Right before the bombings, Gerneral Ray Odierno was making a play to breach the SOFA, recommending that US forces be moved into Northern cities to assist Peshmerga and Iraqi troops in the continuing violence in the region. Claiming the US forces would act as some kind of peacekeeping force between the two, Odierno conveniently sidestepped the unease Iraqi government forces must feel at such a suggestion given our use throughout the American war and occupation of the Peshmerga as our frontline storm troopers in the fight against Iraqi nationalist resistance – and ignored Iraq’s own plans.
“Al Qaeda is exploiting these fissures you’re seeing between Arabs and the Kurds in Nineveh Province and the K.R.G.,” General Odierno said, referring to the Kurdistan regional government, in a briefing with a small group of reporters. “What we’re trying to do is close that fissure.”
In what has to be the quote of the week, Odierno said:
"We’re working very hard to come up with a security architecture in the disputed territories that would reduce tension.They just all feel more comfortable if we’re there." (emph. added)
More comfortable? Given that “a poll commissioned by the U.S. military earlier this year found that Iraqis expressed far less confidence in American troops than in the Iraqi government or any of its security forces” that sure seems like classic Odierno wishful thinking. In fact, only “Twenty-seven percent of Iraqis polled said they had confidence in U.S. forces, according to a Pentagon report presented to Congress last month. By contrast, 72 percent expressed confidence in the national government.”
Such confidence – when coupled with Maliki’s announcement that the popular referendum on the SOFA which was supposed to happen last week will in fact happen in January – even though the US government is putting the pressure on to cancel it outright – points once again to the Iraqi demand to have the US out so they can handle their own affairs.
As Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway write in the Financial Times, preparing for an early withdrawal from Iraq is the only appropriate response of the Obama administration to the planned referendum:
But now that Mr Maliki has taken concrete steps to put it in place, Mr Obama should call a halt to these efforts to undermine the referendum. It was one thing for Mr Obama and his team to forget their protests against Mr Bush’s unilateral actions. It is quite another to encourage Mr Maliki to run roughshod over his own constitution.
At the earliest opportunity, Mr Obama or Mrs Clinton, as secretary of state, should make it clear that they respect Mr Maliki’s decision and that the US military should start work on a contingency plan for expedited withdrawal.
After all, it was the US invasion that caused the destruction of Iraq and the development of the sectarian divisions that lead to such horrors as this week’s bombings – and any claim that US forces are required to ease the inevitable outcome of our destruction just rubs salt in the wounds we created.
h/t markfromireland for pointing to the Ahmad Al-Jawadi video.
Related posts:
- Torture: Obama Heeded Maliki on Abuse Photos, Says McClatchy; What That Says for Our Occupation
- In Iraq, As in So Many Contexts, Withdrawal is Victory
- Odierno and Petraeus vs. Cheney on Abuse as a Terrorist Recruitment Tool
- The End of the Delusion in Iraq
- Valuing Democracy: Iran, Iraq and the War Supplemental
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Siun!
Just give us all your oil, Iraqis… we will leave as soon as the wells run dry.
Odierno is that most dangerous of phenomena, a general in search of a war. Somehow they always find one.
The Iraq “War” would be laughable if it were not so tragic. We have troops fighting and dying when we have no enemy except the people who want us to leave. How stupid is that?
Thanks, Siun
Remember how Obama claimed to be different because he opposed the war in Iraq and that he would end it? I ask because if you just look at what he has done you could easily forget.
Most of them are the same. War is their biz model.
Same in Afghanistan. We attack, bomb and destroy, upset whatever domestric tranquility may have existed. We stir up the rest like disturbing a hornet’s nest and then we get stung, our soldiers do.
So now we have to destroy more to stop the angry hornets. And we only make it worse.
We create enemies and anti america sentiment wherever we go.
But they don’t really care. They need an enemy to fight for us to be afraid of… to milk for more military replenishment and growth, use up the old technology and introduce the new ones… and usually to make it safe to extract some resource or open up the region for industrial capital to do its thing. Doesn’t that make sense.
If there is no enemy you don’t need a big DOD or department of war. And if you can’t control a region, them capital can’t do its rape and pillage.
This is what US foreign policy is about. In South America we had our own dictators, but they got kicked out. Things are not looking up down there for capital. So they did the coup thing in Hondurus to restore the old ways. That’s not playing to well anywhere but in the board rooms of corporations and their lobbyists.
There is absolutely NO reason for the US to be in Iraq at this moment. Our presence is a violation of their sovereignty. The only threat is to the soldiers who are not wanted by the people over there.
Anyone can see this.
This is amazing!! Why, I never realized that all these bombings killing all these people could be caused by anything other then that bad General Odierno. Imagine him wanting to do something to slow down the bombing!!!!
Treachery!!!
The point is that the people doing the bombings are Iraq’s problem not ours. We have no mission there. We never should have gone in and we should just leave.
Gee, if JoeL is to be believed, if we actually left Iraq we could afford basic health care for everyone in the US.
I suspect the Iraqis would do better, too. Or at least, they wouldn’t be using us as pawns in their power games.
Hugh, we never should have gone there, and we have agreed to leave. The pointlessness purpose of busting Odierno’s chops because of wanting to slow the bombings taking place while we are there seems to be what’s going on here.
So the upshot is that American soldiers occupying Iraq are more popular with Iraqi citizens than Republicans are with American citizens…?
And reading this post would give one the idea that neither the Republicans nor the American soldiers are as popular with some folks as the bomb-planting murderers of the “Iraqi national resistance.”
The fact is that the violence drops dramatically where and when ever the American forces are no longer present.
Odierno is a special case. The first time around that he took over Mosul from Petraeus he took over one of the most peaceful cities in Irak. Under his regime violence escalated to the point where Mosul was and still is, as bad as parts of Diyala.
Now he’s back and guess what? A situation in which despite the post-election Hadba/Kurdish Bloc stand-off the violence levels were dropping dramatically has been reversed and literally hundreds of people have lost their lives.
Years ago, in a city I once lived in before retirement, a number of firemen were convicted of arson. When asked “why?” their reply was, “Job Security.”
Call me a sceptic, but, with the years and tons of misinformation, false flag ops,, Blackwater, renditions, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo et al, I would not be surprised if these bombing were orchestrated by someone from the ‘west’.
Just another pov.
macaquerman,
I’m with you. The hyperbolic overdrive of storm troopers and Iraqi national resistance is not just unnecessary, it’s really counterproductive.
Ah the culture wars return with a stirring rendition of “You Don’t Support The Troops Therefore You Must Support Stomping On Baby Kittens!”
Get your head out of your ass. Liberals, progressives, conservatives and those of us in between have supported and do support the troops… literally, as best as we are able to.
Much more so than the imperialists and wingnuts who used the troops as cannon fodder for wars of choice and convenience but promptly discarded them whenever those troops became inconvenient.
We also support bringing the troops home and seeing to it that they have the health care and services they need and are entitled to… rather than the favorite homecoming gift of the imperialists to the troops which seems to be filth-ridden hospitals and services denied.
For you see, acknowledging that simple fact that the troops are being unnecessarily kept in harm’s way in Iraq has nothing to do with supporting extremists… of any kind.
Then you are sorely in need of a brush-up on reading comprehension.
Seriously ticked me off… I accidentally replied to myself instead of macaquerman.
Thanks zapkitty – great comments!
(and your name has me humming zapmama tunes ;->
Sorry if you think that I meant that you were the person supporting the Iraqi bombers. I reserve that special place for the people saying that –we can be sure that these tragedies will be used in the continuing attempt to extend the US occupation.–
I’ll work on that. Perhaps you might work on honesty and balance in your word choices.
What Siun wrote was “we can be certain that these tragedies will be used in the continuing attempts to justify breaking or sidelining the terms of the SOFA.”
This is a statement of fact. The multiple previous statements by Odierno and othe ranking officers regarding a supposed “need” to break or bypass the SOFA are well documented.
Nowhere does Siun even remotely imply support for the bombers… and neither you nor PeorgieTirebiter can give quotes saying as much.
Indeed both of you “quote” Siun with strange mutations… “breaking or sidelining the terms of the SOFA” becomes “continuing attempt to extend the US occupation.” and “Iraqi nationalist resistance” becomes “Iraqi national resistance”
In each case what Siun actually said is distorted into something different. And it ain’t a coincidence, it’s prime wingnutia on display with the meme de jour being “If you don’t support this abuse of our troops by those who command them then you support the terrorists!”
And we, the people of the United States, have made it clear that we’ve had enough of that particular wingnut bullshit.
Y’know… maybe if you weren’t so busy trying to stuff words into other peoples mouths you might, maybe, hear what they are actually saying.
Just thought I’d suggest that.
If you press the “home’ button and pull up the short form of this post ,before selecting, you’ll read that I quoted what is there.
http://firedoglake.com/page/2/
And you are correct in that regard. Okay.
Now then… while the phraseology in the short form is not so exact as the long form can you explain how either version leads to anything remotely resembling support for the terrorists?
Well, when I read “,,, our frontline storm troopers in the fight against the Iraqi national resistance.” I kinda get the idea that I’m reading the words of someone willing to support people who blow up marketplace shoppers.
Calling these folks the “national resistance” is hilariously stupid and dishonest.
On other posts, she’s hosted some German guy calling them “freedom fighters” and happily praised that characterization.
I don’t support what we did in iraq or wish our troops to remain there any longer the the agreed-upon time, but rolling over repeatedly for this kind of cowardly, murderous bombing of civilians and at the same time endlessly bitching about Odierno ……
In other words you made stuff up.
Well, that was suspected to begin with but since I made an error with the “occupation” vs “SOFA” versions of the quote from the article I wanted to make sure you had a chance to explain your actual logic.
But I find it telling that you portray yourself as genuinely unable to distinguish between Siun’s use of the term “Iraqi nationalist resistance” in speaking of events in the past and the apparently fabricated term “Iraqi national resistance”… or are you saying that Siun actually used that phrase elsewhere as well?
And somehow this all equates to supporting terrorists?
Terrorists who may well be nationalist resistance fighters… and, if the U.S. is really unlucky, may represent or evolve into a national resistance movement. Again.
A resistance movement is not defined by whether terror tactics are used or not… although the practitioners of such tactics can rightfully be defined as terrorists. A resistance movement is defined by resistance to perceived usurpation and/or occupation.
When they’re blowing each other up then it’s factional fighting up to and including civil war.
When they’re blowing our troops up in order to get them to leave then they are a resistance. Terrorists as well, but still a legitimate use of the term “resistance.”
When they’re blowing each other and our troops up then it’s long past time to get the hell out.
And Odierno has made it clear, repeatedly, that he doesn’t intend that we should leave.
And you wanting to slap Siun with a wingnut “Supports Terrorists!” label just because Siun objects to the continued abuse of our troops as an occupation garrison is disingenuous… and also lame as hell.
And, to the Iraqi people, an occupation garrison is what our troops are and what our troops will be… until they leave for home.