Daring Jailbreak Suggests Guerrillas' Power
Sistani, Senators press Jaafari on new Government
Up to 200 Iraqi guerrillas in the Sunni Arab city of Miqdadiyah north of Baghdad mounted a sophisticated military operation to 32 free prisoners in the local jail, some of them guerrillas. They succeeded. In the fierce firefight, guerrillas killed 18 policemen while losing 10 of their own. The kill ratio and the success of the operation suggest that the guerrilla insurgency is gaining in capability and boldness as never before. The guerrillas have seldom dared to field more than a platoon (say 28 men) for fear of attracting fire from American helicopter gunships. Here, they fielded an entire company or perhaps two companies. The provincial authorities in Diyala seem convinced that the Miqdadiyah police chief was a double agent working for the guerrillas.
It doesn't do any good for US forces to fight and capture guerrillas if they can be freed so easily.
US troops faced mortar fire and roadside bombs in Anbar province on Tuesday. There were casualties.
Bush let slip that he thinks US troops will be in Iraq through 2008.
Bush also tried to deny that he had persistently attempted to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and 9/11 before the war. The brave Keith Olbermann is among the few journalists who called Bush on this lie. Bush and Cheney made the connection by constantly hinting around and using phrases close to one another.
Iraq reconstruction has stalled, and quality of life indicators are below pre-war levels.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani met Tuesday with representatives of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq:
' Talking to reporters in the holy city of Najaf, Abdul Mahdi said Grand Ayatollah Sistani recommended all political groups to work based on the Constitution.
The Iraqi vice-president added Ayatollah Sistani also stressed speedy establishment of the new government and reinforcement of unity and solidarity to promote Iraq's political trend in cooperation with political partners. '
US Senators agree with Sistani, and warned Ibrahim Jaafari that the patience of the American people is not infinite.
Tomdispatch.com has Chalmers Johnson on our military empire.
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/22/2006 06:22:00 AM
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16 Comments:
The sentators' intervention is an excellent move, but more is needed:
1) Dozens of completion dates were given during the negotiations on the interim governement. They were only arguing about a caretaker lasting for ten and a half months to be be shared by the Kurds and Shiias -who had a formal pact between them anyway. To accepts any date on face value is very unwise.
2) The lawmakers need to urgently meet the main Iraqi lists, who are their peers anyway, and tell them exactly what is what.
3) The Afghan Hound is heavily involved with the Turbans is an industrial-scale orgy of deceit; backstabbing; misinformation; and backroom deals broken within days. He is a big part of the problem and should be ordered to lay off.
4) Although inerfering is wrong. Telling the Turbans to delay the heavy 'existential stuff' until after the next government is perfectly reasonable. That will immediately break the deadlock.
5) I think even W himself is aware that he has zero credibility now. He is more like a senile has-been and his calls to "express displeasure" or thank the Iraqi leaders for there effort in 'his' Iraq make things worse.
Captain George W. Bush has just abandoned ship with three years left until the drifting and listing vessel can possibly get a new helmsman. Such a breathtaking abdication of command responsibility I have never witnessed.
Under normal circumstances, a new President will not take the reins of power until January of 2009. Removing troops from Iraq will take at least six months. As Richard Nixon said when he took over the Vietnam quagmire from Lyndon Johnson: "If I haven't ended this war in six months it will be my war." So Deputy Dubya just announced, in effect, that the next President will have this Iraq albatross around his-or-her neck whether he-or-she wants it or not. Not only does Bush obviously wish to tie his successor's hands, but he plans to tie them to the whipping post of a failed colonial bungle of historic proportions.
I have maintained from the beginning of this disaster that the Democrats risk having the debacle in the desert handed to them if they don't demand withdrawal and a cut-off of funds during George W. Bush's watch. He willfully and recklessly committed this unforced error and he should conclude it. If the Democrats allow him to tag them with it, he will claim that he had it "won" on his watch and then his successor will do just what he has done -- stall for another four years trying not to look like a "loser." The Democrats look sooooooooo stupid for not seeming to realize just what will happen to them if they don't force an end to this thing this year. If they let it go past November, they will have screwed themselves and two countries: America and Iraq for a long time to come.
The British RAF doctor who refused to return to Iraq by claiming the war was illegal, has had his proposed defence ruled no defence on the grounds that the orders given to him were lawful and had nothing to do with the legality of the war.
The judge neatly sidestepped the war's illegality by ruling that the doctor had refused lawful orders such as "to attend for a helmet fitting and sizing" that had nothing to do with the legality or otherwise of the war.
The courtmartial outcome contrasts oddly with the recent case of Ben Griffin who similarly refused orders but was rapidly given an honourable discharge.
"US senators agree with Sistani and warned Ibrahim Jaafari that the patience of the American people is not infinite."
They even might threaten to attack the country and occupy it, if the Iraqi's don't do what they want.
The Bush/Cheney strategy of saying, we didn’t say that Saddam and al-Qaeda were linked, fits in well with the right’s strategy of literalism, including their interpretation of the Constitution and the Bible, as it suits their needs. They are the used car salesmen we know so well that tell you one thing to entice you to buy, but when you call them on their lies when you see the final deal, they say, we never said that. You could also say the devil does the same sort of thing.
Maybe they didn’t literally say it (though I believe Cheney has on numerous occasions), but they used a successful rhetorical strategy of mentioning both in the same breath, producing an association in the mind after its repeated so many times, which makes the listener believe it is so and that’s just as good as literally saying it. And let’s not forget they’ve also been using the same rhetorical strategy for years in demonizing liberals.
They’re liars. We know this. The world knows this. Many more Americans, waking from this nightmare, are learning this as well.
As to Bush/Cheney lies, they are often held to a very low (we're talking nano-technology here) standard. As Ruskin observed: "The essence of lying is in deception, not in words; a lie may be told in silence, by equivocation, by the accent on a syllable, by a glance of the eye attaching a peculiar significance to a sentence; but all of these kinds of lies are worse and baser by many degrees than a lie plainly worded."
The link of Iraq to 9/11 is not an archaic, pre-war slip of anyone's tongue. Polls indicate that 85% of US troops believe it to this day. Gen. Tommy Franks, in the March 27, 2006 issue of TIME, states:
"America remains very proud of and very thankful to our sons and daughters serving in Iraq and around the world in the cause of freedom. The events of 9/11 taught us a valuable lesson: ignoring terrorism will not make the problem go away."
Think about it: were you posted to a streetcorner in Baghdad, any reasoning other than Franks' would probably create a serious morale problem. Troops, if they are to risk their lives, need to believe a cause is sacred. Anything to the contrary will not give any military or electoral traction.
During WWII, draftees were shown "Know Your Enemy" flicks that portrayed Germans and Japanese in rather ugly lights. You need to inspire hate to get people to fight. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, even though it was a remote military base, also served as a reason. The http://www.defenselink.mil/ is loaded with news about Iraq, but does anyone know if there is a specific DoD "Why We Fight" video or brochure that all Iraq-bound personnel would have seen? It would be curious to see how it placed Iraq into the GWOT.
Is it mere urban legend that in 2003 some US military vehicles, planes, or personnel bore "Remember 9/11" inscriptions and tatoos? Any pictures?
In any case, the "Iraq? 'Cause of 9/11" nexus is likely to persist, and the argument that withdrawal from Iraq would favor al Qaeda also has some serious adherents.
To call W a liar invokes many hazards that may blow up in the face of the accuser. Think of all the grief Kerry took for opposing the Vietnam war. One does not break ranks without incurring serious consequences.
The overall judgment on the Iraq intervention may depend less on why we got in than how we get out. Do all the bits of daily news about Iraqi leaders show any progress towards creation of a government, or are they "nowhere plans for nobody"? If the US simply handed the keys to Muqtada and said, "Hasta la vista, we're outta here," what would happen?
Juan, the way to bet is that you linked to Chalmers Johnson in Tom Dispatch because you read it.
Does it still seem "loony left" to you to assert as I do that a bigger disaster than the empire being defeated in Iraq is for it not to be? Was it not better for those nations themselves for its immediate predecessors, Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, to be thoroughly defeated? Never mind for the rest of the world!
Olbermann was outstanding. That video clip showed all but the most radical (and denial fueled) that Bush is a liar.
Clinton parsed words about a dress. Bush parses words about death.
Watching Paint Dry and Governments Withering Away
For something so exceedingly boring, this is going to be very interesting.
Jaafari says a government may be formed by the end of April. No rush.
Senators Warner and Levin are putting the screws on in their own inimitable, ineffable, and ineffectual way. Sic transit gloria Senatorii.
For the irony-impaired, for starters, they have forgotten their Kipling:
"The end of the fight is a
tombstone white
With the name of the late
deceased,
And the epitaph drear:
'A Fool lies here who tried
to hustle the East.'"
Secondly, they are holding visibly low cards: They are threatening to pull US troops out of Iraq, when they not only do not have that command authority, but W and the JCS are clearly planning that those troops will remain until 2080, not just 2008.
Jaafari is the Prime Minister now, and will be elected the PM again and again until the cows come home. If it ain't gonna be him, it ain't gonna be no one; that's democracy.
We'll see who blinks first.
80 percent of Iraqis want US troops out of Iraq, and if Jaafari successfully calls the Senatorial bluff and US troops actually start leaving even in part, guess who becomes the most popular man in Iraq? And if the troops don't leave, and the standoff continues along these lines all summer, guess who gets credit for standing up to the Amis? Talk about win-win!
On another "how low can the Senate go?" note, Sen. Kennedy's staff had the poor man say that the US should be disarming the militias.
He, of all Senators, representing as he does Lexington and Concord, should recall that that was the program Gen. Gage and Col. Smith were implementing April 15, 1775.
200 insurgents? That's 2 companies.
Sometimes that can even be called a battalion.
A pitched battle with 200 insurgents attacking a police station and apparently the Iraqi authorities can't call for US airstrikes or US airstrikes were not available.
Picture 200 criminals invading a police station or Prison and freeing the prisoners. That's hollywood material in North America. Reality in Iraq.
Juan, I would be interested to learn what you know/think about the accusations by Iraqi police that US troops killed 15 civilians in Hadithah. I hope this isn't true, but if it is, it would be extremely bad for the war & our troops - a "My Lai" for the 21st Century. Is there any reason to think these accusations are valid?
Killing Kerbala pilgrims - that's bad as far as religious civil war is concerned.
AJ. Shia pilgrims attacked in Iraq
Is Sistani hinting that the US-proposed Security Council will have zero real power, because it did not exist in the Constitution approved by voters?
The IRNA article you link to states, "Talking to reporters in the holy city of Najaf, Abdul Mahdi said Grand Ayatollah Sistani recommended all political groups to work based on the Constitution."
On 3/20/06 the LATimes reported, "Shiite negotiators succeeded in limiting some of the council's proposed authority. Its policies will require approval by 13 members, allowing the nine Shiite members a chance to thwart any decision if they stick together.
Hussein Shahristani, a Shiite negotiator, said leaders agreed that the council's decisions on the Cabinet would be binding "as long as they do not contradict the constitutional prerogatives of the president or prime minister." That formula, other politicians countered, might lead to conflicts.
"In reality, the authority of the council is uncertain," said Dhafir Ani, a spokesman for the main Sunni bloc. "It hasn't been settled."
This National Security Council is unlikely to have any real authority and any attempt to have this council supercede the elected parliament are likely to inflame Iraq even further, especially if the NSC has members acting as a US proxy.
How could Senators Warner and Levin instruct Iraqi politicians? When in their congressional careers did they ever face anything comparable to present day Iraq? When were they ever surrounded by, and imbedded in, massive violence, pervasive poverty, a destroyed infrastructure, and such tenuous threads of nationhood.
If Jafaari asked them for a few specific recommendations on forming a "government of national unity" they'd probably tell him "sorry, we have to catch a plane." They wouldn't have a clue, and neither would all the kings horses and all the kings men on the Potomac.
IMHO the only guy that looks like he might have a clue is al-Sadr, but he must be on a lot of hit lists.
I think with regards to deception, an old proverb says it best (I think its Yddish)
A half truth is a whole lie.
I can only surmise that a whole lie is overall worse.
What bothers me is that Senators may be thinking only on political terms of getting troops home, but not necessarily about the by-product which is really what the gist should be:
stabilizing Iraq and stopping the bloodshed.
By the now infamous Pottery Barn rule/creed, a responsibility that didn't exist now belongs to the conscience of our nation. We can't say what Albright said about the price being worth it or more importantly not worth it. The cessation of violence and stability of the nation IS worth it.
Sadly, it needn't have happened but for the actions of the terminally greed and profoundly stupid.
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