American Forces Abandon Positions In Al-Anbar
by Ian Mosley
In the light of such far more important issues as the presidential primaries, the sub-prime home mortgage breakdown and Britney Spears’ latest mental breakdown, the war in Iraq has almost completely vanished from the news.
The neocons have been using the let up in pressure and scrutiny to begin erecting a myth of “victory in Iraq.” Meanwhile, US forces are abandoning province after province to the sectarian Iraqi militias, thereby reducing casualties and boosting the inane neocon claim that “the surge is working.” Well, retreat sometimes does “work” in the sense of lowering casualties. Don’t expect Bush or any other neocon to admit they’ve been forced to do a retreat.
The Kuwaiti News Agency reports that “The American Army announced on Saturday that it was slashing the number of American troops serving in towns of Al-Anbar province west of the Iraqi capital. The American Army presence in Al-Anbar is being cut while the presence of the Iraqi police is increasing with missions in the provincial towns and along the region’s main roads, the army said in a statement.”
The “police” taking control are Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shi’ite militia, not the poorly armed, neo-colonial “puppet police” who join up so they can get a few Iraqi dollars to feed their families and who tend to run away at the first sign of a serious fight.
In mangled English, KUNA went on to say “The US troops are evicting [sic] combat and patrol positions, removing roadblocks, barricades and barbed-wire fences and handing over the security missions to the local forces, it said.” I presume “evicting” is some Kuwaiti journalist’s term for “abandoning.” Or maybe it’s a clumsy substitution since words like “retreat” and “abandon” are never used in the neocon world. The chief editor probably felt obliged not to offend the liars in the Bush regime.
KUNA goes on to say: “More positions will be deserted in the coming days after clearing up some pockets of the gunmen, it said, adding that all security tasks in Al-Anbar would be the responsibility of the local regulars by March.” Local regulars, eh? That doesn’t sound like “US-trained police loyal to the elected government.”
The neocon “surge is working” propaganda is based on a “dramatic decrease in casualties” (the neocons’ term, not mine) down to an average of three or four thousand dead Iraqis and thirty-or-so dead Americans per month, not to mention a hundred or more badly wounded and mangled and limbless US soldiers to be quietly shipped Stateside and then discharged on some pretext so the military doesn’t have to pay for their care. Most people would not consider thousands of dead people every month to be an improvement on anything, but this is Bizarro World, and the neocons would have us believe “Muslims aren’t real human beings anyway.” After all, we’ve ignored the suffering of Palestinians for the past 60 years. It’s a wonder the Western press bothered to mention all those Gaza Palestinians rushing to Egypt after a border wall was recently destroyed. The Palestinians rushed out to buy and take back home some food and basic necessities, which the Israelis won’t let them have.