No End to US Troubles: Asia Times! This is Spot On!

[leftchick]

This article shows what our media will not, aWol and co. are crumbling here and crumbling there. Oh what will they fuck up next?


http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EJ21Ak06.html

The IGC, from which the ardently pro-US Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani threatened to resign if the Turkish deployment proceeds, has by all accounts become increasingly restive and resentful, particularly of the often high-handed behavior of Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) chief L Paul Bremer, who has demanded that the IGC formally invite the Turks in.

The growing friction between Bremer and the IGC has become a source of embarrassment. So have the ongoing frictions in Washington between the Pentagon on the one side and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and the State Department on the other.

The latest incident began after Rice briefed selected media on the creation of the "Iraq Stabilization Group" (ISG), a new mechanism overseen by her to which Bremer and the CPA are to report.

Seeing in the move an implicit but high-profile criticism of the way the Pentagon had handled the CPA, if not an outright power grab, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld reacted with thinly veiled irritation, which lasted the best part of a week and was capped by a contemptuous reference to those "little committees of the NSC ".

Lots More!

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. The regime has decered that the Turks will exterminate the Kurds

The Kurds oppose the plan.

[comradebillyboy]

7. bush should return the three former turkish provinces

that make up iraq to the turks. the ottomans ran iraq pretty well for 4-500 yerars.

why not
1. the turks are our nato allies
2. they also have very cordial relations with israel, as close to an ally as israel has apart from us.
3. if the turks get the oil they will likely pay us back (and also pay off the french and germans, thus gaining admittance to the eu)
4. the turkish establishment will suppress any fundamentalist tendanceis with great vigor.
5. turkey is the only functioning democracy in a muslim country ( the state is secular, and the army will keep it that way).
6. all that oil will be protected by a reliable ally.

7. best of all the turks can do the dirty work for us.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Very much so, thanks

[rfranklin]

3. Bush will cut and run...

leaving behind a huge, seething cauldron of resentment, fundamentalism, civil strife and a breeding ground for years of terrorism.

This is his lifelong pattern. He gets into situation with the help of his father's friends and then proceeds, with great elan, to screw up the whole thing and then bails out.

(This should be the theme for boxing in Bush. Say he's going to bail out and leave a mess--which he will. I don't think there is any way that Iraq can be stabilized without a military presence and "nation building" over a period of many years with many, many billions of dollars. The American public wants an unreasonably swift end to this "liberation" and it ain't coming any time soon.)

[spindoctor]

4. Disagree

I think we can safely assume that Bush Inc. has no intention of giving up Iraq any time soon, or at least not until "their" interests are secured.

They are not going to bail out before there is stabilization. Currently the US treasury is paying the bill for securing their operations. Why walk away from a good thing?

If this war was indeed for oil, then most of the loot is in "Kurdistan". Bringing in the Turks would only be feasible if prior arrangements were made. They probably have more sympathy from the Kurds at this time. Threatening to bring them in is an ace up the sleeve at the negotiation table though.

[leftchick]

5. Perhaps they won't have a choice on when to bail.....

let us not forget the Shia. From the article:

<snip> The most serious signs of trouble for the administration last week were probably in Iraq itself, especially in the Shi'ite-dominated southern part of the country which, until now, has been relatively quiet compared to the central Sunni triangle region where insurgents have caused the vast majority of US casualties since May 1.

Three of the four soldiers killed Friday were involved in a shootout with unknown assailants in the holy Shi'ite city of Karbala. It was by far the worst incident in a series over the past month that reportedly involves a major power struggle between at least two key armed Shi'ite factions.

Recently. two other US soldiers were killed in what the CPA described as an ambush in Sadr City, a Shi'ite-dominated part of Baghdad in which the factional struggle has also increased.

That US troops might now be targeted by one of the factions - associated most closely with Muqtada al-Sadr, who has called for the establishment of an independent government - is particularly disturbing to Iraq specialists in Washington.

...Do you think these "Iraq specialists in Washington" have EVER been in contact with the neocons in thw WH?

[spindoctor]

6. Iraq is not Vietnam

If anything, it is Yugoslavia.

All the resistance in the world (well...in Iraq anyway) won't leave much more than a dent in our armed forces there.
My crystal ball also predicts that things will settle down over time. Stabilization does take time, especially if you don't prepare for it and let things run free for too long. The term entropy jumps to mind.

I am still ambiguous over whether I want this to happen a.s.a.p., or after the 2004 elections. Glad that is not my call.

[Mari333]

8. Iraq is Vietnam

it should have NEVER been invaded. And for anyone who supported the invasion of Iraq, the Blood of every dead and wounded civilian and the Blood of every dead and wounded soldier is on their hands.
Period.

[leftchick]

9. it is Vietnam and every other fucking failure that happens..

when another country invades, occupies and tries to enforce their values/government/religion on a culture they have no respect for. It does not fucking work period! Wake the fuck up!

[Jacobin]

10. "stabilization" This is a WH spin word meaning

to conquer until all resistance is extinguished.

The very idea that a Western power (regardless of how many smart bombs, computer tanks and all the other wooohoo toys they have) can invade, conquer and peacefully occupy Iraq is sheer and absolute madness.

We will not "stabilize" them. They will (just as we would if we were invaded) fight a guerilla war until the infidels are expelled and they can choose their own government, which probably will be a radical islamic fundamentalist state headed by an ayatollah.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire for the BushIdiots.

Why after six months of watching this, and 20 years of watching Vietnam, ANYONE in their right mind would think we can occupy a country against its will for long is beyond me. I can only blame TV for this vast and blatant ignorance in our land.

[sendero]

11. not only that...

.... but I don't think we'll *ever* stop the resistance. I'd love to be wrong but I don't see any precedent for it happening.

Every week that passes things deteriorate. Despite the media's general failure to note that *fact*, that is what is happening. And exactly what will turn that around? Turkish troops? Don't make me laugh. :(