It is all in the new Greg Palast book “Armed Madhouse,” which explains everything to you if you have any outstanding questions about why we are in Iraq. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Just finshed it. No more questions. Peak oil is a myth that is supposed to explain the cartel’s price per barrel. Time for us to leave the missle east.

Best thing he could do is cut and run from press conferences.He shouldn’t make any more excuses, as he has no excuse at all.

The majority of insurgents attacking Americans are Sunni, who get support from the Sunni population (the temporary alliance in Anbar notwithstanding), yet apparently the United States can not leave because those same Sunnis will be massacred, according to the war supporters.

The future of Iraq does seem bleak.

There was a quote I read today, by a Dr. Bhaskar Dasgupta at Descrtics.org ( http://desicritics.org/2007/07/22/004750.php ):

“What is unfortunate is that the future of the country (Iraq) and its people is now either dependent on a divine miracle or on a bunch of frankly very small minded people lead by pygmies, wrapped up in obstinate ideologies and the vagaries of American/British politics. “

Genocide? Where does it mention genocide in the article at #244?

And against who? The Sunnis?
Comment by Rick — July 25, 2007 @ 1:02 pm

Yeah.
What did you think was the idea behind the police going to a street and dragging whole Sunni families at a time out of their homes to be tortured and killed.
Or militia checkpoints where a Sunni name on your ID papers determines whether you never make it home.
It ain’t a neighbourhood watch thing.

And against who? The Sunnis?

Not a good time to be a Sunni and Arab in Iraq?

Okay, the Sunni part is, I would hope, referring to the Sunni insurgents. I would hate to think the author meant Sunnis in general.

Comment by Rick — July 25, 2007 @ 1:00 am

What are you not understanding about the word “genocide” ?

“[u]p to 592 unidentified bodies were found dumped in different parts of Baghdad“:

Most of the bodies found by the police — an average of 20 a day — are bound, blindfolded and shot execution style, victims of sectarian violence carried out by both Sunni and Shi’ite death squads

See this is why the Lancet estimates look like complete bullshit.

Even those Iraqis killed on orders by the heads of government departments or still wearing police handcuffs to go with their police issued bullet wounds are dumped in public.

In terms of who’s killing people, nobody from the government, Mahdi, Sadr, Badr, Sunni militants all the way down to al Qaeda and ISI aren’t shy about dropping bodies in public. Nobody.
This is in fact the express purpose in leaving them in public, so that they are found.

Yet the Lancet figures suggest for every 1 body found there are 9 that are not.
Presumably killed by someone other than those who are doing the opposite of what you see here and in every news report you’ve ever seen about Iraq.

Because after all, there is no news report yet that mentions those killings. No family member either for that matter. For every body you hear about killed by someone, Lancet tells you there’s 9 killed by an unknown “other” who’s so crafty that not only are the dead bodies never discovered, apparently the missing family members aren’t either.

Buy that do you ?
Pulitzer prize waiting right there.
Seymour Hersh won one for simply reporting that Mai Lai happened. That was a couple of hundred people. Can you imagine if his story was instead that out of the 3 million Vietnamese killed, that Malaysians killed 2.7million and he was the first guy on the planet to notice ?

Nobody on the planet want to claim it ? No ?
For revealing that the Iraq you know about and the known mass murderers at work are absolute pussies compared to this as yet unidentified “other” cause resulting in 9 times the amount of violent deaths than all known causes combined.

Yeah, there’s a reason for that.
Fiction and Reporting are 2 totally separate categories in the Pulitzer prize and they get kind of pissy if you pass one off as the other.

Or an American!

I found out that the title of the article at 244 is “Not A Good Time To Be Sunni And Arab In Iraq” at Strategy Page.

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iraq/articles/20070724.aspx

Not a good time to be a Sunni and Arab in Iraq?

Okay, the Sunni part is, I would hope, referring to the Sunni insurgents. I would hate to think the author meant Sunnis in general. But I have seen some reports that US forces are fighting Shia militiamen.
So apparently it’s not a good time to be either a Shia or Sunni in Iraq. Which leaves, what, the Sufis?

And it’s also not a good time to be an Arab, in an Arab country?

Now I’m no editor, but wouldn’t a better title have been “Not A Good Time To Be An Insurgent In Iraq”? Just a suggestion.

Comment by Frank J — July 24, 2007 @ 11:51 pm

Reminiscent of David Brooks, admitted puller of numbers out of thin air.
Welcome to fantasy land!

What most of the troops, and Iraqi civilians, notice is the lower level of violence. Since the surge offensive began four months ago, Iraqi (military and civilian) deaths have declined by more than 50 percent, and American casualties are down by over a third. U.S. troops are still taking the lead in moving into hostile areas, and being exposed to ambush and IEDs. But U.S. tactics and training have made enemy efforts much less lethal. This has helped demoralize an increasing number of terrorists. Many are tired of killing Iraqi civilians, and the increasing difficulty at getting at American troops. Look at this from the Iraqi perspective. In a very good month, Iraqis make a hundred or more attacks a day on American troops, and kill, on average, about four of them. While the terrorists make a big deal out of every American killed, they know that most of their attacks were not only failures, but got a lot of their buddies killed. On average, 10-20 terrorists die for every American killed. This has been going on for years, and an increasing number of Iraqi fighters are demoralized and quitting. Many either become informers, or surrender and speak freely. This is resulting in fresher intelligence, and raids that are catching terrorist cells preparing for operations, and in possession of weapons, bombs and incriminating documents.

Well, good.

Since republicans WON both the last elections – and Bush CLEARLY
won – then it matters not that only 30% of the population supports
him – he only has to please them. :)

He is the father figure, the protector – the tough man’s man
and he is the UNITARY EXECUTIVE – and what he says goes
deal with it.

If a lib challenges me – or provides links to facts – I will simply
refuse to directly respond to said facts – and just repeat the
vaunted phrase-of-the day that I heard Rush say this morning.
or was it Hannity.

Great reads if you get the chance.

The planning of that mission was problematic, as the late Colonel Beckwith and Orr Kelly pointed out in their books.
The United States at the time lacked a unified SpecOps capability (due to the inservices continual animosity towards “joint operations”), and so the operation had to be put together piecemeal.

While the mission failed due to these shortcomings, it did lead to the creation of the joint Special Operations Command, as well as improved training and techniques for future operations.

Which was worse: that or the illegal sale of massive amounts of weaponry to the terrorist state of Iran?

Our current administration has 101 constitutional violations.

Notes of meetings during Iran-Contra said “this is impeachable if it gets out”.

Funny you say that, a certain wife of a certain dem president said the same thing under oath when questioned about strange activities dealing with ‘Whitewater’.