Goodbye, and good luck.

[piece-itpete]

It was a wonderful feeling to see the last troops leave Iraq after all these years. So closes a somewhat strange era of our history.

Thank you troops.

After I watch the film on these last troops, I picks up the paper and read this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...82O_story.html

"... A deepening political crisis that pits the country’s Shiite prime minister against some of his most outspoken Sunni coalition partners is already raising fears that a brewing conflict could plunge the country into a new era of instability.

...

“These religious parties want to take us back to the earliest days of Islam,” he said. “They are going to oppress independent people who don’t want Iraq to be close to Iran.”

Fears of an expansion of Iranian influence are widespread among Sunnis and Shiites. Ali, the wedding musician, said that he fears a future in which his livelihood is wiped out by prohibitions on partying, music and dancing, and that the Americans had helped check Iranian influences on the Iraqi government and moderate the behavior of the politicians.

.....

While similar disputes have erupted in the past, only to be smoothed over by lengthy negotiations, this one seemed in the minds of many ordinary Iraqis to acquire ominous overtones in the wake of the departure of the Americans. There have been more soldiers and armored vehicles on the streets of Baghdad in recent days, they say. Tanks have been deployed outside the homes of Hashimi, Mutlak and a third Sunni politician, their guns pointed toward their gates. A convoy of trucks laden with ammunition queued for access to the fortified Green Zone on Sunday, adding to the jittery mood.

The crisis is dividing Iraq along sectarian lines, threatening a revival of the tensions that erupted in widespread bloodletting in the middle of the past decade. Sunnis detect a plot by Maliki to crush his rivals and cement his authority now that U.S. forces have departed. Shiites think that Hashimi and other Sunni politicians may be behind some of the acts of terrorism that have abated but not disappeared from Baghdad’s streets.

......

.-.-.-.-.-.


Interesting times indeed. May God bless the Iraqis.

Pete

[finnbow]

This just in:

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government was thrown into crisis on Monday night as authorities issued an arrest warrant for the Sunni vice president, accusing him of running a personal death squad that assassinated security officials and government bureaucrats.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/wo...sinations.html

Indeed a very messy place.

[Bigerik]

Sounds like they need a strong, non-religious leader, who is neither friendly to the Iranians or the various terrorist groups.

Oh yeah. I forget. They had one like that and we removed him.

[Bigerik]

Originally Posted by finnbow

This just in:

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government was thrown into crisis on Monday night as authorities issued an arrest warrant for the Sunni vice president, accusing him of running a personal death squad that assassinated security officials and government bureaucrats.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/wo...sinations.html

Indeed a very messy place.

[neophyte]

let's see now...the Sunni-Shia beef started about 1,380years ago. The USA embarked on a war of adventure in Iraq based on bullshit lies eight or nine years ago, and $700billion, around 4,000 American and undisclosed Iraqi lives, and it flares right back up? Who had any idea that would happen?

Thank goodness the troops that got out alive and unharmed did. Now that this chapter of foolishness is sort of over for us, the door is open for the next one.

There will be no stand alone air defense system in place for some time in Iraq. They don't start taking delivery of attack/defense aircraft till late next year. Until that time the good old USA will provide a defensive umbrella. It's an interesting coincidence that Israel would have had to fly around, not over Iraq to launch an illegal attack on Iran were this not the case. Somehow, I don't see US warplanes suppressing such an attack. Very convenient.

[Oerets]

Last I head the Embassy compound will have over 15K people in it staff. The largest of any in the world. So what's up with that. I think Academi (Xe or Blackwater...) or what ever they will call themselves next week are still going to active on our dime.


Barney

[Charles]

Should have declared victory in Afghanistan and stayed in Iraq.

At least Iraq was pretty much pacified.

Or better yet, let the Europeans fix the Middle East. They're the ones who fucked it up in the first place. Unless you want to give credit to the people who have always lived there.

Chas

[neophyte]

editorial in a Beijing newspaper that sums up the American Iraq fiasco pretty well

BEIJING, Dec. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- More than eight years and seven months after then US president George W. Bush posed for photographs aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln with the banner "Mission Accomplished" in the background, America's war in Iraq is finally, officially, coming to an end. US president Barack Obama has heralded it "a moment of success", which it probably is, for the United States and for him.

It has replaced a disobedient former head of state and his regime with a system of its own design, and President Obama has received a boost to his re-election hopes by fulfilling a core campaign promise at a politically opportune moment. There has already been an immediate rebound in his approval ratings.

While conceding, "Iraq is not a perfect place," the US president told returning troops last Thursday at Fort Bragg in North Carolina that "we're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq".

A sentiment echoed by the top US commander in Iraq, Lloyd Austin, who said the Iraqi people now have an unprecedented opportunity to live in a relatively peaceful environment.

So the country's bloodiest, and costliest, military offensive since Vietnam, is being carefully portrayed as a victory.

It is true Saddam Hussein was a dictator and the stability under the heavy-handed strongman smelt of blood; but make no mistake, Iraq was a sovereign, self-reliant, and independent country.

On the other hand, the peaceful environment general Austin talked about remains as illusive and distant as it has since the US invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003.

US military sources said that there were 500 to 750 attacks a month this year, including bombings, rocket attacks and assassinations. That is not a peaceful environment.

To many Iraqis the US invasion has resulted in anything but peace.

"The Americans did not leave modern schools or big factories behind them," Mariam Khazim, a Shiite resident of Sadr City, told the Associate Press. "Instead, they left thousands of widows and orphans. The Americans did not leave a free people and country behind them. In fact, they left a ruined country and a divided nation."

"This December will be a time to reflect on all that we have been through in this war," said Obama. And there is indeed plenty to reflect on. But, besides the human and financial cost to the US, it is also time to reflect on what the Iraqis have been through all these years.

Besides the 100,000, mostly civilian, Iraqi deaths, the occupation has taken a severe toll on the country. Americans are not the sole victims of the "unseen wounds of war".

And does anyone remember this was a war ostensibly waged to eliminate Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction", that proved to be non-existent.

It is not only shameful, it is dangerous if the discourse about the war continues skirting around the legitimacy issue.

The tide of war will not recede if a country can impose a war on another and shatter it without having to worry about the consequences.

[Bigerik]

Any other leader than a US president would likely have caused at least a discussion about war crimes charges. That shrub gets to walk away free after creating this mess us truly sad.

[merrylander]

I should note that a goodly number of the Iraqui deaths were caused by their fellow muslims with their indescriminate car bombs.