News from the Colonies - America's War in Iraq

Dominican Republic To Send Troops To Iraq

I wonder how many Dominicans will get popped by the Iraqis before they all just decide to stay in their barracks watching I Love Lucy reruns on the TV?

So, this works out great for everyone! The government of Dominica can cut their "unemployment levels" (read: cut down on guys with guns standing around grumbling about the economy) by sending a bunch of them to Iraq and leaving them there with no return date in sight… just like the USA does.

:m: Peace.

 

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"America is the enemy of God"

US Intensifies Hunt for Hussein (NY Times)°

The latest out of Iraq includes an apparent failed attempt to capture Saddam Hussein. American Special Ops raided a house "in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood", apparently owned by Rabia Muhammad al-Habib, a tribal leader in Hussein's favor who claims to have not seen the dictator for over a year.

But the move enraged local residents, apparently, as American troops fired shots at two vehicles in the area, killing "at least three Iraqis" and wounding another three; local residents complained that the Americans had not offered adequate warnings before shooting. According to the New York Times, "Other reports from a Baghdad hospital said a total of five Iraqis had died during the operation".

Meanwhile, south of Baghdad, what can best be described as a bad situation that resulted in the death of an Iraqi civilian has raised tensions in Karbala, as funeral mourners chanted, according to the New York Times, "There is no God but God, and America is the enemy of God!"

I suppose the thing that strikes me as ironic is that just the other day someone at Sciforums was going on about how some dude emailed him about how rosy the situation in Iraq is.

The postwar American death toll is 104, including 49 combat deaths. I cannot get the "postwar" Iraqi civilian count at this time ... I'm hoping someone on the web has the approximate number, else I have to farm some data and do simple addition.

By the time I finish that, someone else will be added to the list ....

:m:,
Tiassa

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- Oppel Jr., Richard A, and Robert F. Worth. "US Intensifies Hunt for Hussein". New York Times, July 27, 2003. From http://nytimes.com/2003/07/27/international/worldspecial/27CND-IRAQ.html

 

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"There is no god but god?" Yeah.... that narrows it down a bit. And how would they know that we are its enemy? I suppose it came down and told them? I don't even know if a diety CAN have worldly enemies. Damn nuts.

At least they are alowed to protest now. Saddam would have just mortared the whole lot of them if he still in charge. We are being nice. Historically occupying nations would just decimate the population again and again until they would behave.

Or we could be really mean and just leave. I'm sure it would rapidly degrade into either an oppressive theocracy or a mass of feuding warlords.

 

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Clockwood ...

Who knows, maybe they heard about Equatorial Guinea and just had a point to make.

A link I posted somewhere around here ... actually in a Liberia thread of all places ... is to a text citation that, quite frankly, I'm excited to find online, as I've only recently gotten a reasonably useful blog and haven't transcribed this portion of the text for myself yet. It comes from Ryszard Kapuscinski's Shah of Shahs: Excerpt from "Shah of Shahs".

Rather than quote the lengthy text, I would simply point you to the website and advise that you use your browser search function to locate the words "Act One".

The point of this is that Iraq's Shia majority will march, as well, whether or not they have the right to, if things get bad enough. It is fortunate that, if anyone has to usurp Iraq, it is a nation whose public stature will not allow the authority to become repressive past a certain degree; e.g. the United States. The problem comes when that brand of fanaticism wins the day, as the revolution in Iran demonstrated when Ayatollah Khomeni came to power.

Now that the United States has waded hip deep into the Iraqi mess and acknowledges that it is fighting a war against guerillas, we see the precariousness of the American position. The longer we stay, the greater grows the resentment among Iraqis. If we leave too quickly, we inherit a new Iraqi problem that will call our attention back to the nation within twenty years.

Which is somewhat the conundrum facing the Bush administration. Ideally, I would have found a way to "legalize" the invasion before going. Actually, ideally, I would have sought another solution at least for appearance's sake. But that's beside the point: We rode into Iraq alleging good intentions. It's not as easy to wade back out.

In the abstract I agree with you about deities, but in the specifics, it seems that the Abramic monotheisms include many enemies of God. Of course, I don't actually need to remind you of this, but still ... even I, who have no religion, find something vaguely unholy about my President. I don't know if I'm slandering the Iraqi people to say that I understand how a nation mired in superstition and so familiar with fear could come to see a devil in savior's rags.

:m:,
Tiassa

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Iraqi WMD case comes further unraveled

Washington Post: Search finds no Iraqi nuclear threat; Bush administration "not acting as if they take their own analysis seriously"

Barton Gellman writes in the October 26, 2003 Washington Post that the evidence in Iraq suggests that the Hussein regime, while it may have intended to someday resurrect its smashed nuclear weapons programs, never did so.

The Post article centers largely on the discussion surrounding 81-millimeter aluminum tubes which the Bush administration made such a prominent part of its accusations that Baghdad was actively seeking nuclear capability.

Gellman notes that some 20,000 similar aluminum tubes, described as dangerous technology, were not quickly collected by the Iraq Survey Group; Georgetown University's Robert Gallucci--also a consultant to the government regarding Iraq--said, "If you told me they had access to these tubes and have chosen not to seize and destroy them, it undermines the judgment that these tubes are usable for, if not intended for, centrifuge development." Joseph Cirincione, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said that the US is not acting as if it takes its own analysis seriously: "If they were so worried about these tubes, that would be the kind of sensitive equipment you'd think the administration would want to seize, to prevent it from going somewhere else -- Iran, Syria, Egypt."

The real reason, of course, might be that the Bush administration most assuredly, the Blair administration most assuredly, and the Aznar administration most likely knew for a fact that the aluminum tube claim was bogus. While Secretary of State Colin L. Powell decried Baghdad's explanation that the 81-mm tubes were meant for artillery rocket casings, Australian Brigadier General Stephen Meekin stated that the tubes were used for building rockets. According to Meekin, the "Nasr-81" rocket hit the scene at a public arms show at 1999 in which Iraqi munitions were "displayed for sale", although any sales would be illegal. Tim McCarthy, a UN inspector with David Kay's Iraq Survey Group, said before departing to Iraq that the Nasr-81 rocket program, based on 81-mm tubes, were known in Western intelligence circles prior to 1996. According to McCarthy, weapons inspectors gave the aluminum tubes "maybe three minutes out of one-hundred hours" of attention.

It's a far different picture than President Bush spelled out in an October, 2002 speech in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Gellman also discusses in the article the tale of Mahdi Obeidi. Some may remember the tale of the Iraqi scientist who led investigators to components from Baghdad's nuclear program which he had buried in his backyard. While the IAEA stated early on that this evidence was not the smoking gun proving a current nuclear program, CNN's coverage of the story noted that Sean McCormack of the National Security Council speculated that the parts were "what might be needed to ... reconstitute a nuclear weapons program", and the discovery was touted to "bolster" the President's case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or that they had revived their nuclear program. While some protested such a leap, others leapt to the bandwagon. (1, 2, 3)

Furthermore, Obeidi has become a peculiar non-story. Apparently living somewhere in the United States, has declined further press interviews, and his American contact, David Albright a former IAEA consultant currently with the Institute for Science and International Security, will no longer discuss the case publicly.

There are a number of reasons why the Bush administration might hope the Obeidi story goes away. Apparently Obeidi's story reconciles with certain parts of the publicly-denounced Iraqi official declarations of its arms capacities. The designs he had conceived called for 145-mm, not 81-mm tubing, and aluminum would not have sufficed. The parts and plans he turned over were from 1991, and the order to resume the program had never come.

And there are indications that the Bush administration was aware of the damaging potential of Obeidi's story. In April, 2003, Obeidi turned to David Albright, who began looking for someone in the Defense Department for Obeidi to speak with. Albright says he was rebuffed, and turned to the CIA. According to Albright's notes, the CIA was neither prepared to discuss the idea of asylum for Obeidi nor the details of the centrifuge program he had overseen. The day after leading inspectors to the cache of documents and components he had buried, US Special Forces arrested him. Shortly after his release two weeks later, the CIA released his identity and described the components as proof of Bush's allegations of a current Iraqi nuclear threat.

The question of the validity of the Bush administration's "mushroom cloud" fearmongering thrives in this postwar period of daily violence, small progress, and the occasional jaw-dropping revelation. Whether or not this appearance of deception will hurt Bush in November, 2004, has yet to be determined. If the nation rallies behind the faux-Pax Americana, Bush need not worry about this or any of his lies. If the nation remembers that we are, indeed, Americans, the Bush Junta will end in January, 2005.

Reference links:

- Gellman, Barton. "Search in Iraq Fails to Find Nuclear Threat". Washington Post. October 26, 2003, page A01. see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17707-2003Oct25.html
- Bush, George W. "President Outlines Iraqi Threat". Whitehouse.gov. October 7, 2002. see http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html
- Malveaux, Suzanne. "White House: Centrifuge parts back case on Iraq". CNN.com. June 27, 2003. see http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/06/26/sprj.irq.white.house/index.html

See also:

(1) Topic Discussion: "Well look what we have here." Sciforums.com see http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=24566
(2) Topic Discussion: "But they were just going to use it to heat the baby's bottles". ASmallVictory.com. see http://www.asmallvictory.net/archives/003772.html
(3) Topic Discussion: "Nuke component unearthed in Baghdad back yard." Command-Post.org. see http://www.command-post.org/2_archives/007575.html

 

Making cynical posts does not remove the fact that those of us who care enough to anal-yze not only post, but also speak out elsewhere; refuse to contribute to obviously irresponsible collective actions; and vote.

Many things we all do are certainly changing the world- some are actively gaining awareness, and holding convictions. Watch and see, or better yet, participate- Or choose nihilism, resignation, and an even less effectual impression than those you ridicule for criticizing the more self-destructive gyrations of the herd.

 

It's a big country ... 33 ain't so bad ... er ...?

Wire: "Two GI's Killed When Tank Attacked In Iraq"

The AP's Robert Reid reports that insurgents destroyed a tank, killed two American soldiers, and wounded seven Ukranians. Notably, this is apparently the first ambush against the multinational force in central Iraq.

The minor story is that active combat deaths have now surpassed the major combat operations total.

But this isn't exactly what has my attention. Reid notes some numbers that I don't think the public has been exposed to before, and it's these that I wonder about insofar as people's opinions of them:

- 117 is the number of "postwar" active-combat casualties. 114 is the number of combat deaths prior to May 1.
- 1 is the grand total number of M1 Abrams tanks destroyed by combat since May 1.
- 233 is the number of attacks which have occurred over the last seven days.
- 33 is the number of attacks against American forces per day, over an unspecified period (most likely the last week) according to Col. William Darley.
- 12 is the average daily number of attacks against American forces in mid-July.
- Low teens to mid-20s is the range of daily attacks over the previous two months.
- 26 is the average number of daily attacks between Oct. 8 and Oct. 22

Rough week, to say the least. And I have to admit that it's like a bad movie in one respect: they're attacking this much and firing this many rounds and missing that many people? Of course, I am accounting for the civilian toll, but 117 dead since May and 233 attacks over approximately a week ... who taught them to shoot?

Sure, it seems chaotic to me. And the massive toll taken on Monday turns the stomach. But whaddaya think? Is anyone in control?

- see - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33413-2003Oct29_2.html

 

Firing to repel a wild dog from your gate is punishable by a sudden friendly Apache gunship visit that guts your house and kills half your family. Not slowing down to pass an American column moving at 10 clicks merits a burst of .50 through your back window. These would constitute terrorist attacks on coalition forces, and similar events are ocurring every day, while Americans puzzle over why everyday Iraqis and their cousins from related tribes beyond Iraq want very much to kill GIs in long attrition. Americans also puzzle at why the most concerted attacks are directed at discouraging the internationalization of stabilization efforts. The Bush Administration's greatest supporters when it comes to unilateralism are the very people who are most dedicated to undermining American hegemony in the Mideast.

 

I love playing the role of Cynical Rebel -- asking to be killed by self-proclaimed, fellow, cynical rebels who so easily eat *cough* their own kind from the comfort of their own narrow defintions of reality.

Get your hoisting petards here.

If sanctimony could kill, y'all'd have been suicided long ago.

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Well Mr G, it takes one to know one.

 

Re: Clockwood ...

A solution to what exactly?

I don't remember any alleged good intentions, just alleged good-for-us intentions.

 

Canute

An interesting question that has much merit. But there is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was failing to comply with the terms that ended the first Gulf War. Now, whether or not that war was right is its own question, and despite the back-and-forth tale of an apparent "green-light" (expressed intent toward tacit approval) by the first Bush White House, there is no question that invading Kuwait was a very bad idea on Hussein's part. Slant-drilling is not a good excuse for military action, and any observant person knows that the industrialized world--whose reprisal Hussein was concerned about--treats traditional land claims as tenuous except for political convenience, and Hussein was not being very convenient about it.

So what, then, is the problem that requires a solution? In my humble opinion it's a longstanding trend of exploitative behavior that bit Americans where it hurts in Tehran in 1979, and found a new toll exacted in New York in 2001. (The link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, prior to the US invasion, was the United States themselves.)

But if we look at Saddam Hussein and stamp him, "Problem," the issue seems to be that a tyrant was empowered with a certain undetermined but well-suspected number of nasty weapons, employing devices contrary to human dignity in order to maintain law, order, and power, and threw a deliberate thorn into the world energy scheme.

And of that last, well, I can hardly blame him or anyone. The world energy scheme needs some shaking up or down, as events in Nigeria and Venezuela, among others, suggest. But Saddam "Hitler the Stalinist" Hussein° demonstrated, not all thorns are useful in that sense.

The thing is that I didn't like Saddam Hussein back when he was an American buddy. A lot of people didn't. Some might speak of liberal conspiracies, but I cannot help if my first exposure to the tale of the Shah of Iran--events which played out during my life--is a wisecrack in a science-fiction novel about not thinking the US could get any lower than giving refuge to the Shah. I can't say whether or not those who thought our policies were just in Iran over that period aren't around anymore, or just don't think that nobility important enough to mention in novels, but it does come to mind that my first exposure to Saddam Hussein, whose name seemed just another term in a jumble of international news I didn't understand, was a syndicated article, a "top ten" list of petty dictators around the world. Interestingly, that was occurring in strange coincidence with the Watchtower publication The Plain Truth's announcement that the Soviet bear would collapse in a decade's time. The Reagan administration had already taken Hussein off the terrorist-sponsor list.

He was evil then. When stories of Hussein's atrocities spread--and some were played unfairly, as Americans will discover soon enough when it's time to brawl with Iran and Tehran's role in at least one biochem massacre popularly attributed solely to Hussein--I knew approximately what people were talking about because I had seen horrifying footage of Afghan rebels dying from nerve gas when I was about 7.

But the whole time, Hussein seemed to be just another problematic American buddy.

So to me, yes, Hussein was a problem in and of himself. But I would have sought another solution. If it absolutely came down to the necessity of war, I've described in the past how one might construct UN/SC resolutions to hamstring Hussein and force him to stake his empire at risk of becoming otherwise irrelevant. It would be invasive in the end, yes, but it would be multilateral, defensive at the outset, and aimed truly at the best interests of the Iraqi people.

And if the plight of an oppressed people such as the Iraqis is to be regarded as problematic at all--for this was the effect of the Hussein problem, and in terms of a goal, perhaps more important--then the solution cannot rely on the necessity of aggravating the situation so dramatically as we have. The American people, through the Bush administration, have placed members of our military at the service of the Iraqi people. The least we could do is act like it, and that's why I would have sought a different solution to begin with.

I'll hand you that any day of the week on principle. But I'm referring to the idea that the selling points of this war were:

- Elimination of "imminent threat" to USA (false pretext)
- Elimination of "regional threat" of Iraq (shaky pretext)
- Elimination of tyrant Hussein (rational but unreasonable pretext)
- Reduction of suffering of Iraqi people (noble and deserved pretext)
- Establishment of "democracy" in Iraq (noble but dubiously-founded pretext)

As to the two noble pretexts ... there were still other ways. If this many billions are worth it, how come the $97 million passed by Congress under the Clinton administration to sponsor an Iraq coup wasn't worth pursuing? As we see now, the same people we couldn't rely on to stage a proper and satisfactory coup were among the people the Bush administration took advice from on starting this war.

There were a couple of noble intentions in there; if I had any faith in this administration or the American people to make those noble intentions real, I might support this rogue action against Iraq. But how can we bring what we don't have to anyone? Here I refer to democracy. So in accepting that true democracy ain't coming to the neighborhood, I guard against the idea that a wealth-driven, Westernized republic will bring real freedom to Iraq or anywhere else.

Listen to the war-dogs, especially during and immediately after the invasive war action; the nobility of the mission was all they had to stand on.

Now, I can accept that Americans never really believed it and will say whatever they have to if it means they get to sit at home with some popcorn and watch the pretty lights over Somewhere on CNN. But that's ... that's a pretty fierce assertion that I'm not sure plays in Peoria. While I'm well aware that my social circle tends a little more toward my side of the aisle on many ideas, even the fiercest war-dogs in my direct association are just a little flabbergasted. (I know one who's essentially waiting, hoping, nearly praying for Bush to reveal his true genius and let the idiots in on the ruse; in his faith he expects that Bush really is a genius and the misdirection is all part of a larger, brilliant campaign to establish working room and separation from the nitwits who didn't actually quite elect him properly. It's a little like waiting for Jesus to return.)

People wanted to believe we were doing the right thing. That means putting some lofty and noble goals on the table; the only war-dog I've yet found who stands purely on might-is-right seems a caricature of a violent and educated idiot. Even Americans, from time to time, need lofty ambitions to hold up before the world. Whether or not they believe in them is irrelevant; if they sell on that point, they need to deliver that point.

 

Guthrie,

Up to the point that self-recognition is considered the only possible outcome of disciplined observation.

I read herein much about opinions deemed more qualitatively relevent to the Global Community than are others.

I read herein nothing of such Globally relevent concepts as: "I just got home after a 16-hour shift at the soup kitchen...", or "I was thinking about the predictions of Superstring Theory while I was doing my regular rounds making sure that none of our residents have bed sores."

There's just talking going on around here, and little evidence of demonstrable, personal investment in actual, applied humanitarianism.

Social theory and opinion are not "doing" -- it's all just uninvested motion being presented as respectable action for the common good.

 

heh
if g had his way, we would all be drafted to the frontlines

 

I'm not into imposing my will on others.

I'm into exposing the will of others as being unnecessarily imposing.

 

And ...?

... And?

 

"There's just talking going on around here, and little evidence of demonstrable, personal investment in actual, applied humanitarianism.

Social theory and opinion are not "doing" -- it's all just uninvested motion being presented as respectable action for the common good."

You see, that is a fairly good point. Speaking as someone whose doing is at the moment more along the lines of being a member of an organisation or two, donating money sometimes, and voting as I feel I aught to when the occaision arises, I'm not quite there. On the other hand, I think people here would take it better coming from you if you exhibited the same behaviour you are suggesting we do. Besides, dont you like sharpening your arguments and keeping your moral up by arguing with opponents? Why not support those who are better equipped to do such humanitarianism, eg the UN, various charities etc (who often seem to get a bad press.....), along the lines of the division of labour idea, rather than getting our size 11's in the wrong place at the wrong time. As for paying for things, I am willing enough to do so, and so are a lot of people judging by the charity events I keep hearing about across the country, and have been known to contribute to.

 

Tiassa

Agree with what you said all except the idea that democracy is necessarily a good thing.

 

(Go ahead, baby ... Title me!)

I say democracy is a dubiously-founded pretext on a number of levels that I don't think disagree with you:

- Americans haven't figured out democracy yet; we cannot give what we do not have to give.
- This understood, it can still be fairly asserted that Western "democracy" is the social organization which provides the greatest individual freedom.
- And that being understood, I defer to Kapuscinski's Shah of Shahs, page citation unavailable at the particular moment, when he discusses the fact that Iran's Shiite population wouldn't know what to do with freedom. The entire recorded history of the Shia and the people who would become the Shia speaks of tyranny.
- The same can be said of Iraq insofar as it can be said of the Shia.

Delivering democracy is a dubiously-founded pretext because it may be impossible. If we consider the Marxist assertion that a society goes through various phases, e.g. a capitalistic one, before attaining the communist ideal--and we can set Communism aside for the purposes of my point--it may be that the Iraqi people, largely accustomed to a more repressive government, haven't among themselves collectively the faculties necessary to survive an American-style, profit-driven republic. It could be that the current phase of Iraqi society is incompatible with a transition to such a freewheeling way of life. After all, while much of the world might envy our technological and economic achievements, and while they might fear our military might, they do not envy the "moral" issues that come with American freedom. Is it worth plastic, throwaway cars, monthly offers from Visa, and an AOL front-end in your mail every week just to have a drug problem that can outstrip the economy and the moral crisis of having the highest unwed-teen birth rate in the industrial world? Is it worth the trade-off? Generally, as an American, I say yes. Yes, it's worth the high income, yes it's worth a basic financial commitment just to participate functionally in America that is large than most nations' average per capita incomes. Yes, it's worth the overdose of bad art, and the lying politicians get two points for the simple fact that they're not killing us. It's worth the effort of, as Dennis Miller has it, cultivating such a remarkable homeless situation in Seattle. It's worth watching your daughter get knocked up while stringing out on Ecstasy. It's worth growing up in a country where cowardice (specifically, lack of blind and stupid courage) is the biggest sin; where you're not supposed to be able to trust your best friend; when you can't love your lover because love is oppressively possessive ....

Yes, it's a bitter picture of America, but these sorts of things look a little different in the Muslim world right now. For one, there's fewer AOL discs going around. But even without playing "whose miseries are worse" we have to realize that in selling the idea of American "democracy" abroad, we are also selling the things that go with it. Americans work too hard. It's how we keep our economy afloat. It explains a good deal about why we're so damned incomprehensible to the rest of the world.

And because of what American-styled freedom entails, it's going to be a tough sell.

I consider democracy a dubiously-founded pretext for war because many people thought it would be easy of a sort. Thankfully, such a bad idea didn't permeate the bandwagoners, but I think at moments like this of the absolute freaking moron--and in this case, well, he is--who once upon a time a while ago smirked at how free the Afghani people were now that the Americans had arrived.

What we offer ... it's a tough sell.

Welcome to the world marketplace, so to speak ... it's so inviting that the Russians were screaming for the hardline reds for a few years.

Will they thank us when they're daughters are getting felt up by the boss at The Gap in Tikrit Mall? After all, it's a common refrain among American households of my generation that kids had to "earn their keep". And hey, if they want that car, there's nothing better than a job after school to teach some responsibility and ... why, oh why did Volkswagen end production of the old Beetles? Baghdad is a city screaming for an ocean of L54 Marinablau.

I think democracy's a great idea. Short of empowered anarchy, it's the best idea we humans have come up with yet. (Well, there is lesbian porno, and mixing the psilocybin into little chocolate candies . . . .) But whenever I hear George Bush talk about bringing freedom to Iraq or spreading democracy, I laugh. To hear Bush talk about spreading democracy--he makes it sound like a social disease.

 

Very good. I just wonder if democracy does bring the greatest freedom.