The Iraq News

'Limited' Accountability, Displaced Iraqis Ignored, Embassy Construction Update, Forget Poland, More

The war in Iraq was illegal. There was and still is gruesome carnage on a massive scale. Now it's an occupation, not a war. There's also a lot of fighting that looks like war, but, despite the air raids, bombed houses and buildings, missing limbs, mass graves and melted faces, it's really an occupation. It will end when we want it to. There can be no winners.

Currently the U.S. military death toll from the war that's over and the ongoing, current, happening now OCCUPATION stands at:



Here's the Iraq news:

• Harry Reid actually said this: "We're going to continue to do the right thing for the American people by having limited accountability for the president and not a blank check." Thanks for that limited accountability, Harry! Give 'em limited Hell! Hopefully the number of Democratic senators who vote for you next time you stand for majority leader is very limited, like zero would be good.
• 4.2 million displaced Iraqis are going ignored by the United States, Britain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia plans to close it's border with Iraq by building a $2 billion fence.
• The justice department is investigating why the budget for the biggest US embassy building in the world leaped from a staggering $592m to a brain-blistering $736m. The state department has no idea when it would be finished. Here's the answer--it'll be finished when we run out of money to funnel into it.
• Cliff Schecter is an observant dude. Here's what he noticed about the British withdrawal from Basra: "Hmmm. Britain leaves, and there's a 90% drop in violence. What in the world could that mean? What can we learn? There must be a lesson in there somewhere. There must." Cliff also noticed that Poland, a country we were once warned not to forget, has decided to forget about helping us in Iraq.
• Some people do not know when to shut up.
• It's been two years since Rep. John Murtha called for redeployment. He wrote about it yesterday on Huffington Post.

It's not going to stop.

VIDEO: The show Inside Iraq looks back on their one year of covering the war and OCCUPATION torn nation. (part two here)


TAGS: Iraq OCCUPATION, Tony Blair, Harry Reid, Saudi Arabia

The Iraq News

Embassy to Cost $1 Billion in 2007, Pentagon Likely to Lower Troop Levels in Spring '08, ISG Reunion, Troops to Walk, More

Neocons fancied post-Saddam Iraq as a Democracy petri dish. Iraqi society, they imagined, could be made in the image of our democracy.... or at least the neocons' warped version of our democracy.

How's that working out for you, neocons?

Things are so bad in Iraq that the approval of both Congress and President Bush have hit all time lows. It's so bad that some believe that maybe America should go into the petri dish and the American system of governance should be revised or even reset with an Article V Constitutional Convention.

With that in mind, here's The Iraq News:

• U.S. Military deaths now total 3,547.
• Our massive city-state embassy in Iraq will cost American tax payers over a billion dollars this year. Not very much of that money will be going to Arabic speaking employees.
  
• Looks like the troop levels in Iraq will be reduced in Spring, that way we'll all forget about the war by the time we vote in November.
• The House voted overwhelmingly to bring back the Iraq Study group. No word on whether Rudy Giuliani will be invited this time around. I'm thinking... not likely.
• Veterans often cited in their memoirs endless walking as one of the great horrors of the Vietnam War experience. Now, soldiers in Iraq will get the desert version of that experience. According to Friday's LA Times, the commander of day-to-day military operations, urges Iraqi and American troops to 'get out and walk.' The logic behind the decision appears sound, though clearly this choice is an example of the lesser of two evils.
• Fascinating article from The Independent on Tony Blair's religious beliefs and the resignation of three Catholics during the early stages of the Iraq War. Blair will soon visit the new Pope. He's still the New Pope to me. By the way something, Blair's likely to convert to Catholicism soon.
• You pro-war types plan to support this troop?
• Much work remains on passing a law to distribute oil revenues in Iraq, but some progress was made today as a tentative agreement was reached.

VIDEO: Parliament is running out of chances to bang on Tony Blair and his ridiculous foreign policy.
VIDEO: Based on this trailer, War Made Easy looks like a combination of The Power of Nightmares and Why We Fight, two of the finest documentaries of the Iraq War era.


Crossposted at Ice Station Tango.

TAGS: Tony Blair, Iraq, War Made Easy, Iraq Study Group

The Iraq News

Four Years Since Mission Accomplished, Bush to Veto Spending Bill, Bloody April, Blair Out Soon, Harry In Soon, Biden, More

Today is the fourth anniversary of George W. Bush's declaration of the end of major military operations in Iraq wearing the flight suit in front of that despicable banner that said, "Mission Accomplished".

What better day to stomp the life out of any hope of ending the war anytime soon?

Here's the Iraq News:

• A lot of people seem to want Bush out of a job these days. I mean what's a $500 billion genocide between friends?
• Tony Blair will announce his plans to resign soon because, well, they hate him now, as Helen Mirren said they would in The Queen (good movie). Today he said, "Within the next few weeks, I won't be prime minister of this country. In all probability, a Scot will become prime minister of the United Kingdom." The Scot in question is Gordon Brown. The one not sitting in Bush's lap.
• Prince Harry is on his way to serve in Iraq, something that didn't do Tony Blair any favors politically. Maybe the paparazzi will go too and we can get some nice war pictures in Us Weekly or wherever those pictures go.
• Al Qaeda in Iraq leader, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, has been killed in a firefight. Or not.
• Terror up 91 percent in Iraq.
• As of Monday, 3,351 American forces have died in Iraq. April was especially bloody. It was the fifth straight month with more than 80 American forces killed.
• For the second day in a row, mortar shells hit the green zone today.
• Iraq has lots of oil. Lots and lots.

VIDEO: Mission Accomplished! Not!
VIDEO: Former CIA officer Ray McGovern dropped quite the bombshell on Tucker Carlson's show. McGovern pins the Niger forgeries on Dick Cheney and a "cottage industry of former intelligence agents that did a rather amateurish job" (via Crooks and Liars).
VIDEO: The Iraqi Parliament is about to recess for two months. Wait, what!

VIDEO: Joe Biden on Bush veto--"We're going to shove it down his throat".


Crossposted at IST.

TAGS: Iraq War, Tony Blair, Mission Accomplished, Joe Biden

The Iraq News

Reid Says New Bill Will Bring Troops Home by October, Krugman Calls Bush Standoff With Congress Hostage Situation, Bush Gets Veto Pen Ready, Blair, Moyers, Obama, More

Harry Reid is actually kind of giving people hell lately. Nice. He went further, in fact than any prominent Democrat by saying that the war in Iraq is lost. He's now saying that Bush and that Congress will pass legislation bringing the troops home by October.

Here's the rest of the Iraq News:

• Sunday was not a good day in Iraq. But remember, the surge is working... NOT.
• I love it when a blog runs an entire article that you could only get by subscribing, like Paul Krugman's editorials (or Maureen Dowd, Bob Herbert, Frank Rich, etc.), for example. Love that kind of thing. Anyway, here's Krugman explaining how the confrontation between Bush and Congress over war funding is a hostage situation.
• Meanwhile Bush (33%) threw a dog-and-pony show with Gen. Petraeus this morning in preparation for his big veto of the war funding bill.
• Bill Kristol and David Broder are trying. They really are. Bill, David, listen up, not only is the war in Iraq lost, but your war on reality is lost. Give it up and the Revolutionary Council on War Time Propaganda will go easier on you.
• The locals are not fond of the "Great Wall of Adhamiyah".
• They really love that Tony Blair over in Great Britain, eh?

VIDEO: Bill Moyer spoke to Bill Maher on Real Time about the selling of the Iraq War via the COM*. Moyer's show airs Wednesday night on PBS.
*You should know what COM means.
VIDEO: The BBC covers the carnage in Baghdad.
VIDEO: The evolution of Obama's Iraq war position.


TAGS: Harry Reid, Iraq War, Barack Obama, Bill Moyers

The Iraq News

Boxer on Troop Love, Cheney at AIPAC, Walter Reed Fallout, Pentagon Admits "Elements" of Civil War, More

Senator Barbara Boxer called on the Republicans to "love the troops" in her speech introducing the failed measure to remove troops from Iraq. Among other things, Boxer said:

[W]hen you love the troops, you don't send them back into combat with post-traumatic stress and a bottle of antidepressants. You don't do it. Tragically, we know this is happening.

Of course, Dick Cheney's despicable display at the AIPAC conference earlier this week shows that the GOP has no plans to stop trying to con the public into believing that the opposition party is the one who is against the troops, while the stark truth pours out of the rat's nest that is our veteran's health care system. It goes way beyond Walter Reed.

Here's some more Iraq News:

• The Pentagon finally admits that "elements" of a civil war exist in Iraq. Elements? Elements! You stupid twits! Why is it that we have these stupid, drawn out semantic arguments that always result in the administration eventually conceding the point months or even years later? Next year they'll blame the democrats for allowing the civil war to happen.
• The Japanese people no longer care to support the War in Iraq.
• The Senate shot down a proposal to end the war in one year.
• Are we headed for a trillion dollar defense budget? Give you fifty guesses.
• Taylor Marsh believes that Hillary Clinton's latest stance on Iraq is her actual belief about the war.

AUDIO: Minnesota Public Radio broadcast, "Beyond Walter Reed".
VIDEO: BBC reports on the Brits own veterans' health care issues.
VIDEO: Joe Biden gives a scathing speech on the floor of the Senate. Biden's plan to end the war works for me, yet the make believe Bush policy continues.
VIDEO: Joe Scarborough talks to Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), about failures in the veteran care system.
VIDEO: Trailer for the film The Prisoner, or, How I Planned To Kill Tony Blair.


Crossposted at Ice Station Tango.

TAGS: Iraq War, Walter Reed, Dick Cheney, Health Care

The Afghanistan News

Bush Asks NATO for More Troops, Taliban Captures District, Pakistan's Position, John Howard Waffles, Tony Blair Swears, More

Yesterday the story broke that Osama Bin Laden was putting together a command center in Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan...

Afghanistan! Yeah... What ever happened there?

Let's do The Afghanistan News and find out:

• A helicopter crash killed 8 soldiers early Sunday morning.
• The Taliban recaptured a district in Zabul province.
• The UN is pressuring Pakistan to clarify its position on the Taliban after one of their governors likened the Taliban to a liberation force.
• Afghanistan is considering amnesty for war criminals. Hamid Karzai will veto a measure approving amnesty, but Afghan lawmakers may override the veto.
• A suicide bomber disguised as a doctor struck a hospital opening, wounding NATO soldiers.
• A bit of relatively good news--Afghanistan's army is outperforming the Iraqi army.
• Australia's John Howard continues to waffle on whether to send more troops to fight in Afghanistan. Seems like Howard likes to talk big about fighting terror when he's attacking Barack Obama, but when it comes time to actually fight, well, that's for Americans.

VIDEO: Bush calls on NATO countries to send more troops to Afghanistan. More NATO troops, as opposed to, you know, ending the illegal war in Iraq and sending those troops to the war they should have been allowed to finish off five years ago.
VIDEO: Tony Blair promises to see the fight in Afghanistan through. Of course, he's resigning later this year.
VIDEO: Mosaic--Has the hunt for bin Laden finally begun? They say perhaps. I say no.

Crossposted at Ice Station Tango

TAGS: Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, Taliban, Pakistan