Third Helicopter Shot Down in Iraq

The Pentagon confirmed today that a third American helicopter was shot down in Iraq on Sunday. The Iraqi's sure seem to be getting a lot better at that tactic, don't they? On 20 January a Blackhawk was shot down carrying 12 Soldiers. Later in the week another Blackhawk was shot down with five crew and passengers on board. No word yet on how many perished in todays event, but suffice it to say one is too damned many.

Baghdad - A U.S. helicopter was shot down early Sunday afternoon near the provincial capital Najaf during a pitched battle with fighters described as religious fanatics.

A McClatchy Newspapers correspondent from Najaf, Qasim Zen, observed the helicopter lose control and crash to the ground in flames after it appeared to have been struck by rocket fired from the ground. The correspondent had been observing the battle from a safe position about half a mile away from the fight in the village of al Zarga. Al Zarga is about 5 miles from Najaf and about 80 miles south of Baghdad.

No information on U.S. casualties was available. Military public affairs officials in Baghdad said Sunday afternoon they were unaware of the helicopter downing.

The correspondent observed the helicopter shot down about 1:35 p.m. Iraqi time Sunday (5:35 a.m. EST).

The battle is being fought against alleged religious fanatics. Iraqi intelligence had received several reports that this group of fighters planned to attack the religious shrine in Karbala Wednesday, the holy day of Ashura, and to kill all the clerics.

The Iraqi officials told the correspondent that the fighters, whom he described as Saddamists and Afghanis, infiltrated the area as Ashura pilgrims commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.

The battle began with U.S. aerial bombardments Saturday night. Iraqi forces ground forces sealed off the area around 3 a.m. Sunday and begin an assault, assisted by U.S. helicopters and F-16 fighter jets. Maj. Hussain Muhammed of the Iraqi Army confimed the helicopter was down. "We do not know any other details yet, but there are flames raising," he said.

Come on people. Have you had enough yet? I have. I want my fellow Americans out of Iraq. Now. The war in Iraq is illegal, immoral and craven. Those who are dying - 47 last week alone - agree to stand in the gap and serve this nation and protect out Constitution. Part of that bargain is we don't ask them to serve a specious cause, but the war in Iraq is a specious cause at best, and most likely a criminal enterprise.

It must be stopped. Now. Make your opposition known.

You can find the official websites of your Representatives and Senators on the left. Flood them with emails and phone calls. We had an election and it was a referendum on the war. Demand that those we chose listen to the American people, who want this obscenity stopped.

We Can't Win Iraq's Civil War

The situation in Iraq is deteriorating rapidly, and American troops in the center of the Iraqi civil war only exacerbates the chaos.

Stay-the-Course-plus 20% is not the answer.

There is no answer and no good outcome is possible. Our president was intent on launching a vanity war and now he is intent on escalating it, dismissing the critics - who have been abosolutely right on everything so far, and are right again - with "I'm the decision-maker on Iraq." And we all know what wise decisions he has made so far, so confidence just soared when he stamped his wittle foot and jutted out his inbred chin and told us how it's going to be.

You see, it's going to work this time because he told them it has to.

Yep.

Which begs a question: If it's that fucking easy, why didn't he tell them that the first time?

What is going on in Iraq now is a different conflict than the one that was initiated in March of 2003. This is a sectarian civil war and Americans are caught in the crossfire. Maintaining that American victory in Iraq is a must is the height if cognitive dissonance. We can no more win their civil war than China could have won ours in 1863. It just doesn't make any fucking sense.

Yesterday was a good start. People were in the streets from coast to coast, making their voices heard and their opposition known. We had an election, it was a referendum on the war in Iraq, the American people want change, and the untreated mental patient in the oval office decided what we meant by that was more war, not less.

Keep the momentum going, folks. Don't back down. Dissent is what this country was founded on, and do not be detered. When one of the 28% that comprises the DDE (deluded dead-enders) brigade questions your patriotism for having the audacity to oppose the ab-surge-ity of the chickenhawk in chief's war policy, look at them and smile and say "How very Soviet of you, Commrade!"

Men like my husband didn't win the cold-war so our own authoritarians could have a clear shot at goose-stepping us toward fascism. They won it to preserve American freedom.

Protest and dissent founded this country.

Now it is up to the True Patriots among us to save our Republic, employing those very same techniques.

An Ugly Coverup Revealed

The Associated Press reported on Friday that the United States Military lied to us (again). But more importantly, they lied to the families of the fallen. It was a blatant lie when the military reported that five Soldiers were killed "defending their positions" in that January 20 raid on the Iraqi provisional government facility in Karbala. Only one soldier died at the scene.

Four were kidnapped and executed, shot in the head, their bodies recovered 25 miles away.

Really, I want to rant and rage about this, but I am just too sickened. I am disgusted by a military culture that has so soon forgotten the lessons of Vietnam and the lies that trashed the Honor Code. I am sickened by the fact that the men who are in the power positions now and who are sanctioning the lying - were the junior officers who were lied to during that war. I am mad as hell that I dedicated 20 years of my life to supporting my husband (and my brother) as they picked up the tattered remnants of the Honor Code and undertook the arduous task of stitching it back together, bit by bit. I am angry that the sacrifices we made are so cynically discounted and dismissed. I am furious that the military it took men and women of honor thirty years to restore has been broken and crassly tossed aside in such short order.

Right now, I feel like a world-class chump.

I will be back ranting soon enough. But for the moment, I am simply too sickened and saddened by the actions of those we have been asked to place our trust in "one last time" that I can't focus the outrage. I just have to weep.

From the story linked:

"The precision of the attack, the equipment used and the possible use of explosives to destroy the military vehicles in the compound suggests that the attack was well rehearsed prior to execution," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, spokesman for Multi-National Division-Baghdad."The attackers went straight to where Americans were located in the provincial government facility, bypassing the Iraqi police in the compound," he said. "We are looking at all the evidence to determine who or what was responsible for the breakdown in security at the compound and the perpetration of the assault."

The Karbala raid, as explained by the Iraqi and American officials, began after nightfall on Jan. 20, while American military officers were meeting with their Iraqi counterparts on the main floor of the Provisional Joint Coordination Center in Karbala.

[SNIP]

"The precision of the attack, the equipment used and the possible use of explosives to destroy the military vehicles in the compound suggests that the attack was well rehearsed prior to execution," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, spokesman for Multi-National Division-Baghdad.

"The attackers went straight to where Americans were located in the provincial government facility, bypassing the Iraqi police in the compound," he said. "We are looking at all the evidence to determine who or what was responsible for the breakdown in security at the compound and the perpetration of the assault."

The Karbala raid, as explained by the Iraqi and American officials, began after nightfall on Jan. 20, while American military officers were meeting with their Iraqi counterparts on the main floor of the Provisional Joint Coordination Center in Karbala.

[SNIP]

The Defense Department has released the names of troops killed Jan. 20 but clearly identified only one as being killed because of the sneak attack.

Capt. Brian S. Freeman, 31, of Temecula, Calif., "died of wounds suffered when his meeting area came under attack by mortar and small arms fire." Freeman was assigned to the 412th Civil Affairs Battalion, Whitehall, Ohio.

The only other troops killed that day in that region of Iraq were four Army soldiers said to have been "ambushed while conducting dismounted operations" in Karbala.

The four were identified as 1st Lt. Jacob N. Fritz, 25, of Verdon, Neb.; Spc. Johnathan B. Chism, 22, of Prairieville, La.; Pfc. Shawn P. Falter, 25, of Homer, N.Y., and Pvt. Johnathon M. Millican, 20, of Trafford, Ala. All were with the 2nd Battalion, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, of Fort Richardson, Alaska

Their memory deserves the truth; but when our government lied to cover up the details of their deaths, they dishonored their service, their sacrifice and their memory.

I have to ask: How in the hell can we be asked to trust them again, with the real lives of real Americans, when they don't trust us with the truth?

Lara Logan Needs Our Help

Via Atrios:

From: lara logan
Subject: help

The story below only appeared on our CBS website and was not aired on CBS. It is a story that is largely being ignored, even though this is taking place every single day in central Baghdad, two blocks from where our office is located.

Our crew had to be pulled out because we got a call saying they were about to be killed, and on their way out, a civilian man was shot dead in front of them as they ran.

I would be very grateful if any of you have a chance to watch this story and pass the link on to as many people you know as possible. It should be seen. And people should know about this.

If anyone has time to send a comment to CBS – about the story – not about my request, then that would help highlight that people are interested and this is not too gruesome to air, but rather too important to ignore.

Many, many thanks.

Watch it here.

Our soldiers have to see it live and in real time. They have to feel the heat and smell the smoke and the dirt and the blood. They have to deal with the animosity of a population that just wants them to leave. Lara Logan is there, sticking her neck out to tell the story.

The American people can have the stones to watch some video from the safety of their own homes. In fact, it is incumbent upon us to do so.

Call or otherwise contact CBS and let them know this is too important to exile to the CBS website.

U.N. Estimates 34,000 Iraqis Died Violent Deaths in 2006

I really don't want to hear any denials. The U.N. numbers are based on public record surveys and those are notoriously accurate sources. You don't get to pick apart the Lancet study because it didn't have enough public record backup and then reject a subsequent study that relies heavily on those sources. Besides that, the Iraq Study Group Report (if Bush ignored it so actively, it must be right) found that Iraqi violence is under reported.

DEATH SQUAD KILLINGS

• According to the latest U.N. report, based on data from hospitals compiled by the Health Ministry and from the Baghdad morgue, 6,376 civilians were killed in the last two months of 2006 -- comprising 3,462 in November and 2,914 in December.
• Of 4,731 people killed in Baghdad in November and December, Magazzeni said most died of gunshot wounds -- an indication they were victims of individual death squad killings, not bombings.
• Though Baghdad is the epicenter of violence, the U.N. report said increasing violence in typically less restive provinces such as Mosul illustrated the overall deterioration in security.
• It said more than 470,000 Iraqis had fled their homes and now claim refuge within Iraq since the February bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra that prompted a surge in violence. Many more do not register or have fled the country altogether.
• A roadside bomb followed by a blast from a motorcycle rigged with explosives killed 15 people and wounded 70 near a Sunni mosque in central Baghdad on Tuesday, an interior ministry source said. Two more bombs in the capital killed 10 people.
• University students were among the dead in a car bombing that killed 10 people and wounded 25.

The violence is showing no signs of abating in the wake of Bush's proposed escalation ("surge" and "augmentation" do not appear in the Army's dictionary of military terms) and the botched hanging of two more of Saddam Hussein's aids.

This is a civil war, and therefore it is impossible for us to "win" so what the fuck are we doing? It's surreal to me that we are not only staying mired in Iraq, but the president stubbornly - stupidly - insists on escalating the numbers of troops involved, at the expense of the war in Afghanistan.

This is wrong, people, and it's up to us - the literal you and the literal me - to do something about it. It's our country, and I want it back. Have you written your congressional delegation to express your outrage?

What are your plans for Saturday, January 27th? Can you get to Washington? If there is any way in hell you can get to Washington D.C. to take part in the protest, GO. If not, participate in a local rally. Write letters to the editor like the three people in the post below did. We can't be silent, we have to act.

Now is the time to stand up.

I'm Underwhelmed

Remember when the mission was accomplished? Hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, thousands of dead Americans, one live dictator and a civil war ago?

Ah, the good ole days.

The president just addressed the nation from the White House library. He needed to offer a healthy dose of reality and determination, and he needed to offer specifics and accept responsibility. He didn't pull off the first two at all; and he only hinted at the last two. For instance - specifics - here are his "specifics" for restoring security to Baghdad.

1. Clear and secure neighborhoods.
2. Help and protect the Iraqi people.
3. Train Iraqi security forces.
4. Increase Activity against Iranian actors.
5. Increase naval strength in the Gulf.
   

Never forget - the number of troops he calls for we have had in-country in the past, and we have always engaged in clearing and securing neighborhoods, and we have always (supposedly) held as part of the mission assisting the Iraqi people, and we have been trying to train Iraqi security personnel since day one, so I didn't hear anything new and inspiring that would lead me to believe that this time it will work! This time for sure! We have been engaging Iran, in case you didn't know, and for the first time in my life all seven Carrier Strike Groups are at sea...But they have been since late last summer. For the first time ever, all are in the east and middle east.

Interesting times indeed.

There were two things that deeply disturbed me in the choice of words his PNAC-lovin' speechwriters went with. It really sounded like he was taking sides in the civil war. The Saudi's can't be happy right now. Bet you cash money Bandar is on his way to Washington right this very minute. He probably watched the speech from the runway in his private luxury jet, and they started to taxi the second those words were spoken.

I also noticed that he didn't metion that troops will be pulled from Afghanistan and repositioned in Iraq. He did say something about the brave men and women who freed Afghanistan from the grip of the terrorists, and we couldn't let them re-group in Iraq.

Newsflash! They have regrouped and they are re-emerging in Afghanistan. So apparently the terrorists can have Afghanistan, but hands off Iraq...

Oh yeah - the oil's in Iraq.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Taking out Abu Mussab al Zarqawi was supposed to quell the unrest and violence in the strategically important Diyala province north of Baghdad. The area was turned over to the Iraqi security forces and American troops fell back to Baghdad for weeks at a time. The security situation did not improve.

Instead, security has collapsed in Diyala province, which now ranks as one of Iraq's most troubled regions. Insurgent attacks have more than doubled in the last year. Violence has devastated the provincial police force and brought reconstruction to a virtual standstill.

Assassinations have claimed the lives of mayors, tribal chieftains, police officials and judges, including a Shiite Muslim member of the provincial council who was killed Tuesday. Many government officials here sleep on cots in their offices because driving home is too dangerous.

And Iraqi security forces have been implicated in so many abuses that the U.S. commander here recently gave his Iraqi counterpart an angry lecture, likening the Iraqi troops to an "undisciplined rabble."

Now here is my question - how long are we going to hang around, having three or more soldiers a day picked off? By the way, in case you didn't notice the pattern, the attackers are getting more deliberate - they are purposefully targeting leadership - Sergeants and Officers - look at the stats. Snipers are targeting the leaders. The war has now taken on a psychological element with an advantage that goes to the home team.

For now, insurgents here appear to have gained the upper hand. They demonstrated their freedom of movement last week by barreling a dozen trucks through the streets of Baqubah's Amin neighborhood, shouting militant slogans and brandishing machine guns and shoulder-fired rocket launchers.

The defiant show of force was similar to another insurgent parade caught on video by a U.S. aerial drone in November. Insurgents were seen hauling Shiite families out of their homes and executing them in the streets, U.S. military officials who reviewed the footage said.

Diyala province is fertile farmland and untapped oil fields and the population has traditionally been ethnically diverse and congenial. Until now. Now, the ethnic strife of sectarian violence is tearing at the fabric of the society; the only common ground is hatred of Americans.

Now the American forces are faced with returning to Diyala province to quell an uprising and restore some semblance of order. Except now the insurgency is emboldened and entrenched. The Americans are in the open, the insurgents are in the shadows and getting stronger and more adept every day. Keeping one's enemy in a constant state of aggravation is a victory in it's own right, and the insurgents have definitely succeeded in keeping the American forces in a state of anxiety and tension.

Occupiers always leave, so can we just get on with it already and make with the diplomacy?

Bug Hunt

Is this gonna be a stand-up fight, Sir, or is this gonna be another bug hunt? ---Pvt. Hudson, Aliens

What the president misled the country into isn't a stand-up fight. It's a bug-hunt.

A year ago the president was promising that by the end of 2006 troops would be withdrawing from Iraq. The mission, such as it has never actually been defined except as ...to win, that's the mission, was supposed to evolve to focus on high-level specific strike operations against high level terrorist targets.

A year later the meme seems to be "Well gee, we had a splendid plan, but those Iraqi's just cocked it all up by insisting on having a civil war!" Guess what, neocons? We tried to tell you that when you toppled the dictator the artificial construct that was Iraq would implode and a power vacuum would suck the civil out of the cradle of civilization.

Pardon me if I don't get on board and feel sorry for the president because his shiny "plan" got broken and didn't work. He had plenty of people making accurate predictions and he chose to ignore those of us who have been proven to be right.

Hell, he's still insisting Saddam was a threat, for crying out loud!

Now the president wants a troop buildup and an escalation of hostilities.

He wants to send an additional 25,000 troops to Iraq, bringing troop levels back to about 165,000. When we say we are sending 25,000 troops, that means that there will be approximately 8,000 more ground pounders and the rest support personnel.

It's too little too late. How will this make a difference when we knew going in that it would take 400,000 to hold the country and it would probably still have devolved to something resembling chaos?

The U.S. troops are sitting ducks in the middle of a civil war. The only thing the warring factions have in common? They all hate the Americans. The people killing Americans are elusive. They have the home-field advantage and they can set an IED or fire a shot from a sniper nest, and immediately fade into the population, unnoticed.

The violence against Americans is ratcheting upward. December was the bloodiest month of the bloodiest year and it only looks to get worse.

I am so sick of people spinning the casualties as not so bad because other conflicts have been worse. The nature of warfare has changed and this conflict has very little in common with conflicts of the past. For starters, this conflict is staged from bases and the troops are not sleeping in foxholes. This is a largely urban guerrilla war and the comparisons they offer have not been. The troops have body armor that saves a lot of lives that would have been lost otherwise - just like antibiotics did in World War II. The number of troops engaged in theater are a lot less than they were in those other conflicts too, by the way - Vietnam had over a half million American troops in-country at the height of hostilities.

In other words, when someone plays down the numbers, they are actually engaging in a little bit of intellectual dishonesty by setting up what is known as a false equivalency.

It's like when they say that more military personnel died on Clinton's watch - they take all numbers of troop demise under the Clinton administration - natural causes, accidents, off-base bar-fights, and they make a bar-graph. Then they do the same with the Iraq war and say "See? That awful Clinton killed more troops than Bush!" It is, of course, bullshit. If you put those same numbers with the war casualties, the Bush graph would tower over the Clinton graph, but that wouldn't serve their purposes.

If anyone thinks the Republicans have been chastened i have a bridge to sell you. They will keep engaging in the soft duplicity of false equivalencies, and it is up to us to expose them for what they are.

Riverbend's year-end wrap-up from Baghdad

Every time she posts, I weep.

Regional Conflict?

Are we headed for a regional conflict in the middle east? The magic 8-ball says it's possible. Remember that Cheney was summoned to Riyahd by King Abdullah a month ago, where the Saudi Royal was not told to go fuck himself as he informed Vice that the House of Saud would throw their support behind the Sunni's in Iraq if the United States pulled out of Iraq before the Sauds are ready for the United States to go.

The United States has been engaging Iran "below the CNN line" for several years. We had barely toppled Saddam when the first American commandos were sent across the border into Iran, snooping for nukes.

The Kurdish areas of Iraq have been a staging ground for Kurdish paramilitaries to train and group and cross the border into the Kurdish areas of Iran and ambush Republican Guard troops.

The United States has been accused of shooting down Iranian aircraft on at least two occasions, killing Republican Guard soldiers.

Now, we learn that the United States has captured Iranian operatives inside Iraq, and they stand accused of plotting attacks against Iraqi security forces. It is - or at least should be - a major embarrasment to the Bush administration that

at least two of the Iranians were in this country on an invitation extended by Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, during a visit to Tehran earlier this month. It was particularly awkward for the Iraqis that one of the raids took place in the Baghdad compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite leaders, who traveled to Washington three weeks ago to meet President Bush.

Okay - get your programs out folks. We have the Wahabbist Sunni Saudi's summoning Vice so they can, in person, threaten to fund and materially support the Sunni insurgents in Iraq. We have a Shi'ite dominated government in Iraq that snuck off into the bedroom with Iran and we hear moaning sounds coming down the hallway. We catch Iranian fomenters of violence who are in the country at the invitation of the president in the compound of a Shi'ite power-broker who was less than three weeks ago a guest of the US president at the White House.

When we consider the stability of the region, we have to consider the refugees who have fled the violence of Iraq - about 1.5 million - and relocated to Syria and Jordan, where they are affecting the social fabric of their foster cities.

An overall picture of stability int he cradle of civilization is not inspiring. Syria and Jordan are being internally compromized because they have absorbed many more Iraqi refugees than the social fabric of those countries can bear. (You only think the US has immigration problems!) Then you have your Iranians backing Shi'ite militias and most likely death squads, too. Throw in the threat by the Saudi's to fund the Sunni insurgents that are giving US forces in Iraq fits, and you have four countries with common borders to Iraq that are directly affected by or getting directly involved in the Iraqi Civil War.

And the saddest part of the whole thing is, some of us tried to tell them this would happen, and we cited our sources. We weren't merely dismissed, we were scorned. Those of us who opposed the invasion for months before it was launched were called traitors - and worse. Hatred was fostered by pro-war politicians and their operatives that branded political opponents as the enemy.

The United States went to war on false pretenses at the whim of an idiot child. And the results we see? A treasury going broke, an Army that's broken, three thousand dead Americans, ten thousand wounded and unable to return to service, and an economically vital region of the world on the precipice of regional warfare.

Now I ask once more, and think carefully before you answer: Was toppling Saddam worth any of this?

"...this war we find ourselves in"

Did anyone else catch that? Did that fucking idiot really say that? The feckless fool who started this clusterfuck, in a speech last week actually said that. Talk about ducking ones responsibility!

Let's refresh, shall we? We didn't wake up one morning and find that while we slept, our forces had been magically transported to the desert of Iraq and enchanted by an evil Vizeer to make war. We are not losing a war in Iraq due to circumstances beyond our control; we are there because of a hard-on for Saddam that the "Decider" has been sporting since 1991. We are there because we have a frat-boy punk in the oval office who has never felt he measured up to his daddy; and had to start a war to prove to the entire world that he indeed couldn't measure up to his one-term-wonder daddy.

Just so no one forgets, it is absolutely not "this war we find ourselves in". It is, instead, this ill-advised pissing contest that was started by a fucking moron with small-man complex.

Let's recap the week so far

Today is Thursday, which means that tomorrow is news-dump day, and the closer to 5:00 p.m. the better from the administrations position.

Let's recap the week thus far, shall we? It started with Darth Cheney being summoned to Riyahd by the Saudi royals. They are less than pleased with the war raging in Iraq. And the Wahabist Sunni Saudi's are less than pleased at the goings-on next door in Iraq and the instability that is being fomented in the region. Those 17 Saudi hijackers were not only angry at America, people. The Saudi's know that, but they are banking on the American public not being able to cypher.

Meantime, Dear Leader had a grand get-together cooked up with al-Maliki in Amman, but then Moqtada al-Sadr informed al-Maliki that if he went to the meeting with Bush, the Sadr faction would pull out of Parlaiment and collapse the government. Since they are the largest faction, hiolding 32 seats, they could do it easily.

This left George explaining how he hadn't been stood up for the prom. It wasn't a trilateral meeting afterall, it was a bilateral meeting with Bush and King Abdulluh of Jordan. Iraq was merely a topic discussed in brief.

Thirty thousand troops are being pulled from the violence of Anbar to Baghdad in an effort to quell the violence there and delay the inevitable Fall of Baghdad.

Oh - and Colin Powell - remember him at the U.N. selling this used Gremlin to the nation? He is saying George is wrong and Iraq is in a civil war.

You're doin' a heckuva job, Bushie...A heckuva job.

Shades of Amara

A little over a month ago, militias ran amok in Amara and showed the world that the coallition forces really don't have much control or say in how the hand plays out, and if Sadr want's chaos, chaos will ensue.

Today, we learned that Baqouba has been shut down, due to fierce fighting between insurgents and coallition forces. Schools and stores are closed, streets are deserted and violence flares.

And more and more, the U.S. military is repositioning to Baghdad, in an effort to quell the violence and prop up the nascent government. God damnit I can't help but see a Fall of Saigon moment and one last huey off of a rooftop in the green zone. I see the green zone over run. I see chaos and plunder and gory bloody death in the cradle of civilization. I hope I'm just paranoid and wrong. I also hope I get a pony for Christmas.

We have been there longer than we were involved in World War II. We have spent nearly $350 Billion dollars, and what have we accomplished? The conviction of a dictator in a show-trial and a sectarian civil war in a formerly stable and secular arab country, whether the president says we can call it that or not?

I'm glad I have finals to take my mind off this madness and I am glad I'm iced in. As long as I can make coffee and study, I'll eventually get my head around how fucked up everything is and get back on the horse. But right now, pardon me while I descend into a brown study. As a wise man once said, "Look what the Decider decided to do."

Unlivable

According to the Iraqi Ministry of Health, 150,000 Iraqi civillians have perished due to violence in the civil war that has torn that nation asunder since the coalition backed invasion of that country in March of 2003.

That official number puts the lie to the criticisms of the Lancet study, now doesn't it? With 150,000 confirmed civillian deaths due to violence, 650,000 overall excess deaths since the invasion doesn't seem so far fetched after all. (I told you so.)


For every fatality, three are seriously injured. These are the very real effects caused by the military action undertaken by the United States in your name. Yes, Saddam was a brute. But the country was not mired in civil war and sectarian violence. The place wasn't a huge terrorist training camp that had been ethnically cleansed of the educated and secular, mostly Sunni, middle and professional classes.

The war in Iraq is a human catastrophe of tremendous proportions. There is no easy out. We have options that are bad, worse and catastrophic. We have no good ones. We also have some bitter truths to accept. Chief among these bitter truths: When we invaded Iraq, we played right into the hands of the Mullahs in Tehran. The Iran-Iraq war of the 80's ended, but it was not won. Not until the United States invaded Iraq, anyway; we toppled the one power in the region that kept the Iranian regime in check and emboldened the Shi'ite majority to start extracting revenge against the Sunni minority that had ruled the country since independence.

The Iraq war let a big angry Genie out of his bottle. It also put the largest oil reserves on the planet outside Saudi Arabia under Shia feet and Shia control.

Somebody didn't take their logic problems to their conclusions, and the unconsidereds have proven deadly...To 650,000 Iraqis and the United States Constitution.

Who still thinks it's been worth it?

And how the hell do we get out?

Bad...and getting worse

Two weeks ago, United States Central Command (CENTCOM) prepared a classified report that verifies what has been suspected for quite some time...Iraq is a mess, and it is spiraling into chaos and civil war.
The chart on the left is the same one shown to top military personnel at the 18 October briefing. It provides a look behind the curtain, into how the military command views the war, the trajectory it is following and the sectarian violence.

Clearly, if it was not a civil war before, it is now, and the turning point was the bombing of the Shi'ite shrine in Sammara in February. The CENTCOM briefing calls attention to several factors that influence life in the failed state of Iraq; the innefectual police force, the absence of moderate religious leaders, and the flight of secular educated professionals from the country. Normally, such a briefing would concentrate on the troop strength and weapons systems the enemy controls and the territory held by both sides.

But this situationis far from "normal" and other factors must be considered if any valid understanding is to be garnered. The report prepared for this briefing considers "hostile rhetoric" from political and religious leaders, as well as militia activity, assassinations and spontaneous civil uprisings.

I said yesterday that officers are rethinking the mission that has been thrust upon them. Now it is official.

More reasons they want you to think about anything but Iraq before you vote

Iraq is no longer a staging area for democracy in the middle east. It isn't even likely that the country can be held. The United States now faces withdrawing to the Green Zone and the hardened bases.

Instead of thinking about what to do in Iraq, think about what Tehran doesn't want to happen in Iraq, and then take action to bring those things about. It must be considered that the U.S. focus on holding Baghdad could play directly into Tehran's long range plans.

First off, Iran would naturally favor a Baghdad-at-all-cost strategy from the Americans for four very good reasons: For starters, if Baghdad takes all the focus and energy of the United States and coalition forces; the Kurdish, Shia and Sunni regions might be afforded the opportunity to break away from the central government in Baghdad.

Second, if Baghdad is the primary focus, Tehran could get to sit back and watch their long-term adversaries - Sunnis, Kurds and Americans - tear into one another while the Iranians do absolutely nothing and take no risks. Among other precipitating events, any attempt by the Kurds to take Kirkuk away from Iraq's Sunnis, which Iran encourages and the US does not oppose, would immediately ignite a civil war in Baghdad.

Third, with coalition forces concentrated in Bahhdad, they will be hundreds of kilometers away from Basra and other Iraqi exit points. All supplies for US forces would come through territory that increasingly would come under Iranian control. In a word, US forces would be trapped in Baghdad with no clear exit strategy. Baghdad is not Beirut, where US forces could be picked up on the beaches.

Finally, the US would take a huge number of casualties in sustained urban combat in Baghdad, to Iran's delight. The United States could face having no chance of prevailing in Baghdad and preserving Baghdad intact as Iraq's capital, given the potential for all out war between al-Qae'da's Sunnis, Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army of Shia, and the Sunni Kurds. This is because the Battle of Baghdad would soon become an exact replica of the Battle of Algiers, and we all know how that movie ended. France lost.