Northman's Fury

the other day when I said it looked like terrorism outside of Iraq and Afghanistan was declining.

First Thailand:

Twenty-nine bombings and 20 other attacks rocked the country's four southernmost provinces Sunday night. Most of the attacks took place in a span of 45 minutes, Akara said. The targets were karaoke lounges, hotels, schools, gasoline stations and power grids.

The big one in India:

At least 65 people have been killed after a bomb attack aboard a train travelling from India to Pakistan.

And another rash of fighting in Somalia:

Somali government forces and Ethiopian troops have shelled areas of Somalia's capital Mogadishu after their positions came under fire from insurgents.

At least 12 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the exchanges - the heaviest since the government took Mogadishu from Islamists last year.

Unknown gunmen launch almost daily attacks in the city.

I suppose I could take some small pleasure in predicting that the fighting in Somalia was bound to continue after the premature crowing about Ethiopia's easy conquest, but being right about terrible things happening is something I'd prefer to be wrong about.

Lest anyone think I relish bashing Bush I will be the first to announce some good news that the President and his Administration will be certain to tout in April concerning progress in the global war on terrorism (GWOT). After two straight years of unprecedented increases terrorist incidents in which people were killed or wounded outside of Iraq and Afghanistan have declined significantly. While it may be premature to pop champagne corks, there was only one major mass casualty terrorist attack outside the aforementioned war zones--Mumbai, India, which killed more than 200 and wounded over 700.

How much credit the Bush Administration deserves for the decrease, or conversely blame for the previous increases, is beyond my ability to assign. Iraq and Afghanistan continue to spiral downwards, so this is unlikely to help Bush's fortunes too much in any case.

Still, fewer terror attacks outside of those war zones is good news. There might be hope for us yet.

The rhetoric is being heavily upped as are naval and air forces. (The ground forces have been all but used up, but the Pentagon has all these flashy and expensive toys that aren’t being used and if they don’t find something for them to do, people might start cutting their budget to start helping the poor sods on the ground.)

U.S. military officials on Sunday accused the highest levels of the Iranian leadership of arming Shiite militants in Iraq with sophisticated armor-piercing roadside bombs that have killed more than 170 American forces.

. . .

Three senior military officials who explained the display said the “machining process” used in the construction of the deadly bombs had been traced to Iran.

Ooh! A “machining process”! That certainly sounds ominous, yet oddly not terribly convincing. And why is it that these military officials don't want to be named? At least when Colin Powell blew his load four years ago to sell a bullshit case for attacking Iraq, he did it publicly. This time the evidence is apparently so strong nobody wants their name attached to it.

The display appeared to be part of the White House drive that has empowered U.S. forces in Iraq to use all means to curb Iranian influence in the country, including killing Iranian agents.

It included a PowerPoint slide program and a handful of mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades which the military officials said were made in Iran.

Wow! Powerpoint slides! I can't believe anyone would be skeptical. So who are these weapons going to, anyway?

The EFPs, as well as Iranian-made mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades, have been supplied to what the military officials termed “rogue elements” of the Mahdi Army militia of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. He is a key backer of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The U.S. officials glossed over armaments having reached the other major Shiite militia organization, the Badr Brigade. It is the military wing of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite political organization, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose leaders also have close ties to the U.S.

So let’s see, some to the Mahdi Army who hasn’t fought the US since August of 2004 and who generally haven’t used roadside bombs when they did fight them. Oh, and they’re arming the US-backed government forces. Sounds really troublesome. Any real evidence that weapons from Iran are killing US troops?

“We know more than we can show,” said one of the senior officials, when pressed for tangible evidence that the EFPs were made in Iran.

Well, that’s awfully reassuring. As another fellow said:

So, you see? This case is different. This time we can trust the "intelligence" sources. Because, last time, we'd merely had crews of trained inspectors swarming the country for years, and they reported confidently that there weren't any WMD there. This time, we have amateurs observing the situation in the middle of guerrilla warfare, and they say they've got the goods but can't reveal them. So, you see, it's different.

I hope that what you know doesn’t turn out to be that you know all this is so much bullshit and you can’t offer tangible evidence because none exists. We’ve been down that road with the Iraqi WMD’s and frankly I doubt people wil quite as forgiving when you start yet another war on false pretenses.

Of course, it will be too late by then.

A couple weeks ago. the US military announced the death of five personnel in what they said was an attack on one of their bases in Karbala. Subsequently it was disclosed that only one of the soldiers was killed on the base. The other four had been captured, driven off, and then executed. The attackers used US military uniforms and vehicles typically used by private contractors to bypass the security perimeter.

One of the consequences of that attack is that US military and mercenary personnel now have to go through the same sort of security screening they put Iraqis through, with similar results.

The U.S. military confirmed Saturday that U.S. forces at Camp Anaconda, the huge air base north of Baghdad, shot and killed a civilian contract truck driver.

Oops!

The U.S. Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $4 billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes

The special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, said in a January 2005 report that $8.8 billion was unaccounted for after being given to the Iraqi ministries.

Oh well, it was just the Iraqis' money. Who's going to miss that?

US Blames Iran for Iraqi arms surge

Nice to see the term surge has so many uses. Bush is "surging" troops, the insurgents are "surging" weapons, and it's all Iran's fault!

This amongst news of a sixth chopper going down in Iraq. I'm guessing VIP photo ops in Baghdad are about to experience a slow-down.

A US Sea Knight helicopter has gone down near Baghdad, killing all seven crewmembers and passengers on board, the US military has said.

Since IED's have made land routes rather dangerous, the potential loss of safe air routes could put US troops in a very precarious situation.

I believe all five helos have been downed in Sunni-controlled areas. I wonder if this is a good time to point out the fact that the Sunni insurgency has recently seen a major increase in support from Saudi Arabia? You know, the place where Osama bin Laden is from, along with fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers.

Never mind, just keep blaming Iran. It's far easier than thinking.