Just when I've resigned myself to waiting out Bush's term and looking for ways to do the right thing - within the rules - you guys douse me with reality!

Scott, wanta hear something really scarey?  I think your worst fears are ill-founded.  That's because you and Laura are far too reasonablel, logical and methodical in assessing cause and effect. 

Will the sheikh's assassination justify bombing Iran or WWIII?  Perhaps, but since when do these warmongering, torturing, profiteering, rule-breaking, Constitution-trashing, PNAC-NeoCon-bullies need a legitimate, rational reason for picking a fight?

If and when the Iran balloon goes up, we'll never know what triggered it - but that'll be secondary anyway. 

Keep your tank full, fellas!  

June, You are so right. They will use any excuse they can to make a "casus belli", but last Friday, Laura Flanders painted a picture of an extremely frightening scenario of using this incident to make a case for bombing Iran.

"Keep your tank full, fellas!"

And also, invest in oil!

al Anbar "province" was easy.  Firstly, it is very sparsly populated, something like Death Valley California.  It is a very harsh physical enviornment.   Secondly, there are no Shi'a there in great numbers, and on top of that, most of the Sunnis are of the same "tribal affilation", so, it is something like controlling the sectarian violence in...say...Siberia.  I belive the governace seat is al Ramadi, and it maybe has a population of 300K people.  It is where most of the people of al Anbar live.  Of course all of this before the occupation.

It actually made a great place to form and train these al Qui'da types, simply because it was so remote, and so sparsly populated.  Also, the border between   What al Qui'da was actually doing was being road pirates, something like you see in the "Mad Max" movies.  They would rob and kill people who were leaving Iraq, and trying to get into Syria and Jordan.  They would also catch US troops traveling the road. (there are actually only 2 highways there, one going into Syria, and one to Jordan)  The US probably wants this area because there is a freightway from al Ramadi into ath Thawrah in Syria.

So, what they are making a big deal about, is not a big deal.  It is almost like me taking credit for melting ice in the Phoenix summer time.

I don't think that the US will use the death of Abu Rishsa as the pretext for war with Iran.  Simply because if you really started investigating this guy, you will find that before the US started paying him to "give protection" against (what we called) the insergents, he, and his militia was one of them.  In other words, as one Iraqi put it in the Arab press, "he will be on the side of whoever pays him the most." 

Personally, I think the plan is to try to "spook" the Iranians in this sort of "Mexican standoff" between us and them.   I belive that the intent would be (of course this is how I would play it) if I felt that this was the time of the invasion, such as a jet fighter in my airspace, I would launch everthing I had at the same time.  Of course, you can bet your bottom dollar that some of that stuff is aimed at Israel, because it is percieved that the US is in Iraq for oil and Israel.  I think that Israel tried it on the 7th of Septembre, and got caught over Syria.  Of course, without proof, and mostly in press releases, the Israeli's are claiming that they bombed something headed for Hisb'Allah, or some nukes for some clandestine Syrian nuke plant.  Of course, the US parrot box media repeated the storys.  I also think that the plane that was fired upon with the US senators aboard could have also been a failed pretext.  Please understand that the Neocon ideology does not make allowances for human life, or what is right.  They gain alot through little sacrifice, and if they need to, they will do whatever it takes, including taking out one of their own to do whatever they have to.

Yes my friend, we do need a spiritual awakening in this land.  We also need to understand that something spiritual is not necessarily religious in nature.  On both sides of this ideological war, at it's head is the evil ones vieling themselves behind religion.  Of course, if it were not religion, it would be something else.  We also have those pandering (at least ideology wise) to those who, in any other circumstance, would theologically cut their throat...and have done it physically in lots of historic incidences.

I don't know about you "Scott Manley", but I think that we need to help Americans sepearte religion from spirituality.  That is the only way we can break the divide that keeps us thinking that indepenance means individualism, ritual, symbols, superstition, and mostly damning to our way of live, the belief that unity means uniformity.

Soldier on my brother.

Bush’s Fake Sheik Whacked:

The Surge and the Al Qaeda Bunny

A special investigative report from inside Iraq
By Greg Palast

09/17/07 "ICH" -- -- Monday, September 17, 2007- Did you see George all choked up? In his surreal TV talk on Thursday, he got all emotional over the killing by Al Qaeda of Sheik Abu Risha, the leader of the new Sunni alliance with the US against the insurgents in Anbar Province, Iraq.

Bush shook Abu Risha's hand two weeks ago for the cameras. Bush can shake his hand again, but not the rest of him: Abu Risha was blown away just hours before Bush was to go on the air to praise his new friend.

Here's what you need to know that NPR won't tell you.

1. Sheik Abu Risha wasn't a sheik.
2. He wasn't killed by Al Qaeda.
3. The new alliance with former insurgents in Anbar is as fake as the sheik - and a murderous deceit.

How do I know this? You can see the film - of "Sheik" Abu Risha, of the guys who likely whacked him and of their other victims.

Just in case you think I've lost my mind and put my butt in insane danger to get this footage, don't worry. I was safe and dry in Budapest. It was my brilliant new cameraman, Rick Rowley, who went to Iraq to get the story on his own.

Rick's "the future of TV news," says BBC. He's also completely out of control. Despite our pleas, Rick and his partner Dave Enders went to Anbar and filmed where no cameraman had dared tread.

Why was "sheik" Abu Risha so important? As the New York Times put it this morning, "Abu Risha had become a charismatic symbol of the security gains in Sunni areas that have become a cornerstone of American plans to keep large numbers of troops in Iraq though much of next year."

In other words, Abu Risha was the PR hook used to sell the "success" of the surge.

The sheik wasn't a sheik. He was a fake. While proclaiming to Rick that he was "the leader of all the Iraqi tribes," Abu lead no one. But for a reported sum in the millions in cash for so-called, "reconstruction contracts," Abu Risha was willing to say he was Napoleon and Julius Caesar and do the hand-shakie thing with Bush on camera.

Notably, Rowley and his camera caught up with Abu Risha on his way to a "business trip" to Dubai, money laundering capital of the Middle East.

There are some real sheiks in Anbar, like Ali Hathem of the dominant Dulaimi tribe, who told Rick Abu Risha was a con man. Where was his tribe, this tribal leader? "The Americans like to create characters like Disney cartoon heros." Then Ali Hathem added, "Abu Risha is no longer welcome" in Anbar.

"Not welcome" from a sheik in Anbar is roughly the same as a kiss on both cheeks from the capo di capi. Within days, when Abu Risha returned from Dubai to Dulaimi turf in Ramadi, Bush's hand-sheik was whacked.

On Thursday, Bush said Abu Risha was killed, "fighting Al Qaeda" - and the White House issued a statement that the sheik was "killed by al Qaeda."

Bulls***.

There ain't no Easter Bunny and "Al Qaeda" ain't in Iraq, Mr. Bush. It was very cute, on the week of the September 11 memorials, to tie the death of your Anbar toy-boy to bin Laden's Saudi hijackers. But it's a lie. Yes, there is a group of berserkers who call themselves "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia." But they have as much to do with the real Qaeda of bin Laden as a Rolling Stones "tribute" band has to do with Mick Jagger.

Who got Abu Risha? Nothing - NOTHING - moves in Ramadi without the approval of the REAL tribal sheiks. They were none-too-happy, as Hathem noted, about the millions the US handed to Risha. The sheiks either ordered the hit - or simply gave the bomber free passage to do the deed.

So who are these guys, the sheiks who lead the Sunni tribes of Anbar - the potentates of the Tamimi, Fallaji, Obeidi, Zobal and Jumaili tribes? Think of them as the Sopranos of Arabia. They are also members of the so-called "Awakening Council" - getting their slice of the millions handed out - which they had no interest in sharing with Risha.

But creepy and deadly or not, these capi of the desert were effective in eliminating "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia." Indeed, as US military so proudly pointed out to Rick, the moment the sheiks declared their opposition to Al Qaeda - i.e. got the payments from the US taxpayers - Al Qaeda instantly diappeared.

This miraculous military change, where the enemy just evaporates, has one explanation: the sheiks ARE al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Just like the Sopranos extract "protection" payments from New Jersey businesses, the mobsters of Anbar joined our side when we laid down the loot.

What's wrong with that? After all, I'd rather send a check than send our kids from Columbus to fight them.

But there's something deeply, horribly wrong with dealing with these killers. They still kill. With new US protection, weapons and cash, they have turned on the Shia of Anbar. Fifteen thousand Shia families from a single district were forced at gunpoint to leave Anbar. Those moving too slowly were shot. Kids and moms too.

Do the Americans know about the ethnic cleansing of Anbar by our erstwhile "allies"? Rick's film shows US commanders placing their headquarters in the homes abandoned by terrorized Shia.

Rick's craziest move was to go and find these Shia refugees from Anbar. They were dumped, over a hundred thousand of them, in a cinder block slum with no running water in Baghdad. They are under the "protection" of the Mahdi Army, another group of cutthroats. But at least these are Shia cutthroats.

So the great "success" of the surge is our arming and providing cover for ethnic cleansing in Anbar. Nice, Mr. Bush. And with the US press "embedded," we won't get the real story. Even Democrats are buying into the Anbar "awakening" fairy tale.

An Iraqi government official frets that giving guns and cover to the Anbar gang is like adopting a baby crocodile. "A crocodile is not a pet," he told Rick. It will soon grow to devour you. But what could the puppet do but complain about his strings?

This Iraqi got it right: the surge is a crock.

Greg Palast is the author of "Armed Madhouse: from Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild." See Palast's reports for BBC Television's Newsnight, now filmed by Rick Rowley and partners, at www.GregPalast.com

Thanks, Adam. I was looking for that report from Greg Palast. He is one of the great invesigative jouralists of our time.

Zanubiya, I agree that we have to separate the truly spiritual from the religious fanatics. 

adam

I liked your article.  Wonderful piece and so true.  It was a fine work of research by you.