Tag Archives: Iraq

Political Rants

Short takes.

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So many things going on in the news that it’s hard to pick which one to pull my blowhard routine on. So I’ll blow a little less hard this week, so to speak. Here goes.

Trust me on this. Again.TPP / MAI – It’s been a full court press on the Trans Pacific Partnership fast-track authority issue currently facing the House of Representatives. As it happens, WikiLeaks has released another leaked chapter of the agreement, this one dealing with “Transparency for Health Care”, so to speak. The more that emerges on this agreement, the more it seems like the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) that was killed in the early 2000’s – basically an investors’ rights agreement, written by corporate lobbyists seeking to elevate the status of their superhuman client conglomerates to a status above that of sovereign nations. The House has turned fast track legislation back, fortunately, but this is truly the thing that wouldn’t die. We will have to remain vigilant on this issue.

Boots in Iraq, Missiles in Europe – Obama is getting in touch with his more bellicose side this past week, with threats to base medium range missiles in Europe (with which to threaten Russia and counter their recent cruise missile deployment and “aggression” against Ukraine) and a promise to send another 500 or so “advisers” to Iraq’s Anbar Province to join the campaign against ISIS. One would think that these two items would be hard to reconcile – a thrust against unwarranted extraterritorial aggression … paired with unwarranted extraterritorial aggression. Still, when the empire does it, it’s not contradictory or ironic.

Jail Break – One of the biggest stories since the last sporting event our news organizations obsessed over. Pretty impressive display of ingenuity, getting out of that massive prison. I can’t help but feel sorry for their alleged accomplice, whose name and face are being displayed across the media with the usual abandon.

Texas Hold-em – This time, we have video of a police officer – a trainer, no less – wrestling a bikini-clad black teenager to the ground, pulling a gun on some other kids, doing a dramatic shoulder roll, etc. He has resigned, blaming his dramatic behavior on having had a difficult day responding to two suicide attempts. Wait … they send THIS guy to talk someone off the ledge? Hope to hell they were white.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Ramadi redux.

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The so-called Islamic State, ISIS, etc., took control (or at least partial control) of the city of Ramadi in Iraq’s Al-Anbar province, a place that was occupied by U.S. troops in 2005 and subjected to untold misery. In a week that was marked by remembrances of things past regarding the invasion of Iraq (to say nothing of Bin Laden’s prison memoirs), it was pretty amazing to hear the fulminations over the “loss” of Ramadi, with various politicians and talking heads referring to the city as fought-for land, suggesting that the sacrifices of our troops have been poorly served by Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq. They always yank out the troops when it’s convenient, just to raise people’s sense of indignation.

Here come the hot heads. Again.That’s just laying insult upon injury. Our troops suffered mightily alongside the people of Ramadi, and most of those now complaining did nothing to relieve their suffering in 2005; quite the opposite. The fact is, as Juan Cole has pointed out so adeptly, Ramadi was never ours to lose. It has always been a center of Sunni resistance against the United States and its various allies, including the new government in Baghdad. It was, in fact, the base of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the precursor to ISIS, and as Cole points out, former Baathist made common cause with the Salafists in Al Qaeda in 2005-6 to fight off the occupiers. The “Sunni Awakening”, mostly the effort of Sunni tribal leaders, helped to tamp down some of the unrest, perhaps with the promise of a greater voice in Baghdad.

That broader government, of course, never came, and now we are back to 2005-land. Different name, yes, but I am certain that many of those old Baathist officers and tacticians are behind the ISIS advance, taking advantage of this large reserve of battle-hardened, fanatical fighters. The ex-Baathists are unlikely to fall for any new promises from Americans, assuming that their names are still in the CIA and JSOC address book. Fool me once, right? They would rather live with the fanatics fighting against Baghdad than Baghdad itself, whose security forces have treated them very harshly in recent years.

Of course, the military hammers in our ongoing national security conversation are now hunting for nails.  I heard a general this morning advocating an overwhelming force approach. But this problem does not have a military solution. Without a meaningful political stake in Iraq for the Sunnis, there will no longer be a unified Iraq. Bombs, troops, advisers, and drones won’t change that.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Dancing around the flame.

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The start of the Iraq war is back in the news again, and the guy who’s reviving the conversation is named Bush. No, not THAT Bush … the chunky one who used to run Florida (voted craziest state in the Union three years in a row – lookout, Texas!). Jeb Bush stumbled over a couple of questions about whether or not he would have done the same thing his imbecile brother did back in 2003. At first he seemed to suggest that he would have done the same thing, then later backtracked a bit, saying that, knowing what “we” know now, he would have done something different. A little later, he was invoking the name of our dead and injured troops to cover his ass, as his brother so often did

His brother's keeper.Okay, so first of all, “we” knew what we know now then. Brother Bush is just clinging to the mythology spun by his and his brother’s advisers. You remember the story – we had all this seemingly reliable intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, supplied by the CIA, that turned out to be unreliable. All their fault. Of course, at the time it was painfully obvious that the WMD story was bogus, as was the story about any link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Yellowcake uranium story? Debunked at the time. Aluminum tubes? Again, thoroughly refuted at the time. Al Qaeda in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2002? Crap, reported at the time. I could go on.

It’s actually worse than that. Based on what seemed obvious at the time (and what we almost certainly know to be true), the Bush administration was fishing for the best available rationale to invade Iraq, something they had decided upon long before then entered the White House. They scrounged around for scraps of evidence, pushing the British and the Germans for details, torturing detainees for desperate incriminating confessions, and so on. You don’t water-board people dozens and dozens of times unless you’re trying to get something specific out of them, true or not. In the end, they got what they needed – some bullshit that momentarily added to their case.

The result? Hundreds of thousands dead, including more than 4,500 Americans, and a disaster that keeps metastasizing into new and more virulent convulsions of violence. That’s the eternal flame Jeb is dancing around.

luv u,

jp

 

Political Rants

Bodies count.

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Though you probably didn’t hear about it on the evening news or NPR, the group International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (of which Physicians for Social Responsibility is a member) released a report on casualties of the so-called “war on terror” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The toll is conservatively estimated at 1.3 million in total, with 1 million in Iraq killed as a result of our 2003 invasion. Anyone familiar with the figures breezily tossed around by the last two administrations might be surprised by this total. (I recall W. Bush casually offering 30,000, as if guessing the number of marbles in a jar.) Actually, the number is roughly in line with what the Iraq Study Group estimated in 2005-06.

This is what hegemony looks likeNo matter – this wasn’t worthy of comment, except on Democracy Now! That’s not surprising. We can’t acknowledge the magnitude of our own crimes, only those of our official enemies. Assad is an execrable mass murderer, right? Sure he is. But has he killed as many as we have over the past fifteen years? Not nearly. How about ISIS? Killer crackheads, to be sure. But pikers next to us. Absolute freaking amateurs. We have a long tradition of outdoing those we criticize. No one denounced the Russians for their invasion of Afghanistan more than we did; and yet here we are, 14 years into our own Afghan war, no end in sight. Noble mission vs. international crime. Curiously, the former has a higher body count.

This is nothing new. We’ve just passed the fiftieth anniversary of our invasion of South Vietnam – the arrival of the first contingent of combat units in the country. If they think about it at all, most Americans generally think the number of dead in the Vietnam war as being in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps – maybe 300,000. Given that millions were killed, millions more gravely wounded, this is akin to holocaust denial. Kind of sickening. It’s estimated that about 40,000 Vietnamese have died since the war due to unexploded ordinance alone – see this recent article in the Nation.

Unless we come to terms with this as a people, we will be condemned to repeat it. We already have, and we will again. But we don’t have to. It’s up to us.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Enemy factory.

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There was some reporting by Patrick Cockburn this week about ISIS and the planned campaign against the group in Mosul, which is slated to begin in April. Cockburn says that the World Food Program is putting resources in place to handle a mass exodus of Sunni residents from the city, perhaps as many as a million. This is expected because the main fighting force that would retake the city will likely consist of Shia militia. Sunnis are terrified of these forces – much more so than they fear ISIS – hence they will take their chances on the highway rather than on the wrong end of the knife.

The latest mad dog by-product of bad policy.So, once again, we are on the verge of creating another catastrophe in Iraq, the predictable consequences of which will be a further radicalization of the Sunni community, just as our 2003 invasion gave rise to Al Qaeda in Iraq, the precursor of ISIS. Same story, over and over again, and we somehow expect a different ending. Our imperial foreign policy is an enemy manufacturing machine, as the past sixty years have amply demonstrated. Quite an efficient system; one generation is caught up with fighting the jihadists spawned by the one that preceded it.

We could start at any point since World War II. Our sponsored coup in Iran in 1953 ushered in the Shah who was replaced a generation later by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which we are constantly threatening with war. The CIA had some relationship with Saddam Hussein as early as the late 1950s, when he attempted to assassinate then-Iraqi leader Colonel Qasim, and later we bankrolled and supported his eight-year war against Iran. (Later, of course, the love affair soured.) Our support for jihadists in the Afghan war of the 1980s gave rise to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which are now our principle enemies. And of course, ISIS is Al Qaeda in Iraq 2.0. The gestation period seems to be getting shorter and shorter.

If we renew this war and kill thousands and thousands more, who can we expect to be fighting five, ten, fifteen years from now?

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

On “death cults”.

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The president gave a speech this week about what labels to use in the prosecution of our now 14 year old war on terror. Apparently prompted by the usual bating about his supposed flaccidness in attacking radical Muslims, Obama attempted to frame the discussion in a way similar to though a bit more nuanced than George W. Bush – we’re fighting terrorists who seek the legitimacy of a major religion while violating its central tenets. We need the cooperation of Muslims, not their enmity. They’re not religious leaders; they’re terrorists.

More intimidating than a beheading.Okay, that’s all good. But as the president lists all of the horrors Islamic extremists have unleashed onto the world, there’s one question that begs to be asked: is ISIS responsible for more death than we are? How many Muslims have we dispatched over the last 15 years? Sure, ISIS is a bunch of crackheads, thugs, and killers. But they are bush league next to us. As all of these war-fevered pundits and Congresspeople run around fulminating over the “death cult” that is ISIS, do they give even a passing thought to our own 70 year history of threatening the entire planet with nuclear destruction? That’s not a “death cult”?

Finally, it’s patently obvious what ISIS is doing. They are trying to goad us into doing something really stupid and self-destructive. They saw what happened to the United States when we were stupid enough to let our government drive us into an invasion of Iraq. It killed thousands of us, wounded tens of thousands, and drove the American global enterprise to the brink of collapse. It built up a level of hatred of the United States around the world that was way beyond anything that preceded it. Best of all (from their perspective), it created the scorched landscape from which rose Al Qaeda in Iraq, the immediate predecessor of ISIS. How would American “boots on the ground” not be good news for ISIS?

Recent polls show the propaganda campaign is working – something like 57% of Americans think we should send troops into the fight against ISIS. A couple of things: we’re already there in the thousands. Second …. Would any of these folks send their own kids … or go themselves?

Doubt it.

Luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Onward christian soldiers.

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The president is seeking Congressional authorization for his current campaign in Syria and Iraq. Looks like he’s going to get it, though begrudgingly on the part of knee-jerk hawks like McCain, Graham, and their various appendages. Not open-ended enough. The generals are complaining! we’re told. They’re unhappy with limitations and micromanagement by the President of the United States, the pundits say. Okay … first thing: sorry you’re unhappy with your jobs, generals. Maybe you should consider stepping down. You take your orders from civilian leadership … that’s how it works in the American military. Don’t like it? Resign.

This turned out well.That said, our President is on the brink of another useless military adventure. As this is debated, will anyone in Congress ask, “When has this ever gone well?” Kosovo? Don’t say Kosovo. We made the killing worse, predictably. Afghanistan? Just as ungovernable as ever, only now with more dead people. Iraq? Please! Libya? Now divided between two hostile governments; a failed state shedding refugees by the thousand. Now the conversation is centered not so much on whether we should fight in Iraq / Syria, but rather how heavily we should get involved. I hear a lot of T.V. talkers advocating for a ground war. They should consider whether they would want their kids to fight it. Or if maybe they’d want to fight it themselves. Anything short of that is just talk.

Obama got in some trouble at the “National Prayer Breakfast” for bringing up the unfortunate history of Christianity, as a counterpoint to his condemnation of extremist Islam. Of course, he needn’t have gone back so far. There’s another extremist religion he might have talked about – one far more deadly than ISIS or any other crazed sham-Muslim group. It’s called American First-ism, and it’s killed hundreds of thousands over the past decade. Can ISIS match that? Can they even come close?

There’s only one way to stop groups like ISIS: stop creating them. ISIS would be nothing without the large disenfranchised Sunni community in Iraq – a community at war with its own government, for whom the arrival of Iraqi security forces means a death sentence. They support ISIS as a counterbalance to Baghdad. Until they have a stake in Iraq’s future, there will always be another ISIS.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

The golden beverage.

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Panetta’s out hawking his book about how Obama isn’t enough of a hawk. Of course, he is likely acting as a surrogate for Hillary Clinton, who appears to be advocating a more knee-jerk approach to foreign intervention. She and John McCain  (and his various clones) really, really wanted that Syrian war, and now both seem to believe that the advent of ISIS is the result of our having failed to jump in ass first last year (essentially on ISIS’s side, it’s worth pointing out). Shades of Bush/Cheney – I guess it’s been long enough since the total disaster of the Iraq war for some people to yearn for the days of pre-emptive war, of “shock and awe”, of taking the gloves off. Included in that number is the putative front-runner of the Democratic field for President.

Clinton tool ... or just plain tool?So, after six years of being compelled to drink the fragrant golden beverage of Obama’s national security policy – drones, bombs, domestic spying, whistleblower-persecution and all – we are now to be treated to even more acrid delicacies offered up by Clinton, the next generation. I guess this is an indication of bipartisan consensus on foreign policy, though it remains to be seen how the GOP will outflank the Democrats on the crazytown side. This is truly a race to the bottom. That’s the power of this lesser of two evils electoral philosophy.

I suppose I needn’t remind anyone of the process I and people like me went through during the last couple of presidential elections. In 2008, I was voting to avoid McCain, who most certainly would have gotten us into several wars before the end of his first hundred days, to say nothing of the Hoover-like response to the financial crisis he was planning (remember the spending freeze?). That was a close brush with true catastrophe, I’m pretty sure. 2012 was less dramatic, but still … Mitt Romney was a disaster in the making. He would have brought in a gaggle of Bush II retreads who are now waiting for the impending Cruz or Perry administration. He would have rewarded his rich friends with more riches. Not a huge difference from Obama, you understand, but enough to be worth a vote.

After years of drinking rancid urine, however, I have had it. Obama’s policy regarding Syria, Iran, Iraq, Ukraine, Palestine, Yemen, and other nations is disgusting. Attacking him from the right is inexcusable.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Incrementally unstable.

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This week we learned that American forces are using attack helicopters in Iraq and likely Syria. The gruesomely named “Apache” helicopters (strange custom, naming weapon systems after people we’ve wiped out) have been used in several strikes over the past week. This is a subtle ratcheting up of the war effort in the Middle East; pretty much the Obama doctrine with respect to bringing the public along on these overseas adventures. Start with vehement assurances of “no boots on the ground”, then put a hundred “advisers” in, followed by a hundred more, then five hundred, then fifteen hundred, then bombing raids in Iraq, then Syria, then drones, and now helicopter gunships.

No peace prize this year.ISIS and related fighters have been shooting helicopters down. What happens when they hit one of our ships? Boots on the ground. You don’t have to be Kreskin (or Criswelll) to see that we may well be embroiled in a regional ground war within the next few months. This may make our previous conflicts look like a folk dance; the more we hit ISIS, the more people on the ground and from other countries flock to their side. Put yourself in the shoes of a Sunni citizen of Iraq. Who has contributed more to your misery over the past 25 years? You may dislike the ISIS fanatics, but you likely hate us with a rare passion. Not a formula for success.

Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept made a good point the other day on Democracy Now! The leader of ISIS was held prisoner in Iraq by our military, likely abused, even tortured. Their video executions are re-creations of their own experiences in places like Abu Ghraib. Their victims are in orange jumpsuits; they seem calm because they’ve probably been through dozens of mock executions, just like our detainees. They use these powerful images to goad us into another war. The last one almost destroyed the U.S. imperial project; ISIS seems to know that, and they want us to do it again.

I wish just one … just one politician could be honest enough with the American people to say, look, folks, we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq and smashed it to bits; if recent history has taught us anything, it’s that Iraq is a complex society, and sometimes the things we break cannot be put together again.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Missing taco.

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If you’re one taco short of a combination plate, I believe I may have the item right here … and quite a bit more besides. My weekly rant will be something of a grab bag … a disjointed journey through a handful of topics, liable to light on just about anything. Just so much going on lately it’s hard to settle on any one thing. Here goes.

Ebola. This is a disaster for coastal West Africa, particularly because the health systems of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea are in such a shambles. That’s due in part to the disastrous civil wars in the first two nations, but more generally it’s the product of the ongoing neoliberal project and the fact that, in so many of these nations, what wealth there is remains in the hands of the top 1%, whose loyalties to foreign powers, international investors, and global capital outweigh their concern for their poorer countrymen. We in the world’s developed countries have been slow to respond, as we are with practically every African crisis. Our hair doesn’t catch fire until somebody carries the virus home in a bucket; then it’s action time, right?

We need more of this.Abortion in Texas. There’s one answer to this latest court ruling that will close dozens clinics immediately: vote the jerks out, ladies, or they’ll continue to eat your lunch and stick their beaks into everything you do. Up to you, now. Will the extremists on the right continue to the carry the day? Only if we do nothing.

War and Peace. Once again, our attitude as a nation about going to war appears to be directly proportional to the degree to which we perceive ourselves to be at personal risk. There is a lack of interest on the part of Congress to get involved at any level; they truly embody the caricature of them drawn by Gary Trudeau some years back: They’ll be for it when it’s popular, against it when it goes bad, and it’s a question of principle.

Whatever we may think of the specific set of beheaders that operate under the black banner of ISIS, one thing is for certain: so long as Sunnis in Iraq are more afraid of the Iraqi army than they are of these black flag crazies, all the bombs in the world won’t make it right. Iraq is a complex place; when we broke it to pieces, we should have taken that into consideration.

luv u,

jp