Comments on Informed Comment: 2 US Troops Killed; 42 Shiites Kidnapped; Weddin...

They Shoot Unarmed Women Don't They?Tonight on New...

2006-11-03T21:25:00.000-05:00

They Shoot Unarmed Women Don't They?

Tonight on NewsHour:

The IDF trapped alleged "gunmen" in a Mosque who alerted the women of the village.

The women streamed to the mosque in a Ghandi-esque confrontation with the Oppressor. The Israelis killed two.

The women fled but quickly returned streaming over the 20 foot p9les of dirt that the IDF ahad erected.

The IDF were dumfounded as the women ran into the mosque.

The alleged gunmen escaped.

This recalls for me a conversation I had with an Israeli undergrad exchange student recently. She now back home in a kibbutz is a big advocate of just these sort of tactics, non-violent, like Ghandi

"If the Palestinians would all burn their Israel ID cards, the Occupation would fall apart. The IDF controls by fear. They don't have enough soldiers or enough will to deal with civil disobedience"

I told her "Yeah but who is going to be the first Palestinian willing to get shot at one of those checkpoints"

"That's what it takes. But when it happens, the whole thing will fall apart"

Could it be that the Bush supremacists are expecti...

2006-11-02T10:05:00.000-05:00

Could it be that the Bush supremacists are expecting to install a new model of Saddam-like Sunni dicatatorship with permanent US bases to protect and guide it?

Yeah, wardog, I think that's exactly the plan du jour.

Remember the good old days of March 2005 when Sunn...

2006-11-02T04:26:00.000-05:00

Remember the good old days of March 2005 when Sunni groups condemned the bombing of a Shia funeral?

What happened since then that's making nobody come forward in that manner? Or am I not looking in the right place and there are condemnations from Iraqi Sunni politicians. (There probably are, due to the various groups, but I don't see coverage on this blog).

I read over your blog, and i found it inquisitive....

2006-11-02T03:44:00.000-05:00

I read over your blog, and i found it inquisitive.Very good information.
My name is Mark Johnson, and I've been visiting Informed Comment for last six months.
I’m a recent UC Berkeley Political science grad and I along with some fellow Princeton alums have been working hard to launch our own internet startup called Rizzleweb.com.
Rizzleweb is basically an online political community where people can log on and write performance reviews\comments for congressmen, senators, the president, and various other local and state officials across the country. I was hoping that if it would not be too much trouble you could place a link of our site on your blog. If this is not possible (which we completely understand), we still hope you will check out our site, and post some reviews.
Your contribution will encourage us to put more effort in improving our website.
Mark Johnson
www.Rizzleweb.com
markjohnson2020@hotmail.com

Middle East Sports are ComplicatedI've been trying...

2006-11-01T13:59:00.000-05:00

Middle East Sports are Complicated

I've been trying to imagine the Iraq situation as a football game.
Start with Shia on one side of the ball and Sunnis on the other. The Yanks are the Officials.
Embedded in both side are thugs and murderers who from time to time shoot somebody in the huddle or go into the stands and kidnap a prominent son or daughter then demand a first down as payment.
Also playing are a few Jihadists who plant explosives in the football just when one side appears poised to score. They to date have been so efficient that the goal line areas have all but disappeared.
The field is surrounded by US tanks because the stands empty in violent protest after every close call brings cries of favoritism.
The Mullahs of course declared a fatwa regarding the use of the good ol' pigskin which was particularly dicey but had the cheering side effect of seeing all participants line up on the same side for a mercurial moment.
The part of the game that is most dispiriting however are the cheerleaders. First of all there are three hundred and six different cheerleader contingents representing the religious, familial and tribal loyalties with feuding interests. Then there's the fact that they're entirely covered which gives one the sense of how oxy-islamic the whole concept of organized competition truly is.
Then the stands keep disintegrating, which requires additional kickbacks to Haliburton and KBR who have all the concessions.
Well, to quote Rummy, it's complicated.
(add your dream team comments here)

Both the Sunni and the Shiite are using harsh sect...

2006-11-01T13:49:00.000-05:00

Both the Sunni and the Shiite are using harsh sectarian tactics to alter the demography (and therefore political balance of power) in Iraq. You could argue that very divisive elections, voted on sectarian lines, further encouraged these violent power grabs. The tactics of Zarqawi and others were a major motivation as well. As was tremendously deep history.

Does anyone wish to comment on the motives of the ...

2006-11-01T11:34:00.000-05:00

Does anyone wish to comment on the motives of the occupying power in permitting this strangulation of the Shia? Could it be that the Bush supremacists are expecting to install a new model of Saddam-like Sunni dicatatorship with permanent US bases to protect and guide it?

It is a Pollyanna, idealistic view to think that t...

2006-11-01T10:37:00.000-05:00

It is a Pollyanna, idealistic view to think that the people who work for the government are at least as intelligent as you are and are at least as educated so that, given their access to resources and knowledge far beyond your own means, they will more often than not do a better job at whatever they do than you would do if you had their job.
The last 6 years have steadily undercut such expectations. Dorrance Smith, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, in a Letter to the Editor in the 11/06/06 issue of US News & World Report tries to refute the Lancet report by quoting Micheal E. O'Hanlon, an expert on Iraqi policy at the Brookings Institute, "I do not believe the new numbers. I think they're way off". (It may seem so in some university departmental meetings but statistics are not a religion and to simply believe numbers are way off as an article of faith hardly refutes the study in question)
His second authority is an "Iraqi blogger" (could this be Judith Miller's Iraqi scientist in a red ball cap?) who charges the study "resorted to mathematics when the statistics did not satisfy their lust for more deaths". Iraqi statisticians don't use math? Is this supposed to make sense?
It seems Smith has not read the report in question or if he has read it, he has sadly misunderstood it.
In any case, it seems Smith's job should be mine, as I could do just as well if not better.

Re the Azzaman report on the Hadley-Maliki meeting...

2006-11-01T09:16:00.000-05:00

Re the Azzaman report on the Hadley-Maliki meeting: It's true that particular article could be read as "indicating the opposition of the Bush administration to the implementation of the [federalism-procedures] law." But other Iraqi newspaper reports take a more plausible position, namely that Bush has become aware of the chaotic effects of the federalism plan, and the need to try and bring them under control, not that he has turned against the scheme. I have a summary called "Different readings of the Hadley visit" at my blog

I confess, yes, you serve a daily digest of a bala...

2006-11-01T09:11:00.000-05:00

I confess, yes, you serve a daily digest of a balanced portion of News...And gads, ya' think the WH's staff that, 'lord over' to oppress masses would feel the 'sick-to-stomack' gurgle-sensation they deserve. "NEWS" that denies reality is garbage-disposable. The sad 'piece' about children being slaughtered, should be read at breakfast-cereal-time at the WH. Wasn't it true that Dick Cheney said, some time ago, he "Wanted heads on platters?"

Telling the Truth to the greed monsters is like/same and different than walking in the beautiful autumn woods to recite poems to the trees. I'll do that today.

Who said? "If I had just this day to live, it may as well be spent in ecstacy." Today, I'll Recite Poems to the trees, it can't hurt them. Mr. Cole, thanks for the morning news. good and bad.

Shame on those Iraqi kids for disturbing our boys ...

2006-11-01T08:52:00.000-05:00

Shame on those Iraqi kids for disturbing our boys serving over there.

Allow me to point out again that the provincial co...

2006-11-01T07:23:00.000-05:00

Allow me to point out again that the provincial confederacies were not something that had to happen. They were a demand made by the Kurds and initially unpopular with everyone else. The US backed this demand as the dues it had to pay the Kurds to keep at least one large group of Iraqis non-hostile and thereby to enable a long term military presence.

Now that the Shiites are demanding the same thing, and there is no mechanism in the government to deny it now that it is the law, the US bears a lot of the responsiblity for that.

If the US tells the Kurds it does not intend to be around to protect them, so the Kurds should reconsider elements of this confederacy, the Kurds would have no choice but to listen. The failure of the US to do that today is also the responsibility of the US.

I have never seen in writing any neo-con claim that Shiites are more favorable to Israel than Sunnis. Especially since Iran is Shiite and Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are Sunni. I don't think that was ever what the neocons believed. I also don't see a big difference between neocons, retro-cons, neo-libs and retro-libs regarding Middle East policy. Bush's Middle East priorities are not dramatically different from Clinton's. Bush actually invaded, but the sanctions were on the way out and either Iraq had to be invaded or Hussein or another anti-US/Israel leader like Hussein would have won. Clinton under those circumstances would have had to strongly consider further military action himself.

The neocons believe that US-installed puppets are more favorable to Israel than leaders that rely on popular support. They also believe governments where the elected nominal leader has limited power but the US embassy calls the shots are more favorable to Israel. Until the Iraqi people voted down Chalabi then Allawi and now Maliki is striking out in independence of Khalizad they believed it was plausible that one of these favorable scenarios could occur.

There is still a question of whether Iraq in the process of being destroyed by civil war is preferable to Israel to a stable and intact but hostile Iraq.

According to Nasrallah's speech to the rally last month, the US is dividing Iraq and instigating the civil war on purpose and Israel's plan to do the same in Lebanon was thwarted by Hezbollah.

While I would not quite say the US is instigating the civil war on purpose, I will agree with Nasrallah that important elements that laid the groundwork for the civil war were put in place with the assistance of the United States. The US is also not now reversing this groundwork even though it is clear to all parties.

I'll also agree that the US does have a conflict of interests where it is occupying a country whose voters have indicated that they prefer leadership that given the chance would work against US regional interests. Now the US claims to be working to fully empower that leadership.

A link to Crude Benchmarks at Prof. Cutler's blog ...

2006-11-01T06:03:00.000-05:00

A link to Crude Benchmarks at Prof. Cutler's blog from Moon of Alabama is enlightening.

Reading between the lines of the NYTimes article that he quoted

Though American officials would describe Mr. Hadley’s talks only in the vaguest of terms... proposals now being discussed inside and outside the two governments range from how to permit greater autonomy for Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish sections of the country without splitting the country apart; how to share oil revenues among Iraq’s population; and an amnesty for those who attacked Iraqi or American troops.

Nearly a year after national elections, the Sunnis, and not just the insurgents, remain unreconciled to the loss of primacy they enjoyed for generations — and to the loss of revenue they enjoyed under Saddam Hussein. “The problem is that in 2003 the Sunnis got 70 percent of the oil, and now they are being asked to take 20 percent,” Mr. Galbraith said.

Some American experts have suggested that the Bush administration should abandon the effort to create a Western-style democracy and throw its weight behind a stronger Iraqi government. Mr. Cohen, in the Wall Street Journal article, which the White House e-mailed to reporters because it concluded that a withdrawal of American troops would be disastrous, wrote that “a junta of military modernizers might be the only hope of a country whose democratic culture is weak, whose politicians are either corrupt or incapable.” But he also highlighted the downsides of returning to a strongman government.

Iraqi newspapers have adopted the theme of a government change, speculating on the possible composition of a “national salvation government,” backed by the United States, that would wrest power from the Shiite alliance that chose Mr. Maliki for prime minister.

leaves room for Pepe Escobar's observations (Coalition of the drilling) right in the center of the Iraqi debacle.

The US is going to make a grab for Iraqi oil setting the Sunnis up under a new Sadaam as the enforcers of the deal and the protectors of the big oil rapists in return for a bigger cut of the oil revenues than they would get as the minority that they are in Iraq.

And the Demoplicans, Joseph Biden in particular, seem to be on board all the way.

Actually, Cockburn is correct way beyond the Sunni...

2006-11-01T03:38:00.000-05:00

Actually, Cockburn is correct way beyond the Sunni tactics of cutting and isolating Baghdad or Ramadi or Fallujah...

The militias, be they the Jaish Mahdi, or the Badr of SCIRI or Prime Minister Nuri Maliki's al-Dawaa al-Islamiya (who, incidentally, were foremost in the Kuwaiti coup of 1980s and the Lebanon hostage crisaes) or the Kurdi factions of Talabani or Barzani, ALL these militias are now positioning their strength muholllah by muhollah...

Iraq is becoming a ganglord state... Do you remember Afghanistan?

The "25th dimension in the Orbit of Xubaro" is a n...

2006-11-01T03:29:00.000-05:00

The "25th dimension in the Orbit of Xubaro" is a nicer place than you'd think. Set up a paper subsidiary there and you can book profits and pay an 0.05 pct tax rate, instead of the 35 pct one you incur in the US. The IRS won't even blink. It also leaves you with more funds to contribute to the re-election of hacks who keep the scheme going.