How Many Times

Does Nouri al-Maliki need his ass kicked really hard before he learns his lesson?

This is a question that will undoubtedly be resolved sometime before he either absconds with all the billions we've been pouring into Iraq (no doubt largely funnelled directly into his, and his cronies', unnumbered Swiss bank accounts) or meets a hideous end when he proves to be too much of a liability to either the Dawa Party (his party) or the fragile coalition of Dawa/SCIRI (or Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, ISCI, as it's calling itself these days) and whatever else is coalitioning with these thugs.

We didn't post about al-Maliki's recent primate-like posturing and associated blunders because it was all so deeply depressing and predictable. Why bother? It was obvious from the conflation of Cheney's "visit" to the ME and the revelation that he did not really discuss oil prices with the House of Saud followed by the chest-beating and rump displaying of teh Maliki that Sadr was going to have to kick his baboonlike ass but good just to keep the dumb motherfucker from overreaching.

To recap, a chronology of events:

• March 17, three days before the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq: Cheney flies into Iraq unannounced, meets with al-Maliki
  
  
• March 21, Cheney meets with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
  
  
• March 22, Cheney announces through a myrmidon that the only relief in terms of oil prices will come from drilling in America's remaining pristine wildernesses, in other words, thanks America for funding my junket on which I took my wife and daughter and we went fishing in Oman on March 19th, and fuck you very much on oil prices.
  
  
• March 26, Nouri al-Maliki issues his famous "ultimatum" to Iraqi "militias."
  
  Who are these Iraqi militias? Right now, Iraq is controlled by various hardline Islamic Shi'a factions, including al-Maliki's Dawa party, which has the Iraqi Army functioning as its own militia; SCIRI/Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) which has its own militia; and Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi.
  
  For the benefit of the apparently senile or terminally stupid John McCain, elderly and doddering presidential candidate, we would like to point out here that al-Qaeda in Iraq (aQI) is a Sunni Muslim organization, with no friendly ties at all with the warring Shi'a militias. Also that al-Maliki's Dawa party is very friendly with the rulers of Iran - so friendly that they greeted that nation's president, Ahmedi Najad, with flowers and parades and marching bands when he recently visited &mdash unlike our leaders, who, despite paying nearly one trillion fucking dollars of our money for the privilege, must sneak into Iraq under cover of darkness and cannot even travel to the fucking market without fully armed squads of bodyguards, full body armour, and air cover.
  
  Nouri al-Maliki was apparently targeting al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi with this crackdown. He called them "worse than al-Qaeda," the Sunni terrorist organization. Apparently, to al-Maliki, al-Sadr's challenge to his Prime Ministership is worse than the terrorist strikes around the world that have killed thousands of American, British, Spanish, Iraqi, Pakistani, and other peoples. Nice to know one's allies' priorities, Mr. Cheney. al-Maliki gave the JAM three days to lay down their arms and personally flew to Basra to supervise the extermination of JAM.
  
  
• March 28, three days later, when it was pretty obvious that JAM was beating the living shit out of the Iraqi army, with Iraqi police turning over arms and equipment to JAM in Baghdad and Basra, al-Maliki "extended" the deadline to ten days.
  
  Despite all the guns and uniforms and training we have given the Iraqi Army, you can't buy loyalty and you can't buy a will to fight. JAM fights because they want control of Iraq and they believe they will be rewarded with political power or houris in paradise regardless of whether they live or die. The Iraqi Army fights because it's a job in a country with staggering unemployment rates and few other ways of making money, and at least they can feed their families. Whose motivation do you think is greater?
  
  Despite the full strength of the U.S. Army as backup & despite 160,000 or so American and British fighters with top-flight military equipment, including air strike capability, al-Maliki was forced to put lipstick on the pig of his claim that he would fight the Shi'a militias to the end. He had to beg for the help of his Iranian masters to end the conflict.
  
  
• March 31, al-Sadr graciously extends the olive branch of peace &mdash along with a nine-point statement demanding the release of various of his supporters who have been arrested but not accused of any crime, and an end to attacks on his forces.
  
  
• April 1, Nouri al-Maliki announces that the military operation in Basra has been a success. Obviously, he's smoking the same thing as Bush.
  
  Five hundred Iraqis were killed in the fighting. al-Maliki is asking al-Sadr to "please return" the 50 armored vehicles and government cars that JAM took. Two Americans were also killed, and rocket and mortar attacks carried out on the "fortresslike, secure" Green Zone, where the American Embassy is located.
  
  
• April 03, we learn that Nouri al-Maliki is a masochist with a fetish for ass-kicking &mdash as long as he is the kickee. Nouri, my man, we had no idea you were such a BOTTOM!
  
  Even as Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr is calling for nationwide protests to mark the anniversary of the U.S. toppling Saddam (April 9), al-Maliki is planning to enter Sadr City and other JAM strongholds. Is he trying to get the nascent Iraqi Army wiped out? Or is this an attempt to force continuing American and British involvement in the war?

Already the drawdown of "surge" troops has been halted and the British have announced that they will not pull out the 4,000 remaining troops in Basra. Not that the British troops are very effective, since they're all hiding out at the airport, and who can blame them. They must be tired of being used for target practice.

As for American troops &mdash people, if you have friends and relatives over there who were supposed to come back anytime soon, you can just kiss that goodbye. They may never come back at all, except in a body bag, if George keeps letting al-Maliki play soldiers using our forces. Is that what your friends and relatives signed up for? To be the pawns of an idiot who persists in playing with other people's lives and doesn't have the first clue about military strategy?

Meanwhile, you will no doubt be thrilled to your very toenails to hear that Chimpy McAWOL, who managed to weasel out of serving in any capacity except possibly National Buffoon, is paying no attention whatsoever to the restarting of the meatgrinder. Nope, he's busy trying to create a "legacy" or something, at the taxpayers' expense, somewhere in the former Soviet Union.

REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

Clue: They're not laughing with you, George.

Crossposted over at ThePoliticalCat

There's more: "How Many Times" >>

Well, There Goes The Neighbourhood

Watch.

Photo from NorthernLights blog

The WaPoo tells us this morning that the Sunni forces that we created with large amounts of taxpayer money, are "losing patience" with us.

So we go to this country, right? And we bomb it and kill a bunch of people and all that. Then we decide that the Sunni, because they belong to the same faction, sect, whatever, of Islam as the leader of that country (Saddam Hussein) are the enemy, right? So we get most of them kicked out of their jobs, and we arrest lots of them, and we throw them into our jails, where we torture them. And this goes on for, oh, FOUR FUCKING YEARS.

Then we figure we've made a mistake, but it's kinda late in the game for that because, guess what, we've been pouring money into the pockets of the Shi'a leaders for FOUR FUCKING YEARS by now, and they're all busy fighting among themselves and with each other and really happy that the Sunni are gone, because that means more of the higher pie for them, right?

But some bright spark figures out that even though we kicked them out of their jobs and their homes and neighbourhoods, and forced them to flee across the country leaving everything behind and live like refugees in their own country, or even become honest-to-God refugees in some other country except ours, because we don't want them over here, and even though we raped some of their teenage daughters and killed them and stuff, they'll still be our friends if we GIVE! THEM! MONEY! Right?

And now they're "losing patience." Why for? Why for you so impatient, you stupid sandn*****s? So we fucked up your economy and killed your relatives, and the big pool of sewage we created in your capital city can be viewed via GoogleEarth. So what? So you lost your job and your cousin lost his leg and your sister lost her life and your uncle lost his house. So fucking what? We're giving you money, ain't we? So what if we're giving you cholera too?

Yesterday, we put up a post on this site complete with a map of Iraq, as we questioned whether our "leaders" had any kind of fucking plan for our friends, relatives, and neighbours that they've thrown into the meatgrinder of Iraq. Today, we ask you to examine that map closely &mdash reproducing it here for your convenience &mdash as we list the areas where Sunni fighters, now armed by us, are leaving whatever bogus organization we set up incorporating them in order to look good to American politicians and the people who believe their lies.



According to the article, since February 8th &mdash less than three weeks ago &mdash thousands of fighters in Diyala province have left their posts; their leaders have since warned that the fighters would disband completely unless their demands were met. Here's a snippet outlining some of their demands:

in Diyala, one of the major battlegrounds in the U.S. fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq. Awakening groups, also known here as Popular Committees, are demanding the resignation of the Shiite provincial police chief, Maj. Gen. Ghanem al-Qureishi. They accuse him of running death squads and torturing Sunnis, allegations that Qureishi denied in an interview.

It's practically a given that some Sunni during Saddam Hussein's time ran death squads and tortured Shi'a Iraqis. It's also a given, knowing human hearts, that some Shi'a, having taken power, are now revenging themselves on hapless Sunni. The U.S. military is not capable of dealing with this. A military is a tool designed to kill and break people. It is not designed to resolve conflict, only to make it not worthwhile for that conflict to be turned against itself or whatever it's protecting. So there is no plan and no group that is tasked with resolving these very serious issues. Therefore, things can only get worse.

Meanwhile, fighters in Babil province refuse to work for the U.S. after U.S. military fired on them, killing some 19 fighters and injuring approximately 12 others.

Because you have eyes and know how to use them, we don't even have to tell you that Diyala province and Babil province almost completely surround the city of Baghdad and effectually bar our escape route to the south, not to mention the supply lines that come up from the south.

The circumstances of the clash are in dispute. The article states, in part:

The predominantly Sunni Awakening forces, referred to by the U.S. military as the Sons of Iraq or Concerned Local Citizens, are made up mostly of former insurgents who have turned against extremists because of their harsh tactics and interpretation of Islam. The U.S. military pays many fighters roughly $10 a day to guard and patrol their areas. Thousands more unpaid volunteers have joined out of tribal and regional fealties.

This article is written in part by Sudarshan Raghavan, the same journalist who wrote a piece we quoted in a previous blog post. At that time, we were, to put it mildly, concerned that Mr. Raghavan, who has reported extensively on Iraq, did not seem to notice that we were arming people who had every reason in the world to hate us and want revenge on us.

Now we have to ask what the phrase "former insurgents who have turned against extremists because of their harsh tactics and interpretation of Islam" means. We know that the Sunni, for good reason, formed a large part of the insurgency (you would too if people were kicking you out of your house and job and occupying your country and raping your sister).

Given that these Sunni Sons of Whatever to whom we have now handed guns, ammo, and money are now using our ordinance against the supposed "al Qaeda in Iraq," we venture to opine that they're probably indulging in some pretty harsh tactics themselves. If they were part of the insurgency before, they were no stranger to harsh tactics. We really don't believe that they're inviting their erstwhile enemies over for tea, bikkies, and a civilized discourse on the benefits of laying down their arms. And what about this "interpretation of Islam" business? Are we talking about different sects here, or what?

And what about the al-Janabi, one of the largest and most powerful tribes of the Sunni? What about the fact that the Sunni formed most of Hussein's military and police?

The article goes on to say:

Some U.S. military officials say they are growing concerned that the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq has infiltrated Awakening forces in some areas.

"Now, there is no cooperation with the Americans," said Haider Mustafa al-Kaisy, an Awakening commander in Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province, an insurgent stronghold that U.S. and Iraqi forces are still struggling to control. "We have stopped fighting al-Qaeda."

Yah. I'd be worrying too.

Another Son in the oil-rich city of Baiji adds:

His men also have not received their salaries in two months, he said. "We'll all be patient for another two months. If nothing changes, then we'll suspend and quit," Kassim said. "Then we'll go back to fighting the Americans."

Is anybody in charge of this Keystone Kops operation? Does their right hand know in whose pants the left hand is currently residing? And look at the Father of our Sons in the south:

Sabah al-Janabi, who heads the Awakening in the area, publicly criticized the U.S. military, alleging it had killed 19 of his men in the past 45 days, which U.S. commanders deny.

We're not accusing Sabah al-Janabi of anything. He may well be the most loyal (to the U.S. or to our puppet regime) of Sunni fighters. We're just pointing out that this conflict is an impossible one. The people who like us and the people who hate us look alike, belong to the same tribe, possibly even the same religious faction. This was what drove men mad in Vietnam. They were sent there to fight an enemy, but unlike, say, Star Trek episodes, the bad guys didn't wear black hats. Sometimes little kids threw grenades at you. Sometimes sweet old grannies tried to kill you. And they looked just exactly like the little kids who were just sweet little kids caught up in a horrible war, or the sweet old grannies who might laugh and joke with you and do your laundry or fix your food.

So in the end you started killing people indiscriminately because you really didn't know if or when some of them were going to try to kill you.

Meanwhile, the Soldiers of Heaven have apparently not been inactive. They resurfaced recently in Dhi Qar and Basra provinces.

In the town of Iskandiriyah, in Babil province, a suicide bomber has killed some 63 members of Al-Sayyid Moqtada al-Sadr's followers who were on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala to commemorate the Iraqi holy day of Arbaeen.

In northern Iraq, the Turkish military is continuing to bomb suspected PKK hideouts, destroying bridges and killing Kurdish civilians with impunity thanks to intelligence provided by the Pentagon. The Kurds, who consider themselves pro-American and U.S. allies, have been begging the U.S. for help.

The prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Nechirvan Barzani, expressed concern that the Turkish operation had gone beyond targeting the PKK and was harming civilians and the economy of northern Iraq. He said he was particularly concerned that Turkey had destroyed at least three bridges near the border.

This is the son of President Massoud Barzani speaking. Hitherto the Northern Kurdish region has been the only stable one in Iraq.

Meanwhile, in our other clusterfuck over in Afghanistan, the AP tells us things are looking fairly grim.

Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the resurgent Taliban controls 10 percent to 11 percent of the country and Karzai's government controls 30 percent to 31 percent. But more than six years after the U.S. invasion to oust the Taliban and establish a stable central government, the majority of Afghanistan's population remains under local tribal control, he said.

Let's translate this, shall we? The government of U.S. puppet Hamid Karzai, shored up with the military might of NATO and the U.S. armed forces, after six long years, controls only the cities. In the countryside, the Taliban roam freely, and the various tribal elders throw their allegiance to whichever side is not actively killing them this week.

Well, at least the British might be moving towards throwing that other toadying lickspittle and assistant junior bottlewashing war criminal, Tony Blair, into a well-deserved cell in some prison. Pity it can't be Abu Ghraib.

crossposted over at ThePoliticalCat.

There's more: "Well, There Goes The Neighbourhood" >>

More Corruption, Delays and Overruns in the Iraq Embassy Project

Image: McClatchy Newspapers

Even more problems with the new mega-bunker embassy in Baghdad are coming to light - and this time there is a criminal investigation into the construction contract. This criminal probe follows an investigation by Henry Waxman and the House Oversight Committee that was initiated a few weeks ago into the conduct of the IG for the State Department. Howard J. Krongard, the Inspector General for the State Department, has exhibited a persistent tendency to censor reports that might embarrass the administration, and has repeatedly thwarted investigations of the State Department and the problems with the embassy.

The problems started with the bid process.

When the State Department requested bids in 2005, exactly one came in, from J. A. Jones International of Charlotte, North Carolina. In spite of having a track record with the State Department, and having won embassy construction contracts in the past, the J.A. Jones bid was rejected because the estimated to cost was twice as much as had been allotted by State, and the company would not guarantee the June 2007 completion date. Additionally, the J.A. Jones bid was a cost-plus estimate, which frankly, is about the only way a responsible contractor would have bid the job, since the construction site was in a freakin' war zone...that was getting hotter every day. First Kuwaiti was chosen solely because it was willing to offer a fixed-price contract, in which cost overruns aren't passed on to the government.

"The only company in the end that would offer us a firm fixed-price (contract) was First Kuwaiti. The decision was made, and I believe rightly so, that firm fixed-price is the best protection for the American taxpayer. If an American company had bid a firm fixed-price, they might or they might not have won." said Patrick Kennedy, the State Department's director of management policy.

Unable to get a legitimate contractor to walk down the primrose path to potential financial ruin, the State Department Bureau of Overseas Building Operations (OBO) waived the law requiring open and competitive bidding, and awarded the contract to a firm from Kuwait, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Company. When the OBO issued the waiver, they described First Kuwaiti as "capable of completing the design and construction in accordance with the required schedule, budget and performance parameters."

That rosy assessment and vote of confidence was, to say the least, overblown. Four months after the embassy was supposed to be ready to open, it is not only not ready, but problems are still presenting. The most recent setback has been with the sprinkler system. When they tested it, the pipes burst at the junctions. In May, when electrical systems were tested they failed, and an investigation revealed that First Kuwaiti was using counterfeit wiring that fell short of the specifications.

You get what you pay for.

[keep reading]

Counterfeit, sub-standard building materials are one way to turn a profit on a bad bid, I guess. Another way is to abduct workers from emerging and third-world countries and spirit them off to Baghdad against their will, then underpay them to the point that they are essentially slave labor. I realize that "slavery" is a strong word, but I am not the only one using it. "It is distressing to hear that our fellow Filipinos are being deceived into working in Iraq by unscrupulous contracting firms," Senator Mar Roxas of the Philippines said, upon hearing of the abduction of Filipinos to work on the embassy. "Unless we have officially accepted that the days of slavery are back, the government must act." (emphasis mine)

According to testimony by an American who spent a short period of time working as an Emergency Medical Technician at the embassy complex, Filipino workers were given tickets that indicated they were boarding a plane to Dubai, and were not told they were going to Baghdad until the plane was airborne. When they found out, and objected, a security guard reminded them at gunpoint that they were in no position to protest. They were indeed going to Baghdad, and there was not a damned thing they could do about it. The American EMT testified before the Oversight committee that conditions at the site "were deplorable, beyond what even a working man should tolerate." Foreign workers, he said, were packed tight into trailers, equipment was insufficient and basic needs went unmet. "If a construction worker needed a new pair of shoes, he was told, 'No, do with what you have' by First Kuwaiti managers."

He also said in his testimony that workers were routinely physically and verbally abused and another witness testified about the rate of on-the-job injuries. "There were a lot of injuries out there because of the conditions these people were forced to work in. It was absurd."

As if the substandard building materials, the shoddy construction, the missed deadlines, and the abduction and forced labor of third-world workers wasn't enough, the company has also been implicated in a kickback scheme with...wait for it...Kellogg, Brown& Root.

And all that corruption and malfeasance took place with the apparent complicity of the Inspector General for State, Howard Kronegard, whose job it was to provide oversight and prevent those very offenses.

***************

But wait! There's more!

You know how they say that it isn't the corruption that gets you busted, it's the cover-up?

That holds true here, as well.

In May, a mortar shell smashed into the complex, damaged a wall and caused what were reported as minor injuries to be sustained by people inside. The walls were supposed to be blast-resistant, but weren't.

The project manager, James L. Golden, contractor for State, attempted to alter the scene and conceal evidence of shoddy construction. According to documents and interviews, the IG for State, Krongard, reared his head once more and prevented State Department officials from investigating the incident.

When it came to the attention of Ambassador Ryan Crocker, he banished Golden from the country, yet Golden still oversees the project, as well as other projects for the OBO.

The OBO is headed up by a close personal friend of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, retired Army Maj. Gen. Charles Williams. Williams was hand-picked by his old friend and colleague to head up the OBO, and Williams apparently runs the OBO like a personal feifdom, going so far as to refused to let U.S. diplomats and congressional staffers onto the new embassy compound, according to congressional testimony given in July, and corroborated by a former senior official with first-hand knowledge of Williams and the OBO.

As recently as August, Williams assured the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the embassy would be ready for occupancy by the end of September.

"This and other incidents involving separate embassy construction projects raise concerns about the adequacy of the Department's management of our overseas building operations," committee chairman Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Cal., wrote to Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte on October 4.

The State Department declined to make Williams available for an interview and directed questions to Patrick Kennedy, the department's director of management policy.

As of this writing, the embassy is not move-in ready, and there is no clear indication when it will be. They have, however, complicated matters further by deciding after-the-fact to move General Petraeus and his entourage into the embassy, requiring space for an additional 250 people, and an expansion of the classified areas, because, in the words of Kennedy, "Crocker and Petraeus don't want to divorce."

There's more: "More Corruption, Delays and Overruns in the Iraq Embassy Project" >>

More "Phony Soldiers" Piping Up

About two months ago, the New York Times published an op-ed from seven infantry NCOs that questioned the wisdom of “staying the course” in Iraq. The piece was damning, and punctuated by the fact that one of the Soldiers was seriously wounded between the time the piece was written and when it was published, and two more of the seven were killed shortly after.

Today, on the fifth anniversary of the congress passing the AUMF, the Washington Post ran an op-ed penned by twelve former Army Captains who served in Iraq; and it is just as damning and just as sweeping. Five years into this mess, the military is over-extended and under-resourced, and the nation of Iraq is in tatters.

As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we've seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it's like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it's time to get out.

What does Iraq look like on the ground? It's certainly far from being a modern, self-sustaining country. Many roads, bridges, schools and hospitals are in deplorable condition. Fewer people have access to drinking water or sewage systems than before the war. And Baghdad is averaging less than eight hours of electricity a day.

Iraq's institutional infrastructure, too, is sorely wanting. Even if the Iraqis wanted to work together and accept the national identity foisted upon them in 1920s, the ministries do not have enough trained administrators or technicians to coordinate themselves. At the local level, most communities are still controlled by the same autocratic sheiks that ruled under Saddam. There is no reliable postal system. No effective banking system. No registration system to monitor the population and its needs.

The inability to govern is exacerbated at all levels by widespread corruption. Transparency International ranks Iraq as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And, indeed, many of us witnessed the exploitation of U.S. tax dollars by Iraqi officials and military officers. Sabotage and graft have had a particularly deleterious impact on Iraq's oil industry, which still fails to produce the revenue that Pentagon war planners hoped would pay for Iraq's reconstruction. Yet holding people accountable has proved difficult. The first commissioner of a panel charged with preventing and investigating corruption resigned last month, citing pressure from the government and threats on his life.

This is the scenario against which the U.S. military is struggling to hold the nation of Iraq together, with too-few troops. Even with the additional 30,000 that the “Surge™” temporarily afforded. There are simply not enough Soldiers and Marines in-country to clear insurgents, hold territory and build sustainable institutions.

…Though temporary reinforcing operations in places like Fallujah, An Najaf, Tal Afar, and now Baghdad may brief well on PowerPoint presentations, in practice they just push insurgents to another spot on the map and often strengthen the insurgents' cause by harassing locals to a point of swayed allegiances. Millions of Iraqis correctly recognize these actions for what they are and vote with their feet -- moving within Iraq or leaving the country entirely. Still, our colonels and generals keep holding on to flawed concepts.

American G.I.’s are tasked with too many objectives and too much battle space. This serves to makes them targets, and sadly, one of the inevitabilities of a protracted withdrawal will be a ratcheting upward of attacks against the occupying forces, the civilian leadership of the nation, and third-party consultants. They will also, without a doubt, be caught in the crossfire of the Iraqi civil war.

Iraq’s security forces will be unable to salvage the situation. Even if they had adequate training, equipment and commitment; with their numbers shy of 350,000 there are too few of them to successfully hold the country together.

Besides that, soldiers in the Iraqi army pretty much leave at will, once the pay envelopes and weapons are passed out; the police are controlled by the militias, the corruption is systemic and the United States taxpayers are equipping and arming the very elements that will fight one another once the American forces inevitably withdraw.

American Generals are laying plans that are contingent on peace breaking out in Iraq, while simultaneously, the Iraqis are preparing for a full-on, salt-the-fields and poison-the-wells civil war.

The Captains close the piece with an uncomfortable truth…There is only one way to sustain an operation like is currently being pursued in Iraq, and that is to bring back the draft. “Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition.”

“America, it has been five years. It's time to make a choice.”

There's more: "More "Phony Soldiers" Piping Up" >>

Three Years Ago

September 26, 2004, The Washington Post ran an op-ed titled Battling for Iraq, saying, in part:

Helping organize, train and equip nearly a quarter-million of Iraq's security forces is a daunting task. Doing so in the middle of a tough insurgency increases the challenge enormously, making the mission akin to repairing an aircraft while in flight -- and while being shot at. Now, however, 18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up.

The institutions that oversee them are being reestablished from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously in the face of an enemy that has shown a willingness to do anything to disrupt the establishment of the new Iraq.
...
I meet with Iraqi security force leaders every day. Though some have given in to acts of intimidation, many are displaying courage and resilience in the face of repeated threats and attacks on them, their families and their comrades. I have seen their determination and their desire to assume the full burden of security tasks for Iraq.

Three years ago. Three years ago. The op-ed was written by David H. Petraeus.

What's taking you, General? Why should anything you say to Congress and the American people now be given any credence whatever and taken as anything more than excuse and apologism and PR for the Petraeus/Bush line?

Today Rep. Eliot Engel(D-NY) challenged Petraeus to defend his statements in that op-ed three years ago. Petraeus' answer? "I stand by it."

There is not much more, if anything, that I can add or say. I leave it to commenters to dissect.

Why should anything Petraeus said to Congress and the American people today be given any credence whatever and taken as anything more than excuse and apologism and PR for the Petraeus/Bush line?

The Washington Consensus Of Iraq Reality Is Delusion

It is in Americas interest obviously, to NOT have a failed state of anarchy in Iraq, and to not have Iraq aligned with Iran.

But that can't be forced on Iraq. Iraqis have the right to, and will, decide for themselves.

And they are.

All that Washingtons "help" has ever done for Iraq is make the situation worse. Continually. Never better. Only worse.

Iraq will get fixed. Eventually.

But it will not be republicans or democrats, or even the U.S. that fixes it.

The U.S. presence in Iraq, and the U.S. refusal to leave, is the problem.

It is time to end the occupation. It is time to leave Iraq.

I believe that people would feel energized if they saw and heard enough people leading us in the right direction on Iraq, and that if leading Democrats heard enough people say to them that they will not vote for ANY Democrats next year EXCEPT Democrats who have been vocally, and by their votes on supplementals, calling for total withdrawal from Iraq they would quickly notice.

They are politicians after all, and they are concerned with winning elections.

They would notice if enough people turned the tables on them and used fear to motivate them, instead of voting simply out of fear of republicans.

If Democrats were filled with fear that they would lose Congress and the presidency UNLESS the occupation was ended before the 2008 elections, they would end the occupation of Iraq.

Can The Iraq Occupation Be Ended Before The 2008 Elections? The U.S. presence in Iraq, and the U.S. refusal to leave, is the problem.

There's more: "Three Years Ago" >>

"I don't want to be here any more."

The happy-talk coming out of aWol's mouth is not cutting it with those who are actually sacrificing and being sacrificed. In fact, they are downright disdainful. last month, in a dining hall at a base south of Baghdad, aWol was speechifyin' on a big-screen teevee and the soldiers didn't even look up from their chicken and mashed potatoes.

"I don't see any progress. Just us getting killed," said Spc. Yvenson Tertulien, one of those in the dining hall in Yousifiya, 10 miles south of Baghdad, as Bush's speech aired last month. "I don't want to be here anymore."

The frustration and sagging morale is palpable, and it is being expressed in overt statements and in ranting blog posts like this one: "This occupation, this money pit, this smorgasboard of superfluous aggression is getting more hopeless and dismal by the second," a soldier in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, wrote in an Aug. 7 post on his blog, Army of Dude.

The suicide rate in the Army is at the highest level in 23 years. The evidence is even in the latrines. Someone posted the Army's "help cards" listing nine warning signs for suicide in the stalls. One of the cards had seven of the boxes checked. Of the 99 suicides committed by Army personnel last year, 27 of them took place in Iraq. A mental health survey released in May revealed that 45% of the soldiers interviewed ranked morale as low or very low, and only seven percent ranked it as high or very high.

There are two faces to the occupation of Iraq. There is the reality, which the Soldiers and Marines are facing and dealing with daily, and then there is the face that is shown to the public. With support for continuing the occupation of Iraq at about 30% at home, they dare not show the reality, or that remaining support would crumble.

It is depressing and horrifying and I could rant for pages. In fact, I have, as you know full well if you have read this site...so to close, am going to let the soldier/blogger Alex, from Frisco Texas, have the last word:

"The only person I know who believed Iraq was improving was killed by a sniper in May."

There's more: ""I don't want to be here any more."" >>

I do believe an(other) “I told you so” is in order

The New York Times took a huge step toward atoning for that horrible piece of puffery that O’Hanlon and Pollack have been peddling since they returned from their choreographed tour de farce visit to Iraq, when on Sunday they published an op-ed that was group written by NCO’s from the 82^nd Airborne who are nearing the end of their 15 month combat rotation. Fifteen months in the weeds trumps eight days of a totally scripted stunt. I know upon whom I choose to bestow credibility.

I would like to point out that this is the second time these Soldiers have come close to the end of this rotation. They were nearing the end when their tour was extended as part of the shell game that the Pentagon is ludicrously calling “the Surge™.” One of the soldiers credited with the piece was shot in the head (he is expected to survive) in the intervening time since he should have shipped out for home.

I am frankly sickened by the feel-good, happy-talk, clap-trap that is getting peddled in the run up to congress reconvening and getting down to debating the funding for the next fiscal year.

I am not alone. In fact, I would much prefer to be in the company of these guys than the cheerleader Michael Yon, or any of the squawking parrots running around Washington posing as “Very Serious People” and blathering on that we need another Friedman Unit.

The War as We Saw It

By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY

Published: August 19, 2007

Baghdad

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias. (Click here for full op-ed)

I would point out that these reports have been readily available, and I have been blogging about similar events practically since Resident Evil scowled “bring ‘em on.” (Seriously, has anyone ever met a bigger dipshit than this guy?) In other words, this is not my first "I told you so."


The scene that these young, tough, seasoned NCO’s describe is pretty much the story I have been hearing for the last two and a half years from the returned vets I have come in contact with.


The first thing that must be done is admitting that we are an army of occupation in a hostile land. There is no military solution, nor is the requisite political progress being made.


The fact that Resident Evil drove us over a cliff in Iraq and leaves us with no good options and a broken military must also be owned up to.


Merely accepting reality has the foam-flecked loonies sharpening their knives for the stab in the back trope to be cranked out from the Mighty Wurlitzer. They are already blowing their tops about “surrendering to al Qaeda” or some such nonsense.


It has been less than a week since wingnut chickenhawk Congressman Doug Lamborn of the CO-05, who, incidentally, has never worn the uniform of his country (unless you count those little flag lapel pins) visited the war zone for one day and started the “blame the military themselves for losing an unwinnable war" meme. His stones are so big that he felt it perfectly proper that he should admonish the soldiers he met on the lone day he spent in Iraq – Soldiers who have had their tours extended to 15 months (450+ days versus one day) – by telling them they could win if they wanted to.


The last time out, it was the right that blamed the military and the Democrats, and even individual soldiers themselves, for failing to win in Vietnam. They blamed everyone but the real culprits – the warmongers and death merchants. In other words, themselves.


Because it worked before, and because it is quite frankly all they have, they will try the bullshit bait-and-switch crap again, trying to blame everyone involved except themselves. Don’t let them get away with it this time. Remind them at every turn of just how wrong they have been. Hold them accountable. They are less than three of every ten people. For the better part of three decades, they have been claiming some sort of genius strategy, when all they have really been doing is shouting down the majority and impugning the patriotism of those who have the temerity to disagree with their fun-house-mirror vision of the world.


Sweet Mother of Pearl, don’t listen to them! And for the love of Habeas Corpus, the Constitution and the Fourth Amendment, fucking fight back this time.

There's more: "I do believe an(other) “I told you so” is in order" >>

It’s like the 750’s all over again*

Shia militants signify their willingness to be martyred by wearing funeral shrouds.

It is not exactly “news” that the Iraqi army and police forces are heavily infiltrated by Shia militias, especially Jaish al Mahdi, nor is it surprising to anyone who has more than passing knowledge of the history of the region.

The Iraqi police and military forces are not simply infiltrated by Shia militiamen, they are infested – to the point that they have managed to apply sufficient political pressure to commanders that, on at least one occasion, they were able to create their own army units, staffed with its own Jaish al Mahdi fighters.

The units were disbanded in May, but like the oil in the pasta pot, it quickly came back together once the heat was off. The commander became the head of a new battalion, but the troops in his command didn’t really change all that much…

One Mahdi Army loyalist, a policeman by day and a militant after the sun goes down, was forthright about discussing the reality "There is a Mahdi Army member in every family and in every home across Iraq and the military is not exempt. The army wouldn't go after the Mahdi Army because many elements in the army are Mahdi Army. Here in Sadr City for example, there is one company and 35 of them are Mahdi Army."

Men like him, who seem to seamlessly lead dual lives, represent perhaps the greatest challenges faced by the American forces as they struggle to assemble and train non-sectarian security forces in the occupied country. They quietly, surreptitiously, go about their business of undoing the seeming advances toward a non-sectarian security apparatus.

The Sadr movement has used Iraqi soldiers and national police officers to push deeper into predominantly Sunni Arab districts in west Baghdad, U.S. Army officers said. It also swayed the leadership of an Iraqi army battalion in the spring to mount strikes in Fadil, a Sunni district in east Baghdad, the U.S. officers said.

The nexus has included soldiers carrying out killings or turning a blind eye as Sadr fighters slip through checkpoints. In late March, in the early phase of the U.S. military buildup, a Mahdi fighter who gave his name as Abu Haidar bragged to The Times that Iraqi army officers had provided vehicles to his group to carry out executions. "We have a deal with the Iraqi army and police," he said.

Last fall, Iraqi soldiers looked on as Shia militants forced thousands of Sunni families out of their homes in the western neighborhood of Hurriya in the wake of a bomb attack in Sadr City. A few weeks after the Hurriya neighborhood was cleansed of Sunnis, an Iraqi commander and four other officers were arrested, only to be released a week later. The very day they were released, the Lt. Colonel in the Iraqi army who had filed the statement that led to the arrests was shot dead at a checkpoint.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a U.S. intelligence officer was as plainspoken as the Iraqi policman/militant "We've slowed them down, but they are still slowly expanding their reach. Jaish al Mahdi expansion is taking place. Like water, they are going to find a crack and move through the weakest area."

*The 750’s signify the point when the Sunni-Shia split became an unbridgeable chasm. The Battle of Zab in Egypt occurred then, and so did the murder of Jaffar. The murder of Jaffar was the final treachery and precipitated the final split between the Shia and the faction that would later come to be known as Sunnis.

There's more: "It’s like the 750’s all over again*" >>

Fragmented Iraqi resistance begins to unite

The Guardian has an excellent article about how non-AQI insurgency movements are beginning to coalesce. Here’s one member’s take on the growing movement:

“Resistance isn’t just about killing Americans without any aims or goals,” says Abd al-Rahman al-Zubeidy, the political spokesman of Ansar al-Sunna. [Note: The story changes the actual names of people. “Our people have come to hate al-Qaida, which gives the impression to the outside world that the resistance in Iraq are terrorists. Suicide bombing is not the best way to fight because it kills innocent civilians. We are against indiscriminate killing — fighting should be concentrated only on the enemy. They [al-Qaida] believe that all Shia are kuffar [unbelievers] - and most of the Sunnis as well.” They estimate that al-Qaida now carries out between a fifth and a third of all attacks in Iraq.

Zubeidy also says the group has no direct contact with the Syrian government, contra another BushCo claim that Damascus is responsible for much of the problem in Iraq. And, The Guardian notes that Ba’athists, as well as AQI, are not part of this coalition.

That said, Zubeidy and other Sunni insurgents are also now calling for an outreach to Shi’a insurgent groups.

Why is the real insurgency starting to speak out now? The Guardian says that it’s in anticipation of US/UK withdrawal.

And what’s next?

“Peaceful resistance will not end the occupation,” states Abu Ahmad. “The US has made clear that it intends to stay in Iraq for many decades. Now it is a common view in the resistance that they will start to withdraw within a year.” Right or wrong, that is one of the factors that has led to the decision to form the new front, which is planned to be called the Political Office for the Iraqi Resistance. As well as Iraqi Hamas, the 1920 Revolution Brigades and the new Ansar al-Sunna, it is to include the powerful Jaish (army) al-Islami, Jaish al-Mujahideen, Jama' and Jaish al-Rashideen. The plan is to hold a congress of the seven groups to announce the front's formation and then move towards the establishment of some form of public presence outside Iraq, though it is hard to see any state being prepared to risk the wrath of the US by hosting such an outfit. “It would need UN protection,” Zubeidy suggests.

Now, I’m not sure how realistic of an idea this is, but the fact that it’s being broached indicates to me that the real insurgency is gaining steam.

Cross-posted at Socratic Gadfly and Watching Those We Choose.

There's more: "Fragmented Iraqi resistance begins to unite" >>

The NYT finally comes out against the Iraq War

The NYT, leader in the MSM..as least as far as the leader of the asshats that drummed all of BushCo's bullshit into our heads in the runup to the war has finally written an Editorial condemning the War in Iraq and the need to GET THE FUCK OUT NOW!

Sorry, I do get emotional discussing the Iraq war and the asshole that put us there. Here is a little taste of how hard they bitchslap The Shrub:

Like many Americans, we have put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign that President Bush was seriously trying to dig the United States out of the disaster he created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, in the face of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country afterward.

At first, we believed that after destroying Iraq’s government, army, police and economic structures, the United States was obliged to try to accomplish some of the goals Mr. Bush claimed to be pursuing, chiefly building a stable, unified Iraq. When it became clear that the president had neither the vision nor the means to do that, we argued against setting a withdrawal date while there was still some chance to mitigate the chaos that would most likely follow.

Oh yes, they still do the heavy lifting for BushCo, but they decided since over 70% of the population is down on this war, they needed to jump on the bandwagon too. Latecomers but there they are none the less.

I would like to give the NYT editorial staff a big, hearty FUCK YOU FELLAS! Your bullshit pandering to the most corrupt administration ever to hold office in our once-great country put us INTO this shit..and now you have the balls to weakly attempt to cover your fucking ass by explaining why you thought it was a grand idea but now you just can't seem to find your way to support it any longer? Your a day late and a dollar short as my dear old dad used to say..and he is a staunch republican that came OUT AGAINST THE WAR over 2 friggin years ago!

Bastards and charlatans at the helm of what used to be a great newspaper.

tags: Terrorism, Politics, Bush, Iraq War, New York Times

Crossposted at LeftwingNutJob

There's more: "The NYT finally comes out against the Iraq War" >>

Massive bomb blast in Iraq kills at least 117

A boy is taken to a hospital in Kirkuk, Iraq,
after a suicide bomber attacked a village market.

A massive suicide truck bomb, loaded with two tons of explosives, detonated today in an outdoor market in Amerli, a village predominantly populated by Shiite Turkmen and Kurds, about 100 miles north of Baghdad in Salaheddin province, near Tuz Khurmatu . At least 117 are dead, and at least 265 were wounded. Witnesses said the truck looked like it could have been an Iraqi military vehicle.

Two Iraqis who survived the blast spoke with the AP “Some are still under the rubble with no one to help them. There are no ambulances to evacuate the victims.” Said one witness. “I saw destruction everywhere, dozens of cars destroyed, about 15 shops and many houses, even some more than 700 meters (yards) away," another witness told the reporter. (CNN has video of the aftermath)

Salaheddin province has been relatively restive in the past, experiencing sporadic violence, not approaching the levels seen elsewhere, and certainly nothing like todays attack.

My heart goes out to all the victims of the violence unleashed on Iraq, and to the families of the fallen, and to the wounded and to all of the victims of George Bush's splendid vanity war.

It is time to listen to the Generals who are not beholden, the ones who have been there, who understand the context, and who have determined to speak out and demand an end to it. Who do you trust? John Batiste, Antonio Taguba, and William Odom; or George "Mission Accomplished" Bush, Lindsey "I bought five rugs for five dollars" Graham and Joe "Dukakis Moment" Lieberman?

For the sake of the gene pool, I hope you didn't have to think about the answer to that question.


[Cross-posted from Blue Girl, Red State and Watching Those We Chose]

There's more: "Massive bomb blast in Iraq kills at least 117" >>