CNN Reports 500 people were killed in newest Iraq bombings
Breaking: CNN has upped the total to 500---although the AP had it at 250 earlier. Horrible. The Cablese and the military are conveniently labeling it an al-Qaeda attack, (which is quite possible) but Juan Cole thinks:
...these bombings are not just an attempt to spread fear and intimidation, but are actually part of a struggle for control of territory. The Sunni Arab guerrillas face powerful challenges from Kurds and Shiites with regard to the future of provinces such as Ninevah, Diyala and Kirkuk. A lot of Kurdish police and troops have been deployed in Mosul not far from Tuesday's bombings, and they are seen as among the deadliest enemies by the Sunni Arab guerrillas. Sooner or later, my guess is that the Sunni Arabs will wage a major war with the Kurds over the oil fields of Kirkuk.
He's got a complete round up of the other violence that's not reported here in Iraq and it's truly horrific. Nothing like what we hear on our Cablese. Can't be messing with the WH's summer propaganda push.
500?
didn't they report under 300 this morning?
Why don't we hear more shiny happy stories from Iraq?
bUSH/cHAINIE, etc say things are going good. 500 deaths are good???
not in my opinion. :(
Those poor people. Look at the havoc we've wreaked upon that country. I don't want to hear another right wing retard telling me how much the surge is working.
"Sooner or later, my guess is that the Sunni Arabs will wage a major war with the Kurds over the oil fields of Kirkuk."
And THEN the Turks are going to use that opportunity to make a move, and the shit is REALLY gonna hit the fan.
The Turks invade, then you have other Arab nations getting involved, which could draw the Greeks in, which will require NATO to respond, which will require that the U.S. PICK A SIDE.
Heh. Was THAT in the neocon plan?
Liberal AND Proud @ 5:
I've long suspected some in the rightwing were trying to bring about end times.
This administration would like to have us believe that all the nasty stuff is being done by "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" and sneaky Iranian agitators. Apparently the rest of the population of Iraq is standing by and not getting involved. Yeah, right. Only Wesley Clark occasionally points out that (along with the other myriad complications) we have been occupying their country for years and they are not happy about that (as, hopefully, we wouldn't be if the situation were reversed) and fighting back. What's so hard about that to understand?
i am sure the right will spin this as the threat al-queda in iraq poses requires we stay there to "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them there." it is the difference from processing from the top down versus the bottom up. they will continue to interpret all evidence to support their reasoning or simply ignore it.
Its interesting that this is the top story on cnn's and msnbc's webiste. However if you go over to faux, it doesnt even show up till you scroll all the way down to the world section. gotta love faux.
This must be the last throes of the resistance we've been hearing so much about for the past several years. Looks like we've got them right where we want them. Irrefutable evidence that "The Surge™" is working.
Thanks for pointing out how little of the day-to-day violence in Iraq is reported in this country. There is an excellent website, run by volunteers, that chronicles the daily violence every single day. It's worth bookmarking and reading on a regular basis in order to get a clearer picture of what is truly happening in Iraq. It's also worth making a small contribution to the folks doing the research and posting the information.
Liberal AND Proud @ 5:
500's just a number, right Tony?
How 'bout the paint job on that school, huh?
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We need more coverage of the guys down the mine. F these 500 people.
Oddly enough... Isn't this pretty much about what Darth Cheney predicted would happen hypothetically after any post Iraq invasion back in 94???? And the same sonofabitch decided to go down that rabbit hole anyway in 02.... Was/is that greed? stupidity? cleverness? intelligence? calculated gamble? incompetence? All of the above? Some quirk noone has identified? .... At this point, does it even matter?.....
Unless we are going to hold the principles behind this shit accountable, I'm just not sure what matters now. I've recently listened to the clip of Cheney from 94 justifying the decision not to go for Hussein at the end of the first gulf war.. Hard to stomach that prick saying those things in the wake of what's happened since they took power... It's like hearing a man tell how if the children are allowed to play with matches, they might burn the house down... Then later giving those kids books of matches, leaving them in the house in a room full of dry paper alone...And then leaving the house...
One thing is clear.... It's just a continuing clusterfuck getting people maimed and killed at an ever increasing rate...And the fingerprints of Dick, George, Condi, Paulie Wolfowitz and a handful of other assholes in politics and media are all over this mess.. JD
If 10 people were killed in the US in one incident the whole country would screech to a stand still. Yet, 200-500 people being killed in Iraq might get page 3 in the paper. God this country is screwed up.
al Qaida, schmal Qaida...do you think we opened a pandora's box?
NYPD warns of homegrown terror threat
12 minutes ago
NEW YORK - Average citizens who quietly band together and adopt radical ways pose a mounting threat to American security that could exceed that of established terrorist groups like al-Qaida, a new police analysis has concluded.
Anything but blame Bush!
Eternal Vigilance @ 13:
Just commas in history to George Warmonger Bush.
The mother of all pandora's boxes....To use a slightly out of date euphemism............Yea, we definitely broke it..... But I don't actually think we have our shit together enough to really pick up the pieces as long as we allow this current administration to continue running amok.....................JD
They called it a surge, but they really meant a scourge.
And I'll bet they're laughing at their cleverness.
Even I knew before this war even started it would create a vacuum and the different groups would be fighting over territory and resources.
Actually, millions of us knew it and protested.
The only ones who didn't know were the Stupid Bush supporters who bought into all the neo-con fear mongering.
The neo-cons should all be rounded up and sent to Guantanomo.
Now now, Bush said it before. Success is not no violence.
This means the surge is working. Now excuse me while i eat this yummy glue paste.
NYPD warns of homegrown terror threat
12 minutes ago
NEW YORK - Average citizens who quietly band together and adopt radical ways pose a mounting threat to American security that could exceed that of established terrorist groups like al-Qaida, a new police analysis has concluded.
Anything but blame Bush!
Chances are any home grown terrorist in the USA support Bush and the radical right. God only knows what theses extermists will do when the right-wing gets slaughtered in 2008.
Also from Juan Cole:
marie @ 7:
I wouldn't be very happy with one hour of electricity per day and no running water.
How unfortunate all part of the same policies, we think we know it all. When will all of this end. So many Women, Children have died as a result of our stupid policies. www.youpolls.com
...because the surge is working.
The last number I saw reported was 750+, but hey, that was from an actual IRAQI source, so it probably doesn't "count."
Liberal AND Proud @ 5:
And seein' that Greece and Turkey are both members of NATO- while only Greece is a member of the EU, but Turkey has some treaties, if not an outright alliance with Israel- yeah, it could become quite interestin'.
dan @ 17:
Actually, when "only" 250 were reported killed, it was on page 7 here in local paper.
the media will find more "war critics" who have always supported the quagmire to say things are going well
These men, women, and children are running for their lives in the midst of non-secular violence in Iraq....
Tragically 500 of them were not so fortunate....
Oh cry humanity for these lost souls and the people of Iraq....
This is where all that lost ammo is going -- to murder innocent civilians.
Pretty soon there won't be any people left in Iraq to kill. Then what?
Considering the nature of these attacks, the death toll is likely to rise. We're talking about people who have been roasted alive. Even in a stable first-world country with a modern health system (or the US, for that matter) these would be difficult to treat. What chance do these poor bastards have in Iraq?
Hey George, as John Lennon sang..."How do you sleep?"
And to think that these people, in de-facto Iraqi Kurdistan, were doing pretty well before the Americans invaded!!!
Yeah, under the terrible rule of the Clintons, the Kurds were making big money smuggling Saddam's oil into Turkey. They had their own country, their own own schools, the protection of the "no fly" zone...
Nobody was slaughtering them. Turkey was profiting also, and did not care if Kurds in Iraq spoke Kurdish and made money...
Andrew Sullivan and Chris Hitchens, where the hell are you? Big backers of the Kurds, back in the day?
Look at these pictures and tell me more about how much you care about the Kurds?
If it's 1, it's too many.
Let us do an exchange program with Iraq. We will send the 28% to Iraq and we will take in 28% refugees. Sounds fair.
And the ones that are not blown up are left to this.
http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/15118/In_Iraq_sex_is_traded_for_survival
Andy K @ 31:
That's the trouble with war - you end up with all those annoying Unintended Consequences.
In World War 2, the Unintended (but happy) Consequence was the collapse of the British Empire and 50 years of American global economic dominance.
The Unintended Consequence of losing Vietnam: prolonged civil war in Cambodia, a bunch of boat people, and Democratic election wins in '74 & '76. Strictly local, no effect on American power.
Unintended Consequences of Iraq War:
- end of US fiscal solvency; economic self-reliance replaced by massive debt to China
- exhaustion of American military resources, which will take 5-10 years and massive expense to repair
- alienation of the entire Arab world and long-standing allies
- high probability of larger conflict with potential to be a world war (may involve Arabs, Iran, Israel, NATO, Russia, Pakistan, India)
- end of American moral leadership
- debasement of domestic civil rights, violation of Geneva Conventions
- increased reliance on unreliable foreign energy resources
- massive loss of faith in institutions of government and security, vicious partisan divide, breakdown of what remains of social contract
Mash at Doctor Strangelove does a robust analysis of the surge and takes a hard look at the numbers and metric (level of violence) used by the Bush regime.
And the conclusion? The surge is not working.
there is no al qaeda...
marie @ 7:
The Times reports today the Bush regime is preparing to declare Iran's military a "foreign terrorist organization."
Doesn't matter how many are killed everyday... that surge is working. Bush said so, and I believe our commander in chief, cause he knows a lot of things. He's a military genius. He knows what he's doing. We should trust him. He wouldn't lie to us. He has a lot of experience for a nitwit.
And I hear those 5 Romney boys are all enlisting, and that should help out too.
Old Billy @ 27:
There Must Be A Total Debunking Of The Claim There Is A Al Qaeda In Iraq
As long as there is the smallest indication Al Qaeda resides in Iraq killing significant numbers of American soldiers and innocent civilians, Americans will want their revenge and will support General Patreaus in wanting to stay in Iraq to exact that revenge. Ask yourself, have you ever scene an Al Qaeda combatant? Does the press ever follow up on their claims Al Qaeda was a suspected of being involved in every God Dam incident in Iraq? Bush has made Al Qaeda his war ticket, yet the Democrats have not said loud enough this is a lie.
Even John Amato’s comments left some degree of "maybe" Al Qaeda is behind much of the havoc in Iraq, "(which is quite possible)." Without Al Qaeda, there is no argument for the Bush administration this war is worth fighting. He is left with the reality of the civil war, and his off strategy of areal bombings that kill innocent Iraqis, which in turn crate a insurgency revenge cycle. Why don't we report the good in Iraq anyway? Because there is no good in Iraq. We, the US, have crated a killing zone that have multi-contributors who share in the killing. It is a very complex, not simple, situation.
Joseph
King of Mean @ 46:
This is funny.
Joseph
please link to the cnn report.
Nobody here has yet to mention the Yazidis, a religious sect that seems to be one of the major targets of the attack, if not THE target. Try and stay on message, people.
yes but these people were not in the bagdad area, the surge surely is working. north and south iraq are turning into a nightmare, there is no political progress but the surge is working. sooer or later the bush co. spinners have to run out of spin.
I still don't understand why al-Qaeda would attack the Yazidi people. There is nothing for them to gain. The Yazidi are among the last remaining Zoroastrian people. Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion of the Persian Empire up to and after the beginning of Christianity. In fact, the Persian god Mithras was worshipped by many Roman soldiers, and it is quite possible that early Christians borrowed from the story of the virgin birth of Mithras in the telling of the virgin birth of Jesus. The similarities are remarkable. In fact, our concept of winged angels may have Zoroastrian roots. Christianity borrowed liberally from Mithraism.
The Yazidi would be seen as infidels by all of the followers of Islam. Al-Qaeda likes to attack civilians to stir things up between the Sunnis and the Shiites. Attacking the Yazidi wouldn't do that. This may well be genocide, but al-Qaeda isn't necessarily the most likely suspect.
Barbara Starr, a schill for the Bush Administration who peddles Army/Pentagon propaganda, went on CNN today to say these latest bombings prove that the US cannot leave Iraq!What an absolute jerk she is! What Pentagon experience does this "old hag" have to be a spokeswoman for the Pentagon?
Ooops and I thought the suge is "Working". General Petraus is so excited
to report it to congress this coming September. My bad.
Sany @ 53:
Barbara Starr is never very critical of the Pentagon, and never seems to ask the appropriate questions. When one of her co-workers asks her the question that she should have asked at the Pentagon she usually answers, "Well, that is the question isn't it", as though that's the answer to the question.
but ..... I thought "The Surge" was working .... and like that!
No wonder the White House is going to write Petraeus' Report.
Just a small price to pay for freedom.
This is deeply troubling. How bad do things have to be for the people to overwhelming say that life was better under Sadaam? :-(
Just like in Hurricane Katrina, they didn't release a full body count out of fear of embarrassment (as if this administration could be embarrassed). In Iraq the body count is so high they've just given up.
Arius Collingwood @ 50:
That's probably because it's kinda hard to explain what they believe. Their base beliefs came from Zoroastrianism but they were also influenced by Nestorian Christians. The problem for them is that nearly all of the sects that influence their religion were all outcast sects so they aren't really an offshoot of any modern mainstream religion. That kinda makes it hard to find allies in a part of the world where religion is of primary importance.
Michael Ware Has Turned Coat
Micheal Ware's reports of Al Qaeda's influence has escalated. Now Al Qaeda, in Ware's own words, really did have control over more of Iraq then he first reported. While no one was reporting Al Qaeda had control over whole towns and regions in Iraq, Ware is.
You know what I think: The conservative side of CNN has told Ware to either support the War or shut the fuck up. He has not shut up, and he is running the Bush plan to make Al Qaeda the dominant force in Iraq. At first Ware reported Al Qaeda was a part of a "broader" terror network in Iraq.
Yet to be release is Ware's upgraded opinion of the Iraqi situation. He now says Al Qaeda, and "it is well known", has always been in control of whole towns in Iraq. I don''t have to research this. It is a lie. Anybody following the history of Iraq and Al Qaeda knows this is claim is spin. Bush spin, the usual CNN style.
Joseph
Here's a valid talking point for the Democrats.
The Republicans have been a disaster for the American economy, world peace and our way of life.
Ya think they could just make hay with these facts?
We don't need a Democrat version of Rove. We just need the balls to state the truth.
Also, be sure to step on the throat of the MSM when they play footsie with Bush the retard and his criminal conduct as the imposter president.
You don't say. And I thought we were doing so well
No. 60, I agree with you.
After reading Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies," my conclusions are that Wolfowitz and Armitage were defensive and scowled..."Well, I just don't understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man Bin Laden. You give Bin Laden too much credit." Perhaps, Wolfowitz knows who was behind 9/11?
They had ignored Clarke's warning since Wolfowitz gang wanted to attack Iraq and in my view used Bush/Cheney to do their bidding.
I can imagine Clarke's position; he is supporting the president's agenda as a loyal citizen and taking the brunt from the opposing party.
One can envision the scenario after 9/11. Bush was making a desperate case to go after iraq rather thanthe Al-Qaeda networks. Bush's loyalty to the Saudi monarch or the Israeli networks blinded from bringing those who were responsible to justice.
And now we have the Iran fiasco. Did Iranians attack us to go after them?
This is not democracy; this is a power grab.
HOLY SHIT!
[...] Crooks and Liars [...]
I know that we've blamed this on al-Qaeda, but has anyone claimed responsibility? It seems like al-Qaeda would have posted it all over it's websites if it was responsible.
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