The earlier Iraq Thread
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November 16, 2004
2nd Iraq Thread
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Ah, I see. Thanks. I myself am starting to wonder if he indeed exists, or is merely a useful construct. Time will tell, I suppose.
Posted by: Bea | Nov 19 2004 0:43 utc | 201
b, I’m not recommending another war
I never thought you would Pat.
UN approval for Iran would never ever happen if it came to the Security Council (China, Russia). But the US could say “the UN failed again” and go it alone. So no UN at all this time and no “coalition” of some “willing”.
Iran has a right for civil usage of nuclear stuff, including enrichment, under the protocols they have signed voluntarely. They can take a legal step back from those protocols and do what they want nuclear wise. The US doesn´t follow those protocols and others (bio, chem) – so who are they to complain.
Europe thinks Iran is civilized and will behave well even with nukes. If one crazy radical Persian would realy betray this and use nukes without plausible self defense reasons, expect Europe to hit back very very very hard. It would take some years to get a consensus, but after that it would be horrible.
The Persians have history books too – they know.
Posted by: b | Nov 19 2004 0:44 utc | 202
Any thoughts on the morality/legality/overall political shortsightedness (or wisdom) of this tactic?
Posted by: Bea | November 18, 2004 06:32 PM
It’s not illegal. And from the US point of view, the more means there are to identify and separate guerillas, the better.
Serious violations of the explicit rules of war or occupation (be they isolated or systematic) give hostile forces (be they the Baathist Resistance or certain Western news outlets) a lot to work with. They’re propaganda coups. Look at the wildfire damage done by Abu Ghraib. In any case, there’s far greater incentive to not commit violations than there is to commit them. The other side (and here I mean those we are fighting) knows that, in the main, we are voluntarily constrained by legal conventions and the fear of an unfriendly court of domestic and international opinion. What constrains the guerillas?
Posted by: Pat | Nov 19 2004 0:58 utc | 203
@Slothrop:
You sell yourself short. Compared to these clowns Wile E.Coyote and Elmer Fudd would be Marshalls and Achesons.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Nov 19 2004 1:01 utc | 204
ô flasharry
late is the hour
i’ve been here
at my desk
hegel in hand
translating from the german to the french to the english
awaiting your light & a song from cisco houston (forget adorno)
but no
just british fighter planes going about their gory business
from where i hope the do not return
still steel (waiting)
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 19 2004 1:08 utc | 205
@ rapt and Cloned Poster:
I thought Lizard was speaking Klingon or Esperanto….
Posted by: catlady | Nov 19 2004 1:19 utc | 206
Trouble. Nothing but a neverending shitload of trouble.
A recent post by The Mesopotamian:
Baghdad Under Siege
After appeasement [?] of Fallujah it is absolutely imperative to turn attention to the southern approaches to Baghdad. Armed bands have effectively severed the road leading south through the triangle of Latifiya-Iskandariya-Yousifiya. This is a belt separating the south from Baghdad. The demography of this belt is characterized by tribes who had very close links to the defunct regime. Awful crimes are being perpetrated on these roads. People are being murdered simply for having the wrong names. It is a deliberate attempt to ignite a sectarian war. In fact a sectarian war has already been declared, unfortunately, by elements of certain tribal and sectarian affiliation. Some southern Shiaa tribes are already calling for armed committees to combat the armed bands who are killing people on the road. There are reports that the bandits are moving to cut the other road that bypasses Latifiya, which means severing the capital completely. This is a serious situation, and urgent measures are required before a general conflagration of a sectarian nature takes place on the southern approaches to Baghdad and in Baghdad itself, which can isolate the Capital and complicate things beyond control for the Iraqi Government and the MNF.
I repeat this is more important than any other thing, and should be addressed without delay before it gets out of control. Securing the capital is more important than anything that might happen to the provinces. Securing Baghdad is at least 80% of securing the country as a whole.
URGENT, URGENT, URGENT; I hope this message reaches some right places. Protect the roads- lift the siege on the capital. It does not require nearly as much resources as the Fallujah operation; but if the matter is left without swift remedy, it might escalate into something very serious and ugly indeed.
Salaam
Alaa
Posted by: Pat | Nov 19 2004 1:40 utc | 209
@Pat
It’s not illegal. And from the US point of view, the more means there are to identify and separate guerillas, the better.
I respectfully disagree. I think this is an example par excellence of winning the battle but losing the war.
Each of those prisoners has extended families who care about them and many many more acquaintances. In Arab culture, humiliation and shame is the worst one can experience. Also, hospitality is a very core value. You do not invite someone to a meal, ever, for duplicitous purposes. It is completely against Arab culture. Trapping someone like this with deceit at a moment of weakness and vulnerability, when they are coming to a mosque to eat, will not soon be forgiven or forgotten. For the price of a few arrests, trust among the wider population will be impossible to ever achieve.
A different perspective, but one that takes culture into account.
Posted by: Bea | Nov 19 2004 1:44 utc | 210
I guess something like “What you’d say? Big Brother is watching you! You can run but you cannot hide”. But it’s a dialect from Vega, and I’m more used to Tau Ceti’s.
Posted by: Lizard translator wannabe | Nov 19 2004 1:48 utc | 211
Pat: Frankly, I just don’t see how they plan to go after Iran and topple the regime. UK is totally opposed to it, and Blair simply can’t back Bush militarily; the riots would bring him down in a week. In fact, since Shia Iraq would probably go into open rebellion, it’s probable the British would just cut and run, leaving the US alone there. Without draft, it looks unlikely, and if there’s a draft, Iran will smell a rat and will have months to enhance its defences.
Of course, I don’t rule out someone like Wolfie would try an attack without enough troops. But I don’t think Bushco or the neo-cons want to see Iran stopping the invasion or even defeating the invasion force. Would be, well, counter-productive.
Right now, there are 2 countries that would accept war with Iran, the US and Israel. I don’t think there’s any way it could ever come to a Security Council vote.
Posted by: Anonymous | Nov 19 2004 2:07 utc | 212
Does anyone know if James Beard, Julia Child or Martha has any recipes for lizards. For a party of eight. As an appetizer of course.
I am hungry, but I like a nice presentation.
Posted by: V. Raptor Kan Cook | Nov 19 2004 2:09 utc | 213
B. Raptor Kan Cook….Barbecueing’s something of a disappointment, we find, so we prefer to deep-fry them in peanut oil. That way, the gamey flavor gives way to a really sweet aftertaste. After you’ve brought the oil to a boil, drop them in for forty-five seconds to a minute at the most. Any longer, they disappear before your very eyes.
Posted by: alabama | Nov 19 2004 3:57 utc | 214
US Navy SEAL Lieutenant faces abuse hearing in connection with death of Abu Ghraib prisoner
Reuters chief blames US military for death of three employees in Iraq
Head of US-funded Iraqi TV resigns, condemns Washington’s grip on money
”……in the main, we are voluntarily constrained by legal conventions and the fear of an unfriendly court of domestic and international opinion………” – Tell that to the Marines….
…Mr. Sites has posted photographs and writings from the days he spent with the marines in Falluja. In one journal, he wrote, “The marines are operating with liberal rules of engagement.” It goes on to quote a marine saying everything to the west of his position in Falluja was “weapons free.” It continues, “Weapons free means the marines can shoot whatever they see – it’s all considered hostile.”
Newsman who taped Marine shooting captive keeps silent
More mosques come under attack – ‘Imams inciting violence will be arrested’
Senior as-Sadr aide arrested in Iraq
Militant statement threatens to sabotage Iraq elections
”The battle of Falluja exposes ominous rifts in Sunni-Shia relations.”
A crucible of discontent – analysis from `Abbas Khadim
The sectarian element – Ahmed Mukhtar
Falluja aflame – Anas al-Tikriti
Pressure grows for Iraq election delay
US military deaths in Iraq as at Thursday 18th November 2004 – ‘at least 1,216’
Posted by: Sic transit gloria USA | Nov 19 2004 4:21 utc | 215
Agreed. The US will never go back to the UN. The only option open to the crazies is to preempt the whole thing with an Israeli/US attack. Once the fuse it lit, they can start talking about “realities on the ground”, and the mealy-mouthed class will start explaining why it is not illegal. They may be happy to bomb the shit out of the place without putting a boot on their soil. Then the Shah (the Younger) can reclaim his inheritance and pledge allegiance to the Emperor.
As far as Iraq’s Shia are concerned, I don’t think the crazies do detail.
Posted by: DM | Nov 19 2004 4:26 utc | 216
Resistance looks beyond Fallujah
The strategy is aimed at spreading US forces and demoralizing the Iraqi troops which fight with them
Posted by: b real | Nov 19 2004 4:27 utc | 217
Bea, I merely pointed out that it’s not illegal, not that it won’t make anyone angry. In addition to the objectives of identification and separation, is the issue of not dispensing material aid to one’s enemies. The Resistance hasn’t formally surrendered. (And it never will.) Why provide its fighters material assistance?
Posted by: Pat | Nov 19 2004 5:13 utc | 218
If by material assistance you mean the proffered meal at the mosque, then I would submit that if distinguishing between fighters and non-fighters was always going to be an issue, then don’t provide the food. The cost of the deceptive trap, in terms of loss of trust amongst the wider public whose “hearts and minds” you are supposedly trying to win, is too great.
You seem to have lost sight of the fact that supposedly, we are not in there to fight the population, originally, but rather to — I’m not sure how to put this since it is so potentially controversial and I don’t agree with it in any case, but for the sake of argument — to support the population in their efforts to build a democracy and a civil society. Tactics like these make the possibility for having any type of fruitful relationship with the non-resisting population (whatever of it remains) virtually impossible. So why adopt them, if the cost is so high?
Again, we may have won that particular battle, but we’ll ultimately absolutely lose the war — the war for the hearts and minds of the broader Iraqi public.
IMHO.
Posted by: Bea | Nov 19 2004 5:36 utc | 219
My final thought for the night: Perhaps it’s time for a third Iraqi thread?
Posted by: Bea | Nov 19 2004 5:38 utc | 220
Gloria, those who stayed behind in Falluja were warned by the Iraqi authorities at the outset that if at any time during the declared 24 hour curfew they appeared outside their homes, they would be considered hostile and shot. Wouldn’t it be nice if the Resistance made it easier for us, during operations, to distinguish between them and uninvolved civilians by donning uniforms or adopting some other visual signifier?
Villages near US fire bases in Afghanistan have night curfews. Anything that’s out and moves is considered hostile and fired at.
Posted by: Pat | Nov 19 2004 5:40 utc | 221
Bea, I understand what you’re saying. The military goal must serve the larger political goal. You’re right. But I don’t think the recent Fallujah operation would have even taken place – or taken place on the scale that it did – were we not up against the deadline of the January elections in Iraq. If we had more time, we could have let the growing rift between the local fighters and the foreign fighters do some of our work for us. But there just wasn’t any more time. Fallujah had already been delayed, by some accounts, so as to take place after rather than before the US elections.
Posted by: Pat | Nov 19 2004 5:53 utc | 222
@Pat
There such cowardly little bastards, aren’t they. Maybe they should line up in the desert and you could finish them all off with one MOAB. How many times do we have to hear this crap from you.
Me, I’m fed up with your pseudo intellectual, pseudo legalistic claptrap. Power from a barrel of a gun is the only precept set by the US. Post as much as you want. Not everyone shares my views. But very few here are persuaded by your pretensions. It seems to me, that you are, after all, only interested in promoting the meme that the US Military are above any legal reproach. Bullshit.
Posted by: DM | Nov 19 2004 6:08 utc | 223
Right now, there are 2 countries that would accept war with Iran, the US and Israel. I don’t think there’s any way it could ever come to a Security Council vote.
Posted by: | November 18, 2004 09:07 PM
The vote I’m thinking of is one that would find Iran in violation of its obligations as a signatory to the NPT. As with Iraq, UN findings and resolutions are used to build a case for military action, whether that action is approved by the Security Council (as it was in Bosnia) or not (as with Kosovo and Iraq).
Posted by: Pat | Nov 19 2004 6:10 utc | 224
@Pat
its obligations as a signatory to the NPT
And as Israel is not a signatory of the NPT we wont talk about their 120 nuclear warheads.
This is my definition of mealy-mouthed, pseudo legalistic claptrap.
Posted by: DM | Nov 19 2004 6:39 utc | 225
DM, you can always ignore any post with my name at the bottom. No reason then to be irritated by my work as an apologist for the US military. As much fuming and railing against it as there is here at MOA (dirty, racist, savage murderers and whatnot, sure to grow in fury and frequency) I’m sure to be unsuccessful in any and all attempt to show otherwise. But there’s no cause like a lost cause.
Billmon once took commenters to task for expressing satisfaction at the deaths of US soldiers. Do you think he’d feel differently now? Maybe he would. And maybe many do. Perhaps what’s happened here at the Moon has happened in other forums.
Posted by: Pat | Nov 19 2004 6:41 utc | 226
It would appear that Pat wants rules sometimes, the better to kill Iraqis, and supports the abandonment of rules – such as the Genevaa Conventions as they should apply to US forces, at others, the better to kill Iraqis. Pat’s overall position is perfectly consistent for a racist advocate of indiscriminate murder and the employment of copious quantities of weasel words and semantics to justify same. Pat thinks it is perfectly appropriate for people living in their own country to be done to death for stepping outside to breathe their own air if the US military has ordered them not to. Pat’s definition of freedom is probably hedged with qualifiers as to the extent with which said freedom can be enjoyed vis a vis its bearing on whatever the prevailing US interests of the day are, for Pat actually seems to be a firm believer in literally enslaving people, by word and deed, and killing them when they resist.
Pat actually thinks that she is ahead of the posse with her take on the world and how things ‘have to be done’ but alas she is more primitive than she knows. During the fifth year of the Peloponnesian War similar lunacy ran through the Greek city-states, as Thucydides noted. Then too, for him, the very meaning of words seemed to change: “Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage; prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation was the disguise of unmanly weakness; to know everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the true quality of a man…..The cause of all these was the love of power, originating in avarice and ambition, and the party-spirit which is engendered in them when men are fairly embarked on a contest.”
Such shallow insanity leads only over the precipice and you may drink deeply from your spirit of gung-ho for the present. We are an older people than you, have more to be proud of than you and have more pride than you. And whether dressed in rags or naked before your torturers we are going to defeat you. Perhaps it is time to dust off some of your post-Vietnam angst books again for as sure as the world turns that is the full circle that your current trajectory is leading you towards. And in your older years you may reflect how people with courage and pride beyond your dreams stood against you and all the shock and awe you could muster – and beat you. And you can blush then, for you will not do it now, at your excusing, faux-legitimizing, justifying and yes, even applauding, the slaughter of a people who had never done you or your nation a wrong. Men, women, children, babies, even our unborn blasted from the womnbs of their mothers. That our bleeding, our losses and our rights to liberty are reduced by you to ‘our propaganda weapons’ speaks volumes about your lost humanity. That you are willing to post as a military parrot your useless, pointless and generally incorrect tactical nonsense is but a symptom, your sick mind is in a far darker place than you seem capable of realizing. We are not chess pieces, we are a free people and we will be free of you and all your kind. You, on the other hand, will remain imprisoned in a mind that is like a trap. Given the level of true, as opposed to semantic, civilization your barrack-room lawyer justifications of war crimes reveal it is a trap that has caught something truly primitive.
Posted by: Sic transit gloria USA | Nov 19 2004 6:47 utc | 227
@sic transit, time for a deep breath?
I hear ya, but one-on-one bar fights are a bit disturbing (to me, I mean). My personal suspicion, and it is not 100 percent certainty by any means, is that our collective chain is being yanked. For what purpose I’m not sure, and I could be wrong.
Getting back to barracks-room lawyers: The idea of death as an appropriate and somehow “legal” penalty for curfew violation bears some thought. The rationale that once an occupying force — the occupational garrison of an illegal cabinet war, no less — has declared curfew on a town of 300,000 souls (or however many were unable to flee or declined to do so), it becomes reasonable or acceptable for their snipers to make good on the threat by picking off “anything that moves”, is — to my ear — transparently absurd. I have heard this rationale before.
I’ve heard it, and read it in first-person testimony, from men who habitually beat their wives — in some cases, into the emergency room or the grave. And what I’ve heard from them is, “I told her if she went out to get her hair cut I’d hit her. I told her if she didn’t scrub the damn kitchen floor right now she would get what’s coming to her. I told her if she wore that ugly dress that I hate, I’d hit her. I told her if she burnt my toast again I’d hit her. I told her that if she didn’t get home by 6 sharp I’d hit her. I told her if she looked at another guy again I’d hit her.” [And so on ad nauseam. The literature is extensive and consistent.]
And this, according to the abuser, makes it perfectly fine that he beat the cr*p out of his wife. He may be genuinely outraged that the police or social services [the UN? the ICC? pesky reporters?] should interfere at all. After all, he did warn her. He told her what the rules were — his rules — and since she dared to break them, (or since he chose to imagine that she broke them, or changed them at just the right moment to “catch her” breaking them) he’s perfectly justified in any degree of brutality.
The “laws of war” are to my ear as mad as the “rules” made up by a brute to regulate the behaviour of “his” woman and “his” children, and to justify whatever punishments he sees fit to inflict on them. The “laws of war” are laws imposed by brute force, without accountability or feedback or due process, and hence they are paradoxically the essence of lawlessness.
War is not the only “alternate reality” in which such laws exist. The “laws” of apartheid states which enforce the lawlessness of the privileged group’s arbitrary power over the lower caste, are likewise “antilaws,” codifications of brute lawlessness. The “laws” of slave ownership codify the total lawlessness of the owner’s power over the slave. And the “laws” of occupation, curfew, garrison, quartering troops upon the people, are imho just “anti-laws” which codify and lend a semblance of structure to what is, in essence, mob rule. It is rule by a highly organised mob with advanced weapons and high technology, but it is mob rule just as much as it would be if the Mafia took over my neighbourhood and imposed a curfew so that no one would witness their drug and arms deals.
If I felt inclined to reductionism I might even assert that the whole project of “human progress” (rights, liberties, democracy and all that jive) is about ending mob rule and replacing it with representative, collective political life — a life in which harsh penalties cannot be imposed without due process. Whether it be an organised mob of Norman barons inventing arbitrary “rules” (you will hang if you steal a hare from the Lord’s forest) or [fill in your favourite mob from your favourite historical period], my point is that when one person can shoot another dead in the public street for no greater offence than merely venturing out of their house, and face no consequences for doing so (nay, even brag about it afterward to fawning reporters), then there is no law. There is only the old, traditional rule of barbarism — the guys with the biggest muscles and the biggest swords get to do whatever the hell they want. The muscly sword-wielding guys may have laws that apply among themselves, among the Herrenvolk — but in their dealings with their victims they are as lawless as any mob that ever smashed windows and looted its way along any street in history. Or so it seems to me.
@De – right on! (see, I am not ungrateful…)
@Pat – you are probably right on a purely tactical level, but as others have pointed out, this totally takes out of the picture the political (hearts & minds in Iraq) and moral (the US Army overall is engaging in increasingly destructive and noxious behavior, an increasing proportion of which can easily be argued to be war crimes, despite their immediate tactical justification. (Again, seriously, “unarmed sleeper cells”, how much more Orwellian can you get??)
I still think that you are perfectly aware of the larger picture and are trying to convey to us the view from the ground as it appears to your fellow soldiers, which I will stipulate are mostly good people put in an impossible position (and I know that others disagree here – I just don’t want to go into that specific debate here), and thus committing “normal” acts in that position. Maybe your intent is to (rightly) direct the blame on the political leadership and not on the military commanders and soldiers who have to deal with the tactical situation they are handed in, but please you should also acknowledge that what the US Army does in Iraq – and thinks is “normal” in their position has no strategic justification whatsoever (even oil – there will be no investment in Iraqi oil industry for as long as the US Army is in the country), less and less tactical justification, and is thus left with none-to-less moral standing in this conflict and thus in the wider world. And meanwhile lots of Iraqis – people! – are dying or seeing the lifes put upside down for no justifiable reason.
Posted by: Jérôme | Nov 19 2004 10:34 utc | 229
Blackie,
Your reasoning is perhaps well-intended but it is incorrect. The daily bombing of Falluja.. (15 lines skipped) are all things that may have escaped your attention and analysis – and daily endurance.
Not at all. I am completely aware of all the things you mention, possibly more.
My post wasn’t in the ‘reasoning’ range, it was based on reports, as I said quite clearly- if I recall correctly – from the EU press – which may well have been one-sided, exagerated, even false.
It was -is- a part of the puzzle, is all. A view point which may be taken into account, but not automatically in the scheme of apportioning blame to one party or another.
Your bushy-tailed hubris and intellectual gloss permits you to blithely take others for fools, prevents you from reading between the lines, and blocks your analytic capabilities – whatever they might be.
Bashing US actions, be they political, or military and “personal” on the ground, will always be a sure-fire success on this board. Morally and pragmatically you are correct, it is an easy sell, and I would be the first to agree. In fact, I have often kept my mouth shut – Americans can’t bear to hear the worst of it, and will never listen if whatever facts or rumors or opinions one puts forward are not mentioned in the mainstream press (Although some will take conspiracist internet stuff into account.) E.g. One can talk about torture until one is blue in the face but until mainstream TV shows pictures of one poor guy hooded with electrodes attached to various parts of his body one is regaled with tales of US purity and morality.
I rather stupidly, tiredly, expected some response or discussion of the role of ‘foreign’ insurgents, Islamic fundamentalist grip or type of actions: concretely, who is doing what with which to whom. What is the balance of power there, etc. After all, Fallujah citizens live or die in a complex situation that most of us cannot really grasp.
Sic transit, your attitude, implemented with the keyboard, exactly mirrors that of US murderous soldiers. Superiority, slammed right in the face without thought, without questions, without respect.
OK, I have a lot of anger and frustation to vent. OK. Ok.
It is all a misunderstanding! And, as RGiap would say, this is not personal – it is business.
Posted by: Blackie | Nov 19 2004 23:40 utc | 231
Blackie
Unfair comment regarding Sic transit.
Maybe he’s Iraqi? Maybe he has a house in Fallujah? Maybe some of his family have been killed by the US stormtroopers?
Maybe?
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 20 2004 0:07 utc | 232