Reply #2: The current Baghdad barricades

[PATRICK]

it will be interesting to see if, as a part of a sign of this deal, the Shiites will refuse to help the Americans take it down. Whether it was engineered by anyone this way or not it does serve to put the US on notice in many ways and might co-opt any deal killing interference by the occupation forces.

It also serves as a primary battle to end the neocon agenda against Iran.

If Bushco is on the ball it will be forcing the Iraqis themselves to attack the barricades. If I am right, they will fail and something phony or very very media quiet will be used as cover back home. That will not help them in Iraq as this in no way gives them time to subvert the peace process- after having destroyed legitimate Intel that would have ironically helped head this off. The Bush visit as a tactic was a bluff to the point of joke and an arrogant substitute for competent puppetry.

Neither this plan NOR the current riots in the city are being reported on by CNN! Quite a different treatment on the BBC. It looks like a spontaneous 60's inner city riot. The BBC fails to note the absence of Iraqi forces while making excuses for the powerless American forces 200 meters away. Instead we get the air assassination of some top Al Qaeda figure or other and some massive terror plot foiled in Chicago. The fact that the Iraqi government can drive out AlQaeda in its entirety- if we leave- will be a salient point never covered in our curtained media.