Earthside Comments: Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita ... and we're not paying attention to the deepening disaster in Iraq. But nevertheless, the situation gets worse. One of the big reasons it gets worse is because Iraq is still an occupied land, occupied by foreign powers -- the United States and Britain. We need to demand that this end. Bush and Blair have to be told by the people that the lies have to stop. Both the U.S. and Britain are democracies; that is supposed to mean that the people are in charge ... It is time to exercise our authority and either have these two order the withdrawal of our troops, or we should expect Bush (and Cheney) and Blair to resign.
Link: To Say We Must Stay in Iraq to Save It From Chaos is a Lie | Simon Jenkins/The Guardian
Don't be fooled a second time. They told you Britain must invade Iraq because of its weapons of mass destruction. They were wrong. Now they say British troops must stay in Iraq because otherwise it will collapse into chaos. This second lie is infecting everyone. It is spouted by Labour and Tory opponents of the war and even by the Liberal Democrat spokesman, Sir Menzies Campbell. Its axiom is that western soldiers are so competent that, wherever they go, only good can result. It is their duty not to leave Iraq until order is established, infrastructure rebuilt and democracy entrenched. Note the word "until". It hides a bloodstained half century of western self-delusion and arrogance. The white man's burden is still alive and well in the skies over Baghdad (the streets are now too dangerous). Soldiers and civilians may die by the hundred. Money may be squandered by the million. But Tony Blair tells us that only western values enforced by the barrel of a gun can save the hapless Mussulman from his own worst enemy, himself.
Link: Nine Americans Killed in Iraq, Britain Frees Soldiers | AFP
Tension ran high in southern Iraq after British troops freed two undercover soldiers taken hostage by a Shiite militia, as the American death toll in bomb attacks rose to nine over a two-day period. In northern Iraq, four American security agents, including assistant regional security officer Stephen Sullivan, were killed in a suicide car bomb attack on a US diplomatic convoy in Mosul on Monday. Four US soldiers were killed the same day in the western town of Ramadi, while a US military policeman died in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad on Tuesday, the military said. Following clashes with demonstrators who firebombed two armoured cars, British forces stormed a police station in the southern port city of Basra late Monday looking for its two soldiers. The pair were later found and freed from a house where they had been taken from the police jail by militiamen, triggering concern in Britain about possible collusion between the police and the militiamen.
Link: Insurgents 'Inside Iraqi Police' | BBC News
Insurgents have infiltrated Iraq's security services, National Security Adviser Muwafaq al-Rubaie has admitted. Speaking on the BBC's Newsnight programme, he said he had no idea how far the services had been undermined, with problems "in many parts of Iraq".
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