Signaling Hostile Intention – Moon of Alabama

May 9, 2005

Signaling Hostile Intention

Embedded with US forces in Iraq KRT reporter James Janega describes some hopeless incompetent US Marines action in Iraq.

U.S. troops launch attacks against villages along Euphrates (thanks Nugget)

A near brigade sized force is set to attack some assumed resistance hideouts across the Euphrates. A Colonel Stephen Davis explains the enemy:

"The trademark of these folks is to be where we’re not. We haven’t got north of the river for a while."

The Colonel fails to explain where he expects "these folks" to be when he will have reached the north side of the river. But fair enough – he doesn´t reach the north side. The attack gets stuck and the combat engineers find out that some pre-emptive reconnaissance could have been useful.

While some American units were able to conduct limited raids north of the Euphrates on Sunday, most of the rest were trapped south of the river while Army engineers struggled to build a pontoon bridge across it.
…
one truck rolled off the road and into a ditch, bringing the [bridging unit] column to a dead halt in the darkness
…
The soldiers soon discovered another problem: The river banks, sodden after recent rains, might have been too wet to support the oncoming American tanks.

This happens, as the reporter writes, after this "elaborate mission" was "planned for weeks".

Readers may wonder why I get agitated about US military action that
seems incompetent. Yes, I want the US forces out of Iraq immediately, yes, I want
them to loose this horrendous crime of a war.

But I also want as few people killed
as possible – on both sides. Screwing up a military mission always gets more people
killed and maimed than swift, competent action.

Moving the bridging equipment, the fighting force and the supply
train to the river without having done reconnaissance of the crossing conditions is plain stupid, it’s incompetent, it kills. The result is a stuck
force. Lame ducks in the middle of nowhere waiting to be shut at and waiting to shoot back at anything that moves – and this is exactly what happens here.

The troops in the traffic jam south of the river, waiting for a crossing opportunity, take some light fire from the neighborhood. Then,

[The Marines] devised a new strategy: They would not cross the river Sunday. They would attack Ubaydi instead.

It was not a major shift in plans, said Lt. Col. Tim Mundy, whose 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines led the attack. "This was a movement to enemy," he said, going where the fighting led them.

That, Mr. Mundy is a euphemism for connoisseurs. "Loosing the initiative" is the term Clausewitz would have used.

To support Marines on the ground, F/A-18 fighters strafed a treeline on the edge of town, silencing sporadic fire coming from the trees. Helicopter gunships fired rockets and machine guns into buildings in the town.

…

"There’s been a firefight here all morning. Anyone still in that neighborhood has signaled their hostile intention by remaining," Capt. Chris Ieva said.

Damn those families in Ubaydi who stayed home for Mothers Day while "F/A-18 fighters strafed a treeline on the edge of town" and "Helicopter gunships fired rockets and machine guns into buildings in the town."

Why didn´t the just move out? See, "there’s been a firefight here all morning". Why didn´t they picked up their kids and grandpas and some food and walked away from their homes?

Not doing so, staying in the shelter of their houses – while "F/A-18s strafe treelines," "gunships fire rockets into buildings" and "firefight all morning" – is "signaling their hostile intention".

Bombs away, bombs away … it is a movement to enemy.

Posted by b on May 9, 2005 at 16:00 UTC | Permalink

Comments

A long post but one which sets out some important observations and questions:
We spent 10 months in Iraq, working on a story, understanding who the people are who are fighting, why they fight, what their fundamental beliefs are, when they started, what kinds of backgrounds they come from, what education, jobs they have. Were they former military, are they Iraqi or foreign? Are they part of al-Qaida? What we came up with is a story in itself, and one that Vanity Fair ran in July 2004 with my text and pictures. My colleague [Steve Connors] shot a documentary film that is still waiting to find a home. But the basic point for this discussion is that we both thought it was really journalistically important to understand who it was who was resisting the presence of the foreign troops. If you didn’t understand that, how could you report what was clearly becoming an “ongoing conflict?” And if you were reading the news in America, or Europe, how could you understand the full context of what was unfolding if what motivates the “other side” of the conflict is not understood, or even discussed?
Just the process of working on that story has revealed many things to me about my own country. I’d like to share some of them with you:
Lesson One: Many journalists in Iraq could not, or would not, check their nationality or their own perspective at the door.
One of the hardest things about working on this story for me personally, and as a journalist, was to set my “American self” and perspective aside. It was an ongoing challenge to listen open-mindedly to a group of people whose foundation of belief is significantly different from mine, and one I found I often strongly disagreed with.
But going in to report a story with a pile of prejudices is no way to do a story justice, or to do it fairly, and that constant necessity to bite my tongue, wipe the smirk off my face or continue to listen through a racial or religious diatribe that I found appalling was a skill I had to practice. We would never walk in to cover a union problem or political event without seeking to understand the perspective from both, or the many sides of the story that exist. Why should we as journalists do it in Iraq?
Lesson Two: Our behavior as journalists has taught us very little. Just as in the lead up to the war in Iraq, questioning our government’s decisions and claims and what it seeks to achieve is criticized as unpatriotic.
Along these lines, the other thing I found difficult was the realization that, while I was out doing what I believe is solid journalism, there were many (journalists and normal folks alike) who would question my patriotism, or wonder how I could even think hearing and relating the perspective “from the other side” was important.
Certainly, over the last three years I’ve had to acquire the discipline of overriding my emotional attachment to my country, and remember my sense of human values that transcend frontiers and ethnicity. And with a sense of duty to history, I needed to just get on with reporting the story. My value of human life and rights don’t fluctuate depending on which country I’m in. I don’t see one individual as more deserving of fair treatment than another. . . .
Now, I realize I’m in Kentucky, a state with many military connections, and there are many of you here who may have served, or have family members who serve, and let me take this moment to say that I have the utmost respect and sympathy for the American soldiers overseas right now, particularly in Iraq. They have been sent on a most difficult mission, to quell a population that will not be quelled, in a land awash with weapons. The American military is being used to find a solution to what is essentially a political problem, an equation that rarely adds up well. As if that were not enough, our soldiers have been sent with insufficient resources to protect themselves. In my mind, that is all inexcusable.
Lesson Three: To seek to understand and represent to an American audience the reasons behind the Iraqi opposition is practically treasonous.
Every one of the people involved in the resistance that we spoke to held us individually responsible for their security. If something happened to them — never mind that they were legitimate targets for the U.S. military — they would blame us. And kill us. We soon learned that they had the U.S. bases so well watched that we had to abandon our idea of working on the U.S. side of the story — that is, discovering what the soldiers really thought about who might be attacking them. There were so many journalists working with the American soldiers that we believed that that story would be well told. More practically, if we were seen by the Iraqis going in and out of the American bases, we would be tagged immediately as spies, informants and most likely be killed.
As terrifying as that was to manage and work through, there was another fear that was just as bad. What if the American military or intelligence found out what we were working on? Would they tail us and round up the people we met? Would they kick down our door late one night, rifle through all our stuff and arrest us for “collaborating with the enemy?” Bear in mind that there are no real laws in Iraq. At the time that we were working, the American military was the law, and it seemed to me that they were pretty much making it up as they went along. I was pretty sure that if they wanted to “disappear” us, rough us up or even send us for an all expenses paid vacation in Guantánamo for suspected al-Qaida connections, they could do so with very little, or even no recourse on our part.
I could go into a long litany of the ways in which the American military has treated journalists in Iraq. Recent actions indicate that the U.S. military will detain and/or kill any journalist who happens to be caught covering the Iraqi side of the militant resistance, and indeed a number of journalists have been killed by U.S. troops while working in Iraq. This behavior at the moment seems to be limited to journalists who also happen to be Arabs, or Arab-looking, but that is only a tangential story to what I’m telling you about here.
The intimidation to not work on this story was evident. Dexter Filkins, who writes for The New York Times, related a conversation he had in Iraq with an American military commander just before we left. Dexter and the commander had gotten quite friendly, meeting up sporadically for a beer and a chat. Towards the end of one of their conversations, Dexter declined an invitation for the next day by explaining that he’d lined up a meeting with a “resistance guy.” The commander’s face went stony cold and he said, “We have a position on that.” For Dexter the message was clear. He cancelled the appointment. And, again, this is not meant as any criticism of the military; they have a war to win, and dominating the “message,” or the news is an integral part of that war. The military has a name for it, “information operations,” and the aim is to achieve information superiority in the same way they would seek to achieve air superiority. If you look closely, you will notice there is very little, maybe even no direct reporting on the resistance in Iraq. We do, however, as journalists report what the Americans say about the resistance. Is this really anything more than stenography?
And many American journalists often refer to those attacking Americans or Iraqi troops and policemen as “terrorists.” Some are indeed using terrorist tactics, but calling them “terrorists” simply shuts down any sense of need or interest to look beyond that word, to understand why indeed human beings might be willing to die in a violent struggle to achieve their goal. Pushing them off as simply “insane, wild Arabs” or “extremist Muslims” does them no service, but even more, it does the U.S. no service. If we as Americans fail to understand who attacks us and why, we will simply continue on this same path, and continue watching from afar as a war we don’t understand boils over.
Lesson Four: The gatekeepers — by which I mean the editors, publishers and business sides of the media — don’t want their paper or their outlet to reveal that compelling narrative of why anyone would oppose the presence of American troops on their soil. Why would anyone refuse democracy? Why would anyone not want the helping hand of America in overthrowing their terrible dictator? It’s amazing to me how expeditiously we turn away from our own history. Think of our revolution. Think of our Founding Fathers. Think of what they stood for and hoped for. Think of how, over time, we have learned to improve on our own Constitution and governance. But think, mostly, about the words I just used: It was our decision and our determination that brought us where we are now.
Recall Patrick Henry’s famous speech encouraging the Second Virginia Convention, gathered on March 20, 1775, to fight the British, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Why is it that we, as Americans, presume that any Iraqi would feel any differently? If the roles were reversed, do you think for a moment that our men wouldn’t be stockpiling arms and attacking any foreign invader with the temerity to set foot on our soil, occupy our buildings of government and write us a new constitution?
Wouldn’t we as women be joining with them in any way we could? Wouldn’t the divisions between us — how we feel about President Bush, whether we’re Republican or Democrat — be put aside as we resisted a common enemy?
Then why is it that this story of human effort for self-determination by violent means cannot be told in America? Are we so small, so confused by our own values that we cannot recognize when someone emulates our own struggle? Even if it is the U.S. that they are struggling against? I want to be careful to explain that I am not saying that the Iraqis fighting against us are necessarily fighting for democracy, but they are fighting for their right to decide for themselves what their nation looks like politically.
Lesson Five: What it’s like to be afraid of your own country.
Once the story was finished and set to come out on the street, I was rushing back to the States — mostly because we could no longer work once the story was published — and I found I was scared returning to my own country. And that was an amazingly strange and awful feeling to have. Again, you could call me paranoid, but the questions about what might happen to me once in America — where at least I would have more rights — kept racing through my brain. I’m still here, so you could say that my frantic mental gymnastics about what could happen to me in my own country were paranoid anxieties.
But I would turn that question around:
How many other American journalists, perhaps not as secure in their position as I, have thought to do a story and decided that it’s too close to the bone, too questioning of the American government or its actions? How many times was the risk that our own government might come in and rifle through our apartment, our homes or take us away for questioning in front of our children a factor in our decision not to do a story? How many times did we as journalists decide not to do a story because we thought it might get us into trouble? Or, as likely, how often did the editor above us kill the story for the same reasons? Lots of column inches have been spent in the discussion of how our rights as Americans are being surreptitiously confiscated, but what about our complicity, as journalists, in that? It seems to me that the assault on free speech, while the fear and intimidation is in the air, comes as much from us — as individuals and networks of journalists who censor ourselves — as it does from any other source.
We need to wake up as individuals and as a community of journalists and start asking the hard and scary questions. Questions we may not really want to know the answers to about ourselves, about our government, about what is being done in our name, and hold the responsible individuals accountable through due process in our legal or electoral system.
We need to begin to be able to look again at our government, our leadership and ourselves critically. That is what the Fourth Estate is all about. That’s what American journalism can do at its zenith. I also happen to believe that, in fact, that is the highest form of patriotism — expecting our country to live up to the promises it makes and the values it purports to hold. The role of the media in assisting the public to ensure those values are reflected in reality is undeniably failing today.
Go ahead, take a hard look in the mirror, ask the questions — if there is something in our nation that needs repair or change, that is how it will get done, by asking those questions, getting answers and reporting them.
We still have the freedom in this country as individuals and as journalists to defend the rights enshrined in the Constitution, to defend the values that we as individuals still hold dear — so why aren’t we doing it? Are we scared? If we’re scared, then who will be there to defend those rights and values when it is proposed that they be taken away?
I still believe in that country that I love so dearly, the place I think of when the words “freedom,” “opportunity,” “liberty,” “justice” and “equality” are spoken on lips, but I want it to be a country I see, hear and feel every day, not one that lives in my imagination.
It’s time we looked in the mirror and began to take responsibility for what our country looks like, what our country is and how it behaves, rather than acting like victims before we actually are.
Or do I need to start facing the reality that all I love and believe in is simply self-delusion?
Home from Iraq

Posted by: Nugget | May 9 2005 16:54 utc | 1

The go ahead for the Iraq Invasion was based on delusions, errors, hubris and greed. But, the outcome is clear. The USA has embarked on a colonial war against the Sunni Arabs. Either the US ethnically cleanses Iraq of the Sunni or the US withdraws. Destroying Sunni towns is an inherent outcome of a colonial war.
Why does the lapdog media continue to announce glorious progress towards freedom in Iraq?
1) Media owners love their tax cuts, and perpetuate Republican ideology and propaganda.
2) Cultural and religious hatred. The Crusades lasted centuries. This is the latest 21st Century reincarnation.
3) Reporters and readers don’t know any better. It is easier to be spoon-fed that finding, reporting or accepting the truth.
4) The opposition has been marginalized by money and voter fraud.

Posted by: Jim S | May 9 2005 20:03 utc | 2

“Yes, I want the US forces out of Iraq immediately, yes, I want them to loose this horrendous crime of a war.”
– Bernhard
I hope I am correct in my assumption that your utmost concern in “this horrendous crime of a war” is the welfare of the Iraqi people themselves. If this is the case, then you must have determined that an American military loss in Iraq will result in a greater benefit to their general welfare than if American forces prevailed. In order to make that determination, you must have concluded that the various elements that comprise the insurgency will, if victorious, establish a more just political order for the people of Iraq – more humane and hospitable to civil society than the one currently under attempt.
The thing is, Bernhard, I don’t know what evidence you would base that conclusion on.

Posted by: Pat | May 9 2005 20:23 utc | 3

Pat, can you honestly see any chance of US forces prevailing in any sense of that word beyond the purely military? The current attempt at a civil society seems to me to be so tainted by the errors of the US in Iraq as to have little or no legitimacy. The US doesn’t seem able or willing to prevent civil war: in fact there are grounds for the suspicion that some elements in the US are encouraging strife.
I’m not baiting you here: I simply can’t see any way for the US to prevail in any morally acceptable way and even if their aim was to establish a colony I think they’ve lost. Best they accept that and get out as fast as possible, preferably in the way most embarrassing to the administration.
The US has been in Iraq for a long time now. It appears they can’t control anything. How can they win? What would winning look like?

Posted by: Colman | May 9 2005 20:53 utc | 4

will, if victorious, establish a more just political order for the people of Iraq – more humane and hospitable to civil society than the one currently under attempt.
Pat, the critical word is under attempt
1. I do not believe there is such an attempt. Crooks and liers are trying to lauch a robber state – that is all for now. Read Bremers “laws” and see what is under attempt. That is not a civil society but blank naked competely unrestricted international robbery.
2. This “attempt” to do whatever is causing much more harm in lifes, wounded, destroid personal futures, looting of culture, epedemies etc. that there is not even a bit justification left even if the outcome would be a paradise.
3. I believe and see many hints to that the US forces in Iraq are the biggest roadblock to a compromise between the differnet local interests in Iraq. The sectarization that has happened is happening not because of the people on the ground but is to a big part initiate from the outside forces.
A complete withdrawel of the US forces, while guaranteeing the outer bounderies of Iraq from any attack of a sizable regular army would probably lead to some kind of short term civial war. But I have no reason to believe that this would be more brutal than what is currently happening (F/A-18 don´t just “strife” some trees – do they? You should know.) and every reason to believe that it will be finished in a much shorter timeframe than any US attempt to keep the lid down.

Posted by: b | May 9 2005 21:03 utc | 5

Pat – more stringent to your question:
The thing is, Bernhard, I don’t know what evidence you would base that conclusion on
For two years now I watch close, very close, hourly, the news pouring out of Iraq.
I do not see much that predicts a very pretty outcome in Iraq if the US leaves – a reasonable one may be a strongman leaded pseudo democratic religious state – probably. (Now what current state would fit this description?)
But I do not see anyhing that shows that the US is able or will be able to achieve anything positive in Iraq. They had two years by now. Please name ONE issue where Iraqis today are better off than under Saddam two years ago – just ONE issue.
The US forces claim themself to be the best trained in the world.
Let me assure you: If I as a tank platoon leader would have tried an engineer supported assault across a stream without proper reconnaissance of the river banks my company and/or batallion commander would have stripped me of any leading position immediately. In Iraq, US brigadiers are obviously allowed such screw ups.
Attacking a village with bombs and rockets because some farmers think they better protect their homes and loved ones by firing their (legal!) AK’s is simply stupid.
These US “soldiers” can not even stick to their objective: Cross the river to the north and to root out foreign guerillias was the order.
No, they can´t make that, so they go off and screw the local population they came to give a “more humane and hospitable to civil society”???
Sorry Pat – I know there are some good GI´s and I worked and lived with some reasonable GI’s for some years but this institution of the US military is a serious incompetent, overvalued, resource wasting mess under incompetent military and political leadership.
Incompetence makes for unnessecary dead and maimed people (without discussing “nessacity” here). The US forces are incompetent to a degree thats frightening.

Posted by: b | May 9 2005 21:28 utc | 6

amen Bernhard.

Posted by: Friendly Fire | May 9 2005 21:34 utc | 7

Dexter Filkins, recently interviewed on tv (of which I read a transcript linked, I think, to Atrios), mentioned (a.) that there was a semblance these days of normal life coursing through Baghdad (punctuated by occasional violence), and (b.) that he, as an American reporter, could only leave his well-guarded car (to conduct “man in the street” interviews) for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, after which brief interval he was at risk of being targeted (and he also mentioned the six-mile, $37,000 cab-ride from the Green Zone to the Airport). I infer from all this that while Iraqis, on the whole, are trying to live normal lives, they are also making sure that Americans do not. It makes for a strange picture: Filkins doesn’t talk about the effectiveness of Americans riding herd over the insurgency–they might be doing this rather well–but he does describe a situation that can’t and won’t last, a description supported by Pat’s point (some months ago) that the American military has to wind up its operations by year’s end. Doesn’t this really mean that we’ve lost this thing? Is there another way to take it? (We don’t read, in the popular press, about General Petraeus’ successes, but perhaps they get some mention in the military press).

Posted by: alabama | May 9 2005 21:40 utc | 8

link to Filkins interview: Off the Meter

Posted by: b | May 9 2005 21:56 utc | 9

Sorry – the last link was only a short excerpt – here´s the complete Filkins interview transcript

Posted by: b | May 9 2005 22:00 utc | 10

just reread the opening speecjeds by the russian, english, american & french prosecutors at nuremberg & its quite eerie
because nearly all the charges level against nazi germany could be levelled against the american empire – & not just in outline but some even in specific detail
the idea of real justice dissapears each day & of the real efforts of humanity to place a limit on themselves has been made truly pornographic

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 9 2005 23:40 utc | 11

US Marines recall body armor amid safety questions
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Marine Corps has recalled body armor given to thousands of troops fighting in Iraq because of questions about whether it offers adequate protection, officials said on Monday.
The Marines bought 19,000 torso-protecting “outer tactical vests” from Point Blank Body Armor Inc. of Pompano Beach, Florida, but the vests failed tests by military ballistics experts involving 9mm pistol rounds.
However, the Marines said the body armor subsequently passed tests by a private firm.
The Marines defended the vests and denied risking the lives of troops in war zones by giving them poor equipment, arguing that the vests were vastly superior to the “outdated” flak jacket they replaced.
Even so, the Marines said they were recalling more than half of the roughly 10,000 vests given to troops deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and missions in the Horn of Africa region because media coverage about safety questions would “sow seeds of doubt in the minds of Marines in active combat.”
“This is the best quality equipment we could field,” said Maj. Douglas Powell, a Marine spokesman at the Pentagon. “I would wear this vest in combat.”
Powell said the vests had drastically reduced torso injuries. “The vest is not designed to stop bullets,” he said. “The vest is designed to stop shrapnel.”
The Marines acknowledged providing the vests to troops after signing waivers permitting their use, despite the fact that the equipment did not meet certain minimum standards…..

Posted by: Nugget | May 10 2005 0:14 utc | 12

The US has been in Iraq for a long time now. It appears they can’t control anything. How can they win? What would winning look like?
Posted by: Colman | May 9, 2005 04:53 PM | #
The US has been in Iraq for a long time now? A long time by whose measure? The Arab measure or our own? It’s been a little more than 24 months. Barely a hiccup in time.
No, we don’t control anything but the ground we actually sit on – and even then it’s kind of iffy, isn’t it? There was never any serious, early effort to establish control in Baghdad or elsewhere – and once lost, gone forever. So this has been an occupation more in name than concrete reality.
How can we win? What would winning look like? Well, there’s never going to be a surrender on the part of committed insurgents and terrorists; there’s never going to be a decisive engagement. The best that can be hoped for is that, as in Afghanistan, the insurgency begins to critically fail to attract enough guys who give a damn – and fails to hold a significant measure of support and/or tolerance among noncombatant locals and their leaders. I’m not at all sure that, as in Afghanistan, the cash flow can be choked while the cost, in purely financial terms, of doing business is raised, but one can’t achieve everything everywhere, or in the same fashion in all places to equal effect. But that’s a lesson, too, of both these campaigns.

Posted by: Pat | May 10 2005 1:19 utc | 13

my opinion, which counts for nothing, other than a part of the zeitgeist, is that the U.S. lost the war in Iraq when the decision was made to torture the many, many Iraqis who have been held in various places across the nation.
It is my understanding that this decision rests with Rumsfeld, (Bush) and was given sanction by Gonzalez. Then the Generals had to decide to carry out these policies.
Any claim the U.S. had to a higher ground was lost at that time.
The way that Bremer divvied up the spoils of the Iraqi economy, before a constitution even existed, was illegal, as well.
No one but Americans can think that Iraqis are so stupid as to think this was not a corporate gang rape. No way were the Iraqis going to be able to decide the way to allocate oil profits. Actually, most Americans are so ignorant about events in Iraq they don’t even know about Bremer’s actions.
Hussein did not attack the U.S. The 9-11 attacks were not a declaration of war, in the same way that Pearl Harbor was. This is a different sort of war, and it cannot be fought in the way wars were fought in the past, if America wants to get past that moment.
I wonder what people in Chile thought about our 9-11 –compared to theirs?
Americans need to grow up and stop seeing the foreign policy of this nation as some beneficent gift to the world, because the history of our actions in so many places gives lie to this idea. Foreign policy is about America’s best interests…but maybe it’s time to reassess the assumptions about the ways to achieve those interests.
I do not see this happening. It will not happen with the current gang in power. But the longer this Bush/neocon attitude leads this country, I think that we will be in for a terrible reckoning.
Jingoism is the enemy of common sense. I’m sure the military and intel are determined to overcome the mess that was the Iraqi invasion from the start, for no other reason than the idea that if America looks weak, it will empower Al Q sorts.
For this reason, I think Iraq is one long tragedy for all involved.

Posted by: fauxreal | May 10 2005 2:11 utc | 14

‘Freedom’ news: U.S. to expand prison facilities in Iraq
BAGHDAD, May 9 — The number of prisoners held in U.S. military detention centers in Iraq has risen without interruption since autumn, filling the centers to capacity and prompting commanders to embark on an unanticipated prison expansion plan.
As U.S. and Iraqi forces battle an entrenched insurgency, the detainee population surpassed 11,350 last week, nearly a 20 percent jump since Iraq’s Jan. 30 elections. U.S. prisons now contain more than twice the number of people they did in early October, when aggressive raids began in a stepped-up effort to crush the insurgency before January’s vote.
Anticipating continued growth in the detainee population, U.S. commanders have decided to expand three existing facilities and open a fourth, at a total cost of about $50 million….
….To cope with the continuing influx, Brandenburg said Camp Bucca, which has eight compounds, is adding two more, enough to accommodate about 1,400 additional prisoners. Space for another 800 detainees is being built at Abu Ghraib.
Camp Cropper is also expanding, from a current capacity of about 120 prisoners to 2,000 by the end of this year. U.S. authorities also plan to turn a Russian-built former Iraqi military barracks near the northern city of Sulaymaniyah into a prison for 2,000 inmates and call it Fort Suse.
After briefing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last month on the new construction plans, Brandenburg received word that the Pentagon had approved $12 million to finish the Camp Bucca expansion and $30 million to enlarge Camp Cropper. Another $7.5 million had been authorized earlier to build Fort Suse. The additional capacity at Abu Ghraib will cost less than $1 million, Brandenburg said.

Posted by: Nugget | May 10 2005 2:11 utc | 15

The US has been in Iraq for a long time now? A long time by whose measure? The Arab measure or our own? It’s been a little more than 24 months. Barely a hiccup in time.
Posted by: Pat | May 9, 2005 09:19 PM | #
I rarely like to deliver smack downs in my favorite bar because it destroys the mood. However this is one of the dumbest comments I have read in a while Pat.
For a little perspective, WWI lasted only four years (1914-1918). And guess what? United States involvement in WWI did not begin until April of 1917 with the declaration of war against Germany. And the war officially ended with the Treaty of Versailles on Nov. 11, 1918 (remember the whole 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month deal?) So add that up and we have a total of 20 months of war.
How long have we been in Iraq again? You say 24 months. Actually the war in Iraq officially began on March 20, 2003. Right now it is mid-May of 2005. Add that together and we have nearly 26 months.
So Pat, your protestations otherwise, the war in Iraq has now lasted 125% longer than U.S. involvement in WWI. Surely WWI was not a hiccup in time for our country and neither is Iraq.
And I need to ask, how long before it becomes a major involvement? The general military consensus is that insurgencies can take a decade to defeat. I doubt that we even have plans of leaving. I would bet that after a decade, Pat will be talking about hiccup’s in geologic time.

Posted by: Bubb Rubb | May 10 2005 2:14 utc | 16

But Pat, are we studying calendars, clocks, and cultural perspectives in general, or a very specific time frame that would hold for anyone in our shoes (Arabs included)? The insurgents are keeping the combat at a very high level of intensity–so high, indeed, that our own strength, apparently eroded by this thing, seems not to be truly competitive. Might the Iraqi people stop hosting this insurgency? Well, Dexter Filkin seems to have his doubts about this, if I’ve read his interview correctly. And we can’t deny that the Iraqi military (Hussein’s, that is, not Rumsfeld’s) carries on in a spectral fashion of some kind. It has a point to make. Finally, how pertinent is a comparison of the Afghan campaign to the Iraqi campaign? The Pathans don’t fight in cities, and tje Sunnis don’t fight in the mountains. We can always look like we’re winning in Afghanistan provided we stay out of the mountains, etc. (but I don’t know enough to elaborate on these cautionary distinctions).

Posted by: alabama | May 10 2005 2:36 utc | 17

CIA still controls Iraq security service

Posted by: Nugget | May 10 2005 3:33 utc | 18

more humane and hospitable to civil society than the one currently under attempt
The thing is, Pat, nobody believes that there is any attempt by the US to create a political order for the benefit of Iraqis.
We are hoping that America will learn the lessons of Imperialism, not lessons on “these campaigns”, as though, next time, you’ll find some other way to fuck-up.

Posted by: DM | May 10 2005 4:15 utc | 19

…One conclusion to draw from the unlovely spectacle of democratic governance in Iraq is that the two dominant American views of the war were both wrong. Iraq is a far less modern, less united, and less friendly place than the fondest hopes of the war’s architects would have had the American public believe. At the same time, the ability of those architects to control the outcome for their own purposes is close to zero. Some war boosters, in and out of the Administration, have nonetheless been quietly declaring mission accomplished redux, with a shrug: they never thought Iraq would be perfect, and everything from here on out is just footnotes. In public, they seem to want Americans to forget all about Iraq….

Posted by: Nugget | May 10 2005 4:59 utc | 20

Soaring birth deformities and child cancer rates in Iraq

Posted by: Nugget | May 10 2005 5:13 utc | 21

So now DU becomes the new AGENT ORANGE insuring the US legacy in Iraq. All that smart weaponry must have been about precluding the waste of ordnance, since collateral damage, amongst the population can be delivered silently, and for generations to come — just in case they should forget.

Posted by: anna missed | May 10 2005 6:27 utc | 22

I posted two diaries with these topics on Booman:
After the War Comes Cancer
The legacy of Agent Orange

Posted by: Fran | May 10 2005 6:36 utc | 23

Pat, if the US barely controls the ground it sits on, what good can it do in Iraq? What good is it doing? What are those troops dying for?

Posted by: Colman | May 10 2005 6:51 utc | 24

…Sunni Muslim groups in Iraq condemned the Marine operation near Qaim, which is in Anbar province, home to the perennially troubled towns of Fallujah and Ramadi.
The Muslim Scholars Association, an influential group of militant Sunni clerics, called the operation “American state-sponsored terrorism of our towns and people.” The group claimed several civilians were among the casualties and that a hospital in Qaim had been bombed.
…Residents stayed in their homes yesterday as bombs exploded and warplanes roared overhead.
“It’s truly horrific, there are snipers everywhere, rockets, no food, no electricity,” said Abu Omar al-Ani, a father of three reached by telephone in Qaim. “Today five rockets fell in front of my house … we are mentally exhausted….”
Random sentences buried away in various articles, the natives’ voices struggling to surface from their allotted place in the narrative buried beneath the roar of bombs and the volume of CENTCOM press releases and gung-ho media spin, fleeting glimpses of those under the bombs, little fragments of horror and then, as if their desperate, pleading voices are carried away on the wind, it’s back to ’75 dead’, ‘100 dead’, ‘Zarqawi terrorists’, ‘foreign fighters’ ‘dead rebels’ as the ‘official version’ reasserts itself and the dead and dying innocent civilians subside under the sheer weight of newsprint to be resurrected as ‘dead terrorists’ to satisfy the need for revenge and for ‘results’…..

Posted by: Nugget | May 10 2005 7:37 utc | 25

I hope I am correct in my assumption that your utmost concern in “this horrendous crime of a war” is the welfare of the Iraqi people themselves. If this is the case, then you must have determined that an American military loss in Iraq will result in a greater benefit to their general welfare than if American forces prevailed. In order to make that determination, you must have concluded that the various elements that comprise the insurgency will, if victorious, establish a more just political order for the people of Iraq – more humane and hospitable to civil society than the one currently under attempt.

Frankly I don’t think it is your concern or anyone else’s what kind of government a free Iraq has. That would and should be up to the Iraqi people themselves.
I hear too often that it the reponsibility of US soldiers to establish a “good” government in Iraq. That sounds a lot like “the white man’s burden” of English imperialism. IF the goal of the US was to make life better for the Iraqis this would only be misguided and naive. As I see it, it is a cruel joke on both the American and Iraqi people.

Posted by: dan of steele | May 10 2005 8:15 utc | 26

@Pat How can we win? What would winning look like? Well, there’s never going to be a surrender on the part of committed insurgents and terrorists; there’s never going to be a decisive engagement. The best that can be hoped for is that, as in Afghanistan, the insurgency begins to critically fail to attract enough guys who give a damn – and fails to hold a significant measure of support and/or tolerance among noncombatant locals and their leaders. I’m not at all sure that, as in Afghanistan, the cash flow can be choked while the cost, in purely financial terms, of doing business is raised, but one can’t achieve everything everywhere, or in the same fashion in all places to equal effect. But that’s a lesson, too, of both these campaigns.
First Pat let me say thanks for your comments. They are welcome and needed.
On the above cite. I don´t think the US has any control in Afghanistan. The president there is the mayor of Kabul – nothing more. The proposed elections have been moved out several times. The country derives 50% of its GDP from drugs. Local warlords with drug money are ruling the countryside. The talibans are regrouping and are getting stronger again.
Five-Hour Battle Leaves 23 Insurgents, Two U.S. Marines Dead in Eastern Afghanistan

Posted by: b | May 10 2005 9:16 utc | 27

Rolling Stone The Quagmire

If it comes to civil war, the disintegration of Iraq will be extremely bloody. “The breakup of Iraq would be nearly as bad as the breakup of India in 1947,” says David Mack, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state with wide experience in the Arab world. “The Kurds can’t count on us to come in and save their bacon. Do they think we are going to mount an air bridge on their behalf?” Israel might support the Kurds, but Iran would intervene heavily in support of the Shiites with men, arms and money, while Arab countries would back their fellow Sunnis. “You’d see Jordan, Saudi Arabia, even Egypt intervening with everything they’ve got — tanks, heavy weapons, lots of money, even troops,” says White, the former State Department official.
“If they see the Sunnis getting beaten up by the Shiites, there will be extensive Arab support,” agrees a U.S. Army officer. “There will be no holds barred.”
In fact, it may already be too late to prevent Iraq from exploding. Iraq’s new government is stuck in a fatal Catch-22: To have any credibility among Iraqis it must break with the U.S. and oppose the occupation, but it couldn’t last a week without the protection of American troops. The Bush administration is also stuck. Its failure to stabilize Iraq, and the continuing casualties there, have led to a steady slide in the president’s popularity: Polls show that a majority of Americans no longer think that the war in Iraq was worth fighting in the first place. Yet withdrawing from Iraq would only lead to more chaos, and the rest of the world has exhibited little interest in cleaning up America’s mess. Of the two dozen or so countries that sent troops to Iraq, fewer and fewer remain: Spain, Portugal, Hungary and New Zealand have already quit, and the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Italy have announced they are getting out. Even if the United Nations agreed to step in, there is little or no chance that the administration will internationalize control over Iraq. In the face of a full-scale civil war in Iraq, says a source close to the U.S. military, Bush intends to go it alone.
“Our policy is to make Iraq a colony,” he says. “We won’t let go.”

Posted by: b | May 10 2005 9:18 utc | 28

The best that can be hoped for is that … the insurgency begins to critically fail to attract enough guys who give a damn – and fails to hold a significant measure of support and/or tolerance among noncombatant locals and their leaders.
This is the best outcome that can be hoped for? Jesus.
I’m sure the Iraqis have been looking to the experience of Viet Nam.
The colonial occupying powers there (Japan, France then the US) were resisted by the inhabitants in a war that went on for over 30 years.
The “insurgents”, led by Ho and Giap, never ran out of support. They never gave up. Giap built the army from scratch. Even when they suffered terrible setbacks, like when Nixon bombed Ha Noi and Hai Phong in the 1970s (Giap thought Ha Noi would be totally destroyed), and huge losses of personnel, they never gave up.
I’m convinced the US oil oligarchs have now switched to fomenting civil war in Iraq in order to continue their attempts to gain control of the country’s oil and gas reserves. Juan Cole has noted that the way the legislature has been constructed by the US (where a 2/3rds majority is required, not 50% as in all other democracies in the world) is evidence of this aim.
The US knows the insurgency will not end. The question is when will the US public (and the US military) turn away from the occupation? With nearly 60% of Americans now saying they don’t think the war in Iraq was “worth it”, that point is going to come much sooner than any end to the “insurgency”.

Posted by: Dismal Science | May 10 2005 10:44 utc | 29

U.S. attack rages a 3rd day in Iraq
….A Los Angeles Times reporter embedded with the offensive said 20 U.S. troops had been wounded, but the U.S. military could not immediately confirm that.
Fighting was reported Tuesday in Obeidi, 300 kilometers west of Baghdad, and the two nearby towns of Rommana and Karabila, an Associated Press reporter in the region said. He said large numbers of Qaim residents were fleeing the area….
…The Los Angeles Times reporter embedded with the offensive said the insurgents appeared to have been well prepared, with sandbag bunkers piled in front of some homes and fighters strategically positioned on rooftops and balconies.
In the towns of Saba, Obeidi and Karabila, the reporter said, insurgents fired mortar rounds at marine convoys along the Euphrates River’s southern edge.
Marines who pursued attackers in those towns took part in house-to-house combat against dozens of well-armed insurgents, The Los Angeles Times reported.
At one point, the newspaper said, a marine walked into a house and an insurgent hiding in the basement fired through a floor grate, killing him. Another marine who was retrieving a wounded comrade inside a house suffered shrapnel wounds when an insurgent threw a grenade through a window, The Times said.
The report said that the insurgents were using boats to transport weapons from one side of the Euphrates River to the other and that some militants wore body armor. It said a marine broke his back and at least two others were wounded Sunday when a land mine hit their tank.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that F-15E Strike Eagle fighters dropped two quarter-ton laser-guided bombs and fired 510 cannon rounds Sunday against insurgents around Qaim and that F/A-18 fighters fired 319 cannon rounds….

Posted by: Nugget | May 10 2005 13:56 utc | 30

Signal of intention? – New U.S. laser weapon for Iraq?

Posted by: Nugget | May 10 2005 14:18 utc | 31

Iraq, the money pit

Posted by: Nugget | May 10 2005 14:36 utc | 32

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – Gunmen kidnapped the governor of Iraq’s western Anbar province Tuesday and told his family he would be released when U.S. forces withdraw from Qaim, the site of a major new offensive against followers of Iraq’s most-wanted militant, relatives said. Gov. Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi was seized as he drove from Qaim to the provincial capital of Ramadi, his brother, Hammad, told The Associated Press.

Posted by: Nugget | May 10 2005 16:33 utc | 33

Iraqi police vent anger at US after car bombings
Iraqi police hurled insults at US soldiers after two suicide car bomb blasts in Baghdad killed at least seven people and left 19 wounded, including policemen.
“It’s all because you’re here,” a policeman shouted in Arabic at a group of US soldiers after the latest in a bloody wave of attacks that have rocked Baghdad this month.
“Get out of our country and there will be no more explosions,” he told the uncomprehending Americans staring at the smouldering wreck of a car bomb. ….

Posted by: Nugget | May 10 2005 16:41 utc | 34

Link.

A senior al-Qa’eda figure, described by American officials as number three in the terrorist network, was under interrogation last night after being arrested in Pakistan.
A CIA man sent to Afghanistan soon after September 11 said he was told to return with bin Laden’s head in an ice box. Gary Schroen, publicising a book, said the CIA head of counter-terrorism, Cofer Black, told him: “Capture bin Laden, kill him and bring his head back in a box on dry ice.” Mr Black asked for other al-Qa’eda heads on “pikes”.

Posted by: beq | May 10 2005 17:01 utc | 35

Halliburton gets $72 million bonus for work in Iraq

Posted by: b | May 10 2005 19:19 utc | 36

Redux from 40 years ago:
Marines are on a Search and Destroy Mission across the Euphrates River near the Syrian border. Sunni Arabs fighting to protect their homes from the foreign invaders, a number of dead and maimed GIs.
The Number Game: 100 insurgents killed.

Posted by: Jim S | May 10 2005 20:02 utc | 37

Fourteen US servicemen killed in three-day period in Iraq
Dozens of Marines have been wounded. How to replace them in an America with constantly falling recruiting levels?
Here’s a story that offers a U.S. Army solution, courtesy of Johhny Zucchini and sukabi, posting at ASZ:
Chris Monarch, is a young American man (20) who was called at home on the telephone by a US Army recruiter, Sergeant Thomas Kelt. They had apparently had conversations in the past. The young man told the recruiter he had married and he and his wife had a baby, so he was no longer interested in enlisting. The recruiter wouldn’t let it go, so the young man hung up the phone.
The recruiter called him back and left a message in which he claimed that a warrant for the kid’s arrest would be issued if he failed to show up in person at the recruiting office at a specified time – all caught on tape.
Unbelievable? Try watching the KHOU TV video news report Recruiter’s message: Go Army or else

Posted by: Nugget | May 10 2005 21:03 utc | 38

unfortunately, the robert fisk article presumes there is some shame left in these monsters. clearly there isn’t. not one ounce of shame
they are brutes. nothing more.
the depravity of the american empire shows no sign of decreasing, to any degree. on the contrary we have bushboy travelling all over russia holding hands with the reactionary & deeply antidemocraticic regimes dressed up in their ‘new’ democracy & telling us freedom is on the march
that word itself has become an obscenity. the only thing that is marching are the phantoms of all those killed in iraq that will haunt us for the rest of our lives. of that there can be no doubt. our lives have become impoverished by the massacre of the iraq nation & certainly our lives have been endangered to a degree that they never have been since the 2nd world war
i have absolutely no qualms about the paralles between nazi germany & the later american empire. for me, they are the same. their character is the same & i believe their destiny is the same. what looks like power today will in time be seen for the emptiness it actually is
(on this point, i advise a watching of the incisive 1961 film of kobayashi, ‘harikiri’ – which beautifully & powerfully exposes the nature of power, especially of monopolised power)
what nazi germany’s intention was in creating war was at once to gather the materials it needed for its own survival, the need to colonise in one form or another the nations, especially to the east & the enslavement of those populations if not their entire liquidation. absolutely implicit to this war was its racist & exterminatory ideology. the intellectual & social groundwork was done with the german people before the war had even begun – the others were ‘the pest’, ‘bacillus’, ‘virus’, ‘infections’, ‘rats’, ‘lice’ & ‘vermin’. what was practiced in the east was the concretisation of what had become a normal moral functionnement of the german people. & everybody knew exactly what was going on – some participated in the actions more than others but all were inextricably related to the final actions. there was no moral space left – contrary to all the myths of a resistance to that deathly morality
that deathly morality functions at the heart of the american empire as robert fisk so clearly indicates & what is suggested in the article by the photographer who worked in iraq for vanity fair that was posted by nugget. the nature of numbers is not a moral argument. not at all. if the effect is to enslave & dominate these people – the differences in methodology are minimal & the proximity of the ideological goals is total
the american people have entered a phase where because of this war the sins of the past – those of greece, indonesia, latin america, vietnam etc are being exposed for the actions they were. the actions of a nation determined to dominate the destiny of others, physically
what is surprisining – is that it is so maniacal.
& it is maniacal. there is no larger sense. there is no instinctual need. there is the power of the beast & its desire to control what can be controlled before it inevitably falls
we are all witnesses to these action & to that degree the american people risk becoming bush’s willing executioners – if only by their silence & complicity . what is critical & what is clear – the american people have benefited from the rogue policies of american administration after american administration
what is happening now is that we can see the price that you will soon pay – & it feels chilling. the forces that are being combined at this very moment against the empire are exceptional & not all of them have democracy in their hearts. & that should come as no surprise – what will be created from these conflicts are mirrored monsters. monster that mirror the beast itself
i am deeply pessimistic
& what is saddest is that there were means to stop this continuing carnage. there was the united nations – that had within it the possibility to stop this war. there is the international courts to confront america with the laws it has so clearly & recklessly violated. there were the means for america to think twice before it did what it is doing but those means were never used
12,000,000 people marched in the streets to demand both nation states & international tribunals to stop this war & they did not
on the contrary, nations with few exception even amongs those who opposed this war with words who have waited for the american beast to devour this nation
what was not expected was the will within a people to resist & to resist by any means. & yes there means are horrific but the conditions under which they are occupied are horrific. & thogh some people even here think the insurgency will diminish – the daily proof is that the opposite is happening & what it is happening with the arab nations themselves is that they are steeling the people for a long war & a long war it will be
it will be a war that will last for the rest of our lives & their deaths

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 10 2005 21:13 utc | 39

Baudelaire:

The world is coming to an end…nothing in the sanguinary, blasphemous, or unnatural dreams of the utopians can be compared to what will actually happen…. Rulers will be compelled, in order to maintain their position and create a semblance of order, to resort to methods that would appall present-day mankind, hardened as it is…. Justice-if, in this fortunate epoch, any justice can still exist-will forbid the existence of citizens who are unable to make a fortune…. Those times are perhaps quite close at hand. Who knows whether they are not here already-whether it is not simply the coarsening of our natures that keeps us from noticing what sort of atmosphere we already breathe?

Same ol’…

Posted by: slothrop | May 10 2005 21:24 utc | 40

slothrop
……& the air is getting thinner

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 10 2005 21:29 utc | 41

James Janega, the reporter of the piece this thread is about, has another piece in the Chicago Tribune: On border, GIs find rebels set for fight

The Marines who swept into the Euphrates River town of Ubaydi confronted an enemy they had not expected to find–and one that attacked in surprising ways.
As they pushed from house to house in early fighting, trying to flush out the insurgents who had attacked their column with mortar fire, the Marines ran into sandbagged emplacements behind garden walls. Commanders said Marines also found a house where insurgents were crouching in the basement, firing rifles and machine guns upward through holes at ankle height in the ground-floor walls, aiming at spots that the Marines’ body armor did not cover.
The shock was that the enemy was not supposed to be in Ubaydi at all. Instead, American intelligence indicated that the insurgency had massed on the other side of the river. Marine commanders expressed surprise Monday not only at the insurgents’ presence but also the extent of their preparations, as if they expected the Marines to come.

Intelligence failure and troops unprepared for such a possibility.

Three Marine companies and supporting armored vehicles crossed to the north side of the Euphrates River early Monday, using rafts and a newly constructed pontoon bridge. From there they were expected to roll west toward the border, raiding isolated villages where insurgents are believed to cache weapons and fighters. The offensive, planned for weeks, is expected to stretch on for several days.
“We’re north of the river [and] we’re moving everywhere we want to go,” Davis said late Monday. “Resistance is predictably low, but I do not expect it to stay that way.”
…
With the Marines pressing the assault, new details emerged about the pitched battles that took place Sunday in Ubaydi, a town perched on the tip of a bend in the Euphrates, about 12 miles east of the Syrian border. As Army engineers worked to build the pontoon bridge, waiting Marines came under mortar fire from a town they had assumed was free of the enemy.
After calling in air strikes from prowling fighter jets and helicopter gunships, the Marines entered the town in armored personnel carriers and light armored vehicles. At times the fighting was door to door as Marines sifted through areas where resistance was stiffest.
…
After retreating, Marines in Lawson’s company called in artillery and heavy machine guns to rake the house. As sporadic fighting continued Monday morning, they brought in tanks and leveled it, Davis said.
Though military commanders in Baghdad announced that 100 insurgent fighters were killed in the early fighting, along with three Marines, Davis’ figures were lower. He said “a couple of dozen” insurgents had been killed in Ubaydi, about 10 at another river crossing near Al Qaim, and several who were killed by air strikes north of the river.
…
Other commanders said they had recovered few bodies but had seen blood trails that suggested insurgents were dragging away wounded or dead fighters.
The number of insurgents in the region is “in the hundreds,” Davis said. “How many hundreds is tough to tell.”
But more surprising, he said, was the insurgents’ preparation and tactical prowess, a development that he said reinforced intelligence that insurgents have been trained by outsiders.
Davis described sophisticated attacks in which the detonation of a roadside bomb would be quickly followed by accurate mortar or rocket fire, then machine-gun fire as Marines raced to the area.
“They clearly have trained people,” he said. “It looks rehearsed.”

What does he think Saddam’s army did all the years waiting for an U.S. attack? Did they probably train? Rehearse?

Posted by: b | May 10 2005 23:07 utc | 42

Pat, if the US barely controls the ground it sits on, what good can it do in Iraq? What good is it doing? What are those troops dying for?
Posted by: Colman | May 10, 2005 02:51 AM | #
I had a brief exchange with a nice man not long ago. The subject was democratization of Iraq, about which he was very optimistic. I offered my own pessimistic POV, my own understanding of how and why and when democratization takes place – its necessary elements and favorable internal and regional conditions. He acknowledged those elements missing in Iraq, the general absence of favorable conditions, then said that if only our military could be there long enough, in great enough number, he would have more confidence. But none of those things that Iraq lacks can be provided by soldiers; and soldiers are not a substitute for the organic growth of a people and their culture. Soldiers kill, in their own current, all-purpose terminology, “bad guys.” Most of those not directly involved in this business are there to support it. What else does an army do in a combat zone?
(It’s too bad there’s no one here with State Department connections because I’d love to know how its people in Baghdad set the odds on what is now, for all intents and purposes, their Iraq project. Maybe the few rooms and mere handful of staff of the not-quite-year-old, virtually unknown Iraqi Interests Section, located in the Algerian Embassy in D.C., is as good as any indication of the amount of hope present.)
So the good that US forces can do is make life harder, nastier, shorter for the bad guys – unless you believe that the bad guys aren’t bad. In that case, there’s nothing good US forces can do but get killed and go home. The thing is that you can’t kill or capture bad guys unless you go to where they are, and this is not something about which the Pentagon is terribly enthusiastic, current Operation Matador and others notwithstanding. So even the good that can be done, is done with institutional reluctance.
What are the troops dying for? You’d have to ask them.

Posted by: Pat | May 11 2005 5:20 utc | 43

there’s nothing good US forces can do but get killed and go home
there’s nothing good US forces can do but get killed and go home

Posted by: DM | May 11 2005 6:20 utc | 44

to reiterate an earlier post i would counsel people to reread jacksons adress to the nuremberg court & how it pertains to the american empire, today. & that the four counts that they were tried under is also pertinant to that same empire & as lupin has suggestted – perhaps there end should be the same because it is clear above all that they have committed crimes against humanity
i suppose the ss & the sd also called people in the east ‘bad guys’ & i imagine they called their einsatzgruppen execution squads & polic battallions, ‘our folks’ & the ‘good guys’
death to fascism! death to the american empire!

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 11 2005 12:12 utc | 45

There were two Jackson speeches to the Nuremberg court
Opening Statement before the International Military Tribunal
Nuremberg, Germany, November 21, 1945
Closing Address Before the International Military Tribunal
Nuremberg, Germany–July 26, 1946

Posted by: b | May 11 2005 12:37 utc | 46

b
so much in this text is absolutely pertinent. i was going to cut & paste – but even a tempered reading of these two speeches resonate today as they did then
really change nazi party for republican, concerted conspiracy with the work of the neocons – change europe for the middle east & it is as if jackson speaks to us over time & generations
i wonder if this moment was when the “better angels’ f their nature was working or it itself was intended to have no meaning outside the specific events – but the texts are there & they are rock solid
& through years & generation they accuse the american empire in a way my dull rhetorique cannot

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 11 2005 18:56 utc | 47

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