125 Killed, Hundreds Wounded by Bombings, Assassinations
Guerrillas kill 4 US Troops
UN Says 34452 Iraqi Civilians Killed in 06
Resolution Condemning Escalation Introduced in Senate
Reuters reports that the death toll from the bombings at Mustansiriya University on Tuesday rose to 70, with 180 wounded. A lot of them were 17 and 18 year-old girls. I report these attacks every day, and have seen some violence in my time, but this one is tough. You think about 70 families in black, their little girl's or little boy's pieces laid quickly to rest. And the wounded. How many disfigured or left incapacitated for life by a raging fireball enveloped by black smoke?
McClatchy's reporting was hard to read: 'One man searched for his son and finally found his head and torso but no legs. "Where is his other half?" he asked and then shook with violent sobs. '
The female university students are among Iraq's few hopes for the future. Iraqi women were once 75% literate, but US/UN sanctions and the poor economy of the 1990s drove down the percentage to only 25%. So women well-educated enough to get to university are a small minority in Iraq. Fewer and fewer families feel comfortable letting their girls go out under these circumstances.
We should be clear why these bombings are taking place. It is because Bush's policy in Iraq was total victory, along with his Shiite and Kurdish allies, over the previously dominant Sunni Arabs. Bush did this thing as a zero sum game, one where there is only one pie and if one person gets a bigger piece, someone else gets a tiny sliver. The Sunni Arabs-- among the best educated and most capable people in the country-- were offered the tiny sliver. They won't accept US troops in their country for the most part, and won't accept reduction to a small powerless minority. They have succeeded in provoking the Shiites to form guerrilla groups and engage in reprisal killings, as well, as a way of destabilizing the country. Bush's allies won't share power and wealth with them, and Bush himself keeps pushing for what he calls "victory." Today is what his victory looks like after nearly 4 years, and it is highly unlikely to look different any time soon.
On any other day, the killing of 4 US troops in Mosul, Ninevah Province, would itself be the big news. Bush withdrew 3,000 troops from Mosul and sent them to Baghdad for "Operation Forward Together," which did not operate, did not go forward, and did not create togetherness. That left US troops in Ninevah more exposed.
Another horrible piece of violence that would have been enough on its own: Al-Zaman reports that guerrillas set off a roadside bomb and then a motorcycle bomb near the Sunni shrine to Sufi saint Abdul Qadir Gilani in Baghdad, killing 15 and wounding 70. The Qadiriya Sufi order that coalesced around him in the medieval period is still popular in Sunni Iraq, West Africa, Pakistan and India. All we need is for another shrine to get blown up. Devotees mind that sort of thing.
Read the Reuters and McClatchy links above for more. It is difficult to stomach, but it is important to see reality with a clear and unflinching gaze. If more Americans had done so in 2003, we might not have come to this pass.
KarbalaNews.net reports that a joint American-Iraqi (apparently American-led--see the picture) force invaded the offices of the elected provincial council of Wasit in the Shiite South and arrested two elected members of the council. They took away Qasim al-A'raji and Fadil Jasim Abu al-Tayyib without making any announcement of the charges.
This is sort of as though in the US, federal troops attacked the South Carolina State House and arrested the elected secretary of state and treasurer.
Presumably the arrestees are suspected of militia activity. But I don't know. You can't celebrate elections and purple fingers and self-determination, and then have foreign troops involved in arresting elected officials. It looks colonial.
The Sunni Arab Gulf states gave a lukewarm endorsement to Bush's plan after some of them met with Secretary of State Condi Rice. Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, among the more anti-Iranian, anti-Shiite figures in the cabinet, put the onus for improving things in Iraq on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, leader of the fundamentalist Shiite Islamic Call (Da'wa Islamiya) Party.
One thousand active-duty soldiers and Marines have come out to call for a quick US withdrawal from Iraq. Take that, Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute!
Senators will introduce a bipartisan resolution in the senate condemning Bush's escalation of the Iraq War with an extra 21,500 troops.
I remember doing a briefing on the Hill in June of 2004 on Iraq, to a distinctly less than full room of staffers and I think no congressional representatives. Some of the staffers came up and gave me their cards and sheepishly admitted that it was very hard to get their bosses interested in taking a stand on Iraq. It seemed to me that Congress had completely abdicated its Constitutional authority over war-making. This resolution and the new energy in both houses of Congress are such welcome signs of change on this front.
If the newly elected Democratic majority didn't do anything about Iraq, I think they would risk public wrath. The public wants us out of there. Before Bush made a big push for it, 11% thought sending more troops would be a good idea. Concern is being expressed that Republicans might vote for a non-binding resolution condemning the plan but then vote money for sending extra troops, succeeding in having it both ways with the public. I don't know if I would worry too much about that. The public seems to have figured out which is the war party. And the trend lines for their awareness show a sharp upward curve over time (look at the difference between 2004 and 2006).
Al Franken had me on his radio show on Air America Tuesday and suggested that Congress and Bush could play bad cop, good cop with PM al-Maliki. As I understood the argument, he suggested that Congress cut off funding for the extra troops such that it would run out by the end of this summer. Bush could then tell al-Maliki that there has to be substantial progress on curbing militias and national conciliation by then, because Bush can't guarantee a sustained US commitment now that his party has lost Congress. I told Al that his plan sounds good to me. I do think a lot of the problem here is that the top Shiite and Kurdish leadership doesn't feel a need to compromise with the Sunni Arabs because they know if the latter make trouble, the US will deal with them. They might not be so cocky, and might compromise more readily, if they thought they'd have to fight them themselves.
The UN estimates that over 34,000 civilians were killed in political violence in Iraq in 2006. The Lancet study suggests that if you count everyone killed by violence, including criminality and clan feuds, above what was common in 2002, actually it would be 200,000.
Ben Lando of UPI writes on the possible consequences to south Iraq, fuel convoys, and petroleum export of a US attack on the Mahdi Army.
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/17/2007 12:29:00 AM
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18 Comments:
"It looks colonial." (Cole)
True and it looks that way because war the USA is waging against Iraq and its people is a colonial war.
'Nuff said.
Before you condemn ALL Republicans as members of the Death Party, please read this:
"Is Congress then impotent, if it does not want war on Iran?
"Enter Rep. Walter Jones, Republican of North Carolina.
"The day after Bush's threat to Iran, Jones introduced a Joint Resolution, "Concerning the Use of Military Force by the United States Against Iran." Under HJR 14, "Absent a national emergency created by attack by Iran, or a demonstrably imminent attack by Iran, upon the United States, its territories, possessions or its armed forces, the president shall consult with Congress, and receive specific authorization pursuant to law from Congress, prior to initiating any use of force on Iran."
"Jones' resolution further declares, "No provision of law enacted before the date of the enactment of this joint resolution shall be construed to authorize the use of military force by the United States against Iran."
"If we are going to war on Iran, Jones is saying, we must follow the Constitution and Congress must authorize it.
"If Biden, Kerry, Clinton and Obama refuse to sign on to the Jones resolution, they will be silently conceding that Bush indeed does have the power to start a war on Iran. And America should pay no further attention to the Democrats' wailing about being misled on the Iraq war."
This came from a Pat Buchanan oped reposted at, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16196.htm and is well worth reading en toto.
Unfortunately, as with Ali Allawi's and Kucinich's well laid out peace plans, Google shows only five media outlets besides the one above giving it play. I would say we need little further evidence that the corporate media is all for escalation of the war to Iran and beyond. Perhaps you could include a link to this essay and emphasize that it's HJR 14 that readers must demand their congress critters' support.
And as this past weekend's pundit programs made clear, the only way we'll have a true change in policy direction is to Impeach, Convict, and Remove from office ALL the members of the Executive with ties to the promotion and prosecution of the War, the implementation of Torture, and the many other unconstitutional acts like the illegal spying on US citizens; and once removed, they MUST be arrested, held without bail, and tried for their many crimes against humanity. Small justice for those students blown to pieces and all the others killed when Cheney/Bush committed the great crime of Breaking the Peace.
The Sunni Arabs-- among the best educated and most capable people in the country-- were offered the tiny sliver. They won't accept US troops in their country for the most part, and won't accept reduction to a small powerless minority. They have succeeded in provoking the Shiites to form guerrilla groups and engage in reprisal killings, as well, as a way of destabilizing the country.
Personnally I think that the responsibility of the US in Iraq chaos goes much further than what you describe. The anti-occupation feelings among Iraqis and the request of a timetable for withdrawal wasn't only a Sunni claim. The Sadrists are asking the same since the beginning and the US sees their possible alliance with the Sunnis as very periculous for their inavowed goals (keeping military bases in this oil rich region and getting the lyon share of the oil for US companies). Thus the US works undercover in order to inflame the divisions between Sunnis and Shiites. In addition to a constantly divisive politic which you describe, I'm sure that the US has sent out death squads and provocators. The bombing of the shrine in Samara was never revendicated; it was executed with a very high precision and professionality. I'm almost sure that it was a secret operation of the US intelligence in order to prevent an alliance between Sunnis and Sadrists. Same for the continual assassinations of Iraqis professionals and academicians : those who are able to think and are proud of their nation, those who are the more likely to fight for independence should be eliminated or intimidated, forced into exile for security reasons.
The US under the Bushites is a rogue state; they lies, they kills without warning, they imprison without trial for years, they discredit their opponents, ruining their carreers (Valerie Plame) etc. etc.. Aka, they use any means they see fit for their imperialist goals (this is not entirely new (see the story of South America in the seventies ..) but it has never been so arrogant. It's as if the US had taken the gloves off. This is why I'm sure they are doing a lot of dirty works, increasing divisive feelings in Iraq. The reason is simple : as long as there is chaos in Iraq, they can justify keeping their military bases there.
The arrest by American troops of elected Iraqi officials does indeed look colonial. But the American project in Iraq looks colonial because it IS colonial.
They can't be accused of originality. They want the same kind of Iraqi government that was run by the British Colonial Office from 1918 to 1958, and this has to be obvious to anyone in Iraq. It became obvious to me in 2003 when the "Governing Council" promptly cancelled the 14 July holiday that celebrated the overthrow of that colonial administration and replaced it with 9 April to celebrate the advent of the new American colonial regime.
Thus these London expatriates shouted, "We're BACK!" Could this possibly have escaped the notice of the Iraqi public? Iraqis feel like they have to fight for national independence against the empire because they do.
Juan, you are the best commentator anywhere in the media (mainstream or not) on the disgusting (I can't think of a better word) situation in Iraq, but in all your reports of gutless American ruling clan greed, etc, etc, I haven't come across one quite so moving as your take on the massacre of young woman students at Mustansiriya University, that must be some 200 years older than Oxford, and a lot more than Harvard.
Your note that the university's history has only been seriously disturbed once before, by the Mongol hordes in the 13thC, puts the current Iraq war into a wholly new historical perspective.
Keep up the good work, please.
If any computer nerds out there know how I could feed Juan's posts into the newsrooms of every newspaper on earth, I would be willing to do it. Just tell me how.
regards
Richard
Regardless of international opinion and their failure to secure a second UN resolution authorizing war, the U.S. and U.K. decided to invade Iraq anyway. The Iraqi regime was hardly able to resist and the war ended quickly. However, numerous issues turned up, and media reporting of the war once again proved controversial as has intelligence related issues. The geopolitical aftermath of the attacks will have a long lasting effect. The future of USA is not clear, how long its power will be going on iraq or on the world. All about the money and business. There are lots of news nobody knows. it can be followed news and business fields on these sites;
Major Companies
News and media
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Military
I do think a lot of the problem here is that the top Shiite and Kurdish leadership doesn't feel a need to compromise with the Sunni Arabs because they know if the latter make trouble, the US will deal with them. They might not be so cocky, and might compromise more readily, if they thought they'd have to fight them themselves.
To go along with Christiane, I think the main obstacle to compromise is not the Kurds and Shiites being cocky, it is the US directly. I'd consider the cockiness of the Shiites and Kurds a minor to non-existent part of the problem.
Any compromise would include the one thing Shiites and Sunnis agree on, which is a full withdrawal of the US.
The US is in effect taking full withdrawal off the table and saying "compromise on the rest". There is no reason for the Shiites, Kurds or Sunnis to do that.
For one thing, if the US is there, flooding the electoral system with money, arresting elected officials and bombing home towns, then any agreement between the Sunnis and Shiites is only valid as long as the US wants it valid, otherwise the US can change any terms unilaterally.
Another thing is that as long as the US intends to remain in Iraq against the will of the Iraqis, the guerillas and militias are honor-bound to remain armed and active.
To address Christiane's point directly, I have not seen direct evidence that the US is manipulating the armed groups but the Samarrah shrine was a time consuming professional operation conducted while the area was under US curfew. If the US didn't do it, the US should have done it.
Iraqi reconciliation = full US withdrawal. If you don't want one, you don't want the other and the US is clear that it does not want to withdraw.
It is not the case the the parties will immediately become friends when the US leaves, but the US leaving would remove a huge, the biggest, obstacle. And if reconciliation is possible at all, it is only in the context of the US having credibly announced that is does not intend to remain.
I've said before, even the corrupt, weak Saudis expelled the US. There is no way self-respecting Iraqis are going to tolerate a US military presence.
There is an interesting political dimension to the arrests in Kut. It appears that the two arrestees are in fact very closely affiliated with SCIRI. One of them, Fadil Jasim, was also arrested by US forces in 2005 in connection with allegations about election fraud in Kut – an episode in which charges about Iranian involvement were put forward.
These are remarkable developments at a time when Washington seems to be moving ever closer to consolidating SCIRI as its principal partner among the Shiites in Iraq. In fact, SCIRI sources claim that President Bush spoke to Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim on the telephone as late as 10 January in the evening Baghdad time, just hours before Bush's address to the nation about Iraq. At the same time, there are reports from other parts of Iraq where SCIRI elements have protested actions by the Maliki government. During the recent raid on the notorious “serious crimes unit” of the Basra police, SCIRI members of the local council were loud in protesting the incident.
What is going on here? Has SCIRI decided to launch some kind of internal purge, possibly with the aim of presenting itself as a “moderate” partner for the US? Or is Maliki finally beginning to override the narrow interests of some of the militant elements that are part and parcel of his ruling coalition?
Bush invaded Iraq with no more than a Makiyyan or Chalabian daydream of the outcome. There was no design to marginalize Sunnis. Sunnis might have grievances about the outcome, yes. But they are not guiltless and some remain wedded to a diseased notion that they are the literal majority, even inside Iraq. If Sunni Baathists bomb civilian targets, “Bush did it” is not a convincing alibi. The bombings do not figure in any anti-colonial rite of liberation. Nothing, and no cause, could ever redeem such criminal miscreants.
In the end, wasn't the only US choice between the devil we knew (Saddam) and the scourge of devils we are coming to know?
Last November, US voters still elected Liebermans and other pro-war candidates. 25% still back Bush like Moses. Perhaps another 25% of voters are disgruntled, anti-Bush and anti-defeat, but not anti-war. Another 40% are malleable or don't vote. Biden, Clinton, and others sense this. They lack a clean alternative solution, so they are reluctant to go beyond pious (but non-binding) resolutions.
Most likely, in 2008 US voters will either elect a guy whose opinions on the war are that we did not fight enough (MeCain) or a person who was pro-troop and flag but who waffles everything else and is neither for nor against anything (Huckabee). The Democrats will not get much traction out of mutted critiques, and Bush's ability to blame them for the 2007-9 stalemate may be rated as Rove's greatest revenge.
Even if voters elect an anti-war candidate in 2008, that person will still have to come up with some formula to please Sunni and Shia, which is sort of hard to do without violating one-person-one-vote. Zealots will continue to dissent and bomb.
The IBA News reports that unofficial negotiations between Israel and Syria have resulted in a model agreement whereby Israel surrenders the Golan Heights and in return retains full water rights to the Jordan River and other water sources in the area. In addition, Syria will cease all support for Hamas and Hizbullah, aiding in their disarmament, and also the Heights area will declared a DMZ so that Syria can not use the area to launch another attack on Israel.
The responses were immediate from the Israeli side: "No land for peace"; "the Golan is part of Greater Israel"; "Israel will never, ever surrender the Golan".
Most interesting were the Likudniks who kept on insisting what Ariel Sharon intended and what he wanted. It appears ideologically, the Israeli Right is mired in "Sharonism". It will be interesting to see if Sharon becomes the symbol of the Rightwing in Israel and become another Peron.
"We should be clear why these bombings are taking place. It is because Bush's policy in Iraq was total victory, along with his Shiite and Kurdish allies, over the previously dominant Sunni Arabs."
It is not clear at all why these bombings are taking place. It is not clear at all that it is Sunni Iraqi Arabs that are doing it. It could be Shi'ias doing their own 'black ops' or maybe just setting a bomb to make some money to feed their family. It could be al Qaeda from Jordan. It could be US 'black ops' or an Iranian hit.
Or it could be that someone is just bat-shit crazy from all the violence visited on them, their family, their country. This is commonly known as PTSD, and we have seen some of it already in the USA. An elderly white couple in Virginia suffered a home invasion and assault while being accused of being al Qaeda - by former Iraq war vets. There are other examples, and we will see PLENTY more.
The bombing in Samarra and the August 2003 bombing of the UN and bombing of al Hakim have yet to be solved. I suspect that whoever is behind these acts of violence are behind a lot of the violence in Iraq. And, as far as I know, no one has claimed responsibility for these acts. And al Qaeda usually does make that claim when they do violence.
"The UN estimates that over 34,000 civilians were killed in political violence in Iraq in 2006. The Lancet study suggests that if you count everyone killed by violence, including criminality and clan feuds, above what was common in 2002, actually it would be 200,000."
The Lancet study claims "excessive deaths" and it is true that most of them were violent. But they also include a large group of people who die from lack of medical care, people who die from stress and suicide and PTSD, people who die from a lack of basic conditions for life - water, adequate food, sanitation. "excess" deaths means the number higher than what would be expected from pre-war death rates - and includes all causes.
"You think about 70 families in black,"
I can guarantee that it will be higher than 70 dead.
I start my day with you most days, because I want to live in the reality-based community.
Other than the day that 200,000+ southeast Asians were sucked out to sea or otherwise robbed of their lives by sheer, cruel physics, yesterday in Iraq may be one of the cruelest days in recent history that I can recall.
I recall raging with a fellow jurist at DOJ about 10 years ago over everyone standing by while Rwanda was falling apart. (So I do have an over-idealistic, neocon, semi-colonialist side, but I would only bring it out when I think a disastrous historic wrong is being committed, and we might actually make a difference if we acted, and I think in that instance a UN force might have been able to cut things short, and I was astonished that no one even tried. This fellow jurist, who I still deeply respect because of his reaction then, and deep humanity on many other matters, went on to sign on to one of John Yoo's worst memos. I can only think that his idealism led him astray.)
But now we are the wrongdoers.
At this point I just have to say that I think we are so goddamned incompetent that nothing, NOTHING, we could do to try to salvage this situation could do anything but make it worse.
But we will bear responsibility, and suffer the wrath, for those who will, probably cruelly, lose their lives when we bail out.
At this point all we can hope to do is to contain the damage.
What did anyone expect those (Sunnis, mostly) who were going to lose everything to do?? Just roll over and say fine, we'll be happy to accept poverty as our lot? Of course they were going to react.
They fight not because they "hate freedom" but because they're angry that instead of getting to send their kids to college, they're worried about whether they can buy them bread or shoes, and pretty sure that they can't safely send them off to the second grade without having to pay ransom three times a year (if they're lucky and the kids make it home after the ransom is paid).
(to say all this I had to create a blog titled "imnotgonnablog"! (well, actually, that was taken, so I even needed a work-around from that)).
With all of this talk of fighting Sadrists and pacisfying Iraq, one wonders of the plans underway for SCIRI; who have no neighbourhoods to block up in Baghhdad; and are the real kingmakers in Iraq. For Sadr would be just another Islamic revolutionary without SCIRI and SCIRI just a rusticated rabble without Sadr. Both would be illegitimate in western eyes without Dawa.
Together all they need is to wait Bush; and then plan to defend themselves from the real threat to us all. Saudis and their terroist armies in Pakistan and Jordan.
Who knows; perhaps the Saudis might even pay for another 9-11; they already admitted that the pay for the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. Bush has his priorities confused.
The legislatve maneuverings at this stage are all geared towards getting as many Republicans as possible to support the Democrats.
In particular the goal must be to get 67 or more Senators to support some form of anti-war resolution.
What the precise resolution is does not matter very much. What is critical is to get a resolution that has a 2/3rds majority.
The only tooth that matters at this point is the impeachment power. It is clear that sooner or later the administration will provoke a constitutional crisis. They simply cannot abide any limits to their power. The Congress cannot allow them to operate as they have done.
I expect an attack on Iran just to show they can.
Votes for the original authorization to use force if diplomacy failed were later misrepresented as votes for unprovoked war. Votes for the non-binding resolution today will in six or twelve months time be totted up as potential votes in favor of conviction should there be an impeachment.
I am looking forward to your talk in SF on Saturday, Juan. The link you provided in your post doesn't indicate if tickets are required or what is the cost. Do you know?
See you then.
re John Koch's comment:
As one who was politicised in the 1960s against the Vietnam War I have been waiting and waiting for the true signs of widespread people's supoort for the anti Occupation insurgency ...ie for the Iraq university students to "go out" and rise up against the occupation. (I'm sure Dr Cole will know what I mean even if younger persons contributing here do not). It's been my barometer but hads never happened.
Then last November/December Iraqi bloggers started reporting that written and verbal threats were being made against the universities and students by the insurgency, demanding that they close down and cease attendijng classes.
They didn't, and now we have this extraordinary bombing of 17 and 18 year old university students.
The insurgency, having failed to attract the support of the students, is now bent on punishing them it seems. Well, targeting students goes against all theories if you have genuine claims to be a "liberation" movement in my experience, and I expect in Dr Cole's too?
On a previous post here I queried whether the Baath had now collapsed into nihilism as result of their collaboration/alliance with AlQ Jihadists etc. I think they have and much worse could come from them (eg a Beslan).
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