4,000 US Troops Dead;
Nearly 60 Dead in Iraq Attacks;
Sadrists Threaten General Strike
All hell broke loose again in Iraq on Sunday, with political violence killing nearly 60 persons according to official statistics.
A roadside bomb killed 4 US troops, bringing the total dead in Iraq on the American side to 4,000. The thing I most mind about the deaths of those brave warriors is that our government has not been honest about why they died. We don't know the answer to that question. We've been lied to.
The Bush administration still has not told us why they died. It was not to protect the US from "weapons of mass destruction" (see below; that was a fabricated cover story). It was not to spread democracy. It may have been to nail down a major petroleum-producing country for US geostrategic goals (ensuring its resources were available to the US and could be denied if necessary to growing rivals such as China). If so, one has to ask whether the objectives (which were hidden from the American people) were the top priority for the US, or only for the petroleum industry; whether those objectives have been achieved; and whether there was another way to attain them. No such debate has ever been held. Was it in part to ensure Israeli security, as Mearsheimer and Walt argue (and Craig Unger implicitly argues, below)? If so, that should be stated, it should be debated. Even the former head of Shin Bet did not agree that it increased Israel's security. It is not right to ask men and women under arms to die for their country without telling them exactly how they are benefiting their country. For all we know, they have died so that Bush and Cheney could throw goodies to their "base," so that Halliburton could escape bankruptcy and Hunt Oil could get new development contracts.
The Green Zone was subjected to repeated mortar and rocket attacks on Sunday, which wounded 1 American and 4 others inside, and killed at least a dozen on its edges (because those firing them were bad shots). The Green Zone is where the US Embassy and major Iraqi government buildings are. It had been a little safer recently, or at least the Pentagon was peddling that line to CNN during last week's commemoration of the 5th anniversary of the war (see the CNN piece below). It is a measure of how the war objectives keep being defined down, that for the Green Zone to be relatively safe was trumpeted as an accomplishment. The "green zone" was always supposed to be safe, since it was heavily guarded and surrounded by blast walls. I take it that the US ceasefire with the Mahdi Army has actually broken down, in part because the US army and its Iraqi allies keep arresting commanders of the Mahdi Army. The Bush administration attitude has been, that's not a truce, that's an opportunity to make a bust.
Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the Sadr Movement is demanding that recently arrested members of the Mahdi Army be released by the al-Maliki government. If their demands are not met, they say, they will launch a general strike. I suspect that the shelling of the Green Zone on Sunday was proffered as evidence that they really would be willing to take extreme actions if that would free the arrested Sadrists.
CNN transcript of Kyra Phillips' interview. The clip below seems laggy but you get the idea.
McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Sunday:
' Baghdad
- Around 6 a.m. four mortars hit the Green Zone, Iraqi police said.
- Around 8 a.m. A roadside bomb targeted Iraqi police patrol near the Shaab stadium, injuring three policemen.
- Around 11 a.m. Iraqi police said 6 rockets targeted the Green Zone, two of them hit the Green Zone and four others hit different areas of Baghdad. One hit a residential building in Kamaliyah killing five civilians and injuring 8, one hit cars parking yard near the Qadiri shrine in central Baghdad injuring 5 civilians. The other two hit different areas in Karrada causing no casualties.
- Around noon gunmen in three civilian cars opened their machineguns fire towards civilians near a cooking gas factory in Zafaraniyah, killing 7 civilians and injuring 16 others.
- Around 3 p.m. a suicide bomber driving a car bomb targeted civilians near a gas station in Shoala neighborhood, killing 5 civilians and injuring 7.
- Around noon a roadside bomb targeted civilians on Uqba bin Nafia square, injuring two civilians.
- Around 5 p.m. two rockets or mortar shells hit the Green Zone, a third missed its target and hit in Sadoun street, injuring one civilian, Iraqi police said.
- Around 8 p.m. a mortar shell hit residential buildings (called the Palestinians' buildings) injuring four civilians.
- At 8:26 p.m. several mortar shells or rockets targeted the Green Zone fell short and hit different areas 3 in Karrada and 1 in Arasat killing 2 and injuring 7 civilians. Another hit a house in Sadoun Street, killing 5 civilians from one family.
- Police found 6 dead bodies throughout Baghdad . . .
Nineveh
- Around 7 a.m. a suicide bomber drove his truck bomb into an Iraqi army headquarter in the industrial area west Mosul, killing 13 soldiers and injuring 30 soldiers and 12 civilians.
- A suicide bomber driving a car bomb targeted an Iraqi army convoy in Al Nour neighborhood in Mosul, killing one officer and injuring 3 soldiers and 7 civilians.
- A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army vehicle in Al Hadbaa neighborhood in Mosul, injuring 7 civilians.
- Iraqi police found one dead body in Mosul.
Diyala
- Iraqi police said U.S. troops killed 14 men and injured five people including a woman then used aerial fire to hit four homes in Al Dahalga village (about 28 miles east of Baquba). The U.S. military said they killed 12 men that were a part of a suicide bombing network. . .
- Gunmen killed citizen Ali Hassan in front of his house in central Baquba, Hassan was returning home yesterday after he was displaced.
- Gunmen killed Brigadier General Akram Awad Radhi and his driver as he was heading back to Baquba from Abu Saida area (about 12 miles east of Baquba).
- Gunmen attacked policemen in central Baquba killing a police lieutenant and injuring two other policemen.
- A mortar shell slammed into Al Gatoun area west Baquba, killing two civilians and injuring one.
- A mortar shell slammed into Kanaan town (about 9 miles east of Baquba) injured an infant girl and a woman.
Kirkuk
- Gunmen using two cars attacked an Iraqi army fixed check point to monitor a main road south of Kirkuk (about 16 miles) killing four Iraqi army soldiers and burning their Humvee.
Salahuddin
- A suicide bomber driving a car bomb targeted the house of Al Muatasim town (about 12 miles south of Samarra) mayor yesterday, killing 3 policemen and injuring two civilians. '
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/24/2008 01:49:00 AM
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12 Comments:
Who does CNN think they are fooling?
The "live" video of Krya Phillips shows a the place to be deserted. How does that prove that there is any security in Baghdad?
Thanks for the Kyra Phillip's link. Unbelievable. Makes me wonder who's more stupid: Phillips for her OMG! I'm out of my little "red zone" box, CNN for running such drivel, or people who swallow this junk...some progress!
I'm a Soldier in the U.S. Army and when I heard news of the 4000 death mark I became sick to my stomach. I'm lucky enough to have been to Iraq and return home to my family but so many of my fellow Soldiers have not been as fortunate. And in my heart i feel like every one of those 4000 deaths our president is to be blamed for.
I've opened up a discussion on my blog so I can talk to people and answer their questions and hopefully make people understand that not all military are supporting this war and that every one of those deaths was important and unneeded. I'd like it you'd stop by and toss in your two cents.
I'm all for defending my country but U.S. did not need to be defended from Iraq.
1) It bears repeating: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Wurmser, Kristol, etc. got their war all right, they just didn't get the war they thought they were going to get.
2) Four thousand. How many very badly wounded?
And because of the way they fudge the figures the 4,000 dead is only those who were killed in "combat" in Iraq. You can add to that 4k hundreds more who were shot up or blown up and then died in hospital in Germany. And the ones who were killed in road accidents. And the suicides. Etc. etc. It's surely well over 5,000 fatalities.
And the "collateral casualties"? Well you can start by multiplying by, say, 1.8 the total of dead and badly wounded. The multiplier of 1.8 for the number of parents of our dead and wounded. And you can add to that the number of wives and girlfriends (and husbands and boyfriends) "involved". And you can add the number of siblings. And children. And close friends.
My back of the envelope guesstimate is somewhere in the neighborhood of a quarter of a million.
Run those same calculations for Iraq and you must be up around six million.
Millions of lives lost and blighted - though that sort of language doesn't begin to "do justice" to the evil that Bush and the rest of them have wrought.
We desperately need to find a way of stopping it - of making sure that 4,000 doesn't become 8,000 - that a quarter of a million doesn't become half a million - that six million doesn't become 12 million. Need to find a way to stop it - and to see justice done.
Impunity is the key to the whole thing. They would not have done what they've done if they thought that there was even a one percent - Cheney's one percent doctrine recast - chance of their being some personal "blowback".
"We desperately need to find a way of stopping it"
Here's a way -- How to End the War in One Day:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/13338
Unbelievable! General Betray-Us is claiming Iran was behind the attack on the Green Zone. Right, they just can't wait to bring down the most pro-Iranian regime in the neighborhood.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7311565.stm
When I watched ABC News Sunday night, no mention of the attacks on the Green Zone. People should write to them and complain, that they didn't mention such an important event along with their other Iraq news (but I did like the sentimental story about the soccer balls.)
Here is my second attempt to post this comment, I was rejected the first time, I've written nothing vulgar, no personal attacks, no hate speech, just questions. I can see no reason to refuse to post my comment.
Cole wrote,
"The think I most mind about the deaths of those brave warriors is that our government has not been honest about why they died."
Should our troops share any responsibility for fighting an illegal war?
Is claiming ignorance or claiming to merely be "following orders" a reasonable defense for someone committing war crimes?
Was this a considered a reasonable defense at the Nuremberg Trials?
Is it "brave" to participate in a genocide?
Are you unwilling to call this war a genocide?
If not, how many must die before that term fits?
How can you support the troops who volunteered to fight in this war, while at the same time claiming not to support the war?
Do you really think the Iraqis would call our troops "brave warriors"?
Would you still call our troops "brave warriors" if they had murdered, tortured, or imprisoned your family and friends.
I sincerely wish you will respond to these questions.
Another soccer ball story??? Damn, I missed one.
"So?"
So what if the Congress of the United States continues to do nothing about it? Just like a certain Vice President with contempt for his office - doing nothing that risks a change to, and everything to continue, the status quo of our control over Iraq's sovereignty and sole natural resource (OIL)?
So what if battle-experienced members of our Armed Forces return from their urban combat zones in Iraq desperate to end our participation in the violence we instigated, and continue to instigate, in Iraq?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/opinion/19jayamaha.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
So what if the Petraeus Dog and Crocker Pony Show, Take Two, will be rolled out in high drama once more in Congress in April, carefully orchestrated with Congressional help (and carefully controlled to limit any 'inconvenient' questioning) so as to provide a fig leaf excuse to continue our military occupation of Iraq AT ALL COSTS?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-dreyfuss/maliki-bush-trample-iraq_b_77903.html
So what if the corporations profiting off our taxpayer-debt financing of this hostile occupation of a foreign land - at a $12 BILLION dollar a MONTH clip - carefully, deliberately keep the depravity of our actions in Iraq off the national airwaves and national frontpages of the media outlets they own, so their amoral financial gravy train won't be derailed?
So what if the corrupt, Iran-backed ISCI Shiite government ministers that the U.S. installed in Iraq (many of them former Iraqi exiles called back from London to do our bidding), who we bribe and guard with our industrial military might in a ravaged land with an immobile, allegiance-compromised national defense force and no air force or navy, are despised by the populace whose oil they are exporting in order to hide the profits in foreign bank accounts instead of burning the fuel to provide daily electricity to the suffering people of Iraq?
http://firedoglake.com/2008/03/20/a-corrupt-bargain/
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20080310&s=dreyfuss
So what if Persian Iran has ISCI allies running the show in Arabian Iraq's Baghdad and Basra with the protection and firepower of the U.S. military backing them up, and is helping the United States (all our covering "surge" bullshit rhetoric to the contrary) to DISINTEGRATE the nation of Iraq into weak regions or provinces, segregated and walled off so as to PREVENT a national, multi-party-and-sect reconciliation and united Iraq which opinion polls indicate most Iraqis prefer, and that would control Iraq's oil for Iraqis, instead of parceling it out to Cheney's favorite global oil barons?
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080128/dreyfuss
http://alternet.org/story/67383
Http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2129493,00.html
So what if Iraq's $22 TRILLION dollar oil field wealth is diverted to foreigners, instead of being used by an independent, unified Iraq - a reinvigorated Iraq that is opposed by both Iran and the United States, including apparently the United States Congress despite its members' lies to the contrary - to rebuild its shattered infrastructure and its destroyed defense forces?
http://alternet.org/waroniraq/80469/
["According to the Iraqi mainstream narrative, the foreign occupation is the major reason and cause for violence and destruction. Foreign intervention is not only destroying Iraq's infrastructure, but it is also splitting Iraq's formerly integrated society. In addition, Iraqis are fighting among each other over fundamental questions about the future of their country, but the central conflict is not between Sunnis and Shiites, it is between Iraqi separatists and nationalists. Unlike other countries in the region such as Lebanon, the Iraqi sectarian tension is still reversible, because it just started five years ago. More importantly, it isn't [the] main driver fueling the Iraqi-Iraqi conflict. This "hidden" conflict is between separatists and nationalists." - Raed Jarrar, 3/24/08]
So what are we gonna do about it, 300-million-strong American citizens? Just sit here and continue to take the lies and the propaganda from those who viciously further the wielding of death and destruction, and then just watch the private oil kings when they walk away with Iraq's sole source of future wealth?
There's something called a United States Constitution. In it, there's an Article called Article "One" - it constituted and empowered something called a federal legislature whose responsibility it is to obey, defend and protect that Constitution, while its membership, as representatives of the people, performs their ongoing legislative duties, AND their DUTY TO DECLARE - AND THUS END, unilaterally if need be - WAR on behalf of the United States. That Article I federal legislature representing we, the people, is the SOLE BRANCH of our government so charged with the solemn duty of declaring or ceasing war [especially when it's an undeclared occupation, not a declared war against an obvious adversary] against those who are claimed to threaten our Constitutional Republic. Section 8, Clause 11 reads like this:
"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;"
No presidential authority to veto a Congressional Declaration of War is enumerated in the Constitution. Why does this Congress [and the Congress that effectively diluted its war powers into the legislative War Powers Act of 1973, outside of Section 5(c)] assume that a presidential signature, or veto override, is required to declare an END to the violent military occupation of Iraq, separate and apart from its obvious, but unused, ability to simply cease funding for the occupation and its supporting infrastructure?
Http://wa4richardson.blogspot.com/2007/06/rationale-for-deauthorization.html
["This means - and the Supreme Court has held - that this SOLE power to declare war also vests Congress with the SOLE power to circumscribe the war that can be fought. And, while a minority of scholars may dispute it, most agree that this also means that Congress has the SOLE power to declare a war over."]
Http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/opinion/07cuomo.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/tocs/a1_8_11.html
The bottom line of that Constitution, which has been turned on its head in the modern era, and in particular with regard to Iraq (see Vice President Cheney's latest attempt to claim the profound power to send our troops into battle - or not - as a "decision [the president] has to make"), is this:
War was categorically not intended by our Founders, thanks to wisdom gained from painful personal experience, to be more difficult to END (by way of a two-thirds Congressional majority presidential veto override) than it was to BEGIN (by way of simple majority Congressional approval), in terms of Constitutional authorization.
[James Madison, writing to Thomas Jefferson in 1798: "The constitution supposes, what the History of all Gov[ernmen]ts demonstrates, that the Ex[ecutive] is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legisl[ative Branch]."]
SO, Members of the United States Congress, a body constituted and empowered by that same Article I of the United States Constitution: Can you, WILL you, muster any response - to the plea of this nation's people to leave Iraq forthwith - more faithful to our Constitution than the impeachable Vice President's "So?"
"The Bush administration still has not told us why they died."
I think he was up front with why he did it. He began his justification with "Sadam's regime was paying suicide terrorists to attack Israel". That was reason nr. 1: Saddam and the Bath Party was a threat to Israel; they had to go. Oil wasn't even mentioned - and after all, it would have been cheaper to by the oil.
Our troops have died for oil, war-profiteering, Bush wanting to prove his cahunas were bigger than his Dad's, and neo-conservatives wanting to test drive their theory of pre-emptive war. The warprofiteering has been quite successful. The rest has been a bust. We are NOT fighting them there so we wont have to fight them here. Improved airport security has made that more difficult. If those twin epitomes of incompetence, Bush and Rice, had tightened airport security BEFORE 9/11,we would not have had the terrorists blasting down our buildings. If we tightened security in other areas, like chemical plants,nuclear plants, dams, and other attractive targets, we could worry a great deal less about any more internal attacks. Terrorism worldwide has increased, though Bush/Cheney could not possibly care less.
Iraq has not been liberated. It has been devastated. The Surge is one more Bush/Media example of smoke and mirrors.Less violence here.....more violence there.Those who believe this war has accomplished anything other than enriching Halliburton,can put in an offer on a bridge I am selling in Brooklyn.
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