Comments on: Zarqawi again

By: mark

mark — Tue, 18 May 2004 05:57:53 +0000

I think it’s important to note that Saddam Hussein, like Osama bin Laden and Manuel Noriega before him, is an ex-CIA-thug-who-stopped-following-orders, not much different from all the CIA thugs around the world that are still following orders, such as those behind the recent coups and coup attempts in Venezuela and Haiti (both financed in part by John McCain’s International Republican Institute.) No discussion of how to deal with monsters is complete without mentioning that our own monster factory is running at full speed, and our government fully support genocide and repression in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, respectively.

By: Kevin Hayden

Kevin Hayden — Sun, 16 May 2004 13:48:30 +0000

Judging by the shifting rationales, the denying of the source of the early impetus to pin anything on SH for a casus belli, methinks there was no nobility to the decision for regime change, no liberal vision of a freed people gone democratic amusement park. Too much reeks of two motivations. Undoing the unsatisfactory result of the first Gulf War (the Inigo Montoya factor) and a garden-variety pursuit of lucre. Whenever the truth seems elusive and complicated, I’ve found it the most reliable to first ‘follow the money’. The evidence so supports that hunch while other theories lead to I-suppose-it-could-happen-that-way, that it remains the best guess among many. Chalabi, Feith, Perle, Cheney and others, including anyone sharing the Carlyle Group portfolio, have gained great gobs of lucre both today and tomorrow, borrowing their investment capital from their favorite lending institute, the Bank of the Unwitting Taxpayer. Vindication, the brawny rush of macho power asserted and personal greed remain the most viable rationales and the rest seem like afterthoughts. When honor, resppect, patriotism, God and undeterred determination are invoked and promoted, it’s ALWAYS wise to count the silverware. The surest clues for this war remain the inability for anyone to quantify its cost within 7 or 8 decimal points and the funds shifted between kitties without Congressional assent. In retrospect, taking out Zarqawi first would have kept Americans safer. As it wasn’t done, rather than supposition of a judgment error, it suggests that keeping Americans safer was simply not a primary motive.

By: WJ Phillips

WJ Phillips — Sun, 16 May 2004 12:49:14 +0000

DG: On http://www.airstripone.blogspot.com it was mooted that US military types could have cooked up the fake British pix to inject some moral equivalence into the argument about different styles of occupation (British more low key, berets instead of helmets). But I think it’s just as likely that there were real abuses and some Royal Lancs squaddies went too far trying to prove them. Maybe they were additionally stirred by the scent of Mirror gold.

By: dg

dg — Sun, 16 May 2004 11:56:07 +0000

After the mystery of Wandering Berg, has anyone yet suggested that the fake photos of British Soldiers were done to deflect attention from the US prison photos?

By: Glenn Condell

Glenn Condell — Sun, 16 May 2004 05:29:04 +0000

Foil hats on. http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=5/16/2004&Cat=2&Num=029 http://www.rense.com/general52/anom.htm http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2004_05_09_dneiwert_archive.html#108446504066622572 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4FFA61A3-9C33-4597-A8D9-8079E91F2784.htm http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/05/con04214.html Does the smoke indicate mirrors or fire? I just can’t get my head around the fact that he was there at all… to build communication towers? Now? And he stayed when he was warned to go? The US had him? (No we didn’t, yes we did) Then let him go? Was he CIA, Mossad, or just trying to make his fortune? Is there an Oedipal compulsion involved, given the father’s prog profile and the perhaps resentful son’s striking out in the opposite direction? This is before you even begin to think about the anomalies assayed in links above. Sorry, I’m one of those people who’s still unconvinced Wellstone’s death was accidental. Did they ever find that black box by the way? Oh I’m sceptical of anything retailed on some of the sites above… but then I’m just as sceptical now of the New York Times. Wheat and chaff, it’s not easy to tell em apart these days.

By: Lance Boyle

Lance Boyle — Sat, 15 May 2004 18:34:19 +0000

Let’s have a political discussion about some life-and-death conflicts in places on the other side of the world. The rules are: I get to choose the people we talk about, and the words we use to describe them – “al-Sadr” and “Zarqawi” and “terrorist” and “firebrand”, for instance – since these will be people you’ve never heard of before, you’ll just have to take my word for it. I will provide examples to back up my definitions, but there will be no rebuttal. I also get to define the actions and conflicts that we’ll be discussing, with morally-loaded nouns like “attack” “defend” “response” and “insurgency”; these terms and definitions will not be open to debate. I will have complete control of a very tightly-configured bottleneck on all the news on these subjects you get; unless, that is, you want to spend 4 or 5 hours every day online researching nothing but the available internet journalism on the topic under discussion; however, even then, non-mainstream internet journalism will have no value as citation in this argument. First-person eye-witness accounts are inadmissible unless they’re from sanctioned journalists, and I’ll be the only authority for sanctioning journalists. Aside from that, you can have and defend any opinion that you feel comfortable having or defending, provided you accept the above conditions. Ready?

By: pepi

pepi — Sat, 15 May 2004 17:14:28 +0000

rajeev: apologies accepted. I do agree with most of what you wrote too. Also on McCain. I like that guy. I don’t think Kerry would change the substance of the US policy much, but it would definitely change the style, and style is very much substance too, in politics. – you know, when I read this bit you wrote: “My major problem, then, with the Bush administration is its refusal to treat the conflict as an ideological one” – I thought, why, it’s even too much ideological! But I was meaning something quite different. I think there’s too much propaganda already, but not the good “winning hearts and minds” kind you mean. Too much rhetorics of the clash-of-civilisation variety, and too at the higher ideological plane where everything gets absurdly reduced to binary opposites. That is what annoys me most. It’s like there’s this contest on who gets to be more jihad-minded… I think the terrorists are winning already to some extent in that respect.

By: Rajeev Advani

Rajeev Advani — Sat, 15 May 2004 16:42:14 +0000

PS —Apologies about the straw- man argument. I actually have had to make that point before, though :)

By: Rajeev Advani

Rajeev Advani — Sat, 15 May 2004 16:36:45 +0000

well, can you explain how you manage to keep trusting an overall strategy that proves morally obtuse and totally unforgivable in such a relevant aspect (and not just that one either? In the run-up to the war I was on the fence, primarily because the post-war occupation strategy had not been spelled out, and no long-term commitments had been promised. In the immediate aftermath of the war—when things seemed relatively stable—I shifted my position into firm ex-post support of the war, because of its humanitarian effect. I agree that the war was not fought for humanitarian reasons—but to most liberal interventionists what mattered was that it had humanitarian effects (and by that I mean creating political and economic freedom; I don’t agree with the UN’s stiff definitions about halting genocide). That fits in with a long-term goal of the United States to spread liberalism. I believe in that goal, and am willing to accept any grand strategy of the Bush administration—within reasonable bounds of sanity—insofar as it aligns itself with it. In a world of imperfect presidential candidates, the Bush administration’s strategy need not be motivated by a desire to carry reform abroad, so long as it has that effect. My major problem, then, with the Bush administration is its refusal to treat the conflict as an ideological one. The refusal to fight a propaganda war, to be mindful of prisoner treatment, and to employ more incentive-based reform in Iraq alongside military action. Yet, as the just outrage over Abu Ghreib showed, what they refuse to do they will be forced to do. The saving grace of the war is that it has tied the American people’s future to that of the Iraqi people. Whether or not they want to be in Iraq, Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al must ensure that the Iraqi people soon enjoy economic and political freedoms. So, to answer your question more directly: I support a long-term pro-actively liberal US foreign policy, and only accept the Bush strategy on a piecemeal basis. I’m reinforced by the notion that the Bush administration is being forced into properly reforming Iraq. I think a number of liberal interventionists have made a similar point, that while they agree with the Bush administration’s policy in theory—and want the US to head in that direction—they would prefer to have someone more competent running the show. For that reason I was quite excited when Kerry hinted that McCain could be his secretary of defense.

By: pepi

pepi — Sat, 15 May 2004 16:28:01 +0000

Heh. Well. Maybe. Still, better to be a coward than a terrorist! (The above statement is irrefutable in view of the current zeitgeist.)

By: truthbetold

truthbetold — Sat, 15 May 2004 14:57:25 +0000

Pepi, you’re just a coward.

By: pepi

pepi — Sat, 15 May 2004 09:53:13 +0000

Ps – to rajeev: when you say, “Squandering that opportunity was strategically and morally obtuse, totally unforgivable”, well, can you explain how you manage to keep trusting an overall strategy that proves morally obtuse and totally unforgivable in such a relevant aspect (and not just that one either)? Believe me I have no firm certainties here. No radical positions. Not pro-war, not anti-war, I’m just trying to figure it out. Honestly. When I came to the temporary conclusion that, hey, they might know what they’re doing after all, I was making a leap of faith. Based on nothing other than the US and UK being more reliable and sane than the then Iraqi regime. That’s so not enough. I’m ok with wallowing in doubt, I’m used to that. I just hope they know what they’re doing. There you go, after two years, after reading all sorts of possible documents and analyses and strategical forecasting, I’m back to being required a leap of faith. It’s not exactly an encouraging feeling.

By: pepi

pepi — Sat, 15 May 2004 09:43:51 +0000

John QuigginIn particular, as I ask in the post, why not start with Zarqawi ? Indeedy. And it’s only one in many, many such instances of incoherence (for want of a better term). Where’s the strategy that accounts for that?

By: pepi

pepi — Sat, 15 May 2004 09:35:18 +0000

rajeev: tsk, tsk, straw man alert… I did not say the question was “why not overthrow every tyrant everywhere?”, but “why Saddam” – it is different, the emphasis is on the case for war in Iraq and the need to make it clear and coherent. It’s not a case of all-or-nothing. It’s about accounting for your strategy by explaining why you need to go after Saddam right now, and why, for instance, block investigations into things concerning the Saudis. Or why Musharaf is an ally against terrorism. And I’m saying this as someone who was not even opposed to the war in Iraq. I went from being totally unconvinced to accepting there might be a more sensible strategy there than it seemed, after all – but I still have no proof for that hypothesis. And I still feel rather led by the nose by the arguments used and the lack of satisfying response to those other questions about other dictatorships that seemed to have a clearer, overt connection to terrorism. And to 9/11 in the specific. Wars of regime change can’t possibly occur simultaneously, and regime change needn’t always follow the rubric of Iraq. Of course, but that is turning the question upside down. Besides, precisely because regime change doesn’t always have to involve war, that allows for more simultaneous action. Certainly no military action is possible against North Korea because of their strength Well see that’s a very counterproductive argument to use. Especially if put in those terms. So no, supporting the invasion of Iraq does not mean one must support military invasion against every country the world over. I never said that or believed that either. So, no, I’m not going for the “all-or-nothing” thinking. And of course an anti-terrorism policy doesn’t have to involve military invasion in each case. It can only be something like allowing an extremely relevant investigation to continue in full. Investigations surely can occur simultaneously on different entities, right? it seems to be an essential requirement of anti-terrorism. The “Saddam is not the only thug the world, not even the only one in the Arab world, so why overthrow only him?” critique ignores the concept of a timeline, the importance of tactics, and the fundamentals of long-term strategy. Yeah, if that strategy had been explained and managed coherently. A better question is “Saddam is not the only thug in the world, so why start with him?” Absolutely. That’s exactly what I meant. That is the question and the meaning I had in mind. I didn’t think adding a “start with” would be necessary to make it clearer. I have an answer to this, but we all tire of rehashing these old arguments. Probably, yes. But they’re still relevant to the question of what to do in Iraq from now on. It doesn’t matter what you or me says. What matters is what those in charge reply to that question, today. Instead, now the military invasion part is done, the reasons why are now sort of being taken for granted, no longer accounted for, no longer even brought up. It’s ok to concentrate on rebuilding Iraq. It’s not ok to sidestep accounting for why we’re there in the first place. Because now is the best time to account for it – not with pro or against arguments before the fact, but with results.

By: BP

BP — Sat, 15 May 2004 08:29:17 +0000

“The “why not overthrow every tyrant everywhere?” all-or-nothing canard has been answered, repeatedly. “ It’s not a canard. It’s the standard answer to the latest justification from pro-war types (WMD, UN resolutions, al-Qaeda and flypaper having fallen by the wayside), utilizing the exact same rationale. There is a nuanced case to be made for invading Iraq, but Tombo didn’t make it, and his simplistic argument (“if you don’t support the invasion then you support rape rooms”) is easily countered by replacing Iraq with Sudan, or Liberia, or the Congo, ad infinitum, and throwing the same question back at the interlocutor. Making a nuanced argument is something else, bit that’s not what tombo is doing.