Remember, that there were no shortage of commitments and guarantees to the SVietnamese, of renewed military support — right up until the final moments — when the U.S. simply stood by in silence and watched the collapse like it was a car accident being passed along the highway.
The resistance forces in Iraq seems to have heard the same tree falling in the forest in advance of the tree falling. Reportedly, they have re-consolidated their many factions — the 6 most important groups having opened the Political Office of the Iraqi Resistance, as their joint negotiating and information platform. This move, was initiated they say, because of the belief the U.S. would soon be rolling up operations in Iraq.
And they see the obvious transparency, and possible SVietnam historical connection of U.S. policy pattern of collapse. Knowing full well the absurdity of all the “redeployment” talk for what it really is — the precursor to all stops out withdrawal.

Posted by: anna missed | Jul 22 2007 20:00 utc | 4

Roosevelt letter to Ibn Saud about Palestine
not fair Noirette, Truman was president in 1947, not FDR. It may have turned out the same way anyway but who knows?

Posted by: dan of steele | Jul 22 2007 20:47 utc | 6

More telling from the article Uncle linked:
We understand that there are factions or splinters or pieces of JAM that are still decent and hardworking and members of society that are not like that.
When they start talking nice about your average freindly neighborhood terrorist then indeed the times are a changing. They are even awarding the evil empire in Iran with Ambassador level talks on Tuesday.
Everbody jumped on the attack Iraq bandwagon because they saw money in it. Unfortunately for them that investment has proven disastorous. It always comes down to money and the writing is on the wall for the grand ME project. Who is going to want to invest in another disastor?
This reminds me of Bilmon’s post about the map of the ME and the German General’s girlfriend commenting on the planned invasion of Russia “but has the Fuhrer seen the map?”

Posted by: Sam | Jul 22 2007 23:58 utc | 8

We had quite a conversation tonight during my weekly Iraq post at Firedoglake with a guest from Iraq who is a pediatric oncologist currently running a refugee camp in Iraq for children who have lost their families. She began her comments with the following response to a commenter who hoped the Iraqi people thought kindly of the American people (as opposed to the American government):

Stop telling lies to yourself American. We know that your racist brutal murdering war criminal troops came from your society and reflect its values. we know that because we see how they behave and have to bury their victims. If you are stupid enough to think we feel anything but hatred and contrempt for your soldiers and the country that sent them to make war on my people then you are a fool.
As to Saddam bad though he was your country is far worse.

It was a very valuable discussion – though a bit painful for some – and even R’giap I think would have appreciated it.
Our guest finished her remarks with the following:

“The problem in Irak is the presence of the invaders. It is not possible to even begin to reconstruct until that problem is solved. The violence is because the American invader is there. Not despite it. If as you claim, you want to help, then you tackle the root problem. Which is that your troops are in our country. Until then the violence will escalate. The attacks are to make the country ungovernable and they are working.”

Posted by: Siun | Jul 23 2007 7:30 utc | 10

In another sign of a crumbling situation:

THE US ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, has asked the Bush Administration to take the unusual step of granting immigrant visas to all Iraqis employed by the US Government in Iraq.
There is growing concern that they will quit and flee the country if they cannot be assured of eventual safe passage to the US.
Mr Crocker’s request comes as the Administration struggles under the flood of Iraqis who have sought refuge in neighbouring countries since sectarian fighting escalated early last year.
[…]
Mr Crocker’s two-page cable dramatises how Iraq’s instability and a rapidly increasing refugee population are stoking new pressures.
Sceptics contend another reason the Administration has been slow to resettle Iraqis in large numbers is that doing so could be seen as admitting its efforts to secure Iraq have failed.
The intense pressure for visas “reflects the fact that the situation is pretty dire,” said Roberta Cohen, principal adviser to the UN Secretary-General’s representative on internally displaced persons.
[…]
In the cable he sent on July 9, Mr Crocker highlighted the plight of Iraqis who have assumed great risk by helping the US. Since June 2004, at least nine US embassy employees have been killed — including a married couple last month.
But Iraqi employees other than interpreters generally cannot obtain US immigrant visas, and until a recent expansion that took the annual quota to 500 from 50, translator applicants faced a nine-year backlog.
Outside analysts and former officials say the number of Iraqi staff at the embassy has fallen by about half from 200 last year.

There is considerable resistance to this, from the hard right in the U.S. congress, notably, from the likes of Virgil Goode, who fear a wave of middle eastern refugees into american cities. Another horrible paradox the administration has put itself into, in that to give the visa’s is an admission in Baghdad things are going south, along with its immediate blowback in the real south of having to face a bitter consequence of racists duplicity. But in doing nothing for those that followed the administration into hell, it’ll be a stab in the back never to be forgotten — even by middle eastern standards.

Posted by: anna missed | Jul 23 2007 8:57 utc | 12

Thanks Siun @10 – more quotes from Maryam:

As I am an Iraki and as my job is to treat children maimed and deformed by the weapons your country uses and then prevented me from getting the medicines used to treat those cancers you will forgive me if I tell you that you too are telling lies to yourself. What we konw is that when it comes murdering Iraki civilians that there is no difference between the cynical and corrupt party called the Democrats and the cynical and corrupt party called the Republicans. Both are infected with the belief that America has the right to behave as it wishes especially when the people being killed are not white.
…
As to the Kurds they are not Arab. Nor are they Turkish. Nor are they Persian. They have not forgotten that they at one time ruled a large part of the Middle East. Salahuddin Al-Ayyubi whom you call Saladin and who defeated the crusaders was a Kurd. Their problem is that that was many centuries ago and that over the intervening centuries they are divided between themselves and between 3 other lands. More importantly they control water resources. If you are speaking of right and wrong they deserve a homeland. Being practical their alliance with the Americans has set that back for a very long time. When you are forced to leave things will go hard for them I fear.
…
Pow wow – nobody cares what your stupid congress thinks or does. Your country is defeated the only question now is the scale of the defeat.
It is not for the loser to dictate terms. Until your troops leave the resistance will keep on killing them because that is the only thing that works with racist empires such as the American empire.
Irak is for the Irakis the murdering pigs who have boiled my people alive in a sea of their own blood are the government and people of the USA. Expecting us to tolerate the presence of your war criminals in uniform on our soil is too fucking stupid to be worth refuting.
…
There has been no electricity none in more than half of Baghdad for 10 days. In the rest of Baghdad 1 to 1½ hours per day.
…
” Maryam, how long do you think it will take to drive out the occupiers”
When the resistance have killed enough of them that your country whipmers in pain. Not long now. They are already being forced to fly water into their outlying bases and can no longer supply from the north.
The person to ask that question of would be either markfromireland the follower of the Prophet Jesus (PBUH) or his son Dubhaltach. I am not a soldier – they are.
…
My short answer to that is that is between us the Kurds and the Turks. The KRG only exists because of America. They will have a choice. Sit down and cut a deal with us, the Turks, and the Iranians, or face savage reprisals. The Iranians allow the Turkish army to cross into Iran in as large numbers as they wish if they are in pursuit of peshmerga that has been the case for more than a year.
…

Posted by: b | Jul 23 2007 9:39 utc | 14

Aw man, your just better of not reading up on this stuff:

BAGHDAD, 19 July 2007 (IRIN) – “My age is the same as the olive tree,” reads the blue tattoo on Qaisar Tariq al-Essawi’s left shoulder.
Al-Eassawi, 36, got the tattoo so his family and close friends could recognise his remains if he ended up in a morgue.
I selected this wording because only my family and close friends know about our olive tree which was planted by my father when I was born,” al-Essawi, a father of two boys, told IRIN in Baghdad.
One response to sudden and violent death which has become commonplace in Iraq’s turmoil, is the emergence of a new subculture – the etching of tattoo identities on people who fear becoming an unclaimed body in a packed morgue.
It is more than just another grim footnote in a nation brimming with sad stories. It points to how deeply war and sectarian bloodshed have transformed the way Iraqis live today and confront the constant possibility of death.[Figures, horrible stories of people claiming to hold those who died in a car bomb attack hostage follow]

Posted by: asdf | Jul 23 2007 11:21 utc | 16

Aw man, your just better of not reading up on this stuff:

Try seeing one of those tattoos on your husband as mine has, he got it done just before we got married, then come back and say that. What’s the matter don’t you like reading about some of the human consequences of empire. Try living with some of them sometime. And I have it easy, I don’t live in Irak and Du only goes there for a few weeks at a time. Every single person who writes on our site who lives in or goes to Irak male and female alike has one of those tattoos.

B – thanks for excerpting Maryam’s comments. And a big thanks to Siun who does her very best to publicise what’s being done to the Iraki people.

Posted by: Erdla | Jul 23 2007 16:12 utc | 18

I had a look at the FDL thread and was frankly appalled. Here was an opportunity for the bleeding heart ‘it’s got nothing to do with me I oppose it’ amerikans to actually hear what someone at the pointy end of the shit that is being inflicted on people courtesy of their taxes (and their refusal to resist effectively), yet despite Siun’s best efforts most behaved as if they were at a goddam cocktail party.
People continued their mindless “see me I’m witty” chatter right over the top of Maryam without any fucking restraint whatsoever.
When Maryam refused to let them off the hook with the cocktail party niceties eg By saying that naturally she wasn’t referring to them when she criticised those nasty amerikans, that she must know that most amerikans were good amerikans the situation degenerated into a farce.
eg Maryam says now famously “top telling lies to yourself American. We know that your racist brutal murdering war criminal troops came from your society and reflect its values. we know that because we see how they behave and have to bury their victims. If you are stupid enough to think we feel anything but hatred and contempt for your soldiers and the country that sent them to make war on my people then you are a fool.”
The first response was like something from Dr Strangelove or some other ancient satire:
“Dang, Ma’am! You paint with mighty broad paint strokes! I fully empathize with you and I know that we here at the lake share the same sentiments! We sincerely regret the war crimes committed in our name, yet, you must realize that many Americans do not condone it! I’m a twenty yr Vet, I would not have committed, in fact I would have reported such atrocities if they occurred within my purview!!!”
The bloke prolly served tucker or polished maps or whatever 7 out of every 8 ‘soldiers’ did in the army 20 years ago. One thing is for sure he probably didn’t see much action where both sides were fighting for survival or he wouldn’t be so sanguine about offering to give up any of his mates who killed those around him. Atrocities are part of war as much as guns or a decent pair of boots are.
Maryam will know that if she is as she claims to be. That is at the pointy end of fixing up the result of war waged in her country. “Dang ma’am” is an insult to such a person and as for the rest of the blather about not condoning it, well I’m afraid “not condoning” is more than sending a letter of protest to be read by the first assistant secretary to the PA of the chief notariser of inwards correspondence at your local congressman’s office. Not condoning means taking action without regard to personal circumstance and I have yet to see much of that by anybody who claims to oppose the Iraq war.
When you think about it, the complaints that people have about their elected representatives not doing their job have more than a little hypocrisy attached. Any career politician who goes too far in taking action to put a stop to this atrocity is risking just about everything they have worked for, yet those who demand that the pol do that seem unprepared to do any such thing themselves.
Alexander Cockburn discussed the troubling issue of the lack of concerted and effective resistance to this horror a couple of weeks ago in an article entitled Support Their Troops? I actually disagree with his conclusions about why there hasn’t been an effective resistance to the Iraqi invasion within amerika, but he is right on the money when he highlights that something is very wrong when “ two-thirds of all Americans oppose the war in Iraq and want the troops to come home, the antiwar movement is pretty much dead.”

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 23 2007 21:50 utc | 20

“When you think about it, the complaints that people have about their elected representatives not doing their job have more than a little hypocrisy attached. Any career politician who goes too far in taking action to put a stop to this atrocity is risking just about everything they have worked for, yet those who demand that the pol do that seem unprepared to do any such thing themselves.”
Debs, you make a good point here. But on the other hand, “not doing their job”, seems like quite an understatement. ‘Politicians not doing their job and acting like politicians’ is a tragedy, but the American people “not doing their job” is even worse.
On a brighter note, Mike Gravel in the Dem debates tonight did not hold back criticism.

Posted by: Rick | Jul 24 2007 2:24 utc | 22

then again, I am one. (evil laugh)

Posted by: boxcar mike | Jul 24 2007 3:00 utc | 24

Hi Allen, I see what you’re talking about, but I think that a decent chunk of the population of any country is just waiting to for the opportunity to feel the way you describe. In the US, right now, it has been activated, but I think the susceptibility is universal, and has been exploited by an endless line of empires. “It works the same in any country” – Goering. I think what you are describing is “the true believer”. How about Russian revivalism and Chechnya? French v. Algeria with its Gaullism? UK v. Kenya/India/etc? Germany v. USSR? Napoleon v. Europe? Japan v. China?
I don’t deny something horrible is afoot, I just don’t think its essence is something uniquely American, since it has happened so many times before.
OK time for anecdotes that prove nothing but show why I think the way I do…
An Englishman overseas, executive at a financial company, solemnly informed me that the middle east is full of barbarians that only understand violence. There was nothing to discuss to him, he had been there and I had not. I had bought into the whole American exceptionalism thing to the point where I stood there agape. My friend was then trying to smooth things over by telling him, oh, Mike’s not really outraged, just surprised, since US media make it sound like no educated person overseas thinks that way. Well, apparently they do. I also met a Turkish doctoral student living in the netherlands who said he could sympathize with the right wingers there. WTF? well it turned out he was basically seeing in them a dual of Turkish national beliefs that he held. Look at right wing nationalism across Western Europe now. It is doing well in the (as far as I can see) absence of a big-business symbiosis… with that extra help, and a big terrorist attack, what then? Something like Russia with Chechnya? We would then go seek out evidence to support the idea that there is something uniquely wrong with {France/UK/Germany (oh boy)}, which is as you say demonizes the other, on the road to exceptionalist self-conceptions.
Countries whose elites are never in a position to pull some crazy imperialist stunt somehow seem to avoid these “cultural” pitfalls.

Posted by: boxcar mike | Jul 24 2007 5:28 utc | 26

Administration stenographer Michael Gordon writes:
U.S. Seen in Iraq Until at Least ’09

The classified plan, which represents the coordinated strategy of the top American commander and the American ambassador, calls for restoring security in local areas, including Baghdad, by the summer of 2008. “Sustainable security” is to be established on a nationwide basis by the summer of 2009, according to American officials familiar with the document.
…
The latest plan, which covers a two-year period, does not explicitly address troop levels or withdrawal schedules. It anticipates a decline in American forces as the “surge” in troops runs its course later this year or in early 2008. But it nonetheless assumes continued American involvement to train soldiers, act as partners with Iraqi forces and fight terrorist groups in Iraq, American officials said.
…

Posted by: b | Jul 24 2007 5:36 utc | 28

@23,
I know I am not answering your question.
But not all empires in the past have sought to impose their culture/language/way-of-life on others.
many empires aggregated smaller kingdoms/nation-states in strategic and mutually beneficial relationships.
and actually, NATO/EU was one such empire though the USA squanders its role as leader,
note that USA would never invade Norway for its oil though others are fair game.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jul 24 2007 8:22 utc | 30

LAT: New U.S. Embassy rises in Iraq

The U.S. Embassy is currently housed in Saddam Hussein’s Republican Palace, also inside the 5-square-mile Green Zone. Employees work inside plywood cubicles in the cavernous marble halls and typically share digs in a vast trailer park that offers little protection against the near-daily assault of rockets and mortar rounds.
The decision to occupy what had been the center of Hussein’s oppressive rule was criticized at the time for the message it might convey about U.S. intentions in Iraq. In October 2004, the U.S.-appointed interim government transferred to the United States 104 acres of riverfront parkland for a new embassy with “hardened” accommodation.
The deal was part of a land swap in which the United States agreed to hand back three properties, including the palace, to the Iraqi government in return for the use of the new site and two properties in other cities, Kennedy said.

A “land swap” where illegaly occupied buildings are given back (not really) for “legally” aquiring a huge patch of primary real estate.

Posted by: b | Jul 24 2007 9:45 utc | 32