I wish I could think of something hopeful to say about the human meatgrinder the Cheney administration has created in Iraq — instead of just dishing out the anger and snark. But I can’t.
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July 17, 2005
WB: There Aren’t Enough Rocks
Comments
In many ways Iraq reminds me of Algeria, but potentially worse. The French left, when? 40 years ago? The bloodshed goes on.
Posted by: Lupin | Jul 17 2005 6:54 utc | 1
Iraq has such a brutal, tragic history. It shouldn’t even exist as it does in the contrived way it was set up.
I had the notion, though, that once the USA leaves, they might be so relieved and exhausted from struggle that they would surprise the world and start on the road to cooperation. And gain from the oil fields. I have always hoped that they would ultimately defend themselves and their riches. Who knows, maybe even in some remote lifetime, share in the profits, as the South Americans seem to be doing more and more.
The one thing for this country that might result is a reluctance to go to war. I know that seems hard to imagine, but I think this string of losing battles will sink in. We have inner weakness to face, as we lose our stranglehold of power in the world.
Posted by: jm | Jul 17 2005 7:20 utc | 2
Well said, jm;
We aren’t there just yet.
At the moment, we are still the biggest, baddest mofo in the valley. Fully half of all military spending in this world goes out from the Pentagon. All them other countries make up the other half between themselves.
So, no one can fight us.
That’s our problem; no one can fight us. So, they just don’t let us win. And when the biggest mofo doesn’t win, he loses.
Fourth-generation warfare is fought from within a populace. No final victory is possible without ethnic cleansing and genocide. We already toy with these solutions currently, in Falluja and along the Jordanian border.
If we stay in the Middle East, every man, woman and child is our sworn enemy. Whoever doesn’t want us there must be eliminated, if we are to have the victory President Cheney describes. Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot are our mentors now.
What shall we try next? Shoot thirty random civilians for every troop we lose?
There is no military solution available or possible in Iraq.
Let’s go.
Posted by: Antifa | Jul 17 2005 7:58 utc | 3
What shall we try next? Shoot thirty random civilians for every troop we lose?
That IS happening today – and it doesn’t help anything.
There is a sort of “grand unifed theory” regarding events leading up to the invasion of Iraq and the aftermath.
To me, the torture at Abu Ghraib and all the other places it has occured in Iraq ties directly into the lies the Bush administration used to go to war. As the old reports from Gen. Taguba and the IIRC noted, 70% of the people there were innocent of any crime; many were in the wrong place at the wrong time and were picked up out of frustration.
The use of torture ramped up after a visit by Gen. Miller and his insistence on “Gitmo” tactics because of a lack of information…and the lack of information just might be related to the fact that the reasons for the war were lies. So how do you get information from people about things that aren’t true?
At the same time, remember that Rummy said he knew where the WMD were…and named Tikrit. Yet Tikrit was NOT one of the places that was protected from looting (as opposed to the oil ministry, etc.) Instead, Tikrit’s waste sites were looted and the barrels holding toxic crap were used to hold water after the waste went who knows where.
There was little opposition to US forces in the initial stages of their invasion…so why weren’t these so-called “known” sites top priority…this lends credibility to the “it was just the oil” issue.
But then, why the torture, unless the lies had to be maintained for the military, in order to justify staying there to build the bases?
btw, I hope people have had a chance to read the Jane Mayer New Yorker article about the torture at Gitmo, seemingly guided by certain psychologists. It’s not online.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jul 17 2005 9:03 utc | 5
No 10 blocks envoy’s book on Iraq
Publication of The Costs of War by Sir Jeremy Greenstock, UK ambassador to the UN during the build-up to the 2003 war and the Prime Minister’s special envoy to Iraq in its aftermath, has been halted. In an extract seen by The Observer, Greenstock describes the American decision to go to war as ‘politically illegitimate’ and says that UN negotiations ‘never rose over the level of awkward diversion for the US administration’. Although he admits that ‘honourable decisions’ were made to remove the threat of Saddam, the opportunities of the post-conflict period were ‘dissipated in poor policy analysis and narrow-minded execution’.
Regarded as a career diplomat of impeccable integrity, during his time in post-invasion Iraq, Greenstock became disillusioned with the Coalition Provisional Authority, led by Paul Bremer. Their relationship had deteriorated by the time Greenstock returned to Britain.
Plan Called for Covert Aid in Iraq Vote
In the months before the Iraqi elections in January, President Bush approved a plan to provide covert support to certain Iraqi candidates and political parties, but rescinded the proposal because of Congressional opposition, current and former government officials said Saturday.
I believe the first part of the sentence. I do not believe the second part – it is spin.
Billmon: I also hope that any old-fashioned ultra-lefties who are inclined to see all Iraqi insurgents as modern-day equivalents of Che Guevara and the Viet Cong — and there are still a few out there — will pay a little attention to the details of today’s tanker bombing.
Billmon, you seem to believe that the tanker explosion was done by the Iraqi insurgents. I think you are wrong on this as does Raed in the Middle
It seems that it’s unclear yet what caused the explosion at the gas station, but in case it was an arranged attack, it’s a big cruel massacre.
Such destructive attacks are only in the interest of Iraq’s enemies who try to start internal ethnic clashes. I can’t imagine any Iraqi, Arab or Muslim who is capable of attacking mosques and killing innocent civilians.
Such an attack against Iraqi civilians is unjustified and should be condemned.
There are many forces at work to break Iraq into three parts. This is NOT in the interest of most Iraqi, but is in the interest of the US, Israel and Al Qeada. Why put this on the insurgency account?
Billmon:
I also hope that any old-fashioned ultra-lefties who are inclined to see all Iraqi insurgents as modern-day equivalents of Che Guevara and the Viet Cong — and there are still a few out there — will pay a little …….
Unfortunatly, what happens in Iraq (now) is what happens in Iraq — and if it should happen to work, and all the king s horses and all the kings men cannot put humpty back together again — then those means will be seen to have worked. And by our actions in Iraq we will have unleashed a level of insanity that has enabled the only practical means of resistance capable of preventing the neo-colonization of that country. This tactic of terrorizing civilian culture to meet a political goal is exactly the lesson the resistance has learned from the US, but is in a much better position, culturally, to know what buttons to push– to ensure no US government sponsered puppet government will succeed. As the basic function of government is to provide security for its citizens, security in civil life will be the first benchmark of legitimate governance. This violence the Iraqi people are suffering, I’m sure, is seen by Iraqis as the consequence of the US occupation, a radicalization of the various and sundry criminal and fanatical elements that normally lie latent, and are now animated as a thousand unpredictable, crazy, and all to real horrorshow examples of how whatever government the US has cobbled together is a now an abject failure.
So this inadvertent cultural collateral damage may turn out to be the resistant strain that kills the host. Or maybe like ol’ Sam Kinnison would say: If you want to get rid of your oppressive wife — indulge yourself to a fault in the vice(s) of your dreams, sex, drugs, stay drunk till the moneys all gone, then go back and say baby, baby I know I’ve been bad, please dont leave me.
Posted by: anna missed | Jul 17 2005 10:40 utc | 9
what constitutes the resistance in iraq is beyond its control & as i gladly accept the appelation of ultra leftist – which incidentally was the worst sin a moist could be convicted of within the party
nor do i see che guevara
nor for that matter did he
he was one of the first exemplars who dissapeared
into his works
perhaps there are ten thousand che guevaras in iraq
i am not culturall arrogant enough to transpose
but what i have understod of the war of the flea is that it is very bloody indeed & because it is confused – there will be the death of many innocents – because out of necessity the resistance must prove its case of uncontrolability of the occupation & they are certainly doing that
& amongst the resistance are mixed many agendas – agendas in conflict – that will also have repercussions on the battlefield – which includeds the cities & which of necessity includes innocents
but let me be clear on this – it would not be happening if the americans has not invaded this sovereign country & because of that – blame, all blame – must be concentrated on the occupation forces
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 17 2005 11:25 utc | 11
Yikes. Here’s one of those linked quotes:
Lt. Col. Steven Russell, a U.S. military official in Tikrit, … said it was unlikely Saddam would be active inside the city, where he could be recognized …. “We continue to drain the swamp,” Russell said. “As the swamp drains, the eyes and the nose and the tail begin to appear, eventually, the whole alligator will be there,” he said.
Prescient.
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Jul 17 2005 12:56 utc | 12
I remember reading a statement to the effect that the model for post-war Iraq might turn out to be Algeria in 1991, where a minority authoritarian government would resist the installation of an Islamicist elected government, resulting in a jihadist-fueled civil war that would wreak havoc on the local population and spill back into the western power that recognized the coup (France in that case).
Wait. I wrote it. Jesus fucking Christ those neocon dreamers are kind to themselves. Right now, the suicide bombers have a tougher time making the trip from Hellhole Former Colony to Metropolitain than the Algerian GIA had getting to Paris (I lived there during the 1995-96 bombings) so there’s not quite as much worry, here. But there should be some, and there should be a keen appreciation of that whatever sick horrors are visited on the West (London, Madrid) they’re just a taste of the murderous villany going on in Iraq.
Posted by: Brian C.B. | Jul 17 2005 13:57 utc | 13
So, who said that Che and the VC were the good guys? The VC sure murdered a lot of people they didn’t like.
What’s with this false dichotomy stuff?
Pick one good guy, George W or Iraqi suicide bomber?
Posted by: ii | Jul 17 2005 15:39 utc | 14
A shia iranian infleunced U.S. puppet government.
Crazy comes in all varieties.
Posted by: razor | Jul 17 2005 16:34 utc | 15
ii
i said it then
& i’ll say it now
victory to the viet cong
or if you would like it more colloquially
see the pig
on the hill
if the cong
don’t get him
the iraqui resistance will
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 17 2005 16:43 utc | 16
In the months before the Iraqi elections in January, President Bush approved a plan to provide covert support to certain Iraqi candidates and political parties, but rescinded the proposal because of Congressional opposition, current and former government officials said Saturday.
I believe the first part of the sentence. I do not believe the second part – it is spin.
The reporting doesn’t even support the spin:
In a statement issued in response to questions about a report in the next issue of The New Yorker, Frederick Jones, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said that “in the final analysis, the president determined and the United States government adopted a policy that we would not try – and did not try – to influence the outcome of the Iraqi election by covertly helping individual candidates for office.”
The statement appeared to leave open the question of whether any covert help was provided to parties favored by Washington, an issue about which the White House declined to elaborate.
Declined to elaborate, of course, means yes. Amazing how precise the White House is being with its denials these days.
Now I have to go read Sy’s story. It will be a nice reminder of what REAL journalists do for a living.
Posted by: billmon | Jul 17 2005 17:27 utc | 17
The Observer (The Guardians Sunday edition) had a piece “No 10 blocks envoy’s book on Iraq” I linked above.
Publication of The Costs of War by Sir Jeremy Greenstock, UK ambassador to the UN during the build-up to the 2003 war and the Prime Minister’s special envoy to Iraq in its aftermath, has been halted. In an extract seen by The Observer, Greenstock describes the American decision to go to war as ‘politically illegitimate’ and says that UN negotiations ‘never rose over the level of awkward diversion for the US administration’. Although he admits that ‘honourable decisions’ were made to remove the threat of Saddam, the opportunities of the post-conflict period were ‘dissipated in poor policy analysis and narrow-minded execution’.
Now the Guardian/Observer site is completely down. British secrecy laws (they are quite wide) at work?
It seems to me that there is an inherent instability in Iraq that constantly resists control for very long. I doubt if Hussein’s iron grip would have lasted much longer, even with his offspring taking over. The whole planet has areas of built up pressure that find explosive escape both in nature and in political systems. So the situation in Iraq probably would have unleashed one way or another Maybe it’s a sort of human fault line there. And many factions are complicit.
Our part in the scenario has revealed the extreme of our depravity, a universal human behavior. Since we have being doing these things in the dark for so long, this revelation might eventually encourage some self analysis…I know! I know! Not our area of expertise… and a sheathing of our sword. The connection to Viet Nam is part of this failure, and the collective subconscious recognizes the need for adjustment. People are are questioning the human sacrifice. If by some stroke of good fortune we come to an understanding in time, our leadership will reflect the change of course. It seems impossible now, but if survival depends on it, change will come. Creatures reroute all throughout life as necessity dictates.
Posted by: jm | Jul 17 2005 19:48 utc | 19
There was–perhaps it was on Chris Bertram’s site–a joshing message from a Fox News in-country propaganda-gatherer that featured a photo of Allawi and his entourage being ferried to campaign stops by American helicopter. This was an advantage that no other party had, of course.
Posted by: Brian C.B. | Jul 17 2005 20:20 utc | 20
George Bush destroyed a nation, to allow American forces to occupy a place of strategic importance. The ‘Beachhead in the Middle East’, is now a bi-partisan foreign policy plank. Our exit from Vietnam was carefully orchestrated by a highly competent State Department. We called off the dogs well ahead of time. So far there is no let up in this war.
Posted by: dab | Jul 18 2005 16:34 utc | 23