Everything's Looking Up. Really.

[Gary Sisco]

Suicide bombers kill 66 Iraqis as US troops meet fierce resistance
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
12 May 2005
Suicide bombers have killed at least 66 people in the latest round of a campaign in which 400 Iraqis have died since a new government was formed two weeks ago.

Many of the attacks are aimed at Shia Muslims. In Tikrit, a Sunni Arab city near where Saddam Hussein was born, the target of a suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives was a crowd of Shia workers from southern Iraq. They were standing beside the road by a small market at 7.15am yesterday looking for work as building labourers, a common sight in Iraqi cities, when the car ran into them and exploded. At least 28 people were killed and 60 wounded.

"What I saw was a tragedy," said Ibrahim Mohammed, a worker who had travelled from the Shia city of Kut, south of Baghdad. "Some people had their heads torn off by the explosion, some were burnt, some ripped to pieces."

The campaign has shown the ability of insurgents to mount many simultaneous attacks all over central and northern Iraq. Most of the suicide bombers are Saudi or Yemeni, pious young Muslims seeking martyrdom fighting infidels, but the infrastructure which supports them is Iraqi.

Little can be done to stop people intending to kill themselves. In Tikrit last Friday, a suicide bomber driving a taxi destroyed a police minibus at a checkpoint killing at least eight people and wounding seven. Police announced that, in future, nobody in Tikrit can drive alone, but it is doubtful if this rule is enforceable.

A second attack in the hardcore Sunni Arab town of Hawaija in the west of Kirkuk province yesterday was more devastating. A man with explosives strapped to his body had slipped into a police and army recruitment centre in the town though the building was protected by a cement wall topped with barbed wire. Even in this town, notorious as a resistance stronghold, the hunger for work is such that 150 men were waiting in the compound to get jobs in the security forces. Thirty were killed and 35 wounded, 15 of them critically.

"I was standing near the centre and all of a sudden it turned into a scene of dead bodies and pools of blood," said Sgt Khalaf Abbas of the police force.

In theory, each potential recruit should have been searched on entering the recruiting centre. "I am surprised the guards did not notice him," said Major-General Anwar Mohammed Ami of the Iraqi army. Iraqi security guards show an understandable lack of enthusiasm for successfully detecting suicide bombers.

Two further suicide bomb attacks were mounted yesterday, both in Baghdad. One bomber blew himself up in a car when he was blocked from reaching a police station in the southern district of Doura, the scene of frequent resistance attacks. Three civilians were killed. Another car exploded near a police patrol in the Mansour district killing two policemen and a civilian.

In the west of the country close to the Syrian border, some 1,000 US Marines, soldiers and sailors are fighting insurgents in villages along the Euphrates close to Qaim and Obeidi in an attack called Operation Matador. This is more in the style of US military operations in the first year of its war against the resistance.

The US military says it has killed 100 insurgents, but the claim is impossible to check. American journalists embedded with US forces say commanders are saying that resistance losses are much smaller.

US troops were reportedly meeting fierce resistance in Obeidi where the marines only captured one house after using grenades, a tank, a rocket launcher and bombs dropped by air support. In retaliation, gunmen kidnapped the governor of Anbar province, Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi, and said they would only release him if the US forces withdrew from Qaim.

********************

Jeez. Where do they think they are? Grenada?

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Gary,

Don't you get it? Lots of Iraqis dying doesn't matter. And judging from some of the news coverage Amerian troops dying is old hat.

Now someone not being to fill up his or her SUV? That's news. Michael Jackson? He's news.

The fat lady's sung on this one. Every single person who concocted this fiasco is going to get a Medal of Freedom, appointed to some nice, well paying political post, go to work for a think-tank, get a gig with a defense contractor, become a high-paid lobyist, or retire rich and relaxed to his ranch in Texas.

You've simply got to get with the program.

[Gary Sisco]

What I get is that it took a whole shitload of Marines and every bit of firepower available to them, including air power, to "take" ... one house.

That would indicate to me some pretty goddamned stiff resistance.

I'm also told that six or seven Marines were killed today and as many horribly wounded.

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

Gary,

Don't you get it? Lots of Iraqis dying doesn't matter. And judging from some of the news coverage Amerian troops dying is old hat.

Now someone not being to fill up his or her SUV? That's news. Michael Jackson? He's news.

The fat lady's sung on this one. Every single person who concocted this fiasco is going to get a Medal of Freedom, appointed to some nice, well paying political post, go to work for a think-tank, get a gig with a defense contractor, become a high-paid lobyist, or retire rich and relaxed to his ranch in Texas.

You've simply got to get with the program.

I hate to say it, but you're probably right.

[Gary Sisco]

I'm not with anyone's program, nor will I be, but it seems to me like there's a whole shitload of Iraqis that are going to keep on fighting as long as the gringos want to hang around.

Like I said before the whole shebang even got started, it's a hell of a lot easier to unleash the dogs of war than it is to call them back again.

Once the first shot is fired, everyone's improvising, on all sides. Anyone's whose heard one fired knows that.

So, people ought to get used to hearing Iraq War in the news for a long time to come. The next administration will also have to be dealing with it, like it or not. It'll still be going on, just as hot, then.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Gary,

I think a lot of pressure will be placed upon Bush to declare victory and bring the troops home prior to the '08 elections. Especially so if the Republicans lose any seats in Congress in the '06 elections.

[Gary Sisco]

Well, there was a whole lot more pressure on LBJ but guess what. Humphrey still wouldn't run as antiwar.

By the time the '06 elections come around there won't be many but the most stupidly faithful giving much of a fuck what Alfred E. Shithead says or does.

And the most stupidly faithful don't have the numbers on their own to amount to shit to a tree.

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

And the most stupidly faithful don't have the numbers on their own to amount to shit to a tree.

I wish you were right, but you're not. About one-fifth of registered voters are unequivocally behind George W. Bush. You could look it up. These are the folks who still think Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack. They are "Dumbfuckistan." Now, if George W. Bush were to seriously threaten their Social Security benefits, they might change their tune. But as I have pointed out here repeatedly, about 20% of registered voters will vote for a turd in a suit if it is anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage.

Don't take my word for it. Look at what Bill Frist is doing.

[Gary Sisco]

It's amazing how the alleged opposition talks itself into defeat without even bothering to oppose anything beyond mere bitching about what they don't like.

But it won't matter because the dem dispiritists don't number enough on their own to amount to shit to a tree, either.

The people who actually will depend, some entirely, on Social Security *do* have numbers that make or break elections, regardless, and they're going to break up some shit next year, despite all whinery, and hand the Dems some at least minor vicitories (like control of at least one house of Congress, or close enough so's the Repubs have to deal to avoid gridlock) -- even if they have to win a few seats against the apparent will and desire of their loyalists.

What an amazing country. What is an opposition that rules out opposition? No opposition at all.

As I've been saying, for decades.

Howling in the wilderness, babies ....

Nevertheless, Ike was right and they are wrong.

[tristano's ghost]

An entire Marine squad either killed or wounded in the past 96 hours:

>>The explosion enveloped the armored vehicle in flames, sending orange balls of fire bubbling above the trees along the Euphrates River near the Syrian border.
Marines in surrounding vehicles threw open their hatches and took off running across the plowed fields, toward the already blackening metal of the destroyed vehicle. Shouting, they pulled to safety those they could, as the flames ignited the bullets, mortar rounds, flares and grenades inside, rocketing them into the sky and across pastures.

Gunnery Sgt. Chuck Hurley emerged from the smoke and turmoil around the vehicle, circling toward the spot where helicopters would later land to pick up casualties. As he passed one group of Marines, he uttered one sentence: "That was the same squad."

Among the four Marines killed and 10 wounded when an explosive device erupted under their Amtrac on Wednesday were the last battle-ready members of a squad that four days earlier had battled foreign fighters holed up in a house in the town of Ubaydi. In that fight, two squad members were killed and five were wounded.

In 96 hours of fighting and ambushes in far western Iraq, the squad had ceased to be.

Every member of the squad -- one of three that make up the 1st Platoon of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment -- had been killed or wounded, Marines here said. All told, the 1st Platoon -- which Hurley commands -- had sustained 60 percent casualties, demolishing it as a fighting force.<<

Why don't some of the fatuous rightwing f*%wits who supported this war go over and fight in their stead?

[Gary Sisco]

Yep, nothing but a bunch of camel jockeys, out there busting the USMC's ass.

Nothing to worry about. Everything's under control.

[Gentle Giant]

While we're at it, let's take a dump on their holy book. One of the biggest failures of Vietnam is that we never knew the people we were fighting; their values or their motivation. Same thing is true with Bush's follies.

Nine killed as Afghan protests over Koran spread
By Sayed Salahuddin | May 13, 2005

KABUL (Reuters) - Anger spread in Afghanistan on Friday over a report that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Koran, and nine people were killed and about 30 wounded in protests, police and residents said.

Earlier, Islamic clerics speaking at weekly Friday prayers told worshippers that protests over the reported desecration of the holy book were justified, but urged Muslims to shun violence.

Their words fell on deaf ears as clashes erupted in different parts of the country shortly after prayers ended.

Four policemen and national army soldiers were killed in a gun battle with anti-U.S. protesters in Ghazni province, 150 km (90 miles) southwest of the capital, residents there said.

Three protesters were killed in the remote northeastern province of Badakhshan, said provincial police chief Shah Jahan Noori. The situation had calmed down but he feared more trouble.

"It's like a tsunami, anything can happen. It's difficult to predict," Noori told Reuters.

"Apart from the three killed, 21 people, including two police, were wounded." Protesters had damaged several aid agency offices, he said.

Newsweek magazine said in its May 9 edition that investigators probing abuses at the U.S. military prison in Cuba found that interrogators "had placed Korans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet."

Muslims consider the Koran the literal word of God and treat each book with deep reverence. The United States has promised to investigate the report.

One person was killed in a protest in Badghis province in the northwest and one in Paktia in the southeast, police said.

In all, 16 people have been killed in protests this week. About 100 have been hurt. Police stations, premises of the U.S.-backed government, and U.N. and aid group offices have been attacked and torched.

Early in the week it was college and high school students who took to the streets chanting "Death to America," denouncing their government and demanding punishment for those they believe desecrated the Koran.

But they have been joined by older men, many wielding sticks and hurling stones, and some armed.

"ABHORRENT TO ALL"

The United States commands a foreign force in Afghanistan of about 18,300, most of them American, fighting Taliban insurgents and hunting Taliban and al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, architect of the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. cities.

But U.S. and other foreign troops have not been involved in policing the protests, leaving that to Afghan authorities.

Afghan analysts have said Muslim outrage over the desecration report sparked the protests, not hatred of America, but there is growing resentment of U.S. forces, especially in ethnic-Pashtun areas of the south and east where U.S. forces mainly operate.

The Taliban, ousted by U.S.-led forces in late 2001, drew support from conservative Pashtun clans. Pashtuns are Afghanistan's largest ethnic group.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Muslims on Thursday to resist calls for violence, saying U.S. military authorities were investigating the allegation.

"Disrespect for the Holy Koran is abhorrent to us all," she said.

Protesters this week have also vented their anger against the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, who says he wants to forge closer relations with Washington.

Karzai is due to met President Bush later this month during a U.S. visit.

Preachers at Kabul mosques said it was the people's right to protest but urged peace.

"We respect the Koran and support those who demonstrate," former state president Sibghatullah Mojaddedi told worshippers in Kabul's main Blue Mosque. "But we want peaceful demonstrations."

The United States is holding more than 500 prisoners from its war on terrorism at Guantanamo Bay. Many were detained in Afghanistan after U.S.-led troops overthrew the Taliban.

[Gary Sisco]

People simply seem to be clueless that there are many, many people in the world today who aren't going to accept this kind of behavior anymore and are going to kill over it.

If I were in that situation, I'd change my behavior, frankly. But, no ....

But chickens do come home to roost. What goes around does come around.

Which is not a justification for the inevitable but only what ought to be a banal statement of the obvious but isn't.

A friend of mine in the service got a knife between his ribs in Thailand one day, while riding on a bus, because, even though he'd been told that it would piss people off and mightily, he insisted, being an American and therefore acting as if other people's cultures and ways are absurd at best or just stupid at worst, on riding with his legs crossed on the bus. But there was a cultural insult involved with the fact that when one's leg is crossed, the bottom of one's foot is pointed at someone else. Which might have seemed a stupid taboo to him and therefore to be disregarded, but who was the stupid one? The guy who'd been, from his point of view, very deeply insulted, or the gringo who, even with emphatically offered foreknowledge, decided to be an asshole to the point of being stabbed very nearly fatally?

You tell me.

[Gary Sisco]

One of the things that really has me flabbergasted is the unknowingness of it all. So few people seem to have any kind of grasp of the incredible level of violence required to take out an entire squad of US Marines, given the mindboggling firepower available to them, with which to defend themselves, including airpower, against which the Iraqi resistance, thus far, has very little to no means of defense.

Very, very few times did such a thing ever happen in Vietnam, for example, where the level of violence was extreme, indeed, but also where the very large proportion of casualties were the result of mines and booby-traps, rather than pitched firefights like the one described here. Nor has it happened at all often since, apart from Mogadishu, which was another mindbogglingly stupid operation that got a bunch of fine young people killed for no rational reason, the way the thing was organized and done.

We're talking an entire squad of Marines. 100% casualties. The squad no longer exists as a military force.

That's an incredible thing, to anyone who has any idea of what they are talking about. The level and determination of resistance required ought to be, in a sane situation, enough to make everyone, one and all, step back and take a very deep breath, and reexamine the entire deal along with their views of it.

But, no...

Far, far too many people in the US have had their understanding of violence and combat formed by television and movies. It's not like either and never has been.

Unfortunately, as always, it's the grunts that pay the price.

[Gary Sisco]

Here's another excellent and educated commentary I wish I could say is mine:

QUOTE OF THE DAY II: "Our military authorities are investigating these allegations fully. If they are proven true, we will take appropriate action." - secretary of state Condi Rice. I feel the same way about this statement as I did about the president's recent reaffirmation that atheists are as patriotic as Christian citizens. To put it bluntly: has it come to this? It is perfectly conceivable, given the torture policies promoted and permitted by this president, that desecration of the Koran has taken place in Guantanamo. Many other insane and inhumane interrogation tactics have turned out to be true. Remember smearing fake menstrual blood? We are in a critical war for world opinion. A critical part of our message is that this is not a war against Islam as such, but against Islamo-fascism and terror. And yet we see the religious right co-opting air force academies, and we hear of incidents like the alleged toilet-flush of the Koran. Since no one is ever held responsible for anything in the Bush administration, we can be sure this incident will be lied about, covered up or blamed on some poor military grunt who can be easily scapegoated. But at some point, we will have to confront the severe damage this administration has done to American prestige and credibility in a critical global battle of ideas because of its interrogation policies. These are self-inflicted wounds. Even if this incident turns out to be false, our previous policies have made it perfectly plausible. That is the shame - and the terrible gift from this administration to Osama bin Laden.

***********************

It is simply amazing how, despite all of the lessons of history, people in power refuse to recognize that a guerrilla war is fought most primarily at the level of ideas, that is, of politics. Indeed, there has never been a successful counterinsurgency war that made the military the primary force. The only successful ones have made politics the primary focus, and therefore, ideas. Something Americans too often shun, since so many believe -- despite all evidence to the contrary -- that firepower, technology, and economics must always have the final say. They don't and they haven't. Not today, not yesterday, not ever.

The only thing that can confront ideas passionately held is better ideas carefully articulated *and carried out.*

In short, the US is losing (indeed, may well have already lost) the primary battle that makes or breaks the military war. And through a purposeful arrogance and historical amnesia that is self-imposed as well as self-inflicted.

But, once again, as always, it will be the grunts that do the paying, and paying, and paying.

If that were not the case, there are large parts of me that simply wouldn't care, because there are a large number of people in power in the US who deserve a violent fate that some of them may well yet meet, given their behavior.

[Dr Dave]

How about this one, Gary: As I read it, this article suggests that while there may be political motives behind the "insurgency," they are chaotic, and therefore unsolvable.

May 15, 2005
The New York Times

The Mystery of the Insurgency

By JAMES BENNET
WASHINGTON — American forces in Iraq have often been accused of being slow to apply hard lessons from Vietnam and elsewhere about how to fight an insurgency. Yet, it seems from the outside, no one has shrugged off the lessons of history more decisively than the insurgents themselves.

The insurgents in Iraq are showing little interest in winning hearts and minds among the majority of Iraqis, in building international legitimacy, or in articulating a governing program or even a unified ideology or cause beyond expelling the Americans. They have put forward no single charismatic leader, developed no alternative government or political wing, displayed no intention of amassing territory to govern now.

Rather than employing the classic rebel tactic of provoking the foreign forces to use clumsy and excessive force and kill civilians, they are cutting out the middleman and killing civilians indiscriminately themselves, in addition to more predictable targets like officials of the new government. Bombings have escalated in the last two weeks, and on Thursday a bomb went off in heavy traffic in Baghdad, killing 21 people.

This surge in the killing of civilians reflects how mysterious the long-term strategy remains - and how the rebels' seeming indifference to the past patterns of insurgency is not necessarily good news for anyone.

It is not surprising that reporters, and evidently American intelligence agents, have had great difficulty penetrating this insurgency. What is surprising is that the fighters have made so little effort to advertise unified goals.

Counter-insurgency experts are baffled, wondering if the world is seeing the birth of a new kind of insurgency; if, as in China in the 1930's or Vietnam in the 1940's, it is taking insurgents a few years to organize themselves; or if, as some suspect, there is a simpler explanation.

"Instead of saying, 'What's the logic here, we don't see it,' you could speculate, there is no logic here," said Anthony James Joes, a professor of political science at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia and the author of several books on the history of guerrilla warfare. The attacks now look like "wanton violence," he continued. "And there's a name for these guys: Losers."

"The insurgents are doing everything wrong now," he said. "Or, anyway, I don't understand why they're doing what they're doing."

Steven Metz, of the Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, said the insurgency could still be sorting itself out. Yet, he said, "It really is significant that even two years in there hasn't been anything like any kind of political ideology or political spokesman or political wing emerging. It really is a nihilistic insurgency."

He warned that this hydra-headed quality could make the insurgents hard to crush, even as the lack of unity makes it unlikely they will rule Iraq. "It makes it harder to eradicate the insurgency, but it also makes it more difficult for insurgents to gain their ultimate objective - if that is to control the country," he said.

That no one knows if that is the objective is, by historical standards, one of several remarkable, perplexing features of this fight.

A clear cause - one with broad support - is usually taken for granted by experts as a prerequisite for successful insurgency.

But insurgents in Iraq appear to be fighting for varying causes: Baath Party members are fighting for some sort of restoration of the old regime; Sunni Muslims are presumably fighting to prevent domination by the Shiite majority; nationalists are fighting to drive out the Americans; and foreign fighters want to turn Iraq into a battlefield of a global religious struggle. Some men are said to fight for money; organized crime may play a role.

This incoherence is something new. "If you look at 20th-century insurgencies, they all tend to be fairly coherent in terms of their ideology," Dr. Metz said. "Most of the serious insurgencies, you could sit down and say, 'Here's what they want.' "

In Iraq, insurgent groups appear to share a common immediate goal of ridding Iraq of an American presence, a goal that may find sympathy among Iraqis angry about poor electricity and water service and high unemployment.

Average Iraqis may distinguish among the groups within the insurgency and their tactics. Still, the insurgents haven't publicly proposed a governmental alternative, and their anti-American message has been muddied by their attacks on civilians and by the election of an Iraqi government that has not asked the Americans to leave.

If the insurgency is trying to overthrow this regime, it is contending with a formidable obstacle that successful rebels of the 20th century generally did not face: A democratically elected government. One of the last century's most celebrated theorists and practitioners of revolution, Che Guevara, called that obstacle insurmountable.

"Where a government has come to power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality," he wrote, "the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted."

The insurgents' choice of adversary is unusual. But the recent surge in violence at least follows a time-tested pattern. The insurgents are apparently trying to swamp any progress toward stability with evidence and images of chaos. The killing in that time of at least 250 policemen, soldiers and recruits also fits a pattern, since insurgents have customarily made targets of accused collaborators to isolate a regime. Less obvious is the goal in the killing of some 150 civilians.

The relationship between insurgents and the general population is always complex. Mao Zedong famously postulated that guerrillas move among the people as fish move through water. But he also warned that "a revolution is not a dinner party," and many insurgents, including the Vietcong, effectively used terror - often selectively applied - against civilians to compel segments of the population into at least passive support.

From his experience fomenting Arab revolt against the Turks, T. E. Lawrence concluded that insurgents needed only 2 percent active support from the population, and 98 percent passive support.

What is curious about the Iraqi tactic is that it appears aimed at creating active opposition. The insurgency is powered by Sunnis; the civilians they have killed have been overwhelmingly Shiites and Kurds. The goal appears to be to split apart the fragile governing coalition and foment sectarian strife.

Yet if the insurgents achieve all-out civil conflict, the likely losers are the Sunnis themselves, since they are a minority. Having governed for decades in Iraq, Sunnis are accustomed to the whip hand and may simply assume they will be able to regain control. Or perhaps they are betting that chaos will lead to partition, allowing Sunnis to govern themselves.

David Galula, author of a systematic 1964 study, "Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice," noted the effectiveness of force and intimidation as tools of an insurgency. But he added a crucial caveat: "There is, of course, a practical if not ethical limit to the use of force; the basic rule is never to antagonize at any one time more people than can be handled."

That was one of several mistakes that the Communist rebels made in Greece in the late 1940's. Once the country was liberated from the Germans, the Communists had no majority cause, and they chose to confront a democratically elected government. Lacking much industry, Greece had few proletarians, and the peasants were not particularly restive.

Not that the Communists cared. They had contempt for the peasants and alienated them further by extorting food and reinforcements through threats and executions. They burned villages in hopes of making the peasants a burden on the American-backed government and crippling the Greek economy.

THE guerrillas benefited from support from the Communist dictatorships to Greece's north. Then, in July 1949, Tito shut the Yugoslav border, eliminating Yugoslavia as a sanctuary. But Professor Joes argued that, by then, the insurgents were doomed anyway. "They had already shot themselves in the feet and both knees," he said. In Iraq, American and Iraqi troops have embarked on an offensive in the west partly in hopes of cutting off what the military command says is a flow of foreign fighters and matériel across the Syrian border. But military experts say that without stationing thousands of troops along the border, the military has little chance of closing it off.

If the immediate objective of the insurgents is relatively limited - not to topple the government and drive the Americans out now but to pin them down and bleed them - that at least would have solid precedents. As the counterterrorism expert Bruce Hoffman noted in a paper for Rand last year, "For more than 30 years, a dedicated cadre of approximately 200 to 400 I.R.A. gunmen and bombers frustrated the maintenance of law and order in Northern Ireland, requiring the prolonged deployment of tens of thousands of British troops." Yet the I.R.A. is still far from its larger goal: to drive the British out.

Among Iraq's insurgents, the jihadists are one group that has suggested a sweeping goal. They want to establish a new caliphate - a religious regime with expansive boundaries. For them, the destruction and chaos in Iraq may represent creative forces, means of heightening the contrasts among sects, religions and whole civilizations. Searching for parallels, several experts compared the insurgents in Iraq to the violent anarchists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That movement took root among the alienated and uprooted who could find no place in modern society.

Yet it may prove to be one of history's humbling lessons that history itself fails to illuminate the conflict under way in Iraq. No one really knows what the insurgents are up to.

"It clearly makes sense to the people who are doing it," said Dr. Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute. "And that more than anything else tells us how little we understand the region."

[Gary Sisco]

Being written by an American, the writer fails to account for the fact that an insurgency cannot in fact begin, much less survive against a superpower, unless it has already won the hearts and minds of a very significant number of people, without whose support, they'd simply be exposed, tracked down, and murdered out of hand, end of story.

But they haven't been, and in fact, they continue to be able to offer extremely fierce resistance. Therefore, they have secure supply lines and sources. The logistics alone, never mind the clandestinity, requires the support of very large numbers of people who are not actual combatants (as a conventional army requires very large numbers of soldiers who are not in combat units, indeed, about ten for every combat soldier). And the existence of that very large number of people engaged in logistical and other support for armed, clandestine activity requires an even larger number of people who might not be engaged but nevertheless offer at least tacit support -- or they'd just rat out people who are in or actively supporting the movement, if only by too casually running their mouths in normal conversation.

For example, Ireland. Northern Ireland is very small place. Yet, the IRA and after it the Provisionals (and now the several fractures off of the Provos, who are themselves a fracture off of the traditional IRA) have managed to both survive and fight for nearly 40 years, despite the incredible (by comparison) police and intelligence and military resources of the Brits and their Prot allies (who also have their own "clandestine" armed movements that are also terrorist, and who actually started the armed struggle, in fact). This simply would not be possible if the IRA did not have the support of a substantial number of people. They'd all be dead by now or in prison, otherwise. And the Prot terrorist groups, ditto, if not for their support from the Prot police forces (often one and the same outfit, in any case, as they were in El Salvador) and British army, intelligence and cop forces.

The point being that there is no clandestine movement if there is no support for one. Can't be.

Americans have a very hard time getting a grip on the realities of guerrilla struggle and warfare. Which is why they haven't been able to successfully defeat an insurgency since they took over the Philipines many, many years ago. And they succeeded there because for once (the only time) they defeated it politically, by making political changes that disarmed the support for the insurgents.

But there are always exceptions to rules, aren't there. The above is the exception. The only one.

The reason is this: Everyone knows the (now) cliche that war is politics by other means. But they forget the flip side, which is that politics is war by other means. In a political struggle, the victor will win politically. All the firepower in the world won't change that. Americans should have learned this, if nothing else, from their experience in Vietnam, but they didn't and apparently won't.

The war in Iraq will continue now, for many years, even if the US leaves. Once the dogs are off leash, they're off leash, baby.

Please note that I'm not using VN as a military analogy because I don't think there is any comparison between the two wars, militarily. Iraq in future will look much more like Beirut in the days than Vietnam.

[tristano's ghost]

Gary,
What's a good online source for U.S. casualties? I've been using this one, but don't know how reliable it is... a friend of mine told me that WIAs who are flown to Germany and die there aren't counted as "hostile kills" or combat deaths, since they died in Germany rather than Iraq.

[Gary Sisco]

Ghost: The Bushists have so demolished language itself at this point that the word casualty has become meaningless, in historical terms. I couldn't tell you of a good source because I don't do much surfing, other than the papers (both US and international). I haven't read the alternative press in years because I don't need or like to be told what to think. I just want the news. I can tell myself what I think about it. ;-) However they define them, their definition is now complete out of touch with military history, and so the casualty rate in this war will be incomparable with any other, as the numbers won't jive. I can say that, given the way they've defined them so far, your friend would be right. If a wounded soldier doesn't die in Iraq, he won't be counted as a KIA, today. He might not even be counted as a WIA, depending on the circumstances. There's a young VTer who was killed early on in the war, during a drive-by while on sentry duty in Baghdad, who still hasn't been counted as a casualty (of any sort) because the bright lights at the Pentagon have yet to determine if he was involved in a "combat incident."

By their definition, we can reduce the casualty numbers in all previous wars, US or otherwise, by at least half.

It's grossly deceitful and will actually work against many vets in future who are/were casualties of the war by any historical definition, but who are not considered such by the Bushists, when it comes time for them to try to secure their VA benefits.

Support out troops, baby.

[Gary Sisco]

In the meantime:

US generals say Iraq outlook 'bleak'

Growing insurgency, sectarian violence, force military to reexamine US situation in Iraq.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com


US military commanders from both Iraq and Afganistan, in a series of briefings and interviews over the past week, gave downbeat assessments of the situations in both countries. The New York Times reports that the generals "pulled back" from predictions made earlier this year that the US would be able to substantially reduce its troop level by early 2006.
One general said that the US would be in Iraq and Afghanistan for "many years to come."





Another senior officer in Baghdad, speaking to the Times on condition of anonymity, said unless the new Iraq government gives Iraqis something to believe in, the US mission in Iraq could collapse.

'I think that this could still fail,' the officer said at the background briefing, referring to the US effort in Iraq. 'It's much more likely to succeed, but it could still fail.' He said much depended on the new government's success in increasing public confidence among Iraqis.
The officer said recent polls conducted by Baghdad University had shown confidence flagging sharply, down from an 85 percent rating immediately after the elections. 'For the insurgency to be successful, people have to believe the government can't survive,' he said. 'When you're in the middle of a conflict, you're trying to find pillars of strength to lean on.'

The Boston Globe reported Thursday that Gen. John Abizaid, chief of US Central Command, said one of the main reasons for the deterioration of the situation was the "slow progress of Iraqi police is delaying improvements in the country's overall security, forcing Iraqi military units to perform internal security functions."
In an analysis piece for the The Washington Times, Martin Seiff, United Press International senior news analyst, says that it was a "bad week" for US policy in Iraq. Not only did you have the US military saying that troops would be in the region for years, but the new government of Iraq gave a warm welcome to the Iranian foreign minister.

... the strongest sign yet that Iraq won't stay in Washington's pocket. This also signals the danger of a huge Iraqi Shiite reaction against US forces if the United States ever clashes with Iran over its nuclear program.
The Christian Science Monitor reports that the visit by the Iranian foreign minister "underscored a US policy dilemma in Iraq."
'You've got two different trajectories, and I don't think the Americans have come to this realization,' says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, contacted in Tehran. 'The Americans have hard power in Iraq, but the Iranians have soft power, and they are able to do things. It is a much more subtle influence than the Americans.'
The Washington Times also notes that the "somber public acknowledgement by senior Army officers this week is likely to come as a cold shock to the US public and to hawkish media commentators" who had assumed that the recent election of an Iraqi government would declaw the insurency.
Meanwhile, Agence-France Presse reports that a "series of tit-for-tat" killings has raised sectarian tensions "to the boiling point" in Iraq.

The Committee of Muslim Scholars, Iraq's main Sunni religious authority, on Wednesday accused a Shi'ite militia of killing Sunnis after dozens of bodies turned up in Baghdad. Some of the dead had been tortured ... The Sunni committee said security forces 'formed mostly by militias of certain parties taking part in the government' were responsible for killing 14 Sunnis, including three imams, in western Baghdad recently.
The Shiite interior minister and the Sunni defense minister have both denied the religious group's claims.
Radio Free Europe notes that the rise in tensions comes on the heels of this week's pronouncement by Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, that the country's Shiite population "has betrayed the Muslim cause," and that killing innocent Muslims was justified if it happens when attacking "collaborators."

The Los Angeles Times reports that the situation in Iraq had now forced the Bush administration to do something it says it didn't want to do: "deepen its involvement in the process of running Iraq."

The new American approach came clearly into focus this week. Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, visiting Iraq on Thursday, called for 'an inclusive process' in governing the country and urged action on a new constitution. His trip came days after a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Rice's visit, which carried a signal of American support for the fledgling government, was 'very welcome,' [Karim Khutar Almusawi of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq] said.

Finally, in a move designed to inflame tensions with US forces in Iraq, the Associated Press reports radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called on mosques to paint US and Israeli flags outside their entrances, so that worshippers could step on them. He said the move was a protest against "US occupation" and for the alleged desecration of a Koran by US interrogators in Guantanamo, Cuba.

********************************

Only a fool or a Pollyanna would conclude that the next administration won't inherit this amazing and amazingly stupid mess.

[Gary Sisco]

And meanwhile, also, in the other war that hardly even gets mentioned:

Afghan prisoners were 'tortured to death' by American guards
By Justin Huggler, Asia Correspondent
21 May 2005


Shocking and detailed accounts have emerged of how two Afghan prisoners were tortured to death by American interrogators and prison guards at Bagram air base, outside Kabul.

A 2,000-page report on an internal investigation by the US military leaked to The New York Times and published yesterday provides exhaustive detail on how the two were kept chained in excruciating positions and kicked to death.

The harrowing stories of the deaths of Habibullah and Dilawar told in the report could prove as damaging to the US as the photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

The report reveals that Dilawar, a taxi driver, died despite the fact that most of the interrogators were convinced he was innocent.

There will be fears of an explosive reaction in Afghanistan. The New York Times report comes a week after at least 15 people were killed in protests in Afghanistan triggered by a Newsweek report which said US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Koran down a lavatory. Newsweek has since retracted the report, saying it was based on a flawed source.

But The New York Times story will not go away so easily for the Bush administration. Its source is the findings of the US military's own investigation. It also comes at a dangerous time in Afghanistan, with violence increasing and signs that the Taliban may be resurgent.

The leaked report contains graphic details of a culture of abuse at Bagram, where detainees are held while the US military decides whether to send them to Guantanamo. In sworn statements, US soldiers tell of a woman interrogator with a taste for humiliation who stepped on the neck of one detainee and kicked another in the genitals.

They also tell of Specialist Damien Corsetti, an interrogator called "Monster" - he had the word tattooed in Italian across his chest - who one sergeant praised as the "king of torture". One Saudi detainee testified that Spc Corsetti held his penis against his face and threatened to rape him.

The report includes the names of all the US soldiers involved. It details the cases of the two Afghan men who died in US custody. The first, Habibullah, was captured in November 2002. He was locked in an isolation cell with his hands shackled to the wire ceiling over his head. The report describes how he was literally kicked to death over several days.

The guards found him "uncooperative", and he was given multiple "peroneal strikes" - a disabling blow to the leg just above the knee. "That was kind of like an accepted thing; you could knee somebody in the leg," former Sgt Thomas Curtis told investigators.

A lawyer for one of the guards who kneed Habibullah in this fashion told US investigators: "My client was acting consistently with the standard operating procedure that was in place at the Bagram facility."

When Habibullah started coughing up phlegm and complaining of chest pains, the guards laughed at him. Eventually his dead body was found hanging from the handcuffs that still chained him to the ceiling. A post-mortem examination found that he was probably killed by a blood clot, caused by the leg injuries, which travelled to his heart and blocked the blood supply to his lungs.

Dilawar, a taxi driver, was detained in December 2002 as he drove past a US base that had earlier come under rocket attack. Passengers he had picked up were carrying suspicious items.

Spc Corey Jones, an interrogator, told investigators that Dilawar spat in his face. He responded with a couple of knee strikes.

"He screamed out, 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' and my first reaction was that he was crying out to his God," Spc Jones said. "Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny." The report says it became a running joke and prison guards kicked Dilawar just to hear him scream "Allah". "It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes," he said.

During an interrogation, the severely injured Dilawar begged a translator to get him a doctor. The translator says he told the interrogators, but one replied: "He's OK. He's just trying to get out of his restraints."

An autopsy found that Dilawar died of heart failure caused by "blunt force injuries to the lower extremities". The coroner, Lieutenant-Colonel Elizabeth Rouse, told a pre-trial hearing that his legs "had basically been pulpified ... I've seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus."

Seven US soldiers face criminal charges.

***************************************

To make matters worse, 2000 pages or not, the "investigators" did not bother to interview an eye-witness to murder -- and a sergeant, no less. To his everlasting credit as a man, a human being, *and a soldier* (soldiers having no duty to countenance immoral behavior or to follow immoral or criminal orders), he volunteered his testimony to those who apparently didn't want to have it. Hey, no news is good news.

Especially if your job is to be an official liar.

See Sullivan's site for the link:

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: "I remember being so mad that I had trouble speaking," - Sergeant Yonushonis, who witnessed the death-by-torture of an innocent man by U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan. He had to provide details voluntarily because investigators never approached him. I hope those who have been led to believe that the abuse of detainees occurred only at Abu Ghraib, that they were merely "fraternity high jinx" or represented in some way legitimate ways to procure intelligence, will read this story. I do not believe that Sergeant Yonushonis is "naive" or "excitable." Or that his "squeamishness" is somehow inappropriate in defending civilization. Recall: this investigation was triggered by two murders. What happened when the abuse didn't reach the level of murder? And will we ever know?

[Gary Sisco]

This sort of thing makes me want to puke so badly that I may decide to bow out of marching in the color guard on Memorial Day (so many of our superpatriots out there can't be bothered, what with the sales and all, that the local Legion post has to call on an old commie traitor like myself to guard its colors for them). I haven't decided yet, because I am a vet after all and I have my own memories of the dead to honor, but I'm not going to *dishonor* them by standing in a color guard while listening to some twit's version of patriotism as it exists today. I'd rather puke on his shoes than guard his colors, to tell the truth.

And, actually, not marching in the color guard and telling them why might be the most effective individual protest I could make today, given that their superpatriots can't be bothered.

What happens when no vets turn out for Memorial Day?

[Gary Sisco]

A very interesting read, by the way, is *Generation Kill,* about recon Marines in combat in Iraq, and the extreme and conscious irrelevancy of basic moral and political questions to them, as pro soldiers, which is to say, as mercenaries.

Read this and then compare grunt takes in say *Citizen Soldiers,* and you will note the difference right away between citizen soldiers of a republic *actually* fighting to defend democratic society as such and a professional military force that perceives itself, quite accurately and truthfully, as the stormtroopers of imperialism. The grunts actually *expect* that they are being lied to when given reasons for the war but, being pros, simply don't care.

That kind of moral ambivalence cannot help but create situations like the present torture as official policy. The first time in American history where torture is defended and those who report it accused of treason. That is, it's not the behavior that's unacceptable. Reporting it is.

That in itself is perhaps the most immoral aspect of it.

And here again we see one of the most corrosive aspects of relativism, without which influence on the last two generations, the present situation vis-a-vis both torture *and* the creation of a mercenary force would be unthinkable. Language is increasingly rendered meaningless by this corrosion while at the same time being seen as the creator of reality. Torture is wrong if you think it's wrong. If you don't, it's not. Reporting it is right if you think it's right. Wrong if you think it's wrong.

But the one side has the force of a global superpower behind it, and the other does not.

Nothing subjective about that particular reality.

[Gary Sisco]

If My Lai were to happen today (and actually it did and then some in Falluja, where the Marines cleared the city, room by room, literally, with hand grenades -- without any way of knowing, but then also without caring, who happened to be in those rooms before grenading them), the good guy in the story would be Calley and the bad guy the chopper pilot who ended the massacre by ordering his crew to draw down on the Americans doing the butchering, and the even worse guy still, the one who insisted on reporting the massacre and demanding an investigation.

[patricia]

When My Lai was reported, there were those who defended the actions of Calley and his soldiers and felt that it was damaging to the war effort to report this and other atrocities committed by Americans in Viet Nam.
This resulted in Calley being paroled early from his original sentence in 1974.
The helicopter pilot was the real hero in this horrible blot on America, but it is Calley's name that people remember.

Yes, the Falluja events reminded me of the so-called "search and destroy" missions in Viet Nam, where ordinary people's lives were cheap, not to themselves as was suggested by the American brass and enlisted men, but to the American government and to the military.
Same thing in Afghanistan and in Iraq, IMO. When will we learn??

[Gary Sisco]

Yeah, except there wasn't any search in Fallujah, only destroy. You have to look first before you can search.

And the Americal (elements of which were responsible for My Lai) was perhaps the most ill-led and disorganized fuck ups in all of the American Army in all of its history in Vietnam.

Fallujah was conducted by the USMC, in a highly disciplined, planned and organized fashion. Which in a way is even more murderous, because cold blooded, not hot blooded. Bad shit happens when people go into combat, since combat is bad shit to begin with. But spontaneous butchery in hot blood is more comprehensible to me, frankly, than cold-blooded, carefully, even bureaucratically (people often forget that the military is an enormous, armed bureaucracy) planned mass murder -- esp given that the average age of American soldiers in Vietnam was only 19 and many of them were not pros. That isn't at all the case today.

And there is another huge difference: There was every effort taken to *cover up* My Lai because people were ashamed of what had happened and they didn't want it to be known.

Fallujah was prime time and still there aren't people enough to matter in the country who even know what happened there enough to be ashamed of it -- and fewer still who would be, even if they did know.

In VN days, the very large number of American adults, esp men but many women as well, were vets of WW1, WW2, Korea, or VN, too, far's that goes. So many of them understood very well the moral difference between doing what is unfortunate but sometimes historically necessary and chasing down and murdering very close to an entire village of farmers and their families, many at point blank range, up close and personal.

The same, again, cannot be said today, when nearly everyone of all ages is a civilian and always has been and so they get their understanding of these things, if at all, from the movies and tv. Or books, perhaps, some few of them. But there's never been a movie that's even come close to the real thing. Not ever. Not one. Even the best of them are phony.

Another difference is this, say what you want: Calley was an officer and he did time, if not anywhere near enough time. If anyone thinks a former, court- martialed officer gets cut any slack in a military prison where the screws are nearly all enlisted guys, think again. Doing any time in a military prison is doing hard time. Which isn't to say that he shouldn't have done more time. I'd have seen to it, if I were king, that he -- and others -- spent the rest of their lives not only in a military prison but also at hard labor. Indeed, brutal labor.

But you won't see an officer do time today, any time at all, even for the deliberate, coldblooded torture and murder of prisoners whose indentity, never mind history, are entirely unknown to the torturing murderers.

One great irony of history: The investigating officer, once they were finally forced into an official investigation of My Lai, was ... Colin Powell.

Who I hope very much spends the rest of his life suffering from sleep disorders.

He deserves them and has earned them.

[tristano's ghost]

A Baghdad offensive?

Jiminy... two years after "Mission Accomplished," and we're launching a 2,500-man assault to try to "secure" the nation's capital?

Meanwhile...

Anybody else hear a familiar ring to the "several-hundred-insurgents captured"/body count mantras we've been getting in the media re: Iraq?

[patricia]

[QUOTE=tristano's ghost

Anybody else hear a familiar ring to the "several-hundred-insurgents captured"/body count mantras we've been getting in the media re: Iraq?[/QUOTE]


I do and I am having some nasty flashbacks.
Didn't I hear at the beginning of this ill-conceived fiasco that the military would not be doing the "body counts" which were so common in Viet Nam??
I know that bodies of Americans killed and returning are not shown to the Americans on television, but we have seen footage of that and more here.
Being a "suspected insurgent" could mean anything from an actual terrorist, to a regular person who simply looks Iraqi and grabs the attention of a brigade of overzealous American military personel. Who's to say if they are terrorists, especially if they are young, dead, Iraqi men or women. NOBODY. Apparently the citizens of the country the Bush Administration has decided to "liberate" are not of any consequence.

[Gary Sisco]

*Generation Kill.*

Read it.

Why bother with talking heads in the States who've never worn a uniform and what they think about anything (including what they think is happening on the other side of the planet -- mainly because of what some other talking head had to say) when you can read not only about what they were doing minute by minute but more importantly perhaps what the forward-most forward grunts had to say *while* they were doing the killing and dying?

Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one. Not all of them need to be seen.

[tristano's ghost]

Via Newsweek:

Living and working in Iraq, it's hard not to succumb to despair. At last count America has pumped at least $7 billion into reconstruction projects, with little to show for it but the hostility of ordinary Iraqis, who still have an 18 percent unemployment rate. Most of the cash goes to U.S. contractors who spend much of it on personal security. Basic services like electricity, water and sewers still aren't up to prewar levels. Electricity is especially vital in a country where summer temperatures commonly reach 125 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet only 15 percent of Iraqis have reliable electrical service. In the capital, where it counts most, it's only 4 percent.
The most powerful army in human history can't even protect a two-mile stretch of road. The Airport Highway connects both the international airport and Baghdad's main American military base, Camp Victory, to the city center. At night U.S. troops secure the road for the use of dignitaries; they close it to traffic and shoot at any unauthorized vehicles. More troops and more helicopters could help make the whole country safer. Instead the Pentagon has been drawing down the number of helicopters. And America never deployed nearly enough soldiers. They couldn't stop the orgy of looting that followed Saddam's fall. Now their primary mission is self-defense at any cost--which only deepens Iraqis' resentment.

The four-square-mile Green Zone, the one place in Baghdad where foreigners are reasonably safe, could be a showcase of American values and abilities. Instead the American enclave is a trash-strewn wasteland of Mad Max-style fortifications. The traffic lights don't work because no one has bothered to fix them. The garbage rarely gets collected. Some of the worst ambassadors in U.S. history are the GIs at the Green Zone's checkpoints. They've repeatedly punched Iraqi ministers, accidentally shot at visiting dignitaries and behave (even on good days) with all the courtesy of nightclub bouncers--to Americans and Iraqis alike. Not that U.S. soldiers in Iraq have much to smile about. They're overworked, much ignored on the home front and widely despised in Iraq, with little to look forward to but the distant end of their tours--and in most cases, another tour soon to follow. Many are reservists who, when they get home, often face the wreckage of careers and family.

Full story here. Geez, I wish W. would make another one of those high-lair-eeus videos where he looks under his desk for WMDs...