Big Thread O' Iraq (with bonus Iran!) [Archive]

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Fifthfiend

11-25-2006, 04:59 AM

White House confirms Bush-Maliki to meet (http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2006/November/focusoniraq_November196.xml&section=focusoniraq)
(AFP)

WASHINGTON - The White House Friday reiterated that President George W. Bush would meet Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki in Jordan next week amid a sharp rise in Shia-Sunni violence Friday.

As Vice President Dick Cheney took off on a trip to Saudi Arabia on Friday, the White House said there would be no change to Bush’s planned summit with Maliki even as a top Shia cleric said he would pull his faction out of the Baghdad government if the meeting takes place.

“Securing Baghdad and gaining control of the violent situation will be a priority agenda item when President Bush meets with Prime Minister Maliki in just a few days,” said White House spokesperson Scott Stanzel.

The spike in violence in Iraq Friday left at least 202 dead in a wave of bombings in the Shia neighbourhood of Sadr City, the deadliest attack since the war began in 2003.

Apparent revenge efforts by Shia militias left dozens more feared dead in attacks on Sunni mosques in Baghdad.

Separately a triple bomb attack in the northern town of Tal Afar killed 23 people and wounded 45 others Friday, according to police.

The White House condemned the attacks by both sides.

“These ruthless acts of violence are deplorable. It is an outrage that these terrorists are targeting innocents in a brazen effort to topple a democratically elected government. These killers will not succeed,” said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

How to quell the violence will likely be the focal topic in talks that Cheney holds with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, and the Bush-Maliki meeting on November 29-30 in Amman.

Cheney could ask Abdullah to use his influence to help foster reconciliation between warring factions in Iraq, and also press for Riyadh to come through with its promised reconstruction aid.

But Friday’s violent surge has added urgency to both trips. A few hours before the attack on Sunni mosques in Baghdad, the political group of Shia cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, whose base is in Sadr City, threatened to quit the national unity government if Maliki meets Bush.

But Stanzel confirmed that the meeting will take place despite the threats by Sadr’s allies. Bush and Maliki are also to see Jordan’s King Abdullah II, as pressure mounts for all of of Iraq’s neighbours to help contain the daily bloodshed.

With US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also due to visit the region soon, the top-level travel reflects the seriousness of the situation on the ground in Iraq, as does Bush’s stated openness to potential policy change there.

The rising violence, a surge in US casualties in Iraq, and the victory of opposition Democrats in Congressional elections on November 7 have piled pressure on Bush to change US policy in Iraq, if not to begin withdrawing troops — something Bush has steadfastly refused to commit to.

But after an October that was the bloodiest month for Iraqi civilians — according to the United Nations — and one of the bloodiest for US troops since the March 2003 invasion, the latest anti-Shia attack and counterattacks will only elevate the pressure on the president to change course.

Stanzel said Friday that the violence is “clearly aimed at undermining the Iraqi people’s hopes for a peaceful and stable Iraq.”

He added that “the United States is committed to helping the Iraqis.”

It remains unclear, however, what resources Bush and Cheney can marshal to stop the country from plunging into all-out civil war.

Bush has started a comprehensive review of his Iraq policy. Two reports are expected in the coming weeks — one from the administration and another from a high-powered independent panel — which could play a big role in decisions on strategy and US troop levels.

The worsening situation in recent months also raises questions about US trust in Maliki and, specifically, his ability to end attacks by militia.

So far, Bush has publicly stood by Maliki, but his confidence seems to be increasingly in doubt.

November 22, 2006
Bush, Maliki to meet as Iraqi deaths hit new high
By Claudia Parsons (http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/11/22/worldupdates/2006-11-22T205654Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_-277327-5&sec=Worldupdates)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush will meet Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Jordan next week with grim new statistics showing record numbers of Iraqis were killed last month and many more fled the country.

A U.N. report put civilian deaths in October at 3,709 -- 120 a day and up from 3,345 in September. Nearly 420,000 moved to other parts of Iraq since the February bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra triggered a surge in sectarian attacks.

It said as well as those displaced within Iraq, nearly 100,000 people were fleeing to Syria and Jordan every month -- proportionally equivalent to a million Americans emigrating each month, depriving the U.S. economy of a city the size of Detroit.

The meeting between Bush and Maliki in the Jordanian capital Amman, a much safer venue than Baghdad, will follow a weekend visit to Iran by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and this week's landmark visit to Iraq by Syria's foreign minister.

They will be the first lengthy talks between Bush and Maliki since Bush pledged a new approach on Iraq after his Democratic opponents took control of the U.S. Congress.

A month ago the two spoke to ease mutual irritation over how much the other was doing to halt violence.

They agreed to draw up plans for accelerating the training of Iraqi forces and the transfer of responsibility. Maliki said Iraqis could take charge in six months, half the U.S. estimate.

A joint statement on the Nov. 29-30 summit said: "We will focus our discussions on current developments in Iraq, progress made to date in the deliberations of a high-level joint committee on transferring security responsibility and the role of the region in supporting Iraq."

American politicians, notably Democrats pressing for troop withdrawal, are frustrated that, after six months in power, Maliki has failed to disband militias loyal to fellow Shi'ites.

With Bush's allies urging him to reach out on Iraq to U.S. adversaries in Tehran and Damascus, Washington reacted coolly to the flurry of regional diplomacy seen with Syria restoring full relations with Iraq and Talabani saying he would visit Iran.

FRESH IDEAS

According to the U.N. bimonthly human rights report, Baghdad was the epicentre of the violence, accounting for nearly 5,000 of all the 7,054 deaths in September and October, with most of the bodies bearing signs of torture and gunshot wounds.

Sectarian attacks were the main source of violence, fuelled by insurgent attacks and militias as well as criminal groups.

"Entire communities have been affected to various degrees and, in some areas, neighbourhoods have been split up or inhabitants have been forced to flee to other areas or even to neighbouring countries in search of safety," the report said.

The report said that ethnic and religious minorities, such as Christians, were being targeted along with professionals such as academics, lawyers, judges and journalists.

It also raised questions about the sectarian loyalties and effectiveness of Iraq's 300,000-strong U.S.-trained security forces ahead of next week's meeting between Bush and Maliki to discuss speeding up the handover of security control to Iraq.

"There are increasing reports of militias and death squads operating from within the police ranks or in collusion with them," it said. "Its forces are increasingly accused of ... kidnapping, torture, murder, bribery ... extortion and theft."

Militias were also reported to be forcibly evicting people from their homes. One such is Waleed Jihad, who lives in a tent in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, 330 km north of the Baghdad home he was forced to leave by Shi'ite militias.

"I'm living in a tent because we are practising democracy in a jungle, where the mighty kill the weak," said Jihad, 37, a Sunni Arab from the Shi'ite stronghold of Kadhimiya where, he said, gunmen gave him a 48-hour ultimatum to get out of town.

Following the Republicans' defeat at Congressional elections this month, Bush has said he is looking for "fresh perspectives" on Iraq. Next month he is expected to receive recommendations on Iraq from a bipartisan Iraq Study Group, and the Pentagon is conducting its own review.

(Additional reporting by by Aseel Kami, Mussab Al-Khairalla, Ross Colvin and Alastair Macdonald in Baghdad, Matt Spetalnick on Air Force One and Edmund Blair in Tehran)

Couple things -

Baghdad is so unsafe that it's own supposed President has to conduct his meetings in another country? If they were looking for a way to make Maliki look like a puppet, then congratulations.

In that vein, Sadr's played his card in a pretty timely manner, in that whatever Maliki does, it'll be like hanging a sign over his office indicating who really runs the Iraqi government, whether that person is Sadr or Bush.

That bit about the "comprehensive review" of Bush's total lack of an Iraq policy would be hilarious, if it weren't for all the people dying.

I dunno. Your thoughts?

notasfatasmike

11-25-2006, 06:46 AM

I don't think I need to say this, as it should be apparent, but the situation in Iraq is so unbelievably screwed up right now, I often don't even feel like I know how I should react anymore. The country is decending into outright civil war, and I really don't think there's anything anyone can do about.

I don't think it's a bad thing for two leaders of a foreign power to meet, though; Sadr's apparent assertation that it's wrong to do so (or at least if the other foreign power is America) shows an unwillingness to work with the international community that is disappointing, if not particularly surprising. I don't think Maliki meeting with Bush is necessarily a sign that Maliki is Bush's puppet (although given my opinion of Bush, I wouldn't be surprised if Bush thinks he is); it more depends on whether or not Maliki blindly goes along with what Bush says, or if he trys to work cooperatively with his government, who should take precedence in the first place.

I can understand Sadr's anger against Bush, though; if it weren't for his bull-headed, warmongering administration, they wouldn't be stuck in this civil war right now. Yeah, Saddam was a douchebag, granted, but are constant road-side bombings and "militias and death squads consisting of police officers" really a whole lot better?

Fifthfiend

11-28-2006, 12:51 PM

Also, there's this:

U.S. Finds Iraq Insurgency Has Funds to Sustain Itself
By JOHN F. BURNS and KIRK SEMPLE (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/world/middleeast/26insurgency.html?ei=5094&en=2a2a5b9d24a4cf05&hp=&ex=1164517200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print)

BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 — The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, corrupt charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded.

The report, obtained by The New York Times, estimates that groups responsible for many of the insurgent and terrorist attacks are raising $70 million to $200 million a year from illegal activities. It says that $25 million to $100 million of the total comes from oil smuggling and other criminal activity involving the state-owned oil industry aided by “corrupt and complicit” Iraqi officials.

As much as $36 million a year comes from ransoms paid to save hundreds of kidnap victims in Iraq, the report said. It estimates that unnamed foreign governments — previously identified by senior American officials as including France and Italy — paid Iraqi kidnappers $30 million in ransom last year.

A copy of the report was made available to The Times by American officials in Iraq, who said they acted in the belief that the findings could improve American understanding of the challenges the United States faces in Iraq.

The report offers little hope that much can be done, at least soon, to choke off insurgent revenues. For one thing, it acknowledges how little the American authorities in Iraq know — three and a half years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein — about crucial aspects of insurgent operations. For another, it paints an almost despairing picture of the Iraqi government’s ability, or willingness, to take measures the report says will be necessary to tamp down the insurgency’s financing.

“If accurate,” the report says, its estimates indicate that these “sources of terrorist and insurgent finance within Iraq — independent of foreign sources — are currently sufficient to sustain the groups’ existence and operation.” To this, it adds what may be its most surprising conclusion: “In fact, if recent revenue and expense estimates are correct, terrorist and insurgent groups in Iraq may have surplus funds with which to support other terrorist organizations outside of Iraq.”

So that's worked out pretty well for us.

EDIT: As an update - President Smart Guy is acting real smart again.

Bush Blames Al Qaeda for Wave of Iraq Violence
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and JOHN O’NEIL (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/world/middleeast/28cnd-prexy.html?amp;en=b1465d36fd484434&ei=5094&hp=&ex=1164776400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print)

TALLINN, Estonia, Nov. 28 — President Bush today said Al Qaeda was to blame for the rising wave of sectarian violence in Iraq, which he refused to label a civil war. Mr. Bush said he would press Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, during meetings in Jordan later this week to lay out a strategy for restoring order.

“My questions to him will be: What do we need to do to succeed? What is your strategy in dealing with the sectarian violence?” said Mr. Bush. “I will assure him that we will continue to pursue Al Qaeda to make sure that they do not establish a safe haven in Iraq.”

The remarks, made at a press conference here with President Toomas Hendrik Ilves of Estonia, were Mr. Bush’s first on the situation in Iraq since a series of bombs exploded in a Shiite district of Baghdad last Thursday, killing more than 200 people. The bombing was the deadliest single attack since the American invasion.

The following day, Shiite militiamen staged a vengeful reprisal, attacking Sunni mosques in Baghdad and in the nearby city of Baquba.

The growing cycle of violence have prompted warnings from world leaders, including Jordan’s King Abdullah and Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary General, that the country is at the brink of civil war.

But Mr. Bush, who heads to Jordan on Wednesday for two days of meetings with Mr. Maliki, dismissed a question about whether a civil war has indeed erupted.

“There’s all kinds of speculation about what may or may not be happening,” he said, adding, “No question about it, it’s tough.”

Mr. Bush also had harsh words for Syria and Iran, and reiterated his stance that he does not intend to negotiate directly with them to enlist their help in ending the violence in Iraq. He said he would leave such talks to the government of Iraq, “a sovereign nation which is conducting its own foreign policy.”

The president acknowledged that there were high levels of sectarian violence in Iraq, but he put the blame for the disorder squarely on Al Qaeda.

“There’s a lot of sectarian violence taking place, fomented, in my opinion, because of the attacks by Al Qaeda, causing people to seek reprisal,” Mr. Bush said, adding that he planned to work with Mr. Maliki “to defeat these elements.”

Referring to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Al Qaeda leader in Iraq who was killed by American forces over the summer, he added, “The plan of Mr. Zarqawi was to foment sectarian violence.”

Mr. Bush’s remarks are at odds with statements made in recent weeks both by American military commanders and by Mr. Maliki.

While American military and intelligence officials credit Al Qaeda’s attack on a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February with having sparked waves of sectarian violence, more recently the officials have consistently described a more complicated picture. Earlier this month, Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples of the Defense Intelligence Agency characterized the situation before Congress as an “ongoing, violent struggle for power.”

That assessment was more in line with Mr. Maliki’s declaration after the recent bombings that such attacks are “the reflection of political backgrounds” and that “the crisis is political.”

In a televised briefing in Baghdad today, the senior spokesman for the American military in Iraq said that the already high levels of violence in the capital were likely to increase in the coming weeks in reaction to last week’s bombings.

In addition, the spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, said that mortar and rocket attacks between Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods were on the rise. A mortar attack followed the bombings last Thursday, and had been part of an attack earlier that day on the Health Ministry, which is controlled by Shiite parties. Shiite militias responded with their own mortar attacks, he said.

General Caldwell described Al Qaeda as having been “severely disorganized” by American and Iraqi efforts this year, but said it is still “the most well-funded of any group and can produce the most sensational attacks of any element out there.”

He summarized the continuing violence in Baghdad this way: Shiite militias conducting murders and assassinations in the city’s Sunni western section, and Sunni insurgents and Al Qaeda staging “high visibility casualty events” in the city’s predominantly Shiite east.

General Caldwell declined to say that the country was engulfed in a civil war, saying that Iraq’s government continues to function and that the conflict did not involve “another viable entity that’s vying to take control.”

The question of whether the fighting constitutes a civil war has becoming an increasingly sensitive one for the Bush administration, as Democrats cite agreement among a wide range of academic and military experts that the conflict meets most standard definitions of the term.

General Caldwell conceded that struggles for political and economic power were taking place on many levels throughout the country, including fights among Shiite groups seeking dominance in the south and among Sunni elements in Iraq’s west.

“The political parties need to start reining in their extremist elements,” he said.

At the same briefing, a spokesman for the Air Force said that the body of the pilot of an F-16 jet fighter that crashed northwest of Baghdad had not been found at the crash site. The spokesman said that it could not be determined from the position of the ejection seat whether the pilot had been able to get out before the crash, and said that DNA tests were being conducted on blood found at the scene.

Mr. Bush’s agenda today and tomorrow is supposed to focus on the spread of democracy in the Baltic nations and on Afghanistan, which will top the agenda at a N.A.T.O. summit in Riga, Latvia, where he arrived after his visit to Tallinn — the first trip to Estonia ever by a sitting United States president.

The alliance has committed 32,000 troops to Afghanistan, but many nations have imposed restrictions on the activities and deployment of their troops that N.A.T.O. commanders say are hampering the mission. Mr. Bush is expected to press for the lifting of those restrictions.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported from Estonia and John O’Neil reported from New York.

It's a real shock this guy can't even safely enter Iraq anymore.

notasfatasmike

11-28-2006, 01:17 PM

It's unsurprising that Bush would claim Al-Qaeda was somehow behind the violence in Iraq; his black-and-white worldview doesn't allow for anything else. There's no way the fine, upstanding people that we "freed" are going to fight among themselves! It's not like there's any cultural or religious differences between them! They're Iraqis, a completely homogenous group! Although he probably wouldn't use the word homogenous. You know, because "homo" is hidden in it.

I just can't believe the utter incomptence involved in the planning of this war. It's like the people planning had no concept of the intricacies of the Middle East in general or Iraq in particular. The train of thought seems like it was "SADDAM=BAD. GET RID OF SADDAM=FIXES ALL PROBLEMS." It's neo-conservative, PNAC arrogance from beginning to end.

Fifthfiend

11-28-2006, 06:28 PM

The thing with the Great Man approach to politics is somehow there's always another Great Man right behind the last Great Man. Take out Saddam? Job well done!-Oh now what's this some guy named Zarqawi making a ruckus? Zarqawi dead? Hooray! Oh wait what's this now, who's this Sadr fellow (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15898064/site/newsweek/) we keep hearing about? 'Cutting the head off of the serpent' isn't the best strategy when you're trying to stop a tidal wave.

And speaking of Al-Sadr, I suspect Maliki's question to Bush will be "what's your plan for keeping me from getting shot in the back of the head by Moqtada al-Sadr?" followed up with "And let me assure you that I'm a lot less worried about Al Qaeda than the roving bands of Shia death squads that, by the by, constitute the larger part of what passes for my 'government's' military."

... On a tangental note, but what really gets me is the talk from McCain and such about how what we really need is twenty thousand more troops in Iraq. I mean completely setting aside the issue of where are you going to find twenty thousand more people to send to Iraq, what exactly is there that twenty thousand more troops are going to accomplish, that a hundred and twenty thousand previously have been unable to do? I mean to be totally honest, I suspect the best you're going to do is increase numbers to the point where they pose enough of a threat that the Shia and Sunnis will stop shooting at each other long enough to shift their focus back to shooting at our guys. At this point opposition is so entrenched, you could probably put a million men under arms in that country, and accomplish nothing but forestalling the inevitable.

EDIT:

Slaughter in Iraq soon seems to be part of normal life
A special dispatch by Patrick Cockburn on his journey through a country being torn apart by civil war
Published: 28 November 2006 (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2021233.ece)

Iraq is rending itself apart. The signs of collapse are everywhere. In Baghdad, the police often pick up more than 100 tortured and mutilated bodies in a single day. Government ministries make war on each other.

A new and ominous stage in the disintegration of the Iraqi state came earlier this month when police commandos from the Shia-controlled Interior Ministry kidnapped 150 people from the Sunni-run Higher Education Ministry in the heart of Baghdad.

Iraq may be getting close to what Americans call "the Saigon moment", the time when it becomes evident to all that the government is expiring. "They say that the killings and kidnappings are being carried out by men in police uniforms and with police vehicles," the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said to me with a despairing laugh this summer. "But everybody in Baghdad knows that the killers and kidnappers are real policemen."

It is getting worse. The Iraqi army and police are not loyal to the state. If the US army decides to confront the Shia militias it could well find Shia military units from the Iraqi army cutting the main American supply route between Kuwait and Baghdad. One convoy was recently stopped at a supposedly fake police checkpoint near the Kuwait border and four American security men and an Austrian taken away.

...

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says that 1.6 million are displaced within the country and a further 1.8 million have fled abroad. In Baghdad, neighbouring Sunni and Shia districts have started to fire mortars at each other. On the day Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death, I phoned a friend in a Sunni area of the capital to ask what he thought of the verdict. He answered impatiently that "I was woken up this morning by the explosion of a mortar bomb on the roof of my next-door neighbour's house. I am more worried about staying alive myself than what happens to Saddam."

Iraqi friends used to reassure me that there would be no civil war because so many Shia and Sunni were married to each other. These mixed couples are now being compelled to divorce by their families. "I love my husband but my family has forced me to divorce him because we are Shia and he is Sunni," said Hiba Sami, a mother, to a UN official. "My family say they [the husband's family] are insurgents ... and that living with him is an offence to God." Members of mixed marriages had set up an association to protect each other called the Union for Peace in Iraq but they were soon compelled to dissolve it when several founding members were murdered.

Everything in Iraq is dominated by what in Belfast we used to call "the politics of the last atrocity". All three Iraqi communities - Shia, Sunni and Kurds - see themselves as victims and seldom sympathise with the tragedies of others. Every day brings its gruesome discoveries.

...

A local tribal leader called Sayid Tewfiq from the nearby city of Tal Afar told me of a man from there who went to recover the tortured body of his 16-year-old son. The corpse was wired to explosives that blew up, killing the father so their two bodies were buried together.

...

[Khasro Goran, the deputy governor of Mosul] added that 70,000 Kurds had already fled the city because of assassinations. It is extraordinary how, in Iraq, slaughter that would be front-page news anywhere else in the world soon seems to be part of normal life.

On the day I arrived in Mosul, the police had found 11 bodies in the city which would have been on the low side in Baghdad. I spoke to Duraid Mohammed Kashmula, the governor of Mosul, whose office is decorated with pictures of smiling fresh-faced young men who turned out to be his son and four nephews, all of them killed by insurgents.

His own house, together with his furniture, was burned to the ground two years ago. He added in passing that Mr Goran and he himself were the prime targets for assassination in Mosul, a point that was dramatically proved true the day after we spoke when insurgents exploded a bomb beside his convoy - fortunately he was not in it at the time - killing one and wounding several of his bodyguards.

For the moment Mosul is more strongly controlled by pro-government forces than most Iraqi cities. That is because the US has powerful local allies in the shape of the Kurds. The two army divisions in the province are primarily Kurdish, but the 17,000 police in Nineveh, the province of which Mosul is the capital, are almost entirely Sunni and their loyalty is dubious.

One was dismissed on the day of Saddam's trial for putting a picture of the former leader in the window of his car. In November 2004, the entire Mosul police force abandoned their police stations to the insurgents who captured �20m worth of arms.

"The terrorists do not control a single district in Mosul," is the proud claim of Major General Wathiq Mohammed Abdul Qadir al-Hamdani, the bullet-headed police chief of Nineveh. "I challenge them to fight me face to face." But the situation is still very fragile. We went to see the police operations room where an officer was bellowing into a microphone: "There is a suicide bomber in a car in the city. Do not let him get near you or any of our buildings." There was a reason to be frightened. On my way into Mosul, I had seen the broken concrete walls of the party headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two big Kurdish political parties. In August, two men in a car packed with explosives shot their way past the outer guard post and then blew themselves up, killing 17 soldiers.

The balance of forces in Nineveh between American, Arab, Kurd, Turkoman, Sunni and Shia is complicated even by Iraqi standards. Power is fragmented.

Sayid Tewfiq, the Shia tribal leader from Tal Afar, resplendent in his flowing robes, admitted: "I would not last 24 hours in Tal Afar without Coalition [US] support." "That's probably about right," confirmed Mr Goran, explaining that Sayid Tewfiq's Shia Turkoman tribe was surrounded by Sunni tribes. Earlier I had heard him confidently invite all of Nineveh provincial council to visit him in Tal Afar. Nobody looked enthusiastic about taking him up on the offer.

"He may have 3,000 fighters from his tribe but he can't visit most of Tal Afar himself," said another member of the council, Mohammed Suleiman, as he declined the invitation. A few hours before somebody tried to assassinate him, Governor Kashmula claimed to me that "security in Mosul is the best in Iraq outside the Kurdish provinces".

It is a measure of the violence in Iraq that it is an arguable point. Khasro Goran said: "The situation is not perfect but it is better than Anbar, Baquba and Diyala." I could vouch for this. In Iraq however bad things are there is always somewhere worse.

It is obviously very difficult for reporters to discover what is happening in Iraq's most violent provinces without being killed themselves. But, at the end of September, I travelled south along the Iraqi side of the border with Iran, sticking to Kurdish villages to try to reach Diyala, a mixed Sunni-Shia province north-east of Baghdad where there had been savage fighting. It is a road on which a wrong turning could be fatal.

We drove from Sulaimaniyah through the mountains, passed through the Derbandikhan tunnel and then took the road that runs beside the Diyala river, its valley a vivid streak of lush green in the dun-coloured semi desert.

The area is a smuggler's paradise. At night, trucks drive through without lights, their drivers using night-vision goggles. It is not clear what cargoes they are carrying - presumably weapons or drugs - and nobody has the temerity to ask.

We had been warned it was essential to turn left after the tumbledown Kurdish town of Kalar before reaching the mixed Arab-Kurdish village of Jalula. We crossed the river by a long and rickety bridge, parts of which had fallen into the swirling waters below, and soon arrived in the Kurdish stronghold of Khanaqin in Diyala province. If I had any thoughts about driving further towards Baghdad they were put to rest by the sight, in one corner of the yard of the local police headquarters, of the wreckage of a blue-and-white police vehicle torn apart by a bomb.

"Five policemen were killed in it when it was blown up at an intersection in As-Sadiyah two months ago," a policeman told me. "Only their commander survived but his legs were amputated."

Officials in Khanaqin had no doubt about what is happening in their province. Lt Col Ahmed Nuri Hassan, the exhausted-looking commander of the federal police, said: "There is a sectarian civil war here and it is getting worse every day." The head of the local council estimated 100 people were being killed a week.

In Baquba, the provincial capital, Sunni Arabs were driving out Shia and Kurds. The army and police were divided along sectarian lines. The one Iraqi army division in Diyala was predominantly Shia and only arrested Sunni. On the day after I left, Sunni and Kurdish police officers fought a gun battle in Jalula, the village I had been warned not to enter. The fighting started when Kurdish police refused to accept a new Sunni Arab police chief and his followers. Here, in miniature, in Diyala it was possible to see Iraq breaking up. The province is ruled by its death squads. The police say at least 9,000 people had been murdered. It is difficult to see how Sunni and Shia in the province can ever live together again.

In much of Iraq, we long ago slipped down the rapids leading from crisis to catastrophe though it is only in the past six months that these dire facts have begun to be accepted abroad. For the first three years of the war, Republicans in the US regularly claimed the liberal media was ignoring signs of peace and progress. Some right-wingers even set up websites devoted to spreading the news of American achievements in this ruined land.

I remember a team from a US network news channel staying in my hotel in Baghdad complaining to me, as they buckled on their body armour and helmets, that they had been once again told by their bosses in New York, themselves under pressure from the White House, to "go and find some good news and report it."

...

An expert on the politics of Iraq and Lebanon recently said to me: "The most dangerous error in the Middle East today is to believe the Shia communities in Iraq and Lebanon are pawns of Iran." But that is exactly what the Prime Minister does believe.

The fact that the largest Shia militia in Iraq - the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr - is anti-Iranian and Iraqi nationalist is conveniently ignored. Those misconceptions are important in terms of practical policy because they give support to the dangerous myth that if the US and Britain could only frighten or square the Iranians and Syrians then all would come right as their Shia cats-paws in Iraq and Lebanon would inevitably fall into line.

...

The commander of the British army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, was almost fired for his trouble when he made the obvious point that "we should get ourselves out some time soon because our presence exacerbates the security problem."

A series of opinion polls carried out by the US-based group WorldPublicOpinion.org at the end of September show why Gen. Dannatt is right and Mr Blair is wrong. The poll shows that 92 per cent of the Sunni and 62 per cent of the Shia - up from 41 per cent at the start of the year - approve of attacks on US-led forces. Only the Kurds support the occupation. Some 78 per cent of all Iraqis think the US military presence provokes more conflict than it prevents and 71 per cent want US-led forces out of Iraq within a year. The biggest and most menacing change this year is the growing hostility of Iraq's Shia to the American and British presence.

It used to be said that at least the foreign occupation prevented a civil war but, with 1,000 Iraqis being killed every week, it is now very clearly failing.

It was always true that in post-Saddam Iraq there was going to be friction between the Shia, Sunni and Kurds. But Iraqis were also forced to decide if they were for or against a foreign invader.

The Sunnis were always going to fight the occupation, the Kurds to welcome it and the Shia to co-operate for just so long as it served their interests. Patriotism and communal self-interest combined. Before 2003, a Sunni might see a Shia as the member of a different sect but once the war had started he started to see him as a traitor to his country.

Of course Messrs Bush and Blair argue there is no occupation. In June 2004, sovereignty was supposedly handed back to Iraq. "Let Freedom Reign," wrote Mr Bush. But the reality of power remained firmly with the US and Britain. The Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said this month that he could not move a company of soldiers without seeking permission of the Coalition (the US and Britain). Officials in Mosul confirmed to me that they could not carry out a military operation without the agreement of US forces. There is a hidden history to the occupation of Iraq which helps explain why has proved such a disaster. In 1991, after the previous Gulf War, a crucial reason why President George HW Bush did not push on to Baghdad was that he feared the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would be followed by elections that would be won by Shia parties sympathetic to Iran. No worse outcome of the war could be imagined in Washington. After the capture of Baghdad in 2003, the US faced the same dilemma. Many of the contortions of US policy in Iraq since then have been a covert attempt to avoid or dilute the domination of Iraq's Shia majority.

For more than a year, the astute US envoy in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, tried to conciliate the Sunni. He failed. Attacks on US forces are on the increase. Dead and wounded US soldiers now total almost 1,000 a month..

An Iraqi government will only have real legitimacy and freedom to operate when US and British troops have withdrawn. Washington and London have to accept that if Iraq is to survive at all it will be as a loose federation run by a Shia-Kurdish alliance because together they are 80 per cent of the population. But, thanks to the miscalculations of Mr Bush and Mr Blair, the future of Iraq will be settled not by negotiations but on the battlefield.

The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq by Patrick Cockburn is published by Verso.

The toll of war

* US troops killed since invasion - 2,880

* UK troops killed - 126

* Iraqis who have died as result of invasion - 655,000

* Journalists killed - 77

* Daily attacks on coalition forces - 180

* Average number of US troops killed every day in October - 3.5

* Strength of insurgency - 30,000 nationwide

* Number of police - 180,000

* Trained judges - 740

* Percentage of Iraqi population that wants US forces to leave within 12 months - 71 per cent

* Hours of electricity per day in Baghdad in November - 8.6 (pre-war estimate 16-24 hours)

* Unemployment - 25-40 per cent

* Internet subscribers - 197,310 (pre-war 4,500)

* Population with access to clean drinking water - 9.7 million (12.9 million pre-war). Percentage of children suffering malnutrition - 33 per cent

To relate this back to the specific originating topic, a lot of this underscores the tension around the Bush/Maliki visit and Sadr's ultimatum. The Sadrist faction walking out of the Iraqi Parliament is a move that could be the culmination of a whole collection of enmities that have had three long, bloody years now to entrench themselves. It also gets at why I continue to argue that the situation is only made worse every moment our armed forces continue to operate in Iraq. Our presence is the single greatest polarizing element both between the Shia and Sunni factions and between the populace as a whole and any government which might hope to lay a claim to national legitimacy. To whatever extent our forces even can keep a the lid on the violence, it's the lid on a pressure cooker, guaranteeing that when the explosion finally comes, it'll be that much bigger.

Tydeus

11-28-2006, 07:07 PM

Fifthfiend

11-28-2006, 08:42 PM

Tydeus

11-28-2006, 09:39 PM

...Without for now getting into a detailed response to the above, I'll just note that the bit about a million men was at least somewhat of a turn of rhetoric, and tentatively grant that yes, if you found a million trained soldiers somewhere that you could put in Iraq, properly equipped and under unified, competent leadership, you might possibly - though I do continue to emphasize that even this is something I would by no means take for granted - be able to make a difference for the better in Iraq. And as soon as anyone finds all of those things, I'll gladly take another look at the issue.

Well, of course it wouldn't be guaranteed, because you can't ever guarantee anything that involves a nation's worth of people. As Machiavelli would say, you can only trust yourself. Making guarantees that depend upon others is foolhardy.

The problem with waiting to take another look at the issue is that that way, no one will ever find those things necessary to success. As an electorate, we have to demand that the government secure those tools which can possibly result in success. Of course, that would require a willingness to make sacrifices, because not only would we need a draft, but we'd need to be willing to accept lots of American casualties, becuase our troops would need to be a great deal more active and out-going while occupying Iraq. So, yeah, it'll never happen. Iraq is fucked. It doesn't have to be that way, but it will be that way, mainly because the American people are by-and-large pathetic, coddled barbarians and have lost sight of anything but themselves.

As for sending another twenty thousand, that's just some people trying to kid themselves real hard.

Yeah.

Fifthfiend

11-29-2006, 02:48 PM

1. A warning:

the American people are by-and-large pathetic, coddled barbarians and have lost sight of anything but themselves.

I mean this is a pretty clear-cut one, it's not okay to write off three hundred million people as pathetic coddled barbarian narcissists. Yes you said "by-and-large," no that still doesn't make it okay.

Just so that's said.

2. Responding to your earlier argument re. the breaking of nations - Roman antiquity seems a frightfully poor comparison to modern-day Iraq. If you want to talk about peoples being broken, well, the nations of Western Europe went to some lengths to break the people of Africa. The legacy of that has been about a hundred years of warfare and genocide. The Soviet Union tried to break Afghanistan, how did that work out? With the Soviet Union breaking itself, with the side benefit of paving the way for Afghanistan's entrenched radical theocratic regime. The British took some pains to break the people of India, the result there rebellion, religious partition and fifty years of warfare over Kashmir. Speaking of the British, I can think of one sleepy little Middle Eastern nation they spent thirty or so years trying to break, now remind me, how exactly did that one work out for everybody (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq)?

Whatever the power of revolutionary movements generated from within a society or the imperatives of conquest for empires of old, in the modern world there are hard limits on the capability of any external entity to impose its will on an independent nation-state in anything like a beneficient capacity. An occupying army won't be able to 'break' ethnic/religious tensions in Iraq because the uniform effect of armed occupation is to exacerbate and entrench such divisions.

Tydeus

11-29-2006, 03:47 PM

1. A warning:
I mean this is a pretty clear-cut one, it's not okay to write off three hundred million people as pathetic coddled barbarian narcissists. Yes you said "by-and-large," no that still doesn't make it okay.

Hmmmmm...how can I backtrack out of this one? :P Uhhh...got it! OK, so, when I said "pathetic," I actually meant that in terms of pathos, as in they are consumed with feelings, and not rational thought. Yeah, that's it.

Seriously, though, I apologize.

2. Responding to your earlier argument re. the breaking of nations: [snip] If you want to talk about peoples being broken, well, the nations of Western Europe went to some lengths to break the people of Africa. The legacy of that has been about a hundred years of warfare and genocide.

Well, again, I was using "break" in a specialized way, which I think I went to some trouble to define, but I will explain how that pertains to the colonial rape of Africa, and how such abuse was not in fact a true iteration of destruction/creation.

First of all, the goals of the Romans, and at least our (America's) publicly-stated goals in Iraq are very similar -- make them like us. Don't rape their country for resources and slaves, or treat them like cattle, but rather enlighten them, bring them out of their religious and ethnic divisions, and replace their old value sets with new ones, specifically, ours. This is what the Romans did to Gaul. See, the Romans conquered only in part for plunder -- just as big a motivator, if not a far greater one (considering how the Gauls had previously sacked Rome, a couple centuries prior to Caesar) was safety. They were afraid of the Gauls, reasonably or not. They wanted safer borders, and they wanted to permanently eliminate a hostile nation. How do can you ever possibly do that? Make them your own. If you can beat them, make them join you. Rome invested a tremendous amount of blood and gold in Gaul, without any immediate net monetary return, and the people of Gaul benefited accordingly. They were given running water, sewers, roads, peace, stability, etc. (I already listed all this in my last post, I think). The Romans invested money and human life to improve the quality of life for the Gauls, and, by way of more Roman citizens (and therefore more soldiers), safer borders, and a greater tax pool, it improved the Roman quality of life as well, but only in the long run. Romans didn't see any benefits really for at least a good 30 years. It really took about 50 before Gaul became totally Romanized. Also, whereas Romans were settling like crazy in Gaul, most African countries didn't get settled by Europeans. South Africa is pretty much the only exception, but even in that case, the emigrating whites were coming to South Africa to become a permanent oppressor class, whereas Romans who settled in Gaul were generally more salt-of-the-earth kind of people. Ex-soldiers, mostly, living off of their pensions on beautiful, fertile farmland in what today is Provence. Not a bad deal, actually. Anyway, the Romans brought their culture, their gods, their politics with them, and tried to bring Gauls into the fold, tried to make the Gauls equals. It was completely and utterly different from European colonialism. It would be more analagous to France or Britain going to Africa and conquering what little military resistance cropped up, and then saying: "OK, so, we're going to modernize the crap out of your ass-backwards country , until you people are educated enough, and invested enough in our culture to be our fellow citizens, with all the rights and freedoms and priviliges and comforts that that status entails. You know, like, indoor plumbing, and no more microscopic worm larvae in your water that grow to three feet or longer in your body before popping out of festering sores."

But, that's not what the Europeans did. If you'll remember, my definition of "breaking" required that something be created afterwards. The problem with the European atrocities of colonialism is that they never created anything. They just ignored all the rules of the societies they conquered. Ignored, because they never set up any new rules to take the place of those they ignored. Yes, they had laws, and yes, people got punished for ignoring laws and rules that the Europeans instituted, but I mean at a deeper, cultural level, Europeans did not create. They merely corrupted, cheated, starved, and left the cultures they conquered to twist in the wind. Rome conquered African nations, too. Only, when they did it, they made them Romans. The result was prosperity and stability. Do you see the distinction I'm trying to make here?

It's not some quirk of the modern world that conquest must always turn out this way -- it's just a matter of the conquerors' goals. Do you want to rape a people and their land for plunder, and nothing else? Well, then it's not going to turn out well for either of you in the long run. Do you want to change their very way of life, bring them a new, more enlightened, more powerful, more progessive culture that, say, doesn't endorse genocide or genital mutilation (well, the Romans didn't endorse genocide anyway. We're kind of more lax about it than they were. Honestly, the Romans were, in some ways (not all! obviously not all!), far more humane than modern nations today. They didn't stand for that kind of bullshit.)? Well, then things will turn out well for both of you, in the long run.

All the Europeans did was break down the preexisting power structures of the nations they conquered. They didn't endeavor to really make the conquered peoples citizens of the empire -- merely tools, resources. The result was nothing held back the savagery that every culture buries beneath its laws and customs. So, when the Europeans left, and took their imposed laws with them (that's another thing -- the Europeans did create some laws, in a technical sense, but they were always the [i]Europeans' laws, and never became the laws of Africa. By contrast, Roman laws became the laws of Gauls. The Gauls appreciated the laws, enforced them, valued them, even edited them and added to them.), there was nothing left to stop the despair of every-man-for-himself that every culture attempts to quell. Indeed, the whole idea of culture itself is to prevent the Hobbesian nightmare from becoming reality.

Gauls, after a half-century, were fit to be called Roman. And so they were. They were Romans. We still consider them part of the Roman empire, Roman citizens to this day. We refer to them as Gauls to be ethnically specific, but they were Roman, in a cultural, legal, and spiritual sense. Of course we would never call Algerians "French." And that, fifth, is where Europe went so terribly wrong, and broke only one thing -- the hope of a continent.

The whole point of my Roman lectures is to provide Rome as the counter-example to such murderous European imperialism. No, colonialsim -- it isn't even fit to bear the name "imperial," which comes from a nation and template so completely antithetical to European atrocities.

The Soviet Union tried to break Afghanistan, how did that work out? With the Soviet Union breaking itself, with the side benefit of paving the way for Afghanistan's entrenched radical theocratic regime. The British took some pains to break the people of India, the result there rebellion, religious partition and fifty years of warfare over Kashmir. Speaking of the British, I can think of one sleepy little Middle Eastern nation they spent thirty or so years trying to break, now remind me, how exactly did that one work out for everybody (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq)?

Again, I would say that none of this was truly "breaking" nations. Since there was nothing to replace the broken rules, it cannot be considered true destruction. If you kill off crabgrass, but don't make your lawn healthy and full in order to monopolize any resources that crabgrass might otherwise find to subsist on, then the crabgrass will merely come back. All true destruction is performed as the prologue to creation. Otherwise it's just ignorant and self-serving.

Whatever the power of revolutionary movements generated from within a society or the imperatives of conquest for empires of old, in the modern world there are hard limits on the capability of any external entity to impose its will on an independent nation-state in anything like a beneficient capacity. An occupying army won't be able to 'break' ethnic/religious tensions in Iraq because the uniform effect of armed occupation is to exacerbate and entrench such divisions.

This I addressed above, also. Basically, yeah, that's the way it turned out, but that's becuase of the motives for conquest. Europe's were heinous, and self-serving. Rome's were self-serving, but served all of humanity at the same time; after all, Rome's goal was to become synonymous with "humanity." That, to me, is a great goal.

notasfatasmike

11-29-2006, 04:42 PM

Well, again, I was using "break" in a specialized way, which I think I went to some trouble to define, but I will explain how that pertains to the colonial rape of Africa, and how such abuse was not in fact a true iteration of destruction/creation.

First of all, the goals of the Romans, and at least our (America's) publicly-stated goals in Iraq are very similar -- make them like us.
Firstly, what reason do we have to believe that the United States' stated goal is their true goal? I've never been one to jump on the "Blood for Oil" bandwagon (and actually, that phrase bugs the hell out of me, but it makes it clear what's being referred to in this case), you have to admit that it is...convenient that of all of the overly oppressive, non-democratic countries in the world we decide to "free", the one picked just happens to be in an area extremely rich in a resource that the United States desperately needs. I'm not going to make an absolute statements, but I am skeptical about the aforementioned stated goals.

Don't rape their country for resources and slaves, or treat them like cattle, but rather enlighten them, bring them out of their religious and ethnic divisions, and replace their old value sets with new ones, specifically, ours.
What gives the United States the right to replace their value set with ours? While I, as someone from the United States, may view our culture as superior, who am I to say that someone else should adopt my culture under duress? I don't buy the "Might makes Right" justification, and if terrible things like genocide and genital mutilation (which you mentioned later in your post, just so you know why I reference them) are engrained in a culture, how is invading a country going to change the general opinion that it is OK? I'm not saying we should condone either of those things, but making them stop is not as simple as "Go over there and blow up a whole bunch of stuff, and they'll realize it's wrong."

This is what the Romans did to Gaul. See, the Romans conquered only in part for plunder -- just as big a motivator, if not a far greater one (considering how the Gauls had previously sacked Rome, a couple centuries prior to Caesar) was safety. They were afraid of the Gauls, reasonably or not. They wanted safer borders, and they wanted to permanently eliminate a hostile nation.
This is a key difference between the two situations - Iraq posed no direct threat to the United States. The Bush Administration's claim of WMDs has, at this point, proven itself to be false. They certainly didn't have the capability to launch an offensive against the U.S. I understand a war of self-defense, but without major spin, I see no way to construe the war in Iraq through that lens, especially considering that there are many other countries who have declared deliberate intent to harm the United States who have a much greater likelihood of doing so (see North Korea).

How do can you ever possibly do that? Make them your own. If you can beat them, make them join you. Rome invested a tremendous amount of blood and gold in Gaul, without any immediate net monetary return, and the people of Gaul benefited accordingly. They were given running water, sewers, roads, peace, stability, etc. (I already listed all this in my last post, I think). The Romans invested money and human life to improve the quality of life for the Gauls, and, by way of more Roman citizens (and therefore more soldiers), safer borders, and a greater tax pool, it improved the Roman quality of life as well, but only in the long run. Romans didn't see any benefits really for at least a good 30 years. It really took about 50 before Gaul became totally Romanized.
Yes, but the plan (stated or otherwise) has never been to make Iraq a direct part of the U.S. A puppet regime? Maybe. But that's not the same thing. Also, the improvements to the Iraqi infrastructure are not as great as those the Romans provided to Gaul, and they are also being made at a great cost to the U.S., with no possiblity of the return that the Romans saw (we will not gain Iraqi soldiers, safer borders, or an increased tax pool from it), and they are being made at a much higher cost, considering the frequency of no-bid contracts and the like.

Also, whereas Romans were settling like crazy in Gaul, most African countries didn't get settled by Europeans. South Africa is pretty much the only exception, but even in that case, the emigrating whites were coming to South Africa to become a permanent oppressor class, whereas Romans who settled in Gaul were generally more salt-of-the-earth kind of people. Ex-soldiers, mostly, living off of their pensions on beautiful, fertile farmland in what today is Provence. Not a bad deal, actually. Anyway, the Romans brought their culture, their gods, their politics with them, and tried to bring Gauls into the fold, tried to make the Gauls equals. It was completely and utterly different from European colonialism. It would be more analagous to France or Britain going to Africa and conquering what little military resistance cropped up, and then saying: "OK, so, we're going to modernize the crap out of your ass-backwards country , until you people are educated enough, and invested enough in our culture to be our fellow citizens, with all the rights and freedoms and priviliges and comforts that that status entails. You know, like, indoor plumbing, and no more microscopic worm larvae in your water that grow to three feet or longer in your body before popping out of festering sores."

I repeat my question from above: what right would France or Britain have had to do that?

But, that's not what the Europeans did. If you'll remember, my definition of "breaking" required that something be created afterwards. The problem with the European atrocities of colonialism is that they never created anything. They just ignored all the rules of the societies they conquered. Ignored, because they never set up any new rules to take the place of those they ignored. Yes, they had laws, and yes, people got punished for ignoring laws and rules that the Europeans instituted, but I mean at a deeper, cultural level, Europeans did not create. They merely corrupted, cheated, starved, and left the cultures they conquered to twist in the wind. Rome conquered African nations, too. Only, when they did it, they made them Romans. The result was prosperity and stability. Do you see the distinction I'm trying to make here?

I see the distinction you're trying to make, but I'm not entirely sure I agree with it. Look at the example of the British in India: they did everything in their power to make their culture a part of Indian culture, and it didn't work. You're assuming because it worked in the case of Gaul and the Romans, it works in every case - but this is a distinct case where it didn't.

It's not some quirk of the modern world that conquest must always turn out this way -- it's just a matter of the conquerors' goals. Do you want to rape a people and their land for plunder, and nothing else? Well, then it's not going to turn out well for either of you in the long run.

Agreed.
Do you want to change their very way of life, bring them a new, more enlightened, more powerful, more progessive culture that, say, doesn't endorse genocide or genital mutilation (well, the Romans didn't endorse genocide anyway. We're kind of more lax about it than they were. Honestly, the Romans were, in some ways (not all! obviously not all!), far more humane than modern nations today. They didn't stand for that kind of bullshit.)? Well, then things will turn out well for both of you, in the long run.
Reference (for the 3rd time...I sound like a damn broken record) my question posed early on: who are we to say all aspects of our culture is better, and how does going over there and conquering them discourage them from performing things that we as Westerners view as terrible?

This I addressed above, also. Basically, yeah, that's the way it turned out, but that's becuase of the motives for conquest. Europe's were heinous, and self-serving. Rome's were self-serving, but served all of humanity at the same time; after all, Rome's goal was to become [i]synonymous with "humanity." That, to me, is a great goal.
But the problem as I see it, again, is that you're assuming a unanimous view of what constitutes "humanity". For a practical example: I view the death penalty as inhumane. (Let's not debate that here; the actual issue is irrelevant to my point.) Others do not. Who's view of humanity is "correct"? I will obviously maintain that mine is, while others will maintain that theirs is correct.

To summarize:
I maintain that it is impossible to change people's worldview and beliefs by force, which is essentially what you are advocating, Tydeus. Is it unfortunate that there are places in the world that view violence as an acceptable solution for the smallest of problems? Absolutely. Can we change it through force? I highly doubt it. It seems antithetical to the goal: "Stop killing or we'll kill you!" True societal change, or true revolution, if you will, has to come from within a group itself; it cannot be forced on people.

Tydeus

11-29-2006, 11:38 PM

As a general response to Mike's post, which I think adresses his main, and recurring theme (btw, if you're a broken record, then what the hell am I with all this Rome stuff? :P): I did not, and still do not endorse the rationale for going to war. However, as someone who did not do everything in my power to stop it (a few protests != everything in my power), I am responsible for what happened to thousands of innocents, and I feel compelled to make sacrifices to set that right. At the same time, I'm not gonna sacrifice myself in vain -- I am a realist, after all. If there were a draft, and a serious effort to rebuild that country, you can be sure that I'd be volunteering ASAP. But, I'm not going to go risk my life for a cause I consider to be, at the moment, hopeless.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is: Going to war = ill-advised, ill-evidenced, rife with manipulation of the public and the facts, and generally unethical. However, now that we are there, we are all responsible (us U.S. citizens, anyway, oh, and Brits too). Unless you don't pay your taxes, went to every protest you possibly could have, even ones out of state, you organized your own protests, you raised money for anti-war ads, or at least door-to-door operations, and spent every day of the pre-war leadup engaged in anti-war activity, then you're at least a little bit responsible. So, we have to remedy the situation. Pulling out will almost undoubtedly result in bloodshed and instability on a far greater scale, and for many more years, than if we took the Roman approach.

So, that's what I'm saying. We owe them.

Lionesque

11-30-2006, 12:59 AM

The question here definitely is not whether or not we should be at war. We're there, there's no changing that.

As stated above, a troop pullout would lead to two things: the disentigration of Iraq and the creation of a situation even more hostile to the interests of the free world.

The fact most people haven't mentioned is that Bush is going to meet with the leader of a government that is flawed in it's basic premise. Iraq is not unified in ethnicity, religon, or just about anything else. Iraq was created by European powers after the fall of the Ottomans. It didn't emerge as a nation on it's own. The only sort of unity Iraq has known in recent times is political unity under Saddam, who we agree was a bad, bad man. The problem is that his reign of terror was the only thing holding Iraq together. And when we removed him, we tried to replace him with a democratic government that would oversee that same one nation.

That same one nation does not want to be one nation any longer. All Iraqi forces are pulling apart. The Iraqi government we support has even passed laws in that direction, granting a large amount of autonomy to several southern provinces. The government is a very weak adhesive for a nation that is breaking into several nations. The fact we keep trying to hold this nation together is causing it to fall even farther apart, as more and more parties try to use this situation to gain power and influence in Iraq.

The issue here should not be about how to save the Iraqi government anymore. It should be about how to create a government that starts to quell the fears of the Iraqi people enough that the militias lose support.

Tydeus

11-30-2006, 02:37 AM

Lionesque

11-30-2006, 11:54 AM

I don't know if I'd agree that we need to "break" the rules of Iraqi society, so much as we need to "break" the rules of Iraqi politics. The political situation in Iraq is artificial; we need to find one that will actually fit the people it will govern.

One of the main problems is that, despite what we'd like to think, forming a society friendly to democracy takes time. You can't just waltz in, instate a democracy, and expect everyone to vote and act like a good citizen. When you do that, your government becomes corrupt, your crime increases, and your citizens do not get the type of treatment a democracy warrants.

That's what happened with many South American nations. Political instability (contributed to by the good old US of A) has given birth to many weak, corrupt democracies, simply because the public was not allowed the time to develop it's own democracy, slowly. In nature, change is a slow thing. Rapid change upsets balance and creates disorder.

Look at the development of American democracy. The Magna Carta was signed in 1215, granting nobles protection from the powers of the King. It was a small step, but a step. It was over 400 years until the Glorious revolution in England, which established a true place for the english Parliament. And it wasn't until 100 years after that that the American colonies revolted and set up their actual "democracy". That's over 500 years it took for a 'modern' democracy to develop. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Idea that we can walk into Iraq, tear down a stable, if horrible, regime, and then instate a democratic government, was false in the beginning. What needs to be done is to find a better way to govern the country democratically (one that will allow for all this ethnic and religious tension, such as the plan to partition Iraq), slowly build the country up to the point where it can take care of itself, and then allow democratic society to flower while helping in any way we can. What we shouldn't be doing is trying to hold together this corrupt, splintered government we've created while the people it governs kill eachother.

I'm also not at all opposed to letting Syria and Iran get involved. However, I do feel that we should take anything they say with a grain of salt; the Iranians especially have high hopes of projecting a lot of influence over a new Iraqi state.

This meeting between presidents take place behind a larger backdrop of if Maliki's government can be maintained, and what to do if it can't. Bush has admitted a policy change is needed; this may be the first step toward that change.

Fifthfiend

11-30-2006, 12:19 PM

It's not some quirk of the modern world that conquest must always turn out this way -- it's just a matter of the conquerors' goals.

No, it pretty much is a result of modernity, and basically has nothing whatsoever to do with the conqueror's goals. You seem fond of mentioning Roman history well, Caesar's goals in invading Gaul were 1. money 2. fame and 3. more money, so he could buy fame. Rome was 'afraid' of Gaul like the US was 'afraid' of Iraq, people in power working real hard to kid the masses as an excuse to launch an unprovoked agressive war. (The Gauls attacked them two centuries previously? If that constituted a reasonable threat then America should be invading Britain.) I mean not to harp on the subject but as you yourself cite, forty thousand legionairres slaughtered three hundred thousand Gauls, I'd call that a pretty good measure of just how 'afraid' Rome was of Gaul. And Caesar's rhetoric two thousand years ago about how he did all this for the good of the Gallic people was no different from Spain's Gold, Glory and God excuses or Britain's 'White Man's Burden' or Bush's talk of Democratizing the Iraqis, or of any would-be conqueror seeking to hold up his atrocities as dictated by some kind of moral imperative.

The difference between then and now isn't intentions, it's that Caesar by bloody and vicious slaughter had killed a million of the Gallic people's fighting men and of those he left alive, severed their right hands that they might never wield a sword against him. The difference is that in an era of divided tribes, mass armies and combat by edged weapon it was actually a practical proposition to break the back of an opposing people and rip out its conception of itself root and branch. In an era of nationalism, mass communications, widespread firearms, insurgent warfare and suicide terrorism, this becomes difficult if not impossible.

The problem is, we left all the ancient rules intact -- hatred, bigotry, tribalism, fanaticism, paranoia, revenge.

No, the problem is that we drove people back to those rules, as a direct result of obliterating what passed for Iraq's edifice of civilization, and to the extent that we continue to wage war on that nation, we will only intensify and exacerbate those divisions.

Pulling out will almost undoubtedly result in bloodshed and instability on a far greater scale, and for many more years, than if we took the Roman approach.

So, that's what I'm saying. We owe them.

The Roman approach, even if it could conceivably work, requires the systematic slaughter of millions of people. I'm pretty sure whatever we owe the Iraqis, that isn't it.

Not that we haven't gotten off to a pretty good start, I mean, something between four and nine hundred thousand Iraqis dead in three years as a result of our war, and all. But if your solution to the issue of Iraq is to kill even more Iraqis, even faster, I have to say that's pretty lacking as a solution.

-----------------------------------------------------

The question here definitely is not whether or not we should be at war. We're there, there's no changing that.

Uh yes, there totally is changing that, by removing US troops from that country, so that we are not there any more.

As stated above, a troop pullout would lead to two things: the disentigration of Iraq and the creation of a situation even more hostile to the interests of the free world.

No, because Iraq has disintegrated, and every second our troops are there causes the situation to be even more hostile to the interests of the free world, and not insignificantly, at the cost to ourselves of something like a half-billion dollars a day.

Lionesque

11-30-2006, 02:17 PM

Uh yes, there totally is changing that, by removing US troops from that country, so that we are not there any more.

Point. I should have said "The question is not whether or not we should have gone to war.

No, because Iraq has disintegrated, and every second our troops are there causes the situation to be even more hostile to the interests of the free world, and not insignificantly, at the cost to ourselves of something like a half-billion dollars a day.

The situation in Iraq has disentigrated, but not Iraq itself. And pulling our troops out will not solve the violence. Slowly withdrawing them while fixing the problems we have already caused might. The violence a couple years ago was aimed at our troops. Now it's beyond that; the violence is aimed at other Iraqis by factions vying for dominance or independence. The different groups in Iraq do not trust eachother, and/or do not wish to be part of this one nation of Iraq.

People have started calling Iraq a "Civil War." If the Iraqi's were truly fighting us, it wouldn't be a civil war; it would be a war. We are not in Iraq to conquer it. We are not extracting resources or levying taxes on the Iraqi people. The reason we were there was because of the (obviously false) belief of the President that we could create a safe Iraqi democracy and eliminate support for extremists in the region by doing so. It is a sad thing that in order to do this, our boy George pretty much lied to the American people. However, there's not a lot we can do about that now. We have to change the way we look at the problem. Running away from the problem will not solve it. It will only allow the violence to continue and allow nations such as Syria and Iran to gain influence in the region, to further their interests. And it will, as you said, continue to be hostile to the interests of the free world.

Most of the attacks in Iraq are on Iraqis. Therefore, the problem isn't with the U.S. troops propping up the government; it's with the fact that the Iraqi people cannot trust their own government because of sectarian tensions. The Iraqi army is pretty much composed of "death squads" which slaughter members of the other factions. This shows only to clearly that Iraq, as one nation, will not work. It was an artificial nation to begin with, and it's falling apart. We need to find a way to create a safe, democratic government that is fair to all parties, and make sure that government can defend itself, and then get the hell out. But leaving before that would be foolhardy.

Fifthfiend

11-30-2006, 03:12 PM

Slowly withdrawing them while fixing the problems we have already caused might. The violence a couple years ago was aimed at our troops.

Slow withdrawal will get whichever twenty thousand poor bastards are the last American men and women left in Iraq slaughtered, as they race down the highway to the airport or through the hundred miles of Sadr-controlled territory between Baghdad and the coast, in hopes that they live long enough to be evacuated.

And in the meantime, none of those problems are going to get even a little bit fixed.

We are not extracting resources or levying taxes on the Iraqi people.

We are not extracting resources because Iraqis keep killing anybody we send to try and extract those resources and blowing up any resources we try to extract.

Running away from the problem will not solve it. It will only allow the violence to continue and allow nations such as Syria and Iran to gain influence in the region, to further their interests. And it will, as you said, continue to be hostile to the interests of the free world.

Not running away from the problem will continue to actively make the problem even worse, at a cost to us of half a billion dollars a day. I'd rather spend no money to not solve a problem, than half a billion dollars a day to make a problem worse.

Leaving will allow Iran to gain influence? No, staying will guarantee that Iran gains influence, because the longer our troops continue to operate in Iraq, the more the Iraqi Shia are forced to indebt themselves to Iran, whereas if we leave, it's at least hypothetically possible that nationalists like al-Sadr might be in a position to assert said nationalism.

Most of the attacks in Iraq are on Iraqis. Therefore, the problem isn't with the U.S. troops propping up the government; it's with the fact that the Iraqi people cannot trust their own government because of sectarian tensions.

Iraqi people will never accept their government because US troops are propping it up. This is what fuels sectarian tensions.

Basically the way this works is, as in any political system the one we've fabricated in Iraq selects winners and losers. Except unlike in a stable political system, any winners resulting from our fabricated Iraqi political system will never be accepted as legitimate by the losers, because those wins are the result of an artificial process propped up by a foreign entity. The response to such illegitimacy being violence. As the winners and losers as the latest round of Iraqi politics has pretty much broken down along sectarian lines, you get sectarian violence.

No side of this conflict can ever hope to legitimately win as long as the US remains in Iraq, which is why as long as the US continues to remain in Iraq, it is guaranteed that violence will continue, as well as continuing to deepen the divisions our presence sows.

EDIT:

But I mean, don't take my word for it (http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15494904.htm):

Iraq's political process has sharpened the country's sectarian divisions, polarized relations between its ethnic and religious groups, and weakened its sense of national identity, the Government Accountability Office said Monday.

I mean, who am I to argue with Congress?

Also from the previous link, it seems worth noting this:

In spite of a sharp increase in Sunni-Shiite violence, however, attacks on U.S.-led coalition forces are still the primary source of bloodshed in Iraq, the report found. It was the latest in a series of recent grim assessments of conditions in Iraq.

Of course that's as of September and the relative/absolute levels of violence have probably shifted somewhat since then, but it's probably worth remembering that inasmuch as "the violence is aimed at other Iraqis by factions vying for dominance or independence," the violence is still also aimed very much at our troops.

Tydeus

11-30-2006, 10:39 PM

No, it pretty much is a result of modernity, and basically has nothing whatsoever to do with the conqueror's goals. You seem fond of mentioning Roman history well, Caesar's goals in invading Gaul were 1. money 2. fame and 3. more money, so he could buy fame. Rome was 'afraid' of Gaul like the US was 'afraid' of Iraq, people in power working real hard to kid the masses as an excuse to launch an unprovoked agressive war. (The Gauls attacked them two centuries previously? If that constituted a reasonable threat then America should be invading Britain.) I mean not to harp on the subject but as you yourself cite, forty thousand legionairres slaughtered three hundred thousand Gauls, I'd call that a pretty good measure of just how 'afraid' Rome was of Gaul.

Well, yeah. That was actually a point I was trying to emphasize -- it was a war of aggression, without a great deal of rational basis. However, lots of Americans were afraid of Iraq -- hell, the whole Middle East -- three and a half years ago. And a lot of Romans were afraid of Gaul when Caesar went to conquer it. And, to be fair to the Romans, the Gauls had never truly ceased their hostilities with Rome, and they did directly border each other, very much unlike Iraq and the U.S. You can't really deny that the Gauls were unpredictable and frequently hostile (to the point of military action) to Rome up to when Caesar invaded. But, anyway, I kind of thought that the whole "baseless invasion" thing kind of strengthened my analogy.

But, you know, I don't think Caesar was strictly such a whore for money/fame. Considering that, after all, Rome spent more money than it took in for the first 30-50 years of occupation. Also considering how he was an effective ruler (for all his four years as Imperator) restructuring economic arrangement and saving millions of poor Romans from crushing debt, as well as generally moving the Roman economy to a more capitalist orientation (not that it ever broke its slave-dependancy, which in the end probably is what destroyed Rome, as much as anything else). Point being, we've both been emphasizing the sides of Caesar and Rome that benefit our points of view. I'll try to be more balanced from now on -- Rome was probably not truly threatened by Gaul, the invasion was generally without warrant, and executed with typical Roman brutality. However, Caesar did not gain any real immediate monetary benefits, nor did Rome. Furthermore, Rome spent a great deal of money improving the lives of the Gauls.

And Caesar's rhetoric two thousand years ago about how he did all this for the good of the Gallic people was no different from Spain's Gold, Glory and God excuses or Britain's 'White Man's Burden' or Bush's talk of Democratizing the Iraqis, or of any would-be conqueror seeking to hold up his atrocities as dictated by some kind of moral imperative.

Actually I'm not really sure whether Caesar particularly did trump the moral imperative when conquering Gaul. After all, the Roman people were generally not opposed to conquering -- typically it meant more money and more security for Rome, in the long run if not in the short as well. Arguably, Roman society had been constructed in such a way that conquest was vital to its survival. So, I don't know about rhetoric involving moral imperative. Especially considering at the time of his conquest he was still a general of the Republic, and not really a politician. War hero, yes, Imperator, no.

Anyway, this doesn't seem terribly relevant to my proposal. It's a great argument against going to war, and the very one I myself repeated many times. However, I will try to point out some differences anyway, rather than just dodge your point.

First -- again, I don't believe (from what I've read, I am mostly inferring, unfortunately) that Rome was particularly focused on justifying conflict. Roman society tended to view war in a favorable light to begin with.

Second -- simply taking a look at the effects of the respective occupations (Spain, Britain, Rome), we see vast differences. In the case of Spain and Britain, their conquests were never inducted into the parent empires as equal and productive segments of the continuous, homogeneous, unified, equal whole. Instead, they were just places to mine for diamonds, silver or gold, and to take/use slave labor. Ultimately, both European empires left their conquests in far worse condition than before the Europeans came along. Also, they invested almost no money in infrastructure that wasn't directly related to European activities. In some cases (like the Congo, which of course was neither Spanish nor British, but not a terribly uncommon way to run a colonial territory), there was practically no investment in infrastructure at all.

By contrast, Rome built practically all Gallic infrastructure. People don't go to the south of France to see the Gallic aqueducts, now do they? Rome meant from the beginning to make Gaul a part of Rome -- not a colony, but a province, just like Italy was a province. That meant that Gaul would have to be taken care of, because the health of all the Empire was important. Furthermore, after all this massive investment in the Gallic people, with no direct product for Romans (it's not like they were building infrastructure to run mines -- they were building sewers and aqueducts and roads. I don't remember the Spanish investing a great deal of money into supplying the indigenous people of South America with sanitation, clean water, and efficient transportation), the Gauls came out of the deal with a far greater quality of life, by basically every standard that we could use to measure such quality. Health, sanitation, availablity of food, rights/freedom, effective government, stability, meritocracy, security -- you name it, the Gauls had more of it after Rome intervened. The Africans and South Americans had less. And that paralleled the conquering powers' respective investment in the conquered peoples, and their ultimate goals. Europe wanted money. Rome wanted, well, more Romans.

Now, frankly, I couldn't say Rome went to war ethically, or executed their war in a humane way (though, for the time, it was in no way more extreme than anyone else, and it would be unfair to examine Rome by modern standards of international law -- something which didn't really even exist in Roman times). However, they got results which benefited themselves, and the Gauls. By taking some basic tenets of war from their book, I think we could do alright by the Iraqis, and make them better off than they were when we invaded (wrongly).

The difference between then and now isn't intentions, it's that Caesar by bloody and vicious slaughter had killed a million of the Gallic people's fighting men and of those he left alive, severed their right hands that they might never wield a sword against him. The difference is that in an era of divided tribes, mass armies and combat by edged weapon it was actually a practical proposition to break the back of an opposing people and rip out its conception of itself root and branch. In an era of nationalism, mass communications, widespread firearms, insurgent warfare and suicide terrorism, this becomes difficult if not impossible.

Yes, the Romans were brutal. But, for their time, not especially so. And for our time, we know better than they did, and of course would not pursue the occupation of Iraq in such a bloody manner. And yes, edged weapons did made occupation easier, but still, there were guerilla-style warriors. In fact, Rome particularly resented that kind of fighting, 'cause they were terrible at it. It's one reason they really despised the Germans. Anyway, I'm not saying "break the back of the people." You know how I'm trying to use the word "break," but you seem to be trying to make it sound like I'm using it in a terribly violent way, when in fact I'm saying that the only way to break prejudices and ethnic division is by building a society which people will be happy in. That's my message. Give them services, give them stability (as much as you can, at any given time. Ideally, with 1,000,000 troops, as you proposed, fifth, that amount of stability that you are capapable of will increase with time, especially if you're rebuiding their nation all the while), and they will give you peace. The Gauls never really stopped fighting the Romans 'till at least 30 years into the occupation. At that point, Roman society had displayed its numerous benefits over Gallic society, and people realized how much more enlightened and safe and comfortable the Roman way of life was. So, they willingly became Roman.

Make Iraqi life stand out for the horrible way of life that it is by giving them a new way of life that is freer, safer, more tolerant, and more comfortable than the one they've known. They'll come around. History's taught us that. It's a lesson I believe could serve us very well in Iraq.

The Roman approach, even if it could conceivably work, requires the systematic slaughter of millions of people. I'm pretty sure whatever we owe the Iraqis, that isn't it.

Not that we haven't gotten off to a pretty good start, I mean, something between four and nine hundred thousand Iraqis dead in three years as a result of our war, and all. But if your solution to the issue of Iraq is to kill even more Iraqis, even faster, I have to say that's pretty lacking as a solution.

Well, that's the way the Romans did it. We can do the specifics differently, while keeping the same general idea. Here's that general idea, laid out plainly:

* Use our military as their police/military, since theirs is nothing more than a roving Shia militia.
* While using our soldiers to maintain security (as much as can be had), invest billions into rebuilding their nation. Start with basic services, expand immediately after to oil, to help ease financial burden.
* Stream American culture into their nation through every TV, computer, and print source they've got.
* Very slowly, and starting at the most local levels, institute a republican political systems. Gradually, and I mean graaaaaduuuuuuuaaaaalllllyyyyyyyy expand the republican political system to larger areas. Again, start at neighborhood levels, before even thinking about city-wide politics. Ease them in.
* Provide massive incentives to get Americans to live in Iraq. Promote teaching of English to Iraqis, Arabic to American settlers. Do not confiscate Iraqi land or resources. Settlers/the government must buy land and homes at full market value. Provide soldiers with extra incentives as reward for their service.
* In tandem with the above step, provide incentives, or hell, practically force corporations to get involved in Iraq. Get them to run the telecommunication networks that will be possible once you finish laying all this fiber-optic cable, which is being done by Iraqis to employ them, New-Deal-style.
* Build and teach Iraqis to run more advanced services. Transportation, communications, sanitation, other "-ations." :P
* Employ people as much as possible. Especially angry young men.
* Slowly bring the nation together, until finally, maybe a decade or fifteen years later, national elections are possible.

That's the plan. And no killing if it can be avoided. The military we would garrison there would be more like police than military, and should be trained as such.

I think it's a humane plan, and one that has great chance of improving Iraqi lives.

Oh, and quickly, I'd like to check and make sure that I'm not pressing all of your (fifth's) buttons, 'cause I'll totally stop posting in this thread, no problem, if I'm just pissing you off. I don't want to do that unnecessarily. Also, these long posts don't annoy you too much, do they? I'm just trying exta-hard to be civil and not make a ruckus, since I'm kind of on probation, almost.

Fifthfiend

12-01-2006, 12:40 AM

Oh, and quickly, I'd like to check and make sure that I'm not pressing all of your (fifth's) buttons, 'cause I'll totally stop posting in this thread, no problem, if I'm just pissing you off. I don't want to do that unnecessarily. Also, these long posts don't annoy you too much, do they? I'm just trying exta-hard to be civil and not make a ruckus, since I'm kind of on probation, almost.

Naw you're cool. I mean as far as this thread I actually think we probably agree on a lot of this, more than may be readily apparent.

Anyway I'm the last person to say anything about people being long winded. I don't think anyone's gonna stress it too hard as long as you're not being long winded and getting pissed off at people at the same time.

* Use our military as their police/military, since theirs is nothing more than a roving Shia militia.
* While using our soldiers to maintain security (as much as can be had), invest billions into rebuilding their nation. Start with basic services, expand immediately after to oil, to help ease financial burden.
* Stream American culture into their nation through every TV, computer, and print source they've got.
* Very slowly, and starting at the most local levels, institute a republican political systems. Gradually, and I mean graaaaaduuuuuuuaaaaalllllyyyyyyyy expand the republican political system to larger areas. Again, start at neighborhood levels, before even thinking about city-wide politics. Ease them in.
* Provide massive incentives to get Americans to live in Iraq. Promote teaching of English to Iraqis, Arabic to American settlers. Do not confiscate Iraqi land or resources. Settlers/the government must buy land and homes at full market value. Provide soldiers with extra incentives as reward for their service.
* In tandem with the above step, provide incentives, or hell, practically force corporations to get involved in Iraq. Get them to run the telecommunication networks that will be possible once you finish laying all this fiber-optic cable, which is being done by Iraqis to employ them, New-Deal-style.
* Build and teach Iraqis to run more advanced services. Transportation, communications, sanitation, other "-ations." :P
* Employ people as much as possible. Especially angry young men.
* Slowly bring the nation together, until finally, maybe a decade or fifteen years later, national elections are possible.

In all honesty yeah, that's probably about what I do think America owes the Iraqi people.

Minus the part about us piping in American culture, I mean, I don't think we're doing anybody any favors there.

But mainly it's just that all that is politically and logistically impossible, for a lot of reasons. And - and this part's pretty important - even if we were capable of bestowing such largess, I think by this point things might just be so far gone that the Iraqis as a whole would never accept such an offer from us.

Tydeus

12-01-2006, 02:57 PM

Naw you're cool. I mean as far as this thread I actually think we probably agree on a lot of this, more than may be readily apparent.

Anyway I'm the last person to say anything about people being long winded. I don't think anyone's gonna stress it too hard as long as you're not being long winded and getting pissed off at people at the same time.

Cool. Just wanted to make sure.

In all honesty yeah, that's probably about what I do think America owes the Iraqi people.

Minus the part about us piping in American culture, I mean, I don't think we're doing anybody any favors there.

Yeah, Iraq could probably do without Paris Hilton. We could do what my parents did with me when I was younger -- tell them they only get PBS. If I'm any measure, we could keep 'em fooled for, like, at least ten years.

But mainly it's just that all that is politically and logistically impossible, for a lot of reasons. And - and this part's pretty important - even if we were capable of bestowing such largess, I think by this point things might just be so far gone that the Iraqis as a whole would never accept such an offer from us.

Yeah, I wonder about that, too. At some point, you've just destroyed people's hope to an extent where there's really no way of repairing it, as an outsider. I mean, just look at Africa. You wonder if we really can do anything to improve people's lives in most of those nations. I mean, in Darfur, obviously we could be doing more, but in most places, there needs to be a more organic solution, one supposes.

And, yes, of course it's all politically impossible. I think in part because most people are kidding themselves one way or the other: "Just a few more years, 20,000 more troops, and everyone will suddenly stop fighting," or, on the other side of the aisle: "This is just like Vietnam, and and soon as we leave, they'll stop fighting. Definitely we're just undermining a legitimate government which fought for freedom and is politically motivated, as opposed to ethnically and religiously. Totally just like Vietnam. Yup."

No one's got the balls necessary to discuss what really we need to do, because it'd be political suicide. A draft? Massive tax hikes? All to benefit other people? Whaaaaaaaaa? This is America, you commie hippie/fascist corporate (depends who's yelling at you) bastard!

Fifthfiend

12-11-2006, 11:23 AM

Iraqi exodus could test Bush policy
Total expected to exceed quota for refugees
By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | December 11, 2006 (http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/12/11/iraqi_exodus_could_test_bush_policy?mode=PF)

WASHINGTON -- Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled their homeland are likely to seek refugee status in the United States, humanitarian groups said, putting intense pressure on the Bush administration to reexamine a policy that authorizes only 500 Iraqis to be resettled here next year.

The official US policy has been that the refugee situation is temporary and that most of the estimated 1.5 million who have fled to Jordan, Syria, and elsewhere will eventually return to Iraq. But US and international officials now acknowledge that the instability in Iraq has made it too dangerous for many refugees, especially Iraqi Christians, to return any time soon.

Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for refugees and migration, said that while the Bush administration does not think resettlement is needed for most refugees, its policy could rapidly change.

"It is quite possible that we will in time decide that because of vulnerabilities of certain populations that resettlement is the right option," Sauerbrey said. While acknowledging that the administration originally set a quota of no more than 500 Iraqi refugees, she said the president has the legal authority to admit 20,000 additional refugees.

Eventually, specialists said, the number of Iraqi refugees settling in the United States could be vastly higher.

But few Iraqi refugees have yet to be allowed to resettle here, due partly to finger-pointing between the State Department and the United Nations over who is responsible for determining which Iraqis need to be resettled. Sauerbrey said she has been pleading with the United Nations to do its job of surveying refugees.

"We have not been getting referrals from [the United Nations]," she said, pointing to the office of the UN high commissioner for refugees. "They have got to do a better job."

Judy Cheng-Hopkins, the United Nations assistant high commissioner for refugees, responded to such criticism by saying that the UN needs more funding from the international community to identify possible refugees. But she predicted that the numbers would be large because most refugees now see little chance of returning to Iraq.

She said many want to settle in the West, including in the United States, because their life in Iraq "is pretty much gone."

"A great majority would be dreaming of resettlement elsewhere, in the West," said Cheng-Hopkins, who recently returned from a trip to Jordan and Syria to assess the extent of the refugee problem.

In particular, more than 120,000 Christians who have fled Iraq are unlikely to go home and about 100,000 of them want to come to the United States, where many have relatives, according to a group representing the Christians. A great many of the estimated 1.4 million Iraqi Muslims also are expected to try to resettle, many in the West, according to UN officials.

An effort by hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to resettle in the United States would put the Bush administration in an extraordinarily awkward position. Having waged war to liberate Iraqis, the United States would in effect be admitting failure if it allowed a substantial number of Iraqis to be classified as refugees who could seek asylum here.

Arthur E. "Gene" Dewey, who was President Bush's assistant secretary of state for refugee affairs until last year, said that "for political reasons the administration will discourage" the resettlement of Iraqi refugees in the United States "because of the psychological message it would send, that it is a losing cause."

But Dewey said a tipping point has been reached that is bound to change US policy because so many refugees are convinced that they will not be able to return to Iraq. That tipping point was further weighted by Wednesday's report by the Iraq Study Group that called for the eventual withdrawal of most US forces.

"I think there will increasingly be a moral obligation on the part of the United States" to allow resettlement by Iraqis here, Dewey said. "That is the price for intervention. Similar to Vietnam, that obligation is just going to have to be fulfilled."

The US government has allowed about 900,000 Vietnamese to resettle here since the end of the Vietnam War.

But in recent years, the process of resettling refugees in the United States has moved very slowly. Last year, for example, the Bush administration requested funding for 70,000 refugees from around the world to be resettled here.

Of those, the administration wound up admitting only 42,000, due to lack of funding and inability to obtain security clearances. There were slots last year for only 200 Iraqis, nearly all of whom had applied for admission before the Iraq war.

Asked whether the United States has resettled any Iraqi who has applied for admission since the war began, Sauerbrey said, "If there have been any, it has been a handful."

She said more Iraqis probably would be admitted, but she cautioned: "Our refugee resettlement program will only be able to take a small number. Whether it is 500 or 20,000, it is a very small portion of the overall problem."

An association representing Iraqi Christians, the Michigan-based Chaldean Federation of America, estimates that about 100,000 of the 120,000 Christians who have fled Iraq have relatives in America and want to immigrate here. Amid growing sectarian violence in largely Muslim Iraq, Christians have faced killings, torture, destruction of churches, assassination of priests, and confiscation of property.

The group's executive director, Joseph Kassab, noted that after the 1991 Gulf War, the United States allowed a large group of Iraqi Shi'ites -- 12,000 by some estimates -- to immigrate here because they faced persecution from Saddam Hussein.

"Why can't they do the same thing for Iraqi Christians?" Kassab asked. "We are the byproduct of the action that was taken in Iraq, the bad part of it."

A supporter of the Iraqi Christian effort is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which has long helped Jews resettle in America and views the plight of Iraqi Christians as similar to that faced by Jews during the Holocaust.

"There are few religious minorities in the world today as persecuted as the Iraqi Christian population, so we naturally identify with them based on our own history," said Mark Hetfield, a senior vice president of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

Officials at the State Department and the United Nations said they understand the danger facing Iraqi Christians but said they don't want to give the impression that they would favor Christians over Muslims in a resettlement program. Any decisions regarding admission will be based on a family's vulnerability, not religion, officials said.

"The one thing we have to be very clear about is, if we were to admit only Christians, or at least a big majority of Christians and not other groups, this would just fuel the whole debate" about the West favoring Christians, said Cheng-Hopkins.

Kassab met on Wednesday with White House officials and said he received assurances that the plight of Iraqi Christian refugees will be reviewed.

Not something that gets mentioned a whole lot, for all that you'd think one and a half million displaced people would be sort of a big deal.

Just from the highlighted bits - it pretty strongly indicates that the reason our leadership won't help these people is because that'd mean said leadership at least in part owning up to the situation it's created.

Which isn't to say there aren't actual, practical concerns in regard to opening our national doors to a million and a half Iraqis. But surely our government can do better than they have.

The issue of Iraqi Christians is particularly ghastly, and another matter not frequently a part of the conversation.

Darth SS

12-11-2006, 10:18 PM

Mannix

12-12-2006, 02:45 AM

I understand why they're upset that the UN isn't helping them, but...really...

The UN said the US shouldn't go to war. They did anyways.

They made their bed, and now politicians are getting upset because they have to lie in it?

The thing about that is, is that it's not the politicians in the bed. It's the Iraqis. It's the UN's job to help refugees, regardless of who created them and for what reasons. Spitefullness just makes the UN look bad and puts a lot of other innocent people in danger.

Fifthfiend

12-17-2006, 11:42 PM

Merged a couple threads. Seems pointless to do 'em up separate.

Anyway, here's the tale of one of our Iraqi detainees:

Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment
By MICHAEL MOSS (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/world/middleeast/18justice.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print)

One night in mid-April, the steel door clanked shut on detainee No. 200343 at Camp Cropper, the United States military’s maximum-security detention site in Baghdad.

American guards arrived at the man’s cell periodically over the next several days, shackled his hands and feet, blindfolded him and took him to a padded room for interrogation, the detainee said. After an hour or two, he was returned to his cell, fatigued but unable to sleep.

The fluorescent lights in his cell were never turned off, he said. At most hours, heavy metal or country music blared in the corridor. He said he was rousted at random times without explanation and made to stand in his cell. Even lying down, he said, he was kept from covering his face to block out the light, noise and cold. And when he was released after 97 days he was exhausted, depressed and scared.

Detainee 200343 was among thousands of people who have been held and released by the American military in Iraq, and his account of his ordeal has provided one of the few detailed views of the Pentagon’s detention operations since the abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. Yet in many respects his case is unusual.

The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading.

But when American soldiers raided the company at his urging, Mr. Vance and another American who worked there were detained as suspects by the military, which was unaware that Mr. Vance was an informer, according to officials and military documents.

That total lack of due process, that's working out for us real well.

Mirai Gen

12-18-2006, 03:12 AM

It's like Iraq is just shaping itself into a really big gun, and that gun is pointing at America's theoretical foot.
That total lack of due process, that's working out for us real well.
I concur.

Do you think they'll react accordingly now that that article has been published, or are we going to wait for some ugly army smoking bitch to point at a naked detainee while her picture is taken years later?
* Use our military as their police/military, since theirs is nothing more than a roving Shia militia.
* While using our soldiers to maintain security (as much as can be had), invest billions into rebuilding their nation. Start with basic services, expand immediately after to oil, to help ease financial burden.
* Stream American culture into their nation through every TV, computer, and print source they've got.
* Very slowly, and starting at the most local levels, institute a republican political systems. Gradually, and I mean graaaaaduuuuuuuaaaaalllllyyyyyyyy expand the republican political system to larger areas. Again, start at neighborhood levels, before even thinking about city-wide politics. Ease them in.
* Provide massive incentives to get Americans to live in Iraq. Promote teaching of English to Iraqis, Arabic to American settlers. Do not confiscate Iraqi land or resources. Settlers/the government must buy land and homes at full market value. Provide soldiers with extra incentives as reward for their service.
* In tandem with the above step, provide incentives, or hell, practically force corporations to get involved in Iraq. Get them to run the telecommunication networks that will be possible once you finish laying all this fiber-optic cable, which is being done by Iraqis to employ them, New-Deal-style.
* Build and teach Iraqis to run more advanced services. Transportation, communications, sanitation, other "-ations." :P
* Employ people as much as possible. Especially angry young men.
* Slowly bring the nation together, until finally, maybe a decade or fifteen years later, national elections are possible.
So, how much of this are we actually doing over there?

Flarecobra

12-18-2006, 01:18 PM

* Use our military as their police/military, since theirs is nothing more than a roving Shia militia. <---Been doing that, and working on shaping up the IA
* While using our soldiers to maintain security (as much as can be had), invest billions into rebuilding their nation. Start with basic services, expand immediately after to oil, to help ease financial burden. <---Working on that, though WAY behind
* Stream American culture into their nation through every TV, computer, and print source they've got. <---Nope.
* Very slowly, and starting at the most local levels, institute a republican political systems. Gradually, and I mean graaaaaduuuuuuuaaaaalllllyyyyyyyy expand the republican political system to larger areas. Again, start at neighborhood levels, before even thinking about city-wide politics. Ease them in. <---Never heard of that.
* Provide massive incentives to get Americans to live in Iraq. Promote teaching of English to Iraqis, Arabic to American settlers. Do not confiscate Iraqi land or resources. Settlers/the government must buy land and homes at full market value. Provide soldiers with extra incentives as reward for their service. <--- Never heard of that.
* In tandem with the above step, provide incentives, or hell, practically force corporations to get involved in Iraq. Get them to run the telecommunication networks that will be possible once you finish laying all this fiber-optic cable, which is being done by Iraqis to employ them, New-Deal-style. <--- Never heard of that
* Build and teach Iraqis to run more advanced services. Transportation, communications, sanitation, other "-ations." :P <--- Kinda working on that, but not much progress is being made.
* Employ people as much as possible. Especially angry young men. <-- Well, if a bomber that tries to destroy a recruitment center only causes more people to show up to join the Iraqi Army....
* Slowly bring the nation together, until finally, maybe a decade or fifteen years later, national elections are possible. <--- They've already had National Elections. I was there for them. Happoned about a year ago.

Mirai Gen

12-18-2006, 02:17 PM

So we're like 3/10 so far. Yippee.

Sky Warrior Bob

01-20-2007, 09:02 PM

For the record, I dislike starting posts in the Discussion forum. I always feel that I either tend to put out too little information, or because of this tendency, I go overboard and do the opposite.

But since this is a topic that merits discussion, and nobody else has bothered to do anything so far, I thought I'd bring it to the table.

Let's get things started with Bush's initial (http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/10/bush.transcript/index.html)address to the nation, in which he ignores the suggestions of the Iraq Study Group (http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/index.html) and their recommendations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Study_Group#Recommendations). Furthermore, he calls for a troop surge, and expect us to believe that a government that doesn't even want the surge (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/world/middleeast/15baghdad.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1168923600&en=afa3820aca479eef&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin), will somehow work with the US troops to bring an end to the current violence.

He also outlined prospects for increasing the scope of the mission in Iraq, to include Iran. Here are a few articles 1 (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/01/17/18347758.php) 2 (http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/01/08/japan.us.ship/index.html) that show an increased pressence in the area, plus with the raid on the Iran Consulate (http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011107B.shtml)in Iraq, the pieces seem to be falling into place.

Of course, this is despite the fact that Ahmadinejad's government is on shakey (http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=10129)ground with his own people (I know recent elections went against him as well, but I don't have an article link). Plus, the current Iraq government is more politically aligned w/ Iran (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011800206.html), and if it ever came to blows, Iraq could always abandon the US & join forces w/ Iran.

Personally, I don't see Bush's plan to be based on any good intel, and seems to either be an attempt to run the clock until the next presidency, or even worse make the situation so bad that its impossible to resolve, in order to solidify the fight against Terrorism as some sort of replacement for the Cold War.

And just because I think its a damn good statement on the subject, here's a link to Keith's recent commentary (http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/11/special-comment-on-the-presidents-address/)on the matter.

Flarecobra

01-20-2007, 09:09 PM

Well, after hearing the Commondant of the Marine Corps speak the other day, I found out a few things.

1. The Corps is increasing in size by at least 23000 people.
2. More troops on the ground in Iraq, right now we're just acting like a boat through water. Shove out the baddies, and then when we're gone, they come right back in.
3. Better focus on anti-sniper and counter-IED tactics.

Sky Warrior Bob

01-20-2007, 09:33 PM

Well, we've had troop surges before, and they haven't really helped things. As for increasing troop levels, that's more of something that comes into play down the road, it won't really change anything in the short term.

And of course, the various US forces will do their best to resolve the situation in Iraq. That's not the question Flare, the question is whether its the best decision that can be made, and if we can even trust Iraq to hold of their end of the equation.

Just throwing more money & troops at the current situation won't fix it. And from what Bush is suggesting, that seems its the only thing he intends to do.

And there's so much more that could be done. Personally, I like the idea of moving around the Sunni, Shite & Kurds around to their own distinctive areas. However, instead of letting the Kurds settle up North, on Turkey's boarder, I say put them in the oil rich areas.

Of the three groups, they seem the most disinterested in the oil, and therefore might be the best group to distribute it in a fair manner.

Talking w/ Iran shouldn't be such an issue. Its hard to say that we've done everything we can, when we really don't even negotiate.

And there is this recent poll (http://www.militarycity.com/polls/2006_main.php)which shows the troops being more dissatisfied with the way things are going.

Also, here's the recent interview (http://iava.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=2343&Itemid=116)that Keith did w/ Paul Rieckhoff, of Iraq & Afganistan Vetrans of America (http://iava.org/index.php), and author of Chasing Ghosts (http://paulrieckhoff.com/home/index.asp).

SWB

Fifthfiend

01-23-2007, 11:45 AM

SWB, merged your thread into the Big Thread o' Iraq, because I have to do something to justify my existence.

Anyway yes, I'm pretty sure George is on track to escalate this mess into a regional war.

I'm not sure where I heard it said but the pattern more or less holds true:

A. Administration warns of consequence X, which can only be prevented by our continued involvement in Iraq.

B. Continued involvement in Iraq contributes directly to occurence of consequence X.

C. Administration warns of even worse consequence Y, which can only be prevented by our involvement in Iraq.

And repeat.

Proven true where value of X = chaos, = fundamentalist Islamic law, = Al Qaeda infiltration, = civil war, = ethnic cleansing. It's like watching the federal Executive as Vegas hard-luck case, doubling down on 16 cause he's got nowhere else to go.

Dragonsbane

01-24-2007, 08:26 AM

Of course, with that circular pattern of the solution advancing the problem, "state of emergency/wartime/heightened threat" powers are easier for the Administration to justify...there is a level of self-interest mixed in with the incompetence.

We really should be taking people out of Iraq by now, compare the length of our involvement with the time spent in other "conflicts" of a similar nature, and even with our actual, legal wars, and you will notice that we have been in Iraq too damned long.

Sky Warrior Bob

01-24-2007, 06:56 PM

And while I'm sure this will be no big suprise to any, but apparently the Bush administration is overstating (http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-iraniraq23jan23,1,5002907.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage&track=crosspromo) Iran's involvement in Iraq.

Personally, I want to see a Senator demand to see what prompted that raid on the Iran consolate in the first place, aside from the fact that its run by Iran.

SWB

Fifthfiend

01-25-2007, 09:35 AM

Came across this, it seemed worth noting.

IRAQ: Lina Massufi, Iraq “I cannot stand the constant military raids in my home” (http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57161&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ)

BAGHDAD, 22 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - “My name is Lina Massufi. I’m a 32-year-old laboratory assistant who works 10 hours a day just to make enough money to raise my children.

“My life has been like hell over the past three months. US and Iraqi soldiers have raided my house more than 12 times.

“My husband, Khalil, was killed during the US invasion in 2003 when he drove through a closed road and soldiers shot him dead.

“I live in Haifa Street, one of the most dangerous places to live in Baghdad today. The area is infamous for its huge number of insurgents. This is why Iraqi and US soldiers have increased their activity in the area, constantly raiding homes and arresting men for interrogation.

“Last month, they arrested my 23-year-old brother Fae’ek, who lives with me. He is a pharmacy student but nonetheless they took him and kept him in prison for more than a week - even after knowing he was innocent. He returned with signs of torture on his body and was crying like a baby because of the pain.

“I cannot stand the constant military raids in my home. Every time they [the soldiers] raid my house, they break the door. They don’t know how to knock at a door. One day, when I asked them why they were entering like that instead of ringing the bell, they laughed at me and called me an idiot.

“My furniture is all broken into pieces because of the way they conduct their searches. I no longer have dishes or glasses to speak of because they destroyed most of them during the raids.

“I have two children and for most of the time, they are scared. Muhammad, a four-year-old, cannot sleep well at night. He has nightmares every day and when he wakes up he cries, asking me not to let the soldiers take him as they took his uncle.

“Fadia, my daughter, who is only eight years old, doesn’t want to go to school because she says that if they raid our home and I’m not around, they would do something bad to her brother. But with her at home, she can help him not be afraid.

“Our neighbourhood is in the middle of a constant war. It is not safe for us to leave or enter our houses. Most of the shops around here are closed. We have to walk about 5km to buy food like vegetables and rice.

“Sometimes, when I return by taxi from my job, which is about 45 minutes from my home, I find the street closed and bullets flying around everywhere.

“I start to cry as I become afraid that something might have happened to my children even though I know that my brother is there. I know that when I get home, I will find Muhammad crying and Fadia scared but I cannot stay all day at home because if I leave my job, there will be no one to feed them.

“It is common to see at least three corpses on Haifa Street each day and sometimes up to eight, as happened last week. They are fighters, innocent civilians or soldiers. No one takes care of them [the bodies] because if you tried to get closer, you could become the next victim.

“I have nowhere to run to. I have to withstand this desperate situation hoping that one day we will live in peace again, even if it seems that it might take dozens of years for that to happen.”

In other news, I was reading a WSJ story about an Iraqi who worked for the US as a translator. He got half his face blown off by a roadside bomb and sent to Egypt, but now that he's better they want to make him return to Iraq. Where he doesn't want to go because he'll almost certainly be tortured and killed by the militias.

The fucking hell we've created.

Lady Cygnet

01-28-2007, 02:06 AM

Came across this, it seemed worth noting.

IRAQ: Lina Massufi, Iraq �I cannot stand the constant military raids in my home� (http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57161&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ)

In other news, I was reading a WSJ story about an Iraqi who worked for the US as a translator. He got half his face blown off by a roadside bomb and sent to Egypt, but now that he's better they want to make him return to Iraq. Where he doesn't want to go because he'll almost certainly be tortured and killed by the militias.

The fucking hell we've created.

What in the HELL were they hoping to find that justified raiding that poor woman's house TWELVE TIMES? Those poor little children will probably be having nightmares for the rest of their lives...what's worse is that I know that they aren't the only victims.

How much good has been accomplished in Iraq, really? Saddam Hussein is gone, which is good for the survivors of his atrocities, but that same good could have been accomplished by a tactician and a squad of hitmen. Even the election caused more conflict than it solved. If someone could provide infomation about the good that has come out of this war, I'd love to see it.

And how on earth does a guy get better after having half of his face blown off? Did they reconstruct his face? It seems cruel to force him to return to Iraq after what he's been through.