The sobering reality of the Iraq war

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0506020021jun02,1,5831479.column?coll=chi-news-col

Watching the recent frenzy of violence in Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney is not perturbed. Quite the contrary--he sounds practically elated. "We're making major progress," he said Monday. Iraq, he explained, is "in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

You know that secure, undisclosed location of his? I think we can be sure it's not on this planet.

On the same day Cheney was savoring his delusions, suicide bombers were striking in Iraq.

At least 25 people died and more than 100 were wounded when two coordinated blasts went off amid a crowd of former police officers in Hillah. That incident came the day after a spate of suicide attacks killed at least 16 people in Baghdad.

[Firenze777]

1. Thanks for the link-thought this point was important

"The administration depicts suicide bombings as a sign of desperation by vicious thugs who know their cause is doomed.

In fact, they are part of a conscious strategy that has a record of success in other places. Suicide bombing has gained adherents not because so many fanatics are looking for an excuse to throw away their lives, but because it works.

That's the conclusion of Robert Pape in his new book, "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism." Pape, director of the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism at the University of Chicago, compiled a database of every suicide bombing and attack in the world from 1980 to 2003. What he discovered offers a sobering contrast to the optimistic predictions emanating from Washington.

Americans have trouble imagining how the insurgents could hope to succeed without any positive vision of Iraq's future--and for that matter without any apparent agenda except slaughtering people. But the core of their appeal is the same as that of most other suicide bombing campaigns: nationalistic opposition to a foreign military presence."

[izzie]

2. Must be good for making money and big business.

Maybe one of those places in Texas that are corp. and buy up graveyards and funeral homes are now in Iraq or some thing? Since we have moved into this living for cash profits I have to believe it is money that makes any one in the GOP smile. Greed is good.