Are you ready for another “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia” moment from the Orwell Bush administration? Ready or not, here we go, says the Washington Post today:
Senior military commanders here now portray the intransigence of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias.
In more than a dozen interviews, U.S. military officials expressed growing concern over the Iraqi government’s failure to capitalize on sharp declines in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians.
Why, yes, now that you ask — that is the same government is one whose election the Bushites praised to the skies TV airwaves and was describing as its stalwart ally earlier this year.
In a way, I’m glad they’re finally acknowledging a reality that I’ve been writing about for four years on my blog — contrary to depictions of Iraq’s government as a willing friend or mere puppet, the fractious Shiite alliance in charge of it has very different goals than Dubya and has been engaged in an unbelievably prolonged wrestling match to pursue those goals while ignoring ours (and getting us to fight their enemies without coming to blows with the American military themselves).
The larger point now, though, is that those guys were elected in voting that the Bushites failed to steal wholeheartedly endorsed. And yet, if GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham is to be believed (umm… don’t answer that), our government is now starting to “look for other horses to support.”
Apparently democracy in countries like Iraq (or, for that matter, Pakistan, where Dubya & Co. are now casting envious glances in the direction of a military coup) is only worthwhile if the people who are elected do what the U.S. government wants. I guess that purple ink wasn’t so indelible after all.
(U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Curt Cashour)
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An uno?
I am getting whip lash from the thread changes.
Ed*ard Teller @ 1
Congrats, ET!
I wasn’t even trying. Just stopping by to say “Hi, Swopa!”
What a fucking mess we’ve made of that country. May I suggest that firedoglake start carrying the Iraq War Death counter.
Steve-AR @ 2
I think we’re going to an every-15-minutes schedule soon.
Swopa:
Amazing! That 60% Shiite majority has turned out to have a different agenda from that of bushCo and the Fortune 500.
Who knew?
When is the Sadr cease fire do to expire? He is ultimately calling the shots.
I’ve been in EPU land all day! Of course, that sorta reinforces that Orwellian feeling, doesn’t it?
Black is white! EPU is current! *wanders off, mumbling*
Ed*ard Teller @ 4
Ain’t this a bitch. I get an uno. . .nada, zip, gatz. You hit and mofo’s is fallin all over theyselves.
Ed*ard Teller @ 1
Evenin’ Sir, how do you find time in the day to do all that you do ?!!
I should be taking meditation classes from you … *g*
swopa writes
Is that anything like the same democracy that Dubya & Co tend to ignore here as well?
Speaking of “makeovers”, it’s going to take one FUCK of a lot of lipstick to make the 600 pound feral hog that is what-used-to-be-Iraq look like Miss Mission Accomplished.
Petrocelli @ 10
The last time I tried meditating was 35 years ago. It didn’t work. I kept on thinking of food and sex.
Stopped to read before posting, again. Good one!
Once again, G.W. is flexible not only when it comes to what the heck we’re trying to do in Iraq, but who we’re doing it for, and who we’re fighting against. Those dang Iraqis keep switching sides! er, or is that we keep switching our bets from one horse to another?
As someone else asked recently, will someone please tell us who the “enemy” is in Iraq now? I think it is getting stripped down to “whoever opposes our expropriation of Iraqi oil.”
Where is Saddam now when we need him?
Oops, I guess that option has been taken off the table.
Bob in HI
Steve-AR @ 7
I don’t know if it’s a credible report, but the latest I’ve heard is that he may be looking to extend it another six months.
He’s still the big dog in the yard in a lot of ways, but he appears to have genuinely overreached with the attempted shrine assaults in Karbala a few months back, plus I think there’s something to the notion of an anti-Sadrist backlash in ethnically cleansed areas of Baghdad.
Ed*ard Teller @ 4
Right before the invasion, I emailed CNBC, CNN, that they should add a little bug at the botton of the screen flipping back & forth between # dead & # injured. I wonder why they never took up my suggestion.
dakine01 @ 11
Is that anything like the same democracy that Dubya & Co tend to ignore here as well?
Actually, W is suffering mightily from Musharraf envy.
Seems it’s turning into a chess match now. The Iraq’s are exhausted our military is on the ropes, the surge being a success or not. So the “intransigent” sunni’s of Maliki’s government waited for some big screw up by our hired soldiers – this time it was Blackwater and soon the Iraqi’s will make it a crime for Blackwater’s employees who kill innocent Iraqi’s. Maliki, in my opinion, knew what he was doing more than a month ago when he all as much declared war on these privatized armies, free markets once again showing their worth, thanks Grover, what a genius. And now our “wise” generals are covering their butts knowing soon 45,000 gun carrying free lance soldiers of fortune will either be tossed into Abu Grahaib (think about that one) or thrown out of Iraq which leaves the U.S. Army to do their job, ’cause the Marines want to be in Afghanistan.
Check mate. Game insurgency (er, Maliki’s army).
Swopa @ 15
If that is the case, then it’s time to declare victory and withdraw…the Iraqi’s might let us go. If things turn worse, it’s the ungrateful Iraqi’s fault.
eCAHNomics @ 16
can’t imagine why not, sounds like a good idea to me
The Iraqi Shiite’s have thoroughly outfoxed the Bush admin. We’re doing their dirty work for them.
I suspect the Shiite can’t wait for us to leave so they can wipe out the rest of the Sunni’s.
And the horrible part of it is, as a country we’re responsible for this mess. Like it or not, Bush is our president and we can’t just say “Sorry about your luck, Iraq”. The next admin is going to have to put a lot of resources into cleaning up.
Worse, I still think Bush is going to hit Iran HARD. I hope there’s something in our arsenal that will crack those hardened sites short of Nukes…cause I sure think Bush will use Nukes if he’s told that’s the only way to crack them.
Worse yet, it seems like the “prove you’re tough” issue in the election has become Iran. Obama is the only one who’s talked any sense on Iran so far and he got dismissed as “naive” for it.
Boxturtle(If we don’t talk to them, how in the world can we expect to resolve anything short of melting each other?)
Ed*ard Teller @ 13
Um … isn’t that what meditation is ?!! *g*
(Bold mine)
eCAHNomics @ 17
pathetically that’s the truth
Swopa @ 15
Don’t forget that Sadr is not the only Shi’ite dog in this fight. We tend to ignore the Badr Organization, because its head is not a recognized figure here in the US. So far as the American public is concerned, its a faceless organization and therefore can be ignored.
Bob in HI
Is this on the regular news? Just watched a man die in an airport: Russian-speaking and tasered to death by four or five security types. Corpse wheeled out on a gurney. (La Guardia, was it? Spanish-language news, and yo no habla esp.)
I am horrified. Wife would like to fly to HI, but I am reluctant to go through security.
Feel compelled to make bad jokes: can’t be good for the U.S. tourist trade, which, now that the $ is in the tank, might have been something we were counting on. Always carry a sign saying, “I voted for Bush.”
I don’t know. Whatever we were going to become in this slow-motion disaster, I think we are there.
And then there’s the thought that our oh-so-dedicated war-on-terror government has managed to NOT nail Osama Bin Laden but rather has let him run around in an unstable country which has nuclear weapons which may not be held quite as closely as one might like.
That worked out well, didn’t it?
I wonder if Negroponte and crew will nominate their old buddy, General Mahmood Ahmad, who has been under the radar for awhile, so everyone would forget about him:
http://www.politicalfriendster…..ound-Ahmad
The bleet goes on…
Plan dropped to force diplomats to Iraq
Kronyguard, suburban thread-wrecker…
Or not…
Krongard’s Deputy Didn’t Know of Blackwater Connection
Yo, Raven. Got EPU’d before I could say hi.
der @ 18
Yup. And chess was a game invented in Iran. George probably hasn’t gotten beyond checkers.
The biggest threat to American security may be that the last 7 years have shown the world how easy it is to suckerpunch Uncle Sam, and how to render
harmlessineffective the world’s largest and best equipped army.Bob in HI
behindthefall @ 25
http://winnipegsun.com/News/Ca…..58218.html
Good post. Froomkin also covers this today. It was beginning to bother me that all this progress in Iraq narrative was going unchallenged.
Points to remember:
The surge was a Baghdad based strategy which failed.
Casualties are down because of the Anbar truce which began before the surge, the rejection of al Qaeda in Iraq by tribal leaders which was part of this and reduced car bombings, the success of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad, and lastly a change in US tactics relying less on big sweeps and more on air strikes.
The bottom-up strategy will likely lead not to soft partition but fragmentation.
Petraeus never understood that Iraq was in civil war. So his actions have been perceived as favoring either one side or another, not building toward national reconciliation. American generals and politicians never seem to get this.
Another reason for the relative quiet in Iraq is also likely that both Sunnis and Shias are looking past the American withdrawal and preparing themselves for the next, and what they see as the definitive phase of the civil war.
Moving the goalpost yet again.
bobschacht @ 24
The Hakim/Badr/SCIRI (now SIIC, or ISIC, or whatever) faction may be the main reason the Iraqis haven’t invited us to leave yet. They’d like to use our troops to help grind the Sadrists down further first.
Ironically, in terms of brutality, there doesn’t seem to be a dime’s worth of difference between the Sadr and Hakim/Badr factions.
Today, Chris Floyd (http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/11/14/chris-floyd-4/), made the most remarkable insight. These guys (W et al) don’t care what happens. That’s why they are flipping all around in Iraq, and why the consequences of bombing Iran don’t bother them on e twit. If it goes OK, they’ll come out heroes. If it goes badly, they’ll make billions-more billions of less billions, depending on which way it turns out badly. There’s absolutely no downside to any foreign adventure for them.
me @ 25 — I misunderstood the scroll on the teevee, it seems. Digby is all over this, and here’s the link to the video of the event. Apparently it happened in Vancouver. Oh no; not the Canadians, too?
behindthefall @ 25
This it?
Hugh said-
What American withdrawal?
there’s a “problem” in that the parliament was elected on promises to “end the occupation” (sorta like our congress?)… and they just may do it – based on the law they passed in june.
from a report by raed jarrar in june:
i’m guessing that may have something to do with the complaints we’ve been hearings these last few months about the “corrupt iraqi government’
And here’s the new, “liberated” Iraq, which has cost us the lives of nearly 4,000 of our troops, and that $450 billion, with the meter STILL running at $2.5 billion a week, to create.
Your kids and your grandkids (and unfortunately, ours, too) will be dealing with the “garlands” of gratitude from the people of Iraq.
Bon Appetit, you fucking exporters of “freedom and democracy”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7095209.stm
LS @ 30
Thanks! Shorter police: Be glad we didn’t use our guns. (Maybe that’s being unjust; we’ll see.)
OT..
WASHINGTON — In a blistering rebuke, President Bush today said the Senate’s confirmation review of his judicial nominees has too often become a “search and destroy” mission that ruins a person’s reputation.
“Senate confirmation is part of the Constitution’s system of checks and balances. But it was never intended to be a license to ruin the good name that a nominee has worked a lifetime to build,” Bush said in excerpts of a speech he was to deliver tonight to The Federalist Society, a conservative group that emphasizes legal matters
link
It’s hard work being racist, fascist lap dogs.
Eureka Springs @ 37
The one that will begin in early 2009 if not before.
Steve-AR @ 41
I figure that if a nominee’s reputation is a fraud built over corruption and extremism, it deserves to be ruined. A nominee whose reputation is based on reality doesn’t have a whole lot to worry about…but Bush’s nominees do.
Hugh @ 42
Dang, Hugh, I need to get a pair of those rose-colored shades you’re sporting…! ;-)
This administration is like a teenager with ADHD. They can’t sit still and think for five minutes at a stretch, and they run off chasing every shiny object.
The Sunni’s were always the ethnic group most oriented towards US strategic objectives. Hell, Saddam would have happily gone back to running the country, even though we’d shot up all his palaces a second time.
With either Sadr or Badr in control it still works out very well for Iran – which wasn’t exactly the US objective. Kurds can play spoilers, and will run the show in their provinces, but will never control the game.
The recent US moves show all the signs of shifting to a divide and conquer, end against the middle sort of destabilized, low intensity domination of the fragmented groups and regions, so that the US becomes essential to each group’s survival and hopes of domination. There’s not really much of a country, but the US can achieve some of its objectives and keep anyone else from gaining greatly.
This will require long term american combat presence and investment, and casualties. But they don’t want to/won’t withdraw, and there’s not much other option for stability that doesn’t involve Iran gaining more than they ever thought possible.
“…has too often become a search-and-destroy mission that ruins a person’s reputation…”
As opposed to a GOP-driven congressional cum-stain posse which cost us $50 million dollars, and accomplished nothing except defining the assholes who perpetrated it as genetic descendants of Torquemada.
OT – WOO HOO! I see over at Kos and Pandagon that “Netroots Nation” is going to be in Austin, TX next summer. Is it possible that I might actually get a chance to meet some of my favorite bloggers by simply driving a hundred miles?
Woo Hoo! Woo Hoo! Woo Hoo!
They don’t need a plan. Any which way it goes, they make billions.
eCAHNomics @ 48
Now that’s a hedge fund…
This thread is slow.
eCAHNomics @ 34
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
So Swopa,
What’s next? U.S. retreats more into permanent bases, warlords press iron thumb on their spheres of influences, Moqtada al Sadr has another 6 month hiatus?
Great piece.
This whole Iraq thing has been a clusterfuck from start to finish, why would our relationship with the more-or-less elected government of Iraq be anything more than completely dysfunctional?
You look at GW Bush. You look at his life and how he’s conducted himself during his life, and there is not one thing he’s touched, or done, that hasn’t turned to utter shit. Except maybe his glad-handing flackery when he worked in Major League Baseball. He was good at that. He should have stayed in Texas.
And his daughters seem to be somewhat well-adjusted..I’m betting Laura gets the credit for that though.
Any time GW has gotten in over his head, which is to say, most of his life, he’s fucked things up completely. And THAT is the man we elected twice to be President. Every time I come back to this fact, I feel my brain freeze up. Even with Cheney pulling his strings, Bush has managed to fuck up everything, except, of course, the complete hoodwinking of the idiot 30% (really Rove’s doing), and the channeling of untold billions to Cheney’s pals in the Oil and Defense industries. He didn’t fuck that up. But, then, he wasn’t really in charge of that either. Cheney was. And is.
Iraq will continue to be sublime clusterfuck until Bush is out of office, and/or we’re out of the streets there. Then, the best we can hope for is a new Saddam, who, hopefully, won’t be quite as eager to support islamic extremists as Pakistan’s military is.
You know, if I were this incompetent in my work I’d have been a street person long ago.
What a country.
LL
john in sacramento @ 51
Yep, that’s a book he’s in the middle of reading.
“Compliant Pakistan: Fuller argues that Washington wants a compliant Pakistan that will dutifully play its assigned role in the US regional hegemonic vision. Washington will take it any way it can get it, with or without democracy. So US calls for democracy are now issued in panic and ring hollow after six years of support for the Musharraf dictatorship. Pakistani liberals condemn the US for supporting the Pakistani military dictatorship for so long in the name of an unpopular “war against terror” and perceive US confrontationalism as only serving to inflame the militant jihadists. Nor can the crisis in Pakistan be viewed in isolation. It is of a piece with the war in Afghanistan, and is inextricably linked as well to broader convulsions across the Middle East.
He writes, “Today the US military presence is perhaps the single most inflammatory element in politics across the region. The American military response to this regional challenge only serves to exacerbate it. Sadly, Pakistan is now swift on the heels of Iraq and Afghanistan in heading toward increased civil strife and bitter anti-American emotions … The region will only calm down following a withdrawal of US forces.”
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/d…..007_pg7_55
Negroponte will fix everything… (If I were Pakistani, I wouldn’t let him into Pakistan.)
Pure bling from watertiger, with backup in the comments by darkblack
NO telecom immunity
Who could have thought this would happen?
behindthefall @ 50
Fine, YOU take the damn wheel and drive, if you’re so smart!
LS @ 56
water you gonna do now?:
Negroponte = “black bridge”. hmmmm
john in sacramento @ 58
Just the pause before the cave-in.
eCAHNomics @ 59
It’s all part of the original PNAC plan.
I apologize – completely OT, but I as so pissed! Those clowns who were up in Santa Barbara yesterday – the ones who are “collecting signatures for the children’s cancer hospital”? the one where you have to sign “multiple forms”…. where what you are actually doing is signing other ballot initiatives but unless you remove the rubber band at the top, it is difficult to read them… and the biggie in the middle is that “split CA’s electoral votes” initiative…
They were out in front of the Target in Rancho Santa Margarita. I yelled at anyone who tried to sign that they were getting scammed. I told the manager of the store and she tried run them off… but after an hour, I had to come home…
just who the hell do I call first about this crap? I tried calling the sheriff’s dept. but since Mike Carona is in so much trouble, they seemed to have shut off the “non-emergency” line… I stopped in at the sheriff’s substation, but they told me I had to call the non-emergency number…
Swopa-
Did you see me@52? Wondering if Iraq stays relatively “calm” for another Friedman Unit?
Elliott @ 23
Assuming the regime survives.
Playing whackamole with the reasons to attack Iran:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…../173123/99
There was a link (here on FDL, I think) a few days back to a pic showing a young G*W*B punching an opponent in the face during a game. The caption opines that the action was “illegal but satisfying”. Does anybody have that link?
Think of the stories we tell about George Washington and Abe Lincoln (true or apochyphal): they do NOT emphasize a penchant to bloody someone’s nose as sneakily as possible. All I’ve heard about this guy is that he seems to have been somewhat sadistic. Personally, I don’t think that he would much fun to have a beer with.
Jane upstairs on the ongoing Telecom immunity fight .
Old Coastie, call the newspapers and write a letter to the newspaper exposing this. Here in Arizona we often run into shenanigans with initative petitioners, who are paid workers.
amazona @ 70
Perhaps go back and with a video camera.
I took pictures with my cell phone… am writing the local tv stations now.
eCAHNomics @ 65
Yes, but you asked a hard question, so you have to wait. :)
what do you-all think is going to happen next month when our un mandate expires?
Swopa @ 60
LMAO Swopa! You made my night. :-)
“In more than a dozen interviews, U.S. military officials expressed growing concern over the Iraqi government’s failure to capitalize on sharp declines in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians.”
“Capitalize” is just another disarming euphemism. Translation = 780 (and counting) American troops have died since the surge began in late January.
That should be the primary metric going forward in any discussion of the failed will of Iraq’s backward politicians, not fading purple fingers.
Just saying.
OldCoastie @ 64
OC, don’t know if you’re still here, but from what I understand about what you’re saying is that they might be guilty of a misdemeanor.
http://lawyers.wizards.pro/cal…..-18603.php
Are they covering the summary with other initiatives?
Or just the title with the rubber bands? (don’t know if this counts)
They are allowed to gather signatures, but not fraudulently
eCAHNomics @ 52
Hugh took some flak up above, but his analysis is basically correct — the Sunni-Shiite civil war is not nearly over, but both sides are lying low because they are waiting for the American speed bump to get smaller.
“Withdrawal” or no, the removal of the brigades added in this year’s escalation will represent the first temptation for any faction that feels like acting up. None of them have been good at resisting temptation in the past, so you could see violence start rising again as we get into next year.
Then again, if the U.S. keeps pouring in money to buy off the Sunnis while the Shiite alliance manages to keep kicking the can down the road on just about every conceivable front, things could stay as “quiet” as they are now.
A factor I haven’t seen discussed much is the Shiite alliance’s recognition that there is geniune and massive (and, of course, overwhelmingly justified) popular dissatisfaction with their government. At first the Sadrists were benefiting from this, but their wave seems to have crested and the “truce” looks like a recognition that they need some image rehab, too.
As a result, Team Shiite knows they have to buckle down and deliver more services & security somehow, or that popular discontent may spin out of control between now and the 2009 elections (despite their extensive ability to rig the latter). But there’s no way they’re going to sincerely yield any share of power to the Sunnis. So those are the poles they’re going to try to steer between as events unfold.
Propagandee @ 76
I’ve been down with that idea for several months now.
I think that’s how the American public is looking at things, too. That the price of getting nowhere has dropped from 80-100 U.S. lives/month to 40-50 isn’t much worth celebrating.
…and not a war-crimes tribunal in sight.
If we here at FDL aren’t calling for it, it won’t happen. Nor will a Truth & Reconciliation Commission. Because most Americans don’t yet recognize that we’ve committed war crimes, that launching this war was a war crime, and that all the wire-tapping and other crap was a follow-on to the original war crimes.
We are missing the very big picture, that the USA has committed a massive crime and we’re not going to do anything about it, except go shopping.
OldCoastie @ 72
Speaking of using a video camera, are there people doing the macaca watch on all the presidential candidates this year?
Veritas78 @ 80
shame on you. One crime does not make another less vile. Everybody knows mall shopping is a war crime.
Of course you’re right. We have to keep screaming through the toobz!
They need an excuse to attack Iran
We have to turn on the Shiite political coalition so that our troops can come into armed conflict with their militias so that we will have an excuse to attack an Iran that has been arming some of these militias for decades so that the 2008 election will be held in the opening months of a new war so terrifying that the electorate will be terrified into voting for the Republicans. The Iranian nuclear program nonsense must not have focus-grouped well, so they needed a new pretext. Same underlying political imperatives, just a new pretext.