Murtha Urges Limited Funding
Bombing Kills 10 in Shiite Sadr City
Iraqi guerrillas killed 3 US troops and wounded 2 on Wednesday.
Guerrilla violence killed some 85 persons in Iraq on Wednesday. Reuters reports:
' BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed 10 people and wounded 35 near a police station in the Baghdad Shi'ite stronghold of Sadr City, police said. . .
BAGHDAD - Thirty bodies have been found around Baghdad in the past 24 hours, police said. All had been shot.
BAGHDAD - Several mortar rounds landed in Abu Dshir, a residential district in southern Baghdad, killing three people and wounding eight, police said.
Ten bodies were found in Baquba.
John Edwards argues in his campaign commercials that the best response to Bush's veto of the supplemental spending bill on Iraq and the failure on Wednesday of Congress to overturn it, is to keep sending the same bill back to Bush.
It is satisfying to say so, but it probably isn't good political tactics. When Newt Gingrich played politics with the budget under Clinton and even shut down DC, it was Congress that took the hit in the polls. Just being obstreperous isn't very attractive.
Murtha is suggesting that they don't fund a whole year, maybe only two months. That sort of conditionality, whatever its mechanism, seems right to me.
Foreign ministers from the region and the world are gathering in Sharm El Sheikh for a conference on Iraq.
Condi Rice and the Iranians will conduct some bilateral talks at that conference, which could prove momentous.
The former chair of the International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq, Michael Bell, tells the NYT that Iraq reconstruction are doomed to failure as long as the lack of security continues. The article also points out that it is hard to scare up donors who will give billions when they see what has happened to the projects that went before.
This point is one reply we should make to those who argue that that bombings in Iraq are just for show and only mimic a real war without being one. They hve real world consequences on things like whether billions flow in to the government or not. (Not to mention that it is a stupid argument in the first place. Bombs that kill hundreds are war, not just its simulacrum.)
Iraq is now on the list of countries where there isn't sufficient religious freedom.
The British are only now figuring out that they were Cheney'd! Blair would reach an understanding with Bush, and then mysteriously it would be overturned when he got back to the White House. Dick apparently keeps W. on a short leash.
An author of the Iraq oil bill has now turned against it.
Labels: Iraq War
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/03/2007 12:35:00 AM
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11 Comments:
When Newt Gingrich played politics with the budget under Clinton and even shut down DC, it was Congress that took the hit in the polls.
I don't disagree with very much at all on your blog, Prof. But I think there is a big, big difference between withholding funding for an immoral war that is killing people every day, and playing political games with budget figures.
How would the US public react if the Dems just sent the same bill back again? Why don't we find out?
Even better, toughen the bill up a bit and THEN send it back!
What good is Geoff Hoon doing by lying about 'believing' that Saddam was 'amassing WMD'? For instence they would have know his maximum production capacity because it was British, the French and German companies that built his WMD making abilities; and they knew what they had destroyed in 1991-2002 in the various attacks on Iraq.
Simple arithmatic (what was built versus what was destroyed) would in itself indicate what was left (which turned out to be nothing).
There is also the WHITEWASHED scandal of the 'DODGEY DOSSIER' and the 'DOWNING STREET MEMO'.
Hoon just cant admit it, but I know a crime against the Nurmberg Principles when I see them. The Allies hung Germans after WW2 for 'planning and waging agressive war', I just want to see our dirty laundry aired so that we can at least prove that we are really the 'Free, Democratic West' with all those high minded principles that go with it! I dont even want anyone to go to jail; I just want the guilty publicly shamed and reperations paid to Iraq.
I want OUR crime and it is OUR crime admitted to.
If they send a very short-term supplemental as Murtha wants to do, they should send the Reid/Fiengold bill, funding a safe and orderly redeployment from Iraq, at the same time. The Reid/Feingold bill is what the American people want. The Democratic leadership should make the Bush administration and their Neoconservative allies deal with that.
When Newt Gingrich played politics with the budget under Clinton and even shut down DC, it was Congress that took the hit in the polls. Just being obstreperous isn't very attractive.
There is a huge difference in where Clinton was in the polls and where Bush is now. Clinton was popular and the Republicans took the hit when they played hardball. Bush's polls are pathetic. By extension, so are congressional Republicans. You're tone deaf on this one.
Isn't it interesting that only a month ago, Nancy Pelosi was called a traitor for talking to the Syrians, yet today Condi Rice is doing the exact same thing?
When your own generals are speaking up for the enemy it's probably time to pack it in...
Surrender Bushie!
UK and US 'must admit defeat and leave Iraq'
Retired British general (of HRMs Surrender Monkey Fuseliers) argues US and allies should 'admit defeat' and leave before more soldiers die.
And just announced on CNN..Sen Byrd is on his way to the Floor with an amendment to deauthorize the war.
At his side - cosponsor Hillary Clinton
Instead of describing the British government as having been "Cheney'd", don't you think "Dicked" would be more accurate?!
Re: funding for reconstruction
Major infrastructure projects in Baghdad are probably doomed because of the lack of security, and your point about the bombings as being a deliberate tactic of war is exactly accurate.
However, the other factor to consider is the terrible job done by the Administration - and the UN. The Bush Administration's utter incompetence at reconstruction remains on stark display in New Orleans, where there are no bombs and no Iraqis on whom to blame failure. The failure of 7 of 8 projects in Iraq may say more about the incompetence of the Bush Administration than the conditions on the ground in Iraq. The UN also has been inefficient and cowardly. By basing in safer parts of the country, and by presenting itself more assertively to the EU and Japan as an effective alternative to the US, and by funding non-government organizations rather than corrupt ministries, it might have had both more resources and more success.
It's a shame too, because it is actually possible to accomplish quite alot in Iraq with relief and development assistance. Instead of focusing on buildings, donors should focus on building human capital - training, supervising and assuring that materials and salaries get to Iraqis doing critical work. There's a whole lot that could be done with food for peace, especially if one funded labor-intensive projects like small-scale water projects and basic sanitation. It's actually very easy to work in some parts of the center and south (Karbala, Nasiriyyah) and in Kurdistan. There's actually a lot of work going on in Iraq, but most of it is being done with small budgets, through international and local NGOs - the same way as is done in the rest of the world. The megaprojects are failures, the microprojects are often quite successful.
Jim didn't listen to his old friend Bill....
KABUL (Reuters) - President Hamid Karzai warned on Wednesday that Afghan patience was wearing thin over the killing of civilians by Western forces hunting Taliban guerrillas, saying further deaths would lead to bad consequences.
Nearly 60 civilians have been killed in raids by U.S.-led troops in the past week, Afghan officials say, sparking four days so far of anti-American, anti-Karzai protests.
"We can no longer accept civilian casualties. It is becoming a heavy burden," Karzai told reporters at his heavily fortified palace in the capital, Kabul, when asked about the killings.
"It has become too hard for us."
The First World still has no clue when it comes to fighting Fourth Gen War in the Third...as one wag put it, "throw out all the counterinsurgency manuals, they're mostly written by losers in the Western militaries"
Dear Jim,
I hope this autumn finds you well and enjoying the rigours of chateau campaigning. No wonder the Europeans fought so many wars; they had such lovely places to fight them in.
In another part of the world, less lovely, the snows will soon bring campaigning to an end. As winter will offer some time for adjustment there, I thought I should say to you what you said to General Pace: if NATO continues on its present course, you’re going to face a debacle and be part of the debacle in Afghanistan.
It is not news to you that the Taliban has the initiative. What your staff may not be telling you is that NATO is helping the Taliban stage its comeback. NATO is botching the war in Afghanistan in ways remarkably similar to those the U.S. has employed in Iraq. It is conducting massive sweeps, bombing villages, and alienating locals. It may not be too late to turn it around; no one is better positioned to do so than yourself. But if you are to avoid presiding over one defeat while Pete Pace presides over another, you need to act along the following lines:
1. Stop fighting the Pashtun. The war in Afghanistan is in part a civil war, and the Pashtun always win Afghan civil wars. NATO’s presence won’t change that outcome, although it may delay it. If NATO doesn’t want to end up on the losing side, it needs to make peace with the Pashtun, then if possible ally with the Pashtun. As NATO’s supreme commander, that ought to be your main strategic objective.
2. Stop attacking the Taliban. Of course NATO forces must respond when attacked, but don’t look for fights. Every engagement with the Taliban, won or lost, moves you farther away from peace with the Pashtun. Drop the sweeps, “big pushes,” etc. Stop talking about body counts; those bodies are almost all Pashtun.
A story in today’s Washington Post shows the right way to do it. It reports a deal between British troops and local elders:
Under the agreement reached in the small town of Musa Qala, in Helmand province, British troops will not launch offensives. In return, the elders will press the Taliban to stop attacks, a NATO spokesman said Monday.
“If we are not attacked, we have no reason to initiate offensive operations. The tribal elders are using their influence on the Taliban,” NATO spokesman Mark Laity said.
U.S. forces in Afghanistan will hate this, but those forces are now under NATO command, which is to say your command, Jim. Make them stop doing things we know don’t work, like sweeps.
3. Remember one of John Boyd’s favorite admonitions: we don’t want to be attacking the village, we want to be in the village. Operationally, NATO’s focus should be a variant of the Vietnam CAP program. The units in the village should be backed by mobile reserves that can fight battles of encirclement (U.S. forces can’t, but maybe someone else in your coalition can). When the Taliban hit a village, the object should be to encircle them and take prisoners, not kill them. One turned prisoner is better than many bodies.
4. Eliminate all airstrikes. Not only will they continue to hit civilians, they make NATO into a monster. Every airstrike, no matter how “successful,” is a blow against NATO at the moral level of war.
5. Finally, accept that Afghanistan will remain Afghanistan. It will not become Switzerland. Stop promoting things like “womens’ rights,” i.e. Feminism, that tell the locals we want to force Hell down their throats. At best, NATO may be able to leave Afghanistan what it once was, a state with a weak central government, powerful local war lords, a narco economy and chronic, low-level civil war. It would probably help if the monarchy were restored. Anything more as a strategic objective is unattainable.
To accomplish any of this, you will need to tell the U.S. military and Washington to pound sand. Remember, you don’t work for them any more. What are they going to do to you, shave your head and send you to Parris Island?
Best Regards,
Bill Lind
I have to agree with the first post, and against Juan Cole: when the Republican congress refused to fund the federal budget, Americans who were dependent on that budget were hurt. Most Americans aren't affected one way or the other by the war in Iraq, and won't complain. In fact, most of us will be happy to save the 100 Billion financing something we would rather not happen anyway. Of course, the war profiters will scream bloody murder. The Dems should tighten the screws -send an appropriation that mandates shutting down Guantanamo and maybe mandates criminal penalties for torture.
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