6 US GIs Killed
Sunnis Reject Petroleum Bill
Reuters reports guerrilla violence on Friday. The killing of 6 US GIs was announced. Iraqi security forces in Basra supported by British troops tried to arrest a Mahdi Army commander as he was coming out of a mosque, and killed him and two of his bodyguards. Guerrillas in Baghdad damaged another important bridge.
McClatchy reports that 20 bodies were found in Baghdad on Friday. In addition, "2 civilians were killed and 7 were injured when a mortar shell hit Al Mail neighborhood south west Baghdad . . ." and "1 civilian was killed and 8 wounded when a mortar shell hit Abo Disheer neighborhood south Baghdad . . ." A car bomb in Muqdadiya east of Baquba in Diyala injured 4 policemen and 6 civilians.
Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that member of parliament Husain al-Falluji of the Iraqi Accord Front [Sunni fundamentalist] said Friday that the IAF would never approve the new petroleum law until the constitution is first amended. He said that the party has made a firm decision in this regard.
The Friday prayers sermons, both Shiite and Sunni, complained that the Iraqi government still has no handle on security. Sayyid Husayn al-Safi of Karbala complained that this inability "derives from the [government] not enjoying wide prerogatives in its security missions." [That is, he is blaming the Americans for not letting al-Maliki do what needs to be done.]
Shaikh Husayn Tu`ayma of the Khalisiya Seminary demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops and their replacement by international forces.
Shaikh Mahmud al-Sumaidaie [Sunni] urged the government to throw its weight behind establishing security, since lack of stability will undermine the government and throw the entire region into turmoil. He said that the government had had difficulty moving forward on this issue because the prerogatives of the American military trumped those of the Iraqi.
Abdullah Gul, the Turkish Foreign Minister, attempted to pull Turkey back from the brink on Friday. After a great deal of saber rattling this week by the prime minister, Tayyip Recep Erdogan and by Turkish generals, Gul said that the government had not asked parliament to authorize a strike into Iraqi Kurdistan. The latter is harboring some 5,000 guerrillas of the violent PPK [Kurdish Workers' Party], who occasionally blow up things in Turkey [and are suspected in a bombing of downtown Ankara this week). Turkish leaders have increasingly said that they will engage in hot pursuit of Kurdish extremists, over the border into Iraq, if they think it necessary.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/26/2007 12:30:00 AM
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5 Comments:
Dear Mr. Cole, do you know the status of the petition demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops which was signed on May 10?
Please keep us updated.
Thanks!
isn't it uncanny how, whenever the Americans become self-absorbed in some scandal, crime, or crisis ~ the ISRAELIS just start blowing the bejezus out of one or the other of their Palestinian ghettos?
Look! shiny American War Surge thing over THERE =>
> >BLAM!< <
Reuters : Israel pounds Gaza Ghetto, throws Palestinian Ministers in Prison
yeah.
wellnow, it's high time we got the Professor's site here all HIP ;-)
YouTube => If I Had A Rocket Launcher
I'm one disheartened American after this week's vote to let the killing continue for three more months.
I wonder what was behind this bill that propelled 86 DEMS in the House and 38 in the Senate to vote with the GOP.
One of the benchmarks in the bill had to do with the Iraq government passing the Iraq Hydrocarbon Act that will ultimately turn over most of the profits of Iraq's 200-300 bbls. of oil to US oil companies.
Here are a couple of articles about this:
Rep. Dennis Kucinich's speech on the House floor this week:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=12901
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0518/p01s01-usfp.html
Based on America's new standard of self defense, will we be required to supply troops to our NATO ally in it's invasion/pursuit of "terrorists" in Kurdistan or can we just send a billion dollars al la Pakistan? And when they come accross a Kurdish patrol with American "Imbeds" are they victims of "friendly fire" or subject to being sent to Gitmo???
According to an article (Anti-U.S. cleric reappears in public in Saturday's LA Times, it looks like our president may have the "smoking gun" that he's been searching for, the better to drag us into another of his immoral and illegal wars. Except this time, as he's told us repeatedly, nothing's off the table, and who doesn't know what that means?
What's in the above article that justifies said conclusion? First of all it has two co-authors, four contributors plus speciall correspondents in Basra, which is remarkable for a page five piece, when one considers that in Saturday's news section there was only one other article ("Arabs make plans for future with nuclear power", on page 1) that was co-authored, with not another contributor nor special correspondent anywhere to be found.
Another tip-off that there was something extra-special contained in the forementioned page five story is that, exce[t fpr a spokesperson for Muqtada Sadr, all of the sources quoted are tied to either our government or the military. First there's Scott Stanzel, a White House spolesman; then, Vali Nesr, an expet on Siite politics at the Naval Postgrauate School in Monterey, California; next, Antony Cordesman, a former Defense Department official now at the Center fo Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Such a united front by the WH and the military suggests that the powers that be wanted this article to come out just right.
So where's the "smoking gun"? It surfaces at the end of the article, based upon a statement by our military that early Saturday morning five militants were killed and one arrested in a joint raid on Sadr City. The arrested fighter who was not identified is suspected of being a proxy for Iran's Revolutionary Guards. He allegedly led "a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapon and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran.", the military statement read. And, presto, ergo, behold the "smoking gun".
But will the alleged activities of the above unidentified militant turn out to be the "smoking gun"? If it does we'll know soon enough (perhaps on Memorial Day), as our president uses whatever lies and tricks are available in order to jump-start us into his next war.
How to prevent him from getting away with it? Troops out now, that's how, whereupon, empowered by our victory over the powers that be, we go on to change the world.
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