Peoples Geography — Reclaiming space

Creating people's geographies

BushCo’s surge of insanity: PressPicks

The Surge is a Red Herring
Paul Craig Roberts | ICH | 12 January 2006

Bush’s “surge” speech is a hoax, but members of Congress and media commentators are discussing the surge as if it were real.

I invite the reader to examine the speech. The “surge” content consists of nonsensical propagandistic statements. The real content of the speech is toward the end where Bush mentions Iran and Syria.

Bush makes it clear that success in Iraq does not depend on the surge. Rather, “Succeeding in Iraq . . . begins with addressing Iran and Syria.”

Bush asserts that “these two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops.”

Bush’s assertions are propagandistic lies.

The Iraq insurgency is Sunni. Iran is Shi’ite. If Iran is supporting anyone in Iraq it is the Shi’ites, who have not been part of the insurgency. Indeed, the Sunni and Shi’ites are engaged in a civil war within Iraq.

Does any intelligent person really believe that Iranian Shi’ites are going to arm Iraqi Sunnis who are killing Iraqi Shi’ites allied with Iran? Does anyone really believe that Iranian Shi’ites are going to provide sanctuary for Iraqi Sunnis?

Bush can tell blatant propagandistic lies, because Congress and the American people don’t know enough facts to realize the absurdity of Bush’s assertions.

Why is Bush telling these lies? Here is the answer: Bush says, “We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

In those words, Bush states perfectly clearly that victory in Iraq requires US forces to attack Iran and Syria. Read the rest here

Poll: Americans Oppose Iraq Troop Surge
By Nancy Benac | The Associated Press | Thursday 11 January 2007

Washington – Seventy percent of Americans oppose sending more troops to Iraq, according to a new poll that provides a devastatingly blunt response to President Bush’s plan to bolster military forces there. Read rest here

baldinger-operation-iraqi-blunder-2007.jpg

© David Baldinger

Insanity Surge
By Cindy Sheehan | T r u t h o u t | Thursday 11 January 2007

Bloody George, the lamest duck in US history, has announced to the nation that he will be sending 21,500 more troops into Iraq, which some call a “surge,” some call an escalation, and I like to refer to as Operation Increasing Cannon Fodder.The Hypocrite in Chief has said over and over again, throughout nearly four years of his malevolent and dysfunctional occupation, that he would increase troop levels when the “generals on the ground” asked him to. I guess he never said what he would do if his generals on the ground asked him not to send new troops, but apparently one will get canned, as Generals Casey and Abizaid recently found out.

We humans for peace and sanity need to descend on our Congressional offices to avert this calamity in the making. This past week, Speaker Pelosi threatened Bloody George with withholding funds for this newest venture into the abyss and WE need to make sure that she follows through with that threat. Bloody George’s funds need to be cut off. He can’t perpetrate any more murder or perpetuate any more hatred if the cash cow runs dry.

I am tired of the warmakers making war with our children. I am tired of our tired troops being sent over to do the dirty work for mob bosses who are going to squeeze the life out of Iraq and not leave until every asset and every natural resource has been raped from the country. I am tired of seeing Iraqis burying their loved ones and hearing the reverberating screams of mothers all over our country who are being destroyed for the benefit of a very few.

It seems that as Bloody George’s time winds down, his incompetence surges, and it appears that impeachment is more urgent.

Bush’s New Strategy — The March of Folly
by Robert Fisk | The Independent | 11 January 2007

… The killing of 14 Sunni civilians by US paratroopers at Fallujah that spring set the seal on the insurgency. Yes, Syria and Iran could help George Bush. But Tehran was part of his toytown “Axis of Evil”, Damascus a mere satellite. They were to be future prey, once Project Iraq proved successful. Then there came the shame of our torture, our murders, the mass ethnic cleansing in the land we said we had liberated.

And so more US troops must die, sacrificed for those who have already died. We cannot betray those who have been killed. It is a lie, of course. Every desperate man keeps gambling, preferably with other men’s lives.

But the Bushes and Blairs have experienced war through television and Hollywood; this is both their illusion and their shield. Read rest here

WAIST DEEP IN THE BIG MUDDY
by Greg Palast | Greg Palast.com | Thursday, January 11, 2007

George W. Bush has an urge to surge. Like every junkie, he asks for just one more fix: let him inject just 21,000 more troops and that will win the war.

Been there. Done that. In 1965, Tom Paxton sang,

Lyndon Johnson told the nation
Have no fear of escalation.
I am trying everyone to please.
Though it isn’t really war,
We’re sending 50,000 more
To help save Vietnam from the Vietnamese.

Four decades later, Bush is asking us to save Iraq from the Iraqis.

There’s always a problem with giving a junkie another fix. It can only make things worse. Read the rest here.

If not now, when?
by Mike Ferner | Z Net | 12 Jan 2007

… Last fall the British medical journal “Lancet” published a study done by researchers from Johns Hopkins University estimating that the midrange number of Iraqis dead “as a consequence of the war” was about 2.5 percent of that country’s population, or roughly 655,000 people. Over 90% of those died from violence.

Comparable casualties in our country would mean that every person in Atlanta, Denver, Boston, Seattle, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Baltimore, San Francisco, Dallas and Philadelphia would be dead. Every. Single. Person.

And we are just now getting serious about cutting off money for this war?

Besides that unimaginable death toll, every person in Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, Kansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Oregon, South Carolina, and Colorado would be wounded. Every. Single. Person.

Would that be the point we stopped politely asking our Congress members to please end the war, and began taking over their offices in every state in the union?

And what if in nightmare America, when you turned on the tap you got a thin stream of sick water; there was no reliable electricity to cool the desert heat or preserve food; no proper hospitals or rehab services to help the wounded become productive members of society once again?

Would we be content to go to our nation’s capital for a day, hold our banners aloft, and return home? Or would we sit down in the streets of Washington by the thousands and bring government to a standstill? Read the rest here

Arabs see little hope for Bush’s Iraq plan
Reuters :: Khaleej Times | 11 January 2007

CAIRO – US President George W. Bush’s plan to send 21,500 more troops will fail to bring peace to Iraq and could aggravate a conflict in which tens of thousands of people have already died, Arab analysts said on Thursday.

Bush, taking advice mainly from a small group of ideologues, has misunderstood the nature of the conflict and is wrong to think that a military solution is possible, they added.

Read rest of article here

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Timely Reminders

"Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes perceptibly worse than what it was, before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself."
-- Aldous Huxley

"The only war that matters is the war against the imagination. All others are subsumed by it."
-- Diane DiPrima, "Rant", from Pieces of a Song.

"It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there"
-- William Carlos Williams, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"


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