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I really think that someone has been massively aerosol spraying the ‘Mission Accomplished’ meme all over the western media. Newsflash bitches: Iraq is still broken and not getting better.
“At least four people have been killed and dozens wounded in a bombing at the provincial government building in the Iraqi city of Ramadi.
Police sources told Al Jazeera that a female suicide bomber entered the deputy governor’s office and blew herself up.”
I am thinking that people blowing themselves up in your parliament buildings is not usually a sign of peaceable progress toward a democratic state.
“More than 20 people were wounded in the blast.
“At least four people were killed and 23 others wounded, including women and children, by a female suicide bomber at the entrance to the provincial government building,” an interior ministry official said.”
Mission Accomplished, indeed. Is this the climate for any sort of reasonable governance to take place?
“Violence in the region has dropped from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but bombings and assassinations remain common.”
Err. No. The situation in Iraq is like trying to paint your house during a rainstorm and the only solution you can think of is using more paint.
“Many Iraqis worry that the ongoing political impasse, with no one able to form a government four months after parliamentary elections, will lead to increased violence.”
Whoa, no functioning government for four months? You think that little tidbit would be making the rounds on CNN and MSNBC. I would think that a nation’s imperialist conquests would be of utmost concern, or at least page two news once and awhile.
I really wish someone in the massive american military industrial complex had done their homework. Iraq was held together by an authoritarian secular regime that actively repressed the various cultural and religious in the region. Did they think that everyone would just kiss and make up after being repressed for so long? How would a democracy function in a society split along almost diametrically opposed religious and cultural fault lines?
Kinda like a chaotic higglety pigglety mess would be my estimation.
It will come down to this sooner or later. All the boots on the ground and drone strikes in the world will not magically solve the Afghanistan problem for the west. Unless we as the so called civilized nations of the West decide to turn Afghanistan into nuclear slag, achieving complete victory(?) will be impossible. A former British Commander in the Afghan theatre said:
“The head of the British Army says he believes talks with the Taliban should begin “pretty soon,” but that discussions shouldn’t lead insurgents to think they have an advantage.
Calling his position a “purely private view,” Gen. Sir David Richards told the BBC on Sunday that he didn’t know when talks could begin. But Richards, a former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, said, “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be looking at that sort of thing pretty soon.”
About time, in my opinion. Invading Afghanistan was pure folly in the first place, as any student of history can tell you. Even the general is getting cold feet.:
“He said in any counter-insurgency campaign, there comes “a point [at] which you start to negotiate with each other.”
Yet, we went ahead with visions of protecting democracy and fighting terrorism dancing in our heads. Yet another great imperial army has more than met its match in Afghanistan. The sooner we leave the better.
quag·mire
1.
an area of miry or boggy ground whose surface yields under the tread; a bog.
2.
a situation from which extrication is very difficult: a quagmire of financial indebtedness.
3.
anything soft or flabby.
Sometimes it is good to get back to basics when dealing with complex issues like our ongoing colonial occupation war in Afghanistan. The CBC reports:
“A dramatic increase in the number of homemade bomb attacks is part of an “alarming trend” in Afghanistan, a UN report released Saturday said.
The report to the UN Security Council said bombings and assassinations have soared in the past four months amid ramped-up military operations in the Taliban-dominated south.
The number of attacks involving improvised explosive devices increased by 94 per cent over the same period in 2009, while assassinations of Afghan officials rose by 45 per cent.
“The rise in incidents involving improvised-explosive devices constitutes an alarming trend,” the report said.
Suicide attacks occurred at a rate of about three a week, half in the restive south. Such bombings have tripled this year compared with 2009.”
Is any of this really surprising? I mean, Afghanistan is the anvil on which Imperial armies go to be smashed. It has happened before, and will happen again. So why is Canada still there? Are we really preserving freedom and democracy? Fighting terror? It is all rather nebulous.
“Nevertheless, the UN found the number of security incidents had “increased significantly compared to previous years,” in large part because of more military operations in the south early this year. NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz told reporters in the capital on Saturday that despite negative assessments, the international force was making steady strides.
“Tough fighting is expected to continue, but the situation is trending in our favour as more forces flow into the area,” Blotz said.
“It has to be tougher perhaps before it goes easier,” Blotz said.”
I think the only statement that contains a grain of truth is Blotz’s final one. It will get tougher and I highly doubt it will get easier as time passes.
Canada’s military commitment in Afghanistan ends in 2011. Not a moment too soon.
Iraq has dropped off of the news cycle in North America. We’re finished with the whole thing. The American presence in Iraq is still costing billions of dollars and hundreds of innocent lives on the ground. A shaky measure of stability has been achieved but nothing resembling a stable safe nation has yet been established.
“A suicide car bomber has killed at least four policemen and injured 10 outside a police station in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, an official in the interior ministry has said.
The attacker drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a gathering of police during a shift change at a station in the mainly Shia Amil district, in the southwestern area of Baghdad, the source said on Sunday.
This is the latest in a series of attacks on official buildings, including those to do with crime and punishment.”
Iraq is now fractured along sectarian lines. Bombings, shootings, kidnappings are all par for the course in America’s hub of Freedom and Democracy in the middle east. I’m thinking though that the oil is now flowing into the correct hands and the correct people are now in power. The people of Iraq can now squabble and kill each other as much as their inane religion dictates them to do because it will not effect the important people in Iraq.
A map depicting levels of military spending.
Grabbed from Worldmapper.org – many neat maps to look at there if you have the time.
Bringing aid to starving people, a crime according to Israel.
The black hole that is Middle East coverage had better not suck this particular story down its greedy maw. Israel can pretty much murder at will in the occupied territories and international media will give them a pass. The media had better not slink to its usual spineless standards when Israeli commandos board a ship laden with humanitarian aid and kill nine innocent people. It just had better not happen. The CBC and Al-Jazeera report:
“Netanyahu said the Israeli soldiers had boarded one of the floatilla’s six ships to check it for weapons when they were attacked by activists with knives and clubs.
“They literally attacked the first soldiers on the ship, they were mobbed,” Netanyahu said in Ottawa, where he was meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “They were clubbed, they were beaten, stabbed, there was even a report of gunfire.
“And our soldiers had to defend themselves, defend their lives or they would have been killed,” he said.”
Ah yes, the favourite method of denying culpability. We were only acting in self-defence. Bullshit. You boarded a ship with no probable cause ,in international waters no less, and in the ruckus YOU caused had to respond with deadly force and kill nine innocent people. Wake up you murderous bastards, this is not the occupied territories where you can kill on a whim.
“The aid convoy was organized in part by the Free Gaza Movement, an international group of pro-Palestinian activists that claims the Gaza blockade is a violation of international law.
Audrey Bomse, the legal co-ordinator for the Free Gaza Movement, called claims the passengers had planned to provoke the soldiers “absurd.”
“It was clearly an attack — probably a premeditated attack — by Israel upon civilians,” she told CBC News.
“These are supposed to be crack military forces. I can only assume that they wanted to intimidate people from doing this in the future.”
Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian government spokesman, said the government “condemns the brutality in which the Israeli government treated this peaceful attempt to break the siege on Gaza.”
Absolutely. The World should be in an uproar about this gross violation of international law. Some are already taking steps:
“The United Nations Security Council was to meet on Monday afternoon for an emergency session to discuss the matter.
Turkey, Spain, Greece, Denmark and Sweden have all summoned the Israeli ambassadors in their respective countries to protest against the assault.”
There are mass protests in Turkey over the murder of its citizens in international waters:
Protesters take part in a demonstration at About 10,000 people gathered in the Turkish capital to protest Israel's military assault on a convoy of six aid ships. (Thanassis Stavrakis/Associated Press)
I am outraged at the audacity of Israel and the spineless response of our Western leaders.
Harper:
“Canada deeply regrets this action, the loss of life and the injuries that have occurred and obviously we’ll be looking in the days that follow to get all the information we can get to find out exactly what has transpired,” Harper said following a meeting with Netanyahu.
Obama:
Obama expressed “deep regret at the loss of life in today’s incident and concern for the wounded,” according to a White House statement. He also expressed “the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances” surrounding the event, it said.
If this had been Iran boarding a ship in International waters and killing people, it would have been like World War 3 had just started. Instead we get this jellyfish piffle of mindless palavers. Inexcusable.
Intransigentia has also written cogently on this topic, catch up with her here.
Sorry son, we cannot let the terrorists win.
The illegal and unjust occupation of Palestine continues on as usual. The Israelis, under the pretense, of security are withhold vital supplies and services from the people of the Gaza Strip. However, and aid convey dispatched from Turkey aims to break the illegal siege with a shipment of humanitarian aid. Al Jazeera reports:
“The biggest attempt by international aid groups to break the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip has gotten underway.
Nine ships under the banner, Freedom Flotilla, began their journey to Gaza on Saturday, despite warnings from Israel that they will be stopped for “breaching Israeli law”.
The vessels are carrying 5,000 tonnes of reconstruction materials, school supplies and medical equipment.”
Despite the virtual news blackout about the atrocities being perpetuated in Gaza people still know about the injustice and are making bold moves to stop it.
“Mohammad Sawalha, the vice president of the international committee to break the siege of Gaza, one of the organisers of the mission, told Al Jazeera that a global movement, made up of people who want to send the message that the situation in Gaza is unacceptable, was growing.
“We are trying to send a message to everybody that the situation in Gaza will not go on,” Sawalha said.
“No one can accept what is going on now in Gaza – preventing people from having the food and medicine they need. This is a crime.”
The convoy is from the UK, Ireland, Algeria, Kuwait, Greece and Turkey, and is comprised of 800 people from 50 nationalities. It is made up of three cargo ships and five passengers boats.”
The response from Israel is predictable:
“Naor Gilon, a deputy director general at the foreign ministry, said the action would be a “provocation and breach of Israeli law”.
Ah yes, law and order becomes a priority only when it serves Israeli interests. Like the US and international law, which is followed only when it mirrors imperial policy.
“Israel should not be under any illusion whatsoever that their threats or intimidation will stop us or even that their violence against us will stop us,” Huwaida Arraf, from the Free Gaza Movement, said.
Kahel Mazen, from EGESG, added: “If they [the Israelis] choose to resort to destruction and death, our mission is to try to open a window of hope for the people of Gaza.”
Quite the pickle indeed for the Israelis. Blowing up Turkish and European ships with aid for civilians will most definitely put them back on the negative press radar. What is galling is that it takes this dramatic action to evoke even the smallest of ripples in the Western media.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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