Weekend Round-up of Key Political Events

02/12/2007

Paul Munnis


The Bush spin machine is desperately trying to divert the attention of the nation and our press away from Iraq and towards Iran. They are doing this by emphasizing stories about Iran, its weaponry, nuclear buildup, and other information that while not false is certainly not a new threat nor of imminent threat, and much of which is old news.

Meanwhile all hell is breaking loose in Iraq. New troops have arrived in Baghdad, a crackdown is in progress and even as the crackdown happens bombs are exploding and 68 people died in one explosion on this anniversary of the bombing of the Shiite Golden Mosque. More trouble and death is expected before the day ends.

The build-up will continue, much of Baghdad will be controlled using military checkpoints and the life of the city will be cut off during the daylight hours. What will happen at night is yet to be determined. We expect troops to storm private homes and apartments and to roundup males below the age of 60 and to then hold them as suspects. Since people have no recourse under the law we expect this tactic will go unchecked until Iraqi males decide that they have had enough and form a new resistance movement.

During daylight hours we expect that all commerce will be slowed to a crawl. This will hurt those seeking to sell goods and services and cut off their sparse income source.

All vehicles will be checked and that will create large traffic jams.

Produce will rot before it can be sold.

Hunger and thirst will rise as people are cut off from their food supplies.

Anyone found with arms or munitions will be held by the military.

Life for the Iraqi’s, which has been awful, will now get even worse. All this so Bush can stay on in Iraq and continue with his misadventure in warfare.

Back home, GOP hecklers are starting to show up at Democratic events to heckle Democratic candidates. In New Hampshire we saw a GOP plant heckle Hillary Clinton this weekend while in Illinois we saw a group of hecklers who were pretending to be Democrats unleash on Barack Obama. GOP candidates are not fairing so well. John McCain is all but eliminated now as a serious candidate. Rudy Giuliani, a weak candidate at best, is all that is left of GOP hopes for the 2008 elections.

Meanwhile real anti-war protestors are holding back and giving Mr. Bush his last opportunity at political survival. When war in Iraq reaches another dismal level the nthe American people will demand Bush’s resignation and this time Congress will be forced to act.

Meanwhile, in the House this week Congress will debate the Iraq troop surge and demand an up or down vote by members.

In Afghanistan there are preparations under way for launching a serious spring offensive as artillery is being hauled into Pakistan and attempts will be made to once more battle the Taliban. We also believe that if this offensive fails that the Afghan War will come under great pressure to simply end.

Although a great deal of brinksmanship is being practiced by both the US and Iran in terms of a war of words that is all that it is at this point. We would expect a new initiative from the US at the UN to presage any sort of precipitous action. Unilateral action by the US would be found unacceptable around the world as Russia is tacitly communicating in its exchange of words with Mr. Bush.

In the meantime diplomacy seems to be making gains in Korea as the opposing parties reach a point of negotiation designed to end nuclear blackmail and to advance human living conditions in the North.