October 01, 2007

Madman Bush 'Has Accepted Ethnic Cleansing' Seymour Hersh: The Surge means basically that, in some way, the president has accepted ethnic cleansing, whether he's talking about it or not. When he first announced the Surge in January, he described it as a way to bring the parties together. He's not saying that any more. I think he now understands that ethnic cleansing is what is going to happen. You're going to have a Kurdistan. You're going to have a Sunni area that we're going to have to support forever. And you're going to have the Shiites in the South.
posted by Scary Corn Imp 16 years ago
  • "Everything is tabula rasa." Yes. Particularly Bush's brain.
  • I don't quite see how the surge means the president has accepted ethnic cleansing. Wouldn't it be the failure of the surge that means he might have to accept de facto partition?
  • Hersh is confirming what I heard from independent reporters after the Petraeus report -- that there's a drop in violence simply because there's no-one left to kill. The ethnic cleansing has worked, the barriers have been set up, there's no-one to be chased out of the enclaves anymore -- and so there's a drop in violence. For the most part, the Surge seems to have been a parallel and independent event. I think Hersh means Bush has accepted formal partition of the groups as inevitable -- it's already a reality on the ground.
  • Thank Jeebus for Sy Hersh. There's simply no one else left in the American news media who will report any of this.
  • (P.S. I keep reading that headline as "Madame Bush")
  • (P.S. I keep reading that headline as "Madame Bush") Please, let's not insult brothel-keepers.
  • The actual makeup of the Nation Formerly Known As Iraq is really irrelevant to Bush & Company (despite the oft-repeated 'democracy' lies). The main goals of the invasion have been accomplished: (1) the personal grudge against Saddam Hussein, (2) the signing away of a major middle-east oil producer's rights to its oil to western corporations, (3) the redistribution of a few billion dollars to friends of the administration without the trouble of actual 'laundering', (4) the construction of a permanent middle-east central base of operations for American 'diplomacy', espionage and military action (the massive Embassy, aka Bush's Palace). The intent is to keep 30-35 thousand American troops there permanently, but providing some support to the "Sunni Zone" may require double that, which is still half of what are there now (if my math is right). If you rate the performance of these goals rather than "stated goals", The Iraq Invasion and Occupation is a resounding (and frightening - especially since it's in OUR name) success.
  • But it's scary when you break it all down like that wendell. Let's go back to the purple finger thing, that was kinda fun.
  • Are you sure about that, wendell? If partition went through, wouldn't a large part of the oil reserves end up under the control of a Shia (i.e. non-client) state? Not to mention that the Kurdish reserves would become land-locked, and likely have to be routed through a pissed-off, possibly destabilized Turkey? I could be totally wrong...
  • Good point, Capt. R., I hadn't thought of that, and I wonder if Seymour Hirsh has... or if Dick Cheney has. Got to remember to keep the old Hanlon's Razor in my intellectual toolbelt. But it never did explain Incompetence in the service of Malice...
  • Can someone explain to me WHICH draft of the Geneva Convention Bush is working from? Apparently it isn't the same one we use.
  • The quaint one.
  • The blank one.
  • He's using the Gin-Heaver Convention.
  • Gen-evil convention.
  • I'm not sure what horrifies me more: Bushco's sleazy dealings or the fact that US citizens let him get away with it. Where is the outrage? Oh, that's right--on Jon Stewart's program. Sigh.