Indeed we don’t know, but we can observe that all of this jibes perfectly with the earlier posting
citing a report from ATOL regarding “training” activities for clandestine Iraqi counter-insurgency forces.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | May 19 2005 15:56 utc | 3

This is cultural chauvinism but there are huge differences between Sunni Arabs and Mayan Indians. The Sunni tribes have a history of thousands of years of successful wars and resistance reaching to the borders of France and kicking out the Romans, Moguls and the British. They are the former Iraqi leaders and soldiers who have been disenfranchised by a foreign Christian Invader. They are a minority in Iraq but there are 100’s of millions more Sunni Arabs from Jordon to Morocco. Shiite and Kurd Death Squads may just have their hands full just surviving let alone herding up and killing thousands Sunni worshipers. Undermanned US troops will be right in the center of bloody cauldron that their clueless leaders purposely stirred up.

Posted by: Jim S | May 19 2005 17:02 utc | 5

Letter from Iraqi Patriotic Alliance addressed to our brothers all around the world …
— “Schools, churches, mosques and other civilian places have never been the target of the Iraqi resistance. Besides, we have to be very critical and careful about any kidnapping or killing process of a foreigner-worker in Iraq. The resistance has no benefit in attacking people like Margaret Hassan, two Simona’s or others. These actions are meant to discredit the legal resistance of our people” —
Link

Posted by: Blackie | May 19 2005 17:26 utc | 7

Great post B.
You know there is so much chaos; you’d think they actually planned it!
snip
In Malaya or Algeria or Vietnam, one could speak of the opponent as a something. In Fourth Generation situations such as Iraq, one cannot. There is no single opponent. Rather, what we face is a vast array of armed elements operating outside the control of the state. They range from true insurgents, such as the Baathists, through kidnappers, gangs of robbers, hostile tribes, foreign mujaheddin seeking martyrdom and party or faction militias to men out to avenge their family’s honor. The essence of the problem is not that they are fighting the American occupation – some are, some aren’t – but that they are armed elements not controlled by the state. Their very existence undermines the state to the point where it becomes a fiction.
snip
Contrary to what a number of writers on 4GW have said, Fourth Generation war is not merely a new name for insurgency or guerilla warfare. What is at stake in 4GW is not who rules the state, but the fate of the state itself.

Posted by: Friendly Fire | May 19 2005 19:43 utc | 9

carter had to deal w/ oil crisis, reagan pretended like it didn’t exist, bush senior & oilmen take back over. (what were those connections between the hinkley & bush families again?) recall that an original reason for gw1 was openly stated as oil. also, carlyle cronies had investments in kuwait fields & slant drilling.

Posted by: b real | May 19 2005 19:58 utc | 11

Here’s the problem. The Roman Senate passed a law- you could raise armies and go forth and conquer Gaul (France) and Hibernia (Ireland) for the greater glory of Rome, and everything was fine- but you couldn’t bring your army back south of the Rubicon (a river that seperates the “boot” of Italy from mainland Europe). Julius Ceaser was the first guy to violate that, inventing at the same time the taunt “You’re going to stop me? You and what army?” At which point the Roman Republic (such as it was) was fini.
We have had, for many decades, a “north of the Rio Grande” rule. You can go out (well, if you’re the CIA, you can) and torture people, assassinate people, blackmail, overthrow goverments, etc., all for the greater glory of Washington. But you’re not supposed to do such things back here in the states. Yeah, sure.
If it hasn’t happened already, it will, sooner or later. Someone with insufficient morals will become involved, and realize that the solution to a “problem” on the home front is easy enough solved by crossing the Rubicon, and engaging in some black ops right here at home. They’ll probably justify it as defending America from internal enemies, not just external enemies. They’ll consider themselves patriots, acting not for personal advancement, or god forbid, convience, but only for the highest reasons. Is it that much of a leap from “we destroyed the village in order to save it” to “we destroyed democracy in order to save it”?
Even ignoring the moral arguments- which are many and valid- there are pragmatic reasons why supporting death squads is a really bad idea. Death squads in El Salvadore and Iraq means, sooner or later, death squads here.

Posted by: Brian Hurt | May 19 2005 20:56 utc | 13

Brian,
Nice name: “Crossing the Rio Grande”, especially because it artfully evades mentioning the countries which have become our premier vehicles for breaking down the “brain/body barrier” of politics in the U.S.

Posted by: citizen | May 19 2005 22:12 utc | 15

thanks b
there is no question that such operations have existed & perhaps preceded the invasion of sovereign iraq
the history of special force operations from the united states are nothing other than a long litany of muders, massacres & mayhem & sometimes the keystone kops
we should not be surprised that the murderous turn of events turns more macabre by the minute

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 20 2005 0:51 utc | 17

The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.
Skip to next paragraph
Dilawar was an Afghan farmer and taxi driver who died while in custody of American troops.
Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar’s face.
“Come on, drink!” the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. “Drink!”
At the interrogators’ behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.
“Leave him up,” one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.
Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.

long NYT piece: In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates’ Deaths

Posted by: b | May 20 2005 8:13 utc | 19

Yes, you will have to stick to the law, says the US military:
Pictures show Iraq’s Saddam in his underwear

A picture of Saddam Hussein in his underpants was splashed across the front-page of Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper on Friday.
The Sun newspaper quoted U.S. military sources as saying they had handed over the pictures “in the hope of dealing a body blow to the resistance in Iraq.”
Other photographs showed Saddam, with short, dyed-black hair and a mustache, washing clothes by hand and asleep on his bed.
But a U.S. military statement said the pictures might be a year old, contravened Saddam’s rights as a prisoner and could have broken the Geneva Convention.

Not “could have broken”, this is definitly a breach of GC.

Posted by: b | May 20 2005 9:16 utc | 21

b,
Quoting from Joshua Micah Marshall’s “masterpiece” :
‘ The hawks’ grand plan differs depending on whom you speak to, but the basic outline runs like this: The United States establishes a reasonably democratic, pro-Western government in Iraq–assume it falls somewhere between Turkey and Jordan on the spectrum of democracy and the rule of law. Not perfect, representative democracy, certainly, but a system infinitely preferable to Saddam’s. The example of a democratic Iraq will radically change the political dynamics of the Middle East. When Palestinians see average Iraqis beginning to enjoy real freedom and economic opportunity, they’ll want the same themselves. With that happy prospect on one hand and implacable United States will on the other, they’ll demand that the Palestinian Authority reform politically and negotiate with Israel. That in turn will lead to a real peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. A democratic Iraq will also hasten the fall of the fundamentalist Shi’a mullahs in Iran, whose citizens are gradually adopting anti-fanatic, pro-Western sympathies. A democratized Iran would create a string of democratic, pro-Western governments (Turkey, Iraq, and Iran) stretching across the historical heartland of Islam. Without a hostile Iraq towering over it, Jordan’s pro-Western Hashemite monarchy would likely come into full bloom. Syria would be no more than a pale reminder of the bad old days. (If they made trouble, a U.S. invasion would take care of them, too.) And to the tiny Gulf emirates making hesitant steps toward democratization, the corrupt regimes of Saudi Arabia and Egypt would no longer look like examples of stability and strength in a benighted region, but holdouts against the democratic tide. Once the dust settles, we could decide whether to ignore them as harmless throwbacks to the bad old days or deal with them, too. We’d be in a much stronger position to do so since we’d no longer require their friendship to help us manage ugly regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria. ‘
I don’t buy any of this ‘democratization’ stuff. These guys are killing democracy in this country!
All this political philosophy is after the fact justification for their naked greed.
Israel wants land. The oil-patch wants oil. The military industrial complex wants war.
They’ve all got what they want, or still think they might get it… and what the hell it doesn’t cost them anything to keep war going, does it?
The oil-patch and militarists are making money hand over fist and the Likud has arranged for the United States Treasury to fund its Concentration Camps in the West Bank and Gaza while its American men and women and Iraqi men women and children dying on the Eastern Front.
There’s no more plan here than grab with both hands while you can.

Posted by: Anonymous | May 20 2005 13:10 utc | 23

John, don’t get me wrong, but you say “masterpiece” and I understand from your post you meant this sacastically, considering your comment on your quote from Josh Marshall’s essay.
I think though, you completely misunderstand Josh’s intention here, which, it seems to me, is to describe the scenario as the neo-cons understand.
If you read more closely, you will see after one brief paragraph the following:

But like a TV plot, the hawks’ vision rests on a willing suspension of disbelief, in particular, on the premise that every close call will break in our favor: The guard will fall asleep next to the cell so our heroes can pluck the keys from his belt. The hail of enemy bullets will plink-plink-plink over our heroes’ heads. And the getaway car in the driveway will have the keys waiting in the ignition. Sure, the hawks’ vision could come to pass. But there are at least half a dozen equally plausible alternative scenarios that would be disastrous for us.

After this Josh goes on to explain the reality behind the obscene vision of the neo-cons.

Posted by: BarfHead | May 21 2005 6:00 utc | 25

And theirs is the triumph of the will.
Yes, so very true and with haunting historical parallels …

Posted by: Outraged | May 21 2005 9:24 utc | 27