Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Anyone who watched SBS' Insight last night (transcript not available at time of writing) would have heard different versions of what and who is doing what and to whom from virtually everyone who proffered an opinion. This is proof of the difficulty in determining just what is happening. If there was one common view from the Iraqi participants it was that the US should leave asap. The definition of asap varies - it relates to achieving some sort of security and stability.

One guide to narrowing the field of choices is to look closely at the opinions of those who more obviously have agendas or vested interests. "Ordinary" people are a reasonable guide to what is happening as they are merely trying to survive. One fairly common view is that there is greater risk now than before the invasion as there is a breakdown in the rule of law. There is the view that there is no law at all. That on top of the contending sectarian, religious or political groupings there is the criminal element. Chaos.

To add to the mix, here are some further items.

There is another memo.

Senior British diplomatic and military staff gave Tony Blair explicit warnings three years ago that the US was disastrously mishandling the occupation of Iraq, according to leaked memos.

John Sawers, Mr Blair's envoy in Baghdad in the aftermath of the invasion, sent a series of confidential memos to Downing Street in May and June 2003 cataloguing US failures. With unusual frankness, he described the US postwar administration, led by the retired general Jay Garner, as "an unbelievable mess" and said "Garner and his top team of 60-year-old retired generals" were "well-meaning but out of their depth".

I try to avoid "old news" but items that bring new light to the situation and how it arose do have a place. This story on US stuff ups reveals factors that contributed to the current chaos. Add to previous material on the conduct of US forces in Iraq and you have some of the reasons the Iraqis want them out.

Bush is planning to do something about it.

President Bush vowed for the first time yesterday to turn over most of Iraq to newly trained Iraqi troops by the end of this year, setting a specific benchmark as he kicked off a fresh drive to reassure Americans alarmed by the recent burst of sectarian violence.

Bush, who until now has resisted concrete timelines as the Iraq war dragged on longer than he expected, outlined the target in the first of a series of speeches intended to lay out his strategy for victory. While acknowledging grim developments on the ground, Bush declared "real progress" in standing up Iraqi forces capable of defending their nation.

"As more capable Iraqi police and soldiers come on line, they will assume responsibility for more territory with the goal of having the Iraqis control more territory than the coalition by the end of 2006," he said in a speech to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "And as Iraqis take over more territory, this frees American and coalition forces to concentrate on training and on hunting down high-value targets like the terrorist [Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi and his associates."

The president made no commitments about withdrawing U.S. troops, but he repeated his general formula that Americans could come home as Iraqis eventually take over the fight. He also used the speech to urge Iraqis to form a unity government three months after parliamentary elections, and he accused Iran of providing explosives to Shiite militias attacking U.S. forces in Iraq.

"The end of 2006" - claims of progress in time for the mid-terms?

Given the current situation it is optimistic to look for any real progress in the short or medium term. The cynical response is that the advice that some have given to "call it a victory and leave" might be crossing the administrations' horizon. It might be that the US leaving is the best chance of the situation being resolved. However bloodily. But it is at the moment, anyway.

A lengthy article on Iraq - Iraq's Sovereignty Vacuum (Part 2). Contains internal links.

This original war remains the central front in the ongoing battle for domination in Iraq and, as the core conflict, it continues to cast off enough bitterness, suffering, destruction, and rebellion to guarantee its never-ending spread to new areas and groups.

More than anything else, this low-level but fierce war is responsible for the constantly diminishing reservoir of sovereignty in Iraq. If the Americans sought to establish the legitimacy of the occupation by crushing early signs of Sunni resistance, that effort has, in the end, only helped convince Iraqis of the illegitimacy of the American presence. For all its failures, however, the occupation has succeeded in one endeavor. It has managed to undermine all efforts by other parties to establish their own legitimacy and therefore to build a foundation for a new and sovereign Iraq. If one day Iraq ceases to be, splitting chaotically into several entities, the way the occupation destroyed sovereignty (along with parts of Sunni cities) will certainly come in for a major share of the blame.

More on the US attempt to win friends and influence people - a British SAS soldier has joined the list of those who refuse to serve in Iraq.

He said he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" - the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human.

The decision marks the first time an SAS soldier has refused to go into combat and quit the Army on moral grounds.

Iraqi officials confirm that death squads operate from within government.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Senior Iraqi officials Sunday confirmed for the first time that death squads composed of government employees had operated illegally from inside two government ministries.

"The deaths squads that we have captured are in the defense and interior ministries," Minister of Interior Bayan Jabr said during a joint news conference with the Minister of Defense. "There are people who have infiltrated the army and the interior."

A complete and utter mess. Odds are it will get worse.

Meanwhile, a developing story that begins at Gitmo but could have ramifications in Iraq - more particularly, at Abu Ghraib.

When Army Sgt. Michael J. Smith faces a court-martial Monday on charges that he used his military working dog to harass and threaten detainees, one of the prime examples of that alleged misconduct will be a photograph of Smith holding the dog just inches from the face of a detainee, the Washington Post begins in Monday editions of the paper -- in an article revealing that top military commanders approved the use of dogs at Guantanamo Bay, RAW STORY has learned.

Despite the ongoing chaos which might or might not be classified as a civil war, depending on who you read, despite the indications that the situation is getting worse there are those whose confidence is not dimmed.

President Bush's top political adviser says the administration will not pull American troops out of Iraq until victory is won.

Karl Rove made the comment Saturday at Bowling Green State University. He spoke at a Republican fundraiser hosted by Representative Paul Gillmore, from northwest Ohio.

Rove says abandoning Iraq now would signal to US allies that America can't be trusted.

A case of he would say that, wouldn't he?. Perhaps they might redefine "victory" - people have suggested just withdrawing and calling it a victory. As to saying a the US would not be trusted, he is a bit late on that one.

Whatever happens and why it happens, all we can say with any confidence is that it will not be pretty.

From the NY Times, an article based on a US military report and other material reports Saddam more concerned by Shiite uprising than US invasion. Lots more interesting material.

Paul Craig Roberts - Why Did Bush Destroy Iraq?

Found! An American with a sense of irony.

'A former top CIA official said Thursday that despite the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Iraq is likely to be looking for weapons of mass destruction within the next five to 10 years.

Paul Pillar, who until last year was in charge of intelligence assessments for the Middle East, said the CIA warned the Bush administration before the Iraq invasion in 2003 that a change of regimes would not necessarily solve any WMD problem.

In a speech at the Middle East Institute here, Pillar said Iraqis live in "a dangerous neighborhood," with rival countries pursuing weapons of mass destruction. So the CIA had warned that a future Iraqi government would likely want the very weapons Hussein was (wrongly) suspected of hiding, including nuclear weapons, he said.

"Iraq may turn once again to ... a WMD program," Pillar, who is retired from the CIA, said Thursday. "And wouldn't that be ironic?"'

Indeed it would. So what would the US do? Invade Iraq? Again? Those with a bent towards black humour could have a merry time developing a scenario on this.

Some people have previously used the expression "we could lose Iraq or we could lose Iraq and lose the army." A further view on the matter.

The NY Times long term Baghdad bureau chief returns home and has a dismal assessment of the situation in Iraq.

'Asked if a civil war was developing there, Burns said, "It's always been a civil war," adding that it's just a matter of extent. He said the current U.S. leaders there--military and diplomatic--were doing there best but sectarian differences would "probably" doom the enterprise.

Burns said that he and others underestimated this problem, feeling for a long time that toppling Saddam Hussein would almost inevitably lead to something much better. He called the Abu Ghraib abuse the worst of many mistakes the U.S. made but said that even without so many mistakes the sectarian conflict would have gotten out of hand.'

Are Iraqi insurgent groups doing a better job of dealing with al Qaeda than the COW?

'Insurgent groups in one of Iraq's most violent provinces claim that they have purged the region of three quarters of al-Qa'eda's supporters after forming an alliance to force out the foreign fighters.

If true, it would mark a significant victory in the fight against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa'eda in Iraq, and could partly explain the considerable drop in suicide bombings in Iraq recently.'

Some analysts have suggested that the withdrawal of the occupation forces and the removal of a source of resentment would free Iraqis to sort the situation out themselves. Seems they have started already.

Retired General William Odom on similarities.

Those who say Iraq is nothing like Vietnam have another guess coming, says retired Gen. William Odom. He lists striking similarities and asserts that only after it pulls out of Iraq can the U.S. hope for international support to deal with anti-Western forces.

Civil War? What a good idea.

Now the neocons are beginning to advocate for civil war in Iraq quite openly. The clearest statement of this strategy as yet comes from pre-eminent neocon and ardent Zionist Daniel Pipes. In a recent piece in the Jerusalem Post, Pipes spills the beans. He writes:

"The bombing on February 22 of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, Iraq, was a tragedy, but it was not an American or a coalition tragedy. Iraq's plight is neither a coalition responsibility nor a particular danger to the West. Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition's responsibility, nor its burden. When Sunni terrorists target Shi'ites and vice versa, non-Muslims are less likely to be hurt. Civil war in Iraq, in short, would be a humanitarian tragedy, but not a strategic one."

As ever Pipes's anti-Arab racism is simply too rabid to be hidden. If Muslims are busy killing other Muslims, then "non-Muslims" are less likely to be hurt!! What does that say about Muslim lives? And of course both Sunnis and Shia must be labeled "terrorists." Pipes is doing nothing more endorsing than the oldest of colonial strategies: Divide et impera.

Incompetence or planned? If the latter, who was in on it? So many questions.

Meanwhile, you can't count on some people - or count some people.

Days after the bombing of a Shiite shrine unleashed a wave of retaliatory killings of Sunnis, the leading Shiite party in Iraq's governing coalition directed the Health Ministry to stop tabulating execution-style shootings, according to a ministry official familiar with the recording of deaths.

The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because he feared for his safety, said a representative of the Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, ordered that government hospitals and morgues catalogue deaths caused by bombings or clashes with insurgents, but not by execution-style shootings.

A statement this week by the U.N. human rights department in Baghdad appeared to support the account of the Health Ministry official. The agency said it had received information about Baghdad's main morgue -- where victims of fatal shootings are taken -- that indicated "the current acting director is under pressure by the Interior Ministry in order not to reveal such information and to minimize the number of casualties."

Difficult to know who is doing what to whom and on what scale.

Former Iraqi ambassador to UN predicts civil war.

"The country has already collapsed."

Moving house ... of horrors.

US is to move prisoners from Abu Ghraib to Camp Cropper. But will treatment be any different?

An example of US hypocrisy.

Just more grist for the mill. Should the COW withdraw asap? They broke it, but can they fix it? Or are they just making things worse? And was that the plan?

Is Iran next? Condi Rice has been speaking on the matter again. But why believe her?

"We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran, whose policies are directed at developing a Middle East that would be 180 degrees different than the Middle East that we would like to see developed," she said.

So what?

"This is a country that it seems is determined to develop a nuclear weapon in defiance of the international community that is determined that they should not get one," she said.

Proof? Or can she see yet another mushroom cloud?

"It is a country that is the central banker for terrorism, whether that terrorism is in southern Iraq or in the Palestinian territories or in Lebanon."

See earlier comments on US involvement in El Salvador and recall other examples. Not to mention the current imbroglio in Iraq.

For information - new directions in international relations, Zbigniew Brzezinski The Dilemma of the Last Sovereign.

DemocracyNow! has an interview – video and transcript – with Haifa Zangana.

Bob Wall has replied well to the interminable rhetorical questions of CP. One of which was:

Why would the insurgency leadership make such a sharp distinction between themselves and the Iraqi people, I wonder?

Naturally, the “I wonder?” will be mean that he has some knowledge of the insurgency leadership - in that generalised sense of course, as if there were a single, clearly defined leadership group heading and planning the whole insurgency - denied the rest of us.

CP, in another recent post, quotes my statement:

The situation is certainly complex, so much so that it seems almost impossible to generalise about Iraqi people or even the sects.

and says:

That hasn't stopped anyone.

I would probably put CP at the head of the list of those who haven’t been stopped. However, I do agree absolutely with the very general thrust of his rhetoric, which is that it might be premature to speak of an incipient civil war. I doubt he’ll be able to find in any of my posts a prediction, or anything like it, of this imminent civil war. Which is not to say that I’d be as nonchalant as he is in his other post in reply to David Roffey, where he concludes, by a process of elimination, “of course, in most parts of Iraq, nothing happened at all”, followed by a quote from Fisk of all people seeming to support his view. Odd and ironic to see Fisk, CP and I converging.

Back to the other post, where CP says:

So, generally speaking, what are the risks of civil war in Iraq?

Are the factional divisions so evenly balanced, and are the bases for contention so evenly spread across the land that the "mysterious forces" trying to "provoke" a civil war should be able to agitate the Iraqi people into nation wide conflict?

I would say that those factions don’t have to be evenly balanced, nor that the Iraqi people as a whole or in their tribes or sects or whatever, have to be stirred into conflict for a “civil war” to occur. I suspect there is an ironic inference to be drawn here that some commentators have been suggesting there is such a balance, in the face, of course, of CP’s constant reminders of the relative numbers.

Or are we seeing interacting such a wide variety of interests and competing elements that no one group is yet able to command or control events in a decisive way?

I would say that CP’s position has been that the Sunnis/Ba’athists have been the instigators of nearly all violence, and therefore the ones who could be said to be in control of “events” of a nature to lead to civil war. On the other hand, the fact that there are four times as many Shiites, which we have heard constantly, combined with their dominance through the political process, suggests they are the ones in control or with potential control. I think the ones “controlling events”, without having either political or numerical dominance, are probably the foreign Zarqawi/Al Qaida-type insurgents and the Salafi and Wahabi Sunni factions. Sometimes it seems the Americans have no controlling effect whatsoever, at others it seems they are implicated in some sort of perverse behind the scenes skulduggery. Of course, if this is happening, and is as misguided as everything else they have done, it will not lead to whatever their imagined objective is, and so can we even begin to think of them as “in control”.

And that while the various Shiite factions, given their numerical supremacy overall, have far more to benefit from comparatively peaceful political processes, the more marginal and more lately dispossessed elements can only hope to benefit by inciting profound violence?

It seems that it is elements that are anything but marginal, if the reports of some sort of controlling influence emanating from the Ministry of Interior, and the relatively long-standing assassinations of educated/professional Iraqis are correct. I do agree that it would seem the Shiites “in general” (oops) would have more to gain from the political process; many Sunnis would think the same. However, this only confirms my point about not viewing each sect or faction as monolithic, including the insurgents, if you like. You only have to look at the apparent differences between Sistani and Moqtada to see that. Further, there is no reason to think that the Shiite factions would all see political action and violence as mutually exclusive.

Juan Cole on the failed attempt to convene parliament.

The Iraqi general in charge of Baghdad security was killed by a sniper on Monday. I suppose it doesn't need underlining that this is very bad news for Baghdad security. The assassinated commander, himself a Sunni Arab who led men during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, was almost certainly the victim of an inside job. The Iraqi military is deeply infiltrated by guerrilla supporters.

He was among over 20 deaths from guerrilla violence in Iraq on Monday, which saw several car bombs in Baghdad and a major one in Baqubah. The actions in these two cities killed 11 and wounded 30. In downtown Basra, there was a firefight at a police checkpoint that wounded 4. A car bomb in Mahmudiyah killed 3 and wounded 5.

The dean of the engineering school at Mustansiriyah University in the capital, Dr. Ali Hasan al-Mahawish, was kidnapped.

A US soldier was killed by enemy action in the western Anbar province.

Stephen Zunes on US responsibility.

NYT article on loyalties in the military and police.

For much of the war in Iraq, U.S. military commanders have said their most important mission here was to prepare Iraqi security forces to take over the fight against the Sunni- led insurgency. But with the threat of full-scale sectarian strife looming larger, they are suddenly grappling with the possibility that they have been arming one side in a prospective civil war.

From the BBC.

The mortuary has been the subject of a good deal of controversy.

The Washington Post reported that 1,300 bodies had been taken there since the upsurge in sectarian violence which followed the bombing of the Shia shrine at Samarra on 22 February.

A former UN official said that many of these bodies showed signs of torture and summary execution.

By contrast the US commander in Iraq, Gen George W Casey Jr, insisted that there had been no great increase in the amount of communal violence and that the number of deaths was probably around 350.

'More bodies'

At the mortuary itself, the guards showed us a large refrigerator truck, parked alongside the building, which they said had been provided by the Americans because of the overflow of bodies from the mortuary itself.'

And during the 20 minutes we filmed there, three more bodies were brought in.

This is purely anecdotal evidence, of course. Journalism is an art, not a science, and everyone knows how inaccurate it can often be.

Yet the big advantage of being a journalist is that you can go out and see things for yourself.'

Indeed.

The above are more reports and views to add to those already provided to try to give some idea of what is happening.

Wait a second, I have to add this one, it is from Donald "I never said that" Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld, during a Pentagon briefing, also accused Iran of sending Revolutionary Guards forces into Iraq, his latest accusation of Iranian meddling in the war, adding, "I don't think we could consider them religious pilgrims."

"I do not believe they're in a civil war today," Rumsfeld said of Iraq, but added "terrorists" want to foment one. "There's always been a potential for a civil war. That country was held together through a repressive regime that put hundreds of thousands of human beings into mass graves."

Hundreds of people were killed in sectarian violence that flared after the February 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of Iraq's four holiest Shi'ite shrines, and some experts said Iraq appeared to be on a verge of civil war.

The top U.S. envoy to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday saying the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that ousted President Saddam Hussein opened a "Pandora's box" of ethnic and sectarian tensions. Khalilzad said the "potential is there" for an all-out Iraqi civil war.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 80 percent of Americans believe that recent sectarian violence makes civil war in Iraq "likely" and more than a third thought it was "very likely."

Asked whether a civil war was possible, Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told reporters on Friday it was unlikely but, "Anything can happen."

Rumsfeld said the recent violence had delayed efforts to form a "unity government" distributing power among Iraq's Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds.

I have to agree with Rummy on one thing - foreigners have caused a great deal of trouble in Iraq. Or as Paul Bremer famously said "The trouble is there are too many foreigners fighting in Iraq."

If only they had a sense of irony.

Thanks to David Roffey for adding to the mix with the Khalilzad item.

This has been just a little more added to the mix - there is much to be considered.

Andrew McRae: "The situation is certainly complex, so much so that it seems almost impossible to generalise about Iraqi people or even the sects."

That hasn't stopped anyone.

So, generally speaking, what are the risks of civil war in Iraq? Are the factional divisions so evenly balanced, and are the bases for contention so evenly spread across the land, that the "mysterious forces" trying to "provoke" a civil war should be able to agitate the Iraqi people into nationwide conflict? Or are we seeing such a wide variety of interests and competing elements interacting that no one group is yet able to command or control events in a decisive way?

And that while the various Shiite factions, given their numerical supremacy overall, have far more to benefit from comparatively peaceful political processes, the more marginal and more lately dispossessed elements can only hope to benefit by inciting profound violence?

Tough call, isn't it?

DemocracyNow! is being broadcast from London this week.

The link takes you to story 1 which is an interview with Philippe Sands, professor of international law and author of Lawless World, who first revealed The Downing Street Memo and later what is known as The White House Memo - which contained the disguised spy plane plan.

Story 2 is about conscientious objection, desertion and protest.

Story 3 is about a Christian peace team abducted and held in Iraq for 100 days, so far.

Well worth viewing.

So much to read and too little time. However, another useful source of info has appeared regarding the imprisonment of Guantanamo Bay chaplain James Yee. Yee was interviewed on Radio National's breakfast this morning and the audio is available for the next four weeks here. His book, For God and Country; Faith and Patriotism under Fire has just been released here and a lengthy review of it can be found at the New York Review of Books.

Apart from the bizarre reasons of his own imprisonment, later released without charge, the interview sheds light on the hamfisted concentration camp Guantanamo is. He notes that those still held include a teenage boy who was 15 when captured, and a Muslim refugee from China who cannot be returned there without facing possible execution, and who can't claim asylum since he is not in the United States. One can't help thinking this was the mess of willful stupidity that foreshadowed the tragic carnage and chaos that the same administration would unleash on Iraq. Australia, of course, continues to be complicit, but not constructive, with regard to both.

More on who is in prison on Guantanamo appeared in the Age today.

Hamish: "at this point you're just trying to lie and obfusticate CP. You were challenged to show where he claimed that, and you didn't. Please refer to Webdiary ethics and try harder."

Excuse me?

I would invite everyone to refer to the Fisk Lateline interview themselves and decide whether Fisk is at very least transparently trying to equivalise the human impact of the Sunni insurgency with that of the Shiite militias.

And whether of not he claims to have made an eye witness assessment of the human cost of sectarian violence in Iraq based on his excursion to the morgue.

I don't have to lie to disgrace Fisk. The interview itself does it.

I am fairly sure if Christopher Hitchens or some such was so loose with the way he reported such a thing, it wouldn't be felt necessary to quibble over the nuances of his claims, nor call me a liar for having drawn attention to them.

Would it?

Hamish: Bob challenged you to provide some information; you failed whilst (still) arrogantly maintaining that you'd provided it. It amounts to a lie - it amounts to just the sort of perversion of truth that you are accusing Fisk of (rightly or wrongly). For all I know you could still be dead right about your general point but you are exposed in being blindly arrogant about the detail. Please, cut the arrogance and join the community in a search for truth. See you tomorrow.

Andrew & Tony, what appears to have been a case of diversionary tactics has been brought to a head and now we can continue to try to make some sense out of what is happening in Iraq.

Between the three of us we have provided numerous sources and there are a lot more to come. In my case there are many related articles on Irises. Not to forget the material on other WD Iraq related threads. Yet we get an attempt to make the thread about one person in the form of an attack dishonestly conducted. It seems to confirm the view that a certain element has run out of constructive arguments and has only spoiling tactics. We can hope they prove that view wrong and, as Hamish asked, join us in trying to make some sense of the situation in Iraq.

With the issue having come to a head let us now look at the positive side, which is the growing cooperation that has also been evidenced today. If that is developed then not only we but others can develop this thread some way towards finding some sense in the chaos.

Here are some views on whether a civil war is happening in Iraq.

'As Pentagon generals offered optimistic assessments that the sectarian violence in Iraq had dissipated this weekend, other military experts told ABC News that Sunni and Shiite groups in Iraq already are engaged in a civil war, and that the Iraqi government and U.S. military had better accept that fact and adapt accordingly.

"We're in a civil war now; it's just that not everybody's joined in," said retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, a former military commander in Bosnia-Herzegovina. "The failure to understand that the civil war is already taking place, just not necessarily at the maximum level, means that our counter measures are inadequate and therefore dangerous to our long-term interest.

"It's our failure to understand reality that has caused us to be late throughout this experience of the last three years in Iraq," added Nash, who is an ABC News consultant.'

One on the Sunni situation.

'Two years ago, doctor Riyadh Adhadh cursed the U.S. soldiers who had overrun his homeland, toppled the Sunni-dominated government and tormented prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A member of the city council, he loudly demanded that American troops leave Baghdad.

Last week, his Sunni Arab neighborhood under attack by Shiite militiamen, Adhadh found himself huddled over the telephone in panic, begging the U.S. Embassy to send American soldiers.

The moment of bitter irony for the 52-year-old father of six is emblematic of a sharp shift in Iraqi opinion. Three years after the March 2003 invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, with the threat of civil war looming, leaders of a nervous Sunni Arab minority have started to drop demands for an immediate U.S. withdrawal.

"We've changed our ideas," Adhadh said. Iraq's current government, dominated by Shiites, has been "abusing people more than the Americans," he said. "Iraqi security is the responsibility of the Americans. They have established this type of government — this will be written in history. We are living in a jungle."

Meanwhile, Iraq's Shiite majority, which initially cheered the arrival of the Americans, has grown far stronger and is quickly losing enthusiasm for foreign soldiers and diplomats.

"The reality is that the Americans have switched position a little bit. They seem to be siding with the Sunnis, and the Shia are not happy," said Saad Jawad, a moderate Shiite politician. "Certainly in our areas there is no need for American soldiers."'

Complex indeed.

Onward!

Thanks. Andrew McRae for the overviews and links concerning the issues raised by Fisk. It shows that even the most obtuse posts have a purpose if they cause a reaction so filled with information. At some point I hope C Parsons will move away from the sandpit rhetoric reminiscent of a Lilliputian Piers Ackerman (now that's a mixed metaphor) and actually provide a coherent argument or perspective on Iraq, other than the "aha, gotcha!" variety. Even if he could just clarify what he thinks the current US administration's analysis of the situation actually is, that would be a valuable contribution.

I also found Bob Wall's link to democracy now particularly useful, not least because it alerts one to the fact that the notorious Jim Steele, one of America's highly decorated counter-insurgency specialists (ie killer and torturer), now a mercenary, has been in charge of training Iraqi security services. In particular, those now being linked to Ministry of Interior death squads. After Vietnam, Steele went on to be decorated by the El Salvadorian government for his work, including training their infamous death squads.

For more info one can start with a website that spruiks him as a corporate speaker (presumably to corporations like Patricks). It’s a bizarre, if sickening, read in itself. The boast of his positions with Enron is one of the lesser examples of the different and amoral universe Steele inhabits. For those who prefer not to have to read between the lines, here is a re-posted report from the New York Times magazine by Peter Maas.

Steele left Iraq in Nov 2005 (and presumably hasn't returned). One wonders, vis-a-vis these death squads, whether this means the US has simply stuffed up by training killers it now can't control, or whether it was actually some policy plan from someone, somewhere in the admin. A little Ollie North type, perhaps. Given its track record so far one can certainly assume this administration would have no qualms about using death squads.

The more I read and watch the more I am coming to think that the scenario has unfolded on the following logic:

Plan A by the Americans was that toppling Saddam would give them a re-run of the fall of the Berlin Wall (strangely silly, since the neo-cons’ careers had been built on their supposed expertise on communism. So totalitarian was Saddam's regime that no glimmering of the civil society of Eastern Europe in the 1980s was evident. Not only were there no seedlings of democracy, the land was scorched earth).

Plan B didn’t exist, such was the hubris of plan A. However, the subsequent need for a Plan B, coupled with the only tool available, the military, meant that plan B is now force, plus more force, plus even more force. Thus more and more parts of liberated Iraq have again become occupied Iraq and, in turn, free fire zone Iraq.

Now force, properly used to create a secure civil order, would make sense. However, I doubt the US military could ever have done this and they clearly haven’t. Instead we now have force versus forces and that equals death and mayhem.

Andrew McRae has been at it again.

Robert Fisk claims to have done a head count of the corpses in an Iraqi morgue, and found them divided 50:50 Shiite and Sunni.

An astonishing claim, on several levels.

Andrew in turn says: "Why quibble repeatedly over the ‘50/50’? It might have been some other ratio; the important thing is that Fisk observed substantial numbers of both Sunnis and Shiites."

The answer, Andrew, is because the Sunnis are only 20 per cent of the Iraqi population.

And the 50:50 claim is what Fisk is stating. He didn't say "substantial numbers". He said "50:50".

In other words, he's claiming that Sunnis are getting killed at four times the rate of Shiites. This is a major revision of what has been reported elsewhere, which would have it that the vast bulk of militia attacks are on Shiites.

A fact that Fisk himself emphasises in the interview.

And I am quibbling because Fisk is, or purports to be, one of the most respected, senior reporters in the region (he's based in Beirut, actually, but close enough).

Also, Fisk said he actually counted the corpses. And that he could distinguish between dead Shiites and dead Sunnis. Which is kind of staggering, especially since Fisk at the very start of the same interview suggests it is impossible to make such a distinction.

He says:

I still go along and say what I said before - Iraq is not a sectarian society, but a tribal society. People are intermarried. Shiites and Sunnis marry each other. It's not a question of having a huge block of people here called Shiites and a huge block of people called Sunnis any more than you can do the same with the United States, saying Blacks are here and Protestants are here and so on.

So, he's caught out telling at least one massive porker. And a porker that fits perfectly with the Sunni Ba'athist Socialist propaganda line.

Well, surprise, surprise.

Bob Wall: "Under Bush II the crazies gained influence and - well we have seen what has happened so far. A common description of the outcome is "the worst foreign policy disaster in US history".

Actually I think the worst "foreign policy disaster" was at the behest of the UN and was called Somalia best summed up by a well known movie and story Black Hawk Down. The greatest non-foreign policy disaster being this.

It seems the only thing worse than the US being the world's police force is the US not being the worlds police force. An isolationist US is not the thing that the world will be happy with.

Remember Bush was elected on just that type of policy front and was roundly condemned around the world for it. In some eyes the US can never win.

C Parsons has been at it again.

CP:

Then it beggars belief, doesn't it, that anyone could now suggest the Sunnis, especially the Ba'ath Socialists and their backers, wouldn't be trying the regain their control of power, nor that they would resist Shiite ascendancy.

I’m not suggesting it, nor is Fisk. Fact is, you either can’t read or can’t understand what you have read. Fisk said it was the Americans who were peddling the line that the Sunni resistance was piecemeal and would collapse once Saddam was caught.

Fisk in the Lateline interview:

‘Don't you remember that after 2003 the Anglo-American invasion, the resistance started against the Americans and we were told they were Saddam remnants, 'dead-enders', that was the phrase used. Not anymore, because there are 40,000 insurgents, but that was the phase used at the time. They were Sunnis. They didn't like the fact they didn't have power. Then we captured Saddam and Paul Bremer, the number two pro-Consul in Baghdad, says, "Oh, we've got him," and everything was going to be OK. And then the insurgency got worse still.’

 Further, perhaps you can remember the triumphal sounds that emanated from the pseudo-intellectual right (Andrew Bolt, Piers Akerman, Janet Albrechtsen, Tim Blair etc. etc.) when the Sunnis decided to participate in the political process and voted in the last lot of elections which went off fairly peacefully. I think I could add your voice to that list.

CP:

Why this sudden urgency in downplaying the historical conflict in interests between the two communities?

I hadn’t noticed any ‘sudden urgency’ - an empty rhetorical question.

CP:

Apart from justified embarrassment at the behaviour of the Ku Klux Resistance, that is?

Another one. No ‘embarrassment’ except what ought to be on the faces of the US admin/military/Bush who said so very prematurely ‘Mission accomplished’. What I was saying (not to mention other sources which I linked to) is that a complex situation has developed in Iraq; if anything, using your frame of reference here, the ‘behaviour’ of the Shiites ought to be an ‘embarrassment’ (hardly the appropriate word) to those who think it’s only the Sunnis doing the killing.

CP:

In my experience, it has been the pseudo-intellectual Left that continually harped on about how the Iranians will now "control" the Iraqi Shiites through Moqtadr's Mahdi Army militias and through other Iranian connections in Iraq.

However, Moqtadr's inability to mount a successful coup, his inability to dictate political terms, are clear indications that he (married into an elite Iranian family, and even speaking with a broad Persian accent) does not command the level of influence those here who were so recently extolling the "young firebrand preacher" were hoping.

Can’t remember extolling or hoping anything of the sort, and I’d like to see evidence of ‘those here’ who extolled a ‘young firebrand preacher’ – your description, your thoughts? Nearly everything you say is bedevilled by what you wishfully and combatively think the dreaded ‘left’ (you seem equally critical of both the ‘intellectual’ and the ‘pseudo-intellectual’ left, which I suppose leaves just the unintellectual left) are clamouring for.  

Actually, in the real world, most reports of the December election results in January have emphasised the success of Moqtadr’s faction within the UIA; it has 28 seats compared to the SCIRI/Badr’s 34. Sadr has been an important player in making sure neither of the USA’s favoured candidates, Chalabi or Allawi, would become the Prime Minister.

A report from the Christian Science Monitor, for example, contains this:

"Sadr is a power now that is affecting everyone, and not just the Shiites," says Aref Taifour, the Kurdish deputy speaker of the outgoing parliament. "They're going to be a big opposition force, with a large following, and others are going to have to respond."

One of Sadr's few saving graces in US eyes, say analysts, was his staunch defiance of Iranian meddling in Iraqi politics. But even that appears to be fading. Last week, he travelled to Iran where he said his Mahdi Army would defend the Islamic Republic if it was attacked.

But Sadr's rising clout could yet be a blessing for US officials, say analysts, who are pushing for a government of national unity that includes Iraq's Sunni Arabs, the backbone of the insurgency. Sadr stands closer to the Sunni Arabs on key issues such as federalism, and seems more willing than many of his fellow Shiites to make the sort of compromises necessary to bring them into the government.’

 CP:

‘Now, just getting back to Fisk's claim to have done a head count of the corpses in Iraqi morgues, and found them divided 50:50 Shiite and Sunni.

Can anyone tell me whether they sort corpses in Iraqi morgues according to whether they are Shiite or Sunni? Do they label them?

Well, if there isn’t some way of knowing, all discussion is meaningless.

Actually, it was one morgue, in August last year. Why quibble repeatedly over the ‘50/50’? It might have been some other ratio; the important thing is that Fisk observed substantial numbers of both Sunnis and Shiites.

Or is this an attempt to portray the violence there as being somehow "even handed"? To suggest that it is not being principally focused on Shiites?’

A purely rhetorical question, but the answer is no.

Keeping in mind that Shiites are 80 per cent of Iraq's Arabic population, what Fisk is here suggesting is that Sunnis are disproportionately the victims of the insurgency violence in Iraq

Again, no it isn’t.

The following extract from the Lateline interview suggests, via Tony Jones, it was the Washington Post reporters who were stating there were only Sunnis in the morgue. Meaning that in that morgue on that day, according to the Washington Post and Tony Jones, the disproportion was far greater than that which you are stating for Fisk’s observation. Fisk was balancing the ledger!

TONY JONES: But, Robert Fisk, what's is happening now, by all accounts and, indeed, the accounts of these Washington Post reporters who've been into the morgue and report hundreds of bodies of Sunnies who evidently have been garrotted or suffocated or shot, are all saying that Moqtada al-Sadr's thugs have actually taken these people away and murdered them. That was in revenge for the Golden Shrine bombing.

ROBERT FISK: Yeah, look, in August, I went into the same mortuary and found out that 1,000 people had died in one month in July. And most of those people who had died were split 50/50 between the Sunnies and the Shiites, but most of them, including women who'd been blindfolded and hands tied behind their backs - I saw the corpses - were both Sunnies and Shiites. Now, I'm not complaining that the Washington Post got it wrong - I'm sure there are massacres going on by Shiites - but I think they are going on by militias on both sides.

 As for your dredging up Damian Lataan’s piece…

I partly agree with Hamish; you must be desperate. However, you seem to have got carried away with the far-fetched idea that the Americans were somehow actually setting up the Sunnis with car bombs, and overlooked the key point - that there have been Shiite death squads operating for some time.

Robert Dreyfuss reported as follows:

Last week, I reported on the fear of Shiite militias and death squads as reported by Aiham Al Sammarae, an Iraqi oppositionist and former minister under the interim government in 2004 who is trying to broker a deal with the Iraqi resistance. Since then, other reports have surfaced concerning the extensive violence carried out by paramilitary forces tied to SCIRI and to Al Dawa, SCIRI’s partner in the Shiite religious bloc in Iraq. By now it is clear that if Tony Soprano lived in Iraq, he’d be a member of the Shiite militia. Consider the following report from CBS News:

CBS News correspondent Lara Logan reports there is a secret, ruthless cleansing of the country's towns and cities. Bodies—blindfolded, bound and executed—just appear, like the rotting corpses of 36 Sunni men that turned up in a dry riverbed south of Baghdad.

CBS News traced 16 of those men to a single street in a Baghdad suburb, where family members showed CBS News how the killers forced their way into their homes in the middle of the night and dragged away their sons and fathers.

"My uncles were tortured, they even poured acid on them," a young boy told CBS News.

Clutching photographs of the murdered men, the women and children left behind came together to grieve.

 One woman said as her husband was marched away she sent her son after him with his slippers, but his abductor sent the child back with a chilling message: No need for slippers—he will come back dead.

 They were targeted for one reason alone: all were Sunnis.

 Or this, from the Chicago Tribune :

 In the dead of night, bands of armed men in Iraqi commando uniforms stormed Baghdad's Hurriyah neighborhood in late August, breaking down doors with sledgehammers and grenades.

 If the family inside was Shiite, the gunmen moved on to another house, witnesses said. If the family was Sunni, the gunmen tore through the building, demolishing furniture and manhandling those inside. More than 70 young Sunni Arab men were whisked away.

Countless atrocities, too, have been perpetrated by Sunni gangs and by terrorists associated with Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. But the killings by the Shiite militias are far more chilling because they have an entirely different quality: They are carried out by gunmen tied to the U.S.-supported regime in Baghdad. They don’t draw criticism from U.S. officials, and most American media reports continue to portray the Shiites as victims and the Sunnis as aggressors.

Damian Lataan’s substantive point about killing by both groups was not at all off the mark.

CP:

‘Thus, the Sunni militias (so called "resistance") were exempted from their responsibility as the leading agents of the murderous insurgency, widely supported by the political Left, and simultaneously portrayed as the victims of the terror.’

Nonsense. The ‘leading agents of the murderous insurgency’ are the imported Zarqarwi forces and various jihadists, probably the only ones who didn’t want the Americans out (although recent events have surely made many Sunni very fearful). This may not be palatable to many supporters of the invasion, as it is now obvious that it was the Americans' stupidity and hubris that made this possible. No one, however, is exempting either Sunni or Shiite groups/militias/squads. I’m saying the situation is extremely complex; that ordinary people of various tribes and sects have been driven towards increasing animosity and blame; that the USA is responsible for the situation that has arisen; that the US forces are doing virtually nothing to prevent assassinations of the kind that Haifa Zangana wrote about.

The big flame at the end is indicative of what you’re really on about and should embarrass you: a constant rant against the bete noir left, a perpetual tilting at straw men and windmills. In this thread, which started with an article about the assassination of Iraqi academics, you haven’t raised one relevant or interesting point.

The quote in the subject heading is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs' view. John Murtha's response is "Why would I believe him?"

The above link has further links including to the video of the interview with John Murtha.

MURTHA: The public is way ahead of what’s going on in Washington. They no longer believe it. The troops themselves, 70 percent of the troops said we want to come home within a year. The only solution to this is to redeploy. Let me tell you, the only people who want us in Iraq is Iran and al-Qaeda. I’ve talked to a top-level commander the other day, it was about two weeks ago, and he said China wants us there also. Why? Because we’re depleting our resources, our troop resources and our fiscal resources.

Well worth viewing.

Robert Dreyfuss on Iraq.

Pressure continues for al-Jaafari to step down.

Almost official - 2300 US military deaths.

A resource on casualties.

In 1991 the US decided against continuing the Gulf War on to Baghdad and overthrowing Saddam Hussein. One of the reasons was that it would destabilise Iraq which could lead to its fragmentation which could have unwelcome consequences for US policy. One such outcome would be an increase in Iran's power due to it gaining influence over the Shia dominated part of Iraq.

There was an element in Washington which promoted the overthrow and a radical reshaping of the region. They were labelled the "crazies". by the top echelon of the Bush I administration.

Under Bush II the crazies gained influence and - well we have seen what has happened so far. A common description of the outcome is "the worst foreign policy disaster in US history".

However, it is difficult to arrive at firm conclusions about the outcome of the mission when, as I wrote earlier, we cannot be sure what the mission was. Perhaps continued chaos was the plan. Continued US presence? Remember all that money they are spending on what many think are permanent bases. What would happen if an Iraqi government asked the US to leave? A cooperative Iraqi government would seem to have been the US goal, not a Shi'a dominated one with close ties to Iran.

Iran. Is it and has it been the key to the situation? Have the Yanks been suckered? Has this some influence on the US attention on Iran?

Is Osama bin Laden having a quiet chuckle?

Thirty new terrorist organizations have emerged since the September 11, 2001, attacks, outpacing U.S. efforts to crush the threat, said Brig. Gen. Robert L. Caslen, the Pentagon's deputy director for the war on terrorism.

"We are not killing them faster than they are being created," Gen. Caslen told a gathering at the Woodrow Wilson Center yesterday, warning that the war could take decades to resolve.

Helped instead of hindered?

Where to from here?

This link is to a site which shows all too graphically the Iraqi view of 'liberation.'

http://www.marchforjustice.com/Fallujah22.swf

Regarding C Parsons' comments...

Tony Phillips said: "Fisk is just one commentator and one source is not enough."

What could be more reasonable and sensible than that? I agree with him. Fisk has his moments both of hyperbole and perspicacity, but I’ve always found him interesting. He undoubtedly has a far greater knowledge of the Middle East than his armchair detractors.

C Parsons seems not to be able to use the proverbial grain of salt, or to forget for a moment that Robert Fisk is not really the issue or the problem. Thinking has become wishful thinking. The “Could that be what Bobby’s hinting at?” technique is rhetorical speculation and in this case blatant attempted smearing by association with some mocked anonymous administrative figure - reducing the discussion to the simplistic level of implying Fisk said something which he did not.

C Parsons says: "the implicit premise here is that the Sunnis generally, and the Ba'ath Socialists in particular somehow didn't have a monopoly on power before Saddam was overthrown."

This is not a reasonable conclusion; there is absolutely no evidence that Fisk does not recognise what is widely known about modern Iraqi history. In my view, he was reflecting on the things that the mass of Shiite and Sunni people had in common prior to the development of the present situation. During the war with Iran, the army was composed largely of Shiites, and contrary to what many might think relations between the Iraqi and Iranian Shiites were naturally terrible during that period. It is hard to imagine an eight year war of attrition of monumental casualties on both sides, with desperate Iran sending children through minefields, based purely on the power of Saddam enforcing submissive obedience amongst his Shiite soldiers. There must have been something more motivating them, despite Iraq having started the conflict.

The Council on Foreign Relations site (not a “lefty” front as far as I can see) contains this “Background Q & A“ on Iraq’s Sunnis, from which these quotes are taken:

“How significant is the Sunni-Shiite divide in Iraq?

Not as important as some press reports make it out to be, many Iraq experts say. There has been considerable intermarriage between the two groups among the urban middle class. Some Iraqi tribes have both Sunni and Shiite branches. In addition, experts say Iraqi nationalism is very important to both groups...

Do the Sunnis want their own state?

There has been no popular call for this, experts say. While Iraq's Sunnis have a strong sense of communal pride, they are above all Iraqi nationalists who "place Iraq's political independence and territorial integrity over other identities and values," Yaphe writes...

What's the history of the Sunni community in Iraq?

… Saddam's Baath Party, which assumed power in a 1968 coup, used Sunnis to fill the ranks of the elite Republican Guard, the officer corps of the regular army, and the security and intelligence services. Many of Iraq's most dedicated Baathists were Sunnis, though the party also had many Shiite members...

Did Saddam treat all Sunnis equally?

No, experts say. He particularly favored members of his Al-bu Nasir tribe, who he placed in charge of the security services and ministries. He treated some Sunni tribes and clans badly, and coup attempts against Saddam most often came from these adversaries. Overall, however, Saddam built loyalty among the Sunnis as he did with other Iraqis--by doling out land, money, and other privileges. On the whole, Sunnis fared better, had more resources, and faced less persecution than Shiites and Kurds...”

It also contains these comments from Noah Feldman:

“For the overwhelming majority of Iraqi history, Sunnis and Shi’ites have lived peacefully side by side, and numerous Iraqis are the children of mixed marriages. Instead we are witnessing in Iraq what occurs when government collapses and there is no state around capable of guaranteeing personal security”

and Vali Nasr:

“a shared notion of what Iraqi identity means and how each community sees the future of Iraq is fast disappearing. As happened in Bosnia, in Iraq mixed marriages and shared memory of coexistence will not be enough to stop internecine violence."

From all that, Fisk’s extemporaneous comments seem nowhere near as outlandish as C Parsons makes out. Both Shiites and Sunnis claim to be nationalistic, which is the context of Fisk’s statement from which C Parsons selected pieces for mockery:

Fisk:

"You know, the idea that the Sunni community is suddenly sacrificing themselves en mass, strapping explosive belts to themselves and blowing themselves up all over Iraq because they don't have power anymore is a very odd reflection. I think what is going on among the Sunni community is much simpler. The Sunnis are not fighting the Americans because they don't have power and they're not fighting the Americans just to get them out - and they will get them out eventually. They are fighting the Americans so that they will say, "We have a right to power because we fought the occupying forces and you, the Shiites, did not," which is why it's very important to discover now that Moqtada al-Sadr, who has an ever-increasing power base among the Shiite community, is himself threatening to fight the British and Americans. Now, if the Shiites and Sunnies come together, as they did in the 1920s in the insurgency against the British, then we are finished in Iraq. And that will mean that Iraq actually will be united."

There’s no reason why this view should not be debated, but it is not deserving of mere derision.

Another point made by Fisk is that neither he nor anyone he knows can work out who is ultimately in control – not just paying – of the death squads apparently working for the Interior ministry. This is directly relevant to the subject of Haifa Zangara’s article and to C Parsons’ latest “reply” to his own post, in which it is as clear as usual that he thinks it is only the Sunnis who are doing the killing:

"I found this remark by Fisk quite bizarre. Can anyone tell me whether they sort corpses in Iraqi morgues according to whether they are Shiite or Sunni? Do they label them? Or is this an attempt to portray the violence there as being somehow "even handed"? To suggest that it is not being principally focused on Shiites?"

Anyone interested can follow these questions - intended to be rhetorical - up at:

Juan Cole’s Informed Comment for Feb 25^th:

“Borzou Daragahi of the LA Times reports, “violence broke out in Samarra, home of the destroyed Shiite shrine. Two police officers were killed and two civilians injured in clashes and a vital oil pipeline set ablaze by saboteurs.“…Daragahi adds, “Iraqi police today found at least 29 bodies scattered in Baghdad. Each corpse was handcuffed and had single gunshots to the head, in the style often attributed to Shiite death squads believed attached to the Ministry of Interior’.“

Juan Cole in Salon.com:

"Another Shiite clerical leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, blamed U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad for the bombing of the shrine and its sanguinary aftermath. Al-Hakim's SCIRI controls the Ministry of the Interior, which has charge of Iraq's police force. Many feel that the SCIRI militia, the Badr Corps, trained in exile by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, has infiltrated the special police commandos fielded by Interior against the Sunni Arab guerrillas. The force has been found to keep secret jails and to engage in torture. The Sunni Arabs have been demanding that the hard-line Shiite party give up control of Interior, to no avail."

Brussels Tribunal:

"In Iraq, everybody knows that the Badr Brigade, the armed militias of Islamic Revolution in Iraq are among the assassins of the academics in Iraq. Those armed forces turned into national guards of the Interior Ministry, so they have a license to kill now!!"  

See also… The BBC, 16^th Feb, The Independent, Washington Post.

Note that there is a degree of uncertainty among commentators, with some just “feeling” or “believing” the Ministry of Interior or SCIRI militia to be responsible, or “among” those responsible.

Other commentators, such as Scott Ritter, usually lambasted by the right, has another view, which is that the chaos and killing in Iraq is all being controlled by the Ba’athists. He writes here of

“how horribly brilliant the Iraqi insurgency led by the former Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein is, and how well they understand the complicated internal dynamic of Iraq… and managing a non-Iraqi proxy, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to serve as the alleged instigator of these attacks.”

This line is contradicted by Mahan Abedin, writing in Mideast Monitor, who says:

“the Salafi-jihadists are responsible for most of the mass killings of Iraqi civilians… the Zarqawi network is not, strictly speaking, trying to drive American forces out of Iraq - this would remove its raison d'etre.”

and

“Although there is no organized leadership structure uniting local insurgent groups, most seem to recognize the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS)… In sharp contrast to Salafi-jihadist dogma, the central concept infusing AMS pronouncements is not jihad, but the nationalist concept of resistance (muqawama), and there is little denigration of Shiite Islam… Growing Shiite domination of the state's domestic security organs has unquestionably heightened sectarian tensions, but it has also convinced many Arab Sunnis that the costs of failing to advance their interests through the political process are too high… The growing trend toward Arab Sunni political participation as an adjunct (if not yet as an alternative) to armed struggle has been aggressively resisted by the Zarqawi network… the Salafi-jihadists are likely to intensify their efforts to obstruct political accommodation between Sunnis and Shiites.”

It’s likely that the bombing of the mosque was done to prevent the “political accommodation between Shiites and Sunnis”, and if Abedin is correct the Zarqawi insurgents would benefit from it.

In any case, it does seem that there’s no simple explanation for what is really going on in Iraq - and no one authority - but there are some simple-minded ones. I think it is wrong to think of there having been monolithic and exclusive Shiite and Sunni groups, or to assume ordinary Sunnis and the Ba’athist elite are or were synonymous. Only two things seem certain, that the catastrophe is the fault of the USA, whose forces – military, mercenary, political and corporate – are now seen to be impotent and increasingly apathetic, except perhaps where corporations are busy profiteering; and that the jihadist insurgents are going to do everything they can to cause chaos.

Tony Phillips: "What Fisk doesn't do is then slip into a childish concept of they are bad men and other men are good men and barracking for the good men will solve the problem."

No. What he does instead is say things like this:

"The Sunnis are not fighting the Americans because they don't have power ..." but:

"We Sunnis have a right to power because we fought the occupying forces and you, the Shiites, did not,"

Yet in the very next breath, he says;

"What is going on in Iraq at the moment is extremely mysterious." because;

"Is it really the case that all of these Iraqis that fought together for eight years against the Iranians, Shiites and Sunnies together in the long massive murderous Somme-like war between the Iranians and Iraqis - suddenly all want to kill each other?"

Excuse me, but the implicit premise here is that the Sunnis generally, and the Ba'ath Socialists in particular somehow didn't have a monopoly on power before Saddam was overthrown.

And so, mystery of mysteries, why would the Shiites and Sunnis fight each other over control of Iraq now when they've always got along so well in the past?

What!!??

Did the Shiites just imagine the repression they endured under Saddam?

Were the 1982 and 1991 Shiite uprisings, for example, mere mistakes because everyone was getting along so fine?

And even then the Kurds simply didn't even feature in the equations?

What could explain this mystery? Oh, here we go.

A timely hint from “The Foreign Relations Department of the Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party” no less:

“America is the main party responsible for the crime of attacking the tomb of Ali al-Hadi…because it is the power that occupies Iraq and has a basic interest in committing it.”

Could that be what Bobby's hinting at?

And we're supposed to believe this?

Great thing for Webdiary to bring us a voice from the area, this is something we have been lacking all along and the situation is getting worse since not only do we have a dearth of journalists who speak the language but the journalists themselves are increasingly unable to report without great danger to themselves.

The more I look at it the more binaries we tend to use when discussing  Iraq fall down. It is not simply resistance versus occupation, democracy versus chaos etc. Many motives and games are going on.

I recommend people look at the Robert Fisk interview conducted on Lateline last night (March 1). Fisk lives in the area and speaks the language. Disturbingly, yet truthfully, he had no pat explanations, rather confessing bafflement, but the interview does throw into relief some of the complexity.  

One stark point made by Haifa Zangana does stand out. Without minimum security, without a commitment to rule of law, including equality before the law, democracy can't function in any real and legitimate matter. Moreover the loss and destruction of the Iraqi middle classes is also a recipe for degraded and helpless society. My question from politics 101 - who would benefit from this?