THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

- Leave Iraq. Immediately. And without a residual force.
- Focus on rebuilding diplomatic ties with nations around the world.
- Lead the world in building an international team to track down actual members of Al Qaeda and stop them, without going to war with entire countries.
- Improve defenses here at home.
- Shore up our forces in Afghanistan. Use the troops redeployed from Iraq to put pressure on Pakistan to clean up Waziristan.

I think this will help begin to solve our Al Qaeda problem, because unlike you, I can differentiate between the group which we call Al Qaeda (who attacked us on 9/11) and the group who decided to call themselves 'Al-Qaeda in Iraq' (who has practically nothing to do with the other group). Spending time focusing on the second group, who exists primarily to fight the occupation of their homeland by foreigners, is a waste of time.
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Cycloptichorn

Therein lies the primary substance of our disagreement. You think al-Qaeda in Iraq is not part of the worldwide al-Qaeda confederation.

For the reasons I've given in my earlier long post to revel, I think al-Qaeda in Iraq is part of the worldwide al-Qaeda confederation.

If you are right, then we have no security reasons for remaining in Iraq any longer than necessary to affect our rapid but ordely departure.

If I am right, then we have substantial security reasons for remaining in Iraq until, either we have exterminated al-Qaeda there, or the Iraq government decides it is capable of securing Iraq without our help.

You apparently do not comprehend why I think what I think. I do not comprehend why you think what you think.




By the way, I am not a Bush supporter, and have not been a Bush supporter since the early part of Bush's second term. I am just an United States of America supporter.

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they have begun the practice of referring to their opponents as 'al-qaeda fighters.' All of them, all the time. This is a significant change from the earlier and more accurate use of the term 'insurgent.' The people we are fighting over there in Iraq aren't planning on coming to America or Europe to attack us, and never were; whereas the people who are planning such things? We do nothing about.

I grant that it is a significant change. I think that change is derived from the al-Qaeda January 2006 destruction of the "Golden Mosque." I too think al-Qaeda destroyed that mosque in a major effort to promote civil war in Iraq. I think much subsequent evidence continues to support the view that al-Qaeda continues to be the primary cause of the continuation of the war in Iraq.

By promoting civil war in Iraq, I think al-Qaeda anticipates that it will convince the USA to leave and allow al-Qaeda to take over the governance of Iraq, and/or provide them a valuable sanctuary for recruiting and traning large numbers of worldwide suicidal mass murderers of non-murderers.

The real danger of Iraq is that it has distracted us from the true enemy, who lies elsewhere. It's sad, in that it didn't have to happen.

As you already know, I think al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda every where else, are all part of the real danger and are all part of the real enemy.

Cycloptichorn

We're seriously debating immigration. We may be about to begin a serious debate on health care. But we aren't debating Iraq, not really, if by that we mean a tough, thorough, honest national conversation about how we're going to cope for the long term with the staggering mess we've unleashed. We only pretend to debate Iraq.

The Bush administration and its irreducible hard core of supporters, refusing to cop to their own failures, accuse critics of "trying to ensure that there's failure in Iraq," as House Republican leader John Boehner said recently of the opposition. Everyone else blames the Bush administration for its warmongering deceptions and war-fighting incompetence?-but pretty much leaves it at that, either changing the subject or imagining that rage at the masters of war and a willingness to withdraw U.S. forces right away lets them off the hook. Among the Democratic presidential candidates, the exchanges devolve to inconsequential gotchas?-which candidate opposed the war earliest, whether Hillary Clinton should "apologize" for voting to authorize it in 2002, whether de-funding votes in May by Clinton and Barack Obama are sufficient proof of their antiwar bona fides. And the Republican candidates would prefer not to talk about it.

Rather, the fake Iraq debate is all about the comparatively minor, near-term details of the American military withdrawal-cum-redeployment. Most of the Democrats say they want it to begin soon?-even though, in all likelihood, the later it starts the better it is for them politically, as the cynical Br'er Rabbits among them know. And while Republicans in Congress continue for now to say they oppose "artificial deadlines," their feelings about the issue are, in fact, entirely in thrall to the great, looming artificial deadline of November 4, 2008.

Petraeus's No. 2, General Raymond Odierno, says, "The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure. What I am trying to do is to get until April so we can decide whether to keep it going or not."

And they undoubtedly will get that long. To call it quits sooner would require 67 senators to overrule the generals. While sending more U.S. forces is equally a nonstarter, even Boehner, the House minority leader, has said that if there's no surge-driven progress by fall, it'll be time for Plan B. And for Republicans facing elections next year, any Plan B must entail a withdrawal from Iraq that starts well before November 2008.

Thus are the U.S. politics of the Iraq war a Kabuki performance, punctuated by occasional moments of Democratic jujitsu. Washington will continue to bicker about timetables and appropriations, but whatever happens in Iraq between now and the end of this year, American policy is largely preordained for the next year and a half.

But that doesn't mean our long national nightmare will end when a new president is sworn in. We're only approaching the end of the beginning of our Iraq misadventure, not the beginning of the end.

It was our weakness for childlike, black-and-white explanation that got us into the Iraq debacle. To the neocons and Bush, the task at hand was simple, like a fairy tale: Saddam was a monster, and destroying his government would be easy, after which the liberated Iraqis could build a friendly democracy. No real thought was given to all that might go wrong. What counted was the beautiful big idea.

The antiwar left's conviction now that everything will be fine if we simply ship home all our troops is born of a similar impulse, a wishful naïveté so convinced of its own righteousness that it refuses to imagine vast unintended consequences, let alone to anguish over them. Little thought is given to what might happen after we leave. What if, instead of 100 murdered Iraqi civilians a day, the number is in the thousands? What happens if ethnic cleansing becomes state policy? And the Saudis intervene to protect their Sunni brothers from slaughter? And Turkey invades the Kurdish provinces? What counts is the beautiful, big idea.

The neocons and the lefties have in common a shrugging callousness to the horrors their simple plans unintentionally enable in Iraq: eliminating the Baathist dictatorship uncorked a civil war, and eliminating U.S. troops may well turn it into a much bigger one?-but it's the Iraqis to blame for the chaos and murder, not us.

The Democratic presidential candidates talk blithely of "ending" the war in Iraq, as if our departure will lead directly to an orderly peace. "The Democrats have the power," says Dennis Kucinich, baldly misstating the facts, "to end the war right now." John Edwards: "Congress has a responsibility to force George Bush to end this war." And Barack Obama: "It's time to end this war." But our problem is not that Bush won't order an end to this war, it's that he can't. Nor can Congress.

Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule?-"You break it, you own it"?-will not expire in January 2009.

Those of us who voted against Bush might like to think that Iraq is all "his" bungle, that we're therefore free to walk away from the horror show. But we're a nation, and we're all responsible for all of our national liabilities. This is not Vietnam, where we hadn't started the civil war, and where we really did have the power to end the killing by leaving. A more apt analogy, I worry, is the Soviet war in Afghanistan. After the 1979 invasion, the Soviets maintained a force of between 80,000 and 100,000 troops in a Muslim country of some 20 million people divided along ethnic, tribal, and sectarian lines. As General Petraeus said the other day, "I think historically, counterinsurgency operations have gone at least nine or ten years." The Red Army left Afghanistan after nine years and 14,000 killed in a counterinsurgency war against a mix of indigenous fighters and the foreign jihadi who became the core of Al Qaeda. And six months later, the Soviet empire began to dissolve.

In other words, they were damned if they stayed and damned if they left, and so are we. Which should be the starting point of the real debate we need to begin.

This AP story made me angry. I admire a straight shooter, so I am glad that Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarak admitted to AP that the Iraqi Army is not up to actually holding the neighborhoods in Baquba that US troops recently cleared, in hard fighting, of Salafi Jihadi guerrillas.

So Baquba is a city of like 300,000 northeast of Baghdad, in Diyala Province. Diyala has a 60% Sunni majority, and it had a lot of Baath military bases in the old days. It is now ruled by the (Shiite) Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which benefits from the province's proximity to Iran. The previous Iraqi military commander had to be fired because he was helping, behind the scenes, Shiite militias.

So the Sunni Arabs in Baquba are done out. They have a Shiite government in their province that they don't want, and they have a Shiite/Kurdish government in Baghdad that sends Shiite troops of the Iraqi Army against them. The Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baquba have thrown up local militias, and they have made alliances with Baathi and Salafi Jihadi cells.

The US military spent last week trying to 'clear' these Sunni Arab neighborhoods of 'al-Qaeda.' But I doubt they have Bin Laden's telephone number. They are just local guys or foreign volunteers who don't like seeing Sunni Arabs subjected to Shiite ayatollahs and secessionist Kurds.

As US troops fought on Sunday, they discovered that the guerrilla leaders had set mines and then made themselves scarce.

So after 6 days of hard fighting, in which US troops were killed and wounded, what do we have?

A sullen, defiant Sunni Arab urban population.

A guerrilla leadership that slipped away.

An Iraqi army unable actually to hold the 'cleared' neighborhoods, which are likely to throw up more guerrilla leaders and campaigns.

A continued dominance of Sunni Arabs in Diyala by a Shiite government completely unacceptable to them.

A US commitment to upholding the Shiite ("Iraqi") government.

So I am angry because this looks to me like we sent our guys to fight and die for a piece of political quicksand in which the entire endeavor is likely to sink.

It is not right.

A new Newsweek poll out this weekend exposed "gaps" in America's knowledge of history and current events.

Perhaps most alarmingly, 41% of Americans answered 'Yes' to the question "Do you think Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?"

That total is actually up 5 points since September 2004.

Further, a majority of people couldn't identify Saudia Arabia as the country of origin of most of the 9/11 hijackers, even given the question in multiple choice format. 20% answered Iraq, while 14% believed the hijackers came from Iran.

A majority (52%) believe the US is losing the war against al Qaeda, however Newsweek disagrees. In the magazine's reporting of the poll, they made judgment that the US is in fact not "losing the fight against al-Qaeda or radical Islamic terrorism."

Closer to home, 89% of Americans are unable to name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (John Roberts), though a majority of those polled were able to name Nancy Pelosi as the current Speaker of the House.

A large majority of people said they didn't know or didn't care who the winner of this year's American Idol competition was (or at least weren't willing to admit it).

The full results of the Newsweek poll are available here.

A U.S. ally in Iraq is murdered

By Mohammed al Dulaimy and Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers



Sheik Fassal al Gaood talks with McClatchy Baghdad bureau chief Leila Fadel June 3, 2007 in the lobby of the Mansour hotel in Baghdad, Iraq. al Gaood was one of the six tribal leaders assasinated by an unknown bomber in the same hotel, Monday, June 25, 2007. (Mohammed al Dulaimy/MCT) | View larger image

BAGHDAD - More than two years ago, Sheik Fasal al Gaood approached the U.S. military with what was then an unprecedented offer: His tribesmen were prepared to help American troops rout insurgents linked to al Qaida from Anbar province in western Iraq.

But the Sunni Muslim tribal leader and former provincial governor met one rebuff after another from American officers, he told McClatchy Newspapers at the time. Discouraged and angry, he warned that U.S. officers risked losing him as an ally.

The Americans eventually came around, and al Gaood renewed his offer. He helped turn some of Anbar's most prominent Sunni tribes into a force in the war against al Qaida's followers. That high-stakes partnership may have cost him his life: Al Gaood and 11 other Iraqis were killed Monday in a bombing at a Baghdad hotel where tribal sheiks who've joined forces with the U.S. were scheduled to meet.

"This is not about Qaida. This is a security breach and recklessness, and it is beyond al Qaida," said Ali Hatem Ali al Sulaiman, a leader of the powerful Dulaim tribe of Anbar. "This attack was about killing any patriot who speaks for Iraq and cares about this country."

In his last interview with McClatchy, three weeks ago in the hotel lobby where he died Monday, al Gaood alluded to internecine trouble brewing in Anbar. He was keenly aware that his life was in peril, saying that his home outside the provincial capital of Ramadi had been destroyed, his cars burned and five of his bodyguards slain by al Qaida.

"Iraq is marching towards the edge of a valley," al Gaood said. "Daily killings, kidnappings and bodies in the street."

He lounged on a red sofa, a pack of Marlboros always within reach. As usual, he wore a politician's tailored suit instead of the flowing robes favored by more traditional tribal leaders. And when talk turned to controlling Iraq, al Gaood supported strongmen and brute force over his American allies' visions of democracy.

"We should behead anyone who does a terrorist attack in Anbar," he said.

Al Gaood's story mirrors the war itself ?- a series of shifting alliances, missed opportunities and lives ended in murky circumstances. As of late Monday, al Qaida hasn't claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing on the Internet message boards it typically uses, leading some tribal leaders to wonder whether another enemy might have targeted the meeting.

Possible suspects range from Shiite groups such as the Mahdi Army to al Gaood's tribal comrades, who'd accused him of dealing behind their backs. News reports quoted at least one member of the Salvation Council, the group of tribal leaders who've pledged to hunt insurgents with ties to al Qaida, as saying that al Gaood and the other sheiks who were killed Monday had been dismissed from the group because of side deals they made with the Shiite-led Iraqi government.

Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the head of the Anbar Awakening, another tribal confederation helping to fight al Qaida and its allies, told Iraq's Sharqiya television channel that authorities were investigating the possibility that explosives planted in the heavily guarded hotel had caused the blast, not a walk-in suicide bomber, as was initially reported.

But even Abu Risha's group wasn't immune to finger-pointing, and Anbar residents noted that the partnership between his Awakening group and al Gaood's Salvation Council had begun to unravel. Members reportedly clashed over the use of torture and allegations of corruption.

Al Gaood was no stranger to going against the grain ?- he'd been imprisoned and two of his brothers were killed under Saddam Hussein's rule. Al Gaood said they'd been accused of plotting a coup to topple the dictator, who always considered his country's deep-rooted tribes a threat to his regime.

After Saddam's ouster in 2003, the restive Anbar province became the birthplace of the Sunni insurgency and a deadly battleground for U.S. forces. While other Anbar tribesmen joined local resistance groups, al Gaood accepted the dangerous job as the province's U.S.-appointed governor. He remained in his post even as U.S. Marines flattened large swaths of his territory in 2004.

Al Gaood lost his position when elections in January 2005 ushered in rival Sunni politicians from the Iraqi Islamic Party. Although out of a job, his tribal credentials ensured that he remained a key player in Anbar negotiations.

In early 2005, al Gaood became one of the first Sunni leaders to propose that the U.S. military enlist Anbar tribes to strike at al Qaida. He considered it a way to give jobs and a sense of purpose to his disgruntled followers, while isolating the foreign fighters streaming across the border from Syria.

High-ranking Iraqi officials, including the deputy defense minister, a Kurd, confirmed at the time that tribes were tentatively offering to join forces with U.S. and Iraqi troops. Al Gaood said his and other influential tribes approved of an offensive called Operation Matador, which was intended to uproot al Qaida from western towns along the border with Syria.

The results were disastrous, al Gaood told McClatchy in May 2005, at the end of the offensive. The sheik said that locals had razed insurgent safe houses and set up checkpoints to keep al Qaida militants from fleeing ahead of the offensive. But when 1,000 U.S. Marines stormed the area, al Gaood said, they didn't distinguish friend from foe, and several tribesmen were killed in the fighting.

"The Americans were bombing whole villages and saying they were only after the foreigners," he said. "An AK-47 can't distinguish between a terrorist and a tribesman, so how could a missile or tank?"

Bitterly disappointed with the Americans and facing growing anger from his constituents, al Gaood embarked on a life on the run. He hopped from Baghdad hotels to Anbar retreats to neighboring Jordan, always traveling with a phalanx of trusted bodyguards.

Whether he was an opportunist eager for the rewards of American friendship, a patriot dedicated to cleansing al Qaida from his area or both, al Gaood didn't abandon his tribal strategy for restoring calm to Anbar. In November 2006, about 18 months after his initial offer to the Americans, al Gaood was instrumental in the formation of the Anbar Salvation Council.

U.S. military officers have since praised the group, repeatedly holding it up as a model for other Iraqi tribes, even though they privately worry that such vigilante groups will undermine the progress toward an inclusive, national Iraqi military.

(Baghdad bureau chief Leila Fadel contributed reporting from Amman. Al Dulaimy, a special correspondent, reported from Baghdad. Allam reported from Cairo.)
McClatchy Newspapers 2007

WASHINGTON (CNN) ?- A new low of 30 percent of Americans say they support the U.S. war in Iraq and, for the first time, most Americans say they don't believe it is morally justified, a poll released Tuesday said.

In the poll, which was carried out Friday through Sunday, 30 percent of respondents said they favor the war in Iraq; 41 percent said they oppose it because they think the 2003 decision to go to war was a mistake; 26 percent said they oppose it because they think it has been mismanaged; and 3 percent said they had no opinion. (Full Poll Results [PDF])

revel, I'm no military expert, but knew from the very beginning that 21,500 more troops could not control the violence. That those generals assigned to evaluate the military mission in Baghdad could be so blind and ignorant is appalling. They only expose more of our soldiers and the Iraqi civilians to violence in their quest to make a name for themselves during "war time." Shameful.