May 5, 2008 at 20:21:01

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The article "U.S. Role Deepens in Sadr City -- Fierce Battle Against Shiite Militiamen Echoes First Years of War" at
click here
describes the devastating unintended consequences the US has incurred as a
result of following big bro 43's weak, Iraqi, Shiite, stooge, Maliki, into a
battle against another Iraqi, Sadr, who is Shiite, but anything but weak.

The article states "A four-hour battle Tuesday between U.S. soldiers and Shiite
militiamen left at least 28 Iraqis dead in the capital's Sadr City neighborhood,
making it one of the bloodiest days in a month of sustained street fighting.
The clashes underscored how deeply U.S. forces have been drawn into heavy combat in the huge Shiite district since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki unexpectedly
launched an offensive in southern Iraq last month against Shiite militias,
primarily the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Until Maliki's push into the southern city of Basra, U.S. troops were not
intensely engaged in Sadr City, a Baghdad neighborhood of roughly 3 million
people that was among the most treacherous areas for U.S. forces early in the
war.
But the southern offensive set off a violent chain reaction that spread quickly
to Shiite sectors of the capital and has severely strained the cease-fire Sadr
imposed on his followers in August and recently reaffirmed. U.S. troops,
fighting at times Tuesday on foot and backed by air support, are now engaged in
the kind of urban battle within Sadr's stronghold reminiscent of the first years
of the war.
More than 500 people have been killed and 2,100 injured in Sadr City since
fighting erupted there again in late March, according to lawmakers loyal to
Sadr. Residents of Sadr City said Tuesday's death toll was at least 50. The U.S.
military said it has killed more than 200 fighters in the past month in the
area, where it says militiamen have fired 600 rockets and mortars at U.S. and
Iraqi targets.
The conflict has pitted Sadr, who leads Iraq's largest militia and one of the
most popular Shiite political organizations, against Shiite-led government
forces and the U.S. troops backing them. The impoverished Sadr City district has
been sealed off by U.S. and Iraqi forces from the rest of the city.
"Sadr City right now is like a city of ghosts," said Abu Haider al-Bahadili, 43,
a Mahdi Army fighter who spoke by telephone from Sadr City as spasms of gunfire
rang out nearby. "It has turned from a city into a field of battle."

We are making ghost towns and killing children thanks to W!

The article continues "U.S. officials emphasized that U.S. troops responded only
after they were attacked and that it was the fault of the militiamen if there
were civilian casualties.
"The sole burden of responsibility lies on the shoulders of the militants who
care nothing for the Iraqi people," Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a U.S. military
spokesman said in an e-mail.
He said the militiamen purposely attack from buildings and alleyways in densely
populated areas, hoping to protect themselves by hiding among civilians. "What
does that say about the enemy?" Stover said. "He is heartless and evil."
The protracted clashes in Sadr City appear to be the unintended consequence of
the offensive that Maliki launched in Basra without consulting U.S. officials."
But much of the country remained worried about the fighting in Sadr City and
whether it would spark a full-scale uprising by the Sadrist movement.
Sadr has threatened to call off the eight-month cease-fire, which has been
widely credited with lowering the level of violence in Iraq, if the government
does not end its offensive against his followers.
Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government spokesman, did not respond to repeated
calls for comment. Followers of Sadr, however, said they were growing more eager
for an all-out war to defend themselves.
"We are very close to the Zero Hour," said Ala'a Abd, 30, a Mahdi Army member in
the Shiite holy city of Najaf, using an Arabic expression meaning that time is
up. "Everyone should realize that."

"We are very close to the Zero Hour" thanks to W!

The article "Selling the president's general" at
click here
describes how and why Petraeus was positioned to betray us.

The article states "You simply can't pile up enough adjectives when it comes to the general, who, at a relatively young age was already a runner-up for Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 2007. His record is stellar. His tactical sense extraordinary. His strategic ability, when it comes to mounting a campaign, beyond compare.
I'm speaking, of course, of General David Petraeus, President George W Bush's "surge" commander in Iraq and, as of last week, the newly nominated head of US Central Command (CENTCOM) for all of the Middle East and beyond - "King David" to those of his peers who haven't exactly taken a shine to his reportedly "high self-regard". And the campaign I have in mind has been his years of wooing and winning the American media, in the process of which he sold himself as a true American hero, a Caesar of celebrity.
As far as can be told, there's never been a seat in his helicopter that couldn't be filled by a friendly (or adoring) reporter. This, after all, is the man who, in the summer of 2004, as a mere three-star general being sent back to Baghdad to train the Iraqi army, made Newsweek's cover under the caption, "Can This Man Save Iraq?" (The article's subtitle - with the "yes" practically etched into it - read: "Mission Impossible? David Petraeus Is Tasked with Rebuilding Iraq's Security Forces. An Up-close Look at the Only Real Exit Plan the United States Has - the Man Himself").
And, oh yes, as for his actual generalship on the battlefield of Iraq ... Well, the verdict may still officially be out, but the record, the tactics and the strategic ability look like they will not stand the test of time. But by then, if all goes well, he'll once again be out of town and someone else will take the blame, while he continues to fall upwards. Petraeus is the president's anointed general, Bush's commander of commanders, and (not surprisingly) he exhibits certain traits much admired by the Bush administration in its better days."

He fits into W's narrative of Iraq as well as "Mission Accomplished does". He has the same reverse Midas touch that big bro 43 has. Why else would w select him? He's just a failure at everything as has been Rumsfeld, Cheney, Maliki and everyone you can think of who has been involved in Iraq-including Petreus.

The article summarizes Petraeus' failure as "Mosul has remained a hotspot of insurgency ever since. On his next tour, when it came to all the "progress" training the Iraqi army, let Rod Nordland, the author of that "fawning" - his retrospective adjective, not mine - Newsweek cover piece of 2004, suggest an obituary, as he did in 2007:
[Petraeus] rose to fame not by his achievements but by his success in selling
them as achievements. He's first of all a great communicator ... Training the
Iraqi military and shifting responsibility to them was the mantra Petraeus sold
to hundreds of credulous reporters and hundreds of even more credulous visiting
CODELs (congressional delegations)... By the time he left, the training program
was clearly on its way to spectacular failure. By the end of last year that had
become received wisdom; it became convenient for the brass to blame the fiasco
on the politically less popular and media-friendless General George Casey.
Entire brigades of police had to be pulled off the street and retrained because
they were evidently riddled with death squads and in some cases even with
insurgents. The Iraqi army was all but useless, a feeble patient kept on life
support by the American military.
Just recently, in hearings before Congress, Petraeus himself introduced two new words to describe the post-"surge" security situation in Iraq: "fragile and
reversible". Take that as a tip for the future. Fragile indeed. The "surge"
landscape the general helped create has, from the beginning, been flammable and
unstable in the extreme."

For Rove it is creating the reality that the media and public will be forced to swallow.

The article concludes "The problem is: putting a face - that is, a mask - on something has nothing to do with changing it in any essential way, no matter how you brand it and no matter who's listening to you elsewhere. This August or September, when the general takes over at CENTCOM, he will leave behind (as he has before) the equivalent of a mined stretch of Iraqi roadside ready to explode, possibly under the coming US presidential election. It remains to be seen whether he will once again have made it out of town in the nick of time and relatively unscathed.

The miracle was that, so late in the game, the American media swallowed the
president's (and the general's) propaganda on the "surge" campaign which, on the
face of it, was ludicrous. Stranger still, they did so for almost a year before
the situation started to fray visibly enough for US TV networks and major papers
to take notice. For that year, most of them thought they saw a brass band
playing fabulously when there was hardly a snare drum in sight.

That result may be a public relations man's dream, but it was thanks to a con
man's art. The question is: Can the president make it back to Texas before the
bottom falls out in Iraq? And will the general continue to fall ominously upward?"

The Iraq war was a product rolled out for the 1st midterm election in W's administration. Rove knew that there has always been 5 to 10% of the US populace that gets their rocks off by seeing the US military killing some foreign enemy. Just like the Pusher in Steppenwolf's song W produce a product, nightly death and violence on the TV, that fed their desire-and just like the Pusher man, God damn you big bro 43 for feeding the red staters moribund desires for their blood stained votes.

Big bro 43 made bin laden and al zarqawi into super-villians. Just as they made
petraeus into a super-hero because red staters, those devotees of NASCAR and
World Wide Federation of Wrestling need individuals to wear the black and white
capes. Rove substituted sound bites for policy and we all suffered that lack of morality.

Now as the article by Dana Milbank "Five Years, Two Words, No Letup" at
click here
describes we've had 5 years after we had heard that "puppet boy" have his "Mission Accomplished" photo-op. it was timed to give red staters the idea that we had won a quick victory. The article has this Democrat rebuttal of W stating "By tradition, the proper gift for a fifth anniversary is something made of wood.
Jack Murtha must know this, for in observing the fifth anniversary yesterday of
President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech, he gave the president a
rhetorical two-by-four to the head.
"Five years ago today, President Bush addressed our nation and the world from
the USS Abraham Lincoln only 42 days after he ordered the invasion of Iraq; he
declared 'Mission Accomplished,' " the Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania
declared at the liberal Center for American Progress. "One thousand, eight
hundred and twenty-seven days later, the U.S. occupation of Iraq continues and
our mission remains undefined."
Murtha -- ticking off statistics about doom and misery in Iraq -- couldn't help
adding in a sly reference to the flight suit Bush wore that day for his
aircraft-carrier- landing stunt. "I was going to wear my field uniform today,
but I decided it didn't fit," the bulky Vietnam veteran said. "It shrunk."
For the Bush White House, May Day has become one of the least favorite spots on
the calendar -- a time to remember when the president appeared in 2003 aboard
the carrier, his flight suit hugging all the right places, to proclaim victory
in "the battle of Iraq" underneath a huge "Mission Accomplished" banner.
Now, after half a trillion dollars and the deaths of 4,000 troops and tens of
thousands of Iraqis, the president's spin doctors have waved the white flag of
surrender over the USS Abraham Lincoln episode. "President Bush is well aware
that the banner should have been much more specific, and said mission
accomplished for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission," White
House press secretary Dana Perino told reporters this week.
That excuse didn't pass the laugh test yesterday morning, when a CNN reporter
asked Murtha about it. Murtha shook his head and gave a disgusted sigh as
audience members chuckled. "It's almost beyond my belief that they would think
anybody would believe that," he finally said. "I'm sure the White House didn't
tell [her] to say that," he added, charitably. "I'm sure that was offhand."

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Winston is an ex-Social Worker, burnt out by too much indifference regarding our weak and weary. I had little interest in politics until the illegal Iraq War started.

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