AS THE WORLD SQUIRMS

Ask residents of Baghdad's Sadr City slum about the probable aftermath of more than 200 killed last week - the largest toll from a single attack since Saddam Hussein's fall - and they speak in apocalyptic terms.

These Shiites fear that the burgeoning instinct for revenge against Sunnis will override calls for calm from clerics and politicians, and deepen the sectarian bloodletting that has defined Iraq in 2006.

If last Thursday's attack proves to be another landmark event that drives Iraq further into civil war, it will complicate even more the American military exit strategy.

"We can compare it to the Hiroshima bomb," says a Sadr City water-department chief, who gave only his nickname, Abu Khadhim. Appeals from anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, coupled with a three-day lockdown in Baghdad, have checked violence so far.

Expectations of more heavy attacks Monday as the curfew lifted turned to tentative relief when few incidents were reported. These included gunmen shooting on a busy street, killing six.

"Without Moqtada's statement, the [2.5 million] people in Sadr City would go [and] destroy all Sunni neighborhoods," says Abu Khadhim. "If [Shiite clerics] declared war, like [Sunni cleric] Harith al-Dari, then there would be no more Sunnis left in Baghdad. All would be thrown into the Tigris River."

‘Inoculating’ A Somnambulistic American Public…

US Military Predicts Surge in Violence in Iraq

Defensetalk.com

11.29.06

(Excerpt)

The U.S. military on Nov. 28 predicted a surge in sectarian fighting in Iraq in the coming weeks -- tit-for-tat revenge killings triggered by last week’s devastating bombings in a Shiite stronghold in Baghdad.

Iraq nears the 'Saigon moment'

Patrick Cockburn

Counterpunch.org

11.28.06

(Excerpt)

Iraq may be getting close to what Americans call 'the Saigon moment', the time when it becomes evident to all that the government is expiring. "They say that the killings and kidnappings are being carried our by men in police uniforms and with police vehicles," said the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari with a despairing laugh to me earlier this summer. "But everybody in Baghdad knows that the killers and kidnappers are real policemen."

It is getting worse. The Iraqi army and police are not loyal to the state. If the US army decides to confront the Shia militias it could well find Shia military units from the Iraqi army cutting the main American supply route between Kuwait and Baghdad. One convoy was stopped at a supposedly fake police checkpoint near the Kuwait border earlier this month and four American security men and an Austrian taken away.

The US and British position in Iraq is far more of a house built on sand than is realized in Washington or London despite the disasters of the last three-and-a-half years. President Bush and Tony Blair show a unique inability to learn from their mistakes, largely because they do not want to admit having committed any errors in the first place.

Bury My Heart in the Green Zone

Pepe Escobar

Asia Times – Hong Kong

11.29.06

(Excerpt)

..Every big player seems to be laying down a desperate game to "save" Iraq. This includes the ongoing summit between Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and his Iranian counterpart Mahmud Ahmadinejad in Iran and this week's meeting between President George W Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Jordan.

But they all have forgotten to consider the guerrilla point of view; as far as the Sunni Arab resistance is concerned, any summit is guilty of legitimizing the "puppet" Iraqi government.

Both Sides Blame the US as Violence Escalates in Iraq

Time Magazine

11.26.06

(Excerpt)

Analysis: Shi'ites and Sunnis accuse the U.S. of deliberately failing to protect them from each other, as raging violence mocks the idea that Iraqis are almost ready handle their own security.

Rendition detainee surfaces in Israel

Dominic Moran - Tel Aviv

ISN Security Watch - Switzerland

11.28.06

(Excerpt)

The recent discovery of a Pakistani-Jordanian detainee in an Israeli jail has exposed that country's involvement in the CIA renditions program and is a sign of close cooperation between US and regional intelligence agencies.

A Nation of Chumps and Suckers

Thomas J. DiLorenzo

LewRockwell.com

(Excerpt)

11.29.06

The purpose of government is to allow those who run it to plunder those who don’t. As the great H.L. Mencken sagely observed, "[I]f experience teaches us anything at all it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar. His very existence, indeed, is a standing subversion of the public good in every rational sense. He is not one who serves the common weal; he is simply one who preys upon the commonwealth" (from "The Politician" in Prejudices: A Selection, edited by James T. Farrell).

Not that it’s necessary to document this ancient truth, but the November issue of Washingtonian magazine provides spectacular proof of it in the form of a cover story entitled "Washington in the Money: How Washington Got Really Rich – and How It’s Changing Us."

News & Comment

“Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder

respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

~George Orwell~

Britain, Poland and Italy to Downgrade Commitment to Iraq

Military.com

11.27.06

(Excerpt)

LONDON - Britain said Monday it expects to withdraw thousands of its 7,000 military personnel from Iraq by the end of next year, while Poland and Italy announced the impending withdrawal of their remaining troops.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski said his country, a U.S. ally in Iraq and Afghanistan, would pull its remaining 900 soldiers out of Iraq by the end of 2007. And Italian Premier Romano Prodi said the last of Italy's soldiers in Iraq - some 60-70 troops - will return home this week, ending the Italian contingent's presence in the south of the country after more than three years.

Mortar attack sparks huge fire at oil refinery in northern Iraq

By Sameer Yacoub

Canadian Press
Monday, November 27, 2006

(Excerpt)

BAGHDAD (AP) - A mortar attack ignited a huge fire Monday night at an oil facility in northern Iraq, and a U.S. air force jet with one pilot aboard crashed in Anbar province, a hotbed of the Sunni-Arab insurgency. Al-Jazeera reported that the pilot was killed.

Who Decides on War With Iran?

By Doug Bandow

AntiWar.com

11.24.06

(Excerpt)

President George W. Bush publicly gave the green light to an Israeli strike, indicating that he would understand if the Olmert government attacked Iran. Of course, no one but the president believes that the Iranians, or anyone else in the world, would treat such an attack, even if carried out without American support, as anything other than a U.S. action.

Vice President Richard Cheney has been even more direct. "The United States is keeping all options on the table," he stated earlier this year. Indeed, "we join other nations in sending that regime a clear message: we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

In The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh reports that Cheney told an administration group before the election that military action would never come off the table. The White House has dismissed Hersh's article as being "riddled with inaccuracies," and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage thinks military planning has slowed. But this president has proved himself to be largely impervious to the advice of outsiders and the impact of changing circumstances.

Many of the people who helped dump America into Iraq think the U.S. must attack Iran. Joshua Muravchik, a cheerful member of the dwindling band of neocon warriors, writes, "We must bomb Iran." Other observers – Joseph Cirincione of the Center for American Progress and John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, for instance – believe an attack on Iran is likely if not inevitable.

The mind recoils at the likely consequences. Iran is larger, more populous, and possesses a more effective military than Iraq. Tehran has dispersed and hardened its nuclear sites, making destruction of its nuclear program more difficult.

Bombing might not be enough; an invasion would be a true horror show. Either action likely would destroy the indigenous democracy movement, cementing support for the regime.

Tehran enjoys close ties with leading Shi'ite political and religious figures in Iraq. The majority of Iraqis already view attacks on U.S. occupation forces as legitimate. Iran might be able to spark a national intifada, engulfing Americans across Iraq. Washington could not win such a fight, whatever "victory" would mean.

Disgust with perceived U.S. lawlessness would swell within allied states, and hatred of perceived U.S. hostility would swell within Muslim states. Tehran could undertake a concerted campaign to destabilize pro-American regimes, an effort that would be aided by rising popular hostility toward Washington. Finally, Iran probably would promote terrorism against (and within) the U.S., joined by newly energized al-Qaeda cells and local operatives.

The Nuking of Alexander Litvinenko
Why it's unlikely the KGB killed him

Commentary – Justin Raimondo

AntiWar.com

11.27.06

(Excerpt)

In the end, we have to ask: who benefits from Litvinenko's dramatic death?

The answer: the oligarchs, and Putin's enemies in general.

Traces of Radioactive Poison Are Found in Exiled Russian Oligarch’s Office

Times Online – London

11.28.06

(Excerpt)

Detectives investigating the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko found traces of a radioactive poison at the offices of the billionaire and fellow exile Boris Berezovsky last night.

Police sealed off the Mayfair office after finding evidence of polonium 210, a “significant quantity” of which was found in Mr Litvinenko’s urine.

The discovery at 7 Down Street forms part of a radioactive trail left around London by Mr Litvinenko, 43, as police try to discover where the former KGB spy was poisoned.

Rainer Hachfeld, Berlin, Germany, Neues Deutschland

Ally of Venezuela's Chavez wins presidential vote in Ecuador

AFX

11.28.06

QUITO (AFX) - Leftist Rafael Correa has been officially named the winner of Ecuador's presidential election, carrying a 15.8-point lead over rival Alvaro Noboa, with 90.1 pct of the votes tallied.

According to an official count by the country's Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Correa garnered 57.9 pct of the votes, compared with Noboa's 42.1 pct -- which, although not all of the votes have yet been counted, constitutes an insurmountable lead.

An extraordinarily prescient TV interview with General Norman Schwarzkopf and Robert Gates - Deputy National Security Advisor to Former President George Bush Sr.

Why Invading Iraq Was A Very Stupid Idea…

(Click on blinking dot above for video)