The Rag Blog

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Insurgents have sought to intensify attacks during a Baghdad security crackdown and additional U.S. forces will be sent to areas outside the capital where militant groups are regrouping, the new commander of U.S. forces in
Iraq said Thursday.

U.S. Gen. David Petraeus said the troop buildups outside Baghdad will focus on Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, a growing hotbed for suspected Sunni extremists fleeing the U.S.-Iraqi security operation in Baghdad.

But Petraeus stressed that military force alone is “not sufficient” to end the violence in Iraq and political talks must eventually include some militant groups now opposing the U.S.-backed government.

“This is critical,” Petraeus said in his first news conference since taking over command last month. He noted that such political negotiations “will determine in the long run the success of this effort.”

Petraeus listed a series of high-profile attacks since U.S. and Iraqi forces began the security sweep three weeks ago, including a suicide blast at a mostly Shiite university and an assassination attempt against one of Iraq’s vice presidents.

The
Pentagon has pledged 17,500 combat troops to the capital. Petraeus has said the full contingent should not be in place until early June. He declined to say how many U.S. forces will be deployed to Diyala, which the group al-Qaida in Iraq has made one its main staging grounds.

Military officials believe many insurgents have shifted from Baghdad to Diyala to escape the security operation.

“Car bombs have targeted hundreds of Iraqis,” Petraeus said. He also denounced the wave of other attacks, including the “thugs with no soul” who have killed more than 150 Shiite pilgrims in the past three days.

More than 30 Vermont towns passed resolutions on Tuesday seeking to impeach President Bush, while at least 16 towns in the tiny New England state called on Washington to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

Known for picturesque autumn foliage, colonial inns, maple sugar and old-fashion dairy farms, Vermont is in the vanguard of a grass-roots protest movement to impeach Bush over his handling of the unpopular Iraq war.

“We’re putting impeachment on the table,” said James Leas, a Vermont lawyer who helped to draft the resolutions and is tracking the votes. “The people in all these towns are voting to get this process started and bring the troops home now.”

The resolutions passed on Vermont’s annual town meeting day — a colonial era tradition where citizens debate issues of the day big and small — are symbolic and cannot force Congress to impeach Bush, but they “may help instigate further discussions in the legislature,” said state Rep. David Zuckerman.

“The president must be held accountable,” said Zuckerman, a politician from Burlington, Vermont’s largest city.

After casting votes on budgets and other routine items, citizens of 32 towns in Vermont backed a measure calling on the U.S. Congress to file articles of impeachment against Bush for misleading the nation on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and for engaging in illegal wiretapping, among other charges.

Five Vermont towns passed similar resolutions last year.

The idea of impeaching Bush resides firmly outside the political mainstream.

The new Democratic-controlled Congress has steered clear of the subject, and Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold’s call last year to censure Bush — a step short of an impeachment — found scant support on Capitol Hill, even among fellow Democrats.

Let’s start with the obvious waste. We know that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives since the Bush administration invaded their country in March 2003, that almost two million may have fled to other countries, and that possibly millions more have been displaced from their homes in ethnic-cleansing campaigns. We also know that an estimated 4.5 million Iraqi children are now malnourished and that this is but “the tip of the iceberg” in a country where diets are generally deteriorating, while children are dying of preventable diseases in significant numbers; that the Iraqi economy is in ruins and its oil industry functioning at levels significantly below its worst moments in Saddam Hussein’s day — and that there is no end in sight for any of this.

We know that, while the new crew of American military officials in Baghdad are starting to tout the “successes” of the President’s “surge” plan, they actually fear a collapse of support at home within the next half-year, believe they lack the forces necessary to carry out their own plan, and doubt its ultimate success. What a tragic waste.

We know that while the U.S. military focuses on the Iraqi capital and al-Anbar Province, the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, taking casualties in both places, fleeing Iraqi refugees are claiming that jihadis have largely taken over the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, and renamed it “the Islamic Emirate of Samarra” — a grim sign indeed. (Here’s just one refugee’s assessment: “that large areas of the farms around Samarra have been transformed into camps like those of Al-Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan.”)

We know that, as the U.S. military concentrates its limited forces and the minimal Iraqi units that fight with them, in a desperate battle to control the capital, for both Sunnis and Shia, the struggle simply spreads to less well-defended areas. We also know that the Sunni insurgents have been honing their tactics around Baghdad, their attacks growing deadlier on the ground and more accurate against the crucial helicopter support system which makes so much of the American occupation possible. Some of them have also begun to wield a new, potentially exceedingly deadly and indiscriminate weapon — trucks filled with chlorine gas, essentially homemade chemical weapons on wheels which can be blown up at any moment.

War and corruption have crippled Iraq’s ability to export oil. But that’s not stopping Big Oil’s efforts to control and profit from what’s left.

By Christian Parenti, The Nation. Posted March 6, 2007

Iraq’s postwar oil bonanza remains a mirage. The country has the second- or third-largest reserves in the world, making petroleum the heart and vast bulk of its economy. Thus in March 2003 did Paul Wolfowitz assure Congress that Iraq would “finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” American planners predicted that Iraq’s oil production would triple to a feverish 6 million barrels per day by 2010.

Instead war, corruption, sectarian slaughter and a massive crime wave have reduced the country’s once mighty petroleum sector to an industrial zombie: still ambulatory, functional but essentially dead.

Despite this, oil majors and the International Monetary Fund have been pressuring Iraq to pass a thoroughly free-market hydrocarbons law that would allow foreign companies to make huge profits from Iraq’s petroleum. A draft of the law has just been released; the Iraqi Cabinet has approved it and sent it on to Iraq’s Parliament for debate and approval in March.

But is Big Oil really poised for total victory in Iraq? Such an outcome is hard to imagine, at least in the near term, given the likelihood of opposition from Iraqis and, more important, the spiraling chaos: Iraq is a society in meltdown with no real state to speak of. Many politicians have fled Iraq, rarely risking trips back to Baghdad, so even achieving a basic parliamentary quorum can be difficult. Controlling and profiting from Iraq’s oil has been the goal of the oil majors, but they do not write history unmolested by the momentum of events and competing agendas.

Nor does the proposed oil law simply serve Iraq up on a plate to the oil giants. One London-based oil analyst who expected a more decentralized and free-market law called it “bloody confused.” On key questions of foreign investment and regional decentralization versus centralized control, the law is vague but not all bad. In general terms it reaffirms state control over oil and binds Iraq’s Sunni center and Shiite south to the Kurdish north by re-creating a single Iraqi National Oil Company, which will in turn dole out oil income to the regions on a per-capita basis. This might help de-escalate sectarian conflict.

But the law leaves plenty of problematic wiggle room: All its important details are left for later resolution by a new Federal Oil and Gas Council to be controlled by the prime minister, which will effectively bypass Parliament. And while the law asserts a set of generally nationalist economic goals, it sets no minimum level for state participation, nor does it cap the amount of profits allowed to foreign firms.

Among the Iraqi political class there is pervasive confusion about the new law, but there is also a deep resource nationalism that opposes selling off the country’s patrimony. My interviews with Iraqi oil experts, politicians and regular people revealed a quite reasonable and balanced view of the situation: Most felt that foreign participation in the oil sector could be helpful in reviving an industry battered by a fifteen-year nightmare of war, sanctions, more war and now anarchy. But no one felt Iraq should have to enslave itself to the will of Shell, BP or ExxonMobil.

03/05/07 “ICH” — — It was a struggle between the United States and the Third World. What there was, was people all over the Third World fighting for economic and political changes against US-supported repressive regimes, or setting up their own progressive governments. These acts of self-determination didn’t coincide with the needs of the American power elite, and so the United States moved to crush those governments and movements even though the Soviet Union was playing virtually no role at all in these scenarios. (It is remarkable the number of people who make fun of conspiracy theories but who accepted without question the existence of an International Communist Conspiracy.)

Washington officials of course couldn’t say that they were intervening to block economic or political change, so they called it “fighting communism”, fighting a communist conspiracy, fighting for freedom and democracy.

I’m reminded of all this because of a recent article in the Washington Post about El Salvador. It concerned two men who had been on opposite sides in the civil war of 1980-1992. One was José Salgado, who had been a government soldier, and is now the mayor of San Miguel, El Salvador’s second-largest city.

Salgado enthusiastically embraced the scorched-earth tactics of his army bosses, the Post reports, even massacres of children, the elderly, the sick — entire villages. It was all in the name of beating back communism, Salgado says he remembers being told. But he’s now haunted by doubts about what he saw, what he did, and even why he fought. A US-backed war that was defined at the time as a battle against communism is now seen by former government soldiers and former guerrillas as less a conflict about ideology and more a battle over poverty and basic human rights.

“We soldiers were tricked,” says Salgado. “They told us the threat was communism. But I look back and realize those weren’t communists out there that we were fighting — we were just poor country people killing poor country people.”

Salgado says he once thought that the guerrillas dreamed of communism, but now that those same men are his colleagues in business and politics, he is learning that they wanted what he wanted: prosperity, a chance to move up in the world, freedom from repression.

All of which makes what they see around them today even more heartbreaking and frustrating. For all their sacrifices, El Salvador is still among the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere — more than 40 percent of Salvadorans live on less than $2 a day, according to the United Nations. The country is still racked by violence, still scarred by corruption. For some the question remains: Was it all worth it?

“We gave our blood, we killed our friends and, in the end, things are still bad,” says Salgado. “Look at all this poverty, and look how the wealth is concentrated in just a few hands.”

The guerrillas Salgado once fought live with the same doubts. Former guerrilla Benito Argueta laments that the future didn’t turn out as he’d hoped. Even though some factions of the coalition of guerrilla armies that fought in the civil war were Marxist, he said, ideology had nothing to do with his decision to take up arms and leave the farm where his father earned only a few colones for backbreaking work. Nor did ideology play a role in motivating his friends in the People’s Revolutionary Army. He remembers fighting “for a piece of land, for the chance that my children might someday get to go to the university.”[1]

The Salvadoran government could never have waged the war as destructively and for as long as it did without a massive influx of military aid and training from Washington — estimated value: six billion dollars; 75,000 Salvadorans dead; about 20 Americans killed or wounded in combat; dissidents today still have to fear right-wing death squads; scarcely any significant social change in El Salvador; the poor remain as ever; a small class of the wealthy still own the country. But never mind. “Communism” was defeated, and El Salvador remains a loyal member of the empire, sending troops to Iraq.[2]

This is not merely of historical interest. A civil war still rages in Colombia. Government soldiers and large numbers of right-wing paramilitary forces, with indispensable and endless military support from the United States, battle “communism”, year after year, decade after decade. The casualties long ago exceeded El Salvador. The irony is monumental, for of those labeled “communist”, a handful of the older ones may have fancied themselves as heirs to Che Guevara 10 or 20 or 30 years ago, but for a long time now the primary motivation of these “left-wing” paramilitary forces has been profits from drugs and kidnapings, obtaining revenge for their comrades’ deaths, and staying alive and avoiding capture. Someday the survivors on both sides may well be expressing sentiments and regrets similar to the Salvadorans above, wondering what the hell it was all really about, or at least wondering what the United States’s obsessive interest in their country was. (For those who may have forgotten, it should be noted that the Soviet Union has not existed since 1991.)

The Bush administration is very focused these days on Iran’s nuclear program. This focus has only sharpened in the aftermath of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s recent report that Iran continues to enrich uranium in defiance of a UN Security Council demand.

“A nuclear-armed Iran is not a very pleasant prospect for anybody to think about,” Vice President Dick Cheney told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl in Australia. “It clearly could do significant damage. And so I think we need to continue to do everything we can to make certain they don’t achieve that objective.” Asked if the administration would continue to pursue diplomacy, the vice president responded that while “we’ve been working with the EU and going through the United Nations with sanctions the President has also made it clear that we haven’t taken any options off the table.”

In the White House, “options on the table” is code for military action. There have been many media reports of U.S. preparations to attack Iran. But the primary rationale for such an attack–to prevent Iran from going nuclear–is deeply problematic. Not only is the United States beefing up its military in general, it is even planning a modernization of its nuclear arsenal. The nuclear hypocrisy of the Bush administration makes any resolution of the conflict with Iran all the more difficult.

U.S. Military Spending

The new round of hand-wringing and saber-rattling about Iran’s nascent but worrisome nuclear program comes just a few weeks after the Bush administration announced its new budget, which included billions for nuclear weapons development. The Department of Energy’s “weapons activities” budget request totals $6.4 billion, a drop in the bucket compared to the Pentagon’s $481.4 billion proposed budget. But the budget for new nukes is large and growing — even in comparison to Cold War figures.

During the Cold War, spending on nuclear weapons averaged $4.2 billion a year (in current dollars). Almost two decades after the nuclear animosity between the two great superpowers ended, the United States is spending one-and-a-half times the Cold War average on nuclear weapons.

New Zealand prides itself on human rights, social compassion and political “neutrality”. Moreover, New Zealanders pride themselves on being “peace loving” people. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. These images are a distortion of reality. New Zealand is a fully-fledged member of America’s war on Muslims.

I recently spent some time in New Zealand. As an Australian citizen, I do not need visa to enter or work in New Zealand. However, on my arrival from Melbourne at Wellington Airport, I was singled-out for “questioning” and thorough search. I was told; “it is our policy to identify and question particular passengers”. After a lengthy argument, I was allowed to leave the Airport. Outside the Airport, an Australian passenger said to me; “it has nothing to do with you being Australian or not. Are you a Muslim”? To be plain honest, I never expected this to happen to me in New Zealand.

In Christchurch, I was abused by another proud New Zealander who questioned me if I was “carrying a bomb in my backpack”. He soon learned that those like him are the real terrorists masquerading as crusaders of “democracy” and “freedom”. In the same ‘English’ town, a Saudi man was removed from his accommodation at the YMCA – the Christian Association Hostel – because one resident complained that the Saudi man was “praying in his room”. He was forced to pay for the day he was thrown-out on the street.

Meanwhile, New Zealand is well-known destination for Israeli soldiers “recuperating” from their roles enforcing the occupation of Palestinian land. Most of them have Palestinian blood on their hands. Nonetheless, they are treated like most Europeans. They were issued with “working-holiday” visas to “work and relax” and start “new life”. New Zealand can show great compassion if it starts bringing traumatised Palestinian children to recuperate from Israel’s daily terror.

It surprises me that New Zealand daily newspapers are addicted to stories of anti-Muslims false stereotypes and ignorance – adopted from Islamophobia’s mouthpiece, The Times – designed to promote racism against Muslims. Scapegoating of Muslims has become a lucrative career in the “West”. Fascist politicians, academics, pundits and journalists are attacking Muslims in order to further their own careers and positions.

Furthermore, New Zealand foreign minister Winston Peters – the Australian Pauline Hanson – of the New Zealand First Party has benefited immensely from his anti-Muslims and anti-immigrants racism. Peters was appointed foreign minister in a deal between Helen Clark’s Labour Government and New Zealand First. Like his Australian counterpart, Peters has become an official propaganda mouthpiece for American violence and terrorism.

KARACHI – Recent Taliban operations in southwestern Afghanistan’s Helmand province and Pakistan’s anti-Taliban swoop in its southwestern province of Balochistan mark a broadening of the struggle into Pakistani territory.

The Taliban claim to have overrun the Kabul-installed administration in Nawzad district headquarters in Helmand and all surrounding villages.

This only confirms the belief among North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials that until a broader strategy is devised that takes in the whole region – including the Pakistani border areas – there can be no level playing field between NATO and the insurgency, and NATO will be the loser.

“The Taliban besieged NATO bases and offices of the Afghan administration [in Nawzad] during [the] whole winter season. We did not attack them because of the difficulties of a winter mobilization of men, and the sustainability of battle remains a problem,” Taliban commander Abdul Khaliq Akhund told Asia Times Online by satellite phone from Nawzad district. “Nevertheless, we just curtailed the mobility of the Afghan administration and NATO forces throughout the winter and it was a real blow to their morale.

“As soon as the summer started, we announced the end of the ceasefire with the [Hamid]-Karzai backed administration of Nawzad district and the Taliban and moved into district headquarters. I gladly inform you that the Taliban are now fully in control of Nawzad district headquarters and all villages around it.”

A NATO spokesperson in Kabul did not respond to an Asia Times Online request for comment on the Taliban’s claim to have taken control of Nawzad.

During a visit to Helmand province last November, this correspondent observed the ceasefire between the Taliban and NATO forces in Nawzad district (see Time out from a siege, Asia Times Online, December 9, 2006). NATO saw the ceasefire as a chance slowly and peacefully to extend the influence of NATO forces as well as the writ of the Afghan government. However, the scheme seems to have come to nothing.

“The fall of Nawzad is the start of the Taliban-led uprising in southwestern Afghanistan, and soon the entire province of Helmand will be in the hands of the mujahideen,” Abdul Khaliq claimed.

As events in Nawzad illustrate, the Taliban are unlikely to receive much opposition from Kabul-backed administrations across the province.