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Banned
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The withdrawal timetable must remain in any new bill drafted that includes the entire supplemental appropriation. Legislators must protect us, and our troops from the decisions of the American and Iraqi administrations:
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews
Maliki's Office Is Seen Behind Purge in Forces
Some Commanders Had Pursued Militias
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 30, 2007; Page A01
BAGHDAD, April 29 -- A department of the Iraqi prime minister's office is playing a leading role in the arrest and removal of senior Iraqi army and national police officers, some of whom had apparently worked too aggressively to combat violent Shiite militias, according to U.S. military officials in Baghdad.
Since March 1, at least 16 army and national police commanders have been fired, detained or pressured to resign; at least nine of them are Sunnis, according to U.S. military documents shown to The Washington Post.
Although some of the officers appear to have been fired for legitimate reasons, such as poor performance or corruption, several were considered to be among the better Iraqi officers in the field. The dismissals have angered U.S. and Iraqi leaders who say the Shiite-led government is sabotaging the military to achieve sectarian goals.
"Their only crimes or offenses were they were successful" against the Mahdi Army, a powerful Shiite militia, said Brig. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard, commanding general of the Iraq Assistance Group, which works with Iraqi security forces. "I'm tired of seeing good Iraqi officers having to look over their shoulders when they're trying to do the right thing."....
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Quote:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/...raq-Sunnis.php
Iraq's senior Sunni Arab politician blasts al-Maliki's government, security plan
The Associated Press
Published: May 6, 2007
BAGHDAD: The leader of parliament's largest Sunni Arab bloc complained Sunday that Sunni members of the Shiite-led government were marginalized and given no real authority, charging that an 11-week-old U.S.-backed security push in Baghdad was victimizing the city's Sunni residents.
A visibly angry Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of the Iraqi Accordance Front, said he had nothing to fear from calls by Shiite lawmakers for lifting his parliamentary immunity to face questioning on alleged involvement in sectarian cleansing in Baghdad and inciting sectarian strife.
"I fear nothing and I will confront those who made these false charges," he told a news conference.
Al-Dulaimi, who is thought to be nearly 80, is one of the most outspoken critics of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government. He recently has returned from neighboring Jordan where he underwent surgery for an unspecified ailment, according to his ally and fellow Sunni lawmaker Salim Abdullah.
"Our participation in this so-called national unity government is weak and marginalized and our ministers have no authority to serve Iraq or its people," he said.
He also complained that Shiite militias and death squads, both blamed for targeting Sunni Arabs in kidnappings and execution-style killings, have resumed their activity after staying out of sight in the initial stages of the joint U.S.-Iraqi security plan.
The number of bodies thought to belong to victims of sectarian killings has dramatically gone down in the early stages of the security push, which began Feb. 14. The numbers began rising again after hitting a low of seven, although they remain below the average of 50 per day being reported before the plan.
U.S. military officials have warned that a series of bombings that have killed hundreds of Shiites in recent weeks were an attempt by al-Qaida-linked Sunni insurgents to provoke renewed violence by the militias thus igniting a full-scale civil war.
Al-Dulaimi, whose bloc has 44 of parliament's 275 seats, identified two areas of western Baghdad — the Sunni dominated Amil and the mixed Baiyaa, which was hit by a suicide bombing that killed at least 30 on Sunday — to be witnessing a resumption of sectarian cleansing by Shiite militiamen.
Ali al-Dabbagh, al-Maliki's chief spokesman, said the government was aware of the allegations of sectarian cleansing in Baiyaa, blaming it on what he called criminal gangs that want to create the impression of a city torn by religious strife.
"These are among the challenges the Iraqi government faces," al-Dabbagh told reporters on Sunday.
Al-Dulaimi's charges are likely to add to the pressure already put to bear by the United States and its Western and Arab allies on al-Maliki to take concrete steps toward national reconciliation and to disband Shiite militias.....
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Quote:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...2/wiraq202.xml
Anger in Baghdad as Americans finish wall
Last Updated: 2:04am BST 03/05/2007
American forces have completed construction of a concrete wall around the Baghdad district of Adhamiya despite protests from the Iraqi prime minister and local residents who claim that they are now at the mercy of militants.
The wall was intended to help control the activities of militants in the predominantly Sunni Muslim district. But it remains a bastion of extremist al-Qa'eda linked groups. Parts of the district are so thick with armed militants that they are no-go zones to coalition forces.
Capt Mohammad Jasim, an Iraqi soldier manning a checkpoint on the Adhamiya bridge, said: "The Americans did not listen to us. We think this wall has made the area inside the wall more dangerous for people.
Um Doraid, a middle-aged housewife, said: "We here inside the wall are still as vulnerable as ever."
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Quote:
http://theiraqilord.blogspot.com/200...ght-every.html
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
I’ll See You in the Morning Light
Every single time I think to myself that they can’t do more damage, they can’t come up with more stupid ideas, but every single time they prove mo wrong.
America doesn't read history well. You see… America already tried the wall idea in Vietnam, they called it strategic hamlets. They forced the peasants to leave their original villages, confine them all in these strategic hamlets, which is protected by barb weirs, mine fields, bamboo fields, watchtowers, and walls. They wouldn't let the people out except during the day to work in the rice fields, thoroughly frisking them on entering and exiting the area in which they are confined, with 24 hours surveillance, even using helicopters to watch them while they work. They shot every person who tried to cross the barb weir fence. They rationed food and supplies to prevent the people from storing any; they gave everybody a name tag with his or her print on it. This started in July 1962, and phase 2 started in the beginning of 1963. the plan was to build more than 16 thousands hamlets, first in the quite zones, then further in the conflict zones, and last in the freed zones.
This plan backfired, because these peasants became more sympathetic with the Vietcong, because they felt no threat from them.
The pretence for building this wall around Adhmiyah, is to protect the Sunni inhabitants from the continuous attacks from neighboring Shiite neighborhoods, and to prevent retaliations from the Sunnis against these attacks.
Guerrilla warfare revolves around a basic idea that a guerrilla fighter is like a fish in the water, meaning that he swims in his community like a fish does in the water. The counter idea is to drain the water from the fish tank, i.e. to isolate the fighter from his community and surroundings buy using multiple combinations of the stick and carrot strategy, starting with trying to appeal to the locals and ends with mass punishment, mass arrests and mass executions.
This was in Vietnam, and the Americans tried it all in Iraq, but nothing worked. And now they are trying the last option which is to physically separate the fighters from the population by means on concrete walls.
The Americans tried this method in Flluga and Tal A’afar, with no successes also. There was no media focus on these previous attempts, but because Adhmiyah is the in the center of Baghdad as well as media focus, a great attention was to this plan.
This is nonsense; they reached a new record of stupidity. Nobody can be that stupid, nobody. Even George bush is not that stupid. I’m beginning to think that they want it that way, that they want civil war and turmoil in Iraq, that they never want to see Iraq stable. Because… come on, who the hell came up with that plan?
Algeria, Belfast, Vietnam, the west bank, and finally Adhmiyah, they haven’t learned anything from history. They haven’t learned that these walls don’t just separate people, they separate hearts, anger, grudges, suffering will grow behind these walls no matter how noble the purpose was, if noble at all.
And hey… while we are on this subject, our so called “elected prime minister” said that he didn't approve on the plane, but they went ahead with it anyway. It’s either that he has no say in these matters (which is, let’s face it, true) or he is lying (which is nothing new).
Either reason is…. Well… how can I put this? Either reason makes him look like a monkey. I’m thinking of sending him some peanuts.
They say they are going to build walls around other districts in Baghdad. I wonder when what they would look like when they finish them. I wonder how Baghdad is going to look like when they finish them. And I wonder how the walls within our hearts would look like when they finish them....
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