They’re screwed, aren’t they?

Under Saddam Hussein, the Arab Christians in Iraq were afforded protection from Islamic religious fanatics by the generally secularist Sunni Baathists.

These secular Sunnis kept the Arab Christians and their children (especially the women) safe from the hardcore sharia brand of Islam, primarily practiced by the ones that the Bush administration is apparently going to cede the Iraqi government to in an attempt to 1) bring down the level of violence wracking Iraq and 2) allow the Bush administration to hold onto control of Iraqi oil.

The hardcore, Iran-backed Shiite groups have already proven they don’t give a damn about minority religious groups.

Arab Christian girls have been raped, kidnapped and even killed by rampaging, sharia-spouting Islamic gangs in Iraq. Subsequently, many Iraqi Arab Christian families have fled from Iraq.

So, of course, the Bush administration is now willing to cut a deal (to keep their finger in the Iraqi oil pot) with the religious groups that want to turn Iraq into an Islamic Republic patterned after Saudi Arabia and Iran (as well as Afghanistan under the Taliban).

The harsh treatment of the Iraqi Christians over the past 3 1/2 years since Hussein’s ouster proved to me that Iraq will never be a true democracy, putting a lie to the Bush administration’s claims that Bush invaded Iraq to spread freedom and democracy there. They lied. It’s always been about the oil.

So, the Bush administration, the Iraq Study Group and the top (Republican hack) generals in Iraq are going to sell-out the Iraqi Christians to try to maintain control over the Iraqi oil…if possible.

What a mess.

Joe Courtney (CT-02)

Joe Sestak (PA-07)

Chris Murphy (CT-5)

Patrick Murphy (PA-8)

I am ready to vomit.

I don’t understand. I know four out of the group you listed and these four, at least, are good people and considered progressive.

So if Clusterfuck changes his mind about what flavor of Iraqis to kill- or if he constrains his killing to only ONE flavor rather than ALL- does this constitute a change of tactics or a change in strategy?

Actually this would be a serious change of strategy. A totally FUBAR change of strategy, but a change nonetheless. Instead of trying to hold the country together, we give up and side with the Shiites to totally crush the Sunnis and in return we can leave Iraq with “victory” intact! Hurrah!

One small problem. Can you imagine a scenario better calculated to create total rage in the arab world as well as increase the power of Iran, while causing chaos in the oil-producing countries? It would be the ultimate terrorist recruiting poster and would dangerously destabilize Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Emirates.

This would be much worse than just leaving and letting the blood-thirsty militias fight it out for supremacy.

At least that way we’re not the ones who sided with the heretics (Shiites) to crush and murder orthodox muslims (Sunnis). I can’t imagine anything that would make Bin Laden happier than that plan. It’s much better for him than our simply getting out of Iraq.

Of course, our idiot leaders never care at all what the muslim world thinks. I guess they think terrorists spring out of the ground for no cause “because they hate our freedoms.”

Just when I think that nothing the administration can come up with will be worse than their last “plan” they sink to a new low!

I can’t imagine how this could end without mass attacks on Americans all over the world.

Report: Iraqi government orders arrest of top Sunni cleric
BAGHDAD (CNN) — The Iraqi Interior Ministry on Thursday issued an arrest warrant for Hareth al-Dhari, who heads the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, a group of top Sunni religious leaders, military officials said.

Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf told CNN the warrant accuses al-Dhari of violating Iraq’s antiterrorism law by inciting sectarian violence and killings.

Al-Dhari has been a strong critic of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government. (Posted 4:05 p.m.)

Move our kids back cause this is dynamite. We Support the so called gov in iraq… guess that makes us a main target for rhe sunni’s now

They were worried carter would get the hostages free before the election so they cut a deal with Iran that guaranteed they would remain hostages until after Reagan was sworn in.

The number sounded intuitively right to me, in part because we did not have issues in northern Iraq, the Kurds being moderately autonomous already (my stepson was stationed in northern Iraq for a bit, indicated they were helpful, little need for policing). The 300K-plus would have been intended for more populous regions in Sunni and Shia areas, with special focus on areas that were mixed.

I just can’t figure out how we ended up on the finally number of 130K-150K, given that Israelis had penetrated our intel (see Larry Franklin) and Iran had penetrated our decision making (see Chalabi). How did this ridiculous insufficiency work for either of these groups?

This is the side Bush is taking?

In the meantime, he leaves a nation bogged down in an unnecessary and grossly mismanaged war, that is spinning into chaos and wide-spread sectarian kidnapping, torture, murder and neighborhood-by-neighborhood “cleansing,” with no credible scenario for resolution or even graceful exit.

I don’t understand why the entire nation is not demanding that the Bush/Cheney administration leave office, immediately. The only “last push” that makes any sense is to drop-kick these criminals out of office.

There is a powerful post by Glenn Greenwald earlier today, in which he argues, among other things, that there is no rational discussion of realistic options going on at any level. Glenn concludes with this:

The real problem is that we don’t actually debate the issues that are the real ones because they are too politically radioactive. The real choice is whether we want to maintain our presence and controlling influence in the Middle East and, if so, (a) why do we want to do that?; and (b) what are we are going to do to enable us to maintain that dominance? But we can’t discuss item (a) in any constructive way because doing so requires a debate about the role of oil and our commitment to Israel, both of which are strictly off limits, as the President himself told us:

…

Incremental changes and some mild limits on this administration are nice and welcomed. But the damage done to the United States by this administration over the last six years is truly severe. It’s fundamental damage, and it requires much, much more than some tinkering around the edges. We need a debate and re-examination of the core premises of our foreign policy and our role in the world. That, in turn, requires a willingness to call into question the most sacred orthodoxies, which, in turn, requires real political leaders with the courage, credibility and skills to do that. Does anyone see any of those?

Afghanistan and al-Qaeda: Together Again