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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A military airplane carrying four members of the U.S. Congress came under fire over Iraq on Thursday but the plane was not hit and no one was hurt, a spokesman for one of the lawmakers said on Friday.

The C-130 cargo aircraft conducted evasive maneuvers after a nighttime takeoff from Baghdad, said Ken Lundberg, spokesman for Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, who was on the plane.

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Martinez had been told three rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the plane. But a senior U.S. defense official in Washington said small arms fire appeared to have been responsible.

"He (Martinez) had just taken his body armor off and was getting ready to snooze," Lundberg said the senator told him. "Then there was a flash of light, and the plane started banking in different directions."

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Slogans aside, I think it should be harder to claim all sorts of progress on the "surge" when the Senators themselves almost got shot down. But apparently, it doesn't:

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Despite the scare, Shelby, Martinez and Cramer said they believed the recent increase in troop levels has helped stabilize parts of the country.

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Originally posted by jeff house:
It's not a struggle for democracy when none of the parties fighting support democracy

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Originally posted by jeff house:
It's not a struggle for democracy when none of the parties fighting support democracy.

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There is a fair amount of evidence that the major Shia groups were strongly in favour of democracy for much of the past few years, but have been losing patience ever since. Even Sadr has mostly been about redressing the subjugation of the Shia urban poor (though that's not how he has been portrayed for us here, of course). He has been demonized largely because he has demanded the US withdraw since the beginning, and he looks exactly like Americans' cartoon idea of the scary Muslim.

The Kurds were also strongly in favour of democracy - within a decentralized federal system (and if they get the referendum in Kirkuk that they want). The Sunni, particularly the former elites who were effectively barred from participating with the deBaathification fiasco in 2003, oppose it largely because it means the end of a couple centuries of being in charge. The longer the occupation goes on, the more radicalized the Sunni minority gets, and the more the insurgency gets taken over by extremist Salaafists.

That said, whether they are for or against democracy or anything else, the presence of the US isn't going to make a scrap of difference on the outcome, and it should be ended ASAP because each day it continues likely increases rather than decreases the problems.

And the surge only increases troop levels to what they were a year and a half ago. It didn't work then, how can it work now?

What it does do, and this is a scary thought, is put a bunch of troops in place to deal with potential chaos that might result from a bombing campaign against Iran. Bush has nothing left to lose, and he might try it (double or nothing) as a last ditch attempt to save himself. Probably not until next spring though.

[ 31 August 2007: Message edited by: arborman ]

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Despite the scare, Shelby, Martinez and Cramer said they believed the recent increase in troop levels has helped stabilize parts of the country.

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Originally posted by unionist:

I think that's accurate. There have been no uprisings reported in the graveyards.

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