Antony Loewenstein

So much for the theory that Iraq would become worse if the US were to pull out of Iraq.

Residents of Iraq’s southern city of Basra have begun strolling riverfront streets again after four years of fear, their city much quieter since British troops withdrew from the grand Saddam Hussein-era Basra Palace.

Political assassinations and sectarian violence continue, some city officials say, but on a much smaller scale than at any time since British troops moved into the city after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Maybe Ron Paul is onto something.

In spite of the overwhelming public opposition to attacks on Iran, the Howard government remains unphased.

AUSTRALIA, Britain and Israel have reportedly “expressed interest” in a US campaign to launch surgical bombing raids on Iran targeting Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities.

As the scandal and news reports surrounding the conduct of Blackwater in Iraq pour out, the Bush administration responds as only it knows how, by awarding even more money to the contractor.

This is in spite of the fact that after the constant denials, the chairman of Blackwater has admitted that BW contractors are prone to shooting first and asking questions later.

Meanwhile, Washington continues to ignore the will of the supposedly sovereign Iraqi government

“In the first comprehensive account of the day’s events, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior said that security guards for Blackwater fired on Iraqis in their cars in midday traffic. The document concludes that the dozens of foreign security companies here should be replaced by Iraqi companies, and that a law that has given the companies immunity for years be scrapped.”

So much for the Iraqi government having any power to ban Blackwater USA and other private contractors.

Worst of all, the State Department has its fingerprints all over the cover-up of Blackwater’s activities, though there is precious little evidence the US government has done anything to reign in these abuses.

Think of the trillion dollars that could have been saved, the million lives saved, the tens of thousands of dead and injured U.S. soldiers. It has now been revealed that this could so easily have been averted were it not for the war loving psychopaths in Washington.

Saddam Hussein offered to step down and go into exile one month before the invasion of Iraq, it was claimed last night.

Fearing defeat, Saddam was prepared to go peacefully in return for £500million ($1billion).

The extraordinary offer was revealed yesterday in a transcript of talks in February 2003 between George Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at the President’s Texas ranch.

A common disease among international contractors working in Iraq, Afghanistan and various other 3rd world hellholes. Frequently attacks young men with only one war or enlistment under their belt, State Dept agents, Former LEOs, anyone associated with an Ambassadors detail and occasional poseurs. BKWF has many symptoms; if you have the following you may be infected:

1. Large amount of primping, i.e. mousse in your hair despite the
fact you live in a war zone.

2. Your forearms break out in tattoos, often tribal or USMC related

3. All your shirts are skintight “Under Armor” T-shirts

4. Have used, currently using or consider using steroids

5. Refer to yourself as a “Shooter” or “Operator for Blackwater”

6. Look down upon all other PSD teams that are NOT on the
Ambassadors Detail, to include other Blackwater employees.

7. Grow a beard to blend in with the locals, even though you are a
6ft tall blonde with a “Death before Dishonor” tattoo.

8. Think the UN pool is a good place to pick-up chicks

9. Are arrogant and condescending to people with more experience,
training and who make more money than you.

10. Forget that doing a mission that has been performed in the past
by Tier 1 assets does not make you a Tier 1 asset.

11. Truly believe you look good in Speedos

12. Despite the fact there are laundry facilities available you
insist on wearing a dirty brown T-shirt with your blood type in black magic
marker to work.

13. You wear a shemagh as an ascot to fit in with the locals

14. Because you are a “High Speed-Low Drag” PSD guy you think long
hair and an unkempt beard looks professional.

15. You are familiar with doing “high threat PSD with CAT team and
Air assets”.

16. Look puzzled when someone refers to the pool as a “Sausage Fest”

17. You carry a drop-leg holster, wear a Federal Agent Badge, flash
bangs, 5 or more pistol mags, asp, handcuffs, surefire light , leatherman,
on your belt and a Gerber mark II strapped to the outside of your boot, in the
embassy complex.

18. Thursday night is your favorite night of the week.

19. A drunken, naked, Englishman has pissed on the air vents of your trailer

20. You have excellent kit.

21. When your advance goes out on mission, Army MPs secure your
perimeter.

22. Believe by running locals off the road you are winning their
“hearts & minds”.

23. Despite earning a six figure income you wear a ragged ball cap
that has not ever been washed

24. Your 9 man PSD team consists of 34 men, 6 armored SUVs, 2 Army
Stryker vehicles, an MP company, 2 “little birds” and 2 AH-64
gunships. With an AC-130 on call!

25. Your entire wardrobe can be purchased at Brigade Quartermasters.

26. You have a Blackhawk credit card.

27. You refer to Myock as “The Farm”

28. You know what color the boathouse at Hereford is.

29. The girls talk to you because you “make the big bucks”

30. You have a Bear paw tattoo

31. The most dangerous thing you have ever done is: PSD!

32. You blouse your Royal Robins 5.11 pants into your boots

33. Often email pictures of yourself in body armor, weapons and kit
to all your friends, family and anybody that you have their email address.

34. Believe people really give a shit about seeing multiple pictures
of you in your body armor, weapons and kit.

35. If you have ever gotten drunk and pointed loaded weapon at your
best friend and thought it” was FUN!”

36. You demonstrated your “quick draw” technique to your girlfriend.

37. You have been seen wearing a black boonie hat, black shirt,
black pants, black boots, black body armor, black ammo pouches and a MP5in
a desert environment when its 110 degrees

38. You refer to yourself as a “rock n’ roll mercenary”

39. Despite having tons of assets-you have not left the Embassy Compound
since July.

40. As it has gets colder instead of wearing a long sleeve shirt,
you wear long underwear with a short sleeve golf shirt. But the golf shirt
has your company logo on it.

41. You have ridden a bicycle off the diving board into a swimming
pool and thought you were impressing people.

42. You spray paint your weapon into a desert camo pattern, though you
only operate in a urban envoirment

43. An MP5 is your primary weapon

44. All your T-shirts have a police, military, weapon, or SWAT
school logo on them

45. Chasing pussy is more important than your job performance

46. A chap from CRG has had to give you a lesson in manners, after
you pushed him out of your principles way. Even though the lad had
already stepped aside.”

New York Times columnist David Brooks personifies the disconnect between the Beltway and the American public.

Thus, this is what we hear: The Democratic controlled Congress has reached new depths of unpopularity, but what they are doing is politically smart. Most Americans really want us to stay in Iraq. Bloggers are espousing views that most Americans hate. Views held by most Americans are the province of the “radical angry Left.” Democrats can only win elections by supporting the popular President’s policies, avoiding any real differences, and scorning their own base. The only hope Democrats have is to adhere to prevailing Beltway orthodoxy.

That is the only real point of what David Brooks and most of his pundit comrades say and do over and over and over. And as their assertions become more and more transparently false, they just increasingly invoke misleading and deceitful tactics in order to maintain them.

It can’t be easy reading these polls from the spaceship he inhabits.

Another ingenious idea of targeting insurgents in Iraq.

A Pentagon group has encouraged some U.S. military snipers in Iraq to target suspected insurgents by scattering pieces of “bait,” such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and then killing Iraqis who pick up the items, according to military court documents.

Of course, we can rest assured that only an insurgent would stop to look at plastic explosives and ammunition.   It’s not like Iraqi people, particularly children, are curious by nature.

Ahmadinejad responds by asking what do Americans like about Bush. Pelley’s answer? Bush is a religious man.

“As an American citizen tell me what trait do you admire?” the president asked Pelley.

“Well Mr. Bush is without question a very religious man for example, as you are,” Pelley replied.

“What religion, please tell me, tells you as a follower of that religion to occupy another country and kill its people, please tell me, does Christianity tell its followers to do that?” Ahmadinejad asked.

When Pelley reads a statement from Bush to Ahmadinejad – he’s now too cowardly to meet with world leaders on his own and relies on reporters to pass along messages? – my irony meter redlined.

More confirmation that not only is the Iraqi government irrelevant, but that the Bush administration has no problem humiliating them publicly. In spite of Blackwater being ordered out of the country by the Iraqi government, they clearly are going nowhere. This makes a mockery of the suggestion that if the Iraqi government were to request the US to leave, such a request would be honoured.

As for Blackwater, the stench just won’t go away.

In spite of the fact that Iran not only had nothing to do with 9/11, officially condemned the attack and hosted a one million strong demonstration against the attack in its immediate aftermath, the Right is ramping up its Iran bashing.

The argument given is that Iran is arming those who are attacking US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, in spite of the absence of evidence and in some cases, even contradictions from those in positions to know.

The appearance of Ahmadinejad at Columbia University has also got the war lovers in a lather. Glenn Reynolds recently wrote:

Plus, the San Jose Mercury News on Stanford’s McCarthyism. “Universities should be paragons for the open exchange of ideas, even if they’re controversial or unpopular. And all connected with private and public university communities should protect that ideal.”

Which is it? Open exchange of ideas or not?

It’s so funny when the wingnuts start tripping over each other.

Pretty futile when the Iraqi forces are only doing it 8% of the time.

What more proof do we need that Iran is a threat to the world?

The deputy commander of Iran’s air force said Wednesday that plans have been drawn up to bomb Israel if the Jewish state attacks Iran, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Only a regime bent on genocide would contemplate retaliation were it to be attacked, right?

Imagine the shoe on the other foot: Syria bombs Israel’s nuclear facility at Dimona in the Negev, its German-built Dolphin-class submarines equipped with American-made Harpoon missiles modified to carry small nuclear warheads, and the Israel Institute for Biological Research at Ness Ziona, where Israel allegedly manufactures Sarin nerve gas, a weapon of mass destruction.

Now imagine the blood red 72 point headlines in the New York Times calling for turning Syria into a glass parking lot.

“On Sunday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the international community should prepare for the possibility of war in the event that Iran obtains atomic weapons, although he later appeared to soften that statement.”

Let’s turn this one on its head: “On Sunday, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara said the international community should prepare for the possibility of war due to fact Israel has nuclear weapons and has threatened to use them under the dictates of its Samson Option. In 2002, before Bush invaded Iraq, Ariel Sharon threatened to ‘a retaliatory strike … if Iraq launched a pre-emptive strike against the Jewish State before an American military campaign had got underway,’ according to the Scotsman.

Oops…