You know, when tribal groups who've spent a thousand years fighting each other call a truce to kill Americans (more), maybe it's time to start taking the news a bit more seriously? I hear so many people saying things like “I've stopped watching the news because of this…” Death rates are way up for US troops (more), and their helicopters keep getting shot down (more). Al-Sadr's militia is capturing more territory (more), with at least two cities under his rule. And, American troops have gone back to getting bad press for imprecise killings of women and children (more), which really doesn't help!
Other than that, back at home, more Americans are being told they can't fly and other random rights suspensions (more) in order to “fight terror”. The US is also pouring a ton of money into land mines research, work that almost every other nation on the planet has decried as monstrous (more). In addition, because the world is an increasingly violent place, countries need their weapons — so the US is pushing through changes to its export laws to allow arms dealers to more readily sell high-end US weapons to future enemies (more). Don't like it? You know where the diesel fuel is, and you know where the fertilizer is.
Oh, and you thought that crazy North Korea, with its 1.1 million person standing army, over double the size of the US army (122,000 in special forces alone), just waiting to shove bayonets into the guts of high school kids that just thought joining the army was the only job they could get, was last years story? Think again… US troops are currently in training for the brutal urban combat that is being planned (more)… Suicidal… The US needs to bite the bullet and either pull out of these combats (and face the consequences) or simply start with the nuclear carpet bombing.
Financially those are the only two options.
So Bush says that the world should expect violence in Iraq to escalate in the next little while (more). I believe the expression is “no shit, Sherlock”.
In a short period we've ramped up from one American a day being killed over there to ten a day being killed in Iraq — and that doesn't count the ten men with blown off limbs and other non-fatality casualties for every dead man (more). Now, thanks to dumb-ass moves like this bullshit in Fallujah, it's just going to escalate and get a whole lot worse for all the kids over there (to say nothing of the Iraqis daily hell).
For those of you who have been living under a rock, Fallujah is one of the many regions that the American troops felt were too dangerous, so instead of putting up their own positions there, they used local and imported civilian labor — human shields that is — around their own positions. The US troops would then go out on daily “terror runs” and basically drive around threatening the locals and trying to keep them in line with fear… Then, of course, they snapped and, like a beaten dog, attacked the weakest thing near them — the dead contractors who we've all seen the brutal footage of lately.
Anyway, now the US is saying they've going to contain the entire city, effectively making the single stupidest move in anti-guerrilla strategy: They've suddenly converted most of that city to the “side” of the guerrillas (more). I mean, Fallujah isn't some little crappy desert village. It's a city about the same size as BOSTON* for fucks sake. This is how you build a resistance movement, by attacking civilian cities wholesale. This is where guerrillas come from.
I hate making this comparison, but it's important to note that the death rates for this war are spiking a lot harder and a lot faster than Vietnam… And the problem is that the neo-con Cabal has effectively engineered a war to which there is no exit strategy. Thanks.
*
Although I suspect the rent is lower.
So I look out my window at the lake, and I see this gorgeous turquoise glow and all of a sudden I'm in the tropics again. The lake is just glowing, and I smile… Until I realize that I'm not sitting on a beach. Until I realize that's not a translucent ocean shimmering in front of me — it's just the polluted stink of the city eating away at an otherwise deep blue lake.
Of course, it could be perfectly normal. When I was a child, before the lake wasn't safe to swim in like it is now, I remember that for a few days every year the lake would turn totally green — literally a lush slime color. I assume this was due to temperature changes causing algae populations to spin out of control… So maybe I can shift my eyes to the left a bit and pretend this is a clean city after all.
I've just posted the third update in as many days, this one bringing us up to a total of I think over 3,000 images for this set. Thanks to Abe for sending in the gorgeous cover shot of the tattoos Mr. X (Into You, London UK) did for him. I really love this photo, so I've included it here for IAM members at desktop resolution (better than on BME):
If you like that photo, after you click on it, you can right click the big one and pick
“set as background” it'll make it your new desktop. Abe is a Nigerian architect currently working in London… I think that this is one of the best photos of tattoos on dark skin that I've ever gotten. Anyway,
enjoy the update (I think it's better than most), and expect a new law article tomorrow!
