Tom Hayden: IRAQ CRISIS THREATENS BUSH-PETRAEUS “SURGE” STRATEGY AS BANKRUPT

[babylonsister]

IRAQ CRISIS THREATENS BUSH-PETRAEUS “SURGE” STRATEGY AS BANKRUPT
Submitted by davidswanson on Sat, 2008-03-29 16:49.

By Tom Hayden


Central to the Bush-Petraeus Iraq strategy is to pacify and confuse American public opinion during the 2008 elections, an approach Gen. Petraeus calls "slowing down the American clock" to gain time for the counterinsurgency to continue. This week's events in Basra suggest that US strategy is collapsing amidst its own contradictions.

This is the most important opportunity for critics to question the "surge" since it began last year.

Here is what is happening.

To quell the Sunni insurgency and create an image of gradual progress, the US has insisted provincial elections be held in Iraq this October, one month before the American elections. The expectation is that disenfranchised groups who boycotted the 2005 elections will gain significant representation in the Iraqi parliament, a prospect that threatens the sectarian coalition of Shi'a and Kurdish parties now controlling the regime. The Shi'a bloc includes Maliki's Dawa and the former Supreme Command of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq . Their rivals are the impoverished Shi'a followers of Moktada al-Sadr of Sadr City and many towns in the South, whose military forces are known as the Mahdi Army.

Maliki agreed to the provincial elections, it appears, in exchange for Bush's and Petraeus' permission to launch a crushing offensive against the Sadr forces who have come to power on the streets of Basra in the wake of Britain's withdrawal. Maliki and his US sponsors call them "criminal gangs", but it is clear that Maliki's intent is to weaken or destroy the Sadr forces before the election.

The four-day offensive has failed so far, provoking widespread violence from Basra to Mahmudia, Hilla, Diwaniya, Kut and the streets of Baghdad. Hundreds have been killed or wounded. Maliki's forces are being exposed as unable to fight without US airpower bombarding positions as small as those for mortar crews. The prospect of US or British intervention in Basra grows by the hour. Tens of thousands of Shi'a are protesting on the streets of Sadr City.

So much for the surge. The US is now in panic mode, trying to ensure the survival of its unpopular client regime in Baghdad.

more...

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/32302

[Tom Joad]

1. thank goddess for the resistance of the Iraqi people to US domination!

[fascisthunter]

2. The Surge Failed

Can American move away from the Pentagon's BS propaganda machine?

[Tom Joad]

3. didn't hillllary tell us the surge was working??

what had she just inhaled?

[Sam Ervin jret]

4. let the truth come out in time for people to see

[ItsNeverOver]

5. Petraeus' Personal Greed A Factor In Army Colonel's Suicide

Greg Mitchell posted an saddening, incensing and conscience-rattling post today about the findings of further probing into the suicide of Colonel Ted Westhusing. The beleaguered military ethics scholar left a suicide note, revealing that the extent to which personal greed, corruption and lies ruled the decisions and policy formation of his commanders in the Iraq War left Westhusing guilt-ridden and plagued with despair. As it turns out, one of the two commanders Westhusing was referring to was none other than David Petraeus, the point person behind the recent "surge" campaign.

Christian Miller reported in the L.A. Times that, "Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military."

Bottom line: whether its through the tragedies of formerly deployed troops upon their return stateside, the depletion of our economic infrastructure by the careless and fraudulent spending of our tax money on the war, or the descent of our international reputation from the surfacing stories of contractor corrosion, the consequences of the administration's mishandling of the war will follow us home. We need to take action while our country still has some integrity to defend. Sign Progressive Future's petition to enforce accountability for the events that take place in Iraq in our name.

[katty]

6. great post, thanks