Lesson Of The Green Zone Bombing

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The suicide bombing in the Green Zone today illustrates, as perhaps nothing else could, how the violence in Iraq today really has very little to do with us.

Eight people are dead. No Americans are even hurt.

Somebody smuggled a suicide bomber into the heavily guarded, heavily fortified Green Zone for the first time. The most visible symbol of our so-called might. And who/what did they choose to attack? Not Americans, not an American facility. But Iraqis in their own Parliament building.

They just want to fight each other. We are needlessly putting ourselves — which, of course, means our soldiers — into the middle of their civil war.

Cheney can go on shouting himself hoarse about how Iraq is all about the U.S. valiantly fighting al Qaeda. The fact is that’s about as true as everything else we’ve ever heard from Bush or Cheney about Iraq.

Al Qaeda is close to totally irrelevant in Iraq today. So, for that matter, are we. Except as collateral damage.

Comments

  1. sarabeth says:
    April 12, 2007 at 9:24 am

    I missed this part in the story I linked:

    “We don‘t know at this point who it was. We do know in the past that suicide vests have been used predominantly by al-Qaida,” the U.S. military spokesman said in an Associated Press broadcast interview.

    That has to be the best news I’ve heard about the Iraq war ever.

    It’s official, then. We’re no longer al Qaeda’s number one enemy in Iraq. We don’t need to fight them here or there. We don’t need to fight them anywhere.

    There was also this gem by Condi Rice:

    “We know that there is a security problem in Baghdad,” added Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice , speaking at the State Department. “This is still early in the process and I don‘t think anyone expected that there wouldn‘t be counter-efforts by terrorists to undermine the security presence.”

    I don’t know what the point of any of that was. But I do understand that Buttercheeks will be issuing an amber alert this afternoon for the missing meaning of “This is still early in the process”. What, pray, is still early in which process?

    And how about this:

    A television camera and videotape belonging to a Western TV crew was confiscated by security guards moments after the attack.

    We may not be able to prevent bombings. But we can sure as hell censor news coverage of it. That’s the American way, right? At least in the time of Bush.