Sadrist Crowds Denounce al-Maliki; at Friday Prayers; ICG: US is Creating Paramilitary Forces

Sadrist Crowds Denounce al-Maliki;
at Friday Prayers;
ICG: US is Creating Paramilitary Forces

Friday prayers were tumultuous in Baghdad's Sadr City on Friday, as supporters of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr denounced Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for his brutal invasion of their township.

Turkey's bombing campaign on Friday against the Kurdish Workers' Party guerrillas hiding out in northern Iraq caused the price of oil to rally on Friday. Speculation on oil futures is probably responsible for 10 to 15 percent of the price of petroleum.

John McCain seems to think our young men and women are fighting in Iraq because of America's dependence on foreign petroleum: ""My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will -- that will then prevent us -- that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East. . ."

Well, d'oh.

Kellog, Brown and Root tripled earnings in the first quarter of this year, in part on the Iraq War. The business of America is business. And the business of some big businesses is war.

The Iraq Crisis Group warns that the Bush administration has milked the surge for about everything they can hope to get out of it. But now what? It warns:

' The US policy, it says, is bolstering a set of local actors operating beyond the state's realm or the rule of law and who impose their authority by force of arms. . . "None of these points to progress toward a fully inclusive political process" . . . '

Labels: Iraq

posted by Juan Cole @ 5/03/2008 10:29:00 AM