Bombs exploded across Baghdad, taking at least 112 lives, with as many as 425 wounded. Carnage is the word as we get a look at what’s to come as we withdraw, with the latest bloodshed a real hit on the Iraq security forces, not to mention the government.
Authorities said at least 112 people were killed and 425 were wounded. At least five bombings were reported, with the explosives detonating minutes apart, starting about 10:15 a.m.
The violence marred a week during which the government had hoped two positive developments — the passing of an election law on Sunday and the upcoming auction of oil field contracts to foreign companies — would dominate headlines. Iraq’s three-member presidential council voted Tuesday to schedule parliamentary elections March 6, a seven-week delay from the original date, after months of wrangling over how the balloting will work. …
Obviously, the coming elections is one ignition point, but there are many others, including the dissatisfaction people feel with their government, but also the reality of what happens when the fall of a dictatorship is followed by self-rule in a country that hasn’t known it for a very long time.
This is just one reason why so many foreign policy realists are reluctant to put our troops and our treasure on the line in foreign lands, especially when we don’t have a clear and present danger component present.
Getting in is easy, getting out without full scale bloodshed is impossible.
The day Gates shows up ‘unannounced’ in Afghanistan, al Qaida and its Sunni Baath Party allies carry out 5 coordinated attacks in the Shiite section of Bagdad killing 118+ and wounding 400+. Coincidence? It sure looks like somebody knew that Gates was making the trip. Then Karzai says today that in order for Obama’s surge to work he (Karzai) will “need 15 to 20 years of international military aid” because Afghanistan is too poor to sustain 180,000 police and a 400,000 man army on into the future. What idiot in our government thought that Afghanistan had the resources to equip and maintain a huge army for 20 or more years under combat conditions? Obama? Hillary Clinton? Robert Gates? All the fools running the CIA? Adm. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff speaking to the troops at Ft. Campbell, Ky. yesterday said “President Obama has not said we are leaving (Afghanistan). There’s no deadline, there’s no amount of troops that will come out in July 2011, and there’s no withdrawl date.” It sure looks like somebody is lying to somebody. Anybody who supports this surge is, as B.T. Barnum said, “a sucker.” When do you suppose that the American people will wake up to the nonsense and lies that their government is feeding them day after day? Peace
Easy answer Imhotep. They won’t.
People are too busy tweeting, following Tiger Woods, watching “reality” TV, to be bothered.
kris, when the middle is being squeezed hard enough by both the Right and the by Left simultaneously the pimple will pop and the mess will ooze out all over them. That day is fast approaching. Bet on it. Peace
Interesting way of putting it, but I hope you are right.