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Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

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Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War / Suicide Bombings on the Rise

Suicide Bombings on the Rise

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Not to be all glass half-empty, because I am very happy that American casualties are down, but it sure seems like the insurgency has just changed tactics:

Militants assassinated two key leaders of American-backed neighborhood militias in northern Baghdad over the past two days, highlighting the militants’ strategy of eliminating militia commanders who have embraced partnerships with American forces but who themselves remain vulnerable to attack.

On Monday morning, a suicide bomber on foot killed Col. Riyadh al-Samarrai, a founder of the Sunni Awakening Council in Adhamiya, a Sunni stronghold that until recently was a haven for insurgents.

The Awakening Councils are groups of Sunni — and in some cases Shiite — fighters who have renounced ties to insurgents and are now on the payroll of the American military, standing guard in areas that not long ago were controlled by militants.

No evidence other than my own personal impressions, but it seems like there has been a shift from the usual violence to suicide bombings. Now, obviously suicide bombings are a bad thing, but how are they on the scale of bad compared to the widespread violence of the past year and a half? Granted, there still appears to be little to no movement on the political front, but I am just trying to make some sense of what is going on.

Any ideas?

Reader Interactions

69Comments

  2. 2.

    Bombadil

    First impression — suicide bombings are more targeted, and will therefore have a greater impact, than a random IED placed at the side of the road to blow up whoever comes by.

    I think they’ll rate higher on the “bad” scale in the long run, depending on who is chosen as the target.

  3. 3.

    TheFountainHead

    Every time I think about what it takes to get a relatively young person to strap a bomb to his chest and go blow someone, and themself, up, I shiver to the core.

  6. 6.

    myiq2xu

    The use of IED’s may have gone down due the use of up-armored vehicles and new tactics which made them less effective.

    Also, it appears to me that the suicide bombers seem to concentrate on killing other Iraqis rather than Americans.

  7. 7.

    Jake

    Now, obviously suicide bombings are a bad thing, but how are they on the scale of bad compared to the widespread violence of the past year and a half?

    It will depend. If suicide bombings are the only bad thing that happens, no one reacts/uses it as an excuse to shoot/bomb someone else and the victims family/friends don’t decide to shoot at the people they think are responsible …

    Need I continue?

  8. 8.

    Bombadil

    Every time I think about what it takes to get a relatively young person to strap a bomb to his chest and go blow someone, and themself, up, I shiver to the core.

    Different aims, different results, but I remember thinking the same thing about the Buddhist monks who set fire to themselves during the Vietnam war. There’s the “personal” aspect that makes this even more scary.

  9. 9.

    Wilfred

    Weapons determine tactics. Iraqi correspondents working for McClatchey operate a blog here. Notice what the writer says about crowds

  10. 10.

    pharniel

    suice bombings against civilian targets indicates that the current ‘shuffling’ (a/k/a ethnic cleansing, bagdhad style) is almost one, and that someone just wants to see if they can get that last step.
    or cause problems before Iraq really does stabilize.
    but sadly it means short term there’s going to be a whole fuckton more casualties, and possibly more infrastructure damage, as someone said upthread, suicde bombers if they go off do a hell of a lot more damage tha random ied.
    they’re more expensive, but they are human guided bombs.

  11. 11.

    pharniel

    *Bombadil* Says:

    Different aims, different results, but I remember thinking the same thing about the Buddhist monks who set fire to themselves during the Vietnam war. There’s the “personal” aspect that makes this even more scary.

    I was pretty young when i first found out about the monks who self immolated. And I remember wishing I had big brass balls that big.

  12. 12.

    mclaren

    The tactics have probably also changed because by this time, the ethnic cleansing (AKA mass murder of women, children and old men who belong to a religion the insurgents don’t like) seems more or less complete. The insurgents aren’t kidnapping 12-year-old boys and torturing ’em death with power drills anymore and then leaving their corpses on the street as a message to their families to get out because the families have all gotten out by now.

  13. 13.

    rawshark

    I was pretty young when i first found out about the monks who self immolated

    i knew nothing about it until I bought a Rage Against the Machine cd. The cover art was a monk setting himself on fire. Freakiest pic I’ve ever seen. Couldn’t stop looking at it. I couldn’t believe the guy did that and looked so peaceful doing it.

  14. 14.

    Wilfred

    they’re more expensive, but they are human guided bombs.

    More accurate than ours, too.

    Of the fifty aerial strikes against Iraqi leaders, not one resulted in the death of the intended target. Yet in four strikes researched by Human Rights Watch, forty-two civilians were killed and dozens more were injured. Human Rights Watch investigated other air strikes resulting in civilian casualties that appear to have been attacks targeting leadership, but it has been unable to confirm the identity of the intended target.43

    The dismal record in targeting leadership is not unique to the war in Iraq. Apparently, in both Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, not one of the intended leadership targets was killed in an air strike.44 In fact, the United States in the past has admitted it did not even know at whom it was shooting. Following a November 2001 attack on a suspected leadership target in Afghanistan, Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clarke stated, “This was a good target. They had a confluence of intelligence which led us to believe there was senior leadership in the building. We don’t have names. We don’t have a sense of exactly who was in there.”45 It is difficult to understand how the military could assess a “good target” if it admits not knowing who the target was.

    This kind of thing, which to me is completely crazy, is nonetheless considered normal.

  15. 15.

    Zifnab

    Now, obviously suicide bombings are a bad thing, but how are they on the scale of bad compared to the widespread violence of the past year and a half? Granted, there still appears to be little to no movement on the political front, but I am just trying to make some sense of what is going on.

    I hate to pull from the Bush/Cheney quote box, but I remember when one of them was asked why there was no peace movement in Iraq, no MLKs and Nelson Mandelas. And the response was because all the Nelson Mandelas were dead.

    This is going to be the effect of all those targeted IEDs. Beheading the hydra, so to speak. People need leaders. If you blow up ever sheep dog that comes to shepherd the flock, what happens to all the sheep? The reason we had a total collapse of the country back in ’04 and ’05 was a power vacuum created by the US decapitation of the only ruling party. Insurgents are now decapitating the new head of the US-sponsored government.

    Remember, once again, what the original stated purpose of the Surge was. Political reconciliation. If all the American-friendly politicians are dead or in hiding, how do you think the US is going to meet benchmarks for stability? Admittedly, Al-Qaeda’s reckless slaughter of Sunni “allies” that wouldn’t get in line was what made the Sunni-Petreaus alliance possible in ’07. So this could further congeal independent-minded Iraqis around the US occupation, or it could brain-drain the coalition movement and leave US-friendly natives without honest, competent leadership in the years ahead.

  16. 16.

    Pb

    it could brain-drain the coalition movement and leave US-friendly natives without honest, competent leadership in the years ahead

    Not that they necessarily have that now. Hell, not that we necessarily have that now…

  17. 17.

    myiq2xu

    Remember, once again, what the original stated purpose of the Surge was. Political reconciliation.

    The Shia/Sunni conflict is almost as old as Islam itself. We were supposed to believe that the “Surge” would solve it in six months.

    Bush didn’t even know about the sectarian rift in Islam before we invaded, and Bloody Bill Kristol claimed it was no big deal.

    “Teh stoopid, it hurts!”

  18. 18.

    Punchy

    Every time I think about what it takes to get a relatively young person to strap a bomb to his chest and go blow someone, and themself, up, I shiver to the core.

    Go rent “The Kingdom”. Diff country, same ideology. And while its obstensibly fiction, it could very well happen tomorry.

  19. 19.

    Chris

    The insurgents aren’t kidnapping 12-year-old boys and torturing ‘em death with power drills anymore and then leaving their corpses on the street as a message to their families to get out because the families have all gotten out by now.

    Um, no, I think that’s still happening. Just not hitting the news. More important to watch HRC cry/not-cry/get-angry

    Oh, don’t forget, Jamie-lyn Spears is with-child.

    whatever the flavor of the day is.

    God damn media.

  21. 21.

    Chris

    Oh, as for ideas, I say “leave”.

    Because this was the natural state of things given tribalism and the invention of gunpowder. We just knocked over their unnatural state. They need to determine who’s most powerful, who’s got the most balls, the most oil, the most body hair.

    (full disclosure: I am an evil sonofabitch, have no family in the Mideast, and do not have much respect for the arab culture. I do, however, feel sorta bad for the soldiers.)

  22. 22.

    grumpy realist

    What we’re really seeing is a sectarian war carried out with religious labels slapped on the individual parties. (My term is “an N-way dogfight”)

    There’s really not much you can do in such a situation except a) get the moderates out of the way, b) get yourself out of the way, and c) wait until the system comes back to equilibrium (i.e., everyone else has killed everyone else off.) Then you may, if you chose, attempt to recreate a working society using the moderates.

    It took Europe about 200 years to decide that religious wars weren’t really that great a thing, and another 200 years to purge the rest of the psychic junk from their system. I expect similar schedules for Iraq, so am not holding my breath.

  23. 23.

    Chris

    Progress Map of Baghdad Ethnic Cleansing

    Maybe we should just be building suburbs.

    Good god. I’m going to sit here quietly and hope that rapid progress was assisted by a Sunni exodus.

    That’s possible, right?

  24. 24.

    Chris

    It took Europe about 200 years to decide that religious wars weren’t really that great a thing, and another 200 years to purge the rest of the psychic junk from their system. I expect similar schedules for Iraq, so am not holding my breath.

    Yeah, but don’t forget they have no infrastructure, just oil. All the fights right now are about oil and who gets to own jets and who gets to eat sand for a living. Most of the rubric on “who” are based entirely on family, tribe, and ideology.

    then it will be purely about religous fucktardery.

  25. 25.

    Chris

    The Shia/Sunni conflict is almost as old as Islam itself. We were supposed to believe that the “Surge” would solve it in six months.

    if by “we”, you mean the 27% of the country that was preventing Bush from being taken out back and shot for war crimes, then yes.

    I, however, am not a part of that group.

  27. 27.

    srv

    I expect similar schedules for Iraq, so am not holding my breath.

    I’d like to see a serious argument somewhere that this experiment will lead to a Gov’t that is as stable as Lebanon.

  28. 28.

    Ned Raggett

    All I gotta say is that this makes interesting reading.

    As he listened to Mahami’s demand, Capt. David Underwood reminded his superiors that Mahami’s men — all members of a U.S.-backed Sunni paramilitary movement called Sahwa, or “Awakening” — were already buying arms with U.S. reward money for finding enemy ammunition dumps. “And as we confiscate weapons, we hand them to Saad Mahami,” Underwood told Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the top commander in the region, during their meeting with the Iraqi.

    The United States is empowering a new group of Sunni leaders, including onetime members of former president Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, intelligence services and army, who are challenging established Sunni politicians for their community’s leadership. The phenomenon marks a sharp turnaround in U.S. policy and the fortunes of Iraq’s Sunni minority.

    The new leaders are decidedly against Iraq’s U.S.-backed, Shiite-led government, which is wary of the Awakening movement’s growing influence, viewing it as a potential threat when U.S. troops withdraw. The mistrust suggests how easily last year’s security improvements could come undone in a still-brittle Iraq.

    “We feel we are more in control,” said Safah Hassan, 28, one of Mahami’s fighters. “The Americans have encouraged us to stand up for our society. We never thought this would happen.”

  29. 29.

    myiq2xu

    There’s really not much you can do in such a situation except a) get the moderates out of the way, b) get yourself out of the way, and c) wait until the system comes back to equilibrium (i.e., everyone else has killed everyone else off.) Then you may, if you chose, attempt to recreate a working society using the moderates.

    I recall the joke during the Iran-Contra scandal (when Reaganites claimed they were trying to reach out to Iranian moderates) that an “Iranian moderate” was a Shi’ite who had run out of bullets.

  30. 30.

    myiq2xu

    if by “we”, you mean the 27% of the country that was preventing Bush from being taken out back and shot for war crimes, then yes.

    I, however, am not a part of that group.

    We were all supposed to believe it, only 27% actually did.

  31. 31.

    myiq2xu

    Detroit and Philadelphia are still way more dangerous.

    Talk about damning with faint praise.

  32. 32.

    Zifnab

    The Shia/Sunni conflict is almost as old as Islam itself. We were supposed to believe that the “Surge” would solve it in six months.

    Hey, Saddam solved it – or at least kept it bottled up – for a good thirty years. Hence all the talk of finding some “strong man” to take over the country coming from Republican (and cynical Democratic) circles ever since the shit hit the fan down there.

    The neo-cons didn’t really want peace so long as they had control. They’ll be happy to referee this pissing match – selling guns and bombs to every side of the conflict – from now till Doomsday.

    Of course, a change in strategy from rampant, wide-spread sectarian violence to targeted assassinations doesn’t concern the Bush Administration because it doesn’t plan on leaving Iraq either way. So, in that sense, who gives a fuck? We’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing straight through to Jan ’09 come hell or high water, come an Iraq Christian Great Awakening or the New Caliphate.

  33. 33.

    Punchy

    I’m actually shocked at the number of car bombs in Iraq, especially when you consider most Arabs dont drink.

  34. 34.

    LITBMueller

    Of course, that this was an al Qaeda/insurgent attack is a pretty big assumption: the Shiites had just as much, if not more, to fear from the Sunni Awakening once they started getting money and weapons from the US military.

    Iraq’s politics are really complicated, and often its hard to tell who’s killing who since each faction doesn’t have a distinctive uniform.

  35. 35.

    bob

    This Iraq war is a shit sandwich. Some tactics are like a horseshit sandwich. Some tactics are like a bullshit sandwich, while others are like a deershit sandwich. Shit sandwiches are shit sandwiches. If you can tell the difference in flavor between these sandwiches, you eat WAAAAAYYYYY too much shit.

  36. 36.

    Scruffy McSnufflepuss

    This Iraq war is a shit sandwich. Some tactics are like a horseshit sandwich. Some tactics are like a bullshit sandwich, while others are like a deershit sandwich. Shit sandwiches are shit sandwiches. If you can tell the difference in flavor between these sandwiches, you eat WAAAAAYYYYY too much shit.

    You eat the sandwiches you have, not the sandwiches you wish you had.

  37. 37.

    dslak

    Because this was the natural state of things given tribalism and the invention of gunpowder. We just knocked over their unnatural state. They need to determine who’s most powerful, who’s got the most balls, the most oil, the most body hair.

    The primary concern is probably finding somebody who will keep them from getting killed, having to worry about their own security, and then what you’ve listed.

    (full disclosure: I am an evil sonofabitch, have no family in the Mideast, and do not have much respect for the arab culture. I do, however, feel sorta bad for the soldiers.

    You don’t have to be evil to recognize that people tend to prefer the security of their lives and property over everything else. It’s not necessary to damn or praise Arab culture to recognize a universal fact such as that.

  38. 38.

    myiq2xu

    This Iraq war is a shit sandwich. Some tactics are like a horseshit sandwich. Some tactics are like a bullshit sandwich, while others are like a deershit sandwich. Shit sandwiches are shit sandwiches. If you can tell the difference in flavor between these sandwiches, you eat WAAAAAYYYYY too much shit.

    Life is like a shit sandwich. The more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat.

  40. 40.

    Wilfred

    Iraq’s politics are really complicated, and often its hard to tell who’s killing who since each faction doesn’t have a distinctive uniform.

    That’s right. The most important thing now is to understand that whatever is happening in regard to the long term future of Iraq is outside of our control. What we are controlling are certain factors that have an effect on perception of the occupation in the US and resultant politics. Can anyone on this blog say for sure what the best interests of the US are at this point?

    People talk about political reconciliation as a desirable goal. It certainly is for Arab/Muslim interests and is probably a lot nearer than most people think. The sight of Ahmedinejad on Haj, walking in the sacred precincts in Mecca hand in hand with Saudis was seen all over the Muslim world. I didn’t see it in any Western press. But is that the sort of reconciliation the surge was all about?

    This past 6 months or more has been about one thing: saving the Republican party in November 2008 by making it appear that some nebulous progress has been made. It has, but by people you are not going to like very much.

  41. 41.

    grumpy realist

    All of this is Yugoslavia, redux, with more bombs and bigger guns. Strongman keeps lid on things, keels over (or gets kicked off thrown), and then everyone is surprised that kablooie! occurs.

    I’d make some snarky comment about Bush being a history major and Yale’s GRREAT educational capabilities, but will leave that for the peanut gallery.

    It’s at times like this that reading Montesquieu proves very soothing.

  42. 42.

    mrmobi

    John, we just need to allow more time (about 100 years or so) and our descendants will look back and thank us for being vigilant.

    By that time, suicide bombings will be half what they are now. (It will be much more difficult to do suicide bombings in the open sea, which is what Iraq will be when the polar icecaps melt.)

    So take hear, we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.

  43. 43.

    grumpy realist

    Whoops, “thrown”–> “throne” Interesting how touch-typing adds to these little mistakes….

  44. 44.

    Chris

    myiq2xu Says:

    if by “we”, you mean the 27% of the country that was preventing Bush from being taken out back and shot for war crimes, then yes.

    I, however, am not a part of that group.

    We were all supposed to believe it, only 27% actually did.

    Oh yeah? And what would have done if you didn’t believe him? Send him a resolution on a proposal for him to read an entry in your diary about how angry you are at him?

    It was already determined that no impeachment was going to happen, because the stem cells for the opposition to grow spines were far too expensive.

    Apparently most of the people that still have spines lack brains.

  45. 45.

    Tony J

    FWIW it’s always appeared to me that what we’re seeing is enough of the leaders of the Sunni Insurgency realising that they were being presented with a golden opportunity to come out of this as winners.

    They were never going to overthrow the Shia-controlled central government without substantial outside assistance, but now it was pretty clear that the US was more interested in building an alliance with Sunnis to support a war against Iran than they were in fighting anyone in Iraq. The Saudis were there waving fistloads of cash and talking about resisting Shia domination of the Middle East, and then Petraeus comes along offering arms and legitimacy in return for turning on the al-Qaida wannabees and laying off the US Occupation forces.

    As far as I can see, the Sunni Awakening is all about positioning themselves to become America’s new bezfrenz4eva when the balloon goes up and Washington needs someone to play ‘our bastards’ against the majority of Shia parties (suddenly relabeled as the pro-Iranian, anti-democratic fanatics who were responsible for sabotaging victory in Iraq for the last seven or eight years) remaining outside of Maliki’s rump-regime.

    Or something like that.

  46. 46.

    ImJohnGalt

    Sort of on topic, this doesn’t bode well:
    A Hero in Iraq: Not Who You Think

    BAGHDAD, Jan 7 (IPS) – The recent killing of two U.S. soldiers by their Iraqi colleague has raised disturbing questions about U.S. military relations with the Iraqis they work with.

    On Dec. 26, an Iraqi soldier opened fire on U.S. soldiers accompanying him during a joint military patrol in the northern Iraqi city Mosul. He killed the U.S. captain and another sergeant, and wounded three others, including an Iraqi interpreter.

    Conflicting versions of the killing have arisen. Col. Hazim al-Juboory, uncle of the attacker Kaissar Saady al-Juboory, told IPS that his nephew at first watched the U.S. soldiers beat up an Iraqi woman. When he asked them to stop, they refused, so he opened fire.

    “Kaissar is a professional soldier who revolted against the Americans when they dragged a woman by her hair in a brutal way,” Col. Juboory said. “He is a tribal man, and an Arab with honour who would not accept such behaviour. He killed his captain and sergeant knowing that he would be executed.”

    There’s more. Go read it.

  47. 47.

    myiq2xu

    Oh yeah? And what would have done if you didn’t believe him? Send him a resolution on a proposal for him to read an entry in your diary about how angry you are at him?

    I would have done exactly what I did do, because I never believed him.

  48. 48.

    Tim F.

    The use of IED’s may have gone down due the use of up-armored vehicles and new tactics which made them less effective.

    The Shia produced most of the car bombs, especially Sadr’s faction, and they are observing a unilateral truce right now. It expires in February.

  49. 49.

    Tony J

    “Kaissar Peter is a professional soldier human being who revolted against the Americans bullies when they dragged a woman by her hair in a brutal way,” May Parker said. “He is a civilised man, and an Arab a man with honour who would not accept such behaviour. He killed his captain and sergeant beat the crap out of the bullies and left them hanging in some kind of sticky web knowing that, he would be executed as my Ben used to say, with great power comes great responsibility.

    Fixed for comics-geeks.

  51. 51.

    Tony J

    oops, scratch carb bombs and replace with IEDs.

    So now anyone who eats a burger is objectively supporting the terrorists?

    Why do you hate America?

  52. 52.

    HyperIon

    As far as I can see, the Sunni Awakening is all about positioning themselves to become America’s new bezfrenz4eva when the balloon goes up and Washington needs someone to play ‘our bastards’ against the majority of Shia parties (suddenly relabeled as the pro-Iranian, anti-democratic fanatics who were responsible for sabotaging victory in Iraq for the last seven or eight years) remaining outside of Maliki’s rump-regime.

    yeah, a report on NPR this am (with a lead in like “With the surge now recognized as an unqualified success” followed by a story FULL of qualifiers) mentioned that sunni and shia were both stockpiling weapons and biding their time. i don’t think they are waiting for peace to break out. someone interviewed basically said “this arming of the sunni could be a problem in the future.” ya think?

    this is just a new stage in our delusional thinking about the clusterfuck that is iraq. some military moron said that we could afford to give the sunni walking-around-money forever. like that will solve anything in the long run. so fewer GIs are getting killed and fewer iraqi civilians are getting killed. that’s good but how does it get us (and them) to a long-term solution?

  53. 53.

    myiq2xu

    The Shia produced most of the car bombs, especially Sadr’s faction, and they are observing a unilateral truce right now. It expires in February.

    I thought most of our casualties were caused by the Sunni Terrorists Freedom Fighters who are now our best friends?

    Or wasn’t it supposedly the Iranians that were making the EFP/IED’s?

  55. 55.

    tballou

    These folks are just like Americans except with a lot longer attention span and memory, and lots more patience.

    Like all good Americans, these folks don’t take kindly to even the friendliest occupier. By analogy, let us recall what happened in the defeated south after the Civil War – about five years of occupation during which time we saw the rise of our first homegrown terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, who then proceeded to run roughshod over much of the south for the next 100 years or so. Not suicide bombers but just as ruthless and heartless.

    Ethnic problems in the south took a century or more to resolve to the point where we arent killing each other. The federal govt. played an important role by occassionally (probably not often enough) sending in troops to put down riots and insurrections, but in the end the solution was a southern solution, just like Iraq has to have an Iraqi solution. We should let these folks figure this out for themselves, with occassional help for really dire situations, which we can provide without permanent bases there.

  56. 56.

    ET

    The WaPo editorial idiot was whining today about how Democrats just won’t admit things are improving. After all this time the Idiot just doesn’t get it. Sure casualties are down, but will they stay down. No real political reconciliation is on the horizon. And if by down you mean back to levels seen before things went ape s**t – they yes things are improving. Guess with regards to Iraq, I’m still half empty.

  57. 57.

    Grand Moff Texan

    Not a new tactic, just a response to the increased use of the American tactic of handing suitcases full of cash to any warlord who’s willing to call his family enemies “al Qaeda.”
    .

  58. 58.

    Cassidy

    A Hero in Iraq: Not Who You Think

    Either scenario is probable. I wouldn’t put much weight into either until more facts are discovered. Personally, we had a lot of issues of insurgents being part of the police.

  60. 60.

    SPIIDERWEB™

    I’m not gonna get all site linky on this, but this is their MO. They constantly change tactics. Even the military acknowledges that. Its why we will never actually defeat them.

  61. 61.

    LiberalTarian

    The whole occupation scenario is a loser. Has been for anyone who has tried it. When the USSR occupied a territory, they also Russified it, i.e. they put a shit load of Russians there (up to a third of the population). And see how well that worked out for them? Now, there were a lot of other reasons the USSR failed, i.e. the glue factory in Poland and the shoe factory in Belarus, pouring their treasury into weapons, and last, but certainly not least, there was always the Afghan occupation.

    Maybe you can help me with the quote, but who was it who said something along the lines, “If you invade Iraq, you are going to pour your treasury into it, and later, if you are a still a superpower, you are going to cut your losses and run home.” I think it was pre- or early invasion, but I cannot recall the man who said it.

    The violence in Iraq simply has too much fuel to simply abate. What exactly have many of the suicide bombers got to lose? How many families are complete, live in safety, and are enjoying prosperity?? Our military operation there is FUBAR beyond belief.

    Believe me, I never imagined how bad it would be. I’m too young to recall Viet Nam, but I recall the horror my parents felt about that conflict. There are no winners here, whether we stay or go. Now, if we can keep those clusterfuckers Cheney and Bush from invading Pakistan and Iran, maybe we will still recovery from what they’ve done already.

    But, like those suicide bombers, Cheney and Bush don’t feel like they have much to lose. Besides, it isn’t as if they will EVER be held accountable. No one in our government is going to spank one of their own; too ignominious for our own to face a Truth and Reconciliation committee or the Hague.

  62. 62.

    LiberalTarian

    Recover from what they’ve done, not recovery. Got to read the preview. [hand smacks forehead]

  63. 63.

    TenguPhule

    No evidence other than my own personal impressions, but it seems like there has been a shift from the usual violence to suicide bombings.

    The calm between storms.

    With all of the guns and money flowing freely to guerilla forces in Iraq, expect it to get ugly yet again.

  64. 64.

    Langx

    We have an insurgency in our own country.

    It’s called the Republican party.

    Who starts a war to remove a certain group then turns around and provides money and arms to that group.

    Sounds like the gop foreign policy form the 80’s.

    Support Iraq then sell Iran weapons under the table.

  65. 65.

    Barry

    mclaren Says:

    “The tactics have probably also changed because by this time, the ethnic cleansing (AKA mass murder of women, children and old men who belong to a religion the insurgents don’t like) seems more or less complete. The insurgents aren’t kidnapping 12-year-old boys and torturing ‘em death with power drills anymore and then leaving their corpses on the street as a message to their families to get out because the families have all gotten out by now.”

    Substitute ‘government of Iraq, and militias connected with it’ for ‘insurgents’.

  66. 66.

    Cybershaman

    The real reasons the PR Surge is working is because we have re-installed one of Saddams top generals over Anbar. Add to this the fact that we are basically paying insurgents $10.00 a day, not to attack us and you have an illusion that it is working. It’s classic Bush League strategery!

  67. 67.

    Joshua

    Seems to me that the violence has dropped the around what it was before that mosque was blown up. Keep in mind, Iraq was still a tragedy and disaster then, and still is.

    But, obviously, the situation in Iraq before the mosque was blown up was a powder keg waiting for a spark (like a mosque getting blown up). Who’s to say it still is not? Another big incident like that and we could be back to square 1, or 100, or whatever the hell it is now.

  68. 68.

    Li

    Iraq is bankrupting the United States, and the narrow stubbornness of her leaders will bear far more responsibility for her collapse than any enemy ever could claim for themselves.

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  1. […] Balloon Juice by Human Rights Watch, forty-two civilians were killed and dozens more were injured. Human Rights… thinking the same thing about the Buddhist monks who set fire to themselves during the Vietnam war… more damage tha random ied. they re more expensive, but they are human guided bombs… the same thing about the Buddhist monks who set fire to themselves during the Vietnam war…, but they are human guided bombs. More accurate than ours, too. Of the fifty aerial strikes against […]