We might as well leave now. If we stay 10 years, this will happen when we leave. Why prolong the inevitable.

From MSNBC:

An oil pipeline burns in central Basra on Aug. 4 after a battle between British forces in the air and insurgents on the ground

As British forces pull back from Basra in southern Iraq, Shiite militias there have escalated a violent battle against each other for political supremacy and control over oil resources, deepening concerns among some U.S. officials in Baghdad that elements of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated national government will turn on one another once U.S. troops begin to draw down.

Three major Shiite political groups are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets. The city is plagued by “the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors,” a recent report by the International Crisis Group said.

By Cenk Uygur
(One of the Young Turks…….I love the Young Turks)

The Democratic capitulation on the FISA law is one of those things that make you grow even angrier as time passes by. As one of our listeners said this morning, “I am growing sick and tired of growing sick and tired.”

So, as my anger builds for the one billionth time about how no one will represent us, not even the people we voted for, I started to think about two names. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Where the hell are they? These two want to be leaders?! Leaders of what? Have you ever seen two bigger followers? Are they done calculating which way the polls are going to come out on this yet or do they need a little more time?

Yes, I understand they voted the right way on this FISA law atrocity and so did other Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd. But what good does it do if you don’t lead your party?

If you say that it’s not possible to lead on this issue and that the Republicans will call you soft on national security, I have two words for you: Russ Feingold.

But he’s not running for president, you say. Well, maybe that’s the problem. So, what’s the conclusion - our presidential candidates have to be our weakest leaders? The people who challenge the Republicans the least?

This is my main problem with Clinton and Obama (I single them out because they are theoretically the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination). They keep talking about how awful Bush was, as if it’s in the past tense. The guy is still president and you’re still in the Senate - and what have you done about it?!!!

Nothing. A big fat zero. Hillary Clinton’s leadership in fighting back against the Bush administration has been non-existent. Big, smooth talker Obama has contributed a big fat doughnut. If you say it’s not possible to fight back, I have two words for you: Russ Feingold.

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Keith Olbermann talks about the wiretapping legislation with Jonathan Alter.

H/T to CSpanJunkie for all the great videos!

From Salon.com

By Juan Cole

As Congress prepared to go on its August recess, Pentagon officials and White House backers were desperately spinning as a success this year’s escalation of U.S. troop levels in Iraq. A recent poll shows that there has been a 10 percent uptick in the proportion of Americans who think the so-called surge, first announced by President George W. Bush in January, is having a beneficial effect. But how accurate are the sunny pronouncements coming out of Washington? What would constitute a success for the surge, and how likely is it to be achieved?

The troop escalation was intended to calm down Baghdad and to give the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki breathing room to pursue a political reconciliation, especially with the Sunni Arab population. But the political goals of the surge are simply not being accomplished — and indeed, the political situation has deteriorated substantially.

Maliki has lost even the few Sunni Arab allies he began with; the Sunni Arab coalition, called the Iraqi Accord Front, that had actually been in his government has now had its cabinet ministers tender their resignations. He has not held further reconciliation talks with dissident Sunni Arab groups. The Sunni Arab guerrilla groups are thinking of forming an opposition political party in hopes of extending their efforts to topple his government into the political sphere. His relations with Sunni Arab neighbors are so bad that Saudi Arabia declined his request to visit Riyadh.

Developments on other fronts are equally grim. The Maliki government has lost the confidence of three other political parties, the Islamic Virtue Party (15 seats in parliament), the Sadr Movement of Muqtada al-Sadr (30 seats), and just on Monday, the Iraqi National List led by former appointed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. All have pulled their ministers from his government. The government of the major province of Basra, source of Iraq’s petroleum exports and its major port, has collapsed. The governor, from the Islamic Virtue Party, failed a vote of no confidence by the provincial council, spearheaded by a rival Shiite faction, but he refuses to resign even though Maliki backed his removal. And if Basra collapses socially and with regard to security, it is unlikely that the Baghdad government can survive.

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