U.S. troops raiding Iraqi homes

following up to jim's post last night, here's more of the stuff that mysteriously never makes it to traditional u.s. media outlets...



there was a lengthy article in the nation back last july entitled, "The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness" that explores this subject in depth...

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The NYT offers up op-ed space to another advocate of on-going U.S. militarization

shit... no sooner had i finished my modo rant (see previous post) and gone back to my nyt headline email, than i saw this, the very next op-ed on the list...

We Still Need the Big Guns
By CHARLES J. DUNLAP Jr.

Looking ahead, America needs a military centered not on occupying another country but on denying potential adversaries the ability to attack our interests.

this one got me curious enough to click on to the full piece, only to find that it was as sabre-rattling as the teaser suggests...

Many analysts understandably attribute the success [in Iraq] to our troops’ following the dictums of the Army’s lauded new counterinsurgency manual. While the manual is a vast improvement over its predecessors, it would be a huge mistake to take it as proof — as some in the press, academia and independent policy organizations have — that victory over insurgents is achievable by anything other than traditional military force.

Unfortunately, starry-eyed enthusiasts have misread the manual to say that defeating an insurgency is all about winning hearts and minds with teams of anthropologists, propagandists and civil-affairs officers armed with democracy-in-a-box kits and volleyball nets. They dismiss as passé killing or capturing insurgents.

let's just take a few choice items and look at them for a moment...

• "our interests" - i always love that one... i hear it all the time, and each time it never fails to strike me as code for "whatever the u.s. corporate, government, and military elites want, wherever in the world it may be, they will get, irrespective of anybody else's 'interests'..."

• iraq "success" - this neocon, bush administration, david petraeus-spawned talking point not only glosses over the reality of what's happening in iraq, but also serves to distract us from the fact that even administration HINTS that there MIGHT BE in some INDETERMINATE FUTURE the REMOTE POSSIBILITY of TROOP REDUCTION or even, god forbid, TROOP WITHDRAWAL are now OFFICIALLY DEAD...

• "proof ... that victory over insurgents is achievable by anything other than traditional military force" - zero acknowledgement here that the insurgents just may be fighting to get their country back, and that we are there, fighting to keep that from happening...

• "starry-eyed enthusiasts ... say that defeating an insurgency is all about winning hearts and minds [and] dismiss as passé killing or capturing insurgents" - need i comment here...? i can only assume that it will be a dark day indeed for the united states when "killing or capturing" is no longer the order of the day...

but, wait...! there's more...

Looking ahead, America needs a military centered not on occupying another country but on denying potential adversaries the ability to attack our interests. This is not a task for counterinsurgents, but rather for an unapologetically high-tech military that substitutes machines for the bodies of young Americans.

revolted yet...? and just so's ya know the source of the revulsion...

Charles J. Dunlap Jr. is an Air Force major general and the author of “Shortchanging the Joint Fight?,” an assessment of the Army’s counterinsurgency manual.

could it be his own "interests" he's advocating for here...? nah... silly me... of COURSE not...

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The true face of the Iraq insurgency (hint: he doesn't look like al Qaeda)

spiegel online does us all a great service in today's edition by publishing an article on the angry teenagers who are often the ones pushing the buttons to detonate those improvised explosive devices (ied's)...


Teenagers like Diya Muhammad Hussein, 16,
make up a large portion of the footsoldiers working
for the Iraqi insurgency. He is now in prison after he
attempted to blow up a convoy of US Marines.

check this...

When Diya started preparing his first mission, he had a big network of helpers at his disposal. Rawah is a town like almost every other in Iraq -- everyone knows each other, and everyone knows who has been involved in the fight against the "occupiers" in the last few years. There's scarcely a family that doesn't have at least one son or cousin who worked as a henchman or leader of the local branch of "al-Qaida in Iraq" or other terror groups.

It was Ahmed's brother who told the boys about the weapons stashes, shortly before he was arrested as an insurgent. Diya learned how to use a detonator from Anas Fa'iq, another former fighter. His name is on a long list of wanted Iraqi Qaida members which is hanging in the US Marines' command headquarters.

Diya has been lucky in one respect. The building in which he is incarcerated also houses the company of Marines stationed in Rawah. They all live on the same floor: US Marines, Iraqi police and the prisoners. The Americans guarantee the prisoners at least a minimum of good treatment.

[...]

"We still hate the Americans. In truth no one likes them. Iraq isn't free, that's why we have to keep on fighting," says Diya.

What would he do if he got a visa tomorrow to travel to the US? He would definitely take it, says Diya. Asked if he is aware of how contradictory that sounds, he smiles bashfully and buries his hands deeper into his armpits.

[...]

Asked what he wants to do with his life when he is released, Diya says: "I want to work for the Iraqi police." Asked if he thinks the Iraqi police will take him, he looks up at his interpreter and says, "Perhaps?"

how very interesting... just one more little piece of the puzzle we never hear from our domestic media - labeling the iraqis who want us the hell out of their country as al qaeda... pretty convenient, eh...?

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"The first week we were in Baghdad, we lost two guys in our battalion"

thanks to lithiumcola at daily kos...

The Guardian's award-winning photographer and filmmaker Sean Smith spent two months embedded with US troops in Baghdad and Anbar province. His harrowing documentary exposes the exhaustion and disillusionment of the soldiers.

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""The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq are the ones who attacked us on Sept. 11"

the man has truly lost his grip...

President Bush, defending his troop surge in Iraq, insisted Thursday that the insurgents attacking US troops in Iraq "are the same ones who attacked us on Sept. 11."

Bush was speaking at a White House press conference. Asked for proof of the connection between insurgents in Iraq and the 9/11 hijackers, Bush said both had pledged their allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

"The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq are the ones who attacked us on Sept. 11," Bush said.

[...]

Bush also refused to rule out committing more troops to Iraq in the future, saying he would not publicly speculate about what he will do when Gen. David Petraeus delivers a final report on the surge's progress in September.

he's gotta go... cheney's gotta go... the cabinet's gotta go... resignation, impeachment, whatever...

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Consider Iraqis' plans for peace? But what about the OIL?

i mean, get real... oil is why we're in iraq, oil is why we're building up those giant permanent military bases, oil is why we're constructing an embassy complex the size of vatican city to the tune of a half billion dollars... and it's not just iraqi oil we're after... iraq will serve as the principal base for efforts to destabilize iran so we can access its oil resources too, and don't forget the caspian basin with all its oil and gas resources, just a short flight away... why would we want to give all that up just to bring peace to iraq...?

from alternet...

[T]he Al Fadhila party, a Shi'ite party considered moderate by the (often arbitrary) standards of the commercial media, held a press conference, in which they offered a 23-point plan for stabilizing Iraq.

The plan addressed not only the current situation in Iraq -- acknowledging the legitimacy of Iraqi resistance, setting a timetable for a complete withdrawal of occupation troops and rebuilding the Iraqi government and security forces in a non-sectarian fashion -- but also the challenging mission of post-occupation peace-building and national reconciliation. It included provisions for disbanding militias, protecting Iraq's unity, managing Iraq's natural resources, building relationships with other countries based on mutual interest and the principle of non-intervention in domestic issues, and healing the wounds of more than 30 years of dictatorship, war, sanctions, and foreign occupation.

An online search shows that the peace plan was largely ignored by the Western commercial media.

[...]

Al Fadhila's peace plan was not the first one offered by Iraqi actors, nor the first to be ignored by the Anglo-American Coalition. More significant even than proposals made by Iraqi political parties are those put forth by the country's armed resistance groups --- the very groups that have the ability to bring a halt to the cycle of violence. [...] The plans vary on a number of points, but all of them shared a few items in common: the occupation forces must recognize them as legitimate resistance groups and negotiate with them, and the U.S. must agree to set a timetable for a complete withdrawal from Iraq.

[...]

But these plans are unacceptable to the Coalition because they A) affirm the legitimacy of Iraq's armed resistance groups and acknowledge that the U.S.-led coalition is, in fact, an occupying army, and B) return Iraq to the Iraqis, which means no permanent bases, no oil law that gives foreign firms super-sweet deals and no radical restructuring of the Iraqi economy.

the fact is, the u.s. isn't even INTERESTED in achieving peace... our government is merely going through the motions, trying to play out its lie of bringing democracy to the region... the only reason the bush administration is making ANY efforts toward stabilization is to insure the money keeps flowing... other than that, they simply don't care...

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Larry Beinhart and the moral conundrum that is Iraq

larry is writing at the huffpo...

There is a great moral conundrum in the Iraq situation.

The pro-war position that we cannot abandon the mess we've made does have great certain moral authority. There are now millions upon millions of Iraqis whose lives have been ruined in this war and millions upon millions more whose lives continue to be at risk due to the chaos that was unleashed by the war and during the time that America has been in charge of the country.

To abandon them and fail to establish a secure and decent level of civilization is reprehensible.

[...]

According to both the Army's old and new counter-insurgency manuals, it takes 40 troops per 1,000 members of the civilian population. Iraq has 26 million people. That means 670,000 troops. Not just for three months, or six months, or a year. Insurgencies and civil wars go on for a long, long time. Five years if we're very lucky. Ten years is reasonable.

[...]

[T]here are a lot of people who supported the war. Lots and lots of them.
They should go. George Bush likes wearing uniforms. Let him march in Baghdad. We might say that Dick Cheney is old and feeble, but he can certainly do secret administrative duties from an undisclosed location in Iraq. John McCain can run the POW camps. Hillary Clinton, who voted for the war, can serve, as an example to women. John Kerry, who promised to fight the same war better and smarter, and who voted for it, can serve. I would pay good money to see Bill Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz in uniform. Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity would make great MPs, or failing that, do great at KP, or digging latrines.

unfortunately, i agree... there IS a moral conundrum... but, besides the sheer number of military personnel required to unscrew the light bulb AND the nasty problem of who those people would be, we also have to face the fact that it is our VERY PRESENCE that's creating a great deal of the violence... they don't want us there and, for god's sake, who can blame them...? using the war supporters to staff the war for the duration may be a cute idea, but, as beinhart surely would admit, totally impractical and unrealistic...

if the u.s. was able to take the high road, to admit that going into iraq was an extremely bad idea, that we've screwed the pooch, not once, but dozens of times, we could consider calling a global conference of nations interested in middle east peace, not just peace for iraq, but for the israeli-palestine mess as well... these nations would participate based on interest and sincerity of intent, and would not be included or excluded based on membership or non-membership in the "axis of evil" and, without question, would include israel, palestine, and iraq, and their respective religious leaders... it would be a long, hard diplomatic slog, probably lasting several years, but, if cease fires could be negotiated on all sides for the interim, maybe something worthwhile could come out of this potential regional conflagration...

the myth that's been perpetrated by the bush administration and swallowed by everyone, hook, line and sinker is that, as a country, we are alone and isolated... we may be, but that's only because bushco has decreed it to be so...

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Riverbend and her family are leaving Iraq

how very, very sad...

It's difficult to decide which is more frightening- car bombs and militias, or having to leave everything you know and love, to some unspecified place for a future where nothing is certain.

juan cole...

In the past 14 months, 750,000 Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes. And the US media lets politicians get away with saying that things are "improving"!

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Would adoption of a withdrawal timetable produce a de facto cease-fire?

a very good question...

robert parry writes in consortium news...

George W. Bush admits he has no evidence that a withdrawal timetable from Iraq would be harmful. Instead, the President told interviewer Charlie Rose that this core assumption behind his veto threat of a Democratic war appropriation bill is backed by “just logic.”

“I mean, you say we start moving troops out,” Bush said in the interview on April 24. “Don’t you think an enemy is going to wait and adjust based upon an announced timetable for withdrawal?”

It is an argument that Bush has made again and again over the past few years, that with a withdrawal timetable, the “enemy” would just “wait us out.” But the answer to Bush’s rhetorical question could be, “well, so what if they do?”

If Bush is right and a withdrawal timetable quiets Iraq down for the next year or so – a kind of de facto cease-fire – that could buy time for the Iraqis to begin the difficult process of reconciliation and start removing the irritants that have enflamed the violence.

there's a compelling logic to what parry suggests... in any case, how can things get much worse...?

Obviously, there is no guarantee that a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal would bring peace to Iraq. The greater likelihood remains that civil strife will continue for some years to come as Iraq’s factions nurse their grievances and push for a new national equilibrium.

But the counterpoint to Bush’s veto threat against a withdrawal timetable is that his open-ended war is doomed to failure. To attain even the appearance of limited success would require American forces to effectively exterminate all Iraqis who are part of the armed resistance to the U.S. occupation.

After all, the only logical reason for not wanting the “enemy” to lie low is so American troops can capture or kill them.

given bush's history of spoiled child tantrums and insistence on getting his own way, and in the unlikely event we experience a deus ex machina, bush will exercise the second veto of his presidency and our troops and the iraqis will pay the price...

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George is not only in denial about Iraq

every facet of george's life is a testimonial to denial, and, as with the alcoholic parent, the rest of the family are the ones doing the suffering...

With a veto fight looming, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) said Monday that President Bush is in a state of denial over Iraq, "and the new Congress will show him the way" to a change in war policy.

meanwhile, the co-dependents line up to support the principal cause of our problems... chief among them, spokeswoman dana perino...

"I fear that they are talking themselves into believing that we are not facing a determined enemy — a sworn enemy of the United States, and they do this at our peril."

"It's important that everyone understand that this is an enemy determined to kill innocent Americans, innocent Iraqis to destabilize the region," she said. "Short of understanding the seriousness of that, the consequences could be dire."

i am so unutterably tired of listening to this empty appeal to our fears as justification for an illegal war, undertaken under false pretenses, that was solely for the purpose of securing vast oil resources and making the u.s. the dominant power in the middle east... it's such a patent load of garbage but they never stop dishing it out...

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Car bombs...? Just suck it up and get over it...??

oh, man... i don't think i could have read anything this morning that would piss me off more than this...

"Assessing the first two months of the U.S. and Iraqi plan to pacify the capital, senior American commanders -- including Petraeus; Adm. William J. Fallon, head of U.S. forces in the Middle East; Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of military operations in Iraq; and top regional commanders -- see mixed results," writes Ann Scott Tyson [in the Washington Post]. "They said that while an increase in U.S. and Iraqi troops has improved security in Baghdad and Anbar province, attacks have risen sharply elsewhere."

"I don't think you're ever going to get rid of all the car bombs," conceded Petraeus to the Post. "Iraq is going to have to learn -- as did, say, Northern Ireland -- to live with some degree of sensational attacks."

goddam it to friggin' rotting hell... we invaded the country illegally and under false pretenses so we could lay our hands on its oil, and NOW we say they're going to have to LEARN TO LIVE WITH THE CHAOS WE'VE CAUSED...??? oh, man...

< grabs paper sack to blow in before hyperventilating >

(thanks to raw story...)

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"Bush is responsible for everything that happens in Iraq"

leave it to juan cole to cut to the chase...

In Middle Eastern autocracies like Syria, the television news will show long clips of the president sitting with some visitor, with the sound off but some music in the background. It seems to go on forever. Stories about Bush's comments on an event like the parliament bombing are the American equivalent of those toadying, lingering camera caresses. Bush is responsible for everything that happens in Iraq, because he created this situation with his greed and ineptitude. If you were going to do a story on his reaction to a bombing in the Green Zone, it should be about how he didn't do enough to stop it. Or, you could ask why he keeps suggesting that there is a moral derangement in the bombers, which explains everything. The bombers aren't just immoral, they are using kamikaze tactics in a political cause (ending the US military presence in their country and dislodging the government set up under US auspices). Diverting attention from their politics to their immorality is a way for Bush to deny that his own political project in Iraq provoked this response.

the principal point of professor cole's post is to express his frustration at how, despite the fact that the iraqi parliament bombing in the green zone is evidence of a greatly worsening situation in baghdad, the u.s. media gave the implications little play, opting instead for the usual o.j. simpson/anna nicole smith effluvium, this time in the form of don imus, and then bush's ridiculous statement of condemnation in response, as if he might possibly APPROVE...

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Sound the dirge for the surge (and McCain too, while you're at it)

can mccain's credibility drop into negative numbers...?

from juan cole...

For all those journalists and politicians who keep insisting that there are new "glimmers" of "hope" in Iraq because of the new security plan started 6 weeks ago, here is a sobering statistic from the Iraqi government. (I'm looking at you, John McCain. See below for more on McCain).

Iraqis killed in February: 1806 (64.5/day)
Iraqis killed in March: 2078 (67/day)

That is a 15% increase! (Readers have pointed out that it is 15% if calculated by month, 4% if by day).

(Of course, the real numbers are much higher than these government statistics suggest, since passive information gathering on casualties only catches a fraction).

While 44 Iraqi soldiers died in action, the total for US troops in March was 85. AFP is suspicious about the disparity given that US and Iraqi authorities have said that Iraqi troops are leading the security crackdown. If that were true, they should have more casualties than the Americans.

oh, but professor cole isn't finished... he's pretty hot under the collar about mccain's intentional deception...

Look, I lived in the midst of a civil war in the late 1970s in Beirut. I know exactly what it looks and smells like. The inexperienced often assume that when a guerrilla war or a civil war is going on, life grinds to a standstill. Not so. People go shopping for food. They drive where they need to go as long as they don't hear that there is a firefight in that area. They go to work if they still have work. Life goes on. It is just that, unexpectedly, a mortar shell might land near you. Or the person ahead of you in line outside the bakery might fall dead, victim of a sniper's bullet. The bazaars are bustling some days (all the moreso because it is good to stock up on supplies the days when the violence isn't so bad). So nothing that John McCain saw in Baghdad on Sunday meant a damn thing. Not a goddamn thing.

It makes my blood boil.

Because McCain, you see, knows exactly what I know about guerrilla wars and civil wars. And if he is saying what he is saying, it is because he is lying through his teeth and attempting to deceive the American public.

why is a liar like john mccain continuing to get any coverage...?

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McCain is toast

nah... these kinds of things never happen... not in MY country...

“It looked as though the whole trip had been arranged by someone to get rid of the negative publicity about [McCain’s] remarks in the States earlier in the week. It seemed as though he’d come to Baghdad, made a point of going to a market, staging this kind of visit to the market, and it just seemed to backfire.”

and, guess what happened not long after mccain's press conference...?

Less then 30 minutes after McCain wrapped up, a barrage of half a dozen mortars peppered the boundaries of the Green Zone, where the senators held their press conference.

mccain is toast...

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Juan Cole's top 10 Bush Iraq mistakes

if it hadn't been for #1, the other 9 wouldn't have mattered...

Bush's Top Ten Mistakes in Iraq during the Past 4 Years

10. Refusing to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld when his incompetence and maliciousness became apparent in the growing guerrilla war and the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

9. Declining to intervene in the collapsed economy or help put Iraqi state industries back on a good footing, on the grounds that the "market" would magically produce prosperity effortlessly.

8. Invading and destroying the Sunni Arab city of Fallujah in November, 2004, thus pushing the Sunni Arabs into the arms of the insurgency in protest and ensuring that they would boycott the January, 2005, parliamentary elections, a boycott that excluded them from power and from a significant voice in crafting the new constitution, which they then rejected.

7. Suddenly announcing that the US would "kill or capture" young nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in spring, 2004, throwing the country into massive turmoil for months.

6. Replying to Baathist guerrilla provocations with harsh search and destroy missions that humiliated and angered ever more Sunni Arab clans, driving them to support or join the budding guerrilla movement.

5. Putting vengeful Shiites in charge of a Debaathification Commission that fired tens of thousands of mostly Sunni Arab state employees simply for having belonged to the Baath Party, leaving large numbers of Sunnis penniless and without hope of employment.

4. Dissolving the Iraqi Army in May, 2003, and sending 400,000 men home, unemployed, resentful and heavily armed.

3. Allowing widespread looting after the fall of Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003, on the grounds that "stuff happens," "democracy is messy," and "how many vases can they have?"-- and thus signalling that there would be no serious attempt to provide law and order in American Iraq.

2. Plotting to install corrupt financier, notorious liar, and shady operator Ahmad Chalabi as the soft dictator of Iraq, and refusing to plan for a post-war administration of the country because that might forestall Chalabi's coronation.

1. Invading Iraq.

it's a litany of absolute disaster that, tragically, is still being written...

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Great news from Iraq

or not...

US general upbeat on Iraq 'surge' success

Petraeus: grounds for optimism;
7 US soldiers killed in Iraq violence.

well, i don't know about you, but i'm certainly optimistic...

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Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

the vips group consists of the following former intelligence analysts...

Ray Close, Princeton, NJ
Larry Johnson, Bethesda, MD
David C. MacMichael, Linden, VA
Ray McGovern, Arlington, VA
Coleen Rowley, Apple Valley, MN

they offer their key judgements on iraq over at robert parry's consortium news... it's part of a memo that they sent to congressional leaders offering an assessment on how best to wind down the iraq war... well worth reading...

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Looks like Vietnam, sounds like Vietnam...

W.T.F. are we doing there...?

The US has been slow adapting to the military problems presented by insurgents, says the Observer. The insurgents, on the other hand, are characterized by American generals as being able to quickly adapt to changes in US strategy and equipment.

"The world's only superpower is in danger of being driven back by a few tens of thousands of lightly armed irregulars, who have developed tactics capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles and aircraft," continues the article.

the article contains this quote...

Top US officials are describing foes in Iraq and Afghanistan as "smart, agile and cunning" and say the US is locked in a conflict that is the "biggest challenge since Korea 50 years ago."

korea...? how quickly they forget... this is precisely what was happening in vietnam, and, ya know what...? there is no way to defeat a determined insurgency, short of nuking the entire countryside and shaving the ground with a razor, which we aren't prepared to do, and which the world would condemn even more vociferously than the current illegal war...

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