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Talks between Iran and the United States about the security of Iraq have been suspended, the AP has reported, after the Iran said the would not negotiate with the US until attacks against Shia militia’s in Iraq by US forces ceased. The United States has been fighting militants tied to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr whose relationship with Iran seems to be growing more and more intimate. The US has accused Iran of arming Shia mlitants in Iraq, but Iran has denied the charge. The one thing that’s certain, though, is that talks won’t continue if one side or other refuses to come to the table.
Last month, a cease-fire between Iraqi troops and Sadr’s militants was negotiated through an Iranian general. Today, Iran says that it will not talk to the US until attacks against the “Iraqi People” (specifically the Shia ones) cease. It seems clear that Iran
has not just one but both its hands deep into Iraq’s cookie jar.
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Missile Strike in Iraq injures 20 civilians
5/3/2008 6:00 PM
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A missile strike within Sadr City in Iraq shattered windows at Sadr Hospital and in ambulances near the hospital. Approximately 20 people were injured but no one was injured in the hospital itself.
Sadr City is the Stronghold of Anti-American Cleric Al-Sadr who has been fighting both American and Iraqi coalition forces for control of the area.
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Miracle Marine Dies
5/2/2008 10:00 PM
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Seragent Merlin German who survived a roadside bomb attack which caused burns to 95% of his body has died. He was 22 years old. He was true survivor who was an inspiration to people everywhere. He started a foundation to help children burn victims. He had fought back from 17 months in a hospital and 40 surgeries to walk again.
His Charity is called Merlin's Miracles.
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Pentagon to cut some Iraqi Funding
4/29/2008 6:59 PM
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The Pentagon has agreed to cut $171 million from its budget tin Iraq after demands from Congress CNN
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Gen. David Petraeus, commander of US troops in Iraq, has presented a plan for the war there to President Bush that would stabilize troop levels through the end of the Bush presidency, The New York Times reports.
The plan is also sensitive to the needs of the presidential campaign, which, for Republicans to be successful, requires maintained stability and limited bad news. Additionally, monthly evaluations of conditions in Iraq will be conducted to see about the possibility for withdrawing additional troops.
Such withdrawals are highly unlikely as is any possibility these evaluations would serve a purpose beyond President Bush and candidate McCain's immediate political needs. Bush has said numerous times over the past couple of years that he will not make any major troop withdrawals and that it would be up to the next president to decide whether or not to continue the war.
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That's practically the only promise thatBush has made since becoming president that he's delivering on down to the letter.
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To the half the country that won't vote for him, John McCain said some things that may cause him to appear as a crazy person yesterday. As the American death toll reached 4000 in Iraq, McCain reiterated his support for the war.
The Republican nominee said, "We are succeeding. I don't care what anybody thinks." That kind of rhetoric is going to be off-putting to the 65% of Americans who want out Iraq now, a landslide majority of the country and also lends itself well to a Democratic attack ad.
One must admire McCain's boldness as he consolidates his party's conservative base. McCain has the luxury of time; he has months before he needs to start adding nuance to his view for swing voters. But for now, wrongheaded insistence tat we're winning and unwinnable war is good enough.
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A sad but inevitable milestone for the US mission in Iraq was reached over the weekend, as the number of US soldiers killed there reached 4000.
The four soldiers whose deaths brought the total number to its new mark were killed when their patrol vehicle was hit with a mortar at around 10pm in southern Baghdad. That attack was part of a wave of violence that left 61 others dead across Iraq, according to the Associated Press.
The conflict in Iraq has proven to be a much bloodier one than many thought at the time of the invasion; the official figure for American wounded in Iraq is around 29,000 and the independent group Iraq Body Count estimates the total number of Iraqi civilian causalities to be around 89,000. Other counts are much higher.
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This grim milestone will likely filter into the presidential race and we wouldn't be surprised to see presidential candidates meeting with soldiers' families or attending funerals. But at the same time, we wouldn't be surprised if they didn't mention it at all.
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Osama bin Laden has been busy, busy, busy; he's dropping new records faster than Hannah Montana.
In a tape aired just a few minutes ago on al-Jazeera, bin Laden had some choice words on Iraq, the Israel/Palestine negotiations and a whole host of other issues. In his bellicose and melodramatic way, bin Laden called on Muslims to throw off the yoke of Western oppression or what have you. "Palestine cannot be retaken by negotiations and dialogue, but with fire and iron," the super-terrorist proclaimed referring to the peace talks that got under way last year in Annapolis. The easiest way to bring said "fire and iron," bin Laden says, in Iraq.
He encouraged Palestinians to shun "blasphemous democracy" and instead, to "take their positions among the ranks of the mujahideen in Iraq."
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Osama bin Laden released a new tape yesterday slamming the EU and the Pope over incendiary cartoons recently republished in Danish newspapers.
On the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war, Bin Laden was ready to share some conspiracy theories about Western intentions in the Muslim world. "Your publications of these drawings -- part of a new crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican had a significant role -- is a confirmation from you that the war continues," the Al Qaeda leader-in-hiding said in an audio message posted on the internet.
Ominously, bin Laden implies their will be fresh attacks in Europe over the cartoons, one of which was recently republished in a Danish newspaper. Three men were recently arrested for plotting to kill the cartoonist who drew them.
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A Reuters article about the message quotes an expert who describes it mostly as a "statement of intent," meaning bin Laden doesn't actually have the ability to send anybody to attack Europe per se, but it's the top item on his to-do list. Another expert says that a message from bin Laden won't prompt EU nations to raise their threat levels; only intelligence about possible terrorist would make them do that.
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Barack Obama and John McCain went back and fourth on Iraq today. McCain has been traveling in the Middle East and has provided plenty of wisdom about the situation along the way, including a much publicized gaffe where he accused Iran of funding and arming Al Qaeda in Iraq. He's repeated the claim twice since then.
Obama has picked up on this (between shots at Hillary Clinton). "Maybe that is why he voted to go to war with a country that had no Al Qaeda ties," Obama said. "Maybe that is why he completely fails to understand that the war in Iraq has done more to embolden America's enemies than any strategic choice that we have made in decades."
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The McCain camp's response was hardly a sound bite. "Iran, which trains Shia extremists and is known to arm and equip Sunni extremists, a fact Senator Obama is apparently unaware of, will also view our premature withdrawal as a victory, as will other countries in the region, and the biggest state supporter of terrorists, a country with nuclear ambitions and a stated desire to destroy the State of Israel, will see its influence in the Middle East grow significantly," said a spokesman who clearly struggles breaking different thoughts down into separate sentences.
When our national leaders bicker this way, there's only one clear winner: Terror.
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Today marks the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. To simply say that it's been disastrous wouldn't do the conflict credit and it's worth noting that almost everything the doubters and spoil-sports warned of before the war began has essentially come true.
That isn't just to say, We told you so: there were no weapons of mass destruction, Al Qaeda and "other extremists" have found a haven where there previously was none, the country is mired in a sectarian civil war and due to America's strained resources, the Taliban enjoy resurgent support in Afghanistan.
Even many who supported the war didn't imagine it would be prosecuted so incompetently. As a result, America now stands to fail both its missions after these calamitous five years. Just as he went in without an occupation plan, Bush has no plan to achieve the "victory" he assures us is still possible.
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In his speech this morning marking the anniversary, he said more of the same, emphasizing the importance of his morally and strategically reprehensible holding pattern. "The surge," he said "has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror." That may be true, but it's a door that needn't have been sought out in the first place.
After five years of war, the president has articulated no clear vision for what he hopes to achieve in Iraq other than in the broadest terms. He has set no victory conditions. Five years in, it's completely unclear why we went, what we're there for, or how we'll get out.
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It wasn't any kind of explosive device that ripped John McCainto shreds as he toured Iraq today, it was the sheer destructive power of his own mouth.
Don't worry, he's perfectly healthy, alive, well and running for president. But the presumptive Republican nominee for president told reporters that it is "widely known" that Iran is training and providing material support to al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone points out that, "Al Qaeda and Iran are on separate sides of a schism that has existed in Islam for the last 13 centuries or so," and thus McCain's assertion is more than just highly unlikely– it's completely factually incorrect.
McCain has been in Congress since before time began. He has loads of "foreign policy experience." He was fought in wars. He has spent years buried in a box underground. But wen it comes to Iraq, he's completely clueless. That's why he was going down in flames last summer.
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With the situation there somewhat improved, people forgot how out of touch this guy is. Thanks to comments like this one, McCain won't let the public go too much longer without reminding them.
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Dick Cheney and John McCain are both in Iraq today, and, as Iraqis are prone to do, they have been greeted with parades and flowers and general jubilation in the streets. No, just kidding.
But a sucide bomber did set off a bomb in a crowded market in Karbala killing 42 people, the biggest attack in that city in more than a year. That does sound like the "phenomenal" progress that Cheney described earlier this morning in a meeting with Iraqi security officials.
Also, further up north, two American soldiers died when a roadside bomb detonated near their humvee. The American death toll in Iraq is around 3990 with more than 29,000 wounded. The Iraqi toll, almost uncountable, is more than a million killed when counting both combatants and civilians.
This has been a brutal five years and, if McCain is elected, there are still 100 more to come.
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