No end but victory
Unpaid DOD spokesman Josh Trevino wants us to believe that there is a victory possible in Iraq. And I agree. There will be a victory in Iraq.
But it won't be ours.
The problem is that we have at least three parties with three different ideas of victory. No matter what the Kurds say, their idea of victory says Kurdistan with a K
See the problem. No way but victory for the Kurds only starts in Iraq. If you follow the border, the majority of Kurdistan is in Turkey. But to ensure that, they want to take Kirkuk and it's oil.
Which might be a problem.
But it gets better. Let's look at this ethnographic map to see why the Kurds talk of no end but victory.
The green and light green bits are Shia, the tan bits are Sunni and the light brown and
brown bits are Kurd. Mixed in are the Turkomen. The Turks regard them as Turks;.
See, the Shia's en end but victory has them running the entire country. While the Sunnis
want to retain their status, no matter what the cost.
So, everyone has a plan for victory, what it is not is sharing power in the US created parliament.
The situation is descending into madness which will quickly surpasss Lebanon, but all we get from the adminstration and their lackies, is a cry for good news.
The only problem is that the news is bad. Worse than the media has let on for some time.
Dead Iraqis in a morque
Shiite Fighters Clash With G.I.'s and Iraqi Forces
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: March 27, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 26 — American and Iraqi government forces clashed with Shiite militiamen in Baghdad on Sunday night in the most serious confrontation in months, and Iraqi security officials said 17 people had been killed in a mosque, including its 80-year-old imam.
Officials in Baquba said Sunday that 30 men had been beheaded.
The American military, clearly worried about exacerbating a combustible situation that many Iraqis are already describing as civil war, denied that American forces had entered the mosque. But it said in a statement that 16 insurgents had been killed and 15 captured in a nearby combat operation against a terrorist cell.
The differing versions of what happened seemed to raise a broader question about who is in control of Iraq's security at a time when Iraqi politicians still have not formed a unified government, sectarian tensions are higher than ever and mutilated bodies keep surfacing on the streets. On Sunday, Iraqi authorities found 10 bodies in Baghdad and said they were investigating a report that 30 men were beheaded near Baquba.
American officials are now saying that Shiite militias are the No. 1 problem in Iraq, more dangerous than the Sunni-led insurgents who for nearly the past three years have been branded the gravest security threat.
Shiite militias have been accused of running death squads that kidnap and brutalize Sunni men, and on Sunday the American militay said the cell its forces raided had kidnapped Iraq civilians.
But the deadly clash could reopen an old wound. The Iraqis who were killed had apparently worked for Moktada al-Sadr, a young radical Shiite cleric with ties to Iran who has led several bloody rebellions against American forces.
Mr. Sadr has recently become much more politically aggressive and he is considered a pivotal force in the maneuvering over the delayed formation of a new government.
Earlier on Sunday, a mortar shell nearly hit Mr. Sadr's home in the southern holy city of Najaf. Immediately he accused the Americans of trying to kill him.
American officials have been more overt in the past week than ever in blaming Mr. Sadr's militia for a wave of sectarian bloodshed that seems to have no end.
On Sunday night, American and Iraqi Army forces surrounded a mosque in northeast Baghdad used by Mr. Sadr's troops as a headquarters, Iraqi officials said. Helicopters buzzed overhead as a fleet of heavily armed Humvees sealed off the exits, witnesses said, and when soldiers tried to enter the mosque, shooting erupted, and a heavy-caliber gun battle raged for the next hour.
NO end but victory, huh? For whom?
posted by Steve @ 2:11:00 AM
