Bombing the hell out of it.

I want to post this satellite photograph of the enormous holy cemetery where the Marines have been ordered to crush the Iraqi fighters. This diagram, perhaps a little out of date, still shows how we are basically rushing the holy site... to prove what? What does it gain the United States of America to wipe out those guys, sitting, waiting around the all-important shrine of Ali. Is this some kind of windup for the big pitch into the apocalypse? Are the waves of bombers shocking and aweing like they were supposed to?

The al-Sadr / all-Shi'ite freakout continues as the Iranians get missiles and the aerial bombardment of ancient places escalates. How much can get crushed?? How quickly??
In this context I will place the appearance of the G. W. Bush in my hometown of Hudson about 12 hours from now. What will happen? Who knows? In any case, I will regard that spot as the place where this cruising hallucination of a government planted its flag in my space. Then an appearance at the Xcel Center.

Saw Norm Coleman on the Daily Show. Stewart was shocked, shocked that Norm was a nice Jewish Democrat from Brooklyn at some point. Coleman sported a nearly identical outfit to Stewart, which spurred a whole weird episode.

Anyhow I will round up quickly the main bits. See the anguished Iraqi blogs Baghdad Burning:

300+ dead in a matter of days in Najaf and Al Sadir City. Of course, they are all being called ‘insurgents’. The woman on tv wrapped in the abaya, lying sprawled in the middle of the street must have been one of them too. Several explosions rocked Baghdad today- some government employees were told not to go to work tomorrow.

So is this a part of the reconstruction effort promised to the Shi’a in the south of the country? Najaf is considered the holiest city in Iraq. It is visited by Shi’a from all over the world, and yet, during the last two days, it has seen a rain of bombs and shells from none other than the ‘saviors’ of the oppressed Shi’a- the Americans. So is this the ‘Sunni Triangle’ too? It’s déjà vu- corpses in the streets, people mourning their dead and dying and buildings up in flames. The images flash by on the television screen and it’s Falluja all over again. Twenty years from now who will be blamed for the mass graves being dug today?

We’re waiting again for some sort of condemnation. I, personally, never had faith in the American selected proxy government currently pretending to be in power- but for some reason, I keep thinking that any day now- any moment- one of the Puppets, Allawi for example, will make an appearance on television and condemn all the killing. One of them will get in front of a camera and announce his resignation or at the very least, his utter disgust, at the bombing, the burning and the killing of hundreds of Iraqis and call for an end to it… it’s a foolish hope, I know.

Raed in the Middle:

As I said once before, don’t tell someone to go to hell, unless u can really send him there.

What are we gaining?
We, Americans and Arabs, what did we gain after all of those years of the war on terror?

Thousands of bodies, and more hate.

What did we, Iraqis, gain after months of occupation and destruction?
A silly selected government? With a CIA agent as our PM and a Sheikh of a tribe as our president?

Our fat Sheikh speaks English in his conferences…
What a great president…
Please, tell him that he is the president of Iraq, an Arabic country, even if he was taking his salary from what’s his name… bremer.

When is this comedy play going to finish
I am not amused.

Raed also contributed to the Iraqi casualty database.

Then says Fred Kaplan: No Way Out:

No solutions in sight
This is a terribly grim thing to say, but there might be no solution to the problem of Iraq. There might be nothing we can do to build a path to a stable, secure, let alone democratic regime. And there's no way we can just pull out without plunging the country, the region, and possibly beyond into still deeper disaster.

Much as the Bush administration hoped otherwise, the fighting didn't stop—or so much as turn a corner—after sovereignty passed from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the new government of Iraq. Prime Minister Iyad Allawi made a fine speech on the occasion about dealing with the insurgency, especially the need to isolate the foreign jihadists from the homegrown rebels who simply don't like being occupied. But the distinction has turned out to be muddy, and it will remain so until Allawi demonstrates he deserves their loyalty—that is, until he proves that he's independent from his American benefactors and competent at restoring basic services.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military—the only force in Iraq remotely capable of keeping the country from falling apart—finds itself in a maddening situation where tactical victories yield strategic setbacks. The Marines could readily defeat the insurgents in Najaf, but only at the great risk of inflaming Shiites—and sparking still larger insurgencies—elsewhere. In the Sadr City section of Baghdad, as U.S. commanders acknowledge, practically every resident is an insurgent.

This whole matter with the Pakistani Khan Al-Qaeda e-mail prisoner's name getting leaked by someone, and Condi saying such odd things about it, is just another example of this Administration's tendency to throw out very important information in an effort to gain some odd degree of spin that barely even helps their horrible situation. Juan Cole is trying to figure out how the terror alert might have led to the Khan leak, exactly. I don't know where to pass judgment, it's too messed up.

Know your ayatollahs. Quickly.

The Ancient city of Samarra. A Hotbed of violence. Really!?! That's what happens when you bomb a place.

For some reason this place is considered related to my site. It reminds me of mine but I don't understand the reason.

Posted by HongPong at August 18, 2004 01:44 AM
Listed under HongPong-site , Iraq , War on Terror .