Bad news from Basra

On air strikes, The Globe and Mail (Toronto) is running a fine series this week called Talking to the Taliban, which is the result of interviews by an Afghan with 42 members of the Taliban. One finding:

Almost a third of respondents claimed that at least one family member had died in aerial bombings in recent years. Many also described themselves as fighting to defend Afghan villagers from air strikes by foreign troops.

The use of air strikes is not only unethical, it also creates enemies.

Reification watch: I really do not grok how being blown up by an aerial weapon is meant to be worse than by an artillery round, or in context a tank main gun round. Nor do I get why being refugee-ised in this way is so much worse than by artillery, or for that matter by Those Bastards (for your own preferred flavour of bastard) just fighting into your house the old fashioned way.

(Note that I really do despise strategic air warfare, due to it essentially being “kill as many civvies as fast as possible” and also unrivalled in combining devastation with startling ineffectiveness.)

More to the point, I think it was Daniel Davies who pointed out that the example of Rwanda shows that if you put your mind to it, you can organise a hell of a pile of corpses with nothing more complicated than big knives. I therefore conclude it’s much more important to avoid war, rather than any particular tactic.

Getting to the point, the volume of refugees in and around Iraq is a really serious problem, and mostly the work of our new allies in NOIA, our old and current allies in Dawa/SCIRI/Whatever It’s Called This Week, and our new enemies in the Mahdi Army. And the Kurds.

The fact that literally all the political factions involved are bunches of ethnic cleansers should tell us something about our next move.

Meanwhile, I am slightly surprised that Daniel Davies considers my characterisation of his work as “tiresome look-at-me contrarianism” and “a lot of fucking total utter bollocks” to be “polite”, “rational” and “civilised”.

@3: Nice to see that lack of irony shows no sign of going out of fashion on the Left… Unless, of course, it is irony piled on irony, but go down that road and no-one’ll know whether anyone means anything they say any more… and then … and then … blog-posting might stop being able to change the world!!

This episode in Iraq is good evidence of the futility of analysis applied to chaotic conditions. However, one thing is certain. The carefully managed statistical claims of “success” for the US escalation (“surge”) will collapse in the face of open sectarian fighting, smoke pouring out of the US embassy compound, and a likely increase in US casualties.

The question remains how powerful the forces of US propaganda will be in the face of recent events. Fantasy has regularly defeated reality in the minds of the American public thus far. That is why McCain is doing well in the polls.

it’s much more important to avoid war, rather than any particular tactic.

well yeah, I guess there’s a certain logic to that, but people don’t listen and keep starting wars anyway and then some of them develop this annoying tendency to cut every discussion of jus in bello short by muttering something along the lines of “war is hell” and if that is so why not turn the place into a parking lot/glass/nuclear wasteland to get the whole thing over with quickly all in the spirit of saving lives of course …

“The fact that literally all the political factions involved are bunches of ethnic cleansers.”

“Al-Sadr indeed does have a great deal of respect because of the family connection, because of his fighting in Najaf against the US, because of the fact that when the US was destroying Falluja, he sent medicine and food and called for the Shi’a to support the Sunnis being starved and slaughtered there, and because he is at once a nationalist and a Shi’a (nowhere as eloquent or even enlightened as Lebanon’s Nasrallah, but like him he can marry those two identities).”

“This is about a meeting that took place in the NW Baghdad district of Kadhamiya. Voices of Iraq says the meeting, organized by the Sadr organization, included 300 tribal leaders, Shia and Sunni, from throughout Iraq, but the meeting also dealt with local issues including a promised re-opening of the “Bridge of the Imams” that links this mainly Shiite neighborhood on the west bank of the Euphrates with its twin district Adhamiya, mainly Sunni, on the east bank. (There is a nice satellite map on the website of the Meeting Resistance film, which was mostly filmed in Adhamiya.) Among the main points in the final statement of the meeting: A demand for scheduled withdrawal of the occupation forces from Iraq; and a statement to the effect the foreign forces are responsible for the internal divisions that have plagued Iraq since the invasion.

Statements to VOI by participants indicated that there had been considerable groundwork for this meeting, including reciprocal visits between Shiite and Sunni tribal leaders. Moreover, it looks as if the organizers of this consider this more than just an isolated or local reconciliation event, because VOI leads its story like this:
The first Iraqi tribal conference wound up its proceedings on Sunday, in Kadhamiya, Baghdad, with the issuance of a final statement that demanded a schedule for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq, and commitment to the return of those removed from their homes, and compensation for their damages.“

May I suggest that you rant less and read more? Everything above has appeared on this page at least once. This shit is getting really, really, really, annoying.

Everything above has appeared on this page at least once.

Yes. This is technically known as “spam”.

Further, it is far from secret that the Sadrists have good contacts with the New-Old Iraqi Army types in the Sunni insurgency, but this doesn’t make them the Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy Peace Campaign.

Alex: “Reification watch: I really do not grok how being blown up by an aerial weapon is meant to be worse than by an artillery round, or in context a tank main gun round.”

A quote from Lt. Colonel John Paul Vann, author of ‘A Bright Shining Lie’: ‘This is a political war, and it calls for the utmost discrimination in killing. The best weapon for killing is a knife, but I’m afraid we can’t do it that way. The next best is a rifle. The worst is an airplane, and after that the worst is artillery. You have to know who you are killing.’

However many innocent Iraqis have been accidentally killed by US Army troops and Marines, there’s probably several times that number killed by bombs. The USAF recently announced that it had fitted 500-lb bombs with GPS and laser-guidance mechanisms, to replace the 2000-lb bombs in ‘tight quarters’. Think on that – we’re dealing with people for whom the equivalent of ~700 hand grenades counts as a discriminate weapon.

IIRC, the first Lancet survey found that the leading cause of violent death was aerial bombardment.

There was a book written by a reporter accompanying a Marine unit in the initial invasion, way back in the ‘rice and flowers’ days of March-MAy, 2003. The blurb on the back cover stated that this unit was ‘the deadliest unit in the US Marine Corps’. Force Recon? Elite Death Commandos? Genetically enhanced cyber-grunts with plasma rifles?

Heavy Artillery.

and then some of them develop this annoying tendency to cut every discussion of jus in bello short by muttering something along the lines of “war is hell” and if that is so why not turn the place into a parking lot/glass/nuclear wasteland to get the whole thing over with quickly all in the spirit of saving lives of course …

The coming McCain campaign in a nutshell. And there’s a very good chance it’ll work.

Thanks, Alex – I was judging from the content of your statement, which IMHO indicated that you didn’t realize that.

If air power gets used in Iraq it’s obvious who’s using it. A whole city can be aware that Yankee Doodle is wrecking their shit again.

Again, the factor of manpower here is crucial. If the American people-300 million strong-had volunteered or allowed themselves to be drafted, then the insurgency would have been crushed, through sheer force of numbers, and the bloodshed would have come to an end. But they have refused to lend themselves to the Bush regime’s schemes, which in turn has forced them to use air strikes, an inevitably gruesome and inadequate substitute. Sadly enough, in a backhand way the antiwar opposition has contributed to this situation, in part.

I’m assuming Jim’s comment is ironic in intent. But, per Daniel’s response, it almost doesn’t matter.

In general principle, the fight for Basra was something that would have had to have been done if there had been a potentially-viable national government in Baghdad and a real possibility of winning the battle. But in the real world that’s just an exercise in complex hypotheticals.

American involvement is increasing. Not only Maliki’s credibility but also Bush’s, and McCain’s, and the neo-cons’ credibility are on the line. If a genocidal scorched-earth approach is the only one that will work, is that what we’ll see.

“If air power gets used in Iraq it’s obvious who’s using it. A whole city can be aware that Yankee Doodle is wrecking their shit again.”
Posted by Righteous Bubba ·

A very good point – there may be factions without number shooting, abducting and carbombing people, but there’s only one faction with armed aircraft.

Is American occupation the only reason why the Mahdi people resist the government instead of getting integrated into it?

I really do not grok how being blown up by an aerial weapon is meant to be worse than by an artillery round, or in context a tank main gun round.

You raise an interesting question. But, considering the reaction to the bombing of Guernica, this is not a new issue.

People have an especial horror of being killed by bombs and poison gas. Who knows why?
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I wonder if they realize that we know that sending 10 million Americans into Iraq probably could stabilize the country

Hell, with that many troops we could probably just kill almost every Iraqi. No doubt about it, that would “stabilize” the country once and for all! Worked great on all those parts of North America that were formerly inhabited by Native Americans, didn’t it?

I do wonder what Cheney’s visit had to do with the attack. Was it his idea, did he approve it, or (as is claimed) did he just receive Maliki’s unexpected announcement that the attack would take place? (I don’t think that we should accept that claim automatically).

To a degree, the whole world revolves around the U.S., though in many ways it doesn’t. In this case, it pretty much does, and I hope that we can hang this on Bush and Cheney.

I hope that we can hang this on Bush and Cheney.

I’d have omitted the words “this on”, myself.

I’d have omitted the words “this on”, myself.

And added the words “sour apple tree.”
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cat s/b brain parasites…

OK, now. Bush: “I would say this is a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq.”

And a very simple deduction, it is also a defining moment of the Iraq War, and the Bush Administration.

So if it goes badly, what will it mean? Will Bush say, “Oh, gee, I guess I failed”? One doubts that. Does he say “What does the Book of Revelation instruct me to do?” Much more likely. Does he say “What’s the point of having a tremendous supply of bombs if you don’t use them?” Can’t be ruled out. Defining moment, etc.

Alternatively, if it goes badly, will the Democrats be allowed to say that this was a defining moment? Probably not. Will they dare to? Probably not that either.

So just excuse me for being all crazy. It’s like some kind of dada Kabuki theatre with real bombs. Understanding it just makes you unhappier.

So if it goes badly, what will it mean?

Hey, look over there! We’re bombing Tehran!

Wait, Dsquared is younger than me? Fuck. And this is just going to happen more and more from now on, isn’t it?

Buying people off was last week. Attacking Basra is this week. You don’t want your strategy to get predictable.

Yeah, for awhile I thought that the main Bush strategy was to buy everyon off until Nov. 10 and then start setting booby traps for the Democratic President. One theory is that Maliki didn’t like that and forced Bush’s hand.

Forgotten history: Bush sent the troops to Somalia between his 1992 election defeat and Clinton’s inauguration. The Bush family knows booby traps.

The raid on the Koresh complex in Waco was planned under Bush and executed very early in Clinton’s first term (Feb. 28). Reno hadn’t even been confirmed as Attorney General.

Grand Moff Texan: “Considering how dependent the US has been on Sadr’s unilateral cease-fire in order to claim progress in Iraq, it’s bizarre to the point of comedy that he’s held up by the US and its sad excuse for news media as some kind of a monster.”

As I’ve been saying above, the propaganda line from the Administration has clearly been that he’s a prime villain; at times *the* Prime Villain. The press, of course, usually goes along with it.

As for for claiming victory in the surge partially due to his cooperation, I have two theories, both valid, which are probably both operating at the same time:

1) The arrogance of this administration is infinite.

2) The whole purpose of the surge was to ‘kick the can down the road’ a year. Remember back in November, 2006, it was clear that the US public was sick of the war, and had inflicted losses on the GOP. Bush & Co had to do something; the status quo would clearly bleed them. So they came up with the rebranded Big Push (‘this time onto to Berlin) of WWI fame. It was spectacularly successful; it took them from Jan 07 to March 08. Now, the election season is in full swing, and things going to sh*t in Iraq (or going sh*ttier) is of far less importance to the administration.
Note that a primary target of the surge was the Democratic Congress, and that’s pretty well neutralized (perhaps coming into office pre-neutralized).

If you think of the surge in those terms, it’s been a successful operation, and the flaws become almost nonexistent.

All that I meant to comment upon was that there seems to be so much comtempt for Americans in this blog.

In other words, you were changing the subject from the subject to the people talking about the subject.

I want my fucking bandwidth back, you knob.
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Regarding contempt for Americans, the destruction of Iraq did not occur spontaneously. It has been executed and witnessed by Americans for over five years. What is the proper attitude toward people who have perpetrated and/or consented to this atrocity?

Iraq was unquestionably better of under Saddam than in its current mutilated state. America made Iraq a worse place to live than the evil dictator (our former ally) we deposed. That is a contemptible act.

What is the U.S. Endgame in Iraq?

Against this fragile backdrop it is puzzling that the United States would endorse such a high-risk operation, potentially jeopardizing the security situation and imperiling efforts to reach a national political accommodation, which was the animating rationale behind the troop surge from the start.

This article belongs in Atrios’ “Easy Answers to Easy Questions” series.

The answer is: “Endgame?”

My admittedly superficial impression is that Sadr’s “nationalist” ambition involves leading a Shiite-Sunni alliance of some sort, to rule Iraq, overthrowing the power of SCIRI/Dawa, which controls Maliki’s government.

The reports that the awakened Sunnis are unhappy with the Americans might have made it seem like it would be timely to demonstrate to the Sunnis, the useful power of the Mahdi Army.

This doesn’t have to be a prolonged struggle with Maliki, at this point. Just a demonstration that Sadr is in a very good position to take control of the two critical elements for an Iraqi State: the capital and the oil port. Having furnished a proof of concept, I would expect Sadr to negotiate status quo ante with Maliki in fairly short order, in order to regroup (Sadr’s militia Mahdi Army, although armed to the teeth and beyond, is probably not logistically well-enough organized to sustain a coordinated effort for more than a few days.

What follows is Sadr negotiating with the Sunni New Old Iraqi Army for set-piece assistance in the next go-around, which would be designed to be immediately fatal to the SCIRI/Dawa Maliki government.

After Sadr de-capitates the Maliki government, then the real civil war begins, as the Sunnis begin the long process of exploiting the defects in Shiite organization and lack of unity, to overcome vastly superior Shiite numbers.

Bruce@64 you’ve got the right pieces but the wrong order – ISCI/Dawa picked this fight with the Sadrists (who may or may not have splintered into a thousand glittering shards of sectarian thuggery), not the other way around. The demonstration is meant to be a Maliki and/or Dawa and/or ISCI one.

I would welcome any arguments against the above, since, like most Americans, I’m woefully underinformed. I blame the shitty news media. And my own jaundice and apathy.

Bush called the operation “a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq,” saying the government is fighting criminals there. “It was just a matter of time before the government was going to have to deal with it,” he said.

The president also hailed the operation as a sign of progress, emphasizing that the decision to mount the offensive was al-Maliki’s.

“It was his military planning; it was his causing the troops to go from point A to point B,” Bush said. “And it’s exactly what a lot of folks here in America were wondering whether or not Iraq would even be able to do it in the first place. And it’s happening.”….

The fighting has sparked fears that a seven-month cease-fire by al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army, regarded as a key factor in a dramatic drop in attacks in recent months, could collapse or that the U.S. military will have to bail out the Iraqis.

I certainly hope that this attack doesn’t threaten the ceasefire in any way. That would be bad.

Heh, Muqtada’s insistence on maintaining the ceasefire has shades of Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk. War is not a consensus issue.

All of the Iraqis are playing really complex games within games to achieve power and secure the oil. The Americans are there to play stupid and supply cash to finance the manuevering. It is really pathetic.

This is a good insight. America has become so addicted to using overwhelming force that it has become politically retarded. America in Iraq is like a panting, sweating, overweight soldier with a gun in a dark room with a ninja.

(It’s still possible that Maliki will win his gamble, in which case the below is irrelevant or wrong. But at the moment that seems unlikely.)

What does the visit by Cheney mean? The first guess has to be that he gave the go-ahead, and that that he may have initiated the plan. Maliki’s attack fits the Bush team’s official pre-attack story two ways: 1.) “The Iraqi army is ready to take over”, and 2.) “Kill all the bad guys!”

On the other hand, the Bush team’s official story is usually only for domestic consumption by the Bush core constituency. If Cheney instigated or approved the attack, it may mean that he was letting his own domestic propaganda fool him as to the Iraqi Army’s capacities.

The new official Bush story is that Maliki did this on his own, and that that’s a good thing! Because we’ve been saying that they were ready to stand up so we can stand down. (The possibility that Maliki was deliberately trying to put the US on the spot must be ignored).

On the other hand, the attack has stalled and Americans are doing a lot of the fighting. The official story is to minimize this right now, but that can’t be done for long. The next official story could say (possibly even accurately) that Cheney tried to stop the attack, but that wouldn’t help, because it would make Cheney look weak (better wrong than weak!), and because it would still leave the overriding Bush story (“The Iraqis are taking over the fight”) destroyed.

So the only possible answer is: This shows we must attack Iran. You can still call it a defining moment then, without acknowledging that it was a “defining moment” of failure.

Right on schedule: War with Iran May Have Begun with Offensive in Iraq

This is a major blunder that may completely collapse the Maliki regime.

It’s also quite possible that the Bushies/Malikis will crash the Mahdis and that’ll be the end of that.

Once again…
read Badger.
That is, unless you can read arabic.

Me I can’t read or speak english, but I get all I need to know about the US from friends who read Pravda and Le Nouvel Observateur. Still of course I have my own opinions. And I say…

It’s also quite possible that the Bushies/Malikis will crash the Mahdis and that’ll be the end of that.

This is unlikely. I’ll give you some interesting evidence. If you look closely at the photos of Mahdi army militiamen, you will see that a third of them are carrying long-barrelled Kalashnikovs with telescopic sights. You will also see them firing from rests, the practice of a trained marksman. This means that they are not just street rabble firing wildly at professional soldiers. Their weapons and tactics have matured over the last few years.

Anyone walking into an alley in Basra facing a man with a sniper rifle will not live long. The only ways to sweep an urban area secured by entrenched snipers is to blast them out with heavy weapons. This is not feasible in a city of two million people.

Bush can either launch a bloodbath that makes Fallujah look like a Sunday picnic or he can watch Maliki lose.

Maybe they are better now, but 3-4 years ago I got the impression that they were lousy fighters – eager to die but not to kill and survive. Good martyrs, terrible soldiers.

I don’t believe in justice, but I do believe in a crude version of karma. We Americans aren’t going to be punished by an angry God for what we did and continue to do in Iraq, but our behavior does have consequences, not only for the 30% of the population that enthusiastically supports the war but for the rest of us, too. That isn’t exactly fair, but it is predictable. The God that is likely to damn America is not the Yahweh of the prophets but mere history, acting through a world of nations and people who are fed up with our arrogance. No point in accusing those of us who worry about that verdict of being insufficiently patriotic. You might as well complain about the Law of Gravity.

our behavior does have consequences

It is as though Americans never grasped the consequences of the invention of nuclear weapons. One can’t simply keep ratcheting up violence against the world and expect to get away with it. Sooner or later we will face a nuclear-armed adversary who will not back down. That is when America will get out of the Hegemon business.

Well, if hundreds of thousands of Shia take to the streets and demand that America leave, Petraeus will say (as Bush and Cheney did before him) that these protests demonstrate freedom and democracy in Iraq.

Of course there will be unfortunate incidents with provocateurs shooting from inside the crowds, followed by unfortunate but understandable massacres, so that taking to the streets will quickly stop being popular pastime.

Nah, Maliki doesn’t have ‘us’ on a string, Jim. There’s the puppet (on a string) and there’s the puppeteer (holding the string). Simple as that.

When all is said and done, Nouri al-Maliki can only remain Prime Minister and stay in power with the political support of Moqtada al-Sadr -or- by using active US military support to quash and intimidate al-Sadr’s political base. By attacking al-Sadr, Maliki has abandoned the political path, and is attempting to preempt an unfavorable electoral result with military force.

Americans in general and the Bush administration specifically continue to underestimate Moqtada al-Sadr and the depth of his popular support in Iraq. No one should be surprised that Maliki (who did not even live in Iraq for 23 years before the fall of Saddam), has far less popular support than a nationalist majority firebrand who both fought Hussein and now rails against the “foreign occupiers” of his country (that would be us).

The reason why this war never ends, is that the Bush/Cheney administration specifically and the American people generally do not want to admit that the face of “majority rule”, and “regime change” and “victory” in Iraq is the face of Moqtada al-Sadr. We get to leave Iraq when Moqtada al-Sadr takes over.

A realistic “End State” scenario is an “accommodated” (or if you prefer “co-opted” or “bought-out”) Moqtada al-Sadr, or someone just like him. A popular theocrat, elected into leadership in Iraq, still railing at the “Great Satan” from his bully pulpit to maintain his popular support, but behind the scenes working with the US at the precise intersection of US interest in a stable Iraq, and his lofty personal ambition for power on a world stage. This scenario is not optimal, ok – it is actually pretty shitty, but – It would work for Iraq and would work for us, if we would just work behind the scenes with Moqtada al-Sadr and let him get elected, and pay him enough to want to work with us.

ns said:

What a ridiculously academic style of writing. Sorry. To make things worse, I’m not even sure if the sentence you describe as subjunctive and conditional actually is subjunctive and conditional. “I think it was reasonable” is about as indicative as it comes. But if I were to point that out, I would be as academic as you.

Bwahahahahahahahaha. Neither one of you amateurs could academicize your way out of a paper bag. The subjunctive is not a tense — it’s a mood.

And there has now been some sort of ceasefire offer that the government has kind of acknowledged but apparently hasn’t had much effect.

And that ceasefire was made by two senior pols from ISCI and Dawa, with Sadr in Qom, brokered by Brig. General Qassem Suleimani of Qods Force, IRGC, over Maliki’s insistance that there would be no negotiations.

Wow.

By the way, I completely disagree with abb1’s assessment of the fighting capability of the Mahdi Army. In all the news reports I’ve seen, they have been fighting in short skirmishes and then withdrawing. I am nobody’s idea of a military man, but as I understand it, that’s actually quite a difficult manouvre to achieve, because the difference between “withdrawing” and “running away” (which tends to get you decimated quickly) is that in the first, everyone has to do it at the same time and while maintaining covering fire. Which takes both discipline and nerve. So I don’t agree with the proposition that Sadrists “only know how to die”, which looks like triumphalism to me.

What do you mean ‘triumphalism’?

No, but it’s true that they didn’t inflict many casualties in Najaf in 2004; a bunch of them got caught like sitting ducks in some cemetery and killed. They weren’t well-trained then, but maybe they are now.

The scope of Maliki’s blunder is becoming clear as more news leaks out. Reportedly, one of his top advisers was killed in Basra by a mortar attack, and US attack helicopters had to be called to drive off an assault on his headquarters.

Further evidence of Maliki’s powerlessness is the continued shelling of the Green Zone, which the US cannot stop short of massacring a large part of the Sadr City population.

None of this will stop Petraeus from brazenly reporting “improvement” resulting from his brilliant counterinsurgency strategy. Fantasy rules, and we are in the hands of fools.

A bunch of yobs on a Saturday afternoon, talking about football.