Balkanization in Iraq hits refugees

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A Palestinian girl pushes a baby in a stroller through the Palestinian housing complex comprising of 16 apartment blocks, lined by two streets of shops, most of them closed, in the Baladiyat district of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Aug. 24, 2008. In recent months sectarian violence has dropped sharply across Iraq, however Iraq's Palestinians, who number about 11,000 and have come under attack by Shiite gunmen in the past, remain one of the most vulnerable groups, a U.N. official says. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

just a reminder why iraq matters in domestic elections...

...our tax dollars at work.

• One of America’s biggest military contractors is being sued by a Nepali labourer and the families of a dozen other employees who say they were taken against their will to work in Iraq. All but one of the Nepalese workers were subsequently kidnapped and murdered.
• According to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles, the Nepalese workers were recruited in 2004 in their home country by KBR and its Jordanian contractors, Daoud & Partners, to work as kitchen staff in a luxury hotel in Amman. Once they reached the Jordanian capital, however, their passports were taken from them and they were sent to Iraq. While travelling in an unprotected convoy, the Nepalis were kidnapped and later executed.
• “It doesn’t appear that any of them knew they were going to Iraq,” said Matthew Handley, a lawyer representing the only survivor and the families of those who were killed. “A few were told they were going to work at an American camp ? They thought they were going to work in America.”("Halliburton sued under human traficking laws," by Chris in Paris, AmericaBlog, 8/28/2008)

and there is not enough water in Baghdad at the moment, either

It is difficult to continue to be amazed or outraged by the colossal failure of checks and balances in this.

• The National Security Archive released a report Friday Aug. 22, 2008 that sheds even more light on the premeditated lying and deception that took the United States to war in Iraq. The findings are based on new evidence compiled by Dr. John Prados and published by the National Security Archive. See "White Paper" Drafted before NIE even Requested , "Scoop" Independent News, Aug. 24, 2008.

• Most notably, Prados shows the depth of the deception perpetrated against citizens and Congress regarding the alleged threat to U.S. security posed by Iraq. It had appeared that the White House rewrote the Oct. 1, 2002 National Intelligence Estimate and then issued that doctored report to Congress on Oct. 4, 2002. Prados reveals convincing evidence that the Oct. 4 White Paper had already been written by July 2002. He shows that it was only slightly altered after the final NIE arrived. This White Paper served as the basis for the war.

• The unavoidable conclusion is that the Bush-Cheney White paper "justifying" the invasion was developed a full three months in advance of the intelligence data and analysis that should have served as the basis for that justification. The National Security Archive summed it up succinctly:

• "The U.S. intelligence community buckled sooner in 2002 than previously reported to Bush administration pressure for data justifying an invasion of Iraq,

• "The documents suggest that the public relations push for war came before the intelligence analysis, which then conformed to public positions taken by Pentagon and White House officials. For example, a July 2002 draft of the "White Paper" ultimately issued by the CIA in October 2002 actually pre-dated the National Intelligence Estimate that the paper purportedly summarized, but which Congress did not insist on until September 2002." National Security Archive in "Scoop' Independent News, August 24, 2008.

• The seemingly endless war in Iraq has become a total disaster on multiple levels for all involved. The awful toll in human deaths and casualties is largely ignored but real nevertheless. Over 4,000 U.S. soldiers have been lost in battle and tens of thousands injured. In excess of one million Iraqi civilians are dead due to civil strife unleashed by the invasion. The U.S. Treasury is drained and the steep decline in respect for the United States around the world is just beginning to manifest.

• The United States political establishment responds with collective denial on a scale that's incomprehensible. In the presidential campaign, the only sustained public commentary on the war comes from the Republican presidential candidate John McCain who makes the bizarre claim that U.S. is "surrendering" with victory in clear sight. McCain touts the surge without noting that 4.0 million Iraqis are "displaced from their homes." Nearly ten percent of Iraq's population is either dead or injured and there are 5.0 million Iraqi orphans.

• This pathological view of victory claims the "surge' is a success in the context of a devastated population in an obliterated nation lacking in the most essential supplies and services; a nation where death continues on a shopping spree. ("National Security Archive Stunner," by Michael Collins, Washington, DC, August 25, 2008, OpEdNews
  

working?

should i stay, or should i go?...

...or, cut-and-run?

Bush's evolving rhetoric on US-Iraq timetables

By The Associated Press – 17 hours ago

Changes in the Bush administration's rhetoric over the past 16 months on a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq:

April 3, 2007:

_ "I think setting an artificial timetable for withdrawal is a significant mistake. It is — it sends mixed signals and bad signals to the region and to the Iraqi citizens. Listen, the Iraqis are wondering whether or not we're going to stay to help. People in America wonder whether or not they've got the political will to do the hard work." — President Bush.

___

April 27, 2007:

_ "And if the Congress wants to test my will as to whether or not I'll accept the timetable for withdrawal, I won't accept one. I just don't think it's in the interest of our troops. I think it — I'm just envisioning what it would be like to be a young soldier in the middle of Iraq and realizing that politicians have all of a sudden made military determinations. And in my judgment, that would put a kid in harm's way, more so than he or she already is." — Bush.

___

Sept. 6, 2007:

_ "The prime minister says: What Iraq and her people now need is time, not a timetable. They seek our patience, not political posturing. They require resolve, not our retreat. We're going to succeed in Iraq. If given a chance, liberty will succeed every time, and liberty will help yield the peace we need." — Bush.

___

July 15, 2008:

_ "There's a temptation to let the politics at home get in the way with the considered judgment of the commanders. That's why I strongly rejected an artificial timetable of withdrawal. It's kind of like an arbitrary thing, you know — 'We will decide in the halls of Congress how to conduct our affairs in Iraq based upon polls and politics, and we're going to impose this on people' — as opposed to listening to our commanders and our diplomats, and listening to the Iraqis, for that matter." — Bush.

___

July 18, 2008:

_ "In the area of security cooperation, the president and the prime minister agreed that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals." — White House statement that first raised the possibility of timelines.

___

Aug. 21, 2008:

_ "Well, we have always said that the roles, missions and size of the American forces here, the coalition forces, was based on the conditions on the ground and what is needed. We have agreed that some goals, some aspirational timetables for how that might unfold are well worth having in — in such an agreement. ... And I have to say, if I could just make the point, the reason we are where we are going, talking about this kind of agreement, is that the surge worked, Iraqi forces have demonstrated that they are strong and getting stronger." — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Baghdad.

good view of post-surge Baghdad, from March 2008

Baghdad, 5 years on (part 1 of 3): City of walls

Baghdad, 5 years on (part 2 of 3): killing fields


Baghdad 5 years on (part 3 of 3): Iraq's lost generation

just in case we all forgot

(I guess it isn't vacation time, and time for loony attack ads in that part of the globe.) Thanks and a tip of the hat to Mr. Linkins and the Washington Independent.

• Here's another one for your Stuff You'll Be Surprised No One's Talking About file, a story from the Washington Independent, "Taliban, al Qaeda Unchecked in Pakistan." Note the word Taliban! That's right people, they are getting the band back together!
• Here's the mothereffing lede!

• Al Qaeda and the Taliban are executing suspected U.S. informants in Pakistan in a campaign to terrorize potential spies and reinforce the authority of the militant organizations across the country's vast and volatile tribal belt.

• I mean: wow. If I had Robert Gates across the room from me, this is the sort of KABOOM I'd lay on the man, if i were a reporter!
• Here's a pull that Spencer Ackerman highlighted in his tout of this piece:

• CIA operatives are shackled by a Pakistan restriction requiring them to work under its ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence - the largest intelligence organization in Pakistan] directorate, according to Keller and other former agents. CIA and ISI relations have been marred by mutual distrust in recent years. U.S. intelligence is particularly concerned that ISI elements are sympathetic to the Taliban -- if not Al Qaeda.

• Brother, there is your state sponsorship of al Qaeda Nation, right there! I mean to tell you people, there are few predictions that I am willing to make in this life. I'm not a betting man by nature. But if we are ever so lucky to get some sort of final analysis done on our post 9/11 partnership with Pakistan, it is going to come out that the ISI was, at all times, LOUSY with not just al Qaeda sympathizers, but with de facto agents of al Qaeda as well. (Jason Linkins, HuffPost Reporting From DC, "TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads," August 17, 2008)
  

McClatchy: last home of real, investigative reporters?

CONFRONTING IRAQ

See our interactive media guide on Iraq.

BLACKWATER

See our timeline and interactive guide to Blackwater's activities in Iraq. Also read stories from McClatchy newspapers on the Blackwater controversy.

can someone do the math?

it seems to me, that with 30 in and 45 out a day, less than 1% recidivism, and some 21,000 currently being held, that we are talking a large percentage of iraqis have either been held in prison by the usa, or have someone in their family who has, over the past 4 years. (One of the crimes for which Saddam Hussein was rightly decried was the massive use of incarcerations.)

• BAGHDAD — The U.S. military said Saturday it has released more than 10,000 detainees in Iraq so far this year _ more than in all of 2007 _ as it continues to try phase out its running of Iraqi prisons.
• The military said about 21,000 people remained in custody, and it is currently releasing about 45 detainees and detaining 30 a day.("More than 10,000 detainees released in Iraq,"by SELCAN HACAOGLU, AP, August 2, 2008)