IRAQ: Conflating 9/11 Again
01 November 2006 7:00 am by Taylor Marsh
Listen to Osama, Bush said late yesterday.
Tell me again why Osama is still alive?
Bush references Zawahiri, too. Why is he still breathing air?
The two people responsible for 9/11 are both still alive. That's because Bush let Osama go at Tora Bora, and Bush and the Republicans chose
to cherrypick intelligence, instead of staying on Osama's trail, and lie to Congress in order to launch preemptive war on Iraq.
How's that going, by the way?
The signs of the militias are everywhere at the Sholeh police station.
Posters celebrating Moqtada al-Sadr, head of the Mahdi Army militia, dot
the building's walls. The police chief sometimes remarks that Shiite militias
should wipe out all Sunnis. Visitors to this violent neighborhood in the Iraqi
capital whisper that nearly all the police officers have split loyalties.And then one rainy night this month, the Sholeh police set up an ambush and
killed Army Cpl. Kenny F. Stanton Jr., a 20-year-old budding journalist, his
unit said. At the time, Stanton and other members of the unit had been trailing
a group of Sholeh police escorting known Mahdi Army members.“How can we expect ordinary Iraqis to trust the police when we don't
even trust them not to kill our own men?” asked Capt. Alexander Shaw,
head of the police transition team of the 372nd Military Police Battalion,
a Washington-based unit charged with overseeing training of all Iraqi police
in western Baghdad. “To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure we're ever
going to have police here that are free of the militia influence.”The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., predicted
last week that Iraqi security forces would be able to take control of the
country in 12 to 18 months. But several days spent with American units training
the Iraqi police illustrated why those soldiers on the ground believe it may
take decades longer than Casey's assessment.In Baghdad, a Force Under the Militias' Sway
Infiltration of Iraqi Police Could Delay Handover of Control for Years, U.S. Trainers Suggest
Oh, right, Rummy wants us to “relax” and “back off.”
We're fighting them “over there” so we don't have to fight them “over
here.” Isn't that a big part of the problem? Most of our cargo containers remain uninspected. The FBI just got email, for God's sake. And we're in debt up to our eyeballs, with Bush trying to figure out what to spend our next borrowed money from China on. Oh, and what about our borders? Just ignore those corporations, after all, they're the Republican base. The list of all the things Republicans haven't done is endless. But at least they're mounting (ridiculous cloning) arguments against helping people like Michael J. Fox.
Oh, and according to Bush yesterday, it's back to fighting for democracy in Iraq. Never mind those WMDs. That rasoning is so weapons of mass destruction related program activities, so yesterday's news.
The next time we're hit we'll have to remember what Bush said and all the things Bush and the Republican led Congress didn't do.
“The terrorists win and America loses,” said Bush, if you
vote for Democrats. Vote Democratic and you die! Mwaah-aaah-ahhh. Swagger on, Mr. Bush, 54% don't believe getting Saddam was worth it and an even higher number want OUT.
But that wasn't enough for our incompetent commander in chief. Bush had to bring out his old favorite 9/11… and
Iraq, conflating the two, yet again.
I guess we should just be glad Bush isn't laughing about not finding WMDs anymore.
Yesterday, Juan Cole called it a “day
of rage” in Iraq. It's hard to argue with that one.
What is Bush going to do about Iraq? Change his rhetoric, but the course will remain the same, with our soldiers caught in the middle. Hold course until James Baker III and Lee Hamilton weigh in and tell him what to do? Tick-tock-tick-tock. Another American soldiers bites the dust.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki demanded the removal of American checkpoints from the streets of Baghdad on Tuesday, in what appeared to be his latest and boldest gambit in an increasingly tense struggle for more independence from his American protectors.
(snip)
Mr. Maliki had been under pressure from his Shiite backers to push the Americans to lift an eight-day-old cordon around Sadr City, where American authorities believe the kidnapped American soldier is being held.
The soldier was abducted in the central Baghdad neighborhood of Karada on Oct. 23 after leaving the fortified Green Zone without authorization. Three people were detained early Tuesday in the latest raid in Sadr City as part of the manhunt, the American military said. Although the military has not released the name of the soldier, members of an Iraqi family who said they were the missing soldier’s in-laws identified him as Ahmed Qusai al-Taei, 41.
(snip)
If the declaration was intended to show Mr. Maliki as a forceful and decisive leader, as far Mr. Sined was concerned, it had that effect. The order demonstrated that Mr. Maliki was “a strong and brave prime minister,” he said. “He behaved like a successful prime minister.”
