31
Mar
Did Dick Cheney’s Visit Stir Lastest Round of Iraq Violence?
UN STUDY: 86922 farmer suicides in 2001-05, many related to their debt burdens.
WAS CHENEY BEHIND IRAQI’S FAILED OFFENSIVE, VIOLENCE?
RUSSIAN PRESS REPORTS US WAR BUILD UP TOWARDS IRAN
PAULSON WANTS FED TO WATCH WALL STREET BUT JUST WATCH
Has anyone noticed or commented upon the sequence of recent events in Iraq?
First, there’s was the visit by that Master of War Dick Cheney, and then, lo and behold, the war which the Administration claims had chilled out heats up again.
It seems Dick was cheerleading and playing puppeteer with PM Maliki urging him to take out Sadr as part of a new effort get control of oil.
There followed an uprising and then an attack by Iraqi forces praised by our Commander In Chief as effective. But then, as the NY Times reported, the “operation was poorly planned.” Translation: It was a failure.
So just as banks that fail get bailed out here, the Air Force bailed out Maliki who “staked his reputation,” according the Times on his ability to “boldly take on” (translation, decimate) the militias. His assault was a flop like many before it.
Now, on Monday morning, resistance in Iraq escalates even as Basra cools off. AP reports:
A key adviser to Iraq’s prime minister, meanwhile, said military operations in an oil-rich southern city besieged by nearly a week of fighting will end within days.
According to Juan Cole and McLatchey Newspapers, there are supporters of Maliki turning against him and the US backed “offensive.”
McClatchy provides a lot of important detail about Sunday’s surprising developments regarding the fight between the Iraqi government and the Mahdi Army. A parliamentary delegation from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s own coalition (mainly now the Da`wa Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq) defied him by going off to the holy seminary city of Qom in Iran and negotiating directly with Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr and with the leader of the Quds Brigades of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Qasim Sulaymani.
As a result of those parleys, Muqtada al-Sadr called on his followers to stand down, though I read his statement as permitting continued armed self-defense, as at Basra where the Iraqi Army is attacking them and the US is bombing them.
All of this represents a setback and creates more pressure on President Bush and Mr. McCain as well because it is hard to claim our side is winning when it is not. If it was winning, there couldn’t be the fierce shelling of the well-fortified Green Zone enclave. Muqtada al-Sadr’s forces remain strong and the US backed government seems weak. You wouldn’t know this by watching most of the TV reports.(I am sure if Reverend Wright was preaching there, we would have had more critical cable news coverage than we had of this fiasco.)
The GI special reported: “On his visit last week to the Middle East, Vice President Dick Cheney held one-on-one meetings with Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders in Iraq to speed passage of a law opening Iraq’s enormous petroleum reserves to more efficient production by global oil companies.
Last week, before the Maliki government began its offensive, U.S. Gen. David Petraeus said Mr. Maliki “is very keen on getting large Western corporations reengaged in the oil and electricity sectors.”
The security challenges posed by the Basra militias “have to be addressed by Iraq,” he added.”
How were those “security challenges” addressed. First with a military offensive by Baghdad’s bullies followed, when it was failing by new American bombing,
The Guardian reported last week:
Thousands of people are joining the protest marches and “sit-ins” in Baghdad as I write these lines. They are mainly responding to a call by leading anti-occupation cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the wake of fierce clashes between the Sadr movement supporters and many thousands of occupation-backed Iraqi forces who began a major military campaign in Basra last night.
An urgent message this morning from an Iraqi trade union activist in Basra referred to resistance to the government forces in several Basra neighborhoods and “savage” attacks against the resistors.
The message stressed that “security plan began in the same barbaric manner that the criminal Saddam had used”. This is a reference to the March 1991 uprising that began in Basra and which was brutally crushed by Saddam’s forces.
The demonstrators, in several areas of Baghdad as well many southern cities, held placards and chanted slogans against the military campaign in Basra, Iraq’s second biggest city.
Their most prominent slogan is “Kella, kella lil ditatoriya al-jedida”: No, no, to the new dictatorship.
Other slogans include: “No to the US”, “No to the occupation”, “Yes to Iraq”.
Sadr has encouraged resistance—non-violent resistance—but now wants a cease-fire probably because of all the civilian deaths.
AP: Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is offering to pull his fighters off the streets of Basra and other cities if the government halts raids against his The offer is contained in a nine-point statement issued by his headquarters in Najaf.
AlJazeera Exclusive Interview with Muqtada Al-Sadr:
In one of the latest offensives, eight people died, including two women and a child, in an air raid.:
Juan Cole: Mahdi Army Stands Firm in its Basra Neighborhoods
The US faced a dilemma in Iraq. It needed to have new provincial elections in an attempt to mollify the Sunni Arabs, especially in Sunni-majority provinces like Diyala, which has nevertheless been ruled by the Shiite Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. But if they have provincial elections, their chief ally, the Islamic Supreme Council, might well lose southern provinces to the Sadr Movement.
ALTERNET: Five Things You Need to Know To Understand The Latest Violence in Iraq
The conflict is one that the U.S. media appears incapable of describing in a coherent way.
RUSSIANS REPORT US MENACING IRAN
MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russian military
intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S.
Armed Forces near Iran’s borders, a high-ranking security source
said Tuesday.“The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S.
military preparations for both an air and ground operation against
Iran,” the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not
yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched.
M&G: Zim opposition claims win on early results
Zimbabwe’s opposition claimed victory on Sunday based on early results from an election in which it is trying to unseat President Robert Mugabe after 28 years of power and end an economic collapse. “It’s a historic moment for all of us. We have won this election, we have won this election,” said Tendai Biti, secretary general of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
The Government later cautioned against this projection.
LATE SUNDAY NIGHT, REUTERS REPORTS FROM HARARE
HARARE (Reuters) - Riot police appeared on the streets of Zimbabwe’s capital after a long delay to election results fueled opposition suspicions that President Robert Mugabe may try and cling to power by rigging the vote.
PRESENT FOR CONDI
JERUSALEM - Israel has pledged to remove 50 West Bank roadblocks (out of hundreds( as part of a package to improve everyday life for Palestinians, U.S. officials said Sunday.
The officials, traveling with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said Israel and the Palestinians also have agreed that Palestinian security forces in the West Bank must assume “greater responsibility.”
Israel maintains hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank. Israel says the measures are needed for security. But the Palestinians say the restrict
FORMER AMBASSADOR ON SNIPER FIRE IN BOSNIA
