Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LXXXI

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The headline at Juan Cole's place sums it up:

4 US Troops Killed;

Hundreds Flee Baghdad Clashes;

Ayatollahs Decline to Ban Militia

Read the whole post, including the McClatchy round-up at the end, but here are a few key passages:

-- "Guerrillas killed 4 US troops in Iraq on Monday, bringing the 2-day total to 9."

-- "Robert Reid of AP reports that hundreds of Iraqis fled the Shiite districts of Baghdad that are under siege by American and Iraqi government forces. The US and its Iraqi allies engaged in firefights on several fronts in the Shiite neighborhoods. US helicopter gunships and fighter bombers also fired missiles into the civilian neighborhoods. The attacks left 14 dead in the Baghdad area. The US military denies that its bombing of civilian neighborhoods kills innocent civilians. While I know they try hard to minimize collateral damage, the blanket form of the assertion is not plausible."

-- "The Baghdad fighting is the worst in about a year."

-- "[T]he US press went wild for this supposed report that Muqtada al-Sadr said he would dissolve his militia if Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani ordered it. Folks, he always says that when there is a controversy. (He said the same thing in spring, 2004). He says it because he knows it makes him look reasonable to the Shiite public. He says it because he knows that the grand ayatollahs are not going to touch the matter with a ten foot pole... So the idea that, having lost militarily, al-Maliki and his political allies (who are a minority in parliament now) could just a couple of days later jawbone Muqtada into giving up his paramilitary was always absurd."

But, of course, so much of this war and occupation is absurd. We might as well stand around and hope that Godot shows up to save the day.