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  • Carnage and Despair Return to Iraq

    What is happening?

    Six bombs, 95 dead – carnage and despair return to Iraq
    19 Aug [Guardian] It has, for many months now, had the feel of a normal Arab capital. Families picnicking on street verges at dusk. Children playing football in the street. Marketplaces teeming with shoppers and touts.

    But today, just after 10.30am, a series of sharp and violent explosions hammered home just how relative normality is in Baghdad. By the end of the day, 95 people were dead and more than 500 wounded in the most lethal series of attacks in the Iraqi capital this year.

    The explosions did more than create the dismal scenes of carnage and death. They confounded at a stroke the creeping belief that the Iraqi government had broken free from the extremists who have held the country to ransom for the past six years. ....

  • #2
    This is the Guardian Editorial.

    Violence in Iraq: The limits of restraint
    20 Aug [Guardian] The carnage in Baghdad yesterday, with co-ordinated truck bomb attacks devastating half a dozen targets and mortars falling on government buildings, inflicted the highest number of dead and wounded since the Americans pulled out of Iraqi cities at the end of June.

    Nor was this an isolated incident: almost 700 civilians have died in the relatively short time since the Iraqis took over security in urban areas. The level of violence recalls the terrible year of 2006, when scarcely a week went by without its toll of destroyed mosques and markets, and numbed Iraqis almost counted on dying themselves or losing someone near and dear to them, so terrifying and inexorable were the statistics.

    The cocky reaction of Iraqi generals and police chiefs when the Americans began their withdrawal to the sidelines looks pretty overblown in retrospect. Not only could they handle security as well as the Americans, some of these officers implied, they could handle it better with the foreigners out of the way. Now the Iraqi forces are face to face with their own deficiencies. Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, one of their commanders, was reduced yesterday to saying on state television that they "must take most of the blame".

    American journalists, reporting in recent weeks on the few joint operations that the two armies are now conducting, have picked up on the many bad habits that the training programmes have failed to eradicate, from slackness in patrolling to knocking off for tea at inappropriate moments. In a report which caused a stir when it became public two weeks ago, Colonel Timothy Reese, a senior US military adviser, listed corruption, poor management, lack of initiative, and failure to resist pressure from Shia political parties as unhappy characteristics of the Iraqi security forces. ....
    Last edited by Merlin; 20 Aug 09,, 03:01.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Merlin View Post
      What is happening?
      You have to ask that question? No, seriously, you have to ask that question??

      You're a professor? And you have to answer that dumbass question???

      What is happening is that Nirvana has NOT broken out like a wave of warm sunshine across Iraq simply because the evil infidel Americans have "retreated" to base camps outside the major Iraqi cities.

      Get it?

      OR DO I HAVE SPELL OUT IT FOR YOU IN SMALLER F-CKING WORDS?!?!?!?
      “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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      • #4
        Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
        You have to ask that question? No, seriously, you have to ask that question??
        LOL! Sometimes we ask a question to provoke replies. Nothing more, nothing less.

        Comment


        • #5
          Now I am asking another question, or a few.

          Is there a special reason for the timing of these carnage bombings in Iraq? If there is, what? Do they want to influence something?

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Merlin View Post
            LOL! Sometimes we ask a question to provoke replies. Nothing more, nothing less.
            That's known as trolling.
            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by merlin View Post
              now i am asking another question, or a few.

              Is there a special reason for the timing of these carnage bombings in iraq? If there is, what? Do they want to influence something?
              obama
              "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

              Comment


              • #8
                gunnut,

                obama
                how about no one-word responses, thanks.

                regarding "obama"- do re-call that the withdrawal of US troops on a timeline was first negotiated and signed under bush, and obama has little recourse given iraqi insistence to continue following the SOFA.

                even the iraqis are blaming themselves (or rather their increasingly complacent security forces) for this one...that is, except for the conspiracy theorists whom think it is an american-engineered attempt to get US soldiers back into iraqi cities.
                There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by astralis View Post
                  gunnut,

                  how about no one-word responses, thanks.
                  That was my tongue-in-cheek answer.

                  Originally posted by astralis View Post
                  regarding "obama"- do re-call that the withdrawal of US troops on a timeline was first negotiated and signed under bush, and obama has little recourse given iraqi insistence to continue following the SOFA.
                  However, I do believe his soft stance on Iraq contributed in some way, the increase in attacks.

                  Originally posted by astralis View Post
                  even the iraqis are blaming themselves (or rather their increasingly complacent security forces) for this one...that is, except for the conspiracy theorists whom think it is an american-engineered attempt to get US soldiers back into iraqi cities.
                  Now that's a good conspiracy. I will have to remember that one for use later. :))
                  "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    gunnut,

                    However, I do believe his soft stance on Iraq contributed in some way, the increase in attacks.
                    what soft stance? his policies remain the exact same as bush's. in fact, look at where the attacks are against. that should give you some hint of AQ's goals.

                    also, how much does "stance" matter? bush's hardline "bring them on" stance of 2003 was followed by four years of escalating attacks on US troops.
                    There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      The apology is a good indication that they have taken notice of these attacks as their wake up call, and is willing to admit it.

                      Iraq army apologises for security failings that led to bomb blasts
                      20 Aug [Guaridan] Iraqi officials have apologised for security failings that contributed to yesterday's devastating explosions across Baghdad, amid widespread public suspicion that they have oversold their ability to bring a measure of peace to the city.

                      The rare display of contrition came as the death toll from the co-ordinated attacks rose to 101. More than 500 others were wounded when six bombs went off near the foreign and finance ministries, ripping through scores of nearby homes.

                      Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, the chief Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad, said 11 police and army commanders responsible for security, traffic and intelligence services in the areas attacked had been detained on suspicion of negligence.

                      But with the city still reeling from the most lethal attacks in at least four years, many Baghdadis expressed anger that the security forces had failed to prevent the daylight attack on what was supposed to be one of the most secure neighbourhoods of the city. ....
                      Last edited by Merlin; 21 Aug 09,, 06:02.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by astralis View Post
                        gunnut,



                        what soft stance? his policies remain the exact same as bush's. in fact, look at where the attacks are against. that should give you some hint of AQ's goals.

                        also, how much does "stance" matter? bush's hardline "bring them on" stance of 2003 was followed by four years of escalating attacks on US troops.
                        OmiGAWD.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Is this the reason for the deadly complacency?

                          Bombs Hurt Maliki Case That Iraq Can Guard Itself
                          20 Aug [NYTimes] BAGHDAD — In recent months, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has sought to convince Iraq that it is finished with war. He ordered blast walls around Baghdad pulled down, including those near the Foreign and Finance Ministries. He has refused to ask the American military for help in any major way since Iraqi soldiers took full security responsibility in the cities on June 30.

                          Then two trucks drove into downtown Baghdad on Wednesday, detonating huge bombs that killed nearly 100 people and that gravely wounded Mr. Maliki’s case that Iraq is ready to defend itself without American help. The attacks also deepened a widespread dissatisfaction with Mr. Maliki, with some critics accusing him of polishing his political image as the man who restored security to Iraq at the expense of actual safety.

                          “The removal of the T-walls from the streets was just a propaganda way to say to Iraqis, ‘We have improved the situation,’ and it was just rubbish,” said Qassim Daoud, an independent Shiite politician and former national security adviser, using another name for the big concrete barriers that have come to define an Iraq in conflict.

                          Among the troubling questions to emerge from the heaps of rubble piled up from the blasts is how the Maliki government ultimately asked the Americans for help on Wednesday, apparently for the first time since the June 30 transfer. Under the countries’ security agreement, United States forces must stay out of Iraqi cities unless officially asked to return.

                          The request on Wednesday did not appear to have come until more than three hours after the explosions. By that time, most of the dying was done and most of the bleeding was stanched.

                          Hospitals filled to overflowing with more than 1,000 wounded people, but only a trickle of the victims went to the nearest one, the American military-run Ibn Sina Hospital in the Green Zone just three minutes away. ....

                          Others saw it as evidence that Mr. Maliki had overstated the readiness of Iraqi forces and safety in Iraq in the prelude to national elections in January that he hopes to win. ....

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                          • #14
                            blues,

                            OmiGAWD.
                            come on, blues, show me where i'm wrong. attack trend lines are down from november 2008 (and they were down even when bush went to the "soft" stance of having a timeline with the SOFA) and from january 2009. if you're going to say that obama's stance had to do with these attacks, then surely to be fair you have to say they contributed to the declining trend lines for the last seven months, too.

                            tell me which policies of obama re: iraq are different from bush circa 2008. he lambasted bush on the campaign trail, but now that he's in office, i'm not seeing a real differential in iraq policy.

                            in fact, serious military professionals have argued that we're past due in going home. does that make the Chief of the Baghdad Operations Command Advisory Team softer and stupider than obama?

                            so, show me where i'm wrong. i'm not dogmatic about this- i'll change my opinion if you can prove to me your point.
                            Last edited by astralis; 22 Aug 09,, 03:28.
                            There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Do the Iraqi bombers really stand a chance to sieze power? They could not take or hold ground. What can they do except keeping Iraq an unpleasant 3rd world state for which the Iraqis on the street would hate their guts?
                              All those who are merciful with the cruel will come to be cruel to the merciful.
                              -Talmud Kohelet Rabbah, 7:16.

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