Iraq Quack

[laststeamtrain]

Iraq Quack

Posted by Jeff Huber

As Colonel Tim Reese noted in July, “The ineffectiveness and corruption of Ministries is the stuff of legend.” Of Iraq’s security forces, Reese reported that “Corruption among officers is widespread, Cronyism and nepotism are rampant in the assignment and promotion system,” and “Laziness is endemic.”

According to Gen. Ray “Desert Ox” Odierno, U.S. commander in Iraq, these concerns are mere “tactical issues.” Good God. Can the man we put in charge of our national quagmire really be that dense? (Silly question, never mind.)

Odie has another tactical issue staring him in the puss. Iraq’s parliament can’t agree on election law, and the constitutionally mandated elections in January won’t take place if they can’t pass a law this week. The Pentagon says a delay in the election will push back the troop drawdown scheduled for next year. I’m sure Babe Odierno is awash in crocodile tears over that. (Odierno wants to keep at least 30,000 troops in Iraq through 2014 or so).

Neocon vampire Max Boot, recently wined and dined in Iraq by the U.S. military, says "The sense I got is that the Americans are more worried about this than the Iraqis." Boot is one of the yahooligans who got us into our Mesopotamian miasma in the first place. Boot is a piece of dreck. He’s a right-wing gun for hire, and not a particularly good one. He argues that because Hamid Karsai’s government is so corrupt is a reason to support it, as if we can make a corrupt government less corrupt by pouring more graft into it.

Boot was on the same grand tour of Iraq as David Ignatius of the Washington Post who did a verbal sex piece on David Petraeus that must have made Petraeus’s main squeeze Tom Ricks jealous. Boot and Ignatius both tried to make nothing of the double bombings in Baghdad on Sunday, Nov. 1, the worst attacks Iraq has seen in two years. Twit Ignatius was on a “purple rain” helicopter tour of Baghdad with King David when the bombs went off. (“Signs of recovery seemed to be everywhere,” Ignatius gushed.)

The hideous Boot said that despite the attacks, “Life has returned to a semblance of normality in Baghdad and other areas. A few high-profile attacks — this one or the one in August — do not change the fundamental, day-to-day reality of life getting better.”

The warmongery wants it both ways. We’re winning, we’re making progress, we can’t give up now, but don’t expect good things.

<more>

http://www.atlargely.com/atlargely/2009/11/iraq-quack.html

[unhappycamper]

1. Can you spell Q-U-A-G-M-I-R-E?? n/t