Oops:
Iraqi tribal leader Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, a key figure in U.S. efforts to turn local residents against al-Qaeda in the restive Anbar province, was killed today by a roadside bomb, U.S. military and Iraqi sources confirmed.
That’s Sheikh Sattar shaking hands last week with George W. Bush. Back in June, Time Magazine described Sattar this way:
General Odierno, an Iraq veteran with a reputation for cold-eyed realism, has cited the military’s partnership with formerly anti-American tribes in the restive Anbar promise. There, U.S. Marines have supported a coalition of tribes, known as the “Anbar Salvation Front,” fighting al-Qaeda. The group’s leader, Sheikh Sattar al-Rishawi, is ostensibly cooperating with the U.S. and Iraqi forces to drive out the foreign fighters who make up much al-Qaeda’s ranks in Iraq. And since the alliance has been in effect, the number of attacks against U.S. forces in Anbar has halved.
But that’s only part of the picture. Sheikh Sattar, whose tribe is notorious for highway banditry, is also building a personal militia, loyal not to the Iraqi government but only to him. Other tribes — even those who want no truck with terrorists — complain they are being forced to kowtow to him. Those who refuse risk being branded as friends of al-Qaeda and tossed in jail, or worse. In Baghdad, government delight at the Anbar Front’s impact on al-Qaeda is tempered by concern that the Marines have unwittingly turned Sheikh Sattar into a warlord who will turn the province into his personal fiefdom.
As should be obvious from this description, it wasn’t necessarily al-Qaeda in Iraq elements that killed Sattar. In Washington, this guy was some kind of hero. In Anbar, he was a warlord that was known for highway robbery, who was cooperating with the occupiers and throwing people in jail without just cause.
Our country is having a debate about Iraq but it isn’t a debate that is even remotely connected to reality.
Sorry Booman. I can’t agree that our country is having a debate. The debate is over. Bushco lost. Doesn’t seem to have made much difference, does it?
to reality?
Surely you jest, Booman.
LOOK at those two.
I got yer “reality”, right here.
Crime lords.
Appachin East.
A meet.
Sattar would stick a shiv in you for $50, and Bush looks like a lame ex-buttonman who got bumped up to a position of power during a shortage of criminal talent.
And the “reality” is that the entire system, from the Federal Government and most of the military…exceot of course the poor schlumps who are getting knocked off anf maimed…right on through the media and the corporate world is in on the scam.
This pumped up street robber gets offed, and here are the headlines:
Lord have mercy!!!
And what do our proud Dimwitcrat leaders do?
They dither.
They procrastinate.
They pose and speechify.
Tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
While criminal functionaries like Petraeus look away, bored to distraction by the whole charade. Doodling on their note paper in an attempt to try to look busy.
The Dim’s real job? The only reason that they are allowed to pose as “investigators”? To act as a diversionary shield for these monsters.
Nope.
My disgust with this farce reaches epic proportions.
AG
I wonder if he knows that Bush just planted the contraband on him? In the “speech” tonight, Patraeus’s name will be dropping like rain. Congresscritters and pundits will repeat it like a mantra: Patraeus….patraeus….And when it all blows up they’ll say “we were only following the advice of our general on the ground. Not our fault.” Lots of people–the ones who are still watching TV News and reading the MSM–will buy it.
Screw Satar- How about the three- THAT IS THREE- soldiers that were part of the OP-ED writers?
The only ones claiming with any “certainty” that al-Qaeda was responsible are those who have a reason to want everyone to think it was al-Qaeda.
In the meantime, the drumbeat continues.
And how does he “know” it was provided by Iran? Guess Iran is the only one in the world who could possible make a 240 mm rocket.
Any possibility that there could be a few 240 mm rockets floating around Iraq which might have been supplied by our government when we wanted to use Saddam as a counterbalance to potential Iranian expansion in the 80’s?
Beat, beat, beat the drum. Until the drumbeat is nothing but accepted background noise to the American public. This conflating of disparate facts and events is being done for a reason. Lace up your boots and tighten your belts, the day of war with Iran is coming. With the Senate’s unanimous consent they gave away the keys once again.
The general who made that statement is Bergener, the PR flack for the Pentagon’s disinformation campaign in Iraq.
I know. And the shitty thing is that no one will pay attention to that fact and no one in the mainstream media will question the veracity of a statement like this, ever.
“Is consistent with” and “at this moment I can’t prove it, but”. Give me a fucking break. But, as I said, the media will only do their best Katie Couric impression and ooohhh and aaahhh at all the shiny medals on Bergner’s chest and repeat his bullshit.
They are hellbent on this war with Iran thing and, by god, they will not be denied.
LameSreamMedia with poor steno takers. Let’s hear from a direct interview with the Sheikh.
once again, it appears we were took, – Asia Times posted this article before Abu Risha’s assassination.
Behind the Anbar myth
By Pepe Escobar
This is merely replacing one group of bad actors with another. Not that Al Qaeda in Iraq was ever more than a sideshow …
does not bode well.
That’s a very good piece. It’s main point is that so long as the US stays in Iraq and hence controls its oil, the occupation is a success, no matter how many Iraqis are killed or displaced or how their living conditions deteriorate, and provided that the US Army does not get completely broken.
The look on the shiekh’s face in that picture says to me he knew what was coming for that handshake….
I thought the same thing.
He’s saying to himself, “Oh, f#@k, that dude over there has a camera. I’m toast.”
Me, too. Look at his eyes. It’s like he knows he’s on the list of already dead men.
Our President has the Midas touch. Of course, we knew that.
that they can do nothing to stop the war.
A bit off topic. Sorry.
Most people here know that the Dems could stop the war if they wanted to (all they would have to do is make clear that Bush will never get a war funding bill without timetables), but the press keeps on lapping up the Dem line that they can’t stop the war, because they don’t have the votes. I think that’s interesting, because it shows that the corporate media doesn’t just repeat Rethug lies without pointing out that they are lies: it does the same thing for Dems too, on occasion.
Picture kinda tells it all. Petraeus hiding in the corner, Condi talking and not paying attention to what’s going on around her, a bunch of “blue bloods” hanging around W, and one Sunni knowing better not to look-up and be associated with everyone else.
Stunning resemblance.
It makes you wonder when the head of our military out there just gets up and tells lies that are exposed by even a cursory examination of a few news sites.
The decline of our officer corps to the level of that seen in a banana republic dictatorship would be incredibly humorous if it wasnt for the fact that people are dying because of it and whebn adventure in Iran starts even more people.
One of the unlearned lessons of Vietnam was that we are incapable of winning an insurgency. The denial of this irrefutable fact has done nothing but damage to our troops, military and country. In many ways the refusal of large sections of presumably intelligent members of our officer corps to learn the obvious has led directly to many thousands of deaths in our own militry. It is time for these political prostitute generals to stop plying the game, stop thinking about their own politcal aspirations, stop thinijng about the largesse they can gain in the military industrial complex when they reitre, stop thinking about their next promotion, stop thinkin about covering their butt and to start thinking about the country, the troops and the people they are both meant to protect, and whose tax dollars fund these losers.
I write this as disgusted ex-officer from long ago albeit it not a general.