The Calm Before the Conflagration By Chris Hedges

Dandelion Salad

By Chris Hedges
Truthdig
Feb. 25, 2008

The United States is funding and in many cases arming the three ethnic factions in Iraq-the Kurds, the Shiites and the Sunni Arabs. These factions rule over partitioned patches of Iraqi territory and brutally purge rival ethnic groups from their midst. Iraq no longer exists as a unified state. It is a series of heavily armed fiefdoms run by thugs, gangs, militias, radical Islamists and warlords who are often paid wages of $300 a month by the U.S. military. Iraq is Yugoslavia before the storm. It is a cauldron of weapons, lawlessness, hate and criminality that is destined to implode. And the current U.S. policy, born of desperation and defeat, means that when Iraq goes up, the U.S. military will have to scurry like rats for cover.

The supporters of the war, from the Bush White House to Sen. John McCain, tout the surge as the magic solution. But the surge, which primarily deployed 30,000 troops in and around Baghdad, did little to thwart the sectarian violence. The decline in attacks began only when we bought off the Sunni Arabs. U.S. commanders in the bleak fall of 2006 had little choice. It was that or defeat. The steady rise in U.S. casualties, the massive car bombs that tore apart city squares in Baghdad and left hundreds dead, the brutal ethnic cleansing that was creating independent ethnic enclaves beyond our control throughout Iraq, the death squads that carried out mass executions and a central government that was as corrupt as it was impotent signaled catastrophic failure.

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via Truthdig

see

Jihad and 21st Century Terrorism (video)

New Study on the Cost of the Iraq War THREE TRILLION DOLLARS

Iraq: Unemployment Too Becomes an Epidemic by Ahmed Ali & Dahr Jamail

In Tatters Beneath a Surge of Claims by Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr Jamail

Dahr Jamail: Beyond the Green Zone (video; 07)

Where’s The Iraqi Voice? By Noam Chomsky

Bush’s Dirty Secret: Bribing Iraq Insurgents Not to Fight By Paul Craig Roberts

Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq (must-see video; Dahr Jamail)