Mike Presky's Weblog : Category Iraq

October 23, 2007

American air war in Iraq becoming a reign of terror.

Chris Floyd has an excellent and hard-hitting column on the rapidly increasing air war the US is carrying out in Iraq, which is mostly being directed at civilian populations. The number of air strikes is up 4 times since the beginning of the year. Several cases have been reported in recent weeks about civilian casulties, including many young children, but there have been many, many more that haven't been reported. Check out the complete article over at Glenn Greenwald's Salon blog, or more articles over at Chris' own site, Empire Burlesque.

Monday, the Pentagon acknowledged a long-unspoken truth: that the bombardment of civilian neighborhoods in Iraq is an integral part of the vaunted "counterinsurgency" doctrine of Gen. David Petraeus. The number of airstrikes in the conquered land has risen fivefold since George W. Bush escalated the war in January, as USA Today reports:

"Coalition forces launched 1,140 airstrikes in the first nine months of this year compared with 229 in all of last year, according to military statistics ... In Iraq, the temporary increase of 30,000 U.S. troops ordered by President Bush in January has led to the increase in bombing missions. The U.S. command has moved forces off large bases and into neighborhoods and has launched several large offensives aimed at al-Qaeda ... 'You end up having that many more opportunities for close air support,' said Air Force Brig. Gen. Stephen Mueller, director of the Combined Air Operations Center in Doha, Qatar."

Leaving aside the undigested lump of pure propaganda spewed up by the reporter -- "al-Qaeda" has not been the sole or even the main target of the "offensives" launched into civilian areas -- the military stats reveal the growing centrality of airstrikes in Iraq. What's more, these figures do not include attacks by helicopter gunships, whose fearsome destructive power rivals that of any bomb or missile.

The results of this deliberate strategy have been entirely predictable and deeply horrific: Innocent civilians chewed to pieces by blast force and metal. Innocent civilians dispossessed of homes, cars, goods, all means of survival. Innocent civilians turned into bitter enemies of the United States, as they bury their young, their old, their most beloved ones.

The American air war against the Iraqis has been going on continuously, 24/7 since the war began back in 2003, over 4 years of constant bombardment. It's the most violent and least reported part of this war, and represents the worst of all the many war crimes being perpetuated there.

permalink, posted by mike on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 at 02:51 PM

July 19, 2007

US Marines ordered to beat Iraqis

LA Times article. A US Marine testified that Marines were directly ordered to beat Iraqis, and were criticized by higher-ups for not being violent enough.

A Marine corporal, testifying Saturday at the murder trial of a buddy, said that Marines in his unit began routinely beating Iraqis after being ordered by officers to "crank up the violence level."

Cpl. Saul H. Lopezromo said Marines in his platoon, including the defendant, Cpl. Trent D. Thomas, were angry when officers criticized them as not being as tough as other Marine platoons.

[...] "We were told to crank up the violence level," said Lopezromo, who testified for the defense. He indicated that during daily patrols the Marines became much rougher with Iraqis. Asked by a juror to explain, he said, "We beat people, sir."

I don't think that people really grasp the extent to which American soldiers are deliberately trained and programmed to be especially violent and cruel.

Lopezromo said a procedure called "dead-checking" was routine. If Marines entered a house where a man was wounded, instead of checking to see whether he needed medical aid, they shot him to make sure he was dead, he testified.

"If somebody is worth shooting once, they're worth shooting twice," he said.

Marines are taught "dead-checking" in boot camp, the School of Infantry at Camp Pendleton, and the pre-deployment training at Twentynine Palms called Mojave Viper, he said.

permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 04:23 PM

Itraqi insurgents form coalition, ready to negotiate

The Guardian reports that the major Sunni insurgent groups finding the occupation in Iraq have formed a coalition and are ready to negotiate an American withdrawal. An interesting story that doesn't seem to be being picked up by the American media, or even most of the blogs. I guess they just don't want to think of the Iraqis as people ready to negotiate. It's a very major development though.

Seven of the most important Sunni-led insurgent organisations fighting the US occupation in Iraq have agreed to form a public political alliance with the aim of preparing for negotiations in advance of an American withdrawal, their leaders have told the Guardian.

In their first interview with the western media since the US-British invasion of 2003, leaders of three of the insurgent groups - responsible for thousands of attacks against US and Iraqi armed forces and police - made clear that they would continue their armed resistance until all foreign troops were withdrawn from Iraq, and denounced al-Qaida for sectarian killings and suicide bombings against civilians.

Speaking in Damascus, the spokesmen for the three groups - the 1920 Revolution Brigades, Ansar al-Sunna and Iraqi Hamas - said they planned to hold a congress to launch a united front within the next few weeks and appealed to Arab governments, other governments and the UN to help them establish a permanent political presence outside Iraq.

Abu Ahmad, spokesman for Iraqi Hamas said: "Peaceful resistance will not end the occupation. The US made clear that it intended to stay for many decades. Now it is a common view in the resistance that they will start to withdraw within a year. "

The move represents a dramatic change of strategy for the mainstream Iraqi insurgency, whose leadership has remained shadowy and has largely restricted communication with the outside world to brief statements on the internet and to the Arabic media.

These people are very definitely not fans of Al Qaeda in any way. I don't think it would take very long at all for them to control the violent extremists, once the US is gone.

Abd al-Rahman al-Zubeidy, political spokesman of Ansar al-Sunna, a salafist (purist Islamic) group with a particularly violent reputation in Iraq, said his organisation had split over relations with al-Qaida, whose members were mostly Iraqi, but its leaders largely foreigners.

"Resistance isn't just about killing Americans without any aims or goals. Our people have come to hate al-Qaida, which gives the impression to the outside world that the resistance in Iraq are terrorists. We are against indiscriminate killing, fighting should be concentrated only on the enemy," he said.

He added: "A great gap has opened up between Sunni and Shia under the occupation and al-Qaida has contributed to that."

permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 04:11 PM

July 15, 2007

Reports from Iraq veterans.

Haven't blogged for awhile, but wanted to link to these articles on American abuses in Iraq. One here, one here, and one here. A joint investigation by Nation interviewed 50 Iraq vets at length on their experiences, and report on the horrendous things they saw and did. They report that American violence towards civilians is widespread, and worsening. Lots of examples of specific incidents. A pattern of violence clearly sanctioned and encouraged by the majority of soldiers (openly so), and at the highest levels. The stories are just sickening, like it's Abu Ghraib everywhere, all the time. The US has basically just declared open season on Iraqis.

Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.

[...] With extraordinary honesty, these veterans - medics, MPs, artillerymen, snipers, officers and others - revealed disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops: innocents terrorized during midnight raids, civilian cars fired on when they got too close to supply convoys and troops opening up on vehicles that zip past poorly marked checkpoints, only to discover that they’d shot a 3-year-old or an elderly man. The campaign against a mostly invisible enemy, many veterans said, has given rise to a culture of fear and even hatred among U.S. forces, many of whom, losing ground and beleaguered, have, in effect, declared war on all Iraqis.

The interviewed vets, who served in 2003, 2004 and 2005, emphasized that indiscriminate killing of civilians was carried out by a minority within their ranks. But most also agreed that such killings rarely spark investigations and almost never incur punishment.

[...] Soldiers and Marines who carried out hundreds of such raids said they rarely turned up anything of consequence - a small piece of wire or a detonating cord might be considered a major find. The troops also told me that many members of their units viewed Iraqis as little better than animals. “Hajji,” an Arabic term for those who’ve made the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, has become the slur of choice for U.S. troops. The troops regularly denigrate “hajji food” and “hajji homes” and throw around terms like “camel jockey.” Two veterans reported seeing the corpses of dead Iraqis grotesquely abused by American troops.

The antipathy toward Iraqis was confirmed in a survey released in May by the Pentagon. Just 47% of soldiers and 38% of Marines agreed that civilians should be treated with dignity and respect. Only 55% of soldiers and 40% of Marines said they would report a unit member who had killed or injured “an innocent noncombatant.”

This is just one article on an extensive group of reports, carried out I believe by the Nation. It's all absolutely horrible, but must reading.

permalink, posted by mike on Sunday, July 15, 2007 at 10:43 PM

February 19, 2007

Murder, Inc.

People are finally starting to confront the and discuss the extent of American evil. Justin Raimondo has written an excellent essay, Murder, Inc., expressing the view that America's so-called wars are nothing more than an excuse for psychopaths and sociopaths to run amuck. I'm quoting the whole thing, because it's important and to include the many links to video clips and other evidence he's collected.

He's so right though, especially in stating that American soldiers aren't "heroes" by any stretch of the imagination, but ruthless, cruel, sadistic killers and predators. Americans never accept any responsibility for anything they do. Left, right or middle they always look for someone else to blame, and the so-called soldiers are the worst of the lot.

Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington was recently sentenced to a mere eight years in jail for the wanton, planned murder of an Iraqi man, in return for his testimony against the other monsters who participated in the crime. He told the judge, at his sentencing, that he felt regret "but that he and other Marines were frustrated by their ill-defined mission in Iraq and the inability to tell friend from foe. 'As callous as it sounds,' he said, every Iraqi was considered 'guilty until proven otherwise.'"

How typically American: he isn't to blame for his actions – certainly not! – it's his "ill-defined mission." But what if carnage – for its own sake, as an end in itself – is the mission? Forget the highfalutin' rhetoric about "democracy," the "war on terrorism," the "weapons of mass destruction" that somehow turned into a desert mirage. The ugly reality is that Iraq has become an arena for American sadists to act out their perverted fantasies, a vast Charenton where the de Sades in charge of American foreign policy have unleashed an army of torturers and murderous thugs on the Iraqi people. The American media doesn't want to show the real face of U.S. "liberators," but they are being outflanked by the new technology that makes the self-appointed "gatekeepers" of journalism increasingly irrelevant.

The Americans seem particularly enthralled with shooting the wounded: here is some young savage, living proof that devolution is not just a concept, expounding on how "awesome" wanton murder is. He is the New American Man, invincibly ignorant, raised on rap music and violent video games, grinning boyishly at the prospect of a future of endless slaughter. He rides around the country, randomly firing on civilians, as if he were at one of those shoot-the-duck booths at the county fair.

They murder to a Satanic tune – "Dead bodies everywhere!" – while joyously creating havoc wherever they roam. For allegedly stealing wood, an Iraqi taxi driver finds that his livelihood is crushed by an American tank – and, boy, it sure looks like those Americans are having fun! That is how a sick, decadent people amuse themselves.

These "liberators" are war criminals, and it's only fitting that they have installed a government of death squads as their local satraps. As they and their allies rampage throughout Iraq, like angels of death, committing war crimes in the dark, the U.S. Congress "debates" a non-binding resolution – and the Senate cannot even bring itself to vote on a meaningless motion, never mind one that could actually end the slaughter.

Support our troops? Hell no. Anyone who "supports the troops" is an accomplice to their deeds. The evidence shows clearly that these are not innocent babes in the woods: they are wolves, predators, killers, deeply, profoundly implicated in what will go down in history as a horrific war of aggression.

The clear fact of the matter is that America's conquest of Iraq is the policy of criminals – except that even most criminals act rationally, in the sense that there's some profit in their activities, some benefit, real or imagined, to be gained. But this war is not an ordinary crime: it is a wanton orgy of murder that is all the more horrendous due to its utter senselessness. This is nihilism in action.

I doubt that a congressional resolution is going to address the main cause of this war and its continuation: the psychological sickness that is eating away at the American character. It is a mix of hubris, bloodlust, and sheer depravity, and it is being acted out against the backdrop of international politics. The post-9/11 world we are living in has become a projection of our own demons, which have now been unleashed on a horrified world.

Who will stop the madness? Not the politicians. Not Congress, or the media, nor even the men of God – all of whom are complicit, to one degree or another, with the crimes of the American government. Our intellectual, moral, and political leaders have abandoned all standards, all sense of decency, and therefore have no problem rationalizing the monstrous.

There will be no easy end to this war because it is merely a symptom of our own inner rot. We've come a long way from the American of Jefferson's time to the neo-barbarians of the Late Imperial era – and it's been downhill all the way.

This isn't a political problem – it's a cultural affliction. The world's most powerful nation is infected with the psychopathology of a serial murderer – one who kills not out of grim necessity, but for the sheer joy of it.

We live in a society sickened by its own poisons. Conservatives have known this for some time. Liberals are learning it. The culture of permissiveness, of moral relativism and heedless hedonism, is yielding some decidedly unexpected consequences in the foreign policy realm. After all, we're the most powerful nation on earth – why shouldn't we push others around? Even as we play the role of international do-gooders, the obvious enjoyment our centurions take in humiliating "Ali Baba" – their name for any Iraqi – illustrates what is really driving this war, and all the wars to come: what the conservative philosopher Claes Ryn calls "the will to dominate."

America is, today, the fountainhead of evil in the world. No one is killing people faster, and with more cruelty and indifference, than the warlords of Washington. The temptation is to turn away in disgust and resign oneself to the degeneration of Jefferson's benevolent legacy into a maelstrom of malevolence worthy of Caligula.

Yet the triumph of domination as the guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy is not inevitable, or irreversible. Its overthrow, however, requires a moral reawakening. By this, I don't mean a return to religion, although – unlike all too many libertarians – I wouldn't rule it out entirely. This moral revolution, in any case, will be born in an instinctive revulsion against what is depicted in the video links above, married to an unwillingness to let such evil continue for a moment longer.

Sooner or later, the American people must be made to understand that the choice is between noninterventionism and barbarism. Americans are naïve: they believe in the myth of automatic progress, the illusion of history as an ever ascending stairway to higher levels of civilization, but the truth is far grimmer. Empires rise – and fall. Dark ages follow. The kind of degeneracy we are now seeing acted out in Iraq promises a fall that will plumb new depths of darkness.

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." Ameicans need to wake up to the monster they've created and destroy it, or the world will do it for them. What goes around comes around, and what's coming to the US in the next few years will not be pretty.

To put it in blunter terms: American soldiers aren't "defending" you; they're "endangering" you.

permalink, posted by mike on Monday, February 19, 2007 at 12:30 PM

February 10, 2007

US veteran points out the idiocies of the surge.

Although I don't usually like linking to Counterpunch because of their blatant anti-semitism, they occasionally publish some useful articles, as this one by an American Vietnam vet, "An Open Letter to America's Soldiers from the Ranks: The Looming Shadow of Nuremberg". He makes a number of good points, about the idiocies of trying to win a counter-insurgency in a country where you don't speak the language and everyone hates you, and others, which are excellent but which have been made before. But I was particularly intrigued by his point that the so-called "surge" is in actuality a plan to reinforce the protection around the Green Zone before an attack on Iran. Interesting idea.

Let me tell you a little secret about the plan to parcel you out in small groups and isolate you in Iraqi units. This was tried in Vietnam with disastrous results, with adjectives like suicidal. And that was before we had really gotten serious about killing people over there. How can you tell who the enemy is? Do you speak the Iraqi language and understand the culture? That friendly Iraqi kid or little girl in a burka may be taking reams of mental notes about your unit strength, equipment, and movement patterns to relay to their big brothers with the IEDs, RPGs and AKs. They may even be humping bags of ammo or ordnance and running commo for insurgents.

Count your fingers for the number of new insurgents every dead civilian creates. Rape a girl and murder her family to cover it up, and you'll need a computer. Don't forget to factor in the damage from 50,000 armed-to-the-teeth mercenaries, many of whom not only don't speak Iraqi, they don't even speak English. Always remember that none of these people invited you there to blow their country apart. Imagine how you'd feel if some friendly invaders and a bunch of their salaried thugs had wasted New York City and killed the entire population.

I can tell you from experience that it's impossible to win any kind of guerilla war without the support of the population and while soldiering from a defensive position. Have your missions turned from search and clear to search and avoid like ours did? Do you have a mentality of "the day is yours, the night is theirs"? If that's true, the situation has disintegrated into a war of attrition and you've lost.

Put aside from the moral conundrum of nuking a non-nuke country that has signed the non-proliferation treaty to keep that country from maybe getting nukes of its own, and all on behalf of another country that already has hundreds of nukes and refuses to sign any such treaties. An attack on Iran means you will be trapped between a rock and a hard place. Make no mistake: the real reason for the "surge" into Bagdad is to reinforce security around the laptop warriors and bureaucrats in the Green Zone. You'll find yourselves in the curious position of playing bodyguard for the hired guns. How ironic will that be?

Think about your families and loved ones. A large number of you are serving multiple tours, with many involuntarily extended. For the latter, your country has violated the contract it signed with you, but just try breaking your end of it. Meanwhile, military families suffer at home, a significant number of you will not have jobs to return to, and unbelievably, your government is doing its best to slash or delay veteran's benefits. For those of you who come home wounded, it will take years to get a VA disability claim processed if you succeed at all.

It's a powerful, emotional article, well worth reading. But note the little bit in the second paragraph of the quote he gives at the beginning, about "Abu Ghraib, Haditha, Fallujah, the rape of Lebanon, the concentration camps in the West Bank and Gaza." Even though Israel and the US are separate countries, involved in separate actions (no Israelis are serving in Iraq, no Americans are in the West Bank and Gaza), the anti-Semites try to distort the facts to tie them together. Observe the way the propaganda works. And note the use of the term "concentration camps" to refer to prisons in Israel, but not to Abu Ghraib and others run by the Americans, although its known throughout the world how much worse conditions are in Iraqi prisons these days.

It's part of the ongoing attempt by some Aemricans to blame Israel and the Jews for the major war crimes Americans are committing. You'll nearly always find nasty little bits of anti-Semitism in Counterppunch articles about the mideast, always, always, always. They're simply incapable of objectivity about the Jews. Part of it of course is just that the folks at Counterpunch are Americans, and like virtually all Americans these days, left and right it makes no difference, they are desperately trying to cover up the extent of the war crimes that all Americans are responsible for. But they're liberals, and liberals never accept responsibility for anything since it's always somebody else's fault, and so they need to find someone such as the Jews to blame.

permalink, posted by mike on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 12:52 PM

February 07, 2007

Bombs over Baghdad, the US air war.

The Asia Times also has a nice overview of the American air war in Iraq by the experienced Nick Turse. He talks about the fact that the Pentagon is extremely secretive about the amount of bombs, ammunition and other munitions that are being used in the air war, and about the air war and its casualities itself. But bombing is nearly constant, with over 10,000 air "missions" in 2006 alone. But they're not releasing the real figures, especially on things like the amount of cannon fire, the amounts of ammunition and other such information. There are lots of details in this lengthy report, as there often are in Asia Times articles.

A secret air war is being waged in Iraq - often in and around that country's population centers - about which we can find out little. The US military keeps information on the munitions expended in its air efforts under tight wraps, refusing to offer details on the scale of use and so minimizing the importance of air power in Iraq. But expert opinion holds that the forms of aerial assault being employed in that country, though hardly covered in the US media, may account for most of the Iraqi civilian deaths attributed to the US-led coalition since the 2003 invasion.

While some aspects of the air war remain a total mystery, US Air Force (USAF) officials do acknowledge that US military and coalition aircraft dropped at least 50,000 kilograms of bombs on targets in Iraq in 2006. This figure, 177 bombs in all, does not include guided missiles and unguided rockets fired, or cannon rounds expended; nor, according to a US Central Command Air Forces (CENTAF) spokesman, does it take into account the munitions used by some Marine Corps and other coalition aircraft or any of the US Army's helicopter gunships. Moreover, it does not include munitions used by the armed helicopters of the many private security contractors flying their own missions in Iraq.

In statistics provided to Tomdispatch, CENTAF reported a total of 10,519 "close-air-support missions" in Iraq in 2006, during which its aircraft dropped 177 bombs and fired 52 "Hellfire/Maverick missiles". These air strikes presumably included numerous highly publicized missions ranging from the January 2006 air strike outside the town of Baiji that reportedly "killed a family of 12", including at least three women and three young children, to the December attack on an insurgent safe house in the Garma area, near Fallujah, that reportedly killed "two women and a child" in addition to five guerrillas.

Some of these figures don't make sense. 10,519 air missions and only 177 bombs dropped and only 52 missiles fired? That has to be a lie. That would account for less than 500 missions. Then what were the other 10,000 flights for? Just strafing and providing air support? That's hard to believe, especially in the light of many reports from the Iraqis and the rest of the international community that the bombing is constant.

The vicious American air wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has received virtually no new coverage within the US, yet it is quite major and has killed many, many thousands of civilians. And they have increased bombing of Baghdad recently as part of the so-called "surge" which is really just an excuse for Americans to kill more people.

10,000 missions, by the way, works out to about 27 a day, just over one an hour, 24 hours a day. And that's been abuot the rate since the war started, 4 years now. And that's on top of the extensive and illegal bombing during the Clinton-Gore administration as they laid the groundwork for the invasion, which the Democrats and Republicans were planning even then.

This is a major part of the war that the American media aren't reporting at all, and something every American needs to know about. These years of heartless and illegal bombing will come back to haunt America, big-big-time.

permalink, posted by mike on Wednesday, February 7, 2007 at 10:09 AM

February 02, 2007

The devastating effect of the war on Iraqi children.

This account by an 11 year old Iraqi student really catches the impact that this war is having on the children there, and by extension the entire society.

BAGHDAD, 29 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - "I’m 11 years old and an only son. I’m a pupil at Mansour Primary School in Baghdad. Lately, I have been feeling very lonely in my class. This week, I was the only student in class because all my classmates didn’t come to school for various reasons.

“Since last September, three of my classmates have been kidnapped and two have been killed. One was murdered with his family at home and the other was a victim of a bomb explosion a month ago.

“The others have either fled to Jordan and Syria with their families or their relatives have prohibited them from coming to school for fear that something might happen to them.

“I live very close to my school. I can walk there in two minutes. My mother takes me there and picks me up every day. She prays all the way to school and all the way back and tells me not to be scared. She says that at least I’m studying and one day I can be an important man and leave Iraq forever.

''Since last September, three of my classmates have been kidnapped and two have been killed.'' “Every time something happens to a child from my school, the next day all classes are empty and they stay empty for at least a week. Families and teachers get scared and desperate.

“I remember one day when I was leaving school, four men pulled up in a car and kidnapped Khadija, one of my friends. She was only 10. I cried for days on end fearing she was going to be killed. Her parents sold their house and car to pay the ransom money and then she was released. But she was so weak that she had to be hospitalised for two weeks.

“Now she and her family are in Jordan. I miss her, but I know it is better for all of them.

“The only thing that makes me afraid is that if they kidnap me, I know I’ll be killed. My family has no money to pay a ransom. We don’t have a house, a car or any other goods to sell. So for sure I could be another victim of the terror that we live with but I have faith that God will protect me.

“Most of our teachers have left the school. I heard that some of them have travelled abroad and others stopped working for security reasons on the insistence of their families. I miss them all. I miss the days when we used to run in our school and go home on our own, not worried by the violence.

“This week, I asked my mum to keep me at home too because I was the only child in class but she insisted that I go to school. I’m scared but I have to obey my mother.

“We were 21 students and today I’m the only one in class.

“When people ask me if I have hopes that everything will be fixed and we will have security again, I answer that I don’t because the violence is increasing every day and I continue to lose friends.

“I cannot study any more. I don’t have the concentration and the teachers don’t give us lessons as before. What I study these days is material that I learnt two years ago. I’m not sure that if I study like that I’ll turn out to be that important man who my mother believes I’m going to be.”

permalink, posted by mike on Friday, February 2, 2007 at 12:55 PM

Check out "Today in Iraq" to find out what's really happening there.

For those interested in getting daily reports on what is really happening in Iraq, the site Today in Iraq is an indispensable resource. At this point the Euro-American media aren't even going through the motions of trying to report the dozens, if not hundreds, of violent incidents that are happening DAILY. If you're only getting your news from CNN and the like, you're missing virtually everything. Check it out, you won't believe what's going on there. Iraqslogger is another useful source, but not anywhere near as comprehensive.

On the other hand, I would avoid taking Juan Cole's Informed Comment without a few grains of salt. He reports daily and at length, and I greatly appreciate the amount of work he puts in. And I admire him just because, unlike so many of the academics out there, especially the so-called liberal ones, he's not hiding behind the ivory walls but has entered the fray,and is taking risks with his professional life (I'm not sure he realizes the extent of the risks he's taking). But having said all that, it has to be pointed out that he's a full-on American apologist, a genuine anti-Semite (he repeatedly out and out lies about Israel), hates Kurds for reasons that mystify me, and simply doesn't have the objectivity that is the essence of the professional academic's work. He spins many things to match his own biased opinions. And for a professional historian he sure does an abominable job of putting things into their historical context, most especially as regards Israel and Kurdistan. There's much useful information there, a very great deal in fact, but you have to be quite sceptical sometimes and able to read between the lines. I don't like to be critical of someone who I feel is genuinely concerned about what's going on, but the quality of his work simply doesn't match the popularity he's gained on the web. Not even close. Just my opinion of course. I do read him every day.

In my opinion, there's an awful lot of bias in virtually all of the reporting on Iraq and Afghanistan, in fact almost all of what Americans are doing in other countries. And from all political viewpoints. Even Today in Iraq seems trapped by the American liberal viewpoint, which I find pretty much useless at this point. For instance, look at their blogroll. You'd think that bloggers covering Iraq would be linking to Iraqi bloggers, but they don't. There's only one link to an Iraqi blogger there, Faiza Al-Arji's superb, A Family in Baghdad, which is essential reading. The rest are all Euro-American. I don't understand this since there are so many excellent Iraqi bloggers out there trying to inform the world of the truth. Juan Cole doesn't even have a single link to any Iraqi bloggers on his blogroll, I'm not sure he even realizes they exist. I can't recall him ever linking to one, which I find more than passing strange.

I'm also bothered by the ever-increasing amount of anti-Semitism I find in the so-called liberal and leftist blogospheres, including the sites I've mentionoed. There's much to criticize about the Israeli government, as there is about every other government in the world. But an awful lot of the criticism isn't anti-Israeli as they claim, it's clearly anti-Jew. It's very frightening and has gotten much, much worse in the past year. People have screwed up big-time and they're looking for a scapegoat. It's even worse in Britain, they're positively nasty.

permalink, posted by mike on Friday, February 2, 2007 at 11:49 AM

Bush plans on requesting hundreds of billions more for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Reuters reports that Bush is planning to ask for $100 billion more to fund the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan for this year (on top of $70 billion already recently requested), and hundreds of billions more to take it through 2008.

President George W. Bush will request slightly more than $100 billion to cover war operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of this year and an even larger amount for fiscal 2008 that begins on October 1, congressional sources said on Thursday.

The administration, which will submit the war cost proposals along with its annual budget on Monday, will provide details of its war spending plans to try to placate critics who have accused it of using a shadow budget to fund the war.

For the current fiscal year, the White House will ask Congress to approve an additional $93 billion for the Defense Department to conduct the two wars and about $7 billion for State Department activities, a Senate aide said.

Including other items, the request will total "a little over $100 billion," according to the Senate aide. That would come on top of $70 billion Congress already approved for the wars this year.

For 2008, the administration will ask for an amount "larger than the $100 billion in the fiscal 2007 request," the Senate aide said.

House and Senate aides said the administration was trying to detail the 2008 costs in advance, responding to complaints from Congress about the long line of "emergency" spending bills that have mostly funded the Iraq war since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

These are just "emergency" additions, not included in the regular budget. They are not included in the "regular" military budget of $500 billion or so, plus lots of "special ops", "intelligence", and other "classified" operations they're not telling us about. While the focus is on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is also involved in wars in Columbia, Somalia and god knows where else. Endless war, endless war, endless money, endless money ...

Naturally the Democrats will go along with it all. They're owned lock, stock and barrel by the military-industrial-financial-legal-corporate complex, and in their 200 year history have never met a war they didn't like. See these articles "Democrats Sidestep Defunding Demands" and Hillary Clinton calls Iran a threat to U.S., Israel" if you still have any doubts on that. All in all my estimate of America's total war budget is approaching a trillion dollars a year. And for wars that they are losing.

Remember Newton's laws of energy? "An object in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by an OUTSIDE FORCE. An object at rest remains at rest unless acted upon by an OUTSIDE FORCE."

And this doesn't include the costs of caring for the vets injured in these wars, of which there are at least 150,000 so far. At least 100,000 so far have been approved for disability claims. Those costs will continue for the life of the vets, decades at least. And it does not include the reparations that the US will be forced to pay sooner or later, since the entire thing is blatantly illegal. And if that isn't enough, it doesn't include the interest payments required to finance all of it, since all of this money is being borrowed, not paid through taxes. The total of these extra costs alone will be trillions over coming decades.

permalink, posted by mike on Friday, February 2, 2007 at 10:55 AM

February 01, 2007

Questions about the "battle" at Najf.

Two good articles via Common Dreams regarding the recent so-called battle at Najaf, which may in fact have been just a massacre. This article, Official Lies Over Najaf Battle Exposed, by Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily, who have extensive experience in Iraq, and this one by Patrick Cockburn, US 'Victory' against Cult Leader Was 'Massacre', originally published in the Independent. Both well worth reading.

The upshot is that this was more of a massacre of civilians than any real "battle" against "terrorists," like most of this so-called war has been. The Iraqi government is basically just parroting the ridiculous American claim that any and all people it kills are so-called "terrorists," regardless of whether there are any facts to support the claim. No competent reporter (or blogger) would be using the term "terrorist" at this point. It is utterly meaningless and is nothing more than a propaganda term.

And yet another one. This one by Mike Whitney entitled the Media Cover-Up of the Najaf Massacre, focusing on the way the media is simply parroting whatever the government tells them, and no longer even bothering to go through the motions of any serious journalism or fact-checking. The propaganda about this story simply doesn't make any sense at all. Even a first year journalism student could easily spot all of the holes in it. I'll quote some of this one, since it makes some good points about the uselessness and blatant dishonesty of the corporate media.

So far, there are 2 things that we can say with certainty about the massacre of the 250 Iraqis outside Najaf on Monday. First, we know that there is no substantiating evidence to support the official version of events. And, second, we know that every media outlet in the United States slavishly provided the government’s version to their readers without fact-checking or providing eyewitness testimony.

This proves that those who argue that mainstream news is “filtered” are sadly mistaken. There is no filter between the military and media; it’s a direct channel. In fact, all of the traditional obstacles have been meticulously swept away so the fairy tales which originate in the Pentagon end up on America’s front pages with as little interference as possible.

In the present case, we were told that “hundreds of gunmen from a ‘messianic cult’ (Soldiers of Heaven) planned to disguise themselves as pilgrims and kill clerics on the holiest day of the Shiite calendar”. We are expected to believe that they put their wives and children in the line of fire so they could conceal their real intention to lay siege to the city.

How many men would willingly drag their families into battle?

Many interesting details in these articles, but the upshot is that they basically massacred civilians, including dozens if not hundreds of women and children. Cold-blooded murderof religious pilgrims is all it was. (Or maybe not. See the next article.)

Another take on the Najaf massacre is in an article by Pepe Escobar in Asia Times entitled A massacre and a new civil war. He raises many questions and offers some new theories, which frankly I'm not sure I understand. The only thing that's really clear here is that no one knows what the hell is going on over there. There are all sorts of groups, each with their own agenda, and everyone taking advantage caused by the American failure to establish any sort of government. A huge mess, and getting messier.

permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, February 1, 2007 at 12:20 PM

January 29, 2007

Endless American harassment of Iraqi civilians.

This account by a woman in Baghdad illustrates what living hell life is becoming over there for the Iraqi people. And not because of what the mythical "terrorists" are doing either, but mostly because of the damage the American so-called soldiers are doing. It seems pretty clear that the Americans are not really fighting a war, just harassing civilians because they are losers with nothing better to do. (Exactly what is the point of smashing her dishes?) They killed her husband because he happened to be driving in the wrong spot, and tortured her son for no real reason at all. They certainly are doing a great job in alienating the Iraqis and making more enemies for real Americans. From the Irin News organization.

BAGHDAD, 22 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - “My name is Lina Massufi. I’m a 32-year-old laboratory assistant who works 10 hours a day just to make enough money to raise my children.

“My life has been like hell over the past three months. US and Iraqi soldiers have raided my house more than 12 times.

“My husband, Khalil, was killed during the US invasion in 2003 when he drove through a closed road and soldiers shot him dead.

“I live in Haifa Street, one of the most dangerous places to live in Baghdad today. The area is infamous for its huge number of insurgents. This is why Iraqi and US soldiers have increased their activity in the area, constantly raiding homes and arresting men for interrogation.

“Last month, they arrested my 23-year-old brother Fae’ek, who lives with me. He is a pharmacy student but nonetheless they took him and kept him in prison for more than a week - even after knowing he was innocent. He returned with signs of torture on his body and was crying like a baby because of the pain.

''It is common to see at least three corpses on Haifa Street each day and sometimes up to eight, as happened last week.''

“I cannot stand the constant military raids in my home. Every time they [the soldiers] raid my house, they break the door. They don’t know how to knock at a door. One day, when I asked them why they were entering like that instead of ringing the bell, they laughed at me and called me an idiot.

“My furniture is all broken into pieces because of the way they conduct their searches. I no longer have dishes or glasses to speak of because they destroyed most of them during the raids.

“I have two children and for most of the time, they are scared. Muhammad, a four-year-old, cannot sleep well at night. He has nightmares every day and when he wakes up he cries, asking me not to let the soldiers take him as they took his uncle.

“Fadia, my daughter, who is only eight years old, doesn’t want to go to school because she says that if they raid our home and I’m not around, they would do something bad to her brother. But with her at home, she can help him not be afraid.

“Our neighbourhood is in the middle of a constant war. It is not safe for us to leave or enter our houses. Most of the shops around here are closed. We have to walk about 5km to buy food like vegetables and rice.

“Sometimes, when I return by taxi from my job, which is about 45 minutes from my home, I find the street closed and bullets flying around everywhere.

''I have nowhere to run to. I have to withstand this desperate situation hoping that one day we will live in peace again.''

“I start to cry as I become afraid that something might have happened to my children even though I know that my brother is there. I know that when I get home, I will find Muhammad crying and Fadia scared but I cannot stay all day at home because if I leave my job, there will be no one to feed them.

“It is common to see at least three corpses on Haifa Street each day and sometimes up to eight, as happened last week. They are fighters, innocent civilians or soldiers. No one takes care of them [the bodies] because if you tried to get closer, you could become the next victim.

“I have nowhere to run to. I have to withstand this desperate situation hoping that one day we will live in peace again, even if it seems that it might take dozens of years for that to happen.”

permalink, posted by mike on Monday, January 29, 2007 at 12:35 PM

December 11, 2006

"Today is better than tomorrow"

Dahr Jamail's latest report on Iraq is more depresing than ever. He can no longer get into the country to report on it, but is still in communication with some folks there. Sounds like it's absolutely hellish, and getting worse by the minute. Basically, the Iraqis have given up hope and are just trying to get out of the country while they can. Absolutely nightmarish.

Whatever credibility the US has ever had is gone forever. This will haunt them for generations. What's particularly striking is the anger in the American soldiers serving over there. They are absolutely furious, much, much more than any Vietnam era soldiers ever were. This is a really frightening situation. I can't believe it's getting this bad, and the world is still just sitting on its hands, wondering how it can continue to profit from American business.

permalink, posted by mike on Monday, December 11, 2006 at 11:51 AM

November 15, 2006

A quick visit to Baghdad.

Faiza, the woman with the wonderful A Family in Baghdad blog, was able to make a short trip to Baghdad recently. Like so many other Iraqis she's been living in exile in Jordan for the past two years. It's a very sad entry. Her city has been almost completely destroyed. Her entire blog is worth reading if you want to know about the impact of the war on an average Iraqi family.

Since I made the plane reservation and the date of travel was fixed, I started smelling the scent of the beloved Baghdad, she became closer to me. I remained worried, my sleep disturbed, because I was afraid of what would happen…
I had already made up my mind and decided to travel, and I also decided not to tell the majority of my family, relatives and friends here and there with my traveling plan, for I didn't want to hear the thwarting comments. I know exactly the danger of the situation there, but my longing for Baghdad destroyed me. And I took the risk, I told some people: if I die there, bury me, for it would be the peak of my happiness to be buried in my homeland, Instead of the torment of expatriation away from my beloved country.
What is the meaning of life without a country?
Is there something more precious than your country?
I asked myself this question everyday before I traveled.

When the plane started descending and the features of Baghdad appeared, I burst into tears…
For two years now I have been away from Baghdad, I was forced not to return because of the miserable security conditions, the kidnappings, and the free killings, without justifications.
But I have grown tired of the separation, and my heart broke of sadness, I cry every day. And whenever I travel to other cities and capitals to forget my sadness, my longing for Baghdad grows, with my sadness about her, and I burst into tears.
I do not know, but perhaps this is the way of the lover who becomes very fond of a certain woman, so that whenever they showed him other women to forget her, he hates them, and his love for her increased…
This is what Baghdad has done to me.
Whenever I visited a capital, I thought about her, remembered her, and loved streets that look like her streets, rivers like her Tigris, trees like hers, and my anguish at my separation from her grows…
But, from the plane, I burst into tears when I saw her features… as if I heard her moaning, her complains of what has befallen her of destruction, devastation and neglect, of killings and violence, and the bloodshed on her streets. I looked on from the plane and saw her pale, her greenery has lessened, and her deserts have grown. I felt my heart wring, I chocked, and cried bitterly...
What have they done to you?
What have the dogs done to you?
I kept repeating, and crying….
I remembered the wars, the embargo, and the last war, and how disasters, sorrows and calamities piled up upon her… and she lost her sons and daughters, who were killed or emigrated…
I love Baghdad like I loved my father and mother, may God bless their souls.
I see that Baghdad is in a dilemma…
Do we abandon those whom we love, while they are in a dilemma?

She describes the horror well, but can't solve the riddle of who is behind all of these death squads. No one seems to know.

A relative of mine met me in his car, and took me to AL-Mansoor District, where I was going to stay at my friend's house.
We arrived at the 14th of Ramadan St., the street I loved most when I used to live in Baghdad. I found it deserted, gloomy, full of dust, and most of its shops closed. My relative started counting to me the numbers of shop owners who were assassinated without any known reasons; dress shops, Mobile phones shops, Bakery shops, Pharmacies, furniture shops, and Vegetable shops… all were targeted and killed, so the vital beautiful street turned into a dead, depressing area.
Well then, who is doing this?
For what purpose?
My relative said, sadly in a broken voice: We do not know, there are some armed gangs whose identities are unknown, who get in, kill, destroy, then run away, and no one can stop them; not the people, nor the government. They want to destroy the country, and destroy people's lives. We do not know where they came from, who finances them, or what their aim is? they kill people, evoke chaos, then run away…
Now that is terrorism, I said to myself.
Who brought it to us?
Who admitted it into Iraq?
Perhaps the same person who declared the war on terrorism, for he would be the only beneficiary from the existence of these armed gangs, because they justify his existence on the land of Iraq, and staying here indefinitely.
Those terrorists do not stand against the occupation army, they only kill civilian Iraqis.
I said; I shall ask all the people for the answer of this riddle- who stands behind all this abuse and madness?
Who is the beneficiary?

What group, of all the peoples there now, has the resources to mount these operations and not be interested in attacking the occupation forces but only Iraqis? Very strange. A puzzle someone will have to solve.

permalink, posted by mike on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at 10:42 PM

Beginning to grasp extent of the Iraq mess.

Some columns in the Guardian recently seem to indicate that at least some people are beginning to wake up and confront the scale and implications of the disaster, and the fact that there simply isn't anything the US and the UK can do but accept the loss and its inevitable consequences. Simon Jenkins does a good job of describing exactly what a mess Iraq is in "Why stop the Great Satan? He's driving himself to hell".

As we approach the beginning of the end in Iraq there will be much throat-clearing and breast-beating before reality replaces denial. For the moment, denial still rules. In America last week I was shocked at how unaware even anti-war Americans are (like many Britons) of the depth of the predicament in Iraq. They compare it with Vietnam or the Balkans - but it is not the same. It is total anarchy. All sentences beginning, "What we should now do in Iraq ... " are devoid of meaning. We are in no position to do anything. We have no potency; that is the definition of anarchy.

From all available reports, Iraq south of the Kurdistan border is beyond central authority, a patchwork of ganglands, sheikhdoms and lawlessness. Anbar province and most of the Sunni triangle is controlled by independent Sunni militias. The only safe movement for outsiders is by helicopter at night. Baghdad is like Beirut in 1983, with nightly massacres, roadblocks everywhere and mixed neighbourhoods emptying into safe ones. As yesterday's awful kidnapping shows, even a uniform is a death certificate. As for the cities of the south, control depends on which Shia militia has been able to seize the local police station.

The Iraqi army, such as it is, cannot be deployed outside its local area and is therefore useless for counter-insurgency. There is no central police force. There is no public administration. The Maliki government barely rules the Green Zone in which it is entombed. American troops guard it as they might an outpost of the French Legion in the Sahara. There is no point in patrolling a landscape one cannot control. It merely alienates the population and turns soldiers into targets.

To talk of a collapse into civil war if "we leave" Iraq is to completely misread the chaos into which that country has descended under our rule. It implies a model of order wholly absent on the ground. Foreign soldiers can stay in their bases, but they will no more "prevent civil war" than they can "import democracy". They are relevant only as target practice for insurgents and recruiting sergeants for al-Qaida. The occupation of Iraq has passed from brutality to mere idiocy. [...] Bush and Blair are men in a hurry, and such men lose wars. If there is a game plan in Tehran it will be to play Iraq long. Why stop the Great Satan when he is driving himself to hell in a handcart? If London and Washington really want help in this part of the world they must start from diplomatic ground zero. They will have to stop the holier-than-thou name-calling and the pretence that they hold any cards. They will have to realise that this war has lost them all leverage in the region. They can insult and sanction and threaten. But there is nothing left for them to "do" but leave. They are no longer the subject of that mighty verb, only its painful object.

He really gets it. This is a major disaster. It's not going to be fixed, or probably even affected, by any political changes in the US. This is way out of the Americans' hands now. He suggests they go back to "diplomatic ground zero" and start over, but pride will keep that from ever happening. The first step to dealing with the problem is to admit the extent of it and to take responsibility, but western leaders won't do it.

permalink, posted by mike on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at 10:18 PM

October 25, 2006

Riverbend on Iraqi casualties.

Long-time Iraqi blogger Riverbend over at Baghdad Burning comments on the recent Lancet study indicating that between 400,000 and 800,000 Iraqis have probably died since the American invasion. She's lived in Baghdad the entire time and finds the figures very plausible.

We literally do not know a single Iraqi family that has not seen the violent death of a first or second-degree relative these last three years. Abductions, militias, sectarian violence, revenge killings, assassinations, car-bombs, suicide bombers, American military strikes, Iraqi military raids, death squads, extremists, armed robberies, executions, detentions, secret prisons, torture, mysterious weapons – with so many different ways to die, is the number so far fetched?

There are Iraqi women who have not shed their black mourning robes since 2003 because each time the end of the proper mourning period comes around, some other relative dies and the countdown begins once again.

Let's pretend the 600,000+ number is all wrong and that the minimum is the correct number: nearly 400,000. Is that better? Prior to the war, the Bush administration kept claiming that Saddam killed 300,000 Iraqis over 24 years. After this latest report published in The Lancet, 300,000 is looking quite modest and tame. Congratulations Bush et al.

Everyone knows the 'official numbers' about Iraqi deaths as a direct result of the war and occupation are far less than reality (yes- even you war hawks know this, in your minuscule heart of hearts). This latest report is probably closer to the truth than anything that's been published yet. And what about American military deaths? When will someone do a study on the actual number of those? If the Bush administration is lying so vehemently about the number of dead Iraqis, one can only imagine the extent of lying about dead Americans…

The comment at the end about the number of dead Americans is interesting. I too believe that they're not reporting the full extent of American (or coalition) casualties. They're lying about everything: the number of Iraqi casualties, the number of American ones, the numbers in the detention centers, all of it. In fact, the only thing we know for sure is that they're lying. :)

As far as I can tell, the only reason people are denying these figures is simply because they can't accept or acknowledge the horror, a horror that they've been a part of. I think it's probably even greater than this. This study doesn't include the many deaths to come over the next few years from disease, bad water, exposure, malnutrition, depleted uranium dust, mental illness, stress and a thousand other things. Most of these will be children too. And regardless of what happens it will be years before they'll be able to clean up the water, feed everyone and rebuild their health care system. At the moment no one knows any way to clean up the uranium dust, so that's a gift that will be giving for a long time to come. The nightmare is just beginning...

permalink, posted by mike on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 03:43 PM

October 23, 2006

Devastating attack on US base in Iraq.

There was what appears to have been a "devastating" attack on the American "Falcon" base last week which was destroyed, but it's not being reported very much. Apparently it was the main ammunition dump for the US. When it was attacked all of the ammo went up, causing extensive casualities and damages, and absolutely incredible fires. Reports are very sketchy. It appears that as many as 300 Americans may have been killed, along with an enormous store of equipment of all types. This report from SF IndyMedia is the most complete account I've seen yet. If it was as bad as they claim I can understand why they're not reporting it. They quote this Arab report:

The US Falcon base, now described as burned out wasteland with no buildings was the scene of American helicopters dumping water on the site Wednesday to extinguish the last flames after resistance fighters managed to carry out a devastating attack that completely destroyed the American base.

They further report:

Iraqi Resistance forces attacked the largest US weapons arsenal depot in the American General Headquarters in the south of Baghdad late Tuesday evening. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the arsenal, located in the as-Saqr Base in the south of Baghdad is the main supplier of equipment to the US forces. At the time of reporting, mountains of American arms and ammunition were continuing to explode in the sky in a huge fire unprecedented in Baghdads history.

In response, US aircraft hysterically rocketed and bombed various parts of the city, the correspondent reported, trying to knock out the launch sites of the rockets that blasted into the American arsenal.

A source in the Iraqi puppet regime told Mafkarat al-Islam that the Resistance blasted the American arsenal, known as Camp Falcon, with Grad and Katyusha rockets. The source admitted that dozens of Americans had been killed or wounded in the blasts that were still ripping the American arsenal apart. The source said that the US forces were unable to do anything to stop the massive inferno of flame and explosions that was lighting up the Baghdad sky like fireworks.

[...]

General al-Ithawi said that the Falcon base was the biggest US arsenal in central Iraq and was the launching point for US military operations. The arsenal contained more than 50 tanks; numerous artillery pieces; a landing strip for Chinook helicopters, some of which were parked there when the place exploded in addition to armories containing weapons and ammunition. He said that all the buildings and furnishings of the base had been totally destroyed along with the archive records.

It's quite striking that they're trying to suppress news of the destruction of an entire base, not to mention possibly hundreds of deaths. They're also reporting that the damages may total more than a billion dollars, including lots of tanks, helicopters and other expensive items. There are some fascinating details in their report, well worth reading. If it really was the main operational hq for the US, then presumably it was well defended. Sounds like things are going downhill fast.

permalink, posted by mike on Monday, October 23, 2006 at 11:24 PM

July 05, 2006

Occupying Iraqi hearts and minds.

Via the Information Clearing House is this excellent article, The Occupation of Iraqi Hearts and Minds, by Nir Rosen on the impact of the war on Iraqis. Very depressing and lengthy litany of the endless abuses being dished out to them by Americans, and it just seems to get worse and worse. He outlines a long list of abuses of all kinds, and then points out that this is just what he saw in two short weeks. Here's his conclusin.

It is hard to be patient when mosques are raided, when protesters are shot, when innocent families are gunned down at checkpoints or by frightened soldiers in vehicles. It is hard to be patient in hours of izdiham, or traffic jams, that are blamed on Americans closing off main roads throughout Baghdad. The Americans close roads after “incidents” or when they are looking for planted bombs. Their vehicles block the roads and they answer no questions, refusing to let any Iraqi approach. Cars are forced to drive “wrong side,” as Iraqis call it, with near fatal results. Iraqis have become experts in walking over the concertina wire that divides so much of their cities: First one foot presses the razor wire down, then the other steps over. They are experts in driving slowly through lakes and rivers of sewage. They are experts in sifting through mountains of garbage for anything that can be reused.

It is hard to relax when the soldier in the Humvee or armored personnel carrier in front of you aims his machine gun at you; when aggressive white men race by, running you off the road as they scowl behind their wraparound sunglasses; when soldiers shoot at any car that comes too close. Iraqis in their own country are reminded at all times who has control over their lives, who can take them with impunity.

An old Iraqi woman approached the gate to Baghdad international airport. Draped in a black ebaya, she was carrying a picture of her missing son. She did not speak English, and the soldier in body armor she asked for help did not speak Arabic. He shouted at her to “get the fuck away.” She did not understand and continued beseeching him. The soldier was joined by another. Together they locked and loaded their machine guns, chambering a round, aiming the guns at the old woman and shouting at her that if she did not leave “we will kill you.”

The explosive-sniffing dog in front of the Sheraton and Palestine hotels is hated by the Iraqi security guards as well as the American soldiers who stand there because it, like the rest of us who live in the area, is subject to olfactory whims as it imagines every day that it smells a bomb, forcing them to close off the street for several hours. Two of my friends were arrested for not having a bomb last week when the dog decided their bag smelled funny. They were jailed for four days.

Imagine. The American occupation of Iraq has lasted over three years. The above stories are based on my two weeks with one unit in a small part of the country. Imagine how many Iraqi homes have been destroyed. How many families have been traumatized. How many men have disappeared into American military vehicles in the night. How many crimes have been committed against the Iraqi people every single day in the course of the normal operations of the occupation, when soldiers were merely doing their duty, when they were not angry or vengeful as in Haditha. Imagine what we have done to the Iraqi people, tortured by Saddam for years, then released from three decades of his bloody rule only to find their hope stolen from them and a new terror unleashed.

permalink, posted by mike on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 at 08:48 PM

May 21, 2005

George Galloway's testimony to Congress.

George Galloway, the British MP who strongly and publicly opposed the invasion of Iraq two years ago, and was thrown out of the British Labor party for his troubles, testified before the US Senate committee investigating the so-called UN food scandal. He is trying to clear his name from the slanderous remarks and lies that have been told about him by the warmongers and others still trying to justify their illegal and ridiciulous stupid war.

His testimony shows remarkable courage. Great that someone finally has the guts to stand up to the American Congress and tell them that _they_ are the problem, not everybody else. Kudos to him. See the full transcript of his testimony over at Common Dreams.

"Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

"Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

[...] "The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

�I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

� 2005 Times Newspapers

The cowardice and corruption of the American body politic is getting more than a little embarrassing and disgusting. And he is perfectly correct: they should be investigating the scandalous theft of countless billions of dollars in money, and god knows how much "unmetered" oil from the Iraqis. But they won't, and the Democrats won't do anything about it either, because the Democrats are in it as deep as anyone else.

permalink, posted by mike on Saturday, May 21, 2005 at 07:30 PM

April 15, 2005

Interview with Riverbend of Baghdad Burning.

Baghdad Burning blogger Riverbend, who has been commenting on the war since it began, has put out a book. The folks at Buzzflash interviewed her recently.

BuzzFlash: A study in the British journal, "The Lancet," which was largely ignored by the American press, indicated that possibly more than 100,000 Iraqis have been killed since the American invasion. Do you think this might be accurate?

Riverbend: I'm sure more than 100,000 people have died in the last two years. Everyone literally knows more than one person who died -- often a relative or a friend. We have people dying of bombs, dying under torture, dying of malnutrition, a lack of shelter, missiles, attacks, abductions, etc. We have illnesses emerging that Iraqis hadn't even heard of in the past -- cancer rates have gone up drastically and in some areas we hear about cholera or typhoid. It's difficult to know just how many people have died because the Ministry of Health was given explicit instructions about not keeping tabs.

BuzzFlash: The Bush White House and their representatives keep saying it was all worth it to get rid of Saddam Hussein. We think there might have been other ways of getting rid of Saddam Hussein besides wrecking a nation and taking over its oil. What do you think?

Riverbend: I think this wasn't about the welfare of Iraqi people and ridding them of a dictator. I think this has been about the US strategically placing itself in a Middle Eastern 'hot spot' -- in the middle of Turkey, Iran, Syria and the Gulf countries -- to wreak havoc and promote instability in the area, and have direct access to the oil, of course.

Democracy has to come from within and it has to be a request of the people -- not of expatriates who have alliances with the CIA and British intelligence. People have to want something enough to rise up and change it. They have to be ready for democracy and willing to accept its responsibility. The US could have promoted democracy in Iraq peacefully, but then they wouldn't have permanent bases in the country, would they?

BuzzFlash: What would happen if the U.S. forces completely pulled out of Iraq within a month?

Riverbend: No one knows what would happen. Some people say civil war, others say Iraqis would be able to sort things out. I think the best thing would be to set a timetable for complete withdrawal. This would have the dual effect of giving hope to the millions of Iraqis who feel their country will be under occupation for at least another decade, and it would also push the current Iraqi government to organize themselves and try to win over the favor of the people instead of looking out for personal gain and power. It would also inspire Iraqi security forces to take better charge of the situation in the knowledge that, eventually, they'll have to protect Iraqis instead of Americans.

If you haven't read her blog do so, especially if you're an American. A frank and intelligent account of life during wartime.

If I had any pride left I'd be ashamed. Here she manages to continue blogging with bombs dropping all around her, and I come and go like a putz. Will have to try harder.

permalink, posted by mike on Friday, April 15, 2005 at 08:01 PM

March 19, 2005

Year three of Iraqi War begins.

Today is the second anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq, a good time for a thorough overview. Tom Englehardt's latest TomGram, Deconstructing Iraq: Year Three Begins, does an excellent job. It's very lengthy, with many, many links to different stories covering nearly all aspects. Too much to quote, but here's the conclusion.

The most significant fact of our Iraq War and occupation (and war), which can't be repeated too many times, is that the Bush administration busted into the country without an exit strategy for a simple reason: They never planned to leave -- and they still don't. If you have a better reason for taking a withdrawal position and pressing for it, let me know by at least the beginning of Year Four of the Iraqi Deconstruction Era.

You might also want to see the TomGram from yesterday, with an essay by Dilop Hiro entitled Playing the Democracy Card, which gives a good overview of so-called American attempts to promote democracy in the Middle East. Or rather of how it is using the excuse of democracy to steal oil and expand American (and British) hegemony.

I think both of these entries take the anti-Americanism and Bush-bashing a bit too far, with the result that they lose some objectivity. For one thing, their cup seems to be always empty. For another, in their attempt to blame Bush and the Republicans for everything they rather ignore the fact that it is the _Americans_ who are doing this, Democrats included. Their refusal to acknowledge that this is not Bush but the American military-industrial-financial-legal complex at work is, I think, the greatest failure of the war coverage by the so-called progressives.

And I don't think they give enough credit to the British (and by extension the rest of the European community) for their support and involvement. For this is, in the final analysis, basically part of an attempt by the world's white people to maintain their dominance over the rest of the people. The Europeans may object, but when it comes down to it, they're just as responsible. They certainly don't ever seem to do anything concrete to oppose it. Words don't count.

permalink, posted by mike on Saturday, March 19, 2005 at 04:07 PM

March 18, 2005

Iraqi accounts of American war crimes at Falluja.

Americans seem to be very rapidly losing touch with reality. At least in the public sphere. Two recent columns by American women, Bush Is a Loser at Logic but a Winner in D.C. by Arianna Huffington in the LA Times, and Americans just ignore the devil in the details by Marilou Johanek in the Toledo Blade, discuss the degree to which the American people, or at least those in charge, have retreated into a fantasyland, a bubble into which no bad news or reality may penetrate, and which simply no longer has any connection to the real world.

And nothing illustrates the degree of the illusion than the complete absence of any coverage of the horrors Americans have perpetuated in Falluja over the past few months. This is a very major story, about as big as they get, which has been completely ignored. (Among other things, it was just about the biggest US armored operation since WWII, which alone should have made it important.)

Chris Floyd's latest Global Eye column in the Moscow Times gives a good overview of the major war crimes committed there, which include the cold-blooded murder of civilians including children, women, doctors and journalists, the delliberate bombing of hospitals and other civilian centers, and, especially, the apparently widespread use of chemical weapons, cluster bombs and other banned weapons, banned even against military forces much less civilian populations.

Floyd also notes what is perhaps the greatest horror of them all, which is the degradation of American society into something ugly, twisted and evil. This is the real story, and the one that the American media, and to an extent the global media as well, are not paying any attention to.

Here's the entire story, reprinted because articles in the Moscow Times go behind a paywall after a while, and it's too important to be forgotten. Very major crimes were committed here, and a level of savagery reached and hatred expressed that the world hasn't seen in quite a while. Also note the excellent list of links to documentation provided.

U.S. President George W. Bush often complains about the "media filter" that distorts the true picture of his administration's accomplishments in Iraq. And he's right. For regardless of where you stand on Bush's policies in the region, it's undeniable that the political and commercial biases of the American press have consistently misrepresented the reality of the situation.

Here's an excellent example. Earlier this month, the American media completely ignored an important announcement from an official of the Iraqi government concerning the oft-maligned U.S. operation to clear insurgents from the city of Fallujah last November. Although the press conference of Health Ministry investigator Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli was attended by representatives from The Washington Post, Knight-Ridder and more than 20 other international news outlets, nary a word of his team's thorough investigation into the truth about the battle made it through the filter's dense mesh. Once again, the American public was denied the full story of one of President Bush's remarkable triumphs.

Dr. ash-Shaykhli's findings provided confirmation of earlier reports by many other Iraqis -- reports that were also ignored by the arrogant filterers, who seem more interested in hearing from terrorists or anti-occupation extremists than ordinary Iraqis and those like Dr. ash-Shaykhli, who serve in the U.S.-backed interim government vetted and approved by President Bush. But while the media elite turn up their noses at such riffraff, the testimony of these common folk and diligent public servants gives ample evidence of Bush's innovative method of liberating innocent Iraqis from tyranny:

He burns them to death with chemical weapons.

Dr. ash-Shaykhli was sent by the pro-American Baghdad government to assess health conditions in Fallujah, a city of 300,000 that was razed to the ground by a U.S. assault on a few hundred insurgents, most of whom slipped away long before the attack. The ruin of the city was complete: Every single house was either destroyed (from 75 to 80 percent of the total) or heavily damaged. The city's entire infrastructure -- water, electricity, food, transport, medicine -- was obliterated. Indeed, the city's hospitals were among the first targets, in order to prevent medical workers from spreading "propaganda" about civilian casualties, U.S. officials said at the time.

Eyewitness accounts from the few survivors of the onslaught, which killed an estimated 1,200 noncombatants, have consistently reported the use of "burning chemicals" by American forces: horrible concoctions that roasted people alive with an unquenchable jellied fire, InterPress reported. They also tell of whole quadrants of the city in which nothing was left alive, not even dogs or goats -- quadrants that were sealed off by the victorious Americans for mysterious scouring operations after the battle. Others told of widespread use of cluster bombs in civilian areas -- a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions, but a standard practice throughout the war.

The few fragments of this information that made it through the ever-vigilant filter were instantly dismissed as anti-American propaganda, although they often came from civilians who had opposed the heavy-handed insurgent presence in the town. Rejected as well were the innumerable horror stories of those who had seen their whole families -- including women, children, the sick and the elderly -- slaughtered in the "liberal rules of engagement" established by Bush's top brass. Most of the city was declared "weapons-free": military jargon meaning that soldiers could shoot "whatever they see -- it's all considered hostile," The New York Times reported, in a story buried deep inside the paper.

Yet the ash-Shaykhli team -- again, appointed by the Bush-backed government -- confirmed the use of "mustard gas, nerve gas and other burning chemicals" by U.S. forces during the battle. Dr. ash-Shaykhli said that survivors -- still living in refugee camps, along with some 200,000 former Fallujah residents who fled before the assault -- are now showing the medical effects of attack by chemical agents and the use of depleted uranium shells. (American officials have admitted raining more than 250,000 pounds of toxin-tipped DU ammunition on Iraqis since the war began.)

The Pentagon has acknowledged using white phosphorus in Fallujah, but only for "illumination purposes." It denied using napalm in the attack -- but, in the course of that denial, it admitted that its earlier denials of using napalm elsewhere in Iraq were in fact false. And individual Marines filing "After Action Reports" on the Internet for military enthusiasts back home have detailed the routine use of white phosphorus shells, propane bombs and "jellied gasoline" (also known as napalm) during direct tactical assaults in Fallujah.

Dr. ash-Shaykhli's findings -- coming from a pro-American government, buttressed by reams of eyewitness testimony from ordinary Iraqi civilians -- appear to be substantial, credible and worthy of further investigation by the U.S. press. Certainly, the findings are more credible than the pre-war lies and fantasies about Saddam's phantom WMD, which the "media filter" lapped up from the Bush regime and amplified across the nation, rousing support for an unnecessary, illegal and immoral war. Yet these serious new atrocity charges have not even been mentioned, much less examined.

Behind the filter -- with its basic story template of "always moral U.S. policies occasionally marred by a few bad apples" -- a relentless degeneration of American society is taking place. Brutality and atrocity are becoming normalized, systemized and rewarded. The noble American ideal of transcendence -- overcoming the beast within, seeking to embrace an ever-broader, ever-deeper, ever-richer vision of universal communion and individual worth -- is dying at the hands of the resurgent barbarity championed and cultivated by the Bush regime. Old-fashioned citizens are being replaced by "Bush Americans": wilfully ignorant, bellicose zealots, cringingly servile toward the powerful, violently hostile to all "outsiders." Despite Bush's artful complaints, the media filter has served his degenerate purposes very well.

Annotations:

Napalm, Chemical Weapons Used at Fallujah: Iraqi Official, ILCA Online, March 7, 2005.

Stories From Fallujah, Iraq Dispatch, Feb. 8, 2005 .

Fallujah, Tent City, Awaits Compensation, Informed Comment, March 13, 2005.

Another Sad Day for Our Country, The American Independent, March 7, 2005.

Iraqi Health Ministry Confirms Use of Prohibited Weapons in Attacks on al-Fallujah, Mafkarat al-Islam (Iraq), March 2, 2005.

U.S. General From Abu Ghraib Scandal Promoted, Stars and Stripes, March 15, 2005.

Odd Happenings in Fallujah, Electronic Iraq, Jan. 18, 2005.

U.S. Denies Use of Napalm in Fallujah, U.S, International Information Programs Jan. 27, 2005.

The Eyewitnesses Must Be Crazy, Antiwar.com, March 15, 2005.

Life Under the Bombs in Iraq, TomDispatch, Feb. 2, 2005.

TV News Turns Myopic: Profits Come First, Houston Chronicle, March 16, 2005.

The Media Lobby, CorpWatch, March 11, 2005.

Journalism, Infotainment and the Bottom-Line Business of Broadcasting, Buzzflash, March 17, 2005.

Handmaiden of the State: The Role of Media in an Age of Empire, Antiwar.com, March 16, 2005.

Extreme Cinema Verite: Soldiers Make Music Videos of Death and Destruction, Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2005.

A War Crime in Real Time: Obliterating Fallujah, CounterPunch, Nov. 15, 2004.

Inside Fallujah: One Family's Diary of Terror, Scotland Sunday Herald, Nov. 14, 2004.

The Marine's Tale: 'I Felt We Were Committing Genocide, The Independent, May 23, 2004.

Smoke and Corpses, BBC, Nov. 11, 2004.

20 Doctors Killed in Strike on Clinic: Red Crescent, UN Integrated Regional Information Network, Nov. 10, 2004.

US Strikes Raze Fallujah Hospital, BBC, Nov. 6, 2004.

Ghost City Calls for Help, BBC, Nov. 13, 2004.

Let Them Drink Sand: War Crimes in Fallujah, CounterPunch, Nov. 13, 2004.

American Heroes, Baghdad Burning, Nov. 16, 2004.

Beyond Embattled City, Rebels Roam Free, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 12, 2004.

Administration Rejects Ruling on PR Videos, Washington Post, March 14, 2005.

$226 Million in Government Ads Helped Pave the Way to War, Antiwar.com, May 28, 2004.

Americans should inform themselves about what happened in Falluja not because it's the decent thing to do, although that wouldn't hurt, but rather because there will be very major repercussions to come from this and other actions. Military repercussions, financial repercussions, trials and suits of all sorts, economic sanctions, and more. It engendered a vicious hatred of Americans that will continue for decades. And not just by Iraqis, but by people all over the world. Because this has been reported elsewhere, just not in the US. America went way too far this time and it will come to back to haunt her. In the world's view it wasn't Bush or the Republicans who did this. It was all of America, and it's all Americans who are legally and morally responsible.

permalink, posted by mike on Friday, March 18, 2005 at 03:07 PM

February 23, 2005

More Americans than ever believe Saddam and Iraqis part of 9/11.

A new Harris poll indicates that the majority of Americans believe that Saddam supported Al Qaeda and that Iraqis were involved in the 9/11 attacks, despite proof that this simply isn't so. What's even more amazing is that the numbers believing this lie seem to have increased since the election.

On other issues concerning Iraq, the attitudes of large majorities of the public have not changed significantly in the past few months.

* 88 percent of U.S. adults believe that Saddam Hussein would have made weapons of mass destruction if he could have (down slightly from 90% in November).
* 76 percent believe that the Iraqis are better off now than they were under Saddam Hussein (same as November).
* 64 percent believe that history will give the U.S. credit for bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq (up slightly from 63% in November).
* 64 percent believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda (up slightly from 62% in November).
* 61 percent believe that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, was a serious threat to U.S. security (down slightly from 63% in November).

More surprising perhaps are the large numbers (albeit not majorities) who believe the following claims not made by the president and which virtually no experts believe to be true:

* 47 percent believe that Saddam Hussein helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001 (up six percentage points from November).
* 44 percent actually believe that several of the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11 were Iraqis (up significantly from 37% in November).
* 36 percent believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded (down slightly from 38% in November).

Another interesting finding is that only 46 percent believe that Saddam Hussein was prevented from developing weapons of mass destruction by the U.N. weapons inspectors, a fact which most reports now support.

Why so many people believe something that has been proven false is very strange. I guess it's because Americans are starting to realize the damage that they've done to the Iraqis, and are desperate to believe that MUST have been some reason. Americans just wouldn't attack innocent people, now would they?

I won't say that these views are all inaccurate. I also believe that Saddam would have developed WMDs if he could, but it's very clear now (and was two years ago) that he simply couldn't. If we are going to start charging people with the crimes that they _may_ commit, or would _like_ to commit, there are a lot of people who'd be in trouble.

This is very sad. It's a telling indication of just how incompetent and dishonest the American media have been covering this issue. I'd also say that the vicious Bush-bashing and endless attacks on the Republicans by the so-called leftist blogosphere has also damaged the credibility of opponents to Bush's policies, and is leading many people to believe just the opposite of what they claim.

On the issue of remaining in Iraq, the poll reports that 59% of Americans now think that the troops should be brought home within the next year.

permalink, posted by mike on Wednesday, February 23, 2005 at 10:32 AM

February 22, 2005

British politics and the war in Iraq.

The Guardian has a special section on Politics and Iraq, just focusing on the various political and legal aspects of the war. All of the various trials, scandals, shattered careers and such. It's getting to be quite a tangled mess, as this article, The law and the War makes very clear. It won't go away.

The Rush to War by Richard Norton-Taylor is rather interesting. It discusses the high-level legal objections made to the proposed war. out that just two weeks before the invasion Lord Goldsmith, the British Attorney General, warned that it could be illegal. "Could"? And a high-ranking woman resigned, claiming it was clearly illegal.

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, warned less than two weeks before the invasion of Iraq that military action could be ruled illegal.

The government was so concerned that it might be prosecuted it set up a team of lawyers to prepare for legal action in an international court.

And a parliamentary answer issued days before the war in the name of Lord Goldsmith - but presented by ministers as his official opinion before the crucial Commons vote - was drawn up in Downing Street, not in the attorney general's chambers.

The full picture of how the government manipulated the legal justification for war, and political pressure placed on its most senior law officer, is revealed in the Guardian today.

It appears that Lord Goldsmith never wrote an unequivocal formal legal opinion that the invasion was lawful, as demanded by Lord Boyce, chief of defence staff at the time.

The Guardian can also disclose that in her letter of resignation in protest against the war, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, deputy legal adviser at the Foreign Office, described the planned invasion of Iraq as a "crime of aggression".

She said she could not agree to military action in circumstances she described as "so detrimental to the international order and the rule of law".

Her uncompromising comments, and disclosures about Lord Goldsmith's relations with ministers in the run-up to war, appear in a book by Philippe Sands, a QC in Cherie Booth's Matrix chambers and professor of international law at University College London.

Exclusive extracts of his book Lawless World are published in today's Guardian.

The fact that the legal advisors were apparently pressured to change their opinions would mean that Blair and others responsible for the invasion knew what they were doing was illegal at the time they did it. That could lead to all kinds of trouble. Political trouble for Blair and Labor in the short run; and demands for reparations and prosecutions of war criminals in the long run.

permalink, posted by mike on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 at 09:04 PM

February 20, 2005

US military power reaches its limits in Iraq.

Looking at the stalemate in Iraq, Andrew J. Bacevich says We aren't fighting to win anymore. It's clear that the Americans aren't even fighting to really "win" in Iraq anymore. The original plans for a quick and easy victory, a "shock and awe", have given way to a desperate attempt to merely hold down the insurgency enough for the US to make some sort of dignified withdrawal, or let the Iraqi government deal with it while the US hunkers down in its permanent bases and focuses on stealing the oil. But the limits of the vaunted American "superpower military machine" have definitrely been reached; and worse, the rest of the world knows it.. Via LA Times and Common Dreams.

Optimists are placing their hopes on a crash program to create a new Iraqi security force that just might permit us in a year or so to begin reducing the size of our garrison. Pessimists have their doubts. But virtually no one is predicting we will be even remotely close to crushing the insurgency. The decisive victory promised by the war's advocates back in March 2003 � remember all the talk of "shock and awe"? � has now slipped beyond our grasp.

Of course, following the heady assault on Baghdad, the conflict took an unexpected turn � precisely as wars throughout history have tended to do. As a consequence, today a low-tech enemy force estimated at about 10,000 fighters has stymied the mightiest military establishment the world has ever seen. To be sure, the adversary cannot defeat us militarily. But neither can we defeat it. In short, U.S. troops today are no longer fighting to win, but simply to buy time: This has become the Bush administration's substitute for victory. Worse, in a war such as in Iraq, time is more likely to work in the other guy's favor.

Whether this reality has yet to fully sink in with the majority of the American people is unclear. No doubt President Bush hopes the citizenry will continue to snooze. Better to talk about Social Security reform and banning gay marriage than to call attention to the unhappy fact that we are spending several billion dollars per month and losing, on average, two soldiers per day � not to prevail but simply to prolong the stalemate. Moreover, if the administration gets its way, we can expect that expenditure of blood and treasure to continue for many months, until there emerges an Iraqi government able to fend for itself or Iraq descends into chaos.

Pending the final judgment of President Bush's war, this much we can say for sure: Two years after the dash on Baghdad seemingly affirmed the invincibility of the U.S. armed forces, the actual limits of American power now lay exposed for all to see. Our adversaries, real and potential, are no doubt busy contemplating the implications of those limits.

I believe that the rate of death of Americans is now up to three a day. There seems to be a lot about this that Americans aren't hearing about.

Most people are going to assume that those Americans who point out the increasing weakness of the US military are "anti-American" or traitors who want to see America fall. But most of us are just concerned with the growing evidence that the US military is not capable of effectively defending us. If they can be defeated by a few ten thousand "insurgents", then how would they do against well organized and equipped armies in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions; especially if those are backed by adequate navies and air forces, unlike Vietnam and Iraq?

America's large military has a lot of elaborate and costly weapons systems (aircraft carriers, missiles, thousands of WMDs of all types, nuclear submarines and such) that either don't work, or aren't of much real use in an Iraq-type insurgency or other more conventional war. All they are really good for is to frighten other nations and get them to develop their own (mostly conventional) armed forces, which they've done really well. So in that sense they weaken the US rather than strengthening it. Or they drain resources that would be better spent on basic supplies such as individual and vehicle armor, bullets, and very un-sexy items. (All of which are in very short supply in Iraq.) And the rest of the world has finally caught on to this.

permalink, posted by mike on Sunday, February 20, 2005 at 04:05 PM

February 18, 2005

Leave Our Country Now.

Hassan Juma'a Awad is general secretary of Iraq's Southern Oil Company Union and president of the Basra Oil Workers' Union. In Leave Our Country Now he tells how Iraqi oil workers have been fighting since the first days of the British-American invasion to unionize, and how they feel that the occupation is nothing but a blatant attempt to neo-colonize Iraq and steal its oil. He demands that the so-called coalition forces leave immediately, stating unequivocally that the Iraqis don't need any help, and that they are perfectly capable of managing their own affairs.

We lived through dark days under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. When the regime fell, people wanted a new life: a life without shackles and terror; a life where we could rebuild our country and enjoy its natural wealth. Instead, our communities have been attacked with chemicals and cluster bombs, and our people tortured, raped and killed in our homes.

Saddam's secret police used to creep over the roofs into our homes at night; occupation troops now break down our doors in broad daylight. The media do not show even a fraction of the devastation that has engulfed Iraq. Journalists who dare to report the truth of what is happening have been kidnapped by terrorists. This serves the agenda of the occupation, which aims to eliminate witnesses to its crimes.

... We see it as our duty to defend the country's resources. We reject and will oppose all moves to privatize our oil industry and national resources. We regard this privatization as a form of neo-colonialism, an attempt to impose a permanent economic occupation to follow the military occupation.

The occupation has deliberately fomented a sectarian division of Sunni and Shia. We never knew this sort of division before. Our families intermarried, we lived and worked together. And today we are resisting this brutal occupation together, from Falluja to Najaf to Sadr City. The resistance to the occupation forces is a God-given right of Iraqis, and we, as a union, see ourselves as a necessary part of this resistance - although we will fight using our industrial power, our collective strength as a union, and as a part of civil society which needs to grow in order to defeat both still-powerful Saddamist elites and the foreign occupation of our country.

Bush and Blair should remember that those who voted in last month's elections in Iraq are as hostile to the occupation as those who boycotted them. Those who claim to represent the Iraqi working class while calling for the occupation to stay a bit longer, due to "fears of civil war", are in fact speaking only for themselves and the minority of Iraqis whose interests are dependent on the occupation.

We as a union call for the withdrawal of foreign occupation forces and their military bases. We don't want a timetable - this is a stalling tactic. We will solve our own problems. We are Iraqis, we know our country and we can take care of ourselves. We have the means, the skills and resources to rebuild and create our own democratic society.

Via Common Dreams.

permalink, posted by mike on Friday, February 18, 2005 at 02:43 PM

February 16, 2005

Overviews of the Iraqi mess.

Several articles lately giving good overviews of the current mess in Iraq. Tom Englehardt of TomDispatch has Flattened Iraq, which is very bleak. Rory McCarthy, the Guardian's Bagdhad correspondent for nearly two years reviews his time there. He's also very pessimistic. And freelance journalist David Enders, writes Baghdad Journal for Mother Jones magazine, the latest entry being Denial or Despair.

All of these are very lengthy, and actually too depressing to quote much. Here's a snippet from Engelhardt, essentially stating that everyrhing is a disastrous mess, and that the corporate imperialists who have taken over the US government clearly have no intention of acknowledging this or of changing their plans. "No retreat, no surrender" is still their motto, as "good cop" John Kerry emhasized so forcefully at one of their conventions last summer.

In any case, soon a new government is to take� well, the normal word here would be "power," but that's not a word to be used idly in this situation. There are at present, as far as can be told, just about none of the normal institutions of civil government left to take over in Baghdad. All Iraqi ministries have American advisers in them. The Iraqi armed forces that the new government might command seem to consist of only about 5,000 functional troops, no heavy arms, and no air force. The strength of the Kurdish vote and the lack of a Sunni one look sure to create a weak coalition of some sort in Baghdad where all the legislators will be targeted by assassins. The Bush administration is deeply embedded in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone where a $1-2 billion new embassy is to be built; its 120,000 or more troops are bunkered into up to 14 massive, "permanent" military bases, also known as "enduring camps"; its CIA contingent is probably the largest in the world; its officials are openly talking about American troops remaining in Iraq at or near present levels at least through 2007; the administration is eager to negotiate a long-term Status of Forces Agreement with the new Iraqi government; and, as Stephen R. Shalom recently discussed at the ZNET website, El-Salvador-style hit squads seem already to be operative.

... In reality, Iraq has been flattened by the Bush administration's tank and there's no obvious road to push it onto that's likely to lead anywhere palatable, no matter who may now be in the driver's seat. As Dilip Hiro indicates in an update of his pre-election report on Iraq's electoral cul-de-sac, even the most immediate problems of any new government will be fraught with peril. And whatever happens, for the foreseeable future, Iraq -- with its still largely unobtainable sea of oil -- will remain an occupied and thoroughly humiliated land. What image should then be chosen for America's Iraq -- Ponzi scheme, house of cards, or [fill in the blank] -- but not, I think, by any stretch of the imagination, a land of democracy and freedom.

I think virtually all so-called "western" journalists, whether of the left, right or attempting to be objective, are going to come up with rather pessimistic scenarios, no matter what happens. The expectation that