Nir Rosen in Boston Review

Noam Chomsky on War Crimes in Iraq.

“Actions like this by American troops would be counter-productive.”

How productive is “losing” $9bn of reconstruction money? Or for that matter invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and turning it into a breeding and training ground for terrorists?

Reading the popular press (I mean like the New York Times), I am always struck by how the chattering classes can’t tell the difference between different types of Christians (even though we live in the same country as they). If I had a dollar for every NYT article commenting on how strange it is that some highly “religious” Baptist church doesn’t have any crucifixes displayed, I’d be rich.

One of the most depressing parts of George Packer’s The Assassin’s Gate was his depiction of a meeting between George W. Bush and Iraqi exiles, where the exiles had to spend much of the meeting explaining to Bush that there were two different kinds of Muslims, Sunni and Shia. I suspect he knows the difference now.

This can’t actually be true, can it? I haven’t read Packer so I don’t know the context, but did W just sleep through the Iran Hostage crisis? That is just mind-boggling.

Not many Baptist churches where I’m from – why no crosses?

barry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

“Tony Blair today described anti-Americanism across Europe as ‘madness’, although admitted the US could be a ‘difficult friend to have’.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1740614,00.html?gusrc=rss

Perhaps no one has yet dared mention to Tony how much “anti-Americanism” there is in the American media.

What a bunch of unsubstantiated horse shit. If you’ll fall for this pack of lies, no wonder your book sucked so bad.

My point was that the US did and is still doing a lot of things in Iraq that seem extremely “counterproductive” to most of the world apart from the Bush administration and/or the Pentagon. They’ve shown very little sign of understanding that and mending their ways. Therefore the fact that this action appears counterproductive has little bearing on whether or not it actually happened.

It’s not at all counterproductive. Breaking large united country into smaller fighting fractions is not counterproductive, it’s the oldest trick in the book.

I blame al-Sistani, he made a deal with the devil. No 72 virgins for you, Ayatollah; you’re getting two dozen fat and hairy bikers.

“Sure, I’m as anti-Bush as they come but I ain’t no anti-American.”

The point is that our Tony and the Blairites as well as – to many appearances – the neocons, bedrock Republicans and the fundies in America, are apt to speak as though criticism of Bush is congruent with anti-Americanism. Tony and associates are adept at dismissing criticism of his policies by smears. It is much easier to paint European critics of the Iraq war as “anti-American” than to have to argue the issue and justify the lies told to dupe the electorate here.

What reassures so many admirers of America in Europe – like myself – is that undisguised, naked pluralism manifestly flourishes in America. It is precisely because America is not a totalitarian monolith that so much mainstream, traditional anti-Americanism, as espoused by the Islamicists and some Europeans, is so profoundly flawed. Those shown in newsreels from the Middle East after 9-11 as cheering the achievement of al-Qaeda were effectively applauding a judicial principle of guilt by association. That is what is so objectionable about so much, mainstream anti-Americanism.

Brendan, I don’t know about ‘the Americans’ in general, what they wanted or didn’t want.

I do know, however, that there was a crisis point in the summer of 2004 when Mr. al-Sadr’s uprising in Najaf coincided with a failed attack on Fallujah and with the upcoming presidential election in the US. One doesn’t have to be a genius or resort to all-encompassing conspiracy theories to figure out that the decision was made at that point by those who run this thing to play various groups there against each other. And it has been going on since then. It’s fairly obvious.

Andrew Reeves: no, I can’t really, unless we agree that sectarian antagonism is being deliberatly provoked and cultivated. Can you?
Here:

Iraq Sunnis Host Sadr Followers in Show of Support
May 7, 2004 — By Joseph Logan

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Thousands of supporters of rebel Shi’ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr prayed in Sunni mosques in Iraq Friday, in what local leaders called a show of religious unity in the face of Iraq’s occupiers.

The gesture was the latest display of solidarity among Iraq’s Muslims since U.S. forces besieged the Sunni town of Falluja west of Baghdad and faced off with Sadr’s militia in the Shi’ite holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala to the south.

Sadr’s popularity among Shi’ites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq’s 25 million people, seems to have soared since his uprising began a month ago, particularly among the young and the poor.

Busloads of Sadr’s followers carrying portraits of the young cleric and wearing the insignia of his Mehdi Army militia trooped to the staunchly Sunni Baghdad neighborhood of Aadhamiya to pray in the Abu Hanifa mosque, named for a pre-eminent scholar and thinker of Sunni Islam.

“Yes, yes to Moqtada!” chanted Sadr’s followers who jammed the mosque, outside of which others set up checkpoints to direct traffic and frisked worshippers as they entered from streets where posters bearing Sadr’s face dotted many buildings.

Ahmad Hassan Taha, a Sunni cleric who led prayers at the mosque, said the presence of Sadr’s followers was a message to U.S. forces who are massed around the Shi’ite holy city of Najaf in a bid to crush his insurgency.

“They have tried to sow discord among us, as Sunnis and Shi’ites, and they have failed,” he said, referring to the U.S. occupiers. His words were echoed by Sadr aide Sheikh Abdel Hadi al-Darraji, who told worshippers: “After finishing in Falluja, they have turned to Najaf.”

Several hundred Sadr supporters also prayed in Falluja, an insurgent stronghold that U.S. Marines surrounded and bombed last month after four U.S. contractors were killed and their bodies mutilated in the city.

Andrew,
here’s the wiki article on the Baath Party. Baath party is a secular Arab nationalist political party. The Iraqi Shiites are just as much Arabs as the Iraqi Sunnis. Why wouldn’t they see Baathists as heroic warriors?

And what’s the source of your comment about Baathists blowing up Shiite worshippers, btw?

abb1,
As of comment 27, you have negative Ethos concerning Iraq. This is actually quite difficult to do and congratulations are in order.

Profoundly disturbing news is reaching us on this side of the Atlantic about the scale of UnAmerican activities on the other side. By reports:

“A fourth former US army general in less than a month today called on the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to resign over his handling of the war in Iraq. Retired Major General John Batiste – who commanded the US 1st Infantry Division in Iraq from 2004 until last year – criticised Mr Rumsfeld’s authoritarian style and called for a ‘fresh start’ at the top of the Pentagon.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1753266,00.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-general13apr13,0,3539237.story?coll=la-story-footer

If the army has completely succumbed to subversion, perhaps the air force is still sound so the bombing can continue to keep Rumsfeld content.

You’re right about religious fanatics, but the religious fanatics have nothing to do with the Baathists (see Andrew’s posts above). Religious fanatics are the opposite of the Baathists.

As far as the death squads go, interestingly enough at the beginning the US was recruiting former Saddam’s commandos (Mukhabarat) for the death squads. Then, as I understand, mid-2004 they made a deal with Sistani and created the “Special Police Commandos”, Shia death squads; the so-called “Salvador Option“. And, of course, they used Kurdish militias right from the beginning.

…the Americans started to realize the Shiite death squads were getting out of hand and the killing was creating more insurgents than it was eliminating…

But, again, why would they care as long as it’s mostly Arabs killing each-other and ruining any chance for a strong independent state in Iraq? What’s the downside?

‘What’s the downside?’

Whats the downside ? I’ve noticed a lot of people are under the impression (wrongly) that Iraq will just totter on as it has for the next few years with ‘low level’ violence and so forth and etc. But even if this is the case, the Americans still lose everything. Assuming (as seems likely) the war was for oil, then this means they won’t be able to get their hands on it. Low level violence means the insurgency continues, which means that oil lines will continue to be sabotaged, which means violence to westerners, which means Western corporations won’t be interested in taking the risks to invest in the country. Oil prices have rocketed as a direct result of Iraq: if they go up to 50 dollars and stay there we all know what happens in Venezuela, and South America is probably much more of an issue to the Americans (in the long term) than the Middle East. Moreover, the fact is that even if the plan was to assure compliance by ‘divide and rule’ it hasn’t worked. NO ONE runs Iraq at the moment. Not the government. Certainly not the Americans. The Americans have made numerous attempts to impose ‘order’ (e.g. appointing a ‘secular’ candidate for the Iraqis to choose at the elections) and it has invariably been a failure. So ‘divide and not really rule at all’ (as is happening at the moment) will still be a total disaster (and has been).

In any case, this is still the least likely option. A far more likely option is that Iraq blows apart: and again the big losers if that happens are the Americans. Again, oil prices will go through the roof. Iraq will be torn apart, creating a new Shia led state, which will be Iran leaning and even more vehemently anti-American than a united Iraq. A Kurdish state may well destabilise Turkey. It might also destabilise Iran and Syria (good for the USA) but on the other hand the creation of such a state will almost certainly lead to mass ethnic cleansing (which has already started), a huge influx of refugees to neighbouring countries, war between Kurdistan and its neighbours etc. etc. etc. (think of the creation of Israel, time ten). Given the US’ liking of ‘stability’ (especially now the neocons have been ‘deposed’) it is highly unlikely that they will approve of all this: especially as a fight between Kurdistan and Iran will almost certainly lead to war between Iran and Israel (the new sponsors of Kurdistan), which will probably go nuclear, taking out some or all of the oil fields of the whole area.

Oil at $500 dollars a barrel, anyone? How about $1000?

Brendan should start a comments blog like D-Squared Digest. He’s very smart.

But Iraq was easily managed before the invasion and it WAS a large (about the size of France, as I recall) relatively stable state. To argue otherwise is to pretend that it was a threat (to the Americans, or anyone). But the whole point of (at least one section) of the anti-invasion case was that Iraq WASN’T a threat. You can’t have it both ways. Again, one of the main reasons to oppose the invasion was that the Americans WOULDN’T find it easy to ‘pacify’ Iraq, and lo, so it came to pass. If you have some magical plan for stabilising Iraq perhaps you could pass it on to Donald Rumsfeld. Until this happy moment, the Americans will, more than likely, just flounder around aimlessly killing people more or less at random, while the country slips out of their grasp. Succesful anti-insurgency movements (contrary to popular belief) do sometimes work, but failure is more probable. America did, after all, lose Vietnam.

There was of course no such place as Kurdistan in the ’90s. I’m talking about the creation of a whole new sovereign state, which would tear Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Iraq apart. Think the creation of Israel times ten.

A final point, you use ‘small and weak’ as though these are synonyms. But Britain conquered most of the world despite the fact that it was a small country. Rome conquered the ‘west’ and it wasn’t even a country: it was a city. On the other hands, many countries (e.g. China in the fifties and sixties and throughout the late 19th century) are huge and weak. If Iraq breaks up, only the Sunni state is likely to be small and weak. Kurdistan and the new Shia state are likely to be small (ish) and strong, Kurdistan because it will be backed by Israel, and Shia-stan (or whatever) cos it will be backed by Iran, and because it will have oil.

It’s true this last bit of the equation will fail if Iran is ‘taken out’ but it’s very unlikely that American plans in this direction will be a success. Even Tony will bail out of Dubya goes nuclear on Iran’s ass.

I was just reading ‘A History of the Arab Peoples’ (2002, Penguin) by Albert Hourani, with an afterword by Malise Ruthven. He (i.e. Ruthven) writes (about the first Gulf War) ‘The United States may have held back from pursuing the Iraqi forces to Baghdad becaue of …fears…that such a course could lead to to the country’s disintegration into three mutually hostile territories: a Southern Shia rump state vulnerable to iranian political control, a central rump core round baghdad …and the Kurdish area of the North’ (pp468-469).

Seems a bit strange (assuming this is true) that the US were frightened of this happening in the ’90s, and now actually want it to happen.

In any case, this misses the key point. The salient phrase in that passage is ‘mutually hostile’. Assuming this does happen, it doesn’t mean that the wars will necessarily stop. And assuming that is the case then the one thing that can absolutely be guaranteed is: no free flow of cheap oil. But that (most people agree) was the point of the invasion. So why would the US want it?

You are talking as if the US’ political interests and its financial interests were opposed. I thought Marxists were meant to argue that these were the same thing? In any case: in this situation they undoubtedly are. America’s financial and political and military muscle is built, in a very large part, on cheap oil. Why would the US pursue a course of action that is almost certain to lead to an increase in the price of oil (and will undoubtedly have ‘collateral damage’ in terms of America’s dealings with other Arab (i.e. oil producing) states)?

I think the difference between us is quite subtle but it is there. I’m not denying that the US is attempting to counterbalance the Shia majority by ‘bigging up’ the Kurds and Sunnis. But I don’t think they are doing it to pit the three against each other. In other words, I don’t think they are doing it because they want the three sides to fight each other. I think they want the three to co-operate with each other. It’s a bit like the three sides of a triangle: at the moment (according, I think, to the Americans) you have one ‘side’ of the triangle grossly overbalancing the other two. The US would prefer something a bit more equilateral, I think. This doesn’t mean that the resulting state would be necessarily weak, though (any more than the UK is weak because it is divided between the Welsh, Northern ireland, England and Scotland) or Belgium is weak because etc.

If the US were actually seriously pitting the Shias AGAINST the Sunnis and the Kurds (as opposed to attempting to get the Shias to work WITH the Sunnis and the Kurds) then this would simply be to great a risk: the country might fly apart, and that really is the last thing the Americans want. Hence the reason the Americans are attempting to get rid of Jaafari: he is too associated with ‘radical’ Shias. If the Americans were really trying to pit Shia against Sunni they would be all for Jaafari, as this would alienate the Sunnis even more.

I mean, OK, maybe SCIRI is not so radical now, but they certainly are antagonistic to al-Sadr (as well as Sunnis and Kurds); Badr being their militia. Doesn’t it kinda support my theory?

Anyone who says “Oil at $500 dollars a barrel, anyone? How about $1000?” can’t be all that smart.

I will give you that, that was not a good use of hyperbole. But it stands out from the rest of the post, rather than fitting in like part of a rant from a Daily Kossack.

abb1 and brenden,
There is a much better way to discern the motives of the “Bushies” than to stand outside, and peering through 10 layers of filtered information and then trying to put it all together. You are trying to come to conclusions with woefully incomplete information. But alas, this is not the best of all possible worlds insights.

Now, there are group of people much closer to the goings on of the “Bushies”, that often talk of Iraq policy and the goings on of Iraq. They are the people who actually impliment the “Bushies” policies. If you were to mentally prepare yourself for entering the lions den (and by this I mean try to control for any perceived bias), you could visit milblogger sites. If you email them, they usually respond or will answer you in a blog entry (if you are not making wild accusations that they are baby eating demons that should be put down).

Or you could keep blowing smoke.