BASRA IMPLODES

As though to underscore the theme of yesterday’s blog, the news from Iraq is unusually bleak this morning.

When the British pulled out of Basra last year saying that the local sheiks were now capable of maintaining control, I wrote that it would be worth watching the area as a test case as to whether or not Iraq would stabilize if all troops were withdrawn. Apparently the answer to that question is a resounding NO.

I’m sorry to hear that. I would have liked to have had evidence that we could withdraw our troops and leave behind a country that could pull itself together and be self governing. The fact that the Iraqis will be unable to avoid civil war, however, does not make a strong argument for U.S. troops to remain in that country, either.

The news this morning reported the explosions in Basra, but politically it was an implosion. The battle lines were joined today because the central government felt the need to jerk a knot in the tail of the Sadrist insurgents who have been steadily gaining the upper hand since the British pulled out of active governance. About 4,500 British troops remain in the area, but they weren’t asked to take part in today’s festivities. This is between the central government as established under the aegis of the U.S. government and the militia faithful to Muqtada al Sadr.

It was al Sadr who initially stood his ground against U.S. and British troops and raised such a ruckus that he had to be bought off. Al Sadr himself has been studying to elevate his position among Imams, but his troops have become more and more a thorn in the side of the central government. All told this is a clash among the Shiites as separate sects grab for a bigger share of power. In other words – CIVIL WAR.

The bribes General Patraeus authorized and paid to the fractious militias around Iraq at the beginning of the surge have run their course and civil unrest is growing in leaps and bounds.

My prediction is that the coming months will dramatically and tragically underscore the empty words of W’s speech of yesterday when he loudly proclaimed that those who gave their lives in Iraq will not have done so in vain. As that country sinks deeper and deeper into civil war and as neighboring countries like Turkey, Syria and Iran become more active in their attempts to protect their own futures, the vanity (and vanity IS the right word) of this entire enterprise will become more and more evident.

I say vanity because it was the vanity of Donald Rumsfeld and dick Cheney that got us into this. It was the angry vanity of the American people in their rush to show the terrorists that they couldn’t get away with the affront of 9-11 that allowed them to back this entirely vain war against a nation that, though led by a tyrant, did not support Al Qaida and did not pose any real threat to the United States. And it was the vanity of an empty headed president eager to strut across the deck of an aircraft carrier that spearheaded it all.

By going to Iraq, the entire focus of our military efforts after 9-11 was vainly diverted from any true effort to combat terrorism. The fact is, Mr. Bush, that all those young American lives and all those young and old and in-between Iraqi lives that were sacrificed in this war WERE lost in vain, and the responsibility for all those deaths falls right on your head. May it torment and torture you to the end of your days.


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle