Dan Lyons

ETHNIC CLEANSING: THIRTY THOUSAND IRAQIS--so far!-- FLEE from hostile neighbors (of the other sect) in mixed neighborhoods. REUTERS

E.C. is of course the clear beginning of (unstoppable) civil war. Clinton bombed Kosovo to stop the Serbs from driving out the Albanians from Kosovo. (Now, even under NATO occupation, the Albanians are driving the Serbs out of Kosovo!) Hundreds of thousands were killed in E.C. when Pakistan split off from India.

Meanwhile Bush & his henchmen blandly deny the reality of civil war in Iraq. (They pretend they're keeping GIs there to PREVENT civil war..how GIs could do that, they don't say! Truth is, goofy Bush invasion CAUSED this civil war.)
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A senior Shia cleric called for the resignation of meddling U.S. ambassador--who thinks he's King of Iraq, issuing orders from Bush about who's NOT to be named Prime Minister !
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Rummy says truly that our bugging out of Iraq will NOT mean we needn't worry about attack on our Homeland. What he doesn't say is that staying in Iraq won't make us a bit safer at home.

In fact, keeping our troops there without suppressing insurgents

--will recruit more terrorists among Muslims worldwide, as allegations of our atrocities circulate instantaneously around the world;

--will train more terrorists in Iraq in how to fight vs. First-World army; it will also increase terrorists' morale, as they see again and again how helpless our troops are in Iraq;

--will waste more hundreds of billions on this goofy conflict, robbing our Homeland Defense effort;

--in other words, Bush's pig-headed refusal to pull troops out of Iraq will make our Homeland even MORE vulnerable than it is now !

(Most Americans realize this by now; but Bush has 3 more years as King. GOP Congress could force him to pull out (as Dem Congress forced Nixon/Ford out of Vietnam)--but GOP legislators are far too tame to do this.)

--

"NOT GOVT'S FAULT!" / OH YEAH ? !
80% of Americans say govt. could solve our energy crisis.
REUTERS
But they AREN'T SOLVING IT ! (Gas prices rising. Crude Oil prices jumping up, because of Bushie threats to Iran]

Whose fault?
GOP has controlled govt., on & off, for decades.
Right now, GOP runs ALL THREE FEDERAL BRANCHES.
Blame them !

BUSH BURBLES: "BLAME SADDAM !" (for present intersectarian killings.) Boston.com
But observers say that under Saddam, there was friendship, mixed neighborhoods, and intermarriage beween Shia & Sunni--at least until US encouraged Shia to revolt, then double-crossed them, leaving Saddam free to attack them remorselessly (using Sunni troops).

Even then, until the invasion, they got along--and afterwards,--until the fanatic Sunni Zarqawistas (unleashed by Bush's invasion) deliberately set out to start a civil war--by slaughtering & provoking Shia, who outnumber Sunnis 3 to 1.
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Once again Bush mouths the obvious lie that if we pulled out, the terrorists would have a 'safe haven' to develop nukes and threaten U.S. ! When we bug out, the Kurds will ally themselves with the Shia and massacre the Sunni terrorists, plus a lot of innocent Sunnis (outnumbered 4 to 1! ) Whatever happens, the Sunni terrorists are NOT going to take over Iraq !

What enrages Bush is that, thanks to his blunders, IRAN will dominate Iraq ! At least the Shia section.

GANGSTERS RULE IN 3 BIGGEST IRAQ CITIES: Some may be (Shia) policemen acting as gangsters. Middle-class get kidnapped for ransom.
University is in chaos; students think only of escaping from Iraq. 89 profs killed in 3 years; THREE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN TEACHERS killed in LAST THREE MONTHS!

New govt. nonexistent. Old Shia/Kurd alliance wrecked by Shia refusal to let Kurds grab oil-soaked Kirkuk.

Bush orders them to dump Al Jaafari as PrimeMinister--but A.J. is backed by 'Pope' Sistani; also by Sadr and Shia hierarchy.Bush's arrogance has just deepened rift between Americans and Shia--who plausibly think Bushies were shocked at Shia electoral victory--(Bushies are often surprised by world events!)[ INDEPENDENT ]

Shia are in catbird seat, able to simply sit out this impasse. They run the interim 'caretaker' govt, getting salaries while other elected pols don't. And constitution gives them the right of deFacto secession. They will have most of the population (they're driving Sunnis out of Baghdad) and the only seaport, and MOST OF THE OIL. They also have giant Iran next door as Shia ally.

All Kurds can do is grab Kirkuk and secede. And next-door Turkey (anxious not to have its own Kurds encouraged by Iraq/Kurd success) threatens invasion if they do. (Americans could stop conventional invasion, even bomb Turkey Homeland if Turks try 'guerilla' invasion. But Turkey is an old ally of US & Israel. On the other hand, Israel has been training Kurdish peshmerga troops. That old alliance may be dead.)
[Turks have reason for concern. Turkish Kurds have rioted for several days. [ SeattlePI ]
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"I lived through the Iran/Iraq war, along with 2 Gulf wars. I witnessed 13 years of crushing economic sanctions..But what's happening now has far surpassed all that !" al Jazeera

The pot boils on.

DISMAL IRAQI MILITIA: US brags that it's handing over 'control' of large areas of bloody Anbar province to its 'all/Iraq' army--but soldiers in this unit have very low morale--TWO IN THREE are absent-without-leave. They serve only for the money--in other words, they are MERCENARIES. They lack supplies--often they lack food! They must be backed up by GIs.
They despise the elected pols, each seemingly concerned only to grab his share of the perks.

US hoped they would be able (better than Americans who don't even speak the language!) to detect insurgents. But the troops are Shia and the locals are Sunnis, unwilling to share info with these men from an alien sect. FinTimes

(US is trying to recruit Sunnis into militia. But Sunnis recruited are often insurgent infiltrators !)

"IRAN A MENACE BESIDES ITS NUKES !" says Rice--"the greatest threat we face !" (She's forgotten about ferocious, nuke-armed NorthKorea!)

She mentioned Iran's supporting terrorists. GUARDIAN True that Iran supports Hezbollah, which is still refusing to recognize Israel. So let Israel bomb them!

One doubts that Shiite Iran is supporting the Sunni terrorists in Iraq, who are slaughtering Shiites!

Perhaps the real offence of Iran (which makes them our greatest danger!) is their threat to help oil-sellers switch to euros, away from dollars.
[See 'PLAUSIBLE THEORY..' below.

MILITARY COUP POSSIBLE? [letter to HARPERS MAGAZINE]
Your discussion [APR'06] of the possibility of a military coup in America was interesting. This possibility was minimized
a) by our military personnel's training to respect civilian control (which admittedly is weakening) and
(b) by the fact that the Pentagon is now getting all the favors it could ever want. Why stage a revolt?

The Pentagon budget--over $1500 millions each day, with only a small portion going for our two current wars!--this budget is swallowing up any funds for Homeland Defense. Pentagon bombers are useless against stateless terrorist INDIVIDUALS, the real danger facing us. Result? We are needlessly vulnerable to terrorist attacks of many sorts.

Your discussion never mentioned the horde of infantry robots now developed and ready for mass-production. We have always assumed that US soldiers wouldn't attack Americans--but US robots wouldn't hesitate.
They could be directed by a fairly small cohort of rebel officers.

Our gun-nuts brag that they would defend us against a tyrant.It would be an example of black humor to watch them, armed with handguns, facing an impassive line of tyrant's disposable robots.

WHO NEEDS 'EM? Bushies say we have to keep troops in Iraq to guarantee 'security'. But of course Sunnis don't trust us in that regard.
Now Shia leaders say they want our army to bow out of 'security' matters.

That would leave only the Kurds wanting us to stay in. And the Kurds have never counted on us to guarantee their security. (There are almost no GIs in Kurdland; they are guarded very well by their Peshmerga, and have been since before the invasion!)

IRAQIS WANT US OUT! IRAQ GIs DON'T WANT TO STAY THERE ! U.S. MAJORITY WANTS US OUT!

Only goofy Bush & his imperialist advisors insist that we stay in.

BUSH INTERFERES in Iraq politics, trying to veto alJafari as new Prime Minister. REUTERS

We'll see if such blatant meddling works, or backfires.

IRAN ATTACK 'INCONCEIVABLE', says Jack Straw, Blairite foreign minister. Many Brit & US honchos have said otherwise. UnitedPress

Who cares what this poodle says? He's still on Bushies' leash. They will attack if they THINK Iran retaliation will be weak. And they are not famous for predicting foreign reactions to their ignorant lunges.

CALLOUS & GOOFY: (ltr to USATODAY)
One F. Rudin [letters28Mar] thinks Bush's real policy is to distract terrorists from attacking our Homeland by offering them our Iraq GIs instead; he approves of this use of GIs as bait.

His idea is goofy as well as callous. Among one billion Muslims worldwide (scattered all over the world, of every race and color)--
IF only one in ten thousand sides with the terrorists,
that's one hundred thousand terrorist volunteers or supporters.
They're not distracted; indeed, they're more strongly motivated by photos and stories (true or false) of our troops' atrocities in Iraq.
(A new series of awful prisoner-abuse photos are coming out shortly.
Many are already printed on Salon.com.)

And insurgent volunteers are being trained in Iraq in tactics for fighting first-world armies.

Luckily, most Americans see that this war has made our Homeland LESS safe.

I sympathize with Rudin--when no real benefits accrue to U.S. from the war, one is left guessing about the payoff Bush HOPED FOR from the invasion!
[The post just below "A PLAUSIBLE THEORY" offers a believable theory about Bush's strategy.]
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For a glimpse of the way our alleged atrocities reverberate immediately around the Muslim world, see editorial on the US attack Sunday, in
AsiaTribune

As long as we keep troops in Iraq, we will be vulnerable to such accusations.

A PLAUSIBLE THEORY ABOUT BUSHIES' STRATEGY:
This claims that they were alarmed when Saddam switched from dollars to euros. (People said he'd lose, but in fact, dollar sank relative to euro, and he made millions ! ) It turns out that US dollar would sink drastically if all the oil companies chose to have oil 'denominated' in euros, not in dollars.
(According to econ.theory, dollar should have sunk already, because of our unheard of deficits! Perhaps only its role as world reserve currency has prevented collapse up till now.)

So Bushies invaded, and promptly switched Iraq's accounts back from euros to dollars. Wm.R.Clark

Now they're threatening to bomb the hell out of Iran--NOT perhaps from fear of Iran's nuke program, but because Iran said that--as of this March ! --
it would open a new oil-trading-post (a 'bourse') where oil could be 'denominated' in currencies other than the dollar.

(Actually, I believe the bourse-opening has been postponed. ??? In any case, sooner or later, this switch to Euro will happen. It might be smart to sell dollars short.)

I can't understand this complex economic theory--but one reason to take it seriously is this: although google shows almost TWO MILLION references for Iran + bourse, none of these is to a mainstream media source !
Their silence seems to indicate that our Establishment figures fear this theory being publicized.
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PaulCraigRoberts says the damage from euro-denominated oil is far less than the financial damage from attacking Iran. ANTIWAR
However, the damage from attack may fall on whole US, while the damage from denomination-change may fall heavily on that minority who control our policy !

OOPS ! Here, before,I quoted Greg Palast's March article, which simplified matters to say we invaded Iraq in order to RAISE gas prices here ! That would have been a bombshell. HOWEVER:

In Oct.'05, Palast wrote a more complex theory: http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=471&row=0
In his October view, the 'pragmatists' in D.C. DID want to keep on Saddam's alliance with OPEC (holding production down & prices up). But the 'neocons' wanted to wreck OPEC and Saudi Arabia by having Iraq 'privatize' the oil industry, increase production markedly and cut world prices. And at first our Iraq govt. set out to do that.

So (acc.to Palast in October) we didn't invade to hike oil-prices (or even to maintain high prices). However, shortly thereafter, Big Oil put pressure on the Bushies; they dumped the 'wreck OPEC' officials and set up the old State Oil Industry. Now the OPEC could keep limit on production and (given huge new demand for oil) spike up oil prices and thus the profits for Big Oil.

Bushies didn't foresee--perhaps--the ease with which the insurgents could blow up pipelines and limit Iraq oil production FAR BELOW the level Bushies wanted. But here's an odd fact: insurgents' sabotage in Iraq has aided OPEC efforts to limit production and spike up our gas-prices and profits of Big Oil ! An odd alliance indeed!
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LYONS COMMENT:
I was astonished when I read that during the worst shortage of crude oil, US oil-companies made such STAGGERING profits in '05--DESPITE ALLEGED KATRINA DAMAGE TO THEIR FACILITIES! (Then, when Bush's polls plummeted, gas prices here went DOWN suddenly to near $2 a gallon.
But now gas is back up to $2.50, even this close to Nov. elections! )

What black humor for the 30% remaining of Bush followers! Many drive trucks or SUVs, paying for the war thru the nose--not just through our federal deficit, or our trade deficit--not just by deaths and sufferings of their sons & brothers in Iraq (many enlistees come from these yahoo families; in fact 80% of Iraq GIs believe that invasion was to punish Iraq for its part in 9/11 attack! Even Bush has denied that! / However, they've woken up now; 72% of Iraq GIs want us out by the end of '06 or sooner ! )
But besides all that, Bush-followers should now know that our Iraq regime is now in bed with OPEC, helping to keep our gas-prices sky-high !
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Big OIL must be happy at the news that insurgent sabotage means that there will be NO oil exports from Northern Iraq for eight or 12 months ! [REUTERS,28Mar..no link available.]

"WE COULD SEND OVER A PLANE PAINTED WITH UN COLORS, HOPING THAT SADDAM WOULD SHOOT IT DOWN" (giving excuse for invasion). This from clever Bush in Jan.'03. NYTIMES

Thank God that Brit bureaucrats have no more respect for 'secret' markings on info than Americans have !

SADR STRENGTHENED BY DUMB US ATTACK: Critics say that the US attack Sunday on a meeting in SadrCity (killing an 80-yr-old Imam!) has given new prestige to Sadr: inhabitants say they are protected ONLY by Sadr's MEHDI militia. REUTERS ALERT

AT LEAST SIXTY-NINE DEAD ON SUNDAY. US ambassador said that 'militias' (unspecified) are now killing more than are 'terrorists'.
SanFranciscoChronicle

A think-tank thinker said that SADR'S followers now outnumber the insurgents. "If they turned on GIs, the threat would double."

Last year, Sadrites dumbly faced GIs as open army, were demolished.
This time they'd likely imitate tactics of insurgents, and attack covertly by bombs,etc.
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16-25 killed in clash between Sadrite militia & [govt. troops +GIs.]
(older men killed--including an 80-yr-old Imam!)
NYTIMES
Different versions of what happened--that doesn't matter. What counts is what the people believe--not likely they'll believe US version!

A mortar hit near Sadr's house in Najaf. He promptly blamed it on US: "Either they let it happen, or they did it !"

Negotiations about forming new govt. were suspended Monday, with Shia raging over Sunday's attack.

One good thing--the Sunday attack united the 3 fractious Shia factions.
Bad thing: it united them AGAINST Americans ! GUARDIAN
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SEVENTY CASUALTIES (recruits for 'our' army) from a pedestrian suicide bomber. NYTIMES

DEATHS VS. CASUALTIES:
C.Krauthammer [rMtnNews, 27Mar] rejoiced at ongoing Iraq civil war, that Shiites now murder Sunnis with more enthusiasm. ( He ignores the new, awful aspect: Shiites are not just chasing Sunni insurgents now; they're torturing and murdering innocent Sunnis to effect 'ethnic cleansing': chasing out the victims' relatives from mixed neighborhoods. Sunnis are chasing out innnocent Shia also.)

One of his claims is just false: "Hence the decline of American casualties."
Casualties are officially defined as death or wounds that prevent the soldier's quick return to duty." Now in fact, though US deaths have declined a little, number of GIs seriously wounded has increased dramatically.[UPI http://upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060322-030818-1584r ]

And the number of insurgent attacks is now about 75 each day. So it turns out that both GIs and Iraqis are suffering more. Hardly a reason for Krauthammer's satisfaction.

GRISLY,BUT RATIONAL,STRATEGY: Baghdad police-chief wounded; mortar-shell hits Sadr's home. Chronicle

Stories abound about beheadings (of one teacher, in front of his students!) and torture. These atrocities are ascribed by outsiders to primitive, savage revenge-instinct. But actually, they make grim sense strategically.

For Shiite leaders, such atrocities scare away Sunnis from mixed neighborhoods, accelerate ethnic cleansing. (Radio news on Sunday morning said that large refugee camps are being set up.) Shia militias--mainly Sadr's troops--will end up controlling Baghdad. "New govt. may be restricted to a few buildings in Green Zone!"

(Perhaps a voluntary separation of Sunnis from Shia is the only solution--to avoid bloodbaths like those in India and Yugoslavia, during their 'ethnic cleansing'.)
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For Zarqawists: such atrocities vs. Shia make them tolerant of awful atrocities committed vs. Sunnis. Thus progress accelerates toward civil war, a goal that Zs have publicly announced they seek.

Short of that goal, atrocities vs. random Sunnis will motivate Saddamite insurgent-leaders to forget about making a separate peace with new (shia-dominated) govt.--such a peace would endanger Zs. They will also make govt.Shia very reluctant to make compromises called for by Americans, to lure Saddamites into peaceful govt. negotiation--for instance Shia will NOT give up control of army and police!

Atrocities may be committed by both groups. The Saddamites would have NO reason to commit such atrocities.

vedMehta, a 'centrist' expert on international relations, in DenverPost (26Mar) praises Bushies new 'NATL.SECURITY STRATEGY' for softening a little the Bush imperialist rhetoric found in the '02 version (which threatened preemptive strike against any nation trying to match our new weapons!)

Bushies are finally ready to cooperate with other countries in the 'war vs. terror'. But how many other nations, threatened perhaps by preemptive strikes, will be willing to cooperate with ignorant Bushie war-mongers ? !

ASIA AT RISK FROM BIOTERRORISM: Heat, crowds, primitive health systems. SeattlePI But that sounds like football crowds in our Southern states. We have no effective program for quickly developing vaccines, nor for quick diagnosis of new epidemics.
So far, epidemics have threatened Asia (SARS, Avian Flu)--but we have only the precautions available to primitive societies, e.g., quarantine.
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Terrifying article on biowar in TECHNOLOGY REVIEW.

WAR FOR BAGHDAD ALREADY BEGUN: / INDEPENDENT
B. is 'mixed' population, on the edge of mainly Shia region, containing only 30% Sunnis, and 2 million Shia followers of SAdr. Ethnic cleansing is accelerating. Observers expect 'all/iraq army' to dissolve into sectarian militias once the fighting gets going.

"The problem is not slowness of forming central govt. Problem is that Shias and Sunnis now hate each other."

Baghdad will likely end up controlled by Shias, except for a few neighborhoods at the edge. The 'all/Iraq' govt. might well end up as 'a few buildings in the Green Zone."

Further North, the battle might be between Sunni Arabs and Kurds. If Shia and Kurds could get along, they could wipe out Sunni/Arabs.

Most recent victims have been Sunnis, with the Interior's troops and Sadr's troops as main suspects. NYTIMES

(Americans of course are completely irrelevant. Ambassador & visiting senators scold about forming a govt.--but they are urinating into the wind.)

Rather, they're talking to consituencies at home, not to Iraqis.
Headline: "Senators taking a HARD LOOK at Iraq." Bullshit--they're taking an EASY look, with nothing at stake.

[This ltr was printed in CSU COLLEGIAN (circ.25,000) on 27Mar.]

GOP & PANDEMIC DANGER:
GOP Gov. Owens says that each Colorado family should make their own preparations for a possible pandemic. (The possibIity of a germ-war attack must be combined with the avian flu possibility, to assess the danger.)

Owens notes correctly that the government alone cannot handle this emergency. But neither the state nor the federal government have done anything near what they could.

Already we face an urgent shortage of nurses; one Colorado hospital was paying $20,000 to lure a nurse from another hospital. The big problem with both pandemic dangers is quick diagnosis, so infected people can be quarantined (by force if necessary). But neither state nor federal government is subsidizing nurse-training (nurses won't volunteer as trainers, because they'd have to take a pay-cut !)

And the big pharmaceutical companies won't invest in quick development of new vaccines--because this is not as profitable as, say, new diabetes medicines. The feds have invested relatively tiny amounts to this emergency effort.

All this is one more sign that the GOP White House and Congress don't really give a damn about protecting our homeland. They shovel each day over $1500 millions to the Pentagon, whose snazzy bombers & missiles are of no use against terrorist individuals--like the 19 men armed with box-cutters on 9/11, or the 4 men with backpack explosives in London.

Actually Owens sounds more reasonable now than he did years ago when he told us that the way to protect Coloradoans from terrorists was to invade Iraq ! But after a recent ONE-DAY inspection tour in Iraq, Owens was upbeat, saying that US media always emphasized the negative. Unfortunately that was the week when the shrine blew up and Iraq moved closer to civil war--with the uselessness of US forces emphasized.

TALIBAN NOT SO UNUSUAL AMONG AFGHANS: We were led to believe that Afghans were sensible, Western-type people, held down by fanatic Taliban. (After their overthrow, our TV showed triumphant youths flying heretofore-forbidden kites!)
But now comes the case of the Afghan condemned to death for turning Christian. Senior clerics advise the people to tear him to pieces if the judges let him go. Practically all Afghans approve of his execution. BBC

The moral: we should pull out and quit meddling with cultures we simply don't understand.

IRAQ PRES. IS OPTIMISTIC, while 51 were killed on Friday, including 2 GIs. SeattlePI Pres. admits, "I'm an optimistic person."

Two other sources said only 29 were killed.

RUSS SPIED FOR SADDAM, with spies in our command HQ. GUARDIAN

Why should Russ not try to undermine US? They remember how US helped Afghans throw out the Soviet. They know we can't H-bomb them,since their thousands of H-bombs could wipe out US in retaliation. And oil has made them rich, so they don't need US economic help. An oil pipeline between Russia & China will raise price of petrol products for America.

Russ seem to be working for peace between US & Iran--but remember, IF the conflict heated up, and Iran oil was blocked (plus oil passing thru Strait of Hormuz), the price of oil would skyrocket, and Russ oil would then be worth even more than now.

FALLUJAH NOT PACIFIED: Soldiers say insurgents have sneaked back in. Soldiers are mainly Shia, and hated,feared by Sunni inhabitants.
REUTERS

TALAFAR denies Bush optimism. He cited T. as a great example of our progress in pacifying Iraq. But locals say "T. is ghost-town"; "We don't dare go out"/They fear the Shia policemen now in charge. (The mayor resigned in protest.) REUTERS

PRETENDING:
Thomas Longua (rMTNnews) speaks of new embryo (before nidation) as a human being, presumably with full human rights. But then a woman taking PlanB pill is recklessly endangering a human, and should suffer the penalty for reckless homicide.

I'm not aware of any Pope or Baptist preacher calling for this punishment. Right-wingers pretend to think the early embryo is a 'baby', so a woman taking PlanB pill is guilty of reckless infanticide. What's more, a cold-blooded killing of a child is NO WORSE than flushing out a zygote.

But these right-wingers don't seriously believe that a child is no more important than a zygote--and of course, nobody outside their fanatic ranks would say this either !

Wm.Lind in UnitedPress snickers at Bushie claim that by fighting 'them' in Iraq & Afgh., we're distracting 'them' from attacking here. He points out that the drug-lords in Mexico are getting more and more technical smarts and have lots more money, to swamp our wretched border patrols, undermined by alliance between pro-immigration liberals and cheap-help right-wingers in D.C.

And of course while tens of thousands of illegal workers, and tons of drugs,are pouring into America, they could be joined by dozens of terrorists (all that would be needed!)

In fact, tens of thousands of NON-MEXICAN 'illegals' are pouring in here, including many from Muslim nations suspected of supporting terrorists.
[DenverPost,26Mar]

"MOST OF IRAQ PEACEFUL !" says US spokesman. "Casualties heavy only in 3 provinces." But those 3 provinces contain one in three Iraqis!
He didn't mention the allegedly 'pacified' province where the insurgents freed the prisoners on Tuesday.

There was a less-successful prison assault on Wed. Then on Thursday a suicide bomber at a central Baghdad police HQ killed 15 civilians and 10 policemen.

Spokesman admitted that nationwide, ever since last August, attacks have averaged about SEVENTY-FIVE EACH DAY.
SeattlePI

True, the Kurdish part of Iraq (already in defacto secession) is peaceful--policed NOT by the 'all/Iraq' militia being set up by Americans, but by the independent Kurdish 'PESHMERGAS' set up before the invasion. Much of the other 'peaceful' provinces is mostly desert.

What counts is whether heavily-populated areas are peaceful.

BUSH VETO NOT NEEDED: Only Jefferson was in office as long as Bush without vetoing a single bill from Congress. UnitedPress

Why should Bush want to veto bills from his oh-so-tame GOP Congress?

In the next few months, GOP legislators will try to separate themselves from plucked-ducks Bush & Cheney. But their tame voting records would block this--for those few Americans aware of their voting records!

WEAKNESS OF DEMOCRACY: Defenders of democracy think that, at least, voters know enough to throw out rulers who are obviously crooked or incompetent. But when bad situations happen, the party presently in power can always blame the previous regime.

My son worked with NobelPrizeWinner JamesHeckman to ask whether civil rights laws caused the rising equality between black & white incomes which followed those laws. Their database included billions of units of data; after two years, they still weren't sure. Obviously, the average voter could never trace clearly the causation in this case.

2500 years ago, sage Plato (in GORGIAS) noted the same phenomenon--voters blaming the present troubles on the present regime, instead of on previous regimes that really caused the troubles.

Today the Bushies blame our economic problems--even after 6 years of Bush-rule--on Clinton! Thank heavens the dumb voters won't even consider this possibility..they'll blame it all on Bush--and hopefully on GOP-run Congress! (In this case, they're right.)
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Americans should read plays and philosophers from ancient Athens--Athenians were much like present Americans.

The Athenian voters (excluding slaves, non-citizen workers, and women,of course) were much better informed and brighter than the average American--they showed this by their intelligent ranking of plays.

But Plato saw the defects of ANY democracy; arrogant, ignorant voters putting arrogant, ignorant pols into power.

So we shouldn't be surprised at our current political disaster. However, the Pentagon dictator likely to follow our democracy would likely be even worse than our democracy.

I'd advise young, talented Americans to get ready for emigration, if this turns out to be necessary. They'd have to learn foreign languages (one billion people in the world speak Spanish!) and they'd have to pick up a hands-on skill (not subject to automation or outsourcing) that their new country needs.

finally, COLORADOAN has printed another of my letters:

http://coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060323/OPINION03/603230308/1014/OPINION

TOUGH TALK FROM SALAZAR !
The Senator has a 'message for Iraq', says the headline: "Don't expect US troops to stay there forever!" [rMtnNews22Mar]

Sounds tough--but that's the headline; he's quoted opposing any quick withdrawal, or indeed any definite timeline for withdrawal.
Maybe he means that we'll pull out before the new millenium.

Considering that 87% of Iraqis want us out quickly, and that over 6 million (23%) approve strongly of killing GIs, his tough-talk sounds rather strange.

CIVIL WAR? MASSACRE!
Pres.Bush & VP Cheney say there is no civil war in Iraq.Fifty-six Iraqis killed on Thursday, plus (even worse, with primitive hospital conditions) 'many dozens' wounded.
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/03/23/ap2616827.html

Most were killed or maimed by Sunni insurgents; so far the Shiites are striking back against wholesale killings of their people only with retail killings. But Sunnis are being chased out of mixed neighborhoods, just as Shia are.

'Civil war' or not, it's obvious that neither our troops nor our 'militia' are protecting Iraqis today. Small wonder most Iraqis want our troops to get out. (Six million 'approve intensely' of killing GIs.)
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A Shia cleric said on TV Thursday that a Shia militia tried to rescue Shia pilgrims being slaughtered, BUT US TROOPS STOPPED THEM !
There are 34,000 (Sunni) Palestinian refugees that were given sanctuary by Saddam. Now 100 of them tried to flee to Jordan (fearing the Shia) but were blocked. NYTIMES
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The Brit commander in Iraq has a more rational, nuanced claim: that so far the intersect killings are mainly in Baghdad, not nation-wide; and so far there hasn't been a huge flight of populations from one area to another: (mere thousands instead of millions.)

But he admits that there's a practical reason for him to discredit 'civil-war' claims: they're self-fulfilling; in other words, he has practical reason to exaggerate his optimism. / FinTimes

NEOHAWK STRATEGY (ltr. to USATODAY):
Your editorial on22March told of "The Right Way to Fight a War That Was a Mistake." It was a great example of 'neo-hawk' strategy; admit that entry into the war was a mistake, and that things in Iraq are very bad--but insist that we can't leave now.

What counts is what we do now; and in that respect you're aligned with crazy Bush and Cheney. "If, heaven forbid, we pulled out now, Iraq might become a haven for terrorists." However, it's already such a haven, with terrorists training to fight against a First-World enemy. If we pulled out, Shiites and Kurds (75% of the population) would quickly put down the Sunni terrorists, more ruthlessly than we would dare.

"If we pulled out now, civil war would go into full swing." Ethnic cleansing has already begun, with majority neighbors leaving notes that minorities had better scram. Thousands of Iraqis have become refugees, chased out of mixed neighborhoods by the other sect. SeattlePI

There's nothing our troops can do to stop or slow this process. And as Sadr has noted indignantly, Rumsfeld has given notice that we would not intervene in a civil war.

Shiites so far are heeding their 'bishops' and are killing Sunnis only retail, while Sunnis are killing Shiites wholesale. Whether Shia will continue to heed their 'bishops' is an issue where foreign troops can have no effect.

As you say,the issue is whether Americans will demand a quick pullout. You are helping Bush and Cheney avoid that outcome, which is desired by a large majority of Iraqis.

Let's hope that most Americans realize that continued war will continue to be mismanaged by exactly the same team of vicious fools who lied us into the war.

ONE HUNDRED INSURGENTS FREE 30 PRISONERS, kill 19 police, SeattlePI ...in an area said by US spokesman to be now clear of insurgents!

A helicopter was hit by insurgent fire and a crewmember injured. GUARDIAN

This just as Cheney is standing by his claims that insurgents are desperate, in last throes. One wonders if his heart-troubles have affected his brain..
One also wonders if he is still the 'brains' of the Bush/Cheney/Rummy troika, as the authors of 'CobraII' have claimed.
---------------
GOOD NEWS: On Wednesday, the insurgents tried that move again; but this time US & Iraq forces foiled their attempt, capturing 50 insurgents.

ANOTHER SHIP-JUMPING RAT, Francis Fukuyama, deplores Europeans secretly gloating over reality of US fiasco in Iraq. He thinks US involvement in the world is essential, and he worries that US may go isolationist. GUARDIAN

Francis is wrong; Europe should HOPE US goes isolationist; we don't have the large elite knowledgeable about other languages and cultures,with access to political power, that would be necessary for us to be 'involved' helpfully in world affairs.

In fact, it would be fun to read his defenses of the war earlier; they might show that he himself is pretty ignorant of the Middle East cultures.
----------
He worries about US moves toward protectionism; but that's the only way to protect our workers from economic disaster !

NIGERIAN OIL SABOTAGED AGAIN: This oil-supply is down by 1/4th from recent sabotage. FinTimes

--This may mean higher US gas prices: good to discourage waste here; and high prices will be blamed on GOP, controlling all 3 branches of fed.govt.

--Dependence on Iranian oil is increased, making our attack on Iran less likely.

DOUBLE-TALK ABOUT PULL-OUT--BUT PIG-HEADED BUSH
INTIMATES he WON'T pull out of Iraq while he's President ! ('Pull-out depends on next President.")
REUTERS
70 % of Iraq GIs want pullout in '06 or sooner. What will happen when this word gets to them?

SO: it's up to Congress to stop him (by refusing to fund more war, or better: to impeach him & Cheney--we don't know Hastert would be so bad.)

If GOP Congress makes no such move, let's hope our people vote them out of Congress-control this Nov. A weak hope, but the only hope we have.

PENTAGON DRAINING U.S.: [ltr to USATODAY ]
You noted on 21Mar that the percentage of U.S. undergraduates in science and engineering is only 15%, compared to 67% in China.

The problem is worse than it seems. Very many of our small number of technicians will be grabbed by war-corporations and the Pentagon, to produce and operate snazzy, hi-tech weapons. These are of little actual use in defending our Homeland from terrorist individuals like the 19 armed with box-cutters on 9/11 or the 4 back-pack bombers in London.
But even fewer technicians are left to produce useful products for U.S.

It was also noted that Pentagon spends one billion dollars on oil each year: almost all of it imported--thus aggravating our staggering trade deficit.

And Pentagon is building many huge and expensive permanent bases in Iraq.[See post just below.] These bases are not needed; we have shown we can bomb Afghanistan with bombers based in Kansas. And of course they enrage Iraqis, thus helping insurgents recruit more volunteers.

The main point of these bases is probably to shovel more construction-money to favored war-corporations like Bechtel and Haliburton. But these overseas-base-expenditures count mainly as imports--thus again aggravating our trade-deficit.

PERMANENT IRAQ BASES? Abizaid just hinted at them. In fact,they're being built, on a mammoth scale. 'It's a stupid idea', says marine general Zinni, a long-time critic of this war. SeattlePI

Of course this will help recruit insurgent volunteers, this threat of permanent occupation, permanent dishonor for Iraqis.

MORE SELF-CENSORSHIP: TWO MILLION WEB-SITES are discussing Iran's plans to open up a new oil-trading-post ('bourse') this month. It's being said that is the real reason Bushies are threatening Iran, to try to discourage this threat to the dollar. (The story goes this way: as long as oil is 'denominated' in dollars, nations have to buy billions of dollars to pay for oil..but when they can pay in euros..)

What's interesting is NOT the value of such theories. What's interesting is that NOT ONE OF THE MAINSTREAM US MEDIA is found (among first 50 entries) as discussing this 'bourse' possibility at all!

Given such self-censorship, one has to be grateful for the 2 million web-sites that discuss this issue--even tho one doesn't know about which ones are reliable.

AN ANARCHY WORSE THAN CIVIL WAR? An Iraq civil war would involve Shiite troops fighting Sunni troops. But an even worse outcome would be having each neighborhood muster its own tiny militia--an outcome feared as very possible by one Iraq expert. FinTimes

IGNORING THE WOUNDED: (ltr to USATODAY):

Your front-page headline on 20Mar was 'Deaths fall for U.S..'. But buried far down in the story was information that fifteen Iraq GIs are injured every day.

The Pentagon (and mainstream media) can get away with such distortion, because Americans strangely tend to ignore the wounded, on highways or in war. They ignore GIs who lose arms, legs, eyes, or faces; GIs suffer brain injuries or come home impaired with shell-shock (now relabeled 'post-traumatic-stress-disorder').

Most Americans think the first Gulf War involved few US casualties, though a large proportion of those returned veterans have now been certified as permanently disabled.

Often only dead GIs are counted as 'casualties', even though the official definition of 'casualties' includes those wounded who cannot return immediately to their fighting units. Pentagon admits that the number of these serious casualties is eight thousand--SO FAR. [ NYTIMES,20Mar.]
--------
USATODAY in '05 did discuss the horrible brain-injuries which are the 'signature' of this war.

Some war-injuries are worse than death.
------------------
Interestingly, while apologists like USATODAY are crowing about the recent fall in GI DEATHS, they have ignored data that says that the number of GIs MAIMED OR WOUNDED each week has recently RISEN. UnitedPress

RUMMY TAKES CIVIL-WAR SERIOUSLY: Pentagon 'intellectuals' are studying what to do if present Iraq civil war accelerates. (So far, Sunni Zarqawists are killing Shiites wholesale, but Shia are killing (after torturing) Sunnis only retail. ) UnitedPress

(BBC TV showed 40 Shiites dead in a ditch on Monday.)
INDEPENDENT reporter says 1300, mostly Sunnis, were killed in first 3 days after the shrine was bombed.)
AlJazeera guesses 800 killed since the shrine-bombing.

------
"IF THIS ISN'T CIVIL WAR, WHAT IS?" said Allawi, US darling.
"We're losing over 50 a day!"

1000 Iraqis have been killed in the month since the shrine was blown up.

Brit honcho said 'civil war, not yet." He still hopes for 'natl.unity govt.'
But so far, no progress. AssocPress,cited in NetscapeNews

'Unity' council formed to give advice to Shia ministers (who go on ruling as 'caretaker' govt.) Shia can veto any such advice before it even gets out of council. Once again, Shia have no incentive to yield to Sunnis or Kurds on issues they think important. If worst comes to worst they can pull back into the Shia region, expel all Sunnis, and set up independent ministate, as Kurds have done already.

RATS JUMP SHIP: GUARDIAN sums up evidence that GOP pols, fearing Congressional losses this Nov., are turning against the feckless Bushie team.

"LIKE HANDING BACK GERMANY TO NAZIS!" thunders Rummy in WashPost,19Mar, about our pulling out of Iraq.

Instead, we could hope it's like handing back Vietnam to the natives when we bugged out there--they have (with almost no outside help) rebuilt the land we devastated by TEN YEARS of carpet-bombing.

ASSAULT OR WAR-GAMES? Operation Swarmer has so far meant NO CASUALTIES in Iraqi or US forces. Some battle ! REUTERS

We're told that 'intelligence' signalled insurgent concentration near Samarra. Flying in troops should have meant surprising the insurgents, who would fight to the death. But instead, apparently, any insurgents there faded away ( as usual) before our forces attacked.

We're told that 50% of Iraq is now controlled by Iraq army. Which 50%?
The Kurdish area is controlled by Kurdish militia, and the Shiite region by Shia militia.
They say 75% will be controlled by Iraq army by summertime. We'll see what havoc the insurgents wreak in Sunni/Arab region when they face only the Shia mercenaries.

Our forces did find some buried explosive stocks etc. But what counts is NOT how much explosive is destroyed, but how much is left. Attacks in '05 were far higher than in '04. Only if attacks diminish can we hope we're winning.
Our Gen.Casey says insurgents have plenty of ammo left. CNN
--------------
Negotiators trying for national-unity govt. met again, but without noticeable progress. Once again, Shia have no incentive to compromise their vital positions; during this impasse, Iraq 'govt' will continue to be Shia 'caretaker' regime !
============
Twenty Thousand automatic pistols supplied to 'our' police by Brits have showed up in hands of insurgents ! UnitedPress

SUPERPOWER? Anthony Cordesman, revered expert on Iraq, says that 'the world's sole superpower' has learned sobering lessons from Iraq fiasco.
Boston.com
Wait a minute ! Power is AS POWER DOES ! Bush's America couldn't stop NorthKorea from building nukes. Our former puppets in LatinAmerica have turned leftist and anti-American. Terrorist attacks throughout the world have spiked up since we declared 'war on Terror'.
Every observer says our Homeland is more vulnerable than ever.

If we bomb Iran, gas-prices here will skyrocket, and GOP will lose Congress in Nov. And Iran will be long-run winner in Bush's invasion of Iraq.

Financially we're in fact bankrupt.

Bushies' America is not a superpower at all; it's a muscle-bound weakling.

A REALLY BIG BANG ! Astrophysicists now posit an explosion from a unit the size of a marble, to a universe that would take a ray of light billions of years to traverse--all in a trillionth of a second !USATODAY

Result? Very complex hydrogen and oxygen atoms structured just right to develop on their own in chaotic circumstances (over a limited tho huge time) into simple living cells, which then would develop into dogs by the mechanism of natural selection.

All this from a pure-chance explosion? C'mon ! No explosion we've experienced has such 'as-if-designed' results!

On the other hand, one needn't posit a Father-God, benevolently micro-managing detailed-happenings in this universe--not with earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes,etc.

Deists posit a mind-like super-Being who set up the mechanism of the universe, then ceased to manage it--for whatever reason ! Bizarre as that hypothesis is, it seems best to account for the data.

The Vatican realizes this; that's why they oppose the move to try to deduce 'Intelligent (benevolent) Design' merely from scientific data.

Intelligent Christians, Muslims and Jews believe in the benevolent Father because they think HE has revealed his character to humans.

"U.S. IS FEEDING CIVIL-WAR FORCES" says 'realist hawk' Brzezinski.
He recommends a 'loose govt' in Baghdad--(actually a fictional central govt. pretending to control 3 independent ministates...like the regime of the 'Serbia/Montenigro' govt.)
UnitedPress
Perhaps he meant that by training 'all/Iraq' army which is really a Shiite/Kurd army, we are arming them for an assault on Sunnis.

Shiites are in catbird seat; if the Kurds & their allies won't form a coalition with them, they can simply block a new govt. and go on ruling as 'caretaker' govt.

ANTI-IRISH SLANDERS:
How do the Irish provoke foreigners to slander them so poisonously? A medieval historian Gerald of Wales said these preposterous things:
--that Irish monks spent every day laboring in the fields, chanting psalms, fasting, and flogging themselves. But then in the evening they punched out and went into town to raise hell.

--that Irish women pissed standing up, while the men squatted. Now really!
-----------
Actually,old Gerald had some skeletons in his own family closet. The Geraldines were actually Italian bandits who threw in with William to conquer England. On closer inspection, William sent them all to Wales..and then, on second thought, shipped them off to rule sullen Ireland.

The Fitzgeralds (it’s alleged that ‘Fitz’ means ‘bastard’!) ruled Ireland until the Protestants took over England.

One nasty story was of an Earl Fitzgerald who was indicted before HenryVIII for burning the cathedral of Castel. In his defense he said, “I would never have burnt the cathedral, Sire, except I thought the Archbishop was inside.”

In 18th &19th-centuries, 2 famous scapegrace 'Edward Fitzgeralds': the aristocrat-rebel in Limerick and the translator of that impious hymn to hedonism, THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM:
"Some for the glories of this world, and some
Sigh for the prophet's paradise to come !
Ah, take the cash and let the credit go--
Nor heed the rumble of a distant drum."
--------------------------------------
This slanderous tradition extends to our time. I was in Ireland visiting a stately home of the Fitzgerald clan. As usual, the woman showing people around was from that rare species, Irish Protestant landowners still in Eire; of course she spoke with a posh British accent.

I said to her, “My family comes from Iowa—but my grandmother was named Fitzgerald; and we like to think we might be related to the famous Fitzgeralds of old.”

“That’s very possible,” she replied coolly, “They left Bahstahds all over Ireland.”

PREMPTIVE ATTACKS, FOLLOWED BY 2D-STRIKE ATTACKS:

Bushies' 'NATL. SECURITY STRATEGY' ('06) reaffirmed their right to launch a 1st-strike Hitlerian blitzkrieg on any nation that seems to 'threaten' them--most likely Iran.

They now say Iran poses the greatest threat. Before, it was No.Korea--but now that N.K. definitely has nukes, and poses A GREATER THREAT THAN EVER !--now they suddenly go blind about that threat,getting ready to bomb Iran instead. (N.K. doesn't threaten our dollar with a rival 'oil-bourse'.)

Every other nation will see a real possibility of Bushies turning on them.
Russia can wipe out most US cities in retaliation; China's nukes could wipe out our WestCoast cities, containing a large proportion of our population.
Britain & France with their subs could make us regret any attack on them.
Similarly with India and Pakistan and Israel and North Korea; Japan could 'go nuclear' very quickly.

Other countries are likely developing germ-war potential in their labs ('the pooor nation's A-bomb'). It would be child's-play for martyrs to start a devastating pandemic in the poor regions of America--e.g., along greyhound bus routes--with only vestigial public-health programs; by the time the pandemic was diagnosed, it would spread to our well-to-do before a quarantine could be set up. (Of course we'd have insufficient vaccines!)

If Congressional GOP had any sense, they'd use the excuse of Bushie crimes to impeach both Bush & Cheney--just to save our Homeland ! But no...
-------------
Now there's one way the Bushies might be able to use our H-bomb arsenal to set up their desired World Empire: they could launch a LIMITED 1st-strike, say at Iran, putting them on notice that if they retaliated, they'd then be wiped off the map by H-bombs. (I wouldn't be sure at all that the Shia mullahs of Iran, revering martyrdom, wouldn't retaliate anyway--or a nation might gamble that we couldn't tell which nation imported war-germs into our homeland.)

We'd better hope that Russia isn't as crazy as we were earlier, setting their 'nuclear umbrella' over, say, Iran, saying "If you attack Iran, we'll strike at you--even though this means mutual suicide for our 2 countries."

It's midnight in cuckoo-land.

WHAT OF IRAN'S PLAN TO OPEN UP (this month!) A RIVAL OIL-TRADING-POST (BOURSE) with oil 'denominated' in Euros, not in dollars? (main reason for our bombing Iran?) One story said this bourse was being postponed again. [ Saddam switched to Euros,was quickly invaded. Syria (400,000 barrels-per-day)has switched to Euros, and Bushies are growling.]

Not a word about this issue in mainstream media ! But private media have said plenty. (Nearly two million pieces on GOOGLE: Iran + bourse. )

e.g., OPED.COM has an article which explains the problem in plain English.Accurate? It matches other alarmist pieces. This article claims that Paul Volcker (Greenspan 's predecessor) says there' 75% chance of dollar-crash within 5 years. (I've asked for a source for this quote.)

One main reason the dollar hasn't collapsed is that other countries have to keep hundreds of billions of dollars in their reserves to buy oil. If this changed...If dollar crashes, all holders of our bonds will suffer--but the ones who dump first will lose less...

Dollar has sunk somewhat in value. This should have made our exports cheaper around the world and our imports more expensive for us--BUT the excess of our imports over our exports (the trade deficit) has leaped up.
(Pentagon has over one hundred expensive bases overseas. Expenditures there presumably count as imports..yet no journalists mention the possibility that our trade deficit is aggravated by Pentagon (as everyone should know that our federal deficit should be called the Pentagon deficit: $550 billion for Pentagon dwarfs $400+ billion in our fed.deficit.)

VULNERABLE DOLLAR: In Apr'05, Volcker wrote in WashingtonPost that US has been spending 6% more than it earns--and that no nation has got away with this degree of profligacy for long.

Dollar crash would mean huge inflation here. Will Bernanke trigger recession (7.5 months from election !) by continuing to pump up interest rates? One observer says NO ! SafeHaven

OIL-PRICE JUMP: I've been saying that the sign of serious Bushie intent to bomb Iran would be speculators bidding up the world price of oil.
A couple of days ago, price was $62 a barrel. Today it's $68 a barrel.
REUTERS casually mentioned this without calling attention to it.

Even though US reserve stocks of oil are very high, the price of gasoline here has jumped back up to around $2.50 a gallon. One hopes people will blame GOP; they control ALL THREE BRANCHES of fed. govt.

HUGE AIR-OFFENSIVE: vs. 'suspected' Sunni area. ABC

Just before he bugged out of Vietnam, Nixon launched a huge air-offensive against 'suspected' VC areas. Such a collective-punishment tactic (which of course recruits more insurgents!) shows the frustrated rage of Bushies at loss of control of Iraq events.
----------
Pentagon spokesmen say planes are being used now just to haul troops, not to bomb. We'll see what's said later. GUARDIAN
-------------
As of Friday, Pentagon doesn't say whether bombs and missiles have been used. They say insurgent supplies have found, but they don't say how much.
36 suspects were arrested, of which 17 have already been released.
NYTIMES

TODAY IS PADDY'S DAY. I'm reminded of a story:
Paddy & Kevin were out fishing. Paddy said dreamily, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if this whole lake were beer instead of water?:
"Don't be daft!" said Kevin. "Then we'd have to pea in the boat!"

"ZARQAWI'S TAKING OVER SUNNIS" says Sunni sheik in exile. Z.has killled Sunni sheiks who collaborate with Americans. He is recruiting young Iraqis as suicide-killers (partly because of American misconduct).
Since the shrine-bombing in Samarra, and the (retail) murders of Sunnis in retaliation, he is the leader of the Sunnis.
There will be no schism between Saddamites and Zarqawists. The civil war has already started./ CNN

BUSHIES ESCALATING ANTI-IRAN RHETORIC: FinTimes
Are they bluffing? So far, oil-prices haven't spiked as they presumably would if investors thought Bushies were ready to bomb Iran.

Japan has cut their imports from Iran (as an 'unreliable' supplier.) However, their share will be grabbed up by China, etc. Japan, a tame Bush-ally, may be just helping make their bluff more credible. Let's hope so.

SLY GOP (ltr to rMtnNews):
Your cartoon on 16Mar showed Sen.Clinton foolishly asking for federal health care, even after federal bungles and corrruption in the Katrina affair.

This is a favorite trick of Republicans, who have controlled government on and off for decades: first they sabotage the government through their bungles and corruption; then they cite these defects to oppose legitimate functions of government.

Why don't they cut off some of the $1500 millions shovelled each DAY to the super-corrupt Pentagon, which hasn't won a real war in sixty years?

BIPARTISAN PANEL TO INVESTIGATE IRAQ WAR:
5 DEMS, 5 GOPS. Model seems to be 9/11 commission.
When will they give findings? They say there'll be interim reports.
Will results be party-line? CNN

"US WILL STAY IN IRAQ ! " Abizaid tells Congress...to help moderates vs. extremists, to restrain Iran, to protect flow of oil. And so on. AlJazeera

This should help insurgents recruit more enraged nationalists. And some Sadrite Shiites may launch a separate insurgency.

(See piece below on foreign occupation as mortal wound to Iraq honor.)

Presumably GIs would pull back into the huge bases we hear US is building there. But they could be attacked by gas-mortar-shells. GIs will continue to die.

SHIA LEADER OPENLY CALLS FOR SPLITTING UP IRAQ!
"Then each region can be defended by its own militia, and civil war can be avoided." NYTIMES.

He's right; better to have 'ethnic cleansing' [minorities moving out of mixed neighborhoods into their own region] carried out efficiently and peacefully now than with horrific bloodshed later..with same result: 3 ministates.

Bushies don't want that--because Shia ministate will have most Iraqis, the only seaport, and most of the oil--with anti-US IRAN as next-door ally!

The middle (Sunni/Arab) region will likely be granted to Saddamite insurgents. Will they accept this (with almost no oil-income) as reason to end their battle? Even if they don't, Shia can defend their borders (outnumbering Sunnis 3 to 1 !)
----------------
One problem: SADR has 2 million Shia followers in Baghdad. Would they move to Southern region? Insurgents have shown they can slaughter Shias in Sadr city.

Who would rule new ministate? Two militias: Sadr's Mahdi, & Hakim's Bahdi. Civil war between Shiites? Compromise should be easier between Shiites than between Shiites and Sunnis !

GOP GOVT. CUTS BACK ON BEEF INSPECTIONS in spite of 3d 'mad-cow' case in US ! FORBES

Typical GOP reaction: fewer investigations mean fewer embarrassing reports. (They cut back on checking IRS frauds--except for checking on the poor!--Now they admit they're losing HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS in unpaid income-tax.)

Cow-rights people will celebrate as people give up Beef.

A Brit cartoon: cow1 says: "Aren't you worried about mad-cow disease?"
cow2: "Why should I worry? I'm a helicopter !"

I'll enjoy cheaper beef prices. We lived in Britain, and now can't give blood because of fear we have M.C.D. At my age, new beef infections will take too long to show up.

US RAID (using 'armor' & planes) KILLS 11, including women & children. CNN

A Brit SAS longtime veteran refused to fight any longer alongside the Americans, who 'treat Iraqis as subhuman'. He was not punished as a deserter, but was issued a commendation.

'HONOR IS IRAQ INSURGENTS' SECRET WEAPON !' said a veteran mideast observer, right after our invasion. "Land is as sacred as women...invasion is unforgivable sin...occupation is as vile as rape." UnitedPress
But what would Bushies know about Honor? For that matter, how many Americans could foresee the intensity of Iraqi rage over dogs or desecration of a copy of the Koran, or of shrines--or Muslims' rage over a mere cartoon?

Once again: we feel free to meddle aggressively with cultures we simply don't understand. Who pays the price for our stupid self-confident ignorance? Thousands of GIs killed, or missing limbs, faces, or eyes, with brain-damage or shell-shock. Not to mention tens of thousands of Iraqis killed or maimed.
And neither the self-confident stupidity, nor the awful blood-price, are ending.

MESSAGE BOARDS: on NYTIMES, BOSTON.COM, & ABCNEWS.
Heated, not enlightening, discussions.

A wild topic: SHOULD LIBERAL CATHOLICS LEAVE THE CHURCH?
24 THOUSAND READERS; 1000 'CONTRIBUTIONS', including mine as dlyons.

http://boards.boston.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?nav=messages&tsn=1059&tid=2759&webtag=bc-news

NO LIMIT TO HIS FOLLY?

SHIITE 'BISHOPS' WORRIED THAT THEIR CALLS FOR CALM MAY NO LONGER BE HEEDED. The worry is not just about the militias, but about ordinary Shias (with a Kalashnikof in every house).
Shia are beginning to blame ALL Sunnis for harboring insurgents.
REUTERS So far Shia have reacted to WHOLESALE slaughter of their people with RETAIL killings of Sunnis..but now?

Over 87 executed corpses were discovered on Tuesday, 14Mar. CANADA.COM

Over 300 casualties Sunday & Monday, including 2 GIs killed. Total GIs killed now tops 2300. FORBES

STREET RUMORS SAY CIVIL WAR IS IMMINENT OR ALREADY BEGUN. UnitedPress

RUMMY ADMITS NUMBER OF GIs MIGHT HAVE TO INCREASE!
GUARDIAN And indeed 700 more have been sent in.
----------------------------
HOWEVER:
"IRAQIS HAVE TURNED AWAY FROM THE ABYSS !" chortles Bush, off in his dream-world.

(Common-sense says that in a tinderbox like Iraq, when a determined, effective guerilla-force--the Zarquawists--are deliberately trying to cause a civil war, THERE WILL BE A CIVIL WAR! )
-----------------------
And of course Bushies are trying to blame Iran for Iraq's chaos.
(In infiltrating Iraq, Iran would be just bolstering its second-strike deterrent: IF Bush bombs Iraq, Iran can slaughter Iraq GIs.)
[Top US general said there is NO PROOF that Iran is sending bomb material into Iraq. REUTERS But who needs proof? ]

Only one in three Americans think Bush has a workable plan for Iraq.
(Even among the 54% who think world was made in 6 days [Adam & Eve rode a dinosaur to church], many have lost their faith in Bush.)

Britain is withdrawing 10% of its soldiers from Iraq this May. It's said (ironically?) that this shows their CONFIDENCE! CNN
================
Bush today couldn't sell solar-powered refrigerators in the Congo!
So why do his handlers send him out on another speaking tour?
Three guesses:
--perhaps they despair of winning over the 70% who now see thru him; they just want to minimize any further losses among the 30% of his faithful fans.

--or perhaps they're using him as a lightning-rod: getting liberals like Lyons to waste their rage on dead-duck Bush, when what counts this year is getting people to see the awfulness of GOP legislators.
[Actually, 61% say that Iraq will be an important/or/most important issue when they vote in Nov--and 48% prefer Dems to handle this issue (vs. 40
% for GOP. REUTERS ]

--or maybe his handlers just want to get him out of D.C., where he might meddle ignorantly in policy decisions.

NEW BOOK DOCUMENTS RUMSFELD FOLLY IN '03:
His protege, Gen.Franks, pooh-poohed another general's percipient warning that there would be significant resistance. (Franks tried to get the dissenting general fired.)UnitedPress

This book "COBRA II.." also tells of Brit observers trying to warn Blairites of the incompetence of US leaders in Iraq..GUARDIAN
---------------
"GOD DAMN YOU, RUMSFELD ! " says Sadr. "First you said you couldn't withdraw lest civil war break out; now you say that in the case of civil war, you won't interfere !" INDEPENDENT
---------------
In debate about continuing the war, we should bear in mind that continued war will continue to be mismanaged by Rummy's team of nincompoops.

BUSH YATTERING VS. 'ISOLATIONISM':
US jobs are lost to outsourcing, but "you don't retrench and pull back." It's admitted that his thinking has always been isolationist, that he's 'uncurious' about the outside world. But he intends to keep on lunging blindly around the world.

It's a plain fact that we do NOT have the large interested and informed cadre (fluent in foreign languages and learned about other cultures) that would be necessary for successful intervention in the world.

"Ah, but 9/11 made it NECESSARY for us to get involved overseas." But this 'necessity' in no way makes our foreign blunders any less destructive.

We had best concentrate our attention on defending our VULNERABLE Homeland from inevitable terrorist attacks.The needed precautions are very expensive; so we can't afford also to shovel $1200 millions EACH DAY to the useless Pentagon, whose snazzy bombers and missiles are of no use against terrorist INDIVIDUALS (like the 19 on 9/11 or the London 4).

SEN.BIDEN GROWS VESTIGIAL TESTICLES, says we should pull out troops this summer if Iraqis don't form a workable natl-unity govt.

That geopolitical expert, Karl Rove, says that such a pullout would be a signal that our allies can't trust us. We'd be LAUGHED AT if we pulled out 'before victory'. GUARDIAN

One is reminded of a cartoon published just after we bugged out of Vietnam.
A pompous American diplomat communicates to an ally through a translator: "We will of course back you to the end!" The translator says to the Viet: "Run for your life!"

About Rove's worry: The government that's ridiculous is the one that invades and tries to occupy a country: it can't protect the oil industry, nor can it control the army of gangsters; it can't suppress the insurgents, nor can it prevent civil war, with the likely outcome a Shia ministate alllied with its worst bogeyman, Iran.

And even though its withdrawal is called for by the invaded populace, by its citizens back home, and even by its troops in the field--these silly bureaucrats haven't even got the guts to pull out, avoiding more wasted GI lives, when their failure is obvious to everyone.
THAT'S a government deserving ridicule!

BETWEEN 200 AND 300 IRAQ CASUALTIES ON SUNDAY,12mar.
Most of them Shia. NYTIMES

So far, Shiites have been replying to this wholesale slaughter only with retail killings. But that will likely change soon.

This much is pretty sure; there's little chance of Shia granting the important constitutional concessions to Sunni that Yanks envision, dreaming those concessions will pacify the insurgents. So there's litttle chance of the Saddamite insurgents turning on their Zarquawist allies--exactly the outcome Z's are out to prevent, in continuing these savage attacks.
----------
FOUR GIs KILLED TODAY IN AFGHANISTAN: equivalent of 28 killed in Iraq. Ten killed in 69 days of this year. REUTERS

A given GI has about as much chance to be killed or maimed in Afgh. as a given GI has in Iraq.

PEACE ACTIVIST TORTURED,KILLED BY IRAQ INSURGENTS: LAtimes
They may have suspected that he was a US spy--especially if he understood Arabic! So they wrung out any info he might have had. (If NO INFO, not much effort was wasted; indeed, there'd be some fun.)

People rant about the Bushies' devotion to torture. But the Bushies are no worse than those insurgents. Indeed, insurgents may snicker at Western indignation; "Of course Yanks use torture! So does every faction when it seems useful." War is a great leveller.

Peace-workers going to Iraq better be aware of local customs, ready to chew cyanide pills if threatened with capture.

FORMER LONGTIME CIA STAR RETURNS HIS MEDAL (for 'especially commendable service') TO CONGRESS, wanting to be able to tell his grandchildren he was NOT associated with the 'present corruption' of our intelligence services.

Ray McGovern is one of 54 member of VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) who are leading protests against the Bush-team.He says that Geo. Tenet,obeying Bushies, simply cooked intelligence--the ultimate sin for intelligence personnel. (Bush later awarded Tenet the Freedom Medal.)

McGovern says America has run amok, and that Bush should be impeached. UnitedPress

UP TO TWO THOUSAND IRAQIS DIE EACH MONTH--NOT BY ROAD-BOMBS OR SUICIDE BOMBERS, BUT BY EXECUTION--SHOT. Sunnis say killers are Shiite 'policemen'.[ABC/NEWS]

Anyone can get hold of police-uniforms-- and apparently can rent police-cars! So killers might be Zarqawists, punishing Sunni collaborators with the Invader.

Still, if Sunnis THINK these people were killed by Shia--who after all have suffered great provocations !--then Saddamite insurgents are not going to turn on their Zarqawist allies, and later lay down their arms.
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OUR TOP BAGHDAD GENERAL SHOT in his car by passing gunmen.
He was revered by his troops and by US--and was therefore a prime target ! [SeattleTimes ]
The head of the Shia TV station in Baghdad was also shot.[LA times]]

The travel plans of such vulnerable, 'high-value targets' are presumably secret.How did insurgents know where and when on the road to find them? More evidence that our forces are infiltrated by insurgent spies.
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Colossal ABRAMS TANK ran over (presumably huge) bomb in Baghdad & was disabled. (Pentagon said the crew escaped unhurt.) [REUTERS ]

Photos of this burning behomoth will raise morale of Third-world enemies of First-world everywhere, showing the vulnerability of even our most colossal, heavily armored weapons.
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Insurgent bombing goes on, but its casualties are dwarfed by intersectarian killing. Ethnic cleansing is accelerating: Sunnis driven out of Shia neighborhoods, Shia driven from Sunni areas. WashPost

BUSHIES WANT A WORLD-STRADDLING MISSILE (NOT nuke-armed) that can strike at a naughty country like Iran quickly without destroying it and, perhaps, damaging our reputation as a civilized nation. wow. (We already have world-straddling NUKE missiles).[Jane'sMissiles]

Trouble is, observers say, there's no way the recipient nation can tell whether it's nuke-armed or not. If they have a nuke-deterrent, they might well start an apocalyptic exchange.

But then they might not, also..they might show sane caution.Which means that US could launch a NUKE-armed missile and HOPE that the victim nation would not respond with nukes. Of course US would have to launch many such nuke-missiles simultaneously to wipe out their land-based missiles, to prevent their second-strike.

Smart nations would develop sub-launched or freight-ship launched (nuke-armed) cruise missiles as second-strike weapons; tens of millions of Americans live near the coasts. And they would develop germ-war second-strike weapons also for retaliation.
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For 50 years, US has been able to wipe out any 'enemy' city in a few hours. (We bombed Afghanistan from Kansas.) All the trillions we've shovelled to Pentagon in the last decades have not markedly improved our offensive capacity; and we have done little to lessen the vulnerability of OUR cities to a second-strike or terrorist attack. In other words, those trilllions have basically been wasted. Surprise, surprise.

Again, Pentagon has not won a real war in sixty years. It should NOT be viewed as a war-machine, but as a financial device for shovelling trillions to war-corporations.