Juan Cole - 11/19/05

Straw Man Resolution in Congress:
Joking around with the Lives of the Troops

Brad Blog gives the text of Democratic congressman and retired Marine Colonel John Murtha's resolution on Iraq:

Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of American in Congress assembled, That:

Section 1. The deployment of United States Forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.

Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines shall be deployed in the region.

Section 3. The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.

By the way, Murtha's plan resembles in some ways the one I myself had put forward last last August. I am pleased to see that someone with substantial military experience is thinking along similar lines. Murtha called for an end to US military "action" in Iraq, as in, presumably, the counter-productive destruction of cities such as Fallujah, Tal Afar and Husaybah.

Dozens Dead in another Black Friday
Shiite Worshippers Massacred

Suicide bombers went into two Shiite religious centers [Husayniyyahs] in Khaniqin northeast of Baghdad on Friday at the time of noon Friday prayers in congregation, and detonated their bombs. The death toll as of late Friday was being reported as 82 in the Western wire services. Al-Zaman says 100 were killed and 85 wounded. Relatives were combing through the rubble looking for loved ones. The religious centers belonged to Faili Kurds, a Shiite minority among the Kurds. Many Failis had fled from Diyala province to Iran during the time of Saddam, but tens of thousands are said to have returned since 2003. (The AP story giving the name of one of the wounded as "Omar" is a mistake; perhaps it was `Amr. Omar is a Sunni name and not one that typically would be carried by a Shiite).