Here my favorite piece of wisdom from Sy Hersh’s latest piece.
The difficulty of determining who is responsible for the chaos in Iraq can be seen in Basra, in the Shiite south, where British forces had earlier presided over a relatively secure area. Over the course of this year, however, the region became increasingly ungovernable, and by fall the British had retreated to fixed bases. A European official who has access to current intelligence told me that “there is a firm belief inside the American and U.K. intelligence community that Iran is supporting many of the groups in southern Iraq that are responsible for the deaths of British and American soldiers. Weapons and money are getting in from Iran. They have been able to penetrate many groups”—primarily the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias.
A June, 2007, report by the International Crisis Group found, however, that Basra’s renewed instability was mainly the result of “the systematic abuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias.” The report added that leading Iraqi politicians and officials “routinely invoke the threat of outside interference”—from bordering Iran—“to justify their behavior or evade responsibility for their failures.”
And not only Iraqi politicians.
Professor Juan Cole finds Friedman, in his recent column, has sounded the death knell on 9.11 and the Iraq investment….time to cut lose
What was that recent thread I saw. Oh, yes, it was about the cluelessness of journalism, not just in the US but actually anything written in the English language no less.
I ain’t thinking about Iran other than to definitively say as an American peasant if they go into Iran I will become an enemy of the state.
My latest problems include the Gestapo that is Mass Health and their Nazified nursing home entrance requirements. Should my 78 year old mother by chance seek to enter a nursing home seven years of records have to be produced assuring that she didn’t give my daughter 50 dollars for Christmas.
http://www.elderlawcenter.org/
In Europe they actually get something for their tax dollars.
The U.S., that bastion of freedom.
For what Halliburton raked in on this scam they could have easily taken care of my father, who flew bombers in WWII and my mother who now has her hands full taking care of my father. And me, cleaning out my father’s garage with a broke rib(from flipping the pony cart) because they need a new oil tank in the garage. She can pay a stranger to do this (and many of these tradesmen have literally drooled over the stellar collection of tools(real ones and not those Chinese import crap) in my father’s garage) and they have “offered” for a fee to “clean” it out.
US-Iraq foreign policy in a nutshell: the friend of my friend is my enemy.
What I learned most from Sy Hersh’s article was that the US occupation of Iraq could have been an opportunity for the US and Iran to work together on shared goals, to share information, and to give Iraq a regional ally. The cooperation would have been based on the selfish motivations of each country, but it could have been an opening for relations with Iran.
But the US couldn’t allow Iran to grow stronger as a result of our actions, and had to fight against Iran’s interests, which to some degree meant fighting against Iraq’s interest. US incompetence in Iraq always seemed so willful. Now we have one reason why.
Heck, Iran wanted to help us with Afghanistan – and that was when Khatamei was still in power. Had our supposed “leaders” not completely rebuffed Iranian offers of assistance post 9/11 – choosing instead to call them part of this mythical “Axis of Evil” – things might be completely different. A strong olive branch of friendship from the US might have strengthened the Reformers in Iran and given them the strength to finally stand up to the theocrats.
Sadly we’ll never know what might have been – our leaders were pompous, chest-beating idiots and never gave a thought beyond their own warmongering speeches.
If you would ask Iraqis, “Which countries or leaders support terrorism?”, what would they say?