"As early as September 2010, the White House informed the Iraqi government that it was willing to consider keeping between 15,000 and 20,000 troops in Iraq, in addition to thousands of unacknowledged Special Operations Forces. But Obama insisted that it could only happen if Maliki requested it, according to a senior Iraqi intelligence official." Gareth Porter
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Who? What? When"
When I read this thing that Porter was nice enough to send me, I was so impressed with my own naivete that I called up my friend "basilisk" to ask if he had known that Obama and company actually believed that the Iraqi Shia government was going to ask for a more or less permanent US garrison in Iraq. When he got through laughing at my supposed joke, he said "no, I never." Of course not, he is a rational, well informed human. Who the hell are these people who convince themselves and each other that fantasies like this are real possibilities. After all that has happened, these buffoons think that Maliki's Iraq, or some other Shia pietist's Iraq is going to be a "faithful friend" of the US? Mon dieu! Astaghfur b'illah!
Maliki's government feels threatened by Saudi money and its support for Sunni Arab resistance? (Irony alert) Why would they think that?
They may not want to have us around? Dommage! pl
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55150
GZC
A small amount in the context. The real money to fund Iraq's war came from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the emirates. pl
Posted by: Patrick Lang | 08 April 2011 at 04:04 PM
Iraq has apparently answered with a firm "No" to any continued US military presence.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20110408/163434122.html
Posted by: steve | 08 April 2011 at 06:44 PM
steve
Only a blind fool would have thought it would be otherwise. pl
Posted by: Patrick Lang | 08 April 2011 at 07:37 PM
I very, very strongly recommend the currently vogue book Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer.
He makes the point that if our heads are empty it is impossible for us to process data.
Hussein is as foreign to me as the far side of the moon. But George the younger? He had and has nothing in his head.
But none of that matters. What matters is that Obama is a contemptible liar and opportunist who makes Nixon look like Mother Theresa. That's the problem the world faces today.
And the solution will have to come from the left. Obama has to be challenged from within his own party. I have been saying that since Summers was put in power. I say it again.
Posted by: arbogast | 09 April 2011 at 01:14 AM
Obama will not be challenged by a member of his own party. Why? The DEMS and the Republicans have reached the logical end of their policy prescriptions. But I still believe that despite the shrill establishment of the OBAMA campaign apparatus it is possible that come spring 2012 the President will pull an LBJ. By that time a second economic collaspe, a disaster now fully documented in Libya and Iraq and probably Afghanistan will require someone with intestinal fortitude and the lap of luxury beckons heavily already for Obama as a former President. Strangely we might just see in NOVEMBER 2012 some kind of unity ticket given the fully evident problems of the US by the time of the nominating conventions.
I fully expect riots and civil disorders at both conventions. Perhaps they should again look to Chicago.
Posted by: William R. Cumming | 09 April 2011 at 11:06 AM
Obama has to be challenged from within his own party.
How about Ed Rendell?
Posted by: rjj | 09 April 2011 at 12:15 PM
Strangely enough, it was the libertarian candidate for pres and ex-GOP congressman Bob Barr who prosecuted the bank manager for diverting the money to weapons, back when he was a U.S. Attorney.
I'd love to meet him and ask some questions about Christopher Drogul.
Posted by: Green Zone Cafe | 09 April 2011 at 02:27 PM
Arbogast,
I fear no big-name Democrat will challenge Obama in any primaries. Even the well-intended ones (Dean, Feingold, etc.) are too stuck in political nostalgia for a Party which was taken over and destroyed from within by the DLC (now name-changed to Third Way) to believe in making such a challenge. Perhaps Kucinich will make a quixotic primary run. If so, I will work/vote for him all through the primary process.
The only credible effect I could imagine the left having would be to vote for some third party candidate or other in 2012. If so many "left" votes defected from Obama as to hand a default-victory to the Republicans; then the DLC-Third Way Clintonite Party rulers would at least be politically weakened by having a presidential defeat to their credit.
But the only way I can imagine any leftists feeling free to vote against Obama would be if the Republicans nominate somebody the leftists could endure as President for a term or two. And the only chance the leftists have to get such a Republican is to register Republican long enough to vote for such a Republican in the primaries.
(In fact, if a non-scary Republican mounts a primary campaign, I will give up on Kucinich for the greater goal of getting a non-scary Republican nominated.)
Hideous gargoyles like Palin or Boykin or Huckabee would scare me into voting for Obama again despite everything. And when I was reminded that Romney said if elected he would not put allow any Muslims in his cabinet, I put him on that list for his anti-constitutional "religious-test" standpoint.
If some gray elders like Lugar or Hagel or such were to enter the Republican primaries and win with massive help from crossover-Democrats and leftists; then
these disgruntled Democrats and leftists would feel free to vote for various third parties in the general election.
Posted by: different clue | 09 April 2011 at 03:12 PM
Maliki taking on a role as a protagonist for Shi'a Arabs in the Gulf? Here's what he reported said during a state dinner with Erdogan:
فسارع المالكي إلى التصدي له بالقول: «تتحدث عن سنّة العراق، وكم نسبتهم؟ 10، 20 في المئة؟ لديهم رئيس برلمان ونائب رئيس مجلس وزراء ونحو ثلث البرلمان. لماذا لا تتحدث عن شيعة البحرين ونسبتهم 80 في المئة، أليس لهم وزن في الحكم؟»
http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/8979
Apparently there will soon be an Arab League meeting in Baghdad, where Maliki will raise the issue. Should be interesting!
Posted by: JohnH | 11 April 2011 at 04:50 PM