Now go outside and look at the sky.
Destroying The Village To Save It
"US forces bomb Iraq's Euphrates bridges Baghdad - US-led forces have bombed eight bridges on the Euphrates River in western Iraq to stop insurgents using them, US military spokesperson Major General Rick Lynch said Thursday.
"We have been taking out portions of bridges with precision strikes," he told a news conference.
Of 12 bridges between the Syrian border and Ramadi, 110km west Baghdad, "four remain under control of the coalition forces and Iraqi forces after precision strikes on the others," he said."
This is what they call a strategic retreat. By blowing up these bridges, the US is ceding all the territory to the north of the Euphrates River to the insurgents, who can now control entry by heavily armed US troops into these areas as well as the US troops can now control entry from insurgents in vehicles from the north. It cuts both ways.
Even worse, it does nothing to stop insurgents from crossing the river the old style by wading through it. They never have been relying on heavy vehicles, so why should they start now?
This is not necessarily a bad thing in the military sense if you are fighting an active rear guard action on a battle field, but it is sheer insanity in a country that a force has been occupying for three years.
The US is now actively destroying the infrastructure of Iraq "to save the Iraqis". This is, again, against the Geneva Convention like so many other things the US has done over the last three years. War crimes after war crimes transform the United States more and more into an international pariah.
Leaving right now would be an improvement. There may still be years of civil war in the future for Iraq, but at least the Iraqis will know that whatever solution they ultimately come up with is theirs.