News War Bulletin
posted by on June 4 at 10:55 AM
Depressing news on the surge from the New York Times:
Three months after the start of the Baghdad security plan that has added thousands of American and Iraqi troops to the capital, they control fewer than one-third of the city’s neighborhoods, far short of the initial goal for the operation, according to some commanders and an internal military assessment.
The surge has had some success, but—according to the article—American and Iraqis have been able to secure “only 146 of the 457 Baghdad neighborhoods.” And it’s not going to get any easier anytime soon, especially since:
Iraqi police and army units, which were expected to handle basic security tasks, like manning checkpoints and conducting patrols, have not provided all the forces promised, and in some cases have performed poorly.That is forcing American commanders to conduct operations to remove insurgents from some areas multiple times. The heavily Shiite security forces have also repeatedly failed to intervene in some areas when fighters, who fled or laid low when the American troops arrived, resumed sectarian killings.
Meanwhile, retired Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded U.S. forces in the Iraq War’s first year, offers a bleak assessment of the situation:
“I think if we do the right things politically and economically with the right Iraqi leadership we could still salvage at least a stalemate, if you will—not a stalemate but at least stave off defeat.”
sounds good enough for me! i can't wait until september so i can vote or more of the same!
Ever played Whack-a-Mole?
The last week in particular has brought events into focus in Iraq:
1) Plans show that the US Embassy in Baghdad will be one of the largest bases on the planet. It looks nothing like the embassy of a liberal democracy, but more like the fortress of a totalitarian army – the Ministry of Love springs to mind.
2) The Hydrocarbon Law written by the oil companies, which gives them near total control of Iraq’s oil and its profits, contains contract language giving them an unprecedented 30 year lock on that resource. Approval of this law by the Iraqi Parliament is considered a “benchmark” by Democrats and Republicans and will almost certainly lead to generations of poverty for the Iraqi people as the oil profits are rapidly exported.
3) Bush reveals that he expects US troops to be in Iraq for at least 50 years ala South Korea!
4) The military and civilian leadership remains unable to wrap their minds around the fact that we’re foreign invaders and the Iraqis want us to leave. They still act shocked when they find US trained Iraqi troops fighting our soldiers.
One wonders how much stupidity, corruption and incompetence our country can stand - no one seems able to stop this lunacy.
Depressing? It's only depressing if you were foolish enough to buy into a military strategy that had minimal chance of success (which applies both to the "surge" and the War on Iraq). Depressing is the ever increasing death and destruction in Iraq while people here in the U.S. continue to go about their daily life as if there's nothing they can do about it.
I love the thought of our continual occupation of Iraq for more than 50 years, and how that will bankrupt America.
Signed, Osama bin Laden.
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