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Bush has opened Pandora's Box
(David Hirst, Electronic Iraq, 24 December 2003)
This was the year the Middle East became the undisputed, tumultuous centre of global politics. When, at dawn on March 20 the US and its British ally went to war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, they were intervening in the region on such a scale that Arabs everywhere compared the invasion, in its potential geopolitical significance, to that seminal upheaval of the last century: the collapse of the Ottoman empire. That led to the arbitrary carve-up of its former Arab provinces by the European colonial powers and, in 1948, to the loss of one of them, Palestine, to the Israeli settler-state. . . . In Arab eyes, it was a final mortal blow to the so-called "Arab system" through which the component parts of the greater Arab "nation" collectively strove to protect the territorial integrity and basic security of the whole. To the disgust and shame of the Arab peoples, it was not merely incapable of preventing the conquest and occupation of what, properly governed, would have been one of the most powerful and prosperous Arab lands, it was largely complicit in it. . . . It simply stood and watched as the world's only superpower embarked on its hugely ambitious, neo-colonial enterprise: to make Iraq the fulcrum for reshaping the entire region . . . It was seen as a second Palestine, not so much because it was a foreign conquest of another Arab country, but because, via the Bush administration's neo-conservative hawks, it was at least as much Israeli in inspiration and purpose as it was American. The mighty blow struck in Baghdad would so weaken other Arab regimes that the Palestinians, more than ever bereft of Arab support, would submit to that full-scale Israeli subjugation and dispossession of all but a last pitiful fragment of their original homeland. . . . In the wider Arab world, a virulent anti-Americanism was not offset, as it was for the Iraqis, by a hatred of Saddam and the fear of his possible return. So it warmed to the Iraqi resistance more than most Iraqis did - and spawned militants of its own who were drawn to this new arena from which to conduct their jihad against the enemy of Islam and Arabism. . . . "By pretending that Iraq was crawling with al-Qaida," the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd put it, "Bush officials created an Iraq crawling with al-Qaida." . . . Ariel Sharon staged Israel's first air raid on Syria in 30 years. Ostensibly it was retaliation for a particularly atrocious Palestinian bombing, but it was also a blatant bid to cast Israel as an operational ally of the US in the "reshaping" of the region and the punishing of that other Ba'athist dictatorship which, in the neo-conservative scheme of things, was next in line for the Saddam treatment. . . . Then it was revealed that in Iraq US forces were adopting counter-insurgency techniques the Israelis had taught them. This could only deepen the Arab and Muslim conviction that what the American soldiers were now doing to Iraqis was what the Israelis had been doing to Palestinians for the past 50 years. Resistance in one place could only inspire and reinforce it in the other. . . . The capture of Saddam was indeed a timely public relations triumph. But it seemed as likely to broaden the anti-American insurgency as to diminish it, and thereby amplify the growing murmur that here was a new Vietnam in the making. . . . An Iraq at loggerheads with itself, and a paradise for international terrorists, would spare none of the principal actors in this geopolitical drama. Not the US, confronted as it then would be with the classical colonial dilemma of whether to pull back or plunge yet further in. Not the Arab world, whose regimes in their people's eyes only differ from Saddam's in the degree of their degeneracy, nor Israel. . . . The danger is what Arab commentators habitually call "Lebanonisation" - first of Iraq and then, by an inevitable contagion, the rest of the eastern Arab world. Hizbullah, that most successful of anti-Israeli insurgencies, grew out of a single failed and fratricidal state. What might an entire failed region throw up?

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 11:30 AM

 

A Strategy: Moving America Away From Oil
[COMMENT: The following is a brief summary of a very interesting report. The full report may be viewed via the above link. After reading this summary, you may want to click on the above link and check out the people behind this report. It gives one hope that not everyone in Washington is completely insane.]

Recent terrorist events have again raised new questions about the security of U.S. energy. In the light of Middle East regional instability, it is fair to ask: Are there any alternatives to the status quo? How might the U.S. hurry the inevitable shift in primary energy supply, which has happened many times before in history, to a more stable, clean alternative to oil? . . . This study looks at historical global energy transitions, catalogues the present situation, looks into potential new technologies, envisions a new, all-electric world, and then posits a strategy that could dramatically and fundamentally change the shape of energy usage in the U.S. and the planet in the next fifteen years. . . . About 26% of the total energy consumption in the United States is used for transportation. Oil, 60% of which is imported, provides nearly all that energy. To solve the problem of dependency on imported oil, changes must occur in the transportation sector. . . . In sum, it looks like the world - led by the U.S. - is moving toward the day when hydrogen will replace oil as the major source of energy for transportation. The only question is how we get there. There are three major scenarios that describe possible energy environments of the next few decades: Awash in Oil and Gas, Technology Triumphs, and Turbulent World. Within the alternative vagaries of unlimited fossil fuels, new hydrogen-based technologies, or broad-based chaos that begs for change, a path must be planned that is based upon evolutionary change but will respond to revolutionary influences. . . . Where is this all going in the end? What does the world of transportation look like in, say, 2050? It's our guess that it's an all-electric world. Almost all vehicles (and most of the rest of our tools) will be electrically powered - the question is where and how the electricity is generated. Breakthroughs in generation, distribution and storage are almost inevitable and will eliminate all of the major problems associated with electricity today. . . . Keeping in mind possible technological breakthroughs that could leap over hydrogen fuel cells and produce electricity directly on a vehicle, we nevertheless jumped into the present methanol-ethanol-natural gas argument as a source for H2 and then assessed all of the major alternative vehicles that are presently under development. . . . There are a number of fundamental considerations that will always be major factors in any changes to a new energy source: political and economic feasibility, environmental impact, utilization of existing infrastructure, potential geopolitical disruption, et al. Using Think Toolsä technology, we arrayed all of these against all combinations of energy source/vehicle to isolate which options presented the best near-term, mid-term and long-term benefits. Always preserving the capability of rapidly accelerating the pace because of some major event or science breakthrough, a solid 15-year development path was designed. . . . The beginning of the strategy is already being played out: all manufacturers can now produce E85 engines (that can run on any combination of gasoline and ethanol up to 85% ethanol), with no changes in engineering and manufacturing cost. They should do so immediately. That would open up many hundreds of thousands of new vehicles to using ethanol, a domestically produced alternative fuel that can be distributed through the existing infrastructure with essentially no change at all. . . . An increasing number of manufacturers are producing hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). Electricity is produced in an HEV from an internal combustion engine/generator set and stored in batteries. Either the engine or the batteries is then used for powering electric drive motors under the most efficient conditions. HEVs are the first step toward an all-electric vehicle, and if the engine were an E85/HEV engine it would at the same time be much more fuel-efficient while a larger portion of the fuel would come from North America. . . . Efficiency could be significantly increased above that gained from powertrain upgrades by integrating full-system design measures that take into consideration elements like aerodynamic drag, rolling friction, heating and cooling efficiencies, etc. The best example of this is the Hypercar® that has been developed in Colorado. Hypercar® design ideas combined with the HEV drivetrain could theoretically produce average fuel consumptions around 90 mpg. . . . The HEV/Hypercar® could easily be upgraded with fuel cells when they become commercially available. That would be a natural evolution along the developmental path to national independence, vehicle efficiency, and environmental friendliness. . . . All of these initiatives must be implemented while keeping in mind the larger objective of maintaining geopolitical stability. It would make no sense to solve our domestic energy problem by causing a number of equally significant, enduring crises in other parts of the world . . . that we then have to deal with for decades to come. We must take a holistic approach to dealing with this system.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 11:51 AM

 

US Army War College Says: There Will Be No Peace In Our Lifetimes
[COMMENT: The following is a chilling look inside the minds of high-level US military planners ... and note the date!]

(Major Ralph Peters, US Army War College Quarterly, first published Summer 1997)
There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing. . . . We have entered an age of constant conflict. Information is at once our core commodity and the most destabilizing factor of our time. Until now, history has been a quest to acquire information; today, the challenge lies in managing information. Those of us who can sort, digest, synthesize, and apply relevant knowledge soar--professionally, financially, politically, militarily, and socially. We, the winners, are a minority. . . . For the world masses, devastated by information they cannot manage or effectively interpret, life is "nasty, brutish . . . and short-circuited." The general pace of change is overwhelming, and information is both the motor and signifier of change. Those humans, in every country and region, who cannot understand the new world, or who cannot profit from its uncertainties, or who cannot reconcile themselves to its dynamics, will become the violent enemies of their inadequate governments, of their more fortunate neighbors, and ultimately of the United States. We are entering a new American century, in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent. . . . One of the defining bifurcations of the future will be the conflict between information masters and information victims.
. . . The contemporary expansion of available information is immeasurable, uncontainable, and destructive to individuals and entire cultures unable to master it. The radical fundamentalists--the bomber in Jerusalem or Oklahoma City, the moral terrorist on the right or the dictatorial multiculturalist on the left--are all brothers and sisters, all threatened by change, terrified of the future, and alienated by information they cannot reconcile with their lives or ambitions. They ache to return to a golden age that never existed, or to create a paradise of their own restrictive design. They no longer understand the world, and their fear is volatile. . . . For those individuals and cultures that cannot join or compete with our information empire, there is only inevitable failure . . . The laid-off blue-collar worker in America and the Taliban militiaman in Afghanistan are brothers in suffering. . . . There is a global sense of promises broken, of lies told. Individuals on much of the planet believe they have played by the rules laid down for them (in the breech, they often have not), only to find that some indefinite power has changed those rules overnight. The American who graduated from high school in the 1960s expected a good job that would allow his family security and reasonably increasing prosperity. For many such Americans, the world has collapsed, even as the media tease them with images of an ever-richer, brighter, fun world from which they are excluded. These discarded citizens sense that their government is no longer about them, but only about the privileged. Some seek the solace of explicit religion. Most remain law-abiding, hard-working citizens. Some do not. . . . Hollywood goes where Harvard never penetrated, and the foreigner, unable to touch the reality of America, is touched by America's irresponsible fantasies of itself; he sees a devilishly enchanting, bluntly sexual, terrifying world from which he is excluded, a world of wealth he can judge only in terms of his own poverty. . . . The cult of victimization is becoming a universal phenomenon, and it is a source of dynamic hatreds. . . . Contemporary American culture is the most powerful in history, and the most destructive of competitor cultures. While some other cultures, such as those of East Asia, appear strong enough to survive the onslaught by adaptive behaviors, most are not. The genius, the secret weapon, of American culture is the essence that the elites despise: ours is the first genuine people's culture. It stresses comfort and convenience--ease--and it generates pleasure for the masses. We are Karl Marx's dream, and his nightmare. . . . When we speak of a global information revolution, the effect of video images is more immediate and intense than that of computers. Image trumps text in the mass psyche, and computers remain a textual outgrowth, demanding high-order skills: computers demarcate the domain of the privileged. We use technology to expand our wealth, power, and opportunities. The rest get high on pop culture. If religion is the opium of the people, video is their crack cocaine. . . . The have-nots will hate and strive to attack the haves. And we in the United States will continue to be perceived as the ultimate haves. States will struggle for advantage or revenge as their societies boil. Beyond traditional crime, terrorism will be the most common form of violence . . . For a generation, and probably much longer, we will face no military peer competitor. Our enemies will challenge us by other means. The violent actors we encounter often will be small, hostile parties possessed of unexpected, incisive capabilities or simply of a stunning will to violence (or both). Renegade elites, not foreign fleets, should worry us. . . . We will survive and win any conflict short of a cataclysmic use of weapons of mass destruction. But the constant conflicts in which we selectively intervene will be as miserable as any other form of warfare for the soldiers and Marines engaged. The bayonet will still be relevant . . . Our military power is culturally based. They cannot rival us without becoming us. Wise competitors will not even attempt to defeat us on our terms; rather, they will seek to shift the playing field away from military confrontations or turn to terrorism and nontraditional forms of assault on our national integrity. Only the foolish will fight fair. . . . The complex human-machine interface developing in the US military will be impossible to duplicate abroad because no other state will be able to come from behind to equal the informational dexterity of our officers and soldiers. For all the complaints--in many respects justified--about our public school systems, the holistic and synergistic nature of education in our society and culture is imparting to tomorrow's soldiers and Marines a second-nature grasp of technology and the ability to sort and assimilate vast amounts of competitive data that no other population will achieve. The informational dexterity of our average middle-class kid is terrifying to anyone born before 1970. Our computer kids function at a level foreign elites barely manage, and this has as much to do with television commercials, CD-ROMs, and grotesque video games as it does with the classroom. We are outgrowing our 19th-century model education system as surely as we have outgrown the manned bomber. In the meantime, our children are undergoing a process of Darwinian selection in coping with the information deluge that is drowning many of their parents. These kids are going to make mean techno-warriors. We just have to make sure they can do push-ups, too. . . . Yes, foreign cultures are reasserting their threatened identities--usually with marginal, if any, success--and yes, they are attempting to escape our influence. But American culture is infectious, a plague of pleasure, and you don't have to die of it to be hindered or crippled in your integrity or competitiveness. The very struggle of other cultures to resist American cultural intrusion fatefully diverts their energies from the pursuit of the future. We should not fear the advent of fundamentalist or rejectionist regimes. They are simply guaranteeing their peoples' failure, while further increasing our relative strength. . . . Culture is fate. Countries, clans, military services, and individual soldiers are products of their respective cultures, and they are either empowered or imprisoned. The majority of the world's inhabitants are prisoners of their cultures, [including Americans :-)] and they will rage against inadequacies they cannot admit, cannot bear, and cannot escape. . . . The advent of this new information age has opened a fresh chapter in the human struggle for, and with, freedom. It will be a bloody chapter, with plenty of computer-smashing and head-bashing. The number one priority of non-Western governments in the coming decades will be to find acceptable terms for the flow of information within their societies. They will uniformly err on the side of conservatism--informational corruption--and will cripple their competitiveness in doing so. Their failure is programmed. . . . The next century will indeed be American, but it will also be troubled. We will find ourselves in constant conflict, much of it violent. The United States Army is going to add a lot of battle streamers to its flag. We will wage information warfare, but we will fight with infantry. And we will always surprise those critics, domestic and foreign, who predict our decline. . . . Major (P) Ralph Peters is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he is responsible for future warfare.

[COMMENT: I wonder if Ralph Peters is still so convinced about the future of the American Empire?]

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 5:13 PM

 

An Arab Liberal's Anguish
(Alia Fattouh, Christian Science Monitor, December 15, 2003)
I like jeans, Lou Reed, and 'The Simpsons' - but that doesn't make me agree with US Mideast policy. . . . I am a young liberal Muslim Arab, the trilingual product of French and American schools. While I grew up in Beirut, most of my friends grew up in Montreal, New York, London, or Paris. I wear jeans and miniskirts - not a veil. I listen to David Bowie and Lou Reed. I watch "Sex and the City," "The Simpsons," and Woody Allen. I've attended an American university, and plan to pursue a career in international affairs in Washington. . . . If there is to be a pro-American cadre in the Arab world, one would think its members would look like me and my friends. Indeed, when the State Department's strategists talk about combating anti-Americanism and about spreading democracy, they're talking about cultivating more Arabs like me. . . . Yet, despite my upbringing and orientation, I feel deeply estranged from everything the United States is trying to do in the Middle East. My friends and I aren't buying what the US government has to offer. For all our understanding of the US, the US seems not to understand who we are. . . . We share the Arab heart. Whether we're from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, or elsewhere in the Middle East, we share a language, holidays, foods, literature. We even share the same nostalgia - like the Sunday family gathering at Grandmother's house, where we gorged on meza (the feast before the feast). As much as we may look and act like Westerners, our roots are different - as are our politics. . . . President Bush thinks that our problem is hatred. Speaking to a joint session of Congress just after the Sept. 11 attacks, he said, "They hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." . . . I don't know how the terrorists feel about this statement, but I see things quite differently. When I'm home in Beirut, I do see hatred of the US. But it's hardly hatred of American freedoms. We all admire these liberties and would like to integrate them in our own societies - I, for one, benefit from them every day working here in the US. Rather, the Arab rancor I perceive stems significantly from dismay over American policy toward us, which uses few of the democratic values Americans practice and expect in their own country. . . . By supporting authoritarian governments in the region, the US is generally viewed by Arab liberals - who would like to see change in their societies and leadership - as a belligerent external force that promotes and prolongs injustice and is indifferent to Arab suffering. . . . In all of this, I feel a bit trapped. "Arab" is a vague term - perhaps as vague as the idea of "the West." In a strange way, I feel part of each. Culturally I may look and act "Western," but politically I'm "Arab." I want my country to find its own solutions to its political and economic problems without pressure from the West. . . . A common thread that unites Arabs across the Middle East is the shared sense of threat from Israel. This surprises Americans, who generally see Israel as the aggrieved party, or don't understand the history of the region which is so geographically, economically, and politically entangled with the Palestinians' plight. . . . It's not just a military threat to countries bordering on Israel - as in Lebanon, which was occupied by Israel for two decades. It's the political consequences of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that spill over into the whole region. We see an American policy that seems to excuse Israeli excesses and to pursue broader Israeli goals. So we feel outgunned not only in the Middle East, but also in the salons of Washington and the halls of Congress. . . . For centuries, foreign intervention has not meant liberation, it has meant political handicapping to serve the interests of a foreign power. The struggle unfolding in "liberated" Iraq emphasizes why we need to try another way. . . . It is an inherent contradiction to impose democracy. Given the lengthy gestation of America's own democratic institutions, it's like asking Iraq to evolve politically overnight. . . . When we create a genuine democracy for ourselves, it will have to be on our terms and at our own pace. And when we do, we're likely to arrive at decisions - on such issues as trade relationships and the role of government and religion in society - that trouble others, particularly the US. In other words: Democracy is not necessarily synonymous with liberal or pro-Western values. . . . The real goal is not to hold an election or two. If democracy is to take root in the Arab world, we need to be left to do it ourselves, at our own pace. . . . Undoubtedly, we do need help, but in ways respectful of our dignity and the genuine democratic process. The US and other Western nations ought to promote human rights, freedom of speech, and other reforms, but not by threat or with deadlines. It should be done through effectively supporting nongovernmental organizations and the civil society, and by enhancing economic development. . . . There is one thing on which Mr. Bush and I agree: Positive change is necessary. I hope he will let us make it on our terms, because people in my region will not make it on his.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 8:23 PM

 

US blunders leave 15 children dead in Afghanistan
(The Guardian, December 10, 2003)
The US military announced today that six children and two adults were killed during a US attack on a weapons compound in south-eastern Afghanistan, the second bungled operation in the country to leave child victims in as many days. . . . The six children died on Friday during a night assault on a complex in Paktia province, where a renegade Afghan commander, Mullah Jalani, kept a huge cache of weapons, said Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty. . . . "The next day we discovered the bodies of two adults and six children. We had no indication there were non-combatants in the compound," he said. . . . The tragedy came the day before another serious US military blunder in neighbouring Ghazni province, when nine Afghan children were found dead in a field after an attack by an A-10 ground attack aircraft that was targeting a Taliban suspect. . . . US officials have apologised for that incident. . . . The six children were found crushed to death under a wall that had collapsed during the operation . . . "But ... if non-combatants surround themselves with thousands of weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and howitzers and mortars in a compound known to be used by a terrorist, we are not completely responsible for the consequences," he said. . . . "I can't guarantee that we will not injure more civilians ... I wish I could." . . . The US military originally claimed that Saturday's bungled operation in Ghazni had killed the intended target, former Taliban district commander Mullah Wazir, who is suspected of recent attacks on road workers. . . . But the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said yesterday that they could no longer be certain that this was the case. Villagers say the man killed was a local labourer who had just returned from Iran, and that Mullah Wazir had left the area days before the attack. . . . The deaths of the nine children in Ghazni produced outrage and concern in both the local and international community. . . . Afghan officials warned that such mistakes would undermine support for the US-backed government and tolerance of foreign troops.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 3:27 PM

 

Open Letter to America from a Canadian
(W.R. McDougall, September 2002)
[COMMENT: This letter was widely published one year ago. Unfortunately, every point in it bears repeating, AND REMEMBERING, once again.]

Your once-great nation has fallen into madness, an affliction of mass denial that sends shivers up the spines of millions outside your borders. Yours is a sick nation. . . . You have become a nation of monsters, America. Hypocrites. Murderers. Fools. . . . You have become a nation of suckers, America, to be bled dry of your hard-earned pay through outrageous bank schemes, Wall Street rip-offs and fake government budget grabs. Your Pentagon cannot account for trillions in lost dollars. . . . Does this bother you? Seemingly not! . . . George W. Bush deceives you daily, the war monger hiding behind a phony patriotism. He's an Enron buddy boy, a spoiled child lying in his teeth about his past and current dirty deeds. . . . Does he care about you, America? Hardly. This is altogether obvious to those outside your borders who are politically aware and awake to the world around them. . . . You were never concerned about the disgraceful practices of George's ruthless father, either, a Bin-Laden cohort and friend to criminals and killers in global drug, oil and terrorist enterprises. His father was thrice convicted for trading illegally with Hitler too! Iran. Vietnam. El Salvador. Chile. Guatemala. Iraq. And on and on. The never-ending bully-boy story of blood, guns, drugs and money. Does any of this matter? No, it's simply time to eat. . . . Go get your ten-billionth burger, America. Fatten your already fat asses with bacteria-and-hormone-ridden meat and do nothing as you sit stupefied before your mind-numbing television sets awaiting the next episode of sad families being humiliated on Cops. . . . Few among you seem concerned that no real investigation of 911 has taken place, that no serious investigation of the anthrax attacks is moving forward, that no authentic investigation of Enron, or the murder of one of its top executives, is underway. . . . How many of you give the slightest damn about the totalitarian measures your government is taking to keep its secret meetings, grubby files and treasonous activities from your eyes? . . . Today, you excoriate, ridicule and ostracize the brave and true among you. . . . Your best investigative journalists are fired from their jobs and ignored. . . . Congress's few courageous souls are laughed at and dismissed out of hand as crackpots. . . . The most honest and conscientious political leader in the country,
Ralph Nader, is a powerless, near-invisible curiosity easily side-lined by hired goons. . . . America, you are a goddamn shame. What law matters now in your despicable state? What justice? What truth? When will you wake up? . . . Why dont you right now gather your courage, take to the streets and march on Washington D.C in the millions?! Yet I know you will do no such thing. The vast majority of you seem spiritually, emotionally and intellectually dead.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 7:36 PM

 

Inside story of how Washington is losing its bottle
(Andrew Neil, Scotsman.com, 30 Nov 2003)
In Washington DC there is increasing private gloom among those in the know that events in Afghanistan and Iraq are going badly wrong - and growing despair about what to do about it. . . . President Bush’s bold Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad gave US troops a much-needed fillip and he said all the right things. But behind the scenes the war on terror is going badly wrong in its two main theatres. "In both places it is worse than you think," I was warned before arriving in the US capital for a series of off-the-record briefings. The warning was accurate. . . . Take Afghanistan first. You don’t read or see much about it these days. The reality is grim. The Taliban is resurgent; al-Qaeda is there too, but not as relevant as it was. Attacks on aid workers are soaring; many are refusing to leave the urban areas. The warlords are back in control of the countryside, where opium production is already above pre-invasion levels. "Afghanistan is a narco-economy once more," said one intelligence analyst. . . . The Taliban regularly mounts attacks in the rural areas and is expected to hit urban centres with greater force. "If they knew how weak we were," confided one intelligence source, "they would have done it already." Coalition forces are confined to Vietnam-style strategic hamlets from which they emerge for operations only in great force, before returning to their enclaves. . . . loads of recruits are quitting the fledgling Afghan army because of pitiful pay. The US won’t provide figures, but an Afghan officer said: "We have roughly 6,000 trained soldiers, out of whom no less than 2,000 have left." The US says it plans to have 70,000 soldiers in the force; nobody has any idea from whence they will come. . . . Yet despite the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, a huge amount of US military assets have been shifted to Iraq. . . . It is not much better for Iraq. There are now an average of 130 attacks a day on coalition (mainly American) forces; almost 100 coalition troops have been killed in November, the grimmest month so far. "We only have a third of the forces we need to fight the insurgents," one former US diplomat told me. The intelligence is threadbare too: US commanders have no real idea who they are up against, except that they are well-organised remnants of Saddam’s Ba’athist regime, supplemented with some al-Qaeda-type Islamo-fascists. "We still don’t really know who is behind the attacks," I was told. "So we just go around kicking doors in - which is exactly what the enemy wants us to do." . . . Those most at risk now are Iraqis co-operating with the US. Last week a US commander reported a slackening of attacks on his own troops because the insurgents were concentrating on assassinating those they see as quislings. . . . Now it is the Americans themselves who seem to be in a rush for the exit. On September 22 Condoleezza Rice, the president’s national security adviser, attacked France for suggesting a speedier transfer of power to Iraqis. Yet since President Bush summoned Paul Bremer, his Iraqi governor general, to the White House, that is exactly what is happening. Bush wants a substantial withdrawal of US forces before next November’s elections. Former Pentagon favourite, Ahmad Chalabi, is dismayed: "The whole thing [the speedier transfer of power] was set up so President Bush could come to the airport in October [2004] for a ceremony to congratulate the new Iraqi government." . . . The consequences on the ground are apparent. Until recently, US forces took 12 weeks to train Iraqis for the new police force; that has been speeded up to one week. No proper checks on individuals are being done, so trainees have been infiltrated with insurgent spies. US intelligence officers were horrified to discover recently that the insurgents even had details of Bremer’s schedule. . . . Bush is fond of saying that America did not spend so much in men and materiel to liberate 25 million Iraqis only to succumb to a ragbag of insurgents. Yet it looks as if that is exactly what is happening. . . . No wonder the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration are in retreat: their policy of replacing Middle East tyrants with democracy and functioning economies is in grave danger of falling at the first hurdle, largely from lack if American willpower. The consequences of defeat and retreat, of course, are so grave that I cannot believe any US president can contemplate it for long; but what exactly Bush plans to do about it is a mystery which nobody I met in Washington was able to resolve.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 12:27 PM

 

A cartoon is worth 10,000 words

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 5:52 PM