Boles Guest Editorial: the Qaedization of Iraq
Dr. David Boles writes:
I am becoming alarmed that no one is highlighting what appears to be a new and quite bald propaganda push to "Al-Qaida"-ize Iraq. Within the last week we have seen the following claims: WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Tuesday said she believes al-Qaida spends "every hour of every day" plotting against the United States. (UPI, 2/27) KUWAIT CITY, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Kuwaiti news reports say al-Qaida is preparing to carry out its threat to launch attacks against the country and other Gulf states. (UPI, 2/27) WASHINGTON — The U.S. military faces three wars in Iraq simultaneously according to a report which recommends a strategy of targeted U.S. strikes on Al Qaida death squads. (World Tribune, 2/28) WASHINGTON — The United States has determined that Iraq deployed far fewer troops than promised for the current offensive against Al Qaida in Baghdad. (World Tribune, 3/2) Earlier, the military said coalition forces killed eight militants Thursday in a raid near Baghdad targeting al-Qaida in Iraq. A military statement said the raid took place in the Salman Pak region. (VOA, 3/2) Day by day, Iraq's map is being redrawn along Sunni-Shiite lines. Gangs from both sides — including Shiite death squads and al-Qaida inspired Sunni radicals — have waged a nasty war-within-a-war for territory they can call their own. (AP, 3/2) During his visit to Pakistan, Cheney expressed concern to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf over al-Qaida's regrouping inside Pakistan's tribal regions and an expected Taliban spring offensive in neighboring Afghanistan. "If our coalition withdrew before Iraqis could defend themselves, radical factions would battle for dominance. The violence would likely spread throughout the country and be very difficult to contain. Having tasted victory in Iraq, the (militants) would look for new missions. Many would head for Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban," Cheney said. He said others would head for capitals across the Middle East and work to undermine moderate governments. "Still others would find their targets and victims in other countries on other continents. Such chaos and mounting danger does not have to occur. It is, however, the enemy's objective," Cheney said. "In these circumstances, it's worth reminding ourselves that, like it or not, the enemy we face in the war on terror has made Iraq the primary front in that war," he added. Then, to laughter and applause, Cheney said, "To use a popular phrase, this is an inconvenient truth." (AP, 3/2) The bodies of 14 policemen were found Friday northeast of Baghdad after an al-Qaida-affiliated Sunni group said it abducted members of a government security force in retaliation for the rape of a Sunni woman by members of the Shiite-dominated police. (AP, 3/3) In a separate raid in the Taji area on Saturday, nine suspected insurgents were captured, including two believed to be responsible for recruiting and helping foreign militants join the insurgency in Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The suspects were also accused of harboring al- Qaida in Iraq leaders, it said. (AP, 3/3) Fallujah police, meanwhile, reportedly arrested three Al-Qaida members, including one suspected of attacking the Saqlawiyah Police Station, KUNA said. (UPI, 3/3) In other developments, the U.S. military says coalition forces Saturday detained nine suspected terrorists in a raid targeting al-Qaida in Iraq just north of Baghdad near Taji. American officials also say coalition airstrikes Friday near the same area targeted an al-Qaida in Iraq network responsible for threats against coalition aircraft. The military says it believes the airstrikes killed several key insurgent leaders and destroyed anti-aircraft weapons. Insurgents have shot down eight coalition helicopters since January 20. Also Friday, Iraqi security forces found the bodies of 14 policemen in Diyala province. An al-Qaida-linked Sunni group said it abducted the men to avenge the alleged rape of a woman last month. (VOA, 3/3) Regardless of what one thinks of the extent of Al-Qaida involvement in Iraq, it seems transparent that the administration and its allies are attempting to shift justification for continuing war in Iraq onto Al- Qaida. This is a dangerous trend that needs to be publicly highlighted. David Boles |
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/04/2007 12:03:00 AM
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8 Comments:
Thanks for an interesting guest editorial. I had also noted the more frequent use of the Al'Quaeda to name the ennemy in the news, but wasn't aware it was so overwhelming. IMO that serves many goals :
1) It could be aligned with a change of policy reguarding the balance between Sunnis and Shiites; stopping the stigmatizing of Iraqis fighters as Saddammists, baathists or remnants of the former regime, will of course help in attempt to gain or retain the moderated Sunni Iraqi in the actual political game.
2) It has become clear that there is a lot of discouragement in the US army; there was a petition signed by thousands US troops supporting withdrawal lately, the main complaint was that they don't understand why and what they are fighting in Iraq. Naming the ennemy Al'Quaeda may help the army to keep the troops more motivated, aka fighting against terrorism.
3) It plays the same role with respect to the American opinion : they are trying to renew the myth that "we are figthing terrorists in Iraq so that they don't come to get us in America".
4) This is an argument that can also be used with the mounting support for withdrawal in Congress : look, look those unpatriotic Democrates, they want us to runaway from the terrorist threat.
5) Things are seriously deterriorating in Afghanistan, so this help the WH to draw more attention on the Afghanistan war, for which they will soon need more means, more troops and more money. Further this include the Iraq war in the same global war against terrorism again.
They are trying to play the same trick they used to launch the war in Iraq again, in the hope of stalling a withdrawal, but I don't think it will work, although you never know : after all the Americans reelected Bush for a second term.
If a lie is repeated often enough, it may be viewed by the gullible as the truth. This is the working policy of the Bush Administration. Since 9/11, Al Quaeda has become the all-purpose, handy-dandy bogeyman. When mentioned, it elicits fear and anger, much like the Pavlovian dog and bell. The image of Al Quaeda as a nasty terrorist group is fully deserved. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice used that image to promote their war agenda,and attached it to Iraq, even though they were told this was not so. It was much too tempting for them to pass on it. The Rovian reptiles among them knew that any mention of Al Quaeda would bring on a hysterical, fearful response from the public. The Media would fan the flames. And so, if it worked once, in Bushland, it will work again. The chaos in Iraq is such that it is difficult to tell who is doing what to whom. Blame Al Quaeda. That will justify any incompetent, ill-advised scenario.Those of us who opposed the invasion of Iraq from the beginning can only hope the public is a bit wiser at this point. But the Bushies are putting their money on the fear factor. They see it as their trump card, and will play it again and again. When there is a true threat, they will have cried wolf so many times, the warning will be ignored. I certainly do not trust them to be on top of any serious plot. They are too busy looking in the wrong directions, protecting their oil cronies, and ignoring the obvious targets, like chemical companies.
Good morning sir,
The tip off that a push to make the al Qaida strawman bigger came from a strange Asia Times article from the generally reliable Syed Saleem Shahzad at Asia Times Online.
Part one of his series is here and part two is here.
Professor, this series sounds increasingly fanciful, and frankly the idea of missles and MIRV capabilities coming to a group of extreme Salafi ascetics given to being unpopular renegades on the run from a multi-national military force stikes me as being complete tommyrot. That propaganda of this excitable a nature requires some sort of state sponsorship. I think the Pakistani ISI is culprit here, and we should remember that Mr. Shahzad is the Pakistan Bureau chief for Asia Times, and would be a likely conduit for ISI disinformation.
Professor, this posting of the Dr. David Boles' observations is further proof to me that the screeching about al Qaida this and al Qaida that are more likely the imaginings of ISI/Pentagon pitchmen than actual, on the ground, reality.
The issue is not whether Salafi groups and cells of Sunni guerrillas use the al Qaida name, the issue is the fantastic claims of normally state-sponsored, and extremely complex and technical engineering issues like atomic bombs and ICBMs can be made by a small group of extremeists presumably in Waziristan and the Hindu Kush highlands.
Even by the incredible standards of the Bush administration capacity for lying big, these claims are whoppers. Bush will not admit his abject failure. And we suffer for it.
AQ - Sanctuary Forever?
It's not really surprising to see a lot of blather about attacking AQ in Iraq.
The real question is why a group of 1-2,000 individuals has not long ago been eliminated. With 140,000 US troops, 1-20,000 COWs, several tens of thousands of contracters, and the entire myriad intelligence services of the USG and allies concentrated on them, even a portion of the forces available, according to Petraeus's counter-guerrilla ratios, should have been more than enough to have writ finus a couple of years ago to AQ in Iraq.
Of course, there was that little report about half a year ago that said the US military should start, after 3-plus years in Iraq, to pay attention to dealing with AQ in Iraq. No rush.
Then there's the little matter of AQ in exile in Waziristan or wherever in the Northwest Frontier Agency in Pakistan, where they have had five unmolested years courtesy of Chief of Staff P-P and SOCOM et al, to rest, recuperate and re-equip.
This little strip of land, nowhere wider than fifty kilometers and strung out for several hundred kilometers in land so desolate and barren no government appears to have thought it remunerative to conquer, would be judged militarily indefensible by any military commander charged with defending it. It could be so easily sliced and diced into little terrain cubicles and turned into even more barren landscape than Apacheria or the post-Burning Shenandoah Valley, yet W. pretends it is untamably wild terrain, and no reporter or analyst challenges this absurdity.
AQ is W.'s best supporter and the threat he loves to wave, and he will be "unable," no matter how many forces the US Congress authorizes and funds, to "deal with it."
And the Army, which can't deal with mold in its own hospitals, will ask for an expansion; it should get a severe pruning instead until it can focus on core issues.
The Veep said:
"In these circumstances, it's worth reminding ourselves that, like it or not, the enemy we face in the war on terror has made Iraq the primary front in that war," he added. Then, to laughter and applause, Cheney said, "To use a popular phrase, this is an inconvenient truth." (AP, 3/2)"
I would suggest that the inconvenient truth here is we are our own 'worst enemy'.
The "...enemy we face in the war on terror" is none other than ourselves, and the mistakes we are making by going along with people like the Vice President, who have vested interests in maintaining a neo-balance-of-terror may be our downfall, constitutionally, diplomatically, and economically.
"Bring 'em on!", the 'Line in the sand'.
I'm sure there are are countless other statements indicating exactly where these people wanted their battle lines drawn.
Even without taking the implications of Phillip Bryer's comment on IED/Land mines as a sort of Western Mil-Ind complex accomplishment in 'global order', as their indiscriminate weaponization of whole regions of the world kill their own troops.
A Native American once said of another band of natives: "I don't like these people, they eat their dogs." [cite on request].
Well I don't like these people: "They eat their own".
Follow the money, and you'll find war criminals and traitors to their own people in the interest of... well quite simply.. $$$$$
We need to counter such claims with these facts...
In 2006, the top general at CENTCOM, John Abizaid, said “al Qaeda in particular, in Iraq, is not popular. I don‘t believe that it can become mainstream there.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15952042/
(Scroll half-way down the page for Abizaid's quote)
In 2006, Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, said “attacks by terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in Iraq account for only a fraction of the insurgent violence.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15952042/
The U.S. military confirmed al-Qaeda represents only 2% of insurgents in Iraq. See NBC video link...
http://tinyurl.com/38oxu7
Waziristan might be easy to invade, but impossible to pacify. The occupier would get zero cooperation from locals, except possibly by taking 100s or 1,000s of hostages and (as local practices prescribe) causing great harm if chieftains do not talk or hand over Arab "guests." A US occupation might precipitate nationalist defection in Pakistan's nuclear command and control, precipitating a threat on India (surprise, surprise) Indian veto of a US invasion of Pakistan. Finally, a US capture of some AQ kingpin would probably not improve our strategic predicament anywhere, since AQ is a decrepit ghost that does not really run anything.
However, a ghost is still very useful to demonize enemies. Since the US and al-Maliki cannot say their enemies are the Sunnis in general, better to label the culprits AQ. If Sunnis are to reconcile themselves with the Shia-led government, they will also need an aliby.
Meanwhile, exactly what people are causing the a) suicide and b) other bombings of civilian targets in Iraq? Are there no confessional letters or videos left behind? Do any kin of the perpetrators praise or denounce such acts? Exactly who can be inspired to walk into a market or school and blow himself up?
Did anyone see 60 Minutes on "jihadi" web sites?
Prospective martyrs can find radical elements at their local mosques and then leave their testimonials on web sites to immortalize themselves on internet.
Obviously, some network of people and monies exist to get these people to Iraq or in 1 case I remember a Britisher who blew up himself and civilians in Israel.
Of more import, Professor Cole almost 2 years ago explained the psychology of creating a suicide bomber, which process includes inculcating within the martyr the sense Islam itself lies under attack. Thus their sacrifice helps save their religion.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/02/60minutes/main2531546.shtml
Of course, Hersh's article in NY Yorker so conflicts with survey of headlines on blog, Informed Comment, listing headlines in US press mentioning Al Qaeda as source of all terrorism, as Hersh’s article lists US black ops already targeting Iran by giving $ to radical Sunni groups nominally controlled by Saudis.
Given description of Cheney admin as "Mayberry Machiavellis," they would belatedly realize parties elected in Iraq wih majority in Parliament allied with Iran, then support radical sunnis through Saudis who supported Al Qaeda, and then foment a war with Iraq.
This way, we get the worst of all possible worlds: financing same elements responsible for 11/Sep attacks and also inflaming Shia rage which could cut US supply lines in southern Iraq.
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/070305fa_fact_hersh
It lies beyond insane and indicates the Cheney admin has NO clue.
These neocon fabulists see hisory through warped view: all US had to do to win in Korea was to unleash Chiang Kai Shek to win back China.
Explained by Brad Delong [When George H. W. Bush in the 1970s and 1980s threatened to "unleash Chang" on his tennis opponents, he was referring to China's onetime strongman and thereafter Taiwan's dictator Chiang Kaishek, leader of the Nationalist Party, the man who had largely reunified China in the 1920s with his army's "Northern Expedition," lost the Chinese Civil War to Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party, and then taken refuge with his Guomindang party cadres on Taiwan. After the start of the Korean War, the American 7th Fleet protected Chiang (and Taiwan) from Mao's People's Liberation Army.
Republican wingnuts, however, pretended that the 7th Fleet actually protected Mao's Communists (who had, after all, won the Chinese Civil War) from Chiang's Nationalists (who had, after all, lost it) by keeping Chiang Kaishek leashed. They periodically called for the U.S. to "unleash Chiang Kaishek"--so that Chiang, you see, could invade and conquer the Chinese mainland.
When George H. W. Bush, playing tennis (and losing) in the 1970s and 1980s, would threaten to "unleash Chiang," he was mocking the right-wing nuts of his generation.]
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/10/unleash_chiang_.html
Of course, JEB and junior and Cheney misunderstood Dad's mockery of right wing, maybe in Dali esque or Oedipal territory.
"Idiots and fools and neocons, oh my!" copyright pending.
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