A devastating account from Iraq has been published in this month’s Rolling Stone magazine. Its entitled “The Myth of The Surge” and depicts the present situation in the country as a disastrous time bomb which will backfire badly. The six page article is a bleak but gripping description of Nir Rosen’s attempt to investigate the current situation there. It begins with a walk through Baghdad’s Dora district, once a thriving neighborhood of high end shops and apartment buildings.
This is what "victory" looks like in a once upscale neighborhood of Iraq: Lakes of mud and sewage fill the streets. Mountains of trash stagnate in the pungent liquid. Most of the windows in the sand-colored homes are broken, and the wind blows through them, whistling eerily. ….. Looming over the homes are twelve-foot-high security walls built by the Americans to separate warring factions and confine people to their own neighborhood. Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush's much-heralded "surge," Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood. Apart from our footsteps, there is complete silence.
Rosen’s investigations describe how Petraeus’ attempt to bring some order to the chaos of Iraq has meant arming the very Sunnis that used to fight the Americans. Rosen accompanies one such group of Sunnis, members of the so-called ‘Awakening.’ He also witnesses the confused and befuddled attempts by the American troops to cash in on intelligence supplied by ‘The Awakening.’ In this example, Rosen is describing an arrest made by a relatively fresh platoon of US soldiers:
For most of them, this is as close to combat as they have gotten, and they're eager for action.
"Somebody move!" shouts one soldier. "I'm in the mood to hit somebody!"
Another soldier pushes a suspect against the wall. "You know Abu Ghraib?" he taunts.
The Iraqis do not resist — they are accustomed to such treatment. Raids by U.S. forces have become part of the daily routine in Iraq, a systematic form of violence imposed on an entire nation. A foreign military occupation is, by its very nature, a terrifying and brutal thing, and even the most innocuous American patrols inevitably involve terrorizing innocent Iraqi civilians. Every man in a market is rounded up and searched at gunpoint. Soldiers, their faces barely visible behind helmets and goggles, burst into a home late at night, rip the place apart looking for weapons, blindfold and handcuff the men as the children look on, whimpering and traumatized. ......
As the soldiers storm into nearby homes, the two men who had tipped off the Americans come up to me, thinking I am a military translator. They look bemused. The Americans, they tell me in Arabic, have got the wrong men. The eleven squatting in the courtyard are all Sunnis, not Shiites; some are even members of the Awakening and had helped identify the Mahdi Army suspects.
I try to tell the soldiers they've made a mistake — it looks like the Iraqis had been trying to connect a house to a generator — but the Americans don't listen. All they see are the wires on the ground: To them, that means the Iraqis must have been trying to lay an improvised explosive device. "If an IED is on the ground," one tells me, "we arrest everybody in a 100-meter radius." As the soldiers blindfold and handcuff the eleven Iraqis, the two tipsters look on, puzzled to see U.S. troops arresting their own allies.
The case Rosen makes is that in an effort to stabilize the country, one of the cornerstones of ‘The Surge’ is simply to buy off as many Iraqis as possible. Some estimates put the number of Iraqis under contract to the US army at over half a million men. This has been working in the short term but bodes ill for the future:
With American forces now arming both sides in the civil war, the violence in Iraq has once again started to escalate. In January, some 100 members of the new Sunni militias — whom the Americans have now taken to calling "the Sons of Iraq" — were assassinated in Baghdad and other urban areas.
Rosen’s main contact is a Sunni who openly professes anger at the Shiite policemen manning the roadblocks but he also spends time with Arkan, a member of the Iraqi police force:
"The situation won't get better," he says softly. An officer of the Iraqi National Police, a man charged with bringing peace to his country, he has been reduced to hiding in his van, unable to speak openly in the very neighborhood he patrols. Thanks to the surge, both the Shiites and the Sunnis now have weapons and legitimacy. And what can come of that, Arkan asks, except more fighting?
The article makes a great read and is a testament to the ever deeper hole that the United States is digging itself into in Iraq. The right may scoff at such an article and complain of media bias, but they will do it from the comfort of their living rooms across America, without really knowing and not really wanting to know the truth.
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Monday, February 25, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
You Don't Have to Destroy a Country For That
How angry would it make you to know that despite your best efforts and uncompromised testimony someone destroyed your home believing you to be hiding contraband. How angry would you be if they did it to your whole town? What about your whole country?
The Daily Star reports that Saad Tawfiq, one of Saddam’s known leading scientists, told the CIA in no uncertain terms as early as 2002 that Saddam Hussein no longer had any WMDs or WMD programs.
Via his sister, who was approached by the CIA, Tawfiq replied to twenty questions about Iraq’s weapons systems and capabilities.
'There is nothing. Tell them there is nothing, absolutely nothing. They have left us with nothing,'" Tawfiq said. "She was taking notes. There were 20 major questions, and to all of them the answer was: 'No, no, no ...' I kept swearing on the grave of my mother."
But the CIA chose to ignore Saad and instead go with the evidence provided by an unemployed taxi driver who was code named curveball. On his testimony, Colin Powell went before the United Nations and gave the world the show the Neocons wanted.
Tawfiq saw the Colin Powell extravaganza.
"When I saw Colin Powell, I started crying - immediately. I knew I had tried and lost," Tawfiq told AFP five years later in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
The CIA said that Saad Tawfiq’s reports were not ignored but were contradicted, so that there was a chance that he was not telling the truth. So the Bush administration was told in no uncertain terms by a leading Iraqi scientist that Saddam’s WMDs had all been destroyed and yet they decided nonetheless to invade Iraq. I don’t find that acceptable even if there was a chance that some programs had not been stopped. As Saad Tawfiq himself says:
"You don't have to destroy a country for that."
It’s so clear that Bush and his Administration are simply war criminals and on this day, this super Tuesday, I can only hope that this country will be given a chance to right the wrongs of the past Neocon regime in the upcoming election.
The Daily Star reports that Saad Tawfiq, one of Saddam’s known leading scientists, told the CIA in no uncertain terms as early as 2002 that Saddam Hussein no longer had any WMDs or WMD programs.
Via his sister, who was approached by the CIA, Tawfiq replied to twenty questions about Iraq’s weapons systems and capabilities.
'There is nothing. Tell them there is nothing, absolutely nothing. They have left us with nothing,'" Tawfiq said. "She was taking notes. There were 20 major questions, and to all of them the answer was: 'No, no, no ...' I kept swearing on the grave of my mother."
But the CIA chose to ignore Saad and instead go with the evidence provided by an unemployed taxi driver who was code named curveball. On his testimony, Colin Powell went before the United Nations and gave the world the show the Neocons wanted.
Tawfiq saw the Colin Powell extravaganza.
"When I saw Colin Powell, I started crying - immediately. I knew I had tried and lost," Tawfiq told AFP five years later in the Jordanian capital, Amman.
The CIA said that Saad Tawfiq’s reports were not ignored but were contradicted, so that there was a chance that he was not telling the truth. So the Bush administration was told in no uncertain terms by a leading Iraqi scientist that Saddam’s WMDs had all been destroyed and yet they decided nonetheless to invade Iraq. I don’t find that acceptable even if there was a chance that some programs had not been stopped. As Saad Tawfiq himself says:
"You don't have to destroy a country for that."
It’s so clear that Bush and his Administration are simply war criminals and on this day, this super Tuesday, I can only hope that this country will be given a chance to right the wrongs of the past Neocon regime in the upcoming election.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Iraq is Not What It Was
Just as in Afghanistan, where in the wake of the US led war on the Taliban, farmers were left without any sort of income and a large proportion turned to growing opium poppies, Iraqi farmers are now seeing themselves forced to do the same as The Independent reports:
The cultivation of opium poppies whose product is turned into heroin is spreading rapidly across Iraq as farmers find they can no longer make a living through growing traditional crops…..
The speed with which farmers are turning to poppies is confirmed by the Iraqi news agency al-Malaf Press, which says that opium is now being produced around the towns of Khalis, Sa'adiya, Dain'ya and south of Baladruz…
Afghanistan has now become the world’s number one exporter of heroin, providing over 75% of the world’s market. The Afghan opium is normally processed in Afghanistan and then shipped through Iraq. This process was allegedly impossible during Saddam Hussein’s time because of his fanatical dislike of drugs and his control of ports such as Basra.
Although there seem to be no labs in Iraq as yet, one can imagine it is only a matter of time. The question is, who is going to stop or even control this? Is this the next thing the US army is going to have to deal with?
Just for the record, since the US led invasion the following has changed in Iraq:
Women are afraid to go on the streets without traditional muslim dress [check]
Christians are no longer free to worship where they wish [check]
Most of Baghdad is without power and water most of the time [check]
On average about 50 Iraqis die from violence in Baghdad every day [check]
Iraq has started growing opium poppies [check]
That’s a pretty impressive record considering the country was apparently ‘freed.’ Good on ya’ George.
The cultivation of opium poppies whose product is turned into heroin is spreading rapidly across Iraq as farmers find they can no longer make a living through growing traditional crops…..
The speed with which farmers are turning to poppies is confirmed by the Iraqi news agency al-Malaf Press, which says that opium is now being produced around the towns of Khalis, Sa'adiya, Dain'ya and south of Baladruz…
Afghanistan has now become the world’s number one exporter of heroin, providing over 75% of the world’s market. The Afghan opium is normally processed in Afghanistan and then shipped through Iraq. This process was allegedly impossible during Saddam Hussein’s time because of his fanatical dislike of drugs and his control of ports such as Basra.
Although there seem to be no labs in Iraq as yet, one can imagine it is only a matter of time. The question is, who is going to stop or even control this? Is this the next thing the US army is going to have to deal with?
Just for the record, since the US led invasion the following has changed in Iraq:
Women are afraid to go on the streets without traditional muslim dress [check]
Christians are no longer free to worship where they wish [check]
Most of Baghdad is without power and water most of the time [check]
On average about 50 Iraqis die from violence in Baghdad every day [check]
Iraq has started growing opium poppies [check]
That’s a pretty impressive record considering the country was apparently ‘freed.’ Good on ya’ George.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The Pointy Haired President
Here’s the news: the Pentagon and the Bush Administration have changed the goal posts in Iraq yet again. This time it is actually to their credit I have to admit and that is only thanks to Ambassador Crocker, who has scrapped all previous lofty goals and brought in the new one: “Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems.”
Hey! It’s that simple. What some people have been preaching for years has suddenly dawned on the Bushies. As the Washington Post reports it's a far cry from the original targets set out by this administration:
In many cases -- particularly on the political front -- Iraqi solutions bear little resemblance to the ambitious goals for 2007 that Bush laid out in his speech to the nation last Jan. 10. "To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis," he pledged. "Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year . . . the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution."
This is actually the fifth time that the language has been changed to suit the situation on the ground which means that either:
a) the original goals, that of creating a free westernized Iraq with free elections, a democratic process and a state of the art stock exchange and a non-corrupt government which has the power to provide security in its own country, which the Neocons pronounced as the reason for going in there in the first place after the WMD myth evaporated, were completely out of synch with reality (as many prophesied), or
b) the Bush Administration is incapable of fulfilling the benchmarks it had set out to achieve.
The truth is that both of these are correct. So along comes plan F: “let the bleedin’ Iraqis do what they want as long as we get the oil.” But actually it is the first time that they’ve said something sensible and something that could actually work.
So the Baathists are regaining control of the oil and are being re-armed by the US and a blind eye is being turned to the continuing desperate situations in many of the provinces. A retired British General is quoted as saying:
"The new phrasing is both the dawning of reality, and the cynical use of language and common sense to camouflage past errors, hoping to avoid the audit of flawed logic that got us to this point,"
It is actually the first time that language has predicated that the situation in Iraq is actually entirely different to what one had hoped. It avoids anyone having to say: “We lost the war,” and tries to imply it was won in a different way.
That was the news. I could have spared myself writing all that by showing you today’s Dilbert cartoon:
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20080110.html
Brought to you by George Bush: running the country like a pointy-haired boss.
Hey! It’s that simple. What some people have been preaching for years has suddenly dawned on the Bushies. As the Washington Post reports it's a far cry from the original targets set out by this administration:
In many cases -- particularly on the political front -- Iraqi solutions bear little resemblance to the ambitious goals for 2007 that Bush laid out in his speech to the nation last Jan. 10. "To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis," he pledged. "Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year . . . the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution."
This is actually the fifth time that the language has been changed to suit the situation on the ground which means that either:
a) the original goals, that of creating a free westernized Iraq with free elections, a democratic process and a state of the art stock exchange and a non-corrupt government which has the power to provide security in its own country, which the Neocons pronounced as the reason for going in there in the first place after the WMD myth evaporated, were completely out of synch with reality (as many prophesied), or
b) the Bush Administration is incapable of fulfilling the benchmarks it had set out to achieve.
The truth is that both of these are correct. So along comes plan F: “let the bleedin’ Iraqis do what they want as long as we get the oil.” But actually it is the first time that they’ve said something sensible and something that could actually work.
So the Baathists are regaining control of the oil and are being re-armed by the US and a blind eye is being turned to the continuing desperate situations in many of the provinces. A retired British General is quoted as saying:
"The new phrasing is both the dawning of reality, and the cynical use of language and common sense to camouflage past errors, hoping to avoid the audit of flawed logic that got us to this point,"
It is actually the first time that language has predicated that the situation in Iraq is actually entirely different to what one had hoped. It avoids anyone having to say: “We lost the war,” and tries to imply it was won in a different way.
That was the news. I could have spared myself writing all that by showing you today’s Dilbert cartoon:
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20080110.html
Brought to you by George Bush: running the country like a pointy-haired boss.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Body Count in Baghdad
Everyone with the faintest knowledge of how the Middle East worked could have predicted it. Anyone who had studied history could have seen it coming. Only the blind, right wing, conservative, cakewalk-and-dancing-in-the-streets crowd were in denial. The killing in Iraq’s streets and the massacres that have taken place in her capital have long since outstripped any of the horrors that Saddam Hussein and his henchmen brought down on that country. Mass murdering was on the agenda with rows of bodies lining the streets, as many as a 100 a day dying in Baghdad alone.
Since the so-called “Surge,” violence has decreased in Iraq as a whole. So why don’t we hear cries of victory from the top brass? According to a Newsweek article, the reason is that violence has not dropped as much as we think:
The problem—and the reason no one from U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus on down is declaring victory yet—is that those statistics do not tell the whole story. Body hunters like Sowadi, Baghdad residents and local gunmen all say that militias are making more of an effort to disguise their grisly handiwork—burying bodies in shallow graves, dumping them in city sewers. …."Many militia groups just make people disappear,"
Whereas before, militias left the corpses, beheaded and evidently tortured on the open streets, they are now taking pains to bury them in shallow graves, with several new mass graves appearing in various parts of the city.
The sheer number of human lives this senseless war will have destroyed will surely never be known but it will certainly be in the hundreds of thousands by now. Certainly the Neocons who lusted after this war and those who supported the decision to go to war based on what the rest of us knew were lies, will never own up to having been part of the holocaust that Iraq has become.
Since the so-called “Surge,” violence has decreased in Iraq as a whole. So why don’t we hear cries of victory from the top brass? According to a Newsweek article, the reason is that violence has not dropped as much as we think:
The problem—and the reason no one from U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus on down is declaring victory yet—is that those statistics do not tell the whole story. Body hunters like Sowadi, Baghdad residents and local gunmen all say that militias are making more of an effort to disguise their grisly handiwork—burying bodies in shallow graves, dumping them in city sewers. …."Many militia groups just make people disappear,"
Whereas before, militias left the corpses, beheaded and evidently tortured on the open streets, they are now taking pains to bury them in shallow graves, with several new mass graves appearing in various parts of the city.
The sheer number of human lives this senseless war will have destroyed will surely never be known but it will certainly be in the hundreds of thousands by now. Certainly the Neocons who lusted after this war and those who supported the decision to go to war based on what the rest of us knew were lies, will never own up to having been part of the holocaust that Iraq has become.
Monday, November 26, 2007
The Surge is Working - Not.
Euphoria about Iraq is gripping the right. Violence is down as 162,000 now operational troops provide some semblance of security. “The surge is working!” Is the cry. Only it isn’t and the Bush White House knows it.
The original aim of the surge was to provide breathing space for the Iraqi government to come together and begin to legislate. Reducing the violence was not an aim but a means to get there. However despite the encouraging drop in bombings and sectarian attacks, Iraq’s government remains rooted to the spot, frozen and unable to move.
It’s yet another example of the underestimation of the way third world nations function by the American ruling class. Let’s go back a few years, back to the toppling of Iran’s first duly elected Prime Minister. The reason things came to a head was because the British underestimated the Iranians. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which was ostensibly part of the British government, treated Iranians like dirt. The refinery workers earned less than 50cents a day, slept in ramshackle metal tenements cobbled together with no running water and no sanitation let alone electricity. A communiqué at the time by a British Diplomat described Iranians as being motivated by:
“an unabashed dishonesty, fatalistic outlook and indifference to suffering… The ordinary Persian is vain, unprincipled, eager to promise what he knows he is incapable or has no intention of performing, wedded to procrastination, lacking in perseverance and energy but amenable to discipline……although an accomplished liar, he does not expect to be believed….”
Now, being brutally honest, one could probably say that that could be taken as a pretty close description of how many Americans might view Iraqis today. It isn’t because Iranians or Iraqis are like that. It’s because our differences in culture make us see them that way.
At the bottom of this, is a belief that we can outwit them and that they won’t even mind even if they realize they are being outwitted. This outlook cost the AIOC its foothold in Iran. Whilst American companies were viewed at the time as being fair – Aramco was offering Saudi Arabia 50% of it’s profits, the Anglo-Iranian was stuck on 15% of profits from books cooked so that less than $100,000 a year flowed to Iran from His Majesty’s coffers. The result was a revolution and the privatization of Anglo-Iranian under the leadership of Mossadegh. The British were so incensed that they brought about his downfall using the Americans who were coerced into worrying that Iran would fall into Soviet hands.
This little piece of history is vitally important today, because it highlights the fact that we in the West still believe we can nation-build and that we can mold those nations to our liking. Nothing can be further from the truth and today, the evidence is in Iraq where the surge has worked, but it has failed. The Iraqi government will not divest itself of all its resources and hand them over to British and American oil companies just as the Iranians refused to back then.
To counteract this threat, the US is rapidly building military bases on top of oil platforms and fields. It’s truly like a vision of the apocalypse in Mad Max where countries will finally wage battles for the last drops of oil in fortresses defended by the West.
Already, as reported in a New York Times article, the original aim of the surge has already been changed to accommodate the latest developments:
While Bush officials once said they aimed to secure “reconciliation” among Iraq’s deeply divided religious, ethnic and sectarian groups, some officials now refer to their goal as “accommodation.”
So accommodation is the new ‘reconciliation.’ What this means in real terms is that the surge is not working as part of a solution for the country ‘Iraq’, but that it is part of the ongoing catastrophic quagmire that that land has become. Unable to reach consensus on any broad issues let alone details, the Iraqi government will falter and trip until the USA loses patience with Maliki. Desperate they will search for an alternative and like a Jack in the Box, up will pop one of the skeletons that has been plaguing the country for the past 25 years. The end result will be a crippled country, bereft of any income whilst its natural resources are plundered by an insatiable Western metal juggernaut of SUVs and a poverty stricken population with only the knowledge in their hearts that they were robbed. Together, that will most certainly provide the ultimate breeding ground for radicalism and hate towards the West.
Well done Mr. Bush. Your legacy is set to go.
The original aim of the surge was to provide breathing space for the Iraqi government to come together and begin to legislate. Reducing the violence was not an aim but a means to get there. However despite the encouraging drop in bombings and sectarian attacks, Iraq’s government remains rooted to the spot, frozen and unable to move.
It’s yet another example of the underestimation of the way third world nations function by the American ruling class. Let’s go back a few years, back to the toppling of Iran’s first duly elected Prime Minister. The reason things came to a head was because the British underestimated the Iranians. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which was ostensibly part of the British government, treated Iranians like dirt. The refinery workers earned less than 50cents a day, slept in ramshackle metal tenements cobbled together with no running water and no sanitation let alone electricity. A communiqué at the time by a British Diplomat described Iranians as being motivated by:
“an unabashed dishonesty, fatalistic outlook and indifference to suffering… The ordinary Persian is vain, unprincipled, eager to promise what he knows he is incapable or has no intention of performing, wedded to procrastination, lacking in perseverance and energy but amenable to discipline……although an accomplished liar, he does not expect to be believed….”
Now, being brutally honest, one could probably say that that could be taken as a pretty close description of how many Americans might view Iraqis today. It isn’t because Iranians or Iraqis are like that. It’s because our differences in culture make us see them that way.
At the bottom of this, is a belief that we can outwit them and that they won’t even mind even if they realize they are being outwitted. This outlook cost the AIOC its foothold in Iran. Whilst American companies were viewed at the time as being fair – Aramco was offering Saudi Arabia 50% of it’s profits, the Anglo-Iranian was stuck on 15% of profits from books cooked so that less than $100,000 a year flowed to Iran from His Majesty’s coffers. The result was a revolution and the privatization of Anglo-Iranian under the leadership of Mossadegh. The British were so incensed that they brought about his downfall using the Americans who were coerced into worrying that Iran would fall into Soviet hands.
This little piece of history is vitally important today, because it highlights the fact that we in the West still believe we can nation-build and that we can mold those nations to our liking. Nothing can be further from the truth and today, the evidence is in Iraq where the surge has worked, but it has failed. The Iraqi government will not divest itself of all its resources and hand them over to British and American oil companies just as the Iranians refused to back then.
To counteract this threat, the US is rapidly building military bases on top of oil platforms and fields. It’s truly like a vision of the apocalypse in Mad Max where countries will finally wage battles for the last drops of oil in fortresses defended by the West.
Already, as reported in a New York Times article, the original aim of the surge has already been changed to accommodate the latest developments:
While Bush officials once said they aimed to secure “reconciliation” among Iraq’s deeply divided religious, ethnic and sectarian groups, some officials now refer to their goal as “accommodation.”
So accommodation is the new ‘reconciliation.’ What this means in real terms is that the surge is not working as part of a solution for the country ‘Iraq’, but that it is part of the ongoing catastrophic quagmire that that land has become. Unable to reach consensus on any broad issues let alone details, the Iraqi government will falter and trip until the USA loses patience with Maliki. Desperate they will search for an alternative and like a Jack in the Box, up will pop one of the skeletons that has been plaguing the country for the past 25 years. The end result will be a crippled country, bereft of any income whilst its natural resources are plundered by an insatiable Western metal juggernaut of SUVs and a poverty stricken population with only the knowledge in their hearts that they were robbed. Together, that will most certainly provide the ultimate breeding ground for radicalism and hate towards the West.
Well done Mr. Bush. Your legacy is set to go.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
When Things Go Bump in the Night
When Turkish helicopter gun-ships fired on villages in Northern Iraq this morning, they certainly weren’t out to defeat the PKK. The attack which occurred on abandoned Kurdish villages came at dawn and it was a distinct ‘up yours’ not only to the Kurds in the North, but to the Bush Administration. It sends a strong signal to Washington that Turkey will defend its interests.
The Bush Administration has maneuvered itself into a similar position with the Kurds and the Turks as it has with the Shia and the Sunni. In short they’ve managed the impossible: to alienate everyone. The US government now officially supports the Kurds in the Northern provinces whilst declaring that the PKK is a terrorist organization. At the same time, the Turks are declared to be best buddies and allies, but are told that attacking Kurdish positions inside Iraq is a no-no.
The Huffington Post, which quotes aTurkish Colonel as its source reports that clashes have been going on for a whole day but that this is the first such strike inside the Iraki border.
This brings up two points:
1. The escalation in the North is the worst possible case scenario in which sporadic fighting in Iraq develops into an all out war between the Turkish forces and the Kurdish Peschmerga. The United States is now in such a position that it is unable to support the Turks and unable to prevent them from invading.
2. The fact that the US Government evidently feels it has the right to invade whomever and wherever they please but are able to dictate the rules to others is not going to sit well in the Middle East. It will increase the feeling that the USA is only focused on its own vested interests.
This latest step is a logical follow up to every single event so far and has been predicted by many people. It remains to be seen how the Bush Administration reacts to the latest developments but if history is anything to go by they’ll manage to eff it up. Stay tuned for an all out war in the North.
Brought to you by the Administration that would never have thunked it.
The Bush Administration has maneuvered itself into a similar position with the Kurds and the Turks as it has with the Shia and the Sunni. In short they’ve managed the impossible: to alienate everyone. The US government now officially supports the Kurds in the Northern provinces whilst declaring that the PKK is a terrorist organization. At the same time, the Turks are declared to be best buddies and allies, but are told that attacking Kurdish positions inside Iraq is a no-no.
The Huffington Post, which quotes aTurkish Colonel as its source reports that clashes have been going on for a whole day but that this is the first such strike inside the Iraki border.
This brings up two points:
1. The escalation in the North is the worst possible case scenario in which sporadic fighting in Iraq develops into an all out war between the Turkish forces and the Kurdish Peschmerga. The United States is now in such a position that it is unable to support the Turks and unable to prevent them from invading.
2. The fact that the US Government evidently feels it has the right to invade whomever and wherever they please but are able to dictate the rules to others is not going to sit well in the Middle East. It will increase the feeling that the USA is only focused on its own vested interests.
This latest step is a logical follow up to every single event so far and has been predicted by many people. It remains to be seen how the Bush Administration reacts to the latest developments but if history is anything to go by they’ll manage to eff it up. Stay tuned for an all out war in the North.
Brought to you by the Administration that would never have thunked it.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
The Tale of Kasim
Kasim Al Safar is a name that is going to haunt the Pentagon for weeks if not months to come. No, he’s not one of Al Qaeda’s number two’s, he also isn’t head of some new, obscure but upcoming terrorist organization. In fact, Al Safar was a friend of the Bush Administration’s and may very well still be a friend of the Pentagon’s.
Not having learned that trusting people is a very different thing in the Middle East than it is here despite their run in with Allawi, the Bush Administration thought long and hard about how to quell the insurgency back in 2004 when it was rapidly gaining speed. Now you’re thinking: they entrusted Al-Safar with making sure that as few weapons as possible got into Iraq, a tactic which may have only slowed the insurgency a little, but which at least would have had some positive effect. You would be wrong.
Bush Administration officials paid Al-Safar large sums of money to import and distribute weapons in Iraq. They were supposed to go to the new police force and the new army. But Al-Safar, bless his soul is a business man so he set up a business selling guns. Quite illegally, but with apparently full knowledge of the Pentagon.
Now you’re thinking: clever! He and the USA could make money from these weapons by selling them to the ‘good guys’ instead of giving them away. Wrong! Kasim sold the weapons to whoever showed up with cash including insurgents that struck at US troops and terrorist PKK members who attacked Turkish troops with the very same guns. You can’t believe it can you? Nor could I. But the whole sordid tale of how the USA lost some 190,000 firearms in Iraq between 2004 and 2006 is in this New York Times article. To quote John Tisdale, a retired Air Force master sergeant who managed an adjacent warehouse:
“This was the craziest thing in the world, they were taking weapons away by the truckload.”
Not having learned that trusting people is a very different thing in the Middle East than it is here despite their run in with Allawi, the Bush Administration thought long and hard about how to quell the insurgency back in 2004 when it was rapidly gaining speed. Now you’re thinking: they entrusted Al-Safar with making sure that as few weapons as possible got into Iraq, a tactic which may have only slowed the insurgency a little, but which at least would have had some positive effect. You would be wrong.
Bush Administration officials paid Al-Safar large sums of money to import and distribute weapons in Iraq. They were supposed to go to the new police force and the new army. But Al-Safar, bless his soul is a business man so he set up a business selling guns. Quite illegally, but with apparently full knowledge of the Pentagon.
Now you’re thinking: clever! He and the USA could make money from these weapons by selling them to the ‘good guys’ instead of giving them away. Wrong! Kasim sold the weapons to whoever showed up with cash including insurgents that struck at US troops and terrorist PKK members who attacked Turkish troops with the very same guns. You can’t believe it can you? Nor could I. But the whole sordid tale of how the USA lost some 190,000 firearms in Iraq between 2004 and 2006 is in this New York Times article. To quote John Tisdale, a retired Air Force master sergeant who managed an adjacent warehouse:
“This was the craziest thing in the world, they were taking weapons away by the truckload.”
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Deadliest Year So Far
Yahoo News reports:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Five U.S. soldiers were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks in Iraq on Monday, the U.S. military said, making 2007 the deadliest year for U.S. forces in the country.
The Idea behind the Iraq War may have been born out of diverse concepts, a gaggle of politicians all wanting something personal, something for themselves. But with the fourth year coming to a close and about 800 to 900 troops dying each year it's a wonder that anyone still thinks this was worth it.
Of course republicans are trying to hold their breaths until 2009, see no evil, do no evil and hear no evil style, when, in a wheesy explosion of halitosis laden dusty musty air, they'll blame the Democrats for the failure in Iraq. They will do it. Mark my words.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Five U.S. soldiers were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks in Iraq on Monday, the U.S. military said, making 2007 the deadliest year for U.S. forces in the country.
The Idea behind the Iraq War may have been born out of diverse concepts, a gaggle of politicians all wanting something personal, something for themselves. But with the fourth year coming to a close and about 800 to 900 troops dying each year it's a wonder that anyone still thinks this was worth it.
Of course republicans are trying to hold their breaths until 2009, see no evil, do no evil and hear no evil style, when, in a wheesy explosion of halitosis laden dusty musty air, they'll blame the Democrats for the failure in Iraq. They will do it. Mark my words.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Of Course it's About The Oil
The problem the right has is that it has to keep shifting positions to stay ahead of it’s own lies. The reason for the invasion of Iraq has always been a chimera, a changing blob of meaningless rhetoric, a series of stuttered answers that make no sense, a bunch of doubtful associations that fell apart at the first prodding by a second rate journalist. Many of us knew the reason: oil. The little word that means so much to every nation, developed or developing, rich or poor represents a colossus amongst the commodities and this country especially, needs a lot of it.
After years of ducking and weaving and hiding behind first Weapons of Mass destruction, then dubious links to Al Qaeda before jumping to “Liberation” as a just cause, the right has been desperate to avoid the word ‘oil’ when talking about Iraq.
So it will probably hurt just a little bit to know that General Abizaid, the guy who was in charge of much of the Iraq war,has been quoted by Think Progress as saying:
“Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that,”
No You can’t. But you could have come clean about it a long time ago and you could have decided that it was not a valid reason for killing some 90,000 Iraqis and displacing another 4 million, not to mention killing almost 4,000 US soldiers.
There isn’t a why and a wherefor nor is there a ‘but’. The four year campaign by the right to paint the Bush Administration as some kind of collection of Mother Teresas who are overly concerned about some Arabs in a country Far, Far Away just dissapeared in a puff of smoke that smells something like rotten eggs. There was only one reason to invade Iraq and that was to secure the oil and the ex General Abizaid has just said it plain as day.
He went on to say:
“Our message to them is: Guys, keep your pumps open, prices low, be nice to the Israelis and you can do whatever you want out back. Osama and 9/11 is the distilled essence that represents everything going on out back.”
Which is pretty much what everyone on the left has been saying since 2003.
I guess it’s time to swift-boat him too.
After years of ducking and weaving and hiding behind first Weapons of Mass destruction, then dubious links to Al Qaeda before jumping to “Liberation” as a just cause, the right has been desperate to avoid the word ‘oil’ when talking about Iraq.
So it will probably hurt just a little bit to know that General Abizaid, the guy who was in charge of much of the Iraq war,has been quoted by Think Progress as saying:
“Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that,”
No You can’t. But you could have come clean about it a long time ago and you could have decided that it was not a valid reason for killing some 90,000 Iraqis and displacing another 4 million, not to mention killing almost 4,000 US soldiers.
There isn’t a why and a wherefor nor is there a ‘but’. The four year campaign by the right to paint the Bush Administration as some kind of collection of Mother Teresas who are overly concerned about some Arabs in a country Far, Far Away just dissapeared in a puff of smoke that smells something like rotten eggs. There was only one reason to invade Iraq and that was to secure the oil and the ex General Abizaid has just said it plain as day.
He went on to say:
“Our message to them is: Guys, keep your pumps open, prices low, be nice to the Israelis and you can do whatever you want out back. Osama and 9/11 is the distilled essence that represents everything going on out back.”
Which is pretty much what everyone on the left has been saying since 2003.
I guess it’s time to swift-boat him too.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Your Tax Dollars at Work in Iraq
In almost any third world country conflict, militias have been known to set up roadblocks and illicit checkpoints which are about controlling the population through fear and extorting cash and goods as a sort of illegitimate transport tax, from trucks carrying merchandise. This system operated in Lebanon, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Congo, Afghanistan, both during the Soviet occupation and more recently after the American invasion and, of course, in Iraq. It is frightfully efficient and provides a steady and healthy income to any group controlling a specific district.
In Iraq, it is the insurgency that profits from this practice and does so in numbers befitting the phenomenal financial black hole that Iraq has become. US contractors, including the military, use Iraqi contractors to transport their goods. The idea is that Iraqi contractors are not only less likely to be attacked but, from the US Military’s point of view, are also more dispensable, or at least their workers are, if they are killed. Iraqi contractors also know, that to get their goods say, from Baghdad to a job site in Al Anbar province, they will have to pay a substantial amount to the insurgency to let them pass. One contractor quotes a job, which he would normally bid at $16,000 for filling bags of gravel and transporting them to Ramadi would be invoiced at $120,000 of which as much as $100,000 was paid out to the insurgency.
The Seattle Times quotes one contractor as saying: "Insurgents control the roads - Americans don't control the roads — and everything from Syria and Jordan goes through there."
In light of the fact that current US or Iraqi government run projects total over $353 million, it’s easy to imagine about $10 million of that landing in the hands of the insurgency over the next year or so. Some of that money will be used by the insurgency to purchase weapons, some of it to bribe Syrian border guards to look the other way. But the following also has to be considered: in a recent San Francisco Chronicle article, Pentagon officials claim that the USA spends one million dollars for every dollar spent by the insurgency, which boggles the mind somewhat.
Here’s the scenario in a nutshell. In order for Iraq to succeed, the United States is attempting to defeat an insurgency whilst it rebuilds the country’s infrastructure. In rebuilding the infrastructure, American contractors are forced to shell out millions of dollars to the insurgency that the US military is trying to fight. The insurgency repeatedly destroys the infrastructure, a soft target, thus guaranteeing themselves a steady revenue flow. That’s a business plan if ever I saw one.
In Iraq, it is the insurgency that profits from this practice and does so in numbers befitting the phenomenal financial black hole that Iraq has become. US contractors, including the military, use Iraqi contractors to transport their goods. The idea is that Iraqi contractors are not only less likely to be attacked but, from the US Military’s point of view, are also more dispensable, or at least their workers are, if they are killed. Iraqi contractors also know, that to get their goods say, from Baghdad to a job site in Al Anbar province, they will have to pay a substantial amount to the insurgency to let them pass. One contractor quotes a job, which he would normally bid at $16,000 for filling bags of gravel and transporting them to Ramadi would be invoiced at $120,000 of which as much as $100,000 was paid out to the insurgency.
The Seattle Times quotes one contractor as saying: "Insurgents control the roads - Americans don't control the roads — and everything from Syria and Jordan goes through there."
In light of the fact that current US or Iraqi government run projects total over $353 million, it’s easy to imagine about $10 million of that landing in the hands of the insurgency over the next year or so. Some of that money will be used by the insurgency to purchase weapons, some of it to bribe Syrian border guards to look the other way. But the following also has to be considered: in a recent San Francisco Chronicle article, Pentagon officials claim that the USA spends one million dollars for every dollar spent by the insurgency, which boggles the mind somewhat.
Here’s the scenario in a nutshell. In order for Iraq to succeed, the United States is attempting to defeat an insurgency whilst it rebuilds the country’s infrastructure. In rebuilding the infrastructure, American contractors are forced to shell out millions of dollars to the insurgency that the US military is trying to fight. The insurgency repeatedly destroys the infrastructure, a soft target, thus guaranteeing themselves a steady revenue flow. That’s a business plan if ever I saw one.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
When Another America Went to War
There was a time when the United States perceived its position in the world not as the be all and end all of civilization and the entity that determines how other countries should live out their cultures. There was a humbleness and a degree of tolerance borne out of the knowledge of being a ‘new’ country, which made Americans treat people abroad with a certain level of respect and which resulted in the world accepting, liking and even loving America and what it stood for.
Increasingly, the attitude of the US military and its soldiers is that they do not owe anyone anything, let alone respect. This started in Vietnam and has increased precipitously with every year that the United States has become stronger militarily. More recently, through the collapse of the Soviet Union maybe and the ensuing perception at being the only super-power left, we witness a growing degradation of the local population by members of the United States forces. It is part of the machinery which is causing a growing distaste for America and its ways especially in those countries but also elsewhere.
This is compounded by the fact that also since the Vietnam war, the disrespect by American forces for the lives of others, whilst being so sentimentally attached to the lives of their own troops gives the distinct impression that Americans believe themselves to be intrinsically more valuable as human beings. Of note recently were comments made by a senior British Commander in Afghanistan’s Helmland, in which he requested that America withdraw its Special Forces due to the unarguably high number of civilian casualties they were causing which in turn was making it impossible to win over the civilian population to the ISAF cause of fighting the Taliban.
One father, who reported losing six members of his family killed in a bombing raid by US Forces, in which another five members of his family were wounded including his wife who lost an arm, confirmed this point as reported by Carlotta Gall of the New York Times:
He said that he opposed the Taliban, but that after the bombing raid the villagers were so angered that most of the men who survived went off to join the insurgents. Whether people would support the foreign troops “depends on the behavior of ISAF,” Mohammadullah said, referring to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. “If they treat the civilians well, they will win.”
The most important line is the last one: “If they treat civilians well, they will win.” But this runs counter to the ways that soldiers, specifically American soldiers have been treating civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. A recent article quoted Marines as saying that they would generally not report the mistreatment of civilians by their fellow marines. Moreover, references to headdress attire and derogatory names like “haji” are counterproductive.
There was a time when things were different. US troops were in Iraq during the Second World War and at that time, there was a booklet entitled “A Short Guide to Iraq” which outlined how to behave towards Iraqis, included pointers as to how to respect the Islamic traditions and also a small guide on how to speak Arabic. A new version of this book has finally been published, perhaps four years too late with an introduction by Lt. Col. John Nagl, in which he wishes he had had such a booklet when he was first stationed in Iraq in 2003:
“As the month of fasting called Ramadan approached in November 2003, I would have appreciated knowing that ‘Moslem tempers are very short during this month as yours would be under similar circumstances’—and perhaps I would have been better prepared for the surge of violence that marked this celebration in our sector.”
The Newsweek article by Malcolm Jones ends with this remarkable insight:
The chief value of “Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II” is that it reminds us that there was a time, not so long ago, when America expected its troops abroad to be not only brave and resourceful fighters but also upstanding citizens who were expected to be generous, kind and respectful of other people and other cultures—model Americans, in other words. No wonder they called it “the good war.”
Increasingly, the attitude of the US military and its soldiers is that they do not owe anyone anything, let alone respect. This started in Vietnam and has increased precipitously with every year that the United States has become stronger militarily. More recently, through the collapse of the Soviet Union maybe and the ensuing perception at being the only super-power left, we witness a growing degradation of the local population by members of the United States forces. It is part of the machinery which is causing a growing distaste for America and its ways especially in those countries but also elsewhere.
This is compounded by the fact that also since the Vietnam war, the disrespect by American forces for the lives of others, whilst being so sentimentally attached to the lives of their own troops gives the distinct impression that Americans believe themselves to be intrinsically more valuable as human beings. Of note recently were comments made by a senior British Commander in Afghanistan’s Helmland, in which he requested that America withdraw its Special Forces due to the unarguably high number of civilian casualties they were causing which in turn was making it impossible to win over the civilian population to the ISAF cause of fighting the Taliban.
One father, who reported losing six members of his family killed in a bombing raid by US Forces, in which another five members of his family were wounded including his wife who lost an arm, confirmed this point as reported by Carlotta Gall of the New York Times:
He said that he opposed the Taliban, but that after the bombing raid the villagers were so angered that most of the men who survived went off to join the insurgents. Whether people would support the foreign troops “depends on the behavior of ISAF,” Mohammadullah said, referring to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. “If they treat the civilians well, they will win.”
The most important line is the last one: “If they treat civilians well, they will win.” But this runs counter to the ways that soldiers, specifically American soldiers have been treating civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. A recent article quoted Marines as saying that they would generally not report the mistreatment of civilians by their fellow marines. Moreover, references to headdress attire and derogatory names like “haji” are counterproductive.
There was a time when things were different. US troops were in Iraq during the Second World War and at that time, there was a booklet entitled “A Short Guide to Iraq” which outlined how to behave towards Iraqis, included pointers as to how to respect the Islamic traditions and also a small guide on how to speak Arabic. A new version of this book has finally been published, perhaps four years too late with an introduction by Lt. Col. John Nagl, in which he wishes he had had such a booklet when he was first stationed in Iraq in 2003:
“As the month of fasting called Ramadan approached in November 2003, I would have appreciated knowing that ‘Moslem tempers are very short during this month as yours would be under similar circumstances’—and perhaps I would have been better prepared for the surge of violence that marked this celebration in our sector.”
The Newsweek article by Malcolm Jones ends with this remarkable insight:
The chief value of “Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II” is that it reminds us that there was a time, not so long ago, when America expected its troops abroad to be not only brave and resourceful fighters but also upstanding citizens who were expected to be generous, kind and respectful of other people and other cultures—model Americans, in other words. No wonder they called it “the good war.”
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Why I am Angry
The Progress being made in Iraq is touted as being an increasingly resounding success, a pat on the back kind of thing between chums who have done the world a great favor. Politicians mince their words as they tell us of all the good things which the dastardly left wing media does not report. Others, such as Ann Coulter and her ilk, still compare Baghdad to Los Angeles or Detroit. “You’re focusing on the bad news’” they tell us. But they are hard pressed to give any good news when asked for it. Good news out of Baghdad is about as specific as Rumsfeld’s famous WMD quote. Somewhere, to the North, the South and maybe a little to the East, there’s been some progress made. A school painted here, a business opened there.
But we cannot simply turn away from the nightmare we have created. Yes, “we” because we allowed that sanctimonious windbag Tony Blair to suck up to George Bush, now crowned George The Ignorant and we allowed both of them to start this war. It will be too easy to slowly relinquish our interest for the disaster that Iraq has become. Every day is another day where the numbers of dead reach the hundreds. We no longer click on the link to find out why another 116 people were found dead in Iraq. We are numbed by the numbers and are weary of death and destruction and yet, we are only reading about it. What if we were there? Here’s an excerpt from the Baghdad Journal:
When will I die? That's the question circling in my head when I awake on Wednesday. I'm sweating, as usual. My muscles ache from another long night of no electricity in weather only slightly cooler than hell. As I dress for work, other questions assail me: How will I die? Will it be a shot in the head? Will I be blown to pieces? Or be seized at a police checkpoint because of my sect, then tortured and killed and thrown out on the sidewalk?
Is this the sign of progress? Waiting for hours for gas that has become prohibitively expensive in a country that is sitting on some of the world’s largest oil reserves? Not having electrical power but for a few hours a day from one’s own generator because the Iraqi government, supposedly supported by the world’s most advanced country, the world’s only superpower, cannot provide electricity to its own citizens, a country running out of medication to treat the victims of bombings and shootings? How can they be running out of medications? What is the US government using the $100,000 a minute that they are spending in Iraq on? I would have thought that at a minimum, medication and hospital equipment should be at the top of the list when one has successfully trashed a country.
But my anger does not come even come from the permanent attempt by the McCains of this world to underplay the catastrophe that Iraq has become in his famous flak-jacketed tour of a Baghdad market, surrounded by marines and watched over by Apache helicopters. It comes from the complacent attitude and the pernicious solipsism that pervades this administration.
"In some ways we probably all underestimated the depth of mistrust and how difficult it would be for these guys to come together on legislation,"
- US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, August 2, 2007,
Underestimated the depth of mistrust in Iraq, a country so ethnically separated that it took a dictator such as Hussein to hold it together? Underestimated how difficult it would be for ‘these guys’ to form a government. Come on Gates! You could have asked anyone, who had any history of being in the Middle East during the past 40 years and they would have told you that invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power was going to result in a bloodbath of epic proportions and that if the country was not destroyed, its cohesiveness shattered, it would certainly drop into a multi-year internal civil war which would not end before either the country was broken up into separate entities or, another dictator replaced the former one. Everyone knew that that was going to be the outcome, so excusing it with an ‘underestimation’ is not acceptable. It is tantamount to a war crime, which your government, Mr. Gates, committed and for which it is accountable for.
That’s not even the end of it. The cherry on the icing is the arrogance with which American lawmakers are stepping up to the plate not to offer constructive advice, but to chide the Iraqi government for not doing a better job. So the way I understand it is that having invaded a country and caused an absolutely groundless and unnecessary war, having destroyed the infrastructure and poisoned the land, having torn apart the very fabric of society, now the American government is telling the Iraqis that they are not doing a decent job patching things up.
Iraqi legislators are dying like flies and only the police that are supposed to protect them are dying faster. That's the reality of the new Iraq. They have a nerve up in Washington but unfortunately, not much of a brain to connect it to.
But we cannot simply turn away from the nightmare we have created. Yes, “we” because we allowed that sanctimonious windbag Tony Blair to suck up to George Bush, now crowned George The Ignorant and we allowed both of them to start this war. It will be too easy to slowly relinquish our interest for the disaster that Iraq has become. Every day is another day where the numbers of dead reach the hundreds. We no longer click on the link to find out why another 116 people were found dead in Iraq. We are numbed by the numbers and are weary of death and destruction and yet, we are only reading about it. What if we were there? Here’s an excerpt from the Baghdad Journal:
When will I die? That's the question circling in my head when I awake on Wednesday. I'm sweating, as usual. My muscles ache from another long night of no electricity in weather only slightly cooler than hell. As I dress for work, other questions assail me: How will I die? Will it be a shot in the head? Will I be blown to pieces? Or be seized at a police checkpoint because of my sect, then tortured and killed and thrown out on the sidewalk?
Is this the sign of progress? Waiting for hours for gas that has become prohibitively expensive in a country that is sitting on some of the world’s largest oil reserves? Not having electrical power but for a few hours a day from one’s own generator because the Iraqi government, supposedly supported by the world’s most advanced country, the world’s only superpower, cannot provide electricity to its own citizens, a country running out of medication to treat the victims of bombings and shootings? How can they be running out of medications? What is the US government using the $100,000 a minute that they are spending in Iraq on? I would have thought that at a minimum, medication and hospital equipment should be at the top of the list when one has successfully trashed a country.
But my anger does not come even come from the permanent attempt by the McCains of this world to underplay the catastrophe that Iraq has become in his famous flak-jacketed tour of a Baghdad market, surrounded by marines and watched over by Apache helicopters. It comes from the complacent attitude and the pernicious solipsism that pervades this administration.
"In some ways we probably all underestimated the depth of mistrust and how difficult it would be for these guys to come together on legislation,"
- US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, August 2, 2007,
Underestimated the depth of mistrust in Iraq, a country so ethnically separated that it took a dictator such as Hussein to hold it together? Underestimated how difficult it would be for ‘these guys’ to form a government. Come on Gates! You could have asked anyone, who had any history of being in the Middle East during the past 40 years and they would have told you that invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power was going to result in a bloodbath of epic proportions and that if the country was not destroyed, its cohesiveness shattered, it would certainly drop into a multi-year internal civil war which would not end before either the country was broken up into separate entities or, another dictator replaced the former one. Everyone knew that that was going to be the outcome, so excusing it with an ‘underestimation’ is not acceptable. It is tantamount to a war crime, which your government, Mr. Gates, committed and for which it is accountable for.
That’s not even the end of it. The cherry on the icing is the arrogance with which American lawmakers are stepping up to the plate not to offer constructive advice, but to chide the Iraqi government for not doing a better job. So the way I understand it is that having invaded a country and caused an absolutely groundless and unnecessary war, having destroyed the infrastructure and poisoned the land, having torn apart the very fabric of society, now the American government is telling the Iraqis that they are not doing a decent job patching things up.
Iraqi legislators are dying like flies and only the police that are supposed to protect them are dying faster. That's the reality of the new Iraq. They have a nerve up in Washington but unfortunately, not much of a brain to connect it to.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
The Next Iraq Disaster
I'll start off with a piece from the Telegraph penned by Damien McElroy:
Relations between the top United States general in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, the country's prime minister, are so bad that the Iraqi leader made a direct appeal for his removal to President George W Bush.
Although the call was rejected, aides to both men admit that Mr Maliki and Gen David Petraeus engage in frequent stand-up shouting matches, differing particularly over the US general's moves to arm Sunni tribesmen to fight al-Qa'eda.
Is this the autonomous Iraq that the Bush Administration was referring to? Is this the great new democracy that determines its own fate? Is this the country that can decide whether to have US forces in the country or have them leave (aside from the fact that they've asked the US to leave several times that is)?
Let us go back a couple of years; this is what the brilliant and forward-looking Dr. Condoleeza Rice had to say on January 30th 2005 - two and a half years ago:
"The elections are a first step to a brighter democratic future for a country once held under the thumb of tyranny....the Iraqi people have taken a very important step in losing the sense of fear and intimidation that has been in their lives for decades, [under deposed leader Saddam Hussein]."
Sure, because they've replaced the fear of Saddam Hussein with the fear of being shot by a trigger-happy, pimply, 19 year-old at a checkpoint or having their entire family turned into corned beef by a suicide bomber of one ethnicity or another if they haven't already been blown to smithereens by a wayward five-hundred pound bomb from an F-18.
Back to today; General Petraeus’ plan to arm Sunnis in order to rid Iraq of the alleged Al Qaeda presence is so misguided it isn't funny. The last group the Sunnis will have loyalty to are the US and coalition troops. The only thing that will be achieved by arming the Sunni faction is another escalation of the violence. I don't have much respect for Prime Minister Maliki, but he definitely understands the catastrophe that Petraeus is creating. I don't know how these guys become generals but they evidently get lobotomized first.
The continuing misguided opinion coming form the White House is that they know what they are doing and that they have even the slightest understanding of how things work in the Middle East. The spiral will continue downwards with escalation after esacalation, whilst US foreign policy making things worse and worse until finally the troops do leave. Then there really will be carnage on the streets and the neoconservatives will turn around and say "I told you so."
This is a frozen moment in history. There is an opportunity to de-escalate. I'm noting here that General Petraeus under guidance from Washington is making things worse and is not heeding the advice of the one man who would have a vested interest in things in Iraq going better. Petraeus belongs on the rubbish heap of failed policy makers along with General Tommy Franks who actually belongs in jail along with Paul Bremer. Condoleeza Rice with her idiotic predictions is way, way off. The Iraqis have increasingly nothing to look forward to other than fear, discomfort and death. That's the democracy we have offered them.
Relations between the top United States general in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, the country's prime minister, are so bad that the Iraqi leader made a direct appeal for his removal to President George W Bush.
Although the call was rejected, aides to both men admit that Mr Maliki and Gen David Petraeus engage in frequent stand-up shouting matches, differing particularly over the US general's moves to arm Sunni tribesmen to fight al-Qa'eda.
Is this the autonomous Iraq that the Bush Administration was referring to? Is this the great new democracy that determines its own fate? Is this the country that can decide whether to have US forces in the country or have them leave (aside from the fact that they've asked the US to leave several times that is)?
Let us go back a couple of years; this is what the brilliant and forward-looking Dr. Condoleeza Rice had to say on January 30th 2005 - two and a half years ago:
"The elections are a first step to a brighter democratic future for a country once held under the thumb of tyranny....the Iraqi people have taken a very important step in losing the sense of fear and intimidation that has been in their lives for decades, [under deposed leader Saddam Hussein]."
Sure, because they've replaced the fear of Saddam Hussein with the fear of being shot by a trigger-happy, pimply, 19 year-old at a checkpoint or having their entire family turned into corned beef by a suicide bomber of one ethnicity or another if they haven't already been blown to smithereens by a wayward five-hundred pound bomb from an F-18.
Back to today; General Petraeus’ plan to arm Sunnis in order to rid Iraq of the alleged Al Qaeda presence is so misguided it isn't funny. The last group the Sunnis will have loyalty to are the US and coalition troops. The only thing that will be achieved by arming the Sunni faction is another escalation of the violence. I don't have much respect for Prime Minister Maliki, but he definitely understands the catastrophe that Petraeus is creating. I don't know how these guys become generals but they evidently get lobotomized first.
The continuing misguided opinion coming form the White House is that they know what they are doing and that they have even the slightest understanding of how things work in the Middle East. The spiral will continue downwards with escalation after esacalation, whilst US foreign policy making things worse and worse until finally the troops do leave. Then there really will be carnage on the streets and the neoconservatives will turn around and say "I told you so."
This is a frozen moment in history. There is an opportunity to de-escalate. I'm noting here that General Petraeus under guidance from Washington is making things worse and is not heeding the advice of the one man who would have a vested interest in things in Iraq going better. Petraeus belongs on the rubbish heap of failed policy makers along with General Tommy Franks who actually belongs in jail along with Paul Bremer. Condoleeza Rice with her idiotic predictions is way, way off. The Iraqis have increasingly nothing to look forward to other than fear, discomfort and death. That's the democracy we have offered them.
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