"Marines Sweep Through Western Iraq Cities"

"This area could — if substantial Iraqi forces are not added, or if U.S. forces are trimmed during a pullout — foretell a future where Sunni tribes with ties to the insurgency rule large parts of Iraq."  Castaneda for AP

If you read this carefully, you will hear the marines telling you that what we are doing along the Syrian border is necessary but inconclusive in terms of the ultimate outcome in the war.

There have to be IRAQI troops who can hold the towns, especially the towns in this western beduin-descended Sunni Arab part of Iraq.  Without that, we can do this kind of thing forever.

The administration is now considering further action against Syria in the evident belief that the Syrian government is more than a passive actor in the also beduin-descended area of eastern Syria.  Evidently Elliot Abrams and his NSC crew wuold liek the air forces to bomb a group of towns inside Syria.

Both DIA and CIA have told the NSC that the evidence is inconclusive concerning Syrian government involvement in cross-border infiltration but, no matter.

Maybe they can come up with another Office of Special Plans (OSP) to do "better analysis."

Pat Lang

Download by_antonio_castaneda.pdf

If you read this carefully, you will hear the marines telling you that what we are doing along the Syrian border is necessary but inconclusive in terms of the ultimate outcome in the war.

There have to be IRAQI troops who can hold the towns, especially the towns in this western beduin-descended Sunni Arab part of Iraq.  Without that, we can do this kind of thing forever.

The administration is now considering further action against Syria in the evident belief that the Syrian government is more than a passive actor in the also beduin-descended area of eastern Syria.  Evidently Elliot Abrams and his NSC crew wuold liek the air forces to bomb a group of towns inside Syria.

Both DIA and CIA have told the NSC that the evidence is inconclusive concerning Syrian government involvement in cross-border infiltration but, no matter.

Maybe they can come up with another Office of Special Plans (OSP) to do "better analysis."

Pat Lang

Download by_antonio_castaneda.pdf

Comments

[Michael Murry]

Oh, no! Here we go with the "sanctuaries" in Cambodia and Laos, again.

If you can't fight and win a war of occupation in one little country, then by all means, just spread the war and its destruction to include some neighboring little countries.

America doesn't have a sane or responsible government. The Lunatic Leviathan has gotten loose to run amok again. Why does this all look like a bad remake of Lord of the Flies?

[ked]

Lord of the Flies was short & to-the-point. Unfortunately, this is looking much more like a volume out of Decline & Fall...

Will the Admin implode before it explodes?

[Pat Lang]

ked

The empire lasted until 1453 (?) in its Byzantine form. We will have to do better to beat that. pl

[Niels H]

Constantinople did indeed fall in 1453 to the ottoman turks. Some historians puts the fall of Trebizon in 1461, as the end of the Byzantine empire, but they are the minority.

Brilliant blog, keep it up.