Open Thread

15 Comments

1. 

   ask on March 1, 2006 at 2:44 pm

   Ass, indeed.
   He writes:
   “Yesterday, I crisscrossed Baghdad, visiting communities on both banks of the Tigris and logging at least 25 miles on the streets.”

   Making it seem it was a leisurly stroll.  I bet you he was wrapped in kevlar and inside an armored vehicle.

   Here’s The Guardian’s take:
   ‘No sectarian war? Then what is this?’

   Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue – blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound – and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the militia of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

   “After he came back from the evening prayer, the Mahdi Army broke into his house and asked him, ‘Are you Khalid the Sunni infidel?'” one man at the morgue said, relating his cousin’s last hours. “He replied yes and then they took him away.”

   Aides to Mr Sadr denied the allegations, calling them part of a smear campaign by unspecified political rivals.

   By Monday, violence between Sunni and Shia appeared to have eased. As Iraqi security forces patrolled, American troops offered measured support, in hopes of allowing the Iraqis to take charge and prevent further carnage.

   But at the morgue, where the floor was crusted with dried blood, the evidence of the damage already done was clear. Iraqis arrived throughout the day, seeking family members and neighbours among the contorted bodies.

   “And they say there is no sectarian war?” demanded one man. “What do you call this?”

   • 

     on March 1, 2006 at 3:13 pm

     Good to see someone saying it: I’ve been asking the same question for awhile now, “At what point do we actually call it a ‘civil war’?”

2. 

   phronesis on March 1, 2006 at 2:46 pm

   Booman,
   You’ve done the appropriate thing: used the word “ass” and linked to The New York Post in the same diary.  You see, the only thing one is good for is to wipe the other.

3. 

   Nag on March 1, 2006 at 2:49 pm

   Should we check this guy’s driveway for large luxury vehicles? Hmmmm?

   He’s probably blogging his reports in from some strip bar in Hoboken. Asshole.

4. 

   Second Nature on March 1, 2006 at 2:49 pm

   Poor Ralph, he’s trying to spread the good news about the wonderful democracy that is sweeping through Iraq, but those pesky facts have their own biased agenda.

5. 

   Steven D on March 1, 2006 at 3:03 pm

   Yes, I’m so shrill some days I don’t know how I live with myself.

   ;0)

6. 

   DaveW on March 1, 2006 at 3:05 pm

   I guess he was blown away by Bush’s speech in Italy:

   Obviously there are some who are trying to sow the seeds of sectarian violence,” Bush said. “They destroy in order to create chaos. And now, the people of Iraq and their leaders must make a choice. The choice is chaos or unity, the choice is a free society, or a society dictated by evil people who would kill innocents.

   This may be the most insane spew to escape Bush’s lips yet — though there are so many contenders it’s hard to pick a winner. So we destroy in order to create, what, exactly? What is it “we’ve” created in Iraq short of chaos and civil war? So it’s only “evil” people who are not allowed to kill innocents, but “we”, being the US of A, are not evil, so it’s OK for us to kill all the innocents we want? Or does killing innocents make us evil?

   I almost have to admire the through-the-lookingglass chutzpah with which Bush and his cronies can peddle psychotic unreality without blinking, without allowing the slightest awareness to spoil their perfect arrogance. He and the cronies have gone beyond lying and created a whole new alternate universe built from lie molecules. I can’t think of any parallel in human history.

   • 

     on March 1, 2006 at 3:11 pm

     I can’t think of any parallel in human history.

     He repeated his “Hitlerian” “history shall be my judge” line in his interview with Vagras: I’m starting to think he’s right, but in the sense that you suggest.

     He’s making history all right–just like Hitler did, and we all get to go down in history as the apathetic “Volk” who let it happen.

7. 

   boran2 on March 1, 2006 at 3:15 pm

   Ralph has clearly had more than the daily recommended allotment of kool-aid.

   • 

     idredit on March 1, 2006 at 3:55 pm

     The NY Post won’t admit it. But Peter’s also smoking some Jah brand. That stuff will have you running; well, cross country and down the street, shouting expletives. Known to make some insane. You gotta be insane to run across Baghdad with all the kidnappings, bombings and death squads in the street.

     Give him  a hand, send him a copy of the PINR by Dr. Michael A. Weinstein that forms the basis of diaryist John Stuart Mill’s “PINR: US role in Iraq war effectively over” up here today.

     The PINR document is also posted in the Asia Times HK under title “Civil War all but declared”

     Ralph, there was no formal declaration of war, but the reality is there is a War on Terror which in Iraq has gone badly. You remember, don’t you, the WoT? Now your masters would prefer the situation in Iraq be called sectarian violence. In denial.

     Today, the question posed by scholars is this, “How much chaos can Americans stand?”

     We have been neo-conned and ain’t gonna take it anymore

8. 

   ask on March 1, 2006 at 3:16 pm

   Since it is an Open Thread, I’ll throw this one in:
   The limits of peacekeeping

   THIS YEAR marks half a century since the United Nations launched its first large-scale peace operation — a deployment of troops to the Sinai desert during the Suez crisis. But 2006 also could mark a tipping point for the organization’s overstretched peacekeeping forces. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, for example, has called for a U.N. force for Darfur, Sudan, double the size of the current 7,000-strong African Union mission. For all of the tensions between Washington and the United Nations, President Bush has strongly backed this proposal.

   The international community is pushing the United Nations to take on a new strategic role without providing it with adequate resources, men and materiel. This is all the more shortsighted given that, despite a reputation for waste, U.N. peacekeeping is remarkably cheap. The combined cost of its missions in 2005 was $5 billion, or 1/20th of U.S. costs in Iraq.
   (snip)
   This boom in U.N. peacekeeping, although obscured by the war on terrorism, is saving lives and allowing people emerging from war to choose their political futures. In 2005, the United Nations oversaw or assisted elections and referendums in various countries, affecting the lives of more than 100 million people. And it has proved adept at stabilizing small trouble spots such as Timor and Sierra Leone.

   But since 2003, the U.N. has taken on a very different type of operation: large-scale deployments to vast areas such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, southern Sudan and now Darfur. In 2000, the U.N. deployed nearly 13,000 troops in Sierra Leone, or one soldier for about every 3 1/2 square miles. In late 2005, it was maintaining a force of more than 15,000 in Congo, but with a ratio of one soldier for more than 90 square miles. Such a force cannot secure such a vast space consistently.
   (more)

9. 

   Shalimar on March 1, 2006 at 3:25 pm

   The wit and wisdom of Ralph Peters: You are being lied to. By elements in the media determined that Iraq must fail.

   That wouldn’t even be in my top 1000 list of things that our media is lying to me about.  From the time Bremer stupidly disbanded the Iraqi army and left hundreds of thousands of able-bodied men with nothing else to do with their time other than plot revenge, the fate of Iraq was pretty much sealed.  Elements of our media determined that Iraq must fail probably don’t have any more effect on reality than the Laura Ingrahams of the world.

10. 

    Ed J on March 1, 2006 at 3:30 pm

    into Kabul:

    Security was extremely tight as streets around the palace were closed for the visit and helicopters hovered over the center of the city all day. Mr. Bush arrived in Kabul from Bagram in a heavily guarded flotilla of helicopters. At one point, two door gunners fired machine guns at an unknown target as a helicopter carrying White House reporters accompanying Mr. Bush flew low over the barren countryside, The Associated Press reported.

11. 

    rba on March 1, 2006 at 4:34 pm

    Interesting.  One of the problems with information coming out of Iraq is unanswered questions, top-o’-the-list for me being:  who actually bombed the mosque in Samarra?  Not an organization, but the specific individuals responsible.  They’ve arrested four:

    Rubaie told Reuters on Tuesday that four guards protecting the Shi’ite shrine were arrested as suspects in the attack along with six others.

    Enazy said questions remained over why the bombers, who spent long hours planting explosives overnight, did not kill any of the eight guards, who were found tied up but unharmed. [Reuters, 1 Mar].

    Most of the chatter has to do with the “civil war”.  I’m just as interested in the crime that escalated the violence.

    • 

      rba on March 1, 2006 at 4:50 pm

      MONTE CARLO, Monaco, March 1 (UPI) — The worst geopolitical blunder in 229 years of American history? That was how participants at a recent off-the-record conference held in Monaco viewed the U.S. decision for the regime change invasion of Iraq.

      Hyperbole from leftist malcontents? No, quite simply the verdict spoken in sadness rather than anger by 63 personalities from Europe, east and west, the Middle East, North Africa and the U.S.

      They were former prime ministers, foreign ministers, heads of intelligence services, newspaper editors, TV news executives, current and former heads of major international organizations.

      Reporting on an off-the-record conference.  What a concept.