Iraqi government declares state of emergency in Baghdad

June 23, 2006

Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings

Reality in Iraq is not always what it seems. Sometimes it’s worse. Consider that highly sensitive cable sent from Ambassador Khalilzad to Secretary Rice, the one WaPo recently acquired and made public, the one that says that Iraqis who work for the U.S. in the Green Zone live in constant fear of being found out, the one that references abductions and ethnic cleansing.

Well, reality in Baghdad now includes a state of emergency and a curfew, as the AP reports here:

Iraq’s government clamped a state of emergency on Baghdad and ordered everyone off the streets Friday after U.S. and Iraqi forces battled insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and rifles near the heavily fortified Green Zone.

This state of emergency will “continue for an indefinite period”. It includes “a renewed prohibition on carrying weapons and [gives] Iraqi security forces broader arrest powers”.

As Carla of Preemptive Karma puts it, “[t]he most tightly watched city in Iraq is barely under control”. (See also Steve Soto at The Left Coaster and Michael Signer at Democracy Arsenal.)

But, hey, what’s a state of emergency? What’s a curfew? Just a number, maybe some sort of meaningless benchmark. Isn’t that right, Tony Snow?

I’m sure everything’s going superbly well over there. At least that’s what the mouthpieces of delusion want us to believe.

“Twelve U.S. servicemembers have died or been found dead this week”

Still “just a number”, Snowjob?

Fucking Asshole

  • When Iraq turns especially sour, Abracadabra… a terrorist plot is unearthed to bomb the Sear’s Tower. I imagine Rove has a file cabinet full of similar investigations in progress to be fired off like the decoys on a figher jet whenever a heat seeking missle is getting close.
    I predict future emergencies in Baghdad will always generate domestic terror on Fox,

  • also, kali,
    found this at Google news, by Chris Strohm at CongressDaily:

    “Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Friday the arrests of seven men for allegedly planning terrorist strikes in Chicago and Miami justify the department’s recent decision to spread urban area antiterrorism grant funding to more cities around the country.”

    And wow, a RED ALERT from Iraq just when the Democrats want to talk about when to withdraw troops.
    Just like the TERROR ALERTS!!!! issued every week in 2004.

    Well, if those ain’t them there coincidences………

  • 2Manchu- The trick is getting threadbare, as Rick Santorum found out when the boogie man he hoisted up was a dud. Now he’s the poster boy on the blogs for Weapons of Mild Discomfort.

  • Everyone seems to see this bit of news as an opportunity for the GOP to strut their stuff some more, which I cannnot understand. It must be — as someone had said on another thread — the lack of imagination/competence in “spinning”, on the part of Democrats. Add the other bit of recent news: the Iraq government is talking about making peace with (some of) the insurgents, asking UN to set a troop withdrawal date for US…

    Good for GOP, bad for us? Not so fast.

    A big part of the troops may come home soon; that’s good for the entire country, and it doesn’t really matter if they start pulling out in October, in time for our elections. In fact, the sooner the better.

    What’s really happening is that the — supposedly “US puppet” — Iraqi govt is beginning to flex its muscles, now that it’s formed. And its first — democratic (we have Bush’s word for it that it is democratic) — decision? Boot us outa there, and let us chew on it at home, in our spare time.

    True, the people we’ve lost to the misguided and misbegotten cause are still lost to us. But it seems to me that all the (Dem) questions of “how many is too many”, “how long is long enough” may soon become moot. We’ve sold them the surplus of democracy we didn’t need any more, and they took up the challenge and ran with it. Their first bipartisan decision being “be gone, Bush”…

    We don’t need to defend ourselves against the “cut and run” accusations — we’re letting Iraqis stand on their own feet, just as the President wanted. And we’d not be “staying the course” and pulling out, voluntarily, at our own sweet time, “when we’ve won the war on global terror” (what a crock!); we’d have had to pull out — with a boot in the backside and a slap in the face (they want to negotiate with UN, not US, about the withdrawal)…

    No flowers in the street, greeting the saviors; in fact, not even a flower each for Bush’s, Cheney’s and Rummy’s buttonholes. I don’t think that’s a very encouraging “scenario” for the White Louse team.

    So… Instead of giving the news a sour twist, could we, pretty please, start spinning all of it to our advantage?

  • It’s rather ironic, in a demented sort of way, when this current excuse of an administration can demonstrate its own unique version of the Midas Touch—everything Kid George touches turns into something quite smelly; something that one would normally find immediately to the rear of a just-vacated cow’s rectum….

  • dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the dummy against the WALL!!!!!

    • Comments are closed.