"The Americans thought they had conquered Iraq, but

[Minstrel Boy]

just like the movie 'Groundhog Day', they wake up and find they have to do it all over again."

Some keen observations, as usual, from Xymphora. If you don't read this blog, you should.

The United States is in the middle of a full-fledged Chechnya- or Jenin-style massacre of civilians in Falluja (pictures), and is compounding the war crimes by not allowing aid to be delivered or the injured to be rescued (very Israeli). This represents a new step into the moral abyss that the United States has largely tried to avoid until now: a hands-on massacre with denial of medical relief for the civilian casualties. Remember, this is all due to the fact that four mercenaries who were accompanying a shipment of 'goods' - they must have been some 'goods' - got turned into briquettes.

...

The Americans have lost control of a significant chunk of Baghdad, Sadr City, and aren't going to get it back without another massacre, even worse than the one in Falluja. This same sort of problem is repeated all over southern Iraq.

...

The American general in charge of the carnage, Gen. John Abizaid, is washing his hands (Pontus Pilot at Easter!) of the consequences of having to fight this war with the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz emaciated U. S. Army, perhaps signaling that he thinks he will fail.


All of this is happening behind the backs of the main part of the American government. Bush has gone fishing! Can you name another American President who goes on holiday during a war? Cheney has gone off to Asia, conveniently away from having to take any action or blame. Gen. Abizaid is trying to indicate, as best he can, that the United States is being led down the road to disaster by the neocons fronted by Bremer in Iraq. The parallel government of neocons is now completely in control, and is leading the United States to ruin. It is not American policy to start WW III or to take actions which will delay the June transfer of power, but these things are happening at the instance of the neocons and nobody seems to notice! While Bush hooks the big one, Iraq devolves into the start of WW III, Afghanistan is falling apart, and the North Koreans say Washington is "driving the military situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war."
http://www.xymphora.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_xymphora_archive.html#108157318828944023