One tribal sheik, Youseff Ahmad, spoke about the debate about the future role of United States forces here that has dominated Iraqi public life of late. “We want them to leave, even before the end of this year,” Mr. Ahmad said. “They’ve destroyed us. They’ve only brought killing and disaster.”
This (via Greenwald) is what was said to American journalists following a botched night raid in Iraq this week which resulted in the death of three men and five people seriously wounded, among them two young girls. The targeted suspect was nowhere to be found. Almost a decade of invasion, occupation, murder, destruction, humiliation, and oopsie-daisies like this and yet Americans still can’t grasp the justified hatred of America swelling up in the Iraqi heart.
This comes after weeks of what everyone implicitly recognizes as U.S. officials badgering the Iraqi government into keeping a large contingent of American troops there indefinitely. Prime Minister Maliki has been playing politics on who this is actually up to, deferring to parliament and then quickly revoking said deference, understanding full well what his overlords in Washington expect in a troop level decision while simultaneously aware of the domestic revulsion against keeping a single occupier there past the December deadline.
According to the New York Times piece reviewing the aftermath of the night raid gone wrong, the U.S. government conducts public opinion polls in Iraq and refuses to publish them. Why might they do that? The only possible reason is that they know the vast majority of Iraqis want an end to the occupation, but don’t want that coming up as a part of the equation on a status of forces agreement. It is the most irrelevant feature of the entire political landscape what might be the preferences of the people we occupy. Only two constituencies of folks matter in that decision: an American public kept intentionally ignorant about the facts, and the imperialists in charge. Which policy is likely to win out?
If Americans stay in Iraq, more Americans are going to die in Iraq.
Yep and have their lives torn apart by the things they see and do. Families torn apart from the constant deployments and PTSD that often follows.
Clarifying, The raid was last Friday night.
The Common Ills has noted that raid in yesterday's Iraq Snapshot http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2011/08/iraq-sn…
And in fact, they've noted it pretty much every day since Saturday when the raid was first reported.
These yankee war criminals, muderers destroyers of civilized peoples ,causing mahem words cannot describe what they are and always be,They have to be burnt out of Iraq and that is the only way to get rid of this vermin
As December inches closer, I suspect there are many, many AK-74's and RPG's being cleaned and serviced by Iraqis. January 2012 should prove to be a very hot month for US forces left in Iraq.
We need to get our sons and daughters OUT of there before it's too late. Too many Americans and Iraqis have died already, and I can't think of a single good reason why.
Non of occupiers in the history gone back freely and the same is true withz america.
Naturally americans have destroyed whole of Irak and they need 20 years to rebuild and as a super Bush can,t be tried in international courts for his lies. Even master Blayer is vikid person and not a politician. UK dreams still to be super power and misguid duffer american pooliticians.
This is a tragedy that Blayer has been assigned to kill Palestinians as his job was different but his hatred speaks itself.
we went in there unjustly and we must leave ASAP. We kcannot have it be the 100 year war like John McCain said.
Iraq war is one of the biggest mistake from US. Former president Bush made a horrible decision. This decision is the reason of our economic downfall today. This is a war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. We all know Saddam was brutal man but he never poses imminent and direct threat to the United States. We need to get out from as soon as possible. US has lost lot of lives and tax payers money for nothing. Lets use our resources and money in the right place and make our country better.
It's not a good time for bait and switch "O" to raise pressure for continued occupation as the American economy crashes and burns….