48 Bodies found in Baghdad
US Officials Impatient with Maliki
Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times discusses the frustrations of American officials in Baghdad with the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Al-Maliki opposed Israel's war on Lebanon, and has sought good relations with neighboring Iran, neither move synchronizing with US policy. He has also been slow off the mark to get the process of national reconciliation going among Sunni Arabs and Shiites, has seemed helpless in the face of militia activity, and has not been able to get a handle on the security situation.
Richter reports that some Americans in the Green Zone are beginning to think they'd be better off with a traditional Middle Eastern strong man than a weak elected prime minister. But they admit that support for al-Maliki remains Washington's policy for now.
The CPA, America's government of Iraq for a year, supposedly stood for "Coalition Provisional Authority. Locally, it became known as "Can't Provide Anything." The astonishingly poor performance of the CPA is explained by WaPo journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran: the criteria for selection of the personnel was personal loyaltly to George W. Bush, and a lot of snot-nosed kids were sent off with big responsibilities and no experience. Some candidates were asked about Roe v. Wade. There was never any legal authority for the CPA in American law, and its procedures were irregular, sometimes corrupt, and mostly criminally incompetent. (As with any big group of people, there were some highly competent persons in the group; but they were not allowed to accomplish anything.) The cronyism of the CPA should have been a warning as to what was going on in Washington DC itself, e.g. Brownie at FEMA or Douglas Feith at the Department of Defense.
Police found 48 bodies in various places in Baghdad on Saturday.
Reuters reports civil war violence on Saturday:
. . . KIRKUK - Iraqi police killed two insurgents after they repelled an attack by them on their checkpoint, just south of Kirkuk, police said. Two policemen were also wounded in the attack. . .
MOSUL - Three policemen were wounded when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in the northern city of Mosul, police said. . . .
SAMARRA - Iraqi police said four members of the Albu Baz tribe were killed along with a gunman who attacked them on Friday after they clashed in the city of Samarra, police said. The Albu Baz tribe blamed al Qaeda militants for the attack. . .
BAGHDAD - Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and three wounded when a bomb exploded inside a car they approached that contained a body, an Interior Ministry source said.
BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomb killed one civilian and wounded 22 when the attacker detonated his vehicle outside a well-fortified police station in southern Baghdad's Doura district, police said. . . .
BAGHDAD - A Sunni member of Iraq's parliament escaped a bomb attack on his convoy unhurt as he travelled through western Baghdad, police said. Two of Mohammed al-Dani's guards were lightly wounded in the attack. . . .
BAQUBA - A roadside bomb killed three policemen and wounded another when it blew up as a police patrol was passing in the restive town of Baquba, police said. . . .
RAMADI - A suicide car bomb targeting a U.S. military patrol killed four civilians and wounded eight, police said.
posted by Juan Cole @ 9/17/2006 12:30:00 AM
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There is no single solution for all the militias.
Sadr has unitentionally created a monster in the Jaish al Mahdi which he no longer controls. He basically needs to disown it. This can be achieved by declaring that the government will now provide the services instead of the Mahdis.
Badr is in cahoot with the USA. Despite Badr's pathetic performance the Americans think they can use it as a Trojan Horse (they think the same about the Iraqi forces) if they have to leave.
The Peshmergas can be banned from non-Kurdish areas in the short term. The Kurdish parliament has in fact voted to do just that.
The anti-occupation forces can not be satisfied without a time-table to end it. Expressing displeasure and acting all imperial is not going to solve this problem.
The smaller militias will vanish once the rule of law is back.
This is a little off topic, but... Is there any chance that even if the Iraq Study Group under James Baker come up with some kind of recommendations, they are going to be considered? In particular, if they contain anything that comes anywhere near what can be viewed as "cut and run." ----Thank you for Informed Comment Prof Cole. It's a blessing for those of us who are interested laypeople looking for info grounded in reality.
Is this all hopeless? I mean really. My plan for Iraq: give southern Iraq to Iran. Let the Kurds have their own country in the north. Create a mini-Iraq in the central/western portion of the country. Have the new Kurdistan, and Iran, give one-time, large cash payments to the new mini-Iraq, to compensate it for the loss of oil money.
"The CPA, America's government of Iraq for a year,"
That's old news...
May 23 2004: In Iraq, the Job Opportunity of a Lifetime, Washinton Post, Page A01
"The first week they arrived, Office of the White House Liaison (OWHL), headed by a man named Jim O'Beirne, found out about CPA's staffing plans. A turf war ensued. At one point, OWHL personnel told the two Korn/Ferry employees that they had to clear their desks and be escorted out of the building. Of course, Reuben intervened and nothing that dramatic happened. What did happen is that recruitment was reassigned from CPA to OWHL by OSD. The Korn/Ferry people were only to help interview and process candidates already screened by OWHL.
I sat in the same room of cubes for several weeks watching this unfold, talking daily with the Korn/Ferry people, and observing the first interviews run by OWHL. OWHL hired retired military personnel, most of whom had run for public office as Republicans and been defeated in the 2002 electoral cycle, to staff its CPA recruiting arm. I observed one such individual, a retired Navy CMDR who lost a Virginia legislature race in 2002, question one applicant as to their stance on Roe v. Wade. I watched resumes of immensely talented individuals who had sought out CPA to help the country thrown in the trash because their adherence to "the President's vision for Iraq" (a frequently heard phrase at CPA) was "uncertain." I saw senior civil servants from agencies like Treasury, Energy, FERC, and Commerce denied advisory positions in Baghdad that were instead handed to prominent RNC contributors."
In full: [HERE]
Link courtesy of: http://www.needlenose.com/pMachineFree2.2.1/comments.php?id=A1275_0_1_0_C
But look, Dillon S. Myer, head of the WRA, which relocated all the Japanese-Americans to concentration camps was cut from essentially the same gray, bureaucratic ("Little Eichman", if you would, referencing Ward Churchill), pandering, "cloth", and he even went on to head up the BIA and took his ill-informed policies with him.
Recommended reading: Keeper of concentration camps: Dillon S. Myer and American racism
by Richard Drinnon http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/2097.html
It's not a *great* read, but *alot* of detail about the similarities between the WRA Japanese-American internment/concentration camps and later, the Native American reservation/BIA structure under the management of Dillon S. Myer and a raft of political cronies.
There is nothing new under the sun regarding people like Dillon S. Myer and Jim O'Beirne... They are how the business of "Being America, World Power" gets done.
Benjamin Franklin summarized it quite nicely:
"Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence on the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice; the love of power, and the love of money.
"Separately each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but when united in view of the same object, they have in many minds the most violent effects.
"Place before the eyes of such men, a post of honour that shall be at the same time a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it.
"The vast number of such places it is that renders the British Government so tempestuous. The struggles for them are the true sources of all these factions which are perpetually dividing the Nation, distracting its Councils, hurrying sometimes into fruitless and mischievous wars, and often compelling a submission to dishonorable terms of peace.
"And of what kind are the men that will strive for this profitable pre-eminence, through all the bustle of cabal, the heat of contention, the infinite mutual abuse of parties, tearing to pieces the best of characters?
"It will not be the wise and moderate; the lovers of peace and good order, the men fittest for the trust. It will be the bold and the violent, the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits.
"These will thrust themselves into your Government and be your rulers.
"And these too will be mistaken in the expected happiness of their situation: For their vanquished competitors of the same spirit, and from the same motives will perpetually be endeavouring to distress their administration, thwart their measures, and render them odious to the people."
--Benjamin Franklin, Letter to the Federal Constitutional Convention in objection to the establishment of a salary for the executives of the federal government - June 2, 1778 (Antifederalist #5)
Richter reports that some Americans in the Green Zone are beginning to think they'd be better off with a traditional Middle Eastern strong man than a weak elected prime minister.
Does that mean they actually miss Saddam Hussein?!?
...But realistically, I think the key (as acknowledged partially by the LA Times article) is this:
In addition to action to stem sectarian violence, U.S. officials want the Maliki government to move on a new investment law to bolster the economy as well as legislation to restructure the state oil company and set new rules for investing in Iraq's petroleum industry.
In fact, I (and others) would argue that this is primary and all the rest is secondary.
The Koran expressly Commands World Jihad and World Domination for Islam. Here are the verses:
http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?storyid=9761&ret=news.aspx&cat=
Do Americans think they would be better off with a "traditional Middle Eastern strongman" than a weak elected prime minister? Or is that America would prefer a pro-US Middle Eastern strongman to a pro-Iran elected prime minister? I think the first is a euphemism for the second.
This veiled threat to overturn Maliki's government does the opposite of what is intended. It makes Maliki, the militias and the insurgency more adamant that they not disarm.
The problem is that the United States insists on keeping the capability of orchestrating an Algeria - turning the pro-Western armed forces against the elected government and bring a pro-Western dictatorship to power, then fighting the people into submission in a "dirty war".
The militias and insurgency cannot and will not disarm voluntarily until the US has made an objective commitment to be unable to do that. One objective commitment could be a withdrawal timetable.
A stable, pro-US, anti-Iran Iraq is just not in the cards. It just cannot happen. Bush has said that if the US leaves it will turn Iraq over to militias with ties to Iran - but the Iraqi people voted for militias with ties to Iran.
It's over. The question is will the US give up its dreams of a pro-US Iraq quickly and relatively painlessly or will it waste a lot more lives before it does so.
I discuss various scenarios that Iraq can stablize into at my blog.
Questions to ponder--
Is Maliki going to be the Iraqi equivalent of Diem?
Will Western efforts to keep Iraq in one piece be any more successful than similar efforts in Yugoslavia?
The "strongman" reference reminded me of reports last February of Khalilzad's campaign against the nomination of Jaafari for Prime Minister. He was said to be threatening dire consequences if the UIA didn't nominate the West's favorite candidate Adel Adbul Mahdi of the SCIRI. I review this at http://arablinks.blogspot.com
You also have to laugh at the idea of Maliki as a weak prime minister as opposed to "traditional Middle East strong men".
Maliki's country is being occupied by the most advanced army in the world, that of 10 trillion plus GDP the United States. His country is 500 or so times poorer than the US.
The US wants him to crack down on the militia of Sadr, the politician most responsible for giving him his position. So he's weak for facing down the United States? Unlike a "traditional strong man" like Abdullah in Jordan who accepts Jordanian citizens as prisoners from the United States and tortures them so that the US does not have to dirty its hands? Maliki is weak and Abdullah is a strong man?
About those militias - it seems that both prominent Sunnis and Shiites believe the death squads are more the fault of the US than of Sadr. (Interestingly, I recall when John "Death Squad" Negroponte was posted to Iraq, it was widely believed that dirty tactics were his mission. Haven't heard much from him since.)
But the US response merits observation. The response is not that rewards should be made for information leading to the apprehension of the death squad perpetrators. The response is to call for the complete dismantlement of the Mahdi Army despite the fact that there is no question that factions under Sadr's control, like Sadr, condemn the death squads. That's convenient.
Being that the "Iraqi Army" is integrated into the US army and at least as loyal to the US as to the Iraqi parliament the Iraqis are right to suspect ulterior motives for US attempts to consolidate the monopoly of force held by the "Iraqi Army".
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