Iraq occupation at home

Bizarro World

Early Wednesday, a massive truck bomb wounded 137 and killed 64 students near the Hub at the UW.[AG1]

“I just remember my buddy Matt screaming then waking up in the hospital with my f***ing leg missing!,” freshman Louie Aragon recalls.[AG2]

Most of the victims were students gathering in-between classes.

Egyptian troops from the 516^th Armored Calvary regiment rolled up shortly after, dispensing medical aid in a vain attempt to bring security to the area.

Despite the offers of help, the crowd turned angry and violent.

In the confusing melee that followed, a soldier shot two young men suspected of carrying detonating cell phones.

The 516^th is still noticeably grieving the loss of two of the unit’s soldiers, corporal Nermeen Dabashi and sergeant Gamal Abdel-Latif. They died on Monday by a roadside bomb on the nearby University Bridge.

Most of the wounded were rushed to the nearby UW Medical Center. Once a prestigious medical institution, the UWMC lay in shambles after heavy Egyptian bombing. It runs with under 4 hours of power a day.

Only two doctors and three nurses were on staff for assisting the wounded in the putrid and bloody emergency room.

Since the Egyptian-led invasion of 2003, most of the professional class -- doctors, lawyers, judges – along with those wealthy enough, have fled to neighboring Mexico and Canada.

The remaining are not so fortunate.

A prestigious Jordanian medical journal has estimated that 11.5 million Americans have died as result of the Egyptian lead invasion. Over 20 million are now refugees.*

Long before the invasion, 12 years of Egyptian and Jordanian led UN sanctions have decimated US society and infrastructure, causing another 8-11 million American deaths. Half of the fatalities were children under the age of 5, according to World Health Organization and UNICEF studies.

“I think it [was] a very hard choice,” former Egyptian Foreign Minister Mu'azzaz Abdul-Shafi told an interviewer when asked about the use of sanctions. "But the price, we think the price is worth it.”

"You wonder why there are terrorists?” Canadian Health Minister Martin Hadley asks. “Where do you think the children that survive will be in a decade, the Peace Corps?”

Dismissing the Jordanian study’s numbers, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak also had to fend off statements from his former Financial Minister Abdul Gha'four who recently said in his memoirs, the war "was largely about oil."

Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that,” Retired General Jamil Abdallah adds.

The Egyptian Energy Association estimates that the US sits atop 112 billion barrels of oil, the second-largest proven reserves in the world.

Those statements received little play in Egypt where media self-censorship and consolidation have taken their toll; elsewhere, the world seemed fully aware of this dirty little secret.

Since the fall of Washington four years ago promises of liberation and freedom have rang hollow. The Egyptian-catalyzed civil war rages on.

"There is no question that [Egypt] is living a nightmare with no end in sight," says former Egyptian commander of forces in America, Lieutenant General Ra'id Shehab.

“In my profession, these types of leaders (top Egyptian officials) would immediately be relieved or [court-marshaled],” Shehab adds.

Despite overwhelming majorities of Egyptians that agree, most citizens are largely unaffected by the war overseas.

While only 1% of the Egyptian population is are serving in the military, the rest have only been asked, "to go shopping," by Mubarak.

12 former Army Captains see only one option left for Egypt: a Draft. “Short of that, our best option is to leave America immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition,” they say.

Many Egyptians agree. But the leadership in the Parliamentary opposition seem to share the same goals with the widely unpopular president Mubarak.

“[America] is right in the heart of the oil region,” leading presidential front-runner Hanaa Amayreh recently remarked. "This is an American problem, we cannot save the Americans from themselves,” she adds, commenting on the daily bloodshed in the US.

Americans painfully conclude that as long as oil energy-hungry Egypt seeks hegemony of the North American region and its resources, there will be a lasting presence on their soil.

ENDNOTE: This is reality for millions of Iraqis and tens of thousands of US troops in harm's way every day. The names were fictional. The quotes are real. Can you guess who said them?

*This number is from the following statistics: 1,000,000+ (est. numbers are higher) Iraqi deaths = 1/26 of total population, 1/26 of 301,000,000, current US pop. = 11.5 million.

Greenspan says prime reason for Iraq was oil

read the whole excellent article by Ray McGovern, here are some excerpts:

Greenspan writes:

“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”

Then, there were Cheney’s revealing, damning remarks as Halliburton's CEO?

“Oil companies are expected to keep developing enough oil to offset oil depletion and also to meet new demand,” Cheney said in autumn 1999. “So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of 90 percent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. The Middle East with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost is still where the prize ultimately lies."

Daily Reads

The Guardian warns that the proxy core between the US and Iran might turn "hot" soon.

The growing US focus on confronting Iran in a proxy war inside Iraq risks triggering a direct conflict in the next few months, regional analysts are warning.

"The proxy war that has been going on in Iraq may now cross the border. This is a very dangerous period," Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said.

Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-terrorism chief who is now a security analyst, said: "The decision to attack was made some time ago. It will be in two stages. If a smoking gun is found in terms of Iranian interference in Iraq, the US will retaliate on a tactical level, and they will strike against military targets. The second part of this is: Bush has made the decision to launch a strategic attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, although not before next year. He has been lining up some Sunni countries for tacit support for his actions."

Lt. Col. Robert Bowman directs fellow soldiers to disobey orders to attack Iran with nuclear weapons.

Our oath of office is to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Might I suggest that this includes a rogue president and vice-president? Certainly we are bound to carry out the legal orders of our superiors. But the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) which binds all of us enshrines the Nuremberg Principles which this country established after World War II (which you are too young to remember). One of those Nuremberg Principles says that we in the military have not only the right, but also the DUTY to refuse an illegal order. It was on this basis that we executed Nazi officers who were “only carrying out their orders.”

The Constitution which we are sworn to uphold says that treaties entered into by the United States are the “highest law of the land,” equivalent to the Constitution itself. Accordingly, we in the military are sworn to uphold treaty law, including the United Nations charter and the Geneva Convention.

Based on the above, I contend that should some civilian order you to initiate a nuclear attack on Iran (for example), you are duty-bound to refuse that order. I might also suggest that you should consider whether the circumstances demand that you arrest whoever gave the order as a war criminal.

The head of the IAEA warns that the US rhetoric on the Iran sounds a lot like "prewar Iraq"

One million Iraqi dead-- Go Democracy! Hooray for Freedom!

We are no longer in nation of laws, of checks and balances, but of The Executive, The Imperial President, according to Yale law professor Jack Balkan.

We are moving, or more correctly, we have already moved, toward a system of one person rule on matters of war and peace. It is a very dangerous tendency in American constitutionalism. If you think that the Iraq episode has been a disaster, imagine an even more foolhardy and reckless President taking even greater and more dangerous risks. The Iraq war demonstrates that, in the context of modern politics and contemporary security threats, the framers' original system of checks and balances has utterly failed us.

If we put aside the din over the Petraeus testimony before Congress, it should be apparent by now (indeed it was apparent long ago) that the United States will not be ending its involvement in Iraq while George W. Bush is in office. Democrats are divided among themselves about how to proceed and they lack veto-proof majorities even if they were not divided. President Bush will pass the problem of Iraq on to his successor. He does this hoping that he will be vindicated, because, he hopes his successor (and the successor after that) will follow his policies which Bush is convinced will ultimately succeed, If the next President changes course, and withdraws, President Bush believes that he or she, and not Bush, will be blamed for the problems that result. That may seem like wishful thinking, but the American public has a short memory and there are any number of political entrepreneurs that hope to gain an advantage from blaming the next President for the consequences of the mistakes of the previous one.

Of Course, there is a remedy to this madness, but it will not happened as long as the left-wing up the War Party is in power.

Then, there are always chickenhawks who have no problem sending other people to die for their ambitions, what Hannah Arendt called a "desk murderer."

must-read of the day

Stan Goff over at Huffington post rights one of the best essays on the state of the world I've read in a while.

Here are some other things that are not being said:

The average consumption lifestyle of the United States, which keeps politicians in office, is based on extortion, violence, and plunder in places we don't see, and from activities the media seldom mention. To maintain that lifestyle, which is an imperial political payoff for a quiescent home base, requires ever expanding inputs of finite resources -- many from abroad -- and the continued ability to back up financial extortion with military force where necessary. The pivotal resource that makes it possible to make all the other consumer goods, be they cars, clothes, computers, or whatever, is fossil energy. The United States, with five percent of the world's population, used 26% of the word's energy supplies. Our domestic production has been falling since 1973, even as our aggregate demand has continued to rise steeply. The United States has allowed car companies and developers to establish an economic infrastructure that depends absolutely on private automobiles. This massive fleet of around 250 million automobiles runs on oil. This oil cannot be replaced by biofuels, contrary to the bullshit being propogated to support a fresh new vote-buying-and-corporate-welfare scheme for Cargill, Monsanto, and Archer-Daniels-Midland.

Follow the logic.

The US economy cannot continue to operate as it is without guaranteeing its access to fossil fuel that comes from abroad. The establishment wants this to be our dirty little secret, and that's why we twist ourselves in knots talking about it, including deluding ourselves that we can continue our energy profligacy and ignoring the wet work that gets done to maintain control over a region as strategically vital to this end as Southwest Asia. This, of course, means that when Republicrats use coded language about "vital American security interests in the Middle East," they are really talking about maintaining secondary political control over the human beings who live on top of those energy lakes. If you accept that maintaining the American way of life is the highest priority, then you have to accept that the US has to intervene with force when necessary to get the energy supplies, and even that this force be maintained through a constant threat, i.e., a permanent US military presence in the region and support of unsavory regimes to act as our surrogates.

If you believe that people in that part of the world should have the right to decide when, where, and how to use their own resources, then you have to accept that this might result in a dramatic and painful change in the "American way of life."

It's that simple, that stark.

be sure to read the whole thing...

Occupation Making America safer? Petraeus: "I don't know"

Crooks and Liars has the video.

A visibly emotional Sen. Joe Biden and Chris Matthews discuss the ramifications of Gen. Petraeus’s surprisingly unvarnished answer that he couldn’t say that our presence in Iraq was making us any safer

The military wants a large, rapid withdrawal of most of the troops... Why do the generals hate America?

from Newsweek, (ht emptywheel)

NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus.

read full article...

Bin Laden wanted US to invade Iraq, author says

A journalist who interviewed bin Laden says bin Laden wanted US to invade ME, Via ABC,

TONY JONES: When you met bin Laden, he told you that his long-term plan was to "bring the Americans into a fight on Muslim soil". That must have sounded like madness at the time, but now we have Iraq.

ABDUL BARI ATWAN: It seems Osama bin Laden had a long-term strategy. He told me personally that he can't go and fight the Americans and their country. But if he manages to provoke them and bring them to the Middle East and to their Muslim worlds, where he can find them or fight them on his own turf, he will actually teach them a lesson. It seems the invasion of Iraq fulfilled Osama bin Laden's wish. That's why the Americans are losing in Iraq, financially and on a human basis, and even their allies, including Australia, are really losing patience, losing money, losing personnel, losing reputation in that part of the world.

Scott Ritter on Iraq

From Truthdig,

Now we come to the third and perhaps most difficult question: “Why?” In some odd way, Katie Couric’s jaunt to Iraq answers that question: Because Americans truly don’t care. Oh, we care about vague softball issues, such as “conditions in the street,” “fear,” and of course, “how the American troops are really doing,” especially when they are fed to us in 30-second sound bites or three-minute “in-depth” stories. Little feel good segments planted in between commercials, designed not to infringe on our intellectual curiosity for more than 30 minutes so we don’t loose our focus watching the latest “reality” show or made-for-television drama.

The fact is, Couric’s made-for-television news is to what is really happening in Iraq as “CSI: Las Vegas” is to what is really happening on the streets of Sin City. CBS knows that, which is why they are packaging Katie in this fashion. The shame is that for most Americans watching, they think they’re getting the real deal. They are not, but will continue to wallow in their ignorant indifference. Katie will struggle to tell us that our kids keep dying in Iraq to “improve the quality of life” and “reduce the level of fear” on the streets of Baghdad. She solemnly informs us that “our boys and girls” are suffering, but they know it is in support of a just and noble cause. Katie will continue to report the story in Iraq from the perspective of an American political dynamic, not Iraqi reality.

Wow... stunning

Just stop what you're doing and watch this. Then send it to everyone you know.

The Reality on the Ground in Iraq from Nir Rosen

Unembedded Journalist par-excellence Nir Rosen explains whats going on in the country that used to be Iraq right now. (from Steve Clemons' Washington Note)

From CNN's THIS WEEK AT WAR,

Host Tom Foreman: Nir, let me start with you. Who is running the show in Baghdad? Or is anyone?

Nir Rosen, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: Well it depends where you are. As it has been since April 9, 2003, when Baghdad fell to the Americans, militias have been running the show. Whoever has power in the given neighborhoods, whatever local warlord, he's the one running the show. The government is basically a theater. Whatever happens in the green zone doesn't matter. It's always been militia leaders, political leaders at the party level who control the various militias and the ministers, not the prime minister and not the Americans, certainly. it is various militias.

FOREMAN: Nir, based on what you are saying though the problem is there is no credible alternative is there?

ROSEN: There is no government to begin with. It's a collection of militias. And indeed, there is no alternative. The whole focus on the government in Baghdad is the -- problem is that -- in everybody's approach. In Iraq it used to be you could have a coup replace the government and the whole country followed. But now Iraqi is a collection of city states, Baghdad, Tikrit, Kirkuk, Mosul, Basra, Erbil, each one with its own warlords. They don't answer to Baghdad. Baghdad has no control over them. When we overthrew Saddam, we imposed one dictator after another. We didn't like Prime Minister Jaafari [because he wouldn't approve the oil law] so we got rid of him and we put in his close ally, Maliki. And now the occupier is once again upset that the occupied people are not being sufficiently obedient. But it doesn't matter. We are past that stage. Iraq doesn't exist as a state anymore. The government has never existed. It has never brought in any services. Even the most fundamental service the government can provide, a monopoly over the use of violence, it doesn't provide that because it has never controlled the militias and militias are the ones that control the police and the army.

FOREMAN: So Nir, we keep hearing reports, though, nonetheless out of Baghdad. People saying that give us time, we are trying to get this government worked out. We are going to make some progress. Do you see any way that can happen?

ROSEN: No. This has been the case for the past would two years at least. There is no hope. There is no government. Neither side is interested in compromise and why should they? The Shias control Baghdad. They have removed the Sunnis from Baghdad, from Iraq's political future.

FOREMAN: What's going to change that if anything?

ROSEN: Nothing is going to change that. The Shias have actually expelled most of the Sunnis from Baghdad. It went from being a majority Sunni city. Now it is a majority Shia city. The last few pockets of Sunnis are slowly being purged by the police and the Mehdi army. It's now irrevocably a Shia city and Sunnis are just out. Unfortunately, Iraq has been completely remade and it is time to be honest. It is time for the American leaders to be honest and American military to be honest with their people. There can be no reconciliation. This does - the latest show we had a few days ago where they brought a few leaders together and pretended like they were going to reconcile, the Sunnis are still out of the government and they remain so and why should they be? They have been expelled from Iraq. The majority of the three million refugees that we have from the region, from Iraq are Sunni. The majority being internally displaced are Sunni. Of course, whatever agreement were to be reached, parliament would never ratify it anyway.

Recently, when Rosen was speaking Democracy Now's Amy Goodman(with audio) about the enormous refugee crisis, he explains why there is no more Iraq:

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk further about the refugee crisis? Again, lay out the numbers that we’re talking about inside Iraq and outside.

NIR ROSEN: Outside Iraq, we’re approaching three million refugees who have left since 2003. There were, of course, refugees who left before then, due to Saddam and other factors.

Inside, I think you have a similar number of internally displaced Iraqis fleeing their homes in mixed areas and going to more homogenous areas. Sunnis from Basra are heading to Sunni neighborhoods, Baghdad, or all the way up to Kurdistan. Shias from Diyala province are going to safer areas for Shias. Kurds from Mosul going up to Kurdistan, as well.

And a family like the one we just saw on the show is never going to go back to their home again, actually, it seems.

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

NIR ROSEN: Iraq has been changed irrevocably, I think. I don’t think Iraq even -- you can say it exists anymore. There has been a very effective, systematic ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from Baghdad, of Shias --from areas that are now mostly Shia. But the Sunnis especially have been a target, as have mixed families like the one we just saw. With a name like Omar, he’s distinctly Sunni -- it’s a very Sunni name. You can be executed for having the name Omar alone. And Baghdad is now firmly in the hands of sectarian Shiite militias, and they’re never going to let it go.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of Senator Levin calling for the Maliki and the whole government to disband?

NIR ROSEN: Well, it’s stupid for several reasons. First of all, the Iraqi government doesn’t matter. It has no power. And it doesn’t matter who you put in there. He’s not going to have any power. Baghdad doesn’t really matter, except for Baghdad. Baghdad used to be the most important city in Iraq, and whoever controlled Baghdad controlled Iraq. These days, you have a collection of city states: Mosul, Basra, Baghdad, Kirkuk, Irbil, Sulaymaniyah. Each one is virtually independent, and they have their own warlords and their own militias. And what happens in Baghdad makes no difference. So that’s the first point.

Second of all, who can he put in instead? What does he think he’s going to put in? Allawi or some secular candidate? There was a democratic election, and the majority of Iraqis selected the sectarian Shiite group Dawa, Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution, the Sadr Movement. These are movements that are popular among the majority of Shias, who are the majority of Iraq. So it doesn’t matter who you put in there. And people in the Green Zone have never had any power. Americans, whether in the government or journalists, have been focused on the Green Zone from the beginning of the war, and it’s never really mattered. It’s been who has power on the street, the various different militias, depending on where you are -- Sunni, Shia, tribal, religious, criminal. So it just reflects the same misunderstanding of Iraqi politics. The government doesn’t do anything, doesn’t provide any services, whether security, electricity, health or otherwise. Various militias control various ministries, and they use it as their fiefdoms. Ministries attack other ministries

Pentagon Gives Up; Hands War Over to Bush

by The Angry Rakkasan,

Mark it down. August 29, 2007. That’s the day the Pentagon announced it was done being responsible for Mr. Bush’s waste of lives, time, and money in Iraq. Tonight, the Defense Department has essentially told the President, "Thanks for the war, George, but it’s all you from here on out, buddy."

Read on...

Bin Laden wanted US to invade Iraq, author says

from ABC via Vox Verax,

As coalition troops continue to die on Iraqi soil and the US Government's military spending on the war bleeds into billions of dollars, a new book says that not only could this have been avoided, but it was all predictable, as long as you had read the Al Qaeda manual.

Abdul Bari Atwan is one of the only Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden, spending three days with him in the mountains of Afghanistan in 1996.

He is the editor-in-chief of the London-based Arabic newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabia, and the author of The secret history of Al Qaeda.

ABC TV's Lateline presenter Tony Jones interviewed Mr Bari Atwan on the program last night.

TONY JONES: When you met bin Laden, he told you that his long-term plan was to "bring the Americans into a fight on Muslim soil". That must have sounded like madness at the time, but now we have Iraq.

ABDUL BARI ATWAN: It seems Osama bin Laden had a long-term strategy. He told me personally that he can't go and fight the Americans and their country. But if he manages to provoke them and bring them to the Middle East and to their Muslim worlds, where he can find them or fight them on his own turf, he will actually teach them a lesson. It seems the invasion of Iraq fulfilled Osama bin Laden's wish. That's why the Americans are losing in Iraq, financially and on a human basis, and even their allies, including Australia, are really losing patience, losing money, losing personnel, losing reputation in that part of the world.

TONY JONES: When bin Laden told you this back in 1996, the only thing he had that was close to what he was talking about was [former US president] Bill Clinton's intervention in Somalia. Bin Laden was evidently extremely disappointed the Americans had pulled out?

ABDUL BARI ATWAN: Yes. He told me, again, that he expected the Americans to send troops to Somalia and he sent his people to that country to wait for them in order to fight them. They managed actually to shoot down an American helicopter where 19 soldiers were killed and he regretted that the Clinton Administration decided to pull out their troops from Somalia and run away. He was so saddened by this. He thought they would stay there so he could fight them there. But for his bad luck, according to his definition, they left, and he was planning another provocation in order to drag them to Muslim soil.

And it seems President Bush did not actually give him a lot of hard work to plan for this. Immediately after the bombardment of Afghanistan - which actually destroyed 85 per cent of Al Qaeda infrastructure, personnel, deprived them of a safe haven - after that huge success against Al Qaeda, President Bush made terrible mistakes when he sent his troop to invade Iraq, one of the most difficult countries to be invaded, to be occupied, the worst land for democracy, human rights. And we can see the outcome.

continue reading...

Must Read from the soldiers' mouth

read this op-ed by active-duty NCO's serving in Iraq currently.

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.

videos you won't see on mainstream news

this one is hard for me to watch... just a warning

Recent war games on withdrawal

McClatchy cites a recent war game that rports,

Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., a retired Navy vice admiral who was director of defense policy for the National Security Council in the Clinton administration, said he believes that drawing down or withdrawing troops could be one of the most dangerous periods of the Iraq war.

"The military will be vulnerable ... You are going to go out in a combat situation," Sestak said. "I think we can do greater damage if we don't have a firm grasp on the military implications."

U.S. troops are likely to leave an Iraq that's still embroiled in fierce sectarian violence, he said. "How quickly can the military move its 160,000 troops out? What about the 100,000-plus contractors? How many of the military's 45,000 Humvees should be left behind for the Iraqi Army? Which of 64 military bases should be closed? [ALL OF THEM!!!] How does the military protect its main route out of Iraq toward Kuwait?"

Sestak estimates that it would take at long as two years to withdraw.

The Impetus To Withdraw

Recently, the former director of the NSA under the Reagan administration, General William Odom, wrote an essay calling for a strategic change in Iraq. Specifically, Democrats should frame the notion of “supporting the troops” as withdrawing them.

General Odom goes on to say that Congress should withhold funding of the war if the president does not comply. What’s more, he advocates impeachment if Mr. Bush tries to “extort” Congress into funding the war.

Isn’t General Odom emboldening the terrorists by setting timetables for withdrawal?

Nonsense, experts say. This is confirmed by ex-CIA analysts like Michael Scheuer, who warn that our continued presence in Iraq greatly exacerbates the threat of terrorism. According to Mr. Scheuer, the invasion of Iraq “broke the back of our counterterrorism efforts” and validated every claim that bin Laden spread to his followers.[i]

As the LA Times opined, “Osama bin Laden's plan was to get the U.S. to overreact and overreach itself. With the invasion of Iraq, Bush fell slap-bang into that trap.”[ii]

Fellow CIA analyst Bruce Riedel adds in Foreign Affairs that Al Qaeda has welcomed and celebrated the US invasion as an opportunity to kill Americans and pursue its ‘bleed-to-bankruptcy’ strategy.[iii]^,[iv] With more than 3600 US dead and spending at the rate of $14 million an hour, we are certainly assisting Al Qaeda in both goals.[v]

But if we withdraw, won’t Al Qaeda follow us home, as the president and others has repeatedly warned?[vi] After all, we are fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here, as Mr. Bush has repeatedly claimed.

The new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that was recently released is evidence that both these claims are fallacious. Fred Kaplan of Slate and professor of Middle East history Juan Cole offer the following argument derived from the NIE.[vii]^,[viii] ‘Al Qaeda in Iraq’ (AQI), an affiliate Salifi Jihadist group in Iraq that has threatened attacks on US soil, is one of the main factors for the NIE to conclude that the United States is “in a heightened threat environment.” AQI didn’t exist in Iraq under Saddam’s rule prior to the US intervention and only came into power long after the occupation, empowered by anti-American opposition to the invasion. Therefore, the US invasion is at least partially responsible for AQI’s emergence, as many intelligence officials warned. AQI would not exist had it not been for President Bush’s war.

As Mr. Kaplan concludes, not only is the President’s argument wrong, the exact opposite is true – “that because we're fighting them in Iraq, we are more likely to face them here.” Mr. Kaplan and others conclude that this is the reason why the US should start withdrawing from Iraq.

Surely though, a US withdrawal would embolden Al Qaeda as supporters of the war like Senator John McCain have claimed. It would give Al Qaeda a permanent base from which to launch attacks.

Analysts like Riedel concede that indeed Al Qaeda will take credit for a US withdrawal, but quickly point out “Al Qaeda's own propaganda indicates that it fears the Shiites' wrath after the United States' departure more than it fears what would happen if the Americans stayed.”ⁱⁱ

The recent Washington Post article by Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks states that most experts agree that Al Qaeda will not likely take over Iraq, noting that while the group is particularly lethal, military officials report it is only a responsible for 15% of the attacks in Iraq.

What about the moral responsibility we bear to the Iraqis? Surely, there will be a power vacuum once the United States withdraws and a likely genocide.

In truth, the genocide has already begun. West Baghdad is being “cleansed” according to Colonel Patrick Lang and the United States and we don’t have the numbers to control it.[ix] As General Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War said in March, “"Even if we had a million men to go in, it's too late now…Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again.”[x]

Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke adds, “All the things they say will happen are already happening. Iraq is already a base for terrorists; there is already a civil war. We've got 150,000 troops there now and we can't stop it.” Moreover, journalist Nir Rosen describes the current situation as “complete anarchy,” echoing Mr. Ricks’ description of Iraq as resembling the Hobbesian ‘state of nature.’^ix

The president was briefed about this reality as far back as November 2006 when CIA director Michael Hayden said, “the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible.”[xi]

In regards to the responsibility we owe to the Iraqis, first consider these sad and undeniable truths; several hundred thousand Iraqis have been killed so far as a result of the US invasion, nearly 2 million refugees have fled Iraq, of which the US has accepted less than 200 in fiscal year 2006-07[xii], and an average of 55 Iraqis are killed every day due to the sectarian violence.[xiii] That is a monumental debt which we cannot repay.

If we do have a responsibility now, surely it is to follow the will of the Iraqi people. If spreading ‘democracy’ is so highly valued in this administration, then it should listen to the Iraqis. The overwhelming majority (more than 70%) want a timetable for US led forces to withdraw, including more than 90% of Sunnis, the group most likely to be persecuted by the majority Shia.[xiv] The Prime Minister has also expressed his view that American forces can “withdraw anytime they want,” a sentiment shared by the majority of the Parliament, which backed a bill favoring US withdrawal back in May.[xv]^,[xvi]

As for our country, in a July USA Today/Gallup poll, more than 70% support withdrawal for all but a limited number of US troops by April 1 of next year.[xvii] Moreover, according to Think Progress, 60% of those who participated in a Military.com poll (the largest military and veteran membership group) favored troop withdrawal as well.[xviii]

So what happens after withdrawal?

DeYoung and Ricks report that Iraq could separate into three autonomous entities due to a withdrawal, citing a recent “war game” simulation carried out for the military. Senator Joe Biden -- whose son is in the Army and likely headed to Iraq next year -- is a longtime advocate of the three-state solution. There will have to be intense regional diplomacy, unlike anything this administration has offered. He warns however, that without such a political solution and dramatic change in the near future, the likely result will be much, much more catastrophic than the situation at hand.

How much more catastrophic can things get if there is not dramatic change? Vastly more, experts say. Zbigniew Brzezinski warns

If the war continues without any American willingness to accommodate regionally and to pull out, the Iraq War will be extended to Iran. And if we get involved in a war with Iran, that raises the prospect of a twenty-year-long involvement in protracted violence in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and probably Pakistan. I'm not a prophet, but if the president doesn't change course, then the more grim prognosis is a likely one.^x

Nir Rosen fears

…borders changing, governments falling. Lebanon is already on the precipice. Throughout the region, government officials are terrified. Nobody knows how to stop it. This is World War III. How far will it spread? Anywhere there are Islamic movements, like in Somalia, in Sudan, in Yemen. Pakistan has always had Sunni-Shia fighting. The flow of Iraqi refugees will at some point affect Europe.

General Tony McPeak envisages the worst-case scenario

The worst case? Iraq's Sunnis begin to be backed into a corner, then the Sunni governments -- Jordan, Saudi Arabia -- jump in. Israel sees that it's threatened by these developments. Once the Israelis get involved, then everybody piles on. And you've got nuclear events going off in the Middle East. That would be about as bad as it could get.^x

In conclusion, Mr. Riddell and former national security adviser Samuel Berger opine

A clear US commitment to a complete, irreversible withdrawal from Iraq may now be the only way to develop a regional concert of powers that could work with Iraqis to try to stabilise the country and cauterise the conflict.

The continuing US and British occupation is a roadblock to that co-operation. The galvanising impact of a decision to depart unequivocally can be the last best chance at preventing the conflict from boiling over beyond Iraq to the whole region. How we design and implement our departure is our last significant remaining leverage.[xix]

The grim consensus is there are no good answers. One thing is clear, those who advocate President Bush’s ‘stay the course’ strategy are clearly leading this nation on a perilous path against the will of both nation’s populous. The tragedy of the entire Iraq debacle is that withdrawal remains at best, the least disastrous of all options.

Endnotes

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[i] http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/08/sb-seven-michael-scheuer-1156277744

[ii] http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-garton19jul19,0,7214015,print.story

[iii] http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86304-p40/bruce-riedel/al-qaeda-strikes-back.html

[iv] http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/01/binladen.tape/

[v] http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/3509

[vi] http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060816-9.html

[vii] http://www.slate.com/id/2170564/

[viii]http://www.juancole.com/2007/07/nie-iraq-fueling-al-qaeda-threat-to-us.html

[ix] http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2007/07/shia-takeover-o.html

[x] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13710030/leaving_iraq_the_grim_truth/print

[xi] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/11/AR2007071102451_pf.html

[xii] http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/3461/US_Admitted_63_Iraqi_Refugees_in_June

[xiii] http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/subcategory/21//Statistics////6

[xiv] http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/165.php?nid=&id=&pnt=165&lb=brme

[xv] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070714/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=Amix8S4XqjJPlxF4un3VVnys0NUE

[xvi] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/10/AR2007051000387.html

[xvii] http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

[xviii] http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/18/60-percent-2/

[xix] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/9e27ded6-38b4-11dc-bca9-0000779fd2ac.html

Iraq, Iran, Al Qaeda, and why withdrawal is prudent

Firstly here is a panel of 9 experts discussing why the war is lost (I suggest you read the whole thing here),

The war in Iraq isn't over yet, but -- surge or no surge -- the United States has already lost. That's the grim consensus of a panel of experts assembled by Rolling Stone to assess the future of Iraq. "Even if we had a million men to go in, it's too late now," says retired four-star Gen. Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. "Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again."

Those on the panel -- including diplomats, counterterror analysts and a former top military commander -- agree that President Bush's attempt to secure Baghdad will only succeed in dragging out the conflict, creating something far beyond any Vietnam-style "quagmire." The surge won't bring an end to the sectarian cleansing that has ravaged Iraq, as the newly empowered Shiite majority seeks to settle scores built up during centuries of oppressive rule by the Sunni minority. It will do nothing to defuse the powder keg that an independence-minded Kurdistan, in Iraq's northern provinces, poses to the governments of Turkey, Syria and Iran, which have long brutalized their own Kurdish separatists. And it will only worsen the global war on terror.

"Our invasion and occupation has created a cauldron that will continue to draw in the players in the Middle East for the foreseeable future," says Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden. "By taking out Saddam, we have allowed the jihad to move 1,000 kilometers west, where it can project its power, its organizers, its theology into Turkey -- and from Turkey into Europe."

How bad will things get in Iraq -- and what price will the world ultimately pay for the president's decision to prolong the war? To answer those questions, we asked our panel to sketch out three distinct scenarios for Iraq: the best we can hope for, the most likely outcome and the worst that could happen.

Continue reading...

The Foreign Affairs artiicle re: al Qaeda, Iran, and Iraq. here is a snippet:

The biggest danger is that al Qaeda will deliberately provoke a war with a "false-flag" operation, say, a terrorist attack carried out in a way that would make it appear as though it were Iran's doing. The United States should be extremely wary of such deception.
...
Al Qaeda would especially like a full-scale U.S. invasion and occupation of Iran, which would presumably oust the Shiite regime in Tehran, further antagonize Muslims worldwide, and expand al Qaeda's battlefield against the United States so that it extends from Anbar Province in the west to the Khyber Pass in the east. It understands that the U.S. military is already too overstretched to invade Iran, but it expects Washington to use nuclear weapons. Baghdadi has told Sunnis in Iran to evacuate towns close to nuclear installations.
...

Iraq is, of course, another critical battlefield in the fight against al Qaeda. But it is time to recognize that engagement there is more of a trap than an opportunity for the United States. Al Qaeda and Iran both want Washington to remain bogged down in the quagmire. Al Qaeda has openly welcomed the chance to fight the United States in Iraq. U.S. diplomacy has certainly been clumsy and counterproductive, but there is little point in reviewing the litany of U.S. mistakes that led to this disaster. The objective now should be to let Iraqis settle their conflicts themselves. Rather than reinforce its failures, the United States should disengage from the civil war in Iraq, with a complete, orderly, and phased troop withdrawal that allows the Iraqi government to take the credit for the pullout and so enhance its legitimacy.

No doubt al Qaeda will claim a victory when the United States leaves Iraq. (It already does so at the sheer mention of withdrawal.) But it is unlikely that the Islamic State of Iraq will fare well after the occupation ends... (Al Qaeda's own propaganda indicates that it fears the Shiites' wrath after the United States' departure more than it fears what would happen if the Americans stayed.)

With that in mind we shoulkd ask, Is Israel about to attack Iran?

Then, the latest case for withdrawal here,

Next, a British General , commander of the SAS saying Americians are the British enpire and the iraqi's are fighting their own revolutionary war and,

And feel free to browse more of my archived articles here on Iran and Iraq, and the "war on terra."

UPDATE: The Post has a good article on the predicted effects of withdrawal here.

If U.S. combat forces withdraw from Iraq in the near future, three developments would be likely to unfold. Majority Shiites would drive Sunnis out of ethnically mixed areas west to Anbar province. Southern Iraq would erupt in civil war between Shiite groups. And the Kurdish north would solidify its borders and invite a U.S. troop presence there. In short, Iraq would effectively become three separate nations.

That was the conclusion reached in recent "war games" exercises conducted for the U.S. military by retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson. "I honestly don't think it will be apocalyptic," said Anderson, who has served in Iraq and now works for a major defense contractor. But "it will be ugly."

...

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), also a White House hopeful, finds a different message in the Vietnam retreat. Saying that Baghdad would become "Saigon revisited," he warned that "we will be lifting American personnel off the roofs of buildings in the Green Zone if we do not change policy, and pretty drastically."
...

White is among many Middle East experts who think that the United States should leave Iraq sooner rather than later, but differ on when, how and what would happen next. Most agree that either an al-Qaeda or Iranian takeover would be unlikely, and say that Washington should step up its regional diplomacy, putting more pressure on regional actors such as Saudi Arabia to take responsibility for what is happening in their back yards.

Many regional experts within and outside the administration note that while there is a range of truly awful possibilities, it is impossible to predict what will happen in Iraq -- with or without U.S. troops.

UPDATE II: Senator Levin asked why he thinks withdrawal is the right answer, via NO QUARTER

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what about the fate, Senator, of those Iraqis who have been supportive -- of Iraqi civilians in general, and particularly those who have been supportive of the U.S. mission?

SEN. CARL LEVIN: The current course is endangering the people of Iraq continually. It's the current course which isn't working; it's the current course which has led to huge slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. It's that course which has to change.

...

JUDY WOODRUFF: And just to broaden that out, Senator, the notion that there is maybe some moral responsibility on the part of the United States, because it was the United States who came in over four years ago, who has led this war in Iraq, participated in this war, and now to pull out, what responsibility does the U.S. have to the people of that country?

SEN. CARL LEVIN: I think we've got a huge responsibility. The way this government went in, the way the Bush administration went in unilaterally, arrogantly, the way in which we didn't wait for the U.N. to give its support to what we were doing, the way we did in the first Gulf War, there's a huge moral responsibility.

And we have a huge responsibility to the Iraqi refugees. There are now four million Iraqi refugees, half in the country who've been moved out of their homes, the other half outside of the Iraq. And you bet we have a moral responsibility.

And the bigger responsibility here rests with the Iraqi political leaders. And since, by their own words, by everybody's agreement there is no military solution, there's only a political solution, we shouldn't wait any longer to force the Iraqi leaders to undertake that political solution.

...

JUDY WOODRUFF: And just finally, Senator, when you are as convinced as you sound you are, what makes you know you have the right answer on Iraq?

SEN. CARL LEVIN: I don't know I have the right answer. There's been too much arrogance, as far as I'm concerned, floating around this town for anybody to say they "know" the right answer in Iraq. All we can do is use our best judgment as to what will change the direction in Iraq.

But do I know that what I'm saying is true? No, I believe it after a huge amount of thought, and concern, and discussion, and debate. I'm absolutely convinced what our military leaders are convinced, that there is no military solution. If you accept that, and there's a consensus there's no military solution in Iraq, once you accept that, if there's only a political solution, then the question is: Why wait? Why wait until someone makes another report in September to us about a military situation, which is what we're expecting in September? Why wait for more American lives to be lost?

UPDATE III: Senator Joe Biden offers what seems to be the most knowledgeable assessment and "solution" for the civil war in Iraq.

...well, look, here's my problem, Judy. When you listen to a lot of Democrats, they say, "Let's leave and hope for the best, because maybe that will get the Iraqis to come to their senses." And you hear the president say, "Just do more of the same and hand it off to the next guy." None of them offer a political solution.

What is the political solution? As General Hayden said -- and I want to quote him, the head of the CIA -- he said, "The inability of the central government to govern is irreversible." I've been saying that for three years. The fatal fundamental strategic flaw everybody is making is to think that there's any combination of actions we could take to generate a strong central government, representing all of the factions in Baghdad that was trusted by the Iraqi people. It will not happen in your lifetime or mine.

...

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what responsibility do you think the United States has to the people of Iraq after it leaves, whether there's a U.S. troop force left or not?

SEN. JOE BIDEN: It has a serious responsibility it will not be able to meet. It will not be able to meet. Let's be honest with one another, Judy. When the American forces leave, absent a political accommodation among the parties, with the international community signing onto it, which is the reason why it could be enforced, just like it was in Bosnia, without that, what's going to happen?

You're going to see the fraction -- you're going to see four or five major Sunni militias killing each other. You're going to see -- I mean, Shia. You're going to see a couple in Anbar province. God only knows what happens between Barzani and Talabani in the north with the Kurds. So you're going to see chaos, and there's going to be a lot of people that will die.

But the flip of it is, there's not enough American forces, absent a political settlement, to prevent that from happening. And one thing the American people won't tolerate, Judy, they will not tolerate losing their sons and daughters just to keep things from getting worse. They'll tolerate losing their sons and daughters if you're making things considerably better and safer for America and the region in the long run.

Read This -- panel of experts discusses why we have 'lost' in Iraq

You owe it to yourself to read this surprisingly blunt Rolling Stone article, which has come out and concluded we have already lost in Iraq, now we must prepare for what is to come in the future.

The Four Unspeakable Truths

What politicians won't admit about Iraq.

Tristero explains why Iraq could likely end up like Rawanda

"It Could Potentially Be Like Rwanda."Why we can't pull out and we can't stay. MUST READ