Tannishblog

The Chicago Tribune reports today ex-Democratic, neo-Independant turncoat Senator Joe Lieberman wants to play rough with the Iranians:

"I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman said. "And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

"We’ve said so publicly that the Iranians have a base in Iran at which they are training Iraqis who are coming in and killing Americans. By some estimates, they have killed as many as 200 American soldiers," Lieberman said. "Well, we can tell them we want them to stop that. But if there’s any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can’t just talk to them."

He added, "If they don’t play by the rules, we’ve got to use our force, and to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they’re doing."

Who voted to put the troops in harms way, Joe? Who’s ultimately responsible for American deaths in Iraq? The Iranians want us out of Iraq. The Iraqis want us out - they’ve voted on it, even! Americans want the troops home. I’ll venture to say that the troops themselves would rather be home. That’s an overwhelming majority by any count.

Maybe if we start to bring home our soldiers, the American death toll will lessen. Do you think so, Joe? Maybe if we admit we screwed up Georgie’s Daddy’s War, we can start a healing process. It is a sign of maturity that a person can admit mistakes, apologize and make amends. It’s a sign of mature leadership, of sane statesmanship, too.

But you wouldn’t know about that, would you, Joe?

Why should the US troops have all the fun? Let’s bring civilian contractors into the fray.

Twice this week employees of Blackwater USA, a private "security firm" based in Moyock, NC holding over $100 million defense contracts, we involved in confrontations in Baghdad. From Washington Post:

A Blackwater guard shot and killed an Iraqi driver Thursday near the Interior Ministry, according to three U.S. officials and one Iraqi official who were briefed on the incident but spoke on condition of anonymity because of a pending investigation. On Wednesday, a Blackwater-protected convoy was ambushed in downtown Baghdad, triggering a furious battle in which the security contractors, U.S. and Iraqi troops and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were firing in a congested area.

I remember when we weren’t afraid to call these "security contractors" by their real name: Mercenaries. But in these post-politically-correct times of argument framing, a spade is no longer a spade, it’s a "landscape facilitator" (or something.) So a Mercenary soldier is now a "security consultant." Pfeh!

Is this how "the Surge(tm)" is implemented? This carefully planned war that the White House insisted didn’t need as many troops as Central Command suggested, which has redefined the word quagmire, has lasted longer than a Hollywood marriage. Early on, it was assumed that only 5,000 troops would be stationed there by December 2006. Now we’ve got "civilian contractors" playing along.

Blackwater’s security consulting division holds at least $109 million worth of State Department contracts in Iraq, and its employees operate in a perilous environment that sometimes requires the use of deadly force. But last week’s incidents underscored how deeply these hired guns have been drawn into the war, their murky legal status and the grave consequences that can ensue when they take aggressive action.

But quagmires are supposed to be murky, right? I guess the Iraqis have showed us Yanks how to use lawlessness to great advantage. What legal status has a corporate mercenary? How can someone be held accountable for war crimes if that is his job description?

Mohammed Mahdi, 37, an employee at a veterinary drugstore, said the combined American forces unleashed a fury of gunfire near the Amanat, the municipal headquarters located in the heart of downtown Baghdad. Before taking cover in his store, Mahdi said, he saw two people killed and one wounded near the city’s legal registry.

A U.S. Embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Blackwater contractors "did their job," enabling the State Department employees to be extracted without injuries. The U.S. military said no American soldiers were killed or wounded during the attack.

Mahdi said that the battle lasted for nearly an hour and that when he emerged he saw four mini-buses, a taxi and an Opel sedan containing dead and wounded. He said that he saw "at least four or five" people "who were certainly dead" but that he did not know how the people were killed, who killed them or whether they were civilians or combatants.

It gets really opaque when we toss in corporate official-speak rhetoric:

[Matthew Degn, a senior American civilian adviser to the Interior Ministry’s intelligence directorate,] said he was concerned the incident "could undermine a lot of the cordial relationships that have been built up over the past four years. There’s a lot of angry people up here right now."

"Cordial relationship?" So says a "senior civilian advisor". Are we framing again?

Anne Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, said the company did not discuss specific incidents. In a statement via e-mail, she wrote: "Blackwater investigates any reports of hostile action in Iraq. Per the terms of our US Government contracts, as a matter of routine, Blackwater is required to file after action reports on any such incidents."

That should take care of that. An "incident report" to the US government is just the thing to appease the families of the dead and wounded. Make no mistake about the realities on the ground in Iraq: war is big business and war profiteering is just another aspect of the American economy.

Doesn’t that make you feel proud?

 The NY Times reports US troops began building a 12 foot high, 3 mile long wall to divide Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods. Just like the Berlin Wall. US Commanders say “the wall is one of the centerpieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence.”

Residents see things differently:

A doctor in Adhamiya, Abu Hassan, said the wall would transform the residents into caged animals. “It’s unbelievable that they treat us in such an inhumane manner,” he said in a telephone interview. “They’re trying to isolate us from other parts of Baghdad. The hatred will be much greater between the two sects.”

“The Native Americans were treated better than us,” he added.

That last statement is a stretch by any measure; Indigenous Americans were subject to genocide. As bad as things are in Iraq, we haven’t quite gotten there - yet.

Nonetheless, one man’s wall is another man’s cage. I bet the US got the idea from Israel. Partitioning the Palestinians has worked so well…

Speaking of Israel, shouldn’t the Jews be protesting such aggressive segregation tactics? As I recall my history, the Warsaw ghettos were created to "protect" the Jewish population suffering increased hostilities at the time. We know how that story ended, too.

While the US continues to mouth platitudes regarding benchmarks of progress by Iraqi officials, they’re taking steps to create a permanent physical embodiment of sectarianism. Sunnis should well be enraged, they’re the ones who will stand at the checkpoints in order to travel to and from work or gather groceries. They are the ones who will look out their windows to a vista of concrete block and concertina wire and wonder - now that they’re all scrunched into the New Warsaw ghetto - when the rocketry will arrive. Given all that, wouldn’t this make these arbitrary benchmarks harder to achieve?

Perhaps the US is getting desperate. Might we be running out of options, grasping at tactical straws in light of the uncontrollable situation and a dearth of planning on our part? Perhaps we’re just going through pantomimes to placate an increasingly restless American public, failing presidential job ratings, and shouts of impeachments? Perhaps we’re not protecting a minority faction so much as walling ourselves in?

 No doubt Left Blogistan is roaring today about this Karl Rove Rap Video. Who pays for the annual bash between government officials and the media? Not the taxpayers, I hope.

It’s shameless, really. Doesn’t anyone on the hill know there’s A WAR GOING ON? Drunken revelry has it’s place, but not when US troops are being slaughtered for a lie perpetrated by the partying drunks.

I’m disgusted. I need to wash my mind out with lye… Excuse me for a bit.

Here’s a name we might be hearing about in the future: David J. Lesar. He’s the chairman and chief executive of Halliburton. Yesterday, the NY Times reports congressional Democrats creating controversy by questioning his relocation to Dubai.

Like Mr, Lesar, the names Halliburton and Dubai have only surfaced since the war began. The American public never heard of these before the media hounds sniffed around. And where the news leads, trouble soon follows. It reminds me of Enron, where we only found out about them after their implosion. A curious phenomenon. I’m expecting to hear more of David J. Lesar, Hallibutron and Dubai, UAE, and the news, as usual, will be troubling.

Some seemingly small events seem unrelated to large ones. That is not true; everything connects. Halliburton is as intrinsically tied to Iraq as is it’s former CEO, Dick Cheney. And wasn’t least year’s hubbub over US ports connected to a company from Dubai? That was the first time I had heard of the place.

The first time I heard of Halliburton was in connection with a unprecedented no-bid contract worth billions for services in Iraq during wartime. They bill themselves as an Oil Services Company. Vague, that. One would ask what kinds of oil services do the troops need? Then came the allegations of mismanagement of of vague services rendered - or not - and billions of dollars spent for AWOL service. People are getting suspicious. Now, the Chief Exec who oversaw the company’s most lucrative contracts, netting the firm unprecedented growth (there’s that word again,) suddenly relocates to a little noticed corner of the world. (I suspect Cheney’s stock portfolio has "done well" these past few years.)

The NY Times news story quoted a company spokesperson’s remarks that the move, while unprecedented, was purely a business move: they’re in the oil services business; Dubai is in the Persian Gulf region; therefore, on the surface, one could reasonably presume that’s true.

Except Dubai has the distinction of gaining the least of its wealth through oil profits of all the Arab Emirates. And its not in geographical position to provide a pipeline path to anywhere. Likewise, it’s not the largest port in the UAE. It’s a tourist destination.

Something’s rotten in the state of Texas. I reiterate: We’ll be hearing more about Mr. Lesar. I wonder if, as a US citizen and head of a US corporation, he can be subpoenaed while over there. I suspect we’ll find out.

Vladimir Putin says the US is destabilizing the world and forcing an escalation of nuclear proliferation.

The world, he said, is now unipolar: “One single center of power. One single center of force. One single center of decision making. This is the world of one master, one sovereign.”

[…]

“It has nothing in common with democracy, of course,” he added. “Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations — military force.”

“Primarily the United States has overstepped its national borders, and in every area,” said Mr. Putin, who increasingly has tried to re-establish Russia’s once broad Soviet-era influence, using Russia’s natural resources as leverage and defending nations at odds with the United States, including Iran.

American military actions, which he termed “unilateral” and “illegitimate,” also “have not been able to resolve any matters at all,” and, he said, have created only more instability and danger.

John McCain challenges Mr. Putin, as does Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman. What would you expect?

Meanwhile, Nuclear Arms talks with North Korea has broken down and Iran reiterates its resolve to pursue nuclear technology. Indeed.

Dahr Jamail offers a unique view on Iraq by wondering if coalition troops aren’t being toyed with:

The slaughter of 263 people in Najaf by Iraqi and U.S. forces Jan. 29 provoked outrage and vows of revenge among residents in and around the sacred Shia city in the south. The killings have deepened a split among Shias. Iran is predominantly Shia, one of the two main groupings within Islam along with the Sunnis. Iraq has for the first time a Shia-dominated government, comprising groups that have been openly supportive of Iran.

The people killed were mostly Shias from the Hawatim tribe that opposes the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq as well as the Dawa Party. These two pro-Iranian groups control the local government in Najaf and the government in Baghdad. The Najaf attack has provoked strong reactions among members of the Hawatim tribe and among other Shia groups who are not loyal to Iran - and who became the target in those killings. An attack on a local tribal leader led to an assault on members of the tribe by U.S., British and Iraqi forces. The tribe was described by government officials as a "messianic cult."

Abid Ali who witnessed the Najaf fighting told IPS that a procession of roughly 200 pilgrims from the Hawatim tribe had arrived in the Zarqa area near Najaf to celebrate the Ashura festival. Following a confrontation over the procession, Iraqi army soldiers at a checkpoint shot dead Hajj Sa’ad Sa’ad Nayif al-Hatemi, chief of the tribe, as he and his wife sat in their car. Members of the tribe then attacked the checkpoint to avenge the death of their chief.

"It was after this that the Iraqi army called in the Americans, and the planes began bombing civilians," Ali said. "It was a massacre. Now I believe the internal Shia fighting has entered a very dangerous phase."

Ali added that most people in the area believe the U.S. military was told by Iraqi security forces loyal to the pro-Iranian government in Baghdad that "terrorists" or the "messianic cult" was attacking Najaf. They say the misinformation was intended to mislead occupation forces into attacking the tribe.

Many Shias in the southern parts of the country and in Baghdad now say they had been fooled earlier by U.S. promises to help them, but that the Najaf massacre has dramatically changed their views. Significantly, the Association of Muslim Scholars, a group of Sunni Muslims headed by Dr. Harith al-Dhari, issued a statement condemning the Iraqi-U.S. military attack in Najaf against the Hawatim tribe. The statement, which seeks to bridge a Shia-Sunni divide, denounced the killing of dozens of women and children and added, "It was an act of vengeance and political termination."

"They (the United States) were misled, and their last move in Najaf shows how the smart Iranians are leading the Americans deeper into Iraqi sands," Jaafar al-Jawadi, a political analyst from Baghdad told IPS.

"I really admire the way Iranians are dealing with the situation in a professional way while the Americans are walking with their eyes closed. They are losing the last Iraqi fort they were hiding behind, and that was the peaceful way Arab Shias were dealing with occupation."
(c)2007 Dahr Jamail.

As bumbling as our administration is, this scenario seems possible. In a top-down organization based upon secrecy, how are the grunts supposed to make a informed decision? In such a convoluted situation who can tell who the enemy is? (rhetorical question; the enemy is us.)

Also, America’s anti-Iran propaganda gets a nudge from a new report linking the manufacture of explosively formed penetrators or E.F.P.s, to Iran. These are munitions designed to send blasts of molten copper through the armor of nearby troops. Almost half of our casualties are a result of this technology. Speak after me: "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Yep, we’re almost to Tehran…

No wonder they’re starting to quote William Butler Yeats.

The Second Coming - W.B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

While people are killing each other across the globe (what else is new?), famine, AIDS and more warfare in Africa, Mudslides in Jakarta, and all the other wonderful happening on this beautiful Earth, my fellow Chicagoans are stoked about the Super Bowl. (phew! What a sentence.) I guess it’s a matter of priorities…

Meanwhile, today’s headline is - brace yourself - yet another study on climate change and its causes. You’re sitting down, right? he culprit is… humanity! I know you were surprised by that one. CNN headlines a study by French climatologists (is that a word?) placing the blame squarely on everyone’s heads.

"The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice-mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that is not due to known natural causes alone," said the 20-page report.

Human-caused warming and rises in sea-level "would continue for centuries" because the process has already started, "even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized," said the 20-page report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Wait! It get better…

[A] 2001 report projected a sea level rise of up to 35 inches.

Many scientists had warned that this was being too cautious and said sea level rise could be closer to 3 to 5 feet because of ice sheet melt.

But despite losing on that battle, scientists said the report is strong.

"There’s no question that the powerful language is intimately linked to the more powerful science," said one of the study’s many co-authors, Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria, who spoke by phone from Canada. He said the report was based on science that is rock-solid, peer-reviewed, conservative and consensus.

"It’s very conservative. Scientists by their nature are skeptics."

So what exactly are these skeptics implying must be done?

"What you’re trying to do is get the whole planet under the proverbial tent in how to deal with this, not just the rich countries," Mahlman said Thursday. "I think we’re in a different kind of game now."

[…]

On the war front, a different report illuminates the difference between theory and practice as applied to training Iraq’s "military." Games are being played here, too, and the US of A doesn’t have an updated playbook. Via TPM Muckraker, McClatchy Washington Bureau kindly explains how those pesky Al-Sadr insurgents train their people - with US help. Regarding the Iraqi government’s finest:

"Half of them are JAM. They’ll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night," said 1st Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader in the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, using the initials of the militia’s Arabic name, Jaish al Mahdi. "People (in America) think it’s bad, but that we control the city. That’s not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It’s hostile territory."

These people aren’t stupid. Infiltrate your enemy, get issues their weapons, learn tactics and inside information of strategic significance, then join the other side. Brilliant! Why didn’t the US forces countermand this technique? Political pressure upon the generals.

In hindsight, many American officers said there was too much pressure to give Iraqi army units their own areas of operation, a process that left Iraqi soldiers outmanned, outgunned and easy targets for infiltration and coercion.

"There was a decision … that was probably made prematurely," said Lt. Col. Eric Schacht, a 42-year-old battalion commander in east Baghdad from Glen Mills, Pa. "I think we jumped the gun a little bit."

Al-Sadr’s militia has taken advantage of the chaos.

Iraqi soldiers, for example, often were pushed into the field by Iraqi commanders who didn’t give them adequate food, clothing or shelter, said Etienne, a 1st Infantry Division platoon leader.

Etienne was on patrol one day when he saw Iraqi soldiers eating fresh vegetables and meat. The afternoon before, the same soldiers had complained that they had only scraps of food left. Who’d brought them their meal? It had come courtesy of Muqtada al-Sadr.

OH, the games people play!

I feel the need to say something snarky about "Winning hearts and minds." Give me a minute, it’ll come to me…

And so, the War on Iran has begun with America making the first move. President Bush hasn’t learned, apparently, that taunting Middle-Easterners is not wise. we haven’t finished the first FUBAR and we’re already starting the next.

Start buying survival gear, folks. The apocalypse just got nearer.

"Absolutely we’re winning." These soon-to-be-famous-last-words escaped he lips of our president in October of last year. What he doesn’t mention is the escalating cost of war in general (never an inexpensive proposition) and this war in particular (now well past $100,000 for every person in the US. How many people are you supporting? How would you pay a bill that large?) Some costs, of course, can never be recovered, mainly the cost in blood and suffering.

From Dahr Jamail:

According to the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes, service members with "a psychiatric disorder in remission, or whose residual symptoms do not impair duty performance" may be considered for duty downrange. It lists post-traumatic stress disorder as a "treatable" problem.

Steve Robinson, director of Veterans Affairs for Veterans for America told IPS correspondent Aaron Glantz that "as a layman and a former soldier I think that’s ridiculous."

"If I’ve got a soldier who’s on Ambien to go to sleep and Seroquel and Qanapin and all kinds of other psychotropic meds, I don’t want them to have a weapon in their hand and to be part of my team because they’re a risk to themselves and to others," he said. "But apparently, the military has its own view of how well a soldier can function under those conditions, and is gambling that they can be successful."

From CNN:

The problem is larger than mere displacement, a U.N. news release states, as women are increasingly forced to resort to prostitution and reports of child labor problems are on the rise…

"The longer this conflict goes on, the more difficult it becomes for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced, and the communities that are trying to help them — both inside and outside Iraq," U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a Monday news release. "The burden on host communities and governments in the region is enormous."

According to UNHCR estimates, there are between 500,000 and 1 million refugees in Syria; about 700,000 in Jordan; about 80,000 in Egypt; and about 40,000 in Lebanon. Turkey is hosting an unknown number of Iraqis, the news release states.

But the war could last years longer, according to the NY Times

The new American operational commander in Iraq said Sunday that even with the additional American troops likely to be deployed in Baghdad under President Bush’s new war strategy it might take another “two or three years” for American and Iraqi forces to gain the upper hand in the war.

The commander, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, assumed day-to-day control of war operations last month in the first step of a makeover of the American military hierarchy here. In his first lengthy meeting with reporters, General Odierno, 52, struck a cautious note about American prospects, saying much will depend on whether commanders can show enough progress to stem eroding support in the United States for the war.

“I believe the American people, if they feel we are making progress, they will have the patience,” he said. But right now, he added, “I think the frustration is that they think we are not making progress.”

[…]

He said he understood the failing confidence among Americans, including some of those who had lost sons and daughters here, that the war was worthwhile. The general’s own son, Capt. Anthony Odierno, a 28-year-old West Point graduate, lost an arm when a bomb detonated during a patrol in Baghdad in 2004.

As a father as well as a commander, the general said, he did not doubt the sacrifices had been justified. “I believe it’s worth it,” he said.

He’s on duty, what else can he say? He wants his promotion to full general to go through. He’s a professional soldier, he understands that having an opinion is not required to do his job.

We’re not in Iraq to stop Terrorism. We’ve made it a terrorists playground and training field. We’re not in Iraq to spread Democracy. A key component of Democracies is it’s viral nature - it spreads itself. The common citizen must accept it before it will work. Democracy spreads from the bottom up. Forcing it upon an unwilling populace is top-down Democracy which is dysfunctional.

No. We’re in Iraq to secure oil for the West. We’re in Afghanistan to build military bases atop the Caspian Sea oil pipeline. We’ve build the largest military complex in the world in Iraq, and we’re there for the long haul. We’re exchanging blood for oil and to our leaders, it doesn’t matter how much blood is spent. Nor does it matter whose blood is spent - so long as it is a stranger’s.

Is it worth it? Hell, no!

We got rid of the echo chambers of congress, but we still have Georgie flying solo for the next two years. Should be fun. Especially in light of his latest pronouncement during his current tour of Republics formerly Owned by the Soviet Union. As reported by the NY Times, Mr. Bush is prepping his Iraqi puppet for a new role as scapegoat.

Foreshadowing his message to Mr. Maliki, he said he would press the Iraqi prime minister to lay out a strategy for stopping the killings.

“My questions to him will be: ‘What do we need to do to succeed? What is your strategy in dealing with the sectarian violence?’ ” Mr. Bush said. “I will assure him that we will continue to pursue Al Qaeda to make sure that they do not establish a safe haven in Iraq.”

Really. The What’s Your Strategy game is supposed to mask the US Iraq strategy that’s been AWOL since the beginning? What kind of fools does he take us for?

That’s rhetorical, friends.

But if I were to answer, I might have to take notice of how Mr. Bush refuses to utter the words "civil war," even after NBC decided at last to label the "conflict" rightly.

NBC News said Monday that its reporters and anchors would begin referring to the ongoing sectarian strife in Iraq as a "civil war," a move that reflects the news media’s use of increasingly stark language to characterize the escalating violence gripping the country.

NBC’s decision, which came after a particularly deadly series of retaliatory attacks in Baghdad, makes it the first television network to officially adopt the term "civil war," a description the Bush administration has resisted.

Although our Decider-in Chief says Iraq is still insurgent, the media goes ahead and makes it an official Civil War ™. Never mind the media has been using the phrase for the past two months. Now that the election’s over and the Democrats have emerged from the Phoenix’s ashes of defeat, one news outlet has a sudden case of gumption. Bully!

And if I were to answer to how foolish our President believes we are, I would notice his phraseology during his denouncement of a possible thinning US presence in Iraq. According the the same NT Times report, he vowed not to withdraw troops "until the mission is complete."

Wait a minute! Is he now saying his mission is NOT accomplished?