40 Dead in Tikrit Bombing
Iraq conflict creating Terror Threat for US: NIE
Bombings in Baghdad's Sadr City region killed at least 40 and wounded a similar number on Saturday.
9 bodies of Iraqi policemen and members of security forces were found in Tikrit, north of Baghdad.
3 US GIs were announced killed.
In the south, a roadside bomb killed a Danish soldier and wounded 7 others.
It turns out that Iraq isn't the central front in the 'war on terror.' It is instead now the principal incubator of anti-American terrorism, because people in the Sunni world are so furious at what Bush is doing there. That is the conclusion I draw from this report on the conclusions of US intelligence analysts.
Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that high monetary inflation is dampening spirits in Najaf.
posted by Juan Cole @ 9/24/2006 12:30:00 AM
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Michael Kinsley at Slate.com has a brutally hillarious essay on George W. Bush's backwards war on terror. He calls it "Yrotciv in Iraq," and basically notes how the war that Bush "won" three-and-a-half years ago has now, for some strange reason, only just begun. The so-called "long" war only serves as an Orwellian euphemism for "mission never accomplished." We cannot let this primitive and transparent word magic trap us into continuing the madness.
I feel so sorry for everyone -- Iraqis, especially, but also Americans -- who have had their lives either prematurely terminated or simply ruined in any number of other ways by this needless, heedless disaster. We can stop it. We must stop it. Only our own flawed rhetoric imprisons us and prevents us from acting positively to first de-escalate our own contribution to the violence. Hopefully, others will then follow suit.
Of course, we Americans can't stop Muslim factions from fighting among themselves if they choose to do so. They have their own view of themselves, their society, their culture, their religion, and their language. We, as Americans, simply do not have enough knowledge, moral authority, or even the simple competence to try and manage all these aspects of Iraqi life. We have performed horribly by even trying.
No matter what our moral pretensions and protestations, in fact George W. Bush has shot our country's wad. He has driven us into deep debt which will only prevent us from compensating Iraq for the damage we have done, even if we somehow manage the political will do do so. To the best of my knowledge, we have not even stopped Kuwait from extorting "reparations" from Iraq: scarce resources that the Iraqi people desperately need to rebuild their own country. The longer we keep wasting blood and money in the vain pursuit of more destruction, the fewer resources we will have available for making things right later.
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," so the Chinese say. We Americans need to take that first step. We don't need anyone's permission to do so. Just because we cannot dictate what subsequent steps others may choose to take doesn't mean we shouldn't proactively take those steps that we can unilaterally take for our own sake and the sake of others.
As with the futile and failed War on Vietnam forty years ago, nothing keeps us where we don't belong but our own false pride and lack of compassion for people whom we have no reason to want to harm.
I don't have any use for religion, as I consider it anti-modern and a general hindrance to progress by the human race. Still, America should not presume to kill people and/or destroy their material lives just because they may wish to live a more indoctrinated, controlled, and/or perhaps even feudal lifestyle. I pity such people but I do not hate them. Neither should my country. America has more than enough problems of its own with fanatical religious fundamentalism, predatory economic oligarchy, and creeping crypto-fascism -- i.e., reactionary panic. America needs to rediscover the best things about itself and rid itself of the worst. Others can follow if they want, in their own time, in their own way; or they can just speed on past us and leave us far behind.
To coin a phrase, the US Intelligence agencies are a dollar short and a day late with their conclusions. They are just about 3 years slower than the rest of the world in seeing the obvious. Strange, isn't it, considering their tremendous record of getting it right.
I have been watching TV news this morning and there is no mention of any US deaths in Iraq. They are speaking about the NYT's article on Iraq being a breeding ground for anti American efforts. But not saying 3 more American soldiers have given their lives over there really bothers me. People should be outraged by this!
U.S. Deaths Confirmed By The DoD: 2687
Deaths Pending DoD Confirmation: 13
Total once they get around to it: 2700
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