PIED PIPER…OF DEATH

by Malik Isasis























It didn’t take Nostradamus ability to predict that General Petraeus would come back and report progress and recommend a sustained occupation. One can read the political stunts of Bush and Co. in advance because they are as transparent as graffiti on the wall. Every time Bush opens his foul mouth, flies rush out from the rot within. Bush pathological lying has rotted his morality inside out. Yet, the corporate media report what he does with doe eyes and with the innocence of a child, repeatedly giving him all the benefit of the doubt in spite of the reality of the death and destruction he has begotten.

The corporate media is birthing another bastard child of Bush by referring to a so-called recommendation of General Petraeus of cutting the troop forces by 30,000.

WASHINGTON - President Bush will tell the nation this week he plans to reduce the American troop presence in Iraq by about 30,000 by next summer, but will condition those and further cuts on continued progress, The Associated Press has learned.

It’s another rouse. The military is so stretched thin that they need to reduce the levels in order to keep rotating troops in the rotisserie that is Iraq. The surge of the additional thirty thousand troops was not militarily sustainable from its inception. It was a short-term surge, these troops were already supposed to come back after the so-called surge. However, being the opportunistic leech that he is, Bush has coined the-already-planned-reduction as a reduction based off success of the surge. The corporate media knows this but report it as fact.

Are the corporate media that dumb? Probably not, they know exactly what they are doing. They are focusing their resources on furthering humiliating Brittany Spears. It’s all part of the conspiracy to distract while their parent companies take part in the raping and pillaging of the Middle East.

What Now?

What now Democratic Party? You too have been mesmerized by Bush playing of his flute of lies and have went out of your way to compromise when you’ve held all the cards. Bush and the Republican Party are dumping the failures of this occupation in your laps whether you go along or not. So what the hell are you going to do now that you’ve given Bush billions of dollars to sustain the occupation and three months to come up with a report?

Just as General Colin Powell’s unconvincing presentation at the U.N. was used to legitimize an invasion of Iraq, General Petraues’ presentation to the Congress has been used to sustain a bloody occupation, which has failed a hundred times over.

Bush is not imaginative nor is he curious, but what’s more disturbing is that the Congress too is neither imaginative, or curious but rather hide behind Bush’s failure to prop themselves up. Republicans as well as Democrats always put their career aspirations before the country’s work. This is why the Democrats will not stop the war, they along with Bush and his despotic Republicans are willing to sacrifice life to hold onto power.

Absolute power doesn’t corrupt, power corrupts, period.

Dear Democratic Party. Don’t hide behind the fact that you will not get Republicans to support a withdrawal. You have all the power you need, which is the purse. Stop this occupation and the spread of American imperialism by immediately withdrawing funds. Show true courage, if you don’t the terrorist win, right?

ANALYSIS: Strike in Syria / The secret that cannot be kept

By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz

At six in the evening Tuesday, and while Christiane Amanpour was dropping her CNN bomb, Major General Eliezer Shkedi, chief of the air force, was milling about the yard at the air force center in Herzliya, shaking hands with airmen who excelled during the Second Lebanon War. The media had come in numbers but they did not succeed in getting anything out of Shkedi, besides a lukewarm greeting for the New Year.

Will the new year really be better than the last one? A lot depends on the impact of that air strike that Syria claimed occurred in the north of the country six days ago. Even if Amanpour's report is not completely accurate, the fog surrounding the circumstances of the attack is beginning to lift. Even more important than the details of the incident is the fact that CNN, an international media outlet, has lifted the gauntlet and tried to solve the mystery. It is now a matter of time before the main elements of the story are released to the media.

th the Syrian and the Israeli leadership have been extraordinarily silent about this. According to European diplomats, the Syrians have made it clear that Israeli silence over the incident is "worthy."

It is still difficult to assess what the ultimate response of the Syrians will be, at least on the basis of the statements being made these past six days. On the one hand, the Syrians warn of the consequences and are angry that no one seems interested in condemning Israel's illegal raid. On the other hand, they are not talking about the "strategic" target that was bombed in their territory - according to Lebanese press. If they admit it, this would be a troubling sign that they are weighing a serious response.

The officers on the lawn in Herzliya did not seem phased by any concerns about Syrian reaction.

Of course, the air force did not suffer the humiliation of the ground forces. But even the air force, which succeeded in destroying the long-range Fajr rockets early in the war, was responsible for the failure in effectively countering the short-range Katyushas.

The tension is also being felt in the South, where events have an indirect link to what is taking place in the North. The Qassam rocket fired by Islamic Jihad against the Zikkim army camp was not launched following a direct order from Damascus. Nonetheless, it seems that Islamic Jihad (a proxy for Hamas) is making every effort to heat up the southern front.

Islamist organizations will not oppose helping Syria, which has generously hosted them for years now. However, most of their attention is focused on ways of undermining the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank. A Hamas spokesman described Tuesday's attack as "a victory from God," using language used by Hezbollah to describe its war against Israel.

Was the rocket attack a response to Israel's air strike in Syria? Highly unlikely. This is too small a reaction. Syria will continue in its efforts to drain Israel, for example, by ensuring that the IDF is on endless alert in the North. For nearly the same reasons, Israel will not respond to the massive strike against its soldiers at Zikim with a major operation against the Gaza Strip. So long as everyone is concentrating on the northern front, the IDF will prefer not to get involved in a two-front fight.

The attack at Zikkim exposed a major malfunction: Two years following the Gaza disengagement, the army has not kept its promise to effectively fortify the base, which had come into the effective range of the Qassam rockets since the pullout. Two years ago, when Mrs. Levy dragged her husband and they pulled their daughter out of the base in front of the cameras, people thought that she was hysterical.

There is no justification for relocating a military base inside the sovereign territory of the country at a time when the kibbutzim and the moshavim bordering the Gaza Strip are being hit by rockets. On the other hand, in none of the other communities are 40-odd people sleeping in the same tent without real protection.

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