Deadly reprisals follow bombing of Shiite mosque: At least 54 killed, 50 Sunni mosques attacked
Sunni group suspends coalition talks until it gets apology for mosque attacks
Bomb smashes dome of Iraqi Shiite shrine
At least 46 bodies were found scattered across Iraq late Wednesday and early Thursday, many of them shot execution-style and dumped in Shiite-dominated parts of the capital, Baghdad. They included a prominent Al-Arabyia TV female correspondent and two other Iraqi journalists, who had been covering Wednesday’s explosion in Samarra. Their bullet-riddled bodies were found on the outskirts of the mostly Sunni Arab city 95 kilometres north of Baghdad.
No, I’m not going to say “I told you so”, but you should be able to forgive me for at least thinking it. Three years, billions of dollars, and 2300 dead Americans…and what do we have to show for the clusterf—k that is Our Glorious Leader’s war in Iraq? We have a nation on the brink of civil war along sectarian lines…and there doesn’t appear to be much of anything that the US can do about it.
This civil war is being brought to you by The Religion of Peace©….
How many more billions have to be spent? How many young Americans will have to die before Our Glorious Leader admits to the reality that we cannot fix Iraq? Yes, we broke it, and one could argue that American policy in Iraq has largely been based on “fixing” the mess we made, but it’s not going to happen. The genie is out of the bottle, and the forces of Evil clearly have the upper hand. At this point in time there appears to be nothing that American policy, money, and/or military might is going to be able to do to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. So when do we admit to the reality and stop wasting time, money, and lives in a country that seems immune to all efforts to build a functional, peaceful country?
No matter how much Our Glorious Leader and his apologists, propagandists, and spinmeisters might protest to the contrary, we are not “winning” in Iraq (whatever the Hell that means). Given the direction that events on the ground seem to be heading, we are not going to “win” in Iraq. At this point, it seems clear that the best we can reasonably hope for is to be able to leave with our pride (if not our credibility) intact.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Sectarian strife resulting from Wednesday’s attack on a Shiite mosque in Samarra continued to be felt throughout Iraq Thursday morning, when six bodies — all presumed to be Sunni — were found by Iraqi police in the al-Dora neighborhood of southern Baghdad, Iraqi emergency police said.
Separately, one person was killed when gunmen driving in two cars opened fire on a Sunni mosque in Baquba, north of the capital, during morning prayers, an official with Diyala’s joint coordination center told CNN.
The fatalities brought to 54 the number of Sunnis believed to have been killed since the mosque attack.
In addition, 50 Sunni mosques were attacked Wednesday in Baghdad after the brazen early morning strike on Al-Askariya Mosque.
Among the dead were imams, worshippers and bystanders, police said.
Iraq has degraded into one large free fire zone, where anyone and anything is a likely target. How in the hell are American soldiers supposed to fix this kind of mess? The short answer, of course, is that they cannot. We can continue to pour money, times, and lives into the maw (and we can slap more ribbons on our SUVs), but to expect any sort of return on this investment is naive at best and criminal at worst. In spite of all efforts to the contrary, Iraq is becoming more and more of an economic, political, and sectarian basketcase. The continued sacrifice of American lives and resources is not going to materially impact issues that Iraqis are going to have to work out for themselves.
Yes, we created this problem (Memo to Our Glorious Leader: Nice legacy, eh??). Sadly, we are not going to be able to fix it. With that in mind, it’s time to pull the plug, grab our ball and bat, and go home. Leaving Iraq in it’s current state may be politically damaging to the Bush Administration and legacy, but it’s the right thing to do. Wasting one more American life in Iraq is a pointless and futile exercise that ultimately will have no impact on events on the ground.
It’s time to bring our men and women in uniform home before any more of them die horrible, senseless, and pointless deaths.
