What McCain, the warmongers and Murdoch DON'T want you to know....

[Deicide]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3635838.ece

Abu Iman barely flinched when the Iraqi Government ordered his unit of special police to move against al-Mahdi Army fighters in Basra.

His response, while swift, was not what British and US military trainers who have spent the past five years schooling the Iraqi security forces would have hoped for. He and 15 of his comrades took off their uniforms, kept their government-issued rifles and went over to the other side without a second thought.

Such turncoats are the thread that could unravel the British Army’s policy in southern Iraq. The military hoped that local forces would be able to combat extremists and allow the Army to withdraw gradually from the battle-scarred and untamed oil city that has fallen under the sway of Islamic fundamentalists, oil smugglers and petty tribal warlords. But if the British taught the police to shoot straight, they failed to instil a sense of unwavering loyalty to the State.

“We know the outcome of the fighting in advance because we already defeated the British in the streets of Basra and forced them to withdraw to their base,” Abu Iman told The Times.

“If we go back a bit, everyone remembers the fight with the US in Najaf and the damage and defeat we inflicted on them. Do you think the Iraqi Army is better than those armies? We are right and the Government is wrong. [Nouri al] Maliki [the Iraqi Prime Minister] is driving his Government into the ground.”

The reason for his apparent switch of sides was simple: the 36-year-old was already a member of the al-Mahdi Army which, like other militias, has massively infiltrated the British-trained police force in the southern oil city. He claimed that hundreds of others from the 16,000-strong force have also defected to the rebels’ ranks.Abu Iman joined the new Iraqi police force after the invasion, joining the Mugawil, a special police unit infamous for brutality, kidnapping and sectarian murders.

“We already heard two weeks ago that we were going to attack the Mahdi Army, so we were ready,” he said. “I decided to take off my uniform and join my brothers and friends in the Mahdi Army. All these years, we were like a scream in the face of the dictator and the occupation.” He said: “I joined the police because I believed we have to protect Basra and save it with our own hands. You can see we were the first fighters to take on Sadd-am and his regime, the best example being the Shabaniya uprising.”

Abu Iman said that the fighting raging in Basra yesterday was intense because the al-Mahdi Army was operating on its own turf. He was confident that the Shia militia would prevail because its cause was just.

“The Iraqi Army is already defeated from within. They come to Basra with fear in their hearts, knowing they have to fight their brothers, the sons of Iraq, because of an order from Bush and his friends in the Iraq Government. For this reason, all of the battles are going in the Mahdi Army’s favour.”

Major-General Abdelaziz Moham-med Jassim, the director of operations at the Ministry of Defence, played down reports of defections in the Basra police force. “The problem of one policeman doesn’t make up for the whole of the force,” he said.

In recent months Major-General Abdul Jalil Khalaf, Basra’s police chief, has tried to shake up the force and drive out militia infiltrators, who have wrought havoc in the past, often turning police stations into torture cells in which factions settled vendettas and power struggles with murder and abuse. But he only narrowly escaped an assassination attempt yesterday when a suicide car bomb attack in Basra killed three of his policemen. A local tribal leader said the police directorate building was later gutted by fire.

[24KT]

Everyone else throughout the world knows that many in the Iraqi security forces have more loyalty to the militias from which they came than they do to Bush's handpicked officials in Iraq, ...everyone except the US people. 

[G o a t b o y]

Who cares about Iraq?  Obama wants to jack up taxes and add new entitlement programs we'll never get rid of to the extent the deficit will get worse even with higher taxes. 

[24KT]

Who cares about Iraq?  Obama wants to jack up taxes and add new entitlement programs we'll never get rid of to the extent the deficit will get worse even with higher taxes. 

Hopefully everyone, ...cause it's this Iraq mess that has put your countries testicles in the vice grip.
You think that higher taxes is going to cause the deficit to worsen?    HELLO! ...there's this place called ...IRAQ!!!

[Bindare_Dundat]

Hopefully everyone, ...cause it's this Iraq mess that has put your countries testicles in the vice grip.
You think that higher taxes is going to cause the deficit to worsen?    HELLO! ...there's this place called ...IRAQ!!!

Yeah but all Obama will do is relocate soilders from one part of the world, (Iraq) and into another, (Afghanistan) to continue the war on terror, how will that save enough money for all his new programs?

[Deicide]

Yeah but all Obama will do is relocate soilders from one part of the world, (Iraq) and into another, (Afghanistan) to continue the war on terror, how will that save enough money for all his new programs?

Whatever you think of them, ever since Reagan, the Dems have a better financial track record. Repubs spend and spend....

The US is such as mess and so many of its citizens are blind to it...

[24KT]

Yeah but all Obama will do is relocate soilders from one part of the world, (Iraq) and into another, (Afghanistan) to continue the war on terror, how will that save enough money for all his new programs?

Destroying the taleban was what the public wanted, not creating a mess where none existed.
Wiping out AlQ stops all that blood from continuing to gush out of the US's economic veins.
What do you have to show for the expenditures so far? We know what Cheney/Haliburton got... what about you?

[240 is Back]

Who cares about Iraq?  Obama wants to jack up taxes and add new entitlement programs we'll never get rid of to the extent the deficit will get worse even with higher taxes. 

Which candidate will stop borrowing $12 bil per week to fund this war?  Neither?

[w8tlftr]

Which candidate will stop borrowing $12 bil per week to fund this war?  Neither?

Bingo!

[Deicide]

Bingo!

The US is fucked...time to get out guys...

[shootfighter1]

The republicans since Regan comprise of the Bush regimes.  That does not represent all republicans.  If they'd stick to traditional principles, this wouldn't happen.  Even though Regan borrowed, he balanced budgets and the state of the nation was strong.  Many true republicans are very dissapointed with Bush.

I want us to start withdrawing (and stop spending) ASAP...but its way more complicated then you guys are realizing.  After we left Vietnam, thousands were killed in the aftermath.  I imagine we will see an Iraqi civil war and unless the gov is strong enough, militias could gain control of the countries oil and oil $, not to mention slaughtering tens of thousands more.  We should have never went in, but its not as simple as just getting out.  All 3 presidential candidates know this, no matter what they say to get elected.

[G o a t b o y]

You think that higher taxes is going to cause the deficit to worsen?    HELLO! ...there's this place called ...IRAQ!!!

No, I think new entitlement programs will cause the deficit to worsen.


Iraq will end at some point.  Entitlements are forever.

[w8tlftr]

The US is fucked...time to get out guys...

That's a defeatist attitude.

I agree we're "fucked" in the sense that it looks very bad but anything worth having is worth fighting for.

[War-Horse]

No, I think new entitlement programs will cause the deficit to worsen.


Iraq will end at some point.  Entitlements are forever.

For 12 billion dollars a month we could end some entitlements.   As it is the middle and low class are taxed to death....only the rich are left, so be prepared for the destruction of your revenues soon.................... ..........youre next!!!

[24KT]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3635838.ece

Al Sadr: Weapons stay till occupiers go
Moqtada al-Sadr has ordered his followers not to lay down their weapons,
confronting a crackdown by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:20:55
 

Moqtada has rejected Mahdi army's disarmament.

The Iraqi government has ordered the Mahdi Army to disarm, but the Sadrist movement has rejected its armed wing laying down its arms.

"Moqtada al-Sadr asks his followers not to deliver weapons to the government. Weapons should be turned over only to a government which can expel the (US) occupiers," Sadr's aide Hassan Zargani told Reuters.

Premier Maliki has staked his authority on disarming Sadr's followers with a major military operation. But his forces have made little progress driving fighters from the streets and instead have provoked rebellion in towns across the south.

The prime minister initially gave Sadr's followers in Basra 72 hours to disarm, but with little progress on the ground he extended the deadline until April 8. His defense minister has said the ferocity of the resistance was unexpected.

In the meantime in a rare interview taped just before this week's outbreak of violence and shown by al-Jazeera on Saturday, al-Sadr has called on Arab leaders meeting in Syria to voice their support for Iraq's "resistance" to what he calls foreign occupation.

Al-Jazeera television has shown a brief clip of an interview with the Mahdi Army leader and has said that the full interview will soon be shown.

[240 is Back]

Al Sadr: Weapons stay till occupiers go

LOL....

Yeah, I'm totally sure he'll give up his guns once the only force capable of taking his guns leaves.

Why the hell is that guy still around?  Isn't he responsible for lots of troop deaths? 

Is it "it'll take more to kill 5000 jihadists than to buy off one and let him order those 5000 to settle down"?

[War-Horse]

This civil war is a complex thing.  Its not going to be solved by american ideals.   it will return to its former state when we are there in a minimal way some day...if they choose to have us there.