Tag: surge

All that’s needed is for something to happen to rile the ‘mahdi’ army and the ceasefire will end, as well as some Iraqi leader to demand “America tear down these Walls!” and the Real Purposes for the ‘surge’, i.e. Escalation, will be no more!

I have a nicely aged six foot cedar fence that runs across the back of my house. The backyard extends around 25 feet from the back of the house to the fence; the fence’s length along the back of the lot is close to 100 feet. The back fence, it keeps things out and keeps my dogs in. The north side connector fence is a cyclone fence, see-through and lacking in privacy.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That wants it down.

I wasn’t planning on posting anything today, have too much to do and other thoughts on my mind.

But yesterday I watched, as many have seen by now, someone who should have a much better understanding, above that of its citizens, what this country’s policies are and their implementation.

McClatchy  has a couple of reports  that hit on a couple of the Points of the ‘surge’:

The Big Lie is a propaganda technique that comes in different sizes. This essay is about the Bush size Big Lie. I’ll get around to The Really Big Lie another time. The Bush Big Lie is just a distraction to keep people’s attention away from The Really Big Lie. But it’s big enough in its own right.

The Bush Big Lie is everything he’s done and said for the last seven plus years. The biggest part of his lie is the war in Iraq. It’s so obvious on the face of it that he lied us into the war, he lied us into escalating it and he’s lying us into staying there forever while he lies about the great progress we’re always making. The amazing thing about this is that over half of the American people actually know he’s been lying. But hey, what can one person do about it? A significant percentage of Uhmericans still believe that Saddam had WMDs; that he was complicit in 9/11; and that he gave shelter to al-Qaeda. We have some of the most unquestioning, incurious, gullible people on the planet. These Uhmericans think we’re doing the right thing and stopping the terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them here.

Bush is too dumb to have invented the Big Lie. A European guy came up with that concept in 1925:

The Big Lie is a propaganda technique. It was defined by Adolf Hitler in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf as a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”.

Hitler blamed the Jews for being the Big Liars which was a bit of evil genius. He accused his victims of being the crime. Hitler’s propagandist, Joseph Goebbels attributed the Big Lie to Churchill and the English leadership in 1941:

That is of course rather painful for those involved. One should not as a rule reveal one’s secrets, since one does not know if and when one may need them again. The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

Hmmm. During the war – the Big One – our OSS, precursor to the CIA, came up with a psychological profile of Hitler. They derived yet another example of the Big Lie:

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

I don’t know about the rest of the country but if someone handed me a sheet of paper that had the last blockquote written on it and asked me who I thought might have these qualities I’d have a ready answer. Actually, it would be three people: Cheney, Bush and Rove – the father, the son and the evil spirit of the Big Lie, Bush-sized.

And almost all of America is focussed on the Bush Big Lie while the pickpockets work the crowd. More later.

(All quotes from Wiki – Big Lie)

Shanti.

Above title comes from MoJo, short for Mother Jones, for those not in the know.

It covers this:

Washington Dispatch: We asked a dozen national security experts what Congress should ask the top military commander in Iraq at this week’s hearings. Here’s what they came up with.

This is Part I: U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,

IRAQ AFTER THE SURGE: POLITICAL PROSPECTS 4/2/08.

Tomorrow see: Part II: MILITARY PROSPECTS.

Nir Rosen became my favorite guide to the real Iraq, the people and the streets of Iraq since I first read and diaried his comments last year. As one of the very few fearless reporters who have spent time without minders to speak of, with Iraqis out on the streets, talking to various segments of the population. His observations are invaluable and objective. He is no cheerleader.

For those who are unitiated, Rosen comes as a breath of fresh air. He is not out to impress everyone, does not behave like a typical panelist, but reads through his written testimony dispassionately, matter of factly, at a speed seldom seen in Senate hearings.

Today before the Committee on Foreign Relations two panels were heard on Post-Surge Iraq– the first military, then “political prospects.” You will find links to the Senate Committee hearings on Iraq this month here.

Electricity sparks flew for a while this afternoon as Barbara Boxer had the microphone. I love her rage.

~crossposted on the orange, still deluded I guess~

A few days ago we get this:

U.S. Wants British ‘Surge’ In S. Iraq: Paper

And why, because:

It quoted an unnamed senior U.S .military source saying: “Three big militias are currently engaged in a particularly bloody battle in southern Iraq.

From The Real News Network

Reality of war and Winter Soldier testimonials not covered by US television news

Remember this:

President Bush laid down the standard of success when he announced the surge more than a year ago: “If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.”

Than yesterday we get this:

The Pentagon is projecting that when the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq ends in July there will be about 8,000 more troops on the ground than when it began in January 2007, a senior general said Monday.

As bad as Iraq was and is, it soon could become worse than the very recent past nfew months and they haven’t been a sunday afternoon picnic!

markthshark posted this Diary last night: Moqtada al-Sadr Ends Four Month Pact with Rival Shi’ite Council.

Amazingly this Extremely Important bit of Reality made it up to the recommend list disappointing, I’ll bet, at least one diarist posting either a slam post against or a love thy one for the favorite candidate ‘Who’s Gonna Save The World’. Folks, just abit of another reality. Only You, together with many many many others can right the course of this Ship of State, but I degress.

Could the other shoe hit the floor in Iraq?

When Bush gives his state of the union address in a few days, he will probably talk about Iraq and the “surge”, but he probably won’t mention Fallujah.

In 2004 Fallujah, Iraq, a city of 600,000 persons was attacked by the US after a handful of mercenaries from the firm Blackwater were killed while transporting refrigerator supplies to a military base.  There was a news blackout about the siege, but there were reports of many civilian deaths and the use of illegal weapons by the US.

Now,three years later, the situation in Fallujah is still bleak. A correspondent for the Independent entered the city and reported for the paper.  He must be a long term resident, because the city is still under siege. There are 27 checkpoints along the road to Fallujah making it the most difficult city to enter in the world.