Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Occupation Iraq: Always Improving, Never Good Enough to Leave

Also see: Human Cost of War
Report: Iraq social and refugee crisis is worsening

Do you get sick of it, readers? The MSM LIES, I mean.

"Iraq unstable as U.S. buildup ends, reports say"




WASHINGTON (AP) The military buildup in Iraq is about to end. As the last of the five additional combat brigades now heads home, it leaves the country far safer than it was a year ago. Yet Iraq is still not ready to stand alone.

It's been the same shit for FIVE FUCKING YEARS NOW!

And seeing as the U.S. wants PERMANENT BASES there, it NEVER WILL BE in the WAR-PROMOTING MSM!


The departure of the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division will lower U.S. troop levels there to roughly 142,000 U.S. personnel by mid-July — at least 7,000 more than before the buildup began early last year. But it also sets up pivotal questions about how many more can come home in this election year, and whether the decline in violence can be maintained by the Iraqi forces.

Two reports released yesterday laid out significant political, economic and security progress in Iraq. But both cautioned that the country remains unstable and volatile.

The quarterly Iraq progress report issued by the Pentagon warned that Iran and Syria continue to provide safe havens for terrorists, and allow them to travel across the borders into Iraq. It also repeated concerns that Iran’s Quds Force, an elite unit of its Revolutionary Guards, continues to supply both weapons and training for militants in Iraq....

Al-Qaida, meanwhile, has been hobbled by the military buildup and improvement of Iraqi forces, and its areas of operation have shrunk, the report said. It warned, however, that al-Qaida is regrouping along the upper Euphrates River in Anbar Province.

I'm SO SICK of the LIES!!!

Sigh!

See:

Occupation Iraq: Israelis Killing U.S. Troops

Occupation Iraq: Israeli-Trained Death Squads

Prop 101: Al-CIA-Duh and the OSI

Prop 101: Al-CIA-Duh's Greatest Hits


Prop 101: The "Terrorism" Business


Prop 102: Iraq and Government Lies


Al-CIA-Duh

Who Invented "Al-CIA-Duh?"

"Al-CIA-Duhs" Catch-and-Release Program

Asymmetrical Warfare Group

Operation Gladio

Operation Northwoods

Occupation Iraq: British Bombers

Occupation Iraq: America's Roadside Bombs

Salvador Option

Special Police Commandos


Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group

Prop 201 tutorial

FRU

Islam's 9/11

How much more evidence do you need?


While violence has now dropped off again, the report said militant leaders appear to have fled to Iran and the Maysan Province, setting up possible clashes in the future.

I really am sick of the Pentagon bullshit!


A second report, issued by the congressional Government Accountability Office, pointed to a lack of progress by Iraqi forces since just 10 percent can operate on their own. And it said the government continues to fall behind in meeting the demands for services, such as electricity.

Yeah, MINIMIZE the FAILURE of the whole thing!


Although the number of Iraqi security forces has grown, a U.S. commander in Baghdad acknowledged yesterday that the
Iraqi troops remain dependent on coalition support for logistics, surveillance and intelligence. He said they can’t do the job completely alone anywhere in Iraq.....

Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered a glimmer of hope yesterday that troop levels in Iraq will continue to come down this year. He said he hopes that if Iraq continues to improve, he will be able to free some U.S. forces by the fall to send to Afghanistan....

Out of the frying pan, into the fire!

I'll bet we have a DRAFT by then (after the false-flag "terror" attack)!!

So HOW GOOD IS IT over in Iraq?


"US troops attacked at meeting; 2 dead

BAGHDAD - A disgruntled political figure opened fire yesterday on US soldiers leaving a municipal council meeting southeast of Baghdad, killing two of them and wounding four other Americans, US and Iraqi officials said. The assailant died in a hail of gunfire after the attack, which occurred in the town of Madain, also known as Salman Pak, about 15 miles south of Baghdad in an area with a history of Sunni-Shiite tension. Iraqi police and witnesses said the attack took place in front of a municipal building where the Americans had met with local authorities. Residents and a police official said the attacker had been a Sunni member of the municipal council until he was ousted by Shi'ites during sectarian violence. The Interior Ministry, however, said the gunman was still an active member (AP)."

Question: Why is that a BRIEF, readers?! WTF?

Nothing like LYING ABOUT and HIDING a WAR, 'eh, Globe?

By the way, what is going on up in Kurdistan?

Seems like we NEVER hear about that area!

It's always Sadr, Iran and "Al-CIA-Duh!"

Oh, about that sectarianism: Memory Hole: The Dream Vacation

Memory Hole: Sistani's Reach

Memory Hole: The Uniters of Islam

Occupation Iraq: Sectarian Saviors

The Real Muqtada al-Sadr

Yeah, so much tension between the two that they intermarried and lived together for centuries without blowing up each others mosques and killing each other -- until the U.S. invaded, that is!

Smell a STINK, readers? CUI BONO?

Who benefits from a Sunni/Shia split?

Certainly not Muslims!!!!

Need more convincing?

"Two U.S. Soldiers Killed by Gunman, but Details Are Disputed"

Not above they weren't: "US and Iraqi officials said."

Ah, that's the NYT for you:

The War, the Truth, and the New York Times

New York Times Commits Treason, Outs CIA Agent

"BAGHDAD — A security guard for an Iraqi politician grabbed his Kalashnikov automatic rifle and opened fire on at least a half-dozen American soldiers, killing two of them, during a meeting with Iraqi officials in a village southeast of Baghdad on Monday, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.

The number of casualties was in dispute. The American military command in Baghdad said that two American soldiers had been killed and that three others and an interpreter had been wounded. The Interior Ministry official said that in addition to the two soldiers who had been killed, at least six other soldiers had been wounded. The gunman was killed in the firefight.

According to the Interior Ministry official, the attack took place as American soldiers were attending the opening of a park in Madaen, a village along the Tigris River about 20 miles from Baghdad.... A statement issued late Monday by the American military offered a slightly different account, saying the soldiers were shot as they were leaving the local council building just before 1 p.m....

Violence also continued Monday just north of Baghdad in Diyala Province.... Two pro-American militia fighters were killed by a large roadside bomb that exploded near a checkpoint in Buhriz, south of the provincial capital of Baquba, according to a provincial security official. Two civilians were wounded in the western Diyala town of Khalis by a roadside bomb, and another Awakening Council member was seriously wounded when he was shot by gunmen about 20 miles east of Baquba.

The violence in Diyala followed deadly attacks in the province on Sunday that left at least 28 Iraqi police officers, soldiers and civilians dead and more than 60 others wounded.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, visiting Iraqi troops in the southern city of Amara, said during a televised appearance that military operations would continue in Diyala."

Yup, things are just grand in Iraq -- and this is the propaganda!

Who knows what is really going on (because you aren't gonna get it reading the NYT)?

"Iraq Blast Kills at Least 2 Americans"

BAGHDAD — An explosion apparently caused by a bomb inside a district council building in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad on Tuesday killed two American soldiers and two civilians working for the United States military, the American command said. It was unclear in early reports whether the civilians were American or from another Western country, but Iraqi council members who were at the scene of the attack described the civilians as American.

The explosion took place at around 9.30 a.m. as four council officials were gathering in a room for a meeting along with five Americans to discuss the election of senior local council members, according to a spokesman for the council. A third American soldier was wounded in the attack.

At least six Iraqi civilians also died in the attack, The Associated Press reported, and the United States military said a suspect in the apparent bombing had been detained. The neighborhood meetings are held regularly and well publicized, and they therefore can make relatively easy targets...."

So who is making out in Iraq then, readers?

Among others, Dick Cheney's crew!

"Big Oil and the war in Iraq" by Derrick Z. Jackson | June 24, 2008

IT TOOK five years, the deaths of 4,100 US soldiers, and the wounding of 30,000 more to make Iraq safe for Exxon. It is the inescapable open question since the reasons given by President Bush for the invasion and occupation did not exist, neither the weapons of mass destruction nor Saddam Hussein's ties to Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The New York Times reported last week that several Western oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell, Total, BP, and Chevron, are about to sign no-bid contracts with the Iraqi government. Western oil had a significant stake in Iraqi oil for much of the last century until the government nationalized the industry in 1972. The Associated Press quoted Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit as saying he believed the contracts were a first step toward production-sharing agreements. "These companies are in it for the money, not to make friends," Gheit said.

This of course blows a hole in another ancient Bush fallacy, the one in which former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said "the oil wells belong to the Iraqi people" and former secretary of State Colin Powell seconded him by saying Iraqi oil "will be held in trust for the Iraqi people." Former Deputy Defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz once claimed there was so much oil in Iraq that "When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government."

No, all that is really happening is that while the American taxpayer is being turned inside out by the war, and while families bury the brave, the corporate colonialists get all the resources. Halliburton, the oil services company which Vice President Dick Cheney once led, last year reported a 49 percent rise in profits, to $3.5 billion.

KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary that provides food, shelter, and laundry services to soldiers, last year reported record profits and is about to share in a new 10-year, $150 billion contract. The controversial North Carolina-based private security firm Blackwater, whose guards shot and killed 17 Iraqis in one incident last year, has crossed the billion-dollar mark in government contracts, charging, according to the Raleigh News and Observer, $1,221 a day for security guards who are actually paid $500 a day.

This is despite repeated charges of waste, overcharging and recklessness, and a degree of patriotism that verges on betrayal. As many veterans were being treated amid appalling conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar last year moved from Texas to Dubai. The Globe last March reported on how KBR has avoided paying perhaps half a billion dollars in Social Security and Medicare taxes since the start of the invasion by hiring employees through shell companies in the Cayman Islands.

Now comes Big Oil itself, which is already basking in record profits. Its interest in Iraq, which has the world's third-largest oil reserves according to the federal government, is utterly transparent. A decade ago, then-Chevron CEO Kenneth Derr said "I'd love Chevron to have access to" the Iraqi oil reserves. A Los Angeles Times news account just before the invasion said, "Maybe it's a coincidence, but American and British oil companies would be long-term beneficiaries of a successful military offensive . . . Industry officials say Hussein's ouster would help level the playing field . . . a bonanza for the US-dominated oil-services industry."

Who will stop the bonanza or at least ensure that it is not an utter windfall for CEOs as US soldiers risk their lives keeping the peace and as Iraqis continue to struggle out of the rubble of the invasion? That is unclear. Of the two presumptive nominees for president, Democrat Barack Obama makes the most noise against oil profiteering and indeed, Republican John McCain has received more money overall from Big Oil. But Obama has received enough campaign contributions to leave it an open question as to how much leadership he would exert. We know Big Oil is in this for the money. Nothing says it is returning to Iraq in the name of the people."