One Million Iraqis Killed;
Humanitarian Crisis of Vast Proportions;
6 Bombings in Baghdad
Ambassador Marc Ginsburg is astonished that John McCain could win in Florida on a platform of a Hundred Years War in Iraq and phony slogans about "victory" that McCain is careful never to define. In my view, McCain's mantra about "victory" in Iraq is the 2008 equivalent of Nixon having a "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War in 1968. Somebody should please ask McCain what "victory" would look like exactly and how he would get there. Intensively patrolling some neighborhoods and cutting them off from traffic with blast walls are not measures that can be kept up for very long. Then what?
Besides, someone please do me a favor and actually read the list of bombings and killings appended at the end of this post, occuring in downtown Baghdad and elsewhere, and tell me why John McCain thinks things are just hunky dory there. Is it a racist thing where it doesn't matter how many Iraqis are killed as long as US troops aren't? Even then, 5 US troops were blown up on Monday. Yeah, that's real calm.
A new professional poll carried out by a British firm in Iraq concludes that excess deaths from violence since March 19, 2003 through summer 2007 came to just over 1 million. Note that excess deaths from violence do not necessarily imply that they are directly war-related. Thus, murders of a criminal sort, tribal feuding, and so forth would be included. Since Bush interfered with the establishment of a strong new government after his invasion, he promoted the sort of insecurity that permitted high rates of violence, whether political, criminal or war-related. This poll tracks with the findings of the studies of Gilbert Burnham and Les Roberts, published in the Lancet and disputes lower numbers found by a recent WHO study (which, however, only ran through June 2006 and was limited solely to civilians--this British study goes to 2007 and seems to include everyone.)
The British findings are also consistent with estimates of between 1 million and 2 million widows in Iraq. These widows, many of them young, face extreme poverty without a breadwinner. As the Iraqi street has been captured by religious parties and militias, gender segregation and female seclusion have increased, which prevents single young women from going out to work in mixed-gender settings like stores and workshops. In short, Iraq is being Talibanized by Bush's war.
Reuters points out that almost none of the widows are getting any welfare payments from the Iraqi government. It adds: "A report by aid groups found that 43 percent of Iraqis lived in "absolute poverty". Four million people needed food assistance and only one in three children under five had access to safe drinking water."
A new poll finds that the percentage of Americans who think the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein was worth it to the US declined from 35% to only 32% between December and January. The percentage who thought it was not worth it rose from 56% to 59% according to the same poll. It turns out that the American public is not impressed with a mere reduction in violence nowadays from apocalyptic levels last year this time. They want to know why we went there in the first place, and why their sacrifice of blood and treasure was worthwhile. No one, including McCain really has an answer for that.
Bush signed a law forbidding him from spending money to make permanent bases in Iraq but at the same time issued a signing statement making clear he had no intention of paying any attention to that or several other provisions in the legislation. What do you call a leader unconstrained by his legislature? An absolute monarch. I thought we had a revolution to get rid of that sort of thing.
McClatchy reports political violence for Wednesday:
' Baghdad
A member of the national police was killed and another four members were injured in an IED explosion that targeted their patrol near al Mustansiriyah University in Waziriyah neighborhood east Baghdad around 7:00 am.
Two civilians were injured in 2 IEDs explosion in al Nidhal Street downtown Baghdad around 7:15 am.
Five members of the national police were injured in 2 IEDs explosion that targeted their patrol underneath Ghadeer bridge in Ghadeer neighborhood east Baghdad around 7:30 am.
Three civilians were injured when a mortar shell hit al Mansour neighborhood west Baghdad around 8:00
A joint force (Iraqi and US army) raided the office of Atheer cell phone network in Mansour neighborhood west Baghdad today afternoon and arrested 8 employees
Police found three anonymous bodies in Baghdad . . .
Kirkuk
A police source said that a police patrol found two head of men near one of the factories in Doz town south of Kirkuk today morning. The source said that the two heads were [of] two Turkmen men called Sabah Fadel and Mohannad Jum’a who were kidnapped a week ago.
Anbar
A member of Abo Zakarya Sahwa office (Abo Zakarya awakening office ) was killed and three others were wounded in a suicide car bomb that targeted the office in Thiraa’ Dijla area northwest of Baghdad on Tuesday afternoon.
Mosul
Gunmen killed Dr. Khaleel Ibraheem, the head of the Sharia in the college of the Islamic sciences in Musol University and one of his students in al Mishraq neighborhood east Mosul city today afternoon.
Diyala
Gunmen attacked a house in Bardaniyah village, 7 Kms north of Baquba city killing the father and injuring his two sons and his daughter.
Gunmen attacked abdul Hameed village, 10 Kms north of Baquba kidnapping three civilians.'
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/31/2008 12:30:00 AM
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20 Comments:
Please stop blaming Bush or McCain, or the rest of them.
Blame the voters who put them there knowingly and freely. Without the votes, Bush and the others would have been just some repulsive individuals with no means to do harm.
Who says things are going to improve when bush leaves office? McCain is a very frighening man with big war plans. Americans are blood thirsty and this could easily propel McCain to the ultimate victory.
The Mark of McCain Again
One of the most telling moments in Mr McCain's political career was when he shared with Younger George that big 'bear hug' (where and when I recall not; perhaps here*). Despite the current pResident's driving Gone John off of the political stage in So Carolina through lies and distortions in 2000, there seems to have been some reconcilation, reminiscent of Gone John's renewed affection for the Vietnamese. As written by me before, there are quite a number of oddities surrounding this desire to accommodate the former POW masters, perhaps more than has been told in public. Gone John seems to have this 'thing' about sidling up to his tormentors and those who would otherwise endanger his life, for real or for politics. What kind of learned behaviours would we, as Americans, have to deal with?
I would suggest that the importance of Gone John's support of indefinite conflicts has less to do with any real foreign policy issues than to redeem his own psyche and ego of what did (or did not) happen in Vietnam, particularly after he was captured. Just as Younger George had some 'failings' during the same time frame, notably his inability to perform as a real warrior with others who could and did, Gone John also sat out much of the war, not participating in the heroics that made many, even 'Duke' Cunningham, legends in their own times (but not for the same kind of 'carrot and stick' exercises that got the 'Duke' in trouble later, again kneeling to those who later controlled his destiny). Gone John was 'gone' from the scenes of the action, 'gone' to seed, 'gone' over, 'gone' in terms of his steeliness as an American warrior. And, now, to echo Ronnie Raygun, he's 'gone' again.
One person who explored these kinds of issues was Colonel David Hackworth, a Vietnam conflict hero in his own right. There is a recently started website that also deals with the Gone John issues, found at
www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com . One article by Colonel Hackworth was resurrected from some time ago, almost eight years to the day, entitled, "Are McCain's handlers playing the wrong card?"** As I have been, Colonel Hackworth was concerned about the tossed salad medal spread on McCain's chest, something that the Colonel found out to be 'SOP' for returning POWs. Let it be known that the former prisoners of war should be accorded all of the accolades that accompany their incarceration. Yet, using an exaggerated sense of self and duty is not something that sits well with inquiring minds, especially when the psychologies of those held captive may have been damaged irreparably and without hopes of seeing some sort of positive conclusion. As has been noted in various other treatments, Gone John has a nasty temper when aroused. He also had the reputation for doing reckless things when performing actual active duty as an anchor clanker fly boy.
All this leads one to consider just how much there is to some of the candidates with their striving for legitimacy and how they accomplish their legacies. We know that it was the confluence of events surrounding the NYC WTC buildings' collapse that brought out the 'warrior' in Younger George. Up until then, he might have only been a 'worrier' and not just on the weekends or in Crawford, Texas. Long ago, I made the comment about BillJeff Blythe IV Clinton who managed to stay out of the military but achieved some sort of legitimacy by becoming the CinC of the Arkansas Nation Guard. Next, we found Younger George as the CinC, a name he refused others of long-standing military careers and experience, the CinC of all of the American military. Now, we have Gone John who seeks to achieve something along the same lines but perhaps on an even greater scale inasmuch as his own personal history or CV has not yet been effectively scrubbed to hide all of his faults and failings.
We need not forget that Younger George almost got all of his own pseudomilitary records cleaned up and eventually did hide all of his gubernatorial records at his father's Presidential Library until a suit was filed and won to allow people access to them. Further, Younger George also sealed records having to do with former Presidents' terms of office for an indefinite period of time. 'Gone' may have to do with a more successful Stalinisation of American history, allowing for the disappearing of records and statements about a particular politician's past.
Gone John has a lot to accomplish as President of the United States, but one cannot help but suspect that most of it is personal. A calling to public service should not have to include a need for personal redemption and motivations for accomplishing same. In Gone John, we see the same sorts of things that afflicted Bob Dole (yes, he with the 'E.D.' problem, not forgetting his spouse's initials), complete with some lacking of strength in his arm or two. This harkens back to the FDR dayze when the Chief Executive was impaired physically, perhaps another something else in the psyche that makes these people more popular with the voters. While FDR hid his, the others wave (so to say) theirs around like flags. The problem that most had with BillJeff was his consummate manliness that others could only hope to emulate, the Presidency having taken on a passive role, pimped by the Republican Party to take on all comers in a weird sense. Again, we have the limp wimps laying lame claims to the same, the names merely changed.
The idea is to present to the American people and the World a man or woman who is fully capable of performing his or her duties and responsibilities. Ergo, FDR hid his defects as did JFK. The Republicans have had their 'Checkers'd' Nixons as well as the nodding Reagans and 'Poppy' Bushes who have needed an 'Iron Lady' to stiffen the spines. Overexaggerating one's qualifications is indicative of some other flaws that the politicians want masked, deceiving with obvious impairments inspiring some sense of pathos.
Younger George, the quasi-recovered alkie, seems to have passed his baton (and aura) to Gone John who will exploit other heart-strings in the voting population when running his race. What will counter the act will have to be something a little more substantial, especially when the baton can never be used to great effect, not even twirled.
We aren't sure that Gone John will even be able to pass the baton on to the next person, whether out of personal greed or physical insufficiency. How he might manage to show himself to be the 'winner' might be detrimental to the American Republic, mean and nasty being only the superficial indicators.
What is clear is the Middle East and Persia are in danger of experiencing another 'gone,' as in "Gone With the Wind," an impending conflagration that will make Atlanta's burning look like a weenie roast on beachy sand. Gone John should perhaps spend his time contempating his life on another throne, one made of porcelain, leaving the Americans' and World's problems to those from whom 'gone to the john' is not something that will turn out crappy.
* http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=237781&format=print
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushmccainhug2.htm
How is it that the author of the enabling legislation for the biggest foreign policy fiasco in our history, and its most unapologetic booster, can be surging to the nomination and maybe the Presidency? How insane is that?
As for his vaunted foreign policy expertise, in what way does mindless, un-nuanced belligerence constitute a sensible foreign policy viewpoint?
What is going to change with the next president? This president has already proved that he (and his handlers) can pass laws, then issue a signing statement claiming that they can break that law as "commander-in-chief".
We are having this recurring issue in American politics, and nothings going to change until the two party system can be abolished (unlikely) or we have another major economic disaster (which I sense is on the horizon, our economy is acting like it is back in 1928.) or a major ecological disaster that destroys the idea of government as we know it. Nothings is going to change on the national level, they are all too beholden to those that keep them in power.
Hoping for a better day,
Paul
Juan,
McCain doesn't think everything in Iraq is "hunky dory" as you say (are you kidding?) instead, he thinks things have improved since the surge was initiated.
He defines victory, in part as an extreme reduction in casualties and a normalization of life in Iraq. He foresees the US staying in Iraq for many years as we have stayed in many other places around the world following conflicts.
These seem like reasonable if sketchy goals.
But you may point out that there are problems with these goals and measures. Can we post troops in an increasing number places indefinitely? How should we behave if we are going to have a permanent presence in the middles east? Do we foresee an international peace keeping force taking over at some point?
Victory by any definition will require an end to national stupidity on our part. We got into Iraq for stupid reasons without knowing what we where doing. Stupidity now would have us reversing ourselves without a careful analysis of the impact of our actions. Once we have a new administration in place we will, I hope we will reengage our collective brain. At that time the reality of our situation will need to be assessed and a course of action starting from where we are at that point needs to be taken.
Juan you are a national resource that our leaders should use but when you say things like McCain thinks everything is "hunky dory" you diminish your credibility.
In any case, I hope our next president is a reader of informed comment!
Cheers,
Frank
Dear Professor Cole:
Found this while wki'ing for post on my blog.
"The crash [of Arrow Air 1285] came on the second anniversary of another attack for which Islamic Jihad took credit: the near-simultaneous bombings of six targets in Kuwait, the French and American Embassies among them. Members of Hezbollah had participated in and were jailed for those attacks, but most of the conspirators were members of the Iraqi Shia opposition party al-Dawa, (the Call, today one of the largest political parties in Iraq, chaired by the incumbent prime minister Nouri al-Maliki). An article in the June 2007 Middle East Review of International Affairs, by Nathan Thrall, published by the Global Research in International Affairs Center (GLORIA) of the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), based in Herzliya, Israel presents evidence of Iran's complicity.[14]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_contra#_note-meria
footnote 14: http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2007/issue2/jv11no2a5.html, "How the Reagan Administration Taught Iran the Wrong Lessons."
So handpicked Iraqi prime minster a member of a terrorist organization?
The more things changge, themore they stay the same.
The purported reason we had to topple Saddam was that he was an unconstrained bloodthirsty dictator who countermanded the rule of law.
An authoritarian is someone at the top of the power chain whose principles do not apply to themselves.
You want to know something really scary? Mitt Romney keeps accusing McCain of being a liberal. That may hurt McCain a bit in Republican primaries, but it could help him very much in the general election.
The notion of McCain being somewhat of a liberal or progressive would make it easier for those who disliked Bush to vote for him. And when he wears his POW hirsute 24/7 on the campaign trail, the sympathy vote could make a big difference.
As long as the mass media is determined to shield the public from the the reality of Iraq, a reality thoroughly exposed by Prof Cole, there is a good chance that our next president will be a world class war lover. When will we ever learn?
Marc Ginsberg astonished at Florida results!!! He and Juan will be astonished when McCain actually declared a winner in the 08’ U.S. Presidential Campaign. It looks like a done deal now. They have no dirt on Clinton, they are hoping she is retracted back far into second place at the Caucasus so they can load the tons of dirt they amassed on Obama in the streets. Once Romney is out and McCain is solo republican frontrunner by default.
You have no powers whatsoever, America will re-elect Bush a hundred time if the law will permits him to run more than 2 terms, because AIPAC, Hollywood, the Networks, the Seven Jews that are in fact have legally bought you personally and America’s from past U.S. Congress (Google it-you will be surprised) will make sure that you do vote BUSH. But since the law is unlikely to change by the 08 election, they will make sure you vote McCain, be because the hundred year’s American war must go on.
As one who has spoken against this insane immoral Iraq war since day one I feel I need to take issue with you on your McCain criticism.
The man understands war from first hand experience and has stones the size of coconuts. It is unfair to lump him in with the neocon draft dodgers responsible for this war. I have no doubt that had he been POTUS he would not have authorized this war, trampled the Constitution , or disgraced us and made us a laughing stock on the world stage.
Being a military man he is also, by nature intensely loyal to the chain of command. I am taking his comments as an appraisal of the situation as it stands now.
To understand how McCain came to be the front runner for the GOP nomination first look at his only real competition. The empty suit who laid off your brother in law and who looks past you while he asks how are the wife and kids. He's Bush without the extensive history of failure but still a lightweight on the world stage. I have to grudgingly admit that at least McCain looks and acts presidential.
As president McCain would restore the Constitution, close Gitmo, and rebuild respect for USA around the world. He would not be about bringing the war criminals in Washington to justice but that's just the way politics works. I am also willing to put my money on him closing the Iraq chapter of our history quicker and with more dignity than Billary.
Regarding other issues like health care, immigration etc. there's really not much difference among any of the contenders Dem or Republican, jus a question of who has the most political chops and passion to get it done.
I support Obama and hope but if it's McCain vs. Billary and no sane 3rd party candidate I could see voting McCain. He's an honorable man. Haven't had one of those in a while.
We interpret massacres as the majesty of our god. We look on torture victims with pornographic eyes, absolutely devoid of compassion, sympathy, or even pity.
We deny our physical continuity with the human sufferer before what is grave and constant in our existence; but neither do we identify with the cause of that suffering.
Our military might, then, is the weather: beyond our control, inflicting incomprehensible suffering on our neighbors, but it must be their fault.
McCain said, "Peace through overwhelming strength." That sounds like fear talking. Ours is a mythology that affirms Life as Good on only one condition: absolute subjugation for Them/absolute supremacy for Us.
"There can be only one." How? To draw a line in the dirt is to bring forth both sides simultaneously. And what about the planet beneath the figments of our imagination? "Sides" are illusory. But ours must always win at any cost! By definition!
The ever-escalating count of our victims brings joy to the hearts of McCain and his fellow travelers. Just goes to show the folly of not being Us, eh? It's simply their fault for Being at all, nothing we can do about that except wipe them out.
"Do as We say, or we'll make your life a living Hell until you do! Never mind that compliance also leads to Hell."
1 million dead, the economy crashing around us. AND 32% of Americans believe the invasion was worth it???
The stupidity and ignorance of my fellow Americans never ceases to astound me.
After everything that's occurred, that number should be 10% at the most. (And that's way too high for the population of a so-called civilized nation.)
Professor Cole asks:
"Is it a racist thing where it doesn't matter how many Iraqis are killed as long as US troops aren't?"
To which I answer:
"Racist" is probably the least offensive, but also a highly inaccurate, placeholder for a word that I don't believe exists, at least not one appropriate to this context.
Yes, I said "least offensive", because the mindset that devalues human life to the extent that it's extinction is literally not worth mentioning goes beyond mere ethnic allegiance or prejudice.
If only this was merely racism, as that would at least denote the possibility that such a wrongheaded, even "evil", ideology might eventually be won over by humanitarian ideals - or, at least, punished.
And what we are talking about here also goes beyond the custom of war propaganda, because this is a war of liberation, i.e., intended to benefit those whose death toll goes unexamined.
Put as succinctly as possible, this is a different phenomenon because the cost of liberation can ONLY be measured in Iraqi blood, and yet this is the very metric that is so willfully and callously ignored.
So, what *does* one call it when a people (in this case, a group comprised predominantly of Americans) invades another country for the expressly-stated purpose of liberating a people oppressed by one of their own, but who then fail to include anything beyond their own, invading forces', loss of life when benchmarking the cost of the invasion/occupation?
It is, by now, trite to label what has happened to the Iraqi people as a humanitarian disaster. But surely, if the intentions of those who precipitated this disaster were, in any way, honorable, then the best that can be said about them is that they're blindly ignorant - or racist, even.
But let's face it: that term is woefully inadequate to the task of describing the perpetrators of this invasion, the administrators of this occupation. "Racist" is, if anything, too humane a term. It implies that Iraqi life registers sufficiently to become a target of the invaders' animosity - for example, in the manner of "Al Qaeda of Iraq", members of which are at least sometimes counted as "terrorists killed".
No, this is a form of murder that has no name - and never will. Would that it could, that it could become suffused with recognizable meaning, such as with terms like "murder", "racism" or "genocide".
But these terms connote a level of caring, or even hatred, that simply does not apply here.
“American Oil companies offered five million dollars to each Iraqi MP to pass the Oil law” => Akhbar Alkhalee
Juan, did you see the latest revelations about Phillip Zelikow? Apparently he hid conflicts of interest from the 911 Commission, had secret phone calls to Karl Rove (which he also tried to hide), and ensured the final report would not be critical of the White House (and particularly Condi).
Links here.
This is a guy who was a signatory to the PNAC document that expressed a desire for a "catalyzing event" to change US foreign policy. How he ever got appointed to head the 911 Commission is itself a major scandal!
Via Digby(http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/shortcuts-by-digby-small-investment-big.html):
An Iraqi MP preferred to remain anonymous told the newspaper that highly confidential negotiations took place by representatives from American oil companies, offering $5 million to each MP who votes in favor of the Oil and Gas law.
Mr. Winters is of interest if only because one does not often hear from middle-of-the-roaders around here.
All the same, what he attributes to General McCain as a definition of the expression "victory in Iraq" won't quite do. It goes like this, "an extreme reduction in casualties and a normalization of life in Iraq [and] the US staying in Iraq for many years."
There are three separate points there, and only the third is authentically McCainiac. He wouldn't mind having the first two, no doubt, but only the third is absolutely indispensable.
That leads to a second objection, which is that what is being defined here, whether by Mr. Winters or Sen. McCain, is not Victory, but only "nondefeat," so to speak.
Sen. Obama made the same point (sort of) last night:
"[T]he notion that somehow we have succeeded as a consequence of the recent reductions in violence means that we have set the bar so low it's buried in the sand at this point."
Happy days.
The story on the WHO IFHS study is incorrect. Its violent death estimate was not limited to civilians.
Also, ORB did not do actually do their survey. It was done for them by an Iraqi firm created in 2003 by a self-taught Iraqi pollster.
What is the difference between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? A lot more than most think. It lies in their actions and their records, which speak far louder than their similar policy platforms.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/2/0181/84501/394/448113
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