I put Middle Earth Journal in hiatus in May of 2008 and moved to Newshoggers.
I temporarily reopened Middle Earth Journal when Newshoggers shut it's doors but I was invited to Participate at The Moderate Voice so Middle Earth Journal is once again in hiatus.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Stuck in a cauldron of hell

It would appear that what many of us feared is happening - 140,000 of America's finest stuck in the middle of a full scale civil war in Iraq - Stuck in a cauldron of hell. This post title from Cenk Uygur at the Huffington post says it all:
Helicopters on Rooftops
Iraq has passed the tipping point. It is spiraling out of control. There are no more solutions. There has never been any good solutions, but now there are no solutions whatsoever. Everyone is wasting their breath trying to figure out a sensible and moderate way out of Iraq. It is completely hopeless.
This outcome may have been inevitable when the Bush/Cheney cabal, with encouragement from the delusional PNAC necons, made the decision to invade Iraq. If not the mind boggling incompetence of Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush administration certainly made in inevitable.

Here are just a few of the stories this morning:

  • Baghdad Braces For More Reprisals
    BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 -- In the aftermath of one of the deadliest spasms of violence, a new level of fear and foreboding has gripped Baghdad, fueled in part by sectarian text messages and Internet sites, deepening tensions in an already divided capital.

    In interviews across Baghdad on Saturday, Sunnis and Shiites said they were preparing themselves for upheaval, both violent and psychological. They viewed the bombings that killed more than 200 people Thursday in the heart of Baghdad's Shiite Muslim community of Sadr City as a trigger for more reprisal killings.

  • Al-Sadr loyalists take over Iraqi television station
    BAGHDAD, Iraq - Followers of the militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took over state-run television Saturday to denounce the Iraqi government, label Sunnis "terrorists" and issue what appeared to many viewers as a call to arms.


    The two-hour broadcast from a community gathering in the heart of the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City included three members of al-Sadr's parliamentary bloc, who took questions from outraged residents demanding revenge for a series of car bombings that killed some 200 people Thursday.


    With Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki relegated to the sidelines, brazen Sunni-Shiite attacks continue unchecked despite a 24-hour curfew over Baghdad. Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia now controls wide swaths of the capital, his politicians are the backbone of the Cabinet, and his followers deeply entrenched in the Iraqi security forces. Sectarian violence has spun so rapidly out of control since the Sadr City blasts, however, that it's not clear whether even al-Sadr has the authority - or the will - to stop the cycle of bloodshed.

  • Calls for calm as crowd stones Iraq PM
    BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The motorcade of Iraq's prime minister was pelted with stones on Sunday by fellow Shi'ites in a Baghdad slum when he paid respects to some of the 200 who died there last week in the deadliest attack since the U.S. invasion.

    The anger in Sadr City, stronghold of the Medhi Army Shi'ite militia, boiled over on the third day of a curfew imposed on the capital by Nuri al-Maliki's U.S-backed national unity coalition as it scrambled desperately to stop popular passions exploding into all-out civil war between Shi'ites and the Sunni minority.
It's no longer a question of if the US should exit George W. Bush's disaster in Iraq but how to do it and minimize US casualties. Yes folks, this is indeed a "Helicopters on Rooftops" moment.

Even the wingnuts are now admitting that Baghdad is Spinning Out Of Control and they are wondering where their "fearless" leader is hiding.
Where the hell is Bush? He's had nothing to say about [anythiong] in days, meanwhile Baghdad is spinning out of control and looking like a full scale civil war.

Update
How bad is it? This from the Guardian
Iraqi coalition on brink of collapse as country descends towards civil war
Iraq's precarious government was teetering yesterday as a powerful Shia militia leader threatened to withdraw support after sectarian killings reached a new peak and the country lurched closer to all-out civil war.
The prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, was forced to choose between his US protectors and an essential pillar of his coalition, when Moqtada al-Sadr declared his intention to walk out, potentially bringing down the government, if Mr Maliki went ahead with a meeting with President George Bush in Jordan next week.

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