On Iraq: The Path to Pandemonium

You wanna know the truth about this whole Iraq mess? Look no further.

TIME LINE: PATH TO PANDEMONIUM

by

Stan Goff
FTW Military and Veteran's Affairs Editor

_______________________

[The waste of life and limb in America 's latest Iraq War has been escalating wildly under Paul Bremer's watch. A few minutes with any text of Roman history makes it all too clear that the job of a proconsul is to keep his assigned imperial province quiet � but don't look to the Bush people for historical perspective. Paying attention to the roots of today's mess might obligate them to do what they don't like (thinking, for instance). As his recent press conference made clear, our Commander in Chief is unaware that he makes mistakes; so far, his deputies share that trait. By shutting down an independent Shia newspaper, the Coalition Provisional Authority's clever little potentate has triggered an uprising that makes April 2004 the bloodiest month for American soldiers since 1971. As for the population of Fallujah, it's more asymmetrical casualties, more grief and bereavement. The question of the moment is whether the �Coalition� � minus the Spanish contingent, as of this morning � will hold together if and when the Americans decide to move on the holy city of Najaf . The British Commander in Southern Iraq Brigadier Nick Carter, admitted last week that a Major assault on Najaf might mean the end of British involvement in this war: "A crowd of 150,000 people at the gates of this barracks would be the end of this, as far as I'm concerned� There would be absolutely nothing I could do about that�. The moment that Sayid Ali (Sayid Ali al-Safi al-Musawi, who represents Ayatollah Sistani, Iraq 's leading Shia cleric) says, 'We don't want the Coalition here', we might as well go home."

www.fromthewilderness.com...