Shiite Workers Abducted
4 Marines Killed
The US military announced that guerrillas killed four US Marines in al-Anbar Province.
Some reports said that guerrillas abducted 85 mostly Shiite workers from a factory in a mostly Sunni district of Baghdad. Later reports by Iraqi officials said it had been 30 that were abducted, and that 25 were released. Not good news for at least 5 people, even if that narrative is correct.
16 corpses were found in the streets of the northern Sunni city of Mosul [Ar.]. Some were police or security men, others businessmen, and had likely been tagged as "collaborators" by the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement that is trying to overthrow the new government.
Gunmen in largely Sunni Zubayr north of Basra invaded a school and assassinated its principal [Ar.]. Al-Zaman says that security is collapsing again in Basra.
A car bomb in Sadr City, Shiite East Baghdad, killed 2 and wounded 14.
Another of Saddam's defense attorneys was assassinated. That tribunal, which at one time seemed as though it would be source of good news for the Bush administration, has been handled so badly that it has become nothing short of an embarrassment. Three defense lawyers killed, and one witness alleging that some of the men Saddam is alleged to have had killed at Dujail are still alive. Saddam even emerged after the February bombing of the golden dome at Samarra and the subsequent faith-based massacres between Shiite and Sunni as a voice of national unity. To give the old mass murderer the occasion to grandstand that way. It is incompetence, criminal incompetence.
Australia's economic ties with Iraq, surely among the main reasons it has troops in the country, have been imperilled by the shooting of a bodyguard of the trade minister by Australian troops.
7 Marines and a sailor were charged with the murder of an Iraqi civilian at Hamdaniyah. This case is in addition to the Haditha massacre and another murder case at Salahuddin.
Don't miss the interview given by Tom Engelhardt. Money para:
"I've always claimed that, when you read articles in the imperial press, the best way -- and I'm only half-kidding -- is back to front. Your basic front-page stories, as on the TV news, usually don't differ that much from paper to paper. It's when you get toward the ends of pieces that they really get interesting. Maybe because reporters and editors sense that nobody's paying attention but the news junkies, so things get much looser. You find tidbits the reporter's slipped in that just fall outside the frame of the expectable. That's what I go looking for. Sometimes it's like glimpsing coming attractions.
Here are a couple of tidbits I picked up deep in the Times recently.
There was an interesting front-page piece by Sabrina Tavernisi, "As Death Stalks Iraq: Middle Class Exodus Begins." After the jump, pretty deep inside, there's this line: "In all, 312 trash workers have been killed in Baghdad in the past six months." There it is: basic, good reporting that no one's going to notice or pick-up on. And yet it probably tells you just about everything you need to know about life in Baghdad today. Forget the security forces, forget top officials. Three hundred and twelve garbage men slaughtered. Holy Toledo!
So that kind of reporting, hidden but in plain sight, can start me on an Iraq piece."
The Iraq War isn't just over there. It hits home, too.
posted by Juan Cole @ 6/22/2006 12:30:00 AM
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5 Comments:
The real reason for US going to Iraq was oil. They know there were no WMD. Infact Weapon of Mass Destruction like Atom Bombs, Hydrogen Bombs, guns etc. are there in USA so I think it is USA which should be attacked by all other countries.
In the article linked to "It Hits Home" section of the post I came across this quote about Spc. Timothy Brown who was killed in Iraq: "He always wanted to be a soldier and joined the guard largely because of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks." I hear this so often in relation to men and women in Iraq and it makes my blood boil that this kind of youthful, patriotic idealism has been so cynically and murderously used/squandered by people like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, etc....If there were any justice in the world these chickenhawk criminals would be in the dock like their old friend Saadam answering for their crimes against humanity. What a sad waste...
A question: We noticed that at the end of an LA Times article the reporter said matter of factly that the troops searching for the missing servicemen had set fire to several warehouses in the area. We wondered is this true because if it is it shows the US acting like the Facists of WW II.
From the Democratic Strategist {follow link below) a new site by Ruy Teixeira, Robert Borosage, left, left of center, out in right field (DLC) types just started with some very good advice for Democratic candidates this year
Had Enough?
By Robert L. Borosage
"Had enough?" Abramoff and DeLay, Katrina and Iraq, Schiavo and Halliburton, Big Pharma and Big Oil. more >
5. A Real Security Plan for America: Democratic candidates would be well-advised to level with Americans about the reality.
Democratic strategists all intone the mantra that the party has to be "strong on security". But the overwhelming base of Democratic voters opposes the war in Iraq, and has no desire to police the world. This often leaves Democrats tongue-tied or divided. And that is why, despite growing public disenchantment with the Iraq debacle, the White House will make it a centerpiece of the fall elections: "They want to cut and run; that will hand al Qaeda a victory and provide them with a base for terror."
Many Democrats would prefer to duck: It's the president's problem; he should present us with a plan to win. No one really expects a legislator to provide the solution. But ducking is only likely to make Democrats look weak and irresponsible, playing politics with a basic security issue. Nor are the mock-tough postures once in vogue on the right of the party - urging more troops for Iraq or smarter tactics - likely to ring true given the growing civil stifle in Iraq.
Democratic candidates would be well-advised to level with Americans about the reality. There are no good choices. Withdrawing could leave a divided Iraq enmeshed in bloody civil strife. But staying only involves our soldiers in that strife. And it weakens America. It isolates us from our allies, provides al Qaeda with a training ground and a recruiting boon, rouses suspicion and hatred across the Moslem world, and distracts us from the real war on terror. We freed Iraqis of a brutal dictator, now we need to put Iraqis on notice that it is time for them to take responsibility and for our troops to come home over the course of the next year. By committing to keep them there until 2009, the president gives the Iraqis no incentive to step up. Accompany this with a real security agenda reviving collective alliances to hunt down the fanatics dedicated to global terrorism; common-sense measures to protect America, including inspecting all containers coming into our ports and demanding security plans for dangerous chemical and biological factories; and a pledge to appoint competent leaders to critical posts, not callow cronies who are not up to the task. A position stated with conviction will do much better than one that looks like it is poll driven.
The collapse of Hussein's trial
Back in December 2003, George Will was triumphant about Hussein's capture. He ridiculed Saddam for surving capture and not committing suicide, promised to deliver much better justice than the Nuremberg Tribunal, etc.
Now, in summer 2006, situation is completely different. Iraq is falling further and further into the abyss of religious civil war, the trial itself has basically collapsed, Saddam succeeded in finding ways to discredit the prosecution.
The recent news are, third Saddam's lawyer is killed by the insurgents. On this scale, not only the Nuremberg Trial was a success, even Stalin's trials were much better off. At least, USSR was politically and militarily stable in the 1930ies.
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