Again: Why are we there?

Some Sunni Muslims won't salute Iraq's new flag
By Leila Fadel and Hussein Kadhim | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Friday
BAGHDAD — Officials in Iraq's mostly Sunni Muslim Anbar province are refusing to raise Iraq's new national flag, which the parliament approved earlier this week.

"The new flag is done for a foreign agenda and we won't raise it," said Ali Hatem al Suleiman, a leading member of the U.S.-backed Anbar Awakening Council, "If they want to force us to raise it, we will leave the yard for them to fight al Qaida."

Ah, yes! The new flag is seen as a symbol of the American occupation! ... by our allies! Wonderful!

The story notes that the Kurds in the north refuse to fly the old flag because of its connections with Saddam.
... and also:

Although parliament speaker Mahmoud al Mashhadani said the new flag would be raised immediately across Iraq after the parliament approved it Tuesday, it's nowhere to be seen. In fact, when the parliament met Wednesday, the old flag was still behind the speaker and his two deputies.
...
Only 165 of the Iraqi parliament's 275 lawmakers were present Tuesday, and only 110 voted for the new red, white and black flag with "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") in Kufic script, the ancient calligraphy developed in Mesopotamia.

Wait, there's more!

5 US soldiers killed in N. Iraq
By KIM GAMEL and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writers
Mon Jan 28, 2008
BAGHDAD - In a daring ambush, insurgents blasted a U.S. patrol with a roadside bomb Monday and showered survivors with gunfire from a mosque in increasingly lawless Mosul. Five American soldiers were killed in the explosion — even as Iraqi troops moved into the northern city to challenge al-Qaida in Iraq.

Iraqi reinforcements, along with helicopters, tanks and armored vehicles, converged on Mosul for what Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged would be a decisive battle against al-Qaida in its last major urban stronghold.

Ah, yes! Yet another "last major" stronghold of the insurgency... Can you spell F-A-L-L-U-J-A-H? How 'bout S-A-M-A-R-R-A?

I note that surge-proponent McCain was the first to label our strategy in Iraq, "Whack-a-Mole."

Stop the madness!