VP Abdul Mahdi: US Military Part of Problem;
4,000 Iraq police killed in past 2 years
The deaths of two more US Marines were announced on Friday.
Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi said on Friday that the lack of a Status of Forces Agreement is among the main reasons for political gridlock in Iraq. The US military can act as it pleases, he complained. It is one more decision-making center among many. The lack of a SOFA is in fact among the main legal pitfalls in Iraq.
About 4,000 Iraqi police have been killed and more than 8,000 injured over the past two years, the U.S. commander in charge of the police training said Friday.
AP reports drily that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki castigated Iraqi political parties for having militias and demanded that they dissolve them, while he was being guarded by the Badr Corps, the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of al-Maliki's honored guests. This is like demanding that wine makers agitate for prohibition.
Yahya Barzinji reports on why many observers believe that the Kurds are gradually moving toward independence. He quotes Kurdish leaders denying any such intention.
Richard Engel reports that US troops in Iraq are questioning why they are there and what exactly their mission is. He tells of how they find evidence that some among their colleagues, the Iraqi police, are actually secret death squad members who murdered a Sunni Arab man and tossed his body in the street.
Colin Powell's wife says that Bush used her husband to sell the Iraq War. Too right. And it is impossible to watch a virtually all-white Republican Party install a couple of high-profile African Americans and use them as fall guys without thinking that there is something unsavory and racist about it.
posted by Juan Cole @ 10/07/2006 01:10:00 AM
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12 Comments:
Colin Powell's wife says that Bush used her husband to sell the Iraq War.
Everyone knows this, including Powell. Powell is an adult, and I don't respect him for what he did, but it is going too far to propose that he was somehow "used." He knew what he was doing and could have resigned. You seem to imply that he was tricked into his actions.
And it is impossible to watch a virtually all-white Republican Party install a couple of high-profile African Americans and use them as fall guys with thinking that there is something unsavory and racist about it.
As my father used ot tell me, "There's such a thing as individual responsiblity, you know."
Condi and Powell are very, very bright grownups. To paint them as innocent "fall guys" might make others think there is something patronizing and racist about it.
It is certainly a shame that the first black Americans to reach as high as these two have in our government ended this badly, but there is such a thing as personal responsibility you know.
Sometimes I get all choked up over poor George W Bush, the ne'er do well who always went along to get along, with remarkable success, until he reached the job his "benefactors" had had in mind for him all along. But no... He didn't have to take the job. He could have admitted that he wasn't up to it.
Colin Powell could have, should have, resigned and made a point of explaining in detail exactly why he resigned. That would have been an act of courage and a display of loyalty to his country rather than to his immediate superior.
Same for Condi Rice. Condi Rice not only did not resign, even in light of Colin Powell's negative example. She has instead embraced the mad, criminal neocon policies at State and is herself now one of the criminal drive wheels of this mad regime.
She will find herself in the dock at the Anglo-American War Crimes Tribunal with the rest of them. With Powell too, and with Wolfowitz and Feith, who undoubtedly think they have cleverly escaped and left the others, George W Bush not least of all, as their "fall guys".
Hey Juan, I think you wanted "without" and not "with" in that last paragraph. Keep up the great work.
"This is like demanding that wine makers agitate for prohibition."
I think it's more like one wine maker agitating for prohibition except for his winery.
On Powell I think the other thing is that they used his military experience- the fact that Powell wouldn't desert his post to make him stay as Secretary of State.
I'm sorry but Colin Powell was a willing victim. At least that is my sense. Powell, the consummate soldier, simply did what he has always done, saluted and said, "yes, Sir," then carried out the mission. Sure, he was used but he could have resigned rather than have told the stories that he told. I have no sympathy for him, only outrage. Like McCain, he has been a part of destroying this nation and that may well be what will eventually be written.
Put on the hipboots John Warner The Virginia Crawfish according to CNN, faults Tommy Franks and Centcom for not studying the history of the British in Iraq! Like why didn't he study the history of the British in Iraq? It is not classified information. Why they might have picked up the phone and asked Dr. Cole or gone to the public library
The reason neither of them did is, of course very simple - Bush wanted to go to war to win elections and so did they.
I wouldn't describe Colin Powell as a 'fall guy.' He made a conscious decision to go to the UN and make a false, fear-mongering case, literally 'lie,' about WMD in Iraq. This says more about his character than it does about his race. The honourable thing for him to have done would be to resign. I cut him a small break simply because he has the mindset of a soldier, as his analogy about being on 'long guard' demonstrates.
Rice is another issue all together. She seems to be quite at home in this administration and has no conflict with any of the positions that she supports and pursues. She has a knack for the bald-faced lie at which everyone else in this administration excels.
Los Angeles Times Theatres of Conflict : “Violence in IRAQ, which takes about ~2,000 lives each month, involves four overlapping conflicts...”
NORTH : Kurds vs Arabs
SOUTH : Shi'ites vs Shi'ites
Al Anbar : Marines vs Sunni/Qaeda
BAGHDAD : Shi'ite vs Sunni
“...they were all killed in the same country, but not in the same war. The fighting in IRAQ is not a single conflict, but an overlapping set of conflicts, fought on multiple battlegrounds, with different combatants. Increasingly, American troops are caught between competing forces.” So states this journal's attempt to present to their readers a comprehensive, if not entirely rigorous overview of the AngloAmerican Occupation of IRAQ.
Indeed it fails to identify "the conflict" as an occupation, rather than a WAR ~ which, in this writer's opinion is necessary before remedies become apparent / relevant to reality. Here, AngloAmerican forces are characterized in a passive sense, "they are caught," as if they, themselves are neither provocateurs nor participants; ie., There is still a kind of patronizing meme to American media ~ they are as wild children, incapable of civilizing themselves ~ though most American journalists do now reflect the realilzation that already exists in the minds of the majority of their readers: something is wrong.
There are certain concepts = words that are in general avoided by Americans, for example ~ educated or otherwise expressive people are not referred to as "American intellectuals." The whole idea of "American occupiers" is another example of a notion shunned...
...as somehow unfitting, unacceptable or unworthy of the American self-image = culture. And as American ground troops (and Officer Corps) increasingly express their own inability to articulate THE MISSION, the idea that it is OCCUPATION, however unsavoury ~ would at least restore some clarity ~ and a sense of responsibility ~ to an otherwise indecipherable foreign policy, military deployment.
I agree that racism is a problem in this country and specifically within the current regime. I also agree with several posters that Powell is no innocent victim. Nor has he only recently crossed over to the dark (as in Imperial, not a comment on pigment) side.
He was responsible for attempting to cover up the My Lai Massacre very early in his career. Loyalty to one's commanders as opposed to The Constitution and basic human rights is NOT a virtue.
With the intent of encouraging you to keep the dialog at a high level in your very fine blog, I suggest that your characterization of the fronting of the Bush (Cheney) foreign policy by African Americans as possibly "racist and unsavory" might itself be just that. Certainly the fact that these individuals are African American is not lost on this cynical administration. However, the presence in this administration of these two individuals simply typifies this administration's:
1. Inclination to reward loyalty, and aversion to dissent, without much regard for competence: thus the selection of Rice, a long-time confidante of Bush, and who had no particular experience with current foreign policy issues or national security and whose influence (and ignorance) certainly contributed to the resurrection of the defunct worldwide communist threat (her outdated specialty) as a new worldwide Islamic threat.
2. Cynical manipulation of public relations, and thorough politicization of every aspect of foreign policy, by selecting for secretary of state Colin Powell, the most popular general since DDE , whose intelligence and integrity were well known, but whose sense of duty and loyalty apparently trumped his own good sense and somehow prevented him from resigning.
Any racism that this administration might exhibit pales in comparison to its clearly demonstrated incompetence, if not outright recklessness, in the foreign policy arena.
Thank you for this most intelligent and informative blog.
"The lack of a SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) is in fact among the main legal pitfalls in Iraq."
A family is sleeping soundly in their house. A group of US soldiers break down the door, enter, search the house from top to bottom, then grab a family member and leave. The Family hates America from that point on (if they didn't already).
From watching the news and reading the papers its clear that this scenario is played out endlessly in Iraq. Who can the family protest to? What power does the democratically elected government of Iraq have to intervene? Is this sovereignty? No, its a police state and we have the biggest and most powerful police force. And with Bush's new snatch and store authority, he can grab anyone he wants and put him or her in a CIA cell forever. I wouldn't be surprised if al Sadr is already on the short list.
My guess is that a SOFA agreeable to the US would have to give the US the same carte blanche it has today.
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