Because it appears that the State Department is sending in Citi to help modernize their banking sector.
This is not the Onion, really, it isn’t.
Category: Iraq
My Thoughts on Obama’s Iraq “Withdrawal”
I think that he got played by the military. There are likely to be over 100K troops until year’s end, because General Ray Odierno wants them there for elections, and over 50K for a stabilization force until the 2nd half of 2010.
I think that Obama did not want to deal with the “death by 1000 leaks,” that Clinton saw on gays in the military, and felt that some senior army officials, particularly Ordierno, who have already pretty much said that they would ignore the status of forces agreement.
This should have been fixed in 1993, by Bill Clinton firing Colin Powell for insubordination, and could be fixed now by firing Ordierno if he steps out of line.
Truman’s precedent with MacArthur stands, and should be enforced.
In the short run, Obama needs to start pulling out the extensive infrastructure at the “superbases,” such as maintenance and communications, so as to reduce the military utility of these facilities for use outside of Iraq, as quickly as possible.
Obama Gets Rolled By The Pentagon on Iraq
That’s the only way you can describe it, and seeing as how he rolled it out hours before his speech to Congress, they want it buried.
19 months with a 50,000 troop “residual force,” is not a good thing.
I Have to Admire this Legal Stragegy
Muntadar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi shoe throwing journalist, has a novel defense against charges that he assaulted a foreign dignitary who was a guest of the Iraqi Prime Minister:
Zaidi, 30, who is charged with assaulting a foreign head of state, posited that Bush’s Dec. 14 trip to Baghdad was not an official visit by a foreign dignitary because he arrived in the country without prior notice and didn’t leave the Green Zone, which at the time was still under U.S. control.
“I am charged now with attacking the prime minister’s guest,” he said stoically, making his first public remarks since the incident. “We Arabs are famous for being generous with guests. But Bush and his soldiers have been here for six years. Guests should knock on the door. Those who come sneaking in are not guests.”
Roughly an hour into the hearing, Presiding Judge Abdul Amir al-Rubaie announced that he would postpone the proceeding until March 12 to seek an opinion from the Iraqi government about whether Bush’s swan song visit to Baghdad was, in fact, an “official” one.
True to form, and unlike the statements made by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao following a similar incident, when he asked for his show thrower to be released, Bush has made no statement regarding the fate of Zaidi, who has already been tortured by Iraqi authorities.
Complications in the Iraqi Elections
It appears that the al-Hadba Gathering, a Sunni Arab party, did well enough in local elections in Nineveh province to take control of the provincial council from the Kurds, which means that they have control of it and its its capital, Mosul.
The party, and its leader Atheel al-Nujaifi, took a fairly explicitly anti-Kurdish line during elections, and needless to say, the Kurds, who had previously held 31 of the council’s 41 seats, are not amused and are suggesting some level of electoral fraud.
While not a part of the Kurdish autonomous region, they Kurds have maintained that Mosul should be incorporated into this area.
Iraqi Regional Elections
The Iraqi tribes at the center of the “Anbar Awakening” are alleging fraud by the Sunni religious party and threatening violence while we have reports that ISCI and the religious parties have suffered losses.
There probably won’t be official results for the next few days, and I’m not sure how contradictory reports, or at least contradictory perceptions, will play out here.
Richard Pearle Was Right
The Iraqis have erected a statue dedicated to George W. Bush, in Tikrit of all places:
It’s in honor of the journalist who threw a shoe at him actually, and I don’t think that I’ve seen a picture of Iraqis looking so…so….happy in a very long time.
No, this is not The Onion.
Iraq Denies License to Blackwater
Iraq has notified the State Department of their decision, and the U.S. government will not renew their contract.
Hopefully, this is the start of a more general withdrawal of the use mercenary forces by the U.S. government.
Of course the problem is not limited to combat contractors (mercenaries), it’s also increasingly obvious that the explosion of contractors throughout the bureaucracy has created an explosion of fraud, waste, and abuse.
Obama Needs to Tell Ray Odierno to STFU
Because it’s clear that General Odierno is doing his level best to box Obama in on Iraq:
Among those consulted by the president was Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, who has developed a plan that would move slower than Mr. Obama’s campaign timetable, by pulling out two brigades over the next six months. In an interview in Iraq on Wednesday, General Odierno suggested that it might take the rest of the year to determine exactly when United States forces could be drawn down significantly.
This is borderline insubordinate.
A president needs his generals to tell him, and congress, the truth, but you don’t want them spouting off to the press in order to make your job more difficult.
If this is not slapped down now, it will only get worse.
Maliki to Bush: Drop Dead
Nouri al-Maliki is now saying that he will not allow Iraq to be used as a base to threaten their neighbors:
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told Iran’s Arabic news channel on Friday that Iraq “will not let Iraq be a launching ground to threaten any country,” Al-Alam said on its website.
Just in case you are wondering, why yes, we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives to put Iran’s bitch in control of Iraq.
Gates and Murtha Back More Funds For FCS
We have a report that Rep. John Murtha and SecDef Robert Gates are supporting the acceleration of the Future Combat System in order to apply the technologies to Iraq and (particularly) Afghanistan.
What the story appears to be saying is that they want to get the improved communications and sensors capabilities into the hands of soldiers.
While I can see the advantage of this, fundamentally, the subtext here is that this is being suggested as an alternative to boots on the ground, which is a losing proposition.
One of the major problems in US counterinsurgency is that we do not commit enough ground troops, and so, we overuse air assets, which, because of collateral damage, strengthen local support for the insurgency.
Pulling the money out of whiz bang, and out of Air Force combat operations in theater, would be a much more effective use of resources.
Why Barack Obama Needs to Fire a General or Two
So, the status of forces agreement is signed, and General Ray Ordierno immediately starts making public statements about how it a binding timeline in the agreement does not really mean a binding timeline.
Now we have unnamed sources deep in the Pentagon saying that the pullout of troops from Iraqi cities will be a pullout in name only:
Even though the agreement with the Iraqi government calls for all American combat troops to be out of the cities by the end of June, military planners are now quietly acknowledging that many will stay behind as renamed “trainers” and “advisers” in what are effectively combat roles. In other words, they will still be engaged in combat, just called something else.
Let’s be clear, this is a case of the Pentagon leaking from near the top: the leaks have been approved by Gates, Petraeus, or Ordierno.
On January 21, they need to be told that they will stop all comments, and that the entire chain of command needs to know that the status of forces agreement is now the position of the government of the United States of America, and that anyone who suggests otherwise is engaging in insubordination, and will be subject to severe disciplinary actions.
And then, the next relatively senior officer (Lt. Col. and above) who shoots off his yap gets fired.
Because this really is insubordination, and while it may serve the desires of Bush and His Evil Minions™ to subvert the timetables in the SOF, it does not suit the desires or needs of the nation.
If anything else is done, Barack Obama will be rolled for the rest of his time as President by the Pentagon.
The Coup Was No Coup, and the Purge Didn’t Purge
So, it now appears that the 24 interior ministry officers arrested for either plotting a coup, or plotting to revive the Baath party have been released.
I believe that Robert Farley’s analysis is spot on.
There never was a coup or a Baath party plot, there was just a power grab by Nouri al Maliki, and when too many people called him out on this, he folded.
Not sure what this means, though it will make the next round of elections in Iraq interesting.
Muntader al-Zaidi Update
Well, we now have an Iraqi judge stating that he was beaten, and both Sunni and Shia clerics are calling for his release.
It appears that there is increasing support at all levels of Iraqi society for his “Shoe d’Etat”, and while I still don’t rate his survival chance high, but I think that his chances of getting out of this breathing are getting better.
OK, Something Happened in Iraq
There have been mass arrests throughout Iraqi government centered in the interior ministry. It was initially alleged that it was a coup attempt, but now it is alleged that they were all trying to reconstitute the now banned Baath party.
If those charges sound bogus, even more suspect is that the arrests were made by a unit that answers directly to the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki
It appears that the US general who was the chief liaison with the Interior Ministry has been completely out of the loop, and he has no idea as to whether it will effect the attempts to bring the, “Sons of Iraq”, Sunnis recruited to fight Jihadists in various regions of Iraq into the law enforcement system.
I tend to agree with Robert Farley, who says that this is a power grab by Maliki, and considering his vociferous opposition bringing in the “Sons of Iraq”, my guess is that they will be shooting at Americans again.
I’m Sorry! Please Stop Beating Me!
It has now been reported that Muntader al-Zaidi, of shoe throwing fame, has apologized and pled guilty, along with asking for leniency from the court.
It is likely that if one were to review the court transcripts, that the translation from the Arabic would be, “Whatever you say. Please stop breaking my fingers.”
Juan Williams: Calling Swarthy People Uppity Since…..
OK, he didn’t use the word “uppity”, but considering his behavior, where he seems to make a living out of condemning things like Rap music (and getting the lyrics wrong in the process), his screeds against the Iraqi people on Billo’s show should come as no surprise.
But’s let’s read what he said (vid below):
WILLIAMS: But on a serious level, how many American lives have been sacrificed to the cause of liberating Iraq? How much money has been spent while they’re not spending their own profits from their oil? American money. So I just think it’s absolutely the act of an ingrate for them to behave in this way. Just unbelievable to me.
Them, huh….They should shut up and sing spirituals eat their falafel.
Yes, they are ingrates because they object to being invaded and conquered, which has created this reality:
- More than four million Iraqis forced to flee either to another part of Iraq or abroad.
- Four million Iraqis regularly cannot buy enough food.
- 70 percent are without adequate water supplies, compared to 50 percent in 2003.
- 28 percent of children are malnourished, compared to 19 percent before the 2003 invasion.
- 92 percent of Iraqi children suffer learning problems, mostly due to the climate of fear.
And those numbers ignore the somewhere north of ½ million dead that are a result of the mess we made.
They should be grateful, because even though we took them prisoner and sold them as slaves across the oceans, their life is much better on the plantation …. they get purple fingers.
Could someone explain to me why Juan Williams isn’t excluded from polite society like David Duke?
Muntazer al-Zaidi Is Going to Be Murdered
Seriously, he is. We just had his court hearing before a judge in his cell, “because he is too injured to appear in a courtroom, his brother says.”
He’s being tortured, and not a word from Bush of Perino on this, which would stop the abuse, because Perino is a wind up doll, and Bush likes it when people he sees as slighting him are hurt….Hell, he probably just likes it when people are hurt.
We also have a report that Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, Speaker of Iraq Parliament resigned over this, though it is unclear as to whether it was a real resignation, and if real, it is unclear if he was doing so over al-Zaidi, or because the body was in complete pandemonium:
Several Sadrist lawmakers interrupted, demanding that the session address al-Zeidi’s case and allegations that he had been beaten in custody. A noisy argument broke out after other lawmakers shouted that the case was a matter for the courts, according to Wisam al-Zubaidi, an adviser to Khalid al-Attiyah, parliament’s deputy speaker.
With legislators screaming at one another, speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni, shouted: “There is no honor in leading this parliament and I announce my resignation.”
Al-Mashhadani, who has not taken a public position on al-Zeidi, has a history of eccentric behavior and it was unclear whether the resignation was serious. Two years ago, the Shiite bloc ousted al-Mashhadani after a series of outbursts, but his fellow Sunnis forced his reinstatement.
An official in the speaker’s office confirmed al-Mashhadani’s announcement but said he was uncertain whether he meant what he said. The official said the speaker may have been made the remark because he was upset. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
What Big Media Matt Says
The harsh reality is that this was not a noble undertaking done for good reasons. It was a criminal enterprise launched by madmen cheered on by a chorus of fools and cowards. And it’s seen as such by virtually everyone all around the world — including but by no means limited to the Arab world. But it’s impolitic to point this out in the United States, and it’s clear that even a president-elect who had the wisdom not to be suckered in by the War Fever of 2002 has no intention of really acting to marginalize the bad actors. Which, I think, makes sense for his political objectives. But if Americans want to play a constructive role in world affairs, it’s vitally important for us to get in touch with the reality of what the past eight years of US foreign policy have been and how they’re seen and understood by people who aren’t stirred by the shibboleths of American patriotism.
(emphasis mine)
I don’t want them marginalized. I want them imprisoned.
Free Muntader al-Zaidi, Again
Well it appears that the Iraqi shoe throwing journalist has been tortured in prison, with an arm and ribs broken, and the Lebanese television channel NTV has offered him a job retroactively, “from the moment the first shoe was thrown”.
Not surprisingly, he has become a folk hero across the Arab world (see here andhere)
What is a surprise is George W. Bush is so completely clueless:
‘I’m not insulted. I don’t hold it against the government,’ Bush told ABC News in an exclusive interview. ‘The guy wanted to get on TV and he did. I don’t know what his beef is, but whatever it is, I’m sure someone will hear it.’
(emphasis mine)
Doesn’t know what his beef is? After invading and occupying his country, and killing at least 100,000 of his countrymen, forcing about 2 million into exile, and internally displacing another 2 million, in a country of 30 million, you don’t know what his beef is? (link)
Well, it looks like he may be getting some American style torture soon, because it’s been reported that Muntader al-Zaidi has been transferred to the Camp Cropper prison, which is US run.