"Crack is whack," the one time Queen of the Night, Whitney Houston explained to Diane Sawyer on Primetime Live in 2002. She should know, right? Can she pass the information on to Iraq?
The cracked up 'crackdown' has been going on in Baghdad since June of last year. Like most of the plans coming from the White House, what it resulted in was completely different than what it was marketed as. The 'crackdown' started when Iraqis almost breached the Green Zone. So security was 'beefed' up. Then, as fall approached, the beef up was 'beefed' up. And it's been that way ever since. With each 'beefing,' violence has only increased.
So Bully Boy's 'answer' is to escalate -- to send As the Raging Grannies sang in DC last month, when Bully Boy's confronted with a failure, his response is "to just do it more and more."
He's got an urge to surge
He's got an urge to surge, oh yeah.
It's just some more of the same manure.
He's got an urge to surge
-- The Raging Grannies
21,500 troops was the unacceptable number he announced he would be sending -- with approximately 4,000 to be sent to Al Anbar Province and the rest to Baghdad. (At some point Congress may have a response, at least a symoblic one.) 21,500 more US troops to fight Bully Boy's illegal war of choice is unacceptable. But again, there's what marketed and then there is what's actually been sold.
Rick Maze (Army Times) reported on the Congressional Budget Office's study that found the escalation could "result in up to 50,000 troops actually being deployed to the region." Possibly Bully Boy's bill of sale was intended to be 'symoblic'?
The reality is that the more troops that have been poured into Baghdad, the greater the violence. At the start of this month, the United Nations' special envoy to Iraq, Ashraf Qazi,
called for "fresh thinking." We won't stay up all night waiting for that moment to come.
In fairness to the puppet of the occupation, Nouri al-Maliki, he is a mere puppet. His strings are pulled from DC (where his fan base is diminishing). He's not an independent actor. He's not a leader of a country. The way it works is Bully Boy thinks he owns the property and that he's hired al-Maliki to manage it. A puppet or marionette can only accomplish what the people pulling the strings allow it to accomplish.
When Bully Boy announced it to the country in January, the speech was was sold as "He admitted mistakes!" No, he didn't. He didn't admit to any mistakes. "Where mistakes have been made . . ." is not admitting to mistakes and it recalls the October 8, 2004 debate with John Kerry where Bully Boy was asked to give three examples of example of mistakes he'd made and he couldn't think of one. (In his rambling response, he would offer: "I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I'm not going to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV.")
Some spent time noting realities in the speech ("mistakes" wasn't a reality to be found in the speech), but did anyone comment on the wrap up? "Thank you and good night." What? No, "God Bless"? Did God and Bully Boy have another talk and God said, "Leave me out of it!"
When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women's' rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?
When the president talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the president talks to God?
-- "When The President Talks To God" -- written by Conor Oberst, available on Bright Eyes' CD Motion Sickness: Live Recordings
"Leave me out of it!" Well who would want Bully Boy tying them into the disaster that is Iraq? Where every month seems to contain a report on how the month prior's violence escalated? As Reuters reported at the start of this month, "Iraqi civilian deaths in political violence reached a new high in January, data from an interior ministry official showed on Thursday.The statistics, widely viewed as an indicative but only partial record of violent deaths, showed 1,971 people died from 'terrorism' in January, slightly up from the previous high of 1,930 deaths recorded in December 2006." And Robert Burns (AP) notes: "More American troops were killed in combat in Iraq over the past four months -- at least 334 through Jan. 31 -- than in any comparable stretch since the war began, according to an Associated Press analysis of casualty records."
Now why do you suppose that is? Could the recent slaughter in Najaf anger Iraqis? How about the slaughter near Amiriyah? These are just some of the most recent events. Haifa Street? Civilians are being killed and that increases the anger, the tension and the response.
The latest version of the 'crackdown' is supposed to allow for more house to house surges. The illustration is based upon an AFP photo (by David Furst) that ran on the front page of The New York Times February 7, 2007. The caption was: "NEW SECURITY PLAN An Iarqi man comforted his mother, who collapsed yesterday after he was questioned by American soldiers under a new security plan for Baghdad. [. . .]"
The woman collapsed because her son was being questioned. The look on the man's face is fear. Fear breeds anger, anger builds to resistance (and fuels the resistance). The destruction continues as long as US troops remain in Iraq because they are the breeding ground for the resistance.