Let’s Start the Week Off with Death, Destruction and Bad Management

Posted by Mary Mancini on April 30, 2007 under Uncategorized |

This week, President George W. Bush will dust off his veto power for only the second time during his presidency and by doing so endorse the status quo. His “stay the course” mentality in the face of a disastrously mismanaged war and a crumbling foreign policy illustrates, once again, his inability or desire to manage our business effectively.

The President and his people suggest that if he accepts the Democratic plan for holding the Iraqi government accountable we will lose the war. Let’s assume that their definition of winning is to have one, unified government in Iraq (although he has never given us a clear definition of what it means to win nor have he ever given us a clear strategy of waging or exiting this war). The Sunnis and the Shias are also fighting to win. But their definition of winning is at cross-purposes to ours. They’re not fighting for unity. Rather, they are fighting for complete control of their government and their country. How will we “win” against that? We win by following the Democratic plan for holding the Iraqi government accountable. And if Malaki and the Iraqi parliament can’t unify his country with a political solution, then we leave.

A suicide car bomber struck near a sacred Shiite shrine in Karbala today, killing at least 58 people and wounding 169 in the second attack in two weeks against the city’s holy sites.

The shrine was not damaged, the police said, but witnesses said at least 30 shops were destroyed. Imagine all of Hillsboro Village being destroyed. Goodness. Where would you get your pancakes on Sunday morning?

Near the blast site, survivors frantically searched for missing relatives.
Iraqi television showed one man carrying the charred body of a small girl above his head as he ran down the street while ambulances rushed to retrieve the wounded and firefighters sprayed water at fires in the wreckage, leaving pools of bloody water.

The U.S. military announced the deaths of nine American troops, including three killed Saturday in a single roadside bombing outside Baghdad, five who died in fighting Friday in Anbar province, and one killed in a separate roadside bombing south of the capital.

The deaths raised to 99 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died this month and at least 3,346 who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003.

Bombs, shootings and mortar fire killed at least nine people in and around Baghdad. In the southern area of Bayaa, gunmen opened fire on an S.U.V. with six people inside it, killing five of them and wounding the sixth, an interior ministry official said.

A roadside bomb targeting laborers in another area of southern Baghdad killed at least one and wounded eight.

Wire services reported that 16 bodies were found in the northern city of Mosul over the past 24 hours.

And in the restive Diyala Province, the police said clashes broke out in several areas of Baquba, the province’s dominant city. At least two civilians were found dead in the city, two others kidnapped. The police said a suicide car bomber also blew up his vehicle at a checkpoint outside the city, killing an Iraqi soldier and wounding two others.