War & Peace: January 2005 Archives

Interesting post on DailyKos.

My father was a freedom fighter in Iraq, a founder of several Assyrian pro-democracy groups, and was arrested and tortured; he was also the victim of an assassination attempt.

I write this to my fellow dKosers because I think it is important, in our observation of the war, to realize that many Iraqis did, in fact, support the war and continue to support the war effort.  Now, my father and I are both as Democrat-y as they come--I worked on Kerry's campaign, currently work in the Labor movement, and am otherwise active in progressive politics.

So it is important to understand that Iraqis support the war effort and do feel positively about the elections; however, as my and my father's comments on MSNBC make clear, that does not mean we think the Bush administration has handled the war correctly or that holding elections translates to success.  I think many Iraqis deplore the military situation over there--yet after 30+ years of Stalinist oppression, we were looking for anything to change the status quo.  Today is a day to be positive about what is going on there....

I agree. Also, I think there's something about people telling you "Don't do XYZ or we'll kill you," that, while it may scare you, may also make you react with a big, "SCREW YOU, I'm gonna do what I want and YOU'RE NOT GONNA STOP ME!" Ah, human nature... but in this case, perhaps it's a good thing. (And if it turns out voter turnout really was higher in Iraq than it was here, don't anyone get any ideas!)

Some good links on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz:

• http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/ 1/25/133032/577 (by someone who grew up in Germany after the war; very interesting history and perspectives)
• http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? f=/c/a/2005/01/27/MNG8MB16Q91.DTL (The Chronicle profiles survivors and one of the soldiers who liberated the camp)

Also, I just started reading A Problem From Hell: American and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power. Very interesting so far... and very infuriating. "Never again" is really more like "Over and over and over again."

Speaking of which, you haven't heard much about Darfur recently, have you?

Seymour Hirsch:

About what's going on in terms of the President is that as virtuous as I feel, you know, at The New Yorker, writing an alternative history more or less of what's been going on in the last three years, George Bush feels just as virtuous in what he is doing. He is absolutely committed -- I don't know whether he thinks he à ­s doing God's will or what his father didn't do, or whether it's some mandate from -- you know, I just don à ­t know, but George Bush thinks this is the right thing. He is going to continue doing what he has been doing in Iraq. He's going to expand it, I think, if he can. I think that the number of body bags that come back will make no difference to him. The body bags are rolling in. It makes no difference to him, because he will see it as a price he has to pay to put America where he thinks it should be. So, he's inured in a very strange way to people like me, to the politicians, most of them who are too cowardly anyway to do much. So, the day-to-day anxiety that all of us have, and believe me, though he got 58 million votes, many of people who voted for him weren à ­t voting for continued warfare, but I think that's what we're going to have.

Today's Chronicle:

Bush said he is leading the United States toward an honorable goal -- in Iraq and across the world. "I firmly planted the flag of liberty," he said.

OK, forget about the Kerry staffers who allegedly slashed the tires of the Republicans' voter vans. Forget about the shenanigans in Ohio. Those things were bad, but nothing compared to this:

The black sedan made its way down Madaris Street, the young men inside tossing leaflets out the window.

"This is a final warning to all of those who plan to participate in the election," the leaflets said. "We vow to wash the streets of Baghdad with the voters' blood."

Thus was the war over Sunday's nationwide elections crystallized in a single incident on Tuesday in Mashtal, an ethnically mixed neighborhood on the eastern edge of Baghdad, where many Iraqis say they would like to vote, and where a small, determined group of people are doing everything they can to stop them.

The leaflets, like many turning up on sidewalks and doorsteps across the capital, were chilling in their detail: they warned Iraqis to stay at least 500 yards away from voting booths, for each would be the potential target of a rocket, mortar shell or car bomb. The leaflet suggested that Iraqis stay away from their windows, too, in case of blasts.

"To those of you who think you can vote and then run away," the leaflet warned, "we will shadow you and catch you, and we will cut off your heads and the heads of your children."

What assholes. Hey, guys, want to fight Bush's occupation? Don't be a bunch of schmucks like him!

From Juan Cole...

Helena Cobban, veteran Middle East observer and journalist and a dear friend, argues against my anxieties at her web log. She can't understand why I think things could get worse if the US withdrew precipitously. I can't understand why it would be hard to understand. The Baathists would begin by killing Grand Ayatollah Sistani, then Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, then Ibrahim Jaafari, and so on down the list of the new political class. Then they would make a coup. Once they had control of Iraq's revenues, they could buy tanks and helicopter gunships in the world weapons bazaar and deploy them again against the Shiites. They might not be able to hang on very long, but it is doubtful if the country would survive all this intact. The Badr Corps could not stop this scenario, or it would have stopped all the assassinations lately of Shiite notables in the South, including two of Sistani's aides. Had the US not dissolved the Iraqi army, I'd be out in the streets now demanding an immediate US withdrawal. The failures of the Fallujah campaign made it amply clear that the US armed forces are unlikely to make headway against the guerrilla insurgency, and in the meantime are just making hundreds of thousands of Iraqis more angry. You will note that Sistani, who is not shy about these things, has not demanded an immediate withdrawal of US forces. In fact, I was told by a US observer of the scene in Najaf that a member of the marja'iyyah asked the US to take care of the Mahdi Army for them last summmer.

There is a saying in Arabic, Ahl al-bayt a`lamu bima fi'l-bayt--the people of a house know best what is in the house. When Sistani says the US should set a timetable and go, then I think we should all support that. But the US has made a big enough mess in Iraq without compounding it by hanging the Iraqis out to dry and decamping suddenly. By the way, Iraqis have more than once pleaded with me to argue against precipitous withdrawal by the US.

He concludes by saying

Mind you, if the elected Iraqi parliament asks for a withdrawal timetable, I think the US has an absolute duty to comply. It is a different issue as to whether such a move is wise or could succeed without the Iraqis paying an even higher price than they have already paid.

From Riverbend's blog:

Allawi à ­s people were passing out pamphlets a few days ago. I went out to the garden to check the low faucet, hoping to find a trickle of water and instead, I found some paper crushed under the garden gate. ÃUpon studying it, it turned out to be some sort of ¬Elect Allawi à ® pamphlet promising security and prosperity, amongst other things, for occupied Iraq. I'd say it was a completely useless pamphlet but that isn't completely true. It fit nicely on the bottom of the cage of E.'s newly acquired pet parakeet.

Oh, but freedom is on the march!

Sorry Andrew, but this logic is too tortured...

I have never said I don't agree with Bush's decision to go to war with Saddam. I've merely said the obvious - that we now know that, given Saddam's lack of WMD stockpiles, the urgency, with hindsight, was misplaced. Does that mean I have to apologize to Howard Dean? Sure, if Howard Dean had argued that there were no WMDs and that was why we shouldn't go to war, and I had trashed him for it. To Hans Blix? Sure, if he had said the same thing. But they didn't. And I didn't. Almost no one argued against the war on the basis that the WMD stockpiles didn't exist (except, hilariously, Baghdad Bob). So Bush was right to go to war when he did on the evidence in front of him. The only apology I owe is to those, like Jim Falllows, who correctly foresaw the immense difficulties after the liberation. But my apology must merely be for not taking his argument seriously enough. I never attacked it.

Well, actually, this is what Dean said on March 6, 2003:

...Tonight the President made another attempt to convince the nation and the increasingly skeptical world community that pre-emptive war against Iraq is necessary.

 Once again, I believe the President's rhetoric has fallen short of making a credible case that Iraq presents an imminent threat to vital U.S. interests. He continues to tell us what we all agree on: that Saddam Hussein is a ruthless, tyrannical despot. But he does not make the case that we should take on this crisis without the full backing of the United Nations. It is no wonder that we cannot convince our long-standing allies to go to war when we cannot demonstrate that an imminent threat exists.

So, OK, it's not "I have proof that Iraq has no WMDs." I still think an apology may be in order, though.

From the New York Times on January 17:

Deserting US recruits -- once a rarity -- are not alone in their search. Three months after being reelected and immediately prior to what is expected to be a triumphant inaugural party to mark the start of his second term, US President George W. Bush will be hard-pressed not to reevaluate the strategy for the deployment of US troops in Iraq. He faces massive doubts among the members of his own military, who are becoming increasingly vocal in their opinion that the US war with Iraqi insurgents is being conducted with insufficient manpower and equipment. Lieutenant General James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, warns that his troops in Iraq have "deteriorated into a broken force."

A revolt seems to be taking place within the ranks. Even though daily bomb attacks in Iraq and the latest death toll of 1,361 US soldiers have yet to trigger any significant reversal in US public opinion, and even though President Bush reiterated last week that the world is a safer place without Saddam Hussein, Bush's soldiers and officers seem increasingly convinced that the opposite is true. Almost without warning, America's armed forces, superior to any of the world's other militaries but faced with severe personnel shortages, are suddenly encountering almost insurmountable obstacles -- politically, strategically and financially.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld particularly faces growing criticism. In light of the disastrous situation on the ground in Iraq, even fellow Republicans are quietly demanding his removal and calling for a change in strategy. Rumsfeld bears the brunt of the blame for the precarious situation in which the US military now finds itself. The Iraq war has cost US taxpayers more than $150 billion to date, with the Pentagon spending $4.5 billion a month on its campaign in Iraq.

And there appears to be no end in sight, at least for the time being. Rumsfeld, in an attempt to boost morale among his frustrated troops, has said that he expects the Americans to withdraw from Iraq within his second four-year term as Secretary of Defense. However, only the most optimistic of the president's closest advisors believe that the situation in Iraq will improve in the wake of the January 30 elections.

Oh, we are in such big trouble. People just have no idea how big... and nobody but ourselves to blame.

From Knight-Ridder yesterday:

New intelligence reports raise questions about U.S. mission in Iraq

By Warren P. Strobel, Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott

WASHINGTON - A series of new U.S. intelligence assessments on Iraq paints a grim picture of the road ahead and concludes that there's little likelihood that President Bush's goals can be attained in the near future.

Instead of stabilizing the country, national elections Jan. 30 are likely to be followed by more violence and could provoke a civil war between majority Shiite Muslims and minority Sunni Muslims, the CIA and other intelligence agencies predict, according to senior officials who've seen the classified reports.

A CIA spokesman, Tom Crispell, said he was unable to comment. A White House spokeswoman had no immediate comment. The federal government was closed Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

A new public report by the National Intelligence Council concludes that instead of diminishing terrorism, U.S.-occupied Iraq has replaced prewar Afghanistan as a breeding and training ground for terrorists who may disperse to conduct attacks elsewhere.

Two senior intelligence officials with access to classified reporting said Islamic militants allied with or inspired by Osama bin Laden were forging ties to Iraqi nationalists and remnants of former dictator Saddam Hussein's regime. The linkage is similar to the one that so-called "Afghan Arabs" formed with Afghanistan's Taliban regime after the Soviet Union withdrew from that country, they said.

The Bush administration claimed before invading Iraq that Saddam had strong ties to international terrorism, but most counterterrorism experts dispute that and no evidence has been found to support the claim.

"The sad thing is we have created what the administration claimed we were intervening to prevent: an Iraq/al-Qaida linkage," one of the senior intelligence officials said.

The officials who were more pessimistic spoke on condition of anonymity, because the latest intelligence assessments are classified and their views are at odds with public statements from the White House.

and

The public report by the National Intelligence Council appears to contradict the Bush administration's contention that the invasion of Iraq struck a blow against terrorism.

The report by the council, an advisory board of top intelligence analysts that's independent of the CIA, says Iraq has taken the place once held by Afghanistan as a proving ground for terrorist leaders.

"The al-Qaida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq," says the unclassified report, "Mapping the Global Future," which is an analysis of trends to the year 2020.

"Iraq and other possible conflicts in the future could provide recruitment, training grounds, technical skills and language proficiency for a new class of terrorists who are `professionalized' and for whom political violence becomes an end in itself," it says.

Seriously, how much are tickets to D.C. right now? Pass the rotten eggs.

But given that the source is Seymour Hirsch... I'm afraid it is.

George W. Bush à ­s re à Žlection was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities ­ strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that controlà à ³against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism à ³during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as à ¬facilitators à ® of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way.

I've been admiring Andrew Sullivan lately for writing about the issue of torture and continuing to demand that the Bush administration be accountable for what's happened. But he loses major, major brownie points for this feeble POS. "The Middle East could be transformed in the next four years - because of Bush. No, he shouldn't be left off the hook for his errors. But nor should he be denied credit for his tenacity in the war against Islamist terror."

Oh, come on. And Osama Bin Laden should get credit for his tenacity against Western imperialism? No, Andrew would have a problem with that. So would I. I have a problem with this kind of nonsense. Bush is just bad news, end of story. Stop bending over backwards trying to be fair. The fact that even now, he's still straining at the bit and hoping to go charging into Iran... it just beggars belief.

Oh, and I was so happy to read that Bush now says he's learned "I do have to be cautious about, you know, conveying thoughts in a way maybe that doesn't send wrong impressions about our country,"

Um, wha?

An excerpt from President Bush's 20/20 interview that's going to be aired soon:

As the president and First Lady Laura Bush sat down yesterday afternoon with ABC's Barbara Walters, Mr. Bush talked about his decision to go to war in Iraq, even though evidence now concludes that no weapons of mass destruction were there.

Barbara Walters: This was our main reason for going in. So now when we read, "Okay, the search is over," what do you feel?

President Bush: Well, like you, I felt like we'd find weapons of mass destruction. Or like many, many here in the United States, many around the world, the United Nations thought he had weapons of mass destruction, and so therefore, one, we need to find out what went wrong in the intelligence gathering. Saddam was dangerous. And . . . the world was safer without him in power.

Walters: But was it worth it if there were no weapons of mass destruction? Now that we know that that was wrong? Was it worth it?

 Bush: Oh, absolutely.

I can't wait to hear the rest of it. Bleh.

So when is enough enough?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ended last month, but the analysis of documents seized in the hunt continues, U.S. officials have said.

 Charles Duelfer, the CIA special adviser who led the investigation, has returned home and is expected next month to issue a final addendum to his September report that concluded pre-war Iraq had no WMD stockpiles, officials said.

 Asked if Duelfer's Iraq Survey Group, or ISG, had stopped actively searching for WMD, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said: "That's my understanding." He added, "A lot of their mission is focused elsewhere now."

 The Washington Post newspaper on Wednesday quoted ISG officials saying the violence in Iraq coupled with a lack of new information led them to fold up the effort shortly before Christmas -- nearly two years after President George W. Bush invaded the country, accusing it of a secret weapons program.

 "The physical search is over. The team that did the physical search is back. But the document exploitation of documents found in Iraq continues. We found tonnes of documents," one U.S. official said.

 But McClellan told reporters at a White House briefing that the ISG's mission in Iraq was not completely over.

 "That group is still in Iraq and the multinational forces continue to oversee that group, and if they have any reports of WMD, obviously they'll continue to follow up on those reports," he said.

Two thoughts:

1. Notice that although lack of evidence was one reason to stop the investigation, the violence in Iraq was the other reason given. The violence in Iraq that's happening as a result of our little "liberation."
2. When some of us keep saying "We think there was fraud in our elections. Let's investigate," they're told to give up, already, even though there's plenty of evidence that something was going on. But in the complete absence of evidence for Iraq's WMDs, it's still considered normal, healthy, and sane to keep on digging! What's wrong with this picture?
   

Excellent post giving some background (with links) on the situation in Aceh, pre- and post-tsunami. It's not good.

A second and equally pernicious tragedy besets Sumatra. And this one (almost) no one's talking about. Indonesia has one of the most corrupt, incompetent and repressive governments in the entire world. Life may not be too miserable for you if you live in a place like Java or Bali. But in the outlying provinces like Irian Jaya and Aceh (Sumatra), life can be a living hell. Subject to the exploitation of multinational mineral extraction companies which use the Indonesian military to bolster their overwhelming control, the local population lives in fear and poverty. Perhaps that is why there are serious insurrections in both provinces.