How Basra Slipped Out of Control: by Gareth Porter

POSTED BY: Howard
UPDATED: Thursday, October 27, 2005 15:21
VIEWED: 10359
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SEVENPERCENT

Monday, October 24, 2005 1:40 AM

And another thing, stop editing your posts after the fact. If you want to make a new claim, or reinforce something, make a new post. I go to post, look back, and your posts have changed. Fix spelling or html errors with the edit key, don't alter the posts. It's disingenuous.

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He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

SEVENPERCENT

Monday, October 24, 2005 1:45 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Howard:
I did not misrepresent Kerry at all.
He was clear in his intent to send an
additional 100,000 troops that is approx
70% increase that could only deepen the
occupation and draw a major increase in
violence on all sides.

You certainly did misrepresent him, and it's because you can't answer the question vis a vis a pullout or stabilizing the country. He ordered more troops because the number we sent was insufficient for the disaster we created. It's not a hard concept to grasp.

Quote:
Your provincial mind is so revealed with
a LOL when you refer to the Prime Minister
of England...straight out of a Hollywood
script written by bonehead who has never
been anywhere but Venice Beach California.

Did I fall asleep and somehow Tony Blair was no longer PM? Did it change overnight, and the Queen is again the top gov't official? Or was I wrong, and Clinton suddenly took over the job, like you seem to suggest? Way to go Bill?

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He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

HOWARD

Monday, October 24, 2005 2:36 AM

I will edit my own posts as I like.

Thank you very much.

HOWARD

Monday, October 24, 2005 2:43 AM

It is most interesting how you have evaded
every link and all my knowledge simply
because you supported a prior President
who committed crimes against humanity that
do not bother you because "your" party was
in power. The only reason you claim to oppose
this war is that it is a Republican war. Your
lack of outrage toward Clinton's crimes shows
how party-politcal you are.

How about this for easy to get:

More troops = more occupation = more war =
more terrorism !!

Plus the Iraqi people do NOT want more troops
in their country.

What matters is the Iraqi people...remember
them?

PS Mr Blair is not the English Prime Minister
he is the British Prime Minister.

HOWARD

Monday, October 24, 2005 2:54 AM

You said:

"Tell me, in your opinion, how we can leave right now without a civil war breaking out and the Iranians or Syrians gaining control of Iraq and turning it into a fundamentalist terrorist breeding ground."

TOO LATE: It already is for some time now.
The Occupation has done this. We have to leave Iraq NOW! There is NO other option.

Now read this interview with ROBERT FISK he knows damn more than you will ever will about Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: I asked him his assessment of the current situation there and what needs to be done.

ROBERT FISK: Three days after the Americans came to Baghdad, I said the real story is about to begin and that is the story of war against American occupation. A lot of my colleagues thought that was very, very funny -- they hooted at me with laughter. But they're not anymore.

Look, apart from the Kurdistan area, Iraq is in a state of total anarchy and chaos. No roads are safe outside Baghdad. Much of Baghdad is in insurgents hands. Only the little green zones, the armored hotel areas where the westerners live and swim, and some cases don't even leave their rooms, and that applies to many journalists, only here are people allowed to have the illusion that things are getting better, things are improving. Outside in the streets where some journalists still go, including, for example, my colleague Patrick Cockburn of the Independent and myself and the Guardian Newspaper, not most Americans though one or two.

Out in the streets where few of us go is hell on Earth. I managed to get, a couple of weeks ago, to the mortuary in the city of Baghdad. As I often go in the past, counting the bodies of midday and midsummer out in the heat. There were 26 by midday. Nine had arrived by nine in the morning. I managed to get the official figures for July for the total number of violent deaths in Baghdad alone. The figure was 1,100 violent deaths, men, women and children. Shot, butchered, knifed, executed, death squad killings. A figure which, of course is not given out by the Iraqi Health Ministry and certainly not by the occupational authorities.

We now have a situation in Iraq where there is a full scale insurgency by both the Shiites and the Sunnis against western forces. Once an insurgency of that kind starts in a Muslim country, it is impossible to quench it. Sorry, you guys can we put the book back? Let's start again, we got it wrong at one point. You can’t do that. You can't do that. I was discussing with an Iraqi friend three weeks ago in Baghdad what he thought the answer was. He said, “There is no answer. You've got to go. You've got to go.” I wrote at the time that I thought it was a terrible equation in Iraq. It goes like this. The Americans must leave. And the Americans will leave but the Americans can't leave. And that's the equation that turns sand into blood.

Once you become an occupying power you take upon the responsibilities for the civilians which we have not done but you also have a responsibility to yourself. You have to keep justifying over and over and over again to your own populations. You were right to do it: ok, there were no weapons of mass destruction but we got rid of Saddam; ok, we haven't gotten the electricity yet but there will be a constitution. Well, we hope. And we did have elections. Remember them in January? And all the time people die in ever greater numbers. Remember that figure for July that’s just Baghdad. What does that mean for the whole country? 5,000 dead? In July? What does that mean in the whole of Iraq in a year? You see the problem? We're talking a 50,000, 60,000 dead a year now. The worst figure we've heard is 100,000 since 2003 yet still we don't get statistics. When individual journalists have to go to hospital mortuaries and count the bloated corpses on the floor, you have know you've got problems.

The last time I was in Baghdad I began to ask myself whether the dangers -- and I've never done this on any other war except for the Algerian war which was very similar in many ways, questioning whether the dangers of covering I

SEVENPERCENT

Monday, October 24, 2005 3:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Howard:
It is most interesting how you have evaded
every link and all my knowledge

I haven't evaded anything, you've gone so wildly off topic that I'm trying to steer the discussion back to the issues you brought up, which were the pullout from this particular war and the British SAS folks. How is Clinton even remotely relevant? Answer? He isn't, you just can't refute my points, so you're dodging.

Quote:
simply
because you supported a prior President
who committed crimes against humanity that
do not bother you because "your" party was
in power. The only reason you claim to oppose
this war is that it is a Republican war. Your
lack of outrage toward Clinton's crimes shows
how party-politcal you are.

Oh, don't think I'm letting Bill off the hook just because I'm not talking about him. Bill did plenty I opposed. But, again, BILL IS IRRELEVANT TO THIS THREAD.

Quote:
More troops = more occupation = more war =
more terrorism !!

Less troops = Occupation by Iran/Al-Qaida = More Terrorism!!

Quote:
Plus the Iraqi people do NOT want more troops
in their country.

I'm pretty sure they don't want foreign fundamentalist fighters there either. So again, back to the original question, how do you propose to stabilize their country should the US begin an immediate pullout?

Quote:
What matters is the Iraqi people...remember
them?

I do. It is you sir, that wants to leave them in utter wreckage that we caused, without us sticking around to fix it. You think Saddam was bad? Lets leave now, you'll get to see someone far worse in charge, I guarantee it. Do you remember the west? Because if the Iranians gain influence in Iraq, with a budding nuke program, it'll be a fun 10k degrees celsius somewhere.

Quote:
PS Mr Blair is not the English Prime Minister
he is the British Prime Minister.

Ahhhh, semantics. Because calling you English instead of British somehow negates the fact that Blair is still PM and Clinton doesn't rule your nation. You know, since you must have never come to America, having never left the White Cliffs of Dover, I'll let you in on a little secret - we still call you guys England on this side of the Atlantic, not Britain. Get over it.

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He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

SEVENPERCENT

Monday, October 24, 2005 3:17 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Howard:
You said:
"Tell me, in your opinion, how we can leave right now without a civil war breaking out and the Iranians or Syrians gaining control of Iraq and turning it into a fundamentalist terrorist breeding ground."

TOO LATE: It already is for some time now.
The Occupation has done this. We have to leave Iraq NOW! There is NO other option.

Now read this interview with ROBERT FISK he knows damn more than you will ever will about Iraq.

You haven't had an original thought this whole thread. When confronted, you go off topic, or post links to socialist websites, or post someone else's opinions on the matter.

Read the Fisk article a little closer, because he doesn't offer any solutions, he just points out the problems. He doesn't even theorize on the quicksand issue that a pullout might leave. Basing a response on this article makes your case fall flat.

I'm done arguing with you, someone else can take over.

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He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

HOWARD

Monday, October 24, 2005 3:22 AM

I live in a city called Manchester
my address for international purposes
ends with UNITED KINGDOM.
I am British. Britain is a multicultural
nation. English is an ethnicity.

You know NOTHING about me, my life or
my history.

I have lived in:
Miami, Boston and New York City.

That is lived-in not just visited but lived
in for years.

Your ignorance in calling Blair the Prime
Minister of England is just plain dumb.

HOWARD

Monday, October 24, 2005 3:32 AM

First of all I have the interview on MD that
I recorded off DEMOCRACY NOW. Listening to
his tone and emphasis one is able to hear
and comprehend his intent more than just a
written transcript. But even in writing if
you read it as insight into how things are
and why you are so poorly informed by your
media, its all there.

As I suspected you are a bonehead who will
bleed another person for hours my entire AM
night hours...but no matter how much info or
sources I give you and no matter the fact that
you have no intent of doing anything other
than believing corporate media with a pro
imperial slant...you simply prove that Kerry
voting American Liberals are the single greatest
obstacle to progressive change in the United
States.

This discussion is over!!

TWEEK128

Monday, October 24, 2005 4:39 AM

One problem: This is the British sphere of control, Basra. If you read up on what's happening in U.S. controlled areas, the locals are cooperating and the police are with us and their people.

Besides, isn't it Iran's fault anyway, according the the Brits? No, not the Brits fault for taking their "hands-off" policy and letting the Shi'a in the region kill prostitutes with abandon. No, not at all. It's Iran for mucking up a perfectly rudderless situation that the British could otherwise have let evolve...somehow.

Recent operations in Sunni areas have been progressively more successful, with greater and greater levels of local coopration. Among the major cities, only in Basra do we see the level of fear by the locals to not cooperate with the Coalition forces. Meanwhile, Iranian style sharia is starting to take root. You know, the kind with the roving religious folks out to kill or beat folks who aren't "moral"?

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