Civil War, a game the whole region can play!
Things are getting very interesting, as in the ancient Chinese curse, these days in Bush’s folly. Juan Cole Has an interesting post from people who live in Iraq.
"I am an American currently working in Baghdad for a news organization. I’ve been here numerous times over the past 15 years. The current security situation here has gotten much worse since the elections. We had a security briefing yesterday right after a fellow journalist was abducted. Besides the usual reminders to keep a low profile and going over our own unique security measures and procedures as to what to do in any given scenario we were told that there’s a high probability of all out civil war.”
According to Juan,
“Most Sunnis have given up hope of getting adequate representation in the new Iraqi government and radical elements in the Shiite parties want to exact revenge on the Sunni for supporting Saddam over the years. Shiite death squads roam the city at night (in police and army uniform no less) dragging all the male members of a Sunni family out into the street and executing them in front of their women folk. Sunni insurgents (not in uniform) do the same to Shiite families in areas claimed as theirs.”
Interestingly, Rummy’s War Department has been talking with the insurgents – Finally! The Sunni insurgents are definitely getting tired of so-called al Quaeda in Iraq. The recent blast at the police recruiting station was a major bummer because lots of the candidates were theirs!
“The guerrillas had given them permission to enlist under a secret agreement they had reached with the Americans via the mediation of tribal chieftains, stipulating that the guerrillas would dominate the security services, the police and army in the Sunni Arab provinces, as an element in an over-all settlement. The guerrillas would be able to place their men in the security services of Anbar, Salahuddin and Ninevah provinces. In return for their accepting this deal, the Sunni Arab guerrillas would also get the release of their commanders from American prisons, along with the release of some Baathist prisoners from the former regime.”
According to Riverbend, the electricity is even less reliable than ever and they are running out of fuel and money to pay for it. They have devised coping mechanisms. Family or neighborhood groups agree to have one person take a car and wiat for a day or MORE to fill up one gas tank. Then they siphon off parts for the rest of the consortium. She praises the genius who invented a gasoline siphon pump, sparing them the necessity of sucking gas out of hoses.
And as a major aid to stability, for the Kurds, the two Pesh Merga militias have finally sort of buried the hatchet after their major civil war in the mid nineties.
"Finally, after more than 11 months of discussion, since the election in January, the PUK and KDP merged their two governments. This is the announcement from KurdistanSAT this morning.”
The Kurds have been making deals with foreign oil companies to explore for oil. Unfortunately, they seem to be including the oil fields around Kirkuk, which, theoretically, they don’t own.
After decades of Hussein exporting Kurds and settling ethnic Arabs in the city, tens of thousands of Kurds have been returning. Many are “settled” in tent cities or temporary settlements while they try to reclaim their property. A not so low level ethnic cleansing campaign has been going on since the invasion. You may recall that the US military was implicated in “secret renditions” of Kirkuk residents to several undisclosed “detention camps” in northern Iraq. The Kirkuk population after the war began as about evenly divided between ethnic Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen.
Turkey, before the war, declared they would invade an independent Kurdistan. 92% of Kurds in an unscientific poll expressed a strong desire for full independence. From mid 2003 through 2004, more than 700 clashes occurred between Kurdish and Turkish military forces. I don’t know if that has continued.
As pressure builds in the south to form a semi-autonomous state, with control of the oil revenues, Iran is planning to build electricity transmission lines into Iraq, they are making deals to sell gasoline, and building a healthy trade over improved roads.
I’m not sure if this is a good sign or bad, although I have my suspicions. Speaking of the danger of civil war in the region, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said,
"Any kind of division could cause unimaginable chaos. The Middle East cannot bear another big incident," Gul warned; therefore, Turkey may contribute to Iraq’s security after the US withdrawal. The necessary legal and political steps have been taken regarding the status of Kerkuk (Kirkuk) and they have given instruction to Turkish Petroleum International Company (TPAO) to look for oil in Northern Iraq.
I wonder if that’s with the permission of the Kurdish authorities or the “Iraqi government”?
Gosh! Who could have imagined that the grateful Iraqis would form an insurgency after they were through throwing flower petals at our liberating troops. Surely no one saw THAT coming! Reality BITES sometimes. Unfortunately, it’s biting the rest of us while bubble boy and friends continue with their plans for the “New American Century” The Thousand Year Reich lasted about 15 years. This looks to be a very short century.
Posted by DeminNewJ at January 10, 2006 04:13 AMI knew it was only a matter of time that it would come out that private mail was being opened and checked by this administration. What next?
Posted by the professor at January 10, 2006 04:35 AMPessimist, why would you be surprised. The character flaw of wanting to control doesn't stop at the Bush Administration. It extends to Blogs also. The trolls are just trying to stop dissent for their dear leeder. It really takes guts to come to our site and then tell us how to run it, doesn't it? I wonder if I could go over to a Republican site and tell them how to run their blog? Yeah, right.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 05:37 AMJudith is right: the wingnuts don't want to hear anything negative about Dear Leeder. They are not real capital letter Conservatives, but rather minions of Shrub. Whatever Shrub says is right! Sieg Heil!
(As part of my New Year's resolutions, I have vowed to link Shrub to Hitler as often as possible. Hitler. Hitler. Hitler. Nyah nyah Shrub lovers.)
Proudly lowering the discourse!
Posted by weinerdog43 at January 10, 2006 05:48 AMI wonder if I could go over to a Republican site and tell them how to run their blog?
Judith, over at Red State, you have to register to post comments and must receive an email with a password before adding to the discussion. On top of that, comments are monitored and edited if there is dissention. Their rules clearly state that theirs is a conservative blog, and they aren't interested in debate from the other side. Talk about your party of inclusiveness!
Posted by ann at January 10, 2006 05:57 AMWell, as I mention in the "Tit for Tab" comments, Bush comes by the link to Hitler honestly.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 06:02 AMAttack Attack Attack.
Blogs are another front in the perception war the the Republicans are waging. It must be depressing everytime they post their lies they get slapped down hard. Thats why the trolls have to hit and run. Their job is to get the talking point out there. They never intend any real discussion as they are seemingly immune to reason. They post one lie and then move on the next without addressing the mound of evidence to the contrary that gets jammed in thier faces by "reality based" responders.
Attack Attack Attack
That's all they know. Attack the Truth. Attack the facts. Attack the messenger. Attack dissenters. Attack anyone that's not onboard with their lies.
When they come here to attack and are faced with the truth they cannot win.
All they have left is to attack the blog itself.
Or you personally.
Or your family.
It's standard proceedure.
Posted by mparker at January 10, 2006 06:35 AMVery interesting story over at Kos about the Chinese dumping the dollar. Wonder what effect that will have on the stock market? I would imagine that it will start going down again as this is sure to increase the price of borrowing money.
Posted by Ga6thDem at January 10, 2006 06:40 AMPerhaps one of you legal scholars (as I am not one) can explain how much weight these indictments will have.
From: International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration
TRIBUNAL INDICTS BUSH ADMINISTRATION FOR WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
INDICTMENTS TO BE DELIVERED TO THE WHITE HOUSE ON TUESDAY JAN. 10th
Sounds like a big deal to me.
Named in the indictments are: President of the United States George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, U.S. Army Major General Geoffrey Miller, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, et al.
I am really looking forward to explanations in lay terms (ones that I can grasp).
Posted by Anjha at January 10, 2006 06:41 AMAnn, why am I not surprised. Only us dumb liberals allow them the freedsom to post their bs.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 06:49 AMAnjha, do you think we will hear about it from the liberal media tonight?
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 06:52 AMAnjha, interesting link! That's not my area of practice, but legally speaking, an indictment is never a good thing. If my recollection is correct, that tribunal does indeed have subpoena authority.
I would be willing to speculate that a primary reason that Shrub did not hand over Saddam Hussein to them, was to try to prevent the appearance of authority in case something like this happened.
Posted by weinerdog43 at January 10, 2006 06:54 AMAnjha, here's the charges against Bush&Co.:
http://deoxy.org/wc/warcrim2.htm
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 06:57 AMCharge:
"The Bush Administration achieved a five-month-long commercial for militarism and individual weapons systems. The American people were seduced into the celebration of a slaughter by controlled propaganda demonizing Iraq, assuring the world no harm would come to Iraqi civilians, deliberately spreading false stories of atrocities including chemical warfare threats, deaths of incubator babies and threats to the entire region by a new Hitler."
Evidently we are not the only ones using the name Hitler. So is the world community.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 07:01 AMJudith,
That invocation of Hitler is a reference to Saddam Hussein, not George Bush.
Posted by snark at January 10, 2006 07:08 AMwoops, wrong Bush. Sorry, althought interesting.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 07:10 AMSnark, your right, although it could be the other way around too.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 07:12 AMUnfortunately, the Commission does not seem, to me, to have any legal standing to issue subpoenas. Please advise me if I'm wrong. I would be willing to bet that not even the gardener will be there at the gate to recieve them.
Let's hope that at least some of the Corporate Ownded Media will attend the press conference. It will probably get zero air time. If it does, somehow, Michael Moore will be mentioned repeatedly, even though he seems not to be associated with the Commission.
Posted by DeminNewJ at January 10, 2006 07:13 AMInfoshop News
Tuesday, January 10 2006 @ 07:18 AM PST
Yes, the Pentagon Murders Journalists
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20060109225708276
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 07:22 AMJudith, the link you posted had to do with Bush1.
I know that Ben Ferencz (a Nurenburg prosecutor) has been working with the Society for International Law in pursuing war crimes inquiry into the Bush Administration.
And here is the denial of the House to recognize the ICC.
If the US refuses to recognize the International Criminal Court, is there any jurisdiction?
Posted by Anjha at January 10, 2006 07:25 AMSorry - that's Nuremberg - it's early.
Posted by Anjha at January 10, 2006 07:27 AMIf the US refuses to recognize the International Criminal Court, is there any jurisdiction?
Ask Slobodan Milosevic. As I remember he didn't recognize the ICC, and the presidential pardon has no weight outside of our borders.
Posted by phidipides at January 10, 2006 07:38 AMAnjha, LOL. Obviously it's too early. We both are having trouble this morning. I posted information on the wrong Bush. Evidently the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 07:53 AMWhile at an art opening, a friend introduced me to one of the Nuremberg prosecutors, Whitney R. Harris, who wrote "Tyranny on Trial" in 1954. What I would give to sit down with him now and talk.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 07:59 AMTrolls:
Name for me ONE thing that has improved since Dear Leader and his Repuglikkklan enablers have taken power.
Budget? No.
Trade Deficit? No.
Wage growth? No.
Military capability? No.
Militray recruiting? No.
Personal liberty? No.
Privacy rights? No.
International standing? No.
Worldwide and domestic terror? No.
Ethics? Hell no.
And that's merely the tip of the iceberg.
Posted by God Of War at January 10, 2006 07:59 AMTechnically, Milosevic is being tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and not the ICC. It is certainly true, however, that his steadfast refusal to acknowledge the tribunal's legitimacy isn't helping him much.
Posted by dj moonbat at January 10, 2006 08:02 AMhttp://bulldogpolitics.blogspot.com/2005/12/what-did-they-say-when-clinton-was.html
Posted by at January 10, 2006 08:02 AMGOW, and yet the true believers still choose to believe. But then again, your list may be a positive in their eyes. It just depends on what your goal is for America.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 08:03 AMWhat's with blogspot? I can't reach Eschaton, Gilliard, AmericaBlog, and now even Kos.
Posted by Repack Rider at January 10, 2006 08:04 AMAnon, good site. The Republicans didn't believe that the President was above the law back when Clinton was President, did they? In fact, they were damn sure of it.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 08:08 AMWhat's with blogspot? I can't reach Eschaton, Gilliard, AmericaBlog, and now even Kos.
I think the problem is actually with the amazon ads running on those sites. The rcm servers have been timing out for me a lot over the past few days, and when that happens, it really screws up the page loading of sites that have referral advertising.
Posted by dj moonbat at January 10, 2006 08:10 AMfrom the NYTimes:
Even if Mr. Abramoff wanted to escape the suburban home where he has hunkered down, the knee surgery he underwent Thursday has hobbled him.
What's going on with this? First we saw Scooter in crutches and now Abramoff needed knee surgery. I know these guys play rough, but is somebody breaking kneecaps?
Posted by ann at January 10, 2006 08:11 AMGood point, ann. Cheney had some knee trouble recently, too.
Posted by dj moonbat at January 10, 2006 08:15 AMWell, if many members of the current administration do end up with charges against them in international court, then they can't safely leave the country. One reason this matters is because if the value of the dollar does implode of even worse crash, they can't effectivly park assets outside of the U.S. At least, not without paying off a lot of "middlemen."
Posted by RLP at January 10, 2006 08:27 AMSo Alito thinks searching children is just fine and he supports such searches, as just testified.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 08:41 AMJustification, "if we couldn't strip search children, the criminal would hide their counterband with children."
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 08:43 AMAnd what is the deal with his wife's smug smile every time that he is asked a question about his bizarre past positions? Does she know that none of this matters because he is already as good as confirmed? Her facial expressions cause me great concern.
Alito is answering all questions very well - I suspect that if he authorized burning women at the stake in past decisions it'd be just fine with the Repukes.
Posted by Anjha at January 10, 2006 08:53 AMAnd I have just about had it with people who care about the environment, women's rights and civil liberties being referred to as "extreme left wing liberal groups" -
Bastards!
Posted by Anjha at January 10, 2006 08:57 AMAnjha, well what do you expect of a women who is an Opus Dei member and married to a Opus Dei man? Of course she knows he is confirmed already, because he is.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 08:59 AMGiven yesterday's non discussion on the Abramoff scandal, this from the National Review: it's the republicans, stupid
Posted by ann at January 10, 2006 09:06 AM"...she knows he is confirmed already, because he is."
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 08:59 AM
********
I know that I am just too hope-filled and optimistic, but I still think that he will not be confirmed.
Our country has already went backwards 50 years in women's rights, 100 years in worker's rights, environmental laws have been gutted; soon, if he is confirmed, we will return to slavery and worse.
Posted by Anjha at January 10, 2006 09:15 AMDubya still hasn't acted on disaster requests from Texas and Oklahoma relating to the wildfires, of course he was on vacation at the time. Perhaps if Crawford had burned...
http://edwardcopeland.blogspot.com/2006/01/still-waiting-on-dubya-and-fema.html
Posted by Edward Copeland at January 10, 2006 09:19 AMWTF is Kate O'Beirne?
(That's rheorical, I've now read the flame thread at dkos . . )
But are there so many wingnut mouthpieces that its possibile to not know who some of them are?
- - -
Epiphany moment last night - driving home from class and listening to Fresh Air's interview of a historian that just wrote a book on Reconstruction and its recession until the 1950's Civil Rights movement. The historian said, "all these places through the South couldn't discriminate - that was against federal law - but they all began passing and enforcing other limiting laws such as the poll tax & literacy tests to vote and so forth." [sic]
For some reason it made me think of Women's rights and abortion. If we're in the age of the push back against women's rights, especially abortion, where laws limiting and making abortion impractical except for a limited few, how much longer will it be before we overturn these laws and what will it take?
Posted by idiosynchronic at January 10, 2006 09:27 AMann, That was why I gave up midway through the thread. We repeated over and over to the idiot that it was a republican scandal, even showed proof and it never sunk in.
I get the whole impression during these hearings that the Dems want to talk tough, but in the end they let the repukes guide Alito through the rest of the Dems tough questions. Kennedy just sat there and spewed rancid rhetoric for 15 minutes, when I wanted to hear Alito answer Kennedy's questions. Then pin Alito to the post on it. Can't the Dems do better?
calvin feels the same way as the trolls at RNC. If that darn mouse hadn't moved, he wouldn't have had to kill him. Therefore, the mouse killed himself.
Posted by calvinthecat at January 10, 2006 09:48 AMann: Given yesterday's non discussion on the Abramoff scandal, this from the National Review: it's the republicans, stupid
Holy crap! Rich Lowry got through an entire column with hardly any lying!
Posted by dj moonbat at January 10, 2006 09:51 AMHoly crap! Rich Lowry got through an entire column with hardly any lying!
A thing of beauty, ain't it?
Posted by ann at January 10, 2006 10:09 AMNo success against Alito so far---Dems need to be using the various law professors analysis of his voting patterns, but they aren't doing it---just entering the studies into the record.
They refuse to cross examine him like a hostile witness.
No discussion of right wingers increasingly striking down federal laws. No questions about broader right to privacy and where it comes from.
NPR commentary is pretty tepid with the ineffective non-lawyer Mark Shields as the "liberal" voice.
They act like (once again) they haven't developed a planned, unified strategy beforehand of even demonstrating that Alito is "conservative", let alone radical.
Still plenty of time, but the clouds are starting to gather. Media is about to praise the Alito performance.
Posted by euzoius at January 10, 2006 10:31 AMI think I figured out the wife's smirk at the Dems questioning. Even a CSPAN caller talked about it.
Any time that the Dems ask 'difficult' questions - pointing out where he has been radical - she smirks away. I think that she does so because these are the quotes and visuals that the right wing media are going to use to show that the Dems are combative and unreasonable and that they are the radicals.
Poor wittle Alito is a good judge, wrongly questioned by the big bad Dems.
Posted by Anjha at January 10, 2006 11:03 AMJust saw this on HuffPo:
In 2004, "[during the] drafting of a huge spending bill, [GOP lawmakers] added a provision that could give staffers on the House and Senate appropriations committees broad access to Americans' tax returns." And in 2005, "The Internal Revenue Service collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states."
- Washington Post, 12/3/04; Tacoma News Tribune, 1/6/06
Is nothing sacred with these fuckers? No wonder the Federal Government has grown so astronomically since Bush took office. He's probably got a second set of staffers in every Fed Dept spying on us and analyzing every kind of data from how we vote to what kind of toilet paper we buy. Why the hell does the IRS need to know what our political party affiliation is anyway? Is that just to make it easier to harrass those of us who dissent from the ruling class' beliefs?
Posted by ann at January 10, 2006 11:26 AMhttp://news.com.com/Create%20an%20e-annoyance%2C%20go%20to%20jail/2010-1028_3-6022491.html
Posted by at January 10, 2006 11:43 AMWill anyone be curious enough to copy/paste that link and see where it goes?
Not me.
Posted by snark at January 10, 2006 12:27 PMI don't trust anyone who won't sign a name anymore!
Posted by iamcoyote at January 10, 2006 12:32 PMHmm, snacky snack not curious, surprise surprise.
But of course we ALL should trust someone who signs their name pointing to their own website. yuk yuk.
Posted by anonymous at January 10, 2006 01:14 PM"calvin feels the same way as the trolls at RNC. If that darn mouse hadn't moved, he wouldn't have had to kill him. Therefore, the mouse killed himself."
Posted by calvinthecat
That's like my friends son who told her he had to steal from her purse because he had asked for more allownace, and she refused. Therefore, it was her fault that he had to steal. Can anyone say sociopathic personality.
The site has already been posted. It is the one about emailers facing fines and imprisonment, which is of course, a very dangerous step.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 01:22 PMEuzoius you are so right. Once again, the Democrats are playing nice nice. Although occasionally a Democrat will ask a mildly tough question, it is pretty much business as usual. I am beginning to wonder if the Democrats have joined the Republican Party and just not told us yet.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 01:39 PMHey, anonymous is annoying me! Police! Arrest that troll!
Posted by iamcoyote at January 10, 2006 01:39 PMThe ldea of a troll prison sounds delightfully Tokkiean to me.
However, it should remain a fantasy.
Posted by rlp at January 10, 2006 01:57 PMHey, now I am remembering all the waayy back to this morning again; anyone hear/read/see anything more about that indictment?
Posted by Anjha at January 10, 2006 04:19 PMIn California... (Link and make sure to follow the next two pages for graphs):
Buried in a budget appendix is this fact: total state tax collections as a percentage of personal income are expected to reach an all-time high this year (05-06) of $8.39 per $100 of personal income. That would surpass the $8.18 at the height of the tech boom in 1999-00, when the state was running a multibillion-dollar surplus. Hmmm.
Holy Crap Muck, your $$$$$ fetish is getting awfully old.
If you ever actually get laid do you have to visualize stock tickers just to get off?
Posted by Anjha at January 10, 2006 05:10 PMThought the Pat Robertson thread yesterday would appreciate this. I drove by a fairly liberal church just now. The reader board said, "A note to Pat Robertson, Proverbs 10-11" So, being the heathen that I am and not knowing the verse, I looked it up.
Pretty cool, huh.
Posted by Anjha at January 10, 2006 06:56 PMAnjha, so I was right about that "rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding." I knew Bush had a rod up his ass.
Posted by Judith at January 10, 2006 08:31 PMHoly Crap Muck, your $$$$$ fetish is getting awfully old.
Well, somebody has to keep it real here in the land of chasing political crop circles. Heck, you folks are still talking about the 2000 election. Bush won, by the way.
If you ever actually get laid do you have to visualize stock tickers just to get off?
Only the four-letter stocks, Anjha.
Posted by muckdog at January 10, 2006 09:31 PM