The uniter has managed to get all of the US citizens, and all of the Iraqis--who were separated by "no-fly zones" prior to "Operation Iraqi Freedom", at each other throats. Why?
The article "Who's the Real Sectarian?" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082801442.html
compares Maliki's sectarian impulses with big bro 43's and states "In fact, it's easier to defend Maliki's sectarianism than it is that of the leader who blew Maliki's nation to smithereens: George W. Bush.
Maliki inherited warring factions; that's why it took five months to piece his government together before he could even take power. Bush, however, with the prompting of Karl Rove, governed with the novel theory that what America needed was political polarization. He did not reach out to Democrats in the wake of 9/11 to build a new national security consensus; indeed, he used the Iraq war, from the summer of 2002 on, to paint the Democrats as national security squishes."
We knew that since the Ottoman Empire these people were killing anyone inside or outside of their sects and it is predictably still happening. Who is the benefactor from all of W's wanton waste of our military? Iran is and their
leaders rub their hands in glee at the loss of each of our soldiers' lives and all of the money W has urinated away. W said he'd end the surge-which is really a long lasting escalation-an important fact W ignores, if the benchmarks weren't met! Well they aren't being met! Why then is he pouncing on Congress to give him another $50 billion. How dare he ask for money for foreign adventures of doom while the victims of Katrina are not cared for? The suicide rate in New Orleans is at an outrageously high 12%! Why is he forcing our troops to die when in the spring of 2008 they will have to be withdrawn due to manpower shortages-another fuzzy math fact, the "intellectually incurious" one denies.
The article "Riots at Iraqi Religious Festival Leave 28 Dead" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082800303.html
states "Riots broke out during a religious festival in the holy city of Karbala on Tuesday, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims and leaving 28 people dead, police said.....
Karbala police spokesman Raheem Imshawer said the violence in that city began after police attempted to confiscate weapons at the entrance to the area surrounding the shrines to Muhammad al-Mahdi, one of the 12 historical imams revered by many Shiites....
Iraqi television channels showed chaos erupting in the town square near the two shrines about 11 a.m., with some people firing weapons randomly while others stampeded away from the scene....
Imshawer said at least 145 people were injured in the clashes."
There must be a reason why one group of Shiites would kill another and it is familiar to all "Law and Order" fans. Someone feels another is being favored and all hell breaks loose. "Imshawer said many of the gunmen were followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, the influential cleric whose followers make up Iraq's largest Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army. Over the past several months, the group has battled the Badr Organization, a rival Shiite group, for control of southern Iraq, where the U.S. military maintains a minimal presence. The majority of police officers in the region are loyal to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the Shiite political group that controls the Badr Organization.
In the past few weeks, two provincial governors have been assassinated in southern Iraq, escalating tensions between the two militias. Both men were members of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the largest party in the Iraqi
parliament."
In a moment the Iraqi branch of NRA would love, but is devastating to us all "Many of the estimated 1 million pilgrims ignored prohibitions against carrying weapons. Muntadar al-Jabiri, a commander in the Mahdi Army, said the fighting started because other Shiites were allowed to bring guns into the city while Sadr's followers were not.
"Some of us were carrying pistols, but not all of us," Jabiri said of his 31-person group. "They were authorized pistols from Sadr's office and we had IDs to carry them. They do not respect us just because we are from the Sadr bloc."
In apparent retaliation for the sense of mistreatment in Karbala, Sadr supporters set fire to a Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council office in the Baghdad neighborhood of Kadhimiyah."
We can all relate to an eye for an eye also. The bad blood between Sadr and Hakim specifically has been brewing for years as the article "Sadr Orders 'Freeze' on Militia Actions" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/29/AR2007082900586.html
notes stating "The rival movements of Sadr and Hakim, both heirs to powerful political dynasties, have competed for Shiite supremacy for generations. Among American officials, Hakim has a reputation as a more moderate voice of the establishment, while Sadr is a firebrand and inspiration for the impoverished masses."
Nothing is clear cut in Iraq including who was responsible for the latest slaughter of Iraqis as "By official accounts, the fighting pitted government security forces against unidentified gunmen. But many people in Karbala
described it as a battle between the two main Shiite militias vying for power in southern Iraq, the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization, the armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
Officials from both groups condemned the bloodshed and denied that their fighters had taken part."
The article "Riots at Iraqi Religious Festival Leave 28 Dead" places us as the losers and the winner as Iran as "Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted at a televised news conference that the authority of the U.S. military will soon collapse in Iraq.
"The political power of the occupiers is being destroyed rapidly and very soon we will be witnessing a great power vacuum in the region," Ahmadinejad said.
"We, with the help of regional friends and the Iraqi nation, are ready to fill this void."
The article "Report Finds Little Progress On Iraq Goals" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/29/AR2007082902434.html
puts it clearly that "Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.
The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional
testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq."
Some official imitated Daniel Ellsburg as "The person who provided the draft report to The Post said it was being conveyed from a government official who feared that its pessimistic conclusions would be watered down in the final version -- as some officials have said happened with security judgments in this month's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq....
The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration."
Their goes Cheney and W cherry-picking information again! Remember The Office of Special Plans (OSP), which existed from September 2002 to June 2003 as a Pentagon unit created by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, and headed by Feith, whose role as laid out by then-U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was to supply senior Bush administration officials with raw intelligence? The people
change but the tactics stay the same with this current crowd of GOP ghouls!
Will this version of the Pentagon Papers topple another GOP wartime president? Not if the 4th estate continues shirking their responsibilities.
The person who provided the draft report to The Post said it was being conveyed from a government official who feared that its pessimistic conclusions would be watered down in the final version -- as some officials have said happened with security judgments in this month's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.
Congress requested the GAO report, along with an assessment of the Iraqi security forces by an independent commission headed by retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, to provide a basis for comparison with the administration's scorecard.
The article "As Iraq Situation Varies, Bush Sticks With Encouraging Words" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082801159.html
notes "A year ago, President Bush came before the American Legion convention and assured his audience of veterans that the early results of a plan to strengthen security in Baghdad were "encouraging." Within a few months, U.S. officials were acknowledging that the plan had collapsed and sectarian violence in Iraq was veering out of control.
Bush came before the same group Tuesday morning here and offered another upbeat message about the U.S. campaign to bring security to the country. "Our new strategy is showing results in terms of security," he said. "Our forces are in the fight all over Iraq."
On the eve of a critical administration assessment next month of military and political progress in Iraq, Bush is stepping up his case for keeping additional U.S. forces in the country. However, Democrats and Iraq experts say that Bush's proposals will face a steep hurdle because many of his predictions of success have not materialized."
The article "Who's the Real Sectarian?" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082801442.html
compares Maliki's sectarian impulses with big bro 43's and states "In fact, it's easier to defend Maliki's sectarianism than it is that of the leader who blew Maliki's nation to smithereens: George W. Bush.
Maliki inherited warring factions; that's why it took five months to piece his government together before he could even take power. Bush, however, with the prompting of Karl Rove, governed with the novel theory that what America needed was political polarization. He did not reach out to Democrats in the wake of 9/11 to build a new national security consensus; indeed, he used the Iraq war, from the summer of 2002 on, to paint the Democrats as national security squishes."
We knew that since the Ottoman Empire these people were killing anyone inside or outside of their sects and it is predictably still happening. Who is the benefactor from all of W's wanton waste of our military? Iran is and their
leaders rub their hands in glee at the loss of each of our soldiers' lives and all of the money W has urinated away. W said he'd end the surge-which is really a long lasting escalation-an important fact W ignores, if the benchmarks weren't met! Well they aren't being met! Why then is he pouncing on Congress to give him another $50 billion. How dare he ask for money for foreign adventures of doom while the victims of Katrina are not cared for? The suicide rate in New Orleans is at an outrageously high 12%! Why is he forcing our troops to die when in the spring of 2008 they will have to be withdrawn due to manpower shortages-another fuzzy math fact, the "intellectually incurious" one denies.
The article "Riots at Iraqi Religious Festival Leave 28 Dead" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082800303.html
states "Riots broke out during a religious festival in the holy city of Karbala on Tuesday, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims and leaving 28 people dead, police said.....
Karbala police spokesman Raheem Imshawer said the violence in that city began after police attempted to confiscate weapons at the entrance to the area surrounding the shrines to Muhammad al-Mahdi, one of the 12 historical imams revered by many Shiites....
Iraqi television channels showed chaos erupting in the town square near the two shrines about 11 a.m., with some people firing weapons randomly while others stampeded away from the scene....
Imshawer said at least 145 people were injured in the clashes."
In the past few weeks, two provincial governors have been assassinated in southern Iraq, escalating tensions between the two militias. Both men were members of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the largest party in the Iraqi
parliament."
In a moment the Iraqi branch of NRA would love, but is devastating to us all "Many of the estimated 1 million pilgrims ignored prohibitions against carrying weapons. Muntadar al-Jabiri, a commander in the Mahdi Army, said the fighting started because other Shiites were allowed to bring guns into the city while Sadr's followers were not.
"Some of us were carrying pistols, but not all of us," Jabiri said of his 31-person group. "They were authorized pistols from Sadr's office and we had IDs to carry them. They do not respect us just because we are from the Sadr bloc."
In apparent retaliation for the sense of mistreatment in Karbala, Sadr supporters set fire to a Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council office in the Baghdad neighborhood of Kadhimiyah."
We can all relate to an eye for an eye also. The bad blood between Sadr and Hakim specifically has been brewing for years as the article "Sadr Orders 'Freeze' on Militia Actions" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/29/AR2007082900586.html
notes stating "The rival movements of Sadr and Hakim, both heirs to powerful political dynasties, have competed for Shiite supremacy for generations. Among American officials, Hakim has a reputation as a more moderate voice of the establishment, while Sadr is a firebrand and inspiration for the impoverished masses."
Nothing is clear cut in Iraq including who was responsible for the latest slaughter of Iraqis as "By official accounts, the fighting pitted government security forces against unidentified gunmen. But many people in Karbala
described it as a battle between the two main Shiite militias vying for power in southern Iraq, the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization, the armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
Officials from both groups condemned the bloodshed and denied that their fighters had taken part."
The article "Riots at Iraqi Religious Festival Leave 28 Dead" places us as the losers and the winner as Iran as "Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted at a televised news conference that the authority of the U.S. military will soon collapse in Iraq.
"The political power of the occupiers is being destroyed rapidly and very soon we will be witnessing a great power vacuum in the region," Ahmadinejad said.
"We, with the help of regional friends and the Iraqi nation, are ready to fill this void."
The article "Report Finds Little Progress On Iraq Goals" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/29/AR2007082902434.html
puts it clearly that "Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.
The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional
testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq."
Some official imitated Daniel Ellsburg as "The person who provided the draft report to The Post said it was being conveyed from a government official who feared that its pessimistic conclusions would be watered down in the final version -- as some officials have said happened with security judgments in this month's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq....
The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration."
Their goes Cheney and W cherry-picking information again! Remember The Office of Special Plans (OSP), which existed from September 2002 to June 2003 as a Pentagon unit created by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, and headed by Feith, whose role as laid out by then-U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was to supply senior Bush administration officials with raw intelligence? The people
change but the tactics stay the same with this current crowd of GOP ghouls!
Will this version of the Pentagon Papers topple another GOP wartime president? Not if the 4th estate continues shirking their responsibilities.
The person who provided the draft report to The Post said it was being conveyed from a government official who feared that its pessimistic conclusions would be watered down in the final version -- as some officials have said happened with security judgments in this month's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.
Congress requested the GAO report, along with an assessment of the Iraqi security forces by an independent commission headed by retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, to provide a basis for comparison with the administration's scorecard.
The article "As Iraq Situation Varies, Bush Sticks With Encouraging Words" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082801159.html
notes "A year ago, President Bush came before the American Legion convention and assured his audience of veterans that the early results of a plan to strengthen security in Baghdad were "encouraging." Within a few months, U.S. officials were acknowledging that the plan had collapsed and sectarian violence in Iraq was veering out of control.
Bush came before the same group Tuesday morning here and offered another upbeat message about the U.S. campaign to bring security to the country. "Our new strategy is showing results in terms of security," he said. "Our forces are in the fight all over Iraq."
On the eve of a critical administration assessment next month of military and political progress in Iraq, Bush is stepping up his case for keeping additional U.S. forces in the country. However, Democrats and Iraq experts say that Bush's proposals will face a steep hurdle because many of his predictions of success have not materialized."
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