Iraq open thread #12

I’ve been busy for three days with Bill, getting our new part-time digs in Washington DC set up. Saturday I drove sundry items of furniture etc up here in what felt like a HUGE truck. (It was actually far bigger than we needed, but it was all I could find to rent.)
Anyway, we don’t have our communications set up here yet; so blogging has been a bit difficult. Tomorrow we return to C’ville after our first foray in the new apt. Next week, I’ll be back in the apt and able to schedule the installation of the DSL, phone lines, etc.
Meantime, lots has been happening re Iraq, I know. So I’ll leave this comments thread open for y’all to comment.

10 thoughts on “Iraq open thread #12”

  1. Severe ‘Unintended Consequences’
    Iraqi newspapers relayed an interview that the Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki gave to Newsweek , in which he requested that the US Army desists from arming tribal militias in the Sunni provinces to fight al-Qa’ida.
    The Iraqi government was, at one point, actively involved in the arming of Sunni tribes in Anbar. The government’s newspaper published several op-eds praising the tribes for their role in fighting al-Qa’ida, and al-Maliki made a visit to Ramadi in order to meet with the leaders of the tribal “Anbar Salvation Council” to express his support for their efforts.
    However, al-Maliki’s posture changed with his realization that the Sunni tribes are intent on using US support to build their own militias, following the model of pro-government Shi’a organizations, which could produce severe “unintended consequences” for the government in the future. Al-Maliki said that any arming of the tribes should be done with the supervision of the government, and that efforts should be made to ascertain that those receiving weapons and support are not linked to insurgents.

  2. Reuter’s video from yesterday – see an Iraqi child with his face covered with bloody bandages, while some medical person holds a compression bandage on his chest WITH HIS BARE HANDS – no surgical gloves there – and some, some of the beds do have sheets this time. Generally they don’t.
    oh yeah, the child is clearly in pain. Wonder if they have any antibiotics to treat any infections from the ungloved hands….. pain meds…… plastic surgery for his face.
    (I tell you what, all this leaves me wondering if I should cry or just puke. Guess neither one will do much good will it?)
    Link: http://www.reuters.com/news/video/videoStory?videoId=57245

  4. Surely one would have to be some kind of statist to find the idea of “failed states” alarming or unpleasant?

  6. “A Culture of Atrocity” by Chris Hedges
    The American killing project is not described in these terms to the distant public. The politicians still speak in the abstract of glory, honor and heroism, of the necessity of improving the world, in lofty phrases of political and spiritual renewal. The press, as in most wars, is slavishly compliant. The reality of the war—the fact that the occupation forces have become, along with the rampaging militias, a source of terror to most Iraqis—is not transmitted to the American public. The press chronicles the physical and emotional wounds visited on those who kill in our name. The Iraqis, those we kill, are largely nameless, faceless dead. Those who kill large numbers of people always claim it as a regrettable but necessary virtue.
    The reality and the mythic narrative of war collide when embittered combat veterans return home. They find themselves estranged from the world around them, a world that still believes in the myth of war and the virtues of the nation.
    Link: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070618_a_culture_of_atrocity/
    more info on Iraq: http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com

  8. In the four years since the toppling of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi oilfields and associated infrastructure have sustained 400 attacks. And because of the situation on the ground, Iraqi oil production, at 1.95 barrels per day during the first quarter of 2007, was far short of the government’s goal of 2.5 million barrels per day and the previous peak of 3.7 million under Saddam. In this asymmetrical war, our enemies are spending a fraction of our costs on improvised explosive devices, chlorine gas and human bombers, while we invest heavily in noneffective weapons systems and force structures.

    U.S. oil and gas production peaked in the early ’70s, and we are now by far the world’s largest energy importer. The largest oilfields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Syria, Yemen and Oman are in decline, as are most oilfields in the former Soviet Union, Canada, Central and South America, and on-shore Africa. New fields will be discovered and new technologies brought to bear, but costs of production will be higher than in the past and will require more expensive investments in equipment and technology.
    So Iraq now the second on ‘failed state’ index so what’s those US war criminals from Gates to those US military commanders in Iraq telling us and asking Al Maliki to pass the new US Draughte Oil Low?
    Is their more crime than this looting 25 Millions of people or a country of its resources?
    You should asking and supporting for a US Regime Change…..

  9. After years of twistification about the former Iraq from the direction of Crawford, it would be unfortunate to find that The Washington Post has started telling fibs and kidding itself into believing mistakes in order to advance more or less the opposite of militant GOP policies.
    The good news is that today’s front-page article about Green Zone politics comes to us almost entirely untouched by either Crawford or Camp Victory, whereas previous ones have read like press releases from Party and Pentagon sources.
    The bad news is that the same article seems (to me) to have been deliberately concocted with an eye to enforcing the moral “Maliki won’t do.”
    Since it appears in the WP, the point of the exercise would not be to install Dr. ’Ayád ‘Alláwí or some other stout strongman who would “do” better, but to smooth the way towards withdrawal. I’m all for that, but nevertheless, one is not to cheat to get one’s druthers.
    Apart from possible cheating, there are technical issues that will have to be addressed if the Post is to give us this sort of thing on a sustained basis. (1) They should make sure they don’t accidentally favor those collaborationist pols who happen to speak English well and may even know how to use the US media to put their thumbs on the scale. (2) They should, at least at first, fill in background material that their customers are likely to have forgotten. (3) When they don’t actually know the background material themselves, they should say so and not serve up guesswork instead.
    There’s a fourth item, ideally, but it is hopeless to wish that they would not have recourse to Major Leaker (“a senior Iraqi official who also spoke on condition of anonymity”) quite so much. Given journalists who can’t cover their home town politics without that ploy, it would be absurd to expect better when they cover New Baghdad’s. All the same, anonymous tips are much easier to evaluate when they come from DC, where basically they are either against the Bushies or else from the Bushies. In addition to having far more familiar context to judge by, there are far fewer possibilities to choose among.
    When some man of mystery badmouths the Da‘wa — as happens here, fourth paragraph from the end — one is essentially up the creek without a paddle as to guessing what might really be going on. Or anyway, I am.

  10. First they were given packs of playing cards showing Saddam Hussein and his most-wanted henchmen.
    Now US troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been issued with another deck showing important archaeological sites – so they do not destroy them.
    The warning comes after American military engineers were forced to apologise last year after they built a helicopter landing pad on the ruins of ancient Babylon.
    http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=53962&in_page_id=34
    How sick this, they talking about ONE chop LAST year!! Did thy saw what’s Paul Bremer in Babylon gave speeches to US troops that make same area as military base? Did they saw the Tanks; military trucks destroyed that site four years ago?
    It’s just more crimes by ruthless occupiers who had hearts full of hatred to the Mesopotamian’s land and a looter’s attitudes for others belonging and heritage

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