Once more into the breach

(Cross-posted from Lotus - Surviving a Dark Time.)

Remember what I said just over a week ago, how Kirkuk remains a potential "flashpoint for ethnic conflict?" Juan Cole brings the goods: First, he cites Reuters for Friday, which reports that Kurdish councilors

called for the city [of Kirkuk] to become part of the largely autonomous region of Kurdistan. ...

Thursday's decision by Kurdish councilors at a provincial council meeting was symbolic because other factions boycotted the session. The council's head, himself a Kurd, also noted the call was unconstitutional.

But tensions have been rising over the city's fate, with demonstrators taking to the streets several times this week.

One of those rallies, last Monday, was attacked by a suicide bomber. Some 23 people were killed.

The central Iraqi government rejected the councilors' call while urging calm:

"The Iraqi government calls upon all parties and groups in Kirkuk province to refrain from carrying out any [actions] that might harm the national unity," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement. "The Iraqi government is stressing its [opposition to] any unilateral measure to change the status of Kirkuk."

Kurds regard Kirkuk as their historical capital and demand that it become part of the largely-autonomous Kurdish region. Besides the central government, which among its other concerns likely numbers the prospect losing direct control over the oil-rich region of which Kirkuk is part, Turkey is also watching warily: For its own internal reasons, Turkey fears any strengthening of Kurdish interests and expressed "anxiety" over the proposal.

But the real source of potential conflict comes from a third source: The non-Kurd residents of Kirkuk, particularly the Turkmen (also Turkomen), who also regard Kirkuk as home and fear ethnic oppression if the city becomes part of Kurdistan. This is something I first brought up over four years ago. Over a year ago, I noted that the leader of a Turkmen group in Kirkuk said "all the Turkmens will become suicide bombers to defend the Turkmen identity" of the city.

The intensity of that feeling remains, as evidenced by an interview with Narmin Al-Mufti, an official of the Turkoman Front, published in the Kurdish newspaper Chawder. Juan Cole posted the translation done by the US federal government's Open Source Center.

In the interview, Mufti called the Kurdistan Regional Government "not a lawful region but an internal administration." That is, the Front accepts the Kurdish area as an administrative region but does not accept autonomy, charging it is contrary to the Iraqi constitution. In fact, he said they do not recognize the constitution itself

because it has been forced upon us without our agreement. We prefer and recognize the older constitution, which contained 39 articles and did not contain Article 140,

which relates to the future of Kirkuk.

He also said the Turkoman Front does "not believe the Kurdish leadership," who "are only concerned about, and work for, their own interests" and that

[t]he Turkoman Front does not agree with elections, because balloting would be in the interest of the Kurdish political parties and they are always carrying out vote fraud.

Fraud such as, he charged, moving hundreds of thousands of "non-residents" to Kirkuk to affect potential elections. Kick those non-residents out, he said, and the Front could accept elections, because then "the Turkomans would have the majority vote in Kirkuk."

"I want to tell the Kurdish leadership," he concluded, "that we would rather be part of China than Kurdistan." The Kurds, every bit as determined on the matter, would probably be willing to grant that wish.

The chance of any short-term breakthrough on this impasse seems unlikely, especially considering that

Iraqi parliamentarians failed on Sunday to pass a law on provincial elections, putting the date of important polls in doubt and leaving unresolved a political standoff that has stoked ethnic tensions[, Reuters reports].

After struggling for hours to reach a quorum, lawmakers indefinitely postponed a special session they had called to pass the law, which has come unstuck over plans for the disputed northern city of Kirkuk and angered minority Kurds.

Still, hope springs eternal and all that.

Lawmakers did not say when they would reschedule the debate, but political leaders continued meetings to seek a compromise. ...

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker, said a compromise was close at hand and parliament would hold another vote when faction leaders signal they have reached a deal.

"We are waiting for the white smoke to rise," he said.

The trouble is, when we see the smoke rising, will it mean what Othman wants it to mean? Or will it signify a heat that is starting to do more than just smolder? Or even an impending explosion?

There's more: "Once more into the breach" >>

Footnote to the preceding, Lest We Forget Div.

(Cross-posted from Lotus - Surviving a Dark Time.)

Turkish officials stated that their warplanes bombed 13 "rebel targets" in northern Iraq on Wednesday, AP reported.

Turkey has conducted frequent air raids on suspected positions of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq. Earlier this year, it also launched a weeklong ground offensive there. ...

The PKK has been fighting for self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984. The violence has killed tens of thousands of people since then.

The rebels use bases in Iraq as a staging ground for cross-border attacks on Turkish targets.

The military said it was determined to press ahead with anti-rebel operations both inside Turkey and across the border in Iraq "according to military needs."

It needs to be mentioned here that Turkey's battle with the PKK is largely of its own making, having viciously repressed the Kurds, who make up nearly 20% of Turkey's population, in the wake of the 1980 military coup - even for eight years banning the use of the Kurdish language in an effort to deny their cultural identity, an effort which continues today.

The result, almost a predictable one, has been to create a new, more radicalized generation, "the children of serhildan," (intifada, uprising) in the words of anthropologist Hisyar Ozsoy. It's a generation raised in poverty and schooled on

endless tales of family and friends burnt out of their villages in the hills and decanted into the slums of [the eastern city of] Diyarbakir

as part of a deliberate scorched earth policy undertaken by the Turkish military during an intense period of fighting in the early 1990s. A generation more prepared for more violence than their elders. A generation created by war whose existence promises more of it.

This is by no means to say the PKK is innocent; it has in years past been willing to kill those it regarded as "traitors" and has attacked civilians. Still, beyond a few examples such as suspected PKK bombing in Ankara in May 2007, actual cases of attacks on civilians as opposed to military targets and armed police have proved hard to come by, and most of the sources for those were Turkish, which necessarily raises issues of possible bias.

But again, this is not to say the PKK is innocent. It is, however, to say that if Turkey really wants to solve its "Kurdish problem" rather than, as it has in the past, temporarily suppress it, it will need to learn, as governments over history have learned, that "what goes around, comes around," and dropping bombs in not the way to do it. A. J. Muste was much closer to the mark:

"There is no way to peace - peace is the way."

Footnote to the Footnote: The US, among others, regards the PKK as a terrorist organization. According to Seymour Hersh, however, that has not kept the US and Israel from

working together in support of a Kurdish resistance group known as the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan. The group has been conducting clandestine cross-border forays into Iran, I was told by a government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon civilian leadership, as “part of an effort to explore alternative means of applying pressure on Iran.”

The Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or PEJAK,

emerged this decade as an Iranian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK....

Former members say PEJAK was meant to circumvent Western restrictions on contacts with the PKK, which has been labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department and the European Union.

Both the US and Israel deny any support for PEJAK, but given the choice between the US government, the Israeli government, and Seymour Hersh, I damn well know which one I trust.

There's more: "Footnote to the preceding, Lest We Forget Div." >>

Iraq: The Needle And The Damage Done

Sgt. Merlin German poses with actress Elizabeth Rohm

Neil Young wrote a song with that title, about what junk was doing to great musicians as he watched them get hooked and OD before his eyes.

We were thinking about that yesterday as we trawled the intarwebs looking for information about Iraq. And the damage done. And damage aplenty it is. From being the nation that stood for economic achievement, honour, dignity, the enshrining of human rights in the very foundation of our existence, we have become a universal pariah, despised, pitied, and shunned. We're like the mad aunt in the attic, fouling ourselves, locked away out of the sight of the children because we're so unpredictable, so damaged, so pitiable.

Our currency has sunk to unheard of lows. Our economy writhes and flails pathetically struggling to rise like a wounded Leviathan even as it bleeds jobs in the tens of thousands, as homes go into foreclosure and families are forced out onto the street, as suburbs and subdivisions lie abandoned, rotting, damaged by those who once lived there or by casual thieves looking for an easy mark. Our infrastructure rots before our eyes, and we have no money to fix our sewage systems, our water systems, our dams and bridges and roads, even as we bleed billions of dollars into a war without a foreseeable end.

Today's reminder of the ongoing multiple wars in which the Bush regime has entangled us, and the continuing damage. Click the preceding link to read the story of Marine Sergeant Merlin German, who died April 11 as the result of injuries sustained from a roadside bomb blast in Iraq. Sgt. German was 22 years old.

He suffered damage to 97 per cent of his body from the bomb. It took him a little over three agonizing years of multiple surgeries and therapies to die. Sgt. German was a saxophonist. The bomb blew off his fingers. He would never be able to play his favourite instrument again. The article talks about how this poor man was "an emblem of resolve." Well, fuck your resolve. Tell us how it took him one and a half agonizing years to learn how to walk again. As a gimp, we can totally understand the torture of having a body that does not like to obey one's wishes and responds with agonizing pain when one does something it doesn't care for.

Tell us how it feels to have 40 surgeries. Each time someone cuts your body open, your chances of infection, fatal complications like clots in your veins and lungs, and, of course, the never-ending pain, increase. And sometimes pains create more, unexplained and inexplicable pains. So that when someone operates on your right knee, two years later you can suffer agonizing pains in your left toe.

They give you gabapentin for that. It's medication for epileptics, but apparently works off-label to cope with nerve-related pain. Unfortunately, it causes your wrist and forearm muscles to behave strangely, and can result in carpal tunnel syndrome.

In related news, a New York state appeals court has held that the New York/New Jersey Port Authority is liable for damages caused by the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, because it knew about but chose to ignore “an extreme and potentially catastrophic vulnerability that would have been open and obvious to any terrorist who cared to investigate and exploit it.”

We can't help but wonder if this means Gee Dumbya and his criminal cronies can be held liable for the deaths of the 3,000 who died in the attack on the Twin Towers? Personally liable? For damages? And the 4,000-plus troops who have died so far. And the 620,000 suffering from PTSD and TBI. And the 30-50,000 maimed and wounded?

After all, there's plenty of evidence that Bush and his stooges knew about 9/11 nearly a year before it happened.


Meanwhile, Reuters tells us that on April 19th, "Iraqi government troops" swept into the oil-rich southern Iraqi city of Basra and took the bastions of Hojatoleslam Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, at whose hands they had suffered such a humiliating defeat in the first weeks of April.

Of course, the article fails to mention that the "Iraqi government troops" are, for all intents and purposes, the military arm of puppet prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, a man with so little support among his own people that defections among "his" police troops and "his" army forces number in the thousands. In the event, he required massive air support from British and American forces. Caveat: Registration (free) required.

And if you don't know what happens to "collaborators," consider what you would do assuming your country was invaded by some other occupying power. What would you do to Americans who aided the enemy? Jeez, let some politician make a speech about how things are totally fucked in Iraq and every frothing rightwinger is simultaneously wanking their dicks off while screaming "Treason! Aiding and Abetting! Giving comfort to the enemy! Hang them!"

As far as the rest of Iraq, Sunni and Shi'a, religious or secular, are concerned, al-Maliki's "troops" are collaborators, calling in American and British air power to bomb the living fuck out of their own countrymen and women and children.

So we had to bomb hundreds to death, destroying their homes and hospitals and streets and towns, in order for al-Maliki's so-called "army" to succeed against al-Sadr's militiamen. Remember, if you will, that al-Maliki's "army" gets its uniforms, salaries, training, equipment, and ammunition from our treasury, while al-Sadr's militia, if they're lucky, get an inferior grade of weaponry if they can pay for it either from the black market or from our soldiers and their proxies, the Iraqi army.

Damn, if we're paying them, training them, and giving them top-notch guns and ammo, and they still can't beat a rag-tag bunch of untrained fucking desert dwellers, what the fuck does that say about this "war"? Incidentally, both al-Sadr's and al-Maliki's followers are Shi'a muslims. In other words, this is a civil war. Moreover, many people are saying that this is simply an attempt by al-Maliki's Dawa party to ensure that no other Shi'a politicians can possibly win the coming elections.

Does anyone else get the feeling that this is just a sham, set up for a gullible American electorate that doesn't bother to inform itself? Does anyone want to take a bet that the Iraqi "elections" will be held not too distant from the American elections and steps will be taken by the CheneyBush Misadministration to ensure that they can proclaim a victory, success, a drawdown?

Of course, they'd better pray that the Iraqi units don't flee their posts, as this one did. Caveat: Registration (free) required.

A pertinent snippet:

A company of Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions on Tuesday night in Sadr City, defying American soldiers who implored them to hold the line against Shiite militias.

The retreat left a crucial stretch of road on the front lines undefended for hours and led to a tense series of exchanges between American soldiers and about 50 Iraqi troops who were fleeing.

This occurred in Baghdad around April 16th. Commanders in Iraq are, to the extreme frustration and resentment of their troops, doing their best to paint any success as being led by Iraqi troops when in fact, it is American troops that are doing the dirty work, reaping the death toll, and receiving none of the credit.

Meanwhile, the Sons of Iraq, or the Sons of the Awakening, or the Awakening Council, or whatever they're calling themselves this week &mdash the number, out of the approximately 40 per cent of Iraq's population that is Sunni Muslim, who have decided to cooperate with the U.S. in attempting to expel from Iraq the al-Qaeda in Iraq "turrrrists" who are blowing up people and things &mdash have degenerated into an internecine conflict, the likes of which make the al-Sadr/al-Maliki conflict pale in comparison.

Patrick Cockburn, writing for The Independent, tells us that aQI, as al-Qaeda in Iraq is referred to, is targeting the al-Sahwa, that is, the Awakening Council, or Sunni Awakening, or, as we've been reduced to calling it of late, the Sunni Whatever. Christ. And this, hard on the heels of news that the U.S. has not provided agreed-upon amounts of arms and money to these poor sods who are in the frontline of this battle.

Is it any surprise, then, that U.S. troop deaths are currently at their highest for the past seven months? According to AP, 50 U.S. soldiers died in the month of April. Iraqi civilian deaths are also at a high. 36 people per day.

So, close to 40 people are dying every day, and what exactly are we supposed to be doing there? Preventing civil war? Too late, it's raging as we speak. Bringing democracy to the nation? How can there be democracy in a nation at war? The conditions don't exist for people to use the ballot box when they have to kill or be killed each day. We can't even successfully steal their fucking oil, which is, let's face it, the real reason that we attacked a small, poor nation that had nothing to do with 9/11. If this was about 9/11, we would have invaded Saudi Arabia which has lots of oil and, apparently, lots of terrorists, having supplied some 15 or so to the effort to bomb the fuck out of the Twin Towers.

Whoever tells us that our effort in Iraq is succeeding is lying through their teeth. This is not success. Watching 22-year-old boys get blown to smithereens is not success. Fomenting civil war in a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with the attack on us is not success. Building a mercenary army is not success.

Fuck, we can't even build a mercenary army properly. Incompetence, dishonesty, and outright idiocy resulting from greed and short-sightedness are the hallmark of what Maru likes to call the Cheney Menstruation. Here, for example, we have a wonderful incident in which mercenaries, most of whom are former military personnel, often U.S. military personnel, get killed because some senior manager used the armored vehicle in which these poor sods were supposed to travel, to &mdash no, really &mdash transport hookers.

Meanwhile, arms and equipment that we, the taxpayers, are paying through the arse for, are showing up for sale on ebay.

And little schoolgirls in Iraq are weeping while celebrating Saddam Hussein's birthday. So much for being greeted with flowers as liberators.

As we used to say when we was a yoof, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth &mdash bugger me blind. What the fuck? Is there anything we're doing that's remotely likely of success? Fuck, no. We keep propping first one, then another foot up while we take potshots at each, each time with a weapon of a greater caliber. Call us when they trundle out the cannon.

Meanwhile, the Red Cross is reporting that health care and clean drinking water in Iraq is less available to the populace, after five fucking years of our presence. The city of Baghdad has overflowing sewers that are visible from Google Earth.

There is no doubt, as Rep. Ike Skelton of MO says, that our continuing engagement in Iraq is preventing us from anticipating and preparing for future acts of terror. We're bogged down, boys 'n girls. Plain and simple.

The Pentagon is claiming that it is cutting funding for the Iraq war even as the Idiot-in-Chief is trying to force through a $70 billion dollar request for funding in Iraq. This is called, "The right hand knoweth not in whose underpants the left hand is sticking a finger." So you cut a twenty-cent purchase out while slipping a two-thousand dollar purchase in. Veddy clever.

And the Senate's Armed Services Committee is asking the GAO to find out where billions of dollars in Iraqi oil revenue have gone. Admittedly, the previous, Republican, congress didn't even bother to find out if the taxpayer was being screwed without lube. But, gentlemen, isn't this a bit like closing the barn door long after the horse has embarked on a trip to a different fucking continent?

In other news, the Iraqis prove that they, at least, are not as stupid and befuddled as the American electorate-cum-taxpayer. Even as John McInsane was tootling around those parts, our erstwhile bosom friends and financial dependents of the Iraqi power structure were chortling with glee. Pertinent excerpt:

Many Iraqi politicians are closely monitoring the American presidential race, and some said the visit bolstered their belief that if Mr. McCain, of Arizona, succeeded President Bush in the November election, the American military would have a large presence in Iraq for a very long time.

“This visit confirms that the Republicans believe that the Iraqi war is very important in the fight against terrorism in the Middle East,” said Wael Abdul Latif, an independent Shiite member of the Iraqi Parliament. “It’s a message to Iran that the United States will never leave, even after Bush is gone.”

Never leave? Hah! Why don't we just line up every single American man, woman, and child who has less than one million dollars to their name (which would be most of us, don't kid yourself), and remove half their blood, or half their limbs?

Those of you planning to vote for McInsane? Just join the military already. Take your spouse and sprogs with you. Don't plan on coming back. They'll just foreclose on your home while you're gone, anyway, and if McInsane's in charge, your kid won't be able to afford health care or college, and there won't be any jobs left after you've served. At least in the military they often give you food, plus your housing and clothing and health care is all paid for. Sure, you risk ending up like Marine Sgt. German. But that's a small price to pay to see McInsane in charge, innit?

Meanwhile, since we took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, the following has occurred:

• The real, genuine, original al-Qaeda (the one in Iraq has the same name but no links to these big daddies) just tried to kill Afghani President Hamid Karzai;
  
  Bush's old oil buddy Karzai must be wondering how long he can hold on to power.
  
  
• Our own intelligence guys are reporting that al-Qaida is doing just ducky, over in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they started out and continue to grow and thrive;
  
  
• We still don't have the first fucking clue where Osama bin Laden is, but we're willing to bet he's laughing his ass off, even if it's in some cave;
  
  Note to our so-called allies: If you see an ass wandering around sans legs, torso, or any other identifiable part, please turn it over to the U.S. military.
  
  
• No matter how much we grovel and beg, nobody wants to give us more pennies or bodies for our war in Afghanistan.

So what do we do about this? Do we keep making "support the troops" noises and buying flag pins made in China while leaving the men and women who do our dirty deeds for us to rot and die in body, mind, and soul?

Libby, over at TheImpolitic, tells us about some of the horrifying things our troops have gone through. Jesus, we're fucking outraged and disgusted.

One soldier's father was so disgusted by the treatment of his son's comrades, he videotaped it and posted it on YouTube. All on a sudden, the brass are putting away their balls which they've been playing with for ages, and leaping up to "address the issue" of the appalling conditions at Fort Bragg.

The good folk of Vermont continue to protest the war with all their might and main. Thanks, people! You give us hope!

Meanwhile, we ask, when are the Young Republicans going to step up and volunteer in droves? Because they're sitting around in school leeching off the taxpayer teat or the parental teat, the military has had to lower its standards to the point where people such as this eminent worthy get to disgrace the service.

And, to leave you all with something other than the bitter taste of ashes, here's a sweet story about service members who have to leave their four-footed friends behind, and the kind folks who help them out by taking their little beastlies in.

Crossposted over at ThePoliticalCat

There's more: "Iraq: The Needle And The Damage Done" >>

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" >>

There Goes The Neighbourhood

I'm using this map to try and illustrate something about the situation of U.S. troops in Iraq that makes me very uncomfortable (deity alone knows how it makes them feel). This could probably have been done better by Steve Gilliard, but he's no longer here to do it. Perhaps someone else has said this before, in which case, please point me to it.

Observe the map above. Now consider what happens if Al-Sayyid Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army joins with the Sunni, who have been taking our money to build their own forces and hate our guts. What if they decide to attack in force? How will our troops escape them?

Can they withdraw to the west? al-Anbar province, to the west of Baghdad, has been the site of many difficult battles. al-Anbar borders on Jordan, which would not welcome our troops, assuming the troops could successfully traverse this hostile territory in an attempt to withdraw from the charnel house that Baghdad will become in the event of an all-out assault.

To the east? Diyala province, to the east of Baghdad, capital Baquba, is "a source of problems" according to General Petraeus. It borders Iran, which also would not accept a retreat of the U.S. military, should our troops withdraw in that direction. Assuming they survive attacks as they try to withdraw through that province, they would face a much larger army in Iran.

North? Salahuddin province, immediately north of Baghdad, is the site of deadly insurgent activity. Assuming U.S. troops tried to withdraw north, they would have to traverse this province, which is largely Turkomen, and several other hostile provinces to reach Turkey — which might not offer sanctuary, despite our generosity in providing them military intelligence about PKK targets they can safely bomb. The Arab Times tells us that Salahuddin province is in turmoil right now. How much of that can be attributed to al-Qaeda and how much to the Turkish incursion into Kurdish Iraqi territory is anyone's guess.

Can they withdraw southwards? Babil province, immediately south of Baghdad, is supposedly currently under the control of an Iraqi brigade. However, note that the gunmen who staged a daring raid and kidnapped several American military personnel, apparently fled into Babil province when pursued, according to the International Herald Tribune.

Mr. Khazaali said the identities of the gunmen were unknown. Other Iraqi officials said the clues pointed to Sunni groups based in Elbu Alwan, a Sunni stronghold about 25 miles north of Karbala in Babil Province. Four of the vehicles were found there early Sunday morning, the police said.

Further southwest, Karbala province appears to be relatively peaceful, barring attacks on the Shi'a pilgrims, though unable to defend itself from violence spilling over from the nearby al-Anbar province. Further south, Qadisiya province is reeling from attacks by Shia factions. In Dhi Qar province, the Italian military has formally handed off responsibility for security to the Iraqi army as of September of 2006. Sometime around then, responsibility for security in Muthanna province, south of Dhi Qar, was handed off to the Iraqi army. This past August, the governor of the province was killed.

To the west, Najaf province is relatively peaceful and controlled by Iraqi security forces, although Asia Times informs us that it contains a large number of the "internally displaced," i.e., refugees from other, more militarily disrupted zones. If the troops can cross safely, they can get to Saudi Arabia and withdraw from there. However, Najaf was also the site, in January of 2007, of some mysterious warlike activity that indicates the potential for powerful resistance. I don't entirely trust this particular story, for example, but there isn't much information available on this mysterious army of "Soldiers of Heaven."

At any rate, it is possible for the U.S. military to safely retreat south, apparently, and down through Basra province and into Kuwait and home free, right? Not quite, apparently, now that the British troops in Iraq have withdrawn to the safety of the Basra airport, leaving the rest of Basra in Iraqi hands. Given that the immediate result has been armed conflict among various factions, as is, apparently, the case in most of the rest of Iraq, what this bodes for U.S. troops attempting to withdraw through the area is anyone's guess. As of today, a British hostage held by some faction of the warring Iraqi troops in Basrah is pleading for the release of various members of that faction who are apparently being held by the Iraqi government.

As for Baghdad itself, it is a city at the confluence of two large rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. Such a city would be hard to evacuate in a war, because withdrawal would have to take place via bridges over water. All the insurgents have to do is cut enough of the bridges to trap our military like rats.

According to Al-Jazeera, these bridges have already been destroyed:

• old Diyala bridge
• new Diyala bridge
• Sarafiya bridge

Does anybody know how we're going to get out if we need to?

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

Still more incompetence and another debacle

Most could see the problems with the PKK coming and many could see a way to avert them. Unfortunately none of those people were in the Bush administration' State Department.
A Missed Moment In Iraq

The Bush administration has only itself to blame for the quandary it faces with Turkish forces poised to intervene in northern Iraq. The Turks want to retaliate against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), whose insurgents killed 12 Turkish soldiers Sunday. A massive retaliation would be a major misfortune for Turkey, Iraq and the United States.

First, it would undermine the stability of the only part of Iraq where the United States is welcome. Second, it could plunge Turkey into an Iraq quagmire of its own.

Sadly, this crisis was predictable and predicted. U.S. officials have long known that a Turkish incursion was just one terrorist event away. As tensions mounted, the administration had numerous opportunities to engage in preventive diplomacy. A combination of lack of imagination, incompetence and sheer lack of knowledge at the State Department has caused this impasse. To make matters worse, on Tuesday the department tried to shift the blame to the Iraqi Kurds, expressing unhappiness over their inaction.

A missed opportunity

The irony is that both Iraqi Kurds and the AKP government directly or indirectly signaled the Bush administration that they were interested in a deal. I know that senior Iraqi Kurds have forwarded ideas to U.S. officials. The AKP, on the other hand, sought to test the waters first by sending its intelligence chief two years ago to talk to the Kurds -- something the government is loath to do officially -- and by organizing a private meeting this year between the Kurdish Regional Government's prime minister, Nechirvan Barzani, and then-Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. The chief of the Turkish general staff, Yasar Buyukanit, who in a fiery speech warned the government not to talk to the KRG, scuttled Gul's meeting.

The Bush administration missed an opportunity when it failed to see and support the desire for such dialogue and use its good offices to construct a "grand bargain" between the Iraqi Kurds and Ankara. At minimum, such a bargain would have required the Iraqi Kurds to dislodge the PKK from Iraq and for the Turks to offer guarantees on trade and security to the Iraqi Kurds.

For the United States, this would have meant the consolidation of northern Iraq; paradoxically, a Kurdish north at peace with Turkey is the best antidote to separation from Iraq. In short, this would have been a winning situation for all.

The best the administration can hope for now is to persuade the Turks to engage in a limited cross-border military operation. That might contain public anger and assuage a vitriolic press.

The only other thing to hope for is bad weather. With the onset of winter and dwindling military activities, Washington will perhaps have the diplomatic window of opportunity it almost closed. Three years late, it will be much harder to succeed.

Of course we are dealing with a State Department headed by Condoleezza Rice - the most incompetent National Security advisor in history who became the most incompetent Secretary of State in history. She has zero respect and credibility in the world so don't expect this or any other "diplomatic" efforts to be successful until 2009.

(cross posted at Middle Earth Journal)

There's more: "Still more incompetence and another debacle" >>

Foreign Idiocy

USA Today Diplomatic Correspondent Barbara Slavin released a new book this week: Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the US and the Twisted Path to Confrontation.

Enter George W. Bush. He had the best chance to patch up relations after 9-11 and he blew it. The U.S. and Iran both opposed the Taliban and Iran believed Bush and Cheney, as ex-oilmen, would lift sanctions. Unknown to many, the U.S. and Iran held secret, one-on-one high-level talks in Paris and Geneva from the fall of 2001 through May 2003, talks led on the U.S. side by Ryan Crocker and Zalmay Khalilzad.

In early May 2003, through Swiss intermediaries, the Iranians also presented an offer for comprehensive negotiations (reprinted in the annex to my book). Bush, full of hubris over Iraq, did not even give the Iranians the courtesy of a reply. The Europe talks ended, meanwhile, after yours truly wrote about them on the front page of USA TODAY and al-Qaeda bombings took place in Saudi Arabia that the White House said were linked to al-Qaeda detainees in Iran.

The Iranians did not give up, however. In late 2005 and through the spring of 2006, Ali Larijani, their new national security adviser, sought backchannel talks with Steve Hadley. Larijani went so far as to publicly accept a prior U.S. offer of talks on Iraq in March 2006. Supreme leader Khamenei publicly endorsed the talks, something he had never done before. Again, Bush sawed off the limb. The upshot: Larijani was weakened, Khamenei humiliated and Iran accelerated its nuclear program and its intervention in Iraq.

There is much more, including an intelligence assessment in early 2003 that invading Iraq would spur the two members of the Axis of Evil with real nuclear programs -- Iran and North Korea -- to intensify their efforts. Also the fact that the White House did not even ask the intelligence community for an assessment of the regional impact of toppling Saddam before invading.

It simply assumed that all would go well and that Tehran would be the next evildoer to fall. Instead of dividing our enemies by negotiating with Iran, the Bush administration has united them. And now -- like the child who shot his parents and complains he's an orphan -- the White House blames Iran for taking advantage of the strategic opportunities the United States has provided.

It's useful though quite troubling to be reminded that our current problems with Iran were entirely self-inflicted by this administration.

-- Steve Clemons, The Washington Note

If Bush attacks Iran we know where the responsibility for the global catalcysm falls:


Simpletons? Check. Lunatics? Check. Fanatical neocon ideologues? Check.

There's more: "Foreign Idiocy" >>