updated

He is, hopefully, shaken. But unharmed. Whereas the journalist who threw the shoe was beaten till “he was crying like a woman” (Times). The shoe thing is deeply disrespectful in Arab culture, as is calling him a dog (unclean). I guess I don’t disapprove of what the journo did, well, actually, I think it’s OK. I wish more problems were aired symbolically rather than bombically. I mean, I wish people could see that there are other more creative ways to garner media coverage than dead bodies. And what he said was, well, coherent. “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” He then threw a shoe at Mr. Bush, who ducked and narrowly avoided it. As stunned security agents and guards, officials and journalists watched, Mr. Zaidi then threw his other shoe, shouting in Arabic, “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!” (ibid).

Photo of the Korea’s at night. One is completely disconnected, the other obviously plugged in

Right now Jaffna is under effective siege, cut off via A9 (road) and sea. I’m not going to dwell on the specifics so much. The A9 was opened under the cease-fire but now it’s closed. The reasons are twofold, one is that the LTTE collects millions of dollars in tolls from the road. Two is that the LTTE has been blowing shit up in Colombo and Galle. Explosive people things and people move down the A9, hence. Unfortunately, food always moves up and down the A9. And ordinary people who just want to get out. Hence hence. Trouble. In fact the peace talks broke down over this point, and the fact that the talks had no point. I’m not going to address this issue cause it’s a motherfucking bramblebush, but rather the general drift of the thing. I’ve been reading this book that describes the nature of modern conflict. PM Barnett describes the conflict as this age as not being ‘Democracy vs Terrorism’ or ‘Islam vs West’ but rather as ‘Connectivity vs Disconnectivity’. I think there may be a better word for that.

The Book: Pentagon’s New Map

Pentagon’s New Map, by PM Barnett

I’m unconvinced that Donald Rumsfeld could find his ass with both hands, let alone map strategic thought. The Pentagon as an institution has taken a plane in the side and a cancer in the center, but there are still some thinkers associated with US Foreign Policy. Thomas Barnett was a interesting researcher and briefer from the Naval War College, now independent. His brief on the Pentagon’s New Map was given to every Air Force officer that reached General. It was also an Esquire article, then a book. I read the book and it’s innovative. Barnett is kinda an ass and half the book is devoted to how awesome he is at PowerPoint, but I’m probably just jealous. The brief has multiple parts, but I’m only concerned with one:

The world can be roughly divided into two groups: the Functioning Core, characterized by economic interdependence, and the Non-Integrated Gap, characterized by unstable leadership and absence from international trade. The Core can be sub-divided into Old Core (North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia) and New Core (China, India). The Disconnected Gap includes the Middle East, South Asia (except India), most of Africa, Southeast Asia, and northwest South America.

Basically, he defines the conflict of the world as being those connected (globalized) and those disconnected. Not necessarily haves and have-nots, because it is possible to have cash without freedom (as per Saudi Arabia). Beyond simply philosophically dividing the world, he maps out the sources of conflict across the globe (view full size of map above). Specifically, he mapped where the US has made military/security interventions and drawn a border round the general cocked-upedness.

Interestingly, it’s equatorial, and it seems to be a coherent region. These regions are not united by religion, race, or even poverty. Rather, they are simply disconnected from the financial and communicative networks that bind human beings together with words and not bullets.

Show me where globalization is thick with network connectivity, financial transactions, liberal media flows, and collective security, and I will show you regions featuring stable governments, rising standards of living, and more deaths by suicide than murder. These parts of the world I call the Functioning Core, or Core. But show me where globalization is thinning or just plain absent, and I will show you regions plagued by politically repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder, and—most important—the chronic conflicts that incubate the next generation of global terrorists. These parts of the world I call the Non-Integrating Gap, or Gap. (Esquire Article)

The Core

These nations do not have religion or race in common, but rather a common rule-set. They have legal, economic and social systems that play nice with each other and generally keep things from getting violent. This rule-site is broad, but it includes laws, business practices, airports, infrastructure, communications protocols and brands. There is a globalized world where your cell-phone will get roaming, your bank card will withdraw cash and your embassy can bail you out of jail. Your data will be carried by Cisco routers, your ass by Toyotas and you can catch the flight out on Star Alliance. There is a technological, economic and communicative rule-set that binds all the countries in the core, and it all rests on an unspoken security guarantee.

Technology: Meaning science and technology. There are certain ‘modern’ innovations which are common to Core countries, to differing degrees. Foremost are Airports, which provide the main vector for globalization forces into a country. This is also the channel that gets attacked first. Then come roads, cars, and petrol. These are all international goods, the supply of which binds you to the rest of the world. Then there is also Western Medicine, penicillin, surgery, medication, etc. There are also international engineering standards, architecture, and more. All these provide the raw infrastructure of the core.

Economy: Currency (preferably floating) connects Core countries, and their currencies are traded. They also have credit and capital markets, stock exchanges and the other mathematics that forms the discourse between natures. Even more obviously, Core countries (including China) participate in the World Trade Organization and try to adopt trade and intellectual property policies to match. In fact, WTO membership means they have to. There are also other orgs like World Bank and IMF, but those tend to draw peripheral nations into this rule-set more than to serve members. At the consumer level there are also international ATMs, Visa and Mastercard processing, and PayPal.

Communications: Atop all this infrastructure there is a common language among core countries. This also covers the last Millennium Development Goal – ‘Global Partnerships’. They include electricity, radios, televisions, and computers. They include Cisco routers, undersea cables and cell phone towers. It also means English in some places, and some English media. Also English speaking interfaces with the rest of the world. It means Internet, preferably high speed, and access to international media and news. It is connection to the global conversation.

Security: Subscribing to these high level rule-sets and their benefits means that Core countries have ‘something to lose’. They’re dependent on international travel, so they need friendly neighbors. They need oil, so they need stability (even tyrannical stability) in the Middle East. Their citizens (like in China) have become used to a certain standard of living so they can’t bomb the shit out of break-away islands without tanking the stock market and inviting internal rebellion. Once they let the Internet and communications technology in, restricting them will cause a huge fuss over those same networks. All the values the US is bombing to instill flow almost naturally from the rule-sets of Core countries. A connected country feels pain when it tears the global fabric, so it’s less likely to be aggressive. Of course, the US is a counter-example of what batshit-insane leadership can do, but I digress.

The Gap

And here are the have-nots. These countries are outside the Core not because they are Muslim or Communist or poor. They simple lack the prerequisites to join the global game

Technology: Despite being between, say, Florida and Bangkok, no one ever connects through Africa. I can’t name an African airline besides South African. That conduit doesn’t have much human current flowing through it and that makes it prohibitively expensive. Also, roads are bad and petrol too tends to be expensive. Countries that are absolutely cut off have petrol shortages and embargoes, like North Korea and Jaffna now. Then there is a shortage of international consumer goods, and again high prices. Finally, there is a dearth of engineers and doctors and the basic infrastructure of The Core.

Economy: Many Gap countries have hyperinflated or spasmodic currencies, like Zimbabwe or Cuba. They also have weak capital markets, few credit card holders, limited credit information, and highly cash economies. In Sri Lanka, for example, most people buy houses or cars with straight-up cash (no lease or mortgage), which would be unheard of in the West. The fact that these small calculations are not done means that a whole number of higher order operations are neglected. Gap countries also have crappy banking sectors with lots of (some sketchy) banks, poor Basel II compliance, limited use of Visa/Mastercard, and no access to online payments like PayPal.

Communications: Because these countries lack infrastructure they also lack the voice to be heard in the global discourse. They have poor electricity, limited and sometimes suppressed media, less access to international news and media, crappy or non-existent Internet and unavailable or expensive phone and data services. They also lack significant English education, and the base of English speakers to do business and communicate with The Core. Not only do they not have the ‘stuff’ to participate, they lack even a voice.

Security: These countries have fuck-all to lose, so they can generally behave like spoilt brats with artillery. Saddam was so isolated he thought he could invade Iran and Kuwait with impunity. Castro was quite content to court annihilation by hosting Soviet missiles. Kim Jong Il will keep blowing up his nation’s GDP in the mountains cause there is only so much you can take away from people eating tree bark. Kim can continue getting his lobster thermidor through good old corruption and the manufacture of counterfeit money and sale of arms. They have nothing to lose and their populations are so isolated that they have neither the tools nor the knowledge to agitate.

The Conflict

The above are largely my own observations, but Barnett goes on to posit that the current ‘Clash of Civvies” is between The Core and The Gap. It is essentially a clash between the forces of Globalization and forces that want to retreat to a (usually religious) fundamentalist state, ‘self-sufficient’, rejecting ‘Western’ media, laws, medicine, technology (except nukes), economics (capitalism), and ‘foriegn’ people. In effect, drawing back into the Gap, into the abyss. This is what I’ve described as following the J-Curve, retreating to the nearest peak where everything feels safe rather than braving the rockier path to long-term prosperity.

In Barnett’s example, groups like Al Qaeda aren’t necessarily trying to destroy the west. They want to remove the Western occupation from the Holy Places and Palestine and establish a hardcore Gap Caliphate, cut off from the rest of the world and its ungodly laws, media, and money. In the local example, the LTTE too rejects the idea that it’s illegal to field child soldiers, it’s bad form to kill opposition journalists, and that taxation without representation is so 1775. To a lesser degree, but it’s the same drawing away from Core norms into some ‘safe’ and ultimately lonely and poor place.

The Over-Reaction

Like any novel immune reaction, the unfortunate response of Core states to this tension is to inflame it. When a disconnected Gap state like North Korea throws a nuclear tantrum, the Core responds my disconnecting it even more. Cutting off more trade, more oil, more travel, and more banking. Cuba is another case where the US simply refused to engage. The US today also refuses to or barely engages with Syria, Iran, and assorted baddies. Unfortunately, this often has the effect of leaving Gap nations to fester and wither in an isolated petri dish of despotism and tyranny.

North Korea is actually one of the most ‘stable’ nations because it’s people have limited technology, no money and also no clue as to what they’re missing. The government doesn’t change much. Lil Kim’s massive army near Seoul keeps military intervention at bay and his isolation means that the slow workings of media and economy don’t come into play.

In the same way Cuba’s dictator Castro thrived under sanctions, as did Saddam and as Iranian Ayatollah Controllahs kinda do. Cutting a nation of for the world is in many ways the best possible scene for a tyrant because the corruption gets through and the good is entirely blocked.

The Greater Strategic Goal

There are very valid reasons for cutting off belligerent nations – so they don’t get weapons, so they don’t get money to pay and arm oppressive armies, so corrupt bastards don’t get all the money, etc. However, nations imposing can forget the greater goal, which is bringing countries into the Core. I’m not saying that sanctions are bad, I’m just saying that turning away should be the last resort.

The goal and the victory is bringing Gap nations into the global Rule-Set, so that they have internal incentives to provide Security, and so they actually do it. This means not just knocking over their tyrants, it means building the technological, economic and communicative systems that can provide long-term peace. And that means engagement. It means negotiating with people you do not like, it means accepting some chance that weapons may get through with goods, and not fleeing in terror at the sight of terrorism. That is the easy response, the political expedient response, but it is not the right one. Making that hard decision to engage, to negotiate, and to connect, that is hard. That takes real leadership, real courage. Any third-rate warlord can make war or block a road. How many have the balls to turn around in the face of terror and steady their hand, open it, and unite a nation? Gandhi, Martin Luther King, not many. But they never took their eyes off the ball. In the face of inciteful violence and water cannons they held steady and said ‘we want to connect, we want to live in peace not pride, in harmony not dischord’. They never took their eyes off the greater strategic goal, and they won something worth winning.

I, of course, have never made this choice on a social level, but the way I understand it is working through a relationship. Relationships and marriage (I guess) are bloody hard and counterintuitive sometimes. Sometimes your Sig Oth says some horrible shit, or you just get backed in a corner and you feel like leaving. The strong overpowering instinct is ‘fuck this, fuck you, I’m leaving’. However, in a strong relationship you feel that urge and they you say ‘this is worth it, i’ll stay’. I’ll engage with this person, I’ll deal with their craziness, I’ll work this through and things will get better. If that person is important to you. Of course, some relationships aren’t worth it, but on a global level I think that the relationship with the people of North Korea, of Cuba, of Iraq and, yes, of Jaffna is definitely worthwhile and we should definitely stick it through. There are plenty of attractive women there and they are ronery. We should never forget the goal and the end strategy. It’s not about punishing bad guys and getting revenge, it’s about building a more secure world. It’s about connecting this fragile web and making it a bit more difficult to tear. That is not to say I’m against closing the A9 or North Korean sanctions or whatever. Those things do have their place. All I’m saying is we should never take our eyes off the goal. Connectivity.

Saddam mural photo by Bakkster

Saddam has been sentenced to death. I’m not all for the death penalty, but he and his sons terrorized his own people (and now they have to do it themselves). Saddam was (hopefully) the last consciously Stalinist tyrant, using fear and a vicious security force to cow an entire nation. He wasn’t insane and at one point many in the Arab world held out hope for him, but he ultimately stepped too far. It is good that he was deposed, but that has proved far from a silver bullet for Iraq. Due to a completely botched occupation, there are now about 3,000 people a month dying there and the war is – by most accounts – a failure. Saddam’s head is some consolation, but not much. It’s like sinking the 8 ball prematurely. If you don’t get the other pieces in you’ve still lost the game. Regardless, Saddam was a very cruel and destructive human being. I don’t get any pleasure out of his death, but it’s good that he’s received some justice.

There’s a lot more written on Saddam, the PBS Frontline piece is pretty comprehensive, and Wikipedia is Wikipedia. My favorite article, however, is by Mark Bowden in The Atlantic. It’s a very well written generally and has a couple real gems. This, for example, is a source talking about the tribal mentality that pervades so much of the old world.

Tribal Mentality

“Okay. Here is a village.” On the right half of the page al-Bazzaz wrote a V and beneath it he drew a collection of separate small squares. “These are houses or tents,” he said. “Notice there are spaces between them. This is because in the villages each family has its own house, and each house is sometimes several miles from the next one. They are self-contained. They grow their own food and make their own clothes. Those who grow up in the villages are frightened of everything. There is no real law enforcement or civil society. Each family is frightened of each other, and all of them are frightened of outsiders. This is the tribal mind. The only loyalty they know is to their own family, or to their own village. Each of the families is ruled by a patriarch, and the village is ruled by the strongest of them. This loyalty to tribe comes before everything. There are no values beyond power. You can lie, cheat, steal, even kill, and it is okay so long as you are a loyal son of the village or the tribe. Politics for these people is a bloody game, and it is all about getting or holding power.”

Al-Bazzaz wrote the word “city” atop the left half of the page. Beneath it he drew a line of adjacent squares. Below that he drew another line, and another. “In the city the old tribal ties are left behind. Everyone lives close together. The state is a big part of everyone’s life. They work at jobs and buy their food and clothing at markets and in stores. There are laws, police, courts, and schools. People in the city lose their fear of outsiders, and take an interest in foreign things. Life in the city depends on cooperation, on sophisticated social networks. Mutual self-interest defines public policy. You can’t get anything done without cooperating with others, so politics in the city becomes the art of compromise and partnership. The highest goal of politics becomes cooperation, community, and keeping the peace. By definition, politics in the city becomes nonviolent. The backbone of urban politics isn’t blood, it’s law.”

I think there’s an almost mathematical correlation between levels of anonymity and rule of law. When it comes to close quarters people want the more natural order of family and ‘aney machang you know me’. In a city where you don’t know everyone, however, you need institutions and rule of law. This is something I wrote about as Critical Masshole, the point where group loyalty overrides rule of law.

The Paradox of Power

This, however, is the excerpt I liked most. It describes the curious situation where more power and money just gives you less freedom. Or, as Biggie said, more money more problems. I’ve always thought that the goal was some kind of freedom, but it seems that the near your destination the more you’re slip sliding away.

Saddam is a loner by nature, and power increases isolation. A young man without power or money is completely free. He has nothing, but he also has everything. He can travel, he can drift. He can make new acquaintances every day, and try to soak up the infinite variety of life. He can seduce and be seduced, start an enterprise and abandon it, join an army or flee a nation, fight to preserve an existing system or plot a revolution. He can reinvent himself daily, according to the discoveries he makes about the world and himself. But if he prospers through the choices he makes, if he acquires a wife, children, wealth, land, and power, his options gradually and inevitably diminish. Responsibility and commitment limit his moves. One might think that the most powerful man has the most choices, but in reality he has the fewest. Too much depends on his every move. The tyrant’s choices are the narrowest of all. His life—the nation!—hangs in the balance. He can no longer drift or explore, join or flee. He cannot reinvent himself, because so many others depend on him—and he, in turn, must depend on so many others. He stops learning, because he is walled in by fortresses and palaces, by generals and ministers who rarely dare to tell him what he doesn’t wish to hear. Power gradually shuts the tyrant off from the world. Everything comes to him second or third hand. He is deceived daily. He becomes ignorant of his land, his people, even his own family. He exists, finally, only to preserve his wealth and power, to build his legacy. Survival becomes his one overriding passion. So he regulates his diet, tests his food for poison, exercises behind well-patrolled walls, trusts no one, and tries to control everything.

Saddam has become almost a pathetic figure, a South Park punchline. However, the massive cock-up that is Iraq may still have some lessons in it. I dunno what they are. I thought Saddam was evil enough that eliminating him couldn’t reveal anything worse, but the colossal mismanagement by the Bush Admin has done just that. So I guess I was wrong. It’s good that he has to pay for his crimes of the past, but I wonder who’ll pay for the myriad crimes of today.

This is George W. Bush‘s approval ratings compared with George H.W. Bush‘s approval ratings, from Steven Ruggles of U Minnesota.

They both had a little Iraq bump (Gulf War/Saddam capture) and promptly fell the fuck off over the summer.

…

Historical Bush (W) Approval Ratings

Newsfeed

Here’s a link to biographies of various members of the Bush political family. They’re descended from Princess Di’s Spencer family.

“War is old men talking, and young men dying. You know this. Ignore the politics.” (Odysseus to Achilles, trying to persuade Achilles to re-enter the seige of Troy.)

“Don’t waste your life following some fool’s orders.” (Achilles to Patriclus, trying to persuade Patroclus not to fight in Agamemnon’s war against Troy.)

“When does it end?” Priam’s niece–Achilles’ prisoner–to Achilles, after learning that Achilles intends to fight Hector, her cousin, after learning that Hector has killed Patriclus, Achilles’ cousin.

Achilles replies, “It never ends.”

(collected by Keith Russell)

Oh, and Achilles and Patroculus were having butt sex. Thigh sex at the least. And Achilles used to wear dresses. The Gay Marriage bit in the title is a bit of a stretch, it was more like man-boy love before you got married. Homosexuality was, however, a big part of classical culture.

This guy Gudea ruled his Iraqi mini-state competently. I have no clue what’s going to happen to modern Iraq. I actually have no place commenting at all, but it’s the Internet, wtf. What follows is a mini cast of characters. I’ve divided them ethnically because, well, just look at Iraq. Saddam managed to unite everyone around the fact that they all died, but it’s not like that anymore.

(Map and Power Players After Jump)

	Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani He is probably the most popular Shiite Cleric in Iraq, if not the world. He is also Iranian by birth, but whatev. He was able to call up protests of 1 million people, and just as easily end them on his command. He hasn’t left his house since an assasination attempt in 1997 and he refuses to meet with any American authorities, giving him massive street cred. The troubling thing is that he is a Shiite Cleric, hence not Sunni or Kurd. Besides that, he seems devoted to Allah, he doesn’t advocate killing, and he has a website, so I like him. Here’s a PBS bio of him.
	Muqtada Al-Sadr As you can tell from his photo, Al-Sadr is trouble. His only really claim to fame is his father, Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr who was an Ayatollah, the equivalent of Doctor of Islam. Becoming an Ayatollah requires study and time, which the younger Al-Sadr hasn’t put in. Unfortunately, the elder al-Sadr was killed by Saddam in 1999 and we are stuck with his firebrand son. By virtue of his birth Muqtada controls Sadr City, a Baghdad ghetto. He also controls the al-Mahdi militia. However, as I’ve said, he is not an Ayatollah. It would be extremely unorthodox for him to hold power, but Iraq is a weird place. He was a fairly low-level cleric before the occupation, but his rebellion is now getting him strong support from 32% of Iraqis polled, and some support from 36% (Financial Times).
	Ahmed Chalabi As you can tell from the photo, Ahmed Chalabi is a sell-out and a douchebag. He hasn’t lived in Iraq since 1956 and in the National Survey of Iraq 0.2% of people said he was a trustworthy leader. Unfortunately, that 0.2% included Iraqi Overlords Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney – hence we’re fucked. His family is powerful and he still sits on the Governing Council, but the US has since raided his office and cut of his allowance of $335,000 a month. There are some reports that he is an Iranian spy, but even with their support he has little or no chance of ruling Iraq. He’s a douchebag and nobody likes him.

I’m going to go ahead and publish this now and continue working on it. Let’s just let the Shiite’s rule for now. If you know anything about Iraqi power players, please comment. I’m researching this as I go along and I’m not that good at it.

This is an eye from here, Al Qaeda flag from here, and sword from the Saudi flag.

If you want full information, go here.

Killing people is bad. People have families and friends that love them. God bless Nicholas and his family. And America.

Full coverage of Nick Berg is already online at wikipedia, including full video, background, and links. I know you’re looking for it, but I won’t direct link to the video. It’s at the bottom of the wikipedia page.

This is an eye, with an Al Qaeda flag overlaid. The final layer is the Berg family consoling each other, with the Saudi sword from their flag in between them. I don’t know whose fault this was. It’s just an image, for facts you should do research.

Abu Ghraib means ‘father of the raven’

This is a Photoshop I did on Abu Ghraib… or at least my impressions of it. The background is a Saddam era prison-pass to Abu Ghraib. The colorful people are sampled from the excellent work “Hurricane” by the Iraqi artist Sadiq Toma (purchase). The hand is a medical sample I found on Google Images. So, that’s my impression of Abu Ghraib. The awful bureaucracy that has the stamps and documents to make crushing life look legitimate. That’s the black hand of death, pulling the color of life into Abu Ghraib.

There are some bad memories in that place. First Saddam used it for the worst torture imaginable. Then the a few bad Americans used it to humiliate Iraqis once again (newsfeed).

Perhaps its something about the prison itself, like in Zimbardo’s classic psychology experiments:

“In 1971 researchers at Stanford University created a simulated prison in the basement of the campus psychology building. They randomly assigned 24 students to be either prison guards or prisoners for two weeks.

Within days the “guards” had become swaggering and sadistic, to the point of placing bags over the prisoners’ heads, forcing them to strip naked and encouraging them to perform sexual acts.” (New York Times)

It’s shameful. Unlawful detentions cause so much suffering to the prisoners and the families left behind, all crushed under an unrelenting authority that knows no law and respects no rights. That’s why I wish Rumsfeld and Bush would follow the Geneva Conventions, in Iraq and Guantanamo. That’s what the Founding Fathers fought for. The Constitution. The Bill of Rights. That’s the America I know and love.

There has to be some love in what’s going on Iraq. Some good must come of this. There is, at least, Art. I’ve met a few brilliant people from Iraq and the culture – dating from 5,000 BC – is incredible. Gilgamesh, the Old Testament, and Abraham - father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Their modern art is amazing too, and architecture (re: Zaha Hadid). They’re beautiful people. I wish them well. I’ll close with a poem by Yahya Al-Samawi:

My Love Humiliated Me

My love humiliated me
So did my wound that extends from the palm tree’s braids
To the people’s bread
And when the Tartars one night besieged me
I crossed the wall of the massacred homeland
Anxiety was my provision
Terror was my water
I roamed the fires of the East
The gardens of the West
With no companions
Except residues of my home’s ashes
The clay of the Euphrates and Tigris
Splattered on my clothes
I searched for my childhood
In the memory of days
In the refuse of oppressive wars
Seeking my city
Looking for my beloved among this age’s captives
Uncovering my roots
A sweet enchanting Euphrates
Suddenly I saw a palm tree on a sidewalk
I shook it
Tears flowed down over my face
And when I shook the earth’s trunk
Oh God
Iraq surges in my heart.

YAHYA AL-SAMAWI (born 1949) has been living as a political refugee in Australia. The author of more than eight collections, he has been largely concerned in his latest works with political themes, which address, among other issues, Iraq’s predicament in the years following the Gulf War and his opposition to the regime. Note his reference to the “massacred homeland” and the “Tartars” (a symbol used primarily for “external” invaders).

source: Iraqi Poets In Western Exile

The Iraq flag does look like a shoe. This is a metrosexual version from D-Squared (on sale at eBay).

The Agitator has a nice list of flag reviews, for background.

This is weird, cause I usually steal headlines shamelessly from Wonkette, but this time I actually know the guys selling the shoe. It’s weird cause I read Wonkette everyday, and all of a sudden something I’m a part of is featured there.

…

As for background on the flag, it’s designed by Rifat Chaderchi, brother of another guy on the Governing Council, which incidentally chose the flag. The blue lines represent the Tigris and Euphrates, and the yellow is for the Kurds. The Daily Show has a very funny send-up of the flag fiasco, along with a new national anthem. Apparently nobody really likes it. It does kinda look like the Israeli flag, but what I don’t like is the yellow, and the bottom orientation of the stripes. It really does look like a shoe.

originally http://www.indi.ca/indica/2004/04/the_iraq_flag_s.html

My dad sent me a cryptic note about Iraq, refering to this Brooks article. I think I’m supposed to brainstorm ways to fix Iraq rather than talk about shoes that look like the Iraqi flag. The only problem is that I don’t know anything, so I’ve attached a Peter Galbraith article about splitting Iraq into three. Slate’s been talking about the same thing.

What I’ve been doing, actually, is reading the Bible. It’s weird what God has to say about the whole thing. This whole Middle East thing is kind of creepy because, um, Israel is the biblical site of the return of Christ and Armageddon.

So, introduction is about End Times.

Zechariah 12

“I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves. On that day I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness,” declares the LORD . “I will keep a watchful eye over the house of Judah, but I will blind all the horses of the nations. Then the leaders of Judah will say in their hearts, ‘The people of Jerusalem are strong, because the LORD Almighty is their God.’
“On that day I will make the leaders of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves. They will consume right and left all the surrounding peoples, but Jerusalem will remain intact in her place.

“The LORD will save the dwellings of Judah first, so that the honor of the house of David and of Jerusalem’s inhabitants may not be greater than that of Judah. On that day the LORD will shield those who live in Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the Angel of the LORD going before them. On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.

That’s you Lebanon, Syria, Concordia etc. Watch your back.

The Bible also has a bunch of weird shit in it so I’m not taking it at face value – but the Christian Zionists must have been all over the Six Day War. Everybody attacked Israel and Israel won. And on the seventh day, they rested.

The biblical stuff may seem irrelevant, but the Christian Zionist movement is quite strong in America. The basic belief is that the Jews need to return to Israel so that Jesus can return to rule. Which is all good, but the lead up involves rather unpleasant amounts of brimstone, etc. Christian Zionism isn’t a fringe movement either.

‘The election of Ronald Reagan ushered in not only the most pro-Israel administration in history but gave several Christian Zionists prominent political posts. In addition to the President, those who subscribed to a futurist premillennial theology and Christian Zionism included Attorney General Ed Meese, Secretary of Defence Casper Weinberger, and Secretary of the Interior James Watt.’

Donald Wagner, ‘Beyond Armageddon’

Bush’s faith, too, is very important to him (nytimes) … and he likely believes similar things about the place of Israel. I can’t find as much to back that up, but look around. Anyways, this Israel shit could be the end of the world with Christ coming back with a bloody sword in his mouth and all. Or not. I dunno. What weirds me out is what the Bible says about Iraq (Baghdad is near ancient Babylon, and the Tigris and Euphrates flow through Iraq).

Revelation 16

The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.

“Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed.”

Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It is done!” Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake.

The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. From the sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible.

I’m trying to think if Rumsfeld looks like a frog. Condi looks like a bulldog, but that’s not mentioned. Anyways, a lot of that shit is mad scary, but the part I find interesting is where God says ‘the great city split into three parts” cause, uh, I was just reading an article by Peter Galbraith in the New York Review of Books advocating splitting Iraq into 3 states, organized as per Federalism. The three states would be Kurdistan, Sunny Pink Triangle, and Shiitehole. It’s the most comprehensible way I’ve heard of to get out of Iraq, I’m going to append it to this post. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, this is a loose timetable for the end of the world:

1. Christ becomes King in heaven in 1914; “last days” of 2 Timothy 3:1 begin.
2. Fulfillment of prophecies in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21 about the ‘conclusion of the system of things.’
3. Possibly cry of ‘peace and security’ (1 Thessalonians 5:3)
4. Destruction of Babylon the Great (all false religion throughout the world) by the ‘wild beast’ referred to in Revelation 17 and understood by the Witnesses to be the worldwide political system, possibly through the United Nations.
5. Satan’s attack on God’s people (Ezekiel 38)
6. Armageddon – God’s war against the ‘Kings of the Earth’ (political rulers); destruction of the wicked.
7. 1000-year reign of Jesus Christ. Survivors of Armageddon will work to make the earth a paradise, like the original Garden of Eden, and will gradually be restored to perfection. It is thought that the dead will be resurrected at this time and given the chance to learn righteousness. (Isaiah 26:9, 10)
8. Final test; Satan let loose for a short time, destroyed along with his followers (Revelation 20)
9. Christ hands the Kingdom over to his Father (1 Corinthians 15:28)

How to Get Out of Iraq

By Peter W. Galbraith

1.

In the year since the United States Marines pulled down Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad’s Firdos Square, things have gone very badly for the United States in Iraq and for its ambition of creating a model democracy that might transform the Middle East. As of today the United States military appears committed to an open-ended stay in a country where, with the exception of the Kurdish north, patience with the foreign occupation is running out, and violent opposition is spreading. Civil war and the breakup of Iraq are more likely outcomes than a successful transition to a pluralistic Western-style democracy.

Much of what went wrong was avoidable. Focused on winning the political battle to start a war, the Bush administration failed to anticipate the postwar chaos in Iraq. Administration strategy seems to have been based on a hope that Iraq’s bureaucrats and police would simply transfer their loyalty to the new authorities, and the country’s administration would continue to function. All experience in Iraq suggested that the collapse of civil authority was the most likely outcome, but there was no credible planning for this contingency. In fact, the US effort to remake Iraq never recovered from its confused start when it failed to prevent the looting of Baghdad in the early days of the occupation.

Americans like to think that every problem has a solution, but that may no longer be true in Iraq. Before dealing at considerable length with what has gone wrong, I should also say what has gone right.

Iraq is free from Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party. Along with Cambodia’s Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein’s regime was one of the two most cruel and inhumane regimes in the second half of the twentieth century. Using the definition of genocide specified in the 1948 Genocide Convention, Iraq’s Baath regime can be charged with planning and executing two genocides —one against the Kurdish population in the late 1980s and another against the Marsh Arabs in the 1990s. In the 1980s, the Iraqi armed forces and security services systematically destroyed more than four thousand Kurdish villages and several small cities, attacked over two hundred Kurdish villages and towns with chemical weapons in 1987 and 1988, and organized the deportation and execution of up to 182,000 Kurdish civilians.

In the 1990s the Saddam Hussein regime drained the marshes of southern Iraq, displacing 500,000 people, half of whom fled to Iran, and killing some 40,000. In addition to destroying the five-thousand-year-old Marsh Arab civilization, draining the marshes did vast ecological damage to one of the most important wetlands systems on the planet. Genocide is only part of Saddam Hussein’s murderous legacy. Tens of thousands perished in purges from 1979 on, and as many as 300,000 Shiites were killed in the six months following the collapse of the March 1991 Shiite uprising. One mass grave near Hilla may contain as many as 30,000 bodies.

In a more lawful world, the United Nations, or a coalition of willing states, would have removed this regime from power long before 2003. However, at precisely the time that some of the most horrendous crimes were being committed, in the late 1980s, the Reagan and Bush administrations strongly opposed any action to punish Iraq for its genocidal campaign against the Kurds or to deter Iraq from using chemical weapons against the Kurdish civilians.

On August 20, 1988, the Iran–Iraq War ended. Five days later, the Iraqi military initiated a series of chemical weapons attacks on at least forty-nine Kurdish villages in the Dihok Governorate (or province) near the Syrian and Turkish borders. As a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I (along with Chris Van Hollen, now a Maryland congressman) interviewed hundreds of survivors in the high mountains on the Turkish border. Our report, which established conclusively that Iraq had used nerve and mustard agents on tens of thousands of civilians, coincided with the Senate’s passage of the Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988, which imposed comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq for crimes against the Kurds. The Reagan administration opposed the legislation, in a position orchestrated by the then national security adviser, Colin Powell, calling such sanctions “premature.”

Except for a relatively small number of Saddam Hussein’s fellow Sunni Arabs who worked for his regime, the peoples of Iraq are much better off today than they were under Saddam Hussein. The problems that threaten to tear Iraq apart—Kurdish aspirations for independence, Shiite dreams of dominance, Sunni Arab nostalgia for lost power—are not of America’s making (although the failure to act sooner against Saddam made them less solvable). Rather, they are inherent in an artificial state held together for eighty years primarily by brute force.

2.

American liberation—and liberation it was—ended the brute force. Iraqis celebrated the dictatorship’s overthrow, and in Baghdad last April ordinary citizens thrust flowers into my hands. Since then, however:

• Hostile action has killed twice as many American troops as died in the war itself, while thousands of Iraqis have also died.

• Terrorists have killed the head of the United Nations Mission, Sergio Vieira de Mello; Iraq’s most prominent Shiite politician, the Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim; and the deputy prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Sami Abdul Rahman, along with hundreds of others.

• Looting has caused billions of dollars of damage, most of which will have to be repaired at the expense of the US taxpayer.

• $150 billion has already been spent on Iraq, an amount equal to 25 percent of the non-defense discretionary federal budget. (By contrast, the first Gulf War earned a small profit for the US government, owing to the contributions of other nations.)

• Discontent with the US-led occupation boiled over into an uprising in the Shiite areas of Iraq on the first anniversary of liberation and a persistent insurgency in the Sunni Triangle degenerated into a full-scale battle in Fallujah. Many on the US-installed Iraqi Governing Council strongly opposed the US military response, and the US-created security institutions—the new Iraqi police and the paramilitary Iraqi Civil Defense Corps—refused to fight, or in some cases, joined the rebels.

• US credibility abroad has been undermined by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. Spain’s elections, Tony Blair’s sinking poll results, and the prospective defeat of Australia’s Howard government underscore the political risk of too close an association with the United States.

• Relations with France and Germany have been badly hurt, in some cases by the gratuitous comments made by senior US officials.

• The United States does not now have the military or diplomatic resources to deal with far more serious threats to our national security. President Bush rightly identified the peril posed by the nexus between weapons of mass destruction and rogue states. The greatest danger comes from rogue states that acquire and disseminate nuclear weapons technology. At the beginning of 2003 Iraq posed no such danger. As a result of the Iraq war the United States has neither the resources nor the international support to cope effectively with the very serious nuclear threats that come from North Korea, Iran, and, most dangerous of all, our newly designated “major non-NATO ally,” Pakistan.

With fewer than one hundred days to the handover of power to a sovereign Iraq on June 30, there is no clear plan—and no decision—about how Iraq will be run on July 1, 2004. Earlier this month, the Bush administration praised itself generously for the signing of an interim constitution for Iraq—a constitution with human rights provisions it described as unprecedented for the Middle East. Three weeks later, as I write, the interim constitution is already falling apart.

As is true of so much of the US administration of postwar Iraq, the damage here is self-inflicted. While telling Iraqis it wanted to defer constitutional issues to an elected Iraqi body, the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority could not resist trying to settle fundamental constitutional issues in the interim constitution. The US government lawyers who wrote the interim constitution, known formally as the Transitional Administrative Law, made no effort to disguise their authorship. All deliberations on the law were done in secret and probably fewer than one hundred Iraqis saw a copy of the constitution before it was promulgated. To write a major law in any democracy—much less a constitution—without public discussion should be unthinkable. Now that Iraqis are discovering for the first time the contents of the constitution, it should come as no surprise that many object to provisions they never knew were being considered.

Iraq’s Shiite leaders say that the National Assembly due to be elected in January 2005 should not be constrained by a document prepared by US government lawyers, deliberated in secret, and signed by twenty-five Iraqis selected by Ambassador Bremer. In particular, the Shiites object to a provision in the interim constitution that allows three of Iraq’s eighteen governorates (or provinces) to veto ratification of a permanent constitution. This, in effect, allows either the Kurds or the Sunni Arabs, each of whom make up between one fifth and one sixth of Iraq’s population, to block a constitution they don’t like. (It is a wise provision. Imposing a constitution on reluctant Kurds or Sunni Arabs will provoke a new cycle of resistance and conflict.) The Shiite position makes the Kurds, who are well armed, reluctant to surrender powers to a central government that may be Shiite-dominated.

At the moment the Sunni Arabs have few identifiable leaders. The Kurds, however, are well organized. They have an elected parliament and two regional governments, their own court system, and a 100,000 strong military force, known as the Peshmerga. The Peshmerga, whose members were principal American allies in the 2003 war, are better armed, better trained, and more disciplined than the minuscule Iraqi army the United States is now trying to reconstitute.

Early in 2005, Iraq will likely see a clash between an elected Shiite-dominated central government trying to override the interim constitution in order to impose its will on the entire country, and a Kurdistan government insistent on preserving the de facto independent status Kurdistan has enjoyed for thirteen years. Complicating the political struggle is a bitter territorial dispute over the oil-rich province of Kirkuk involving Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs, Sunni Turkmen, and Shiite Turkmen.

It is a formula for civil war.

3.

How did we arrive at this state of affairs?

I arrived in Baghdad on April 13, 2003, as part of an ABC news team. It was apparent to me that things were already going catastrophically wrong. When the United States entered Baghdad on April 9 last year, it found a city largely undamaged by a carefully executed military campaign. However, in the two months following the US takeover, unchecked looting effectively gutted every important public institution in the city with the notable exception of the Oil Ministry. The physical losses include:

• The National Library, which was looted and burned. Equivalent to our Library of Congress, it held every book published in Iraq, all newspapers from the last century, as well as rare manuscripts. The destruction of the library meant the loss of a historical record going back to Ottoman times.

• The Iraqi National Museum, which was also looted. More than 10,000 objects were stolen or destroyed. The Pentagon has deliberately, and repeatedly, tried to minimize the damage by excluding from its estimates objects stolen from storage as well as displayed treasures that were smashed but not stolen.

• Hospitals and other public health institutions, where looters stole medical equipment, medicines, and even patients’ beds.

• Baghdad and Mosul Universities, which were stripped of computers, office furniture, and books. Academic research that took decades to carry out went up in smoke or was scattered.

• The National Theater, which was set ablaze by looters a full three weeks after US forces entered Baghdad.

Even more surprising, the United States made no apparent effort to secure sites that had been connected with Iraqi WMD programs or buildings alleged to hold important intelligence. As a result, the United States may well have lost valuable information that related to Iraqi WMD procurement, paramilitary resistance, foreign intelligence activities, and possible links to al-Qaeda.

• On April 16, looters attacked the Iraqi equivalent of the US Centers for Disease Control, stealing live HIV and live black fever bacteria. UNMOVIC and UNSCOM had long considered the building suspicious and had repeatedly conducted inspections there. The looting complicates efforts to understand and account for any Iraqi bioweapons research in the past. A Marine lieutenant watched the looting from next door. He told us, “I hope I am not responsible for Armageddon, but no one told me what was in that building.”

• Although US troops moved onto the grounds of Iraq’s sprawling Tuwaitha nuclear complex, they did not secure the warehouse that contained yellowcake and other radiological materials. Looters took materials that terrorists could use for a radiological weapon, although much of that material was eventually recovered. The looted nuclear materials were in a known location, and already had been placed under seal by the International Atomic Energy Commission.

• Ten days after the US took over Baghdad, I went through the unguarded Iraqi Foreign Ministry, going from the cooling unit on the roof to the archives in the basement, and rummaging through the office of the foreign minister. The only other people in the building were looters, who were busy opening safes and carrying out furniture. They were unarmed and helped me look for documents. Foreign Ministry files could have shed light on Iraqis’ overseas intelligence activities, on attempts to procure WMD, and on any connections that may have existed with al-Qaeda. However, we may never know about these things, since looters scattered and burned files during the ten days, or longer, that this building was left unguarded.

The looting demoralized Iraqi professionals, the very people the US looks to in rebuilding the country. University professors, government technocrats, doctors, and researchers all had connections with the looted institutions. Some saw the work of a lifetime quite literally go up in smoke. The looting also exacerbated other problems: the lack of electricity and potable water, the lack of telephones, and the absence of police or other security.

Most importantly, the looting served to undermine Iraqi confidence in, and respect for, the US occupation authorities.

4.

In the parts of Iraq taken over by rebels during the March 1991 uprising, there had been the same kind of looting of public institutions. In 2003, the United States could not have prevented all the looting but it could have prevented much of it. In particular, it could have secured the most important Iraqi government ministries, hospitals, laboratories, and intelligence sites. It could have protected the Iraq National Museum and several other of Iraq’s most important cultural and historical sites.

In the spring of 2003, Thomas Warrick of the State Department’s Future of Iraq Working Group prepared a list of places in Baghdad to be secured. The Iraq National Museum was number two on the list. At the top of the list were the paper records of the previous regime—the very documents I found scattered throughout the Foreign Ministry and in other locations. What happened next is a mystery. My State Department informants tell me the list was sent to Douglas Feith, an undersecretary in the Department of Defense, and never came out of his office. Feith’s partisans insist that uniformed American military failed to take action. In either case, the lack of oversight was culpable.

During the war in Kosovo, the Clinton White House was criticized for insisting on presidential review of proposed targets. President Bush, notorious for his lack of curiosity, seems never to have asked even the most basic question: “What happens when we actually get to Baghdad?”

The failure to answer this question at the start set back US efforts in Iraq in such a way that the US has not recovered and may never do so.

The Bush administration decided that Iraq would be run by a US civilian administrator—initially, Retired General Jay Garner—and American advisers who would serve as the de facto ministers for each of the Iraqi government ministries. All this was based on the expectation that the war would decapitate the top leadership of the Saddam Hussein regime, and the next day everyone else would show up for work.

Predictably, this did not happen. In 1991, all authority disappeared in the areas that fell into rebel hands. But even had things gone as the Bush administration hoped, it was not prepared to run Iraq. As the war began, the Bush administration was still recruiting the American officials who would serve as the de facto Iraqi ministers. The people so recruited had no time to prepare for the assignment, either in learning about Iraq or in mastering the substantive skills needed to run the ministry assigned to them. Many mistakes were made. For example, the US official in charge of prisons decided to work with Ali al-Jabouri, the warden of Abu Ghraib prison, apparently unaware of the prison’s fearsome reputation as the place where tens of thousands perished under Saddam Hussein. The coalition rehabilitated Abu Ghraib and today uses it as a prison. The symbolism may be lost on the US administrators but it is not lost on Iraqis.

In late 2002 and early 2003, I attended meetings with senior US government officials on Kirkuk, the multi-ethnic city that is just west of the line marking the border of the self-governing Kurdish region. When Kirkuk, which is claimed by the Kurds, was held by Saddam Hussein, horrific human rights abuses had taken place there. I had been to Kirkuk in the 1980s, and I was concerned that Kurds brutally expelled in the 1980s and 1990s would return to settle scores with Arabs who had been settled in their homes. The week the war began, I asked the US official responsible for Kirkuk how he planned to deal with this problem. We will rely on the local police, he explained. I asked whether the local police were Kurds or Arabs. He did not know. It remains astonishing to me that US plans for dealing with ethnic conflict in the most volatile city inall of Iraq rested on hopes about the behavior of a police force about which they did not have the most basic information.

The Kirkuk police were, in fact, Arabs, and had assisted in the ethnic cleansing of the city’s Kurds. They were not around when Kurdish forces entered the city on April 10, 2003. Many other Arabs also fled, although this was largely ignored by the international press.

The United States’ political strategies in Iraq have been no less incoherent. General Garner arrived announcing that he would quickly turn power over to a provisional Iraqi government. Within three weeks Ambassador Bremer and a new structure, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), replaced him. US officials indicated that Iraqi participation would be limited to an advisory council and that the United States expected to stay in Iraq for up to three years. The US would write a democratic constitution for the country and then turn power over to an elected government. After a few weeks, Bremer changed course and announced he was sharing power with a representative Iraqi governing council. In November, as Bush’s poll numbers plummeted, Bremer was summoned back to Washington to discuss a new strategy. The United States, it was decided, would turn power over on June 30, 2004, to a sovereign Iraqi government that would be chosen in a complicated system of caucuses held in each of Iraq’s “governorates (or provinces).” By January this plan was put aside (it was widely described as “election by people selected by people selected by Bremer”).

The latest strategy—based on the interim constitution and a takeover of sovereignty on June 30 by an as yet undetermined body—the fifth in a year by my count, is now falling apart in the face of Shiite opposition and mounting violence.

The Bush administration’s strategies in Iraq are failing for many reasons. First, they are being made up as the administration goes along, without benefit of planning, adequate knowledge of the country, or the experience of comparable situations. Second, the administration has been unwilling to sustain a commitment to a particular strategy. But third, the strategies are all based on an idea of an Iraq that does not exist.

5.

The fundamental problem of Iraq is an absence of Iraqis.

In the north the Kurds prefer almost unanimously not to be part of Iraq, for reasons that are very understandable. Kurdistan’s eighty-year association with Iraq has been one of repression and conflict, of which the Saddam Hussein regime was the most brutal phase. Since 1991, Kurdistan has been de facto independent and most Iraqi Kurds see this period as a golden era of democratic self-government and economic progress. In 1992 Kurdistan had the only democratic elections in the history of Iraq, when voters chose members of a newly created Kurdistan National Assembly. During the last twelve years the Kurdistan Regional Government built three thousand schools (as compared to one thousand in the region in 1991), opened two universities, and permitted a free press; there are now scores of Kurdish-language publications, radio stations, and television stations. For the older generation, Iraq is a bad memory, while a younger generation, which largely does not speak Arabic, has no sense of being Iraqi.

The people of Kurdistan almost unanimously prefer independence to being part of Iraq. In just one month, starting on January 25 of this year, Kur- dish nongovernmental organizations collected 1,700,000 signatures on petitions demanding a vote on whether Kurdistan should remain part of Iraq. This is a staggering figure, representing as it does roughly two thirds of Kurdistan’s adults.

In the south, Iraq’s long-repressed Shiites express themselves primarily through their religious identity. In early March I traveled throughout southern Iraq. I saw no evidence of any support for secular parties. If free elections are held in Iraq, I think it likely that the Shiite religious parties —principally the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa (the Call)—will have among them an absolute majority in the National Assembly.

The wild card is Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Shiite uprising. If he is allowed to compete in elections, he will certainly take a share of the Shiite vote. If he is excluded (or imprisoned or killed), his supporters will likely influence the policies of the mainstream Shiite parties, or conceivably disrupt the elections. None of this is good for hopes of creating a stable, democratic Iraq.

The Shiites are not separatists but many of them believe their majority status entitles them to run all of Iraq, and to impose their version of an Islamic state. They also consider connections with Shiites elsewhere as important as their nationalist feelings about Iraq. Iranian Shiites, such as the Ayatollah al-Sistani and, from the grave, Ayatollah Khomeini, have enormous political and spiritual influence in southern Iraq. Their portraits are ubiquitous. Mainstream Iraqi Arab Shiites, such as SCIRI’s leader Abdel Azziz al-Hakim, often advocate a very pro-Iranian line.

Sunni Arabs have always been the principal Iraqi nationalists, and a part of the anti-US uprising in the Sunni Triangle is a nationalist one. The Sunni Arabs have long been accustomed to seeing the Iraqi state as a part of a larger Arab nation, and this was a central tenet of the Baath Party. As Sunni Arabs face the end of their historic domination of Iraq, they may seek to compensate for their minor- ity status inside Iraq by further identifying themselves with the greater Arab nation. Connections with other Sunni populations may eventually become even more important among the Sunni Arabs than pan-Arabism. As elsewhere in Arab Iraq, the Sunni religious parties appear to be gain-ing ground in the country’s Sunni center at the expense of the secular parties.

Radical Sunni Islamic groups, including those with recent links to al-Qaeda, appear to have an ever more important part in the uprising in the Sunni Triangle (which explains the increasing use of suicide bombers, not a tactic that appeals to the more worldly Baathists). By attacking Shiite religious leaders and celebrations (for example the deadly bombings this March during the as-Shoura religious holiday in Baghdad and Karbala, and the car bomb assassination of SCIRI leader Baqir al-Hakim), Sunni extremists seek to provoke civil war between Iraq’s two main religious groups.

6.

The United States strategy is to hold Iraq together by establishing a strong central government. So far, all its successes have been on paper. The interim constitution gives the central government a monopoly on military force, control over natural resources, broad fiscal powers, and oversight over the judiciary.

Little of this will come to pass. The Kurdistan National Assembly has put forward a comprehensive proposal to define Kurdistan’s relations with the rest of Iraq. In it the Kurdistan National Assembly retains lawmaking power for the region, preserves its fiscal autonomy, and would eventually own the region’s natural resources. Kurdistan will retain the Peshmerga (which would be converted into an Iraqi Kurdistan National Guard nominally under the overall authority of the Iraq central government) and other Iraqi armed forces could only enter Kurdistan with the consent of the Kurdistan National Assembly. Iraq would be fully bilingual (Arabic and Kurdish) and Kurdistan would remain secular.

This places the Kurds on a collision course with the Shiites and the Sunni Arabs. The Shiite religious parties insist that Islam must be the principal source of law throughout Iraq. Both Shiites and Sunni Arabs object to downgrading Arabic to one of two official languages. Sunni Arab nationalists and Shiite religious leaders object to Kurdistan retaining even a fraction of the autonomy it has today.

There are also acute conflicts between Shiite Arabs and Sunni Arabs. These have to do with the differing interpretations of Islam held by the two groups’ religious parties and conflicts between pro-Iranian Shiites and Arab nationalist Sunnis.

Shiites are now providing moral and material support for the Sunni insurgents in Fallujah. An anti-American alliance of radicals from both confessions will not necessarily lead to political unity, nor will it erase Sunni fears of Shiite domination. That said, the confessional divide between Iraq’s Arabs is far less than the ethnic gulf between Arabs and Kurds. Democracy requires tolerance and a willingness to compromise. Except tactically, none of these traits is apparent in a political culture (except for the north) which has been ruled by absolutists.

In my view, Iraq is not salvageable as a unitary state. From my experience in the Balkans, I feel strongly that it is impossible to preserve the unity of a democratic state where people in a geographically defined region almost unanimously do not want to be part of that state. I have never met an Iraqi Kurd who preferred membership in Iraq if independence were a realistic possibility.

But the problem of Iraq is that a breakup of the country is not a realistic possibility for the present. Turkey, Iran, and Syria, all of which have substantial Kurdish populations, fear the precedent that would be set if Iraqi Kurdistan became independent. Both Sunni and Shiite Arabs oppose the separation of Kurdistan. The Sunni Arabs do not have the resources to support an independent state of their own. (Iraq’s largest oil fields are in the Shiite south or in the disputed territory of Kirkuk.)

Further, as was true in the Balkans, the unresolved territorial issues in Iraq would likely mean violent conflict. Kirkuk is perhaps the most explosive place. The Kurds claim it as part of historic Kurdistan. They demand that the process of Arabization of the region—which some say goes back to the 1950s—should be reversed. The Kurds who were driven out of Kirkuk by policies of successive Iraqi regimes should, they say, return home, while Arab settlers in the region are repatriated to other parts of Iraq. While many Iraqi Arabs concede that the Kurds suffered an injustice, they also say that the human cost of correcting it is too high. Moreover, backed by Turkey, ethnic Turkmen assert that Kirkuk is a Turkmen city and that they should enjoy the same status as the Kurds.

It will be difficult to resolve the status of Kirkuk within a single Iraq; it will be impossible if the country breaks up into two or three units. And while Kirkuk is the most contentious of the territories in dispute, it is only one of many.

The best hope for holding Iraq together—and thereby avoiding civil war—is to let each of its major constituent communities have, to the extent possible, the system each wants. This, too, suggests the only policy that can get American forces out of Iraq.

In the north this means accepting that Kurdistan will continue to govern its own affairs and retain responsibility for its own security. US officials have portrayed a separate Kurdistan defense force as the first step leading to the breakup of Iraq. The Kurds, however, see such a force not as an attribute of a sovereign state but as insurance in case democracy fails in the rest of Iraq. No one in Kurdistan would trust an Iraqi national army (even one in which the Kurds were well represented) since the Iraqi army has always been an agent of repression, and in the 1980s, of genocide. The Kurds also see clearly how ineffective are the new security institutions created by the Americans. In the face of uprisings in the Sunni Triangle and the south, the new Iraqi police and civil defense corps simply vanished.

Efforts to push the Kurds into a more unitary Iraq will fail because there is no force, aside from the US military, that can coerce them. Trying to do so will certainly inflame popular demands for separation of the Kurdish region in advance of January’s elections.

If Kurdistan feels secure, it is in fact more likely to see advantages to cooperation with other parts of Iraq. Iraq’s vast resources and the benefits that would accrue to Kurdistan from revenue sharing provide significant incentives for Kurdistan to remain part of Iraq, provided doing so does not open the way to new repression. (Until now, most Iraqi Kurds have seen Iraq’s oil wealth as a curse that gave Saddam the financial resources to destroy Kurdistan.)

In the south, Iraq’s Shiites want an Islamic state. They are sufficiently confident of public support that they are pushing for early elections. The United States should let them have their elections, and be prepared to accept an Islamic state—but only in the south. In most of the south, Shiite religious leaders already exercise actual power, having established a degree of security, taken over education, and helped to provide municipal services. In the preparation of Iraq’s interim constitution, Shiite leaders asked for (and obtained) the right to form one or two Shiite regions with powers comparable to those of Kurdistan. They also strongly support the idea that petroleum should be owned by the respective regions, which is hardly surprising since Iraq’s largest oil reserves are in the south.

There is, of course, a logical inconsistency between Shiite demands to control a southern region and the desire to impose Islamic rule on all of Iraq. Meeting the first demand affects only the south; accepting the second is an invitation to civil war and must be resisted.

Federalism—or even confederation —would make Kurdistan and the south governable because there are responsible parties there who can take over government functions. It is much more difficult to devise a strategy for the Sunni Triangle—until recently the location of most violent resistance to the American occupation—because there is no Sunni Arab leadership with discernible political support. While it is difficult to assess popular support for the insurrection within the Sunni Triangle, it is crystal clear that few Sunni Arabs in places like Fallujah are willing to risk their lives in opposing the insurgents.

We can hope that if the Sunni Arabs feel more secure about their place in Iraq with respect to the Shiites and the Kurds, they will be relatively more moderate. Autonomy for the Sunni Arab parts of Iraq is a way to provide such security. There is, however, no way to know if it will work.

Since 1992, the Iraqi opposition has supported federalism as the system of government for a post-Saddam Iraq. Iraq’s interim constitution reflects this consensus by defining Iraq as a federal state. There is, however, no agreement among the Iraqi parties on what federalism actually means, and the structures created by the interim constitution seem unlikely to move from paper to reality.

Last November, Les Gelb, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, created a stir by proposing, in a New York Times Op-Ed piece, a three-state solution for Iraq, modeled on the constitution of post-Tito Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav model would give each of Iraq’s constituent peoples their own republic.^[*] These republics would be self-governing, financially self-sustaining, and with their own territorial military and police forces. The central government would have a weak presidency rotating among the republics, with responsibilities limited to foreign affairs, monetary policy, and some coordination of defense policy. While resources would be owned by the republics, some sharing of oil revenues would be essential, since an impoverished Sunni region is in no one’s interest.

This model would solve many of the contradictions of modern Iraq. The Shiites could have their Islamic republic, while the Kurds could continue their secular traditions. Alcohol would continue to be a staple of Kurdish picnics while it would be strictly banned in Basra.

The three-state solution would permit the United States to disengage from security duties in most of Iraq. There are today fewer than three hundred coalition troops in Kurdistan, which would, under the proposal being made here, continue to be responsible for its own security. By contrast, introducing an Iraqi army and security institutions into Kurdistan, as the Bush administration says it still wants to do, would require many more coalition troops—because the Iraqi forces are not up to the job and because coalition troops will be needed to reassure a nervous Kurdish population. If the United States wanted to stay militarily in Iraq, Kurdistan is the place; Kurdish leaders have said they would like to see permanent US bases in Kurdistan.

A self-governing Shiite republic could also run its own affairs and provide for its own security. It is not likely to endorse Western values, but if the coalition quickly disengages from the south, this may mean the south would be less overtly anti-American. Staying in the south will play directly into the hands of Moqtada al-Sadr or his successors. Moderate Shiite leaders, including the Ayatollah al-Sistani, counseled patience in response to al-Sadr’s uprising, and helped negotiate the withdrawal of al-Sadr’s supporters from some police stations and government buildings. The scope of the uprising, however, underscores the coalition’s perilous position in the south. The failure of the Iraqi police and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps to respond highlights the impotence of these American-created security institutions. The sooner power in the south is handed over to people who can exercise it, the better. Delay will only benefit anti-American radicals like al-Sadr.

As for the Sunni Triangle, one hope is for elections to produce a set of leaders who can restore order and end the insurrection. Presumably this is an outcome the Sunni rebels do not want to see happen; they will use violence to prevent a meaningful election in large parts of the Sunni Triangle. In these circumstances, the United States may face the choice of turning power over to weak leaders and living with the resulting chaos, or continuing to try to pacify the Sunni Triangle, which may generate ever more support for the insurrection. There may be no good options for the United States in the Sunni Triangle. Nevertheless the three-state approach could limit US military engagement to a finite area.

Baghdad is a city of five million and home to large numbers of all three of Iraq’s major constituent peoples. With skilled diplomacy, the United States or the United Nations might be able to arrange for a more liberal regime in Baghdad than would exist in the south. Kurdish and Shiite armed forces and police could provide security in their own sections of the capital, as well as work together in Sunni areas (with whatever local cooperation is possible) and in mixed areas. Such an arrangement in Iraq’s capital is far from ideal, but it is better than an open-ended US commitment to being the police force of last resort in Iraq’s capital.

Because of what happened to Yugoslavia in the 1990s, many react with horror to the idea of applying its model to Iraq. Yet Yugoslavia’s breakup was not inevitable. In the 1980s, Slovenia asked for greater control over its own affairs and Milosevic refused. Had Milosevic accepted a looser federation, there is every reason to think that Yugoslavia—and not just Slovenia— would be joining the European Union this May.

Still, a loose federation will have many drawbacks, especially for those who dreamed of a democratic Iraq that would transform the Middle East. The country would remain whole more in name than in reality. Western- style human rights are likely to take hold only in the Kurdish north (and even there not completely). Women’s rights could be set back in the south, and perhaps also in Baghdad.

In administering elections and allowing a federation to emerge, the US would badly need the help of the UN and other international organizations and, if it can get it, of the principal European nations as well. The alternative is an indefinite US occupation of Iraq in which we have fewer and fewer allies. It is an occupation that the US cannot afford. It also prevents the US from addressing more serious threats to its national security.

7.

The American involvement in Iraq will be a defining event for the US role in the world for the coming decades. Will it be seen as validating the Bush administration’s doctrines of preventive war and largely unilateral action?

In my view, Iraq demonstrates all too clearly the folly of the preventive war doctrine and of unilateralism. Of course the United States must reserve the right to act alone when the country is under attack or in imminent danger of attack. But these are also precisely the circumstances when the United States does not need to act alone. After September 11 both NATO and the United Nations Security Council gave unqualified support for US action, including military action, to deal with the threat of international terrorists based in Afghanistan. After the Taliban was defeated, other countries contributed troops—and accepted casualties—in order to help stabilize the country; and they have also contributed billions to Afghanistan’s reconstruction. Because the US so quickly diverted its attention to Iraq, many acute problems remain in Afghanistan, including warlordism and the deprivation of basic rights. International support for helping Afghanistan remains strong, however, and the effort can be revitalized with a new administration.

In Iraq the United States chose to act without the authorization of the Security Council, without the support of NATO, and with only a handful of allies. Aside from the British and the Kurdish Peshmerga, no other ally made any significant contribution to the war effort. The United States is paying practically all the expenses of the Iraq occupation. Even those who supported the unilateral intervention in Iraq seem by now to realize that it cannot be sustained. The Bush administration, having scorned the United Nations, is now desperate to have it back.

It turns out that there are some things that only the United Nations can do—such as run an election that Iraqis will see as credible or give a stamp of legitimacy to a political transition. But the most urgent reason to want United Nations participation is to share the burden. Internationalization is a key element of John Kerry’s program for Iraq. Unfortunately, it is a far from easy policy to achieve. While a less confrontational US administration would certainly be able to win greater international support and contributions, it will be a challenge to persuade the major European countries to have either the United Nations or NATO take over the major responsibilities in Iraq.

The reason is cost. Taking all expenses into account, one year of involvement in Iraq costs between $50 billion and $100 billion. Under the mandatory assessment scale for the United Nations this would cost France and Germany some $5 billion to $10 billion each, and they would face pressure to put their own troops in harm’s way. NATO assessments are similarly costly. While our allies may wish a Kerry administration well, they may not be willing to commit resources on this scale to help the United States get out of Iraq. As a European diplomat told me before last year’s war, “It will be china shop rules in Iraq: you break it, you pay for it.”

I believe United States policy is most successful when it follows international law and works within the United Nations, according to the provisions of the Charter. This is not just a matter of upholding the ideals of the UN; it is also practical. As our war in Iraq demonstrates, we cannot afford any other course.

—April 15, 2004

Notes

^[*] I describe here my application of the Yugoslav model to Iraq, not Les Gelb’s. We differ in our understanding of the Yugoslav model and of the subsequent history of that country. The differences, however, are not material to the arguments advanced here.

The most powerful Ayatollah in Iraq is the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani. Sistani, interestingly enough has a website. It’s a very well done website as well. I, being a shameless infidel, mainly read the parts about anal sex (permissible with consent (?), but discouraged), masturbation (not permissible), and temporary marriage (short-term contract so as to legitimize hooking up – all good). His writings and proclamations seem very calm, peaseful, and wise. I was especially impressed with his Islamic Laws for Muslims in non-Muslim countries. He seems like a pretty chill guy, and the US would be wise to cultivate him.

Al-djebr : Algebra

Al-khimiya : Chemistry

Al-Qaeda : Foundation / Base

Abu Ghraib Father of The Raven

Apparently Photo Mosaics are a new form of satire.

The first is a photo mosaic of George Bush’s face from American Leftist, this blogger. He’s pretty well reasoned. The choice of images is controversial, so I should let him explain himself:

Given this image’s inflammatory nature, I posted it with a great deal of trepidation. I had a hard time deciding if it was the right thing to do and I am still not sure. No, I didn’t have the consent of the families of those pictured, and I apologize for any additional pain that this image causes them. That said, I must say that it is my belief that one distinguishing characteristic between art and other forms of speech is that art takes risks, and if we, as a society, value art we must allow it more leeway than other modes of expression to incite or offend.

I think the soldiers in Iraq are doing the right thing, and I think that they and their families and friends are incredibly brave people. I watched this MSNBC audio slideshow about Iraq Soldiers injured in battle and back home recovering. I wish them all the best.

I’ve mirrored a medium image, so you can see the faces, here. This is a link to the largest image available.

This is a photo mosaic of John Ashcrofts face made from porn images, in reference to his recently declared War On Porn. I saw it on Wonkette, but it’s directly from HubLog. This is a link to a large image I’ve mirrored here.

There is also a Photo Mosaic of George W. Bush composed entirely of assholes, but my mom read’s this so I will just provide a discreet link. There’s also a photo mosaic of Rumsfeld composed of soldiers who have died in Iraq (God bless them and their families). Incidentally, all of the Bush Administration high-ups (except Powell) avoided service in Vietnam.

The full verse from the Iliad follows. This is Achilles as he kills Hector and defiles the corpse:

“Knee me no knees, vile hound! nor prate to me
Of parents! such my hatred, that almost
I could persuade myself to tear and eat
Thy mangled flesh; such wrongs I have to avenge,
He lives not, who can save thee from the dogs;
Not though with ransom ten and twenty fold
He here should stand, and yet should promise more;
No, not though Priam’s royal self should sue
To be allow’d for gold to ransom thee;
No, not e’en so, thy mother shall obtain
To lay thee out upon the couch, and mourn
O’er thee, her offspring; but on all thy limbs
Shall dogs and carrion vultures make their feast.”

… Hector’s eyes were clos’d in death;
And to the viewless shades his spirit fled,
Mourning his fate, his youth and vigour lost.

To him, though dead, Achilles thus replied:
“Die thou! my fate I then shall meet, whene’er
Jove and th’ immortal Gods shall so decree.”

He said, and from the corpse his spear withdrew,
And laid aside; then stripp’d the armour off,
With, blood besmear’d; the Greeks around him throng’d,
Gazing on Hector’s noble form and face,
And none approach’d that did not add a wound:
And one to other look’d, and said, “Good faith,
Hector is easier far to handle now,
Then when erewhile he wrapp’d our ships in fire.”
Thus would they say, then stab the dead anew.

… Great glory is ours, the godlike Hector slain,
The pride of Troy, and as a God rever’d.”

He said, and foully Hector’s corpse misus’d;
Of either foot he pierc’d the tendon through,
That from the ancle passes to the heel,
And to his chariot bound with leathern thongs,
Leaving the head to trail along the ground;
Then mounted, with the captur’d arms, his car,
And urg’d his horses; nothing loth, they flew.
A cloud of dust the trailing body rais’d:
Loose hung his glossy hair; and in the dust
Was laid that noble head, so graceful once;
Now to foul insult doom’d by Jove’s decree,
In his own country, by a foeman’s hand.
So lay the head of Hector; at the sight
His aged mother tore her hair, and far
From off her head the glitt’ring veil she threw,
And with loud cries her slaughter’d son bewail’d.
Piteous, his father groan’d; and all around
Was heard the voice of wailing and of woe.

Palestinian women demonstrate behind a burning mock Israeli prison during a protest demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners in Hebron. (New York Times)

A British Army soldier runs in flames from a petrol bomb thrown during a violent protest by job seekers, who say they were promised employment in the security services, in the southern Iraq city of Basra March 22, 2004. According to witnesses and Iraqi police at the site, 2 Iraqi police officers and at least 2 British troops were injured in the disturbance, which occurred in front of central Basra’s Ashar police station. REUTERS/Atef Hassan

I couldn’t sleep last night. I had this dream that I was a soldier in Iraq.

We were on some sort of train heading to a battle site of sorts. The waiting before battle is what felt the most absurd to me. There was china on the table, but they handed out paper plates for us to eat off instead. I was so nervous. How can you eat and act normal before you’re about to break the bodies of your fellow man? Before you yourself are broken?

I never understood the cold moments before battle. How can you ask someone to pass the salt when you’re about to shoot someone in the head and shatter all their teeth into a bloody pile? What if it is your mother’s blood spilt on the ground? Who will look after her when she grows old? Who will raise your children?

…

The battle site was hot and sandy, Iraq I guess. We entered an enclosed area through a narrow stone hallway. It was full of kids and people, some of them shooting at us …. and a lot of hideously angry faces. There were people throwing whatever they could at us, and behind every corner there was someone with a gun. All the mundane nooks and crannies were filled with fear and uncertainty, and I felt hyper-alert of every blindspot. The area behind my black glowed hot with possible bullets. The shade of every pillar hid an enemy. The kids throwing rocks had dirty faces, blotchy and almost diseased. They were screaming at me. If I had fallen they would have crawled over me and bloodied my face with rocks, torn me limb from limb.

Ayad Bressem, an Iraqi boy, with family members. He said an American bomb blinded him in one eye. (New York Times)

I shot at some of the people shooting at us, and some of the kids throwing rocks. There is always a safety on in my dreams. I can always rewind, or just disappear and watch from somewhere else. The anarchy left me dead or wounded sometimes, so I rewound to get into better position, or to have my gun ready and loaded. I just felt really scared. Like, why the fuck are people trying to kill me? I’m just 21 years old but I’m in the middle of all this danger and people that want me to die and I just want to go home and watch TV.

Shannon was there and I wanted to get her out. As we ran out the narrow stone hallway a car screeched to a halt 5 feet a way. I pressed my body against a stone pillar and waited for the explosion.

The word Buddha means awakened one. I pray that someday we can awaken from this dream.

An enraged mob attacked a group of foreign contractors in Fallujah today, shooting four people to death, burning their car and mutilating their bodies. Fallujah’s streets were thick with men and boys; one of them held a sign that reads, “Fallujah cemetery of the Americans.” (New York Times)

i don’t mean to, uh, scare anybody… but i’m just a fiscal conservative. Unlike some people I know (re: Whitehouse Budget Charts, via Slate). Barry Goldwater, the original conservative, must be rolling over in his grave.

The solution to the Iraq thing is to get UN Support, vis-a-vie, money. And, of course, telling those making over 200,000$ a year to sacrifice for the War and return to Clinton tax levels.

]]> http://indi.ca/2004/03/cost-of-the-war-in-iraq/feed/ 0 http://indi.ca/2004/03/bush-is-dodging-the-9-11-commission-a-hrefhttpwwwwashingtonpostcomac2wp-dynpagenamearticlenodecontentida42715-2004feb14notfoundtruelike-the-drafta/ http://indi.ca/2004/03/bush-is-dodging-the-9-11-commission-a-hrefhttpwwwwashingtonpostcomac2wp-dynpagenamearticlenodecontentida42715-2004feb14notfoundtruelike-the-drafta/#comments Sat, 06 Mar 2004 12:01:58 +0000 indiTypePad /?p=275 ]]> “How this administration handled that day as well as the war on terror is worthy of discussion and I look forward to discussing that with the American people.”

George W. Bush

So why not discuss 9-11 with the full independent commission?

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have each agreed to meet privately with the chair and vice chair of the commission for one hour. No dates have been set for their interviews. The commission is trying to persuade them to meet with the full investigative body, Felzenberg said. (Spokesman for 9-11 Commission)

and

The White House, already embroiled in a public fight over the deadline for an independent commission’s investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is refusing to give the panel notes on presidential briefing papers taken by some of its own members, officials said this week. (Washington Post)

Besides the negotiations over secret material, the White House has placed conditions on the commission’s access to other documents. For instance, Kean said members of the commission can view some key documents only at the White House, and cannot copy long passages into their notes. (Newsmax, which is very Conservative).

What those documents contained was warnings about an Al Qaeda attack. What more could Bush have done? I don’t know, but he should discuss it with the American People, represented by the Independent Commission.

On July 5 of last year, a month and a day before President Bush first heard that al Qaeda might plan a hijacking, the White House summoned officials of a dozen federal agencies to the Situation Room.

“Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it’s going to happen soon,” the government’s top counterterrorism official, Richard Clarke, told the assembled group, according to two of those present. The group included the Federal Aviation Administration, along with the Coast Guard, FBI, Secret Service and Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Clarke directed every counterterrorist office to cancel vacations, defer nonvital travel, put off scheduled exercises and place domestic rapid-response teams on much shorter alert. For six weeks last summer, at home and overseas, the U.S. government was at its highest possible state of readiness — and anxiety — against imminent terrorist attack.

That intensity — defensive in nature — did not last. By the time Bush received his briefing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, the government had begun to stand down from the alert. Offensive planning against al Qaeda remained in a mid-level interagency panel, which had spent half a year already in a policy review. The Deputies Committee, the second tier of national security officials, had not finished considering the emerging plan, and Bush’s Cabinet-rank advisers were still a month away from their first meeting on terrorism. That took place Sept. 4, a week before hijacked planes were flown into the Pentagon and World Trade Center in synchronized attacks.

What Bush and his government did with the information they had in August became the subject of a political brawl on Capitol Hill yesterday, largely shorn of the context of those weeks before Sept. 11. A close look at the sequence of events, based on lengthy interviews early this year with participants and fresh accounts yesterday, appears to support the White House view that Bush lacked sufficient warning to stop the attack. But it also portrays a new administration that gave scant attention to an adversary whose lethal ambitions and savvy had been well understood for years. (Washington Post)

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I don’t understand why Bush is so proud of 9-11. It happened on his watch. I would be ashamed. That’s like if a baby died while I was babysitting. I wouldn’t advertise.

]]> http://indi.ca/2004/03/bush-is-dodging-the-9-11-commission-a-hrefhttpwwwwashingtonpostcomac2wp-dynpagenamearticlenodecontentida42715-2004feb14notfoundtruelike-the-drafta/feed/ 0 http://indi.ca/2004/03/al-qaeda-1-bush-0-a-hrefhttpnewsgooglecomnewsnum30hleneditionusqclusterwww2emlive2ecom2fnewsflash2flateststories2findex2essf3f2fbase2finternational2d52f10783487412859412exml9-11-convict-wins-retriala/ http://indi.ca/2004/03/al-qaeda-1-bush-0-a-hrefhttpnewsgooglecomnewsnum30hleneditionusqclusterwww2emlive2ecom2fnewsflash2flateststories2findex2essf3f2fbase2finternational2d52f10783487412859412exml9-11-convict-wins-retriala/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2004 02:57:39 +0000 indiTypePad /?p=274 ]]>

KARLSRUHE, Germany—The only person in the world convicted in the Sept. 11 terror attacks won a retrial yesterday after a German appeals court faulted Washington for refusing to allow testimony from a key Al Qaeda captive.

The Federal Criminal Court overturned the conviction of Mounir el Motassadeq, a Moroccan, leaving German prosecutors with little to show for their efforts to pursue suspects who may have belonged to the Hamburg cell that included three of the suicide hijackers.

A month ago, el Motassadeq’s friend Abdelghani Mzoudi was acquitted of identical charges of giving logistical aid to the cell.

Relatives of Sept. 11 victims again expressed frustration and Germany’s top security official, Interior Minister Otto Schily, called yesterday’s ruling “regrettable.”

El Motassadeq, 29, who was found guilty in February, 2003, remains in the Hamburg prison where he was serving the maximum 15-year sentence for more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization.

Presiding Judge Klaus Tolksdorf said he is still “under a high degree of suspicion.”

In Washington, Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, said the court ruling was a German affair.

src= Toronto Star (I understand that they’re pussy Canadians… here’s the Atlanta Journal Constitution and 18 other sources)

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A German affair? Since when is 9-11 a German affair? Just get Ashcroft to send the witness. What the shit.

]]> http://indi.ca/2004/03/al-qaeda-1-bush-0-a-hrefhttpnewsgooglecomnewsnum30hleneditionusqclusterwww2emlive2ecom2fnewsflash2flateststories2findex2essf3f2fbase2finternational2d52f10783487412859412exml9-11-convict-wins-retriala/feed/ 0 http://indi.ca/2004/02/tax-cuts-in-time-of-war/ http://indi.ca/2004/02/tax-cuts-in-time-of-war/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2004 22:14:09 +0000 indiTypePad /?p=267 “To keep this economy growing, we will have fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C. To keep this economy going, the tax cuts must be permanent.”

George W. Bush

And Bush is giving Tax Cuts to the Top 10%… the wealthiest Americans (who are good people, shit, give me a minute, this isn’t Class Warfare)

This breakdown of the Tax Cut plan is from Citizens for Tax Justice. The Top 1% gets $53,000 to $58,000 according to them. It seems to be a pretty straightforward reading of the law that was passed, but correct me if you find a better source.

So, tax cuts for the Wealthy.

Is that good or bad Economics? I don’t know.

We are in Debt. So the tax cuts are coming off the Credit Card.

And, as far as I can tell, Japan now owns the Statue of Liberty. America does borrow the money from somebody, you know, and the money gets paid off by future taxpayers. So, America is weak economically just as China and India are coming up hard. You best watch itself, or you’ll be eating noodles and watching Shah Rukh Khan on MTV. Seriously, economies change. If some shit goes down it’s not good to be in debt.

Source: US Treasury

Oh yeah, and we’re at War. On two fronts. And that costs, oh, $80 billion dollars a year ($87 in the last appropriation).

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I prefer Kerry or Edwards plan of rolling back taxes to Clinton levels, and giving more Tax Cuts to the Middle Class. The money can buy Body Armor for the troops (God Bless Them). Seriously, I grew up in Ohio and it’s kids my age that are in Iraq. I wish them all the Safety and Comfort in the world, and for their families too.

PS. If you think I’m completely wrong, I’m only one person. I’m just a 21 year old kid who reads the news way too much. Don’t listen to me. My opinion is weak, but I think the data is strong. I you think I’m wrong do the research, and show me your data. I’d love to see it.

The way I see it, America is in Debt, the Tax Cuts cost money, and the War on Terror costs money. The way I see it something’s got to give. I’d rather give up Tax Cuts than the War on Terror, but what do I know?

PPS. With Kerry or Edwards I think America can be prosperous again.

]]> http://indi.ca/2004/02/tax-cuts-in-time-of-war/feed/ 0 http://indi.ca/2004/02/bush-was-awol/ http://indi.ca/2004/02/bush-was-awol/#comments Thu, 05 Feb 2004 14:47:20 +0000 indiTypePad /?p=258 Original Army Document

document source: http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/document.htm

“The story emerged in 2000 when the Boston Globe’s Walter Robinson, after combing through 160 pages of military documents and interviewing Bush’s former commanders, reported that Bush’s flying career came to an abrupt and unexplained end in the spring of 1972 when he asked for, and was inexplicably granted, a transfer to a paper-pushing Guard unit in Alabama. During this time Bush worked on the Senate campaign of a friend of his father’s. With his six-year Guard commitment, Bush was obligated to serve through 1973. But according to his own discharge papers, there is no record that he did any training after May 1972. Indeed, there is no record that Bush performed any Guard service in Alabama at all. In 2000, a group of veterans offered a $3,500 reward for anyone who could confirm Bush’s Alabama Guard service. Of the estimated 600 to 700 Guardsmen who were in Bush’s unit, not a single person came forward.

In 1973 Bush returned to his Houston Guard unit, but in May of that year his commanders could not complete his annual officer effectiveness rating report because, they wrote, “Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of the report.” Based on those records, as well as interviews with Texas Air National guardsmen, the Globe raised serious questions as to whether Bush ever reported for duty at all during 1973.”

- salon.com

American soldiers were dying in Vietnam until 1975

This is a quote from Donald Rumsfeld on the issue:

From the UPI on 1/10/02:

He spoke of the fact that many of those who were drafted were trained, served for a short time and then left the service.

Rumsfeld first referred to the many exemptions issued to certain men in the draft and then said, “what was left was sucked into the intake, trained for a period of months, and then went out, adding no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time, because the churning that took place, it took enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone.”

]]> http://indi.ca/2004/02/bush-was-awol/feed/ 0 http://indi.ca/2004/02/halliburton-cheney-corruption/ http://indi.ca/2004/02/halliburton-cheney-corruption/#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2004 14:17:41 +0000 indiTypePad /?p=254

Halliburton pays Vice President Dick Cheney up to $1,000,000 a year. Halliburton took $6,300,000 in bribes from a Kuwaiti contractor. They refunded this money to the US Army. Halliburton is under investigation for overcharging the US Army $16,000,000 for food. “The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that KBR may have overcharged by more than $16 million for meals to U.S. troops at Camp Arifjan, a sprawling U.S. military base near Kuwait City, for the first seven months of 2003. The job was subcontracted to a Saudi company. Citing an e-mail alert sent to Army contracting officials, the Journal said in July 2003 alone, a Saudi subcontractor hired by KBR billed for 42,042 meals a day but served only 14,053 meals a day. The difference for that month was more than $3.5 million.” source: New York Times

This is a breakdown of Halliburton’s political contributions from OpenSecrets.org.

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I’m including a pretty comprehensive New Yorker article on the subject:

]]> http://indi.ca/2004/02/halliburton-cheney-corruption/feed/ 0 http://indi.ca/2004/02/bush-lied-about-iraq/ http://indi.ca/2004/02/bush-lied-about-iraq/#comments Sun, 01 Feb 2004 21:58:52 +0000 indiTypePad /?p=253 A President should take responsibility for his words:

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State of the Union: 2003

Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, even while inspectors were in his country. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons — not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities.

Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world. The 108 U.N. inspectors were sent to conduct — were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq’s regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see, and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.

The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax — enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin — enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hadn’t accounted for that material. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He’s not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them — despite Iraq’s recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary; he is deceiving. From intelligence sources we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors, sanitizing inspection sites and monitoring the inspectors themselves. Iraqi officials accompany the inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses.

Iraq is blocking U-2 surveillance flights requested by the United Nations. Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as the scientists inspectors are supposed to interview. Real scientists have been coached by Iraqi officials on what to say. Intelligence sources indicate that Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who cooperate with U.N. inspectors in disarming Iraq will be killed, along with their families.

Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack.

With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region. And this Congress and the America people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans — this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes. (Applause.)

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option. (Applause.)

The dictator who is assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages — leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained — by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning. (Applause.)

And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country — your enemy is ruling your country. (Applause.) And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation. (Applause.)

The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, and our friends and our allies. The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene on February the 5th to consider the facts of Iraq’s ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraqi’s legal — Iraq’s illegal weapons programs, its attempt to hide those weapons from inspectors, and its links to terrorist groups.

We will consult. But let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. (Applause.)

Tonight I have a message for the men and women who will keep the peace, members of the American Armed Forces: Many of you are assembling in or near the Middle East, and some crucial hours may lay ahead. In those hours, the success of our cause will depend on you. Your training has prepared you. Your honor will guide you. You believe in America, and America believes in you. (Applause.)

Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a President can make. The technologies of war have changed; the risks and suffering of war have not. For the brave Americans who bear the risk, no victory is free from sorrow. This nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost and we dread the days of mourning that always come.

We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means — sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military — and we will prevail. (Applause.)

]]> http://indi.ca/2004/02/bush-lied-about-iraq/feed/ 1 http://indi.ca/2004/01/bushs-credit-card/ http://indi.ca/2004/01/bushs-credit-card/#comments Mon, 26 Jan 2004 14:00:25 +0000 indiTypePad /?p=250

“In two weeks, I will send you a budget that funds the war, protects the homeland, and meets important domestic needs, while limiting the growth in discretionary spending to less than 4 percent. This will require that Congress focus on priorities, cut wasteful spending, and be wise with the people’s money. By doing so, we can cut the deficit in half over the next five years.” George W. Bush, State of the Union Bush is spending a lot, on credit.

Bush also talked about priorities. A 2001 PEW Research Centre Survey asked this question of 1,513 Americans:

“What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?”

12% Morality/Ethics/Family values
11% Education
08% Justice system/Crime/Gangs/
07% Economy (general)
06% Unemployment/Lack of jobs
06% Drugs/Alcohol
06% Health Care/Cost/Availability of

3% said Tax Cuts
0% said Iraq

I think that Bush needs to ‘focus on priorities, cut wasteful spending, and be wise with the people’s money’

I was reading this CNN Article.

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This is a report from Slate’s summary of the daily papers

The Washington Post and USA Today lead with the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s latest report, which guesstimates that the deficit will total $1.9 trillion over the next decade. That’s nearly a trillion more than projected five months ago—mostly attributable to new legislation—and about a $3 trillion swing from a year ago (due to a mix of tax cuts and new spending). It also may be low. For one thing, the model assumes that discretionary spending will increase by only 2.5 percent annually. The past three years, such spending has grown by an average of seven percent.

In a point that the Post hits hardest, the budget basically hinges on whether Congress will agree to President Bush’s call to make his tax cuts permanent. If the cuts stay temporary, the CBO projects that the government will eventually climb out of the red. But if Congress votes to make the cuts permanent, deficits would likely continue indefinitely and the government will take on about $2 trillion in debt over the next decade.

In comments that none of the papers emphasize, the CBO’s head, a former Bush administration economist, said that leaving the cuts in place wouldn’t just be expensive, in the long-term they would actually hurt (a.k.a. have “a modestly negative” impact) the economy.

A Post editorial all-but accuses the White House’s budget crunchers of lunching on peyote and mushrooms.

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… this is from the CATO Institute, which is a Conservative think tank

Between fiscal years 2001 and 2004, total federal outlays will rise by about 24 percent, even without the recently passed $87 billion supplemental bill for Iraq. Real discretionary spending increases in fiscal years 2002, 2003, and 2004 are 3 of the 10 biggest annual increases in the last 40 years. Large spending increases have been the principal cause of the government’s return to massive budget deficits in recent years.

Although defense spending has increased in response to the war on terrorism, President Bush has made little attempt to restrain nondefense spending to offset the higher Pentagon budget. Nondefense discretionary outlays will increase about 31 percent during President Bush’s first three years in office. Congress has failed to contain the administration’s overspending and has added new spending of its own. It is clear that Republicans have forfeited any claim of being the fiscally responsible party in Washington.

]]> http://indi.ca/2004/01/bushs-credit-card/feed/ 1 http://indi.ca/2004/01/anti-bush-ads-from-moveonorg/ http://indi.ca/2004/01/anti-bush-ads-from-moveonorg/#comments Sat, 17 Jan 2004 08:14:54 +0000 indiTypePad /?p=247

I thought these ads were funny. And scary. And hopeful. From MoveOn.org’s open contest, Bush In 30 Seconds

]]> http://indi.ca/2004/01/anti-bush-ads-from-moveonorg/feed/ 4 http://indi.ca/2004/01/wheres-bin-laden-is-that-in-the-budget/ http://indi.ca/2004/01/wheres-bin-laden-is-that-in-the-budget/#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2004 17:27:15 +0000 indiTypePad /?p=246 Bush Spending Bill $87,5 billion

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Iraq: $51 billion (57.5%)

Target: Saddam Hussein, Baath Party

Status: captured, disassembled

Afghanistan: $33,5 billion (37.5%)

Target: Osama bin Laden, Taliban
Status: at large, Taliban active in South

Micronesia: $4 billion (5%)

Target: Pesky rhesus monkeys
Status: still throwing poo at America

The Stats are from a PEW Research Group sample of 1001 Americans. The figures are from Bush’s budget, reported in the BBC

I think Howard Dean is right to say the capture of Saddam hasn’t made us any safer. Every dollar spent in Iraq is a dollar not spent in Afghanistan and bin Laden was last seen in Afghanistan.

I support the War on Iraq, but we really need to find bin Laden. That means spending money in Afghanistan.

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