This is big news, but it isn’t being treated with much excitement by the MSM. Pajamas media has a small round-up of reaction, including links to Gateway Pundit (“Break Out the Hookah’s! Iraqi Cabinet Announced and Approved”) and Andrew Sullivan, who allows that some progress has been made, but bemoans the increase in sectarian violence noted in a Guardian story.
For my part, I’d just like to offer my congratulations to the people of Iraq!
And though two major cabinet posts remain to be filled (minister of the interior and minister of defense, which means there is still some work to be done), as deputy parliament speaker Khalid al-Attiyah, a Shiite cleric, rightly noted during a nationally televised news conference, “This is a historic day for Iraq and all its people. It is the first time that a full-term, democratically elected government has been formed in Iraq since the fall of the ousted regime. This government represents all Iraqis.”
Wow, sectarian violence on the increase as the new government forms. Why, you would almost think that it was planned so that MSMers like Sully would write about it exactly like he did!
If Sully wants to understand what sectarian civil war looks like, maybe he should head on over to take a peeky-boo at all of the mass graves filled with hundreds of thousands of Shia and Kurds.
As Noreen would say, Yawny yawny cunt cunt. Wasn’t there a big boom somewhere we can run with?
Good newsh. Good newsh.
One day, when the infrastructure finally heals itself, they’ll be able to get Reuters reports and once they find out what’s really happening in their country they’re gonna be pissed.
Or they’ll laugh. One of the two.
Is it me? When I have the main blog page, I have to scroll horizontally to read it. It wasn’t like that before. However, when I switch to comment view, it’s like it was. Did I miss the memo announcing a change in design? Will someone buy me a larger monitor?
Get a job, deadbeat!
Howe-
You’ve got your monitor on it’s side.
Set it on it’s base.
There you go.
And again, Iraqis fail to do as they’re told…
In contrast to my reaction when my two-year-old (who, incidentally to the entire rest of the world but CENTRALLY to me, used the “big potty” for the first time today) likewise fails to do as he’s told, I am UTTERLY FRICKIN’ THRILLED and offer my heartfelt congratulations to the people of Iraq, who apparently want to have a future after all in spite of the insistence of some that they’d rather stagnate in the Middle Ages indefinitely.
Way to go, Iraqis! Whoooo-hooooo!
The last time I asked for bigger equipment, the damn deaf genie gave me a 14-inch pianist!
Wonderful news. Good to keep on turning the corner.
Iraq now recently renewed my interest in Vietnam and its history.
Diem in Vietnam during the beginning when Kennedy began was never a stable one-man “government.” It’s amazing to review again that the US administration back then never appeared to notice what was under Diem and other South Viet regimes—which was essentially nada.
This is a big step in Iraq because as the government of Iraq goes, so goes the nation/republic of Iraq—one that Bush seems to understand the importance of.
But, heh, my comment is too easy, and it’s amazing that the MSM has never explored something so easy.
…which actually may be a good thing since they get usually booger up any good inquiry.
Hey, come on, do you really think our progressive, compassionate western/American media give a rat’s ass about a bunch of brownskinned nobodies making speaches unless they’re dissing Bush and threatening our oil?
Or threatening to blow up the Joooos!
Why don’t we see much of this in the MSM as opposed to bombs, etc.?
That is why.
We don’t see much of it because its the first time its happened? Makes sense to me.
Don’t you people even CARE about Ray Nagan? Or is it Nagin?
Ya know, one of my favorite all time movies is Mr. Mom.
Me too! Speaking of which, I still can’t get over the diamond anklet I got for Mother’s Day.
Divine!
Man, this is so awesome!!!111. Turns out the Iraq war was a good idea all along. Kick ASSSS!!!!1111.
Iraq Cabinet formed? Suhweeet…I totally support our men and women in uniform, although I plan to support the war by working for the Republican Party.
Gee, how witty.
Democracy is teh RoXXor!11!! Saddam got PWN3D!
It really is amazing how churlish some people are. They can’t stand to see some other people moving forward if it means their predicitions turn out wrong.
Sounds selfish to me.
word:future “We will see the same behavior in the future.”
I don’t think anyone was predicting that there wouldn’t be a government. Its more about how much it can govern.
And here’s hoping- not much. Right, actus?
Well, they are sort of brownish, roscoe. Given that, you wouldn’t expect our progressive friends to have much faith in their ability to handle their own affairs.
tw: research shows that most progressives aren’t.
”I don’t think anyone was predicting that there wouldn’t be a government.”
Other than Juan Cole.
”Its more about how much it can govern.”
By which, of course, is meant, “Can it be a totalitarian fascist entity like the XSSR?” Hopefully, not.
tw: been. All over the world, the fascist Left is hoping that Ba’athist has-beens can somehow get back into power.
actus, strawman. You said,
But in fact the prediction that matters is not whether Iraq would form “a government” but whether it would form “a representative, non-dictatorial non-theocratic (in the sense that that word is usually understood, in which the religious leadership is the political leadership) government.” Plenty of predictions that Iraq would never manage to do what it has now done, just as there were plenty of predictions that it would never manage to take the various other steps leading to this one, yet it’s managed them all so far.
Next prediction: this government will not be able to govern. Next yardstick: TBD.
There’s room for failure. There’s room, hell, for another Civil War in the US; there’s room for Bush to suspend the Constitution and declare himself President-for-life. But why wish for such things? Why go out of your way to look for failure, when a hopeful sign appears? This is the part I’ll never understand. Is so much of the anti-Bush crowd’s identity tied up in the failure of the unfortunately eponymous Bush Doctrine that they’d prefer to see tens of millions of Iraqis in worse straits than they were under Saddam?
Apparently so.
TW: Heavy, man.
*Spit* Sullivan. *Spit*
That’s all.
See? Churlishness. You can’t be happy that a prison-state is now moving towards representative government, that it is slowly figuring out how the parts work.
Why can’t certain segments of the West and the US’s body politic, if they won’t help at least wish them well? What is so wrong with thesesegments that they can’t stand to see a representative government being formed in a former Stalinistic police state?
A thing most peculiar, this bile directed to the Iraqis.
Absolutely none of this matters…
BUSH LIED FOR CHEAP OIL!!!
BUSH CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING!!!
Can’t you freaks see it all? Can’t you understand what it all means? Are you so blinded by the Cheney/Rove/LIbby/Hayden Cabal that you’ve traded truth for convenience?
How sad.
Damn! Just when I was thinking of this as the first score in the contest for a democratic, peaceful Iraq, the goal posts are now further down the field!
I HATE when that happens.
lee, I feel obligated to remind you that once upon a time, we weren’t going to be able to take Baghdad from Saddam.
The goalposts are about due for their 100,000 mile service.
A mere 100,000 miles? More like they’ve been moved out to the Oort Cloud.
I don’t understand why progress in Iraq just cannot be celebrated without the BUT….
I can’t imagine anyone, acthole included, who would not describe this news as progress. The only way you can ever reach a destination is to make progressive steps toward that destination. This is another in a long line of those steps.
Every time there is some progress in Iraq, those progressive steps are denigrated or dismissed by those of acthole’s ilk as….”yeah, but….” (insert your favorite lefty talking point here) something like, “some Sunni’s do not participate”, “electrical service is still below pre war standards”, “some parts of Iraq still do not have clean drinking water”, “billions in reconstruction aid missing”, “ x number killed today in a suicide bombing”, “Z-man still on the loose”, and any others that I happened to miss.
Any good news that comes out of Iraq is always accompanied by a “yeah,but….” by leftists.
Every time Actus chimes in, I think, “I haven’t read anything that jaw-droppingly stupid since the last time I read something that jaw-droppingly stupid.” Which was, of course, Actus’ previous comment.
I don’t know how he keeps topping himself.
Hey, speaking of Brazilians, and things we don’t see much of, and sectarian violence, and mistreatement of prisoners, and civil war, and government that can’t govern: some light weekend reading.
The number of common elements with the Iraq “civil war” is striking (even though Brazil doesn’t have the excuses that it’s in the middle of forming its first democratic government, that elements of the recently deposed ruling party are trying to stir up trouble, that it’s recovering from over a decade of being looted by the U.N., and that it’s surrounded by countries actively working toward its collapse).
I suspect that until certain commenters figure out how to blame things like Brazil’s civil war on Bush, the neocons, Republicans, or America, there will be a continuation of snarky comments denigrating Iraq’s progress coupled with a studied ignorance of events in places like Brazil that seem to be regressing to anarchy on their own.
What do you think? You think I want a big overhwelming nanny state or that I believe that the government that governs best, governs least?
That’s a nice yardstick to use.
Like the car bombs and killings of politicians relatives. Ever see “City of God”? Same stuff has been going on for a while now. And it flares up sometimes.
How silly. There’s Brazilians of ‘em.
Wow, so that’s why Brazil’s in a civil war, eh? Things like that just sorta happen all on their own down there, and no one and nothing in particular is responsible?
I guess that would explain why certain people like to harp on the Iraq “civil war” and try to blame anything that goes wrong there on Bush/the neocons/America—because everyone knows that the middle east doesn’t have a long history of continual, simmering violence that periodically erupts.
Prison gang riots? I’d say there’s a big problem with finding one thing or person in particular that’s responsible: social problems, criminality, underpaid and corrupt prison guards, the money from the drug trade, the need the prisoners have to be in the gangs, the pressure on their families, etc..
Exactly why whats going on is what was expected. By some at least.
Looks like my suspicions were correct.