The big discussion on Arabic social media about Iraq right now involves the idiotic Transportation Minister refusing to allow the Lebanon plane to land in Baghdad in order to force it to go back to Beirut and pick up his little prince son who missed the flight (see Thursday's snapshot and Friday's snapshot for more).
The second biggest discussion revolves around Anbar and whether or not, if parliamentary elections are held April 30th, Anbar will be allowed to vote.
Yes, the US government, the UN, Moqtada al-Sadr, Ayad Allawi and a host of others have noted there will be no legitimate elections if Anbar is not allowed to participate.
And the concern is that Nouri is attempted to drag out his failure in Anbar long enough to use his assault as an excuse not to let them vote.
The assault was supposed to be quick but it's never ending (it started at the end of December).
The assault has exposed the weaknesses in Nouri's government, the defections in the military when they are forced to attack their own people, Nouri's willingness to kill civilians, Baghdad's lack of control over various cities and towns in the province, Nouri's fear of Falluja (his forces are too thinned out and he knows an outright assault on Falluja means more defections in the military) and so much more.
If only to save face, Nouri should have shut this down long ago.
He refuses to do so and this is why people are suspicious that this is part of a plan to deny Anbar the vote.
France's state television (France 24) broadcast a silly interview with Nouri today. Prashant Rao was promoting it yesterday. No surprise, it was nonsense. Nouri insists that the problems in Iraq are caused by Saudi Arabia and, of course, there was no pushback on that. RTE notes he also slammed Qatar as being behind the problems.
He's always blaming someone but he's been prime minister since 2006 so he needs to cut himself a really big slice of that blame pie, he's earned it.
It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)
The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4489.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
i hate the war
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