So, there you have it: we are sending more troops in to get the troops out. We are giving sovereignty to the people of Iraq, so that America can continue to run the place. Iraq can choose any government it wants so long as it is pro-American. The Middle East road-map has been handed to Ariel Sharon so that he can bulldoze Palestinian refugee camps from the face of it. When Bosnian Serbs did this kind of thing it was called ethnic cleansing.
This "full throttle" is beginning to look rather like the reverse gear that Tony Blair promised us he didn't have. It is full ahead in reverse. An exit strategy that doesn't have an exit. There is a date and nothing else. The same fatuous logic that got us into Iraq is being used to get us out.
The Iraqi National Council, including as it does discredited figures like the Jordanian fraudster, Ahmed Chalabi, has no legitimacy. There is no civilian police force and no army in Iraq because the Americans disbanded it. The prisons are still run by the Americans, and are likely to remain so. The coalition will delay elections until it can be sure they will result in a pro-American administration.
They clearly haven't a clue how they get out of this mess. Oil prices are rising on the back of it and could even threaten the world economic recovery. The Iraq disaster isn't coming to an end – it's only just begun.
...Western leaders incant tired homilies about Iraq becoming a "beacon" of liberal democracy in the Middle East, apparently unaware of the irony of a military occupation claiming democratic credentials. They know they're talking nonsense – and they know that we know they're talking nonsense. But they say it anyway, because they think it is what we want to hear and that if they repeat it often enough, we'll start to believe it.
Herald article via Iraq Net
This "full throttle" is beginning to look rather like the reverse gear that Tony Blair promised us he didn't have. It is full ahead in reverse. An exit strategy that doesn't have an exit. There is a date and nothing else. The same fatuous logic that got us into Iraq is being used to get us out.
The Iraqi National Council, including as it does discredited figures like the Jordanian fraudster, Ahmed Chalabi, has no legitimacy. There is no civilian police force and no army in Iraq because the Americans disbanded it. The prisons are still run by the Americans, and are likely to remain so. The coalition will delay elections until it can be sure they will result in a pro-American administration.
They clearly haven't a clue how they get out of this mess. Oil prices are rising on the back of it and could even threaten the world economic recovery. The Iraq disaster isn't coming to an end – it's only just begun.
...Western leaders incant tired homilies about Iraq becoming a "beacon" of liberal democracy in the Middle East, apparently unaware of the irony of a military occupation claiming democratic credentials. They know they're talking nonsense – and they know that we know they're talking nonsense. But they say it anyway, because they think it is what we want to hear and that if they repeat it often enough, we'll start to believe it.
But I think we're beyond that at this point. I think the situation as it stands now is one where those who want to believe it will, and the rest have wised up.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
