Bombings Target Foreign Embassies, Kill Dozens;
25 Iraqis Killed by Sunni Extremists;
Sadrists close referendum vote
The headlines out of Iraq Sunday are mainly owing to the consequences of the US troop withdrawal from that country.
Update Three suicide bombs rocked the capital Sunday morning, in different districts, but each appearing to target foreign embassies, killing dozens. The Iranian and German embassies were among the targets. The Times of London correspondent also heard a report that a security firm may have been another target.
In a pre-dawn Saturday raid, Sunni Arab militants dressed as Iraqi army troops or US soldiers attacked families of the Jubur tribe. As long as the US military was actively patrolling Iraqi cities, and while it was paying the Awakening Council fighters directly, they were relatively safe. But as US troops have pulled back and as the government of PM Nuri al-Maliki has reduced the pay of these fighters and most often declined to induct them into the security forces, they have become increasingly vulnerable to such attacks. And this attack could well be the beginning of a vaster trend toward reprisals as the US departs and those who cooperated with it are coded as collaborators. (And as the US withdraws, foreign embassies and other institutions will require special protection by the Iraqi security forces or insurgents will try to force them out.)
Aljazeera English has video:
In other news, the Sadr Movement closed their two-day referendum on which prime ministerial candidate their party should support. The vote has been criticized for having insufficient safeguards to prevent multiple voting by a single individual and other forms of fraud. The referendum is in a sense non-binding, since it was held at the bidding of Muqtada al-Sadr and is not mandated in the constitution.
That Muqtada al-Sadr should have emerged as the kingmaker in Baghdad is also an artifact of the US withdrawal from Iraq. As the US fades, those movements that are able to mobilize the masses will no longer be curbed by the US military, and so can assert themselves politically.
Welcome to the glimmers of a post-American Iraq . . .
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 4/04/2010 01:38:00 AM
|
Facebook
9 Comments:
Unfortunately, as long as the politicians in Baghdad continue their petty wrangling over power and positions, then we better get used to headlines such as these.
Is it possible that the US is giving their uniforms to extremists in an attempt to stir unrest and then delay the US withdrawl? Is the US hoping to hear, "Please don't leave Iraq. We need you." ??
Baghdad hit by three massive blasts
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/20104483114169984.html
If Iraq slides further towards becoming a failed state what then will the U.S. do ? Send reinforcements ?
Where will the money come from for the continuation without end of two major wars at once ?
Hold on a tick; how 'bout the 30-50k us "advisers/trainers",the "permanent" bases, and the vatican city-sized embassy complex? A post- ami iraq? hardly.
JC: "And this attack could well be the beginning of a vaster trend toward reprisals as the US departs and those who cooperated with it are coded as collaborators."
Coded as collaborators? You're suggesting that they weren't collaborators? Why the Newspeak?
Iraq and Afghanistan have one major thing in common.
America wears the wrist watch, but Iraq, and Afghanistan have the time.
IMHO: Both will be quasi Islamic Republics. And there is nothing the West can do to stop it.
The other question now is how will the Kurds respond. Will they want Kirkuk as their own capitol?
I suppose there is a neocon printing plant somewhere that is getting ready the "OBAMA LOST IRAQ" bumper stickers, just in case.
If the US withdrawal is halted or reversed, with the notion that our troops can restore law and order, they will have a real problem deciding who to attack. It seems to me that the elections just sharpened knives of vengeance and ethnic hatred, the accumulation of which has been breathtaking since March 2003.
It will be hard to put a pretty face on a decree of martial law by Maliki, but I think there must still be a few copies of Saddam's "Keeping the Peace" handbook floating around, for use as guidance. Luckily we have trained and equipped a 200,000 man Iraqi army whose sole mission is internal security - aka martial law.
Then again, maybe the fledgling democracy will exchange bloodletting for civil discourse.
Regardless of what happens in Iraq. America has a much greater preoccupation with Sandra Bullock's dreadful situation - we have our priorities.
This is why Unca Dick said we should never draw down the troops there, no matter the cost to our already-bankrupt, perpetual war-waging, occupational government.
people in the al Jabur tribe were "relatively safe"???
Back in August 2005, I found a picture of a 10 year old boy named Ali Nasir Jabur in the back of a pickup truck, with the dead bodies of his mother, father, sister and two brothers. They were killed when men wearing Iraqi security uniforms raided their home the name before. Ali survived by hiding under a blanket.
So, I am assuming that he is a member of the al Jabur tribe, based on the spelling of his name. This tribe has been targeted since at least 2005, and the US forces in the country have done NOTHING TO PROTECT THEM and I doubt they did a damn thing to investigate this incident. This incident happened in Tikrit.
This upset me so badly I printed up 100 copies of the photos of this incident (there were no news reports) and handed them off to all 100 US Senators and 13 NC Representatives offices in DC in September 2005. NOT A DAMN ONE OF THEM CONTACTED ME ABOUT THIS INCIDENT. I even went back a second time and handed 100 offices of the US Senators and 13 NC Representatives another letter about this incident. Heard nothing from that also.
THEY WERE NEVER 'RELATIVELY SAFE' WITH US TROOPS AROUND.
Post a Comment
<< Home