Juan Cole: "What is the Mission? Or, Russian Roulette"

[leftchick]

http://www.juancole.com/

What is the Mission? Or, Russian Roulette

Reuters reports::


<snip>

RAMADI - The U.S. military said four Iraqi civilians were wounded, including three boys aged 6, 13 and 16, when mortar bombs fired by U.S. forces against insurgents hit them. The wounds were not life-threatening, a statement said. '


Well, something clearly was going on in Ramadi on Sunday, though it isn't clear from these staccato and desultory items what exactly it was. As I understand it, there are daily battles between US forces and local ones in Ramadi and its environs. This Sunni Arab city of 400,000 west of Baghdad is under continual siege. I want to ask a question here. Why? When and under what conditions will it be lifted?

What are we to think when we see an item like this one, which says that the elected Iraqi PM, Nuri al-Maliki, was pelted by stones by his own constituency in Shiite Sadr City; that 21 villagers were captured by guerrillas in Diyala; or that 25 bodies (7 of them little girls) were found in Baquba, the capital of that province; or that (as al-Zaman reports in Arabic) Sunni Arab guerrillas fought a pitched battle with police in the city of Buhriz near Baquba, defeated them, chased them out of the HQ and set it on fire, and completely took over the city? What about the reports in al-Zaman of car bombings in al-Huswah and in al-Hilla, killing a dozen? When you hear these things, ask yourself 'What is the mission? When and how could it reasonably be expected to be accomplished?'

<snip>

If they don't, they should specify the mission. What is the mission of the US military in Ramadi? I hope my readers will press their representatives in Congress and the executive branch to answer this question. What is the mission? When will it be accomplished?

[hippiechick]

1. "The wounds were not life-threatening" ...

... so that makes it OK to blow limbs off of children, then?!?! :spank: