there will be ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from certain areas as is now going on in the Kurdish north.
I didn't know about this. Do you have a link?
If I have time this weekend I'll pull out the clippings that I have on this. Basically, if memor serves me right, this is what the Kurds have been doing in the North.
1) They have a series of secret detention centers where they have hundreds of Sunni men that they have arrested in security sweeps.
2) They're trying to kick out all the Arabs from Kirkuk because they claim that it was theirs before Saddam removed almost all of the Kurds in his Arabization program. The Kurds are trying to return the favor.
3) The Kurds have claimed territories south of their previous northern zone where there are basically no Kurds residing, just Arabs.
The knowledge is much appreciated, motown. It's all riveting in a detached, macabre, history-in-the-making sort of way. Thanks for taking the time to share your insights.
The knowledge is much appreciated, motown. It's all riveting in a detached, macabre, history-in-the-making sort of way. Thanks for taking the time to share your insights.
Thanx for the comments.
Personally reading and researching about Iraq just gets me seething. I cannot believe that we went into this war in the first place, and then the more you read the more unbelievable it becomes Then you read about what's going on now, and it's like one fuck up after another. It's just amazing that the U.S. can consistnelty screw up over and over and over in Iraq and will probably continue to do so into the future and call it "progress." The Iraqi people went from one bad situation into another, that might very well get worse. in the most serious of ways.
there will be ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from certain areas as is now going on in the Kurdish north.
I didn't know about this. Do you have a link?
If I have time this weekend I'll pull out the clippings that I have on this. Basically, if memor serves me right, this is what the Kurds have been doing in the North.
1) They have a series of secret detention centers where they have hundreds of Sunni men that they have arrested in security sweeps.
2) They're trying to kick out all the Arabs from Kirkuk because they claim that it was theirs before Saddam removed almost all of the Kurds in his Arabization program. The Kurds are trying to return the favor.
3) The Kurds have claimed territories south of their previous northern zone where there are basically no Kurds residing, just Arabs.
The Kurds seem to be paying standard lip service to staying w/in the confines of Iraq - but are in truth marshalling up the resources to mount a campaign for an independent Kurdish state; this, of course, does not bode well for a country such as Turkey which houses a sizeable Kurdish population and wishes to circumvent any sort of fomenting rebellion to seize sovereign status amongst this particular segment of its populace... What's also particularly interesting is that the Israeli government has been funding operations in Kurdish-occupied Iraq - i.e. training military personnel, etc. (as reported by the New Yorker)...
I'm not sure an exit is plausible - as Powell said, you break it, you own it - a paradigm that the current administration is loathe to subscribe or even acknowledge...
Can anyone explain why Indian Porn seems to be all the rage these days??
Where would a fellow find this sort of thing? It's not for me, but this friend of mine...
I, too, also have a friend who would not mind finding out more about this.
I'll go one better, I have an entire cadre of friends interested in this - from what I can gather, it's either daughters of Punjabi immigrants that have settled in the west or European (especially German) tourists ostensibly on vacation in the subcontinent itself cobbling together self-produced material...
Can anyone explain why Indian Porn seems to be all the rage these days??
Where would a fellow find this sort of thing? It's not for me, but this friend of mine...
I, too, also have a friend who would not mind finding out more about this.
I'll go one better, I have an entire cadre of friends interested in this - from what I can gather, it's either daughters of Punjabi immigrants that have settled in the west or European (especially German) tourists ostensibly on vacation in the subcontinent itself cobbling together self-produced material...
Most of the Indian porn I have seen hasn't seemed to be particularly amateurish, although many do seem to speak English with a British accent.
I appreciate all the work you've put into researching the topic. However, it's really unneeded.
I know it's all bullshit.
You know it's all bullshit.
Most Republicans know it's all bullshit.
Whoever is in charge gets to play like the like. And they'll continue to do so until the regime changes.
Detailing every bit of bullshit really only reinforces one thing; mainly that it's all bullshit (see above).
I'm being partly facetious but I guess my question is why spend so much time on a topic that we can't affect?
on the one hand I know where you're coming from. the public has no input into foreign policy, or many governmen decisions for that matter so you can get angry all you want, but it's not going to matter on iraq.
on the other hand, public opinion can constrain what the government can and cannot do sometimes.
if you look at history, after vietnam, there was what was called the "vietnam syndrom" meaning the U.S. couldn't intervene or invade countries on a large scale out of fear of the public's reaction and lack of support. that lasted for a good 10-15 years and still has hints of it today.
so i do believe if people are educated about what the government does, they will turn against the government's policies and put some kind of pressure on politicians, because god knows, there's nothing politicians fear more than not getting re-elected.
look at it this way too. there are no real large scale protests going on against iraq in america's streets. yet, bush's poll numbers are in the 30s, politicians of all stripes are talking about withdrawal from iraq now because they know the majority of the public has fallen out of favor with the war. to me, i think the change in opinion is directly related to the realization that all the bullshit that the administraiton is talking about progress, freedom and democracy in iraq, doesn't match up with what they see and hear on the news with the deaths, bombings, etc.
so to me personally, every little bit helps, and i'm not willing to let this bullshit go on.
Iraqi Elections And The Break-Up Of The Country[/b]
In mid-December Iraq held elections for parliament. Political commentators, newspapers and the Bush administration lauded the elections as a sign of progress in Iraq and a further step towards stabilizing the country and planting the seed of democracy. A closer examination of how the elections were conducted, who people voted for, and the political battles over forming a new government show that rather than bringing the country together, the elections only highlighted the deep divisions within the country and the move towards a break-up of the country.
Iraq???s Elections[/b]
Political commentators and the Bush administration congratulated Iraqis on conducting elections for the country???s parliament in mid-December. The mere fact that people voted however, does not show a growth of democracy.
First, on the positive side, for the first time since the U.S. invasion, thousands of Sunnis voted in the elections. U.S. officials were able to broker a cease-fire with the leading Sunni insurgents and tribal leaders to stop violence during the election. There were reports of insurgents actually guarding voting stations in the country.
Those positive results were overshadowed by how the elections were conducted.
In northern Kurdish Iraq, the 2 main Kurdish political parties carried out coordinated attacks on the offices of an independent political party, the Sunni Arab Islamic Union party. Offices were destroyed and people were shot and killed in gun battles outside. There were also reports of the 2 main Kurdish parties shutting out smaller Kurdish political parties.
In the South there was voting fraud, attempts to influence voters and Iranian interference.
Iraqi border police captured a truck from Iran full of thousands of forged ballots made out for the 2 main Shiite religious parties. The driver said that other trucks had already gone through into Iraq.
The 2 main Shiite religious parties also received money and weapons from Iran where many of their leaders once lived in exile and where one of their militias, the Badr Brigade, was trained.
There were also reports of Shiite dominated police units driving around cities urging people to vote for the Shiite religious parties, Shiite soldiers and police voting more than once, and threats against voters if they didn???t vote the right way.
Because of these actions 60 political parties have threatened to boycott Iraq???s new parliament and some have even called for new elections. The Shiites have dismissed these complaints as those of the losers in the elections.
Sunnis have said if their complaints are not met, they will return to violence and the insurgency.
Forming A New Iraqi Government[/b]
Analysts have pointed out that voting wasn???t the most important part of the December elections, rather the negotiations for a new government were the most important step in Iraqi???s future. The early negotiations and fights for power show the continued divisions within the country however.
Because the Shiite religious parties did better than expected they only need to form a coalition with one political party that holds 10-20 seats in parliament to form a new government. The Shiites have shown no desire to work with Sunnis however, which means they could be further shut out of Iraqi politics, thus continuing the insurgency.
Already, leading Shiite and Kurdish officials met in northern Iraq in late December to discuss forming such a government without including any Sunnis.
Break Up Of Iraq[/b]
More importantly the elections further the break-up of Iraq. Both the leading Shiite and Kurdish parties have called for their own autonomous zones in Northern and Southern Iraq. Kurdish officials have openly told American newspapers that they expect Iraq to break up into three separate countries eventually. One top Kurdish official told Knight-Ridder, ???I see us moving towards the end of Iraq.???
It???s ironic, that the Sunnis are one of the only groups that voice the concerns of the Bush administration. The leading Sunni political parties have called for the unity of Iraq, are opposed to the independence of Kurdish Iraq, and warn against the Iranian influence in the Shiite political parties.
In the north, the Kurds are moving towards more and more independence already.
In November 2005 the Kurds signed a contract with a Norwegian firm to drill for oil without consulting Baghdad. The central government felt that this was a violation of the new constitution, but the Kurds said they could do what they wanted in their own zone of influence.
More importantly the Kurds are trying to expand their borders southwards into areas where they were not many Kurds before the U.S. invasion, increasing violence and ethnic tensions.
The main focus of the Kurdish effort has been the oil rich city of Kirkuk, but the Kurds also have plans for Mosul and a few other majority Arab cities.
Under Saddam the Iraqi government forced Kurds out of the city of Kirkuk and replaced them with Arabs as part of an Arabization program. Since then the Kurds have laid claim to the city as theirs. However Kurds were never a majority there. The last accurate census was taken in 1957 and showed that Turkmen were the largest group. Under Saddam Arabs became the majority. That hasn???t stopped the Kurdish plans for the city.
More than just past grievances, Kirkuk also offers the Kurds economic independence since it has so much oil in the area.
A U.S. officer told the New York Times that since the U.S. invasion anywhere from 85,000-350,000 Kurds had moved into Kirkuk and the neighboring area. There are also reports that the Kurds have forced out Arab families from the city. This is all part of the Kurds plan to take over the city in 2007.
When a new Iraqi constitution was drawn up in mid-2005 the Kurds were able to insert an article that set up elections for Kirkuk in 2007. The elections will decide whether Kirkuk will continue to be ruled by Baghdad or be taken over the Kurds. Their plan is to flood the city with Kurds so they win control of the city. Already Kurds have taken over the local government and police.
More threatening is the fact that all the major Iraqi army and police units in the area are majority Kurd, containing thousands of Kurdish militia fighters called Peshmerge. In late December 2005, Knight-Ridder conducted interviews with these soldiers who told them they followed the Kurdish parties rather than the central government and that they were all Pashmerge. For example, the 2nd Iraqi Division which overseas the Irbil-Mosul area is 90% Kurdish.
This has led to increased tension and violence in the city. Already there have been over 30 assassinations from October to December 2005 of Arabs and Turkmen in the city.
Kurdish soldiers and officials also said that they wanted to include Mosul and the surrounding cities into the Kurdish area. None of these cities however, have a large Kurdish population.
Again and again, Kurdish soldiers and officials said that they would try diplomacy to get these cities, but if it came down to it they would fight for them.
In the south, the Shiites have the same aspirations. Right after the elections a leading Shiite politician told the Christian Science Monitor that one of their top priorities was creating their own autonomous region.
To solidify their hold the Shiite political parties have taken over the police forces and many army units in central and southern Iraq. This is leading to increased conflicts with the U.S. because the Shiite units are carrying out kidnappings, assassinations, beatings and death squad activities against Sunnis.
Beginning in November, the U.S. began trying to rest control of the Interior Ministry, who control th
e police, from the Shiites but not only have they failed, but it is increasing Shiite distrust of the Americans.
In mid-November, U.S. forces raided a series of secret prisons where Shiite police were torturing Sunnis. Since then more prisons have been found. The U.S. military and Bush administration were putting increasing pressure on Prime Minister Jaafari to clean up the police, but to no avail.
In the end of December, the U.S. military announced a new plan where they would begin embedding thousands of U.S. trainers and soldiers into Iraqi police units to try to clean them up. Of course, this overlooks the fact that the U.S. still does not have enough trainers to do the work with the Iraqi army right now.
Not only that, but with the Shiite political parties doing better than expected in the December elections, they show no willingness to give up their control or listen to the U.S. on this issue.
Iraqi Elections And The Break-Up Of The Country[/b]
In mid-December Iraq held elections for parliament. Political commentators, newspapers and the Bush administration lauded the elections as a sign of progress in Iraq and a further step towards stabilizing the country and planting the seed of democracy. A closer examination of how the elections were conducted, who people voted for, and the political battles over forming a new government show that rather than bringing the country together, the elections only highlighted the deep divisions within the country and the move towards a break-up of the country.
Iraq???s Elections[/b]
Political commentators and the Bush administration congratulated Iraqis on conducting elections for the country???s parliament in mid-December. The mere fact that people voted however, does not show a growth of democracy.
First, on the positive side, for the first time since the U.S. invasion, thousands of Sunnis voted in the elections. U.S. officials were able to broker a cease-fire with the leading Sunni insurgents and tribal leaders to stop violence during the election. There were reports of insurgents actually guarding voting stations in the country.
Those positive results were overshadowed by how the elections were conducted.
In northern Kurdish Iraq, the 2 main Kurdish political parties carried out coordinated attacks on the offices of an independent political party, the Sunni Arab Islamic Union party. Offices were destroyed and people were shot and killed in gun battles outside. There were also reports of the 2 main Kurdish parties shutting out smaller Kurdish political parties.
In the South there was voting fraud, attempts to influence voters and Iranian interference.
Iraqi border police captured a truck from Iran full of thousands of forged ballots made out for the 2 main Shiite religious parties. The driver said that other trucks had already gone through into Iraq.
The 2 main Shiite religious parties also received money and weapons from Iran where many of their leaders once lived in exile and where one of their militias, the Badr Brigade, was trained.
There were also reports of Shiite dominated police units driving around cities urging people to vote for the Shiite religious parties, Shiite soldiers and police voting more than once, and threats against voters if they didn???t vote the right way.
Because of these actions 60 political parties have threatened to boycott Iraq???s new parliament and some have even called for new elections. The Shiites have dismissed these complaints as those of the losers in the elections.
Sunnis have said if their complaints are not met, they will return to violence and the insurgency.
Forming A New Iraqi Government[/b]
Analysts have pointed out that voting wasn???t the most important part of the December elections, rather the negotiations for a new government were the most important step in Iraqi???s future. The early negotiations and fights for power show the continued divisions within the country however.
Because the Shiite religious parties did better than expected they only need to form a coalition with one political party that holds 10-20 seats in parliament to form a new government. The Shiites have shown no desire to work with Sunnis however, which means they could be further shut out of Iraqi politics, thus continuing the insurgency.
Already, leading Shiite and Kurdish officials met in northern Iraq in late December to discuss forming such a government without including any Sunnis.
Break Up Of Iraq[/b]
More importantly the elections further the break-up of Iraq. Both the leading Shiite and Kurdish parties have called for their own autonomous zones in Northern and Southern Iraq. Kurdish officials have openly told American newspapers that they expect Iraq to break up into three separate countries eventually. One top Kurdish official told Knight-Ridder, ???I see us moving towards the end of Iraq.???
It???s ironic, that the Sunnis are one of the only groups that voice the concerns of the Bush administration. The leading Sunni political parties have called for the unity of Iraq, are opposed to the independence of Kurdish Iraq, and warn against the Iranian influence in the Shiite political parties.
In the north, the Kurds are moving towards more and more independence already.
In November 2005 the Kurds signed a contract with a Norwegian firm to drill for oil without consulting Baghdad. The central government felt that this was a violation of the new constitution, but the Kurds said they could do what they wanted in their own zone of influence.
More importantly the Kurds are trying to expand their borders southwards into areas where they were not many Kurds before the U.S. invasion, increasing violence and ethnic tensions.
The main focus of the Kurdish effort has been the oil rich city of Kirkuk, but the Kurds also have plans for Mosul and a few other majority Arab cities.
Under Saddam the Iraqi government forced Kurds out of the city of Kirkuk and replaced them with Arabs as part of an Arabization program. Since then the Kurds have laid claim to the city as theirs. However Kurds were never a majority there. The last accurate census was taken in 1957 and showed that Turkmen were the largest group. Under Saddam Arabs became the majority. That hasn???t stopped the Kurdish plans for the city.
More than just past grievances, Kirkuk also offers the Kurds economic independence since it has so much oil in the area.
A U.S. officer told the New York Times that since the U.S. invasion anywhere from 85,000-350,000 Kurds had moved into Kirkuk and the neighboring area. There are also reports that the Kurds have forced out Arab families from the city. This is all part of the Kurds plan to take over the city in 2007.
When a new Iraqi constitution was drawn up in mid-2005 the Kurds were able to insert an article that set up elections for Kirkuk in 2007. The elections will decide whether Kirkuk will continue to be ruled by Baghdad or be taken over the Kurds. Their plan is to flood the city with Kurds so they win control of the city. Already Kurds have taken over the local government and police.
More threatening is the fact that all the major Iraqi army and police units in the area are majority Kurd, containing thousands of Kurdish militia fighters called Peshmerge. In late December 2005, Knight-Ridder conducted interviews with these soldiers who told them they followed the Kurdish parties rather than the central government and that they were all Pashmerge. For example, the 2nd Iraqi Division which overseas the Irbil-Mosul area is 90% Kurdish.
This has led to increased tension and violence in the city. Already there have been over 30 assassinations from October to December 2005 of Arabs and Turkmen in the city.
Kurdish soldiers and officials also said that they wanted to include Mosul and the surrounding cities into the Kurdish area. None of these cities however, have a large Kurdish population.
Again and again, Kurdish soldiers and officials said that they would try diplomacy to get these cities, but if it came down to it they would fight for them.
In the south, the Shiites have the same aspirations. Right after the elections a leading Shiite politician told the Christian Science Monitor that one of their top priorities was creating their own autonomous region.
To solidify their hold the Shiite political parties have taken over the police forces and many army units in central and southern Iraq. This is leading to increased conflicts with the U.S. because the Shiite units are carrying out kidnappings, assassinations, beatings and death squad activities against Sunnis.
Beginning in November, the U.S. began trying to rest control of the Interior Ministry, wh
o control the police, from the Shiites but not only have they failed, but it is increasing Shiite distrust of the Americans.
In mid-November, U.S. forces raided a series of secret prisons where Shiite police were torturing Sunnis. Since then more prisons have been found. The U.S. military and Bush administration were putting increasing pressure on Prime Minister Jaafari to clean up the police, but to no avail.
In the end of December, the U.S. military announced a new plan where they would begin embedding thousands of U.S. trainers and soldiers into Iraqi police units to try to clean them up. Of course, this overlooks the fact that the U.S. still does not have enough trainers to do the work with the Iraqi army right now.
Not only that, but with the Shiite political parties doing better than expected in the December elections, they show no willingness to give up their control or listen to the U.S. on this issue.
besides sunnis getting stuck with an oilless wastelan and shites creating another theocracy in the south allied with Iran, what are the downsides of three new autonomus states?
and btw, thanks for the research joel. happy new year, hommie
rockadelic, what do you propose? motown is doing a lot of work to present his researched assesment of the situation and provide clarity for those who may be confused by the constant headlines and spin. you will most likely get more solid information from his posts on soulstrut than at an administration briefing or bush speech. so besides unspecifics, like "stay the course" or "refuse to lose" what you got? off the top of the head, i say we pull out troops, allow the country to split in three, help with rebuilding and humanitarian efforts, and try to maintain supportive and diplomatic roles with sunni, shiite and kurdish states. its gonna be a fucking mess over there no matter what. we may as well stop wasting men and money.
then again, in the very unlikely instance that we do pull up stakes and resources, our world destabilizing activities will have more chance to focus on south america...that would be most unfortunate
Go back to the 1st page. I already wrote some things that could be done in Iraq, but overall there is not going to be a good ending for the U.S. in the country.
Going through the literature and articles about Iraq it???s amazing how many missteps the Bush administration made even before the war started. As it has progressed and dragged on, the U.S. continues to make decisive decisions that basically continue to screw things up. Making a complete list would be too long, but here are some of the major ones.
1) The Bush administration lies and exaggerates about the threat Iraq posed with its WMD and ties to terrorism to win domestic support for the war and to get Congress to vote for the invasion.
2) Instead of turning over post-war Iraq to the State Department, which usually handles such matters, Bush decides to give the Pentagon the job since it is one of the leading proponents of the war. The Pentagon has no recent experience in post-war occupations.
3) Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his chief deputy, Paul Wolfowitz ban any member of the Defense Department from participating in any post-war planning in mid-2002. According to the two, making plans for after the war, hinder war planning. The Pentagon leadership also forbids anyone to formally estimate how much the war and an occupation might cost.
4) As part of Rumsfeld???s goal of transforming the U.S. military into a streamlined, high tech force that uses overwhelming power against its opponents, the Secretary of Defense originally argues on sending in only 75,000 soldiers to invade Iraq, mostly Special Forces units. The military on the other hand, is using the old plans from the original Gulf War that call for a force of from 300-400,000 soldiers. Rumsfeld attacks his generals for being too old fashioned and eventually a compromise is made at approximately 175,000. This proves to be good enough to win the war, but not enough to keep the peace afterwards.
5) Anyone in the Pentagon who disagrees with the leadership or voices concerns about the war plans are given the boot. These include the Secretary of the Army, the head of the Joint Chiefs of staff and a mid-level Pentagon bureaucrat who say that more troops need to be sent, that the Pentagon needs to plan for after the war, and gives an estimate on how much the war and subsequent occupation will cost.
6) The Pentagon leadership and Vice President Cheney???s office are convinced that not only will the Iraqis welcome the U.S. as liberators, but that the Iraqi government will continue to run, just without Saddam. Therefore they create a post-war group led by former General Jay Garner that is only to exist for a maximum of 3 months. According to the war supporters, by then U.S. troops will basically be out of Iraq and the country will be moving towards forming a new government and democracy.
7) As soon as the war ends, things start going awry. Widespread looting and lawlessness begins in Iraq. Notoriously the U.S. military is only protecting the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad otherwise U.S. soldiers do nothing. It takes a week for the U.S. to respond. Rumsfeld makes his famous statement during a press briefing that bad people do bad things and that the U.S. could do nothing about the looting.
8) A major justification for the war, Iraq???s WMD, can???t be found. The administration goes from claiming they know exactly where the WMD are and it???s only a matter of time in finding them, to eventually saying that Iraq wanted to make WMD in the future and therefore was a threat that justified an invasion.
9) Saddam planned to be defeated in a conventional war, so he made plans for a guerrilla war afterwards. None of these plans are discovered by U.S. intelligence or the military until the insurgency begins.
10) When the insurgency does begin against the U.S. the Pentagon tries to ignore it. Rumsfeld tells the press that its only dead enders and hangers on of the old regime and that there is no insurgency going on in Iraq. It takes one year for the Pentagon leadership to acknowledge that there is an actual insurgency going on in the country. By then, it's too late to stop it.
11) The post-war chaos in Iraq leaders to former General Gardner being fired and the creation of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) under Paul Bremer. Bremer has no experience in post-war occupation or rebuilding projects.
12) One of Bremer???s biggest moves is to disband the Iraqi army and not give them any pay. According to Bremer, the military had disintegrated anyways after the war so there was nothing left of it. U.S. military officers later say they were in negotiations with Iraqi officers who could of re-formed their units. Regardless, this becomes one of the largest recruiting pools for the growing insurgency.
13) Because the Pentagon made no plans for after the war, the CPA is staffed mostly by people with connections to the Republican Party who have no experience in Iraq, don???t speak Arabic, and don???t know about occupations, reconstructions, or fighting insurgencies. In the end, most of their plans are either illegal by international law and can???t be implemented, or, they never get off the drawing board in the first place. A few examples. Control of the Iraqi budget is given over to a group of young Republicans in their 20s who have just graduated from college. They didn???t even apply to work in Iraq but were contacted by the Pentagon because they put in applications to work for the Heritage Foundation. None of them knows about Iraq nor its budget. Restructuring Iraq???s economy is given to a large Bush campaign donor and the White House spokesman???s brother. Infamously, the latter says the first thing he wants to do is get rid of nepotism in Iraq, even though he got his job because of his brother. Their major plan is to privatize Iraq???s economy. In the end, it turns out that occupying powers cannot make permanent changes to a country so none of their plans can be implemented. Paul Bremer draws up Iraq???s Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) that is suppose to ensure minority rights, give guidelines for the economy, set up the basis for democracy, etc. Like the plans for the economy, this is also illegal under international law, so when the CPA eventually ends, so does the TAL.
14) The CPA is also plagued by corruption. Not only are Iraqis stealing millions of dollars in reconstruction funds, so are American civilians and soldiers. This culture of corruption is continued after the CPA formally ends. A famous example that came to light in late 2005 was that an ex-con from the U.S. was put in charge of $82 million in reconstruction funds. He was receiving $200,000 a month in kickbacks and bribes.
15) Since the U.S. ends up occupying Iraq they need to give it an Iraqi face so they create a consultative board of Iraqis which is suppose to work with the CPA. Most of these are Iraqi exiles who have no support base within the country, but have close connections to Western governments and intelligence services. Few in Iraq find legitimacy in the board, and eventually Bremer and the CPA doesn???t even want to deal with them.
16) Because the Pentagon made no post-war plans for Iraq, when the insurgency begins, the U.S. military has no counterinsurgency plan to fight it. It is not until the end of 2005 that the Pentagon begins giving training to U.S. soldiers who are going to be sent to Iraq and Afghanistan on how to effectively fight an insurgency and deal with civilians in a war zone.
17) Because Rumsfeld never wanted to send in that many troops to begin with, when the insurgency begins and the invasion turns into an occupation, there are not enough troops in Iraq to control the country. The military turns to the Reserves and National Guard to back up the regular military in Iraq. Many of these units are a mix of youngsters and middle aged soldiers who have no armored vehicles, no training for occupation nor counterinsurgency. Because of stop-gap orders, many of them are also forced to serve more than their years worth of service in Iraq.
18)
When the Pentagon finally admits that the U.S. is fighting an insurgency in Iraq they turn to using overwhelming force to try to destroy it, rather than a combined political, economic and military plan as is traditional in counterinsurgency operations. Hence you get the first and second battles of Fallujah. After the 2nd battle, U.S. commanders claim victory. According to them, not only have they broken the back of the insurgency, but killed many of the foreign fighters there. In fact, there were few foreigners in the city, many of the insurgents got out of the city, almost all of Fallujah is destroyed, and has still not been rebuilt as of today.
19) Because the insurgency has been able to grow in strength each year, much of the reconstruction of Iraq comes to a halt, those projects which are being worked on have their funds drained by security costs rather than actual construction, and many projects are plagued by corruption and bad planning. A famous example from 2005 is when the U.S. completed a power plant, but didn???t build the wires to deliver the electricity to users.
20) One of the corner stones of the Bush administration???s plan for victory in Iraq becomes creating and training Iraqi security forces. At first, the U.S. only planned on creating a border patrol, but when the insurgency grew, this didn???t fit the task at hand. Despite many public announcements by Bush about training, the actual plans are never given a priority for two years. The program is never given enough money, military officers don???t want to go into training because it doesn???t give them any prestige to advance their careers and get promotions, and according to many press reports and books, Rumsfeld became bored with Iraq, so he didn???t really care about the plans. Because the training is not given a top priority in reality, when Iraqi units are first put into use such as in Fallujah, most of them run away and their units need to be completely re-recruited and re-built.
21) Abu Grab becomes public causing the further loss of legitimacy for the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The administration tries to blame rogue individuals within the military, but hundreds of other cases come under investigation and interrogation tactics like using dogs turn out to be transferred from Guantanomo, rather than just thought up by reservists in Iraq.
22) The U.S. conducts the first elections in Iraq to elect a body to draw up a provisional constitution for the country. Sunnis boycott the elections, and the U.S. does nothing. Sunni tribal leaders are one of the most powerful groups in central Iraq and give aid and support to the insurgency, but the CPA and U.S. military basically ignores them.
23) All along the administration seems to give more priority in winning the domestic battle against Democrats and critics of the war, rather than what is actually going on in Iraq. For example, the administration goes after former ambassador Wilson because he criticizes the administration???s claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger. Even before Wilson goes public with his criticism, the Bush administration is moving away from this claim, but Cheney makes attacking Wilson a top priority. This leads to the leaking of Wilson???s wife???s name to the press and the subsequent indictment of Cheney???s top aide Lewis Libby.
24) In its rush to create Iraqi security forces, the U.S. allows Kurdish and Shiite militias to be incorporated even though they are supposedly outlawed in Iraq. The Shiites, who dominate the police, quickly begin using tactics like torture, abuse and death squads against Sunnis and critics of the main Shiite religious parties. Both Shiite and Kurdish soldiers say they follow their own sectarian and ethnic leaders rather than the central government. It???s not until the end of December 2005 that the U.S. military announces that they will embed U.S. soldiers with the police to try to end the abuses. No plan has been put forward on how to end sectarian and ethnic loyalties in the Iraqi army however.
25) Since the Kurds are the closest U.S. allies in Iraq, they are given a free reign in northern Iraq and special preferences within the interim Iraqi government. The CPA negotiates key posts for Kurds in the interim government, allows entire Kurdish militia units to join the Iraqi police and army, and turns a blind eye to their ambitions of taking over Kirkuk and other northern cities outside of the traditional Kurdish.
26) The Bush administration???s new campaign for victory made public in November 2005 claims that elections and Iraqi security forces are what are going to win the war in Iraq. The campaign is meant for the U.S. public, because U.S. commanders in Iraq are never told about it. According to Bush there are 120,000 Iraqi security forces, but this number has not changed since he first started talking about it in the last presidential election against Kerry. According to Bush then, there has been no increase in security forces in 2 years. Most analysts and news reporters, now agree that the 120,000 number is not legitimate and was created for domestic political purposes rather than an accurate measure of the effectiveness of the Iraqi forces. The elections in Iraq have also not led to national unity, nor the seed of democracy. Rather each election has shown the deep divisions within Iraq and given the Shiites and the Kurds the political legitimacy to carry out their separate plans, many of which point to independence and the break-up of Iraq. Sunnis, also continue to be shut out of the political process, even with their recent participation in the December 2005 elections. The administration tends to ignore the results of the voting, and just focuses on the fact that Iraqis are voting for the first time as a sign of success.
27) Because the U.S. doesn???t want to alarm Iraq???s neighbors and doesn???t want to make Iraq a regional power again, plans for the Iraqi security forces includes no tanks or heavy armor, and basically no navy or air force. Almost all of the training has also been for combat units. All of the support units that take care of providing food, ammunition, etc. have hardly been formed. Instead, all of these major duties will be carried out by the U.S. into the foreseeable future. This means permanent U.S. bases in Iraq until the U.S. is asked or forced to leave.
28) The U.S. military has finally come up with an effective counterinsurgency program started in the winter of 2005. This includes taking over sections of Iraq and staying there, rather than attacking it and leaving. The U.S. will then begin hearts and minds campaigns and reconstruction efforts. All of this will be done in coordination with Iraqi units who will eventually be given control of the area and allow the U.S. military to move onto the next target. The major problem with this campaign is that not only are most of the Iraqi units not capable of anything more than carrying out patrols, but that many of them are openly hostile towards the Sunni population. There are press reports with Shiite soldiers who make up the majority of the Iraqi army for example, who say their main priority is getting revenge against the Sunnis rather than acting like a national military trying to protect civilians against insurgents.
This is a long record of mistakes, and plain incompetence, that will probably continue into the future.
In a way I think the Americans simply have to stay now that they've started the invasion. I know my opnion might upset some of you but the troops are the only who, at least, make the county a bit secure for the public. If they leave all hell will break loose.
I'm totally against the war but now that it's started I don't think withdrawl is an option.
Rockadelic, can you tell me what's going right in Iraq and what the Bush administration has done and is doing effectively while there?
No idea....I am curious as to what your sources are though.....I've read so much rhetoric on this issue it's hard to know what to believe and what is BS. My inclination is that there are equal amounts of BS on both sides of the argument.
Overall it seems like a lose/lose to me regardless of what action was/will be taken.
Has there ever been a Muslim based society that hasn't had war, assasinations and massive killings within itself??
I'm not a Globalist...I think the U.S. should take care of itself and it's own problems before they go sticking their nose in elsewhere.
I'm also for independence when it comes to energy even if that means drilling for oil on our soil until alternatives can be developed and put in place.
Not a perfect world...no perfect solutions.
A culture that breeds suicide bombers, kills based on religious beliefs and use a holy book as a guidebook for war is certainly difficult to co-exist with in 2005. And asking them nicely to stop, putting them into "time out" or even spanking them is not a viable solution.
I've enjoyed reading Motown's posts and it has raised some questions in my mind about why we are in Iraq and what we should do next.
I guess the questions that cross my mind the most are these.....
If we left Iraq, didn't fuck with S. America, N. Korea, or anyone else in the Middle East. Cut all ties with these folks including the purchase of oil, removed all Military and Corporate personnel and discontinued all trading of goods....
1) Would we be closer to World Peace??(Which is what I assume ALL folks want) 2) Would all the killings, genocide, terrorism and violence that we used as an excuse to go Iraq, and has been happening elsewhere, come to an end???
and if not
3) Who's responsibility would it be to try to MAKE it come to an end?? 4) Or do we just accept that this is the way of life in 2005?
That is why I asked what the solution might be...I certainly have no clue, but I'm betting there is no easy solution, and that ANY possible solution would have it's critics.
A culture that breeds suicide bombers, kills based on religious beliefs and use a holy book as a guidebook for war is certainly difficult to co-exist with in 2005.
A culture that breeds suicide bombers, kills based on religious beliefs and use a holy book as a guidebook for war is certainly difficult to co-exist with in 2005.
What culture are you talking about???
Whatever culture has bred large numbers of suicide bombers, with promises of great reward in the afterlife for killing "infidels".
Which culture do you think is responsible for this??
A culture that breeds suicide bombers, kills based on religious beliefs and use a holy book as a guidebook for war is certainly difficult to co-exist with in 2005.
What culture are you talking about???
Whatever culture has bred large numbers of suicide bombers, with promises of great reward in the afterlife for killing "infidels".
Which culture do you think is responsible for this??
Or is it all a lie?
Muslim society, like Christian, Jewish, Hindu, whatever has many many strains in it. To ask, has there ever been a Muslim society where there haven't been widespread killings and assassinations seems a little naive. There are countries like Morocco, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirtes, etc. that really haven't had any kind of violence. There are also countries like Yemen that had a long running civil war that really didn't involve religion, but was more based upon tribes, communism, and other ideas. There are other countries, like Ethiopia, 45-50% of which are Muslims, that you probably didn't even know had a large Islamic community. The countries that usually have violence are the ones that are led by dictators and authortarian governments, and you get resistance to those kinds of rulers all over the world no matter what religion the people believe in.
Islamism, Islamic fundamentalism, is only one straing of Islam. Not only that, but within Islamism there are all different kinds of ideologies. You have the violent revolutionaries of Al Qaeda. You also have the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt which wants to work within the system, but just last month got beat in the streets by the government during elections for parliament. In Algeria and Tunisia you had Islamist movements in the 1980s that wanted to run in elections, but when it looked like they would win majaorities they were blocked from power. In Algeria the military stepped in and had a coup rather than let the Islamists win the election. This led to a civil war in the country and the growth of terrorism that spread to France, the main supporter of the Algerian government and military.
You also have to understand that there are a lot of religious groups in the Middle East, not just Muslims. There are plenty of Christian Arabs for example. The Assad family that rules Syria are not Muslims, but Alawis.
besides sunnis getting stuck with an oilless wastelan and shites creating another theocracy in the south allied with Iran, what are the downsides of three new autonomus states?
and btw, thanks for the research joel. happy new year, hommie
Tony,
To just answer your questions off the top of my head, here might be some repercussions of a break-up of Iraq.
1) If Kurdistan becomes independent it might lead to military intervention by Turkey. I've read reports that the Turks were covertly sending in weapons and money to the Turkmen in nothern Iraq to counter the power of the Kurds. Turkey would probably freak out if Kurdistan became independent because that would have a great effect on the repressed Kurds within Turkey.
2) If central Iraq becomes an independent Sunni area it might become a new Afghanistan for Islamic terrorists. That's actually already happened in Western Iraq, but it might grow with a break-up of the country. Of course, also been reading reports that there are a lot of Sunnis who don't like the foreign fighters so who knows how that would play out with a break-up of the country. The Sunnis might end up kicking them out actually if they had their own country. That could be a plus!
3) We'd probably still be involved in one way or another because a pro-Iranian southern Shiite country is something the U.S. government doesn't want and is already trying to curb.
In a way I think the Americans simply have to stay now that they've started the invasion. I know my opnion might upset some of you but the troops are the only who, at least, make the county a bit secure for the public. If they leave all hell will break loose.
I'm totally against the war but now that it's started I don't think withdrawl is an option.
That's the problem that a lot of people have to wrestle with. Will it be better or worse if the U.S. pulls out. You also have to consider this, is it getting worse right now with the U.S. already there? Whether the U.S. stays or goes, in my opinion it's not going to be good in Iraq. And personally, I don't think the U.S. troops make it a bit secure for the public in Iraq. In fact, U.S. soldiers are a target of attacks so being around them is actually more dangerous than not being around them. Not only that, but there was a study by an international medical group that found that 87% of Iraqis killed by violence were actually killed by Americans, mostly U.S. air power, not the insurgents.
A culture that ... kills based on religious beliefs and use a holy book as a guidebook for war is certainly difficult to co-exist with in 2005.
Come on now Rock. There is plenty of information about Bush's new found religious faith out there. I was raised a Christian, and this fool is an abomination of everything I believe in.
Getting the Words Wrong
President Bush uses religious language more than any president in U.S. history, and some of his key speechwriters come right out of the evangelical community. Sometimes he draws on biblical language, other times old gospel hymns that cause deep resonance among the faithful in his own electoral base. The problem is that the quotes from the Bible and hymnals are too often either taken out of context or, worse yet, employed in ways quite different from their original meaning. For example, in the 2003 State of the Union, the president evoked an easily recognized and quite famous line from an old gospel hymn. Speaking of America's deepest problems, Bush said, "The need is great. Yet there's power, wonder-working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people." But that's not what the song is about. The hymn says there is "power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb" (emphasis added). The hymn is about the power of Christ in salvation, not the power of "the American people," or any people, or any country. Bush's citation was a complete misuse.
On the first anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, President Bush said at Ellis Island, "This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind???. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it." Those last two sentences are straight out of John's gospel. But in the gospel the light shining in the darkness is the Word of God, and the light is the light of Christ. It's not about America and its values. Even his favorite hymn, "A Charge to Keep," speaks of that charge as "a God to glorify"???not to "do everything we can to protect the American homeland," as Bush has named our charge to keep.
In a way I think the Americans simply have to stay now that they've started the invasion. I know my opnion might upset some of you but the troops are the only who, at least, make the county a bit secure for the public. If they leave all hell will break loose.
I'm totally against the war but now that it's started I don't think withdrawl is an option.
That's the problem that a lot of people have to wrestle with. Will it be better or worse if the U.S. pulls out. You also have to consider this, is it getting worse right now with the U.S. already there? Whether the U.S. stays or goes, in my opinion it's not going to be good in Iraq. And personally, I don't think the U.S. troops make it a bit secure for the public in Iraq. In fact, U.S. soldiers are a target of attacks so being around them is actually more dangerous than not being around them. Not only that, but there was a study by an international medical group that found that 87% of Iraqis killed by violence were actually killed by Americans, mostly U.S. air power, not the insurgents.
A culture that ... kills based on religious beliefs and use a holy book as a guidebook for war is certainly difficult to co-exist with in 2005.
Come on now Rock. There is plenty of information about Bush's new found religious faith out there. I was raised a Christian, and this fool is an abomination of everything I believe in.
Getting the Words Wrong
President Bush uses religious language more than any president in U.S. history, and some of his key speechwriters come right out of the evangelical community. Sometimes he draws on biblical language, other times old gospel hymns that cause deep resonance among the faithful in his own electoral base. The problem is that the quotes from the Bible and hymnals are too often either taken out of context or, worse yet, employed in ways quite different from their original meaning. For example, in the 2003 State of the Union, the president evoked an easily recognized and quite famous line from an old gospel hymn. Speaking of America's deepest problems, Bush said, "The need is great. Yet there's power, wonder-working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people." But that's not what the song is about. The hymn says there is "power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb" (emphasis added). The hymn is about the power of Christ in salvation, not the power of "the American people," or any people, or any country. Bush's citation was a complete misuse.
On the first anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, President Bush said at Ellis Island, "This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind???. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it." Those last two sentences are straight out of John's gospel. But in the gospel the light shining in the darkness is the Word of God, and the light is the light of Christ. It's not about America and its values. Even his favorite hymn, "A Charge to Keep," speaks of that charge as "a God to glorify"???not to "do everything we can to protect the American homeland," as Bush has named our charge to keep.
just one of the first articles that came up in a google search.
Rob
So is this is a culture, or as some would see it, one lunatic who's out of control??
Comparing Al Quaeda, Islamic fundamentalism and the likes, to the brand of Christianity practiced by 99.9% of the Christians in America(including yourself I assume) is pretty absurd.
Not being a Christian, I have no problem accepting Bush's statements at face value, as opposed to interpreting them via bible passages. That doesn't mean I agree with them.
I guess the question that this begs is, why, if Bush is the evil maniacal bloodthirsty christian fundamentalist many make him out to be, did the majority of politicians across party and religious lines support his actions to go to War in Iraq and not pull out when given the opportunity.
One thing you won't see me do is pull quotes and paragraphs from the Internet to try to make a point. Biased opinions can be found everywhere, so all I can do is form MY OWN opinion based on what I see and hear directly from the mouths of those taking and living these actions.
I'm just a simple man with simple questions based on logic and common sense.
I have simple questions like...
Were there more innocent Iraqi citizens killed in 1995 or 2005??
If there are things like genocide, torture and murder taking place in mass in a country, who, if anyone, has the right or responsibility to try to stop it??
Do Islamic fundamentalists have a goal of killing all non-Muslims who do not convert to Islam??
Does Bush's Christian Fundamentalism call for the death and/or abuse of all non-white Christians.
These really aren't political questions, they are black and white, right vs. wrong questiions.
I've formed my opinion based on everything I've seen and I'll choose to be on the side of the American, christian based, Isreal supporting folks who have good intent but fuck up more often than not, instead of the Islamic, Jews must die, America(Christians and Democracy) is the Great Satan, all infidels must die crazies.
It may be the lesser of two evils, but that last choice is pretty much a no brainer to this simple minded man.
And for the record, I don't blindly agree with or hate George Bush and his actions. But it does appear that 90% of Americans fits into one of those two categories.
I don't claim to know any of the answers, but I refuse to self loath or criticize without a 100% understanding of what's really going down....and I believe very few folks can claim to have this understanding....I might be 50% there.
Motown67 is one person who I applaud for trying to look at just facts and beyond political hype/bias. But that doesn't mean I'm gonna sit back and take his posts as the gospel(no pun intended)and not have questions of my own.
If that makes me appear to be stupid(or worse)...so be it.
After being called "The new Vitamin" recently I assumed it was an insult. I did some research and read a bunch of the past debates he was involved with, and compared to the majority here, the guy seems very articulate and someone who scratches below the surface of the issues at hand. In other words, it was a compliment, and one that I don't think I could live up to.
Comments
If I have time this weekend I'll pull out the clippings that I have on this. Basically, if memor serves me right, this is what the Kurds have been doing in the North.
1) They have a series of secret detention centers where they have hundreds of Sunni men that they have arrested in security sweeps.
2) They're trying to kick out all the Arabs from Kirkuk because they claim that it was theirs before Saddam removed almost all of the Kurds in his Arabization program. The Kurds are trying to return the favor.
3) The Kurds have claimed territories south of their previous northern zone where there are basically no Kurds residing, just Arabs.
Where would a fellow find this sort of thing? It's not for me, but this friend of mine...
Thanx for the comments.
Personally reading and researching about Iraq just gets me seething. I cannot believe that we went into this war in the first place, and then the more you read the more unbelievable it becomes Then you read about what's going on now, and it's like one fuck up after another. It's just amazing that the U.S. can consistnelty screw up over and over and over in Iraq and will probably continue to do so into the future and call it "progress." The Iraqi people went from one bad situation into another, that might very well get worse.
I know it's all bullshit.
You know it's all bullshit.
Most Republicans know it's all bullshit.
Whoever is in charge gets to play like the like. And they'll continue to do so until the regime changes.
Detailing every bit of bullshit really only reinforces one thing; mainly that it's all bullshit (see above).
I'm being partly facetious but I guess my question is why spend so much time on a topic that we can't affect?
I, too, also have a friend who would not mind finding out more about this.
The Kurds seem to be paying standard lip service to staying w/in the confines of Iraq - but are in truth marshalling up the resources to mount a campaign for an independent Kurdish state; this, of course, does not bode well for a country such as Turkey which houses a sizeable Kurdish population and wishes to circumvent any sort of fomenting rebellion to seize sovereign status amongst this particular segment of its populace... What's also particularly interesting is that the Israeli government has been funding operations in Kurdish-occupied Iraq - i.e. training military personnel, etc. (as reported by the New Yorker)...
I'm not sure an exit is plausible - as Powell said, you break it, you own it - a paradigm that the current administration is loathe to subscribe or even acknowledge...
I'll go one better, I have an entire cadre of friends interested in this - from what I can gather, it's either daughters of Punjabi immigrants that have settled in the west or European (especially German) tourists ostensibly on vacation in the subcontinent itself cobbling together self-produced material...
Most of the Indian porn I have seen hasn't seemed to be particularly amateurish, although many do seem to speak English with a British accent.
on the one hand I know where you're coming from. the public has no input into foreign policy, or many governmen decisions for that matter so you can get angry all you want, but it's not going to matter on iraq.
on the other hand, public opinion can constrain what the government can and cannot do sometimes.
if you look at history, after vietnam, there was what was called the "vietnam syndrom" meaning the U.S. couldn't intervene or invade countries on a large scale out of fear of the public's reaction and lack of support. that lasted for a good 10-15 years and still has hints of it today.
so i do believe if people are educated about what the government does, they will turn against the government's policies and put some kind of pressure on politicians, because god knows, there's nothing politicians fear more than not getting re-elected.
look at it this way too. there are no real large scale protests going on against iraq in america's streets. yet, bush's poll numbers are in the 30s, politicians of all stripes are talking about withdrawal from iraq now because they know the majority of the public has fallen out of favor with the war. to me, i think the change in opinion is directly related to the realization that all the bullshit that the administraiton is talking about progress, freedom and democracy in iraq, doesn't match up with what they see and hear on the news with the deaths, bombings, etc.
so to me personally, every little bit helps, and i'm not willing to let this bullshit go on.
In mid-December Iraq held elections for parliament. Political commentators, newspapers and the Bush administration lauded the elections as a sign of progress in Iraq and a further step towards stabilizing the country and planting the seed of democracy. A closer examination of how the elections were conducted, who people voted for, and the political battles over forming a new government show that rather than bringing the country together, the elections only highlighted the deep divisions within the country and the move towards a break-up of the country.
Iraq???s Elections[/b]
Political commentators and the Bush administration congratulated Iraqis on conducting elections for the country???s parliament in mid-December. The mere fact that people voted however, does not show a growth of democracy.
First, on the positive side, for the first time since the U.S. invasion, thousands of Sunnis voted in the elections. U.S. officials were able to broker a cease-fire with the leading Sunni insurgents and tribal leaders to stop violence during the election. There were reports of insurgents actually guarding voting stations in the country.
Those positive results were overshadowed by how the elections were conducted.
In northern Kurdish Iraq, the 2 main Kurdish political parties carried out coordinated attacks on the offices of an independent political party, the Sunni Arab Islamic Union party. Offices were destroyed and people were shot and killed in gun battles outside. There were also reports of the 2 main Kurdish parties shutting out smaller Kurdish political parties.
In the South there was voting fraud, attempts to influence voters and Iranian interference.
Iraqi border police captured a truck from Iran full of thousands of forged ballots made out for the 2 main Shiite religious parties. The driver said that other trucks had already gone through into Iraq.
The 2 main Shiite religious parties also received money and weapons from Iran where many of their leaders once lived in exile and where one of their militias, the Badr Brigade, was trained.
There were also reports of Shiite dominated police units driving around cities urging people to vote for the Shiite religious parties, Shiite soldiers and police voting more than once, and threats against voters if they didn???t vote the right way.
Because of these actions 60 political parties have threatened to boycott Iraq???s new parliament and some have even called for new elections. The Shiites have dismissed these complaints as those of the losers in the elections.
Sunnis have said if their complaints are not met, they will return to violence and the insurgency.
Forming A New Iraqi Government[/b]
Analysts have pointed out that voting wasn???t the most important part of the December elections, rather the negotiations for a new government were the most important step in Iraqi???s future. The early negotiations and fights for power show the continued divisions within the country however.
Because the Shiite religious parties did better than expected they only need to form a coalition with one political party that holds 10-20 seats in parliament to form a new government. The Shiites have shown no desire to work with Sunnis however, which means they could be further shut out of Iraqi politics, thus continuing the insurgency.
Already, leading Shiite and Kurdish officials met in northern Iraq in late December to discuss forming such a government without including any Sunnis.
Break Up Of Iraq[/b]
More importantly the elections further the break-up of Iraq. Both the leading Shiite and Kurdish parties have called for their own autonomous zones in Northern and Southern Iraq. Kurdish officials have openly told American newspapers that they expect Iraq to break up into three separate countries eventually. One top Kurdish official told Knight-Ridder, ???I see us moving towards the end of Iraq.???
It???s ironic, that the Sunnis are one of the only groups that voice the concerns of the Bush administration. The leading Sunni political parties have called for the unity of Iraq, are opposed to the independence of Kurdish Iraq, and warn against the Iranian influence in the Shiite political parties.
In the north, the Kurds are moving towards more and more independence already.
In November 2005 the Kurds signed a contract with a Norwegian firm to drill for oil without consulting Baghdad. The central government felt that this was a violation of the new constitution, but the Kurds said they could do what they wanted in their own zone of influence.
More importantly the Kurds are trying to expand their borders southwards into areas where they were not many Kurds before the U.S. invasion, increasing violence and ethnic tensions.
The main focus of the Kurdish effort has been the oil rich city of Kirkuk, but the Kurds also have plans for Mosul and a few other majority Arab cities.
Under Saddam the Iraqi government forced Kurds out of the city of Kirkuk and replaced them with Arabs as part of an Arabization program. Since then the Kurds have laid claim to the city as theirs. However Kurds were never a majority there. The last accurate census was taken in 1957 and showed that Turkmen were the largest group. Under Saddam Arabs became the majority. That hasn???t stopped the Kurdish plans for the city.
More than just past grievances, Kirkuk also offers the Kurds economic independence since it has so much oil in the area.
A U.S. officer told the New York Times that since the U.S. invasion anywhere from 85,000-350,000 Kurds had moved into Kirkuk and the neighboring area. There are also reports that the Kurds have forced out Arab families from the city. This is all part of the Kurds plan to take over the city in 2007.
When a new Iraqi constitution was drawn up in mid-2005 the Kurds were able to insert an article that set up elections for Kirkuk in 2007. The elections will decide whether Kirkuk will continue to be ruled by Baghdad or be taken over the Kurds. Their plan is to flood the city with Kurds so they win control of the city. Already Kurds have taken over the local government and police.
More threatening is the fact that all the major Iraqi army and police units in the area are majority Kurd, containing thousands of Kurdish militia fighters called Peshmerge. In late December 2005, Knight-Ridder conducted interviews with these soldiers who told them they followed the Kurdish parties rather than the central government and that they were all Pashmerge. For example, the 2nd Iraqi Division which overseas the Irbil-Mosul area is 90% Kurdish.
This has led to increased tension and violence in the city. Already there have been over 30 assassinations from October to December 2005 of Arabs and Turkmen in the city.
Kurdish soldiers and officials also said that they wanted to include Mosul and the surrounding cities into the Kurdish area. None of these cities however, have a large Kurdish population.
Again and again, Kurdish soldiers and officials said that they would try diplomacy to get these cities, but if it came down to it they would fight for them.
In the south, the Shiites have the same aspirations. Right after the elections a leading Shiite politician told the Christian Science Monitor that one of their top priorities was creating their own autonomous region.
To solidify their hold the Shiite political parties have taken over the police forces and many army units in central and southern Iraq. This is leading to increased conflicts with the U.S. because the Shiite units are carrying out kidnappings, assassinations, beatings and death squad activities against Sunnis.
Beginning in November, the U.S. began trying to rest control of the Interior Ministry, who control th e police, from the Shiites but not only have they failed, but it is increasing Shiite distrust of the Americans.
In mid-November, U.S. forces raided a series of secret prisons where Shiite police were torturing Sunnis. Since then more prisons have been found. The U.S. military and Bush administration were putting increasing pressure on Prime Minister Jaafari to clean up the police, but to no avail.
In the end of December, the U.S. military announced a new plan where they would begin embedding thousands of U.S. trainers and soldiers into Iraqi police units to try to clean them up. Of course, this overlooks the fact that the U.S. still does not have enough trainers to do the work with the Iraqi army right now.
Not only that, but with the Shiite political parties doing better than expected in the December elections, they show no willingness to give up their control or listen to the U.S. on this issue.
I mistakenly read the title of this thread as "Howard Fucked In Iraq".
just thought i'd share.
luv
h
So what should be done??? Specifics???
and btw, thanks for the research joel. happy new year, hommie
motown is doing a lot of work to present his researched assesment of the situation and provide clarity for those who may be confused by the constant headlines and spin.
you will most likely get more solid information from his posts on soulstrut than at an administration briefing or bush speech. so besides unspecifics, like "stay the course" or "refuse to lose" what you got?
off the top of the head, i say we pull out troops, allow the country to split in three, help with rebuilding and humanitarian efforts, and try to maintain supportive and diplomatic roles with sunni, shiite and kurdish states. its gonna be a fucking mess over there no matter what. we may as well stop wasting men and money.
then again, in the very unlikely instance that we do pull up stakes and resources, our world destabilizing activities will have more chance to focus on south america...that would be most unfortunate
Go back to the 1st page. I already wrote some things that could be done in Iraq, but overall there is not going to be a good ending for the U.S. in the country.
Can any supporter of the war answer these questions for me:
1) What was the Bush administration's stated reasons for invading Iraq and have they proven to be right?
2) How is the war in Iraq helping the war on terror?
3) What is the Bush administration's plan for victory and is it working?
Going through the literature and articles about Iraq it???s amazing how many missteps the Bush administration made even before the war started. As it has progressed and dragged on, the U.S. continues to make decisive decisions that basically continue to screw things up. Making a complete list would be too long, but here are some of the major ones.
1) The Bush administration lies and exaggerates about the threat Iraq posed with its WMD and ties to terrorism to win domestic support for the war and to get Congress to vote for the invasion.
2) Instead of turning over post-war Iraq to the State Department, which usually handles such matters, Bush decides to give the Pentagon the job since it is one of the leading proponents of the war. The Pentagon has no recent experience in post-war occupations.
3) Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his chief deputy, Paul Wolfowitz ban any member of the Defense Department from participating in any post-war planning in mid-2002. According to the two, making plans for after the war, hinder war planning. The Pentagon leadership also forbids anyone to formally estimate how much the war and an occupation might cost.
4) As part of Rumsfeld???s goal of transforming the U.S. military into a streamlined, high tech force that uses overwhelming power against its opponents, the Secretary of Defense originally argues on sending in only 75,000 soldiers to invade Iraq, mostly Special Forces units. The military on the other hand, is using the old plans from the original Gulf War that call for a force of from 300-400,000 soldiers. Rumsfeld attacks his generals for being too old fashioned and eventually a compromise is made at approximately 175,000. This proves to be good enough to win the war, but not enough to keep the peace afterwards.
5) Anyone in the Pentagon who disagrees with the leadership or voices concerns about the war plans are given the boot. These include the Secretary of the Army, the head of the Joint Chiefs of staff and a mid-level Pentagon bureaucrat who say that more troops need to be sent, that the Pentagon needs to plan for after the war, and gives an estimate on how much the war and subsequent occupation will cost.
6) The Pentagon leadership and Vice President Cheney???s office are convinced that not only will the Iraqis welcome the U.S. as liberators, but that the Iraqi government will continue to run, just without Saddam. Therefore they create a post-war group led by former General Jay Garner that is only to exist for a maximum of 3 months. According to the war supporters, by then U.S. troops will basically be out of Iraq and the country will be moving towards forming a new government and democracy.
7) As soon as the war ends, things start going awry. Widespread looting and lawlessness begins in Iraq. Notoriously the U.S. military is only protecting the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad otherwise U.S. soldiers do nothing. It takes a week for the U.S. to respond. Rumsfeld makes his famous statement during a press briefing that bad people do bad things and that the U.S. could do nothing about the looting.
8) A major justification for the war, Iraq???s WMD, can???t be found. The administration goes from claiming they know exactly where the WMD are and it???s only a matter of time in finding them, to eventually saying that Iraq wanted to make WMD in the future and therefore was a threat that justified an invasion.
9) Saddam planned to be defeated in a conventional war, so he made plans for a guerrilla war afterwards. None of these plans are discovered by U.S. intelligence or the military until the insurgency begins.
10) When the insurgency does begin against the U.S. the Pentagon tries to ignore it. Rumsfeld tells the press that its only dead enders and hangers on of the old regime and that there is no insurgency going on in Iraq. It takes one year for the Pentagon leadership to acknowledge that there is an actual insurgency going on in the country. By then, it's too late to stop it.
11) The post-war chaos in Iraq leaders to former General Gardner being fired and the creation of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) under Paul Bremer. Bremer has no experience in post-war occupation or rebuilding projects.
12) One of Bremer???s biggest moves is to disband the Iraqi army and not give them any pay. According to Bremer, the military had disintegrated anyways after the war so there was nothing left of it. U.S. military officers later say they were in negotiations with Iraqi officers who could of re-formed their units. Regardless, this becomes one of the largest recruiting pools for the growing insurgency.
13) Because the Pentagon made no plans for after the war, the CPA is staffed mostly by people with connections to the Republican Party who have no experience in Iraq, don???t speak Arabic, and don???t know about occupations, reconstructions, or fighting insurgencies. In the end, most of their plans are either illegal by international law and can???t be implemented, or, they never get off the drawing board in the first place. A few examples. Control of the Iraqi budget is given over to a group of young Republicans in their 20s who have just graduated from college. They didn???t even apply to work in Iraq but were contacted by the Pentagon because they put in applications to work for the Heritage Foundation. None of them knows about Iraq nor its budget. Restructuring Iraq???s economy is given to a large Bush campaign donor and the White House spokesman???s brother. Infamously, the latter says the first thing he wants to do is get rid of nepotism in Iraq, even though he got his job because of his brother. Their major plan is to privatize Iraq???s economy. In the end, it turns out that occupying powers cannot make permanent changes to a country so none of their plans can be implemented. Paul Bremer draws up Iraq???s Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) that is suppose to ensure minority rights, give guidelines for the economy, set up the basis for democracy, etc. Like the plans for the economy, this is also illegal under international law, so when the CPA eventually ends, so does the TAL.
14) The CPA is also plagued by corruption. Not only are Iraqis stealing millions of dollars in reconstruction funds, so are American civilians and soldiers. This culture of corruption is continued after the CPA formally ends. A famous example that came to light in late 2005 was that an ex-con from the U.S. was put in charge of $82 million in reconstruction funds. He was receiving $200,000 a month in kickbacks and bribes.
15) Since the U.S. ends up occupying Iraq they need to give it an Iraqi face so they create a consultative board of Iraqis which is suppose to work with the CPA. Most of these are Iraqi exiles who have no support base within the country, but have close connections to Western governments and intelligence services. Few in Iraq find legitimacy in the board, and eventually Bremer and the CPA doesn???t even want to deal with them.
16) Because the Pentagon made no post-war plans for Iraq, when the insurgency begins, the U.S. military has no counterinsurgency plan to fight it. It is not until the end of 2005 that the Pentagon begins giving training to U.S. soldiers who are going to be sent to Iraq and Afghanistan on how to effectively fight an insurgency and deal with civilians in a war zone.
17) Because Rumsfeld never wanted to send in that many troops to begin with, when the insurgency begins and the invasion turns into an occupation, there are not enough troops in Iraq to control the country. The military turns to the Reserves and National Guard to back up the regular military in Iraq. Many of these units are a mix of youngsters and middle aged soldiers who have no armored vehicles, no training for occupation nor counterinsurgency. Because of stop-gap orders, many of them are also forced to serve more than their years worth of service in Iraq.
18) When the Pentagon finally admits that the U.S. is fighting an insurgency in Iraq they turn to using overwhelming force to try to destroy it, rather than a combined political, economic and military plan as is traditional in counterinsurgency operations. Hence you get the first and second battles of Fallujah. After the 2nd battle, U.S. commanders claim victory. According to them, not only have they broken the back of the insurgency, but killed many of the foreign fighters there. In fact, there were few foreigners in the city, many of the insurgents got out of the city, almost all of Fallujah is destroyed, and has still not been rebuilt as of today.
19) Because the insurgency has been able to grow in strength each year, much of the reconstruction of Iraq comes to a halt, those projects which are being worked on have their funds drained by security costs rather than actual construction, and many projects are plagued by corruption and bad planning. A famous example from 2005 is when the U.S. completed a power plant, but didn???t build the wires to deliver the electricity to users.
20) One of the corner stones of the Bush administration???s plan for victory in Iraq becomes creating and training Iraqi security forces. At first, the U.S. only planned on creating a border patrol, but when the insurgency grew, this didn???t fit the task at hand. Despite many public announcements by Bush about training, the actual plans are never given a priority for two years. The program is never given enough money, military officers don???t want to go into training because it doesn???t give them any prestige to advance their careers and get promotions, and according to many press reports and books, Rumsfeld became bored with Iraq, so he didn???t really care about the plans. Because the training is not given a top priority in reality, when Iraqi units are first put into use such as in Fallujah, most of them run away and their units need to be completely re-recruited and re-built.
21) Abu Grab becomes public causing the further loss of legitimacy for the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The administration tries to blame rogue individuals within the military, but hundreds of other cases come under investigation and interrogation tactics like using dogs turn out to be transferred from Guantanomo, rather than just thought up by reservists in Iraq.
22) The U.S. conducts the first elections in Iraq to elect a body to draw up a provisional constitution for the country. Sunnis boycott the elections, and the U.S. does nothing. Sunni tribal leaders are one of the most powerful groups in central Iraq and give aid and support to the insurgency, but the CPA and U.S. military basically ignores them.
23) All along the administration seems to give more priority in winning the domestic battle against Democrats and critics of the war, rather than what is actually going on in Iraq. For example, the administration goes after former ambassador Wilson because he criticizes the administration???s claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger. Even before Wilson goes public with his criticism, the Bush administration is moving away from this claim, but Cheney makes attacking Wilson a top priority. This leads to the leaking of Wilson???s wife???s name to the press and the subsequent indictment of Cheney???s top aide Lewis Libby.
24) In its rush to create Iraqi security forces, the U.S. allows Kurdish and Shiite militias to be incorporated even though they are supposedly outlawed in Iraq. The Shiites, who dominate the police, quickly begin using tactics like torture, abuse and death squads against Sunnis and critics of the main Shiite religious parties. Both Shiite and Kurdish soldiers say they follow their own sectarian and ethnic leaders rather than the central government. It???s not until the end of December 2005 that the U.S. military announces that they will embed U.S. soldiers with the police to try to end the abuses. No plan has been put forward on how to end sectarian and ethnic loyalties in the Iraqi army however.
25) Since the Kurds are the closest U.S. allies in Iraq, they are given a free reign in northern Iraq and special preferences within the interim Iraqi government. The CPA negotiates key posts for Kurds in the interim government, allows entire Kurdish militia units to join the Iraqi police and army, and turns a blind eye to their ambitions of taking over Kirkuk and other northern cities outside of the traditional Kurdish.
26) The Bush administration???s new campaign for victory made public in November 2005 claims that elections and Iraqi security forces are what are going to win the war in Iraq. The campaign is meant for the U.S. public, because U.S. commanders in Iraq are never told about it. According to Bush there are 120,000 Iraqi security forces, but this number has not changed since he first started talking about it in the last presidential election against Kerry. According to Bush then, there has been no increase in security forces in 2 years. Most analysts and news reporters, now agree that the 120,000 number is not legitimate and was created for domestic political purposes rather than an accurate measure of the effectiveness of the Iraqi forces. The elections in Iraq have also not led to national unity, nor the seed of democracy. Rather each election has shown the deep divisions within Iraq and given the Shiites and the Kurds the political legitimacy to carry out their separate plans, many of which point to independence and the break-up of Iraq. Sunnis, also continue to be shut out of the political process, even with their recent participation in the December 2005 elections. The administration tends to ignore the results of the voting, and just focuses on the fact that Iraqis are voting for the first time as a sign of success.
27) Because the U.S. doesn???t want to alarm Iraq???s neighbors and doesn???t want to make Iraq a regional power again, plans for the Iraqi security forces includes no tanks or heavy armor, and basically no navy or air force. Almost all of the training has also been for combat units. All of the support units that take care of providing food, ammunition, etc. have hardly been formed. Instead, all of these major duties will be carried out by the U.S. into the foreseeable future. This means permanent U.S. bases in Iraq until the U.S. is asked or forced to leave.
28) The U.S. military has finally come up with an effective counterinsurgency program started in the winter of 2005. This includes taking over sections of Iraq and staying there, rather than attacking it and leaving. The U.S. will then begin hearts and minds campaigns and reconstruction efforts. All of this will be done in coordination with Iraqi units who will eventually be given control of the area and allow the U.S. military to move onto the next target. The major problem with this campaign is that not only are most of the Iraqi units not capable of anything more than carrying out patrols, but that many of them are openly hostile towards the Sunni population. There are press reports with Shiite soldiers who make up the majority of the Iraqi army for example, who say their main priority is getting revenge against the Sunnis rather than acting like a national military trying to protect civilians against insurgents.
This is a long record of mistakes, and plain incompetence, that will probably continue into the future.
I'm totally against the war but now that it's started I don't think withdrawl is an option.
No idea....I am curious as to what your sources are though.....I've read so much rhetoric on this issue it's hard to know what to believe and what is BS. My inclination is that there are equal amounts of BS on both sides of the argument.
Overall it seems like a lose/lose to me regardless of what action was/will be taken.
Has there ever been a Muslim based society that hasn't had war, assasinations and massive killings within itself??
I'm not a Globalist...I think the U.S. should take care of itself and it's own problems before they go sticking their nose in elsewhere.
I'm also for independence when it comes to energy even if that means drilling for oil on our soil until alternatives can be developed and put in place.
Not a perfect world...no perfect solutions.
A culture that breeds suicide bombers, kills based on religious beliefs and use a holy book as a guidebook for war is certainly difficult to co-exist with in 2005. And asking them nicely to stop, putting them into "time out" or even spanking them is not a viable solution.
I've enjoyed reading Motown's posts and it has raised some questions in my mind about why we are in Iraq and what we should do next.
I guess the questions that cross my mind the most are these.....
If we left Iraq, didn't fuck with S. America, N. Korea, or anyone else in the Middle East. Cut all ties with these folks including the purchase of oil, removed all Military and Corporate personnel and discontinued all trading of goods....
1) Would we be closer to World Peace??(Which is what I assume ALL folks want)
2) Would all the killings, genocide, terrorism and violence that we used as an excuse to go Iraq, and has been happening elsewhere, come to an end???
and if not
3) Who's responsibility would it be to try to MAKE it come to an end??
4) Or do we just accept that this is the way of life in 2005?
That is why I asked what the solution might be...I certainly have no clue, but I'm betting there is no easy solution, and that ANY possible solution would have it's critics.
What culture are you talking about???
Whatever culture has bred large numbers of suicide bombers, with promises of great reward in the afterlife for killing "infidels".
Which culture do you think is responsible for this??
Or is it all a lie?
Muslim society, like Christian, Jewish, Hindu, whatever has many many strains in it. To ask, has there ever been a Muslim society where there haven't been widespread killings and assassinations seems a little naive. There are countries like Morocco, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirtes, etc. that really haven't had any kind of violence. There are also countries like Yemen that had a long running civil war that really didn't involve religion, but was more based upon tribes, communism, and other ideas. There are other countries, like Ethiopia, 45-50% of which are Muslims, that you probably didn't even know had a large Islamic community. The countries that usually have violence are the ones that are led by dictators and authortarian governments, and you get resistance to those kinds of rulers all over the world no matter what religion the people believe in.
Islamism, Islamic fundamentalism, is only one straing of Islam. Not only that, but within Islamism there are all different kinds of ideologies. You have the violent revolutionaries of Al Qaeda. You also have the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt which wants to work within the system, but just last month got beat in the streets by the government during elections for parliament. In Algeria and Tunisia you had Islamist movements in the 1980s that wanted to run in elections, but when it looked like they would win majaorities they were blocked from power. In Algeria the military stepped in and had a coup rather than let the Islamists win the election. This led to a civil war in the country and the growth of terrorism that spread to France, the main supporter of the Algerian government and military.
You also have to understand that there are a lot of religious groups in the Middle East, not just Muslims. There are plenty of Christian Arabs for example. The Assad family that rules Syria are not Muslims, but Alawis.
Tony,
To just answer your questions off the top of my head, here might be some repercussions of a break-up of Iraq.
1) If Kurdistan becomes independent it might lead to military intervention by Turkey. I've read reports that the Turks were covertly sending in weapons and money to the Turkmen in nothern Iraq to counter the power of the Kurds. Turkey would probably freak out if Kurdistan became independent because that would have a great effect on the repressed Kurds within Turkey.
2) If central Iraq becomes an independent Sunni area it might become a new Afghanistan for Islamic terrorists. That's actually already happened in Western Iraq, but it might grow with a break-up of the country. Of course, also been reading reports that there are a lot of Sunnis who don't like the foreign fighters so who knows how that would play out with a break-up of the country. The Sunnis might end up kicking them out actually if they had their own country. That could be a plus!
3) We'd probably still be involved in one way or another because a pro-Iranian southern Shiite country is something the U.S. government doesn't want and is already trying to curb.
That's the problem that a lot of people have to wrestle with. Will it be better or worse if the U.S. pulls out. You also have to consider this, is it getting worse right now with the U.S. already there? Whether the U.S. stays or goes, in my opinion it's not going to be good in Iraq. And personally, I don't think the U.S. troops make it a bit secure for the public in Iraq. In fact, U.S. soldiers are a target of attacks so being around them is actually more dangerous than not being around them. Not only that, but there was a study by an international medical group that found that 87% of Iraqis killed by violence were actually killed by Americans, mostly U.S. air power, not the insurgents.
Come on now Rock. There is plenty of information about Bush's new found religious faith out there. I was raised a Christian, and this fool is an abomination of everything I believe in.
just one of the first articles that came up in a google search.
Rob
I see your point.
BTW Do you have a link to the study you mention?
So is this is a culture, or as some would see it, one lunatic who's out of control??
Comparing Al Quaeda, Islamic fundamentalism and the likes, to the brand of Christianity practiced by 99.9% of the Christians in America(including yourself I assume) is pretty absurd.
Not being a Christian, I have no problem accepting Bush's statements at face value, as opposed to interpreting them via bible passages. That doesn't mean I agree with them.
I guess the question that this begs is, why, if Bush is the evil maniacal bloodthirsty christian fundamentalist many make him out to be, did the majority of politicians across party and religious lines support his actions to go to War in Iraq and not pull out when given the opportunity.
One thing you won't see me do is pull quotes and paragraphs from the Internet to try to make a point. Biased opinions can be found everywhere, so all I can do is form MY OWN opinion based on what I see and hear directly from the mouths of those taking and living these actions.
I'm just a simple man with simple questions based on logic and common sense.
I have simple questions like...
Were there more innocent Iraqi citizens killed in 1995 or 2005??
If there are things like genocide, torture and murder taking place in mass in a country, who, if anyone, has the right or responsibility to try to stop it??
Do Islamic fundamentalists have a goal of killing all non-Muslims who do not convert to Islam??
Does Bush's Christian Fundamentalism call for the death and/or abuse of all non-white Christians.
These really aren't political questions, they are black and white, right vs. wrong questiions.
I've formed my opinion based on everything I've seen and I'll choose to be on the side of the American, christian based, Isreal supporting folks who have good intent but fuck up more often than not, instead of the Islamic, Jews must die, America(Christians and Democracy) is the Great Satan, all infidels must die crazies.
It may be the lesser of two evils, but that last choice is pretty much a no brainer to this simple minded man.
And for the record, I don't blindly agree with or hate George Bush and his actions. But it does appear that 90% of Americans fits into one of those two categories.
I don't claim to know any of the answers, but I refuse to self loath or criticize without a 100% understanding of what's really going down....and I believe very few folks can claim to have this understanding....I might be 50% there.
Motown67 is one person who I applaud for trying to look at just facts and beyond political hype/bias. But that doesn't mean I'm gonna sit back and take his posts as the gospel(no pun intended)and not have questions of my own.
If that makes me appear to be stupid(or worse)...so be it.
After being called "The new Vitamin" recently I assumed it was an insult. I did some research and read a bunch of the past debates he was involved with, and compared to the majority here, the guy seems very articulate and someone who scratches below the surface of the issues at hand. In other words, it was a compliment, and one that I don't think I could live up to.