THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Baghdad Burning

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Monday, November 29, 2004

Tired in Baghdad...
The situation in Falloojeh is worse than anyone can possibly describe. It has turned into one of those cities you see in your darkest nightmares- broken streets strewn with corpses, crumbling houses and fallen mosques... The worst part is that for the last couple of weeks we've been hearing about the use of chemical weapons inside Falloojeh by the Americans. Today we heard that the delegation from the Iraqi Ministry of Health isn't being allowed into the city, for some reason.

I don't know about the chemical weapons. It's not that I think the American military is above the use of chemical weapons, it's just that I keep wondering if they'd be crazy enough to do it. I keep having flashbacks of that video they showed on tv, the mosque and all the corpses. There was one brief video that showed the same mosque a day before, strewn with many of the same bodies- but some of them were alive. In that video, there's this old man leaning against the wall and there was blood running out of his eyes- almost like he was crying tears of blood. What 'conventional' weaponry makes the eyes bleed? They say that a morgue in Baghdad has received the corpses of citizens in Falloojeh who have died under seemingly mysterious conditions.

The wounded in Falloojeh aren't getting treatment and today we heard about a family with six children being bombed in the city. It's difficult to believe that in this day and age, when people are blogging, emailing and communicating at the speed of light, a whole city is being destroyed and genocide is being committed- and the whole world is aware and silent. Darfur, Americans? Take a look at what you've done in Falloojeh.

The situation in Baghdad isn't a lot better. Electricity has been particularly bad. Our telephone has been cut off for the last week which has made communication (and blogging) particularly difficult. The phone difficulties are quite common all over Baghdad. It usually happens in an area after a fresh bombing. We joke amongst ourselves that it's all an agreement with the new mobile phone companies, but the truth is that the mobile phones aren't very much more reliable. For the last couple of weeks we've been able to receive sms from abroad (which was impossible before). It's nice to get a message every once in a while from some concerned relative or friend living far away, especially when the phone starts glowing eerily in the darkened living room.

We spent the last week fixing up the house. Around 10 days ago, there were a series of very large explosions in our area and the third or fourth one took out three of the windows on one side of the house. Riverbend and family spent two days gathering shattered glass and sticking sheets of plastic over the gaping squares that were once windows. We sent E. for the window guy but he was booked for three days. Our window man has become a virtual millionaire with an average of about 20 windows to replace daily.

The situation is really bad in Baghdad. Many areas have turned into mini-warzones. A'miriyah, A'adhamiyah, Ghazaliyah and Haifa to name a few. The rest of us just get our usual dose of daily explosions and gun fire.

Elections are a mystery. No one knows if they'll actually take place and it feels like many people don't want to have anything to do with them. They aren't going to be legitimate any way. The only political parties participating in them are the same ones who made up the Governing Council several months ago- Allawi's group, Chalabi's group, SCIRI, Da'awa and some others. Allawi, in spite of all his posturing and posing, has turned himself into a hateful figure after what happened in Falloojeh. As long as he is in a position of power, America will be occupying Iraq. People realize that now. He's Bush's boy. He has proved that time and again and people are tired of waiting for something insightful or original to come from his government.

The weather is cool now. You can't leave the house without a jacket. Baghdad is popular for a dry, windy cold. The kind that settles in late, but once it's here, it seems to creep into everything, including one's bones. The kerosene heater has become my cherished friend these last couple of weeks. The days are much shorter and it gets a bit depressing when the darkness sets in- especially when there's no electricity. We aren't using the generator as much as before because there's still a fuel shortage.

There's a collective exhaustion that seems to have settled on Baghdad... it feels almost like an epidemic sometimes.

- posted by river @ 10:10 PM

Once again, ican, your blather about "COR's" equalling this and "CHR's" equalling that have no bearing on the issues at hand, ican. They are irrelevant.

Falluja 'a horror' after U.S.-led offensive

FALLUJA, Iraq (CNN) -- Mahmoud Zubari and his family fled their home in Falluja after it was bombed and his 13-year-old son was killed.

Zubari, his wife and their remaining eight children, ages 2 to 16, spent the next 20 days in the house of a friend while the U.S.-led onslaught to drive out insurgents in the city got under way.

Last week, the family was picked up by the Iraqi Red Crescent, under Marine escort, and taken to the humanitarian group's compound in the city. Tuesday, the family returned to the home they took sanctuary in.

"All the wealth will not bring back my son, but now I have to think of the future for the rest of my children," said Zubari's wife, Selma. "What will become of us?"

That is a sentiment shared by many residents of the shattered city, which remains under curfew and where pockets of fighting continue to rage. Some homes in the city have begun posting signs in both Arabic and English that read, "Family inside."

The Red Crescent compound houses more than 100 residents who became stranded there after a 24-hour curfew was put back in place last week by U.S. forces in eastern Falluja. Marine commanders had previously implemented a curfew between 3 p.m. and 7 a.m.

Fuad Kubaysi, one of those staying at the Red Crescent compound, said, "What has happened to Falluja is a horror beyond anything imaginable. We don't want it anymore. Let them have it. Let whomever wants it have it. We cannot ever call this city home again."

Red Crescent volunteer Sabri Abd Almalek said the restrictions imposed by the Marines are hindering their humanitarian efforts to bring relief to families throughout the city.

"We are stuck here," he said. "We came here to help the people, treat the sick, and they won't let us leave -- only when we have permission."

The first Red Crescent convoy arrived in the city Friday and began distributing food and medical supplies. But the round-the-clock curfew has sharply limited those efforts.

Marine Col. Craig Tucker, the commanding officer of Regimental Combat Team 7, said the curfew was reimposed because of sporadic fighting throughout the eastern sector of the city and continued security concerns.

The Red Crescent is allowed to work with Marine escort. Marines are escorting and helping the group identify families in need and provide them with food, water and medical supplies. Women and children who want to leave the city are escorted out. Military-age men have to be screened before they are escorted home or out of the city.

Lt. Col. Michael Ramos, a battalion commander with the combat team in charge of northeastern Falluja, said Marines have so far identified 20 families in his sector, but there may be up to 50. He said families and men who passed the screening and wanted to return to their homes in the city would have their homes first searched for weapons and possible insurgents who might have taken sanctuary in them. The homes would then be marked for food and water distribution.

As for Zubari, he has been told he will receive compensation for his home being destroyed. In addition to losing his 13-year-old son, he said, his brother was killed -- and according to men in the neighborhood, he was buried in the garden of a nearby house.

CNN's Jane Arraf contributed to this report.

Cakewalk to Baghdad
Lyrics and music by Bruce Barthol © 2003
I remember back, before we whacked Iraq
I was watching the news, were we gonna attack?
A man named Richard Perle came on and talked
He said going to Baghdad would be a cakewalk

Cakewalk to Baghdad,
Cakewalk to Baghdad

Iraq adopts Terror Alert System

What does:
1. 10/1983 US Marine Corps Headquarters in Beirut--241 dead Americans;
2. 2/1993 WTC in NYC--6 dead Americans;
3. 11/1995 Saudi National Guard Facility in Riyadh--5 dead Americans;
4. 6/1996 Khobar Towers in Dhahran--19 dead Americans;
5. 8/1998 American Embassy in Nairobi--12 dead Americans;
6. 12/2000 Destroyer Cole in Aden--17 dead Americans;
7. 9/2001 WTC in NYC, Pentagon, Pennsylvania Field--approx. 1500 dead Americans have to do with risks Americans would have faced whether Bush decided to invade or not to invade Iraq? There is no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the above list.

What does "policy of the United States to seek to remove the Saddam Hussein regime from power in Iraq and to replace it with a democratic government" have to do with the risks Americans would have faced whether Bush decided to invade or not to invade Iraq?

Powell propagandized ....Powell propagandized ... Powell propagandized ... Powell also propagandized ... Powell also propagandized ...

Risks Americans would have faced whether Bush decided to invade or not to invade Iraq according to the 9/11 commission report amount to "indications" of the Iraqi regime's "tolerance" of Ansar al Islam, and "may even have helped Ansar al-Islam ... "indications" that are contrary to the available, un-ideologized, un-propagandized evidence.

Risks Americans would have faced whether Bush decided to invade or not to invade Iraq according to the Duelfer report amount to allegations that "Saddam wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted" despite the fact that, according to David Kay in an interview with The New York Times' James Risen Ex-Inspector Says C.I.A. Missed Disarray in Iraqi Arms Program, 01/26/2004), "Iraq's unconventional weapons programs were in a state of disarray in recent years under the increasingly erratic leadership of Saddam Hussein ... and that "Iraqi scientists had presented ambitious but fanciful weapons programs to Mr. Hussein and had then used the money for other purposes. ... his team learned that sometime around 1997 and 1998, Iraq plunged into what he called a "vortex of corruption," when government activities began to spin out of control because an increasingly isolated and fantasy-riven Saddam Hussein had insisted on personally authorizing major projects without input from others. ... The whole thing shifted from directed programs to a corrupted process,' Dr. Kay said. 'The regime was no longer in control; it was like a death spiral. ... Hussein had become increasingly divorced from reality during the last two years of his rule. Mr. Hussein would send Mr. Aziz manuscripts of novels he was writing, even as the American-led coalition was gearing up for war ...

Risks Americans would have faced whether Bush decided to invade or not to invade Iraq amounted to a dictator and a society that had crumbled into corruption and disfunction due to the various efforts, from the Combined Task Force's operations in Northern and Southern Iraq, to the UN sanctions and inspections.

In addition, we are gathering evidence that Saddam gave hundreds of thousands--maybe even millions--of Oil-for-Food dollars to terrorists and terrorist organizations.

Once again, ican, your blather about "COR's" equalling this and "CHR's" equalling that have no bearing on the issues at hand, ican. They are irrelevant.

I wish like anything that people would listen and change their minds about the whole Bush administration and it's intentions and their agendas concerning Iraq and just about everything. I just don't understand it at all. It's like Bizzaroworld in the United States right now.

revel wrote:

I wish like anything that people would listen and change their minds about the whole Bush administration and it's intentions and their agendas concerning Iraq and just about everything. I just don't understand it at all. It's like Bizzaroworld in the United States right now.

I infer you believe Bush a swindler. "I wish like anything that [you and other] people would listen and change [your and] their minds about the whole Bush administration and it's intentions and their agendas concerning Iraq and just about everything."

Whether or not Bush is or is not a swindler, he did manage some how to do the right thing by invading Iraq. Maybe he lucked out or may be he is prescient. I for one couldn't care less about his motives. I care only about his actions and their consequences.

You blame the US for the carnage in the Baghdad Triangle. I blame those in that triangle who have chosen to murder rather than allow their tyranny to be replaced by a democracy of the Iraqi people's own design. We would be killing no one if it weren't necessary to protect the civilians of all of Iraq as well as ourselves from worse more massive murder. I say blame the victimizers not those who would stop the victimizers.

According to General Franks, a principal part of those who have chosen to murder rather than allow a tyranny to be replaced by a democracy of the Iraqi people's own design, consists of Baathists who were murderers and/or aiders and abettors of murderers under Saddam. They are not different than any other murderers and/or aiders and abettors fighting for their lives and fighting to regain the murderous power they once held. Such people will lie as often as they feel it necessary to gain their objectives. Such peole will lie to gain your sympathy and to weaken your resolve and the resolve of those attempting to deny them their objectives.

It would be better if such people did not exist. But they do exist. They have existed throughout the history of the human race. The consequences of their actions must be repeatedly faced, recognized and dealt with ruthlessly, regardless of our preference that such people not exist or that we could change their minds.

The end justifies the ........

...It is just horrible any way you look it and it was all so avoidable.

A generous parent should have said,

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace";

and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.

Whether or not Bush is or is not a swindler, he did manage some how to do the right thing by invading Iraq.

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

The Fallujah Report and the Liberal/Conservative Divide

The "Fallujah Report" prepared by the Marines concerning their enemies in the most recent big campaign is now up on the Web in HTML rather than powerpoint, and so easier to download. One thing that leaped out at me was the small number of foreign fighters it reports. The guerrillas in the city were mostly Iraqi.

I was provoked to the following observations by a journalist's question.

The big divide between liberals and conservatives in regard to Fallujah is that most liberals do not believe that force can be used to solve problems. They may believe that force is sometimes necessary. But they think it most often just causes new problems. They tend to see the world as complex, not in black and white terms, so that an unalloyed "bad guy" is rare (Bin Laden managed to make himself an exception). Liberals also see military force in the context of the whole society, so that they worry about what happens to children and grandmothers when it is deployed. It is liberals who remember that the Vietnam war killed 2 million Vietnamese peasants. And, they find US military deaths unacceptable.

So from a liberal point of view, Fallujah was terrible. It involved displacing hundreds of thousands of people, subjecting civilians to bombardment and crossfire, and resulted in over 2000 deaths, including over 50 US troops. The icon of Fallujah for the liberals was the little boy with the shard of grenade shrapnel lodged near his liver, or the old woman bewailing her dead relatives.

Conservatives do believe that force can be used to solve problems. They think in terms of good guys and bad guys, and it seems obvious to them that if you kill the bad guys, then you have solved the problem. Getting at the bad guys may be disruptive to civilian populations, and may cause some collateral damage, and may incur some troop casualties, and all that is bad, but it is necessary and worth it. You can't make omelettes without breaking eggs.

Many bloggers are complaining from a liberal point of view about the downsides of the use of force. They are completely uninterested in the activities of the Baathist and radical Sunni guerrillas holed up in Fallujah. They are uninterested in whether these guerrillas terrorized the local population. All they can see is the vast destruction caused by the US assault, and the innocent lives damaged. From their point of view, the whole operation against the city is a form of collective punishment.

The US military powerpoint slides are classical conservatism. They identify the bad guys, who are the problem. They lay out their crimes. And they document the way the good guys went in to kill or capture them and so solve the problem.

The US military seems strangely unaware of the realities of insurgencies. It seems to think there are a limited number of "bad guys," who can all be killed or captured. The possibility that virtually all able-bodied men in Fallujah supported the insurgency, and that many are weekend warriors, does not seem to occur to them. In fact, as Mao noted, guerrillas swim in a sea of supportive civilians. The US military slides suggest that now that the bad guys have been taken care of, the civilians can be won over. That this outcome is highly unlikely does not seem to occur to them.

The thing that strikes me about the military powerpoint slides is that they don't make the argument to the general public. Because they just assume the conservative view of the use of military force, they concentrate on the crimes of the guerrillas but do not successfully defend the need to deal with them by assaulting the whole city.

Whatever the military rights or wrongs, the political judgment on the Fallujah campaign is easy. It was supposed to make holding elections possible in the Sunni Arab heartland. Instead, it has certainly further alienated the Sunni Arabs and made it more likely that they will boycott the elections en masse. If the Sunni Arabs remain angry and sullen in this way, Fallujah will have been a political failure.

posted by Juan @ 11/30/2004 06:01:13 AM