Neocons and Democrats Tussle over Long or Short “Surge” of Violence in Iraq
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=704
He concludes that:
"the neocons running the Iraq “war” are not interested in making a difference—they are primarily concerned with working up a violent lather that ultimately splits the nation into at least three distinct pieces. As well, they need troops positioned for the spillover effect of the coming attack against Iran..."
The World Socialist Web Site are also covering this:
More US troops to Kuwait, as Bush moves to escalate the war in Iraq
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/iraq-d30.shtml
They conclude that:
"The mid-term elections in November, which ended Republican control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, were a popular repudiation of the Bush administration and the Iraq war. It is clear, however, that elections will not bring an end to the war or the policies of neo-colonialism and militarism of which it is a part so long as political life in the US continues to be monopolized by two parties of the US corporate-financial elite."
And it's interesting to look at some of the comments that Roy Hattersley's article in the Guardian, "What has long been a catastrophic tragedy is also now a horrific farce" has attacted -- many are far more insightful that and actual article, for example:
"So what do we do Roy?
When we have powerful corporations (mainly US) with their tens of thousands of covert operatives running wild in Iraq as in the Congo and elsewhere where there are natural resources or US (and other) strategic interests, what can be done?
I am all for withdrawal as I believe it is being used as a cover. Even if we withdraw all troops, the mercenaries and operatives, the arms shipments and the multi-million dollar 'business' of the 'insurgency' will continue.
Don't you agree that tackling the roots of the problems we created is the way to go? Starting with opening up US/UK government secret files and pulling back our special operatives, reigning in/expelling all foreign corporations and their contractors and military operatives.
It is a nonsense to imagine the Iraqi government holds any control as the people on the ground will tell you. The US has seized control of every ministry in Iraq set up bases interfered in every aspect of their organisation and hindered any attempt at restoring operations.
We have a US/UK military who are actively seeking to prevent restoration of normal processes. I know people there who work or who know people working in health, agriculture, education, engineering - all have similar experiences. All will tell you the US is doing its utmost to destroy/prevent any kind of attempt at restoration to pre-invasion normal operations.
It's actually worse - under the veil of the orchestrated and stage-managed bombings and chaos we are de-industrialising Iraq and kicking it back well and truly into the stone age - for that is how we prefer it. Put in place Hizb a-Tahrir cuckoo extremists when we finish to insure it stays in the stone age.
Or perhaps continue a troop build up and maintain a perpetual war bringing in the hundreds of billions of dollars profit each year. Soon people here will tire of the same old news and we can continue repressing the Iraqis with our inhumane and backward capitalist strategies and exterminate them with our DU and prevent any outside agencies desperate to help from reaching the Iraqis. Don't forget the Mehdi work for the US - they are part of our black op war on the Iraqi people. We not only created the mess, we are also feeding it."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1978883,00.html
See also comments on the article from down under:
http://blogs.theage.com.au/yoursay/archives/2006/12/an_unmitigated.html
The US / UK imperial alliance has lost the propaganda war across the world, all that can now be done, in the absence of effective anti-war demos in the west, is wait for the military defeat of the psycopathic imperial war machine:
US COULD FACE CATASTROPHIC MILITARY DEFEAT IN IRAQ
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/12/358546.html
Some might say bring it on, I wouldn't, there is no joy in unnecessary death, for the deaths on both sides are unnecessary, they are only necessary for the continuation of the insane oil based capitalism which is melting the ice caps and leading for further death and destruction -- did you hear that a giant ice island to due to disrupt shipping for years?
"An ice island the size of a small city is adrift in the Arctic after breaking free from one of Canada's largest ice shelves, scientists said today.
The ice island is 37 metres (120ft) thick and measures 9 miles by 3 miles, according to the CanWest News Service.
Laurie Weir, who monitors ice conditions for the Canadian Ice Service, said: "Over the next few years this ice island could drift into populated shipping routes. There's significant oil and gas development in this region as well, so we'll have to keep monitoring its location over the next few years."
Using US and Canadian satellite images, as well as data from seismic monitors, Professor Copland discovered that the ice shelf collapsed on the afternoon of August 13 2005."
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1979937,00.html
Comments
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A Bad Year for US Empire
30.12.2006 13:35
Not only has Washington become ever more bogged down -- at the current rate of nearly three billion dollars and 20 soldiers' lives a week -- in an increasingly fragmented and violent Iraq whose de facto civil war threatens to draw in its neighbours, but a resurgent Taliban has exposed the fragility of what gains have been made in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led military campaign ousted the group five years ago.
In neighbouring Pakistan, the U.S.-backed government of President Pervez Musharraf has withdrawn its forces from tribal areas along the Afghan border, effectively handing control of the region to pro-Taliban forces believed to be sheltering al Qaeda.
In Lebanon, a pro-western government, the product of last year's US-backed "Cedar Revolution", finds itself under siege from a Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah which appears to have emerged from last summer's war with Israel stronger and more confident than ever.
Meanwhile, North Korea ended its longstanding moratorium on testing its ballistic missiles on the Fourth of July, thus making its own rather defiant contribution to the fireworks traditionally associated with Washington's Independence Day celebrations. Apparently dissatisfied with Washington's appreciation, Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test four months later.
Similarly, Iran, the other surviving member of Bush's "Axis of Evil", announced last April that it successfully enriched uranium and subsequently shrugged off US and European demands that it freeze its programme, even as it hosted a succession of leaders from the US-backed government in Baghdad and offered Washington help in stabilising Iraq provided that it dropped its "arrogant" attitude.
An increasingly assertive and energy-rich Russia has also become noticeably more defiant over the past year, challenging with growing success Washington's post-9 11 military encroachment in the Caucasus and Central Asia and effectively reversing two of the three US-backed "colour revolutions" -- in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan -- in its near abroad.
The looming succession battle in Turkmenistan, whose natural gas endowments and strategic perch next to both Iran and Afghanistan make it a very desirable piece of real estate, will likely intensify this latest version of "Great Game".
By collaborating with China in both the UN Security Council and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Moscow has also challenged the unipolarists' notion that Washington's overwhelming global military dominance would not provoke the creation of countervailing coalitions designed to contain its power.
Even in Africa, defying the U.S. came at little cost. Sudan, accused by Bush himself for two years of committing genocide in Darfur, manoeuvred Washington into backing a clearly unworkable peace accord and then, when it fell apart, not only rejected repeated US demands to permit deployment of a UN peacekeeping force to the region, but also helped spread the conflict into neighbouring Chad and Central African Republic.
In nearby Somalia, meanwhile, covert US support for a coalition of warlords, who had kept the country in a permanent state of insecurity for more than a decade, backfired big-time last summer when an Islamic militia that Washington accuses of being linked to al Qaeda chased them out of the country.
As the year ends, the US is effectively backing Ethiopia's deployment of thousands of troops in support of the disintegrating interim government in Baidoa, permitting the Islamists' to rally nationalist opinion for a war that analysts fear could burst beyond Somalia's borders.
In Latin America, Washington averted the worst -- the victory of leftwing presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexican elections last summer.
Nonetheless, clumsy US efforts to influence elections over the past year in Bolivia and Nicaragua proved counter-productive, as candidates backed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who appears to delight in nothing more than provoking Bush, won in both countries, as well as in Ecuador.
Coupled with Chavez' own sweeping victory earlier this month, the year's elections results in Latin America appear to have confirmed a left-wing populist and anti-US trend -- the so-called "pink tide" -- which, along with the recent disclosures regarding ties between right-wing paramilitaries and the government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, poses serious threats to Washington's multi-billion-dollar anti-drug effort in the Andes.
Elections elsewhere also proved disappointing to Washington's unipolar ambitions, none more so than last January's victory, despite last-minute efforts by Washington bolster the Fatah, of Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
Not only did the election set back prospects for resuming a credible Israeli-Palestinian peace process, but Bush's reaction -- to isolate rather than engage the winner, and, more recently, to actively seek in its ouster -- made clear that Washington's "freedom agenda" for the Middle East was largely rhetorical, except when aimed against hostile states like Syria or Iran.
Indeed, Hamas' victory and the growing strength and popularity of Islamist parties throughout the Arab world brought to a screeching halt U.S. pressure on friendly authoritarian governments, notably Sunni-led Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan, to implement democratic reform. Meanwhile, the administration has tried to rope them into an alliance with Israel against what Jordan's King Abdullah has referred to as the ascendant "Shia Crescent" of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.
Of course, the most important revolt against the Bush administration's Washington's globocop aspirations took place here at home last month when voters handed Democrats control of both houses of Congress in mid-term elections in which Iraq and foreign policy, by virtually all accounts, played the decisive role.
While the warhawks predictably claimed that the results reflected more the public's lack of confidence in the way Bush had carried out policy than on the policy itself, a battery of polls in both the run-up to the election and immediately afterward found that that a large majority of citizens believe the administration's belligerent unilateralism had made the United States -- as well as the rest of the world -- less, rather than more, safe.
Nearly eight in 10 respondents in one survey sponsored by the influential Council on Foreign Relations and designed by legendary pollster Daniel Yankelovich said they thought the world saw the U.S. as "arrogant", and nearly 90 percent said such negative perceptions threaten national security.
"It's not just a matter of (wanting to be) well-loved or nice," said Yankelovich.
Whether the implications of these findings, as well as the elections results -- not to mention the foreign policy balance sheet of 2006 -- will be absorbed by Bush and his senior policy-makers in 2007, however, remains very much in doubt.
The post-election departure of two arch-unilateralists, former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and UN Amb. John Bolton, notwithstanding, nothing fires up the imperial impulse more than multiplying acts of defiance.
more tea
Sorry, but...
30.12.2006 13:36
I can't see any evidence that the US/UK are trying murder people based on anything as facile as that. I think you'll find that loads of civillians are dying because they happen to live near valuable mineral commodities. This commonality extends arounds the globe from Guatemala to Sierra Leone to Kabul to Kirkuk. Greed is colourblind.
The jingoism is just biolerplate propaganda to lend legitimacy to the murder. The Establishment think they can still use 19th century techniques to manipulate the general public into supporting them.
BTW, Kurt Nimmo links to bullshit sites like PrisonPlanet, WRH, InfoWars and even to facist nut Rense... are you sure you want to be trusting this guy?
A Pedant
Another Pedant
30.12.2006 15:21
Arthur
Oh it's as simple as that ?
30.12.2006 16:21
I wonder where you got this tripe from I would hazard a guess and say the corporate media.
Certainly I'm sure that there are Sunni's and Shia in the pay of the U.S / UK spies (CIA /MI5 ect)
But there also a lot of people from security firms running around the country no one seems to know
exactly what they are doing in Iraq.
In previous UK/US wars er sorry I meant liberations the undercover black op's death quads have always been
very busy behind the scenes bumping off people with important roles in the community.
Don't they call it "low intensity war fare" well they did during the attempted "Liberation" of Nicaragua where a bunch of Argentinian bandits called the contras were wheeled out as the official opposition to the democratically elected Sandinista's. They basically killed all the doctors, school teachers, mayors the idea being to demoralize the people and fuck up the basic social fabric of the community.
Setting the Sunnis against the Shia is step one in the old Divide and rule book and I am sure it works a treat.
Never heard much about the two SAS guys that were stopped and arrested while they were on their way to a fancy dress party with their car full of bombs and other similar shit. Their mates had to go down to the local nick
and bale them out with a bit of best of british tank driving through the wall of the police station yeah that's the way to up hold the brits version of law and order.
Falk
Falk
30.12.2006 21:58
There is no tactical sense at all in the Coalition provoking civil war. No-one has any ideas what the SAS were up to, but two things are clear. 1) They were not under cover (a wig and shemagh doesn't constitute an elaborate disguise. Plus all the equipment they were carrying was quite obviously standard SAS issue, including the headscarf). 2) there are no credible reports of explosives being found on their possession.
Could you lot of loons please go to some conspiraloon forum and leave us alone.
tired of conspiraloons
Speechless
31.12.2006 02:00
On a brighter note. This month has seen more US troops die than any other month since the start of the war. Hopefully the british troops will start dying in the same numbers..
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31.12.2006 09:49
You assert that the sunni & Shia have "united" against the occupiers. United in suicide? Have you failed to notice the civil war? That mixed areas are the daily stage for car bombings and kidnappings?
For decades the majority Shia had been under the boot of the largely Sunni Baathist regime. Sunnis do not recognise Shia doctrine. There is also the presence of Wahabist Sunni mujahadeen and elements from Syria and Iran.
I don't need any detailed statistics in front of me to be able to confidently say that Iraqis are killing more Iraqis than they are occupational forces.
So what would be the tactical advantage to promoting civil war? You say the contractors benefit. But if the country mires itself in a full blown civil war the contractors stand to get fuck all. The likelihood is that the winning force will be Shia. The Iraqi Shia are unlikely to go begging outside the Shia Crescent for support or rebuilding loans. A situation with Iraq and Iran getting along like best pals is the corporations/pentagon's worst nightmare. Even worse if you see a military alliance Between Iraq, Iran, Syria and the Lebanon (and even scarier Palestine).
Then what happens if the Sunni countries like Saudi step in to defend the Sunni triangle? Total fucking nightmare!
You see, this concept of divvide and rule only works if you can establish a high level of containtment, not if the country you are trying to rape explodes (as is happening).
The idea was to invade Iraq and install a puppet regime and control an OPEC member to secure the planet's 2nd largest oil reserve. How is that going to work when the pipelines are constantly being attacked and the roads are no safer than minefields? What good are the rebuilding contracts if no-one gets paid for them? In some places, the US military can't even leave their bases. In Baghdad, westerners can't even leave the Green Zone.
If you can't see what a spectacular military and geopolitical fuck up Gulf War 3 has become, it's no wonder you are speechless.
But hey, it isn't as EXCITING as all that Alex Jones shit eh!
ToC
Twat !!
31.12.2006 11:45
like a private police force. Not doing bad in the Dutch Police State of Holland either.
I think any one uses the term conspiracyloon is a total fucking twat.
No I don't visit prison Planet x or what ever the fuck it is called I visited country's like Lebanon , Vietnam Cambodia Nicaragua, San Salvador, Chile Honduras all at a time when the Foreign Office was telling brits to steer well clear.
I have zero interest in what Alex Jones has to say but I understand at some point he agrees with me !!
Yeah you to can become a so called conspiracyloon just study recent history and er yeah not the official version. rarsclat
Falk
Not what I was saying
31.12.2006 12:19
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31.12.2006 12:30
twat
More twattery
31.12.2006 19:02
then you'll have no problem sharing that evidence and illustrating how Dr Evil and his satanic dwarves did the dirty? And when you say evidence, I expect something better than www.whatreallyhappened.com
"Even there British troops were caught in one occasion planting explosives disguised as arabs."
For someone who doesn't read conspiraloon sites you are well-versed in their fictionalisations. The soldiers were not elaborately disguised, they were carrying SAS weaponry (duh! <--- spot the error in being covert) a British flag (double duh!) whicvh they waved at the police who fired on them... and there are no credible reports of them having any explosives.
But hey, that won't stop you from thinking what you want in the abscence of any evidence.
Hmmm, 2003-4, I remember the US being concerned about the descent into civil war and arch-idiot Rumsfeld gaoding "bring it on!"
You must be a special kind of dense if you think that the contracts are where corporat einterests in Iraq began and ended. Ask anyone experienced in the Iraq oil industry exactly how much oil is getting out at the moment. Ask how much work has been done by contractors on the infrastructure that was destroyed.
In fact, just go and do some reading of actual data and not some conspiracy dross you think sounds cool.
Twat
G.W in Disguise
01.01.2007 07:39
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01.01.2007 11:19
http://www.addlestonearmysurplus.co.uk/
The wigs'll be down to the pracricality of it looks very suspicious for people to be driving around oustide Hajj with no hair. And if you knew anything about the situation on the ground, you'd know that checkpoints manned by police loyal to Shia deathsquads are a big enough danger to Iraqis and that Western civillians move about only at their own stupid peril.
The point about the trial: again, if you knew anything, you'd know that the Coalition conveniently had themselves legally exempted by the Interim Government. Apart from that, would YOU be happy to be tried under an Iraqi court at this moment in time, even for a misdemeanor?
There is a lot unknown about the events, but given the situation I find none of it surprising or in itself suspicious.
It's rather amusing how you accuse me of having a black & white outlook, whislt you happily wish death and suffering on stereotypes and accuse me of your own tactics.
Do a bit more reading on what is going on in Iraq for yourself and you'll probably realise that this situation is far more fucked and volatile and complex than the Coalitions want the people back home to know about.
twat
oops
01.01.2007 12:40
twat
Homepage: http://www.addlestonearmysurplus.co.uk/prod02.asp?ProductID=111800076
God is with you my child
01.01.2007 18:17
1 British troops carry arab disguises with them because they dont want to raise suspicion against them in certain areas of Iraq. You'd think shooting a policeman would be cause enough to raise suspicion however as long as youre dressed up as an arab it wont really be noticed.
2. British troops are 'legally' exempt from Iraqi justice therefore they have the right to hastily barge into the prison where the troops are held and release him consequently aiding in the escape of another hundred or so Iraqi prisoners who are not exempt from Iraqi justice. This would definately be a better tactic than say asking the Iraqi govt (which has afterall made them exempt from Iraqi courts) to release the prisoners and for them to be placed in British custody.But wait! If youre hiding something and u want to make sure no info gets out to the public then perhaps you cant afford to wait for the proper procedures to be followed.
3. Divide and rule has never been a popular policy amongst imperialists in order to achieve their goals and therefore we should be led to believe that good ol Britain would never do anything like that and there must be a very logical reasonable and legitimate explanation for this whole facade.
4. One should never wish the death of occupying troops as it doesnt solve anything. It didnt in Vietnam, it didnt in WWII and it wont in Iraq. But wait this is different were talking bout BRITISH troops theyre our boys theyre the best army in the world every1 loves them coz theyre supper fit yada yada yada
Id like to take this opportunity to express my deep respect in your views its just I think theyre quite pathetic
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Answer this conspiraloons?
01.01.2007 21:26
Please answer the following before continuing with this crap and look first at Al Jazeera's photos of the soldier’s equipment here http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0510/S00052.htm
1. Where are the explosives? The green tube is a 66mm anti tank rocket not a usual ingredient for a car bomb.
2. Why is all of their equipment western? Even their weapons when cheap AKs and much more are plentiful in Iraq?
Arthur
Arturo
02.01.2007 03:45
...
I did read it
02.01.2007 10:57
Arthur
RE: God is with you my child
02.01.2007 12:33
Now can you tell me what the sequence of events was leading up to the policeman being shot. Because you seem quite certain that the SAS opened fire first and that the checkpoint was legal and the policemen weren't part of any militia.
2. Having actually read all available accounts of the incident, it seems pretty clear that the men were being held by militia nearby, and the storming of the torture centre was the result of a negotiating team having been kidnapped.
I can only guess that something happened before the shooting at the checkpoint, since there were two people capture an no reports of others fleeing- SAS operate in basic units of four troopers.
We'll not know for a very long time, what processes took place regarding investigation of the incident, since the SAS never publish anything themselves and all memoirs are redacted/approved before publishing. For all you know, the men have been punished. But again you are reaching.
3. Divide and rule: I'm actually hard pushed to find an example of D&R that was ever successful and didn't result in an unmanageable disaster. But perhaps you can enlighten us with you broad knowledge of military history?
4. I think anyone who derives vicarious pleasure from murder is somewhat lacking as a human being.
Twat
This is pointless
02.01.2007 14:59
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02.01.2007 20:58
I'd have to disagree. I think I'm basing my observations and assumptions on the availible evidence. It isn't so much a blind trust, more that the story makes no bloody sense as the conspiraloons present it. If HM Gvt wanted to foment civil war through false flags they wouldn't send a bunch of Scotsmen out with HM Gvt equipment.
The people who promoted that idea obviously have not a clue. Earlier you mention places like Chile and Nicaragua. The CIA didn't have loads of Delta Force commandos running around pretending to be contras. The US Gvt trained up locals at Fort Benning to act as cadres.
"The policeman killed was not part of a militia"
How do you know that for sure. Who's the one making blind assumptions now?
"Divide and rule is a tactic which has proven fruitful in countries of the ex- british empire"
Every single country you list has been a comlete fucking disaster at some point and the British have been kicked out.
The New World Order has little to do with traditional 19th century models, it's about fucking countries right in their pockets.
Part of the problem with the 3rd world has been the way places like Africa and the Middle East were carved up willy-nilly by Imperialists. The partition in India is probably one of the more successful interventions- though Kashmir is a sticking point.
The 3 state route is unlikely. First of all the Turks will never (in the foreseeable future) accept a Kurdish nation state. The Shia territories would likely forge some sort of meaningful peace and cooperation with Iran & Syria. The Sunnis would be asking for territory with oil. It'd be an even bigger mess.
If I were a cynical NWO figure, I'd back the Shiites and let them stick the boot into the Sunnis and let the Kurds have semi-autonomy.
I just fail to understand how you think that civil war makes any economic sense. War only benefits the arms dealers, and their interests aren't great enough to orchestrate the Iraq invasion. So long as the civil war rages, the Iraqi economy will be fucked. Who is going to invest money in a war zone? Makes no sense.
Go do some reading of the more mundane reports and review your own opinions.
twat
no more
03.01.2007 00:03
My point was not that Civil war was a goodsolution, but a beter temporary solution than having the bulk of hte Iraqi ressistance fighting the coalition troops.
Even tho theyve left a mess in most of Africa, the imperialists still receive 80% of the continents produce in order to sell and profit from it while also using their companies in there to work the Africans as slaves and receive all the fruit of their labour.
Nothing to gain. Id laugh at that statement but its too sad to laugh at.
Now ul have to excuse me when i say as Jim Morrison once did "This is the end....coz your a twat."
(Jim Morrison, 1967)
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Jim Morrison
03.01.2007 11:25
Arthur
What was said
03.01.2007 12:02
Iraqi Police
and who said it!
03.01.2007 14:46
Once more for the gallery, Sheik Hassan al-Zarqani, spokesman for the MEHDI ARMY.
The PR man for a militia that openly runs death squads:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/24/AR2006082401721.html
So we are to assume that the Shiite version of the Provisional IRA are being honest, despite them presenting no evidence of their claims?
Oh, and read the Oil comment here, it doesn't lend much credibility to the divide and rule argument
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/01/359185.html?c=on#c163725
twat
common sense
03.01.2007 18:48
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