Earlier this week, a large group of Iraqi police commandos emptied out the higher education ministry. This raid took 50 brand new pick up trucks.
The regular police watched this happen.
Then, yesterday, Iraqi police hijacked and ambushed a mercenary protected convoy.
When you read about this in the MSM, they will use weasel words like "people in police uniforms". Well, yes, they were. They were police in police uniforms working on behalf of their militia leaders.
What Americans have been pretending for a long time is that Iraq is actually training an army. It isn't doing anything of the sort. It is arming militias.
Why don't people realize this? Because idiots like Ken Pollock never realized that many of Saddam's strategic problems were Iraqi strategic problems, and not just peculiar to him. Anyone surprised that the Iraqi Army is a factionalized mess hasn't been paying much attention since 1980.
Former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld tried to characterize the Iraqi Army as a nest of Bathists. I believe to this day that the Army was demobilized so that they couldn't oppose the rise of Ahmed Chalabi. Now, that may seem like a contradiction, but it isn't. The Army was largely Shia. While its elite units might have been Sunni, the bulk of it's regular formations were Shia. The last thing Chalabi wanted was a Shia power base in the Army opposing him. That one decision to help Chalabi, now decamped to London, is the one which led to all the other bad ones.
Now, the unemployed Shia went to join the new military and the militias, often both at the same time.
See, Saddam never trusted his own army. He had the Republican Guard, mostly Sunni formations, and the Special Republican Guard, his 12,000 man personal bodyguard, to protect him from the rest of the Army. So the Iraqi military was always factionalized. What the Americans thought they could do is paper over this and build a fiction of national unity. There was little to no analysis of what had been working in Iraq and how to replace them. Instead, the goal was to remake the American Army in Iraqi form.
But that would prove to be impossible. Shia units would not kill Shias and Sunni units would not attack their insurgent cousins. When Kurdish units volunteered to join in the battle for Fallujah, other Iraqis were enraged.
The constant call for more trainers and more support for the Iraqi forces is a forlorn hope. They are already arresting senior commanders for fomenting sectarian violence. More training just means a more efficient militia force.
What the US was hoping was that new national institutions would create national unity and a US ally. Instead, it has unleashed the Shia to finally dominate the land mass of Iraq. Because the new government has no power outside of the Green Zone.
But then, it was clear that the US always viewed their Iraqi auxillaries with a wary eye. They have never given them the equipment that they need to actually fight effectively. Their AK's are 30 years old, and they have not been able to purchase lighter, more modern weapons. They have no heavy weapons, and their tactical training is rudimentary. Most US soldiers hold Iraqis in racist contempt, and the Iraqi units lack of trustworthiness is clear.
In one incident reported by the New York Times, a Marine patrol was ambushed. The Iraqi soldier with the patrol ran off. Time and again, the Iraqi Army will not fight when pressed. In another incident, Army units let Mahdi militia members pass their lines.
The police and paramilitaries are even worse. Most Iraqis think they are acting as death squads or protecting them. Most Iraqis are likely to shoot at units moving at night in their neighborhoods.
When people say that they want the Iraq Army to stand up, it's an impossible task. There is no Iraqi Army, just militias in uniform
Related posts:
- Changing of the Guard: US Troops Withdraw from Iraqi Cities; Maliki Declares “Sovereignty Day”
- US Contractors Held in Iraqi Jail for Green Zone Murder
- Blackwater Bribed Iraqi Officials After Nissour Square Massacre
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes Jurgen Todenhofer, Why Do You Kill?: The Untold Story of the Iraqi Resistance
- Doing it Right in Afghanistan: You and Whose Army?
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zed who?
First?
Steve!
(zed punaise)
nation building at its finest.
FYI — This is Steve Gilliard’s post. I forgot to change the author box when I put it up. Ooops. Didn’t want there to be any confusion. :)
I know full well that I am leaving myself open to being called selfish in saying this. But I want to save the members of my family proudly serving our country in the military. I want to bring all American soldiers home from Iraq. Now!
Alison @
2
Second is good ….
could have been worse – at least you weren’t Frist!
Picky spelling:
formenting secterian
fomenting sectarian
Otherwise–you speak the truth, Redd. No one else is speaking the truth. These guys are not playing according to Bush’s rules.
But Bush’s rules are like Calvinball with weapons.
It’s all so gruesome.
IT’S A FUCKING CIVIL WAR!!!
WAKE THE FUCK UP AND GET ON THE FIRST BUS OUTTA TOWN.
goddamn, how fucking stupid do they think we are?
the talking heads keep saying that cutting off the funding will hurt the troops. why is that? doesn’t ending the funding mean bringing them back? do they think the troops are going to be still there – naked without arms in the middle of the desert?
I don’t get this argument.
THANK YOU, Steve!
That many of the killers and kidnappers “in Iraqi police uniforms” are actually, you know, the Iraqi police has been apparent for some time.
US forces in-country know it, too. Check out this article from last month’s WaPo
The more they “stand up” so we can “stand down”, the closer Iraq moves to open religious genocide, perpetrated under the color of law and the state.
Someone remind me what we’re doing there, again?
Spot on post!
Another Bushco talking point is that over 12 million Iraqi’s voted. Yes, they did, over 90% for sectarian candidates.
lina @ 10
I cannot improve on this.
Umm, there’s little argument about the factional fighting, and the mistakes the US made with regard to remaking the Iraqi army in the US military’s image.
But, I still think that this chaos was triggered by the desire of some–particularly neo-cons in the DoD–to create the chaos in order to keep the populace preoccupied when Sistani called for immediate elections after the overthrow of Hussein.
Negroponte was ambassador just long enough to set up death squads among the militia, because the US needed cover to implement all the things that the neo-cons thought were necessary to make of Iraq a laissez faire playground for US multinationals. That was a lot less likely to come to pass if Iraqis were able to pay attention to what was happening at the US viceroy level.
It wasn’t just mistakes that caused this mess. Some of it was intentional.
These motherfuckers are so evil and so incompetent that I’ll believe just about any conspiracy theory that pertains to them. Thanks Steve.
montag @ 14
That’s too awful. And Negroponte is the guy to make it happen.
I believe i read a commentary in The Nation one night while fabricating aluminum that this would happen…3 years ago
Nothing new here, basically the forces are proving to us what we already knew
Suppose we assume that, left alone, a typical Iraqi policy/army unit would revert to sectarian killings.
The implicit argument I think our military is making is that if we embed a few US soldiers in these units, we can reduce their ability/freedom to engage in such killings, and the killings would decrease.
If that is true (and I don’t know one way or another), then one might also argue that (1) we should embed more US troops to ensure this happens and (2) we may need more US troops brought into Iraq to make sure we have enough of our folks embedded with enough of the Iraqi units (or down to the smaller unit levels).
That appears to me to be the current logic for “staying” and the motivation is to reduce the level of killing. Does it hold up?
Two minor points:
1) The AK-47 should not be dismissed as old or obsolete. It really is the only viable option for troops in desert conditions without a first world armorer to keep them up. The M-16 would not be a good choice for them.
2) Steve, I love ya, but you gotta stop splitting the infinitive. It’s driving me nuts!
OT, great article on Dean and the 50 State Strategy.
Keep battling Howard, and Happy Birthday!
scarecrow @ 18
I don’t see how. The occupying force is still the enemy to both Sunni and Shia. Putting more of them in Iraqi units would seem to me to be a strategy for US troops getting the bullets first, rather than Iraqis….
This is a good article. The earlier one by Taylor Marsh on escalation was also spot on. I remember my poli. sci. professor telling us about “treason of the hawks.” That’s what happens when a war doesn’t go well, and those who started it aren’t willing to bear the consequences of having been wrong to start the war. It always seemed like a good expression. Here’s a quote from the notes:
Works well in spite of a lot of abuse. I was on a patrol when we spotted and ambushed a squad of VC, a sweep of the kill zone turned up an AK that had been literally shot out of the grasp of it’s owner. There was a 30 caliber hole through the receiver, just above the trigger guard. It still worked.
Littleleroy @ 19
Splitting the infinitive is just fine. The prohibition against it was ginned up by pedants who wanted English to behave more like Latin and its derivatives where you can’t split the infinitive because it’s one word. We luckily make our infinitives with two. I intend to boldly split where no infinitive has been split before.
The questions could be: do you feel safer here, in America, than you did before Bush attacked Iraq? And do you envision victory in Iraq? If the answer to these questions is no, than what is the solution?
Excellent post. I agree giving some guys some rusty AK-47s doesn’t miraculously turn them into an army. I can not stress enough that an army is an organization. It has command and control to tell people what they need to do. It has training to show them how to do it. It has logistics to see that they have the supplies to do it. It has discipline to see that it gets done. It has the heavy weapons to match or overpower its opponents. And it instills an esprit de corps to see that the whole organization holds together. How many of these things does the Iraqi army have? Yeah, I thought that too.
Beyond this, there are further equivalences. It’s not just that the militias are the military. They are also the political parties and by extension the government. Government, police, and army in Iraq are all consequently factionalized.
Basic truths like these as well as the fact that Iraq is in civil war are ignored or denied by the current Administration. It is why they have no coherent strategy of any kind. They refuse to accept the situation they are facing and in which Americans and Iraqis are dying.
Look who just took a stroll across the bridge to reality.
Tony Blair admits Iraq is a clusterfuck.
-GSD
montag @
14
The Salvador Option.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/
Patrick 4/4 @ 24
Humpty Dumpty: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.
Alice: The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things.
Humpty Dumpty: The question is: which is to be master – that’s all.
This is why James Baker has been meeting with the Iranians and the Syrians.
The US aint gonna get out of dodge if they keep threatening the neighbors with regime change.
In order for Bush to save himself, he must destroy himself.
Mr. Stay the course, resolute…meet Mr. Reality.
-GSD
“I intend to boldly split where no infinitive has been split before.”
Where do I buy tickets ?
So what we have accomplished with the Iraq war is giving the Shiites in Iran a whole lot more influence in the region. Aren’t the Iranians the ones who held Americans hostage for so long under Carter. The same hostages that Reagan traded weapons for, resulting in the infamous Iran-Contra scandal? Good job, George. Great performance GOP.
we need to be splitsville wrt Iraq
Tim @ 32
That should read “I intend to boldly, yet privately, split…” My wife prefers I save the linguistics for her.
Oklahoma kiddo @
6
Nothing selfish about that.
Tim @ 32
A dear friend — an English instructor — once explained that her English department had pretty much given up on not splitting infinitives when they realized that there didn’t seem to be any better way to say
“To boldly go where no man has ever gone before.”
punaise @ 33
Linguistically economical. Nice.
Hugh @ 26
I hear a lot of complaints that six months or a year or two or three is plenty of time to train a soldier.
This is true but not the whole truth. When one of our soldiers or marines finishes his basic training he is usually assigned to a unit that has a history, and that history can be traced through drill sergeants who knew officers who were trained by earlier drill sergeants who were led by men who could thank their professional development to those who fought with Washington at Yorktown.
An election does not make a democracy, and small weapons training does not make an army.
montag @ 21
This may be true but it doesn’t seem to end the argument. Those advocating this view would say, “whether or not we were right to go in, once we were in and created these conditions, we acquired a moral obligation to make it right, if we could. So the fact that our guys will inevitably be the targets is sobering, but that seems to be the price we have to pay for making things better.” What is the response?
Oklahoma kiddo @ 25
Well, the first question prompts one to engage in the false fearmongering of the Bushies, so I try not to think of it in those terms. The real issue is whether the troops should have been used in the first place for what was, correctly, a case best carried out by criminal investigation using the best analytical resources of our and our allies’ intelligence services. If I were to rephrase your first question to: has Bush’s war in Iraq given terrorists an opportunity to learn new skills? Yes, I’d agree to that. But as for feeling safer, I don’t feel more or less safe from terrorism. The people who are demonstrably less safe are those in the military sent to Afghanistan and Iraq to pursue the neo-cons’ wet dreams about oil and the “free market.”
As for victory in Iraq, Bush and his entire administration can’t even define what that victory might be, so I doubt anything resembling victory in the classic sense of state-against-state war is possible. The military was sent on a mission which originates from impure motives, and which began to fall apart virtually from the beginning. No eventual good ends can emerge from those beginnings.
We’re a lot less safe in this country because of what Bush has done domestically.
GSD @ 31
I can see no reason on earth that Iran or Syria has an incentive to pull our chestnuts out of the fire on this one.
If you’re numbers 1 and 2 on the neocon invasion list, it’s hard to see much percentage in freeing up American troops from the quagmire they’re in.
I don’t think any promise that could come from James A. Baker III would change the calculus of that.
(And jeffreyw makes an excellent point just above. In my own field, most professional experimental physicists can trace their “training lineage” back to people like Rutherford, Michelson, or Maxwell. A lot of lore gets handed down from the greats that way.)
Montag and Margot – thank you for pointing out our role in creating the death squads … and for the link to the Newsweek article – it’s an important article since it told us 2 years ago that the Pentagon was going to create death squads as part of their strategy … seems that mission was accomplished and then some. Just look at the list of victims from simply today:
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/
Response is bolded.
All of the attempts to finagle one way or another to “make it better” or to “fix” things in Iraq miss the essential point that an occupying army only ends the insurgency by leaving, by ending the occupation. We, who are the enablers of and the instigators of the civil war and death squads, cannot ever solve this or make it better. All we can do is leave.
Reparations, war crimes tribunals, etc may buy us a small bit of forgiveness but the essential thing now is to leave.
Prof.
Iran has played their cards as shrewdly as can be. They may just wait for a secret US envoy bearing keys, cakes, bibles and missiles.
Then they know they have a deal
Also, Iran won’t sell Syria down the river, so they form a solid front for bargaining.
Neither Iran nor Syria wants to fight the US and they’ll take a solid deal offered as long as they are certain there is no chance they’ll be double crossed.
It is ultimately to Iran’s benefit to have the region cool down. The more foment around, the more likley they’ll have trouble at home.
-GSD
Iraq is not a nation and never was… it was a creation and there cobbled together of at least 3 different tribal/religious groups with obviously no interest amoung them to live together in peace. Their fueds apparently go back centuries and only the installation of a totalitarian monster like Saddam was able to keep it all in check.
These people are not ready for democracy.. hell.. we are hardly able to get along in this country… seeing how much racism and zenophobia we have.
Our attack removed the glue holding the thing together and we proceeded to tear the rest of it apart and try to turn it into a free market experiment.. or rather a feeding ground for mulitnational corportations. All they could accomplish is to steal our money and get a little oil flowing…
But we are well hated there and the internacine battles are not raging with the US taken a lot of heat for the chaos. We’ve done right by nobody over there.
The fitting will go on and Iran is eyeing what it can grab and the kurds want to be independant and keep their oil… what else have they?
Major hornets nest over there and we cannot do a thing which will resemble victory short of killing everyone to stop the bloodshed.
We lost.. it’s now a matter of figuring out how to spin it in the least destructive way.
We lost and the right wing has proven how inept their world affairs are and how inept they are at everything from war, to economics, to construction, to management, to oversight.
America is in fast decline… and these right wingers just poured lost of grease (Iraqi oil lust) on the skids.
attempting to “make it right” continues the core crime – the assumption that Iraq is ours to break or fix or occupy or liberate or anything
Iraq is not our territory and the Iraqi people never asked for us to come and murder 600,000 of their family and friends after we killed half a million of their children by sanctions and declared it worth it – thank you Madam Albright.
scarecrow @ 39
Is that a rational argument, or an excuse to avoid admission of fault and guilt? If one goes by the sentiments of ordinary Iraqis (who overwhelmingly want us out of their country), then it strikes me as a highly imperial notion that we somehow have some obligation to decide for the Iraqis how to solve a problem created by us and perpetuated by us.
That’s a separate question from war reparations, btw.
Why are we assuming that Bush is concerned about the deaths of Iraqis? Did he and his cabal even bother to keep track of Iraqi war dead? I don’t think he gives a rat’s ass about lessening the violence. I think he wants to lessen his chances of “losing face”.
And, yes, there is a debt of obligation owed by our country. But it is Bush’s debt, and not the troops. It is Bush’s obligation to find a way to make reparations. He cannot pay his debt with the blood of our soldiers.
jeffreyw @ 44
The words you bolded describe exactly the assumption whose logic/validity I’m trying to examine — but so far, much of the debate assumes either a yes or no answer without really examining its validity either way.
SusanD @ 49
liquidating all branches of the Bush family fortune would be a good start
montag @ 14
Robert Fisk sees the intention, also:
Wow – sounds like Central America when Negroponte was there – teaching the death squad tactics he’d learned at Langley.
Langley – CIA headquarters – learned the death squad tactics at the tender hand of General Richard Gehlen. Gehlen was the CIA’s prize, spirited away from the evil Reds as the Reich collapsed.
Actually, Nazi General Gehlen chose to go to the Yanks – and he and his fellow Nazis pulled our chain.
Gehlen convinced the willingly credulous blue-bloods at CIA (and pre-1948 origins) that the best way to stop the Commies was to use tools from the Nazis.
The same people the Commies just defeated.
[This came to be known as the “Carville strategy”]
Hmmm. General Gehlen and his Nazi pals opened the way for the death squads’ drill bits in Baghdad.
Gotta love the neocons – they sure play to their base.
Somewhat OT..but Steve or anyone have an estimate of the percentage of the US troops in Iraq that are combat vs support? I believe that the “traditional percentage” for major wars Vietnam, Korea etc the ratio was ~1/10. In Iraq the support “jobs” are done by KBR, Blackwater etc.
Scarecrow … if I break into your house, kill your children, steal your belongings, and torture you … I don’t think you would then ask whether I have a “moral obligation” to stick around and “make it right” … there is no “making it right” possible, none.
That’s what we have done in Iraq …
The historic parallels are many.
As Iraq continues to unravel the nation will start to look more and more like Lebanon in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
The region, well, that may come to resemble Yugoslavia in the 90’s.
Kirkuk is a cooking hot these days too.
There’s black gold in them that hills.
-GSD
GSD–I completely agree the Iranians would like a nice, quiet Shi’ite state on their western border. I do think, however, that not even James Baker and a boatful of Minuteman Missiles will be a credible signal to them as long as this president is in office. I quite agree with what you said earlier–only if Bush is ready to publicly destroy himself would they take it seriously.
Since that isn’t going to happen they’re going to want those troops tied down. I sure would.
Siun @ 45
Well said.
Scarecrow – Kirk’s pointer to Fisk is a very important one and I (like an old record) suggest that everyone get a copy of the Great War For Civilization and read carefully. Read Fisk’s columns as well. His insights are critical to understanding the role we are playing in the Middle East.
Siun @ 48
My questions are meant to abstract from the initial mistake and ask, what should we do now, and why? There is an accepted assertion among many that staying results in fewer deaths than leaving. Is it true or false and how do we know?
“that seesm to be the price we have to pay for making things better.
–
How can we ‘make’ anything?
Which ‘things’?
Define ‘better’. Is it an end to killing? If so, again, how do we ‘make’ that happen?
Thanks MayDaze.
our friend markfromireland has been hosting more Iraqi posters on his blog (link under my name) and folks should read them … they don’t want us to “save” them, they just beg for us to leave.
public service announcement from watertiger:
By the way, what is the rightwing noise machine going to claim about the elevated levels of attacks against US troops in Iraq now the elections are over?
Are the insurgents trying to influence the congressional leadership votes and committee chairmen too?
-GSD
scarecrow @ 59
The impression here is that staying will result in more American soldier deaths.
Siun @ 55
I agree with your example, but I don’t agree that it’s a sufficient analogy. Suppose you broke into my house, killed my parents and left two warring brothers who are now trying to murder each other’s children. You realize you’ve made a terrible mistake. But there are no police to call, and you perceive they will kill all the children. What do you do?
Ed Meese, American patriot.
Scarecrow … how does keeping the paymasters of the death squads in country longer lead to fewer death squads?
The folks who believe that we can somehow make it better by staying longer miss the essential truth of Iraq. We are the criminals – we are the instigators – we … you and I and our tax dollars … are the ones responsible for this disaster.
This argument assumes that our intentions are good – they are not.
If Iraqis had invaded the US, destroyed our infrastructure, routinely smashed in the doors of our houses and hauled our relatives off to be tortured, shot our friends while they drove their pregnant wives to the hospital to give birth, destroyed everything in their path … would we think they should stay? and how would their staying make things better?
Because I’m a little old lady and a Luddite I can’t find the citations. But I’m sure I read in at least two places on the toobz that there are rumors that the Bush Cabal is discussing “choosing a side” in Iraq. That is, ending the violence by assisting either the Shia OR the Suni. I know I read it, but I can’t find it. I remember it because I was horrified. It would only mean genocide for one side or the other.
But Katie Couric said tonight that the Iraqi Army now has new, non-counterfeitable uniforms.
Problem solved?
We got into Iraq in a highly immoral way and we will probably leave the same way. That said, we will still be left with managing the resulting mess that our leaving creates over and beyond the mess that is currently there. Just as Bremer’s orders to de-Baathify Iraq’s civil administration and dissolve Iraq’s army created a huge power vacuum so will our leaving. What should be given a lot of consideration here is how to minimize that vacuum. What that means is that some group in Iraq is going to have to be empowered, i.e. given heavy weapons. I would guess this would be some combination of Shia and Kurds with us over the horizon to set limits to the resulting violence. In my opinion, this is where the debate, Iraq Study Group, military planning, whatever should be focused.
scarecrow @ 59
Dunno, but maybe trying to do that abstracting attempts to validate an invalid argument. In a very practical sense, we made a mess. Everything we’ve done to date has made that mess worse. There’s even some tangential and not so tangential evidence that it was our intention to make things worse.
I mentioned that we began this from impure motives. If there’s even a suggestion that those impure motives still prevail, then it follows that whatever we do from now on originates in those impure motives, however much the Bushies wish to couch the question in terms of morality, honesty and “doing the right thing.”
They did not do the “right thing” from the very start. Why should we now assume that their motives are pure? Why should we now assume they are now competent and honest, when they consistently have not been in the past?
The country is demonstrably worse than it was, and the situation has continued to deteriorate the longer we remain as occupiers. Logic would suggest that more of the same (Bush’s “last big push”) is politically motivated and will not produce the results desired.
Cheers.
Young Joe Kennedy was talking about his discount oil program “from our friends in Venezuela and Citgo”.
Whooo….ha.
Also, over at TPM Ed Meese is chiming in about summary executions and the patriot act.
Bring a barf bag.
-GSD
I think the testimonies from generals and the sectarian splits within the Iraqi army validate the no answer to the question “can we make it better”. The American people have made it clear that there is not the will to do so. It would require a draft, a holding operation while the levies were trained and their equipments built out. An infusion of perhaps 300000 more troops could put the lid on the violence. Ten, fifteen or twenty years to get to something like a functioning state. Indoctrination of the new generation of Iraqi youth. Installation of a corps of informers and agents to combat the guerilla cells. Billions of dollars every month, even if the oil flows.
Oh, sure. Because I’m sure nobody would *ever* think of killing the person wearing the uniform and then stealing said uniform.
Yeah, problem solved.
TeddySanFran @ 69
i , for one, feel much better now
thanks katie
How about De-Bushify.
-GSD
SusanD @
49
Amen.
I want to repeat your last sentence:
He cannot pay his debt with the blood of our soldiers.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 65
Yes, I assume that is true. The argument some are making is that American soldiers should pay that price in order to keep even more Iraqis from dying. So it’s important to know (or have credible arguments about) whether the American presence could, in fact, reduce the killing. If it’s not true, then staying is clearly wrong. I think we have track down all of these arguments and their branches.
No one could ever shoot the guy driving the truck of non-counterfeitable uniforms and drive said truck to a remote location and disburse said uniforms to numerous bad actors……
Pshaw.
-GSD
Maybe Bush could be a real man, like in the movies. You know, trade himself as a hostage so our troops could all come home.
Short of nuking them, I fail to see how we are going to ‘win’ in Iraq. So then the question becomes for me, do we leave now or later? It strikes me a lot of American GI’s would be alive today, perhaps enjoying the holidays with wives and children, they never had, had we left Vietnam earlier than we did.
I see Iraq analagous to Czechoslovakia.
An opressive regime held together what is essentially two or more disparate groups with long-standing differences.
We broke it, but we cannot fix it.
That is, without substituting another repressive regime.
And we do not have a good one handy
(see above…We broke it)
SO we will just have to run next door and see if we can borrow one.
50 years from now, I give high odds that the US invasion of Iraq will be viewed as an Iranian cats paw.
jeffreyw @ 73
Or we could re-arm all of the competing factions and call jump-ball.
-GSD
The Iraqi people are not saying “oh, america, please stay because things will get worse if you leave” – they are begging us to leave, now, immediately.
I am tired of the arrogance of american policy that pretends to know what’s best for the people of Iraq.
scarecrow, we *have* an American presence, and the rate of killings keeps *increasing* in spite of their presence.
Some have come to the conclusion that the only way out of the Iraq morasse is to let em–hell encourage em—ta kill one another—
Our troops can move out and take up positions where the view is good- and let the Iraqis have at it. Last Iraqi standing is king.
Attempting to keep em from killing each other may just have the effect of prolonging the killing- perhaps in perpetuity.
Way to call a spade a spade, Steve. Describe the reality in no uncertain terms, and just let the fantasyland dwellers try to deny it.
For those interested in further analysis of the allegedly narrow 1% wins by Tester and Webb in MT and VA [among others, including House races], based upon the secret corporate-owned counting software that tabulated their votes, compared to the 7 p.m. exit polls that day which gave them both solid 7% leads, here’s a link to a new look at the 2006 exit polls, which I’ve excerpted below:
http://www.electiondefensealli…..6_election
[Note that historically exit polls (of actual voters who have just cast their ballots) are so accurate that for decades Germany, which votes on and hand-counts paper ballots, has used election day exit polls to announce the results of their elections, before the hand-counted numbers are in. In general the margins between the exit polls and the vote counts are within a percentage or two, at most.]
rwcole – I find that offensive – perhaps you are being snarky but …
Read the Fisk piece again that Kirk quoted, read something other than bullshit american propoganda by socalled experts who simply justify our occupation over and over … read the words of the Iraqis themselves …
all the talk of sectarianism, etc ignores the fact that we carefully set each group against the other to create chaos and a reason to stay … we considered the development of death squads an acceptable “strategy” and sent in Negroponte, we approved the use of torture, the list goes on and on …
scarecrow @ 78
I cannot quibble with your argument. Are we saying it boils down to whether we value American lives more than Iraqi’s? And do we assume the right of self-determination, for ourselves and others, whatever the cost? I say, I do not have the answers. I do think our government has involved itself in colonialism. And I do have a stand on that.
Siun — we are talking passed each other. You believe a set of conditions that I am assuming are not true. I”m not disagreeing with you. I’m just tracking down the logic (or lack thereof) of the implicit argument that’s out there.
If, on the other hand, we start with the assumption/belief that the American occupation is inherently evil, then there probably is no moral argument for staying. But I don’t think most Americans have that assumption/belief, so the public debate, such as it is, is different.
Scarecrow … nodding.
But the public debate rests on the assumptions which enabled this horror in the first place – that we have a right to pre-emptive war and colonial occupation. So long as we allow that assumption to stand, we are doomed to do this over and over.
rather than argue, I will leave it to Ali, a friend of MFIs to speak:
http://gorillasguides.blogspot…..k-you.html
rwcole @ 86
That callous disregard of the human suffering arising from the US’ illegal Iraq war repulses me.
The same Universal Declaration of Human Rights that provides the basis for global prosecutions of war crimes maintains the equal worth of all people.
Even Iraqis who take arms to fight death squads armed, clothed, supported, housed, transported and paid by outside powers.
Siun @ 92
Yes. I have been struggling recently with what was attributed to Lincoln — the fear of what would happen to us under a just God. It’s almost as if our limited collective understanding (or arrogance, etc) will condemn us to many more deaths before this ends. Enough.
Well first one must establish a criteria for judging the value of relative solutions to Iraq. If one assumes that minimizing death should be the most important critereon (which I do) then the answer to the problem becomes an empirical estimate of the deaths that will be anticipated with the various proposals- which pretty much come down to stay or split. It’s hard, though, to do any reliable estimate.
Siun @ 91
Did someone say “nodding”. That’s me. It’s been a long Friday of teaching high schoolers physics. And so it’s off to the Aunty’s for the night. She’s 99 and an FDR Demo. We agree on everything except Iraq. She tells me we should stay in Iraq, and I “tell” her nothing. I know better.
The grim calculation remains the same regardless of what assumption one makes about the degree of sin the US bears for it’s entry.
I know that we are not suppose to care but are there any numbers for mercenaries in Iraq and independent contracters? Rate of return, length of stay, causalities, pay.
I think there are moral arguments that can be made, and have been made, to support either staying or leaving.
My argument, and that of many others, is that staying is just not a sustainable option.
It is the right and moral thing to try to rescue an innocent babe from a blazing house, but if there is another within that inferno who is setting deadly traps and shooting at the firemen, the fire chief would be wise to take pause.
Good night OK Kiddo!
Siun – Thank you for every single comment in this thread. You get it and will not falter from the msg. that we must leave now. We always have been bad guys in this fiasco and will only begin to change that after we leave the arena.
Many thoughts and questions in this thread need addressing but not in the context of one more day in Iraq. We continue to kill and die needlessly. Many bad things will continue to happen after we are gone. We cannot prevent it, only prolong it. I seriously believe many neonuts are quite happy with this scenario and every chaotic day that passes they continue to win.
Humanity loses.
Thank you Siun. ( there is a large bouquet of lilac just outside of your cyber door)
tuneforg @
98
Now that is an interesting question, in may ways. Give that these people are doing tasks that would normally done by soldiers, what does that say about casualty rates as currently reported?
rwcole @ 95
I don’t think there will be a reliable estimate available, by any empirical means. What those empirical means do tell us, however, is that things are getting steadily worse the longer we stay and the longer we pursue the same policies.
Here’s a simple thought. If we leave, and the Iraqis continue to kill each other, then that’s a problem they must resolve by their own means. That’s independent of any other question about what happens if we stay. But, as long as the Bushies decide to stay, that question cannot be answered, and the mayhem will get worse–that fact has been demonstrated empirically.
The argument can be reduced, then, to this: the people who started the war do not want to change anything because there’s no empirical evidence that removing troops would help, while the empirical evidence shows that their continued presence is antagonistic to any reduction in deaths. If we’re going to be strictly empirical, we should operate only on what we know and can see, rather than on what we cannot predict.
rwcole,
There is no way to assess in any meaningful way how many deaths will occur because of any choices we might make. There is a likelihood that some will produce more than others but these are counterbalanced by how tenable they are.
What is needed is to assess realistically the current situation in Iraq and decide what we want given that situation and what we can do about it. From there, it is a question of managing the situation as it develops and modifying our policy accordingly. It’s not pretty but it’s how the Iraqs of this world are dealt with.
You know, even if a case could be made for staying in Iraq to “fix” things, and even if if was to be done with the greatest good intentions, it’s hard to imaging that, given the stunning incompetence of the present administration, any good could come of it.
OT..More police at work..Houston Police Run Over Striking Janitors with Horses
by Matt Stoller, Fri Nov 17, 2006 at 10:49:46 PM EST http://www.mydd.com/
Last poll of Iraqis I could find:
Majority favor attacks on U.S.
The poll’s summary also suggests that most Iraqis think the American presence is doing more harm than good.
“An overwhelming majority believes that the U.S. military presence in Iraq is provoking more conflict than it is preventing and there is growing confidence in the Iraqi army,” the summary said. “If the U.S. made a commitment to withdraw, a majority believes that this would strengthen the Iraqi government.
“Support for attacks on U.S.-led forces has grown to a majority position — now 6 in 10. Support appears to be related to a widespread perception, held by all ethnic groups, that the U.S. government plans to have permanent military bases in Iraq.”
The WorldPublicOpinion.org poll was conducted September 1-4 by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. It was fielded by KA Research Ltd./D3 Systems Inc. Questions were asked of a nationwide representative sample of 1,150 Iraqi adults.
The report is at the Program on International Policy Attitudes Web site at: http://www.pipa.org/external link
Eureka Springs … I love lilacs!
and I’m scheduled to be in your neighborhood again soon … let’s plan a visit!
You’re damn right, Steve. What I found utterly astounding is how incompetently the corporate media has been reporting any of this.
Everything about media today is surface. There is no digging. No ferreting out. Hell, when they talked about the attack on the university they mentioned that the attackers were wearing police uniforms, but only ABC mentioned that those were newly issued uniforms, which is why they were BLUE camoflage. This was done specifically to distinguish them from militias. Clearly, it distinguished them as part and parcel of the militia.
However, did they dare to go that extra (no not mile) mere inch further to say that it’s obvious these men were the police, i.e. the militias and once again as stated time and time over, were those under the Ministry of Health.
How is it I can know that the Ministry of Health is in deep with Sadr and its army is the militia of Sadr and yet nobody fucking reports it! The government is corrupt. The Iraqi army and police are corrupt. This is civil war! And our guys are stuck in the middle.
AAACCCCKKKKK!
Fern:
I agree with that, many Dems apparently believe that, and I even think a majority of the American people believe that, or something close to that. If that was all there was, we’d be seeing resolutions to bring the troops home.
What’s happening, however, is that there is a caretaker (Baker/ISG) government on the horizon, and/or a McCain shadow administration arguing that Bush’s incompetence should be ignored, because Rumsfeld is gone, bush is not really in charge any more, and other grownups will be put in charge of a “good plan.”
Steve @ 106
How did “we the people” become “protesters”?
Sorry, my 110 is responding to Fern at 105.
I mean no disrespect to other comments here in any way. I am quite discouraged by the hearings on cspan this week and various reports from accross the msm and tubez.
I think we who believe it’s time to get out must stop having arguements with neonuts until they at least put “exit now” on the table. Doesn’t look like that will happen anytime soon.
Siun, Wonderful news! Please keep me posted here or eurekaspringer dot gmail….)
fern@102..that is the question I was asking @53. MY impression,and that is all since everything is now a state secret, is that a high percentage of our troops are combat. These men and women are at the “sharp point of the stick” day after day.
Siun — Thanks for all you do.
I can’t pass up the opportunity to acknowledge your voice of reason and compassion.
You ladies of the lake bring scope and dimension to the onerous task of troubleshooting our colossial Iraqi debacle.
Can we take away the punch bowl now? No last call for DU-ohol.
Steve @ 114
I agree, but that was not quite my point – and forgive me if my deep ignorance of the military skews my perspective – but if all those tasks being done by civilians – like the transport drivers who are taking such a whacking – were done by the military, then the casualty figures would be higher than they already are. And it doesn’t seem like these civilian casualties of people doing support work in iraq are being tracked in any systematic way.
Fern @ 116
They are, but they aren’t being published regularly. The number I remember from September, 2006, is 380.
Steve @ 54
A little info on that here.
Hugh @ 104
We can’t calculate how many deaths, although it will be a large number. Perhaps that is not a helpful way to look at it, though. I believe that things will get much worse in Iraq after we leave. But I also believe that only if we are gone will Iraq be able to sort this out. Europe waged sectarian wars over ethic and religious differences for centuries. The Reformation is only now healing in Ireland. Every day we stay in Iraq is one more day of killing before the reconciliation process, whatever it is, can begin. I anticipate that it will take a long time. That is the hell of it that we will have to pay because he led us into this war and we did not stop him sooner. We cannot fix it, we cannot make it pretty, and we will have to watch it happen. That is what it means to be responsible in this case.
God help us all.
Steve @ 114
Outsourcing to KBR and other private companies was one way Rumsfeld tried to decrease the ratio between support and combat troops. There are still many more support troops than combat troops. The problem with an environment like Iraq is that there is no frontline so support troops are at similar risk as many combat troops. More recently still as troop deployments and redeployments have eaten into readiness and morale, the Pentagon under Rumsfeld has been playing with the introduction of more National Guard troops and transferring support troops to more combat roles. The problem here is one of both training and equipment, which usually translates into higher casualty rates.
It’s been a heavy, though wonderfully thoughtful day here at FDL. Thank you all. With two weeks of chemo and radiation under my belt now, and going very well thank you, I’m off to bed. Sleep well.
neokneme – thanks. It’s an honor to get to work with the Lake!
PS everyone – don’t miss Book Salon this week! Rajiv stopped by last week and was great – I’m sure the full discussion will be enlightening. And I’m speed reading Emerald City now … what a great book!
marksb @ 121
Get your rest (you’ll need it to get through it all), and good wishes.
marksb @ 121
Congratulations, marksb, and best wishes.
marksb – congrats on accomplishing two weeks! sleep well!
Hotflash,
I agree. Still our departure does not mean we need to abandon Iraq entirely. We will remain in the area and can seek to manage the conflict in Iraq as best we can. As I pointed out above, a lot of Iraq’s instability came from a power vacuum that the dissolution of the army and the civil administration under Paul Bremer created. Minimizing a further power vacuum by our leaving is part of that management strategy.
fern@106..good point..no we don’t know what the combat casualty figures are either. The KIA’s are leaked out day by day but we never hear the pvt. so and so died in hospital in Germany or in the US. My guess would be that with the severity of the wounds. there are a lot of late deaths not being reported.
As to my point in @53 (?) but is was generated by the talk of Vietnam. If most of the support positions are done by KBR etc. than our combat troop numbers may be much closer the to Vietnam numbers. (assuming a ratio 1/10 combat to support in Vietnam)
Siun @
91
Echoing neokneme@115 -
Thanks Siun!
I’m a patriot about our nation’s Constitution (as amended*) and the values therein.
If our national “story” – our socially consensed upon creation myth – truthfully recounted America’s savage extermination and dispersal of the First Peoples on this continent, I wonder if we’d have less need to hear how great our occupations are.
Maybe it’s my inner shrink here, but I do believe that…
De Nial led us to the Euphrates.
And hence to the graves of the Brits from their 1917 invasion. Rousing success – at first.
Some things never vary.
Dewar’s, anyone?
[* the clauses disenfranchising all but white male property owners obviously suck -
as did the acceptance of slavery and exclusion of indigenous peoples - aka “Indians”.]
marksb @ 121
Marksb -
So glad the treatment is going well for you. Wishing you health and healing – and support for you and your family.
Best wishes from me as well, Marksb, and good night to all.
Hugh @ 126
Yes, we should be ready to provide any help that is requested, although, bankrupt as we are, we don’t have much to give. Our presence in any capacity would probably worsen the situation. We could provide food, medical supplies and other goods. Asylum for any Iraqi who asks would be another thing we could do. We should ask them.
Kirk … Dewars, eh?
I’ve broken out my cold weather Jamesons here.
And if that genocide starts while we are still there and even have embedded trainers in some of the units doing the killing of civilians then it is an American war crime. Think of how people looked at the Sabra and Shatila massacre during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Israeli forces were occupying the area but they let the Christian Flange militia take control of the Palestinian refugee camps.
Most objective observers felt that under the laws of war Israel was responsible for the mass killing of civilians that resulted. And we could see this sort of thing on a large scale.
If we think we are shamed now wait until the the Mali Army in Iraqi Army uniforms and in units that we have armed and in which we have trainers start to slaughter Sunni civilians openly and on a large scale.
If it looks like this is going to happen we should get out really fast and take all our heavy weapons with us. It is better to be accused of precipitating a genocidal war than to be accused to having participated in it.
Siun @ 132
Just put in my winter stock of single malt – Lagavulin this year. Yum
Heavy things to think on. Thank you Steve, for the post, and g’nite all.
Agreed. I believe the vast majority of this country would rally around any possible help requested right now. Could we first accept the request on the table and lamp posts of Iraq and leave.
Will join everyone with my jamesons after a couple more logs are tossed on the fire.
‘ere
The problem with this is that it seems to me that only the most elite forces we have in Iraq are really candidates to be embedded in Iraqi army units.
The other day General Abizaid made it sounds like you could just yank squads of this or that unit and tell them that they were now “embedded” in a new Iraqi unit. I don’t want to suggest that our troops are not well trained, but in fact only the special forces have the training for this sort of stuff. Starting to dump a lot of green kids into units where they don’t speak the language or have any clue about Islamic Arab culture sounds like a prescription for getting a lot our troops taken prisoner or for having them participate in war crimes.
OT: Mitch McConnell (R-Blowhard) thinks Senate Minority Leader is a position with sufficient clout to intimidate the Democrats into rubber-stamping judicial nominations.
Hey, Mitch? Bite me.
Fern @ 134
Oh dear – that’s what I get for allusions to UK ads (Dewar’s Scotch Whisky: It Never Varies)
myself, I’m partial to Laphroaig.
smells like a calm, foggy morning on the Isla Vista bluffs, with the sea and kelp and the sky….
someone zed zere’s a shiny new rabid bovine midheaven….
EvilDrPuma @ 138
Lessee… takes 60 votes to invoke cloture. The `pugs can get 49 of their own and one Lieberman. That makes 50.
Mitch can breathe his own farts from now on….
TRex is upstairs.
Fred in VT – you might find a read of Fisk’s Pity the Nation about Lebanon valuable. I was stunned by how closely our actions in Iraq mirror Israel’s in Lebanon … but then, we’ve been working very closely with Israel and using Israeli advisors.
scarecrow @
78
I agree it is important to track down the logic (or lack thereof) of those arguments which would have us stay in Iraq to salvage what we can of the wreck we created, and also examine the different types of people making those arguments. It seems that it is more than just the usual suspects of the neo-con cadre (e.g. people like John McCain as the most visible cheerleaders for increasing troop levels).
Here’s an old but relevant post from Glenn Greenwald – from a year ago – and here ’s the prescient nugget for today:
“Having been forced by undeniable reality to acknowledge the unparalleled dangers which their policies have created in Iraq, they cannot be permitted to use those dangers to justify remaining on the path which has proven so disastrous for every aspect of our national security.”
But there still remains the question of whether there is any moral argument for U.S. troops staying – if only to reduce future Iraqi deaths and carnage. That argument would rest on a supposition of good will on our part, which is itself suspect, of course. And given the track record thus far – and the parallel of rising violence with our continued presence, and the Iraqis desire for us to get the hell out – I’d say that moral argument is waning towards moot.
If there is any solution, I think it involves dramatically reducing our presence and certainly the extreme conspicuousness of it (though fat chance with our new embassy there). My thinnest of hopes is that there is some chance of us redeploying while broadly internationalizing some type of humanitarian or peacekeeping force, born of some truly deft diplomacy and a humble, hat-in-hand appeal to the world. But I’m probably just dreaming for the impossible.
Steve @ 127
Steve, this is a good site:
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/
Fiyero @ 144
Excellent quote from Glen – hard to imagine it said any better than that.
The problem with peacekeeping, is there has to be a peace to keep.
Alot of us have seen this for quite sometime. But, then we are not gop robots.
It’s so sad that Jr and his administration just cannot lay off the koolaid and the gop is too chicken to stand up to him and tell him the unvarnished truth and quit worrying about hurting his delicate feelings.
They’re only doing this ‘cuz the Democrats won.