Coalition Forces have "cut and run" in southern Iraq in Amara and Basra, while US Forces have withdrawn from Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, ostensibly turning it over to NATO.
In fact, the Brits were chased out of Amara by the Sadr Brigade and a mutinous Iraqi Army, and scared out of Basra. The US was quite simply defeated by the Taliban in Kandahar and now the town is too dangerous for even a NATO patrol convoy. The occupation of Islam by the West has now ended in those vast regions.
This war is so lost. Let's just call it Vietnam deja vu in fast motion...
"
The Americans abandoned Afghanistan," says Mr Hikmat. "When they were around, people were making money. The Taliban had run away but they were not defeated and the Americans knew that too. Yet the US decreased the number of its troops."
Then it was announced Nato would replace the US forces, a decision which encouraged the Taliban.
People in Kandahar talk about a power vacuum of which the Taliban took full advantage. They had five years to organise and returned in force....
In the Panjwai district of Kandahar province,
the Taliban have even been using loudspeakers, taunting Canadian troops to attack them. In the past week, Canadian soldiers travelled to Panjwai but can only hold the city centre.
...
Where is all this power and money coming from? A member of a religious group, Wakil Sahib, accuses neigbouring Pakistan. "They don't want Afghanistan to be free and economically independent," he says. "They want to keep Afghanistan as their market. They want us to continue to go to their doctors, buy their medicine, use their products. To serve their own interests, the Pakistani intelligence service funds the Taliban."...
But there is another reality which also helps the Taliban. When the Americans arrived in Kandahar, they also brought money, rebuilding projects, jobs and the hope of stability. Power was restored and the city had electricity, especially during the summer, when temperatures reach 55C.
But the Americans also left the drug mafia and warlords intact. The former Kandahar governor, General Gulagha Shirzai, and the President's brother, Wali Karzai, who now heads the Provincial Council, have been accused of drug trafficking. They, and others like them, were America's allies....
"When Nato took over, the electricity disappeared," says Ahmedallah. The Americans had apparently donated 14 powerful generators to the city, seven of them operational at any one time. But the Kandaharis are paying the price for the oil-operating machines, which provide the city with a few hours of electricity every other day. "We only had power for four days, if you counted all the hours together. And the bill for the month was $40," says Ahmedallah of his own home. An average government employee makes about $50 a month.
...
If the Americans leave, Kandahar will fall in a week. That's what people in the city's bazaar say - and they are the ones who know the Taliban and al-Qa'ida.
...
No Nato patrol can pass through here. "They are too scared to come to this area," says my guide Ahmedallah. So the Taliban don't attack the market because there are no foreigners - or perhaps, as the Kandaharis claim, because this place is their nest. Kandahar is lost. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082206A.shtmlFROM WAPO:
Looters Ransack Base After British DepartBAGHDAD, Aug. 25 -- Armed looters ransacked an abandoned British base in southern Iraq on Friday as Iraqi soldiers guarding the camp stood by and watched, heightening concerns that Iraqi troops are still ill-equipped to take control of security from U.S.-led coalition forces.
A crowd of as many as 5,000 people, including hundreds armed with AK-47 assault rifles, attacked Camp Abu Naji and hauled away window and door frames, corrugated roofing and metal pipes, despite the presence of a 450-member Iraqi army brigade meant to guard the base.
...
We have already stopped our relations with British forces," said Abduljabbar Waheed, head of the provincial council of Maysan. "We always deal with them as occupiers. They have committed many crimes against our people during the last months, they don't care for the people, and they have their own agenda goes against our people's interests."
Iraqi army Lt. Ali Kareem of the 4th Brigade, 10th Division, said some members of his unit began to mutiny Thursday after learning that they were being deployed to Baghdad the next day to support a security plan in the capital. He said troops in the brigade's 2nd Battalion -- mainly members of Shiite militias such as Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade -- started to fire guns and mortars in protest because they thought the American military was "trying to get rid of them." The situation was resolved only after the brigade commander said the protesters did not have to deploy to Baghdad.In other developments, the head of a major Iraqi sect of Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam that had previously rejected violence against U.S.-led coalition forces,
declared holy war on American troops. The leader, Sheik Mohammed al-Qadiri, said his sect would form a new group, the Battalions of Shikh Abdul Qadir al-Gaillani, and join the insurgency.
"We will not wait for the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade to enter our houses and kill us," said Ahmed al-Soffi, a Sufi leader in the western city of Fallujah, referring to the country's major Shiite militias. "We will fight the Americans and the Shiites who are against us." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/25/AR2006082501315.htmlBill Weinberg's blog notes:
What a revealing piece of propaganda this is. British forces abandon Camp Abu Naji at Amarah, in southern Iraq, and not only Moktada al-Sadr but also the official Maysan provinical authorites proclaim it as a victory against the occupier. The British commander Maj. Charlie Burbridge asserts Iraqi army forces maintained "full control" of the base—even as it was being sacked by looters armed with AK-47s! Burbridge crows about how disciplined the Iraqi army maintaining (precarious) control of the base is—while a local brigade mutinies, and is apparently well-infiltrated by the Sadr forces! The British forces are evacuating the Amarah base to carry out "guerilla tactics" in the marshlands—
an implicit acknowledgement that the insurgents are in control there! Finally, note that
even the pacifistic Sufis have declared a jihad against the Anglo-American occupation (and the fundamentalist Shi'ites like al-Sadr who would like to exterminate them).
http://ww4report.com/node/2385REMEMBER THOSE IRAQI FORCES WE'RE TRAINING? THIS IS HOW IT TURNED OUT:
Some police and army units within the ISF have moved away from their original training and developed independent and often problematic methods of operation. A variety of notable Police Command Units, such as the Scorpion, Tiger, and Thunder Brigades, were formed by the former interior minister Falah al-Naqib, a Sunni, in summer 2004 without the consent of U.S. commanders. These forces originally drew praise as effective Iraqi security initiatives and for their success in counterterrorism operations, but their high level of independence and reputation for brutality are causes for concern. Other problematic units include:
Wolf Brigade. A particularly feared commando unit, Wolf Brigade’s members are self-selecting and mostly recruited from the former Iraqi Special Forces. They helped to maintain security in Mosul after an insurgent uprising in late 2004. The Wolf Brigade is led by Maj. Gen. Abu Walid, famous for hosting a television show airing what were claimed to be legally obtained insurgent confessions. The brigade’s members are known to drive around Baghdad wearing Saddam-era uniforms.
Volcano Brigade. A police commando brigade, Volcano Brigade is distinct from the others by being made up of Shiites loyal to the Badr Brigades. In 2005, this brigade began operating as a death squad, openly intimidating civilians and targeting Sunnis for arrest and execution. It is thought to be the unit responsibly for a massacre of thirty-six Sunni men in Baghdad’s al-Hurriyah neighborhood in August 2005 and is greatly feared in Baghdad.
Punishment Committee. A police unit, the Punishment Committee is known to harass—at the very least—civilians, particularly Sunnis, accused of flouting Islamic law or the rulings of Shiite clerics.
Maghawir Special Commando Brigades. Special commando units largely made up of veterans of the Saddam-era military, the Maghawir Special Commando Brigades are made up of about 12,000 men in total. They have worked with U.S. forces in Najaf, Falluja, Ramadi, Mosul, and Baghdad, and are led by Maj. Gen. Flayih Muhammad. The brigades are known for both their effectiveness and their brutality.
Farook Brigade. A mostly Sunni Arab brigade that fought alongside U.S. forces in Ramadi and other places in Anbar province, this unit was disbanded when Jabr was appointed interior minister.
Secret Investigative Unit. A police unit that has been accused of bringing Badrist militia members into the police, the Secret Investigative Unit was housed at the bunker where U.S. forces found an Interior Ministry secret prison.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2507Add that to the Warlords we left in Afghanistan, the revolt of the Basra Council from the unity government, the battle of the Shia militias between them and the Coalition in the South, the infilitration of Iranian Revolutionary Guard into southern Iraq, the thorough infiltration of the Army and the police by the Sunni and all the Shia Militias and we have truly, completely and totally lost the war in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
All this just to keep the Iraqi/Iranian oil in the ground and create higher oil prices.
Unless Bush calls a draft after the Election with the old Congress. That is the only option left for neo-con success. False Flag Attack on US Soil first? OR just announce Iran will soon have nukes, we need the draft to prevent a nuclear 9-11? With a draft, we could hold Iraq and invade Khuzestan, where 100 billion barrels of oil are in the ground and already developed. That would keep the 100 billion barrels in Iraq in the ground for years to come, as well as the 100 billion barrels of Iranian oil in the ground for at least another several years.
That is the original Saudi/Bush strategy, first hatched in the early 80s, when Saddam was given the green light and even funded by the US to attack Khuzestan's oil fields in Iran.
So will they call a draft to keep the oil in the ground, or will they just finally admit defeat because they care so much about the Republican Party, they wouldn't want to call a draft because it would wreck the GOP?
HAH! These are neo-cons! What do they care about a political party? They will not back away now, when they only have to take this last final step: to call a Combat, Medical and Skills Draft--WHICH THEY HAVE BEEN PREPARING FOR OVER THE LAST 5 YEARS! The only reason they did not have to call a draft before is that they hired over a hundred thousand mercenaries to make up the difference. But there are not another hundred thousand available on the market.
Just last week, the DoD released a huge rewrite of the CO rules for military personnel, making it nigh unto impossible now to get a CO. Last year, the DoD completed preparations for the Skills Draft and has even created a Skills Draft Compliance Card that every male and female under the age of 35 will be required to fill out at the Post Office. The NYT in Ocotber 2004 reported the DoD contracted a company to create the ability to make a list of all medical personnel in the country, so that 36,000 doctors and nurses under the age of 45 can be drafted in the first year of a Combat Draft.
Plus they just called up the remains of their last resort before they would have to call a draft, the IRR, the soldiers who have left the service but are still in the Ready Reserve. The problem is that the best IRR callups have already been done. The remainder of the list, DoD knows will not report or they have already disappeared. So the IRR is not going to be enough for 2007-8.
Maybe Cheney and Rumsfeld and the rest of the neo-cons will just give up and walk away from keeping those 200 billion barrels of oil in the ground, now that it is so close they can smell it.
Maybe they will turn into human beings overnight by a miracle from God and realize all this blood for oil, for the Saudis, was the wrong thing to do.
Maybe pigs will fly.
The public has to realize that if the Republicans keep Congress, the war is going to get a lot worse, that the threat of a draft from a cornered Cheney is very real. And that the GOP could still call a draft, even if they lose Congress, in November or December. Rove has already polled the GOP Caucus and gotten approval for a DRAFT if Bush asks for one.
These are now far more dangerous times. We have a wounded, crazed neo-con beast in a corner.
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