Pentagon: no Iraqi units capable of fighting without American support

Originally Posted by Mike Mount

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The only Iraqi battalion capable of fighting without U.S. support has been downgraded to a level requiring them to fight with American troops backing them up, the Pentagon said Friday.

The battalion, made up of 700 to 800 Iraqi Army soldiers, has repeatedly been offered by the U.S. as an example of the growing independence of the Iraqi military.

The competence of the Iraqi military has been cited as a key factor in when U.S. troops will be able to return home."

Monumental failure for Bush: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ne...ar%22&ie=UTF-8

Days of rage:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ne...ar%22&ie=UTF-8

Iraq and other Arabs:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L24744713.htm

Is it war yet?
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/m...ar_yet_in_Iraq

Whose fault is it?
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/32747/

It's the war that never ends:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAC534740.htm

Violence down but continues:
http://www.normantranscript.com/feed...es_apstoryview

Originally Posted by The Roadrunner

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Unbelievable. Bill O'Reilly has thrown with "Mother Sheehan". Why does he hate America?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602220007

Looks like even Wild Bill now recognizes that he's been backing a no-win policy.

I especially like the term "crazy-people underestimation." :lol: :lol:

Especially given the source!

:lol:

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Originally Posted by Mr. Jon Basil Utley

A major reason the Armageddonites have become so powerful is that most journalists can't comprehend that millions of Americans could really want, in this day and age, their God to destroy most of the human race, much less that they are donating millions to promote it (subsidizing settlements on the West Bank and paying for Russian Jews to immigrate to Israel in order to fulfill prophecies faster). Nor do most Americans know that Armageddonites are in the highest levels of government. But it was erstwhile House Majority Leader Tom DeLay who argued that the Iraq war should be supported because it is a precursor to the second coming of Christ. He also tried to undermine the Bush "roadmap for peace" when he visited Israel.

The Brutal Christ of the Armageddonites

Originally Posted by JBU

This is how the dispensationalist ideology, dreamed up in the mid-19th century in the poor hills of Scotland and dispersed to the backwoods of Virginia and the deserts of Texas and Oklahoma, became a major factor in American foreign policy. ...

A few educated evangelicals, however, are now questioning where their brethren are trying to take America. In January, the New York Times carried a piece by Charles Marsh, a self-declared evangelical, about how many ministers agitated for war on Iraq, even telling their congregations that it would help expedite biblical prophecy. Eighty-seven percent of white evangelical Christians supported the attack, and some even linked Saddam Hussein with wicked King Nebuchadnezzar of Biblical fame.

Thanks for posting this. I know a forum that will really appreciate it.

One of those grunt's eye views...

In the Battle for Baghdad, U.S. Turns War on Insurgents

For discussion, and to nudge people to read the rest of a much longer article...

Originally Posted by Thomas E. Ricks for the Post

PATROL BASE SWAMP, Iraq -- Here, in a half-ruined house bristling with dull black machine guns and surrounded by green sandbags, shin-deep mudholes, and shadowy palm groves, lies the leading edge of the U.S. war in Iraq.

This remote outpost, manned by Bravo Company of a unit in the 101st Airborne Division, is the forwardmost American position in the so-called Triangle of Death southwest of Baghdad. Some U.S. commanders say the region is now the focal point in their campaign against Iraq's stubborn insurgency. It's a tough fight: Just getting U.S. troops established here in the canal-laced fields of the Euphrates River Valley meant running a gantlet of roadside bombs, with one platoon encountering 14 in a three-hour stretch.

Interviews with U.S. soldiers -- from top generals to front-line grunts in Tall Afar, Mosul, Ramadi, Balad and throughout Baghdad -- as well as briefings at the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, reveal a markedly different war from that seen in 2003 and 2004, or even last year.

Current U.S. military commanders say they have come to understand that they are fighting within a political context, which means the results must first be judged politically. The pace and shape of the war also have changed, with U.S. forces trying to exercise tactical patience and shift responsibilities to Iraqi forces, even as they worry that the American public's patience may be dwindling...

Violence still smolders:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/in...rtner=homepage

Iraq on edge:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/me.../26/time.iraq/

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

Iraq on edge:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/me.../26/time.iraq/

And I thought I watched spirals of violence carefully. I take it you agree that Iraq could fall into the abyss very easily at this point? I don't know how things are going to fall, but I'm very nervous.

It is still on the edge, but it seems to have stopped teetering as far as I know (and these may be famous last words...)
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/me...raq.civil.war/
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ne...22civil+war%22
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0227/p01s03-woiq.html

Even the troops want out...

Originally Posted by Nicholas Kristof

When President Bush held a public meeting with troops by satellite last fall, they were miraculously upbeat. And all along, unrepentant hawks (most of whom have never been to Iraq) have insisted that journalists are misreporting Iraq and that most soldiers are gung-ho about their mission.
Hogwash! A new poll to be released today shows that U.S. soldiers overwhelmingly want out of Iraq -- and soon.

The poll is the first of U.S. troops currently serving in Iraq, according to John Zogby, the pollster. Conducted by Zogby International and LeMoyne College, it asked 944 service members, "How long should U.S. troops stay in Iraq?"

Only 23 percent backed Mr. Bush's position that they should stay as long as necessary. In contrast, 72 percent said that U.S. troops should be pulled out within one year. Of those, 29 percent said they should withdraw "immediately."

Intel Chief: Iraq Civil War Could Spread Throughout Region

Originally Posted by Katherine Shrader

"WASHINGTON - A civil war in Iraq could lead to a broader conflict in the Middle East, pitting the region's rival Islamic sects against each other, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said in an unusually frank assessment Tuesday."

It it is rather difficult to imagine that people willing to fly airplanes into your place of work are less at war with you than their own people, but this is the point that has been missed most often in the past four and a half years.

It is a civil war within Muslim civilization, not simply between radicals and moderates (although there is that dimension), but between ethnic, tribal, and sectional groups. It is about theology, and land, and oil, and power, with some ancient (and not-so-ancient hatreds) thrown in for good measure. The corrupt, authoritarian regimes of the Arab-Muslim world have suppressed these tensions for the past century, but when you take the lid off the pressure cooker you're less liable to get liberal democracies and strong nation-states than anarchy and sectarian violence.

Islam is 500 years younger than Christianity (which was - you know - still burning heretics and alleged witches a half-millenium ago), and the nation-states of the Arab-Muslim world are as young as the nation-states of medieval Europe. It took Europe centuries of civil war and sectarian bloodletting before finally making peace with itself. I'm optimistic it won't take that long for the Muslim world to come to terms with modernity, but I'm less optimistic we will not see a generation of bloodshed throughout perhaps a significant swath of the Arab-Muslim world before they finally sort things out.

Originally Posted by Linus

Islam is 500 years younger than Christianity (which was - you know - still burning heretics and alleged witches a half-millenium ago), and the nation-states of the Arab-Muslim world are as young as the nation-states of medieval Europe. It took Europe centuries of civil war and sectarian bloodletting before finally making peace with itself. I'm optimistic it won't take that long for the Muslim world to come to terms with modernity, but I'm less optimistic we will not see a generation of bloodshed throughout perhaps a significant swath of the Arab-Muslim world before they finally sort things out.

You've almost exactly expressed what Stephen Green had thought about concerning a civil war in the Middle East, although his take is from a more opportunistic stand. Particularly in this paragraph:

Christianity was a violent religion until the Thirty Years War. That war lasted so long, and killed so many people (the population of Germany was reduced by a third), that Christendom lost its bloodlust. Freedom of conscience was born on the battlefields of central Europe. The Middle East hasn't suffered that kind of loss; they haven't yet had their fill of blood; they haven't yet become disgusted with tyranny. I'd like to think that the Middle East can do what the West did, without all the suffering. But if it takes regional fratricide, then so be it.

Personally, if I think this is how it should be, then let it. Horrified as I am on the prospects of more bloodshed, if this is the language, the form it needs to take in order to establish a better and less violent future, I wouldn't mind. This may as well be the Middle East's "nuclear bomb".

The following appeared in the NY Times on Valentine's day. I didn't see it then, but a daily summary I read mentioned the corection, at bottom, today. It gives some idea of how out of touch we are with how people in the Middle East are thinking, even in the most modern and secular country in the region.
Linus' post was excellent, but the Muslim world, despite Christianity's 500-year head start, has already shed more than its hare of blood. The problem is that there is no end in sight. Linus described the coming 4T in much of the Middle East--the collapse of the old order and the violent struggle for a new one, which is what a 4T really is.

ISTANBUL, Feb. 13 — The crowd cheered, clapped and whistled as the Turkish agent plunged the knife into the chest of the enemy commander.

"Valley of the Wolves — Iraq," which opened last week in movie theaters in Turkey, Austria and Germany, is a Rambo-like action story involving Turkish gunmen who seek revenge against a tyrannical occupying army.

In this version, however, at $10 million the most expensive movie ever made in Turkey, the enemy is no oppressive third-world dictatorship. The commander's name is Sam — as in uncle — and the opposing forces are the Americans, who are being punished for offenses against Turkish as well as Iraqi pride and honor.

The commander, Sam William Marshall, played by an American actor, Billy Zane, is a sociopath, killing people without a second's thought and claiming that he is doing God's will. While fictional, some of the movie is based in part on real events, and many of the scenes elicit knowing looks from the audience. The opening sequence portrays an incident that made headlines here in 2003, when a group of Turkish special forces soldiers in Iraq were taken into custody by American marines. The Turks, mistaken for insurgents, were handcuffed and held with hoods over their heads, which rankled many Turks.

Other scenes show ruthless marines killing Iraqis and soldiers mistreating inmates at Abu Ghraib prison, as well as an American Jewish surgeon, played by Gary Busey, who takes what look like kidneys from inmates during surgery to New York, London and Israel — all, according to the screenwriter, Bahadir Ozdener, inspired by real events.

"These were only a few of the human rights violations by the U.S. in Iraq that the press covered and we followed," Mr. Ozdener said. "We did not intend to insult American people or their values, but only wanted to portray a real tragedy there."

The plot focuses on the hooding incident and its aftermath. The commander of the Turkish soldiers returns home in humiliation, believing that his honor has been so compromised that he has no choice but to commit suicide. But he leaves a note to the hero, a Turkish intelligence agent named Polat Alemdar, pleading with him to defend the country's honor that he had so disserved. So Alemdar leads a small team of special operations soldiers into northern Iraq, where they are astonished and outraged at what they find.

"They were after the man who insulted the Turkish soldiers, but they couldn't believe their eyes when they saw the situation there," reads the movie's Web site. "The people of Iraq's values, personalities and history were completely being disregarded. The desired new order was forcing an unacceptable change on the people. The one who is responsible for these unendurable crimes against humanity is a Special Forces commander called Sam William Marshall."

Marshall then orders a raid on a wedding, where trigger-happy marines get spooked and kill scores of civilians. It is all in pursuit of his plan to pacify the people through intimidation and violence, all according to God's will and for their own good. Until, ultimately, Alemdar catches up with him.

Mr. Zane, who got his start in "Back to the Future" and has a great number of grade B credits since then, said he was not bothered by the movie's anti-American tone, adding that the horrors of war should be exposed. "I acted in this movie because I'm a pacifist," he said in a televised interview. "I'm against all kinds of war."

Whatever its artistic merits, the movie — which has already broken Turkish box office records — has highlighted a growing discrepancy in how America is seen in Turkey.

Officially, the two governments have been enjoying much improved relations after a low point in 2003, when Turkey refused to allow American troops to operate from its territory to invade Iraq. On the street, however, public opinion of America has been steadily declining since the invasion and the disclosures about the abuse at Abu Ghraib and the "rendition" and torture of suspected members of Al Qaeda in secret prisons.

Outwardly, the two countries are committed partners in fighting terrorism. But Turkey has been fighting with Kurdish separatists seeking independence since the 1980's, and the United States, along with the European Union, lists the Kurdish Workers Party, known as the P.K.K., as a terrorist organization.

With the invasion of Iraq, however, the United States military has been reluctant to act against the P.K.K., allowing them to operate freely in northern Iraq, which has distressed many Turks. "No matter how good our official relations are, the P.K.K. issue is a wall against all our bilateral efforts for the better," said Egemen Bagis, foreign policy adviser to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister. "Capture of the rebels by the American forces in Iraq would demolish this wall overnight, and cause U.S. popularity to surge."

To make matters worse, from a Turkish perspective, Washington has tolerated a de facto Kurdish state in northern Iraq. "People think that the U.S. supports an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq and therefore threatens the unity of Turkish land," said Nilufer Narli, a sociology professor at Bahcesehir University here.

As a result, popular opinion of the United States has been steadily declining. Anti-American novels, including one that portrays a war between the United States and Turkey, have been selling briskly, and Hitler's "Mein Kampf" was a best seller last year.

Despite its popularity, the film has not touched off widespread anti-American violence or prompted any street demonstrations.

"It doesn't show anything that we did not already know," said Fahri Kaya, 22-year-old private security guard. "It was more like a group therapy that gave people a chance to let go of their negative feelings against what's been happening in Iraq as they shouted, clapped and cried."

Despite the movie's success, Mr. Bagis said it would take more than that to shred the countries' good relations.

"Our alliance with the United States has very strong roots," he said. "A movie or a book just cannot destroy it."

Correction: Mar. 1, 2006, Wednesday:

The Istanbul Journal article on Feb. 14 about "Valley of the Wolves — Iraq," a popular Turkish-made film that depicts American soldiers in Iraq as tyrannical occupiers, referred imprecisely to scenes cited by the screenwriter as "inspired by real events." While two such scenes — the killing of Iraqis by American soldiers and the mistreatment of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison — have been documented, the scene depicting an American Jewish surgeon at Abu Ghraib removing organs from Iraqi prisoners for shipment to recipients in New York, London and Israel is fictional

Originally Posted by Linus

Intel Chief: Iraq Civil War Could Spread Throughout Region

Originally Posted by Katherine Shrader

"WASHINGTON - A civil war in Iraq could lead to a broader conflict in the Middle East, pitting the region's rival Islamic sects against each other, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said in an unusually frank assessment Tuesday."

It it is rather difficult to imagine that people willing to fly airplanes into your place of work are less at war with you than their own people, but this is the point that has been missed most often in the past four and a half years.

It is a civil war within Muslim civilization, not simply between radicals and moderates (although there is that dimension), but between ethnic, tribal, and sectional groups. It is about theology, and land, and oil, and power, with some ancient (and not-so-ancient hatreds) thrown in for good measure. The corrupt, authoritarian regimes of the Arab-Muslim world have suppressed these tensions for the past century, but when you take the lid off the pressure cooker you're less liable to get liberal democracies and strong nation-states than anarchy and sectarian violence.

Islam is 500 years younger than Christianity (which was - you know - still burning heretics and alleged witches a half-millenium ago), and the nation-states of the Arab-Muslim world are as young as the nation-states of medieval Europe. It took Europe centuries of civil war and sectarian bloodletting before finally making peace with itself. I'm optimistic it won't take that long for the Muslim world to come to terms with modernity, but I'm less optimistic we will not see a generation of bloodshed throughout perhaps a significant swath of the Arab-Muslim world before they finally sort things out.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

There is another possibility. It is possible that the objective of the invasion was not to set up a stable government in Iraq friendly to the US. It might have been to topple Saddam to make an example to other dictators that it is not wise to fuck with the US. Perhaps the US wishes to steer Iraq into the Iranian orbit to induce a Shia/Sunni split in the Muslim world that will draw the Islamofascist Salafis (who think of the Shia as lower than dogshit) into a Muslim version of the Thirty Years War, while we stand on the sidelines and buy oil from both sides. Remember, the Iranians and Iraqis fought an earlier version of this war, killing more than a million people--and managed to to pump oil to the West without a hitch throughout the entire conflict.

As a side effect of the Iraq operation, one might expect that oil prices would soar--providing an excellent reward to administration friends in the oil industry. Dick Cheney's old company also makes out particularly well. Viewed from the perspective of the oil industry, getting the government to carry out the Iraq project as it is (at government expense) makes a lot of financial sense.

I actually don't think this is what the adminstration had in mind. I suspect Iraq is a clusterfuck, but it has worked out very favorably for them--one does wonder.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by Linus

Intel Chief: Iraq Civil War Could Spread Throughout Region

Originally Posted by Katherine Shrader

"WASHINGTON - A civil war in Iraq could lead to a broader conflict in the Middle East, pitting the region's rival Islamic sects against each other, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said in an unusually frank assessment Tuesday."

It it is rather difficult to imagine that people willing to fly airplanes into your place of work are less at war with you than their own people, but this is the point that has been missed most often in the past four and a half years.

It is a civil war within Muslim civilization, not simply between radicals and moderates (although there is that dimension), but between ethnic, tribal, and sectional groups. It is about theology, and land, and oil, and power, with some ancient (and not-so-ancient hatreds) thrown in for good measure. The corrupt, authoritarian regimes of the Arab-Muslim world have suppressed these tensions for the past century, but when you take the lid off the pressure cooker you're less liable to get liberal democracies and strong nation-states than anarchy and sectarian violence.

Islam is 500 years younger than Christianity (which was - you know - still burning heretics and alleged witches a half-millenium ago), and the nation-states of the Arab-Muslim world are as young as the nation-states of medieval Europe. It took Europe centuries of civil war and sectarian bloodletting before finally making peace with itself. I'm optimistic it won't take that long for the Muslim world to come to terms with modernity, but I'm less optimistic we will not see a generation of bloodshed throughout perhaps a significant swath of the Arab-Muslim world before they finally sort things out.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

There is another possibility. It is possible that the objective of the invasion was not to set up a stable government in Iraq friendly to the US. It might have been to topple Saddam to make an example to other dictators that it is not wise to fuck with the US. Perhaps the US wishes to steer Iraq into the Iranian orbit to induce a Shia/Sunni split in the Muslim world that will draw the Islamofascist Salafis (who think of the Shia as lower than dogshit) into a Muslim version of the Thirty Years War, while we stand on the sidelines and buy oil from both sides. Remember, the Iranians and Iraqis fought an earlier version of this war, killing more than a million people--and managed to to pump oil to the West without a hitch throughout the entire conflict.

As a side effect of the Iraq operation, one might expect that oil prices would soar--providing an excellent reward to administration friends in the oil industry. Dick Cheney's old company also makes out particularly well. Viewed from the perspective of the oil industry, getting the government to carry out the Iraq project as it is (at government expense) makes a lot of financial sense.

I actually don't think this is what the adminstration had in mind. I suspect Iraq is a clusterfuck, but it has worked out very favorably for them--one does wonder.

The only explanation that really makes sense was put forward some time ago by the guy who was hired to ghost Bush's campaign autobiography in 2000 and then fired because he actually put some things Bush said into the ms. He said Bush understood that victory in war was key to an effective Presidency. And indeed, disastrous though it is turning out to be, the war not only got Bush re-elected (barely), but also has distracted us from the gift of the federal government over to varoius corporate interests, which continues even as we speak (federal aid, for instance, has just been authorized for distance-learning universities, who have made substantial campaign contributions over the last few years. One Assistant Secretary of Education used to lobby for the University of Phoenix. Just one of dozens of examples.)
The political aspects of the war are, in fact, the only ones that have been sonstantly followed up and exploited.

David K '47

Looks like we are teetering again:
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/m...ith_every_bomb
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/...ap2559659.html

Originally Posted by Andy '85

Originally Posted by Linus

Islam is 500 years younger than Christianity (which was - you know - still burning heretics and alleged witches a half-millenium ago), and the nation-states of the Arab-Muslim world are as young as the nation-states of medieval Europe. It took Europe centuries of civil war and sectarian bloodletting before finally making peace with itself. I'm optimistic it won't take that long for the Muslim world to come to terms with modernity, but I'm less optimistic we will not see a generation of bloodshed throughout perhaps a significant swath of the Arab-Muslim world before they finally sort things out.

You've almost exactly expressed what Stephen Green had thought about concerning a civil war in the Middle East, although his take is from a more opportunistic stand. Particularly in this paragraph:

Christianity was a violent religion until the Thirty Years War. That war lasted so long, and killed so many people (the population of Germany was reduced by a third), that Christendom lost its bloodlust. Freedom of conscience was born on the battlefields of central Europe. The Middle East hasn't suffered that kind of loss; they haven't yet had their fill of blood; they haven't yet become disgusted with tyranny. I'd like to think that the Middle East can do what the West did, without all the suffering. But if it takes regional fratricide, then so be it.

Personally, if I think this is how it should be, then let it. Horrified as I am on the prospects of more bloodshed, if this is the language, the form it needs to take in order to establish a better and less violent future, I wouldn't mind. This may as well be the Middle East's "nuclear bomb".

And one could argue that the two world wars had a further effect on European civilization in regard to war.

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

And one could argue that the two world wars had a further effect on European civilization in regard to war.

And Japan too, I would hope. Although in general, I think Asia has not completely gone towards the other end yet, so there will be things to look for there. The USA is well beyond halfway to the point where the general consensus is "not war" as a result of the post-WWII engagements.

Ethnic cleansing has began in Iraq:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11612294/