Rice: Muqtada a Coward;
Najaf Tense;
Veterans Depressed, Unemployed
Ned Parker, Raheem Salman and Saad Fakhrildeen get the story in Najaf, the Shiite holy city south of Baghdad. The four grand ayatollahs, pillars of middle and upper class Shiite orthodoxy, are fearful of the influence of young Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the millenarian workers and the poor. The authors do not note the irony, but I thought it amusing that both sides were blaming Iran for their troubles, which suggests that the troubles are indigenous. It is an excellent article; I wish it had said more about the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, from which the governor comes, and the Badr Corps, from which the deputy governor comes; both have strong Iran ties and they are the powers that be in Najaf; it is they the Mahdi Army mainly challenges, not just the four grand ayatollahs. Also, they did not say anything about the rumors that the chief grand ayatollah, Ali Sistani, is in bad health.
Rice has her 'bring'em on moment' in Iraq, talking trash to the Mahdi Army and calling Muqtada al-Sadr a 'coward.' Muqtada al-Sadr eluded Saddam Hussein for 4 years after Saddam killed his father and two elder brothers; and in 2004 he twice took on the US military. He may be a lot of things, but he is not a coward. Has Rice ever said anything about Iraq that was true or useful? Even as she was talking up 'improved security' in Baghdad, mortar shells were falling about her in the Green Zone.
Over the weekend there were clashes in Nasiriya between Mahdi Army militiamen and the Iraqi army. Although this official Iraqi government communique suggests that 40 militiamen were killed and 40 captured and does not mention government casualties, I'd take it all with a grain of salt. What is not apparent from the squib is that the Iraqi government is so weak it is having to fight for a toehold in one of its own cities.
Another mass grave found in Iraq. These sites are evidence of militia activity-- the victims were likely either accused of collaboration with the central government or members of the opposite religious sect.
The American Right is always droning on about the need to support our troops (i.e. to support the Right's war). But the rich who send poor young men off to foreign wars of course don't really care about the young men themselves (because they don't care about the poor in general; right wing politicians are elected by the rich, for the rich and of the rich). Cases in point:
Health care eludes Iraq vet.
Veterans having a hard time finding jobs.
A third of a million veterans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq are depressed, suffering from PTSD (the proportion suffering is about 1 in five).
The way to support our troops is to get them out of a fruitless and unnecessary war, before more thousands are killed and wounded, whether physically or psychologically or socially.
Tom Engelhardt gives 12 reasons to get out of Iraq.
McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Sunday:
' Baghdad
Around 11:00 pm on Saturday, a mortar shell hit al Qanat Street in east Baghdad. No casualties reported.
Around 1:30 a.m. four mortar shells hit al Husseiniyah area in north Baghdad. No casualties reported.
Seven civilians were wounded when a Katyosha rocket hit a house in Abo Desheer neighborhood ij south Baghdad around 8:00 a.m.
Clashes broke out between Mahdi army militia and the Iraqi national police in New Baghdad area in east Baghdad around 10:00 a.m. No information about the casualties provided on time of publication.
Clashes broke out between Mahdi army militia and the American forces in Kubra al Ghizlan area in the outskirt of Sadr city in east Baghdad around 11:00 am. No casualties reported on time of publication.
2 civilians were killed and 14 others wounded when two mortar shells hit Kadhemiyah neighborhood north Baghdad around 5:00 p.m.
Five people were wounded including two policemen when a road side bomb exploded targeting the police patrol in New Baghdad neighborhood in east Baghdad around 7:00 p.m.
Two policemen were killed and four others wounded by a bombed placed bicycle in Abo Graib area west of Baghdad around 8:30 p.m.
Police found six unidentified bodies throughout Baghdad (2 bodies in Jisr Diyala, 1 body in Zayuna, 1 body in New Baghdad, 1 body in Bayaa and 1 body in Amil)
Diyala
Gunmen set a fake check point kidnapping three vehicles including a bus carries nine students from the University of Diyala while they were in their way to the university. The incident took place in the area between Muqdadiyah town and Kanan area east of Baquba around 9:00 a.m. The gunmen released the nine students and kept the three drivers.
Around 9:00 a.m. gunmen attacked a car carrying a policeman and his pregnant wife while they were in their way to the hospital. The incident took place in Wajihiyah area east of Baquba. The gunmen killed the policeman and the taxi driver and injured the wife.
The commander of the Diyala operations Major General Abdul Kareem al Ubaidi said that the Iraqi security forces and the Sahwa members found 30 bodies in a mass grave yard in Muqdadiyah town northeast of Baquba. Al Rubaie said that another mass grave yard was found in al Botoma village north of Baquba city confirming that 27 bodies were from the yard moved to the morgue of Diyala hospital.
Kirkuk
Gunmen killed two contractors near al Rashad area west Kirkuk on Sunday morning.
Nineveh
Police found the bodies of two members of the local council of Sinjar town west of Mosul city. The two members of the council were kidnapped on Saturday evening.
Salahuddin
Gunmen killed a police officer in front of his house in Soleman Beg town east of Tikrit around 10:00 p.m.'
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 4/21/2008 12:55:00 AM
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8 Comments:
...the Iraqi government is so weak it is having to fight for a toehold in one of its own cities.
The same thing could have been said of Lincoln during the American Civil War. The observation, while valid at the moment, doesn't predict an eventual outcome. The Iraqi government, like the American Union, has vastly greater resouces with which to fight a war. If it finds it's General Grant, if public sentiment gels, it could yet prevail.
The American Right is always droning on about the need to support our troops (i.e. to support the Right's war).
I think it's well past time to dispense with the oh-so-tiresome "support the troops" mantra. We're continually hectored by the Right to support their wars, as you correctly point out. Just what does Support the Troops mean by the way? Does it mean I hope American soldiers kill more Iraqis and destroy more of Iraq itself? Well no, I do not hope for that. Does it mean that I hope that American troops are not killed or wounded? I'm ambivalent. The American Army is an invasion and occupation force. I hope that Americans would resist an invasion and occupation force in America just as the Iraqis are in Iraq.
The Right pretends that the welfare of the troops is their highest concern which of course it is not. Advancing their jingoistic and global interests is their highest concern. Support The Troops is a public relations effort to stifle criticism of the war.
The American Army is a volunteer force. Any military member who is in Iraq or Afghanistan or elsewhere is there because he or she volunteered to be there. I have a certain amount of empathy and sympathy for anyone who was doing service or was still on reserve duty when bush and cheney began this Middle East adventure. Those service members were trapped. However anyone who enlisted AFTER the invasion knew perfectly well what he or she was getting into. They all knew with virtual certainty that they would be shipped out to fight in the Middle East. I do not support those wars. The people who volunteered to fight overseas obviously DO support the wars, and they support them to the extent they're willing to risk life and limb. But I'm not obliged to wish them well. I want them out of there.
I'm a peacetime army vet by the way, I spent three years stationed in Darmstadt, Germany in the late '70s.
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The Revival of Chivalry
All of a sudden what seem run-of-the-mill secret state police and martial law operations in the former Iraq appear dressed up to resemble tales from the court of King Arthur. For example,
[A] A U.S. army admiral [sic] said on Sunday (...) "Our security and military operations in Sadr city target the special groups that receive training and arms from Iran, to conduct attacks against civilians, by randomly rocketing residential areas. ... [OUR] forces have instructions for military engagement and conducting assaults, and they do not target children and women, but armed groups that carry out attacks and hide in mosques and schools."
___
If Camelot went in for social welfare programs, Mallory and the French book omitted to mention it. In today’s world, though, what peerless paladin could do without it? So I’d file the following passage from the same VOI story under "Chivalry, 1850-2199" also:
[B] "[The] Iraqi government is determined to provide services to areas where security clashes are taking place, or were ignored in the past decades, particularly Sadr city, by allocating 150 million U.S. dollars to rebuild the infrastructure and activate the social situation in Sadr city, by starting projects to absorb the unemployment impulse in the city," al-Sheikhli said. He added that during the last days, Baghdad Mayoralty worked on preparing Sadr city's water project, in the northeastern part of the city, and specified engineering units and efforts in that regard.
[M. Tahsín al-Shaykhlí is billed as "civilian spokesman" for Fard al-Qánún, "imposition of rule," the indigenes’ side of the Petraeo-Kaganite suRGe.]
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Last but not least, here is a recent word from Mizz Guinivere herself:
[C] Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday (...) "I know he's sitting in Iran ... I guess it's all-out war for anybody but him. I guess that's the message; his followers can go to their deaths and he's in Iran."
_____
The whole ambience is so at odds with the familiar one of good ol’ Rancho Crawford and its Lone Ranger that I can only assume AEI and GOP and DOD have taken it over mechanically from poor M. al-Málikí and his Sawlat al-Fursán, "charge of the caballeros." But God knows best.
Happy days.
Her bring it on moment indeed. If only we occasionally learned from our mistakes.
ref : “TomGram: 12 Reasons to Get Out of Iraq”
Mr. Engelhardt begins his essay by posing to the reader this rhetorical question: “Can there be any question that, since the invasion of 2003, Iraq has been unraveling?” And while it is obvious, to friend and foe alike that the country of ‘IRAQ’ has descended into the hellish chaos of an ‘Iraq-not’ battleground terroir since the American inavasion and occupation ~ the author fails, imho to provide us with any coherent rationale for and/or means to this end.
...nor, imho does Mr. Engelhardt for that matter make any case for the Americans to actually begin to occupy fully and responsibly, and i daresay, un-ashamedly ~ this place (for in truth the Americans "occupy" only their isolated, surrounded little GreenZone lilly pads; and are as much "War Tourists", flâneur spectators: If not impotent, then largely irrelevant, save nuisance and humiliation, to the lives of most Iraqis).
American officials and military officers in IRAQ seldom ‘lead’ any meaningful process of ‘change’ themselves ~ The Mission appears for all intents and purposes to be to sustain themselves in this meaningless expression of "an American presence" ~ the purpose for doing so remains ‘indecipherable’ insofar as any rational foreign policy or military purpose: Over There.
For all their professional capabilities, our troops are almost always a step behind; ie., a "Quick Reaction Force"; or worse, we are simply "hunkered down" prisoners within the walls of our own cultural reflection narcissus in this foreign place ~ living not "in IRAQ", but in these peculiar GreenZone artifacts, Potemkin Village visions of suburban-like Americana bases; fighting (who? = the Iraqis, with whom we make no effort to either govern well, or live among) only from a defensive posture, with the conceit implicit that: "it is we, the American forces, who are the perpetual victims of all these violent forces wholly beyond our control."
iow, Mr. Engelhardt does not ask, or answer, as the director Frank Capra did in his classic WWII film "Why We Fight", what is in my opinion the more relevant question for historians: “Why Are We Not Fighting?” or even ‘occupying IRAQ’, responsibly ...where, i suggest any exploration thereof one finds the most compelling reasons for the USA to end its expenditure of $12 billion USD / month and 1,000 KIA + 10,000 WIA / year ritual sacrifice.
Because, if there is no rational policy or military purpose found: Over There, in IRAQ ~ then we (and Mr. Engelhardt) should be instead looking Over Here, in America ~ for answers. fwiw, it appears to this writer that ‘IRAQ’ provides, not useful military bases ~ but a useful legal basis for War Powers apparent ~ i suggest for the political vision of "a new kind of Government" Unitary Executive, rather than "a new kind of War"; and as well the wholly economic agenda, albeit an immoral rationale ~ to sustain the military-industrial cause célèbre of a War Economy.
A majority of the American electorate decided, by a margin of 3:2, two years ago: (1) that they did not want to live under "a new kind of government", and (2) that they find no ‘pursuit of happiness’ agenda for them apparent in their participation in an old, coldwar-like "war economy". And THAT, the will of the American people, Over Here ~ is the only reason necessary and sufficient for our political and military leaders to end the anguish of our own, post-9/11 trauma expression of self-destructive madness, Over There.
How Iran Sees the U.S. Primaries
By Scott Macleod in Tehran
Mon 21 April 2008
....And precisely because of the attributes they find most positive in Obama, many Iranian leaders believe he's unlikely to be elected. Iran's Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaee, whose daughter married President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's son last week, told TIME that Obama "seems not a bad person" and said that, if he were an American voter, he might even cast a ballot for the Illinois Senator. But Mashaee thinks Iran will more likely be facing McCain or Clinton in the White House. "It's far-fetched that he will be allowed to become President," Mashaee insisted. Pressed to elaborate, Ahmadinejad's deputy declined to specify whether it was because of Obama's race or other factors. He just laughed and exclaimed, "Let's make a bet on it!"
To my knowledge, Rice has never said anything about ANYTHING that was true or useful.
I have ranted at length about Rice's lies and incompetence in my pathetic little blog. See Denial and Deception, "State Department Incompetent, Unpalatable Rice, What is it with Condi and Iran?, Rice and lackey Zelikow covered up 9/11 , and Condi Rice, Corruption, Stupidity, and Incompetence.
Some untrue and unuseful quotes:
Her testimony to the 9-11 commission that the August 6 PDB was just a "historical document".
Before the war, "Has Saddam Hussein finally decided to voluntarily disarm? Unfortunately, the answer is a clear and resounding no."
In 2005, Rice said, "This war came to us, no the other way around."
Rice told the Associated Press in December 2006 that Iraq is “worth the investment” in American lives and dollars and said the U.S. can still win a conflict that has been more difficult than she expected.
Michael Hirsh wrote that asked whether she and the Bush administration had made any mistakes early on, she responded "If I had to do it all over again, we would have had the balance between center, local and provincial better. But that's the kind of thing you learn over time."
While Rice was on the Board of Directors of Chevron, they were illegally paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein.
Elisabeth Bumiller's book about Rice said that alone in the Oval Office three months before the U.S. led-invasion of Iraq, Bush asked Rice whether she believed war was the proper course. "Yes," the book quotes Rice as telling Bush. The book says Rice was surprised by the sudden question from Bush.
In an interview about Iraq, Rice brings up Colombia:
"The Ambassador was describing to me how people felt they had to travel in convoys [in the early 2000s in Bogotá] to prevent being kidnapped. Nobody thinks about Colombia in those terms in 2007.
On the Today show in 2007, she said "The Iranians need to face an unpalatable choice."
For most Iraqis, being called a coward by senior Americans is an accolade. The real insult is being praised by them which gives reason to suspect collaboration against the people of Iraq.
American officials in Iraq are, in general, like the town's bore who is under investigation for serious crimes against women and children, yet thinks that he is the life and soul of the party and everyone loves him. Well of course, he thinks, he can seduce whores and rent boys (who charge him double) with ease and they always tell him how great he is.
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