Informed Comment

Arguing with Bush and Blair

The news conference of Bush and Blair on Thursday evening was unexpectedly dominated by Iraq.

I’m going to just pull out some passages worthy of comment, not in order.

In fact, the first is from the end:

‘Q: Mr. President, you spoke about missteps and mistakes in Iraq. Could I ask both of you which missteps and mistakes of your own you most regret?

PRESIDENT BUSH: It sounds like kind of a familiar refrain here. (Scattered laughter.) Saying “Bring it on.” Kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people. That I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner. You know, “Wanted dead or alive,” that kind of talk.

I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted. And so I learned — I learned from that.

And, you know, I think the biggest mistake that’s happened so far, at least from our country’s involvement in Iraq, is Abu Ghraib. We’ve been paying for that for a long period of time. And it’s — unlike Iraq, however, under Saddam, the people who committed those acts were brought to justice; they’ve been given a fair trial and tried and convicted. ‘

Well, first of all, it should be pointed out that only the very lowest level of perpetrator at Abu Ghraib has been punished. And not very much punished at that. The soldier who set snarling dogs on detainees got six months. As I remember, Iraqis were outraged. What would you get for selling a dime bag of pot? And Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone have not in any way been held accountable. Or General “My god is bigger than yours” Boykin, either.

The US media were saying that Bush apologized for his flip rhetoric. But look again. He did not. He said he had been “misinterpreted” in some parts of the world. (Which?) How do you misinterpret “bring it on?” And, why in the world is he apologizing for saying he wanted Bin Laden dead or alive? What has that got to do with Iraq, anyway?

The people who were angriest at Bush over the “bring it on” remark were the military and the families of the military. George Washington, who actually led his troops, might have been entitled to talk like that. Someone who spends most of his time in the White House gym isn’t.

But if Bush was going to express any regrets, why is it over his faux cowboy rhetoric? Wouldn’t his biggest regret be over 20,000 Americans killed or wounded in Iraq? Wouldn’t it be over the 2400 plus fresh caskets in Arlington and other cemeteries around the country, the earth above them still bulging slightly from the newness of their perch, and the young men in wheel chairs or the ones who will eat with a straw from now on?

Here is another interesting bit:

BUSH: ‘All I can report to you is what General Casey, in whom I have got a lot of confidence, tells me, and that is the Iraqis are becoming better and better fighters. And at some point in time, when he feels like the government is, you know, ready to take on more responsibility and the Iraqi forces are able to help them do so, he will get on the telephone with me and say, “Mr. President, I think we can do this with fewer troops.”

We’ve been up to 165,000 at one point. We’re at about 135,000 now.

Actually, he moved — actually moved some additional troops from Kuwait into Baghdad. Conditions on the ground were such that we needed more support in Baghdad to secure Baghdad, so he informed me, through Donald Rumsfeld, that he wanted to move troops out of Kuwait into Baghdad. So these commanders, they need to have flexibility in order to achieve the objective. ‘

Bush is admitting that things are so bad militarily in Iraq that US control of the capital itself is in doubt, so that reinforcements have had to be brought quickly from Kuwait. He is telling us this as a reason fro which he won’t set a timetable. But what it reveals is how bad the situation in Baghdad really is. And he is saying that no timetable under these circumstances would be worth the paper it was printed on. After all, if the US troops started leaving Baghdad and the guerrillas started taking over even more of it than they already have, could Bush afford to just let the capital fall?

BUSH: ‘ The prime minister met with key leaders of the new Iraqi government that represents the will of the Iraqi people and reflects their nation’s diversity.’

The Sunni Arabs are about 20 percent of the population, more or less. The three self-identified Sunni Arab parties– the Iraqi Accord Front, the National Dialogue Council, and the small Reform and Reconciliation Party, together have 58 seats in parliament, nearly 21 percent. There are 37 cabinet posts. 4 went to the main Sunni parties in parliament. That is about 11 percent of cabinet posts. And even if the Defense minister ends up being ethnically Sunni Arab, he is likely to be an unrepresentative technocrat, and that still only brings the total up to 13.5 percent.

This new government was supposed to be an opportunity to reach out to the Sunni Arabs. But some Sunni Arabs are so upset about being stiffed in their proportion of cabinet posts that 15 walked out when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki presented his government to parliament. I saw Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi on Aljazeera this week insisting that the “Resistance” has a right to defend Iraq from foreign occupation or words to that effect, and urging that the US talk directly to the guerrilla leadership. Well, I guess that is a sign that the new Iraqi government is more representative. I’m not sure it is what Bush was going for.

Blair was just as bad, and more dangerous for being smoother. He once again tried to justify the invasion of Iraq with reference to a terrorist threat to Europe. But Iraq was not a significant source of terrorism in Europe before it was, like, invaded and occupied by the UK! And, he tried to argue that the UN is unwieldy and unworkable because it is too slow to deal with a fast-moving terror plot. But Blair’s problem with the UN is not that it was slow. The UNSC quickly passed a resolution on Iraq when requested. It was that it would not go along with an illegal war of aggression.

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Iraq’s My Lai

Friday morning, guerrillas used a car bomb to kill at least 9 persons [later reports say 9] at an East Baghdad market, wounding 31.

AP had reported 13 killings on Thursday, including two US troops. Al-Sharq al-Awsat said 20 were wounded.

The neo-Baath Party (well that is most likely who it is) took revenge for the trial of Saddam over the killing of Shiite Dawa Party members for trying to assassinate him in 1982. The guerrillas kidnapped a judge from Dujail, where the massacre took place. Two Iranian truck drivers were also kidnapped.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat/ AFP say [Ar.] that Kurdish women are protesting how poorly they are represented in the Kurdistan regional government.

At Camp LeJeune, soldiers wounded in the Iraq War heal together, in an innovative program thought up by a wounded soldier.

The Haditha incident, in which US Marines are alleged to have killed between 14 and 24 civilians in cold blood, is becoming the My Lai of the Iraq War. Officers have been relieved of command, and murder charges may be brought. Somehow, though, this time the American public doesn’t seem very interested in the story. My guess, is that many still have payback for 9/11 in their minds. The Vietnamese had never done anything to us. Of course, the Iraqis hadn’t done much to us, either, aside from fighting back when the United Nations pushed them (quite rightly) out of Kuwait. But Dick Cheney has by innuendo and half-lies managed to convince the American public that in fighting the Iraqis, we are fighting the people behind 9/11, or at least people very like that.

I’m told that some green National Guard units in Iraq have responded to bombs going off in the vicinity by indiscriminately laying down fire all around them, which has been rather hard on any civilians in the vicinity. I fear large numbers of Iraqis have been killed in such ways. But at least in this sort of incident, the guardsmen were nervous and felt they might be under attack. Haditha sounds horrid. I have known military people all my life, and I think they are for the most part decent and honorable, and I am sure that Haditha–i.e. cold blooded murder of civilians–was an aberration.

A report from Tarmiyah doesn’t hold out much hope that the guerrilla movement is going away soon. In the article, an Iraqi soldier asks for better arms, like rocket propelled grenades. He isn’t thinking big enough. He needs to demand some tanks and helicopter gunships. The guerrillas have lots of RPGs to fire back with, but don’t have tanks. US troops can’t withdraw until the Iraqi army is better equipped, and I mean equipped.

According to secret documents gotten hold of by The Herald, British troops in the South of Iraq:

“have come under bomb, mortar, rocket and sniper attack almost twice a day since January, losing 12 dead to hostile fire . . . Despite government claims that the security situation has improved on the UK’s patch to the point where up to 1000 troops can begin withdrawing from July, about 75 of the 269 attacks and four of the fatalities have occurred in provinces judged to be relatively stable.”

In withdrawing from Maysan province in particular, the British are just declaring victory and going home. As if hundreds of thousands of displaced and sullen Marsh Arabs, many of whom have gone over to Muqtada al-Sadr, could be controlled by a thousand or two thousand foreign troops. Muthanna is probably quieter, but only because the Badr Corps Shiite paramilitary is powerful there.

If foreign troops are attacked almost twice a day on average in the relatively calm south, to how many daily attacks are US troops subjected in the turbulent Sunni Arab heartland?

The Iraq War was clearly illegal in international law, and this obvious conclusion seemed evident to then British Attorney General Lord Golsmith earlier on, too. If that is the case, why did Goldsmith suddenly change his mind and authorize the war in March, 2003? British generals would not have been willing to fight without such a finding, since they risked war crimes trials (they may still risk them in the European Union someday). At least the British authorities are investigating this matter. The United States has become so corrupt and monarchical that mere international law, even that signed into US law, is not even an issue, and what is important is how the president or the vice president or the secretary of defense “saw things.” We have become a country of men and not laws.

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Iran Offered Recognition of Israel, Nuclear Cooperation
Bush: “How dare you!”

In 2003, Iran offered to come in from the cold in a proposal to George W. Bush. Recognition of Israel within 1967 borders, pressure on Hizbullah and the Palestinians to moderate, signing the additional protocols of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, it was all there for Bush’s taking.

What did Bush do?

He reprimanded the Swiss embassy, which takes care of US affairs in Iran, for daring to forward this proposal to Crawford on the Potomac.

Why?

Why?

Bush and his various constituencies (the military-industrial complex; the Christian Right; the Likudnik Lobby; and Big Oil) do not want peace with Iran.

How relieved they must have been when they managed to freeze out President Mohammad Khatami, who was trying to bring Iran back into the international community and reduce tensions.

How delighted they must have been when the world class buffoon Mahmoud Ahmadinejad succeeded Khatami and the hard liners strengthened their grasp after the Bush administration had done what it could to sabotage the Iranian reform movement.

Now Bush has Iran right where he wants it, in the sights of an ICBM.

Condi Rice called Iran the “central banker for terrorism” , even though the banks al-Qaeda used were in the UAE and Pakistan and no operational Iranian link to al-Qaeda has ever even been plausibly suggested. Rice hasn’t said that again, because everyone pointed out to her that it is not true. Given that so many of the Israeli colonists busy stealing Palestinian land and pushing Palestinian children into thorn bushes are armed and demonstrably violent, and given that the US has designated Kach/ Kahana Chai as a terrorist group, it could as well be argued that the funders of Kach in particular and of the colonists in general are among the central bankers of terrorism in the world.

Then last week the Likudnik Lobby started a black psy-ops campaign to paint Iran as the Fourth Reich. The Khomeinist regime is oppressive and authoritarian, may God hasten its demise. But it hasn’t invaded any neighbors, and it hasn’t committed genocide (though it has executed dissidents and members of religious minorities who were prisoners of conscience), and you may as well assault Burma or Zimbabwe if you are a Warmongering Wilsonian.

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Maliki: Iraqis in Control of Own Security within 18 Months
50 dead in fresh violence

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Wednesday that Iraq will be able completely to handle security throughout the country within 18 months. He had earlier suggested that Coalition troops could leave by the end of this year.

UpdateNewsday covers the building conflict between al-Maliki and Bush/Blair on this issue. The American and British leaders want to go much slower, fearful of a collapse in Iraq and the Gulf if the withdrawal is too hasty. Newsday says that there are fears that the Mahdi Army would take over the south if the British and US troops leave. But since the British are leaving Maysan Province soon, who do you think will take it over? I suppose the real fear is that The Mahdi Army will take Baghdad. Al-Maliki’s Dawa Party has developed a political alliance with Muqtada.

Bush and Blair will do a press conference after 7 pm today, Thursday.

Reuters reports on the ongoing civil war in Iraq. The deadliest incidents:

‘ YUSUFIYA – Four gunmen and two members of the Iraqi security forces were killed in clashes that erupted during a raid and search operation by army and police . . .

BAGHDAD – Gunmen shot dead General Ahmed Dawod, a deputy chief of Baghdad municipality’s protection units . . .

NEAR BAQUBA – Gunmen attacked the convoy of Adil Issa, a member of the provincial council of Diyala province north of Baghdad, killing two of his bodyguards and wounding another, police said.

‘ BAGHDAD – A U.S. soldier was killed when his patrol was attacked by small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades south of the town of Balad on Tuesday . . .

‘

US forces fought several skirmishes with guerrillas, killing a number.

Al-Hayat put the death toll at 50 on Tuesday, including 16 dead in tribal clashes near Suwayra. If so, it knows about more incidents than Reuters did. By the way, the two tribes that fought were settling a land dispute. Unfortunately, one tribe is Shiite, the other Sunni.

The same source said that Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi and Vice Premier Salam al-Zawbai, the two highest ranking Sunni Arabs in the new government, are asking the US and the Sunni Arab guerrillas to speak to one another. They are pressing the Americans and British for a withdrawal timetable, which has been a longstanding Sunni Arab demand. But al-Hashimi also said that the national resistance groups fighting the Americans had no choice but to negotiate with them.

Zawbai announced that he was ready to dialogue with any group, even Baathist, that renounced violence.

Hadi al-Amiri of the Badr Organization denies [Ar.] that his faction has been involved in death squads.

Al-Zaman says that [Ar.] Najaf police launched an attack on Tuesday evening in the Rahmah quarter of the city, most of the inhabitants of which belong to the Sadr Movement. The district only grew up after the fall of Saddam. The police launched a number of operations there, which al-Zaman did not specify, but presumably they were looking for weapons caches or known criminals.

Police also found 6 launching sites for Katyusha missiles in the vast Najaf cemetery.

Muqtada al-Sadr, the young cleric who leads the Sadr movement begun by his father, called Wednesday for Iraqi parties to avoid politicizing the universities.

Al-Zaman reports that the Governing Council of Karbala Province has dissolved the Security Committee that had been formed to address the security problems in the province. The step came after an escalation in assassinations, and the discovery of unidentified corpses. A spokesman for the council said that a new Security Committee has been formed that includes independent members. Also, a regulation has been enacted that no night-time arrests may be made without notifying the mayor of Karbala city and the municipal council.

National police and Interior Ministry special police commandos will patrol the area around the central shrines of the city, among the holiest in Shiite Islam. Volunteers may also join in.

The governor will discuss the security situation with a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

It seems pretty obvious that the first Security Committee is suspected of itself having been engaged in the assassinations and production of unidentified corpses! Throughout Iraq, the fox seems to be guarding the henhouse.

Governor Aqil al-Khaz`ali admitted that the security apparatuses are suffering from shortages of equipment and sophisticated weaponry for their struggle against local terrorists, who, he said, were taking aim at the civilizational monuments of Karbala.

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Demonstrations on Thursday Face Repression
Egypt’s Mubarak Criticizes Washington

HOw will the Mubarak regime deal with the protests planned for today against the lack of judicial independence and the rigging of elections?

My article on the increasing annoyance Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is showing toward Bush administration policies in the Middle East is out in Salon.com

Excerpt:

‘ Egypt’s alliance with the United States, a cornerstone of both countries’ foreign policies since 1978, is under the severest strain it has witnessed in its nearly 30 years. This week at the Davos World Economic Forum, President Hosni Mubarak took a number of obvious swipes at U.S. policy. Mubarak’s unusual criticisms reflected both his own uneasiness about the growing opposition to his regime — for which Washington is partly responsible — and his anger at Bush’s disastrous policies in the region, which have produced an Iraq in flames and under the domination of fundamentalist parties, a deadlocked peace process and a Hamas government in Palestine, and a dangerous escalation of tensions with Iran. It is unclear how much impact on U.S. policies Mubarak will have. But that even America’s most reliable Middle East pillars appear to be trembling should cause concern in the White House. ‘

Read the whole thing.

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National Post Retracts Minorities Badge Story on Iran

Antonia Zerbisias follows up on the the bogus National Post story about Iran having passed a law requiring Christians and Jews to wear badges identifying them as such. She notes that The National Post has retracted the story, saying:

‘ Our mistake: Note to readers

Last Friday, the National Post ran a story prominently on the front page alleging that the Iranian parliament had passed a law that, if enacted, would require Jews and other religious minorities in Iran to wear badges that would identify them as such in public. It is now clear the story is not true. Given the seriousness of the error, I felt it necessary to explain to our readers how this happened. ‘

Ironically, the rest is behind a firewall and does not at the moment seem to show up at google.news!

As for rightwing expatriate Iranian journalist Amir Taheri, the source “> of the story he has declined to retract. He continues to maintain that the law he referred to was “passed,”, and says that his sources are “three members of the Iranian Majlis” (parliament). But as many experts, including Israeli-Iranian experts, have pointed out, no such law has been passed. Some have doubted that Taheri is likely to be in close contact with three members of the new hardline parliament.

If Taheri were merely alleging that some hardline members of parliament had discussed among themselves the possibility of marking non-Muslims by badges, that would be one thing. In the 1980s under Khomeini, there actually was a measure requiring non-Muslim shopkeepers to so identify themselves in their shop windows. I understand that this measure backfired and was dropped, when the Muslim Iranians flocked to the minority establishments. (Minorities in Iran are custodians of many of the finer things in life, from liquor cabinets to pepperoni on pizza, and their merchants have often adopted a strategy of being scrupulously honest with customers so as to give a value-added beyond that offered by Muslim establishments.) While the law was something out of 1930s Germany, the reaction of the Iranian public was for the most part definitely not.

And if the allegation was merely that the matter had been discussed by MPs, you could understand him standing by what he says he was told by insiders. But he is alleging that a law has been passed. A law is a public thing. We would know about that. And, Maurice Motamed, the Jewish representative in the Iranian parliament, would certainly know about it. He denies that any such thing was even discussed in parliament.

So here is a case where an embarrassing mistake has been made. The National Post has retracted. So too should Taheri. Or else we have to assume that he is putting something else above journalistic integrity.

Larry Cohler-Esses of The Jewish Week reviews the fiasco.

See also Jan Frel at Alternet.

And Justin Raimondo.

Unqualified Offerings made some intersting points on the affair a couple of days ago.

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Iran: Revived Persecution of Baha’is
54 Arrested in Shiraz

One unfortunate consequence of the bogus stories about Iran making minorities wear badges is that it could obscure the real human rights violations toward minorities in Ahmadinejad’s Iran. There is disturbing evidence that Iranian government institutions are beginning to track and monitor the Baha’i religious minority again, and one doubts that it is with benign intentions.

In the 1980s, Khomeini had some 200 Baha’is executed and thousands were imprisoned for various terms. The violence against them subsided in the 1990s, but they still face disabilities.

Baha’is in Iran are not permitted, for instance to attend university. For more on this issue, see this site.

I recently received the following disturbing news:

‘ Dear friends,

We just heard the sad news that around twenty odd number of young active believers (male and female) have beem captured and imprisoned in Shiraz yesterday, so their families are asking everyone around the world to hold prayer meetings for them. Please keep them and their families in your thoughts and prayers. ‘

It turns out it is worse. Actually, some 54 Baha’is have been arrested. It is not clear what the charges are against them. But Khomeinist hard liners hate the Baha’is and refuse to admit that theirs is a legitimate religion.

For more on the history and background of the Iranian Baha’i community of Iran, see my piece in History Today.

The following piece can be ordered on interlibrary loan: Juan Cole, “The Baha’i Minority and Nationalism in Contemporary Iran.” In Maya Shatzmiller, ed., Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005. Pp. 127-163. Despite its title, it deals extensively with the human rights situation of the Baha’is in the post-1979 period in Iran.

I do have to enter a caveat that some people will want to use all this for the wrong purposes. The founder of the Baha’i religion advocated an end to warfare and forbade aggressive war. So it just is not right to use the mistreatment of Baha’is as any sort of pretext for military aggression against Iran. It would be like militarily devastating and occupying Pennsylvania to protect the Quakers and Amish.

Protests about the arrests in Shiraz may be addressed to:

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran
c/o H.E. Javad Zarif
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations
Fax: 212-867-7086

————

Update:

‘ NEW YORK, 26 May 2006 (BWNS) — After their arrests on 19 May in Shiraz, Iran, three Baha’is remain in jail while 51 others have been released on bail. No indication has been given as to when the three will be released. None of those who had been released, nor the three who are still being detained, have been formally charged. On the day of the arrests, one Baha’i, under the age of 15, was released
without having to post bail. At that same time, several other young people who are not Baha’is and who had been arrested with the Baha’is, were also released without bail. On Wednesday 24 May, five days after their summary arrests, 14 of the Baha’is were released, each having been required to provide deeds of property to the value of ten million tumans (approximately US$11,000) as collateral for release. The following day, Thursday 25 May, 36 Baha’is were released on the strength of either personal guarantees or the deposit of work licenses with the court as surety that they will appear when summoned to court. ‘

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