Blackwater Attacked "Not Even By a Stone"

So today the Iraqi government released it's report concluding that Blackwater fatally shot 17 people at Nisoor Square without provocation on September 16th. The Iraqi government also reports that the number injured in the shootings is 27. The spokesperson for the Iraqi government, Ali al-Dabbagh, stated that Blackwater's presence was in response to a bombing near a State Department convoy earlier a mile away, but that the convoy in the Square itself had been threatened "not even by a stone." Ali al-Dabbagh went on to classify the incident as "an intentional murder that needed to be called to account according to the law." The findings of the Iraqi government reflect similar after action reports filed by the US military, which responded to the scene. Meanwhile, the US Embassy announced today a shift in the goals of the joint US-Iraqi Commission towards establishing a blueprint with the intentions that there even are ways to ensure that US-employed mercenaries "do not endanger public safety."

Britan will have it's troop strength to 2,500 by next spring. Brown made his announcment to day to ward off calls from political opponents for a definate time-table on withdrawal, also stating that logistics staff would be redeployed to surrounding nations, and that Britain will not guarantee to Bush to keep troops in Iraq past the end of 2008. Brown also stated that security around the south of Basra would be passed to Iraqi security forces by the end of two months time, ending Britan's combat operations in Iraq. Elsewhere, Petraeus spent the day holding a conference continuing accusations that Iran is actively destablizing the security situation in Iraq. Petraeus commented to Reuters that, "They are responsible for providing the weapons, the training, the funding and in some cases the direction for operations that have indeed killed U.S. soldiers." However, his press conference provided no evidence or declassified intelligence to support his assertions. The Iranian embassy didn't bother to comment.

Despite the public outcry in both the US and Iraqi, despite the reports coming from both the (supposedly independent) Iraqi government and from out own military, conservative commentators still cling to a candle for Blackwater. Despite of course, the enormous government malefescence that Blackwater's contracts represent, which is surprising for the supposedly fiscally responsible Republican Party. Richard Novak published a commentary in the Washington Post today containing a glaring number of inaccuracies, especially concerning the events of the attack on a Blackwater-escorted convoy of kitchen equipment in Fallujah of 2004. For one, he boldly lies that those who attacked and killed Blackwater's mercenaries wore the uniforms of Iraqi national police officers, in an attempt of conservatives to make the shooting of any uniformed Iraqi always justifiable.

Novak goes on to boldly lie that the congressional hearings of last Tuesday had not been scheduled until after the September 16th shootings, when they were in fact scheduled early last year. Novak also goes on to accuse the lawyers of the families of the Blackwater mercenaries killed in Fallujah (and the families by extension) of being more interested in a big payout than justice. As to the question of the purpose of the hearings, Novak pushes the idea that Democrats have only the right to explore questions of the Iraq War which have occured since they took control of Congress in early 2007. Such assumption is rooted of course in the de facto assumption that Blackwater is as innocent now as Novak claims it was innocent of gross misconduct in the planning of the 2004 Fallujah convoy. Novak clings to Blackwater's innocence the way some wives cling to the innocence of their cheating spouses, even when the mistress shows up at the husbands birthday party trailing her bastard children.

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troop surge, Blackwater, iraq war, iran, current events, politics, moonbat, war contractors

Going Down for the War on Terror

So today moonbat has appeared to rant about how America is loosing the war on terror. Flat out, we must be dead last. As Bush could have been dead a few days ago, when Osama Bin Laden snuck through two security checkpoints at the APEC summit in Australia. Interestingly enough, the international security community is being allowed to huffingly brush off the incident, in reality a bunch of comedians from an Aussie t.v. show "The Chaser," as proof about how "the incident fully vindicated the strength of the events security." And we, the public, seem content to let this one side, despite the fact that real terrorists, who think the same zany way as comedians do, could have easily incinerated the "leader of the capitalist world" almost six years to the anniversary of 9-11. Perhaps the next Director of National Intelligence should be selected from the writer's staff of Saturday Night Live.. as an improvement...



Elsewhere than Iraq, the real war on terror spills over into new battlegrounds, as Al-Q continues to be left relatively unmolested by the US military. White German citizens converted to Islam traveled to PAKISTAN, where they trained in camps last year run by the Islamic Jihad Union, a Central Asian group affiliated with al-Qaeda. Young white men, not Arabs or Persians or Indians or Africans, to all of you who object to airline security so much because, by the gods, you are white.

In June, the Taliban circulated a DVD among local journalists in Pakistan that purported to show a training camp graduation ceremony. Among the 250 graduates were more than a dozen white-skinned young men. One Taliban figure in the video was identified as the leader of a small group of German recruits, according to a copy of the video viewed by a Washington Post correspondent.

Wait, who are these Taliban?? Oh, they still run a whole lot of this country we supposedly have liberated from radical Islamic forces, Afghanistan, where we are now also loosing the war against international heroin. Nothing beats an Administration that can loose two wars in the same country at the same time.

Germany's arrests arrive hard on the heels of the arrests of an unrelated Islamic terrorist cell in Denmark. Two isolated cells, both of which had acquired materials to begin cooking explosives. Cheery.

The Muslims arrested ranged from 19 to 29 years old. They came from Afghan, Pakistani, Somali and Turkish backgrounds and six were Danish citizens, Scharf said.

Mmmm... why aren't they Iraqi, do you suppose? No Iranians?

Moonbat lies awake at night often thinking about terrorism. No big surprise considering that unlike a lot of hot-air baffoons, her job entails preventing them from killing innocent Americans should all those intelligence and police operatives fail to discover and stop them in time. But the time has passed for sleepless nights. The time has come for laughter. The time of employing comedians in the ranks of our intelligence agencies, and in our congressional committees has arrived. Comedians understand the mind of a terrorist. Obviously, we can't rely on the Republicans anymore. The life of our President is clearly at stake.

McCain Takes Photos, Leaves Bloodshed In Iraq

So just a few merry months ago everyone figured McCain the front runner for the Republican ticket in 2008. Till he took a little saunter in a market in Baghdad to try to fake progress in the troop surge in Iraq. McCain held a photo-op in which he mishandled the press and dodged questions on a possible invasion of Iran. McCain smiled big for the American audience and said, "things are getting better in Iraq." The next day, 21 Shia market-workers from that same market were kidnapped, tortured and murdered by Sunni insurgents provoked by his little stunt. Snipers also made an appearance to show how impressed they were with this particular candidate. McCain's definition of "improvement" entails a whole 4% drop in civilian deaths, although the insurgents should feel free to kill as many Iraqi police as they desire. America surely can find a military contractor somewhere to train more.



McCain lies about these very numbers in a conference call with con-bloggers. "One of the key elements which has given us dramatic hope is the amount of dead bodies they’re finding in the streets each morning. It’s down from 100 to as much as about 20 each day. That’s still horrible, but it’s a sign of progress." McCain also remarks on the Democratic Congress's push for a withdrawal date, that "if they want to cut off funding - fine!"


McCain defended his shopping trip with Petraeus in an op-ed to the WaPo:

"For the first time, our delegation was able to drive, not use helicopters, from the airport to downtown Baghdad.....Today the market still faces occasional sniper attacks, but it is safer than it used to be. One innovation of the new strategy is closing markets to vehicles, thereby precluding car bombs that kill so many and garner so much media attention....The new political-military strategy is beginning to show results. But most Americans are not aware because much of the media are not reporting it or devote far more attention to car bombs and mortar attacks that reveal little about the strategic direction of the war. I am not saying that bad news should not be reported or that horrific terrorist attacks are not newsworthy. But news coverage should also include evidence of progress....This is not a moment for partisan gamesmanship or for one-sided reporting."

Ah... the old, if there isn't good news, it's because the evil liberal media oppresses the good news. No good news must be a lie. Heh. For someone who claims Americans aren't getting the full picture, funny that McCain leaves out his chaperons for the day: 100 infantry soldiers, 3 Blackhawks, 2 Apache gunships and 1 bullet-proof vest. Who can say that constitutes "walking freely" through the market with a straight face?

McCain admits that he lied to Wolf Blitzer that "General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed Humvee" after he himself tooled around Baghdad in Petraeus' armored Humvees. McCain remarks that obviously there are no unarmored Humvees, as if anyone who had believed that statement was a fool, and then absolves himself by saying: "I’m trying to make the point over and over and over again that we are making progress."

McCain then linked his presidential bid to the success of the surge strategy in Iraq. Curious. Having done so, McCain then argues for patience, as the surge will take longer than Pelosi's September 2008 end to combat funds. So McCain predicts the surge will work by October '08? November 1st, 2008? Just in time to swoop him into the White House. Now that doesn't leave much of a margin for error, and certainly, should Petraeus retire early due to stomach ulcers, McCain ends up having run for two years as the champion of failure. Nowhere will you find that McCain defines what success in Iraq will look like, aside from the complete destruction of Al-Qaeda, which can be achieved in Iraq even though the U.S. military failed in that mission in Afghanistan. Sure.

Trying to look presidential after the debacle of his press conference last week, McCain gave an extended remix of his op-ed at the VMI:

I just returned from my fifth visit to Iraq. Unlike the veterans here today, I risked nothing more threatening than a hostile press corps. And my only mission was to inform my opinions with facts. We still face many difficult challenges in Iraq. That is undeniable. But we have also made, in recent weeks, measurable progress in establishing security in Baghdad and fighting al Qaeda in Anbar province.

McCain risked nothing, because the Marines who swept the market before he arrived, and the 100 infantry soldiers in a giant ring around him, they risked it all for him. Onward. Do we really want a President who decides how the situation really is and then selects those facts that support his opinion and disregards those that do not help him out? Given that such a very mindset is regarded as how the intelligence community erroneously concluded that Saddam had WMD in the first place? Yikes. Do we want a President so openly contemptuous of the American public that he chides politicians who might "take advantage of the public’s frustration" as if we were drunk women on a date whose honor was a stake. Do we?

McCain just can't help lying again, or else he's completely off his rocker:

Before I left for Iraq, I watched with regret as the House of Representatives voted to deny our troops the support necessary to carry out their new mission.....Responsible political leaders — statesmen — do not add to the burdens our troops carry. That is what Democrats, intentionally or not, have done by failing to provide them with the resources necessary to succeed in their mission. Everyday that passes without the necessary funds appropriated to sustain our troops, our chances of success in Iraq dwindle and our military readiness declines further. We have sent the best Americans among us to fight in Iraq, at the least, we must give them the tools they need to do their job.

McCain... McCain... McCain... that would be your party that has them over there right now without the tools they need to do their job. This is an emergency supplemental spending bill, which means, it's like a moneygram to the irresponsible college kid who spent his textbook money on pizza. Yeah, Bush screwed up for 4 long years, but he was your party's candidate and you were part of the majority, and you've already wasted hundreds of billions groping around in the dark. The 2007 bill passed, and the money's there for the taking, but oh my gods... Petraeus only has a year to show us what he's got. Yeah, if he's your sunshine boy there McCain, you'd think you'd show a little love. But all Petraeus gets from McCain is doubt and backpedaling. Bush asked for one more chance. No backing out now.

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Bush, Iraq, McCain, war, Iran, war on terror, politics, 2008, republican party, democratic party

War of the Worlds v. Global War on Terror

So Martians provide the best view as "completely neutral observer(s)" in deciding between Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Charles Krauthammer's blog on the question: "which is the real war?? Afghanistan remains a failed state ruled by heroin warlords riding ponies with black market weapons seven years after the U.S. dethroned the still-around-and-coming-back-in-style Taliban. Iraq remains a hotbed of Sunni insurgency and Shia paybacks, and is far and away more populated of the two. Charlie is right about one thing though... ask your Martian: Which is the more important battle? He would not even understand why you are asking the question. Iraq certain has more blood-bags per acre and it's a hell of a lot easier to bury your spaceships under the sand for a millennium of waiting to arise and chow down. Cheery.




So let's not ask then. That leaves us with the question as to why Afghanistan remains more important in the conflict of ending Al-Q style operations. Afghanistan... Al-Q training camps... Propaganda aside Charlie, Al-Q isn't in the business of running states and hasn't the infrastructure to take over Iraq. Al-Q lived in Sudan and Afghanistan because they were failed states, and so there was no dominant army to feel challenged by their armed operations. Or possess the ability to evict them. "Strategic realities" point to any failed state in which Al-Q should find sanctuary and a place to train. The only "centrality" Iraq possesses is that as an unresolved and non-uniformed conflict where eager recruits either prove their merit or get turned into dogchow. Al-Q isn't in Iraq for the view.

Fast comes the accusation that liberals point to Afghanistan because they don't have the spine needed for a real fight:

It is useful to the Democrats to claim that Afghanistan is important (to Al-Qaeda) to cover themselves when the claim is made their all a bunch of wimps when it comes to fighting a war to its conclusion.

Oh yes, because... the Republicans fought the War in Afghanistan to a conclusion? Oh wait... Bush and his cohorts proved too ditsy to fight that war to it's conclusion, and NATO had to step in and prop that war up. How are things going?

A UN Security Council report released mid-March said the number of insurgency related incidents in January 2007 was double that of the same month last year.

Meanwhile, the Taliban returns to some of it's favorite government functions by hanging men accused of being NATO spies.

What lies beyond refute is that the days of the 'war on terror' are numbered. The Republicans love the line that "we fight them over there so that we won't have to fight them here" and love to smirk in front of television cameras that since we went to Iraq, there hasn't been a terrorist attack here. Does that mean if there is one, Republicans will suddenly support withdrawal? What about the two years between 9-11 and the invasion of Iraq? And why are the Republicans suddenly abandoning the international community and it's own allies in the "coalition of the willing" who have suffered Al-Q attacks despite the occupation of Iraq? Now those are some questions that beg answers. As for calling this the "war on terror:"

Democrats allegedly saw anti-terrorism as police work. The Bush administration, by contrast, would unleash the military. Lurking behind this dichotomy was the assumption that jihadist terrorists were mainly creatures of their state sponsors. If the real threat was not terrorist networks but governments, then of course war, rather than crime, was the correct prism.

We invaded Afghanistan because they were the state sponsor of Al-Q and 9-11, or as close to that definition as anyone is going to get. Of course, that gets brushed aside as soon as conservatives seek to justify the Iraq War in terms of Al-Q. This definition is indeed doomed, since one can hardly place Iraq as the state sponsor, for all that Al-Q uses it's cities and roads as one big jungle gym. So many conservatives leap to label Iran or Syria as the new state sponsor of Al-Q, despite the sheer ridiculousness that either would share power or esteem with that dirty and homeless private army.

Ever yet ditsy, the focus of the Bush Administration has drifted away from viewing the defeat of Al-Q in Iraq as the primary focus of the occupation and to preventing the ascendancy of Iran. No longer do we remain in Iraq to contain the possibility of Al-Q taking over it's oil fields, which was laughable from the start. Now the focus of the "war on terror" is poised to become a war against a natural foe of Al-Q, despite the will and growing friendship between the Tehran and the supposedly-free one in Baghdad. Sometimes democracy gives you something you don't want: the will of the majority. Time to put this so-called "war on terror" out on the curb. And trade reactionary grandizements for progressive policy. Here comes 2008.

Technorati Tags:
war on terror, Iraq, Iran, Al-Qaeda, terrorism, GWOT, Bush, democrat, liberal, conservative, Iraq War

Asking Permission to Play Hide-and-Seek in Iraq

So today there are the bodies of three dead French nationals in Iran, killed on a desert trip by Islamic radical elements .... oh wait, those killings were in Saudi Arabia. My mistake. See, even I've been influenced by all of this Iran = Al Qaeda + 9-11 hype. Sporatic incident or a resurgence of the 2003-2004 mini-insurgency which killed more than 150+ foreigners and Saudis and about 136 Islamofacists, before the Saudis laid it down enough, though they swear it was achieved through force and not cash. All in all, couple with continued suicide bombings and sectarian violence, and the President of Iraqi in a hospital in Jordan, it makes for a queasy week over in the Territories of the Grand Western Oil Reserves. Just to cheer you up, our soldiers over in Baghdad are getting to play a wonderful game of hide and go seek. The Sunni Insurgency is making the popcorn and the Shia Militias are bringing the sodapop, so peace may yet break out. Becuase they finally have something they can both laugh at, at the same time. Cheery. Especially for the estimated 1,050 more dead city-dwellers since Feb. 1, among them the 269 kidnap-torture-execute victims who are now only unidentifiable bodies to be buried.

I thought to stop and talk a moment about how this plays out in the American political scene. In my own personal life I've faced a lot of snide remarks that Democrats want the surge to fail (merely because we estimate it will) and that we want a failed state in Iraq (although we expect the rise of a Shiite, Iran-friendly power). Rational discourse becomes next to impossible when faced with such accusations, considering that we are bound by some imposed morality not to start posting blog after blog, or ruining dinner after dinner, by saying that the Republicans only want to send troops to Iraq to cause a bloodbath or to rape Muslim virgins. I'm content with being so nice, despite the thousand little wounds inflicted by the ill-mannered. However.

Why the fury from the Democrats over this one little surge? We aren't stupid. Just the other day the McNeil Newshour reported that the National Guard is getting warnings about future deployments next year. Bush has said let me have one more try and what seems so harmful about that? Ah... he asked. So why did he ask? You all know the saying, better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Bush declared on national television to the insurgents in Iraq that he was sending them, giving them ample time to rent trucks from U-Haul and hide all their goodies, and order "Good Arab" costumes online with regular mail delivery. Bush then sent the troop surge after using the issue to hoard as many congressional working hours as possible. No wonder they can't figure out who to shoot or who's shooting back.

Yes, the Shiite militias are doing horrible things. And what happens if you do remove them, and leave an Iraq vulnerable to the rise of Sunni militarism? The Sunni are backed by al-Qaeda friendly Saudi "private charities" while the Shia are backed by the OBL-unfriendly Iran. Pick your poison. Peace in Baghdad would be nice.. in the short run. And as soon as we leave, that might in itself create the very Islamofacist state we are supposed to be trying to avoid giving birth to. Get rid of the Mahdi Army and Iran still has an interest in backing the Shia in Iraq. Different day and different faces. You will not have changed the underlying causes of the outbreak of sectarian violence.

What do I as a Democrat want? I wanted some evidence that this really would be Bush's last hurrah, the final reinforcements to Custer's Last Stand. I didn't want this sinking feeling that Bush is going to come back again with his hand out. I want to be out of Iraq before the next Presidential elections, I want Bush to finish what he started, and not to have him insist that we clean up all the messes that he has made. You know, a little responsibility? I want the Democratic leadership in Congress to set the "redeployment from Iraq" date by the simple way of saying, there will be not be funding for the War in Iraq in the 2008 military budget, so you have ten months to figure your shit out. If this is the last surge Bush really needs then ten months is by far more than he needs and certainly gracious of the American public.