More Like This
U.S./Iraqi forces have a good day in Sadr City. Mahdi Army has a bad day. LA Times:
U.S. aircraft opened fire on an east Baghdad neighborhood yesterday and killed 32 members of an al-Mahdi militia offshoot, the military said, in its latest strike against radical Shiite factions.
An Iraqi police official speaking on the condition of anonymity said nine people were killed, at least two of them women. The toll was later updated to 10.
Some residents in Sadr City, a Shiite slum largely controlled by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army, described watching as civilians were struck down, but a U.S. military spokesman insisted later they had killed only fighters.
The raid targeted the so-called Iraqi Special Groups, an armed faction that American officials say is backed by Iran and responsible for attacks using armor-piercing bombs that have killed U.S. troops.
…
U.S. and Iraqi forces came under sporadic fire when they raided a building, fatally shot two armed guards and detained suspects, the military said. When militia reinforcements started to arrive, the statement said, fighter jets and combat helicopters struck, claiming the lives of 30 more militants.
The EFPs, thought to be used mostly by Shiite militants, are viewed by the U.S. military as one of the gravest threats in Iraq. EFPs were used against U.S. forces 99 times in July, an all-time high, and killed 23 soldiers during the month, a military spokesman said. The EFP shoots off a molten copper slug that can burst through a Humvee or a Stryker vehicle’s armor.
The U.S. military has managed in the past two months to cut deals with many Sunni Arabs who formerly fought the Americans and now want to battle insurgents affiliated with al-Qaida. While Sunnis have started to find common cause with the Americans, Shiite extremists carried out 73 percent of all attacks in July that killed or wounded U.S. forces in Baghdad, the military spokesman said.
Too bad about the civilians, if in fact there were any. That’s what happens when you let terrorists set up operations in your neighborhood.
Here’s the good part:
The raid in Sadr City came as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited Iran to discuss Iraqi security and economic ties between the two nations. Iraqi officials, including some close to the prime minister, think Iran has been supplying weapons to al-Sadr-affiliated armed groups.
Must have been awkward. Here’s what came out of that: U.S. withdrawal needed for security, Iran tells Iraq. Sure, if we withdraw to Tehran.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:44 am on Thursday, August 9, 2007
44 Responses to “More Like This”
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August 9th, 2007 at 10:51 am
I’m sure that we can set up some fine FOBs around Tehran. Ought to really jumpstart the Iranian economy.
August 9th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Iraqi/Iranian talks:
Iran: We want to be friends with you, but you have to make the US go, because they scare us, and they might hurt us if we (Allah forbid) try to take over, which we would never do, honest.
Iraq: Sure, sure, we want to be friends with you, and we will be as long as we can keep the US Army close by to make sure you stay on your side of the border.
August 9th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
I’m pretty sure the must have been at least 200-300 civilians killed. That’s the new “standard” civie casualty count for any action in the media these days…even when the actual number might have been zero.
August 9th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
I love heart-warming, feel-good stories like this. I hope to hear one about Mookie getting sent off to Allah’s Cathouse soon.
August 9th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Hey, great blog, but a small point: Baltimore, not LA Times. LAT is a pretty lefty evil rag, FYI…
August 9th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
“Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited Iran to discuss Iraqi security and economic ties between the two nations.”
How about if he just stays there. Maybe he can room with Mookie.
August 9th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Why should Iran stop its proxy wars, whether they be in Lebanon or Iraq? It gets them what they want–time. We are making all the deals that satisfy the myopic “realists”, but all we will get for our trouble is more war down the road, only it will be with nuclear weapons, not sophisticated guerrilla armaments and snipers from the Quds forces.
To sit down with an enemy, while that enemy is engaged in killing our forces and imprisoning American citizens, is immoral. In doing so, we not only abet those killings, but we empower a tyranny to continue to enslave and imprison their own people, the very people we would depend on to challenge the tyrants.
August 9th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Salty 10-4 on everything you said!
August 9th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
We went to war to fight Sunni terrorists…and now we’re droppin’ bombs on innocent Shiites…and applauding.
Brilliant.
August 9th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
We went to war to fight Sunni terrorists
Really? Because we wouldn’t want to inconvenience Shiite terrorists right?
August 9th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Muqtada al-Sadr isn’t a threat to the United States, PA.
He never was.
Patraeus is a loser, quite possibly insane.
August 9th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Patraeus is a loser, quite possibly insane.
LMAO! That’s rich, coming from you, al-Phie.
August 9th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
“Muqtada al-Sadr isn’t a threat to the United States, PA.”
He’s a threat to any chance of a pluralist society in Iraq, you clueless jack**s. Haven’t you been paying attention?
“Patraeus is a loser, quite possibly insane.”
Shriller and shriller as your narrative unravels more every day, jihad boy. Still no updates from your handlers and getting the feeling you’ve been cut loose?
Be that as it may, one might hope you meet the good general someday and tell him what you think of them to their face. He’d ignore you as the pissant you are, but there’s usually a Sgt Major about who’d take you aside for consult.
Or you could approach Michael Yon…
August 9th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Give it up, old man.
Iraq will be run by fundamentalist Shiites whether our troops stay there another month or another 10 years.
Everyone but the freaks running our military knew this before the first shot was fired.
All our military is doing now is killing innocents so they don’t have to admit to such an obvious mistake.
August 9th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Lemme see if i can remember this….hmmmm.
Moron
Imbecile
Idiot
Invertebrate
Parasite
Wretch
Amoeba
Pond Scum
al-phie
Think I got it.
August 9th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Oh, should anyone think something should be added…please do…just make sure the unuseful one, is on the bottom. Ummm, just like in real life.
August 9th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Saltydog–your clarity is absolute.
If only there were 60 members of congress who spoke like you.
Bush had some choice words today for the Iranians
“Bush Says Iraqi Leader Shares His View on Iran” NYT
…Mr. Bush also directed some of his comments to the Iranian people in urging them to end the isolation he said was imposed on them by their government.
“Iran can do better,” Mr. Bush said. “The government is isolating its people. The government has caused America and other nations — rational nations — to say, ‘We will work together to do everything we can to deny you economic opportunity because of the decisions you are making.’ ”
“My message to the Iranian people is, ‘You can do better than this current government,’ ” Mr. Bush said. “You don’t have to be isolated. You don’t have to be in a position where you can’t realize your full economic potential.”
“And the United States of America will continue to work with our friends and allies in the Security Council and elsewhere to put you in a position to deny you your rightful place in the world — not because of our intention; because of your government’s intention,” Mr. Bush said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/world/middleeast/09cnd-prexy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
August 9th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Give it up?
Again, haven’t you been paying attention? The professional liars didn’t meet the time constraints. Using marching morons like yourself was a failure, and failure is something you’re likely intimately acquainted with. I expect that is just how life always seems to work out for you, alphavictim.
Haven’t you been paying attention? The MSM is no longer interested in abetting BDS against a lameduck president with the election taking over the political news cycle. Without their running interference, your handlers lost control of the narrative, jihad boy. I’ve been telling you this since it became apparent to me 2 months ago.
Haven’t you been paying attention? The congress is tuning out Pelosi and Reid in favor of tuning in their personal prospects for employment after 11/08. The slim majority the marching moron vote gave them has been seen for what it is by more and more dems every day - poisonous ranting by the unwashed, unhinged, and uninformed - and being seen as serious on winning the GWOT is now a lot more important to their prospects than pandering to baboonery. The only questions left for Pelosi and Reid is how to avoid responsibiity for losing and take credit for their opponent’s success.
Be sure you turn out the lights when you leave the belfry, jihad boy. You may be the last moonbat still flapping around up there at this rate.
Shriller and shriller.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Old man,
The Democrats currently have a majority in the Senate.
Next year, 21 Republicans senators are up for re-election…and only 12 Democrats.
The odds of the fools who got us into Iraq winning back a majority are exactly…zero.
Y’all better stock your bunker with some more case of Pork n’ Beans…you’ve got a loooong wait ahead of you.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Moron
Imbecile
Idiot
Invertebrate
Parasite
Wretch
Amoeba
Pond Scum
al-phie
August 9th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
’tis so easy to converse, with a bottom dweller.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
no arguements…just state the reality
August 9th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
nor, arguments
August 9th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
salty dog:
The US has even sat down with the Iranians, that does not make the US rep Corker immoral. The truth is that not long ago Karzai said he thought Afghanistan could be friends with Iran. There is a difference between what people say publicly and what they say privately and the truth is if the Sunni had not harbored AlQaida and their ilk for so long and killed so many Shia civilians it would be a lot easier for someone like Maliki to avoid dealing with the Iranians, besides that they share a border.
The general feeling when the Iraqi government was put together was to make the PM weak so that they could avoid another Saddam, the end result was that Maliki lacks the authority to reign in all the groups in that country.
It is easy for people to criticize him over here, but all the members of that government risk their lives everyday..
BTW, the US sat down with the Soviets many times over the years in spite of the fact that they carried on proxy wars all over the globe against us. The US also sat down with the North Koreans while our troops were still being shot at in the Korean War. This is nothing new.
Having said that I do not trust the Iranians.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
And Bush did not criticize Maliki for talking to the Iranians.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
alphie:
You moron.
Not all Shia are alike. There is the Najaf school and the Qom school and they have a different way of looking at politics and religion. It is also true that both Shia and Sunni are increasingly disenchanted with the extremists because of their brutality and their restrictive codes and rules.
The majority of the Shia in Iraq are not Persian either.
I know that you bigots think they all look alike, but it should be remembered that back in the day when Saint Bill was running was the show he tried time and again to get Saddam overthrown and supported regime change knowing full well that the Shia were a majority. It was his feeling that the people of Iraq could and would govern themselves given the opportunity, that was the national policy of the US long before Bush came along. In fact he gave some really nice speeches to that effect. You can read, go look them up.
And the crack about the military was stupid, put stuff like that on a few bumper stickers and you will be amazed at how quickly the Democrats could lose that majority.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
While Maliki was in Tehran this week, he met with the families of the five Iranians we kidnapped in Maliki’s county…and promised them he’d do everything he could to secure their release.
I don’t think it will be much longer until he gives our troops the boot.
A nice face-saving exit for America.
August 9th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Moron
Imbecile
Idiot
Invertebrate
Parasite
Wretch
Amoeba
Pond Scum
al-phie
See, so easy. No commenting, just cut and pasting…
August 9th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
commenting with, arguing, debating, or making points and/or counter points with a bottom dweller, is so boring
August 9th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
and this bottom dweller is kinda’ like a really terrible communicable disease, usually once you have it…it’s yours…forever.
August 9th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
So let’s see…that’s…two thousand, three hundred and four virgins all told
Jules Crittenden notices that the Mahdi Army is having a very bad day in Sadr City. Courtesy of US forces, thirty-two of them have had an especially bad day. And if their theological speculations were at all valid, over two…
August 9th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Marching moron,
“The Democrats currently have a majority in the Senate.”
Yup. And an approval rating in the low teens. Effective leadership…not. Bluedog dems bailing…yes.
“Next year, 21 Republicans senators are up for re-election…and only 12 Democrats.”
Similar to 2006 with the party affiliations reversed. And the dems couldn’t win a majority…oh, wait…no wait, that’s not what…Waiiit. See, in 2006 the republican majority congress approval rating was…no, wait…I mean in comparison to the dem majority approval…no, wait, Waiiiit.
That a good approximation of your logic, alphavictim?
“Y’all better stock your bunker with some more case of Pork n’ Beans…you’ve got a loooong wait ahead of you.”
Dem majority certainly seems solid to me. But stock your clubhouse with grape soda and Twinkies, alphavictim. Just in case.
August 9th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
“I don’t think it will be much longer until he gives our troops the boot.”
Got part of it right. You don’t think.
What do you think this is, alphavictim, a game? Ah, right, you don’t think.
Here’s a hint. We’re fighting a war colloquially called the Global War On Terror. This is not the peanut farmers apologetic America any longer. It ain’t the man from Hope’s metrosexual ‘I feel your pain’ America any longer. Malliki can tell any Iranians anything he wants. Maliki knows he can tell any Iranians anything he needs to to serve the moment. Know why bonehead? We don’t dance to Iranian tunes anymore. Maliki knows this too.
August 9th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Muqtada al-Sadr isn’t a threat to the United States
I said nothing about Mookie. That’s all your invention.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:06 am
Those were Sadr’s guys our crusaders were aiming at when they blowed up all the Iraqi civilians, PA.
Patraeus and his boys killed innocents yesterday while shooting at some other people who are no threat whatsoever to America.
It think that means we’re the terrorists in Iraq now.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:49 am
Terrye:
With all due respect, our congress with the Soviets was a mistake we are still paying for. In Feb. 2004, in an article for NRO addressing Kerry and Soviet propaganda during the Viet Nam war, Ion Mihai Pacepa (the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc) wrote:
As a spy chief and a general in the former Soviet satellite of Romania, I produced the very same vitriol Kerry repeated to the U.S. Congress almost word for word and planted it in leftist movements throughout Europe. KGB chairman Yuri Andropov managed our anti-Vietnam War operation. He often bragged about having damaged the U.S. foreign-policy consensus, poisoned domestic debate in the U.S., and built a credibility gap between America and European public opinion through our disinformation operations. Vietnam was, he once told me, “our most significant success.” [...]
The KGB campaign to assault the U.S. and Europe by means of disinformation was more than just a few Cold War dirty tricks. The whole foreign policy of the Soviet-bloc states, indeed its whole economic and military might, revolved around the larger Soviet objective of destroying America from within through the use of lies. The Soviets saw disinformation as a vital tool in the dialectical advance of world Communism. [...]
Many “Ban-the-Bomb” and anti-nuclear movements were KGB-funded operations, too. I can no longer look at a petition for world peace or other supposedly noble cause, particularly of the anti-American variety, without thinking to myself, “KGB.” [...]
Leftist intellectuals in America now look to Europe — steeped for years in anti-American propaganda from the Soviet Union — for “a sane and frank European criticism of the Bush administration’s war policy.” Indeed, anti-Americanism in Europe today is almost as ferocious as it was during Vietnam. France and Germany insist we are torturing the al Qaeda prisoners held at Guantanamo Base. The Mirror, a British newspaper, is confident that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair were “killing innocents in Afghanistan.” The Paris daily Le Monde put Jean Baudrillard on its front page asserting that “the Judeo-Christian West, led by America, not only provoked the [September 11] terrorist attacks, it actually desired them.”
In June 2002, a documentary film on “U.S. war crimes” in Afghanistan was shown in the German Bundestag by the crypto-Communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). The film faithfully reincarnated the style of old Soviet-bloc “documentaries” demonizing the U.S. war in Vietnam. According to this 20-minute movie, American soldiers were involved in the torture and murder of some 3,000 Taliban prisoners in the region of Mazar-e-Sharif. One witness in the film even claimed he had seen an American soldier break the neck of one Afghan prisoner and pour acid on others.
During my last meeting with Andropov, he said, wisely, “now all we have to do is to keep the Vietnam-era anti-Americanism alive.” Andropov was a shrewd judge of human nature. He understood that in the end our original involvement would be forgotten, and our insinuations would take on a life of their own. He knew well that it was just the way human nature worked.
Does that sound familiar? We were chatting with the Soviets throughout their propaganda war. We talked with North Korea and called a truce with those people that led directly to the war in Viet Nam, and we are still spending treasure and men on South Korea while North Korea starves its people and threatens us to this day.
The propaganda that Andropov said would take on a life of its own has done so, and it threatens us today. The Progressives that taught my contemporaries to hate their country and protest the Viet Nam war did their job well. Their students went into politics, philosophy, psychology, journalism, and most destructively, teaching. We now have a couple of generations of perfect products like alphie, who spew their venom like the little collectivist drones they are.
You cannot give sanction to evil, which is what we did with the Soviets, and with most other totalitarians around the world. What have we gained? The good has nothing to gain from evil, but evil gains much from the sanction of the good. All we have done is to set ourselves up for the slow death of countless little wars, wars that might have been avoided had we stood our ground and let tyrants know that the consequences of actions against us would be their destruction. Thinking that we can somehow reason with people whose goal is to destroy us evades the reality of the actions taken against us. Treating with Iran in any manner gives them the sanction due a rational state that can be trusted to deal with honesty and whose self-interest is in accordance with ours. Iran has been quite straight-forward for over 30 years since the Revolution in letting the world know what it considers to be its self-interest–out of both sides of its Janus face. The most consistent words out of their collective mouth has been “Death to America.”
August 10th, 2007 at 12:52 am
Opps, I forgot to give a link to that article:
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/pacepa200402260828.asp
Sorry about that.
August 10th, 2007 at 7:00 am
salty dog:
You are missing my point. Do you think we should have nuked them and started WW3?
I am not saying we should roll over for the Iranians and my guess is there is more going on here than we see on the evening news. I am simply saying that the Iraqis and the Afghanis share a border with the Iranians and have to deal with them. It is not realistic to think it will be otherwise. I am also saying that it is not realistic or right to accuse someone like Corker of doing something treasonous by doing his job
August 10th, 2007 at 7:01 am
And btw, the moral preening is not attractive when someone else has to deal with the consequences. The Iraqis live there.
August 10th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Terrye,
I’ve appreciated reading your back and forth and I understand your point:
“the moral preening is not attractive when someone else has to deal with the consequences. The Iraqis live there.”
I think our invested in blood and treasure gives a right to be a bit sanctimonious here. I know in the past we picked up and left when our attention span waned or we tried to assert ourselves when we had no presence. This is different. At least I hope it is. That is what the Bush Doctrine is about—anti-realism. No more Democratic appeasement or Republican cynicysm.
I would never say Crocker is being treasonous by meeting with the Iranians, or even immoral. He should have be the first and only ambassador to Iraq, no Bremmer. Crocker has been in the Mideast most of his life and is fluent in Arabic. He’s an incredible figure.
I’m sure there were some heated meetings between us and the USSR where we said “we know what doing and knock it off” and that’s that kind of diplomacy I admire. That is the kind of diplomacy that Crocker is doing with the Iranians. He is doesn’t look hard but I from what I read he can get through to the Iranians. Some of the meeting have been very heated.
And the major problem with Iranians and all practitioners of jihad is they negotiate in bad faith knowing they don’t have to uphold any promises made to “infidels”. Did the USSR lie to us? Sure. But not like this. Not with messianic, apocalyptic goals for their region. The practice of deception in Islam is called taqiyya.
taqiyya: Dissimulation; lying for the sake of ones religion; concealing ones true religious beliefs for strategic reasons. Taqiyya is a lie by commission, rather than by omission, as in kitman. The concept of al-taqiyya is one historically associated with Shia Islam. This is because Sunni Muslims, who believe that Shiites are heretics, would impel them to denounce their faith, thinking this would expose them as mushrikeen when they refused to. In response, the Shia would do so, but hold true to their faith in their hearts, thus preserving their faith and their lives. Taqiyya is now used by all Muslims as a means of deceiving infidels about Islam’s aims, practices, and aspirations.
http://clarityandresolve.com/lexicon.php
As for Ahmedinjad, he already declared war on the US in his open letters to us. Most people, me included, just didn’t know how to read it. You’d have to be an Islamic scholar.
“The Iranians’ ultimatum”
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
Published December 3, 2006
http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20061202-102122-5483r.htm
August 10th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Terrye:
1. Nuking them and starting WWIII is a false alternative.
2. I did not call Corker treasonous. He is doing his job, just as our military is doing their jobs.
3. A little over a year ago I buried my beloved nephew after he was killed in Iraq. I know perfectly well who pays.
August 10th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
From the WaPo article…
“Iran fully backs Iraq’s popular government… Iraq’s biggest problem is the presence of American forces there,” Iran’s most powerful figure, Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as telling Maliki in the holy city of Mashhad by the official IRNA news agency.
This “presence of American troops in Iraq” as the biggest impediment has been Moqtada al Sadr’s shtick for months, perhaps going on years.
Of course, Moqtada received the shtick from his Iranian handlers.
There’s nothing new here.
And why in the name of Allah should it be up to Iran to dictate what does or doesn’t have to happen in Iraq as a precondition ?
And IF you think Iran wants a “peaceful” Iraq as its neighbor (as opposed to absorption) then you haven’t understood Iran’s ambitions in the region and real reason for actively not wanting “stable” gov’t to emerge next door.
Iran lends its aid and support (and training) in Iraq precisely as it does in south Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Gaza (Hamas).
August 10th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
That’s very bad news, saltydog.
I haven’t followed the thread here too well.
Best to you.
August 11th, 2007 at 1:26 am
tanstaafl–
Very well said–great analysis.
‘Absorption of Iraq is the goal’. I could see that ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis would then commence on a large scale. Muqtada’s death squads already cleared many mixed neighborhoods in Baghdad of Sunnis. He’s no patriot. He’s a cold blooded sectarian murderer with US blood on his hands. He should have a bounty on his head like OBL.
As you so deftly point out Iran’s identical support of Hamas and Hezbollah refutes any claims that they are not supporting militias in Iraq.
Since the US is not present in Lebanon or Israel, Iran cannot claim we are the impediment to peace. Iran is the instigator. Iran is the scorpion.