Yet More Updates

Some interesting articles that serve to follow up on some of my previous posts:

The United States says it will release $200 million in emergency aid to alleviate food shortages in Africa and other parts of the world. While I hope this is a useful step, the cynic (realist?) in me wonders if this may not be another disaster in the making like the one where food aid arrived in a drought-stricken country a year late, and only served to bankrupt local farmers.

The Ghosts of Alexander blog has an interesting post called The Afghan Individual as a Unit of Analysis, which takes to task the intellectually lazy tendency amongst journalists and academics to "talks of groups in Afghanistan as if they were a coherent unit with a single will".

On a similar note, the folks over at the Kings of War blog, take aim at silly statements like this:

"Muslim countries are not like other countries. In as much as occupying troops are a much bigger theological, psychological problem for Arab countries than somewhere like Japan and Germany. And if you don't understand that about Islam, then you really aren't judging and you really haven't learned from the last four or five years."

Quite apart from the lazy, interchangable use of Muslim and Arab, one wonders if what the reporter in question is trying to suggest is that other racial/religious (same thing, no?) groups have much less of a problem being occupied by foreign troops than Arab/Muslims (same thing, no?)

The money quote from the blog: "Whenever I hear talk that smacks of cultural determinism, I reach for my revolver!"

I had also previously written about Obama's attempts to improve his image in Israel. The Rootless Cosmopolitan has an excellent article entitled "Obama and the Jewish Vote".

Barnett Rubin at 'Informed Comment: Global Affairs' provides the text to the policy speech of the ANP's Amir Haider Khan Hoti, the new Chief Minister of NWFP. Its worth reading, and as a policy statement, seems to me to be nuanced and sounding all the right notes. Lets hope the NWFP government has the ability and wherewithal to implement it.

Finally, I leave you with this excellent guest post by Alastair Cooke at the Rootless Cosmopolitan blog about Iraq and the U.S. faith in violence:

Although there are different ideas about how and when to use it, there is, I think, a consensus in Washington on the idea that by applying its overwhelming advantage in military force, the U.S. can do good in the world. It can make the world a better place through the transformative impact of violence, in the way that the violence of the hero in a Hollywood movie “cleanses” the world of incorrigible evil.

Bits and Bobs

The recent fighting in Basra in Iraq has been dominating the international news. While Fox bemoans the 'defeatist' coverage of 'liberal' media, and CNN and BBC have reporting thats only marginally better, here is an interesting article about Muqtada al-Sadr. Its a chapter from an upcoming book by the Independent's reporter, Patrick Cockburn and makes for interesting reading.

On a different note, Slate has a good explainer on why global food prices are soaring. They also link to a chart showing the global food price index on the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's website.

In light of food inflation and recessionary fears in the United States, the IMF had reduced its forecast of global economic growth last month and is now warning that the developing world should brace itself to suffer a knock on effect.

Ah, good news for the future, then.

The Benefits of Working With the CIA

Iraqi President "Talabani, a Kurd, is in the bizarre position of defending one of Saddam's top generals convicted of war crimes against Kurds." This is because the gentleman in question was recruited by the CIA in the late 90s to help with a secret plot to overthrow Saddam. What tangled webs we weave....

U.S.: Saudi Arabia Destabilising Iraq

Well I guess people in Washington are finally waking up to some of the realities of the Middle East. From the guardian: "U.S. Accuses Saudis of Telling Lies About Iraq"

The extent of the deterioration in US-Saudi relations was exposed for the first time yesterday when Washington accused Riyadh of working to undermine the Iraqi government.

The Bush administration warned Saudi Arabia, until this year one of its closest allies, to stop undermining the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

Would it be crass of me to say 'I told you so'?

IZ

The Iraqi Resistance: Interesting Happenings

This is absolutely the most important news to come out of Iraq in the last two years.

Seven of the most important Sunni-led insurgent organisations fighting the US occupation in Iraq have agreed to form a public political alliance with the aim of preparing for negotiations in advance of an American withdrawal, their leaders have told the Guardian.

I had started a blog post a couple of days ago which I never managed to finish in which I was writing about the significance of the Islamic Army of Iraq's split, with a breakaway faction disagreeing with the IAI's increasingly confrontational posture with regard to Al Qaeda in Iraq. This followed on reports that the 1920 Revolution Brigades, some of whose members had been targeted by Al Qaeda in Iraq had started actually helping the American forces against AQ.

Here's a very interesting interview with some of the leaders of the Iraqi resistance.

Many of the Iraqi insurgent groups have become increasingly critical of Al Qaeda's bloody, indiscriminate bombings of civilians and disregard for Iraqi life. They've also been very suspicious of their pan-Islamist agenda and non-Iraqi leadership, which doesn't have Iraq's best interests at heart. What's interesting is that the American government has been hammering on and on about Al Qaeda, boosting their popularity (and funding) outside Iraq, even while it is the nationalist Iraqi groups that are causing the most damage to the Americans and American-backed Iraqi government forces.

The recent report on the increasing condemnation of Al Qaeda's tactics from a number of groups within Iraq, as well as a fatwa from a prominent pro-insurgency cleric in Kuwait saying that Muslims should not support Al Qaeda because they were indiscriminately targeting civilians, were indicators of a growing split in the insurgency as a large part of it has started considering the political aspect of things and is thinking about how to influence events after American troops leave. What's interesting is that most groups (including the smaller Baathist groups) are thinking about participation in elections. Al Qaeda is different because their focus is not on rebuilding Iraq but on killing Shias and Americans in Jihad. A post-American Iraq for them would still be a war zone in which to kill Shias.

Abu Aardvark has some interesting articles about all this up on his blog.

I remain sceptical about the ability of this group to work with Shia militias though, especially as AL-Qaeda and pro-AQ groups will continue to inflame sectarian violence through their bombings etc. But perhaps this is one dim ray of hope that all will not collapse into complete chaos following the impending American withdrawal.

IZ

Foreign Fighters and Small Arms

If you blinked you may have missed the fact that the U.S. Senate unanimously voted 97-0 to declare that Iran was at war with the United States. Now it might strike one as a little odd that a country should declare that another country had declared war on it. But thus are the ways of American politics, where hype trumps reality and then all the resources of a hyper-power are used to twist and shape reality to conform to the hype.

The Senate saw fit to issue a declaration of war on behalf of Iran based on a dodgy newspaper article that itself was an unquestioning repetition of information given to the reporter by unnamed defence officials which attributed attacks on American forces in Iraq to Iran. Needless to say its another step closer to what is widely perceived as an inevitable American attack on Iran. Not that the United States hasn't already launched a major campaign of terrorism against Iran already.

All this hooplah came while U.S. military officials were busy pointing out that 45% of all foreign fighters in Iraq are Saudi, and most of the funding for the insurgents comes from Saudi Arabia as well. Most suicide bombers, whose deadly attacks have killed scores of Americans and thousands of Iraqis are also from Saudi Arabia. If the Time interview with a leading Iraqi bomb-maker was anything to go by, Saudi Arabia is also the source of high-tech gadgetry that the insurgents are using to defeat American mine-sweepers and IED detectors and neutralisers. And lets not forget that the recent report on insurgent media by Radio Liberty showed that the largest number of visitors to insurgent and Islamist websites come from Saudi Arabia.

To quote the LA Times in this excellent story:

Asked why U.S. officials in Iraq had not publicly criticized Saudi Arabia the way they had Iran or Syria, the senior military officer said, "Ask the State Department. This is a political juggernaut."

Last week when U.S. military spokesman Bergner declared Al Qaeda in Iraq the country's No. 1 threat, he released a profile of a thwarted suicide bomber, but said he had not received clearance to reveal his nationality. The bomber was a Saudi national, the senior military officer said Saturday.

So just to keep things in perspective about foreign fighters in Iraq, there are a big bunch of Saudis, a smaller bunch of Syrians and Lebanese, a few Jordanians and North Africans... also there are 160,000 Americans and 185,000 armed civilian contractors employed by the Americans. Number of Iranians? None?

At least the Americans have stopped blaming the Chinese for their woes in Iraq. Perhaps because it may have been too hypocritical even for the Americans to be calling on the Chinese to limit their arms sales while being the only country in the UN General Assembly to oppose a treaty to limit and monitor arms sales in a 139-1 vote last year. Still it shouldn't surprise us given that John Bolton, Bush's appointee to the UN first made his mark on the international stage as the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control by sinking the modest proposals of the 2001 UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms while declaring that gun ownership was a national way of life in the U.S. and that the uninhibited production and export of weapons is a national right.

Incidentally Moinuddin Haider, the Pakistani representative at the same conference fawningly supported the American position and reiterated that carrying small arms was a proud cultural tradition in Pakistan, while paradoxically also saying that Pakistan was a victim of small arms proliferation and was trying to "stamp out" this threat to state stability (recent events have shown just how effective that has been).

IZ

Shoddy Construction on the Imperial Mothership

The Washington Post reports on the embarrassing revelation that the $592 million U.S. embassy in Iraq is suffering not just from cost overruns, delays and Justice Department investigations over labour abuse, but might be virtually unusable due to shoddy construction. The fears arose after a contingent moved into the completed guards complex in the embassy compound:

The first signs of trouble, according to the cable, emerged when the kitchen staff tried to cook the inaugural meal in the new guard base on May 15. Some appliances did not work. Workers began to get electric shocks. Then a burning smell enveloped the kitchen as the wiring began to melt.

All the food from the old guard camp -- a collection of tents -- had been carted to the new facility, in the expectation that the 1,200 guards would begin moving in the next day. But according to the cable, the electrical meltdown was just the first problem in a series of construction mistakes that soon left the base uninhabitable, including wiring problems, fuel leaks and noxious fumes in the sleeping trailers.

"Poor quality construction . . . life safety issues . . . left [the embassy] with no recourse but to shut the camp down, in spite of the blistering heat in Baghdad," the May 29 cable informed Washington.

Such challenges with construction contracts inside the fortified enclave known as the Green Zone reflect the broader problems that have thwarted reconstruction efforts throughout war-torn Iraq.

Indeed. The issue highlights the problems of the entire reconstruction effort in Iraq. Even while American politicians grow increasingly opposed to reconstruction spending and complain about how the United States is spending so much on an 'ungrateful' Iraqi public, reports have repeatedly shown how most "reconstruction" money is spent on private defence contractors, projects are allocated not through open public bidding, but to companies (such as Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellog Brown and Root) to which administration officials have rather dubious personal ties.

This article from the American magazine MotherJones chronicles a few of the reconstruction "efforts" that have come to light. They include, amongst other things:

A bridge and oil pipeline that was destroyed in the American invasion in 2003. After a survey it was estimated that it could be repaired within five months at a cost of $5 million. An Iraqi construction company offered to do the job. (Note: Iraqi companies had repaired the fair more extensive infrastructure damage throughout the country after the first Gulf War within a year.) Instead it was decided that the pipeline should be made more secure and built under the ground. Halliburton was awarded a $75 million contract to do so (without bidding). 3 years later, all the money was spent and the job wasn't done. Investigations found that Halliburton knew their proposal was not technically possible - but they took the contract anyway. A new contract for $40 million was awarded to another American company. The bridge and pipeline have yet to be built.

The Parsons Corporation was given a $243 million no-bid contract to build 150 medical clinics. By January 2006 it was found that only 6 clinics were completed and only 14 more could possibly be completed before the money ran out. Parsons would "try" to complete them by April 2006 when it was leaving the country. This, by the way, was what the American Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction called the "most important program in the health sector".

But its not just private corporations which are burning money. Take this report from in the IHT:

Late Friday, the inspector general also released an audit report on a $147 million United States-led program to train and equip thousands of Iraqis to protect oil pipelines, electrical transmission lines and hundreds of key installations in both sectors.

Begun in September 2003, the effort, called Task Force Shield, was so disorganized that the auditors were never able to determine basic facts like how many Iraqis were trained, how many weapons were purchased and where much of the equipment ended up, the report says.

The Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has launched an investigation into Iraqi reconstruction (you can check out their website here) but its safe to say that apart from a slap on the wrist here and a cluck of disapproval there, its not going to do much in terms of the damage that's been done.

Halliburton's stock just keeps on rising, as it grows bloated on the profits of the Iraqi war - money that ultimately comes from American taxpayers. To further rub insult into injury, Halliburton has now shifted its headquarters to the tax-haven of Dubai. Its no wonder that some Americans are beginning to feel that the entire Iraq War was a costly, bloody way of subsidising corporate America.

IZ

Hometown Baghdad Comes to an End

The final episode of Hometown Baghdad was posted up on their site a few weeks ago.

Hometown Baghdad was a project to try and give people an idea about everyday life in Baghdad. The producers recruited three young Baghdadis and gave them cameras, and sort of like in a reality show, filmed them going about their everyday lives. The website says about the project:

The people profiled in 'Hometown Baghdad' are not the usual figures that dominate the media's coverage of the Iraq war: the politicians, the troops, the insurgents or the religious fanatics. They are young, smart ambitious Iraqis struggling with everyday concerns in the middle of a deadly war.

Apparently originally there was going to be a fourth person in the project - a girl. But because she lived in the green zone, there were problems getting permission to film so she dropped out.

Its an incredibly moving series. You really feel like you get to know the three guys very well, and through them, some of their friends and families. I would really recommend it to everyone, not just those who follow the news on Iraq regularly. Each episode is only a few minutes long.

You can watch all the episodes online here or download them.

IZ

PBS Documentary: Endgame

After watching PBS' documentary 'Endgame', I'm astonished by just how little we knew of the strategic thinking behind the war in Iraq. In the day to day news reports of bombings, kidnappings and "security" operations, its often difficult to discern the larger picture. Its a true case of not seeing the forest for the trees.

PBS has pieced together an incredibly informative documentary. You can watch the entire thing on their website, which also has transcripts of interviews, links to articles and a informative timeline. This is, so far, the definitive account of the changing U.S. strategy in Iraq. Some really important points emerge which really help to deepen our understanding of what has come before, and what is happening now.

By now it is common knowledge that the military and pentagon planners had no post-invasion plan to secure Iraq. There were plans around, most notably one drawn up by the State Department, which were never seriously examined by the war party. One key failure that followed from this was the unwillingness of the American forces to provide security for the Iraqi people after the Saddam government fell. In the looting and violence that followed, groups of armed Iraqi men started banding together to provide security for their neighbourhoods - in these were the seeds of the various militias and insurgent groups that abound today.

What the documentary reveals is that the Americans never planned to secure the Iraqi population. Rumsfeld and his military plans were always looking for the quick exit strategy - they insisted that the U.S. army should try and withdraw as soon as possible. This was known as the 'Light Footprint' strategy. The idea was to withdraw to safe bases, train a new Iraqi army who would take up the security task as soon as they were ready, and then pull out of the country. Rumsfeld refused to countenance alternative strategies of 'clear & hold'.

The effects of this were numerous. Firstly, it allowed the militias free reign, allowing them to gain credibility and leverage. Secondly it allowed places like Fallujah to become safe havens for insurgent groups. The Iraqi army never managed to take over security operations, and with no security, chaos and bloodshed grew, reconstruction efforts stalled completely and the nascent Iraqi government continued to lose credibility in the eyes of Iraqis. Perhaps most ominously, Al-Qaeda was successful in its declared aim of sparking off a sectarian civil war. These failures were compounded by a military leadership obsessed with the focus on an 'Exit strategy' and a presidential administration that refused to admit the truth of what was happening, both to the U.S. public and to itself and consequently refused to make any difficult decisions.

It was only in 2006 that the movement to shift to a different strategy gained momentum - that was to take U.S. troops out of their safe bases and into the streets - to provide security for Iraqi civilians and 'clear and hold' neighbourhoods. This strategy needed a huge commitment of troops and money and so Bush dithered. Until, that is, the 2006 elections which led to a resounding defeat for the Republicans. Galvanized by this defeat, Bush sacked Rumsfeld, the main opponent of a 'surge', a move ironically enough, supported by Democrats. The head of the military in Iraq was also removed. The new plan was adopted, but once again watered down. It was considered politically too unpalatable to commit the kinds of numbers of troops a 'clear and hold' strategy needed. Instead of a 'surge', the U.S. generals were to get a 'dribble'.

IZ

New Found Freedom

Oil workers went on strike in Iraq after the government refused to pay promised bonuses again. The Iraqi government displayed its keen understanding of freedom by issuing arrest warrants for union leaders and sending in soldiers to deal with threats to oil production "with an iron fist."

Obviously the Iraqi government has learnt from watching American capitalism at work in Iraq, what with American construction contractors using slave labour to build the American embassy and U.S. army camps in Iraq.

Interestingly enough the American embassy is the size of the vatican and has been described by Tom Engelhardt as "the Imperial Mothership dropping into Baghdad."

Here's a description of the embassy:

"This self-contained compound will include the embassy itself, residences for the ambassador and staff, PX, commissary, cinema, retail and shopping, restaurants, schools, fire station and supporting facilities such as power generation, water purification system, telecommunications, and waste water treatment facilities. In total, the 104 acre compound will include over twenty buildings including one classified secure structure and housing for over 380 families."

What? No slave pens?

IZ

Darfur and Humanitarian Intervention

How does humanitarian intervention work? Darfur is much on everyone's minds these days and humanitarian intervention is once more in demand. Alas, there seems to be some disagreement about how to go about intervening.

Pansy-ass programmes to provide humanitarian aid by naive goody-goodies is obviously not the American way of humanitarian intervention. We need real action here! The saying about good intentions and the paving on the road to An Uncomfortably Warm Place comes to mind.

I was all set to have a big post on Darfur, but I confess that I'm a little numbed. The uses and abuses of history, of the media; the sheer bloody, rampaging triumph of ignorance; the self-serving cynicism of the moral high ground... it just all gets me down.

But riddle me this: what is to be done when a government starts arming a variety of militias to ethnically cleanse areas in a region under its control, encourages slavery, and promotes bitter warfare with militias of other ethnic groups, leading to well over half a million deaths, almost four million displaced refugees (sorry, five million) and a humanitarian crisis spread over several countries?

Ans: Why, you distract attention by voicing concern about the plight of the poor victims of the fighting in Sudan of course (and back the group that refuses to stop fighting). Never mind the complexities of the situation.

IZ

Edit: Maybe the USA and Sudan have more in common than we knew?

How to Escalate Civil Wars 101

Here's an interesting article from the International Herald Tribune: 'U.S. Arming Sunnis in Iraq to Battle Old Qaeda Allies'. Essentially it relates how the U.S. military, delighted by infighting between Sunni nationalist militias and Sunni Jihadist militias has decided to arm the nationalists and turn a blind eye to their activities according to the dictum 'the enemy of my enemy, who is also my enemy and the enemy of my allies (who are also allies of another of my enemies) is my friend'. Guardian photojournalist Sean Smith witnessed the phenomenon which he recorded here amongst a series of other disturbing photos from Iraq.

After quoting glowing reports of success from American military commanders, the IHT article goes on to note:

But critics of the strategy, including some American officers, say it could amount to the Americans' arming both sides in a future civil war. The United States has spent more than $15 billion in building up Iraq's army and police force, whose manpower of 350,000 is heavily Shiite. With an American troop drawdown increasingly likely in the next year, and little sign of a political accommodation between Shiite and Sunni politicians in Baghdad, the critics say, there is a risk that any weapons given to Sunni groups will eventually be used against Shiites. There is also the possibility the weapons could be used against the Americans themselves.

The question is: who will the militias use these weapons against? Will it be the Americans? Or Shiites? Several months ago I had linked to this article which chronicled how many Sunni militias are leaving off attacking the Americans in order to attack Shiites. Last month, we learnt that Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Shiite Mahdi army was looking to forge ties with Sunni militias to try and build a pan-Iraqi movement to oppose U.S. occupation.

One suspects that once the weapons and money are in the hands of various local militia leaders, there will be no control over how they are used and who they are used against. In the fluctuating political landscape of a chaotic post-invasion Iraq, today's ally can be tomorrow's enemy and vice versa. And of course one would be naive to assume that armed gangs only use violence for political ends. Armed robbery, kidnappings, turf wars and vendettas are always going to be the primary use of weapons in a land where there so so much physical and economic insecurity. The Americans' claim that creating more armed gangs would help "to stabilize Iraq, and to speed American troops on their way home." Obviously, the second goal is the main one, the first, merely lip-service. After all, what does the Iraqi government have to say about this?

An Iraqi government official who was reached by telephone on Sunday said the government was uncomfortable with the American negotiations with the Sunni groups because they offered no guarantee that the militias would be loyal to anyone other than the American commander in their immediate area. "The government's aim is to disarm and demobilize the militias in Iraq," said Sadiq al-Rikabi, a political adviser to Maliki. "And we have enough militias in Iraq that we are struggling now to solve the problem. Why are we creating new ones?"

But who cares what the Iraqi government wants? They should just shut up and enjoy the freedom they have been given.

IZ

Rumsfeld Just Can't Get No Love...

Just in case anyone has not yet managed to understand how badly post-invasion affairs were handled in Iraq in 2003, a senior retired army officer in Australia who was posted in Iraq has characterised Rumsfeld's handling as verging on "criminal negligence" in an interview.

This article on the gentleman's remarks goes on to say:

Kelly — an expert on the law of occupation and peacemaking operations with experience in Somalia, Bosnia and East Timor — said he offered a plan to stop looting and protect infrastructure soon after former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was toppled.

"We knew exactly what needed to be done," Kelly told the ABC.

"Then Rumsfeld came in and overruled that concept and basically threw it out the window and that was where things really started to go wrong," he said.

The gentleman is now entering politics on a 'bring the troops home' platform. Surprise, surprise.

IZ

Is the Surge in Baghdad Succeeding?

Is the much-vilified 'troop-surge' in Baghdad working? Some people certainly seem to feel that it is. The drop in sectarian violence also seems appreciable, as the drop in numbers of bodies being found executed or tortured to death seems to attest. To be sure there has been death and carnage aplenty, but most of it has been outside Baghdad.

In Baghdad itself, there are the usual good news stories which may or may not illustrate some kind of trend, but more to the point is that US and Iraqi government forces seem to have taken over security in Sadr city and its militias have gone to ground. This an interesting article about the reaction of some American soldiers to the poverty of the slums of Sadr city which suffered throughout the 90s from the double affliction of US-sponsored economic sanctions and Saddam-sponsored neglect. Meanwhile efforts are also on in what are often called 'Sunni areas' to win over the populace. Here is an article about the 'surge' plan and the new commander of the American forces in Iraq.

What does all this mean? Are matters turning a corner in Iraq? Or is it that the chaos has simply moved outside Baghdad and will return once the surge is over? Have the militias stepped down permanently or will they return with a vengeance? And is the surge sustainable? Or will the growing clamour by Democrats bring it to an end prematurely? Here is a more pessimistic article that argues that Iraq is suffering from unsustainable mission creep. A counter argument is that the pacification of Baghdad will finally allow the government to start functioning properly, putting into action its plan for economic redevelopment. This will lead to the return of basic social services and the growth of trade which will help defuse many of the social problems Iraqis are facing.

I suppose time will tell.

IZ

Was it Worth It?

First Barack Obama, and now John McCain have been forced to apologise for saying that American lives "were wasted" in the Iraq war. Apparently they were diminishing the achievements of the American soldiers by saying that their deaths (3100 and counting) were a waste.

On the note of the achievements of the war, the UN now says that there are over two million Iraqi refugees who have fled the chaos in the country. On top of that there are an estimated 375,000 internally displaced refugees.

This article chronicles some of the hardships refugees have to face when they leave the country. Many of Iraq's vulnerable minorities are being targeted amidst the sectarian violence. This articles is about the plight of Sabian Mandaeans (monotheistic non-Christian followers of John the Baptist.)

That's a great deal of sacrifice for very little gain. Its tough to say what that is, if not a waste.

IZ

A Return to the Bad Old Days: U.S. restarts funding Al Qaeda

This news is just making me feel physically sick. Its not just that its wrong, or that its evil. Its not the knowledge that the U.S. government and its disgusting cronies in Saudi Arabia are doing their damnedest to ignite sectarian conflict. Or that they intend to use the same salafist thugs to do it that created Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashker-i-Jhangvi, etc. Its the feeling of being stuck in a time warp - of being powerless while the same damn thing is happening all over again.

Its been in the air in the last few months. The rhetoric not just of intolerance, but of hatred. The kind of rhetoric that leads to atrocities and ethnic cleansing. First it was in Iraq where Sunni extremists declared "The Jihad now is against the Shias, not the Americans". Of course U.S. policies help to fuel this kind of hatred. Then this rhetoric spread to the rest of the Arab world, with King Abdullah (Mighty Mouse) of Jordan spouting BS about the fears of a 'Shia crescent' in the Middle East. The usual third rate hack writers that make up the American intelligentsia responded with the typical smug platitudes about how they were proved right about how barbaric Muslims are - murdering and killing each other in sectarian conflict. Perhaps the most disgusting thing about the comments from these despicable revisionists of history was how they called this sectarian violence "self-generating".

Its not the fact that we create, arm, train, fund and indoctrinate murderers that generates this sectarian violence, no, of course not: its "self-generating".

When the conglomeration of dunces that is the Saudi government combined its money with the imperial ambitions of the United States government throughout the 80s to CREATE a new Islamic ideology whose ENTIRE aim was to hate and use violence; when they funded an entire network of schools and madressahs throughout the world that indoctrinated people with this ideology in an effort to inoculate them from the dangers of communism (and also inoculated them to ideas of humanity, tolerance, liberalism, equality of women and rationality along the way); when they armed, trained and organised groups who went through this indoctrination and unleashed them upon Afghanistan, and then left them to their own devices so that they went on to try and fuck up India, Pakistan, Israel, Syria, Egypt, Algeria... and yes, eventually New York; when it became blindingly obvious that it is EVIL in the extreme to have created and promoted this ideology; one would have hoped, somewhere, in the recesses of some stupid piggy mind of some political theorist or policy maker somewhere in the halls of power, it would have occurred that this was not something to be done again...

No. Alas. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia and other allies are now seeking to "redirect" Middle East strategy and once again funnel money and provide training for those very groups of extremists that the U.S. is supposedly fighting in the 'war on terror' in the hopes of directing their energies more productively against Shias. Seymour Hersh has an illuminating article in the New Yorker. Here's a sample:

The Saudi royal family has been, by turns, both a sponsor and a target of Sunni extremists, who object to the corruption and decadence among the family’s myriad princes. The princes are gambling that they will not be overthrown as long as they continue to support religious schools and charities linked to the extremists. The Administration’s new strategy is heavily dependent on this bargain.

Nasr compared the current situation to the period in which Al Qaeda first emerged. In the nineteen-eighties and the early nineties, the Saudi government offered to subsidize the covert American C.I.A. proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Hundreds of young Saudis were sent into the border areas of Pakistan, where they set up religious schools, training bases, and recruiting facilities. Then, as now, many of the operatives who were paid with Saudi money were Salafis. Among them, of course, were Osama bin Laden and his associates, who founded Al Qaeda, in 1988.

This time, the U.S. government consultant told me, Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.”

Just read the stuff about Lebanon. Its so disgusting. When last Saudi Arabia meddled in Lebanon, joining Israel in funding and arming the Phalange and islamic militias against the secular Pan-arab threat of the PLO and the Shiite party Amal, the destabilisation led to the country sliding into war in the the late 70s that lasted for over a decade. And here they are proposing to do it again. And of course the great hypocrites in Washington are eagerly going along with it because the last thing they want is democracy and the right of self-determination for the lowly arab races. No, what they want is 'stability'.

For those who are not in the know: whenever politicians spout shit about wanting 'stability' what they are saying is that they don't want things in a region or country to change. So if there is a corrupt dictatorship (oh, say like the one in Saudi Arabia) which does nothing but grow fat and decadent on billions of dollars in oil profits while large chunks of the country's population do not have access to education, or proper housing or even water or electricity 24 hours a day, and these people want a change in their situation, those same politicians oppose any change. Why? Stability!

The funny thing is that this policy ties up so well with that of arch-terrorist Musab al Zarqawi (formerly head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq). In 2004 he wrote a letter to Osama bin Laden explaining his strategy in Iraq. The U.S. government intercepted the letter and put up a translation on their website. Go ahead, have a read. Get an eyeful of all that hatred for Shias (and Jews, Sufis, Americans and Tartars!) Pay special close attention to the bit about how by attacking Shias, he wants to goad Shias into taking up arms against Sunnis, provoke sectarian warfare and eventually force the Americans into open conflict with the Shias.

"Our fighting against the Shi`a is the way to drag the [Islamic] nation into the battle.... If we are able to strike them with one painful blow after another until they enter the battle, we will be able to [re]shuffle the cards. Then, no value or influence will remain to the Governing Council or even to the Americans, who will enter a second battle with the Shi`a. This is what we want, and, whether they like it or not, many Sunni areas will stand with the mujahidin. Then, the mujahidin will have assured themselves land from which to set forth in striking the Shi`a in their heartland..."

Now the Americans KNOW what Zarqawi was aiming to do. They put his freakin' letter up on their freakin' State Department's website. But... well... blow me down, they are doing exactly what he hoped they would do - following a policy that he has actively worked for: War against Shias. I mean, heck, Zarqawi wanted to exterminate Shias, but even he couldn't have dared hope that the Americans would give his ilk arms, training and cash to do it! Surely its too implausible to suggest that American foreign policy was being directed by Zarqawi and Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Surely its also too implausible that Zarqawi was serving American foreign policy in Iraq? Sectarian war. Surely not...

I could go on about this, but I can't right now. Its too dreadful, too appalling to think about. Do I sound melodramatic? A quick glimpse at the string of suicide bombings and sectarian attacks in Pakistan over the last few months is just a reminder of the fallout from the idiocy of this kind of policy. And I personally remember the bad old days when a day wouldn't go by without the murder of some Shia professional or family. The days when, for example, my mother-in-law's uncle was warned by a government security agency that he was on a list of targets for assassination and advised him to leave the country because they could not provide him with protection! The days when one's own family name could implicate you.

Ah yes, the good old days. Thank you USA for all you have given us. Just don't come bombing us when someone decides to repay you for your gifts in kind.

IZ

Blogging Iraq

I've been haunting some old Iraq blogs from way back when. This one is by an English electrician who blogged her visit in 2004 to do some work for a TV station. Baghdad Burning is exceptionally well written and has carried on till the end of 2006. This one is by a young Iraqi (film-maker?) blogging in 2004. Here's one excerpt:

I have been tuning to AFN IRAQ much more often than the radio we Iraqis are supposed to be listening to. They played Rage Against the Machine’s testify.
It is a bit scary to have a military radio that plays this song here in baghdad Anyway, it is very interesting radio. It is so very American it gets disorienting. And the little public announcement things in between songs are almost Monty Python-esque if they weren’t meant to be dead serious. Example:

[Sound of vehicle, a humvee I guess, in the background]
Female voice: I am really tired I haven’t slept well last night. Ooh look…can you hold on to my [some weapon or other] while I take a picture of this.

[Sound of snoring]
Female voice: Is sergeant (so-and-so) still sleeping? He had a tough night.

Darth Vader voice: Being on military convoy is a serious situation, always wear your seat belts, maintain speed and distance. And always stay alert.

There are little Arabic lessons thrown in here and there to “learn the local language and be part of the world around you”. Today’s words were Hello, Good morning and Good bye. I would have thought that after a year here we would have moved to a bit more complex vocabulary. And there are also reminders to military personnel to keep the classified information they have to themselves since “We *are* in a war here.” Sweet sounding DJ Courtney made sure we remember to remember by playing Nickelback’s “this is how you remind me”.

Anyone seen 'Good Morning Vietnam'?

IZ

We Have Proof! Just... Not Real Proof!

After all that chest-thumping by the Bush administration, a much-ballyhooed briefing that was going to reveal the evidence of Iran's role in attacks on U.S. troops is delayed... again. Apparently it was lacking "focus on the facts."

While Iranian involvement in Iraq can't be doubted, in most cases they are backing the same parties that the U.S.A is. So why the sabre-rattling? Well, apart from the fact that the neo-con agenda always included an attack on Iran ("the road to Tehran is through Baghdad" as one neo-con said), it also helps to ease pressure on both the administration and the military for their inability to bring things under control in Iraq. Why are things such a mess? It's Iran's fault!

With American credibility so low on the world stage after the hysteria over phantom WMDs, another war based on false allegations just isn't a good idea. Even some senators have voiced scepticism about the allegations and have urged caution. Might not be a bad idea.

IZ

Why We Couldn't Put Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again

Sometimes I hate being right.

Back, way back in 2003 when the U.S. war machine was bearing down on the tottering Saddam regime, I had a conversation with R., a good friend, and fellow worrier about global politics.

The gist of my part of the conversation was that while the Americans would occupy Iraq easily enough, they wouldn’t be able to put humpty-dumpty back together again. There would be serious resentment amongst the population and anger at the American forces (yes, even I failed to see the size and bloodiness of the “insurgency” that would unfold over the next 4 years) and the Americans would find that instead of creating their imagined haven of peace and democracy in the Middle East, there would be bloodshed, attacks on the Americans and bombings aimed at fracturing the tottering state. The American public would lose interest in Bush’s mission, the anti-war protestors would gather, and the money for reconstruction would grind to a halt. The Grand Enterprise would be abandoned and there would be two major effects that would reverberate throughout global politics:

The first would be the descent of Iraq into anarchy, with all the consequent hatred, violence, anti-Americanism and resentment that would bleed into the rest of the world.

Second, American justifications would only confirm their own myths. Instead of critically looking at American power and how it is being used globally, the blame would fall on the ‘nature’ of Islam and the Arabs. Inevitably those same self-fulfilling prophecies of difference based on ‘Ideology’ would come to the fore. It will be said that it was because Islam is anti-democratic, or irrational, or barbaric, that Iraq could not become a democratic nation as America decreed it should be….

Sometimes I hate being right.

IZ