And so we arrive at the heart of the problem: To salvage any ending short of total defeat in Iraq, the Cheney administration must act like those spineless, flip-flopping liberals. They have to negotiate with the terrorists, listening to their demands, trying to understand their grievances and goals — shit, offering them therapy sessions for all I know. But at the same time, Bush also has to keep up the never-give-an-inch macho act, lest the silent majority finally grasp the dismal truth: Their sons and daughters must go on dying in the quagmire so the neocons can find a way out that doesn’t involve losing too much face.
Back to Main
June 26, 2005
WB: Negotiating With Terrorists
Comments
The next step is to pay the “terrorists” to be silent for a while – (but don´t tell that to the American public!).
An Iraqi journalist asked into that direction in Fridays Bush/Jafaari press conference:
Q Mr. Prime Minister, I am a presenter on radio in Iraq. My question is for you. For more than two years we’ve started a change in Iraq, but the process of building is very slow. There are secure cities in Iraq, Samarra and Kurdistan. When will you begin the reconstruction in Iraq? When do we begin to establish the first bases of reconstruction? And you know that if you started reconstruction in Iraq it will mean that young people will have something to do, and they will leave terrorist activities.
1. According to that journalist reconstruction has not been started yet.
2. He believes that unemployment is major reason for people to join the resistance.
The answer he got was Jafaari asking Bush for a Marshall plan and Bush shuting off the press conference after that.
……… It echoes all too painfully the primal sin of Vietnam as enshrined in popular mythology: that the politicians led the army, and the country, into war, but weren’t willing to pursue it to victory.
And the memory of all that has been held in abeyance by a (foolish) population, convinced by 911, that things (are) will be different this time around. This is a lie of the greatest magnitude, and makes Reagans (Iran- Contra) lie look like awe– schucks — innocence by comparison. Its one thing to heap on the mythology in service to those who factually made the sacrifice, but to take that artifice and use it to commit an even greater atrocity, is worse than de- trope atrocity itself. And this is what they have done. If this were to sink in among that horse blindered population………..then you’re right, this could be more significant than all the other stuff together.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 26 2005 8:37 utc | 2
Essentially, like Vietnam the facts on the ground in Iraq have eroded the rhetoric (& the freedom mythology) down to the sordid pit of a lie that it always was and remains.
Its up to the Democrats to get over their fear of “blame the messenger” (themselves) and lay it out, the media will chase the firetruck to the fire — and it’ll be Bush without a chair at the cakewalk.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 26 2005 8:58 utc | 3
If you recall, I told you a couple of posts below that they would find a way to keep their bases. (Or at least so they believe.) I seem to be proven right.
Posted by: Lupin | Jun 26 2005 9:06 utc | 4
Labelling and therefore demonizing for domestic consumption ‘enemies’ of the administrations policies of empire as terrorists is well and truly overdone …
There are two descriptive labels that could be applied to Iraq and they are insurgency or resistance … its simply a matter of perspective and rhetoric … I do recall the very same Mujahedeen fighters (including pre-Al Qaeda) being lauded as ‘Freedom Fighters’ by Reagan and Co, hell, even Rummy in an earlier incarnation when they spent thier blood and our treasure fighting the evil commies …
Yes, well this is all so very Vietnam II … whilst stepping up strategic bombing and escalating the war LBJ and Nixon put out ever more frequent ‘secret’ offers for negotiating an ‘honorable’ withdrawal …
It’s easy to imagine the Iraqi’s will have ‘non-negotiable’ terms, especially since they are negotiating from a position of strength, after all, the US has ‘requested’ negotiations, not the resistance.
Perhaps something along the lines of the following:
Peace Proposal of the Provisional Islamic Revolutionary Government of Iraq, July 1, 2005
1. Regarding the deadline for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces.
The U.S. Government must put an end to its war of aggression in Iraq, stop its policy of “Iraqization” of the war, withdraw from Iraq all troops, military personnel, weapons, and war materials of the United States and of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camp, and dismantle all U.S. bases in Iraq, without posing any condition whatsoever.
The U.S. Government must set a terminal date for the withdrawal from Iraq of the totality of U.S. forces and those of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camps.
If the U.S. Government sets a terminal date for the withdrawal from Iraq in 2005 of the totality of U.S. forces and those of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camp, the parties will at the same time agree on the modalities:
A) Of the withdrawal in safety from Iraq of the totality of U.S. forces and those of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camp.
B) Of the release of the totality of militarymen of all parties and of the civilians captured in the war so that they may all rapidly return to their homes.
These two operations will begin on the same date and will end on the same date:
A cease-fire will be observed between the Iraqi People’s Resistance Forces and the armed forces of the United States and of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camp as soon as the parties reach agreement on the withdrawal from Iraq of the totality of U.S. forces and those of the other foreign countries in the U.S. camps.
2. Regarding the questions of power in Iraq.
The U.S. Government must really respect the Iraqi people’s right to self-determination, put an end to its interference in the internal affairs of Iraq, …
…
Original (unedited) link here.
And Bush and Co can give up any dreams of retaining the bases, they’ll all go the way of DaNang, Plieku, et al … hell the Vietnamese even recovered, cannabilized and sold abandoned stores and materiel to the Iranians and others once the ‘American War’ was over …
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 26 2005 11:06 utc | 5
Not only have the chickenhawks wilfully and knowingly ignored history and the advice they’ve recieved prior to and during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars but the current crop of craven senior military commanders within the Pentagon (political lackeys in uniform) have chosen to ignore thier own Military Doctrines …
Fourth-Generation Warfare in Perspective
The term fourth-generation warfare came into use among military strategists and planners in the late 1980s as a way to characterize the dynamics and future direction of warfare.
This community postulated the evolution of warfare in several distinct phases. The first generation of modern (post-Westphalian) war was dominated by massed manpower and culminated in the Napoleonic Wars. Firepower characterized the second generation, which culminated in World War I. The third generation was dominated by maneuver as developed by the Germans in World War II. The fourth generation has evolved in ways that take advantage of the political, social, economic, and technical changes since World War II. It makes use of the advantages those changes offer an unconventional enemy.
For background and a compilation of papers and articles on the subject, see the Defense and the National Interest Web site.
Insurgencies throughout History
Insurgency, often referred to as guerrilla warfare, is not new. The very name guerrilla (“little war”) dates back to the Spanish resistance against Napoleon’s occupation of Spain (1809–1813). In fact, insurgency far predates that campaign. Darius the Great, King of Persia (558–486 BC), and Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) both fought insurgents during their reigns. Insurgency continued as a form of war through the ages. The Irish nationalist, Michael Collins, drove the British out of Ireland with an insurgent campaign during 1916–1921. In all cases, the weaker side used insurgent tactics to counter the superior military power of its enemies. However, in the 20th century, the political aspects of insurgency came to dominate these struggles. The goal became the destruction of the enemy’s political will rather than the exhaustion of his conventional military power. Advances in communications technology and the growth of formal and informal networks have greatly increased the ability of the insurgent to attack the will of enemy decisionmakers directly.
What is so amazing is that the resistance is still transitioning from a doctrinal Guerilla warfare Phase I: Latent and incipient insurgency comprising primarily terrorist and assasination like activities to Phase II: Guerrilla warfare, sustained, organised and widespread guerrilla warfare attacks such as previously at Al-Qaim, Abu Ghraib prison and most recently as last mondays Baghdad police station assault.
National political institutions are the primary targets for fourth-generation messages. Insurgents fighting the US know that if Congress cuts off funds, the US war is lost. Hence, Congressmen, or more specifically the voting public have been targeted with the message that the war is unwinnable and it makes no sense to keep fighting it …
Amazingly these events are indicative that not over the space of a decade, but within only two years of the insurgency in Iraq the worlds ‘sole remaining superpower’ has already effectively been beaten … nuclear armed, yet still a paper tiger as far as military empires go …
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 26 2005 11:39 utc | 6
The American team began to irritate the Iraqis with what some saw as a crude attempt to gather intelligence.
Perhaps that all it was, a crude attempt, an opportunity to eyeball some of them. And if not, then some other words to the same effect will shut down any talk that they have been ‘negotiating with terrorists’.
I think not yet, we still have a way to go, more time needed, or something more than the relentless 2.3 per day.
Posted by: DM | Jun 26 2005 11:41 utc | 7
What America needs right now is for a group of traditional Republicans and Democrats, not Bush Junta Republicans, to come forward on this news and say that it is necessary to negotiate in order to bring the American troops home… actually, a group that includes the Freedom Fries Republican from NC who is working across ideological lines with Kucinich to talk about removing American troops.
from SusanHu, I saw this link to Leonard Clark, who was called up for Iraq and who says that keeping the troops in Iraq now is just providing cover for Halliburton….which is also what some soldiers said early on in reports in the NYT.
Clark also said that Rove was wrong…but then, Clark is a democrat who actually has his life on the line in Iraq, whle Rove, like Bush, is all hat no cattle.
Maybe when the troops are back from Iraq, they can pay a visit to the White House to demand the head of Karl Rove…if he’s not too busy with Jeff Jim Guckert vis a vis head.
(Actually, I have no idea if the rumors that Rove is gay are true, but if they are he sooo needs to be outed…and if he is, I doubt that he could keep that a secret in the gay community if he goes to the bars…and since phones have cameras on them these days…just a thought…)
I hope the various groups can negotiate a peace of sorts. Maybe one of the conditions should be that Bush is put on trial for starting a war of aggression…just a thought…in return for some oil guarantees…that would seem to be a karmic sort of justice to me.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 26 2005 12:25 utc | 8
One of the talking points on the rise questions whether Americans have the resolve necessary for sustained conflict. Iraq War is clearly testing the nation’s patience, but I do not understand how it serves as a test of its resolve.
If you swallow the pitch at a sales club meeting, and sell shares to all of your family members and all of your colleagues, “resolve” does not require that you keep pulling for the club after it is exposed as a pyramid scheme.
Last time I looked, anyway.
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Jun 26 2005 12:28 utc | 9
Sure, this could have been an attempt to get intelligence on the Iraqi insurgency, and some here–the usual cheerleaders for the Bush faction–will believe it so. On the other hand, I remember the pains the French and the Algerian NLF took to see that the very existence of their initial negotiations were hidden from the public. Because, not only would it sap the morale of the French soldiers fighting the NLF no-holds-barred, even though many of them wanted out, but someone, the pied-noirs and the harkis in Algeria, was getting fucked by the outcome of those talks. Like our anti-Ba’athist Shi’a allies and Kurds in Iraq might well be. It’s a statement that our Iraqis aren’t getting it done for us, so we’re looking to buy some new ones.
Posted by: Brian C.B. | Jun 26 2005 12:58 utc | 10
The media enviroment is still pretty pathetic despite Bush’s tumbling ratings. My guess is that the US media largely ignores the story. There have been hints of such talks in some media outlets (perhaps, the Post and/or Times), but not as fleshed out as in the Sunday Times reports.
Unfortunately, I doubt the media will further this story on their own, so it will be up to the Beltway Democrats (e.g. Biden) to push the story and ask about its implications in order to legitimize it as a story for the establishment media (I wouldn’t count on it). In highlighting and asking questions about these talks, the Democrats wouldn’t have to draw any conclusions about whether these negotiations are good or bad.
Posted by: Ben Brackley | Jun 26 2005 13:32 utc | 11
I’m really of two minds about “saving face.” On one hand, it would seem to be important, for the purpose of peace, to let all save face.
Then again, if the Bush Junta saves face, maybe they’ll think they can continue to try to provoke Iran to attack, and do the whole Iraq thing all over again.
on the other hand, in the “my dick is bigger” world of war lords and tribal leaders, to not “save face” is not a good thing for peace either, imo, because of the way in which the Bush Junta made Iraq a training ground for terrorists by this invasion.
I’m sure the negotiators want to keep all this secret because knowledge weakens their ability to make deals, as you mention, Brian C.B.
I no longer have a sense of what’s what in Iraq, though. It seems to be like the blind people and the elephant…the war is lost, certain cities are secure, there is an elected govt, the govt is not recognized by certain factions…
At this point, I just want the Iraqi people to have some peace. I hope that, in spite of all the lies and unnecessary deaths, something good will come from the situation for the Iraqis.
That does not mean that the Bush Junta should get off for lying to the American people with an ends justifies means defense…but that is probably what would happen if there is a peaceful outcome any time soon.
It is more important, to me, to stop the suffering of the people of Iraq.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 26 2005 13:47 utc | 12
I don’t know what is so amazing about any of the stuff happening in Iraq.
Posted by: sm | Jun 26 2005 14:23 utc | 13
Given the past track record of this Admin, who can even say that we’re dealing with actual insurgent leaders as opposed to just more con-men.
I mean all you need is one more Chalabi cousin to pop up, take a large fee for fixing things, make large promises, and then vanish.
Posted by: Porco Rosso | Jun 26 2005 14:43 utc | 14
fauxreal
the terrible reality is that the iraqui suffering has only just begun
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 26 2005 14:49 utc | 15
@sm
I don’t know what is so amazing about any of the stuff happening in Iraq.
An ongoing tragedy for all involved … only amazing when considered from a narrow impersonal/analytical perspective …
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 26 2005 14:54 utc | 16
the terrible reality is that the iraqui suffering has only just begun
And to think, some folks thought Bush was kidding around when he said he wasn’t a fan of Nation Building.
When he went into Iraq, folks thought this would actually turn out to be some sort of nation building.
PSYCH!
Posted by: Porco Rosso | Jun 26 2005 15:03 utc | 17
[The Americans] asked questions about the “hierarchy and logistics of the groups, how they functioned, how orders were dispatched, how they divide their work and so on,” the Iraqi source said.
What the Iraqi source did not say: ‘We, of course, did not need to put similar questions to the Americans because we already know the answers’.
Posted by: Night Owl | Jun 26 2005 15:17 utc | 19
I have trouble making sense of the Times story, though I have no doubt that the meetings occurred as described. My questions are: (1) enemies confer all the time, don’t they? (2) If so, doesn’t this story make the Bush administration look good–i.e. realistic, open-minded, etc.? (3) If so, couldn’t the story be “planted”, in essence, by the Americans themselves? (4) wouldn’t there be a motive to plant the story in the Bush administration’s impatience with the non-government in Baghdad? (5) and if all, or some, of these questions pertain, can’t we suppose that the administration conducted the meetings in bad faith–that nothing has changed, that we’re dealing with just another maneuver? We won’t know how to assess a story like this until we know what the administration really thinks about the cost of the war–to itself, first of all, and to the American military, second (the American and Iraqi people counting for nothing with these guys–fascists who know what’s good for everyone, in the long and short run.
Posted by: alabama | Jun 26 2005 15:54 utc | 20
It remains ambiguous because Bush has no investment in this game. He exists only to look presidential, something he’s accomplished by becoming a “war president” who won re-election. He doesn’t care about the costs of this thing, and he wouldn’t understand them even if he did care (because he’s damaged goods, and damaged goods don’t understand things). The situation is rather different, I suspect, with Rumsfeld, who knows defeat when he sees it, and may even know that this war is absurdly out of proportion (it was never his war, after all: he only wanted to modernize the army, on schedule). He may know that the name “Rumsfeld” is bound to become an insult in the mouths of Americans, among others, and this wouldn’t sit well with his narcissism.
Posted by: alabama | Jun 26 2005 16:10 utc | 21
Apologies for the second post. My computer doesn’t seem to know when a post goes through…..
Posted by: alabama | Jun 26 2005 16:12 utc | 22
Cheney’s the one to watch. He holds everyone in contempt, and will never, never, ever admit to a mistake, an error, or a shortcoming. He will see this war go on until the last Iraqi man, woman or child has drawn his last, tortured breath. This is the guy, after all, who will see Bolton appointed ambassador to the U.N. even if he has to wreck the U.N. and the U.S. Senate to do so (a small price to pay for getting his way). This is the man who appointed himself as a Vice-Presidential candidate, then defined the office as the place where all decisions are made. This particular war, I rather suspect, will come to be known as Cheney’s revenge on the human race for some sort of insult or other–such as being kicked out of Yale twice over for drinking himself out of the curriculum.
Posted by: alabama | Jun 26 2005 16:19 utc | 23
that should read “his or her last, tortured breath”….
Posted by: alabama | Jun 26 2005 16:20 utc | 24
The Rovians better hope it plays out that way, because it’s hard to imagine a story that could do more to collapse whatever public support is left for the war and the administration’s conduct of it.
You may be right, Billmon, but Americans want out of this war. If the Bushies turn on a dime and suddenly change positions and deals with the “terrorists,” the lapdog media and the Right’s amen corner will praise Bush as a man who understands the reality of foreign policy. And suddenly a negotiated peace will be THE way out — not like those traitorous lefties who want to just withdraw and surrender to the terrorists.
I am in no way qualifed to forecast anything, but to me the only real downside Bush and Rove have is to continue the war indefinitely as it is now. If they continue the war but operate under the veneer of peace talks (as in Vietnam), they will get the complete blessing of the media and may buy time with the public. And, hey, before you know it, they’ll talking about giving Condi, Rummy, Cheney, and Bush the Nobel Peace Prize.
Where I run off the tracks in trying to figure out how they keep the bases and the oil and wind the war down. Maybe this gives them the cover. For it can take a long, long time to actually end the war.
Posted by: Phil from New York | Jun 26 2005 16:21 utc | 25
The Rovians better hope it plays out that way, because it’s hard to imagine a story that could do more to collapse whatever public support is left for the war and the administration’s conduct of it.
You may be right, Billmon, but Americans want out of this war. If the Bushies turn on a dime and suddenly change positions and deals with the “terrorists,” the lapdog media and the Right’s amen corner will praise Bush as a man who understands the reality of foreign policy. And suddenly a negotiated peace will be THE way out — not like those traitorous lefties who want to just withdraw and surrender to the terrorists.
I am in no way qualifed to forecast anything, but to me the only real downside Bush and Rove have is to continue the war indefinitely as it is now. If they continue the war but operate under the veneer of peace talks (as in Vietnam), they will get the complete blessing of the media and may buy time with the public. And, hey, before you know it, they’ll talking about giving Condi, Rummy, Cheney, and Bush the Nobel Peace Prize.
Where I run off the tracks in trying to figure out how they keep the bases and the oil and wind the war down. Maybe this gives them the cover. For it can take a long, long time to actually end the war.
Posted by: Phil from New York | Jun 26 2005 16:21 utc | 26
Ah, now I know why Billmon calls it “the Cheney administration” (we arrive at these truths, if we ever in fact arrive, in our own sweet time).
Posted by: alabama | Jun 26 2005 16:22 utc | 27
US holds talks with Iraq rebels
Insurgent attacks appear to be on the rise
US officials in Iraq have had talks with leaders of the anti-US insurgency, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says.
Mr Rumsfeld was commenting on an article in London’s Sunday Times newspaper which said two such sessions had taken place north of Baghdad …
Yes, it’s against the policy of the administration to negotiate with ‘terrorists’. We don’t and won’t negotiate with ‘terrorists’ and advise other nations and entities not to either. Even if the aim is to save the life of a son/daughter/sister/brother/father/mother … WE do, however, reserve the right to secretly negotiate with ‘terrorists’ in order to save OUR collective, hypocritical, political asses ! Don’t WE Rummy ?
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 26 2005 16:23 utc | 28
The news media can ignore anything. I thought that was plain enough when they did not report on the vote fraud of 2004.
Maybe this is where all that missing money from the war has been stashed…in some bank accounts waiting for a “negotiated settlement” that can be an “october surprise” –except the midterm elections are not yet close enough for that ploy.
but in that case, I don’t understand why Rummy would admit to negotiating.
Maybe it is fodder for home consumption to offset the 60% in America who oppose the war in Iraq now.
In other words, Rove, etc. set up the “reality” that they do not negotiate with terrorists, while Rummy sets up the “reality” that they are negotiating with terrorists…but in fact, hasn’t Rummy spoken out of turn, or off message on other occasions?
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 26 2005 16:47 utc | 30
I don’t understand if the “insurgency” is so fractured, why would the Americans seek dialogue? It’s either an indication of some sunni dominated leadership or pure American desperation?
I agree w/ Alabama’s conjecture such contact can be spun into “political capital” (a phrase cynically acknowledging the sheer instrumental value of human interaction) for bush.
The rightwing blogs I visited this morn have not yet addressed these events.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 26 2005 17:00 utc | 31
It doesn’t quite sound like a dialogue either, does it, Slothrop? At most, an exchange of business cards. And as for the “fracture”: I propose to read this as a encoded term. The real talent in the resistance would surely belong to Saddam’s surviving loyalists, and the US would dearly love to drive a wedge between them and everyone else on the field (don’t ask me who they are–“outside agitators,” I suppose). I also bet that the preponderance of the 14,000 Iraqi prisoners are identifiable loyalist military and police figures. It would be fun to see them stage a massive, perfectly coordinated break-out one of these days, the subject for a movie that even Spielberg would find irresistible.
Posted by: alabama | Jun 26 2005 17:14 utc | 32
Billmon, judging from this Sunday morning’s news coverage, ignoring our secret negotiations with Al Qeida is *exactly* what the lapdog media has done, instead, punting Rove video clippage where he’s calling liberals “massagers and therapists”, and letting arch-reactionary pundit George Will explain away Bush’s premature victory laps and Don Rumsfeld’s grossly low troop strength botch as “everyone makes mistakes”, (mistake after mistake after mistake) with his parting shot “liberal victory in 2008 is a victory for the insurgents”, without anyone calling him on it!
Right back to, “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists,” Bush’s classic framing in noir-contre-blanc, a classic Stalinist tactic, the NeoConian’s separatist We v. You The Enemy.
Then here we have an Army general with so many campaign ribbons and shoulder stars he looks like a bling-bling’d Cadillac Escalade, telling US that, “We are in Iraq to stay the course (sic?) until the Iraqi militia can carry the burden,” predicting “some time next spring … mind you, I’m not saying we’ll come home, but some time next spring”, ala Don Rumsfeld’s “sixty days, I’m not saying war will be over, but sixty days,” or Bush’s more succinct, “**Mission Accomplished**”
If you kid tried to borrow your car with this line of bullshit, you’d ground him for a week.
Nothing about DSM, WMD, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, U2, the incredible number of Iraq bombings last week, the escalating US military deaths, the case for Iraq becoming a terrorist training camp, or the now no-longer-secret negotiations with Al Qeida.
What a crock of spew and hogswallup!
Lapdog media all right. Lapping pre-chewed kibble from the pasty-white hands of Rovian-elitists. Lickspittles, every one of them.
With a great collective sigh, the American people sink back on the divan, TV remote in hand. Clik- clik. Wonder what’s on sale at WalMart today?
God Bless America. Love it, or move back to Iran.
Posted by: tante aime | Jun 26 2005 17:18 utc | 33
Rumster admitted to negotiating because the London Times said he did and he had no plan B or fallback position. Desperation?
As some have pointed out here, we see peeking through a number of indications that Rummer and Cheney each has a unique agenda and they don’t match. I remember years ago a story about the enmity between the two of them, the power plays of one at the expense of the other. One would have expected this to occur when two alfa males are housed in the same room.
So now that the wheels are coming off, and I think most of us can agree that they are, it is every man for himself. If you think about it, partners in crime can never trust one another, not because each is expected to be a liar, which is so, but because the very enterprise holds rules and structure in contempt. The basis for cooperation is bribery, threats to self or family, etc. but never an expectation that the established rule of law can save one in the end.
Dog-eat-dog in other words.
This is why to me the enterprise is so puzzling. There is no future in it, so what could be their objective?
Posted by: rapt | Jun 26 2005 17:24 utc | 34
Another aspect is this talk of ‘staying the course’ against the insurgency for another 5, 8, 10 or 12 years … it’s utter bullshit.
The Army will have imploded within 12-24 months from casualties, failed re-ups, insufficient numbers of new recruits, failing morale, the need for wholesale total replacement of materiel beyond budget because it is being destroyed or ‘worn out’ at an accelerated rate of 10-15:1, let alone an average of another $100+ billion a year …
In the meantime the insurgency will continue to grow in strength, sophistication, competency and consequently, lethality. All whilst the Iraqis face 50-60% unemployement, horrendous living conditions and virtually no re-construction from 12 years of sanctions, invasion and ongoing destruction resulting from the occupation, no doubt further entrenching the already widespread support for the insurgents primary aim of ending the occupation.
The current force levels and nature of Ops cannot be sustained beyond the short term without escalating/widening the war and some form of draft … buck-up or pull out, but ‘staying the course’ is total Fantasy Island bullshit.
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 26 2005 18:09 utc | 35
Fascinating piece here by a Wall Streeter about how we reached a “tipping point” in monetary policy last week because of oil, and the ominous implcations that has for what Bush will do next:
http://cunningrealist.blogspot.com/2005/06/tipping-point.html
Posted by: David | Jun 26 2005 18:20 utc | 36
The US abandoned its ‘surrogate doctrine’ when the Brits pulled out. (Harold Wilson, 1968 or thereabouts, no more forces East of Suez..) It reckoned that to ensure ‘stability’ (e.g. prop up the Saudi regime as per agreement between Roosevelt and Ibn Saud) it would have to maintain a stronger military presence. The downfall of the Shah (Iran) only reinforced that stance.
That presence riled people up, and on the ground the US became hated for supporting corrupt, dictatorial regimes, amongst other things.
Its involvement in the Gulf has grown and grown as it is all going to hell in a handbasket.
The Iraq war is an expected outcome – regime change replaces diplomacy and clientelism (pardon the Frenchism.) The US aim is to control both the reserves and the routes (oil.) Sor far, the Iraq war is not a disaster. The US is building and will maintain huge bases in that country, and will continue to ‘protect’ the routes. They will maintain military dominance, and it is a generational commitment (or more!) All the chat about Iraqi democracy (etc.) is just that – chat.
There is no question of defeat. They may officially ‘leave’ with their tail between their legs, and thus disapoint the US public (too many deaths, no hearts and flowers and McDos in Iraq), but the general geo-political strategy is set in stone and will not change, no matter what Fox reports. Bush may fall but that will change nothing. Or not much.
Of course they must negotiate with the ‘terrorists’ – these are all people who want a piece of the pie -they will all sit down and cut it up. The ‘terrorists’ hold a certain insecure power. Power all the same. It is easier to deal with bandits or terrorists than with an independent, properly elected, Gvmt. Dictators are even better.
The same is going on in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 26 2005 18:25 utc | 37
I agree Otrg, one line on the graph is falling, the other rising, and they have, in my estimation now crossed paths — and no amount of wishin’&hopein’, and blamein’, and prayin’ is gonna turn that around.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 26 2005 18:30 utc | 38
The problem for the administration is that they have played the “new justification card” so many times that it’s abused and dogeared to the point when it’s thrown on the table everybody knows what it is. It’ll be interesting to see what Bush has to say next week in that the facts on the ground now require way more than more willpower. Why am I reminded of Nixons address to the nation outlining the incursion into Cambodia? Otherwise, it’s more fool on the hill time.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 26 2005 18:55 utc | 39
And if the emperor wants to re-assure the nation, he’s got to do something about those head to toe goose-bumps……i’ll stop now
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 26 2005 19:03 utc | 40
Buyer’s remorse?
A total of 60% of registered voters in America say they disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the economy while 63% of all Americans rate the national economy as bad, very bad, or terrible according to the latest survey from the American Research Group. Among all Americans, 37% say they approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 59% disapprove.
Add to that the polls that say 60% disapprove of the Iraq war, and the cunning realist post above about the tipping point for oil being $60/barrel…
After the elections I heard many people around here say that Americans had never voted out a prez in the middle of a war…and that that had much to do with Bush winning.
I suppose it depends upon what your definition of “war” is…war on terror is like the war on drugs…a phrase that means nothing like its reality. (But I’m one of those liberals who thinks that it makes sense to use international police work rather than wholesale slaughter to get the better of non-state terrorism, combined with butter in the form of education and rising standards of living for populations via international programs …so what do I know…
Tuesday is when Bush gives his “Don’t Give up on me Baby” speech, right? At the AF Base…wonder if Bush has to give his speech at an AF Base because he’s scared shitless to appear without an army to protect him from American citizens?
Surely won’t be anyone getting up and doing an impersonation of the famous Abu Ghraib torture pieta with that crowd to cheer him on.
I also read…here? I’m not sure…about a conservative and moderate (would be called liberal by the MSM) groups..Heritage and ? …that said America’s economy was going to be worse than Argentina’s by 2008, with the deficit and the spending that this war has precipitated, etc.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the votes were fixed in 2004, though I’ve never seen proof positive, because I cannot believe that many people fell for the Bush b.s. and suddenly got wise.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 26 2005 19:18 utc | 41
Rummi confirming the negotiations may lift the spirit of the US forces – at least it is a glimps of a way out – but it will be catastrophic for the Iraqi forces and the legitimacy of their government.
This excellent post (and the comments by alabama) illustrates several points and obviates a few others:
Illustrated by the juxtaposition of the excerpts is the abject hypocrisy in which these politicians operate. Of course their propaganda machinery will, as you predict, use circular logic to blame the left for its sophistry in discussing this issue. After all, no one really knows who these “insurgents” are with whom they claim to be negotiating. Moreover, as a now sovereign nation, shouldn’t it be the Iraqis who are “negotiating”. And, when smug, cowardly Rumsfeld says,
They’re not going to try to bring in the people with blood on their hands, for sure, but they’re certainly reaching out continuously, and we help to facilitate those from time to time.
There’s no one negotiating with Zarqawi or the people that are out chopping peoples’ heads off.
How would they know, let alone us, what acts of atrocity the poeple to whom they are speaking have committed?
And finally, any hopes of the media picking this up are delusional. Between Billy Graham’s Farewell Tour and Girls Gone Wild (and Missing) in Aruba, along with the gratuitous loop of the “torture chamber” of the insurgency, all narrated in a holy whisper, on CNN, its all just a propaganda war; whoever coughs up enough bucks or wields the biggest threats gets their views aired.
Keep up the great writing brother.
Posted by: stefan michael | Jun 26 2005 19:40 utc | 43
b
there are no iraqi forces of substance outside of the resistance. the hired guns who act against their own people & nation are meeting the end every day that is merited fro collaboration
i don’t have to agree with elements of the resistance to support their war against occupation by an imperial force. whatever methods they use are for them to decide as it is their sovereignty they are protecting
their methods already have the precision & eye for detail of the vietcong & a morality that is iron hard. in their ‘suicide’ bombings – which is a very effecive & economic use of force – in which they kill ‘iraqi’ forces – they will also kill by necessity, other citizens. citizens who are also their well of support && resources. to do what they are doing today knowingly risks that & they have made that determination. it is a furious one but is also cold, a very cold decision
the ‘suicde’ bombers, the attacks on heavily fortified areas, the i e d, the constant & relentless nature of their ability to pick out & assasinate leading collaborators – speaks of a highly refined form of operational intelligence. clearly, their eyes & ears are always open & they understand this will be a long fight
what they do every day exposes the american lie – there is no democracy – there are not even the most basic services, the americans are completely inapable of protecting themselves let alone the people – as if that intent existed. the resistance has proved that under the most merciless forms of bombardement & battles of anhilation that they come back stronger not weaker
& so i can understand the tactical use of ‘meetings with the enemy’ – something that happened throughout the vietnam war as the continuation of strategy by other means
& it is true that by these meetings the americans have proved to their iraqui collaborators that their fidelity is not something you would want to depend on as was proved with their south vietnamese collaborators who were forgotten as quickly as gelicopters fell into the gulf of tonkin
they can not even offer protection at the most basic level. the fact that last week the head of counter insurgengy was assasinated very publically – clearly displays the resistance’s penetration & the clear lines of support
as in vietnam – these ‘meetings’ will not amount to much because the war will be fought out in te battlefield – it is just that this battlefield will go through many permutations that an armed force like those untied states will prove completely incapable of fighting let alone controlling
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 26 2005 19:46 utc | 44
It’s hard to see the news of negotiations shaking the faith of the Bushites. Remember, in the April, 2003, newsconference Bush made Sadr the badest Iraqi since Saddam. I remember a Victor David Hanson editorial arguing that NOTHING was more important than eliminating Sadr, as he was the worst sort of Islamofascist with whom civilized people could have no dealings. And of course, we cut a deal with Sadr, and Hanson and the rest moved on.
Posted by: Mark Zimmerman | Jun 26 2005 20:12 utc | 45
i really do not believe these clowns writing for clowns & owned by clowns – from that pumped up pomposity – the bbc
“he Bush administration has been keen to impress on the Iraqi leader its belief in the importance of the constitution to the overall establishment of what the president described as a “secure and democratic Iraq”.
In order to emphasise the point, Mr Jaafari was taken to the National Archives on Thursday and shown the original copy of the US Constitution.
His visit is part of what the White House has described as an effort to refocus on Iraq.”
& all that with their stupid faces of dumb insolence
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 26 2005 21:12 utc | 46
Now that we must endure the near psychotic perambulations
of Karl Rove, calling Liberals the “massagers and therapists”
to the Iraqi insurgency, when quite the obverse, it is the Neo’s
themselves who are negotiating in semi-secret with Al Qeida,
exactly what George Bush the Younger warned would happen
to America if John Kerry were elected.
As Ultra-Right-Gangbanger George Will put it, with great pathos
and no subtle irony, “A Liberal vote in 2008 will be a victory for the
Iraqi insurgents”, another red herring, when, it is the Neo’s them-
selves who have taken a motley crew of disgruntled Saudis and
Egyptian 9-11 terrorists, acting under former CIA freedom-fighter
and long-time Bush Family friend Osama bin Laden, and turned
Iraq into the greatest terrorist recruiting film in world history.
Remember, it was George Bush the Elder who first funded the
Afghanistan Taliban and brought them to power, who first gave
weapons, aid and advisors to Osama bin Laden, hand-picked
son of the wealthy Saudi defense contractor bin Laden family.
It is *entirely* the result of Neo’s cushy aiding-and-abetting the
corrupt House of Saud, and Saddam’s Baathist party, that the
Middle East jigsaw puzzle looks the way it does today.
What goes around, comes around, as the saying goes.
But let’s speak truth to power. It wasn’t the Liberals who were
having breakfast with the bin Laden’s in New York City on 9-11.
It was George Bush the Elder, watching the WTC 1&2 go down.
It wasn’t the Liberals who said there were weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, and it wasn’t they who entirely confabulated
the Yellow Cake story out of sackcloth. It was George Bush the
Younger, and CIA George Tenet, and SoS Colin Powell. And it
wasn’t the Liberals who said the Iraqi people would welcome
the Americans with roses and chocolate, or said the war would
be over in sixty days, or promised that Iraqi oil would pay for it.
It was Bush toadie and convicted embezzler Ahmed Chalabi,
it was Donald Rumsfeld, and it was George Bush the Younger.
Who landed on a carrier at sea, at great expense to the Republic,
shouting to the sailors and marines, “Mission Accomplished!”,
that presidential premature ejaculation heard round the world?
It wasn’t the Liberals. It was the Neo-Cons.
Who do they think we are, we Americans, listening to this choss?
Do they take US for sheep? Are we imbecils and cretins to them?
Who brought the images of Abu Ghraib to our home TV screens,
to our shocked and awed children? It was the Neo-Cons. Who
had innocent teenagers dragged from their homes and hung
from the ceiling with bailing wire until they died? The Neo-Cons.
Who murdered and tortured more Iraqi citizens in two years,
than the entire 30-year reign of Saddam Hussein. Neo-Cons!
And yet here is Karl Rove, still in his pajamas, jabbering like a
cretinous tid that we’re losing the war in Iraq because of Liberals!
We all remember Viet Nam, and we all remember it very well.
In fact, there’s a Viet Nam memorial just down the street from
a US Senate that keeps approving continuation to this insanity.
We all remember “we must stay the course”, and “security will
come once we train the ARVN militia”, and “we had to destroy
the village in order to save it.” And we all remember the lives
of our innocent sons slaughtered like lambs for Neo-Insanity.
How much longer? “I can promise you next spring … the war
won’t be over then, but I can promise you next spring.” What?
That next spring the Pentagon will demand another $125B?
That next spring the involuntary draft will be started up again?
That next spring the corruption will become so egregious,
and the war of troops, mercenaries and insurgents so out-
of-control, that the Republicans themselves will pull the plug,
just to save their chances for election in 2006?
Our president lied to US. Not once, but repeatedly and with
malice and aforethought. Our president, his father and the
Bush family are making a great deal of money on this war.
Our vice president and his former company Halliburton are
making a great deal of money on this war. In fact, a whole
lot of NeoCons are making a whole lot of money on this war.
That’s the only reason why we’re at war! Oil and money.
Day is done, gone the sun, From the hills, from the lake,
From the skies. All is well, safely rest … God is nigh.
Go to sleep, peaceful sleep, 1,700 of our innocent kids
and over 600,000 Iraqi fathers, mothers and children.
So that Karl Rove can stand there and blame it all on US,
then hold his hand out and demand yet another $125B.
What kind of a name is “Karl”, anyway? Is that Aryan?
You see, Karl, the knife cuts both ways.
Posted by: tante aime | Jun 26 2005 21:22 utc | 47
& of course the so called people of the press will ignore this as they ignore everything else – this issue of ‘negotiating’ will be dropped into the file that says ‘forgotten’ & like the files marked ‘history’ & ‘precedents’ it will one day be placed in the burner so that it doens’t clutter up their pretty places where the tough guy journalist can masturbate in open space covered as they are by safari jackets & receipts they’ve been given by their owners & the prettygirl poseurs pout pompously pretending our end is near tho it is their end that is nearest
ô yes billmon they will forget this. nothing is remembered. what happened last week is now archeology & what happened last month did not happen at all & as for years – hell that’s for the historian boys whom they pay a pretty penny to say exactly what they want – the indians wanted to be exterminated & everything since then has been ordained in the intelligent design of men. it is only us redraggers who don’t understand that & we are after all soon to dissapear from the face of the earth
it is said that the bulgarian ambassador when faced with stalin’s fear of the germans told him to buck up because it was clear even in the early days that the germans had bitten off more than they could chew & that they were doomed to failure. this little bulgarian ambassador knew what it took the soviet leadership another year to understand
& if that bulgarian ambassador was alive today – he would tell the military leadership of the resistance – to take their time – to act & act & act & that inevitably the americans like the germans before them would self destruct. what the little bulgarian ambassador would not have magined is that american policy would encercle itself
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 26 2005 22:00 utc | 48
I think we should be clear the preference for a catastrophic defeat of US military/economy/will is hardly a good thing–analogously dangerous as the post WWI Weimar. If we think things are bad now…
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 26 2005 22:16 utc | 49
The US military has suffered more than 1,900 killed and nearly 14,000 wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr Rumsfeld said the number of insurgent attacks in Iraq were about the same as a year ago but that the attacks were more lethal.
He told NBC: “The terrorists have no vision. They have no Ho Chi Minh. They have no Mao [Zedong]. They don’t have any cause. Zarqawi [the rebels’ leader] is a Jordanian a foreigner. They’re killing Iraqi people and they’re opposing an elected Iraqi government. That isn’t any long-term formula for success.”
Posted by: DM | Jun 26 2005 22:16 utc | 50
They don’t have any cause.
If Rumsfeld really “believes” this then we have to stop trying to analyze what’s going on inside these guys heads. Obviously not very much.
Posted by: DM | Jun 26 2005 22:23 utc | 51
tante aime
born from the mid 60s on (and living in the U.S.) means not remembering Vietnam. It has been two generations now.
Posted by: citizen | Jun 26 2005 22:35 utc | 52
dm
i’ve been looking for a statistic breakdown of the deaths of americans outside iraq – in the german hospitals or therir retunr to america, a breakdown of the people fighting for the u s but who are doing so to become citizens. i have read – i think from a doctor – an army doctor who claimed that the real death rate was significantly higher – as high as 5,000 but i have been unable to confirm that
ô slothrop
i have a clear preference for a catastrophic defeat of US military/economy/will
i believe in the sharing of the consequences & that the american people must feel like what it is to be an iraqui, an el salvadorean, a nicaraguan, a cuban, a vietnamian
& i imagine in america right now for some people it is already worse than weimar
& there can be no cleaning of the house until the american empire is defeated if not in iraq, elsewhere. i will not live to see it but that day will surely come
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 26 2005 22:47 utc | 53
The story is potentially huge, but as I see it, just like with the Downing Street Memos, the British scooped this one and therefore the US media will ignore it. First of all – our journalists either didn’t have the source leakage to acquire the story first or set on the story fearful of offending the White House. The other problem is that where do reporters go with the story to keep adding fresh chapters to it? Unless we continue to negotiate and those negotiations becaome public or are leaked, then the story likely dies this week.
Posted by: jg | Jun 26 2005 23:56 utc | 54
& frankly i’m sick & tired of the narrative driven dross which is neither news or information
fuck them all
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 26 2005 23:59 utc | 55
He says they have no Ho and no Mao. Really? Quite a lot of these folks regard Saddam Hussein as their Ho and their Mao, and while they may be wrong about this, they wouldn’t be wrong to regard him as a martyr, which becomes a cause in its own way, as any Christian will affirm….I wonder about this Rumsfeld guy: he finds the topic that counts, then refuses to see what he sees. Take those armored vehicles that don’t exist–the ones the NYTimes talked about in today’s paper: what would it cost to outfit everyone with a fully functioning “Rhino Runner”, costing $700,000 a copy, which can hold at least ten men with no trouble? For a mere $7 billion, I would guess, every soldier of the line could be accomodated, and thereby absolutely protected from IED’s, mortars, bazookas, machine guns, and who knows what else besides. But the man won’t go there–the man who spends $100 billion on that magical missile machine that won’t work in a hundred years! Perhaps he takes pleasure in the squandering of American boys and girls–the kind of pleasure, say, that Bush takes from killing folks who end up on Death Row. Which is why he never dreamed of signing letters of condolence to the grieving parents of fallen soldiers….Jeffrey Dahmer is near.
Posted by: alabama | Jun 27 2005 1:31 utc | 56
Billmon’s 8:30 PM post (“Military Secrets”) says it more succinctly than I did @ 9:31 PM, and if I’d seen it, I wouldn’t have bothered. But why not a photoshop an image of Dahmer/Rumsfeld, or Dahmer/Cheney, or Dahmer/Bush, or Dahmer/…? Most of us lack the skill (and the bandwith) to do that sort of thing…
Posted by: alabama | Jun 27 2005 1:40 utc | 57
There is a consistent strain here, esp from r’giap, that views the Iraqi ‘resistance’ as something noble. This is the Mike Moore view of the world. Who are we talking about here? We are talking about jihadis, guys (Sunnis) from Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and elsewhere, who would slit your infidel throat if it wasn’t covered by a beard or burka. Do we really want the clerics and the gangster Taliban-types in charge? I would guess that most Iraqi’s don’t and it is they who need the support. The moderates, democrats, communists, socialists, any grouping who belives in a parliament, a ballot-box and reason and reationality. Iraq is in a state of civil war, indeed, the region is broiling with the contradictions between modernity and an 11th century worldview. There is not going to be any optimal outcome here, as far as I see it. The best we can hope for is that the jihadis are beaten and obliterated, preferabley by Iraqis themeselves, so that they can govern themselves and then feel confident to tell the American and the British, politiely, to fuck off home.
Posted by: Theodor | Jun 27 2005 2:19 utc | 58
Who are we talking about here? We are talking about jihadis, guys (Sunnis) from Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and elsewhere, who would slit your infidel throat if it wasn’t covered by a beard or burka.
I’m sure you can find lots of photos of dead Iraqi “insurgents” who don’t fit this lie.
Posted by: DM | Jun 27 2005 2:31 utc | 59
Sure, Fallujah no doubt had its compliments of non-jihadis; but what do you think they are fighting for? To make sure the Shia don’t get in charge. You no doubt have thse who are secular and fighting ‘anti-imperialism’, but who organises and funds them? I’ve no doubt you’ll find a Baathist hand there. Genuine ‘resistance’ of a classic NLF-type just does not exist. The ‘lie’ of Zarqawi and his followers is actually the motive force behind the bombings which is the main tactic of the ‘insurgency’. What this indicates is that they are low in number and high in relgious motivation.
Posted by: theodor | Jun 27 2005 2:51 utc | 60
Sure, Fallujah no doubt had its compliments of non-jihadis; but what do you think they are fighting for? To make sure the Shia don’t get in charge. You no doubt have thse who are secular and fighting ‘anti-imperialism’, but who organises and funds them? I’ve no doubt you’ll find a Baathist hand there. Genuine ‘resistance’ of a classic NLF-type just does not exist. The ‘lie’ of Zarqawi and his followers is actually the motive force behind the bombings which is the main tactic of the ‘insurgency’. What this indicates is that they are low in number and high in relgious motivation. the majority of Iraqis want no part of it.
Posted by: theodor | Jun 27 2005 2:51 utc | 61
@Theodor
Imagine for just a moment … the US decides that it’s current puppet governement in Australia is not up to scratch and invades and occupies the country for the purpose of siezing the massive natural resources of that nation … the governemnt, police and army are disbanded and US tanks, APCs and Hummvees patrol the streets and indiscriminately kill anyone who dares approach within 50 metres of a vehicles bumper … Unemployement rises from 5% to 50-60% and the only jobs available are life-threating as supporters of the US occupation … a group of demonstrators mass and when they fail to disperse when ordered by US troops, 15 or so are shot dead, untold numbers wounded.
What would the average Australian do in such a circumstance ? Would you support the creation of demonizing labels for them to justify the occupation and murders and ‘disempower’ them ? Decry any acts of resistance as the abhorent acts of rabid terrorists ? Those damned Aussie fanatics who abhor Freedom, Democracy and Liberty ? All them Aussies hate America and americans any way don’t they ? Hell, they need the civilizing guidance of the Amerika as they’re all descended from deported convicts anyway …
Then ask oneself if it would be easier to accept any act in resistance of such an event if the Australian invaders and occupiers were those dreaded Indonesians from the North …
Take away the sustained propaganda stream, the demonization and labels and it’s fairly easy to understand the motivations of the Iraqi’s re resistance to brutal invasion and occupation by a foreign power …
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 27 2005 3:23 utc | 63
Outraged,
The comparison doesn’t stand up. Iraq has been a traumatised and brutalised society for about a quarter of a decade. Australia is run by a complacent governement and a smug elite who imagine they exist in a mid-point between western Europe and the US. I cannot imagine what it is like to be in Iraq, to have been thrown from the clutches of a Caligula-like ruling elite, to a social chaos that is characterised by pervasive death and shortages of everything. Iraqis were alrady at war in 2003–they had been since 1991, the country was falling apart, and Saddam’s boys were being groomed to continue the madness. Who do we want to ‘win’ here? Would it really be better id the Republicans decided that the next election cannot be won with the open wound of Iraq, and cut their losses, and fucked off overnight? The civil war would then step up another gear, with too many naighbours wth too many vested interests to make the outcome good for the majority of Iraqis. The sooner the US gets out the better, but now that they are there they cannot leave a vacuum.
Posted by: theodor | Jun 27 2005 3:44 utc | 64
@Theodor
Did’nt intend a comparison, just attempting to move beyond the entrenched proganda meme’s of ‘terrorists’ and Jihadi’s etc … these same Iraqi’s and others were fine and noble allies full of worthy and romantic virtues when they were our proxies when fighting to defeat the Ottoman’s during WWI … they were lauded and applauded as fellow men of faith when recruited, trained, funded and armed to fight in the most brutal ways (todays terrorist tactics & methods in Iraq ?) to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan from 1979-1989. Yes, our brother ‘Freedom Fighters’, the Mujahedeen.
These same ‘terrorists’ or a particualr bloc of them are ‘our’ terrosist against one of the current geo-political foes, Iran, the MEK, and therefore are deemd to be ‘Freedom Fighters’ or perhaps Good ‘terrorists’ ?
The primary motivation for the insurgency in Iraq is the occupation. The glue that binds over forty Iraqi resistance groups of different political, ethnic and religous beliefs together in common cause is the occupation. The colonial style interference and continual manipulation of the political will of the Iraqi’s fuels the insurgency. The single common objective of all Iraqi resistance groups and the forgotten stated policy of the winning political parties in the recent Iraqi ‘elections’ is the end of the occupation.
The occupation is the fuel on the fire of the insurgency. Remove it and the flames die down, the sooner the better, for the Iraqi’s themselves and the rest of the world. The US is highly unlikely to ‘win’ in Iraq or for that matter Afghanistan, but the longer this folly persists the greater the tragedy and subsequent consequences … post Soviet occupied Afghanistan on ‘crack’ by two (Iraq and Afghanistan), times 10 and counting …
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 27 2005 4:31 utc | 65
Outraged,
I can’t see the flames dampening down too readily after a rapid US pull-out. I agree that they can’t ‘win’, and they went in for the wrong stated reasons. But there they are. Everyone wants an end to the occupation (apart for those around Bush, and they cannot hold out forever). But do you really suggest that the US forces just pack up and leave? Who would the leave it to? The Jafaari government is too weak and any rush to fresh elections would lead only to one group stealing it from the rest. You might as well relase Saddam and ask him to be a ‘unifying’ force for the country.
US has to get real and drop the neocon visions of a domination of the region. best way to get out of it is to use Iraqi oil money (get it running as quickly as possible) to build the basic infrastructures again–really spend the money whilst pounding the jihadis who would bring it all down–surround them with ‘modenity’ and ‘capitalism’ until there are too many people making money to be bothered with their message of fundamentalism–it is working in the Kurdish region, and can work in the rest of the country.
Posted by: theodor | Jun 27 2005 5:02 utc | 66
demise of children, goats, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, donkeys, wildlife, soccer games, symphony orchestras, art, migratory birds, cats, dogs, antiquities, history – have we forgotten how much is lost already with much more destruction to follow as long as there are people actually supporting our staying to further ‘help’? iraq (to me anyway) was always a place suggestive of magic and ancient lore, archtitecture and narrow paths through tunnels of carpets handwoven from the wool of now dead goats, palm trees old and endowed with personal memories of times past, blown up, old friends all, to someone. all this so far beyond our understanding, blasted away indiscriminately by nefarious, shallow fucking old white men with so little humanity and knowledge – to suggest the us stay is a travesty and further crime against what remains of iraqi humanity.
Posted by: old | Jun 27 2005 6:30 utc | 67
Theodor,
Theres a pretty good case to be made that the free market utopian ideals forced on to Iraq by the Bremmer gang, are in fact one of the major reasons for the rapid growth of resistance. By disbanding the army, privitising all Iraqi assets, and including, all the previously state owned industries, the effect of overthrowing the Sadaam regime, came to effect all Iraqis up close and personal in the form of diminished worker representation, government support, resulting in massive unemplotment, not to mention the majority of reconstruction money being sucked up by outside contractors. The Iraqis themselves in their daily lives experience the hard cold reality of the grand freemarket occupation, the loss of a job, the loss of security, the loss of a future, and the loss of life — as they witness their nation sucked dry on every front.
This IS the neo-con version of freedom — they already did it — so here we are.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 27 2005 8:15 utc | 68
well said old
it appears that theodor is either a troll or trying to provoke the rest of us into making foolish comments.
well I will make one, the US should not only leave immediately but should also pay huge reparations that would make those paid by Japan and Germany seem puny by comparison. Furthermore, the entire cheney administration should be arrested and delivered to the Hague.
that koolaid is some powerful stuff, seemingly intelligent people can only see the enemy as crazed religious fanatics, totally ignoring the fact that they have been repeatedly invaded over the years and have fought to regain and/or maintain their own sovereignty.
Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 27 2005 8:21 utc | 69
dan
no, theodor is not a troll but an old friend & very substanial writer but here on this point – he is quite wrong – catastrophically wrong
i cannot reply here as i have a full working day & night before me but i will write later a point by point rebuttal of theodor’s position
suffice to say here for the moemnt – that any reading about the vietcong after 1954 & the resistance in algeria have very clear historical comparisons to the resistance in iraq & i will continue to call them that rather than insurgency or deinitions which demean the deisre of iraqi people to determine their own destiny
i’m still sufficiently marxist theodor to understand it is historical forces which will make the ultimate decision & my or your opinions are just that – in relation to those forces. the people will decide
i will continue this tonight – theodor but i repeat you are worong almost on ever point & in the conception itself
respectfully
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2005 10:55 utc | 70
The key point to me is if the US really were the first to seek negotiations. This would show a big weakness, and at least to the Iraqis would convince them the US know they’re losing – otherwise they wouldn’t negotiate, or at best would wait for some insurgent negotiator to show up. The US people may not care, maybe not even the US military, for if the US were the ones wanting to cut a deal because the Iraq occupation is turning into a debacle, then they’re in for harsh negotiations and complete withdrawal.
Concerning what is to be done in Iraq, I think that a compelte withdrawal must be tied to a massive financial donation from the US treasury to Iraq, something like 300 or 400 billions $, to make up for the looting, murders, and desctrution of the country and the people. Surely NOT take Iraqi oil money to rebuild the country, which is a joke – it’s what they would do whatever happened. The US has to pay, literally, for this crap, otherwise it’s just a massive joke. And I don’t care at all if such a big bill would bankrupt the country instantly.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Jun 27 2005 11:10 utc | 71
fauxreal,
I wouldn’t be surprised if the votes were fixed in 2004, though I’ve never seen proof positive, because I cannot believe that many people fell for the Bush b.s. and suddenly got wise.
On the proof positive matter: You have seen the work of US count votes, right? Me, I am easily impressed with good statistics, and what counts as proof differs.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jun 27 2005 11:45 utc | 72
Many good points on this set of posts. Perhaps the best new one is rememberinggiap’s observation that the news that America is ‘negotiating’ with the insurgents sends a clear message to the government we are supposed to be ‘protecting’. Iraq really is, as has been said many times before, Vietnam on crack.
I agree with outraged that the only conceivable outcome to this tragedy is an utterly humiliating defeat of the United States. It must be so total that there can be no doubt about it, unlike in Vietnam, where we could blame the South Vietnamese (notice how Rumsfeld has already floated this excuse). My reasons for thinking this is a good outcome are different from remebering giap’s, however. As an American I take no joy in the suffering of my compatriots, physical or mental. Pay-back is not a sufficient reason. But I do believe in ‘spare the rod, and spoil the child’. America has been a spoiled child that has gotten away with alot because from time to time she does the right thing and her parents keep hoping for the best. The doctrine of preventive war, and its execution in Iraq, however, crossed the line. It is a doctrine of outright aggression that the American public in their parochial imbecility generally supported. The costs and immorality of that doctrine can only be brought home by total defeat. Never engaging in preventive war again is the only thing that justifies the deaths of so many young Americans. Nothing justifies the Iraqi deaths.
Posted by: Knut Wicksell | Jun 27 2005 12:15 utc | 73
While awaiting r’giap’s point by point rebuttal to theodor’s arguments, I’d like to throw in another view that made an impression on me.
Someone a few days back directed us to Stan Goff’s How do we Respond to the Statement…
“The United States should not have invaded Iraq, but now that we are there, aren’t we responsible to clean it up and ensure that there is no bloodbath when we leave?”
He starts by looking at the premises of the question but especially pertinent here with regard to theodor’s argument is (bold emphasis mine):
Premise 4: “We” are better suited to “clean up” Iraq than the Iraqis by themselves.
If the reasons for being in Iraq are to control the region with a permanent military presence, and this agenda is determined not by a collective “we” but by the corporate-controlled American government, why do we believe that the vandal is the person most suited to get the contract to rebuild the house? And by what magical process of transformation will the leopard, the US government in this case, change its spots?
Governments, especially imperial governments, do not make decisions based on morality. They base their decisions on the question of getting and keeping power. The decision to invade Iraq was made with the goal being conquest. The goals later stated by the occupation, like stability and democracy, are no more honest than the weapons of mass destruction. It is still a deception. The goal is still US power and permanent military bases there.
So “clean-up” is not on the agenda, unless clean-up includes American military and financial power there.
More importantly, perhaps, what is the additional premise hidden in this premise? That the Iraqis are somehow less-than, somehow inferior, to us, and thereby incapable of self-governance. In the period of the British empire, there was a similar argument that was more open with its racism; it called this the “white man’s burden to bear civilization to the darker races.” And it was, of course, civilization that included British political, financial, and military oversight.
The same argument by Americans now, for Iraq, fails to remember that Iraqis were civilized for thousands of years before the British or the Americans.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 27 2005 12:45 utc | 74
Theodor- it seems to me that the Bush crew set the terms for the problems in Iraq and, therefore, are unable to fix them, since their blindness created these problems in the first place.
Bremer illegally privitized Iraq before there was a constitution or govt (illegal in terms of int’l law…so what do they care.)
American firms like KBR and Halliburton, etc. were brought in to do jobs for which there were Iraqis who were more than capable, and who could and should have been sought to begin, from the beginning, to give Iraq to the Iraqis.
Before the invasion, many experts predicted civil war, predicted the Shi’a would be the dominant force, and they would not be democratic, but instead would be theocratic…apparently Saddam was already having to make concessions to them, and he wasn’t exactly a democratic leader.
So I don’t know how you or anyone else can expect to change the ideological orientation of the population of a nation, when the one route to power apart from puppet regimes or hereditary (since they were installed–oh, that still makes them puppet regimes, huh?) rulers was organization via fundamentalist islam.
if Iraq is truly to be democratized, then the representation of the population would indicate that the Shi’a would have a lot to say about Iraq. I know the idea was to install a friendly puppet again, since Saddam turned on the west, but that was (and is) a pipe dream without strongman tactics, yet again… but the war let the genie out of the bottle, didn’t it?
The west, it seems to me, cannot decide the fate of Iraq any longer…though they did decide the fate of much in the ME up to this point. Just look to the elections in Iran for an indication of the negative consequences any attempt at interference has there…and imagine the same person criticizing Iran was the same person who lied and bombed your country and stood by while your national museum was looted, who destroyed your infrastructure, but couldn’t secure it (for lack of troops, for lack of intelligent appraisal about resistance…lots of reasons, I’d imagine.
The Bush approach, to me, is best illustrated by the moment when Iraq “fell,” (actually, it appears the plan was to let it fall and fight a guerilla war). Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, was waiting at the border with Bibles and proselytizers to convert the heathens to Christianity.
Funny how that didn’t happen either, huh? I just do not see how you can justify the idea that those who so screwed up this entire event in the first place can now fix the mess they’ve made. If they could do so, the mess wouldn’t be what it is in the first place. They do not admit mistakes and therefore they do not learn from them.
unfortunately, Americans voted (or not) Bush back into office to continue these same mistakes. The only people who have benefited from this invasion are the corporate buddies of the Bush, er, Cheney administration, and, possibly, Iran.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 27 2005 12:48 utc | 76
I don’t think the French wanted the Germans to help rebuild France after WWII.
Seriously, given the “now”, if I had total power, I would: (a) pull out all US troops at once; (b) surrender all properties seized, confiscated, purchased or operated by Americans; (c) publicly admit defeat and apologize; (d) pay an agreed upon amount in reparations over a period of time; (e) surrender the chief artchitects of the war to international justice for trial; (f) forcve American war profiteers to disgorge their profits.
Won’t happen of course but that would do it. After that I could sing the National Anthem.
PS: Watched CASABLANCA again last night; America, where art thou?
Posted by: Lupin | Jun 27 2005 14:26 utc | 77
I am with Theodor on one thing: it will probably not be pretty when a new power-system is worked out after the americans leave. It will not be pretty because already large militia are formed, and once you have started using military means it is easy to continue. Also the war will probably leave those most competent at military matters in charge of each militia, which is not necessarily the most competent at diplomacy.
However, it will be worse the longer the US stays. As war begets war more people will be used to use military means the longer the US stays. And nothing the US can do will change this as the US has already lost the war and all credibility.
Sure there was a moment when a rather benevolent occupation could have taken place. That moment was in the summer 2003. Quick elections to city councils and then a national congress with representatives from the city councils. At the same time reconstruction money should have been handed over to the city councils. New constitution, new parliament, new government in charge of the never dissolved iraqi military and police. The US leaves in less than a year from the invasion.
But hey, the Cheney administration wanted their rewards. And furthermore nobody invades another country for the sake of the oppressed masses. So this could never ever have happened. Not in this world anyway.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jun 27 2005 14:44 utc | 78
As R’Giap has highlighted and others noted, if the collaborative elements of Iraqs leadership only supected it before, they now certainly know that they’ll be betrayed and abandoned in the blink of an eye just as the South Vietnamese government and the ARVN were when we ‘cut and ran’ in the Iraq prequel of 1972-1973. They should now also be painfully aware there will be no ‘Marshall Plan’ for Iraq, no serious infrastructure reconstruction effort beyond selective bribes in the form of the equivalent of contract crumbs …
The neocons are this administration. Bush is probably little more than a carboard cutout dutifully reading from the prepared script whilst enjoying the trappings, status and liesure of the office …
Again and again the issue is raised of what is thier purpose.
I’ll try to dig up the links and post later, however, Wolfowitz authored thier doctrine at the Pentagon back in 1992 IIRC. That was revised twice more in 1995 and again in 2000.
In a nutshell what these pseudo-fascist ultra statists want is to use the sole remaining card in the American deck, overwhelming military power to sieze the geopolitical strategic high ground. They wish to do this in order to cement the uncontested power of the 21st centuries new Roman Empire, Pax Amerikana. They wish to exploit that last trump card to attempt to cement American dominance now and for the rest of this century and beyond.
By invading Iraq they demonstrated to the world the new Amerikas contempt and disdain for International Law, any Rule of Law in fact, and any form of restraint re treaties or agreements, especially multilateral. The brutality of the Iraq invasion (shock & awe), the occupation and the policy directives at many levels to ‘take the gloves off’, Gitmo, torture, renditions, indefinite and material witness detentions, death in custody and the ‘disappeared’ are to send a message not only to Iraqi’s but primarily to the wider world. Bow before the might of the new empire and accept its dominance or you and your country could be next.
Siezure of Iraq’s resources (oil) is only a secondary objective. The primary is the control of the Middle East via the permanent and aggressively postured presence of military might in Iraq and to a lesser extent Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf. In conjunction with the fourth largest military force in the world, Israel, this allows domination and control of the Middle East. Thereby allowing for the castration of Pan-Arabist/Islamic potential whilst cutting off any future endeavours of the Russia-China-Iran-India blocs on the geopolitical stage re energy resources or thoughts of military adventurism or expansion of thier spheres of influence in the future.
As this lot are Chickenhawks who still have wet dreams about heroic cowboys winning the Wild West thru the power of a .45 Peacemaker, or John Wayne in ‘The Green Berets’, the fact of thier incompetence is niether here nor there. They collectively have unfettered power and they intend to cement it to progressively change American society to accept its new role of Pax Amerikana as well as moving on beyond Iraq militarily to ensure there will only ever be one superpower into the foreseeable future.
They don’t admit mistakes. They don’t try to justfy thier actions or the consequences of them. They don’t see they need to do so as they are the Power and the Future.
Unfortunately for them and thankfully for humanity thier incompetance outwieghs thier ambitions and the supposed military might of the US war machine necessary to achieve thier dreams of dominion is proving ever more brittle and incapable of the task. A special ironic thankyou goes out to the corrupt practices and pork barreling that the Pentagon and its bloated military programs over many decades represent. Multi-million and multi-billion dollar technological war gadgets aren’t much use in wars of conquest re empire.
Hence, they don’t give a shit for the suffering in Iraq. They don’t give a shit for 1,700 dead servicemen and 12,000 maimed for life. They therefore won’t fix Iraq now or after a withdrawal as long as they are in power. They will lie, decieve, manipulate, in fact do anything that is necessary up until the point they are siezed and shackled in irons in a prison cell.
If there was to be reconstruction of the catastrophic destruction of the countrywide infrastructure in Iraq from the events of the last twelve years or for that matter Afghanistan, it would have started ‘for real’ long before now, insurgency or not. They don’t intend to rebuild Iraq. They intend to occupy it in the style of Israels ethnic bantustan prison, i.e. the West Bank.
Personally, I’m beginning to believe they can’t succeed in thier aim of Pax Amerikana simply because thier arrogance, incompetence and belief in thier own infallability at so many levels, including the same virtues in thier sycophantic disciples and fellow-travellers, has been demonstrated beyond doubt in the quagmire that is Iraq.
Because they created seven veils of lies and are progressively destroying any well of credibilty they may have had in the publics eye, beyond the faithful ‘base’, because of Iraq I have trouble seeing how they could now convince the country to make the necessary sacrifice of treasure and lives needed to fight the decade long fight they claim ‘may’ lead to victory in Iraq. They try it and they’ll probably break on the blowback of the betrayed domestic polity, if for no other more noble reason than ” … my son/daughter drafted to die for some Iraqi ‘ragheads’ chance at Freedom and Democracy !. No Way – Fuck off !”.
Iraq could have been thier stepping stone to an ‘Exceptional American Empire’ if they had fulfilled thier fantasy of a quick and easy victory and then a march onto Syria and Iran … but they’ve fucked it up. Is it possible that the worlds 365 wealthiest families holding 40% of the worlds wealth might be starting to get a little nervous about the potential for the collapse of the US economy if this folly is allowed to continue ? Perhaps thats why there are more and more signs of discontent with the future consequences of Dear Leader ‘staying the course’. After all, the empire is hocked to the hilt for generations to come without taking into account this current cabals efforts to dramatically accelerate that process and the inevitable economic collapse.
Perhaps the issue is how big will the butchers bill be before this farcical tragedy of ever-expanding empire is abandoned. What will be the cost to ordinary America and americans and the level of revenge and retribution from the latest generation of Islamic extremists, let alone the International community ? PR firms are’nt going to be much help …
Perhaps the irony is that in trying to cement superpower status into the future they may have in fact undermined its very foundations and unintentionally dramatically accelerated its demise …
my 0.02 cents is up and I’m all outta change 😉
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 27 2005 15:08 utc | 79
@Outraged: Good to see you again, and in formidable shape.
Posted by: teuton | Jun 27 2005 15:31 utc | 81
weird. I swear it: just as I began reading outraged’s heroic entry, my random winamp playlist fired up hendrix “machine gun.” ratatatat…
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 27 2005 15:42 utc | 83
Stupid question, but I’ll ask it any way. Why is the US a negotiation partner. Hasn’t Iraq become independent this week a year ago? :^)
Posted by: Fran | Jun 27 2005 15:52 utc | 84
my 0.02 cents is up and I’m all outta change
You’ll never be out of change Outraged, and your 0.02 cents is worth the reciprocal of the equivalent American currency.
Thanks for saying it like I know it is but I can’t yet express as well as you, & b, r’giap… etc. etc.
I work at translating all this wisdom here into local awareness.
Posted by: Juannie | Jun 27 2005 15:57 utc | 85
Tomorrow evening, at Ft. Bragg, El Jefe will address the nation on the Iraq War. I plan to watch this speech–first one that the little prick has made that I will ever have watched.
I imagine that Rove-Goebbels will be out with a pyrotechnic smoke and mirrors show to rival what we saw at the milennium.
I’m looking for Bush to be shot out of a cannon and land on the stage decked out as Captain America.
And of course our Leader will proclaim that he has seen the Promised Land on the other side of the tunnel. And that we whave to stay a liitle longer so that the mission can be accomplished.
Double-dog Barf!!!
I thought about writing a longer piece on this Iraqi thing, and maybe getting Bernhard to post it, but I gave up.
One could write 100,000 well-chosen words on this horrible farce, and still have 10 more layers of clusterfucks to go through to get to the bottom of it.
It is high time for us to get the hell out of that country. At the rate we’re going, staying another 2 years or more will not make one bit of difference for the Iraqi people or for our geo-strategic interests, one way or the other.
And Outraged, while I commend you efforts at trying to put this failure into words, be careful not to go a clusterfuck too far:
You might fall in.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Jun 27 2005 16:26 utc | 86
Cheers, the post just percolated out as a somewhat frustrated yet passionate indirect response to Theodor.
Here’s a link to a good review of the evolution of what’s become known as the ‘Bush Doctrine’ with relevant extracts from Wolfowitzs seminal February 18, 1992 study entitled Defense Policy Guidance for Fiscal Years 1994-1999
This explains thier doctrine, the policy that guides thier actions, and partially thier motives.
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 27 2005 17:14 utc | 87
“here is a consistent strain here, esp from r’giap, that views the Iraqi ‘resistance’ as something noble.” Posted by: Theodor | June 26, 2005 10:19 PM | #
if you like theodor – yes i take the maximum position which incidentally is not shared by all here to the same degree – i imagine there are as many positions here as posters but knut too is quite wrong to think i get pleasure of any kind by the death of anyone including my enemy but this empire has for so long created suffering, pain, barbarity & death in so many countries – i want to see it defeated & i want to see it defeated, finally. imperialism has only ever learnt its lessons in battle & after all soldiers are not innocent & we have enough ex soldiers amongst our poster who share that belief that no one can claim innocence. & yes there is nobility in the resistances valiant combat against disproportionate military force. history is not a church theodor – i don’t have to share the same pew as the resistance to understand the historical necessity of their action. there is nobility in their courage – but then this ‘nobility’ thing is a victors appelation. even the cadre who attacked the twin towers & pentagon were not without courage – after 100 years of practiced & continued terro & intervention – someone finally brought the war home. clearly i do not support what they did – but the audacity of their military action which is how they saw it cannot be questioned
but i want to remind you al qaeda was a creation of the cia – & its development was known to them – it is as ward churchill & malcolm x cruelly put it – a case of chickens coming home to roost. i want to remind you that for a very long time the american empire prefeered its relation to extremism than to other movements be that panarabist, socialist, social democratic or communist in the middle east. the events themselves have isolated secular element in the arab leadership & the empire was a constructor of this legacy
“This is the Mike Moore view of the world. Who are we talking about here? We are talking about jihadis, guys (Sunnis) from Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and elsewhere, who would slit your infidel throat if it wasn’t covered by a beard or burka. Do we really want the clerics and the gangster Taliban-types in charge?” Posted by: Theodor | June 26, 2005 10:19 PM | #
i think this is reductionism of the worst type & it behoves both of us – you in australia & i in france to do our work, our research with harder tools than sentiment. the above is something rumsfield could have sd without blinking an eye – it is the nonsense that murdoch reproduces day after day. it is clear that at this point the resistance includes a large swathe of differing & conflicting interests. you cannot conduct the actions they have conducted throughout the breadth of iraq without popular support. it just isn’t possible. i would maintain that the jihadist remain a very small section of the movement of resistance & if i was in the military leadership of the resistance i would use them too. it is an economic use of force & terror. i imagine the jihadist are prepared to carry out actions that the majority of the resistance would not be prepared to do for the most obvious reasons – that they are not all islamic fundamentalists. the resistance is nascent – their days are young – & they are obliged to use any means available to them; we can argue about the morality of their actions but we have no right, no right at all to judge them
” I would guess that most Iraqi’s don’t and it is they who need the support. The moderates, democrats, communists, socialists, any grouping who belives in a parliament, a ballot-box and reason and reationality. Iraq is in a state of civil war, indeed, the region is broiling with the contradictions between modernity and an 11th century worldview.” Posted by: Theodor | June 26, 2005 10:19 PM | #
again this is a reductionism that sees a people or even a nation as a given thing not as a result of social political & historical forces. it is simply naive to assume that the thinkers of the arab workd all live in the 11th century. even a cursory reading of their litrature & science would give the lie to that – especially in such places as iraq & syria & precisely on the very question of modernity. modernism came late to arab literature but it possesses a beauty & a truth absent from almost all the modernist project in the west. karl sd people make their own history but not of their own accord & that is self evidently. if i did not know you i would think that you would bring up the al zaqarwi boogey man in the next moment. are you saying that the lessons of histroical materialism are lost on the arab people – that they are not able to determine their proper interests – that seems an arrogance that i know is not part of your character
it seems that the left in australia as elsewhere is as scared of the ‘other’ as said articulated again & again & more firmly & with more anger towards his death
there are two questions here – an implicit racism to the arab people – & an underestimation of the guilt of the populations of the country that have acted in this illegal & criminal war. i feel the way you view that resistance & its context are implicitly racist – you do not want to accede that their might be multiple positions & as far as i know even amongst the communist party of iraq there are positions as vast & opposing as complete collaboration – to absolute resistance. the arab people are multiple – they are just as wise to determine the short term benefits of theocracy
” There is not going to be any optimal outcome here, as far as I see it. The best we can hope for is that the jihadis are beaten and obliterated, preferabley by Iraqis themeselves, so that they can govern themselves and then feel confident to tell the American and the British, politiely, to fuck off home.” Posted by: Theodor | June 26, 2005 10:19 PM | #
you know this is ridiculous. the reality in any case. the iraqi puppet army is completely incapable of defending itself let alone to fight an accelerating resistance. that you can believe that either of the imperial nations will quietly walk away from their proper interests beggars belief
you say elsewhere in your posts that they are not a national liberation front. you buy rumsfields there are no ho’s & no mao’s – & that there are no consolidated positions. i think to underestimate the nature of this resistance & the lack of moderation in dealing with it that will be the beginning of the end of the empire
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2005 19:08 utc | 88
US has to get real and drop the neocon visions of a domination of the region. best way to get out of it is to use Iraqi oil money (get it running as quickly as possible) to build the basic infrastructures again–really spend the money whilst pounding the jihadis who would bring it all down–surround them with ‘modenity’ and ‘capitalism’ until there are too many people making money to be bothered with their message of fundamentalism–it is working in the Kurdish region, and can work in the rest of the country.
Posted by: theodor | June 27, 2005 01:02 AM | #
this in not just a question of good taste by the empire. what the united states is doing in iraq is the logical conclusion of what it has done for a century. what males it so different is the triumphalist manner in which it is done & that it is done by so much in this liberalised world – with such vengeance
for an old trotskyite my friend you have an unbelievable belief in the recuperative capacity of capital to create the new man with modernity & money. even in australia – it is clear that the new attack on industrial relations is a relfection on the decline of capital & not its resurgance. capital even in the first world has in the last five to ten years included the middle class in its list of enemies & refuses to off it the priveleges it expects. to even think they are at all interested in creating an iraqi middle class is a bit like a hallucination
i too have been brought up in a humanist tradition & i too am shocked that people are capable of flying planes into buildings, of killing their own basis of support, or using terror in a way that horrifies anone but it is not new & forces who do not possess the molitary matérial have used terrorism every bit as ugly as that used in iraq. finally to differentiate as you implicitly do what the us forces do daily – a horror on a magnitude posters outraged & old hint at – a horror so total that this veteran anitimperialist is shocked at the depth of its depravity, practically but also phenomenologically
this world of absolutism whether it is islamic or rooted in american culture is a construction of capital – the absolutism we shall injerit is not an accident – it is rooted deep in the desire of capital to control resources & to control markets
this world the world we live in & the world i most certainly will die in will be a world a great deal more impoverished than the one i entered
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2005 20:03 utc | 89
cut & paste – conservative commentator becomes bolshevik – while i am frightened the oppisite is also possible ;
Blood Sacrifices for Empty Slogans
Bush’s Ruinous Empire
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Last Friday the price of light sweet crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange for August delivery closed 16 cents short of $60/barrel–the highest price ever and an ironic outcome for the millions of Americans who believe that cheap oil was the reason for Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
Equally shocking to Americans was the announcement that China has outbid US oil giant Chevron for the American oil company, Unocal.
Polls showing that a majority of Europeans have a higher opinion of China than of the US were another blow to the pumped-up self-esteem of Americans, deluded as they are by Bush administration hubris and claims of American “exceptionalism.”
The decline in economic and diplomatic standing that Americans have suffered under Bush is exceptional. How much longer will Americans support the incompetent Bush administration that is driving them and their country’s reputation into the ground?
The world press sees Bush as an arrogant hypocrite who justifies his invasion of Iraq in the name of democracy, while protecting Uzbek’s murderous dictator Islam Karimov, described by Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan as “very much George Bush’s man in Central Asia.”
On May 13, Karimov had 500 protesters shot down in the streets of Andijan and 200 massacred in Pakhtabad. Still more civilians were massacred by Karimov while attempting to flee into neighboring Kyrgyzstan.
It was the Bush administration that blocked a call by NATO for an international investigation of the Uzbek massacre. According to news reports, Karimov has agreed, for a suitable payment from US taxpayers, for Bush to attack Iran from bases in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan also serves as one of the Bush administration’s offshore torture centers to which suspected terrorists are sent.
Deceived American patriots dismiss such reports as leftwing fabrications. However, human rights groups have documented these abuses. Moreover, on June 24 an Italian judge ordered the arrests of 13 CIA agents, who kidnapped a Muslim in Italy and secreted him to Egypt, another offshore US torture center. The 13 CIA agents managed to stick the US taxpayers with a $144,984 hotel bill in the process.
It would be interesting to have a comparison of the hourly Uzbek and Egyptian torture rates. US taxpayers have a right to know how many of their hard-earned tax dollars, given up on pain of prison sentences, are flowing to offshore torture centers.
During his June 25 Saturday radio message to Americans, Bush gave an upbeat report on victory in Iraq and said: “Americans can be proud of all that we and our coalition partners [he means his poodle, Tony Blair, but likes the plural sound] have accomplished in Iraq.”
Gentle reader, are you proud that American troops are torturing Iraqis?
Are you proud that tens of thousands of Iraqi women and children have been killed and maimed with their deaths and terrible wounds dismissed as “collateral damage”?
Are you proud that you elected and reelected a president who lied you into an illegal war that has killed 1,755 American troops, maimed thousands more, and destroyed your country’s reputation?
If you are proud of this, what kind of person are you?
While Bush schmoozed trusting Americans over the air waves on June 25, Brian Brady of The Scotsman (June 26) reported that Bush warned UK PM Tony Blair earlier this month “that war-torn Iraq remains on the brink of disaster.”
Moreover, the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating. The British, who are even shorter on troops than the US, cannot maintain their troop strength in Iraq and also contribute forces to stem the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The US and Britain, it seems, are trapped in two quagmires.
Vice President Cheney claims, erroneously, that the Iraqi insurgency is in its “last throes.” But it appears that it is the US that is on its last legs. Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly has warned that the Army Reserve is “rapidly degenerating into a broken force.” Everyone except the deceived American people know that the US lacks the combat troops to continue the war it is losing in Iraq.
As Zbigniew Brzezinski, a hawkish US National Security Advisor during the cold war conflict with the Soviet Union, said in response to Bush’s Saturday radio address: “Patriotism and love of country do not demand endless sacrifice on the part of our troops in a war justified by slogans.”
Paul Craig Roberts
counterpunch
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2005 20:29 utc | 90
conservative commentator becomes bolshevik – while i am frightened the oppisite is also possible ;
We’re all worried about slothrop’s latest perceived deviation, RG. Should wear his pith helmet on hot days.
The sun’ll get you every time.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Jun 27 2005 20:56 utc | 91
“The administration should clarify its intent in Vietnam. People lack confidence in the credibility of our government… It’s a difficult thing today to be informed about our government even without all the secrecy. With the secrecy, it’s impossible. The American people will do what’s right when they have the information they need.”
— Rep. Donald Rumsfeld (R-IL), quoted in the Chicago Tribune on April 13, 1966.
Thanks to somegirl, ASZ.
Posted by: Yogi Berra | Jun 27 2005 20:59 utc | 92
sometimes i forget a little of my history but i know the terrible horowitz was once a ‘maoist’ but is it wolfowitz & kristol who were trotskyites somewhere in what they loosely call their pasts ? or have i picked the wrong chaps
i don’t know what politcal formation would have accepted – cheney even in his infancy – perhaps the joseph mengele school of ethical research or the martin bormann bio biography institute
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2005 21:03 utc | 93
flash
i’m sending by express post to slothrop the 44 volumes of the collected works of v i lenine & an essay or two by mao tse tung – if that doesn’t work – send him the catfish
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2005 21:06 utc | 94
& in any case everyone knows absolutist feed off each other like sharks feed off sharks
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2005 21:16 utc | 95
Not sure I agree, Bilmon. I think Americans are looking for solutions to Iraq and negotiating with AMS seems like a good first step. Of course, the AMS want us to leave, immediately, which we can’t do, but there might be room for discussions.
I see negotiating as a good sign that this Admin, despite its Orwellian rhetoric, despite Karl Rove, realizes it has to make some progress in Iraq and a long running insurgency war is not the answer.
Remember as well, that there are a number of insurgent groups in Iraq. (http://www.juancole.com) AMS, Bathists, and Foriegn Fighters. I think the negociations are with the AMS. If we can get them in line, that leaves two groups. Maybe the Bathists can be placated with a role in the government. That leaves the FF and nobody wants them there. They could probably be forced out from lack of support.
I like this approach. Lets set aside past mistakes and lies for later and move forward with solutions to get Iraq on its feet. If that menas talking, I’m all for it.
Posted by: Mike From SD | Jun 27 2005 21:29 utc | 96
do you not realise how far it has already gone already. the united states has ripped the heart of a country apart & has reduced as it is wont to say – to the stone age where the most basic essentials are not available & have not been available for a considerable point in time
negotiation other than for the complete withdrawal of occupation armies would be suicidal for the nascent resistance & negotiations at this point like in the era of south vietnam – would only amount to a sharing of the spoils of occupation
“to get iraq on its feet” – mike who do you think brought civilsation to its feet – with alphabets, mathematics, geometry – these people do not need the charity of the occupier as the russian people didn’t need hand-outs from the occupying german armies. what they want is the complet withdrawal – now
i’m afraid the rule & divide trick will not work anymore & i’m a little suprised already that there is some form of cohesion form what are obvioussly disparate element – & their full consolidation – or a national liberation army is a question of time
sometimes i think the best of america comes to these sites even when i violently disagree with people but sometimes i feel there is an america that doesn’t remember what it did last week let alone in the last 10, 20 oor 50 years
to not understand how america got to this evil place in their history demandsat least that exigence – understand your own history & try try try to understand the history of others
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2005 21:59 utc | 97
Perhaps the irony is that in trying to cement superpower status into the future they may have in fact undermined its very foundations and unintentionally dramatically accelerated its demise …
a trenchant illustration of Unintended Consequences, self-defeating behaviour, and investment trap. (also of Nemesis-provoking galloping stupidity, but that’s another story).
this world the world we live in & the world i most certainly will die in will be a world a great deal more impoverished than the one i entered
o r’giap mon vieux, you sing my elegies better than I do myself. this knowledge is guilty knowledge, it is the guilt and shame of my generation and the one before us — though our parents were less well informed, the writing on the wall was not so clear in their time. we have left the world poorer, smaller, dirtier, more ragged, less inhabitable, more precarious than we found it. instead of building on our ancestors’ wisdom and achievements, we have discarded their wisdom and torn down their achievements to sell the stones and bricks, the fixtures and the books for drinking money, to refill the opium pipe for our cornucopian dream. we — not some imagined sinister enemy, but we ourselves — have poisoned the wells and sown salt in the fields, squandered our children’s and grandchildren’s inheritance. we have torn down our own house about our children’s ears and sold their clothes and bedding for cash to feed into the slot machines.
mene, mene, tekel upharsin: the impoverished survivors of our insane binge will weigh and count, measure and divide our shame and our blame. how they will remember us I do not like to think: as legendary demigods in shining SUV chariots? or as fools and sots, authors of their present hardship and limitation, to be remembered with spitting and cursing?
dea
even in the darkest times – the marxism that came to me as a friend in my enfance has always filtered my melancholy & was often the sole reminder that we are not alone but i cannot remember going through a time where my melancholy has been so insistent & so telling – i have had my fights with nihilism all my days & i have wanted to believe in others but this time, this epoch these last ten years & particularly since the mad mad impeachment of clinton who i felt no special infinity with – these times have become so tragic – so full of unbelievable moments of cruel farce & the dumbest discourses one could have ever imagined in the worst moment of a mistake with magic mushrooms
so much harmm being done & like you i feel it is irreparable. i can really see no way out of the terrible events we are a part of. once i believed in beauty & in the odd moment my work offers that & i have witnessed it in others but it is not enough – if i did not do the work i do with people who need me so much – i would gladly leave this world
i once thought the role of culture was to illuminate the fact that we were living in the last days & that the works duty was to remind people of the wonderful, the special & the extraordinary in their lives
like you i live without television – i could not bear it – even reading journals becomes a burden after awhile & they all fall into one another whether they are written in english french or italian
it might seem very absurd – it might seem to theodor an unimaginable concept – but the hope of the future rests with the realities of the resistance against the us armies. ô he will say these men these men would never allow you to dream – would cut my throat as a pleasurable act but i believe in that world far from it living in the 11th centuries it has often fought out a war between the angels of our nature & they have foght it since mesopotamia – in ancient babylon & i have faith in them, really – i cannot have faith in a culture which vanquished my own & constantly terrorises the world not only with its brutality but with its stupidity, its collosal stupidity
& i am reminded of the work of douglas sirk who in his way tried to escape the melancholia of europe but found the new world the site where his soul was professionally smashed to pieces. he tried ô he tried
in my work i sometimes speak of what i do here & tell my participants that there are americans who also want a better world – who are fighting for that world, who do not believe they are innocent, who do not want to become good germans – i tell them this knowing it is part o the story – i would wish it was the whole story – but i cannot & you deanander know why i cannot
you stay well friend
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 27 2005 23:32 utc | 99
in my misery have been rereading -richard hofstadter/the american political tradition/vintage/new york/1974 – that historian would not be able to make any sense of today – he would be as lost as laertes
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 28 2005 0:03 utc | 100