dagblog - Comments for "Losing our heads (Here, in Iraq, and in Saudi Arabia)"

Phyllis Bennis (who knows

jollyroger — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 07:28:06 +0000

In reply to Losing our heads (Here, in Iraq, and in Saudi Arabia)

Phyllis Bennis (who knows this shit cold) paints a picture of what it would mean NOT to lose our heads...

we need a new partnership...with Iran

The money trail...

jollyroger — Sun, 14 Sep 2014 04:24:30 +0000

In reply to JR, you are absolutely

The money trail...

Motivated, apparently, by the opportunity to profit from the vigorish off smuggled crude and the 49 diplomats currently ISIS hostages, Turkey as raised the middle finger of defiance, both as to furnishing fighters to the coming coalition and closing their borders to ISIS oil.

So much for NATO....

The extra special primo

jollyroger — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 08:12:03 +0000

In reply to Maybe Obama will link our new

The extra special primo ironic tidbit is that much of the current Shia-Sunni political split in Iraq is traced to Bremer's executive order setting up electoral procedures that explicitly guaranteed a national assembly organized along ethnic lines. In a way, there was less shia-sunni political split under Saddam, and plenty of intermarriage, pre-ethnic cleansing of Baghdad.

Just one more item on the tally of costs paid by Iraq for George and Paul's excellent adventure...

Watch what he does...

jollyroger — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 08:06:48 +0000

In reply to You know me, I always thought

Watch what he does...

That used to be what I told myself to explain away his seeming right wing postures....now I know that he will say anything, and that anything he says means nothing.

There's a difference between

jollyroger — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 02:38:48 +0000

In reply to There's a difference between

There's a difference between " killing " ... bullet, bomb, or building collapse ... and " execution " ... public decapitation.

Point well taken...the "execution" has a subtext that trumpets the arrogation of sovereignty. In another context, we see how the media and government mouthpieces struggle to avoid the imputation of statehood at the same time as they use the term Islamic State (offten with the addendum "group", of the acroniym ISIL, etc.)

BTW, my objection is to the

jollyroger — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 02:33:41 +0000

In reply to A keen observation and very

BTW, my objection is to the presence of the automatic weapons, not to the absence of ammunition.

There's a difference between

Beetlejuice — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 00:15:54 +0000

In reply to Losing our heads (Here, in Iraq, and in Saudi Arabia)

There's a difference between " killing " ... bullet, bomb, or building collapse ... and " execution " ... public decapitation.

The deliberate execution was new territory no one expected and no one was prepared to deal with. The new players in the game have different value sets they follow that aren't found in anyone's game plan for waging war.

But the west should have had a clue seeing how justice in the Middle East is carried out swiftly and deadly ... get caught stealing and you lose your hand ... very simple solution and very few thefts.

As for shutting down oil revenues that won't happen ... oil demand in the 3rd world are such that it would find it's way there regardless of the efforts by the industrialized west. And I suspect China would ignore any oil embargoes ... they need all the oil they can get and have been on the road to challenging the US at every corner of the world because they intent to take the US's position as the dominate currency and global leader.

Maybe Obama will link our new

NCD — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 17:41:02 +0000

In reply to Losing our heads (Here, in Iraq, and in Saudi Arabia)

Maybe Obama will link our new blow stuff and people up and send more weapons scheme to an income tax surcharge and the GOP will stall it in committee. It was so much easier when we were told getting Saddam and purple fingers voting would turn Iraq into a stable democracy. Bombing Jihadists will only create more Jihadists.

Although the latest plan, from the Democrats, is the US will 'train' some faction to fight IS and all the other factions. Infidels soiling the cause will condemn any group we back to oblivion. I hope this thing is not approved. We are flailing in the dark.

Neo-cons said Shiites and Sunni's would never turn on each other. Many are still presented as experts, Bush advisor Wolfowitz is still on TV (meet the Press, June 2014)

2003 - "We can pay for the war with the oil, and there has never been ethnic conflict in Iraq, not to worry!

On the tragic humor side, The Ode to Wolfowitz (from 2003) I can no longer find it on Google. By an unknown writer on the occasion of Wolfi's hotel being hit by a rocket launched from a donkey in Baghdad Oct, 2003.

Ode to Wolfowitz

O sweet, sweet Irony. How comforting thy terrible countenance became to the wise when thou chose to turn thy gaze to the proud and haughty and administer their comeuppance…

O Wolfowitz...

It was with great woe that the wise beheld thou in thy smug righteousness, when thou would not bear reproach for thy excesses and appetites, thy shock and awe, where mothers in Babylon wept...

And the wise witnessed thee before the senate, with thy chest puffed up with proud boasts, demanding the senate yoke more taxes onto the necks of the poor, so thou could pry ever more no-bid contracts for thy Caesar and his coin masters...

O Wolfowitz, Vice-regent of Neo-Babylon....

After thou filled thy coffers with gold and heaped contempt upon the meek who dared beg for the crumbs from thy Caesar's table, thou devised plans to survey the land of the vanquished and behold thy spoils of war...

Lo, how couldst thou neglect, that thy withering presence would greatly kindle the hot displeasure of the weak as they witnessed thy proud mouth boast of thy great works, of what was, and was to come…

Even while yet, the great crowd still awaits thy showing of these, weapons o' mass destruction, that thy footman, Uncle Powell, did bellow in a wroth voice full of war, and swore an oath before the great assembly of the kings of the world, were hid of every shadow of every rock in Babylon...

The vanquished, not able to bear the baneful discomfiture of thy haughty visage, made council to prepare for thee, a strong cup of trembling...

In thy infallible omniscience, thou failed to heed the ministrations of thy Prefect, Pontius Bremer, who establishes his chambers in fortified walls and cities and makes for his daily company, fierce men of war and bravery renowned, and will not suffer to leave their presence...

In thy fervent desire to make proof for thy Caesar of this, progress and security that thou hadst allegedly wrought amongst the vanquished, who have bitterly wept for the sake of their sons and daughters, thou proceeded to lay thy head in the midst of the maelstrom, thy heart made glad and confident by thy own proud boasts...

With great marvel, the wise witnessed thee, shocked and awed from thine own bedchambers in thy underwear, after thou were served but a meager sip from this same cup of trembling thou pitilessly force to the lips of the weak, gourd after gourd...

What jest greeted thee, when thou strived to strengthen thy trembling knees and made haste to clear thy throat with thy Caesar's customary gargle of, staying the course, dead-enders, Baathists, foreign instigators and such like, even as thou fled for thy life....

O Wolfowitz...

Wherefore dost thou now deny thyself the rapturous joy of a Mesopotamian sunset...?

JR, you are absolutely

Bruce Levine — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 12:58:15 +0000

In reply to Losing our heads (Here, in Iraq, and in Saudi Arabia)

JR, you are absolutely correct that the money trail is ultimately key, and nobody expresses that kind of thing like you do! And you also point out the irony (hypocrisy?) in seeing public opinion galvanized by the beheadings of two Americans, while the same thing happens with state sanction in Saudi Arabia. Yes. Hopefully, the president is not going to justify what he will talk about tonight on the basis of that alone, but the effect, the extraordinary effect on the nation by the beheadings, is noted.

It is a good article, worthy

Resistance — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 08:09:31 +0000

In reply to Hey, I just read Remnick and

It is a good article, worthy of reflection.