“All Things Considered,” 17 Sept., 2005

4 Comments

1. 

   Dean Pajevic on September 18, 2005 at 2:32 pm

   I just got this in an e-mail from JPol, and it’s very important here because Pat talks about the importance of holding Baghdad in his interview … Juan Cole:

   Sunday, September 18, 2005

   Security Situation in Baghdad Sinking like the Titanic

   An observer in Iraq writes to me:

   “The situation has deteriorated in Baghdad dramatically today. Five neighborhoods (hay) in Baghdad are controlled by insurgents, and they are Amiraya, Ghazilya, Shurta, Yarmouk and Doura. It is very bad. My guys there report that cars have come into these neighborhoods and blocked off the streets. Masked gunmen with AKs and other weapons are roaming these areas, announcing that people should stay home. One of my drivers in Amiraya reports that his neighborhood is shut down totally, and even those who need food or provisions are warned not to go out.

   The government will respond feebly. It will go into a contested neighborhood, and then just like Fallujah, Ramadi, Tel Afar, the insurgents will flee to take over another area on another day. Bit by bit they are taking over the main parts of Baghdad. The only place we are sure they cannot control is Sadr City, unless of course they want to take on Jaish Mahdy [Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army], and that would be bloody.

   A few minutes ago Jaafari came on television to tell everyone in Baghdad to stay home. Can’t wait for his next bold move.

   There are flyers in public areas of Baghdad warning people not to gather in large numbers because they will thereby become targets. I am trying to get a copy of the flyer.

   Notwithstanding Al-Hayat’s claim that Zarqawi and the Sunni resistance are not together, my street listeners claim otherwise. My folks are convinced that the two groups, broadly defined, are together, “100 percent” is the claim of certainty. It is hard to get a handle on this because people in Baghdad tend to lump all resistance groups, except for Zarqawi, into one large category.

   More and more of even the most patriotic intelligentsia are departing. The situation is dire, and those with escape valves are using them. [Some organizations are]sending more of [their] staff to Arbil and Sulamaniyah and out of Baghdad. Until about March this year, [some] thought that there was a chance of returning to Baghdad. It is remarkable how incapable this government is. Its only success is that it exists at all.

   In the meantime, the embassy people act as if nothing in Baghdad is wrong (except that they cannot walk in the Green Zone without body armor and they have to take precautions against kidnapping). Recently, a group from State and the military parachuted in from Washington [with fatuous advice] . . . It is a fantasy world.”

   • 

     BrendaStewart on September 18, 2005 at 3:02 pm

     Isn’t this amazing!!!???  Oh but listening to dubya dn the president of Iraq, all things are coming to gether and we could leave soon…What the hell is going to come of all of this?  I dont think anyone in his right mind knows how to get out os this mess.

2. 

   DuctapeFatwa on September 18, 2005 at 4:27 pm

   And even for the mighty England, the day came when colonization of South Asia was no longer profitable.

   Not to suggest that the intended beneficiaries of US democracy-spreading are hurting in the spreadsheet yet, in fact, what makes US operations a success where similar plans in the past have fizzled is the reduction of those beneficiaries to a very small number as opposed to the obsolete and as history shows us, ineffective philosophy of colonization as a means to benefit the colonizing nation as a whole.

   Americans must learn to accept this, as they have accepted so many other things from their beloved government, and take comfort in the large numbers of Iraqis, Afghans, and others to whom their tax dollars give the gift of eternal liberation.

3. 

   on September 18, 2005 at 8:37 pm

   I really don’t understand Juan Cole or Patrick Lang’s desire to keep US forces in Iraq because “it would be irresponsible to leave”. Lang and I think Cole argue that we have made a mess of Iraq and we have unleashed forces which would continue to fight if we left.

   There is no way that US forces which are at 130,000 plus 100,000 contractors doing much the same work are going to be sucessful. If there were 500,000 troops they would not be sucessful.

   The Iraqi government does not want the US there. They want their help to come from Iran.

   So let Iran help them, if that is what THEY want. Why does the United States always think that it knows best what’s best for IRaq.

   We have destroyed large parts of their country, enitire cities…for no reason.

   We are not competent. We are misguided, we cannot communicate with any one there, there’s no language skills…thats so basic..we are have no business being there.

   If we shouldn’t have gone in in the first place, we shouldn’t be staying in the second place.

   Let the forces we have unleashed go to battle if that is what they are going to do. Let all hell break loose. It wasn’t any of our business to begin with. Get Out. The longer we stay the worse it will  get for everyone.

   I hate Juan Cole for not opposing the war in the first place. Yes, you may not know it but he did not oppose the war. He opposes the way we went about going to war.  And I don’t know what Patrick Lang’s ideas were but I cannot fathom why he would suggest keeping troops there.

   The U.S. Military is incompetent and quickly becoming very corrupt by it’s exposure to these contractors who are stealing everything they can get their hands on. Now the soldiers want a piece of the action. The war is corrupting the military morally and by graft as well.

   You are going to get a crooked military if you don’t get them back now.

   This war has no point whatsoever. It is the dumbest thing that could ever have been done, why anyone would suggest that we need to stay there …..our intentions for being there are destructive, self serving, self destructive and the results so far are abysmal. We cannot now act morally.

   A person who kills someone for their money and then has a guilty conscience and returns the money, stuffing it into the pocket of the dead person is worse than one who just walks away and keeps the money. We have done too much damage to try and pretend we now care about Iraq and want to help.

   The US doesn’t care about Iraq and who kills who. Cmon.