18 Dead in Baquba Battle;
Rice Urges Iraq to be more like Vietnam (???!!)
AP says that Secretary of State Condi Rice asserted Saturday that Iraqis only have a future if they stay within a single state. She pointed to Vietnam's success in reforming its economy and making up with the United States and held it out as a model to Iraq.
Whaaat?
Rice surely knows that the way in which Vietnam achieved national unity was . . . for the radical forces to drive out the Americans, overthrow pro-American elements, and conquer the whole country. They only went in for this capitalism thing fairly recently. Rice, a Ph.D. and former Provost of Stanford University, shouldn't be saying silly things like that Iraq should emulate Vietnam. I guess if you hang around with W. long enough, you catch whatever it is that he has.
Speaking of which, UK PM Tony Blair admitted to David Frost on Aljazeera's English channel that Iraq has been a disaster:
' Mr Blair was challenged by Sir David over the violence in Iraq, saying it had "so far been pretty much of a disaster".
The prime minister replied: "It has, but you see what I say to people is why is it difficult in Iraq? " '
His office now says he was just acknowledging the question. Sure.
AP reports that US and Iraqi Army forces fought Sunni Arab guerrillas for many hours in the streets of Baquba on Saturday. Rocket propelled grenades and light arms fire caromed through the city, leaving 18 persons dead and 19 wounded. It was unclear how many of the casualties were guerrillas.
The long-violent mixed Sunni-Shiite city of Baquba in equally mixed Diyala province has been the scene of continued sectarian warfare that has worsened in recent weeks.
US troops also searched two sections the Shiite slum of Sadr City (East Baghdad) for the hostages taken last Tuesday from the ministry of higher education building.
Reuters reports that the Ministry claims that 66 hostages are still unaccounted for. Several released hostages say they had been tortured, and had seen other captives killed.
Big car bombs wounded scores in Tikrit and Mosul, Reuters reports, among other political violence in Iraq, including the discovery of 20 bodies in Baghdad and more bodies elsewhere. Wire services were able to identify 53 persons killed out of the many more that must have been.
Guerrillas assassinated a Shiite politican and his wife on Saturday. Ali al-Adhadh had been a high official in the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the neo-Baathist guerrilla group, the Army of Islam, has threatened to continue in attempts to hit the Iraqi government.
Al-Hayat also says that the arrest warrant issued for Sunni cleric Harith al-Dhari, now in Amman, continued to stir controversy. Al-Dhari, a leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars, stands accused of stirring sectarian passions. The Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front demanded that the warrant be withdrawn. The National Iraqi List of Iyad Allawi also criticized it. Mahmud al-Mashhadani, speaker of the Iraqi parliament, expressed his anger and disgust with the warrant.
On the other hand, Abdul Sattar Abu Rishah, a prominent member of the Tribal Grouping of al-Anbar, said he was suing al-Dhari for calling his organization "a pack of thieves and highway robbers."
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/19/2006 12:38:00 AM
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6 Comments:
There is another interesting parallel between Vietnam and Iraq. Up to the time US decided to normalize its relationship with Vietnam, the US politicians favorite issue was the MIA/KIA issues with Vietnam. All of sudden the issue died even though no prisoners ever returned from Vietnam.
...Sorry if I sent this through twice...I found Blair's follow up to be quite revealing:
"Mr Blair said: "It has, but you see, what I say to people is, 'why is it difficult in Iraq?' It's not difficult because of some accident in planning, it's difficult because there's a deliberate strategy - al-Qaida with Sunni insurgents on one hand, Iranian-backed elements with Shia militias on the other - to create a situation in which the will of the majority for peace is displaced by the will of the minority for war."
Substitute a few key words and he speaks the truth about the run up to the invasion:
...It's not difficult because of some accident in planning, it's difficult because there was a deliberate strategy - American and British Governments on one hand, Israel-backing Neo Cons with Iraqi expatriots on the other - to create a situation in which the will of the majority for peace was displaced by the will of the minority for war."
Even the bit about an "accident in planning" not being at fault is accurate. There is a lot of criticism about the lack of post invasion planning and poor execution which, while true, incorrectly (in my view) assumes that an illegal war of agression can turn out a-ok if only it's done "right."
Despite electoral defeats for the Republicans I'm not confidant that the Democratic leadership is willing to admit that the war was wrong and that it needs to be ended ASAP. By "ended" I mean that the removal of the U.S. and British military presence should begin immediately.
Whether one prefers an immediate or phased withdrawal, I feel that it is our duty to hold the Democrats accountable if they stall and stay with "W" in Bizarro World where Vietnamization worked and throwing divisions into the cauldron won Stalingrad for Hitler and Hanoi for Westmoreland, McNamara, Kissenger, et. al. ...or would have if only they hadn't been quitters.
We have to stop funding this atrocity. We need legislators who will refuse to approve this insane subsidising of the Military Industrial Axis of Rapaciousness even though it and the Enforcement and Imprisonment Industry are the only things propping up our economy.
Be fair: uniting Iraqis in their hatred of America has been W's plan all along.
(1) No one thinks the Army of Islam is Baathist or neo-Baathist. Unless you are accidentally toeing the US government line that any group opposing the regime is "Baathist or takfiiri" by definition.
(2) The government says this was an investigation subpoena, not an arrest warrant, so al-Dhari does not "stand accused" of anything. Except in the ludicrous New York Times hit piece this morning. More background here.
"Rice, a Ph.D. and former Provost of Stanford University, shouldn't be saying silly things like that Iraq should emulate Vietnam."
Iraq should be emulating Vietnam! What's strange is hearing Bush and Rice say it. I'm not sure they follow their own logic far enough to realize that what they are arguing for is American military defeat, as a precondition for reconstruction and future rapprochement.
I guess this is what failed leadership looks like. And these guys have two more years to twist in the wind.
In a follow-up to what our friend, eatbees said about Iraq emulating Vietnam, I thought it instructive to take another Henry-come-lately regurgitation of discredited conventional wisdom -- by the influence-peddling Dr. Strangelove Kissinger -- and reinterpret it through a Vietnamese perspective.
From a recent BBC interview by Andrew Marr on 11/19/2006.
HENRY KISSINGER: "If you mean by clear military victory an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible."
Now, as I presume the Vietnamese victors of their First (against the French) and Second (against the Americans) Indochina Wars would paraphrase and correct Dr. Strangelove's arrogant presumptions for the encouragement of any Iraqi patriots who might wish to emulate them:
"We mean by 'military victory,' an Iraqi government that Iraqis can establish; whose writ runs across the whole country; that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that has absolutely nothing to do with the irrelevant political processes of "the democracies" and what they will or will not support. Believe us Vietnamese, such a victory over American colonial imperialism is not only entirely possible, but a virtual certainty."
Although both President Bush and Secretary of State Rice have not the wit to see it, their obtuse remarks on the subjects of Vietnam and Iraq do indeed imply the victorious Vietnamese -- and not the corrupt Kissingerian -- version of historical lessons learned.
The Iraqis would do very well indeed to emulate the Vietnamese: namely, defeat the Americans first and win independence; then make up with America when another failed President has to escape his own enraged citizenry by making meaningless photo-op pilgrimages abroad to distract domestic attention from his historic bungling.
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