RK ARCHIVE - The Islamic Republic of Iraq? Heckuva job, Bush and Allen!

As if all that's not terrible enough, it now looks like our worst nightmare is coming true - the fragmentation of Iraq into pieces, and the creation of a Muslim fundamentalist, anti-American, Al Qaeda state in the Sunni areas of the country. According to the Washington Post, just yesterday "al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni Arab insurgent groups declared a new Islamic republic in the western and central parts of the country."

*A Shi'ite south, where most of Iraq's oil is located, dominated by a fundamentalist Iran with nuclear weapons (eventually)
*An independent Kurdish north, leading to tensions if not armed conflict with NATO ally Turkey, which strongly opposes an independent Kurdish state
*A fundamentalist Sunni center of the country, aligned with Al Qaeda and other anti-American terrorist groups.

Now, can one of the apologists for this @#%!%^$#@ war - maybe George Allen? - please explain to me how any of this is making the United States better off or more secure? And can Senator John Warner, who is a smart guy with integrity who now is saying that we've got 60-90 days to fix things in Iraq (or else...), please explain to me why on earth he's appearing with Allen in a TV commercial? Instead of doing that, I call on Senator Warner not only to withdraw his backing from George Allen, but to throw his strong support behind his fellow Marine and former Navy Secretary, Jim Webb. Together, perhaps the two of you can figure a way out of the spiraling disaster that I call "BushAllen's Iraq."

Lowell Feld is Netroots Coordinator for the Jim Webb for US Senate Campaign. The ideas expressed here belong to Lowell Feld alone, and do not represent those of Jim Webb, his advisors, staff, or supporters.

Comments

Baghdad Burning Blogger is MIA (mosquitopest - 10/16/2006 8:36:43 AM)

Riverbend of the Baghdad Burning Blog i MIA...The last post was over 10 weeks ago. Her publisher also has not heard from River. The publisher stated that this is the longest lapse in communication they've ever had.

Volume two of Baghdad Burning has recently been released.

Hopefully Riverbend in not one of the 650,000 Iraqi casualties.

The US has acted so immorally....

Buzz...Buzz...Mosquito

Up to the hour Iraqi news links here (PM - 10/16/2006 9:16:21 AM)

http://www.alertnet.... is a summary page for Reuters' international news.

Click on the Emergencies menu on the left side of the page and you'll get a choice of crises. The one for Iraq is Iraq in Turmoil.

Clicking on that listing will get you the latest stories on Iraq, and its Factbox gives you the day's military events, which for today are, as usual, horrendous:

Oct 16 (Reuters) - Following are security and other developments in Iraq reported on Monday as of 0830 GMT:
SUWAYRA - At least 10 people were killed and 15 wounded when a car bomb went off near a bank in a market in the town of Suwayra, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. The mayor, Hussein Abdullah, said eight were killed and 48 wounded in Suwayra, a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite town.
BAGHDAD - Three roadside bombs exploded, killing three civilians and wounding seven other people, including a policeman, near a bank in central Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - A total of 46 bodies, with gunshot wounds and bearing signs of torture, were found in Baghdad since Saturday night, an Interior Ministry source said.
BAGHDAD - The Iraqi army arrested 30 "terrorists" and 69 suspected insurgents in different parts of Iraq during the last 24 hours, the Defence Ministry said on Monday.
NAJAF - A roadside bomb targeted the convoy of Mohammad Daeekh, the head of the police crime department, wounding one of his bodyguards in the Shi'ite city of Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed Farouq Atta, an air force brigadier, and wounded two of his companions on Sunday in northern Waziriya district of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry said.
MOSUL - Gunmen killed the media director of the education department, Raad al-Hayali, on Sunday night in the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

Iraq is collapsing and Allen is going to look lame in the news (GeorgeAllenVa - 10/16/2006 11:44:15 AM)

coverage of tonight's ad no matter what Warner says. Warner, like John Murtha plainly has been hearing from the generals and the colonels that this war is an unwinnable mess--and we need to get out. Like Jim Baker and his group, Warner is likely planning to propose some way to begin wiggling out of Iraq--but only after the election, of course. There's no telling what George Bush will do with that kind wise counsel. He's certainly ignored everything else sensible that's been told to him about Iraq over the last four years.
Yet George Allen is still one of the biggest boosters of Bush's "stay-the-course" strategy. That puts him in an increasingly lonely place--a state of denial, could we call it?
Bottom line: Jim Webb will pound away on Iraq. This election isn't, in the end, going to be about Maccaca or whether Allen used the N- word--as helpful as those self-destructive episodes were. It isn't even going to be about his incredibly shady (I would suggest illegal) stock options, or about what a weak, insincere stuffed shirt he is. It's going to be about Iraq.