Gunfight At The KO More Oil
Guardian photographer Sean Smith is on his fifth trip to Iraq, embedded with the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division near Baghdad. He describes the massive disparity between White House happy talk and the reality in Iraq:
I am seeing the country through the eyes of the occupiers. There is no way I can tell the whole story. It reminds you of John Boorman’s film Deliverance; you never know what will be around the next corner.
The only contact the soldiers have with the local population is in stress situations - when a search is being conducted or IDs checked. Mostly, the locals know what to do when they are confronted by a patrol - stop whatever they’re doing, get out of their car, explain who they are. And do it quickly - or you run the risk of being shot.
This isn’t about governing Iraq; it’s just trying to demonstrate nowhere is out of bounds. There is no effective administration here and the Iraqi army is a fiction. I can’t emphasise enough what a slog this is for the troops. They’re good soldiers, sent to do an impossible political job, so at the moment it’s not much more than putting one foot in front of the other and showing they are there.
Showing they are there is about all the Congressional Republicans are managing to accomplish in their dealings with the White House. “There are a lot of people on the Republican side who are not happy with the situation,” said Trent Lott.
Don’t stop there, Helmet Hair!
If the Democrats were tuned in to the situation, they might be pointing out that they have been in this situation since 1994. They might also point out that empty threats, such as warning George W. Bush that their support for his Iraq “surge” was rapidly running out, isn’t going to mean a whole lot to the Bulldog. On hearing that Congressional Republicans fear that their relection chances are being shot by the Bush-Cheney Cabal, Dick Cheney said Thursday in Baghdad, “We didn’t get elected to worry just about the fate of the Republican party.”
I guess even the party that put the oil corporations into power
is eligible for sacrifice
on the Altar of Ever-Higher Global Profits!
Non-petroleum-based Republicans are running out of ways to express their displeasure with the state of the nation under the Bush-Cheney Gang, but they can let their money do the talking. Bush addressed his party’s official convention at a gala fundraiser which put on display his declining sway. Bush only managed to raise $10.5m at the event compared to $17m last year and $38.5m the year before.
So if one has run out of rubes to sucker in the Homeland, one goes to where the real money is and trusts to luck - and some underhanded dealings or two. Bulldog Cheney was sent to the Oil Region Range by Bush to begin the process.
Bulldog is in town for a showdown, seeking to meet face to face, and nuke to nuke, with the Terrible Teherani, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But before he can he needs to locate some trusty hombres to watch his back from counter-attack. Bulldog went to see the head honcho over at the Saudi A, but didn’t seem to get much of a promise out of him. He then cantered down the trail a piece to the AK Bar outside Aqaba, Jordan for a Come-to-Jesus meetin’ with the half-breed topkick, but once again, there didn’t seem to be much enthusiasm for the coming shootout. Same goes for those over at the UAE Ranch. They would go along if Abdullah said so, but they didn’t want to risk their grazin’ rights on Saudi A land by crossin’ him! They did seem a might unsettled.
So Bulldog stood bold on the back of the USS John C. Stennis war wagon, and drew a line in the sand. The United States ‘will stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region’ he boasted.
The only posse which seemed to get fired up by the Bulldog were the wranglers over at the Y-men. They’ve been havin’ a little set to with some local rustlers, and thought they might get Bulldog obliged to help them in return for standin’ by in the coming fight against the Terrible Teherani.
With friends like these, who needs enemies? It makes you want to Earp!