Michael Ware Reporting From Iraq

By Big Tent Democrat, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Fri Nov 24, 2006 at 10:10:42 PM EST
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From CNN's Truthteller:

Michael Ware reports from the Iraqi capital tonight.
And Michael, the Iraqi government and the U.S. military in Baghdad keep saying this is not a civil war. What are you seeing?

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, firstly, let me say, perhaps it's easier to deny that this is a civil war, when essentially you live in the most heavily fortified place in the country within the Green Zone, which is true of both the prime minister, the national security adviser for Iraq and, of course, the top U.S. military commanders. However, for the people living on the streets, for Iraqis in their homes, if this is not civil war, or a form of it, then they do not want to see what one really looks like.

This is what we're talking about. We're talking about Sunni neighborhoods shelling Shia neighborhoods, and Shia neighborhoods shelling back. We're having Sunni communities dig fighting positions to protect their streets. We're seeing Sunni extremists plunging car bombs into heavily-populated Shia marketplaces. We're seeing institutionalized Shia death squads in legitimate police and national police commando uniforms going in, systematically, to Sunni homes in the middle of the night and dragging them out, never to be seen again.

I mean, if this is not civil war, where there is, on average, 40 to 50 tortured, mutilated, executed bodies showing up on the capital streets each morning, where we have thousands of unaccounted for dead bodies mounting up every month, and where the list of those who have simply disappeared for the sake of the fact that they have the wrong name, a name that is either Sunni or Shia, so much so that we have people getting dual identity cards, where parents cannot send their children to school, because they have to cross a sectarian line, then, goodness, me, I don't want to see what a civil war looks like either if this isn't one.

More.

PILGRIM: That is the starkest description I have yet heard, Michael.

The political overlays are deteriorating rapidly. We have Muqtada al-Sadr threatening to boycott the meeting, boycott the government of al-Maliki if he meets with President Bush.

What do you -- how do you assess the political situation right now?

WARE: Well, you have to look at Muqtada's move here politically as a very, very savvy twisting of the knife. I mean, he lays claim to Prime Minister Maliki just as much, if not more so, than the U.S. military.

Maliki has no popular base. He lacks the currency of political power in this country, which is an armed militia. So he's had to beg and borrow for political capital.

He found that the U.S. military desperate to put any kind of reasonable face on this apparition that they call the Iraqi government. And meanwhile, in real political terms, he's had to draw on Muqtada's militia and its political faction to actually put him into place.

So this is a man in a terrible predicament, who is unable to deliver. And yet, we have Muqtada in this time of crisis just turning that screw.

He has threatened to withdraw -- well, his people have threatened to withdraw participation in the parliament and the government if he meets with what they call the criminal Bush. Nonetheless, he is so acute, his political advisers and Muqtada himself. This was a statement made by his leading parliamentarian. It didn't come from his mouth himself. So he can use this as very convenient leverage this week in the leadup to the Maliki-Bush meeting, and at the last minute, he can pull away from it. And nonetheless, he still wins.

PILGRIM: That's desperately deteriorating in your description, and it seems in reality, too.

Thanks very much.

Michael Ware.
WARE: Thank you, Kitty.

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Michael Ware Reporting From Iraq | 19 comments (19 topical)

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So (5.00 / 3) (#1)
by aw on Fri Nov 24, 2006 at 10:29:57 PM EST

We're in the middle of a civil war, shooting at both sides, getting shot at, and for what purpose? Saddam is gone. There are no WMD's. Mission accomplished. Why are we still there?

: OIL AND EGO - and your guess as to which... (4.00 / 1) (#17)
by Bill Arnett on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 02:16:49 PM EST

...provides the greater impetus is as good as mine.

: Mission accomplished. Why are we still there? (none / 0) (#18)
by Edger on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 02:31:42 PM EST

Glibness/superficial charm
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Pathological lying
Conning/manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Shallow affect
Callous/lack of empathy
Parasitic lifestyle
Lack of realistic, long-term goals
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Criminal versatility
--Link

Civil War? (5.00 / 2) (#2)
by squeaky on Fri Nov 24, 2006 at 11:40:26 PM EST

I mean, if this is not civil war, where there is, on average, 40 to 50 tortured, mutilated, executed bodies showing up on the capital streets each morning, where we have thousands of unaccounted for dead bodies mounting up every month.......

seems very convincing to me, you know, in that understated sort of way....

sigh (5.00 / 2) (#8)
by soccerdad on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 08:28:50 AM EST

and now confronting the ultimate test of the 'long war' against Evil itself, incarnate as Terror

There is no war on terror. The sooner you understand this the sooner you will see clearly what is happening in Iraq and throughout Eurasia for what it is - a war for resources and geopolitical power. The war on terror is just the cover story someone to blame. Just as the Nazis blamed the Jews this administration blames the Muslim terrorists yet the real agenda is not about that.

: Exactly... (5.00 / 2) (#10)
by Edger on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 08:37:15 AM EST

For anyone who still doesn't get it: W.O.T. = War On Thinking

Has W lost interest in his broken toy? (4.50 / 2) (#11)
by aw on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 09:18:31 AM EST

Is it just me or has George W. Bush checked out of the stumbling national crisis we know as 'Iraq'?
...
Back when he was riding high President Bush used to say that he 'didn't do nuance' -- a point on which he was unquestionably right. And that being the case, there's just nothing left for him to say. No more chest-thumping or rah-rah or daring his opponents to say he's wrong. So he's just gone silent. Like it's not his problem any more.

TPM

: Funny... (5.00 / 2) (#13)
by Edger on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 09:28:59 AM EST

No more chest-thumping ... he's just gone silent. Like it's not his problem any more.
... it happens with trolls here exactly the same way. Uncomfortable questions and they just vanish from a thread only to popup elsewhere repeating the same BS.

Wow (4.00 / 1) (#4)
by squeaky on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 12:56:47 AM EST

huge mistake made, right up front: al-sadr and his militia should have been utterly, completely destroyed, the moment they presented a threat. his town should have been totally leveled, and left a black hole in the ground, as an example to the rest of them.

The rest of them????

Nice.

Anyone else that you think needs to be, er.... cleansed?

: In Order to Save Iraq (4.50 / 2) (#14)
by john horse on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 09:50:55 AM EST

I'm a bit baffled by that bit from cpinva myself. Reminds me of that famous Vietnam quote "In order to save the village it was necessary to destroy it." Sadr City is a neighborhood in northeast Baghdad with two million inhabitants. Leveling it and leaving a black hole is not going to be an easy task unless we use weapons of mass destruction. (Saddam may not have had them but we sure do)
But why stop there? Lets wipe out the whole country. In order to save Iraq it was necessary to destroy it (sarcasm alert).

What WOT? (4.00 / 1) (#15)
by Che's Lounge on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 09:59:54 AM EST

Think you've seen a bloodbath? You aint seen nothing until you reach that goal.

As if your predictions carry any weight any more.

Cpinva,
Don't get caught up in the "we should have smashed them in the beginning" theories. There are 25 million Iraqis. You cannot, and I repeat, CANNOT subjugate a country simply by bombing anyone who resists. This was a mess the moment the bombs started falling. Force DOES NOT WORK!

Soc,
Of course there is no WOT. We've been shouting this for years and the media still conspires to sell dish soap sponsored by the war on terror. The people of this country have become a bloodthirsty population. Everyone's answer to everything is to blow someone up or change the laws to incarcerate politically incorrect behavior. Meanwhile the rich get richer.

In summation...

It's a big club...

AND YOU AIN'T IN IT!

: Che's, I would make TWO minor... (none / 0) (#19)
by Bill Arnett on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 03:00:29 PM EST

...modifications to this quote:

The [religious right, neocons, and rethug leaders] of this country have become a bloodthirsty population. [The neocon] answer to everything is to blow someone up or change the laws to incarcerate politically incorrect behavior. Meanwhile the rich get richer.

Beginning of the End Game (3.00 / 1) (#6)
by Edger on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 08:24:33 AM EST

It would seem that the country is falling apart:

Sooner or later, failure has a way of stripping most of us of our dreams and pretensions.
...
"Bush left reality behind. Now we are all trapped'
US analyst William Pfaff recently wrote ,"For Americans, Iraq has ceased to be a video game running along the edge of public consciousness. The midterm congressional elections demonstrate that the US public wants to get out of Iraq almost as much as the British, as does the attention suddenly given to the Baker-Hamilton Commission, which was actually set up months ago.
"But how is exit to be accomplished? Clearly the White House does not know, nor does the US army. The Baker-Hamilton Commission is unlikely to know, as its members were chosen because they represent the higher reaches of the conventional wisdom.
"In America, it's as though Bush, his inner cabinet, and the neocons have been playing a video game, with fictional characters and victims, virtual death and torture. Now the disc has suddenly finished, and it's time to shut down the player.
"This is not just a figure of speech. American policy has been running on images rather than evidence of real nations and people doing things for real human motives. It has been populated by abstractions: Global Terrorist Conspiracies, Rogue Nations, Fanatics Who Hate Our Freedoms, Generations of Terrorism and The Global Menace of Al-Qaeda.
"We are the leading nation, the most moral, born with the redemptive mission to create what the Puritan preacher Jonathan Winthrop called the 'City on the Hill', the democracy 'of the people and by the people' that originated the modern world with our repudiation of monarchy and inherited privilege, establishing the greatest of republics, saving the Four Freedoms for the world by winning (alone!) both First and Second World Wars, then the Cold War, and now confronting the ultimate test of the 'long war' against Evil itself, incarnate as Terror.
"Today this is the language of government, journalism, politics and foreign policy in the US, spoken in the policy discussions at Washington think-tanks and on the editorial pages of newspapers.
"Is this Orwellian? Or is it just demagogy, politicians' lies, White House spin, journalistic laziness, formulations conceived to sell books? Or could it be cynical manipulation by apprentice dictators, energy industry and weapons-maker magnates, closet fascists? It is not Orwellian in that the neocon ideologues, George Bush and Tony Blair, certainly believe all this. They are not being manipulated.
"It is not Orwellian because the creators of this cartoon-like conceptual world have themselves become actors in the virtual universe their ideas and actions have made. They have left reality behind - or they simply ignore it, as they did in invading Iraq."

: No-brainer. (none / 0) (#9)
by Edger on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 08:30:47 AM EST

Kristol Loses Battle of Baghdad, November 24, 2006 01:00 PM EST

There is no such thing as the defense of Baghdad. If the US posture in Iraq comes down to the defense of Baghdad, the US has already lost the war.

Withdrawing (2.00 / 1) (#5)
by jimakaPPJ on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 08:16:53 AM EST

Having contributed to the terrorists belief that if they just keep killing the US will withdraw, the Left wants to complete the cycle by.... withdrawing.

: Having what? (5.00 / 1) (#20)
by Repack Rider on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 04:34:26 PM EST

Having made Osama's dreams come true by deposing his most hated Middle Eastern enemy, by creating thousands more recruits who most conveniently have stolen hundreds of tons of unguarded Hi-E, and by uniting the Moslem world against the United States, while not being able to find Osama in a phone booth with a flashlight and a Boy Scout troop, we should suddenly quit doing Osama's bidding by leaving Iraq?
Why deny him his goals now, when we had the chance nearly four years ago to do so and whiffed?
If Osama didn't believe in Allah before 9/11, he does now, because in George W. Bush he has been given an enemy so inept that he couldn't have designed a better one himself. Bush refuses to stop helping Osama, no matter how much reality is thrust in Bush's face.
And you want us to KEEP ON HELPING OSAMA because if we stopped it would be "cut and run"? Did Osama come up with that slogan for you?
Why do you hate America so much that you want us to keep making Osama's dreams come true?

: The world according to jim ... (4.50 / 2) (#16)
by Sailor on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 10:03:54 AM EST

... everyone living in iraq is a terrorist:
Having contributed to the terrorists belief
We invaded a country that had no ability to harm us, on a lie about WMDs, then bush moved the goal posts to 'removing a dictator', then moved again to 'establishing freedom and democracy.'
We also said we'd leave when they wanted us to, now 80% of iraqis (that would be the surviving iraqis), want us out.
ppj and bushco's 'stay and kill' rhetoric is a proven failure.
In the mean time afghanistan has spiraled out of control with more troops needed and record poppy production and less territory controlled by nato forces.
You remember afghanistan, the place where the taliban let OBL plan the attacks of 9/11? The taliban that America armed to fight the russians? The place that is the central front on terrorism?
ppj and his increasingly small, shrill, bloodthirsty minority will keep killing Americans and iraqis until they run out of Americans and iraqis.
Not much of a plan.

nope, no civil war.................. (none / 0) (#3)
by cpinva on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 12:18:41 AM EST

here. nothing to see folks, just move on along. do not look behind the curtain!

i know, instead of calling it a 'civil war", take a note from the confederacy, and call it the "recent unpleasantness".

of course, that would have required an actual plan, something this administration seems incapable of putting together.

: War Between The States (4.00 / 1) (#12)
by john horse on Sat Nov 25, 2006 at 09:20:05 AM EST

re: "i know, instead of calling it a 'civil war", take a note from the confederacy, and call it the "recent unpleasantness"."
cpinva,
... or how about that other euphemism in the South for the civil war, "the War Between The States"? In this particular case it would be the states of denial and delusion versus the reality based states.