The Rag Blog

BAGHDAD, Feb. 13 — The Iraqi government on Tuesday ordered tens of thousands of Baghdad residents to leave homes they are occupying illegally, in a surprising and highly challenging effort to reverse the tide of sectarian cleansing that has left the capital bloodied and Balkanized.

In a televised speech, Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar, who is leading the new crackdown, also announced the closing of Iraq’s borders with Iran and Syria, an extension of the curfew in Baghdad by an hour, and the setup of new checkpoints run by the Defense and Interior Ministries, both of which General Qanbar said he now controlled.

He said the government would break into homes and cars it deemed dangerous, open mail and eavesdrop on phone calls.

General Qanbar did not mention the role American forces would play in the crackdown, but his remarks were clearly timed to coincide with more aggressive efforts by American troops on the streets of Baghdad. The Americans have been establishing outposts — called joint security stations — to work alongside the Iraqi Army and police to end the sectarian bloodletting.

On Tuesday, senior American officers expressed surprise about the plan to resettle people who had moved from their homes amid sectarian cleansing. But they declined to be identified, saying they did not want to contradict the Iraqi general.

General Qanbar indicated that the plan would be carried out evenly across Baghdad. But critics said Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who has come under intense criticism for pursuing a sectarian Shiite agenda, might be trying to appease his detractors and may not actually carry out the plan. Some feared that his government might not apply the same pressure to residents of Shiite areas.

Since the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra a year ago, the sectarian map of Baghdad has been almost completely redrawn, as Shiites pushed Sunnis from neighborhood after neighborhood.

The general faces a monumental task. Even without the daily violence, continuing sectarian killings and a lack of security forces to perform basic policing tasks, there is no system in place to investigate the veracity of people’s claims. In addition, thousands of people took over homes immediately after the invasion, claiming basic squatters’ rights.

Under the general’s plan, people who have illegally occupied homes will have 15 days to leave. While they are there, he said, they must protect the home, not steal from it or damage it.

“Anyone who does not follow this law will be treated according to the antiterrorism laws,” he said, adding that the government would set up committees to determine ownership.

2007-02-13 | “I have thought some of nature’s journeymen had made men and not made them too well, they imitated humanity so abominably.” (Shakespeare: Hamlet.)

“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them but to be indifferent to them; that is the essence of inhumanity.” (George Bernard Shaw: The Devil’s Disciple.)

The “Contract Interrogator”

Writing in the Washington Post (9th February 2007) Eric Fairm writes of: “an interrogator’s nightmare”. “A man with no face stares at me from the corner of a room. He pleads for help, but I am afraid to move. He begins to cry. It is a pitiful sound and it sickens me. He screams, but as I awaken, I realize the screams are mine.”

Fairm is plagued by nightmares. He was a “contract interrogator”, for the 82nd Airborne Division, in Falluja during part of 2004, one “… of two civilian interrogators, assigned to the division interrogation facility”.

The man who returns to torment his dreams was “… a suspected associate” of a Ba’ath Party leader in Anbar province… who had been captured two months earlier”. In other words, he was a possible pan-Arab nationalist, living in his own country. “Nationalist” becomes a pejorative word when used by Western politicians, in fact, it has the same meaning as patriot (“a person who vigorously supports his country and its way of life”, Collins.) .

The haunted Mr Fairm has “long since forgotten” the name of his nocturnal visitor – something one would have thought might also haunt – but not his instructions: “I was to deprive the detainee of sleep .. forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes.” There will be many that will applaud honesty in admitting Abu Ghraib-like torment, “mistakes” and failing to “uphold the standards of human decency”. Instead: “I intimidated, degraded a man who could not defend himself”, writes Fairm.

He also watched naked prisoners, forced to stand through the night, shivering; saw degradation, deprivation, punching, kicking “used daily”. “Appalled”, he admits lacking the courage to stand up and challenge “friends and colleagues”. With “friends” like these …

Fairm argues, that unless “myriad mistakes” are addressed “there can be no hope of success in Iraq.”

One thing is clear, the man does need help. There is no hope of success in Iraq. Popping round with $2,500 a head (seemingly the current going rate) for blowing families to bits in their beds and blasting their homes over them, or blowing in the door of the family home, to invade in boots, then say “sorry”, or visit the family of the illegally snatched detainee (you are illegal invaders, please remember) is not going to win hearts and minds in millennia. The “damage” done to the people of Iraq, described, hardly addresses the enormity. “Damage” is car dent, a cracked window, an accidental act, not pre-meditated torment, physical damage, physical assault and humiliation.

WASHINGTON – The first major effort by the administration of US President George W Bush to substantiate its case that the Iranian government has been providing weapons to Iraqi Shi’ites who oppose the occupation undermines the administration’s political line by showing that it has been unable to find any real evidence of an Iranian government role.

Contradicting recent claims by both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that US intelligence had proof of Iranian government responsibility for the supply of such weapons, the unnamed officials who briefed the media on Sunday admitted that the claim is merely “an inference” rather than based on a trail of evidence.

Although it was clearly not the intention, moreover, the briefing revealed for the first time that the Iranians and Iraqis detained by US forces in recent months did not provide any evidence implicating either the Iranian government or the Islamic Revolutionary Guards in the acquisition of armor-piercing explosive devices and other weapons by Iraqi Shi’ite groups.

In the end, the administration presentation suggested that there could be no other explanation for the presence of Iranian-made weapons than official government sponsorship of smuggling them into Iraq. But in doing so, they had to ignore a well-known reality: most weapons, including armor-piercing projectiles, can be purchased by anyone through intermediaries in the Middle East.

Indeed, General Peter Pace, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview published while he was on a visit to Indonesia that he did not know whether Iranian-made material used to assemble roadside bombs in Iraq had been supplied on Tehran’s orders. And speaking on CNN, CentCom Commander William Fallon, the top commander of US forces in the Middle East, was asked about the administration’s claim over Iran supplying weapons to Iraq. “I have no idea who may be actually hands-on in this stuff,” Fallon said.

The briefing in Baghdad on Sunday displayed a number of weapons or photographs of weapons said to have been found in Iraq, including what were called “explosively formed penetrators” (EFPs), which the officials said were smuggled into the country by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Quds Force. The RPG-7s and 81-millimeter mortar rounds shown to reporters did indeed have markings showing that they had been recently manufactured, and there is no reason to doubt that those weapons were manufactured in Iran.

Google is playing an unlikely role in the Iraq war. Its online satellite map of the world, Google Earth, is being used to help people survive sectarian violence in Baghdad.

As the communal bloodshed has worsened, some Iraqis have set up advice websites to help others avoid the death squads.

One tip – on the Iraq League site, one of the best known – is for people to draw up maps of their local area using Google Earth’s detailed imagery of Baghdad so they can work out escape routes and routes to block.

It’s another example of the central role technology plays in the conflict – with the widespread use of mobile phones, satellite television as well as the internet – by all sides and for many purposes.

For some time now, vigilante-style guard forces have been operating in many neighbourhoods, especially in Sunni areas targeted by Shia militias.

Many Sunnis see the Shia-dominated police forces as just as much of a threat, because of evidence of their involvement in kidnappings.

So part of the job of the local guards is keeping them out.

With Google Earth, the Iraq League website suggests, people can also work out the most likely approach of their attackers.

It’s thought that insurgents have also used the map site, examining the detailed images to pick out potential targets.

‘Killed or tortured’

The advice on the Iraq League site – which is actually run from the UK – begins with a warning to avoid being taken in the first place.

“If they arrest you, you will be killed or tortured.”

The Iraq League says it is aimed at all Iraqis caught up in the violence, but it is slanted towards the Sunni community.

“If they tell you we just have a few questions and you will be back in an hour, don’t believe them. You will be dead in an hour or disappear for months,” the warning continues.

Who “they” are is rarely spelled out, apart from the occasional mention of Ministry of Interior patrols.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The CIA’s former No. 3 official and a defense contractor were indicted on Tuesday on charges stemming from a federal contracts investigation that landed former Republican congressman Randy Cunningham in jail.

Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, who had been appointed executive director of the agency in 2004 by former CIA Director Porter Goss, was charged with improper conduct involving CIA contracts following a wide-ranging investigation that involved five agencies, including the FBI and the CIA’s inspector general.

The indictment was handed up on Tuesday by a federal grand jury in San Diego.

Foggo, who spent 25 years with the CIA, last year denied any wrongdoing and said all contracts he oversaw were properly handled.

Defense contractor Brent Wilkes was indicted on conspiracy charges and accused of giving Cunningham more than $700,000 to help steer government contracts to his San Diego-based company, ADCS, Inc.

“At every step of the process, CIA — through the offices of inspector general and general counsel — has cooperated closely with other investigative agencies and the Department of Justice,” CIA Director Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden said in announcing the Foggo indictment to agency employees.

A federal judge has ruled that a CIA agent identified only as “Doe,” allegedly fired after he gathered prewar intelligence showing that Iraq was not developing weapons of mass destruction, can proceed with his lawsuit against the CIA. The judge has ordered both parties to submit discovery requests–evidence they want for their case–to be completed by March 15, according to the CIA agent’s lawyer and a spokesman for the Justice Department, which is defending the CIA in court.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler issued her ruling after what Doe’s attorney, Roy Krieger, described as an extraordinary, secret status conference by telephone this afternoon that lasted nearly a half an hour. So concerned was the CIA about the agent’s identity becoming public that the Justice Department prevailed upon the judge to issue a highly restrictive order regarding press contacts by the agent and Krieger. The order barred them from “requesting, allowing, encouraging, or directing” any members of the media from appearing at Krieger’s office or even within a two-block vicinity of the building where he works or of any other location of the status conference, until two hours after the conference was completed.

Krieger and his client were also barred from notifying the media ahead of time about the status conference or its location. The judge sealed her order until 2 p.m. today.

“They are worried about his photograph being taken or his likeness being sketched,” Krieger told U.S. News, “because if his appearance became public, we are told we will lose one of our most valued assets because [the asset has] been publicly associated with him.”

At the hearing, Krieger said, Justice Department attorney Marcia Tiersky told Kessler the department wanted to file a motion for summary judgment, leading to dismissal of the case, before discovery commenced. In response to Kessler’s request for a basis for summary judgment, according to Krieger and the Justice Department, Tiersky said that the department would produce affidavits in support of the move. But the judge, indicating that she viewed this as a delaying tactic, said she would allow the discovery process to begin.

This is the second setback for the government in this case. In January, Kessler decided on technical grounds that the CIA employee’s lawsuit could not be dismissed. However, the judge did not rule on the agent’s central claim that he was fired because he refused to alter intelligence that contradicted the Bush administration’s central rationale for the war in Iraq. In that earlier ruling, Kessler said that the covert agent could plausibly argue that his firing was based on allegedly false information placed in his personnel file. Krieger said that his client had gathered intelligence from several countries in the Middle East, including Iraq.

The best way to feel hopeful about our looming energy crisis is to get active now and prepare for living arrangements in a post-oil society.

Editor’s Note: James Howard Kunstler is a leading writer on the topic of peak oil [and] the problems it poses for American suburbia. Deeply concerned about the future of our petroleum dependent society, Kunstler believes we must take radical steps to avoid the total meltdown of modern society in the face [of] looming oil and gas shortages. For background on this topic, read Kunstler’s essay, “Pricey Gas, That’s Reality.”

Out in the public arena, people frequently twang on me for being “Mister Gloom’n’doom,” or for “not offering any solutions” to our looming energy crisis. So, for those of you who are tired of wringing your hands, who would like to do something useful, or focus your attention in a purposeful way, here are my suggestions:

1. Expand your view beyond the question of how we will run all the cars by means other than gasoline. This obsession with keeping the cars running at all costs could really prove fatal. It is especially unhelpful that so many self-proclaimed “greens” and political “progressives” are hung up on this monomaniacal theme. Get this: the cars are not part of the solution (whether they run on fossil fuels, vodka, used frymax™ oil, or cow shit). They are at the heart of the problem. And trying to salvage the entire Happy Motoring system by shifting it from gasoline to other fuels will only make things much worse. The bottom line of this is: start thinking beyond the car. We have to make other arrangements for virtually all the common activities of daily life.

2. We have to produce food differently. The Monsanto/Cargill model of industrial agribusiness is heading toward its Waterloo. As oil and gas deplete, we will be left with sterile soils and farming organized at an unworkable scale. Many lives will depend on our ability to fix this. Farming will soon return much closer to the center of American economic life. It will necessarily have to be done more locally, at a smaller-and-finer scale, and will require more human labor. The value-added activities associated with farming — e.g. making products like cheese, wine, oils — will also have to be done much more locally. This situation presents excellent business and vocational opportunities for America’s young people (if they can unplug their Ipods long enough to pay attention.) It also presents huge problems in land-use reform. Not to mention the fact that the knowledge and skill for doing these things has to be painstakingly retrieved from the dumpster of history. Get busy.

3. We have to inhabit the terrain differently. Virtually every place in our nation organized for car dependency is going to fail to some degree. Quite a few places (Phoenix, Las Vegas, Miami …) will support only a fraction of their current populations. We’ll have to return to traditional human ecologies at a smaller scale: villages, towns, and cities (along with a productive rural landscape). Our small towns are waiting to be reinhabited. Our cities will have to contract. The cities that are composed proportionately more of suburban fabric (e.g. Atlanta, Houston) will pose especially tough problems. Most of that stuff will not be fixed. The loss of monetary value in suburban property will have far-reaching ramifications. The stuff we build in the decades ahead will have to be made of regional materials found in nature — as opposed to modular, snap-together, manufactured components — at a more modest scale. This whole process will entail enormous demographic shifts and is liable to be turbulent. Like farming, it will require the retrieval of skill-sets and methodologies that have been forsaken. The graduate schools of architecture are still tragically preoccupied with teaching Narcissism. The faculties will have to be overthrown. Our attitudes about land-use will have to change dramatically. The building codes and zoning laws will eventually be abandoned and will have to be replaced with vernacular wisdom. Get busy.

I have some comments on the whole question of Arab-language news and opinion in North America.

In a nation of 300 million souls, there is a lack (to put it mildly) of broad and deep coverage of public discourse in what is currently a region of great concern, namely the Middle East. This lack, in itself, is a fact that should be highlighted, because it is the source of a whole lot of other problems. The damage isn’t limited to having facilitated the “dancing in the streets” demagoguery ahead of the Iraq invasion. On the contrary, it continues to make American policy unstable and prone to other forms of demagoguery, new and old. The underlying problem is the lack of broad cultural literacy. I happen to think that as a long-term issue, the low esteem in which language-learning is held is an important part of that.

(If I had the energy and I was completely consistent as a person, I would cut back on the “missing links” format and instead post excerpts in Arabic with explanatory notes, vocabulary and so on, as an encouragement to autodidacts and others, and to show that while learning a language is difficult, getting a toe-hold in newspaper-Arabic with its repetitive structures and vocabulary is not as impossible as it is made out to be, so as to promote the idea of a culture of language-learning, which to put it mildly again, there isn’t.)

If there was a broad enough Arabic cultural literacy among commentators and others, you wouldn’t have this situation where people say “I know what is going on because I read so-and-so and I have read him for a long time”. I hope people never say that about me, because my coverage is as inadequate for that as the next person’s. Specific issues, having to do with who says this and who says that, are in large part the result of this thinness.

Each person has his aims and ideals and his perspective on the world. Mine is that people need to appreciate the variety of different views held by commentators and others in that part of the world. People need to understand these views and not just in a superficial way. And of course some of them I often agree with (for instance the consistent Bush-criticism of Samaha and Atwan); some of them I don’t (for instance the quasi-official Saudi views of Mamoun Fandy); and some I find sort of in-between (some of the writers classified as “liberals” for instance). But the risk is in not understanding people at all. This is not only dangerous for America policy-wise, but also it is a shame just on the human and cultural level.

Among the academics, Marc Lynch runs an open-minded and accessible blog at abuaardvark.com, useful not only because of the posts and the comments, but also for the thumbnail summaries and links in the column at the left, which I have often pillaged. No doubt he has his aims and ideals and perspectives on the world, which I wouldn’t presume to try and summarize, other than to note that he is a political scientist, so if I had to say something it would be about the dangers of scientism, and I would preach the need to drill down into what exactly people’s views are, avoiding the temptation to merely classify them. At Joshua Landis’ Syriacomment.com you can get a cross-section of opinions about the Syrian regime and its interesting strategic position, not only via Landis’ posts, but even more from the outspoken commenters, many of them Syrian, and many often at loggerheads with one another. No danger of getting only one side of the story there.

Among the non-academics, Helena Cobban at justworldnews.org, like myself, thinks in addition to the surface problems, there is a problem with ways of thinking, and her focus is often on the need to think about the resolution of conflicts and not always just about the conflicts themselves.

And there is Juan Cole at Juancole.com, a hard worker, to be sure, and whose archives can be a useful tool as well. But I think it is clear his aims and ideals are a lot more specific, and have to do with the solidification of an Iraqi regime controlled by SCIRI. There is nothing against having that as an aim, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of an even-handed account of what is going on. I think recently in a lot of cases it has gotten in the way of that, and given his influence, I think it is incumbent on a person to point that out as clearly as possible.