Posts by Danyl Mclauchlan
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Just how stupid is D'Souza? Evidently he's pretty damn dumb, as this interview with Stephen Colbert shows.
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Here's fun: what do Public Address readers think lay behind Al Qaedas motives for an attack on the US?
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One of the weirdest biographies you will ever read is online - it's called Bare Faced Messiah, the unauthorised biography of L Ron Hubbard, and I guarantee your esteem for Tom and Katie will soar by the page . . .
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Meanwhile . . .
An Iraqi army brigade based in the northern Kurdish region is undergoing intensive training in urban combat and will be dispatched to Baghdad as part of a new joint U.S.-Iraqi security drive in the sprawling and violence-ridden city, the commander said Saturday. The brigade is one of two coming from the Kurdish region and a third brigade will come from southern Iraq. The second Kurdish brigade will come from the northern city of Sulaimaniyah.
I wonder who's brilliant idea it was to let the Kurdish peshemrga loose in the streets of Baghdad?
Well Maliki is first on my list of people I would not want to be right now. He has a pretty unenviable job. But I wouldn't right him off yet. He seems well meaning and with all the time he spent in opposition to Saddam he can't be stupid or lacking in courage.
I'm sure Malikis life as an exile in Syria and Iran running Dawas 'Jihad Office' instilled a deep and abiding commitment to peace, nation building and the democratic process.
I think Iraq could become an 'Islamic threat". Sure, it wasn't before the US led invasion, but that was only because "Islamists" had a solid base elsewhere; Pakistan, Afghanistan. Iran too, but they would never admit to it after the 'for us or against us' threat from Bush.
If - as seems likely - the Shia triumph in Iraq, which basically means ethnically cleansing Baghdad of Sunnis and marginalising them as a political force, then that is a massive loss to Al Qaeda, who are fanatically Sunni. However, it means a huge win for Iran which is a disaster for the US allies in the region, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia.
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The FT articulate the utter disaster that is US strategy in Iraq:
The contradiction at the heart of the US approach, however, is this: after casually overturning the Sunni order in Iraq and empowering the Shia in an Arab heartland country for the first time in nearly a millennium, Washington took fright at the way this had enlarged the power of the Shia Islamist regime in Iran. Now, while dependent on Tehran-aligned forces in Baghdad, and unable to dismantle the Sunni Jihadistan it has created in western Iraq, the US is trying to put together an Arab Sunni alliance against Iran. This is a fiasco with the fuel to combust into a region-wide conflagration.
Heck'va job, no? It's bad enough that President Bush decided that the best people to handle this delicate and fraught region of the world were Condi Rice, the most mediocre Secretary of State in living memory, and Rumsfeld, arguably the least competent Cabinet Secretary the Republic has ever known. It's even worse that they both despised each other and turned their bloody and botched occupation into a bureaucratic pissing contest, and a disaster that one of the principle architects of the war - Rice - is still (mis)managing things at State.
But the real tragedy is that the world still has another two years (almost to the day) with President Bush setting the tone in Washington, blithely insisting that somehow America will win in the end because after all they can't lose and that since God is on his side everything will eventually pan out for the best, with his idiot Secretary of State snug in her Oscar de le Renta outfit smiling and nodding agreement while over in Iraq the flames around the Green Zone lick a little higher.
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I feel good that Hamid Karzi is probably the most popular politician in the world; with a recent approval rating of 91%
Saddams approval ratings were consistently in the high 90's as well . . .
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**Maybe this time next year, all of Iraqs Shia will either be dead or refugees, the killing will stop and the President will announce that they've defeated the Iranian enemies and brought peace to the region.**
I didn't realise Shia Iraqis were losing this conflict (is anyone really winnin?). Is it really possible to defeat a group of people that make up 60% of the population? Who dominate the central government (so far as there is one?). Do you have some sources to verify your position Danyl?
Replace the word Shia with the word Sunni and it makes a lot more sense.
How that edit function coming along Russell?
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It's no surprise to see the Times buying into the Bush strategy in Iraq, which essentially boils down to arguing that you need to bet the company pension fund in order to win back the payroll. Clearly if you stop gambling now the company is in real trouble - but if you win big with the pension fund then everything will be alright.
Nancy Pelosi: 'But what if we loose the pension fund?'
The Times: 'Ha! What do girls know about corporate finance?'More interesting will be to see how the recent US offensive against Iranian targets in Iraq will play out. Is the US trying to construct a narrative in which Iranian agents (wreckers and saboteurs) are responsible for much of the violence? It's certainly easier than admitting that Iraqs democratically elected government is carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing against it's Shia foes, but doesn't suggest that those extra 20,000 troops are going to make much difference.
In the first weeks of the occupation the US army ran around the country trying to secure non-existent WMDs while members of Baarth Party military and intelligence cheerfully walked away with enough of Saddams unsecured conventional weapons to wage an insurgency for decades. Are US troops likely to spend the next-year hunting for cadres of imaginary Iranian agents, while the Sunni governments police and militia cheerfully carry on liquidating their Shia foes?
Maybe this time next year, all of Iraqs Shia will either be dead or refugees, the killing will stop and the President will announce that they've defeated the Iranian enemies and brought peace to the region.
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We go forward with trust that the Author of Liberty will guide us through these trying hours.
President Bush
Speech to the Nation
January 12, 2007"I’ve already got it all figured out. During the test I’m going to hide under a pile of coats and hope that somehow everything works out."
Homer Simpson
Homer Goes to College
Aired October 14, 1993 -
If the history of the iPod is anything to go by, the iPhone will be a great product to own in about four years time.
Maybe by then it'll also be able to connect to my home wireless network and I'll be able to get the radio on it. Both of those are far more useful to me than the ability to watch a movie on a microscopically small screen.