Since I'll have limited time today to write on this, I'm going to post a set of links to important articles and blog entries on recent developments in the Iraq War:
Fighting has U.S. grasping for a plan: June 30 deadline leaves everything 'up in the air' (San Francisco Chronicle 05/05/04). An interesting article, though the final entry in the section at the bottom "Comparing Plans for Iraq," is kind of weird:
Pullout: Liberal anti-war activists and some military analysts say U. S. troops should be unconditionally withdrawn from Iraq within six months, with security control turned over to local militias and political control given to the United Nations until elections are held. Advocates of this position say Arab and other Muslim countries would be eager to provide peacekeeping troops under U.N. command.
I'm not sure what "liberal anti-war activists" are being referenced here. But the last sentence was the whopper. If anyone reading this finds a reference to anybody of any political persuasion who is saying that "Arab and other Muslim countries" would be eager to provide troops to bail out the US in Iraq, under UN auspices or anything else, please add the reference in the comments section. (See Abizaid's wet dream by Steve Gilliard 05/01/04, scroll down).
Pentagon/neoconservative favorite Ahmed Chalabi is a rotton operator, part 97: from Josh Marshall's blog.
Hesiod gives himself a justifiable pat on the back for having wondered earlier about possible Chalabi involvement in a shady operation referenced by Marshall.
The prisoner abuse scandal:
For the jihadists and the anti-American guerrillas in Iraq, this one is sure to be a "gift that keeps on giving."
Seymour Hersh's Torture at Abu Ghraib New Yorker online 04/30/04 (05/10/04 issue).
The Memory Hole has a collection of Photos of Iraqis Being Abused by US Personnel. No matter how much the Klan types who miss the good ole days when lynching was allowed may get off on these photos, this is a disaster for United States foreign policy, not only in Iraq but all over the world.
Juan Cole has a whole series of pieces on the issue:
Photographs of Abused Iraqi Prisoners 04/30/04
The genteel mainstream news reports of this scandal (which have given it less attention than it deserves or than it will get in the Arab press) have not commented on the explicitly sexual message sent by the abusers, which is that Iraq is [asterisked word not allowed by AOL's genteel Terms of Service].
Arab Reaction to Photos of Prisoner Abuse 05/01/04
This is a big thing, folks. I saw the American rightwing talking heads Friday evening trying to shrug off the photos and the incidents as minor affairs. They are not, in the world of public diplomacy. ...
I really wonder whether, with the emergence of these photos, the game isn't over for the Americans in Iraq. Is it realistic, after the bloody siege of Fallujah and the Shiite uprising of early April, and in the wake of these revelations, to think that the US can still win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi Arab public?
In other words, it may be the US mission in Iraq that is [asterisked word not allowed by AOL's genteel Terms of Service].
al-Wafd: American Prison Guards are "Dark Angels of Hell" 05/02/04
By the way, those unknown parties mentioned above who supposedly think that Arab countries will be providing troops to ease the American exit from Iraq? They might want to check out this link that Cole provides in that post: Iraqi Prison Photos 'Beyond Disgust' - Arab League Reuters 05/01/04. As Cole notes dryly, "The Arab League groups dozens of Arabic-speaking countries and has its headquarters in Cairo." Oh, yeah, Arab countries are eager to send troops to bail us out. And George Bush is a Vietnam veteran. And the racist dope-fiend Rush Limbaugh never took Oxycontin.
The U.S. Has Lost the Battle of the Photographs TomDispatch.com (accessed 05/02/04)
TomDispatch introduces the article by commenting that Cole's blog is "the single most useful (and inspired) place on or off the Internet to follow developments in Iraq."
The one qualification I would introduce to Cole's analysis of the effects of the media images he discusses is that I believe that the war's supporters are incorrect in assuming that dignified images honoring the dead or showing anonymous coffins automatically have an antiwar effect. They are right to worry, however, that they may have a negative effect on support for the Republican Party, whose chief duty is to comfort the comfortable. As John Kenneth Galbraith noted in his brief but brilliant The Culture of Contentment (1992):
The major wars of this [20th] century - the two World Wars, the Korean and the war in Vietnam - were fought under Democratic [Party] auspices. In all four cases, the immediate instinctive support was strong; with the exception of World War II, the ultimate effect, however, was to bring the political opposition back into office. The public prefernce, even that of the more ardent supporters of military expenditure, is for short, comforable, successful and not unduly expensive wars. These, as noted earlier, the Republicans have provided in Grenada, Panama and Iraq [i.e., the 1991 Gulf War]. The Democratic fate has been wars of enduring pain, high fiscal cost and, in the case of Korea and Vietnam, with no dramatically successful conclusion.
It can certainly be argued, and I think it's correct, that even the Gulf War contributed a great deal to Bush I's defeat in 1992. I'm quite confident that Galbraith didn't object to having that result possibly modify the suggestion of this brief paragraph. In fact, it confirms his point. Enduring pain, high fiscal cost, and no dramatically successful conclusion. Sounds like Bush II's Iraq War to me.
A bit of a diversion there. But more links on the prisoner-abuse matter follow.
Steve Gilliard brings his typically blunt analysis of the incident to bear in A little humiliation and torture 04/30/04 (you have to scroll down; his links don't always hit exactly on the post.)
What is incindiary are the pictures of a woman humilating Arab men and dogs being sicced on them. These are gross violations of Arab culture and sure to assist the resistance in killing Americans. The idea of a woman humiliating men will go down poorly in the Arab world, as will the idea of dogs being used on prisoners. ...
It couldn't be more offensive or humiliating if you tried. A woman displaying the gentials of Arab men? Dogs? If you wanted a recruiting poster to kill Americans, this would be it. ...
The soldiers who did this had no clue. Not about Arab culture, the laws of war or the Geneva Convention and the general running the prison was more interested in looking good than running an effective prison. That doesn't mean they aren't guilty of vile abuses, but their superiors shouldn't get a free pass.
Billmon has been on this story, as well, with meet the New Boss II (04/29/04) Splendid Isolation (04/30/04), Failed State (05/01/04), Patterns and Practics (05/01/04) and An Iraqi Prison Diary (05/02/04). The "Patterns and Practices" post addresses in particular the issue of wider responsibility. The idea that it was just a few bad apples that were responsible for turning Abu Ghraib into their own little S&M parlor just doesn't wash.
David Neiwert of Orcinus also points to the fact that the Abu Ghraib incident should not be viewed in isolation. Credibile evidence of abusive and illegal practices had previously surfaced in Afghanistan and Guantanamo. Neiwert observes:
What's particularly disingenuous about Bush's disclaimers and his proclamations of extreme horror at the images (or is it just horror at having the images gain global distribution?) is that it tries to place the blame on the grunts who are carrying out the torture. It ignores the fact that these tortures could not take place without approval from above.
Just to be clear, the individuals directly abusing prisoners are responsible for their conduct, legally and morally and every other way. But that doesn't exhaust the matter, especially when such incidents are taking place in ways that require systematic approval of some kind.
There was a previous publicly-known case involving American soldiers committing torture on an Iraqi prisoner, the case of Lt. Col. Allen West, who admitted his guilt in the case. My additional posts on that case are linked in this one. And as I previously observed, even though West was a confessed torturer, he was treated as a hero by some American rightwingers, including neoconservative war fan Max Boot ("The Lessons of a Quagmire," New York Times 11/26/03), who criticized the Army as being "too Boy Scoutish" for prosecuting the torturer. Conservative war critic David Hackworth, who surely knows better, also defended West's actions.
Andwhat creates a climate for problems like this? I've addressed some of them in previous posts. There was this from Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld back in 2001 in response to a question of whether our Afghan allies the Northern Alliance's treatment of prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions concerned him (my emphasis):
The fact that they [the Northern Alliance] don't happen to subscribe to some convention that we do or that other countries do is a fact. It is also a fact that we have to stop those terrorists from killing more Americans. And I don't feel even the slightest problem in working with the Northern Alliance to achieve that end.
As I noted in the post linked, the Northern Alliance certainly was bound by the Geneva Conventions. It sends a pretty strong signal when the Secretary of Defense sneers at the basics international laws of war, which are fully legally binding on the United States, as "some convention" and brushes off very serious charges of mass killings of prisoners of war as something that doesn't cause him "even the slightest problem."
Bush responded like a flip frat-boy to a question about international law in December 2003 (quote from CNN; original link expired):
Bush scoffed at a question seeking his reaction to [German Chancellor Gerhard] Schroeder's statement on Thursday that international law must apply to the awarding of the [reconstruction] contracts [in Iraq].
"International law? I better call my lawyer," he said.
I've covered other examples in previous posts.
Frum/Perle Short Version
The Amazing Mr. Perle
That Trial
US Troops in Syria?
Will the Iran-Contra Crowd Ever Go Away?
Was Iraq an "Imminent" Threat?
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and the Doctrine of Preventive War
Iraq War: Welcome to the West Bank
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