Colonel Boylan: Pig Make Up Artist Extraordinaire
There was a big anti-American demonstration today in the Iraqi city of Najaf. Firebrand cleric Moqtada al Sadr brought his peeps to the street. According to the AP:
Tens of thousands of Shiites-a sea of women in black abayas and men waving Iraqi flags-rallied Monday to demand that U.S. forces leave their country. Some ripped apart American flags and tromped across a Stars and Stripes rug.
The AP also reported that a U.S. military mouthpiece in Iraq, Col. Steven Boylan, an aide to Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq:
praised the peaceful demonstration and said Iraqis "could not have done this four years ago.
Are you kidding me? Saddam would not have allowed anti-U.S. protests calling for the U.S. to get out of Iraq? I don't think so. That's one pig you can't put lipstick on.
I suspect Saddam would have led a march calling for the U.S. to get out of Iraq. He wouldn't have been to keen on marching with the Shia, especially Moqtada al Sadr, but he would certainly agree with the message.
Which brings us to Moqtada al Sadr. Moqtada aka Mookie is proving to be a shrewd, tough political foe. And he has played a masterful hand so far. After battles with the U.S. in April of 2004 he has shied away from launching full scale attacks against US forces and has encouraged his militia to hold its fire and keep a low profile. Mookie's militia is not surrendering it is simply waiting. Al Sadr and his followers calculate correctly that they can rely on U.S. forces to inflict significant casualties on Sunni insurgents. Hell, let the Americans fight them. Mookie recognizes that the sand in the hour glass is running out and the United States will eventually leave Iraq and, in the process, effectively leave Mookie as one of the major powerbrokers.
It is truly sad that our senior military officials have started behaving like good old Baghdad Bob. Remember Bob? He proffered such memorable quotes as:
In fact, if imitation is the most sincere type of flatery, then we clearly have a thing for Baghdad Bob. My God! General Caldwell and John McCain are emulating his crazy pronouncements. Even today McCain continues to insist that the media is steering the American people wrong when it comes to assessing progress in Iraq. Bob blamed Al-Jazeera and so does McCain and Bush and Cheney. Sound familiar? Insisting that things are improving and life returning to normal? If you call 20,000 people plus marching in the streets burning our flag and calling for U.S. troops to leave Iraq then yes, things are returning to normal. How much more normal can we endure?"There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!"
"My feelings - as usual - we will slaughter them all"
"Our initial assessment is that they will all die"
"I blame Al-Jazeera - they are marketing for the Americans!"
"God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Iraqis."
Wonder when Boylan went from Director of the Combined Press Information Center to aiding Petraeus? He has a lot of experience in the pig lipstick market, though.
Regardless, here is another side of the story:
Well, that shouldn't tax the Pentagon too much.
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. Einstein
April 9, 2007 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Heckuva job, George Dubya! Gotta admire that 'freedom to assemble' spin!
After four years, half a trillion dollars, half a million dead, a real Mission Accomplished moment!
April 9, 2007 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Iraqis can demonstrate without fear. So the BIG AMERICAN GENERAL says this proves the point of our benevolence. Too bad our soldiers can't walk down those same streets in Iraq without fear of being blown to bits by people who hate them for what their country, their lives have become.
REALITY CHECK!
Here in the "bastion of democracy" the FBI is monitoring Quakers and other non-violent protesters against the very same thing that the Iraqis are protesting against. Our Contstitution has been prostituted in the name of 911 as an excuse for what? Giving undeserving war profiteers billions of dollars.
The Iraqis know what those in charge here know also, but our people still have money to make. They are betting that they can clean up until the next election, unless the dems grow a set of balls big enough to impeach the whole rotten head of this smelly fish they call an administration.
Jan Knaus
April 9, 2007 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
duplicate -- see below
April 9, 2007 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Larry, Boylan meant demonstration against the prevailing power, burning the Iraqi flag under Saddam, for example. In fairness, I don't think he meant that they couldn't engage in a protest Saddam sanctioned.
There's a great point. Was this the reason for the airstrikes against Shi'a militias? And was that the reason al-Sadr sent out his protestors?
April 9, 2007 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Prevailing Power," as in the US of A. Gee, I thought Iraq is now a sovreign nation. You know the George Bush defintion of "sovreign," don't you? It's a nation that is "sovreign, and has sovreignity. It is a sovreign nation."
Wow, that takes a load off my mind, but well, that seems to be good enough for about 30% of our brain-dead citizens. I would really appreciate an explanation, though.
Maybe Barney can fill me in some day.
Jan Knaus
April 9, 2007 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is truly sad that our senior military officials have started behaving like good old Baghdad Bob.
Baghdad Bob got some things right once in a while, which is a better record than the current US Government can claim.
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. Einstein
April 9, 2007 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Prevailing power . . . means the central power, whatever it is, standing in the place that the Ba'athist government used to occupy, that's all. It's a point made to focus on what Boylan did and did not say, instead of turning this into yet another scorched earth Insultathon of officials who are caricatured in an oversimplistic fashion.
Now how should the US get out Cville? What would be your plan given what is in place right now? I'm expecting you'll say get out right now. Just drop out, leave everything to chance, and come up with a workable rationalization for doing so later. You'll say, that's all that can be done and you're crazy if you think otherwise. Okay, but humor me and think through what is likely to happen in Iraq after that.
As Larry pointed out, Muqtada al Sadr, who he calls Mookie, which is likely an insult to everyone in the Muslim world who has that name given cultural differences, is waiting for US troops to get out so he can compete for the "Sovereign Mullah" of Iraq job. What competitive standing does he have? He can help organize demonstrations with help from somewhere. From where? Was it just spontaneous, like the movie Hair, except with head-coverings?
Think al-Sadr can take the helm? Will he be the one a Democratic president will be dealing with? Should he be? What's his record for civility? Any atrocity potential there? What I'm asking is, can we at least determine who the most reasonable Warlord Wannabees to leave intact are? Because this "loss" is not something "lost" by US troops. This is not a military defeat. This is a dumb-politician micromanaged political misuse of military force that stayed one-step behind the reality in Iraq all along (guerilla-terror war) from the telegraphed mass invasion onward.
Someone here the other day said we'd probably be leaving the Shi'a to take over and dominate the place. OK. What does that mean?
Where will the moderating voice of Al-Sistani fit into al-Sadr's vision, if at all? Is al-Sadr a Khomeini-clone? Will moderation be the "prevailing power" after al-Sistani is passed on? And the relationship between Iran and Al-Sadr? Does that matter? He had high level meetings in Tehran in 2003 and his militia was trained inside Iran for a time by RFERL's reports. Would Iran back a coup-d-etat using his militia, or, use him and then install their own favored opponent, leaving the "low-level cleric" to a different fate. And whoever inherits ruling authority for Iraq Shi'ites, how will he treat the Sunnis and Kurds? His own opponents among the Shi'a? Will he launch the civil war?
If we head out, who do we side with, or do we? Any chance mass atrocities will result with wholesale human destruction of one tribe by the other? Can we avert that with some reasonable efforts? Or should we throw in the bloody towel? What about the kids in the households in the most-likely to be ethnically cleansed towns and cities? Any guidance there? Just let them run down dark roads with their parents until they're herded into camps, or shot in the brush? Are the militias going to see these as the heretic pigs who oppressed and wiped out their kids all of these years? Or are they going to behave like US forces in Vietnam's 'hearts and minds' program? What's your guess?
What's the new philosophy: because Bush executed disastrous foreign policy without thinking things through let's just do the same thing and blame the sequelae on him. What about those kids again? Any duty there?
April 9, 2007 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Those are all GREAT questions Mike. If Bush had wanted to know, those questions were being asked in the State Dept and CIA before we invaded. There were no agreeable answers then, there are no agreeable answers now. And if we stay another year, or ten years, the same questions will be waiting for answers. We are damned if we do, and damned if we don't. That, my friend is just how badly Bush fucked the pooch.
Will "Mookie" kill more Iraqis than Sadaam over a 30 year period? If he doesn't, I guess Bush gets a Nobel Peace Price, or some Humane Humanitarian Award from the Rotary in Ingbay N.D., or something. If he does beat Sadaam's record - oh well.....
April 9, 2007 8:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not too long ago, there was an outbreak of Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever in Angola. Marburg is no longer thought to be a variant of Ebola, but it is comparably lethal. It got its name from the first reported cases occurring in a research laboratory in German, where it still killed about half of the people who contracted it, with exceptionally serious First World medical treatment.
While there are some treatments in the research phase, all that can be done is give supportive and comfort care, and keep it from spreading. Appropriately, the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical team responding to the Angola outbreak wore full containment suits, and pleaded with the families of victims not to use traditional practices to prepare bodies for burial -- practices that carry a high risk of infection -- but to cremate the corpses.
The local people resented the Western medical team, which soon needed guards. In roughly the same time period, there was another outbreak in another African country, which knew and respected MSF.
MSF had enough resources to cover one outbreak. Do they stay where they are in serious danger of being killed, or go where they can use their skills, hoping the Angolan military could enforce a quarantine by whatever means necessary?
The ethical conundrum here, not even touching the strategic and political idiocy that brought us the Iraqi situation, is comparable. I see no particular benefit for Iraq, for US forces there to engage in operations that do not directly contribute to training Iraqi security forces, as well as self-protection. It may well be that by September or so, it will develop that there is inadequate progress in Iraqi security force development.
If there is inadequate performance, I see it appropriate for US forces to withdraw, in a manner consistent with force protection, and let the infection burn itself out. If there is progress, I still see the majority of forces withdrawing, some to regional bases including Kurdistan, but completely out of the Sunni Triangle and Shi'a areas.
Certainly none of the Shia or Sunni factions.
Quite likely.
No. A reasonable analogy would be Rwanda, where preemptive action against the arsenals and radio stations could have limited the damage when fighting broke out. Once the fighting started, there was no way the peacekeeping forces could do anything more than protect themselves.
They are going to die, something that should have been considered before the invasion.
I am lost here about who the pigs are supposed to be and what you mean by the "hearts and minds" cliche. There will be extensive death and suffering.
Tsunamis bring extensive death and suffering, but they are over and there is no resistance to rescue efforts. In this case, there is no way, short of brutality equal or greater than that of Saddam, to suppress the militias.
Give me an operational proposal on how to protect innocents, and I can evaluate it. You must have read Atlas Shrugged; do you hear any resemblance between what you are saying and those who kept telling John Galt, with the alternative being torture, to fix the situation? Galt's response was to tell them to tell him what to do. He saw no way out, but the government kept saying "you have to!"
The same duty that epidemiologists had when not wanted in Angola. Let them go where they are wanted, and hope the infection burns itself out. Just as in Angola, those kids are doomed.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
Life is invariably fatal.
April 9, 2007 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
How long should the British have stayed in India? Their departure allowed a bloody partition.
However, Ghandi and the rest wanted the Brits out. If both courses of action entail death, do you count the numbers? England was in India for its own interests, as we are in Iraq for our own interests, not those of the Iraqis. India decided to have a private war instead of one managed by outsiders. Iraq will do the same.
Only if we could invest Iraq with millions of Americans, and be completely ubiquitous and controlling for the indefinite future, could we even attempt to prevent Iraqis from doing what they want. As it is we are only playing at occupation, with the expected results.
Leave.
April 9, 2007 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you serious? Are you insane? Of course Saddam would not have allowed anti-U.S. protests calling for the U.S. to get out of Iraq. He never allowed ANY protests in Iraq whatsoever! He would have cut the tongues out of all protesters just before he cut off their testacles, had them stuffed down their throats, and had starving dogs lick up their blood in the main square for all Iraqis to see on National television to strike fear and trembling into all Iraqis!
When my son returned from Iraq in 2005, he told me that hundreds of Iraqis told him that for the first time in their entire lives they were able to openly sit in a coffee shop and discuss the daily newspaper without fear of being tortured or mutilated in Sadam's torture and rape prisons! YES, you are absolutely right--Saddam would not have allowed anti-U.S. protests calling for the U.S. to get out of Iraq! He would have murdered everone who dared protest anything in his nation and raped every woman to the third generation of his family!
April 9, 2007 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bill B.
Well spoken. So for this very reason you describe doesn't it mean that now that the Iraqis want us to leave, we should ... well ... leave ??
Think about. We are moving toward 90 percent of Americans and Iraqis wanting Americans to leave Iraq.
So precisely who wants us to stay ? Who are these people ?
When will their names be reported so we can ask them questions ?
Where are the parades in Iraq asking American troops to stay ?
Is this like ... a Nixonian/Agnewian silent majority ???
I'm flummoxed.
Any helpers ?
Thanks.
April 9, 2007 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I never before realized that Saddam was so virile. I wonder where he found all of the time for that, even if he preferred quickies.
Sorry, but I don't believe your son talked to hundreds of Iraqis, nor do I believe that those he did talk to, unless they worked in the green zone, which I suspect they did, would have said all of that.
I don't mean disrespect for your son. I am in awe of our military who serve there under such trying circumstances, and still do the best jobs they can do. Even when they lose it and do something that is out of character, I still support them and don't want to see them receive more than token punishment. The only ones I want to see receive non-token punishment, work in the White House.
Hoppy in Sacramento
April 9, 2007 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
The situation in Iraq is much more than just the US's headache, and at this point the solutions have to be formed on a regional and international basis. But as long as the US maintains a physical presence in Iraq, there will only be more of the same.
For starters, the Iraqi govt. needs to be seen as legitimate. It can do this by calling for regional and international conferences and agreements that recognize the government's sovereignty and Iraq's borders.
Internationally, it can call for a peacekeeping force to replace the US military. (At the rate we are spending money to keep the military in Iraq, we could pay other countries to send in their forces if they are reluctant.)
Regionally, the government can call for conferences that include the entire Mid East (except Israel). In order to lower the levels of anxiety about a Shiia ascendancy that concerns the Sunni countries and to assure the Sunnis of meaningful participation and fair treatment within Iraq, regional councils that act as governing authorities can be established. With a wide range of powers and resources behind it, such a body could act as a guarantor and enforcer of human and civil rights. Other councils could be established to work with the World Bank to oversee reconstruction and establish the mechanisms needed to get the economy going.
There are probably 100 other solutions along these lines. The point is the situation is not a binary one of stay or get out for the US. Either one of those solutions is already doomed.
The US can, however, use whatever power it has left to influence and propel reluctant countries who have gripes with each other to work together in what overall is in all of their best interests. With the time it will have leftover, it can work on reducing its need for foreign oil.
(Iraq has a 60% unemployment rate. The US is just now getting around to opening the institutions that had previously been run by the state. Estimated cost is $50M. Imagine how many people that are now killing each other could have been employed in more productive efforts if the US had done that from the start.)
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. Einstein
April 9, 2007 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bill, you missed the point. Think about it, if Saddam was the leader of Iraq but it was occupied by the US, would he have been happy about that occupation? No, he would not. He would have allowed whatever it took to get the US out of Iraq, including protests.
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. Einstein
April 9, 2007 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
You never before realized that Saddam was so virile? Did you ever bother to watch Sadam's trial? He was convicted for the murder of 2.7 million people. Hello? Do you consider that virle?
What do you call virle? Perhaps only those who murder and torture over 10 million people? 20 million people?
I am so sick of poeple who defend evil butchers who are among the .000000000000000000000000000001% of the most evil people in the history of the world as if they are NOT the most inhumaine monsters of humanity! Shame on you for even suggesting they are worthy of anything less than immediate judgement for their evil crimes against humanity! Hanging was far to little for a scumbag ofthe likes of Saddam Hussein!
April 10, 2007 1:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Saddam was evil, but lets not try to frame a guilty man.
Saddam was convicted of murdering 148 Shia men and boys in the town of Dujail in the 1980s, a period when he was our ally.
"Did you bother to watch Saddam's trial?"
I always found it curious how quickly Saddam went from our ally to our enemy when George HW Bush became President.
"rape rooms", heh, I wonder if they existed
alongside the stolen incubators the Iraqis took from Kuwait. You know, when the Iraqis took Kuwaiti babies out of the incubators and sent the incubators back to Iraq.
Maybe Saddam hid the WMD in the incubators.
The Bush gang charged Saddam with going to war his neighbors, of course when he went to war with Iran we were right there holding his coat.
Saddam is just another dictator we backed until it came time for us to disown him.
April 10, 2007 5:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
General Wayne Downing left the service and is now a consultant to CNN, and he appears regularly commenting on IRAQ. I always thought his opinions were a tad biased in favor of the war and the Army.
This morning I read the following from Glenn Greenwald's column in Salon.com;
"UPDATE: Jonathan Schwarz has a highly relevant excerpt from Hubris, the book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, which reported:
In October 2001, [Bush terrorism official Gen. Wayne] Downing, [Paul] Wolfowitz, and other proponents of a war with Iraq thought they had yet more ammunition for the case against Saddam. A series of deadly anthrax-laced letters had been sent to the Capitol Hill offices of Senator Daschle and Senator Patrick Leahy and to several newsrooms. Mylroie asserted that Saddam was behind the mailings. An early forensic test of the anthrax letters (which was later disputed) appeared to show that the anthrax spores were highly refined and "weaponized."
To the Iraq hawks, the news was electric. "This is definitely Saddam!" Downing shouted to several White House aides. One of these aides later recalled overhearing Downing excitedly sharing the news over the phone with Wolfowitz and Feith. "I had the feeling they were high-five-ing each other," the White House official said."
April 10, 2007 5:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Una, I think Hoppy was referencing this when he mentioned Saddam's virility:
He was hardly defending the guy.
Jan Knaus
April 10, 2007 7:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
What would be your plan given what is in place right now? I'm expecting you'll say get out right now. Just drop out, leave everything to chance, and come up with a workable rationalization for doing so later.
Strawmen are fun!!!
Dissent Protects Democracy.
April 10, 2007 8:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
That appears to be the crux of it doesn't it?
Your analogy is sound but limited. The consequences to the U.S. of any course of action in Iraq are much more dire, I fear, than your analogy admits, as I'm sure you are fully aware (I hope to expand on your thesis here).
We need also to be paying close attention to the recent violence between Shia and Sunni in Pakistan, the flare up between Kurdistan and Turkey not to mention the potential disaster in Afghanistan. All of this as Dr. Bush wields his sword over Iran. We should be so lucky as to be able to "let the infection burn itself out".
April 10, 2007 8:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Strawmen are dangerous!!!
April 10, 2007 8:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rex Tillerson
J. Stephen Simon
Walter V. Shipley
David J. O'Reilly
Sam Nunn
etc.
April 10, 2007 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Now, you gotta admit that any man with the ability to do that would, at the very least, be a porn star extraordinaire!
As far as the "murders" of 2.4 million people is concerned, just imagine trying to aim, fire and reload enough times to do that. Why that could occupy at least a month of even a virile man's time.
Seriously, Saddam was as guilty of murdering the people he was convicted of murdering as GWBush is of murdering 100,000 Iraqis. Any legitimate court would have tossed those charges out the first day of the trial.
Of course Saddam was a dictator, and a very cruel, despotic one at that He always was one, even back when he was our best friend in the Middle East. And, I hope people have noticed what as happened now that Iraq isn't ruled by a cruel despot.
Hoppy in Sacramento
April 10, 2007 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. There is an amazing reservoir of goodwill to the US among the Kurds, sold out in 1972. Iraq is an artificial aggregate of three Ottoman provinces. I'm not willing to dismiss Arab versus Persian rivalries and assume the Shi'a areas will instantly ally with Iran.
Would the Sunni affiliate with Syria? Perhaps. Remember that the power elite in Syria are Alwawites, not even recognized as Muslims by some of the ulema. For that matter, Kurds are not the only potential separatist group in Turkey; there are Alawites there.
The most complex potential separation is among the Kurds, given the idea of a Greater Kurdistan containing groups in Turkey and Iran.
A while back, I was doing an analysis of radio broadcasts directed into Afghanistan, and I was surprised to see transcripts of the Dari (i.e., the Afghan dialect of Farsi) service of Radio Teheran. They focused on a shared cultural heritage, and had very little inflammatory content. Iran donated radio equipment to northwest Afghanistan.
Very few people, when talking about US-Iranian relations, consider the relationship between Afghanistan and Iran. In the complexity of the region, will issues here spill over into Pakistan?
We are responding to a post that suggested that those opposed to continuing combat involvement in Iraq had no real plan. I'm mildly amused, as the first thing that popped into my mind was the Order of Battle and deployments (see below). Nahhhh....I wasn't thinking of plans.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
April 10, 2007 9:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think there are a lot of people not happy to see Saddam out of power. But the situation that you see as being the present day truth in Iraq is because of the messy way it was brought about.
The guilt that you raise is always situational and dependent on the powers, influences and choices that surround it. Who is more/less guilty in the Rwandan Genocide? Kagame or the gun-toting pre-teens?
April 10, 2007 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gloriously comparing the concept of multiple rapes with a porn star is very unacceptable. A very sick joke.
April 10, 2007 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Una posted an asinine comment that overstated the case against Saddam so badly it just called for an equally asinine response. Nothing I posted was deserving of the adverb "gloriously".
Hoppy in Sacramento
April 10, 2007 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Want a way out of Iraq? Stop funding the frikkin war.
April 10, 2007 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The official US Iraqi Freedom web site says only 5000 to 7000 protesters:
Iraqi citizens exercise peaceful right of assembly in Najaf
The number of participants that took part in the event ranged from 5,000 to 7,000, based on aerial photographs, said U.S. Army Col. Steven Boylan, a military spokesman with Multi-National Force-Iraq.
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.ph...1314& Itemid=128
Does that sound right to you? Only 5000 to 7000 people turned out for the Najaf protests? The "liberal media" says tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. The official Operation Iraqi Freedom web site says only 5000 to 7000.
Well what do you know. The US government is lying. The photo they use is from 2005 and is not Najaf.
See here:
http://www.redstate.com/stories/archived/correction_to_najaf_story
The US mil guy that said only 5000 to 7000 is Col. Steven Boylan.
Why is an official spokesperson for the US government lying?
April 10, 2007 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
How can that be true? It wasn't mentioned on CNN or MSNBC. Do you think they don't know yet? Maybe we should tell them.
Jan Knaus
April 11, 2007 6:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
FYI -- your first link is no longer up, and your second link is Red State, but it is blank. Feeling funny?
Jan Knaus
April 11, 2007 6:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's like Rashomon, John, except that we're hearing only one account of history. Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti died because his government executed assassins, while the U.S. ally Karimov boils his political enemies alive.
Neoboho
April 11, 2007 8:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
My use of gloriously was equating your use of extraordinaire.
Following an asinine comment with an asinine response just creates an asinine debate. Nothing progressive comes out of it.
April 11, 2007 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you're looking in the wrong place for legitimacy, Seashell. The big problem is that Iraq's government is seen as illegitimate by the people it purports to govern.
The Sunni's largely sea the government as unresponsive and hostile. If we look at opinion polls, 92% of Sunni's support attacks on American troops. That means that within the range of error, perhaps as little as 4% of Sunni's have sufficient tolerance of the current regime that they will not support acts of violence against it. That's pretty grim, and it speaks to absolutely no faith in the central government.
This can also be seen in the Sunni participation in the electoral system. Boycotting it almost entirely in the first election, holding their nose and participating in the second, and then the major controversies over the legitimacy of results in the Constitutional referendum.
Looking at the Kurds, its clear that they cut the central government no slack. They will not fly the Iraqi flag. They will not allow non-Kurdish Iraqi forces in their territory. They claim complete control of oil resources in their territories, and they expand their territorial claims up to and including regional ethnic cleansing. Their loyalty to the central government extends only so far as these interests and objectives are catered to, and not an inch further. The Kurds committment to the current government only goes so far as that Government facilitates their autonomy, thus effective home rule and sovereignty for now, potentially outright independence at some point.
As for the Shiites, they are increasingly disenchanted with a central government under the effective political control of the occupation, whose key ministers live outside the country, and which has proven disastrously ineffective at every turn. Sadr's pseudo-Fatwa against the occupation is illustrative.
We can have all the international conferences we want, and all the treaties respecting sovereignty of Iraq's borders. But the real threats to Iraq's borders are internal partitions, and international dialogue is not going to repair a government that no one in the country has faith in.
The United States has only succeeded in mounting a dog and pony show. It's lifespan in the absence of American forces will be ... hours.
The World Bank is seen as a source of fiscal oppression, its major accomplishment has been impoverishing third world countries.
As for the neighbors... The Iraqi's despize Kuwaiti's, and vice versa. They lost nearly half a million people in an eight year war with Iran... that's a lot of graves, and a lot of relatives with long memories. The Kurds hate the Turks, and the Turks aren't welcome anywhere in the rgion. The Saudi's are untrustworthy monarchists who fund Sunni extremists against the Shiites and oppress their own Shiite populations. Israel is seen as a secret architect of the occupation. So what are you left with? Syria?
Look, its this way: If you take a god and start whipping it, and if you whip it day in and day out for years on end, you whip it so it howls in pain and anguish, you starve it, you beat it some more, you kick it when it sleeps, just so it knows it will never know peace... Okay, you got your dog, right? Now, take that dog, and send a little five year old girl in to pet it. Or send Mother Theresa in.
In Disney, the transforming power of kindness immediately gentles up the poor abused critter. In the real world, the minute the cute little moppet or mother theresa stretches a hand out, that fukkin dog is going to tear her whole arm off.
You figure the Iraqi's are having a happy history? Let's recap: Half a million corpses over an eight year war with Iran. A quarter million corpses, including the whole Highway of Death War Crime (and don't argue, because however we split hairs, the Iraqi's see it as a war crime) over Kuwait, in which the entire world ignored Kuwait's trespasses on Iraq's oil but joined a planetary gangbang on the Iraqi's. Then add in 12 years of sanctions and random bombing by the United States SANCTIONED BY THE UNITED NATIONS that cored their whole country out like an apple. Then add a disastrous five year invasion and occupation by the Americans AND A BUNCH OF OTHER COUNTRIES, SANCTIONED BY THE UNITED NATIONS, together with IMF and World Bank poverty policies, throw in the Sunni/Shiite thing, the Israel thing, the Kurd/Turk thing, and the complete free fall of literally every standard of living criteria...
And you've got a population which is feeling immensely fucked over by the rest of the world.
This is not a country whose problems will begin to be solved by an international group hug.
And as for an international peacekeeping force? Yeah well, personally, I think I'd rather soup up a garbage disposal with a 12 horsepower briggs and stratton two stroke lawnmower engine, shove my arm down and pull the cord, before I'd want to see a single Canadian peacekeeper soldier stationned into Iraq. I figure my way would be quicker, hurt less and involve a lot less blood.
The reason that Arab countries aren't stepping up and offering peacekeeping troops, the reason no one in the world is making that offer, is that we've all had a good glimpse into the eyes of a truly maddened dog.
No, here's probably the best option. Everyone leave, everyone stay well out. Set up a "Sorry for fucking your country so badly" trust fund, and then let someone with a reputation for integrity administer it. The Swedes maybe, Costa Rica, Iceland, Finland, whoever.
Let the Iraqi's have their country back, let them decompress and see about making themselves less crazy.
There'll be a short, sharp civil war. And if we're lucky and we can find a way to incent them, the 'winner take alls' (probably the Shiites, long shots on the Sunnis, Kurds are screwed) will not be intensely interested in payback.
As it goes, current American policies seem designed to open big gaping wounds and then to poke and widen these wounds with shit covered sticks until the gangrene is setting in. If America had left three years ago, the country might have sorted itself out. If America stays another two or three years, we might be looking at genocide. Simply put, America seems to be doing everything that could possibly make things worse and more virulent.
And at this point, the US has no more power, no more credibility. Everyone's just waiting for America to leave. And when it does, there won't be any coming back.
April 11, 2007 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Somebody apparently wasn't in the 'irony' line when they were passing out senses of humour. Nor, for that matter in accuracy land.
Some of us did watch Saddam's trial, that sorry, shabby kangaroo court. As is pointed out elsewhere, he was convicted of killing 168 people in a pogrom arising out of a botched assassination attempt over 20 years ago.
What is really interesting are the things he was not put on trial for: Invading Iran. Invading Kuwait. Using chemical weapons in war. Using chemical weapons against civilian populations in an uprising. Plotting to assassinate George H.W. Bush. Having Iraqi dissidents assassinated outside the borders of Iraq. Literally thousands or hundreds of thousands of murders. Corruption. Torture.
Why wasn't he put on trial for all of these things? Why was the trial such a shabby mockery of justice? Why wasn't there a truth commission? Why wasn't there some real effort to deal with the full range of crimes and atrocities.
A cynical person might observe that many of these acts and actions, his campaigns with Iran, his invasion of Kuwait, his use of poison gas, took place with American consent, collusion, encouragement or inspiration. Extra-territorial assassinations sounds icky, but Israel does it all the time, so perhaps not good to poke too deeply.
I'm not a cynical person though, so I just don't know why he wasn't given a proper trial, or why the full range of atrocities wasn't dealt with. Go figure.
One thing I do know is that the 2.6 million, and a lot of the other more hysterical claims, seem to be fabricated.
In terms of Saddam's body count: About 300,000 in terms of internal executions and murders and crushed uprisings. Pretty hefty, but 2.3 million short.
The Iran/Iraq War cost about 800,000 lives. Saddam started it. So I suppose we could blame him for all of that. But after the first couple of years, he was basically suing for peace, trying to keep the Iranians from overrunning his country (with American assistance). The Iranians kept that war going on for five or six years longer than it needed to. So... perhaps half? I'd be willing to blame him for half the bodies, since he did start it. I'll be generous. Blame him for 500,000.
Then there's the Kuwait invasion. 250,000 dead. A lot of that came about after he'd agreed to pull out and trying to send his troops home. So maybe.... 150,000?
Then there's the 500,000 dead children for sanctions. But heck, that's America's fault. Once the sanctions went on, there was nothing Saddam could do that would result in them being lifted, apart from mass suicide. Even so, let's blame him for 250,000 of those.
What are we up to? 1.2 million. Not bad, but still missing 1.1 million.
What if we blamed him for all of them? 1.85 million. Still a half million short.
Maybe we can blame him for all the people who died in the American occupation. That'll get us past 2.3 easy!!!
The truth is that Saddam was more or less along the same lines as Trujillo, Galtieri, Pinochet, Suharto, Sukarno, Duvalier, the Dergue, Mobutu, etc., many of whom were supported by the United States.
That's not to say that they should all rot in hell. But I notice a selective blindness at work.
Saddam was, basically, just another stupid evil thug with pretensions. What America has done to Iraq is arguably a lot worse than he ever did.
April 11, 2007 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
The odd coincidence is that the good folks at the White House started on the anti-anthrax antibiotic CIPRO on 9/11, which was one week before the first anthrax letter was mailed, and a month before anthrax turned up in the Democratic leaders mail. High fives all around the White House indeed.
...In October 2001, press reports revealed that White House staff had been on a regimen of the powerful antibiotic Cipro since the September 11th terrorist attacks. Judicial Watch is aggressively pursuing the disclosure of the facts and the decision for White House staff, and President Bush as well, to begin taking Cipro nearly a month before anthrax was detected on Capitol Hill....
link Judicial Watch page
April 11, 2007 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Certainly going back to Vietnam, military physicians prescribed prophylactic agents, such as gamma globulin against infectious hepatitis, to high-risk military personnel, and personnel deemed critical. During Desert Shield/Desert Storm, the French forces used ciprofloxacin as prophylaxis against anthrax, as opposed to the US use of anthrax vaccine.
It's not implausible that such a decision might have been made by medical staff, perhaps somewhat overzealous for National Command Authority and staff protection, after a terrorist attack. With a small group being closely monitored for side effects, the risk would be lower than if unmonitored chemoprophylaxis were given to a large population. In general, the risk-benefit is such that chemoprophylaxis to a larger population would be warranted were there a possible exposure, as in a preliminary indication of airborne Bacillus sp. spores, which might turn out to be nonpathogenic. Bacillus thurinigensis, the "BT" used as a garden insecticide, can give false positives for anthrax.
Ciprofloxacin is a reasonable choice, although I personally might prefer doxycycline. I'm sorry, but I don't find this a smoking gun, given general CDC and USAMRIID principles.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
April 11, 2007 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
A bit disappointing, but there are so many guns lying around this admin's trashed campsite that it only needs pulling the trigger on the right subpoena to blow up (block that metaphor!).
Grist for conspiracy mills abounds, from the destroyed FAA tapes to the air defense exercises on 9/11, but I wish these boobs were so competent as to run an effective conspiracy. Alas, reports of efforts to actually provoke Saddam, rather than simply contriving a causus belli, show they are believers, not schemers. (They believed Saddam was dumb enough to bite, for starters.)
Zealots are the worst--I'll trade them for would-be Machiavellis any day.
April 11, 2007 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Briefly (especially since I didn't save the last draft before I accidentally hit "tell me about formatting"), it makes more sense to focus on the decisionmaking, ranging from incompetent to felonious, rather than try to read things into technical details unless one is quite familiar with the technology.
I can expand on the details, but suffice it to say that there was a lot of misinformation and exaggeration of the capability of air defense fighters to stop the hijacked airliners. People forget the pressures on the military budget, and the drawdowns, significantly in air defense not directed at the borders. While some would call it technobabble, a critical factor is which fighters had -- or did not have -- the LINK 16 JTIDS data link and FAA-NORAD networking that would have let them get direct tracking.
People also tend to assume that the fighter would magically know which airliner in a crowded sky (DC more than NY), and that they could somehow make it vaporize. In reality, they would have to make visual identification of the right aircraft, and all they could do is make it crash -- which still meant 100+ tons of metal, fuel, and bodies impacting over an urban area.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
April 12, 2007 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Valdron! I take 10 minutes to think up a plan (9.9 more minutes than the administration took for the Iraq invasion) and you pick the damn thing apart like it wasn't well thought out or something. :-)
Actually, I agree with most everything you say, with the exception of a few quibbles.
The World Bank is seen as a source of fiscal oppression, its major accomplishment has been impoverishing third world countries.
No argument here, except that one of the Bush administration's chief shoppers is in charge of the money.
...before I'd want to see a single Canadian peacekeeper soldier stationned into Iraq.
Aren't Canadian forces in Afghanistan, though?
The reason that Arab countries aren't stepping up and offering peacekeeping troops, the reason no one in the world is making that offer, is that we've all had a good glimpse into the eyes of a truly maddened dog.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that they are ignoring the situation, either. I didn't totally make up the international and regional cooperation out of thin air. And it would seem that the Saudis have recognized that Bush is only capable of unrestrained destruction. Construction, not so much. Among other activities, like mediating the I-P conflict, they told Bush that the US was illegally occupying Iraq, only to be informed that the US was in Iraq by invitation. One can only imagine the Saudis' thoughts as they digested that news.
Am I redeemed now, I hope? Truly, I have not gone over the deep end. (Where have you been?)
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. Einstein
April 12, 2007 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think there was a conspiracy of one; only God could have arranged the multiple missed opportuinities and ironies around 9/11.
At least He has a sense of humor---"My Pet Goat", indeed. Too bad the joke was on Him--the Goat became the Hero, for a while.
April 12, 2007 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seashell, many apologies if I've hurt your feelings. That certainly wasn't my intent. It's just that the whole subject drives me to crazy making despair.
Some commenters might natter on about good news or balanced news, but the truth is that they're focusing on the cool breeze on their faces as the whole thing swirls down the drain with blinding speed.
I certainly appreciate that you took about a hundred times more time and energy thinking of a solution than the administration put into trying to get things right. ;) I just don't think that there's any power left in America to effect a useful solution.
Moreover, I'm frightened by the psychotic situation that is overtaking Iraqi culture.
I remember a few years back, when the UN headquarters was bombed and the UN pulled its offices out. At first, I thought, why would anyone want to bomb the UN, the UN is only going to try and do good things for Iraqi's.
Then it was pointed out that the Iraqi's harboured considerable resentment against the UN, because it was the UN, after all, that had imposed and maintained 12 years of destructive sanctions.
It hit me that at that point, there probably wasn't a nation or a group on the face of the Earth that could come to Iraq with any credibility. No matter who it was, the Iraqi's, or some constituency among the Iraqi's, would hate them passionately.
Yes they are. Canadian forces have been there from the beginning. We've been the largest or among the largest NATO contingents. We've been there without the restrictions on combat or territory that some of our NATO partners labour under. And we've done our best to work with the locals, to build relationships, to fight for and support the right things.
And there are six fewer Canadian soldiers this week to show for it.
Afghanistan is its own hopeless disaster, and we're stuck in the middle of it.
No you haven't. There are all sorts of examples. Syrian/Iranian co-operation, Iranian-Saudi talks, a Turkish-Iranian pact that allows the Turks to raid into Iranian territory in pursuit of Kurdish terrorists.
More globally, Iraq is a major concern to each of its neighbors who risk different problems, and so there are ongoing talks and efforts.
In a larger sense, the Arab and Muslim and the international and European communities have a desire or urge to make a difference.
Somewhere else I speculated that recent Saudi moves, including talks with the Iranians suggested that potentially a fundamental realignment of the entire middle east was in the offing, and that the Saudi's were breaking out of their client relationship with America. I'll have to see if I can find that for you.
Seashell! You were never undeemed or dedeemed or even subdeemed. So how could you need redeeming? You're just fine the way you are.
You didn't get my last message? You missed out on the muppet URL? Tell me you didn't miss the muppet URL!
April 12, 2007 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink