Is this Iraq? No. Pakistan. USA occupation numbers, ZERO !

In case you are wondering why the map below states "Stages 1 through 4..." it is because there is an attempted resettlement of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border (click here)

Do you want to know where Osama bin Laden is?

He is in this region on Earth. More than likely the Kurram Agency of Pakistan. Musharraf is corrupt. He and Osama caused a coupe in Pakistan, yet, he is one of Bush's best buddies. Just because a man has the title of President of the USA doesn't mean he and his words are competent.

Lawyers to observe ‘Karachi Martyrs Day’ on 17th (click here)

By By our correspondent 4/13/2008
Karachi
Pakistan Bar Council has announced to observe “Yaum-e-Shuhada-e-Karachi” on April 17 throughout the country to mourn the tragic deaths of lawyers and innocent citizens who lost their lives in the April 9 incidents of violence.Addressing a press conference at the Bar room of Sindh High Court Bar Association, PBC’s Executive Committee members Rasheed A Razvi, Hamid Khan, Qazi Mohammad Anwar, Ali Ahmed Kurd and Kazim Khan asked the Bar councils and associations to dedicate April 17 for those innocent lawyers and citizens who were killed in the incidents of terrorism in Karachi on April 9.The council called upon Sindh government to control law and order situation and conduct an impartial inquiry through judicial commission into the events and prosecute and punish the offenders.Former vice chairman PBC Ali Ahmed Kurd said that lawyers struggle was meant to establish rule of law as well as restoration of judiciary to its November 2 position.“Lawyers movement for the restoration of judiciary has become a part of history and history could not be defeated,” he said, adding that legal fraternity would continue its struggle until the restoration of judiciary and establishment of rule of law. “Lawyers struggle is meant for the 99% masses who are being suppressed for the last 60 years and who have been fully supporting the lawyers movement for the restoration of judiciary,” he said.Criticizing President Musharraf’s statement against lawyers, Kurd said that the people who abrogated the Constitution had actually intended to create anarchy in the country....

Don't tell me what 'goes on' in Iraq. I know what goes on in Iraq. It is called corruption and the people are engaged in war against that corruption. The illegal invasion of Iraq was and is an illegal invasion. "The oil, boss, the oil."

Oil, Iraq and U.S. Foreign Policy: A Way Forward (Part II) (click here)

...In other words, for these country's help in military and civilian assistance, their oil services and oil producing companies will participate in the exploration, drilling, and production of Iraqi oil. France (Schlumberger (SLB), Total (TOT)), Britain (BP (BP), BG), China (CNOOC (CEO), PetroChina (PTR)), Russia (LukOil (LUKOF.PK), Gazprom (OGZPY.PK)), and of course the US (Exxon (XOM), Chevron (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP), Halliburton (HAL), etc) will negotiate contracts in order to divvy up the Iraqi oil and gas resources....

The Shia militias will never put down their weapons.

It's not possible. They have to 'survive the day' just like everyone else.

The 'fragility' Petraeus refers to is called 'oppression of the will of the Iraqis.' Iraq is divided into ethnic factions. The Iraqis need to get on with their business and the USA needs to leave that country.

Iraq never was a threat to the USA national security and still today it is not !


Death toll rises to 17 as sectarian clashes continue (click title above)
Our Staff Reporter
PESHAWAR - The death toll rises to 17 in the fresh round of sectarian clashes in Parachanar, Sadda and other parts of Kurram Agency continued on the fourth consecutive day Saturday.According to reports, the rival tribesmen from Shia and Sunni communities are targeting each other’s positions and properties with modern and sophisticated weapons. The armed clashes in and around Parachanar and Sadda towns have been continuing for the last four days, causing loss of 17 precious lives and injuries to more than 60. Though the leaders and stalwarts of both the sides are giving conflicting data regarding human and property losses during the clashes. However, the independent circles believe that 17 persons were killed in the last four days. The killed and injured include leading tribal elders and youngsters. While blaming each other for violating the cease-fire agreement, leaders of both the Shia and Sunni communities are unanimously unhappy with the policies of the Government, particularly the Political Administration of the agency. The tribal elders alleged that the officials are playing the role of silent spectators despite the fact that hundreds of people were killed and injured in the sectarian clashes, which erupted in November last.In the wake of frequent demands of people from socio-political circles, a number of helicopters initiated air patrolling in the area. So far no action has been taken for bringing the situation under control. However, after air patrolling of helicopters the firing is on the decline in some areas.The elders from Shia and Sunni communities are reportedly accusing each other of fuelling bloodshed at the behest of some alien hands. The elders from Sunni community alleged that Shia groups are getting help from the Afghan government whereas the Shia circles are accusing the diehard religious groups like Lashkar-i-Tayyaba and Sepah Sahaba of their involvement in attacking and killing of the Shia people.It merits mentioning that despite growing sectarian tension all over Kurram Agency, the government has withdrawn certain wings of the Frontier Corps from the area. A number of political leaders and stalwarts have shown resentment over the withdrawal of military and paramilitary troops from the area.

US GIs in Iraq suffer worst week of '08

Residents gather around a crater created after an air strike in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City, Baghdad, Saturday, April 12, 2008. (AP / Karim Kadim)

...the absolute catastrophe has to be laid at the hands of the war's architects and the early Iraq administrators....

Q: What's the most pernicious myth that Americans have about Iraq or the Iraqis?

A: The all-too-popular notion that Iraqis are fundamentally ruthless and cruel, that they are more interested in bloodletting than living normal lives, that they hate the children of those of different sects and ethnicities more than they love their own.
Iraqis are really not much different from their American counterparts in their fierce devotion and love for their families, and in their desire for a better life for themselves and their children.

The militarization of attrition in Iraq. "Our current course is hard, but, is working..."

The real problem in Iraq is that the citizens continue to be born, grow into young soldiers for their faith and arm themselves to protect their families and neighborhoods.

The hideousness of being an Iraqi today is remarkable.

The Green Zone Iraqis state, "Lay down your weapons or we will kill you." That is interpreted by people used to Saddam's regime as "Surrender so we can kill you."

The skirmishs in Baghdad and throughout Iraq will never completely cease. The country has more 'fire power' on its streets than most of the First World, including an oversized occupying force. When people preceive their circumstances as dangerous from every element that exists INCLUDING Green Zone Iraqis with their own militias, why should they trust any government?

Currently the Bahr Brigade exists with immunity. What makes them any different than any other fighting faction in Iraq? Not a darn thing, yet, the Shi'ites of the southern Iraqi provice are told they have to lay down their weapons? That is hideous. Never once did I hear Crocker or Petraeus mention the 'reining in' of the ILLEGAL Bahr Brigade. I guess that would risk a REAL consequence in that the Green Zone Iraqis might even turn the Maliki military in alliance with the Bahr Brigade on the USA/British occupation. Now, that would be interesting, wouldn't it?

The hideousness and enormous double standard to the current occupation is outrageous. The Sistani Shi'ites are scapegoated to be 'The Bin Laden of Baghdad and Iraq' while the OFFICIAL INFRASTRUCTURE of Iraq conduct private militias that kill seeking control of the country.

The Western occupation in Iraq continues to be the most destabilizing entity in that country causing enormous civilian deaths, massive refugee issues for the surrounding countries and abject poverty accompanied by STILL unmeasurable deaths due to that poverty.

The USA military by presence of its military give CONSENT to Green Zone Iraqi Militias, death to citizens and the continued impoverishment of the people.



Iraq violence, in figures (click here)



April 11, 2008, 6:20 pm
Once again it is time to bid aloha to that sober team of mirthless entertainers, Petraeus & Crocker.
It’s hard to imagine where you could find another pair of such sleep-inducing performers.
I can’t look at Petraeus — his uniform ornamented like a Christmas tree with honors, medals and ribbons — without thinking of the great Mort Sahl at the peak of his brilliance. He talked about meeting General Westmoreland in the Vietnam days. Mort, in a virtuoso display of his uncanny detailed knowledge — and memory — of such things, recited the lengthy list (”Distinguished Service Medal, Croix de Guerre with Chevron, Bronze Star, Pacific Campaign” and on and on), naming each of the half-acre of decorations, medals, ornaments, campaign ribbons and other fripperies festooning the general’s sternum in gaudy display. Finishing the detailed list, Mort observed, “Very impressive!” Adding, “If you’re twelve.”
(As speakers, both Petraeus and Crocker are guilty of unbearable sesquipedalianism, a word wickedly inflicted on me by my English-teaching mother. It’s one of those words that is what it says. From the Latin, literally “using foot-and-a-half-long words.” We all learned the word for words that sound like what they say — like “click” or “pop” or “boom” or “hiss” — but I’m sure the mercifully defunct Famous Writers School surely forbade using the “sesqui” word and “onomatopoeia” in the same paragraph. (You can have fun with both of them at your next cocktail party.)
But back to our story. Never in this breathing world have I seen a person clog up and erode his speaking — as distinct from his reading — with more “uhs,” “ers” and “ums” than poor Crocker. Surely he has never seen himself talking: “Uh, that is uh, a, uh, matter that we, er, um, uh are carefully, uh, considering.” (Not a parody, an actual Crocker sentence. And not even the worst.)
These harsh-on-the-ear insertions, delivered in his less than melodious, hoarse-sounding tenor, are maddening. And their effect is to say that the speaker is painfully unsure of what he wants, er, um, to say.
If Crocker’s collection of these broken shards of verbal crockery were eliminated from his testimony, everyone there would get home at least an hour earlier.
Petraeus commits a different assault on the listener. And on the language. In addition to his own pedantic delivery, there is his turgid vocabulary. It reminds you of Copspeak, a language spoken nowhere on earth except by cops and firemen when talking to “Eyewitness News.” Its rule: never use a short word where a longer one will do. It must be meant to convey some misguided sense of “learnedness” and “scholasticism” — possibly even that dread thing, “intellectualism” — to their talk. Sorry, I mean their “articulation.”
No crook ever gets out of the car. A “perpetrator exits the vehicle.” (Does any cop say to his wife at dinner, “Honey, I stubbed my toe today as I exited our vehicle”?) No “man” or “woman” is present in Copspeak. They are replaced by that five-syllable, leaden ingot, the “individual.” The other day, there issued from a fire chief’s mouth, “It contributed to the obfuscation of what eventually eventuated.” This from a guy who looked like he talked, in real life, like Rocky Balboa. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Who imposes this phony, academic-sounding verbal junk on brave and hard-working men and women who don’t need the added burden of trying to talk like effete characters from Victorian novels?
And, General, there is no excuse anywhere on earth for a stillborn monster like “ethnosectarian conflict,” as Jon Stewart so hilariously pointed out.
What would the general be forced to say if it weren’t for the icky, precious-sounding “challenge” that he leans so heavily on? That politically correct term, which was created so that folks who are legally blind, deaf, clumsy, crippled, impotent, tremor-ridden, stupid, addicted or villainously ugly are really none of those unhappy things at all. They are merely challenged. (Are these euphemisms supposed to make them feel better?) And no one need be unlucky enough to be dead or hideously wounded anymore. Those unfortunates are merely “casualties” — a sort of restful-sounding word.
(I have a friend who would like the opportunity to say to our distinguished warrior, “General Petraeus, my son was killed in one of your challenges.”)
Petraeus uses “challenge” for a rich variety of things. It covers ominous developments, threats, defeats on the battlefield and unfound solutions to ghastly happenings. And of course there’s that biggest of challenges, that slapstick band of silent-movie comics called, flatteringly, the Iraqi “fighting forces.” (A perilous one letter away from “fighting farces.”) The ones who are supposed to allow us to bring troops home but never do.
Petraeus’s verbal road is full of all kinds of bumps and lurches and awkward oddities. How about “ongoing processes of substantial increases in personnel”?
Try talking English, General. You mean more soldiers.
It’s like listening to someone speaking a language you only partly know. And who’s being paid by the syllable. You miss a lot. I guess a guy bearing up under such a chestload of hardware — and pretty ribbons in a variety of decorator colors — can’t be expected to speak like ordinary mortals, for example you and me. He should try once saying — instead of “ongoing process of high level engagements” — maybe something in colloquial English? Like: “fights” or “meetings” (or whatever the hell it’s supposed to mean).
I find it painful to watch this team of two straight men, straining on the potty of language. Only to deliver such . . . what? Such knobbed and lumpy artifacts of superfluous verbiage? (Sorry, now I’m doing it…)
But I must hand it to his generalship. He did say something quite clearly and admirably and I am grateful for his frankness. He told us that our gains are largely imaginary: that our alleged “progress” is “fragile and reversible.” (Quite an accomplishment in our sixth year of war.) This provides, of course, a bit of pre-emptive covering of the general’s hindquarters next time that, true to Murphy’s Law, things turn sour again.
Back to poor Crocker. His brows are knitted. And he has a perpetually alarmed expression, as if, perhaps, he feels something crawling up his leg.
Could it be he is being overtaken by the thought that an honorable career has been besmirched by his obediently doing the dirty work of the tinpot Genghis Khan of Crawford, Texas? The one whose foolish military misadventure seems to increasingly resemble that of Gen. George Armstrong Custer at Little Bighorn?
Not an apt comparison, I admit.
Custer sent only 258 soldiers to their deaths.