Tag: Iraq

Stay and Die.

The last whispy trails of Mr. Cheney’s credibility took another self-inflicted hit at the National Press Club today:

REPORTER: About a year ago, you said that the insurgency in Iraq was in its final throes. Do you still believe this?

CHENEY: I do.

And Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead after 31 years.

Last year, as part of a defense appropriation bill President Bush signed last year, he is required to work up a phased withdrawal plan for Iraq this year:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said she and other Democrats would introduce a resolution this week calling for a phased withdrawal, noting that Bush signed a defense bill last year calling for that in 2006.

“Three years and three months into the war, with all of the losses, the insurgency, the burgeoning civil war that’s taking place, an open-ended time commitment is no longer sustainable,” she said.

“We want to see an end to this thing. We want to transition the mission. That isn’t cutting and running,” Feinstein said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

Unfortunately, President Bush does not feel obliged to obey the laws he signs — or any others.

Covering up: Editor & Publisher is reporting that reporters for the Miami Herald and Los Angeles Times visiting the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were forced to leave today on the order of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s office, while a reporter for the Charlotte Observer was allowed to stay until Saturday. Ostensibly they were made to leave because of alleged pressure on the Pentagon from AP, CNN, Fox and other news outlets who were barred from having reporters on the base, but E&P speculates that it was more likely because of the tough reporting done by the reporters in the wake of last week’s detainee suicides. Read the whole article here.

We earned it: We, as a nation, are about as popular as Saddam Hussein is in Kurdistan, as Tony Blair is in England, as Fidel Castro is in Miami, as Ann Coulter is in New Jersey. I mean, the world really does not like the Benighted States of Merka much at all.

The latest survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, conducted among nearly 17,000 people in the United States and 14 other nations from March 31-May 14, found:

• Positive views of the United States have declined sharply in Spain (from 41 percent to 23 percent), India (71 percent to 56 percent), and Turkey (23 percent to 12 percent). Even in Indonesia, where U.S. tsunami aid helped lift America’s image in 2005, favorable opinions of the U.S. have fallen (from 38 percent to 30 percent).
• Support for the U.S.-led war on terror, with few exceptions, is either flat or has declined, confidence in President Bush has fallen ever lower in Europe and majorities in most countries believe that the U.S. will not achieve its objectives in Iraq.
• Americans and Western publics are increasingly concerned over Iran. Nearly half of Americans (46 percent) view the current government in Iran as a “great danger” to stability in the Middle East and to world peace, up from 26 percent in 2003. In Germany, Spain, France and Great Britain the percentage of people who see Iran as a great danger has roughly tripled compared with three years ago. But Muslim publics are far less alarmed by Iran and its nuclear program.
• Divisions between the West and Muslim nations are even wider in opinions of the Hamas Party’s victory in Palestinian elections. On balance, Americans and Western Europeans — except for the British — feel the Hamas victory is bad for the Palestinian people. Muslim publics generally disagree.
• Majorities in 10 of 14 foreign countries surveyed say the war in Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place. In Great Britain, 60 percent say the war has made the world more dangerous, compared with 30 percent who say it has made the world safer.
• Global warming concerns are widespread in India and Japan — roughly two-thirds in each country say they worry a great deal about global warming. But in the U.S. and China, only about one in five says they worry a great deal about global warming.

Unfriendly fire: As the truth continues to either come out, unravel or disappear in the wake of the alleged Haditha massacre of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines, reports of other killings are starting to surface. According to the Interpress News Agency:

Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, a 35-year-old mother of two, was killed in firing along with her 57-year-old cousin Saliha Mohammed Hassan on May 30 when they were being transported to Samarra General Hospital for Nabiha to give birth.

It is commonly known that the U.S. forces in Iraq typically pay surviving family members $2,500 per kill, er, accidental death caused by a Washington bullet or bomb.

What was not reported, according to an Iraqi human rights investigator who spoke with IPS on condition of anonymity, was that both women were shot in the back of the head by U.S. snipers.

While the U.S. military denies any wrongdoing, eyewitness accounts seem to contradict the denials — sound familiar? Oh, and Jassim’s brother was offered $5,000, not as compensation, but as a sign of friendship, he was told.

It is commonly known that the U.S. forces in Iraq typically pay surviving family members $2,500 per kill, er, accidental death caused by a Washington bullet or bomb. Indeed, a recent Department of Defense report noted that the U.S. military has paid out $19 million to Iraqis over the past year — half of that in al-Anbar Province where some of the fiercest insurgent activity has occurred. While the military insists that it has paid out in only 600 incidents, the math doesn’t compute.

If it were just 600 dead Iraqis, then the payouts would average $31,667 per dead Iraqi. Although that still is not adequate compensation for the death of a loved one, work the math the other way, and the factor is more chilling. At the usual rate of $2,500 per dead Iraqi, $19 million would pay for 7,600 dead Iraqis.

And that’s just the ones who accepted the bribe. There are others, like Redam Jassim, who declined to take the money. Instead, he wants to know why his sister and cousin were murdered in cold blood by American soldiers.

Upon news this morning of the death of Iraqi terrorist leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Republicans were out in force, calling into C-SPAN’s Washington Journal to proclaim the military’s successful strike against Zarqawi as a sign that President Bush is a messianic military leader. “He said it would take time and that we should be patient,” said one caller, “and he was right.”

Another Republican caller said, “only 2,000 of our soldiers have died.”

The Republican callers charged that Democrats are in league with terrorists and were in mourning over the loss of their ally.

While President Bush will take full credit for the successful operation — even though he has repeatedly refused to take blame for criminally negligent war planning — the strike against Zarqawi appears to have been based on a tip provided by local citizens to the Iraqi military, who forwarded the intelligence to U.S. forces.

In reality, all Americans should take the strike as an optimistic sign that the Iraqis are one step closer to being able to police their own security — to “stand up” their own forces. President Bush has repeatedly said that when the Iraqis stand up, the U.S. will stand down and pull troops out of Iraq.

Currently, the war in Iraq is costing U.S. taxpayers $250 million per day. Nearly 3,000 service personnel have died in the war, and over 10,000 have been maimed or wounded. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed.

If only: The crowing over the military assassination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is distasteful and unseemly. It changes nothing. U.S. soldiers will continue to be maimed and killed, Iraqi civilians will continue to suffer and die, and the military-industrial complex will continue its dominance and ascendancy. Let’s remember to revisit this event a year from now and assess its significance from that perspective.