How the Press, the Pentagon, and Even Human Rights Groups Sold Us Army Field Manual that Tortures

How the Press, the Pentagon, and Even Human Rights Groups Sold Us Army Field Manual that Tortures
by Valtin at Docudharma, Sat Jan 24, 2009 at 23:12:04 PST
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Docudharma Tag: petition for a special prosecutor

Originally published at AlterNet

A January 17 New York Times editorial noted that Attorney General designate Eric Holder testified at his nomination hearings that when it came to overhauling the nation's interrogation rules for both the military and the CIA, the Army Field Manual represented "a good start." The editorial noted the vagueness of Holder's statement. Left unsaid was the question, if the AFM is only a "good start," what comes next?

The Times editorial writer never bothered to mention the fact that three years earlier, a different New York Times article (12/14/2005) introduced a new controversy regarding the rewrite of the Army Field Manual. The rewrite was inspired by a proposal by Senator John McCain to limit U.S. military and CIA interrogation methods to those in the Army Field Manual. (McCain would later allow an exception for the CIA.)

According to the Times article, a new set of classified procedures proposed for the manual was "was pushing the limits on legal interrogation." Anonymous military sources called the procedures "a back-door effort" to undermine McCain's efforts at the time to change U.S. abusive interrogation techniques, and stop the torture.

A Forgotten Controversy

Over the next six months or so, a number of articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the L.A. Times described the course of the controversy. By mid-June 2006, the NYT was reporting that, under pressure from unnamed senior generals and members of Congress (including McCain, and Senators Warner and Graham), the Pentagon was rethinking its plan to have a classified annex to the AFM, which would include a different set of interrogation rules for "unlawful combatants," like the detainees at Guantanamo. Included in the discussion about these classified procedures were, reportedly, members of the State Department and various human rights organizations.

According to an article in the L.A. Times, this latest fight over the classified procedures went back at least to mid-May 2006. The manual itself had been written at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, roughly a year earlier, and then sent to the Pentagon for further evalution. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's right-hand man, Stephen Cambone, was put in charge of its final draft. According the L.A. Times article, members of Congress were "keen to avoid a public fight with the Pentagon." The announcement that the controversial and still unknown procedures might not be included in the manual was seen as a success by human rights groups.

Yet the proverbial chickens never hatched, and by early September 2006 the new Army Field Manual was finally released. The section on special interrogation procedures for "unlawful combatants" was included as a special appendix (Appendix M), and published in unclassified format. According to a L.A. Times story on September 8, Cambone was crowing that the new Army Field Manual instructions would give interrogators "what they need to do the job." The article noted:

The new manual includes one restricted technique that will only be used on so-called unlawful combatants - such as Al Qaeda suspects - not traditional prisoners of war.

That technique, called "separation," involves segregating a detainee from other prisoners. Military officials said separation was not the equivalent of solitary confinement and was consistent with Geneva Convention protections.

As for the proposed secrecy surrounding the new techniques, the Pentagon had decided it couldn't keep them secret forever. Senator Warner was also on record as against any classified annex to the manual.

Not long ago, I wrote about what was included in Appendix M, which purports to introduce the single technique of "separation." In fact, the Appendix M includes instructions regarding solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and, in combination with other procedures included in the Army Field Manual, amounted to a re-introduction of the psychological torture techniques practiced at Guantanamo, and taught by Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape, or SERE psychologists and other personnel at the Cuban base and elsewhere.

The rewrite of the Army Field Manual included other seemingly minor changes. It introduced dubious procedures, such as the "False Flag" technique, wherein interrogators could pretend they were from another country. It also redefined the meaning of "Fear Up," a procedure meant to exploit a prisoner's existing fears under imprisonment. Now, interrogators could create "new" fears. The AFM rewrite was a masterpiece of subterfuge and double talk, which could only have been issued from the offices of Rumsfeld and Cambone.

One would think this turnaround of the Pentagon's position regarding a removal of these controversial procedures would have been a matter of some note. But there was no protest from Congress, no mention of the past controversy in the press, and only vague comments at first and then acceptance by human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Only Physicians for Human Rights protested the inclusion of the techniques listed in Appendix M. For the rest... silence.

DoD Rolls Out the New Model

On September 6, 2006, a news briefing was held by the Department of Defense, as part of the unveiling of the new Army Field Manual, in conjunction with the then-new Defense Department Directive for Detainee Programs (DoD Directive 2310.01E). Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Cully Stimson and Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2) Lt. Gen. John Kimmons were the DoD presenters.

Much of the belief that the AFM provides an improvement over previous policies of the Department of Defense is likely due to a confusion between the two documents introduced that summer of 2006, the new Detainee Program Directive and the new Army Field Manual.

DoD Directive 2310.10E made a number of changes in regards to detainee operations and management. It made clear that "All persons subject to this Directive shall observe the requirements of the law of war, and shall apply, without regard to a detainee's legal status, at a minimum the standards articulated in Common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949..." The same type of language appears in the text of the Army Field Manual itself.

During the press briefing on September 6, and a different one the next day for the foreign press, reporters were not so easily fooled.

One unnamed reporter at the DoD briefing challenged Lt. Gen. Kimmons on the "single standard" issue:

   Q General, why was the decision made to keep these categories -- the separate categories of detainees? You have traditional prisoners of war and then the unlawful enemy combatants. Why not treat all detainees under U.S. military custody the exact same way?

Kimmons's answer quickly veered into unacceptable territory, and Stimson had to jump in to clarify, as this excerpt demonstrates (emphasis added):

   GEN. KIMMONS: Well, actually, the distinction is in Geneva through the Geneva Convention, which describes the criteria that prisoner -- that lawful combatants, such as enemy prisoners of war -- which attributes they possess -- wearing a uniform, fighting for a government, bearing your arms openly and so on and so forth. And it's all spelled out fairly precisely inside Geneva.

   Geneva also makes clear that traditional, unlawful combatants such as in the -- 50 years ago, we would have talked about spies and saboteurs, but also now applies to this new category of unlawful -- or new type of unlawful combatant, terrorists, al Qaeda, Taliban.

   They clearly don't meet the criteria for prisoner of war status, lawful combatant status, and so they're not entitled to the -- therefore to the extra protections and privileges which Geneva affords.

But Stimson's clarification was not very helpful. In fact, if a prisoner is judged not a "lawful combatant", then he or she immediately becomes covered by Geneva IV, the "Civilian Convention," which protects anyone "who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever find themselves" held prisoner. According to the International Red Cross Commentary on the Geneva Conventions:

   Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third [POW] Convention, [or] a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention.... There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can fall outside the law.

Separation and Sensory Deprivation

One questioner took on the topic of the "Separation" technique. Wasn't it the same as solitary confinement, and wasn't solitary confinement "banned by Common Article 3 in the affront to human dignity, other provisions? "Are you confident," a reporter asked, "that separation is permitted under Common Article 3?"

The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs responded by denying that separation amounted to solitary confinement, even though the AFM describes the technique as, among other things "physical separation" "limited to 30 days of initial duration." Extensions for such physical separation must be reviewed and approved the General Officer or Flag Officer who initially approved the original "separation."

Kimmons' reply was even more disingenuous:

We have always segregated enemy combatants on the battlefield at the point of capture and beyond, to keep them silent, segregate the officers from the enlisted, the men from the women, and so forth. That's traditional; it goes back to World War II and beyond.

So, is "separation" a matter of segregating prisoners, or what? In the Army Field Manual itself, one gets that same kind of double talk. At first it is presented thus:

The purpose of separation is to deny the detainee the opportunity to communicate with other detainees in order to keep him from learning counter-resistance techniques or gathering new information to support a cover story; decreasing the detainee's resistance to interrogation.

This description sounds a lot like segregation for security purposes, although there is that phrase "decreasing the detainee's resistance." A page or so later, however, we find the following (emphasis added):

The use of separation should not be confused with the detainee-handling techniques approved in Appendix D [Guide for Handling Detainees]. Specifically, the use of segregation during prisoner handling (Search, Silence, Segregate, Speed, Safeguard, and Tag [5 S's and a T]) should not be confused with the use of separation as a restricted interrogation technique.

Furthermore, we learn that "separation" requires an interrogation plan, and medical and legal review, as well, of course, as "physical separation." If this is not solitary confinement for the purposes of breaking a prisoner down for interrogation, then the English language has lost all purpose in explaining things.

Another line of questioning took on the AFM's contention that it banned sensory deprivation. The entire exchange at the September 6 hearing is worth reproducing here. It represents, among other things, the most thorough line of inquiry I have seen by any reporter in quite some time. The following quote contains added emphases.

    Q General, as an expert in interrogations, do you believe that sensory deprivation was abusive, or did it ever prove to be helpful in interrogation?

   GEN. KIMMONS: Sensory deprivation is abusive and it's prohibited in this Field Manual, and it's absolutely counterproductive, in my understanding of what we have used productively. Sensory deprivation, just to be clear -- and we define it in the Field Manual, but basically, it comes down to the almost complete deprivation of all sensory stimuli, light, noise, and so forth, and to the point where it can have an adverse mental, psychological effect on a -- disorienting effect on a detainee.

   Q So could there be deprivation of light alone for extended periods of time, as opposed to complete sensory deprivation?

   GEN. KIMMONS: I think the total loss of an external stimulus, such as deprivation of light, would not fit what we have described here as -- for example, if you're hinting about separation, separation does not involve the darkness or lack of that type of sensory stimulation.

   Q That wasn't the question, though. Would sensory -- would the deprivation of light alone be permitted under the current manual, as opposed -- because you described sensory deprivation as total deprivation --

   GEN. KIMMONS: That's correction.

   Q -- of all senses. So deprivation of light alone for extended periods would be permitted?

   GEN. KIMMONS: I don't think the Field Manual explicitly addresses it.

   It does not make it prohibited. And it would have to be weighed in the context of the overall environment. If it was at nighttime during sleep hours, then it would make personal sense to turn the lights off.

   Q You know what I'm talking about. I'm trying to get at -- because you said specifically total sensory deprivation -- so deprivation of any one sense might be permitted. Like light, for example. They could be kept in the dark for extended periods of time beyond the usual nighttime hours.

This is really too specific and challenging for the DoD briefers, and they turn on their double-talk machine:

   MR. STIMSON: Jim, questions like this are good questions to ask. And what's important to remember is that interrogation plans are put together for a reason so that not just one person can decide what he or she wants to do and then run off and do it. They're vetted. It's laid out how they're vetted. General Kimmons could go into that in exhaustive detail. Typically, there would be a JAG, as I understand it, General Kimmons --

   GEN. KIMMONS: That's correct.

   MR. STIMSON: -- that would have to review that. It goes up through various chains of command. And so, you know, types of questions like this would have to be asked and then vetted through that process./p>

Burying the Story

With all the hard questioning by the press, you'd think the issues would have been aired in the media in the days and weeks following the introduction of the Army Field Manual. As should be evident by now, that's not what happened.

Here's how the L.A. Times covered it (9/6/06), getting the story exactly backwards (emphasis added):

   Bowing to critics of its tough interrogation policies, the Pentagon is issuing a new Army field manual that provides Geneva Convention protections for all detainees and eliminates a secret list of interrogation tactics.

   The manual, set for release today, also reverses an earlier decision to maintain two interrogation standards - one for traditional prisoners of war and another for "unlawful combatants" captured during a conflict but not affiliated with a nation's military force.

There is no mention of Appendix M or any controversy over techniques. Jumana Musa, an "advocacy director for Amnesty International, is quoted as noting, ""If the new field manual embraces the Geneva Convention, it is an important return to the rule of law.'"

The 9/7/06 article in the Washington Post was, if anything, even more laudatory of the new AFM:

   Pentagon officials yesterday repudiated the harsh interrogation tactics adopted since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, specifically forbidding U.S. troops from using forced nudity, hooding, military dogs and waterboarding to elicit information from detainees captured in ongoing wars.

   The Defense Department simultaneously embraced international humane treatment standards for all detainees in U.S. military custody, the first time there has been a uniform standard for both enemy prisoners of war and the so-called unlawful combatants linked to al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist organizations.

The article falsely claims the AFM bans manipulation of sleep patterns. Regarding any controversy, the article explains:

   Three expanded techniques -- good cop, bad cop; pretending to be an official from another country; and detention in a separate cell from others -- are allowed but require approval from senior officers. Officials originally considered keeping those three techniques classified but decided to make them public for the sake of full transparency.

The Post article also briefly mentions the generally positive response of human rights groups:

   "This is the Pentagon coming full circle," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "This is very strong guidance."

As for the human rights organizations, Amnesty International later essentially signed off on the AFM. In an article from the Winter 2007 issue of Amnesty International Magazine, Jumana Musa, quoted in the L.A. Times article above, had this to say about the new AFM:

   AIUSA also worked with U.S. representatives and senators to introduce legislation to create a single, transparent standard for interrogations and to limit the CIA to approved interrogation techniques outlined in the Army Field Manual.

In a telephone interview for this article, Mr. Malinowski said he supported using the Army Field Manual as a replacement for the CIA "enhanced interrogation techniques," and described the question of abuse in Appendix M as not entirely clear. The language in Appendix M was "ambiguous," and open to criticism due to a "lack of clarity." He maintained, however, that using the current Army Field Manual as a model was merely a beginning, and that a new overhaul of interrogation techniques was on the agenda.

A call made to Amnesty International's press contact regarding this issue, and an e-mail sent to Jumana Musa, were both unreturned.

Conclusion

Two conclusions can be drawn from the above examination of the "selling" of the Army Field Manual to the American public in the late summer of 2006 and beyond. One is that reporters on the beat were very aware of the origins and implications of the issues surrounding Geneva and the AFM, and the controversies surrounding the use of isolation and other techniques under the rubric of "Separation." The extremely muted or non-existent discussion in the mainstream press of these issues after the AFM was introduced means that a decision to suppress these issues was made at an editorial level, and were not the result of laziness or dilatory reporting on behalf of reporters.

Secondly, the role of some human rights organizations in promoting the new Army Field Manual -- in particular, the actions of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch -- are curious, to say the least. Press reports and the interview with Malinowski show that inclusion of certain human rights organizations in the vetting of the AFM started at the very beginning. We may not be able to find out what went on in the editorial offices of the nation's top newspapers, but we should know more about the discussions within the human rights organizations on how they advised, or were fooled, by talks with Bush administration and Pentagon personnel.

Meanwhile, other human rights organizations, such as the Nobel Prize-winning Physicians for Human Rights, have criticized the language and techniques described in Appendix M of the Army Field Manual, and called for rescission of the offending text. In a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in May 2007, Leonard S. Rubenstein, Executive Director of PHR, and retired Brigadier General Stephen N. Xenakis, MD, former Commanding General of the Southeast Regional U.S. Army Medical Command, wrote:

The new Army Field Manual on human intelligence gathering... explicitly prohibits several SERE-based techniques, yet Appendix M of the manual explicitly permits what amounts to isolation, along with sleep and sensory deprivation. The manual is silent on a number of other SERE-based methods, creating ambiguity and doubt over their place in interrogation doctrine....

   PHR, therefore, respectfully urges you to take the following actions:

   1. Fully implement the OIG's recommendation to "preclude the use of Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape physical and psychological coercion techniques" in all interrogations. (Id, pp. 29-30.) This includes rescission of Appendix M of the new Army Field Manual and specific prohibition, by name, of each of the known SERE-based methods and their equivalents.

It seems likely that the Army Field Manual, whether by executive order (most likely) or by legislation, will become the new "single standard" for U.S. interrogation. Press reports hint that the Obama administration may yet allow a loophole for CIA interrogators. I don't know how that will sit with the many military lawyers and officers who have been instrumental in opposing Bush/Rumsfeld's torture policies from the beginning. I'm thinking of people like Alberto Mora and Antonio Taguba, or the new nominee for DoD General Counsel, Jeh Charles Johnson, who apparently intends to seriously change the policies set by his predecessor, Jim Haynes.

In any case, the full history and controversy behind torture and U.S. interrogation policy deserves a full airing. What happened, for instance, between June and September 2006, allowing for Pentagon acceptance of the Appendix M abusive procedures? When it comes to the implementation of a host of torture and cruel, inhumane interrogation techniques by the U.S. government, both an investigation and prosecutions are needed.

It will be a challenge for our society to bring out the full story, while also bringing to justice those individuals who broke both domestic law and international treaty. We will need both investigations and prosecutions in order settle scores with the past, to understand where we stand now, and what we need to change to move forward.

Also posted at Invictus

President Obama andAttorney General Eric Holder must appoint a Special Prosecutor to conduct a formal investigation without political considerations and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.

There's more: "How the Press, the Pentagon, and Even Human Rights Groups Sold Us Army Field Manual that Tortures" >>

WAR WITH SARAH

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EXACTLY HOW IGNORANT IS OUR SARAH?

ABOUT THE SAME AS DUBYA. AND JUST AS READY FOR WAR. ANY WAR.

YOUTUBE: ABC NEWS
"Palin ABC interview - Part 1 -- September 11, 2008 -- Sarah Palin interviewed by ABC's Charles Gibson"


"Palin ABC interview - Part 2 -- September 11, 2008 -- Sarah Palin interviewed by ABC's Charles Gibson"


YOUTUBE: NBC
"Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question"




Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, China, Palin's Ready To Fight 'Em All

Unfortunately, she has no clue about the situation with any of these countries. Unfortunately for us McCain will be almost certainly be dead within a year. Look what the job did to far younger men. He seems to be relieved that he doesn't have to really run or prepare or pretend to be the President now that Governor Barracuda has stepped into his tired old shoes. All she had to say was: "WOW! WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY!"
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Unfortunately, the 'Cuda just ain't up to the job. (She couldn't even handle college on the Big Island of Hawaii, at lame-o rich kid tanning university HPU.) Being Commander in Chief of the planet's most deadly military machine, and enforcer for its' increasingly monstrous economy, the job of President of the United States of America, the richest and most powerful country in the history of the world, is a teeny bit more complicated than following orders from the oil companies and the Alaska Republican Party (population 100,000) while skinning a moose.

Unfortunately, the job requires that you take an interest in economic, trade, diplomatic and military strategy and tactics. It's not enough to be able to say, like a precocious five year old, "Oh, Russia, I know where that country is! It's right over there!" You have to know what it means to be playing chicken with them in the Black Sea, and now the Caribbean. It's not enough to be able to parrot the notions, "Bush good," and "terrorism bad."

Unfortunately for Sarah, and the world, you have to actually know what the so-called Bush Doctrine (more like a cocktail napkin) did to warp and wreck our military and foreign policy in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, Israel and Turkey, Poland and Georgia, North Korea and Burma. You have to read a few headlines, and maybe even a couple of paragraphs of the news stories that they put under them sometimes. You know, the wordy things next to the pictures? Or maybe you could even read one of those book thingies they used to have in the lieberry before you closed it down and burned all the books, in your dreams.

Unfortunately, this will all come out when Joe Biden debates Sarah Palin on national TV. Unless, as usual, they have one of those softball not-hardly-in-the-same-room affairs where no one actually says anything for a whole hour or more. If they did get to exchange ideas, once she ran out of "zingers" and pat phrases, Palin would be easy pickins for Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Biden. She could barely handle herself with warm and fuzzy Good Morning America eunuch Charlie Gibson. She kept calling him "CHAR-lie," like a first-year kindergarten teacher trying to control her class, and her anger at her class.

Unfortunately, the Repukelickin's have run raw rank incompetents and arrant fools for high office before. In fact, that's what they usually run. And they win. Stupid people love 'em, smart people get too disgusted to vote. But this time, the even lamer half of the ticket has the background of a bowling champion, and she WILL have to do the Biggest Job In The World for real in a matter of months. She crows arrogantly that she's ready for it. "Never batted an eye" when McCain asked her to run with him. That's her idea of wise consideration of complex problems fraught with danger: Never bat an eye. What's the female equivalent of ignorant stupid macho bravado? Macho bitcho?

Unfortunately, we may be about to find out. The illiterate beauty queen's "moose in the headlights" act may not play so well when she tries it on Hu or Putin, Kim or Khamenei. And they will come a-knockin' soon as McCain croaks. They're right next door, dontchya know?


THE NATION
"Palin Channels Cheney's 9/11-Iraq Falsehoods"

' When everyone's attention was focusing on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's less-than-reassuring interview about foreign policy with ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson, the Republican nominee for vice president was off delivering a speech in which she suggested a dramatically greater ignorance of recent history and international affairs than was on display in the interview. Speaking at Alaska's Fort Wainwright on Thursday, where she hailed the combat deployment of her son's Army unit to Iraq as a "righteous cause," Palin explicitly and repeatedly renewed the discredited claim that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was initiated as a necessary and credible response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. '

YOUTUBE: ABC NEWS
"Sarah Palin 20/20 ABC Interview II September 12, 2008 With Charlie Gibson Part 1/4"



YOUTUBE: ABC NEWS
"Sarah Palin 20/20 ABC Interview II September 12, 2008 With Charlie Gibson Part 2/4"




YOUTUBE: ABC NEWS
"Sarah Palin 20/20 ABC Interview II September 12, 2008 With Charlie Gibson Part 3/4"




YOUTUBE: ABC NEWS
Sarah Palin 20/20 ABC Interview II September 12, 2008 With Charlie Gibson Part 4/4




MORE TAGS: corporatist, Bush-clone, bumbling, inexperienced, yokel, radical right-winger, religious extremist, hypocritical fundamentalist, anti-choice, anti-gun-control, pro-war, anti-stem-cell-research

[Cross-posted at blog me no blogs.]
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There's more: "WAR WITH SARAH" >>

Scott Ritter & Ray McGovern on McCain, Palin and the Iraq War

This one needs no intro from me. They speak quite eloquently on their own...

September 2, 2008 - 18 min 8 sec

Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern on Palin and what McCain knew about false info that led to Iraq war
(Pt. 1)

There's more: "Scott Ritter & Ray McGovern on McCain, Palin and the Iraq War" >>

UPDATED: Real Iraq Reality, and Real News on 'Surging' McCain

I posted part 1 yesterday.

In this update today, an Iraqi journalist continues his series of video reports of the 'real' reality on the ground in Iraq, with part 2...

Baghdad, 5 years on (part 2): killing fields

One Baghdad's killings fields on the edge of Sadr City. The scene of thousands of sectarian murders over the last three years, it is a desolate and evil place: 'Only the killers and the killed ever come here' says Abdul-Ahad. Here in the thousands of unmarked graves lie the victims of militia gangs. Video by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad.


4 min 28 sec

An Iraqi journalist begins a series of video reports of the 'real' reality on the ground in Iraq, with...

Baghdad, 5 years on (part 1): City of walls

US claims that the military surge is bringing stability to Iraq. By travelling through the heart of Baghdad its easy to see by enclosing the Sunni and Shia populations behind 12ft walls, the surge has left the city more divided and desperate than ever.


4 min 37 sec

On the flip... Pepe Escobar of Asia Times deconstructs and shreds the sole foundation of McCain's presidential campaign...

9 min 25 sec - 'Surging' McCain

Part 1 of this report examines McCain's position in relation to the Iraq war, his decision to hedge his bets regarding the success of the surge and his interpretation of the surge's "success." Analyst for The Real News, Pepe Escobar compares McCain's interpretation to the many overlapping political and military facts on the ground in Iraq before and during the surge.

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil is the roving correspondent for Asia Times and an analyst for The Real News Network. He's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, based in London, Milan, Los Angeles, Paris, Singapore, and Bangkok. Since the late 1990s, he has specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central Asia, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has made frequent visits to Iran and is the author of Globalistan and also Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad During the Surge both published by Nimble Books in 2007.

There's more: "UPDATED: Real Iraq Reality, and Real News on 'Surging' McCain" >>

Real News: Is Iraq Ready To Explode?

July 29, 2008 - 3 min 10 sec - Scores killed by blasts in Baghdad and Kirkuk could be a forewarning as rival elites fight for power

Three female suicide bombers and a roadside bomb struck Shiite pilgrims taking part in a massive religious procession in Baghdad on Monday. Police said at least 32 people were killed and 102 wounded. The attacks occurred in quick succession in the early morning in the mainly Shiite Karradah district, as tens of thousands of Shiite worshippers streamed toward the pilgrimage site in Kazimiyah, northern Baghdad. Meanwhile at a Kurdish rally in the northern city of Kirkuk, A bomb blast killed at least 15 people and wounded 170 others. The attack occurred while demonstrators gathered to protest a provincial elections law being debated in Parliament. The law would limit the Kurds ability to control oil-rich Kirkuk which they consider to be part of their historical land. Last week Kurdish parties walked out of the Iraqi parliament in protest over the proposed law. Though the law was passed 127 to 13 it was later vetoed by President Jalal Talibani, who is also a Kurd. Though many reports claim violence in Iraq to be at its lowest point in three years, the political situation is still very volatile.

The Nation article by Robert Dreyfuss referred to in the video is Iraq on the Edge:

While everyone's looking at Iraq's effect on American politics -- and whether or not John McCain and Barack Obama are converging on a policy that combines a flexible timetable with a vague, and long-lasting, residual force -- let's take a look instead at Iraqi politics. The picture isn't pretty.

Despite the Optimism of the Neocons, which has pushed mainstream media coverage to be increasingly flowery about Iraq's political progress, in fact the country is poised to explode. Even before the November election. And for McCain and Obama, the problem is that Iran has many of the cards in its hands. Depending on its choosing, between now and November Iran can help stabilize the war in Iraq -- mostly by urging the Iraqi Shiites to behave themselves -- or it can make things a lot more violent.

There are at least three flashpoints for an explosion, any or all of which could blow up over the next couple of months. (Way to go, Surgin' Generals!) The first is the brewing crisis over Kirkuk, where the pushy Kurds are demanding control and Iraq's Arabs are resisting. The second is in the west, and Anbar, where the US-backed Sons of Iraq sahwa ("Awakening") movement is moving to take power against the Iraqi Islamic Party, a fundamentalist Sunni bloc. And third is the restive Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, which is chafing at gains made by its Iranian-backed rival, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI).
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So Iraq is still poised to explode, and Iran may be in control. McCain's solution: provoke a showdown with Iran. Obama's solution: try to make a deal with Iran to stabilize Iraq. I'm not sure either "plan" will work.

So the "solution" favored by both U.S. presidential candidates remains: long term occupation of a country that has been trying for five years to free itself from American "liberation"...

There's more: "Real News: Is Iraq Ready To Explode?" >>

McCain on the value of human -- er, American -- life

John McCain insensitive to the human cost of the war in Iraq?

Au contraire. He's very sensitive:

"Nothing is more precious than Americans, and I know that it has caused great heartache and pain," he said, "but I also want to tell you that I believe in the conflict in Iraq with this new strategy, we are succeeding.

"Every American is precious, every casualty is someone that pains and grieves us, no one more than a veteran," said Mr. McCain, who spent five years as a prisoner of war during Vietnam. "But the consequences of failure would be chaos and genocide in the region."

Maybe that's why we don't even bother to count the number of Iraqis killed, while estimates range in the hundreds of thousands, even a million.

Every American is precious.

Iraqis' lives are cheap.

And it's really "not too important" when the killing stops.

There's more: "McCain on the value of human -- er, American -- life" >>

Telling The Truth

Was it just yesterday? Or the day before? That senile warmonger John McInsane had the big brass balls to tell Barack Obama he was going to instruct Obama about how peaceful Iraq was and how things are going so fucking well in Iraq?

Let's see, here's a few pertinent spittle-fleckings:

[...] McCain added, he [Obama, Ed.] will change his position on the war because of the success the U.S. is having there. “Sen. Obama was driven to his conclusion by ideology, not by the facts on the ground,” McCain said. “Success in Iraq is undeniable.”

The Seattle Times responds with an editorial that basically informs McInsane of what everyone else with a working brain cell already knows: the aged, cranky, nasty old Republican nominee is fuller of shit than a constipated cow. A pertinent snippet:

McCain is having a jolly time pretending he is the only candidate with enough cachet and experience to lead the U.S. on military matters, even offering to squire Obama around Iraq.

McCain's posturing would be silly one-upmanship if the costs of the war in Iraq and at home were not so enormous and never-ending. McCain has the wrong position. He supports continued military involvement in Iraq. Obama, more credibly, vows to end the war and bring troops home.

Kudos to the editorial writer! More than two-thirds of the American electorate is utterly sick and tired of this bogus war. Bombing the helpless populace of a small country that has done nothing to us is nothing less than a war crime. A war crime that has, incidentally, destroyed our economy and is threatening the combined economy of the rest of the world.

Does anybody remember the last time McInsane went to Iraq? March of this year. Protected by about 100 Marines, in full body armour, with helicopter gunships overhead, McInsane was photographed (at taxpayers' expense, of course) strolling about in Baghdad, proclaiming it safe. The old geezer conveniently forgot to mention to anyone during his recent spittle-flecked rant that his army escort would not let him go to the Shorja market where he had his picture taken last year, because it was "too unsafe."

Of course, someone who can't tell Sunni from Shi'a and doesn't even know how many troops we have in Iraq is hardly the authority on the war. If only fate wasn't tempted to give the old man the smackdown every time he opens his mouth and switches feet. Pertinent snippet:

McCain's comments about Mosul being "quiet" have also been criticized. On the day he made them, 30 Iraqis were killed by suicide bombings in the Mosul area.

Meanwhile, the town of Hit, near Baghdad, didn't want to be left out of the rush to smear a little egg on the erstwhile candidate's face. A suicide bomber in that town, no doubt having read or heard McLame's comments, rushed off to glory, taking ten people with him and wounding 12 others.

McLame displayed his usual tin ear on the issue:

McCain, speaking to reporters in Milwaukee, refused to acknowledge a mistake, saying that "I said we have drawn down. And we have drawn down."

Gee, where have we heard that refusal to admit making a mistake before? Oh, yeah, the previous two terms of Gee Dumbya Pumpkinhead.

In an attempt to defend the senile warmonger, his advisers said the flap amounted to nothing more than "nitpicking" about "verb tenses."

"It is the essence of semantics," said a frustrated Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy adviser, on a conference call organized by the campaign. "We're having this call about a verb tense."

Wow, they sure have learned their lessons well. They're borrowing from the arsenal of Karl Rove and Bill Clinton. Next they're going to tell us what the definition of "is" is. Good work, kids! No, let's rephrase that: Heckuva Job, Johnny!

In other convincing evidence of the peacefulness of Iraq, thousands of Iraqis turned out to protest the U.S. presence. Intelligence (a quality Mr. McInsane seems dreadfully short on) officials announced today that our progress in Iraq basically sucks wet monkey ass. The scheduled elections are already getting the Sunni mad at each other. Progress! Peace! Missing Limbs! Awakening Councils!

Is there anyone in Iraq that we haven't pissed off yet? Well, maybe McInsane's definition of "progress," "success," "drawdown," and so forth are not exactly the same as Merriam-Webster's or Oxford's OED, or, let's be honest, any fucking body else's.

Tell the truth, Mr. McCain. If you remember how that's defined any more, that is. And don't forget to tell all those American servicemen being blown up in Iraq and Afghanistan why you refuse to sign Jim Webb's GI Bill that would give them better benefits than the pile of steaming crap the Bush misadministration's been trying to feed them for the past X years.

Crossposted over at ThePoliticalCat

There's more: "Telling The Truth" >>

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" >>

"He is Iraq's Katrina itself"

Just as New Orleans's Ninth War will still be a moonscape when Bush goes out of office, so will Iraq.

Sadly, it's looking less, and less, likely that we will see him exit the White House, handcuffed, in a perp walk - as he so richly deserves.

Mostly due to a brain-dead, Constitution-blinders-firmly-affixed-Congress (How big an outcry from our elected representatives have you heard about the bombshell news the other day, that the torture program was choreographed directly out of the Bush Grindhouse?), he gets to wear his real, and proverbial, flightsuit and play "The Commander Guy" for a number of dwindling months.

And inhabiting the Unreality Bubble he has ensconced himself in, Lord knows what further havoc he will reek.

Especially when he's running his policy speeches up the Neocon flagpole, before he gives them.

Wants to make sure, I suppose, there's enough warmongering in it.

Juan Cole writes/reports one of the best blogs on what's happening in Iraq (and the policies behind it; Another good one is Abu Aardvark).

Cole nails the Bush Legacy;

War turns Republics into dictatorships. The logic is actually quite simple. The Constitution says that the Congress is responsible for declaring war. But in 2002 Congress turned that responsibility over to Bush, gutting the constitution and allowing the American Right to start referring to him not as president but as 'commander in chief' (that is a function of the civilian presidency, not a title.)

So Congress abdicated to Bush. Bush has abdicated to the generals in the field.

That is not a Republic. That is a military dictatorship achieved not by coup but by moral laziness.

And, as Gene Robinson notes today, the Bush Grindhouse, cluelessly, is going through the motions, to pass this mess on to the next president.

Of course, Bush long ago lost any credibility with Congress and the American people on Iraq. It's understandable that he hides behind Petraeus's breastplate of medals and Crocker's thatch of gray hair, sending these loyal and able public servants to explicate the inexplicable: What realistic goal is the United States trying to achieve in Iraq? And in what parallel universe is this open-ended occupation making our nation safer?

Even the most basic question of any war is undefined: Who is the enemy? It was almost painful listening to Petraeus as he faced reporters yesterday and was asked whether Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army were friend or foe. His tortured answer, translated into English, was yes.

But thanks to Cole today, the Legacy Shopping is over.

Ironically, what officers like Petraeus need from Bush is not deference but vigorous leadership in the political realm. Bush needs to intervene to work for political reconciliation in Iraq if Petraeus's military achievements are to bear fruit. But Bush seems incapable of actually conducting policy, as opposed to starting wars. Bush happened to Iraq just as he happened to New Orleans. He cannot do the hard work of patiently addressing disasters and ameliorating them. He just wants to set people to fighting. Crush the Sadr Movement, perhaps the most popular political movement in Iraq? He's all for it. Risk provoking a wider conflagration in the Middle East by worsening relations with Iran? Sounds like a great idea to him. Bush campaigned on being a 'uniter not a divider' in 2000. In fact, he is the ultimate Divider, and leaves burning buildings, millions of refugees, and hundreds of thousands of cadavers in his wake. He is not Iraq's Brownie. He is Iraq's Katrina itself.

Just as New Orleans's Ninth War will still be a moonscape when Bush goes out of office, so will Iraq.

Phew!

That's a nutshell, alright ... A pretty, darned good nutshell I would say.

Last summer, The Garlic put forth a proposal - and it's still open and viable - that could end this madness.

Please, someone, step up and go for it!


Bonus Links

Amy Goodman: “Iraq Does Not Exist Anymore”: Journalist Nir Rosen on How the U.S. Invasion of Iraq Has Led to Ethnic Cleansing, a Worsening Refugee Crisis and the Destabilization of the Middle East

Bob Herbert: The $2 Trillion Nightmare

12 Former Army Captains: The Real Iraq We Knew

Wanted Dead Or ... Ahh, The Hell With It .. I'll Let The Next President Get'em ...

New Bush Export - Preemptive Horseshit!

There's more: ""He is Iraq's Katrina itself"" >>

Frank Rich's Big Mistake on Iraq War and McCain

via MAL Contends
Madison, Wisconsin—Frank Rick has a piece in this morning’s Times arguing that Obama and Hillary “are flat-out wrong” in condemning John McCain for McCain's allegedly having expressed a willingness “… to keep this (Iraq) war going for 100 years,” as the two Democrats on the campaign trail state their desire for withdrawal, contra McCain.

Rich, among the most perceptive columnists today, cites other writers and fact checkers making the same point, including Zachary Roth in the Columbia Journalism Review.

So what are McCain’s words about the U.S. occupation/war made at a town meeting in January, and repeated since?

“Make it a hundred (in Iraq). ... We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me, as long as American, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. It’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting and equipping and motivating people every single day."

Writes the CJR’s Roth, “It’s clear from this that McCain isn’t saying he’d support continuing the war for one hundred years, only that it might be necessary to keep troops there that long.”

What?

Rich, though he goes on to blast McCain and the Neocon enablers on other points, chides the Democrats on the 100-year war point, writing: “…The sum total of (McCain’s) public record suggests that he could well prolong the war for another century — not because he’s the crazed militarist portrayed by Democrats, but through sheer inertia, bad judgment and blundering.”

What, how again are Hillary and Obama "flat-out wrong"?

McCain predicates his anti-withdrawal position on a lie—that troops can remain in Iraq without being injured, harmed or wounded—and McCain's conclusion, that of a multi-decade-long occupation, should be taken a commitment for a multi-decade-long occupation that will be justified by still more lies.

Video of McCain Saying “10,000 years” in Iraq with permanent bases


If you have US troops in Iraq, they will remain targets. McCain is simply throwing a bone to the public in his conditional reference (taken as fact, and not a lie, without challenge by the fact checkers) to maintain "...as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

No doubt, Rich and the fact checkers, having blasted Hillary and Obama for their critiques of McCain, will point to McCain's pursuit of withdrawal, for full context. No, they don't.

Then Rich and company will point to McCain's candid acknowledgement of the Neocon enterprise in Iraq, for full context? No, they don't.

Perhaps Rich and company will at least point to McCain's rejection of permanent bases, a super permanent embassy, and McCain's commitment to Iraqi control over their own natural resources. Wrong again.

Let's acknowledge that McCain's statement is compound-complex and not a model of clarity. Indeed, the statement is predicated on false premises and lies.

But reading Rich and the fact checkers we are to believe ".... only that it might be necessary to keep troops (in Iraq) that long,” (Roth) and that "...(McCain’s) public record suggests that he could well prolong the war for another century ... through sheer inertia, bad judgment and blundering;” (Rich); but Hillary and Obama's charges that McCain wants to keep the war going for 100 years are nevertheless bogus.

What has happened to Rich and Roth on this one?

Bush, McCain and Neocons don't want out; they want a client oil state, and they will commit troops there as long it takes to establish such a geopolitical agent, while spewing the WMD, al Qaeda, regional stability, and whatever other justification they come up with for however long this Neocon propaganda will hold up.

So Obama and Hillary are spot-on to blast McCain for his 100-year, one-million-year (whatever time comes to his mind) idiocies.

Their criticism accurately reflects his anti-withdrawal commitment and accurately reflects his pro-war statement.

Again, McCain predicates his anti-withdrawal position on lies—that troops can remain in Iraq without being injured, harmed or wounded, (and let's not forget that al Qaeda and Islamofascism are the threat in Iraq)—and McCain's conclusion, that of a multi-decade-long occupation, should be taken a commitment for a multi-decade-long occupation that will be justified by still more lies.

Rich and the fact checkers ought to give this affair a rethink.

There's more: "Frank Rich's Big Mistake on Iraq War and McCain" >>

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

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Is This What We're Fighting For?

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal, as well as the Wild Wild Left, Independent Bloggers Alliance, The Peace Tree and Worldwide Sawdust.

A picture is worth a thousand words. This is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Iraqi counterpart Jalal Talabani together in Baghdad, today. Americans are fighting, suffering post traumatic stress disorder, permanent injuries, dying and killing innocent civilians to help establish an Islamic Shiite fundamentalist axis in the Gulf. Likely Republican nominee John McCain promises more of the same. Hillary Clinton enabled President Bush and John McCain to pursue this strategic calamity out of sheer political expediency. Yet Clinton has the temerity to suggest she has superior credentials to be commander and chief? Both Clinton and McCain represent more of the same. It's time for a change. Enough said.

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