.”
– Al Jazeera English, (1/15/08)
Decider George’s visit last week to Palestine was scant over before this took place. And despite Decider George’s nonsense blubber about a peace treaty between the warring factions to be completed before his term of office ends next January.
One must remember: Peace is not Decider George’s forte.
Iraq Draw-Up
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“It’s just this war and that lying sonofabitch Johnson. I would never hurt you. You know that.”
Jenny’s activist ‘boyfriend’ in Forrest Gump
Despite creating a living hell for the Iraqi people, Decider George wants the horror to continue. Despite all the reality staring him in the face, and like a retarded turtle who won’t let go until it thunders, the delusion of himself makes the teeth tightened down. The dream-like vision he carries bleeds literally over onto the Iraqi and US peoples.
This morning, after making an ass of himself all over Palestine, Decider visited US troops in Kuwait and met with Gen. David Petraeus, the overall commander in Iraq. Although no one else has made public what the two clowns discussed, Decider George blew smoke again.
- Talking with reporters afterward, Bush made clear that any further troop reductions were contingent on Petraeus’s assessment of whether the recent decline in violence in Iraq can be maintained with fewer troops. A final decision will likely come in March, when Petraeus is scheduled to offer another report to Congress on conditions in Iraq.
“A lot of people thought that I was going to recommend pulling out, or pulling back,” he noted. “Quite the contrary; I recommended increasing the number of forces so they could get more in the fight, because I believed all along if people are given a chance to live in a free society, they’ll do the hard work necessary to live in a free society,” Bush said. Iraq “is now a different place from one year ago.”
“I’m not making excuses for a government, but to go from a tyranny to a democracy overnight is virtually impossible,” Bush added. “And so when you say, ‘Am I pleased with the progress?’ What they have gone through and where they are today I think is good progress. Have they done enough? No.”
“There is no doubt in my mind that we will succeed,” Bush told the troops. “There is no doubt in my mind when history was written, the final page will say: ‘Victory was achieved by the United States of America for the good of the world.’ ”
Bush said that in Iraq “long-term success will require active U.S. engagement that outlasts my presidency” — a comment that seemed aimed at assuring U.S. allies in the region but that will likely stoke anger among Democrats and others who see Bush as irresponsibly passing on the war to his successor.
– The Washington Post, (1/12/08)
Oh, “Quite the contrary…” The lying sonofabitch Bush.
On Friday for Reuters news service, Decider George spelled it out:
- WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President George W. Bush said on Friday the United States would have a long-term presence in Iraq that could “easily” last a decade, but that it would be at the invitation of the Iraqi government.
In an interview with NBC News, Bush was asked about recent comments by Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain that it would be fine with him to have a U.S. military presence in Iraq for 100 years.
“That’s a long time,” Bush replied, adding that there “could very well be” a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq at the invitation of the government in Baghdad. When asked if it could be 10 years, Bush replied: “It could easily be that, absolutely.”
Bush was interviewed in Jerusalem as he was wrapping up his first presidential visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
(1/11/08)
And how do the recipients of all this nastiness feel about it?
- FALLUJAH – US and Iraqi officials claim that security is improving across al-Anbar province and much of Iraq. Security during the last half of 2007 was indeed better than in the period between February 2006 and mid-2007. But this has brought little solace to many Iraqis, because violence is still worse than in 2005 and early 2006.
Violence levels are down, but attacks have not ceased. “Nine US soldiers were killed in 24 hours, US B-1 and F-16 bombers dropped over 40,000 pounds of special munitions on the Arab Juboor villages just south of Baghdad, and Awakening (militia paid for by the US) leaders and senior police officers are being assassinated all over Iraq, yet US army leaders and top officials say Iraq is safe and sound,” lawyer and human rights activist Mahmood al-Dulaimy told IPS.
Dulaimy said US President George W. Bush has succeeded in convincing many people in the United States that everything in Iraq is all right. “It is you media people who fool the world by transmitting false news about the situation in Iraq,” Dulaimy said. “Look around you and tell me what is good here.”
Many people in Fallujah say they simply want the US forces to leave. “If the US generals mean they will hand over security to Iraqis and leave the province, then I will salute them all,” retired Iraqi army colonel Salman Ahmed told IPS in Fallujah. “But I know it is just another comedy like that played elsewhere in Iraq, where Iraqis (officials) are just ropes for American dirty laundry. We want our country back for real, not just on paper.”
– Inter Press Service, (1/12/08)
The full story, from which the above couple of graphs were pulled, carries a much more detailed account of how the rank and file Iraqis feel about the continued US presence in their country. Just this week the US bombed the living shit out of areas which were suppose to be safe and sound.
- BAGHDAD, Iraq — The U.S. military dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives southeast of Baghdad on Thursday in air strikes that underscored the tenuousness of U.S. progress.
The targets were near Arab Jabour, a Sunni Muslim-dominated district on Baghdad’s outskirts that U.S. officials recently called a security success and an example of how local Sunni tribesmen had turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq.
But Thursday’s air attack indicated that the area still has a considerable Sunni militant presence.
The statement said more than 40 targets in three large areas were hit during two passes by two B1 bombers and four F16 fighter jets. A U.S. military official in the area said the targets were Al Qaeda in Iraq weapons caches and bomb-making materials.
The blitz dropped 38 bombs in its first 10 minutes, the statement said.
– McClatchy Newspapers, (1/11/08)
And what about the big, ole war on terror? Decider George (and all US peoples) are in for another shit-fire.
- ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — President Pervez Musharraf warned that U.S. troops would be regarded as invaders if they crossed into Pakistan’s border region with Afghanistan in the hunt for al-Qaida or Taliban militants, according to an interview published Friday.
Musharraf, whose popularity has plummeted amid a surge in extremist attacks in recent months, also told Singapore’s The Straits Times that he would resign if opposition parties tried to impeach him following next month’s parliamentary elections.
Pakistan is under growing U.S. pressure to crack down on militants in its tribal regions close to the Afghan border.
The rugged area has long been considered a likely hiding place for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, as well as an operating ground for Taliban militants planning attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.
The New York Times reported last week that Washington was considering expanding the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to peruse aggressive covert operations within the tribal regions.
Musharraf told the Straits Times that U.S. troops would “certainly” be considered invaders if they set foot in the tribal regions.
“If they come without our permission, that’s against the sovereignty of Pakistan. I challenge anybody coming into our mountains,” he said in the interview in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. “They would regret that day.”
– Associated Press, (1/11/08)
Mush-mouth Musharraf seems to have taken words right from Decider George’s verbal playbook: “They would regret that day…”
The entire world already regrets even hearing the name of George W. Bush.