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Hermit
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Tangible Truths Totally Trounce Twittish Trolls
« on: 2008-02-29 05:35:57 »

Department of Malicious Falsehoods

[ Hermit : Along with the infamous assertions leading up to the Iraq invasion (remember "Yellowcake" and Aluminium tubes, along with strong arguments in favor of torture and the assorted raving of talk radio hosts as "academically credible" material), I am quite sure more than a few Virians remember some of the following being repeated here ad nauseum by our pet neotroll. ]

DEPARTMENT No Comment

Source: Harper's Magazine
Authors: Scott Horton
Dated: 2008-02-23

The Public Affairs Office at the Department of Defense has long figured as a redoubt for the Neoconservatives. At times, I’ve wondered about the name “Public Affairs.” Don’t they really mean something more along the lines of “Department for the Political Instruction of Cadres”? I first marveled at their brazen misconduct and proclivity for heavily ornamented deceit when Seymour Hersh came out with a major story in the New Yorker describing the “Cooper Green” program. The program operated under the authority of Stephen Cambone and with an okay from Donald Rumsfeld and it authorized the use of illegal interrogation techniques, which we subsequently learned were the hallmark of the Bush Administration. I had discovered some key aspects of this program shortly before Hersh’s article and discussed them with Hersh. After his article appeared, it was aggressively denounced by the Public Affairs Office as some sort of journalistic hysteria, and they proceeded to go after Hersh himself. I recall reading the statement and puzzling over it. They knew, and I knew, and Hersh knew that their statement was dishonest. Why would the Department of Defense issue a grossly false statement like that and then proceed several steps beyond it, assaulting the integrity of one of the nation’s premier exposé journalists?

But it soon became clear that this was a sort of art form for them. The calculus seems to be utterly Rovian: one should not just lie. One should lie aggressively and tactically. But what about the reputation of the Defense Department for truth-telling? Isn’t that an asset worth preserving? No, that counts for nothing in their view. Or perhaps they view it as something that is expendable in the interests of the current political tenants.

And a bit later, Jane Mayer was working on a story that eventually became “The Memo,” the tale of the heroic struggle of Alberto Mora, the former General Counsel of the Navy, to challenge the torture regime that was being installed in Rumsfeld’s Pentagon, largely under pressure from Vice President Cheney and his then-legal counsel (now chief of staff) David Addington. I had been working with Jane to be sure she understood some of the more technical legal points that came up and to help her track down sources for her piece. As it was all done, she went to the Public Affairs Office for comments. They delivered a lambasting, suggesting that points in her article were ridiculous speculation with no basis in fact. What they didn’t know, of course, was that Mayer had the memo itself and a slew of other documents, and that Mora had given several detailed interviews on the underlying facts. Public Affairs simply assumed, yet again, that they could lie prolifically, aggressively, and perhaps sink or curtail the story. I hoped that the New Yorker would at some point publish the totality of the comments that Public Affairs gave. It would provide good insight into the workings of the office. For whatever reason they decided not to do so.

And then a third incident occurred relating to Newsweek. Mike Isikoff ran a tiny little blurb relating to an incident recorded in a report into abuses at Guantánamo. It recorded a Qur’an being thrown in a toilet. When this appeared, Public Affairs launched a massive attack on Newsweek which was clearly coordinated with wingnut bloggers and right wing radio. They sought to vilify Newsweek and to attack Isikoff, questioning their patriotism and professional credentials and vehemently denying the reports. In fact just about everyone in the press community remembers that—for a while it was called the Newsweek factor. What few people remember is that when the report eventually leaked out, it turned out that Isikoff had it wrong. Indeed, the incident was actually worse than what he described. It involved a prison guard urinating in a way so that his urine would drop onto a Qur’an. The incident was investigated and the guard was punished. So the Public Affairs office response was once more something of which a totalitarian society could have been proud. They engaged in sweeping deceit, and it paid off beautifully.

Then we come to a case I was directly involved with. A CBS cameraman named Abdul Amir Younis Hussein was seized in Mosul, Iraq, where he had shot footage of an attack on a Stryker. In fact Congress was that week going to hold a hearing looking at whether the Stryker performed to specifications, and CBS had been very eager to get footage of the attack on the Stryker. But the CBS cameraman was shot, his camera was taken, and he was held—ultimately for a year. Suddenly out of the Pentagon arose a story, reported in hushed and worried tones by Barbara Starr of CNN and others. A Public Affairs spokesman speaking not for attribution said the Pentagon was extremely disturbed about this CBS cameraman. He had been seized with a camera which had footage of four attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq in a manner that showed he had prior knowledge. This flared in the news, and served as a pretext for the U.S. forces to hold Abdul Amir in prison for a year. He was then charged, and I handled his defense. I pressed the Pentagon and the Iraq Command immediately for the return of the camera and tapes from it. They refused, and refused even to allow me to examine these materials until several hours before his trial. When I finally secured them, I discovered—and the court discovered—that the statements by the anonymous Public Affairs spokesman were a complete fabrication. There was only 20 seconds of material on the camera, and it fully corroborated the cameraman’s account. He was fully acquitted, with the judge stating that not a scintilla of evidence against him had been offered. I asked local military authorities where the report about the tape footage with the four incidents had come from. “Not here,” they insisted. “That was all out of the Pentagon Public Affairs office.” So who was the Public Affairs spokesman who fabricated and spread this outrageous lie that put a journalist in prison for one year for no reason? I suspect I know who he is.

And then we come to the Democratic debate in Austin, Texas. It had a curious passage:

SEN. OBAMA: I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t think I was prepared to be commander in chief. (Cheers, applause.) And my — my number one job as president will be to keep the American people safe. And I will do whatever is required to accomplish that, and I will not hesitate to act against those that would do America harm.

Now, that involves maintaining the strongest military on earth, which means that we are training our troops properly and equipping them properly and putting them on proper rotations. And there are an awful lot of families, here in Texas, who have been burdened under two and three and four tours, because of the poor planning of the current commander in chief. And that will end when I’m president.

(Applause.)

But it also means using our military wisely. And on what I believe was the single most important foreign policy decision of this generation — whether or not to go to war in Iraq — I believe I showed the judgment of a commander in chief. I think that Senator Clinton was wrong in her judgments on that. (Applause.)

Now, that has consequences. That has significant consequences because it has diverted attention from Afghanistan, where al Qaeda, that killed 3,000 Americans, are stronger now than at any time since 2001.

I heard from an Army captain, who was the head of a rifle platoon, supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24, because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq. And as a consequence, they didn’t have enough ammunition; they didn’t have enough humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief. Now that’s a consequence of bad judgment, and you know, the question is on the critical issues that we face right now who’s going to show the judgment to lead. And I think that on every critical issue that we’ve seen in foreign policy over the last several years — going into Iraq originally, I didn’t just oppose it for the sake of opposing it. I said this is going to distract us from Afghanistan; this is going to fan the flames of anti- American sentiment; this is going to cost us billions of dollars and thousands of lives and overstretch our military, and I was right.

And today Talking Points Memo reports that Bryan Whitman, a man suspiciously close to each of the incidents I described above, is busy behind the scenes telling reporters that he doesn’t think it’s true. But you’d have to understand just what Mr. Whitman means by “truth” to fully appreciate the meaning of his comments. My understanding of the way the phrase works is pretty simple, and widespread in the world. Truth serves the interests of the party. Truth is what we make it. And since the interests of the party are served by implying that Barack Obama is a liar, even though Mr. Whitman has no basis to say that, of course he’ll charge right ahead and do it. Brian Roehrkasse has his Doppelgänger.

So is Obama’s statement true? Well, unfortunately for Mr. Whitman, it is true. ABC News’s Jake Tapper tracked down the Army captain and interviewed him, and he confirmed Obama’s account. And NBC News then also identified and spoke with the Army captain and also got his confirmation.

And here’s what Phil Carter, who served as a captain in Diyala Province in 2006, had to say about the claim:

Really? U.S. troops using captured weapons and ammunition? Is that true? That’s been the basic thrust of the emails I’ve received. In a word: yes.

I talked this morning with two friends who led rifle platoons in Afghanistan. Both confirmed to me that they did, at times, use captured or found weapons or ammunition. One relayed the story of mounting a Soviet 12.7mm heavy machine gun (the equivalent of a U.S. .50 caliber machine gun) on his HMMWV because it was too difficult to get the spare parts needed to fix their G.I. (government issue) .50 cal. Another told me his platoon carried AKs anytime they patrolled with their Afghan counterparts, and that it was always much easier to get 7.62mm ammo for the AKs than to go through the U.S. bureaucracy for ammunition requisition. These stories are timeless; you’ll see similar ones in the narratives from WWII, Korea and Vietnam vets too. Anyone who’s dealt with the Army supply system—particularly at the pointy end of the spear—ought to be able to sympathize.

So next time you see a report from Pentagon Public Affairs characterizing the reporting of a journalist or commenting on some question from a political debate, remember the source, and treat any words offered with suitable skepticism.

« Last Edit: 2008-02-29 05:49:49 by Hermit »

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« Reply #1 on: 2008-02-29 05:45:44 »

Major survey challenges Western perceptions of Islam

[ Hermit : Important to realise that while not as religiously biased as Pew, that Gallup also has a "Christian Perspective." This notwithstanding, these facts do go a long way to invalidating the vast slew of bigotry which have poured out upon our boards (and elsewhere of course) since 911.

Source: AFP
Authors: Karin Zeitvogel
Dated: 2008-02-27

A huge survey of the world's Muslims released Tuesday challenges Western notions that equate Islam with radicalism and violence.

The survey, conducted by the Gallup polling agency over six years and three continents, seeks to dispel the belief held by some in the West that Islam itself is the driving force of radicalism.

It shows that the overwhelming majority of Muslims condemned the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 and other subsequent terrorist attacks, the authors of the study said in Washington.

"Samuel Harris said in the Washington Times (in 2004): 'It is time we admitted that we are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with Islam'," Dalia Mogahed, co-author of the book "Who Speaks for Islam" which grew out of the study, told a news conference here.

"The argument Mr Harris makes is that religion in the primary driver" of radicalism and violence, she said.

"Religion is an important part of life for the overwhelming majority of Muslims, and if it were indeed the driver for radicalisation, this would be a serious issue."

But the study, which Gallup says surveyed a sample equivalent to 90 percent of the world's Muslims, showed that widespread religiosity "does not translate into widespread support for terrorism," said Mogahed, director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

About 93 percent of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are moderates and only seven percent are politically radical, according to the poll, based on more than 50,000 interviews.

In majority Muslim countries, overwhelming majorities said religion was a very important part of their lives -- 99 percent in Indonesia, 98 percent in Egypt, 95 percent in Pakistan.

But only seven percent of the billion Muslims surveyed -- the radicals -- condoned the attacks on the United States in 2001, the poll showed.

Moderate Muslims interviewed for the poll condemned the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington because innocent lives were lost and civilians killed.

"Some actually cited religious justifications for why they were against 9/11, going as far as to quote from the Koran -- for example, the verse that says taking one innocent life is like killing all humanity," she said.

Meanwhile, radical Muslims gave political, not religious, reasons for condoning the attacks, the poll showed.

The survey shows radicals to be neither more religious than their moderate counterparts, nor products of abject poverty or refugee camps.

"The radicals are better educated, have better jobs, and are more hopeful with regard to the future than mainstream Muslims," John Esposito, who co-authored "Who Speaks for Islam", said.

"Ironically, they believe in democracy even more than many of the mainstream moderates do, but they're more cynical about whether they'll ever get it," said Esposito, a professor of Islamic studies at Georgetown University in Washington.

Gallup launched the study following 9/11, after which US President George W. Bush asked in a speech, which is quoted in the book: "Why do they hate us?"

"They hate... a democratically elected government," Bush offered as a reason.

"They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."

But the poll, which gives ordinary Muslims a voice in the global debate that they have been drawn into by 9/11, showed that most Muslims -- including radicals -- admire the West for its democracy, freedoms and technological prowess.

What they do not want is to have Western ways forced on them, it said.

"Muslims want self-determination, but not an American-imposed and -defined democracy. They don't want secularism or theocracy. What the majority wants is democracy with religious values," said Esposito.

The poll has given voice to Islam's silent majority, said Mogahed.

"A billion Muslims should be the ones that we look to, to understand what they believe, rather than a vocal minority," she told AFP.

Muslims in 40 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East were interviewed for the survey, which is part of Gallup's World Poll that aims to interview 95 percent of the world's population.

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« Reply #2 on: 2008-03-07 09:13:24 »

AFGHANISTAN: A WAR WE CAN'T BELIEVE IN

Source: Yahoo News
Authors: Ted Rall
Dated: 2008-03-04

(Editorial cartoonist and writer Ted Rall received first prize in the 1995 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for Cartoons. In 1996, he was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of the book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)

Why Obama's Favorite War is Less Winnable Than Iraq

Five years after the Republicans got us into war against Iraq, Democrats want to double down on a war that's even more unjustifiable and unwinnable--the one against Afghanistan.

By any measure, U.S. troops and their NATO allies are getting their asses kicked in the country that Reagan's CIA station chief for Pakistan called "the graveyard of empires." Afghanistan currently produces a record 93 percent of the world's opium. Suicide bombers are killing more U.S.-aligned troops than ever. Stonings are back. The Taliban and their allies, "defeated" in 2001, control most of the country--and may recapture the capital of Kabul as early as this summer.

"So," asks The New York Times, "has Afghanistan now become a bigger security threat to the United States than Iraq?" Barack Obama's answer is yes. He spent last year parroting the DNC's line that Bush "took his eye off the ball" in Afghanistan when we invaded Iraq. Thankfully, he abandoned that hoary sports metaphor. Iraq, he says now, "distracted us from the fight that needed to be fought in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda. They're the ones who killed 3,000 Americans."

Sorta. But not really.

Osama bin Laden bragged about ordering the East Africa embassy bombings in 1998, yet has repeatedly denied a direct role in 9/11. He's probably telling the truth. The hijackers were mostly likely recruited by Islamic Jihad, which is based in Egypt. Saudis, including members of the royal family, financed the strikes against New York and Washington. Pakistani intelligence funded and supervised the camps where some of them trained.

Al Qaeda may have been peripherally involved in 9/11; its leadership certainly knew about the plot ahead of time. They may have fronted some of the expense money. But 9/11 wasn't an Al Qaeda operation per se.

Afghanistan's connection to 9/11 was tertiary. At the moment the first plane struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center, most of Al Qaeda's camps and fighters were in Pakistan. As CBS News reported on January 29, 2002, Osama bin Laden was in a Pakistani military hospital in Rawalpindi on 9/11. The Taliban militia, which provided neither men nor money for the attacks, controlled 90 percent of the country.

It has long been an article of faith among Democrats that Afghanistan is the "good war," a righteous campaign that could be won with more money and manpower. But the facts say otherwise. The U.S. Air Force rained more than a million pounds of bombs upon Afghanistan in 2007, mostly on innocent civilians. It's twice as much as was dropped in Iraq--and equally ineffective.

Six years after the U.S. invasion of 2001, according to Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, the U.S./NATO occupation force has surged from 8,000 to 50,000. But the Americans are having no more luck against the Afghans than had the Brits or the Soviet Union. The U.S.-backed government of Hamid Karzai controls a mere 30 percent of Afghanistan, admits McConnell. (Regional analysts say in truth it is closer to 15 percent.) Most of the country belongs to the charming guys who gave us babes in burqas and exploding Buddhas: the Taliban and likeminded warlords. "Afghanistan remains a failing state," says a report by General James Jones, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. "The United States and the international community have tried to win the struggle in Afghanistan with too few military forces and insufficient economic aid."

If he becomes president, Obama says he'll "ask more from our European allies" to win in Afghanistan. But he won't get it. As The New York Times puts it: "Why help the United States in Afghanistan, the European logic goes, when America would be able to handle Afghanistan much more easily if its GIs weren't bogged down in Iraq?"

Obama says he would send two more American combat brigades--between 3,000 and 8,000 troops. If 158,000 troops can't subdue Iraq, how can 58,000 do the job in Afghanistan?

They can't.

Afghanistan's population is 19 percent larger than that of Iraq. Its area is 49 percent bigger, with infinitely rougher terrain. Obama's proposed "surgelet" would result in troop strength of less than one sixth of the 400,000 dictated by official U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine for a nation the size of Afghanistan. [ Hermit : I doubt the claim that the population is so much larger than Iraq's unless the Pushtun in Pakistan are included, but the force size he cites is close to the number I proposed as being necessary before the US invasion, based on the ratios required to successfully manage an occupation of an highly dispersed hostile population of some 20 to 25 million in difficult terrain. ]

Afghans say spring could mark the beginning of the end of the United States' first experiment in post-9/11 regime change. For more than a year, Taliban commanders have controlled the key Kabul-to-Kandahar highway. "On one convoy last year we were 40 vehicles and only 12 got through," Sadat Khan, a 25-year-old truck driver explained to the UK Telegraph as he pointed to "roughly patched bullet holes in the cab of his truck." Cops loyal to Karzai expect to be massacred. "Maybe we will lose 30 per cent of us this spring, maybe 60 per cent," police commander Mohammad Farid told the paper. He'd already been shot.

The Taliban say they'll retake Kabul this year and reestablish the Islamic fundamentalist government led by Mullah Omar. No one knows whether they'll succeed. But they've already begun to strangle the city of Kabul. They're destroying its nascent telecommunications infrastructure, driving out foreign NGOs and businesspeople with terrorist attacks, and cutting off access to the remaining highways. Talibs promise to continue to target NATO troops, betting that Canada and other members of the coalition will pull out under pressure from antiwar voters. Bogged down in Iraq, the U.S. won't be able to send more soldiers to Afghanistan. Karzai's puppet regime won't last long.

If Obama is so eager to keep fighting Bush's wars, he'd be smarter to focus on the more winnable of the two: Iraq. [ Hermit : While I agree that the Afghan Bush war is collapsing, I disagree with the author on this point as, in my opinion, there is no conventional definition of "winnable" that applies to the USA's illegal war in Iraq either. At this stage, getting the US out of Iraq and paying suitable repartitions (of the level of a year's GDP for the US) via the UN to whatever government or governments they establish after a civil war would be the best thing that the US can do for Iraq. ]

« Last Edit: 2008-03-07 14:22:36 by Hermit »

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« Reply #3 on: 2008-03-07 15:06:45 »

Iraqi Women More Oppressed Than Ever

Source: Inter Press Service
Authors: Dahr Jamail
Dated: 2007-04-07

Iraq, where women once had more rights and freedom than most others in the Arab world, has turned deadly for women who dream of education and a professional career.

Former dictator Saddam Hussein maintained a relatively secular society, where it was common for women to take up jobs as professors, doctors and government officials. In today's Iraq, women are being killed by militia groups for not conforming to strict Islamist ways.

Basra police chief Gen. Jalil Hannoon told reporters and Arab TV channels in December that at least 40 women had been killed during the previous five months in that city alone.

"We are sure there are many more victims whose families did not report their killing for fear of scandal," Gen. Hannoon said.

The militias dominated by the Shi'ite Badr Organization and the Mahdi Army are leading imposition of strict Islamist rules. The Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi government is seen as providing tacit and sometimes direct support to them.

The Badr Organization answers to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), the Shi'ite bloc in the Iraqi government. The Mahdi army is the militia of anti-occupation Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Women who do not wear the hijab are becoming prime targets of militias, residents both in Basra and Baghdad have told IPS in recent months. Many women say they are threatened with death if they do not obey.

"Militiamen approached us to tell us we must wear the hijab and stop wearing make-up," college student Zahra Alwan who fled Basra to Baghdad told IPS last December.

Graffiti in red on walls across Basra warns women against wearing make-up and stepping out without covering their bodies from head to toe, Alwan said.

"The situation in Baghdad is not very different," Mazin Abdul Jabbar, social researcher at Baghdad University told IPS. "All universities are controlled by Islamic militiamen who harass female students all the time with religious restrictions."

Jabbar said this is one reason that "many families have stopped sending their daughters to high schools and colleges."

In early 2007 Iraq's Ministry of Education found that more than 70 percent of girls and young women no longer attend school or college.

Several women victims have been accused of being "bad" before they were abducted, residents have told IPS in Baghdad. Most women who are abducted are later found dead.

The bodies of several have been found in garbage dumps, showing signs of rape and torture. Many bodies had a note attached saying the woman was "bad," according to residents who did not give their names to IPS.

Similar problems exist for women in Baquba, the capital city of Diyala province, 40 km northeast of Baghdad.

"My neighbor was killed because she was accused of working in the directorate-general of police of Diyala," resident Um Haider told IPS in January. "This woman worked as a receptionist in the governor's office, and not in the police. She was in charge of checking women who work in the governor's office."

Killings like this have led countless women to quit jobs, or to change them.

"I was head of the personnel division in an office," a woman speaking on condition of anonymity told IPS in Baquba. "On the insistence of my family and relatives, I gave up my position and chose to be an employee."

Women's lives have changed, and women are beginning to look different across most of Iraq. They are now too afraid to wear anything but conservative dresses – modern clothes could be a death warrant. The veil is particularly dominant in areas under the control of militias.

Women are paying a price for the occupation in all sorts of ways.

"Women bear great pain and risks when militants control the streets," Um Basim, a mother of three, told IPS in Baquba recently. "No woman can move here or there. When a man is killed, the body is taken to the morgue. The body has to be received by the family, so women often go alone to the morgue to escort the body home. Some are targeted by militants when they do this."

Confined to home, many women live in isolation and depression.

"Women have nowhere to go to spend leisure time," Um Ali, a married woman in Baquba, told IPS. "Our time is spent only at home now. I have not traveled outside Baquba for more than four years. The only place I can go to is my parents' home. Housekeeping and children have been all my life; I have no goals to attain, no education to complete. Sometimes, I can't leave home for weeks."

In northern Kurdish controlled Iraq, "honor killings" continue. In the ancient tradition of "honor killing," the view is that a family's "honor" is paramount. As of last December, at least 27 Kurdish women were murdered on suspicion of having had "illicit" affairs in the previous four months, according to Youssif Mohamed Aziz, the regional minister of human rights.

Iraqi women are not spared US military prisons either. In December, Iraq's parliamentary committee for women's and children's affairs demanded the release of female detainees in Iraqi and US-run prisons.

According to Nadira Habib, deputy head of the parliamentary committee, there are around 200 women detained in the Iraqi run al-Adala prison in Baghdad. Habibi says there are presumably women in US-run prisons too. "But no one knows how many female detainees are now in prisons run by US forces as they always refuse requests from our committee to visit them."

As the central government remains essentially powerless, and religious fundamentalism continues to grow across Iraq, it appears that the plight of Iraqi women will get worse.

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« Reply #4 on: 2008-03-09 22:04:03 »

The Fading Jihadists

[ Hermit : Given the last 7 years of terrified, evidence light, often near hysterical angst ridden outpourings of cut and paste warnings against "Jihadists" and supposed "existential threats" by our local neoconehead, this is another article that would be funny if it were not tragic. Read and enjoy :-) ]

Source: Washington Post
Authors: David Ignatius
Dated: 2008-02-28

Politicians who talk about the terrorism threat -- and it's already clear that this will be a polarizing issue in the 2008 campaign -- should be required to read a new book by a former CIA officer named Marc Sageman. It stands what you think you know about terrorism on its head and helps you see the topic in a different light.

Sageman has a résume' that would suit a postmodern John le Carre'. He was a case officer running spies in Pakistan and then became a forensic psychiatrist. What distinguishes his new book, "Leaderless Jihad," is that it peels away the emotional, reflexive responses to terrorism that have grown up since Sept. 11, 2001, and looks instead at scientific data Sageman has collected on more than 500 Islamic terrorists -- to understand who they are, why they attack and how to stop them.

The heart of Sageman's message is that we have been scaring ourselves into exaggerating the terrorism threat -- and then by our unwise actions in Iraq making the problem worse. He attacks head-on the central thesis of the Bush administration, echoed increasingly by Republican presidential candidate John McCain, that, as McCain's Web site puts it, the United States is facing "a dangerous, relentless enemy in the War against Islamic Extremists" spawned by al-Qaeda.

The numbers say otherwise, Sageman insists. The first wave of al-Qaeda leaders, who joined Osama bin Laden in the 1980s, is down to a few dozen people on the run in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. The second wave of terrorists, who trained in al-Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan during the 1990s, has also been devastated, with about 100 hiding out on the Pakistani frontier. These people are genuinely dangerous, says Sageman, and they must be captured or killed. But they do not pose an existential threat to America, much less a "clash of civilizations."

It's the third wave of terrorism that is growing, but what is it? By Sageman's account, it's a leaderless hodgepodge of thousands of what he calls "terrorist wannabes." Unlike the first two waves, whose members were well educated and intensely religious, the new jihadists are a weird species of the Internet culture. Outraged by video images of Americans killing Muslims in Iraq, they gather in password-protected chat rooms and dare each other to take action. Like young people across time and religious boundaries, they are bored and looking for thrills.

"It's more about hero worship than about religion," Sageman said in a presentation of his research last week at the New America Foundation, a liberal think tank here. Many of this third wave don't speak Arabic or read the Koran. Very few (13 percent of Sageman's sample) have attended radical madrassas. Nearly all join the movement because they know or are related to someone who's already in it. Those detained on terrorism charges are getting younger: In Sageman's 2003 sample, the average age was 26; among those arrested after 2006, it was down to about 20. They are disaffected, homicidal kids -- closer to urban gang members than to motivated Muslim fanatics.

Sageman's harshest judgment is that the United States is making the terrorism problem worse by its actions in Iraq. "Since 2003, the war in Iraq has without question fueled the process of radicalization worldwide, including the U.S. The data are crystal clear," he writes. We have taken a fire that would otherwise burn itself out and poured gasoline on it.

The third wave of terrorism is inherently self-limiting, Sageman continues. As soon as the amorphous groups gather and train, they make themselves vulnerable to arrest. "As the threat from al-Qaeda is self-limiting, so is its appeal, and global Islamist terrorism will probably disappear for internal reasons -- if the United States has the sense to allow it to continue on its course and fade away."

Sageman's policy advice is to "take the glory and thrill out of terrorism." Jettison the rhetoric about Muslim extremism -- these leaderless jihadists are barely Muslims. Stop holding news conferences to announce the latest triumphs in the "global war on terror," which only glamorize the struggle. And reduce the U.S. military footprint in Iraq, which fuels the Muslim world's sense of moral outrage.

I don't agree with all of Sageman's arguments, especially about the consequences of a quick drawdown in Iraq, but I think he is raising the questions the country needs to ponder this election year. If Sageman's data are right, we are not facing what President Bush called "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century and the calling of our generation," but something that is more limited and manageable -- if we make good decisions. [ Hermit : Something few Washington politicians seem capable of - and no neocons. ]

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Re:Tangible Truths Totally Trounce Twittish Trolls
« Reply #5 on: 2008-03-11 12:10:57 »

Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida

Source: McClatchy Newspapers
Authors: Warren P. Strobel
Authors: 2008-03-10
Refer Also: Earlier report from the Iraqi Perspectives Project

An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.

The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.

The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.

He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.

President Bush and his aides used Saddam's alleged relationship with al Qaida, along with Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, as arguments for invading Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed in September 2002 that the United States had "bulletproof" evidence of cooperation between the radical Islamist terror group and Saddam's secular dictatorship.

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited multiple linkages between Saddam and al Qaida in a watershed February 2003 speech to the United Nations Security Council to build international support for the invasion. Almost every one of the examples Powell cited turned out to be based on bogus or misinterpreted intelligence.

As recently as last July, Bush tried to tie al Qaida to the ongoing violence in Iraq. "The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims," he said.

The new study, entitled "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents", was essentially completed last year and has been undergoing what one U.S. intelligence official described as a "painful" declassification review.

It was produced by a federally-funded think tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses, under contract to the Norfolk, Va.-based U.S. Joint Forces Command.

Spokesmen for the Joint Forces Command declined to comment until the report is released. One of the report's authors, Kevin Woods, also declined to comment.

The issue of al Qaida in Iraq already has played a role in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, mocked Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill, recently for saying that he'd keep some U.S. troops in Iraq if al Qaida established a base there.

"I have some news. Al Qaida is in Iraq," McCain told supporters. Obama retorted that, "There was no such thing as al Qaida in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade." (In fact, al Qaida in Iraq didn't emerge until 2004, a year after the invasion.)

The new study appears destined to be used by both critics and supporters of Bush's decision to invade Iraq to advance their own familiar arguments.

While the documents reveal no Saddam-al Qaida links, they do show that Saddam and his underlings were willing to use terrorism against enemies of the regime and had ties to regional and global terrorist groups, the officials said.

However, the U.S. intelligence official, who's read the full report, played down the prospect of any major new revelations, saying, "I don't think there's any surprises there."

Saddam, whose regime was relentlessly secular, was wary of Islamic extremist groups such as al Qaida, although like many other Arab leaders, he gave some financial support to Palestinian groups that sponsored terrorism against Israel.

According to the State Department's annual report on global terrorism for 2002 — the last before the Iraq invasion — Saddam supported the militant Islamic group Hamas in Gaza, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a radical, Syrian-based terrorist group.

Saddam also hosted Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, although the Abu Nidal Organization was more active when he lived in Libya and he was murdered in Baghdad in August 2002, possibly on Saddam's orders.

An earlier study based on the captured Iraqi documents, released by the Joint Forces Command in March 2006, found that a militia Saddam formed after the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the Fedayeen Saddam, planned assassinations and bombings against his enemies. Those included Iraqi exiles and opponents in Iraq's Kurdish and Shiite communities.

Other documents indicate that the Fedayeen Saddam opened paramilitary training camps that, starting in 1998, hosted "Arab volunteers" from outside of Iraq. What happened to the non-Iraqi volunteers is unknown, however, according to the earlier study.

The new Pentagon study isn't the first to refute earlier administration contentions about Saddam and al Qaida.

A September 2006 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Saddam was "distrustful of al Qaida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al Qaida to provide material or operational support."

The Senate report, citing an FBI debriefing of a senior Iraqi spy, Faruq Hijazi, said that Saddam turned down a request for assistance by bin Laden which he made at a 1995 meeting in Sudan with an Iraqi operative.

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« Reply #6 on: 2008-03-25 16:02:29 »

A Book Americans Must Read Before Time Runs Out

Source:
Authors: Michael Scheuer
Dated: 2008-03-25
Review: Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Gallup Press, 2008 (230 pp.)

A new book by John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed ought to have a profound and transforming influence on Americans' view of their government's confrontation with Islam. The book, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, presents the results of six years of Gallup polling in the Muslim world between 2001 and 2007. "With the random sampling method that Gallup used," the authors explain, "results are statistically valid with a plus or minus 3-point margin of error. In totality, we surveyed a sample representing more than 90% of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, making this the largest, most comprehensive study of contemporary Muslims ever done" (xi). Based on this data, Esposito and Mogahed have determined that Washington's conflict with Islam is "more about policy than principle" (xi). The pivotal findings of this massive study for U.S. national security pertain to the motivation of the Muslims who oppose the United States and the authors' claim that "

ne of the most important insights provided by Gallup's data is that the issues that drive radicals are also issues for moderates" (93).

"As we have seen in the [Gallup] data, resentment against the West comes from what Muslims perceive as the West's hatred and denigration of Islam; the Western belief that Arabs and Muslim are inferior; and their [Muslims'] fear of Western intervention, domination, or occupation" (141).
"As our [Gallup's] data has demonstrated, the primary cause of broad-based anger and anti-Americanism is not a clash of civilizations but the perceived effect of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world" (156).
"[The Gallup data shows that] contrary to what the 'They Hate Our Freedom' thesis might predict, Muslims do not recommend or insist upon changes to Western culture or social norms as the path to better [Western-Muslim] relations. … Rather they call on the West to show greater respect for Islam, and they emphasize policy-related issues [U.S. interventionism; unqualified support for Israel; and protection for authoritarian Arab regimes]" (159).

Over and over again, Esposito and Mogahed show the nearly complete absence among Muslims of a desire to destroy America's equality of opportunity, liberties, or democracy. Indeed, the Gallup data show that these are the aspects of U.S. society that Muslims most admire. "[T]he sentiments of vast majorities of those [Muslims] surveyed," the authors write, "[show] they admire the West's political freedoms and they value and desire greater self-determination" (31). But, of equal importance, Muslims do not believe that greater democracy and self-determination in the Muslim world require a Western-like separation of church and state. "Poll data show," Esposito and Mogahed explain, "that large majorities of respondents in the countries surveyed cite the equal importance of Islam and democracy as essential to the quality of their lives and the future progress of the Muslim world" (35). And, again, these findings are common to those the authors refer to as moderates and radicals, as well as to male and female respondents (48).

The Gallup data also show that Muslims make a keen distinction between modernity and Westernization. The surveys found that Muslims have a profound respect and admiration for the West's technology and for its work ethic; both are regarded as tools of modernity and avenues of social and economic progress for Muslims (p. 97). Having presented this finding, however, the authors warn it must not be taken as eagerness for Westernization. "[W]hile acknowledging and admiring many aspects of Western democracy," the authors write," those [Muslims] surveyed do not favor wholesale adoption of Western models of democracy … few respondents associate 'adopting Western values' with Muslim political and economic progress." Perhaps the most counterintuitive result of the Gallup data for Western readers will be findings that the ostensibly degraded cultural status of women in the West is one of the things most despised by Muslims of both genders (110) ; that "the data simply do not support the persistent popular perception in the West that Muslim women can't wait to be liberated from their culture and adopt the ways of the West" (110); and that there are no "systemic differences in many [Muslim] countries between males and females in their support for Sharia as the only source of legislation" (48).

The work of Esposito and Mogahed establishes a solid empirical base for refuting the contentions of U.S. political leaders in both parties that "Muslims hate us for who we are not for what we do." But will it do the trick? Previously, Robert Pape's empirical study Dying to Win: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism demonstrated that U.S. intervention in the Muslim world is a key generator of suicide attacks on U.S. interests, and Marc Sageman's quantitative study Understanding Terror Networks politely shredded our leaders' claims that poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment cause terrorism – but the they-hate-our-freedoms chorus still chants on. Indeed, after these books were written, Norman Podhoretz and George Weigel published neoconservative tomes that not only ignored the work of Pape and Sageman, but also scourged their countrymen for being too stupid to see that all U.S. interventions abroad are saintly and only medieval Islamofascists could oppose them. On no other foreign policy issue since the Cold War's end has the truth been so easy to establish on the basis of hard facts but so hard for Americans to see – primarily because their leaders eagerly distort or ignore the truth.

The reality accurately presented by Esposito, Mogahed, Pape, and Sageman – as well as by Dr. Ron Paul – has never eluded Osama bin Laden, however. Five years before Gallup even started collecting its data, bin Laden knew that U.S. foreign policy effectively united the Muslim world's moderates and radicals in anti-U.S. hatred, and that when he defied Washington and attacked U.S. interests because of those policies he both drew and grew support for his jihad against America. The conclusions of my own books about bin Laden's thinking, words, and actions – which are largely corroborated by the findings of Who Speaks for Islam? – make it clear beyond a doubt that al-Qaeda's chief knows precisely what will sell wildly in the Muslim world and unite his brethren, as well as what will be rejected outright by U.S. leaders, with disastrous consequences for Americans.

Unfortunately, then, it seems unlikely that the fine book Who Speaks for Islam? will attract the attention, let alone change the mind, of any senior U.S. political leader. Under either party, Washington will maintain its now 40-year-old foreign policy status quo; it will keep intervening in the Muslim world; and it will continue telling Americans they are hated for who they are, not for what their government does. Ultimately, our bipartisan political elite will turn the United States into one enormous Israel, lethally deaf to the realities of our struggle with Islamists; arrogantly confidant of its pure intent and sure knowledge of God's will; and utterly dependent on inadequate military and intelligence options to fight a rising tide of hatred among 1.3 billion Muslims.

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Re:Tangible Truths Totally Trounce Twittish Trolls
« Reply #7 on: 2008-03-30 01:41:16 »

The Surge--Is It Soup Yet?

[ Hermit : A little folksy, but another astute analysis from Taki Mag. ]
Source: Taki Mag
Authors: Gary Brecher (Gary Brecher writes “The War Nerd” column in The eXile, the English-language bi-weekly based in Moscow.)
Dated: 2008-03-18

Many people seem to enjoy repeating “the is Surge working, the Surge is working…” over and over again on television. So just before we pop the Champaign at the fifth-year anniversary party for the invasion of Iraq, and celebrate the completion of the freshman year of our ballyhooed “new strategy,” perhaps we should ask, “is the Surge working—really?

Sure, it’s working fine, just like my sister’s car. I had to drop her off at the garage where they were looking over her Ford Probe. It’d been overheating since she bought it, and there was something wrong with the alternator, too. But she didn’t have the money to fix it, so she asked the mechanic, “Can’t I just keep leaving the heater on and adding water and using my battery charger?”

The mechanic blinked a couple times and said, “Yeah, you could do that….” Meaning, “You could, if you want to drive around sweating, wait for the charger to power up when you’re late for work, and generally ruin your life for the sake of a hopeless junker.”

That’s the best answer I can give on the Surge: if you’re willing to go on throwing away men and money—about $3 trillion according to that Nobel Prize hotshot Stiglitz—to prop up a lost cause, then yeah, it’s working great! Just like my sister’s dumb techniques; they kept the car on the road all right, but she’d have been way better off just junking it, which she ended up doing anyway. Stiglitz argues that the real reason why the dollar has tanked and credit has crunched and all the mortgages are going bust is because we broke the bank in Iraq, pouring all those billions in to persuade the local gangbangers not to shoot at us.

That’s the Surge.

The only reason people think “it’s working” is that our strategy, pre-Surge, was so bad that pretty much anything would be a step up. The easiest way to win “Most Improved” is to have a lousy start to your season. And it doesn’t get much lousier than our counterinsurgency performance from 2003-2006. Just how bad was it? I yield the floor to the Honorable Sen. Lindsay Graham, who said in an interview that he can’t believe how good our troops’ morale is now, compared to when they were “going around waiting to be shot.” Whoops! Somebody drag the senator away from the mic.

But that’s the hard truth: U.S. troops were riding around blind, getting ambushed by guys we couldn’t even identify, failing to do the most basic job of counterinsurgency warfare—intelligence. Petraeus is a hero to the neocons—they’ve lauded him and Fred Kagan and his wife called Commanding General Raymond Odierno “the Patton of Counterinsurgency”—but all Patraeus did was apply standard counterinsurgency techniques to Iraq—four years late. [ Hermit : In my opinion, Petraeus still hasn't applied "standard counterinsurgency techniques" in Iraq, in part because of the reasons given in this article, but also because of political constraints, a complete lack of competent intelligence in place and also because he appears to be blundering around in an aura of American superiority. My observation would be that South African and Israeli Majors of the 1980s seem to me to have known more about COINOPS than do American Generals 20 years later. At this point I would suggest that the only way to stabilize Iraq is for the US to get out of there and to then pump money into the area... unfortunately, the waste of money on the wrong approaches, at the wrong time, using the wrong methods has left the USA in a state of economic collapse and apparently unable to afford that option. So it is likely that we will eventually pull out of Iraq leaving nothing but ruins behind us.]

The reason it took so long is that CI warfare contradicts the U.S. Army’s emphasis on firepower and logistics. Running a successful CI campaign means shooting less and socializing more, getting to know the locals—not because they’re so durn cute and there’s so much culture to appreciate, but so you can figure out which doors to kick in, which locals to interrogate.

You’d think the U.S. Army would know how to do that after getting involved in so many irregular wars since 1945. You’d be wrong. Colonel John A. Nagl said it best: “…in 2003 most Army officers knew more about the U.S. Civil War than they did about counterinsurgency.”

Nagl has written a manual on CI as well as a history of it, Learning to Eat Soup with A Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam.

But it would be wrong to stop the buck on the Army’s desk. The blame for our failure to gather intelligence on the Iraqi insurgency rests right where the blame for this whole mess belongs: with the neocons’ big lie that we were going to be welcomed as liberators and have rose petals thrown in front of our tanks. If that’s what you’re forcing yourself to see, who needs intelligence? What are you going to do, spy on the locals making their welcome bouquets? “Base, I’ve got a visual on three individuals aiming what appear to be daisies at the convoy! Permission to throw Hershey’s Kisses at them, Sir!”

So when the insurgency got going we had no idea who the enemy was, and what was worse, nobody in the Bush administration even wanted to know. They kept saying, until it was a running joke, that it was nothing but “deadenders,” Saddam’s cousins just being sore losers. And they had no response except massive, random firepower. Which does not work. Spraying the neighborhood with automatic weapons is what every frustrated occupying army ends up doing when they’re ambushed (Haditha, Blackwater, etc.). And when they do, the guerrillas rejoice, because that kind of fire usually hits civilians. And every family that loses a kid turns insurgent—maybe not as combatants but as informers, lookouts, or human shields.

It took more than three years of American soldiers “driving around waiting to be shot” to convince the administration to give standard counterinsurgency tactics a try. And in the end, it wasn’t all those GIs who’d been killed or maimed that changed their minds. It was losing the 2006 elections. At that point Bush’s people forced his hand: Rummie was out, and Petraeus was greenlighted to set up a standard CI plan for the Sunni Triangle, “The Surge.”

The Surge was billed at the time as an increase in U.S. troop numbers in Baghdad, but looking back, the increase was the least important part of the new plan.

The real plan had two elements. First, winning the Sunni over by bribing them. We’re bribing every Sunni chief or officer who’ll take our money. The second element was to connect our units to a particular neighborhood. This is basic to any CI effort. You want your troops to settle in, get to know the place.

The new plan divided Baghdad into nine districts. Primary responsibility for security was with a brigade of the Iraqi Army, with a battalion of U.S. troops for backup. More important, every Iraqi brigade had American embeds right down to NCO level.

If you’ve read Nam memoirs you’ll be yelling, “But this is what the grunts said way back in 1968! We should’ve stayed in one place, trained the locals, not gone out on search-and-destroy missions re-taking the same places over and over again!”

Hey, don’t tell me, tell whoever was in charge—if anybody really was from 2003-2006. Anybody remember how many times we “took” Fallujah?

Sure, we’d been doing PR stuff from the start, but it was just photo ops, giving kids candy, trying to make “liberated” Baghdad 2003 look like Paris 1944.

That sentimental stuff is not what CI is about. Real CI warfare means handing out bags of cash, not candy. From 2003 to 2006 most of our bribes went to Shia militia chiefs—we were going to buddy up with Shia majority, the guys bad old Saddam used to oppress. Then, about two years back, a thought wormed its way into Cheney’s tiny brain: “Hey, Iraq is right next to Iran! And, um, isn’t Iran also Shi’ite? So, like, if we strengthen the Iraqi Shias—wait, I can get this—uh…we’re just letting Iran take over! And that’s not good, that’s terrible!”

The neocons are so truly, totally stupid this hadn’t occurred to them. I really don’t know what to say about stupidity like this. In any other country, every neocon from Bush to the lamest columnist in your local rag would be crow food by now, impaled on tetherball poles for an “Ooopsie” like that. I guess Americans are the forgiving type.

So after three years of killing Sunnis and cuddling up to the Shia, Cheney did a U-turn: everybody go hug a Sunni! Even if he’s still holding the wire on that IED!

The Sunni bosses took the cash and racheted down the IED attacks. In Jan./Feb. 2007 we had 164 kia; in Jan/Feb 2008 it’s down to 69, a 58% cut. If that’s what you mean by “working,” then the Surge works great.

There’s a way we could have used bribes to the Sunni officer corps much more effectively—just by keeping Saddam’s army on the payroll and putting them in new uniforms right after we took Baghdad. Then we could have jailed (or killed) the Sunni hard core, the guys who weren’t going to accept occupation. We didn’t do it because the official story was that except for Saddam’s sore-loser cousins in Tikrit, every man, woman, and donkey in Iraq loved us—and when that failed, we blasted Sunni neighborhoods indiscriminately. That was another mistake. You don’t attack an entire ethnic group; that just convinces them they have no option but to fight you. What a good counterinsurgency operation tries to do is split the insurgent ethnic group into two factions. That way they’re too busy killing each other to bother attacking the occupier.

The British did it successfully against the Irish in 1921 by signing a treaty with Michael Collins’s faction of the IRA, then arming it in a civil war against the anti-treaty faction that sprang up. The Israelis are trying the same thing now, arming and funding the softie Abbas and trying to encourage his Fatah faction into a war with Hamas. The trouble is, when you side with the softies, they fight soft—take, for example, Abbas’s fighters who are having trouble staying in the ring with the crazies in Hamas.

That’s one of the paradoxes of CI warfare: the bravest locals are always the insurgents. That’s why Nam memoirs always have a sneaking admiration for the VC/NVA and total contempt for ARVN. It’s the weaklings like ARVN or Fatah who’ll go along with the occupier. So you’re usually paying a ton of cash for the “loyalty” of men without much fight in them.

The “Fallujah Brigade” in 2004 was our first try at buying off Sunni fighters, and it was a fiasco. Before the Marines gave up and disbanded the “Brigade” at gunpoint, it set a world record for treachery and cowardice. The “Brigade” fled every firefight, and most of the deserters defected to the insurgents, taking the shiny weapons we’d given them. But the last straw was when the Brigade’s officers were implicated in the kidnap/torture/murder of ING Lt. Col. Sulaiman Hamid Fitkan, the one local who really was on our side and had some guts. That was when the Marines decided that with allies like this, we didn’t need enemies.

Developing reliable local allies takes a long time, and we don’t have that kind of time, because U.S. counterinsurgency policy is always linked in to the four-year election cycle. The Sunni, the Shia, and the Iranians don’t have that pressure. They can wait us out. That’s what they call Long War Doctrine: guerrillas can’t win on the battlefield, so they focus on surviving. The occupiers, they’re betting, will eventually leave—because the occupier can leave, and the guerrillas can’t. It doesn’t take much to keep that kind of war going. A few hundred people can do it if they have the neighborhood solidly behind them.

The Long War strategy is why it’s ridiculous for Fred Kagan to say that “the Iraq civil war was over” by February 2008. Nothing is ever “over” in irregular warfare. You get lulls in the fighting, but pretending that these are neat, clean endings is as ridiculous as calling Odierno “the Patton of counterinsurgency.” Counterinsurgencies don’t have Pattons. They don’t depend on brilliant generals or superb hardware; they come down to a long, slow grinding battles of will between the occupier and the locals. And the locals usually win, because anybody with a choice will vacate the Hell that is a guerrilla war zone. The locals usually win because they can’t leave; the occupier usually gets sick of the mess and exits.

You may have heard about successful counterinsurgency wars. Fact is, there aren’t many of them and they usually involve a tiny, easily-identified minority. Nagl talks a lot about Malaya in his book, but the fact is that in Malaya the British could simply isolate and wipe out the Chinese militants because the ethnic Malay majority hated the ethnic Chinese from way back.

We can’t wipe out the Sunni that easily. They’re not the kind of vulnerable little minority you can zap with anything short of nukes. There are more than five million of them; they’re used to war and being in charge; and when you come down to it, they don’t have much else to do.

They’re happy to take our money now, but you can bet they’re also assigning men to check out our new post-Surge routines. That’s standard irregular warfare practice. When the occupier changes his habits, the guerrillas wait, watch, and then strike. Even if the older, calmer Sunni chiefs want to take our money and relax, there’ll be some young bloods who want to see American blood again, and they’ll form their own little gangs. It always happens; we talk about “The Sunni” like they’re one big family, but every tribe has its own little fault lines, and the pressure of cooperating with an occupier always cracks them open.

And that’s just the Sunni. Step back and look at the bigger picture, and you get really depressed. The Shia are quiet right now, but they’re not too happy about us bribing and cozying up to Sunni militias that have been car-bombing their mosques for years. If anything’s keeping them calm, it’s their advisors in Iranian intelligence telling them to stay still till the U.S. elections.

Iran owns Iraq now; we’re just housesitting. The Mullahs are so cocky that Ahmadinejad strolled into Baghdad a few weeks back, taunting the US, and got a big hug from our man Maliki.

The real shocker is that Ahmadinejad drove downtown from the airport. Nobody drives from the airport into Baghdad. Bush has to zip in on a chopper when he visits, because the road is bandit country. Think about what it means that the leader of Iran can take the scenic route into town, waving and smiling—not because he’s brave but because he knows it’s safe. And remember, the enemy in Baghdad is supposed to be the Sunni, old Mahmud’s enemies as well. What does it say that even on their turf, the turf of the guys we’re paying now, Ahmadinejad walks around untouched?

Then there’s Kurdistan, quiet for now but due for some action soon. They have their own Arab/Kurd faultline running just where the massive Kirkuk oilfields happen to be. Not a good bet for quiet times ahead.

You might also consider that even Petraeus just admitted that the Iraqi political parties haven’t made any of the big conciliatory moves they were supposed to make as their part of the deal. There was a really grotesque case in March 2008, where a Baghdad court acquitted two high-ranking Shi’ites from the Health Ministry who’d been borrowing government ambulances to kidnap Sunnis from local hospitals and then torture them to death.

That’s just business as usual in Iraq, but people in DC still act surprised that these dudes haven’t put on the powdered wigs and started acting like Washington and Monroe yet. Any day now, I guess…any minute now….

And we get all of this for the bargain price of $3 trillion dollars (so far) and 30,000 American casualties. You tell me: five years after the farce began and a year after the institution of our new strategy, is The Surge really working?

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Re:Tangible Truths Totally Trounce Twittish Trolls
« Reply #8 on: 2008-04-24 01:01:50 »

The Legend of Israel's Attack 1981 Attack on Iraq's Osirak Reactor

I was recently reading an article, Olmert: Iran Will Not Be Nuclear by Peter Hirschberg when, aside from the usual completely invalid assertion, "Threats by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to "wipe Israel off the map" have further heightened fears in the Jewish state." the following leapt out at me:

"Twenty-seven years ago, Israel did just that when its fighter jets bombed a nuclear reactor Saddam Hussein had built, wiping out the Iraqi leader's nuclear ambitions with a single pinpoint strike. A repeat performance in Iran would be much more complicated. The Iranians have learned from the Iraqi experience and have spread their nuclear plants around the country. They have also built them deep underground and behind thick shields of reinforced concrete."

The reason I found this interesting is the vast number of completely invalid and unbased assertions it encapsulates. As usual when dealing with Israel, accurate reporting is about as diametrically opposed to these assertions as possible. And interestingly, there is hard evidence for this. As background, always remember that Israel not only has the largest nuclear arsenal not subject to IAEA inspection or any treaty limitations (and has just had another of her spies indicted for stealing US nuclear secrets and ANALYSIS: New espionage affair may be old story, but will greatly damage Israel) . Consider that the Iraq facility was fully compliant with an IAEA inspection program, and that it would have been quite impossible for the Iraqis to have made - or even attempted to have made weapon-grade plutonium at Osirak without the highly unlikely permission and connivance of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on-site inspectors. Just as it would be impossible for the Iranians to make weapons-grade enriched uranium at Natanz without IAEA permission and connivance today.

Borrowing from the redoubtable Gordon Prather's 2008-04-19 article, "Obama Channeling Cheney"

National Intelligence Estimate on Iran of 2007

interview

UN Security Council Resolution 487

Now, in the aftermath of the first Gulf War the IAEA was able to determine from examination of captured Iraqi records that Saddam Hussein did not have a nuclear weapons program in 1981. He could not have produced weapons-grade plutonium in the IAEA Safeguarded research reactor, nor had he any intention of withdrawing from the NPT in order to produce nuclear weapons.

threat

claim to be a threat to Israel

condemned

called

If our leadership today were alarmed at the threats being made by Likudniks, in general, and by advisors to some of our current Presidential candidates, in particular, to commit many such acts against Iran and the IAEA-NPT regime in the near future, all our leaders and would-be leaders take great pains to warn Israeli officials that – at a minimum – we would once again join the international community in condemning such acts. And in the event Iran was somehow able to retaliate against Israel, we would make no effort to prevent that. So from what our leaders are saying, we know that this prospect, even though it will undoubtedly be a replay of the unnecessary and illegal 1981 strike against Iraq (all misconceptions not withstanding), does not worry them at all.

I rather think that it should (following derived principally from a heavily edited and updated Hirsh article once archived at http://www.antiwar.com/orig/hirsch.php?articleid=7649): Much about this scenario worries me.

If the US ends up "attacking Iran" or "defending Israel" (same thing with added hypocrisy), 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq will be either encircled with their supply lines intercepted, or even overrun by Iran's conventional forces streaming into Iraq, and not able to do anything effective about it, not only because of Iran's missile shield but because the threat of Iran deploying chemical weapons, US forces will be forced to operate under clumsy NBC protocols. That almost certainly means that, according to the current (Bush) inspired Pentagon planning [.pdf] insanity, nuclear weapons will be used:

"To demonstrate U.S. intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary use of WMD."
"Against an adversary using or intending to use WMD against U.S., multinational, or alliance forces or civilian populations…"
"(O)n adversary installations including WMD, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons or the C2 infrastructure required for the adversary to execute a WMD attack against the United States or its friends and allies"
"(T)o counter potentially overwhelming adversary conventional forces…"
"For rapid and favorable war termination on U.S. terms…"
"To ensure success of U.S. and multinational operations…"

That makes six independent "reasons" for deploying nuclear devices against Iran.

Once it has happened, it will be justified to the hilt. It will have "saved lives" - on both sides. It will demonstrate to our enemies that we really mean we will use nuclear devices on non-nuclear armed opponents, it will probably even have been approved by a bilateral commission (Lieberman, Pelosi, Clinton and McCain?). We did it after the last thoroughly illegal deployment of illegal weapons on civilians - and most Americans still accept that propaganda at face value.

Even if the rest of the world does decide to act against the criminal conspiracy of the insane running this madhouse, it will be too late. A nuclear superpower will have nuked a non-nuclear state that is an NPT signatory and is cooperating with the IAEA, at the instigation of a state that is not an NPT signatory, that has over 400 nuclear devices of its own (and a brand new and thoroughly illegal "nuclear cooperation agreement" with the USA) , where both it and the USA have acted as rogue states with an ongoing stream of tangible and executable threats, and which may yet, emboldened by groveling expressions of unconditional support by spineless American presidential candidates, engage in an unprovoked act of military aggression against Iran - which is effectively guaranteed to draw the US into the hostilities.

Given these prospects, the U.S. government should be doing its utmost to restrain Israel; yet it is doing exactly the opposite. The U.S. government should be doing its utmost to achieve a diplomatic solution; but it refuses to even talk to Iran. The ongoing diplomatic effort by the EU and UN appears almost designed to provide cover for the planned military action; just as in the case of Iraq. How many times must Our Dear Leader play the same game before the world and the citizens of the US in whose name this scofflaw behavior is taken, finally learns it is merely being used?

« Last Edit: 2008-04-25 08:17:04 by Hermit »

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Re:Tangible Truths Totally Trounce Twittish Trolls
« Reply #9 on: 2008-05-19 19:10:58 »

A Reminder Giving the lie to claims that the USA does not torture people, does not punish the families of its victims.

Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs

Source: The Washington Post
Authors: Josh White
Dated: 2005-08-03

Interrogated general's sleeping-bag death, CIA's use of secret Iraqi squad are among details.

[b]Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush was being stubborn with his American captors, and a series of intense beatings and creative interrogation tactics were not enough to break his will. On the morning of Nov. 26, 2003, a U.S. Army interrogator and a military guard grabbed a green sleeping bag, stuffed Mowhoush inside, wrapped him in an electrical cord, laid him on the floor and began to go to work. Again.

It was inside the sleeping bag that the 56-year-old detainee took his last breath through broken ribs, lying on the floor beneath a U.S. soldier in Interrogation Room 6 in the western Iraqi desert. Two days before, a secret CIA-sponsored group of Iraqi paramilitaries, working with Army interrogators, had beaten Mowhoush nearly senseless, using fists, a club and a rubber hose, according to classified documents.

The sleeping bag was the idea of a soldier who remembered how his older brother used to force him into one, and how scared and vulnerable it made him feel. Senior officers in charge of the facility near the Syrian border believed that such "claustrophobic techniques" were approved ways to gain information from detainees, part of what military regulations refer to as a "fear up" tactic, according to military court documents.

The circumstances that led up to Mowhoush's death paint a vivid example of how the pressure to produce intelligence for anti-terrorism efforts and the war in Iraq led U.S. military interrogators to improvise and develop abusive measures, not just at Abu Ghraib but in detention centers elsewhere in Iraq, in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mowhoush's ordeal in Qaim, over 16 days in November 2003, also reflects U.S. government secrecy surrounding some abuse cases and gives a glimpse into a covert CIA unit that was set up to foment rebellion before the war and took part in some interrogations during the insurgency.

The sleeping-bag interrogation and beatings were taking place in Qaim about the same time that soldiers at Abu Ghraib, outside Baghdad, were using dogs to intimidate detainees, putting women's underwear on their heads, forcing them to strip in front of female soldiers and attaching at least one to a leash. It was a time when U.S. interrogators were coming up with their own tactics to get detainees to talk, many of which they considered logical interpretations of broad-brush categories in the Army Field Manual, with labels such as "fear up" or "pride and ego down" or "futility."

Other tactics, such as some of those seen at Abu Ghraib, had been approved for one detainee at Guantanamo Bay and found their way to Iraq. Still others have been linked to official Pentagon guidance on specific techniques, such as the use of dogs.

Two Army soldiers with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Fort Carson, Colo., are charged with killing Mowhoush with the sleeping-bag technique, and his death has been the subject of partially open court proceedings at the base in Colorado Springs. Two other soldiers alleged to have participated face potential nonjudicial punishment. Some details of the incident have been released and were previously reported. But an examination of numerous classified documents gathered during the criminal investigation into Mowhoush's death, and interviews with Defense Department officials and current and former intelligence officials, present a fuller picture of what happened and outline the role played in his interrogation by the CIA, its Iraqi paramilitaries and Special Forces soldiers.

Determining the details of the general's demise has been difficult because the circumstances are listed as "classified" on his official autopsy, court records have been censored to hide the CIA's involvement in his questioning, and reporters have been removed from a Fort Carson courtroom when testimony relating to the CIA has surfaced.

Despite Army investigators' concerns that the CIA and Special Forces soldiers also were involved in serious abuse leading up to Mowhoush's death, the investigators reported they did not have the authority to fully look into their actions. The CIA inspector general's office has launched an investigation of at least one CIA operative who identified himself to soldiers only as "Brian." The CIA declined to comment on the matter, as did an Army spokesman, citing the ongoing criminal cases.

Although Mowhoush's death certificate lists his cause of death as "asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression," the Dec. 2, 2003, autopsy, quoted in classified documents and released with redactions, showed that Mowhoush had "contusions and abrasions with pattern impressions" over much of his body, and six fractured ribs. Investigators believed a "long straight-edge instrument" was used on Mowhoush, as well as an "object like the end of an M-16" rifle.

"Although the investigation indicates the death was directly related to the non-standard interrogation methods employed on 26 NOV, the circumstances surrounding the death are further complicated due to Mowhoush being interrogated and reportedly beaten by members of a Special Forces team and other government agency (OGA) employees two days earlier," said a secret Army memo dated May 10, 2004.

The Walk-In

Hours after Mowhoush's death in U.S. custody on Nov. 26, 2003, military officials issued a news release stating that the prisoner had died of natural causes after complaining of feeling sick. Army psychological-operations officers quickly distributed leaflets designed to convince locals that the general had cooperated and outed key insurgents.

The U.S. military initially told reporters that Mowhoush had been captured during a raid. In reality, he had walked into the Forward Operating Base "Tiger" in Qaim on Nov. 10, 2003, hoping to speak with U.S. commanders to secure the release of his sons, who had been arrested in raids 11 days earlier.

Officials were excited about Mowhoush's appearance.

The general, they believed, had been a high-ranking official in Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard and a key supporter of the insurgency in northwestern Iraq. Mowhoush was one of a few generals whom Hussein had given "execution authority," U.S. commanders believed, meaning that he could execute someone on sight, and he had been notorious among Shiites in southern Iraq for brutality.

Mowhoush had been visited by Hussein at his home in Sadah in October 2003 "to discuss, among other undisclosed issues, a bounty of US$10,000 to anyone who video-taped themselves attacking coalition forces," according to a Defense Intelligence Agency report.

Military intelligence also believed that Mowhoush was behind several attacks in the Qaim area.

After being taken into custody, Mowhoush was housed in an isolated area of the Qaim base within miles of the Syrian border, according to a situation summary prepared by interrogators.

The heavyset and imposing man was moderately cooperative in his first days of detention. He told interrogators that he was the commander of the al Quds Golden Division, an organization of trusted loyalists fueling the insurgency with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, sniper rifles, machine guns and other small arms.

In the months before Mowhoush's detention, military intelligence officials across Iraq had been discussing interrogation tactics, expressing a desire to ramp things up and expand their allowed techniques to include more severe methods, such as beatings that did not leave permanent damage, and exploiting detainees' fear of dogs and snakes, according to documents released by the Army.

Officials in Baghdad wrote an e-mail to interrogators in the field on Aug. 14, 2003, stating that the "gloves are coming off" and asking them to develop "wish lists" of tactics they would like to use.

An interrogator with the 66th Military Intelligence Company, who was assigned to work on Mowhoush, wrote back with suggestions in August, including the use of "close confinement quarters," sleep deprivation and using the fear of dogs, adding: "I firmly agree that the gloves need to come off."

Another e-mail exchange from interrogators with the 4th Infantry Division based in Tikrit also suggested "close quarter confinement" in extremely claustrophobic situations, because "discomfort induces compliance and cooperation."

Taking the Gloves Off

A week into Mowhoush's detainment, according to classified investigative documents, interrogators were getting fed up with the prisoner. In a "current situation summary" PowerPoint presentation dated Nov. 18, Army officials wrote about his intransigence, using his first name (spelled "Abid" in Army documents):

"Previous interrogations were non-threatening; Abid was being treated very well. Not anymore," the document reads. "The interrogation session lasted several hours and I took the gloves off because Abid refused to play ball."

But the harsher tactics backfired.

In an interrogation that could be witnessed by the entire detainee population, Mowhoush was put into an undescribed "stress position" that caused the other detainees to stand "with heads bowed and solemn looks on their faces," said the document.

"I asked Abid if he was strong enough a leader to put an end to the attacks that I believed he was behind," the document said, quoting an unidentified interrogator. "He did not deny he was behind the attacks as he had denied previously, he simply said because I had humiliated him, he would not be able to stop the attacks. I take this as an admission of guilt."

Three days later, on Nov. 21, 2003, Mowhoush was moved from the border base at Qaim to a makeshift detention facility about six miles away in the Iraqi desert, a prison fashioned out of an old train depot, according to court testimony and investigative documents. Soldiers with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 101st Airborne Division were running a series of massive raids called Operation Rifles Blitz, and the temporary holding facility, nicknamed Blacksmith Hotel, was designed to hold the quarry.

U.S. troops searched more than 8,000 homes in three cities, netting 350 detainees, according to court testimony. Even though Mowhoush was not arrested during the raids, he was moved to Blacksmith Hotel, where teams of Army Special Forces soldiers and the CIA were conducting interrogations.

At Blacksmith, according to military sources, there was a tiered system of interrogations. Army interrogators were the first level.

When Army efforts produced nothing useful, detainees would be handed over to members of Operational Detachment Alpha 531, soldiers with the 5th Special Forces Group, the CIA or a combination of the three. "The personnel were dressed in civilian clothes and wore balaclavas to hide their identity," according to a Jan. 18, 2004, report for the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.

If they did not get what they wanted, the interrogators would deliver the detainees to a small team of the CIA-sponsored Iraqi paramilitary squads, code-named Scorpions, according to a military source familiar with the operation. The Jan. 18 memo indicates that it was "likely that indigenous personnel in the employ of the CIA interrogated MG Mowhoush."

Sometimes, soldiers and intelligence officers used the mere existence of the paramilitary unit as a threat to induce detainees to talk, one Army soldier said in an interview. "Detainees knew that if they went to those people, bad things would happen," the soldier said. "It was used as a motivator to get them to talk. They didn't want to go with the masked men."

The Scorpions went by nicknames such as Alligator and Cobra. They were set up by the CIA before the war to conduct light sabotage. After the fall of Baghdad, they worked with their CIA handlers to infiltrate the insurgency and as interpreters, according to military investigative documents, defense officials, and former and current intelligence officials.

Soon after Mowhoush's detention began, soldiers in charge of him "reached a collective decision that they would try using the [redacted] who would, you know, obviously spoke the local, native Iraqi Arabic as a means of trying to shake Mowhoush up, and that the other thing that they were going to try to do was put a bunch of people in the room, a tactic that Mr. [redacted] called 'fear up,' " Army Special Agent Curtis Ryan, who investigated the case, testified, according to a transcript.

Classified e-mail messages and reports show that "Brian," a Special Forces retiree, worked as a CIA operative with the Scorpions.

On Nov. 24, the CIA and one of its four-man Scorpion units interrogated Mowhoush, according to investigative records.

"OGA Brian and the four indig were interrogating an unknown detainee," according to a classified memo, using the slang "other government agency" for the CIA and "indig" for indigenous Iraqis.

"When he didn't answer or provided an answer that they didn't like, at first [redacted] would slap Mowhoush, and then after a few slaps, it turned into punches," Ryan testified. "And then from punches, it turned into [redacted] using a piece of hose."

"The indig were hitting the detainee with fists, a club and a length of rubber hose," according to classified investigative records.

Soldiers heard Mowhoush "being beaten with a hard object" and heard him "screaming" from down the hall, according to the Jan. 18, 2004, provost marshal's report. The report said four Army guards had to carry Mowhoush back to his cell.

Two days later, at 8 a.m., Nov. 26, Mowhoush -- prisoner No. 76 -- was brought, moaning and breathing hard, to Interrogation Room 6, according to court testimony.

Chief Warrant Officer Lewis E. Welshofer Jr. did a first round of interrogations for 30 minutes, taking a 15-minute break and resuming at 8:45. According to court testimony, Welshofer and Spec. Jerry L. Loper, a mechanic assuming the role of guard, put Mowhoush into the sleeping bag and wrapped the bag in electrical wire.

Welshofer allegedly crouched over Mowhoush's chest to talk to him.

Sgt. 1st Class William Sommer, a linguist, stood nearby.

Chief Warrant Officer Jeff Williams, an intelligence analyst, came to observe progress.

Investigative records show that Mowhoush "becomes unresponsive" at 9:06 a.m. Medics tried to resuscitate him for 30 minutes before pronouncing him dead.

In a preliminary court hearing in March for Williams, Loper and Sommer, retired Chief Warrant Officer Richard Manwaring, an interrogator who worked with Welshofer in Iraq, testified that using the sleeping bag and putting detainees in a wall locker and banging on it were "appropriate" techniques that he himself used to frighten detainees and make them tense.

Col. David A. Teeples, who then commanded the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, told the court he believed the "claustrophobic technique" was both approved and effective. It was used before, and for some time after, Mowhoush's death, according to sources familiar with the interrogation operation.

"My thought was that the death of Mowhoush was brought about by [redacted] and then it was unfortunate and accidental, what had happened under an interrogation by our people," Teeples said in court, according to a transcript.

The CIA has tried hard to conceal the existence of the Scorpions. CIA classification officials have monitored pretrial hearings in the case and have urged the court to close much of the hearing on national security grounds. Redacted transcripts were released only after lawyers for the Denver Post challenged the rulings.

Autopsy Shields CIA

The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology's standard "Autopsy Examination Report" of Mowhoush's death was manipulated to avoid references to the CIA. In contrast to the other autopsy reports of suspicious detainee deaths released by the Army, Mowhoush's name is redacted and under "Circumstances of Death," the form says: "This Iraqi [redacted] died while in U.S. custody. The details surrounding the circumstances at the time of death are classified."

Williams was arraigned yesterday on a murder charge and is scheduled for court-martial in November, a Fort Carson spokeswoman said. Welshofer's court-martial is set for October. Loper and Sommer have not been referred for trial. Commanders are still considering what, if any, punishment to impose.

Frank Spinner, an attorney for Welshofer, said his client is going to fight the murder charge. Reading from a statement prepared by Welshofer during his Article 32 hearing this spring, Spinner quoted his client as saying that he is proud of the job he did and that his efforts saved U.S. soldiers' lives. "I did not torture anyone," Spinner quoted him as saying.

William Cassara, who represents Williams, cited Mowhoush's brutal encounters in the days before he died as possibly leading to his death. He said Williams, who was not trained in interrogation tactics, had little to do with the case.

"The interrogation techniques were known and were approved of by the upper echelons of command of the 3rd ACR," Cassara said in a news conference. "They believed, and still do, that they were appropriate and proper."

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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999

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