Surging to a new war

The American surge in Iraq is going nowhere. Sectarian violence may be down a bit in one place, but it goes up in another. Even the departing British military attaché Colonel Alastair Campbell admitted as much, to all-round embarrassment in London and Washington. (The Sunday Telegraph: US surge is failing, says UK's Iraq envoy)

According to dubious statistics, 1,500 civilians were killed in April. The true figure is no doubt much higher. Now, the U.S. occupiers say that if it could be brought down to 800, that would be a success. That's still much more than the murders Saddam Hussein ever accomplished – on average.

The White House says the surge cannot be evaluated before September. I'll tell you here and now – on the record – that the situation in September will be much worse than it is now, from the American's perspective. U.S. commanders are once again trying to devise a new strategy, exploring if they perhaps could work together with some insurgents to oppose other insurgents. This age old tactic of divide and rule will never work. Every Iraqi who collaborates with the U.S. occupiers will be hunted down and eliminated. The U.S. has found another dead-end street.

The Democrats are now even willing to fork out another 90 billion dollar to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq without setting any withdrawal deadline. (CNN: Dems plan Iraq bill minus timeline but with benchmarks) They did set a few meaningless benchmarks, which the president can waive if he feels it's necessary. Senator Russ Feingold said it “allows the president to continue what may be the greatest foreign policy blunder in our nation's history.” Not only that, the Democrats are actively supporting and abetting war crimes committed by the Bush administration.

If this war can't be won, we'd better start another – perhaps we'll have more luck – is what the deranged mind of George W. Bush is dreaming of. So yesterday two aircraft carrier battle groups around the USS John C. Stennis and the USS Nimitz crossed the Strait of Hormuz and entered the Gulf, to support combat operations in Iraq, train a bit and of course to try to intimidate Iran on a day the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declared that Iran is indeed continuing to enrich uranium. The Bush administration is once again spinning lies that the Iranian Islamic Republican Guards are working together with al-Qaeda to destabilize Iraq. “This story is the biggest load of crap,” commented Will Bunch in the New York Daily News.

The Guardian published it on its front page (Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq), but in the inner pages Dilip Hiro debunked it as another bunch of lies. (Briefing encounter) “A link-up between the virulently anti-Shia al-Qaida in Mesopotamia and the Iranians, even at a surreptitious level, is beyond belief.”

Still, the remaining neocons in the White House are pushing for another war of aggression, hoping in vain to win this time.