Antiwar.com Blog

Iraqi Governing Council Takes Bold New Step Of Renaming Itself

Iraq took a mighty step forward toward creating an independent sovereign government this week as the Iraqi Governing Council — a group of U.S. appointed Iraqi exiles seen as largely subservient to U.S. demands — renamed itself and became a group of dynamic, independent thinkers — made up of the very same people.

“I am a new man!” cried Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. “I could order American troops out of Iraq tomorrow if I wished!”

Asked if this was true, Allawi became suddenly sober and said,” I don’t know. Let me make a call.” After disappearing into his study and making an overseas call, Allawi emerged and answered, “No. I can’t.”

Read the rest….

Well, well. The Religious Policeman was right.

Saudi Elite Forces capture Terrorists

Well, only one actually. Three others escaped, as they always do, because that is how it is foretold in the old prophesy from the Sage of Riyadh

“Tho’ many be surrounded,
and the surrounding be complete,
all shall escape
but the one with bad feet”.

I’ve now seen the footage of their assault on the building in Alkhobar, getting out of the helicopter. Well I must have missed a bit, when they first threw out their Zimmer frames. I thought it was absolutely scandalous. I was always taught that it was good manners to help infirm or old people out of a vehicle. Yet there they were, having to struggle out of that chopper all by themselves, nobody to lend a hand, poor old dears. Suppose one of them dropped their teeth on the ground – with their eyesight, they could spend all day looking. I thought for a moment that I’d spotted my old Grandmother, I thought “She’ll kick the sh*t out of those terrorists, no trouble”, but sadly she was snoozing in the next room. It’s a good job there was an invalid elevator fitted in that building, otherwise they’d still be up on the roof even now.

There are many theories as to how the three escaped, and indeed whether they departed hours before the helicopter appeared.

From the New York Times:

The tipping point came when Mr. Johnston, a 59-year-old Texan, learned that three of the four terrorists who attacked the Oasis Residential Resorts and other Western targets in Khobar and killed 22 people had eluded capture.

The attackers managed to escape during a confused moment and shoot their way through the weakest checkpoint, guarded by just two police cars, a Saudi official said. They were long gone by the time commandos landed on the roof at dawn.

Must-read post by Lawrence of Cyberia

Dexter Filkins writes:

Asked about the selections of the prime minister and the president, which became divisive decisions, he alluded to the role of L. Paul Bremer 3rd, the chief American administrator here.
.
“The government of Iraq, I sometimes say – I’m sure he doesn’t mind my saying it – Bremer is the dictator of Iraq,” Brahimi said. “He has the money. He has the signature. Nothing happens without his agreement in this country.”
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Brahimi did not get into details, although people close to him suggested last week that he had reluctantly agreed to the selection of Iyad Alawi as prime minister only after U.S. officials had pushed him.

Gee whiz, I’m so surprised that Bremer interfered after all.

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InstaMonger calls it a “Diplomatic Success” to “sucker” the UN. If the ham-fisted “diplomacy” exercised by Bremer is an example, it’s no wonder the US has no allies and is despised worldwide.

US base at Kirkuk attacked

Reuters:

Massive explosions rocked a major U.S. military base outside the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk Wednesday, shrouding the city in smoke, after what police said was a rocket strike on an arms store.

Shells and rockets screamed into the night sky over the base at Kirkuk’s main airport and thick smoke rolled across the whole area, a Reuters reporter said from the scene.

The initial blast around 10 p.m. was followed by sirens on the base and mayhem that was continuing an hour and half later.

“You can see rockets flying and landing all over the base,” reporter Adnan Hadi said from a vantage point some 500 yards from the base perimeter. “The windows of buildings close to the base have all been shattered.”
[…]
“A Katyusha rocket hit an arms store,” district police chief Borhan Taeb Taheb told Reuters.

Taheb said he knew of no casualties among civilians outside the base, which covers a very wide area. No ambulances or fire trucks were seen moving in the city, which was under curfew.

Developing. As an aside, this is the first time I’ve heard Kirkuk was under a curfew.

I’ve been asked several times what I mean by “Empire.” The best I can say is that it is not so much a place, as a state of mind (credit to Chris Deliso for the phrase).
Though historical analogies are perilous, tempting inappropriate parallels and interfering with rational analysis, they are nonetheless a sort of practical shorthand for describing modern phenomena. Today’s Empire to me is what is colloquially known as “The West,” and is not just the U.S. or the E.U., but both. Something like the late Roman Empire, divided in the 4th century between the Western – ruled from Rome – and the Eastern, ruled from Constantinople.
Over time, they developed into separate entities, which were both competing and complementary, so when Western Rome fell in 476, the Eastern (Byzantium) held on for another 1000 years. At this point, the U.S. is perhaps most like Western Rome, the dominant entity with a younger culture, while Europe is akin to Byzantium, an older civilization playing second fiddle to its American offspring, yet able to influence it greatly.
Europe also appears to be growing stronger as of recently, though appearances may not change the bottom line in the long run. (Germany may laud its participation in NATO “peacekeeping” in all sorts of places, but that doesn’t change the fact that its troops acted like frightened rabbits when facing Albanian mobs in March.) Continue reading “Defining Empire”