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

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How Many Times

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

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

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

To recap, a chronology of events:

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

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

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

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

REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

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

Crossposted over at ThePoliticalCat

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

Maliki-Mahdi fight affects oil prices – $120/bbl next

An oil pipeline in the Basra area was attacked and damaged as part of battles between the Iraqi army militia of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Mahdi Army of cleric-in-training Muqtada al-Sadr.

Oil prices hit $107/bbl today after the attack reduced Iraqi oil output almost 25 percent, from 1.56 million barrels per day to 1.2 million

“We’re going to be getting less oil because of the explosion,” said James Cordier, founder of OptionSellers.com, a Tampa, Fla., trading firm.

For traders, the big factor is that Iraqi oil supplies were cut by a deliberate act of terrorism, Cordier said. That raises the prospect of more attacks, and less oil.

That’s despite unnamed “oil officials” denying such a cutback happened.

No word yet on the severity of damages or how long repairs will take, but Corder says to expect the worst:

“I think crude oil is easily going to be testing $120 (in coming weeks),” Cordier said. Crude futures rose to a trading record of $111.80 early last week before retreating.

Well, that negates much of the IRS stimulus checks.

There's more: "Maliki-Mahdi fight affects oil prices – $120/bbl next" >>

So much for the Mahdi cease-fire extension

Expect a new round of civil conflict in Iraq. One militia group loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army says it will now longer obey the mythical “central government,” even as it started clamping down its control on west Baghdad neighborhoods.

The Sadrists in west Baghdad have three demands, that the government release detainees, stop targeting Sadrist members and apologize to the families and the tribal sheiks of the men.

Meanwhile, Sadr forces in Basra have started fighting government units after an attempted crackdown. The government launched that crackdown after Sadrists said they would resist any attempt at being detained. There, Iraqi government announced a three-day security plan, beginning 5 p.m. Tuesday, to seal Basra off from other Iraqi regions, and other countries, shut down schools and institutes of education and ban vehicles from entering the province.

It sounds like Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki probably pushed more than a bit too far.

And, on the occasion of the 4,000th U.S. combat troop death, the Preznit was still looking for his pony:

“One day, people will look back at this moment in history and say, ‘Thank God there were courageous people willing to serve, because they laid the foundations for peace for generations to come.’”

No, many of us will say, Thank doorknob for the 22nd Amendment, so you couldn’t pull a bogus Iran attack out of your ass to try to run for a third term.

There's more: "So much for the Mahdi cease-fire extension" >>

So much for the success of the Surge™

When the Resident stood in front of the nation on January 10 and announced that he was going to go ahead and implement another American Enterprise Institute pipe dream the reason he gave for escalating forces was to give the nascent Iraqi government the "breathing space" to achieve political reconciliation.

So much for that grand ideal.

The sniping is incessant, the skirmishes bruising. For months, the verbal warfare between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, and his Sunni vice-president, Tariq al-Hashemi, has been escalating.

Now Iraqi politicians and American diplomats and analysts fear that the very public feuding between two of Iraq's most influential leaders will doom even the minimal hopes that exist for progress on a host of key benchmarks — such as holding provincial elections and equitably sharing oil revenues.

"This is not merely about personalities quarreling over something trivial," said Anthony Cordesman, an expert on the Middle East for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. "It's about control of the state. ... It's about basic interests, factional and sectarian, and survival."

In spite of a decline in violence there has been no hint of political reconciliation, and no progress on any of the benchmarks in anyones assessment; Iraqi, United Nations or United States.

In the absence of political progress, it is feared that violence will escalate once more when the "Surge™" ends and the United States begins to reduce the number of troops in Iraq.

[Keep Reading...]

The widening social chasms in Iraq go far beyond the bickering and sniping between Hashemi and Maliki, but the hostility between the two leaders illustrates clearly the failure of the Surge™ to bring Iraq's troubles to an end, in spite of the reduction in violence.

On Tuesday, Maliki accused Hashimi of abusing his position on Iraq's 3-member presidency council and blocking legislation passed by the Shiite-dominated parliament. (To become law, legislation passed by the parliament must be unanimously approved by the council.)

Maliki also ridiculed Hashemi's Iraqi Sunni political party, calling it "unrepresentative" of the country's minority Sunnis, in spite of the fact that the party is the largest Sunni bloc in the parliament.

Hashemi, a former military officer who never joined the Baath party, has taken his shots at Maliki on a few occasions as well, especially regarding security and human rights issues. He has pushed for amnesty for thousands of Sunnis who have been detained and imprisoned. He has visited overcrowded prisons with television cameras in tow to criticize Maliki and his government over the treatment of detainees, most of whom are Sunni Arabs. Maliki dismissed Hashimi's forays into the prison system as nothing more than political grandstanding.

Hashemi has accused the Maliki government of turning a blind eye to the sectarian violence that has claimed the lives of three of his siblings - and the accusation outrages Maliki.

American officials are frustrated that the Iraqi leaders are not acting to resolve the impasse and Phil Reeker, an official at the U.S. embassy last week urged the two men to put their differences aside. "Leaders have to take advantage of this opportunity to continue serious work in focusing on the most important matters at hand to move the country forward. I think it's very important that the Iraqi people are looking to their leaders to provide them with progress, with security, with services, with jobs, and it is legislative activity that is going to lead to that."

Other Iraqi politicians are frustrated with the situation as well. "It's becoming more than political; it's becoming personal, and that's unfortunate. I blame both of them. I hope they can just get over it, because it's affecting the credibility of the government," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of parliament. "At this moment, they should be together now that the security situation is better. Iraq needs teamwork."

A GAO report issued last month found that the Iraqi government had failed to realize most of the 18 benchmarks established by the U.S. as signs of progress and reconciliation. Of vital importance - the GAO found that sectarianism within the government undermines the reconciliation effort. No one sees a quick solution.

Anthony Cordesman put the disputes in historical context, and put it bluntly - "There is not going to be reconciliation because of some magic agreement that will make everybody forget past grievances."

Othman, the Kurdish parliamentarian, agreed. "The lack of trust is the main issue," he said. "Maliki is not ready to have Sunnis as part of the decision-making process. There is a distrust there."

From the outset, the Bush administration has failed to consider the historic and ethnic realities of Iraq. That is why the situation is so thoroughly and utterly FUBAR, and was doomed to be from inception. Continuing the American presence only aggravates the situation. As long as American forces occupy the country, it is not going to get any better.

When faced with no good options, the least-bad option is the only intelligent choice. And right now, the least-bad option is to get the hell out of there and let the Iraqis solve their own problems. The wrong done to that country and it's citizens is of aWol's making, but we can no more solve the problems with military force than one can put out a fire with kerosene.

There's more: "So much for the success of the Surge™" >>

Observing Our Government Through Blackwater

Observing Our Government Through Blackwater
By David Swanson

Jeremy Scahill, author of a terrific book on the Blackwater mercenary army, spoke in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Tuesday to a packed hall. He took questions at the end, and one man asked something to the effect of "Why does the government want to privatize the military? We taxpayers have been paying for the Army." I wished Scahill had pointed out that it's the tax payers who are now paying the private corporations, but the answer Scahill gave was critical.

"There's a cynical answer and an honest answer," he said, "and I think they're the same answer." He said that the Pentagon is useless to politicians because it doesn't make campaign "contributions". But when you take a big chunk of that enormous military budget and give it to private companies, you free it up to come back (some portion of it) to politicians every campaign season.

Scahill has the ability to tell the story of one little corner of corruption and through it provide an understanding of the overall military industrial media congressional complex. The corner of corruption he focuses on is Blackwater.

Scahill described the recent "Bloody Sunday" incident in Baghdad in which Blackwater mercenaries shot and killed approximately 28 Iraqi civilians, including women and children, in a square. The Iraqi government claims to have video proving the shooting was unprovoked. Witnesses corroborate that story.

Within hours of the incident, Condoleezza Rice phoned Iraqi President and Bush puppet Nouri al Maliki. Within 5 days Blackwater was back on the streets.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman plans to hold a hearing on October 2nd and has asked Blackwater CEO Eric Prince to testify, but has not subpoenaed him. He's asked Prince to testify before, and Prince has refused.

The State Department has told Waxman that any information it provides Congress on occupation contractors will be classified. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has herself refused to comply with a subpoena. It might be possible to compel Prince to comply, but Waxman has not subpoenaed him. Beyond the power of subpoena, Waxman has made clear he will never support using the power of impeachment. For several months now he has sent frequent requests to the State Department without receiving compliance.

Scahill described the size of the problem. There are 181 security companies in Iraq and 180,000 private contractors, tens of thousands of whom are mercenaries. And they are unaccountable. When a Blackwater mercenary shot and killed the Iraqi Vice President's body guard, Blackwater snuck the shooter out of the country. In February of this year, Waxman held hearings and invited Prince to testify. Prince did not show up, but sent his lawyer instead. Rep. Dennis Kucinich noted at the hearing that Blackwater appears to be complicit in the flight of a murder suspect.

Blackwater has frequently found itself in gun battles with Iraqis, as recounted by Scahill. The U.S. Embassy, Scahill said, lied when it recently said it had never had complaints about Blackwater. The Iraqis have complained frequently. But the US wants shock troops, Scahill said. "They want Iraqis to have the fear of god in them if they try to approach Ryan Crocker or Condoleezza Rice."

A US soldier can be court martialed. There have been 64 courts martial for murder charges in Iraq, which Scahill finds stunningly low, given that in his estimate there have been 750,000 Iraqis killed. (I don't know why Scahill disagrees with the studies that now place the number over a million.) Mercenaries are not prosecuted under Iraqi or US law or courts martial.

Scahill said that when he recently testified before Congress, the whole issue seemed to be brand new to congress members. After four years of slaughter and wild west tactics in Iraq, Scahill said, two freshman senators have finally proposed establishing a system of justice for mercenaries.

Scahill seems to be of two minds about this proposal. He recognizes that mercenaries, aggressive wars, and foreign occupations are illegal to begin with, making their regulation a dubious endeavor. He recognizes that the mercenary companies are themselves supporting the proposal, and that this is a good indication of how worthless it is. Yet, he finds something encouraging about the fact that there is a proposal and a discussion underway. I am less encouraged, largely because any bill that was actually worth passing would be vetoed.

Scahill recently gave a talk in Eric Prince's home town in Michigan (a town described well in Scahill's book). Prince published an op-ed in the local paper claiming that Blackwater is not a mercenary company. But, Scahill explains, Blackwater has hired soldiers from countries like Chile whose democratically elected governments opposed the occupation, and sent those soldiers to fight in Iraq. Employing soldiers to fight for a foreign power, such as Chileans for the United States, is the very definition of mercenary used by Prince himself.

The Democrats in Congress are asleep on this issue, says Scahill, and he blames the financial "contributions" they receive from the war industry.

Scahill says that the count of 1,000 or more private contractors killed in Iraq is almost certainly undercounted dramatically, because it includes only those eligible for federal aide.

Britain may put in more mercenaries as it pulls out troops, Scahill said. The US may put in more mercenaries when it pulls out troops. And more and more of the mercenaries may be hired from poor nations around the world, including Iraq. (And yet the best talk in Congress is still of "redeploying" troops, never troops and mercenaries.)

Scahill also discussed Blackwater's connections with the Bushes and the radical right. With Blackwater guards now bigger targets in Iraq than the people they are guarding, why would the US keep them on? The answer, Scahill suggests, is the role the Prince family has played in funding the religious right and rightwing political movements in the United States. All of this, including the story of Blackwater's creation and rise to power, is well told in Scahill's book.

And it's not just the Princes. The number two man at Blackwater, Cofer Black, formerly of the CIA, is part of the power that Blackwater has over the State Department as well, Scahill surmises. He has been in charge of capturing Osama Bin Laden and in charge of the extraordinary rendition program. It's unclear whether Blackwater's planes have been used in that program. The number three man at Blackwater is Joseph Schmitz, former Pentagon Inspector General under Rumsfeld. Blackwater's lawyers include Fred Fielding, former White House Counsel, and Kenneth Star, former investigator of Bill Clinton's oral sex.

The main problem, as Scahill says, is that companies have a profit motive in launching and escalating wars. And nobody in Washington, other than Dennis Kucinich, will talk about it, Scahill says.

Someone in the audience Tuesday night asked whether Scahill was concerned about what role American mercenaries in Iraq will play when / if they're brought home. Scahill agreed that it should be a major concern, and said that he's seen a glimpse of it in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He talked to Israeli private security guards for a company called Instinctive Shooting International who were operating an armed checkpoint on behalf of a wealthy individual. Mercenaries are for hire by billionaires as well as by the government.

Scahill also warned that he expects an increase in attacks on mercenaries in Iraq as retaliation for the recent massacre.

Scahill dodged the obligatory 9-11 theories question but answered a question on whether the four famous Blackwater deaths in Fallujah had been an intentional set-up to spur revenge attacks. Scahill believes that was not the case, that Blackwater was simply rushing recklessly to fill a contract.

Someone also asked what everyone in the room could do when they got home. Based on Scahill's response, I posted the following call to action on a local website:

CALL CHAIRMAN HENRY WAXMAN

Jeremy Scahill discussed Blackwater tonight in Charlottesville. Someone asked what we could do, and he suggested that we all phone Congressman Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California and the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. We should ask Waxman to subpoena Blackwater CEO Eric Prince. Waxman's number is 202-225-3976.

A little background: Waxman has subpoenaed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and she has refused to appear. Unless Waxman backs impeachment of her (the House Judiciary Committee passed an article of impeachment against Nixon for refusal to comply with subpoenas) he has no leverage over Rice. Waxman has asked Prince to testify before, and he refused. There is a chance that Waxman could compel Prince to obey a subpoena or hold him in contempt or inherent contempt. The State Department has told Waxman that any information it provides is classified. Waxman should ignore that announcement, hold open hearings, and subpoena Prince and other heads of mercenary companies. He should expose to the public what their contracts are and what their crimes have been, including the recent Blackwater bloody Sunday massacre, of which Waxman should obtain the video from the Iraqi government and air it.

There's more: "Observing Our Government Through Blackwater" >>

Maliki government looking more shaky

Samarra bombing leads to top resignation, again bringing its viability into question.

Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior Shiite politician often mentioned as a potential prime minister, tendered his resignation last week in a move that reflects deepening frustration inside the Iraqi government with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Other senior Iraqi officials have considered resigning in recent weeks over the failures of their government to make progress after more than a year in power, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Abdul Mahdi said he was provoked by the second bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra on June 13, in which he said corrupt police abetted Sunni insurgents. “The two minarets were as important to us as September 11, and we should be accountable to the people,” Abdul Mahdi said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “We should be doing more to move in a positive direction — on corruption, accountability and defending the important sites.” …

Maliki’s political benefactor, radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, has again withdrawn his followers in parliament in the wake of the Samarra bombing. The leader of Sadr’s legislative bloc, Nasar al-Rubaie, said that “the Maliki government will surely collapse if the situation continues as it is right now.”

I don’t think it’s a question of “if” the center can hold any more, but “how long.”

From the BushCo point of view, Maliki continues to dilly-dally on things like the draft oil law. Now, he’s president, not a prime minister, but especially with his veep just resigning, don’t doubt that Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Ambassador Ryan Crocker aren’t sniffing around for some way to not only fill Mahdi’s vacancy but “lean on” Maliki at the same time — or perhaps even trying to run the table with a “two-fer.”

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

There's more: "Maliki government looking more shaky" >>