Glad You've Cleared That Up

Headline in the L.A. Times:

US Emphasizes Intent to Transfer Full Power to Iraqis--With Limits

Comments

[Gary Gunnels]

That's like being half-pregnant. 🙂

[fyodor]

I've wondered it before and I'll wonder it again: how can we be so sure there'll be elections there next year if it's out of our power? Someone here once answered that it's a promise, but made by whom? No one's even in charge, yet! How could we be so sure we could GET someone who would promise this that we're already talking about it like it's a fact? Hell, we'll be lucky to have elections there next year even if we DO have a direct say....

[Gadfly]

I notice Afghanistan is postponing their scheduled elections. kharzai still sleeps with one eye open, too.

[chthus]

Gadfly,

The latest thing I found on the scheduled Afghan elections in September read:

"Afghan elections to be held as per schedule"

http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=66113

Do you have a source for your statement? Or are you just making shit up?

[Kevin Carson]

For some reason, Bush isn't as contemptuous of training wheels as he used to be.

[Gadfly]

"However, the Afghan elections, originally scheduled for June, have already been postponed once due to the unsafe security situation. The UN reports that attacks by the Taliban have led to only 1.6 million out of the 10.5 million eligible electors being registered."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=524675

Now, of course, the US is leaning on Karzai to stick to the September election timetable to make Bush look good in November.

[JosephMendiola]

I don't see why the hoopla - Bush, Rummy & America are not stupid enough to hand over all power to a new and untried civilian government - CENTCOM or the US-Allied Commander will likely for a while yet have superior authority over any strategic milpol matters and or all matters involving CENTCOM as in post WW2 West Germany and espec Japan, the Allied military commander holds sway until such time the Allies, in coordination with the UNO, decide these states and their new governments are ready to go it alone! Remember, many of these alleged "insurgents" are NOT even local IRAQIS but outside, non-IRAQI foreign extremists/hardliners whom prefer a despotic Saddam and his brutal death camp/prisons, i.e. ISLAMIC TYRANNY-GENOCIDE, over Western-style democracy any day of the week!

[R C Dean]

Of course, maybe Bush is leaning on Karzai to stick it in AQ's eye, and show all the folks knuckling under to AQ that they are being left out in the cold.

Wanna vote? Being threatened by AQ? Grow a pair and help get rid of them.

Postponing the elections is exactly the result AQ wants. Why give it to them?

[anonymous coward]

PEOPLE WHO USE ALL CAPS DESERVE TO BE BEATEN TO DEATH WITH THEIR OWN KEYBOARDS!

[pedantic coward]

They weren't all caps.

[Gadfly]

Somebody track that guy. 🙂

[chthus]

Gadfly,

"I notice Afghanistan is postponing their scheduled elections".

The postponment you noticed from June to September, took place back in March.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3575881.stm

You should probably try to keep a bit more current with the news. Maybe try the internet, or newspapers, or magazines.

[Rick Barton]

It is a crucial issue," said the official, who spoke on condition that he not be named. The Iraqi government, he said, will have "a seat at the table" when military decisions are made. But he bristled when asked whether that meant the Iraqis would have the explicit power to block U.S. military plans.

Ha! Now the real intent is made clear. A "sovereignty" so "full" that they actually get a "seat at the table", concerning a foreign military occupation of their nation....more like, "full of it"!

U.S. officials have insisted that after the hand-over, Iraq's fledgling security forces will not be prepared to contend with a growing insurgency and that U.S. forces will be needed for months, possibly years, to establish order.

Wait a minuet! Years? Are they saying that even the elected Iraqi government won't have the digression to make US forces leave? That's not sovereignty at all. That's empire.

If a long term US troop presence comes to pass, the neocons will be rewarded for successfully lying us into this elective war. There is no reason, which has anything to do with US security, for not bringing our troops home now, let alone having them stay there past the elections.

The longer the US military stays in Iraq, the more Americans will perish without just cause.

We need to let them know that this is totally unacceptable. They might even listen; it's an election year:

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

[Rick Barton]

But one Iraqi official, speaking on condition that he not be named, said Tuesday that regardless of what was included in a Security Council resolution, "it would be a mistake for the U.S. military to carry out an operation against the will of the Iraqi government."

No kidding. But, why the anonymity? Perhaps the Abu Ghraib inspired climate has made some Iraqis nervous about offending our government. After all, King George says; "If you're not with us, then you're against us".

The end of U.S. occupation "takes away the pretext of our enemies, who say this is an American occupation and an American looting of Iraq," the Iraqi official said.

Good point! Someone tell the idiots in Washington. Not that they want to listen to that kind of logic, or note from whom it's coming.

[Gadfly]

"So now, Athenian men, more than on my own behalf must I defend myself, as some may think, but on your behalf, so that you may not make a mistake concerning the gift of god by condemning me. For if you kill me, you will not easily find another such person at all, even if to say in a ludicrous way, attached on the city by the god, like on a large and well-bred horse, by its size and laziness both needing arousing by some gadfly; in this way the god seems to have fastened me on the city, some such one who arousing and persuading and reproaching each one of you I do not stop the whole day settling down all over.
Thus such another will not easily come to you, men, but if you believe me, you will spare me; but perhaps you might possibly be offended, like the sleeping who are awakened, striking me, believing Anytus, you might easily kill, then the rest of your lives you might continue sleeping, unless the god caring for you should send you another."
-- The Trial of Socrates

[Gadfly]

chthus, see you in September. We can discuss banana republic elections and such. Maybe.

[Will]

chthus:

Don't take Gadfly seriously. He consistently posts total nonsense just to annoy people.

He's just lonely for attention.

Main Entry: gad?fly
Function: noun
1 : any of various flies (as a horsefly, botfly, or warble fly) that bite or annoy livestock
2 : a person who stimulates or annoys especially by persistent criticism

[Douglas Fletcher]

I think this Joseph Mendiola is the same guy that keeps sending me spam about some bank account in the African republic of Gabomba he wants to split with me. I wish he'd cut it out.

[Seamus]

"I don't see why the hoopla - Bush, Rummy & America are not stupid enough to hand over all power to a new and untried civilian government"

That may well be a valid point, but in that case we ought to stop pretending that we're giving the Iraqis their "sovereignty." The Bush administration is using language in an Orwellian fashion, in order to create the illusion of light at the end of the tunnel before election day.

[joe]

Well, there might be a few people in the region who aren't convinced that the US is dishonest, and plotting to secretly control Arab countries, so maybe this is an attempt to convince those lone holdouts.