« August 2004 | October 2004 »

September 2004 Archives

September 23, 2004

A note by Cole in re if Iraq were the US

I am not very much taken by these analogies, as a general matter, but to share this with those of you for whom it may have more meaning.

http://www.juancole.com/2004_09_01_juancole_archive.html#109582366638394688

There are some interesting and stark analogies never the less that may reach home:

What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria?

What if all the reporters for all the major television and print media were trapped in five-star hotels in Washington, DC and New York, unable to move more than a few blocks safely, and dependent on stringers to know what was happening in Oklahoma City and St. Louis? What if the only time they ventured into the Midwest was if they could be embedded in Army or National Guard units?

There are estimated to be some 25,000 guerrillas in Iraq engaged in concerted acts of violence. What if there were private armies totalling 275,000 men, armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!), rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the country? What if they completely controlled Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Denver and Omaha, such that local police and Federal troops could not go into those cities?

.....

What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Montana, Flint, Michigan, Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and other urban areas, attempting to target "safe houses" of "criminal gangs", but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies?

Emphasis added.

The more amusing part, however is here:

What if the leader of the European Union maintained that the citizens of the United States are, under these conditions, refuting pessimism and that freedom and democracy are just around the corner?

Posted by The Lounsbury at 04:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

What might be done in Iraq?

The question posed in comments is perhaps inexact, for there are several ranges of answers depending on the time frame engaged.

I might answer differently should we believe that the Bush Administration will be magically transformed in the next few weeks or after the elections. I do not believe that, so let me address the question in the context of a Kerry victory (which looks less utterly unlikely as compoared to the past few weeks, although were I a betting man - which I am not - I would not play this).

First, let us presume continued ingerance and bumbling on until January.

The menu of options inherited is grim, but perhaps not impossible.

First, it strikes me that a less petulantly obtuse diplomatic stance, combined with global relief to be free of the idiot, genuinely opens up the possibility of some internaitonalization, meaning some limited legitimacy to be obtained. Obviouslythere is no magical resolution, but a potential for a slight change in dynamic. A change that has the potential for pulling Iraq out of the nose dive. Not for a real upside but just perhaps the chance to create a shitty little dictatorship rather than a bloody civil war.

Second, in terms of the achievable, I believe the Agency report lays that out well enough. the issue is I do not see the upside being achievable in the context of an Administration (i) so entirely incapable of admitting (internally) and engaging its errors in a timely and efficacious manner, (ii) entirely incapable of leaving aside its ideologiy for a durable pragmatism, not a mere momentary recourse to a faux pragmatism driven by desperation, (iii) and in the same manner is entirely incapable of engaging the international community - and by engaging I mean neither berating with a groundless triumphalism or narrow and essentially empty egoism nor momentarily giving a entirely unconvincing 'engagement' as in the 'road map for peace'

In short, the potential presented by Kerry is not one where suddenly Iraq is not a disster of a once in a century importance, but rather there is an occasion to limit it getting even worse. Make no mistake, it is quite possible for Iraq to get worse. Whether a sudden withdrawal leaving Iraq as a failed state in the grip of a civil war, or the continued bumbling along with rising casulaties on both sides, with ever deepening hatred of the United States rising throughout the region, rising in the Islamic world, with ever deepening sympathy for the extremist radicals.

It is, then, not a question of the United States achieving something in Iraq, but rather not achieving yet more very fundamental damage to both its reputation and its position and power. The 'achievement is then negative, a matter of limiting damage. It could be that Kerry will put together a team that will be rather more talented than I expect, but event he most talented is unlikely to be able unable to unwid this

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

On intelligence, on sources, on error

A Guardian story worth reflecting on.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1308225,00.html

It began with a phone call. In November last year 39-year-old Huda Alazawi, a wealthy Baghdad businesswoman, received a demand from an Iraqi informant. He was working for the Americans in Adhamiya, a Sunni district of Baghdad well known for its hostility towards the US occupation. His demand was simple: Madame Huda, as her friends and family know her, had to give him $10,000. If she failed to pay up, he would write a report claiming that she and her family were working for the Iraqi resistance. He would pass it to the US military and they would arrest her.

"It was clearly blackmail," Alazawi says, speaking in the Baghdad office of her trading company. "We knew that if we gave in, there would be other demands." The informant was as good as his word. In November 2003, he wrote a report that prompted US soldiers to interrogate Alazawi's brother, Ali, and her older sister, Nahla, now 45. Wearing a balaclava, he also led several raids with US soldiers on the families' antique-filled Baghdad properties.

On December 23, the Americans arrested another of Alazawi's brothers, Ayad, 44. It was at this point that she decided to confront the Americans directly. She marched into the US base in Adhamiya, one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces. "A US captain told me to come back with my two other brothers. He said we could talk after that." On Christmas Eve she returned with her brothers, Ali and Mu'taz. "I waited for four hours. An American captain finally interrogated me. After 10 minutes he announced that I was under arrest." Like thousands of other Iraqis detained by the Americans since last year's invasion, Alazawi was about to experience the reality of the Bush administration's "war on terror".

"They handcuffed me and blindfolded me and put a piece of white cloth over my eyes. They bundled me into a Humvee and took me to a place inside the palace. I was dumped in a room with a single wooden chair. It was extremely cold. After five hours they brought my sister in. I couldn't see anything but I could recognise her from her crying."

Alazawi says that US guards left her sitting on the chair overnight, and that the next day they took her to a room known by detainees as "the torturing place". "The US officer told us: 'If you don't confess we will torture you. So you have to confess.' My hands were handcuffed. They took off my boots and stood me in the mud with my face against the wall. I could hear women and men shouting and weeping. I recognised one of the cries as my brother Mu'taz. I wanted to see what was going on so I tried to move the cloth from my eyes. When I did, I fainted."

The key section is not really the abuse, the probable murder by torture noted below. Rather it is the fundamental weakness, the reason why I believe the US is incapable of successfully confronting the insurgency: it is blind. Total reliance on informers, no language or cultural skills to speak of to understand how to vet the people wiht whom they are working.... they are working blind and as in Afghanistan, they will be exploited. Worse, it appears after so many months that the US military seems to be dangerously naive regarding the quality of their understanding of their interlocutors, to continue to view their interactions in terms of righteousness rather than rational and pragmatic engagement.

Alazawi says she was repeatedly asked whether she was in the Resistance and whether she had fired rockets at US soldiers (she is 5ft 3in tall). "It became a running joke. The other women began to nickname me the Queen of the RPG [rocket-propelled grenade]. The American interrogators were entirely ignorant and knew nothing about Iraqi people. The vast majority of people there were innocent."

Posted by The Lounsbury at 12:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

September 16, 2004

American Hostages

I give even odds on these guys getting the heads taken off.

Although this is going to provoke outrage (as if I care of course), I am going to observe that should the sheer bloody mindedness and barbarity of the probable jihadi kidnappers follow through, their likely gruesome deaths at least might serve a purpose in focusing minds. As Berg's did in a sense. Perhaps a bit horrible, but there it is.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 06:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

A Series of Articles on Iraq: Illustrations of why I want to drive a spike either through my head or

Ibn Bush's.

Painful, painful, painful. Not just Iraq, but the generalized problems.

Thus, the articles, which I will comment on later.

THE RECONSTRUCTION
U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism on Iraq's Future
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: September 16, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/politics/16intel.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=

Green Zone is ‘no longer totally secure’
By James Drummond and Steve Negus in Baghdad
Published: September 15 2004 22:03 | Last updated: September 15 2004 22:03
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/e0214956-074f-11d9-9672-00000e2511c8.html
(Now what better news can exist than your own castle isn't fucking safe?)

It's Worse Than You Think
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5973272/site/newsweek/

Far graver than Vietnam
Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1305360,00.html

Iraqi Insurgents Growing Stronger - and Wiser
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3503838

And most mind numbingly irritating, what leads me to a paroxysm of rage against this congenital bumbler:
Bush rejects bleak Iraq intelligence assessment
By Guy Dinmore in Washington
Published: September 16 2004 07:33 | Last updated: September 16 2004 18:55
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a373d488-07a9-11d9-9673-00000e2511c8.html

I am still baffled as to what the "Iraqi" people have done in re the comment about defying the naysayers or what fucking progress is being made.

It is this nonsense that enrages me, for these fools are willfully blind to the fact that they have not only driven off a cliff, but are about to smash the fuck into reality.

[edit two]

I forgot this article as well:
UNFRIENDLY FIRE
Civilian Dead, and Bitterness: No Way to Bridge the Rage?
By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: September 16, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/international/middleeast/16baghdad.html

Let me observe that is probably not helpful for US Generals to be quite so obstinant in their public comments. Having seen the video, it is hard to credit the missiles needed to be fired or that that helos were taking fire from that actual spot.
[edit]
A side note, the implied threat supra to the President of the United States of course should not be read literally, nor my own suicidal state. Call this creative license.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 05:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

September 15, 2004

World Bank: Doing Business in 2005

An interesting survey (the online tool that comes with the main site is truly engaging):
http://rru.worldbank.org/DoingBusiness/
http://rru.worldbank.org/Documents/DB-2005-Overview.pdf

In re the regulatory burden in the developing world. I will try to come back to this, it is an important topic that needs to be talked about more.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 05:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

September 14, 2004

On Airstrikes

Air Power Gains Bigger Role in Iraq

Monday September 13, 2004 9:01 PM

By ROBERT BURNS

AP Military Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4492507,00.html

Interesting article and in particular this:

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Arlington, Va.-based Lexington Institute think tank, said Monday the Americans seem to believe that airstrikes in Fallujah will wear down the insurgents and buy time for U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces to prepare for a ground assault in the weeks ahead.

``But you have to wonder whether we're radicalizing the Iraqi civilian population'' in the meantime amid claims - substantiated or not - that airstrikes are killing innocent people, Thompson said.

Two observations, regardless of whether the intel is good (and I suspect it is not often very good), "precision" using explosives in urban areas strikes me as a nonsensical assertion. It's not carpet bombing, but for a country one supposedly controls, airstrikes into urban areas is a losing proposition.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

September 10, 2004

No Exit: Lebanon on the Euphrates [Edit to add citation to new report]

First, my thanks to the point to this article.

What Went Wrong in Iraq
By Larry Diamond

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2004
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040901faessay83505/larry-diamond/what-went-wrong-in-iraq.html?mode=print

An interesting oversight. I can see (as I would say ever serious article has) this confirms my 'on the ground' sense of things and what I observed. However that is hardly news.

Rather, I point to these paragraphs:
Not only did the fighting in April and May fail to eliminate Sadr's forces, it also did nothing to counter Iraq's other heavily armed militias. These include not only the battle-hardened Kurdish Pesh Merga (which number at least 50,000 fighters) but also the large and well-armed militias of the two most important Shiite religious parties, SCIRI (the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq) and Dawa. At the beginning of 2004, the CPA began negotiating an agreement with these militias for their disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) into the new Iraqi police and armed forces. The CPA's plan was intelligent and comprehensive in design. But the Kurds, understandably wary of any new central Iraqi government, refused to agree to anything more than a superficial integration of their forces (with command structures intact) into the new Iraqi military, and it remains unclear whether the other large militias will truly demobilize and disarm or just warehouse their heavy weapons while temporarily joining the new armed forces. The ddr plan was supposed to have been finalized and announced on May 1. But it was set back seriously by the outbreak of twin insurgencies in Fallujah and the Shiite south in April. The U.S. military was forced to rely on the cooperation (or at least forbearance) of the SCIRI and Dawa militias to evict and defeat the Mahdi army, and this sharply reduced the CPA's leverage over them. The plan was finally released in early June, but with little time left to implement it before the transfer of power. Even as the CPA insisted that the Mahdi army's failure to comply would disqualify Sadr from participating in electoral politics, other Iraqi political leaders began negotiating with him to try to bring him into the political game.

It now seems unlikely that the weak and besieged new Iraqi government will have the will or capacity to enforce the demobilization plan. In fact, the new Iraqi state is caught in a Catch-22: to be viable, it must build up its armed forces as rapidly as possible. But the readiest sources of soldiers and police are the most powerful militias, which will probably allow their fighters to join the new military only if their command structures remain intact. Thus, if the fledgling Iraqi state hopes to truly defeat the militias, it may have to go to war with itself. That seems hard to imagine. Yet if Iraq tries to hold elections while the militias remain intact (in one guise or another), the campaign is likely to become a very bloody and undemocratic affair. Candidates will face assassination, weaker political opponents will be run out of town, and the electoral machinery will be hijacked by those with the most guns.

Even if the security situation improves enough to allow elections to go forward on time, Iraq could still get into further trouble if it follows the UN's recommendation and uses a national-list system, apportioning seats in parliament on the basis of nationwide voting, since this would give the big regional and religious parties an added incentive to inflate their numbers through force and fraud. Should that occur, the biggest winners will be the best-armed and most-organized forces-the Kurds in the far north and the Iranian-backed Islamist parties in the Shiite south. The American occupation could wind up paving the way for the "election" of an Iranian-linked Islamist government in Baghdad.

Emphasis added.

I would like for any doubters to tell me how this does not echo Lebanon c. 1975? (Only in some ways worse, perhaps I should say Lebanon c. 1979)

Somewhere else I saw a comment by someone who said that he could not believe that Iraq's leadership could be so stupid as to allow a descent into civil war. This of course is an entirely too simplistic view. Descent into civil war is not about "stupidity" but rather a negative cycle of tit for tat violence and the emergence, for a lack of better political exchanges, of a winner take all logic in terms of politic power. The bigger pie picture of a peaceful, stable Iraq is convincing only if (a) you believe you're not going to get screwed, (b) you believe that you're getting what is to you an 'appropriate' portion of power. Absolute gains may or may not count, relative changes in position, in a context where the parties seriously (and not without reason) fear exclusion, become paramount in importance.

Under such conditions, it is highly logical and intelligent not to be a weak minded do gooder for some theoretical "good of the nation" but to push to protect your own.

In economics we might call this a negative equilibruim.

In short, do not make the mistake of thinking the descent into violence in illogical, or stupid. In many ways, given the situation, it is highly logical and until the pain exceeds the near term gain, a winning game strategy for sectarian leaders consolidating power.

I note the countervailing incentives for cooperation are (a) weak, (b) often exist only in the fairy tale civics book views of Americans et al, (c) probably of smaller marginal value to key leaders with the means of destruction than the marginal value of consolidating their power bases.

Now a word on this paragraph:
Part of the problem was that both Garner and Bremer never comprehended how Iraqis perceived them. Throughout the occupation, the coalition lacked the linguistic and area expertise necessary to understand Iraqi politics and society, and the few long-time experts present were excluded from the inner circle of decision-making in the CPA. Thus the coalition never grasped, for example, the fact that, although most Iraqis were grateful for having been liberated from a brutal tyranny, their gratitude was mixed with deep suspicion of the United States' real motives (not to mention those of the United Kingdom, a former colonial ruler of Iraq); humiliation that the Iraqis themselves had proved unable to overthrow Saddam; and unrealistic expectations of the postwar administration, which Iraqis expected to quickly deliver them from their problems. Too many Iraqis viewed the invasion not as an international effort but as an occupation by Western, Christian, essentially Anglo-American powers, and this evoked powerful memories of previous subjugation and of the nationalist struggles against Iraq's former overlords.

Emphasis added.

Too much navel gazing, too little understanding.

And another item which I heartily agree with as I saw the same thing:
The obsession with control was an overarching flaw in the U.S. occupation from start to finish. In any postconflict international intervention, there is always a certain tension between legitimacy and control. Yet for most of the first year of occupation, the U.S. administration opted for the latter whenever the tradeoff presented itself.

I might add that I saw more than obsession with control, an obsession with the appearance of 'mastery' for Washington / home consumption more than even a real obsession with actual, effective measures of control.

As throughout, it seems to me that playing to the home audiences usually counted more than actually getting things done.

Overall, a very decent article although the slighly apologistic ending leaves something to be desired. I suppose as an official he felt a need for that.

Now, the real issue is how to pull out of the nose dive?

Frankly, I continue to ratchet back my expectations.

As I sit, looking at the situation, I see no way to avoid a civil war. Let me be clear, that does not mean, for example, on day one of an American withdrawal, for example, all hell breaks loose. No. Look at Lebanon. Starts and stops will occur, but slowly, but surely the center of the country, with its volatile mix of Sunni Arab, Shia Arab, and some confettis of Sunni and Shia Turcomans and Sunni and Shia Kurds can not avoid violent competition for power.

There is no avoiding this. I see no way for the Allaouie led government to pull out of its Catch 22, I see no way for these issues to be resolved in reality without Iraq going through a spasm of violence. This was possible c. June - November 2003, but no longer. Some commentators may speak of federal solutions, but note well our authors comment regarding Iraqi's "majoritarian" views on democracy. Federalism is not going to be acceptable, everybody wants all the pie. Even more so that the pie is felt to be at once rich (we have oil!) but diminishing.

Of course, my question is, who gets what? I suspect that the Kurds, who have so far (due to roughly a decade of experimentation in politics) shown more political stamina and maturity (in terms of playing a clever hand) than other factions, will likely continue their slow march to de facto statehood. I suspect that they will not opt for any de jure statement - for fear of Turkish and perhaps Iranian intervention and perhaps to maintain an option of actually working with the Turks (who may as some commentators have said) prefer the distasteful option of a stable, largely secular Kurdish protectorate to an Arab dominated hard-Islamist government and likely guerrilla war right up to their borders. The flash point in this case is really the Kirkuk zone, and probably a slow, rolling ethnic cleansing of Arabs, and thus a conflict zone.

The center, as I have said before, is really the heart of darkness. There is no way the capital will not be contested. And given the mixedness of the semi-urban zones around it, I can hardly see a clear status.

The south may very well become a quasi statelet if the Shia avoid internal conflict. Certainly I have been considering whether Basra remains an area of potential investment given the super giant fields there and potential for development if the southern zone remains reasonably stable and a more or less legitimate southern governance structure emerges. It will, of course, be Shia Islamist if it is going to be legitimate, but that's not my problem - it perhaps is an American government problem, but realism requires working with the options actually available, not fictive civic government pie in the sky dreams.

Really a pity that this situation requires such grim calculus, but that is where the facts are.

EDIT:
From Kevin Drum (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004671.php)
http://www.csis.org/isp/pcr/0409_progressperil.pdf

Worth reading and dissemination.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

September 09, 2004

Pipes (not the usual one) - Chechan.

Very interesting editorial from Pipes the Elder on Chechania.

I observe one could guess the spin from his loathsome idiot of a son would be different.

Give the Chechens a Land of Their Own
By RICHARD PIPES

Published: September 9, 2004

The terrorist attack in Beslan in Russia's North Caucasus was not only bloody but viciously sadistic: the children taken hostage by pro-Chechen terrorists were denied food and drink and even forbidden to go to the bathroom, then massacred when the siege was broken. It is proper for the civilized world to express outrage and feel solidarity with the Russian people. But to say this is not necessarily to agree with those - including President Bush and President Vladimir Putin of Russia - who would equate the massacre with the 9/11 attacks and Islamic terrorism in general.

In his post-Beslan speech, Mr. Putin all but linked the attack to global Islam: "We have to admit that we have failed to recognize the complexity and dangerous nature of the processes taking place in our own country and the world in general." Reports that some of the terrorists were Arabs reinforce that line of thinking. But the fact is, the Chechen cause and that of Al Qaeda are quite different, and demand very different approaches in combating them.

Excellent.

Clear headed.
I leave the rest to the reader, other than this passage.

his history makes clear how the events in Russia differ from 9/11. The attacks on New York and the Pentagon were unprovoked and had no specific objective. Rather, they were part of a general assault of Islamic extremists bent on destroying non-Islamic civilizations. As such, America's war with Al Qaeda is non-negotiable. But the Chechens do not seek to destroy Russia - thus there is always an opportunity for compromise.

Unfortunately, Russia's leaders, and to some extent the populace, are loath to grant them independence - in part because of a patrimonial mentality that inhibits them from surrendering any territory that was ever part of the Russian homeland, and in part because they fear that granting the Chechens sovereignty would lead to a greater unraveling of their federation. The Kremlin also does not want to lose face by capitulating to force.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 11:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

September 07, 2004

Car Bombings and airstrikes

I read that in response to the car bombing the US forces riposted by airstrikes against "militant safe houses."

Well, I suppose if the US forces have figured out just recently the abusing detainees leads to a net increase in opponents, that they may eventually comprehend that using airpower against urban guerillas when one has piss poor intelligence is probably doing the same.

Safe houses.......

Posted by The Lounsbury at 10:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

September 06, 2004

On the Pentagon-Israeli spy drama.

I have been following this item with some interest.

A few initial comments.

First, I strongly suspect that there was something of ... well for lack of a better term, an Israeli cell inside the Pentagon. Not so much on the formal basis, but among a team of Pentagon analysts who genuinely saw a complete correspondence of interest between Israel and the United States in the Middle East.

Second, I do not particularly see this as... well scandalous at a certian level, however I do think that there is an important item here. No matter how close an ally, no state is the same as your own, and state interest should trump 'friendly feelings.' Now the Israeli side seems to understand this quite well - indeed perhaps too well if we take into account the Israeli history of arms cooperation with states that are frankly enemies of US interests (but do not directly threaten Israel). Cold calculation and I can hardly fault that.

However, what I can fault is a lack of equal calculation on the part of the American side. Israel is an ally. It is not a bosum friend, it is a calculating realist state, and one that frankly has norms that render it, in terms of policy rather more dangerous to deal with than say Great Britian, whose substantial interests in terms of dealing with other state actors rather more closely resemble those of the United States than Israel's.

As such, close cooperation in say intelligence, on topics where Israel has a clear and manifest tendancy to manipulate for its own interests (and as a realist actor, I can in no way fault them, should their larger oafish 'friend' be manipulable and gullible then why not?), strikes me as something best approached with caution, and that staff on this should be screened to minimize those who confuse a personal level of friendship and warmth for the state involved for the real cold state interests.

In statecraft as in business, the maxim holds, if you want a (real) friend, get a dog.

(I note that I always took this to be from my mentor, but it appears it may be as well from a movie which I have never seen. Pity.)

Posted by The Lounsbury at 02:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

Comparables

As I burrow through data finding comparables on this deal, I reflect on the highly sketchy nature of the comparability. Yes, we can massage this with perhaps equally dodgey statistical tools (clinging to assumptions we know in our guts don't hold) but the real test... and here is honesty, is "will it meet the smell test" when the other guy looks at the presentation.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

September 04, 2004

http://muslimsforbush.com/

I share this for... well the value it has.

Several sarcastic comments come to mind, none of which are fair, but do amuse me.

Such as Jews for Jesus.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

The US (finally) Changes Arrest Procedures in Iraq: I stand aghast

I have to say in reading the article below (I reproduce largely in full as I believe Yahoo links change quickly) I was actually stunned. Stunned that it took this long, over a year for US forces to reach such obvious conclusions.

U.S. Changes Arrest Techniques in Iraq
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=8&u=/ap/20040903/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_arrests_2
Fri Sep 3, 4:46 PM ET
By JIM KRANE, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military is avoiding once-common arrest techniques like bagging suspects' heads, the U.S. commander in charge of the Iraqi capital said, because such actions are considered humiliating by Iraqis and pushing new recruits into the insurgency. "You've got to see it from a force protection standpoint: You're making more enemies," U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli told The Associated Press. "When we mistreat one person I've got a net increase of nine enemies."

Emphasis added.

I believe for over a year now I have been noting that short term "force protection" measures in a guerilla context may very well end up being long or medium term net negative measures. I hardly consider myself brilliant or well versed in these matters, I find it bizarre that the above took over a year to sink in.

Soldiers are told to avoid handcuffing or blindfolding suspects — often done by placing a cloth sack over a suspect's head — in front of their families, said Chiarelli, who commands the Texas-based 1st Cavalry Division, which controls security in Baghdad.

The Army's 1st Infantry Division, which guards a swath of the Sunni Arab homeland north of Baghdad, started a similar "dignity and respect" initiative in April. Its commander, Maj. Gen. John Batiste, asked soldiers to be more courteous at traffic checkpoints and to stop putting bags over detainees' heads, division spokesman Maj. Neal O'Brien said.

Especially insulting is the practice of subduing Iraqi men by stepping on them.

"The worst thing in the world is to put him on the ground and put your boot on his head," Chiarelli said in an interview Thursday at 1st Cavalry headquarters near Baghdad International Airport. "Honor is so critical in this society. You don't take away a man's honor."

Well, no shit.

I do note one cites having begun this in April.

Further there is this:
Baghdad residents, asked Friday about the changes, loosed a litany of complaints about the unpopular U.S. presence in Iraq from the blocking of roads and bridges to aggressive driving and capricious detentions. Halting humiliating arrest techniques is a positive development, they said, but too little, too late.

"The detainee is not an animal to put a bag over his head," said Qusai Talha, a 35-year-old laborer interviewed at Tahrir Square in central Baghdad. "Detention should be done politely, until the prisoner is proven guilty — or not. The Americans should have considered this from the start.""The Americans will only change Iraqis' opinions toward them when they leave Iraq," said Ahmed Kadhim, a 45-year-old teacher leaving a Shiite mosque in west Baghdad.

Indeed. They should have.

The division hired Iraqis to instruct the 32,000 U.S. troops under Chiarelli's command in the cultural traits and taboos of Iraq's 26 million inhabitants. Soldiers are told to separate a man being arrested from his family by asking him to go outside his home and speak to soldiers.

"If you really need to put him in flex cuffs, that's where you do it, not in front of his family," Chiarelli said.

About 10 percent of the division's troops "just don't get it," the commander said, but most understand the importance of treating Iraqis with dignity, even those accused of killing Americans or others. If soldiers humiliate a man being arrested in front of his family or neighbors, word spreads and hostility swells.

"It's not just a matter of being nice to the Iraqi people, it's clearly a force protection issue," Chiarelli said.

I would have thought that a simple study of history should have led to such conclusions, never mind even getting into Iraqi Arab culture. As a general matter, foreign soldiers in any country (even an allied one) acting in a cavalier manner generate nationalist resentment. It strikes me as... well let me say primordial and basic to understand actions humiliating to suspects are very likely to generate violent opposition.

The arrest policy appears to conform with an emerging picture of Iraq's insurgency that paints it as a growing movement of nationalist Iraqis, angry at the presence of foreign troops.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have often underestimated the number of rebels and misleadingly described them as radical Islamists or foreign fighters vying to install a regime akin to Afghanistan's former Taliban government.

If ordinary Iraqis are tempted to join the guerrillas, U.S. troops would be wise to avoid provoking them.

"You can't allow (the insurgency) to get bigger. You can't let them recruit," Chiarelli said.

A bit late for that, but better late than never one hopes.

Chiarelli, 54, of Seattle, commands the third U.S. Army division to control security in the Iraqi capital. The 1st Cavalry has nearly completed half of its one-year stint in Baghdad.

The Iraqi capital's insurgency began to appear in mid-2003 under the yearlong tenure of the Germany-based 1st Armored Division, which turned the city over to the 1st Cavalry in April. Chiarelli said 1st Armored passed along some of its arrest techniques, which his division has since refined.

Under the general's orders, troops who violate Iraqi cultural norms are told to mitigate the damage by apologizing or offering to perform a favor for the offended family.

For instance, when soldiers raid a home by breaking down a door, a combat engineer is supposed to quickly fix the door, on the spot if possible. When the raid is a mistaken one, perhaps sparked by faulty intelligence, the attitude is supposed to be one of contrition.

"You say you're sorry when something bad occurs. You say 'Can we make up for the fact that we disturbed your family tonight?'" Chiarelli said. "'Can we come back and do anything for your family?'"

Chiarelli said he's had to adjust his own behavior. He greets Iraqi men with strong, warm handshakes, sometimes using both hands. If he's especially friendly with the man, Chiarelli said he follows the Iraqi custom — a smooch on both cheeks.

"I kiss them," he said.

But not Iraqi women.

"The biggest problem I have is when I meet women," he said. If a woman doesn't offer her hand, the general said he fights the urge to shake hands, forcing himself to keep his arms at his sides. He gives women a cursory greeting, avoiding looking into their eyes.

"If I did that in the States you'd call me a chauvinist pig," he said. "But that's their culture."

I note that among some, but not all Muslims, it is considered improper to shake hands between sexes. Much more common among rural and lower classes.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

September 03, 2004

An analysis of Iraq going forward

Thanks to my old man SimonX:

http://www.riia.org/pdf/research/mep/BP0904.pdf?PHPSESSID=92ff63f04b89e1819a45becec8a7a968
MIDDLE EAST PROGRAMME BP 04/02 SEPTEMBER 2004
IRAQ IN TRANSITION:VORTEX OR CATALYST?

Before I comment on this, let me let everyone read it.

I have to say it is an analysis I largely agree with in broad strokes, in terms of possible scenarios, again in broad strokes.

I note Juan Cole links to this as well, although he notes he does not feel the break up scenario is a high likelihood event due to the strength of Iraqi nationalism. I think this mis-specifies the problem (although if one takes break up to be purely an issue of state-nationalism he is right).

I see, in any case, that they refer to the Balkans rather than Lebanon for their example in re the Lebononization.

Aside to Simon, I really do hope you tormet my old friend Sam with this - you should recall for him he was predicting the Shia would welcome a long term US presence....

Posted by The Lounsbury at 09:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

September 02, 2004

NYRB: Galbraith - Iraq

First, my thanks to Bigod for bringing this to my attention. The NYRB is not my general 'cup of tea' but I found the Galbraith article on Iraq to be intriguing.

Let me link and quote for some notes on more interesting sections.

Volume 51, Number 14 · September 23, 2004
Feature
Iraq: The Bungled Transition
By Peter W. Galbraith
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17406

I will skip over the first section, which I am not entirely in agreement with, as to the analysis of Allaouie.

This does bear citing:
The administration seems to be gambling that Allawi can mobilize sufficient Iraqi force against the insurgents so that coalition troops will stop dying at the current frightening rate. It is a measure of how far America's once grand ambitions for Iraq have diminished that security has become more important than democracy for a mission intended not only to transform Iraq but with it the entire Middle East.

Indeed.

I also note this
To choose him over his rivals was also to make a clear statement about the kind of Iraq the US seeks.

Why Our Bastard in Baghdad, of course.

A bit of realism in the end, although Galbraith's comments on the irrealism of the new realism below are well taken, but we will get there.

In 1991, Iyad Allawi founded the Iraqi National Accord (INA), which .... stood for an Iraq more or less like the one Saddam Hussein ran but without Saddam and without the worst abuses of the Baath Party.

A large ommitted section there: Rather more realistic I should say than the cheap crack that our Thief in Baghdad was pimping.

Moving along then, to this paragraph, with again some telling points:
Allawi's tough-guy approach has won him admiration not just in official Washington but in Iraq as well. Many Iraqis are fed up with the insurgencies, and citizens of Baghdad appreciate his efforts to deal with that city's kidnappings and armed robberies, which have gone out of control. (Allawi rounded up more than five hundred known criminals, a move that apparently never occurred to the American occupation authorities, since crime was not a problem in the highly fortified Green Zone. Allawi's comments about postponing elections (which he has not repeated in recent weeks) seem to have cost him little support in a country far more concerned with security than democracy.

Emphasis added.

Amusing, not perhaps quite true, but amusing.

I think rather the issue was the Americans keep confusing opposition to themselves with criminality, which may not be entirely seperate, but also is not the same thing.

On this point:
The main problem for Allawi is that he lacks both the political constituency and the material resources to translate his tough line into effective action. According to an April public opinion survey commissioned by the US government, Allawi is one of Iraq's least popular politicians, and is strongly opposed by some 61 percent of the population (a finding that seems to have carried no weight with the Bush administration, which both commissioned the poll and chose Allawi). The Iraqi forces available to implement his tough line are neither capable nor loyal, while the use of American troops further undermines his government's narrow base of support.

I believe Galbraith is right, although there is perhaps a window for Allaouie to gain some momentum and popularity if he can reduce criminality in Baghdad. If....

Of course that if is so large as to be overwhelming in its uncertainty on the side of success.

Now, as to the materials that really attracted my attention, Galbraith's cool laying out of the clumsiness of the American efforts and how opportunities were lost gratuitously.
On March 8 of this year, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, the US-appointed administrator for Iraq, staged an elaborate signing ceremony for Iraq's Transitional Administrative Law (TAL). In a gesture intended to recall the closing of the 1787 Philadelphia constitutional convention, Bremer laid out twenty-five pens so that each member of the Iraqi Governing Council could sign a document intended to serve as Iraq's interim constitution. The Bush administration said the TAL would be a "road map" to the preparation of a permanent constitution. It hailed the TAL as unprecedented in the Middle East for its extensive human rights protections, its concern for the status of women, and its independent judiciary.

Ah yes, the fantasy world of the "Remaking the Middle East" crowd. Wave the magic wand.

But this is not the key point, rather Galbraith nicely points out the very creation was an act of ... incompetence:
At the same time it was choosing Allawi as prime minister, the Bush administration effectively jettisoned the TAL. The administration had put itself in an impossible position with respect to its own creation. In 2003, at the request of the United States and Great Britain, the United Nations Security Council acknowledged that the US-led coalition was the occupying power in Iraq. As a general principle of international law, occupying powers are not allowed to make permanent, or irreversible, changes in an occupied country. Occupying powers cannot cede territory, sell assets, or make permanent law. Thus all law made by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) expired when the occupation ended on June 28.

Ah, well, that fine law...., and as I recall a year ago or so I was arguing with people that there were real if subtle penalties to acting in a cavalier manner with the international community, that the cost of doing business goes up.

Galbraith highlights just how that price has emerged:
In order for the Transitional Administrative Law to be valid after the end of the occupation, it needed Security Council endorsement. In the 1990s, the Security Council granted other international administrations (Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor) lawmaking powers but the Bush administration, having alienated its allies, did not obtain this authority in the original 2003 UN Security Council resolution. In June 2004, when the Security Council considered the resolution restoring Iraqi sovereignty, the Bush administration decided not to seek an endorsement of the TAL (and other CPA-passed laws), ignoring pleas from pro-democracy Iraqis. It made that decision in deference to the Ayatollah Sistani, who does not want an elected, Shiite-dominated assembly to be in any way constrained by the American-created interim constitution. In particular, Sistani objected to provisions in the TAL that would make it difficult to create an Islamic state and would require a permanent constitution acceptable not just to the majority Shiites but also to the Kurds and Sunni Arabs.

Prisoner of one's own machinations and ignorance, I should say.

I find it amusing that I have recently seen "conservative" writers praising Sistani as a humanist and the like. Amusing, their man of the moment, likable because these know-nothing types know so little of what they're tackling.

And so we have a fine situation of so much effort spent on creating sand castles, with little thought given to the tide that comes back in.

Now the question on our minds, although I think my own comments a bit back are perhaps in this vein: "How did the Bush administration invest so much in the TAL and then find itself forced to abandon it?" Or how did the occupation get quite so fucked up?

I found Galbraith's comments ... intriguing and I think perhaps accurate.
It appears that Bremer never realized that his decrees would not legally outlast the occupation. It was a rookie's mistake caused, as with so many other CPA failures, by the lack of expertise on the part of his staff.

On the last I think I have almost redunantly harped on about this, as for example here, (http://www.livejournal.com/users/collounsbury/191422.html).

Gross errors. Certainly one sees all the signs of the CPA not understanding that is many fine little efforts (well not truly fine, actually comic bookish in their approach, as if one had handed a country over to a bunch of first year college students to run....) would not survive contact with reality, as I believe I put it last year at this time in commenting on the liberalization decrees.

And mind you, I have nothing against the overall policy of liberalization, but I knew well such maneuvers would never be legitimated.

So, I think Galbraith wrong here to an extent, Bremer no doubt knew that legally CPA law did not survive its own extinction, he simple believed that they were going to be able to get around that by hook or by crook.

Incorrectly of course.

The TAL was largely the responsibility of two of Bremer's assistants (dubbed "the west wingers"), one an extremely capable but relatively junior Foreign Service officer and the other a young political appointee from the Pentagon's stable of neoconservative nation-builders. Imbued with grand ideas such as remaking the Iraqi judiciary with a US-style Supreme Court, they apparently neglected to consult an international lawyer.

Well, I doubt that, I rather think they simply ignored the advice they recieved, being charged up with the idea of transformation, and the belief all could be over come. Simple oversight is a pedestrain form of incompetence. I grant the CPA this, they were not merely pedestrain in their collective incompetence, they were staggeringly and creatively blind in their incompetence. It renders their incompetence almost grand, a sort of Don Quixote type of incompetence that were it not so painful to see, and had it not cost me so much goddamned fucking money, I would almost bronze it and make it into some kind of ... I don't know, perhaps Salvador Dali art?

Now here is an item I have ranted on and on about more than once, but never let me miss an occasion to rant on:
The Bush administration's recruitment of staff for the CPA is one of the great scandals of the American occupation, although it has so far received little attention from the press. Republican political connections counted for far more than professional competence, relevant international experience, or knowledge of Iraq. In May, The Washington Post ran an account of three young people recruited for service in the CPA by e-mail, without interviews, security clearances, or relevant experience. They ended up responsible for spending Iraq's budget; because they knew little about the country or about financial procedures, they did so slowly. The failure to spend money was of course the source of enormous frustration to jobless Iraqis and undoubtedly produced recruits for the insurgency. According to the Post, the threesome, who included the daughter of a prominent conservative activist, had never applied to go to Iraq and could not figure out how they were selected. Finally they realized that the one thing they had in common was that they had applied for jobs at the conservative Heritage Foundation, which had kept their resumes on file.
Emphasis added.

In other words, they helped contribute to losing the war.

Politics over practicality, pragmatism.

I may add, as I have said before, I had always found it weird that in my contacts with CPA, and them knowing I speak Arabic (the real deal, not some stammered college Arabic as some of them had), know the region, business.... (hello Fleischer I mean you) why no one tried to recruit me.

I've expressed this before - not for personal loss, at the time I had bigger fish I thought in the net (so I got fucked there, such is business) - but for the sheer strangeness of it. Desperate as they were for staff, not one outreach. Now, I think someone said perhaps it was clear I am not one of their kind - true enough, I bite - but that speaks to the failure. Sure I would have said no, but the attempt should have been made - appeal to my dubious patriotism and all that.

There it is, the key issue here is not me personally but rather them meeting someone like me should have led to an approach given their needs. (And mind you on a peronsonal level, I would say that I probably would not have been 'right' but then no one they had was right).

However, as this paragraph makes clear, their needs were not driven by pragmatic desires, but starrey eyed political ideology:
In some cases, the quest for political loyalists meant dismissing qualified professionals who had already been recruited. In the June 20 Chicago Tribune, the reporter Andy Zajac described how, in April of 2003, the Bush administration replaced the chief CPA health official, Dr. Frederick Burkle, a medical doctor with close working relationships with humanitarian organizations and long experience in conflict zones, with James Haveman, a political crony of Michigan's Republican former governor. Unlike Dr. Burkle, who for months had been planning the restoration of Iraq's health care system and who was ready to put a program in action as soon as Baghdad fell, Haveman did not arrive in Iraq until June 7, 2003. .......

Hah.

Now this part:
The privatizing of Iraq's economy was handled at first by Thomas Foley, a top Bush fund-raiser, and then by Michael Fleisher, brother of President Bush's first press secretary. After explaining that he had got the job in Iraq through his brother Ari, he told the Chicago Tribune—without any apparent sense of irony—that the Americans were going to teach the Iraqis a new way of doing business. "The only paradigm they know is cronyism."

Fleischer..... well since he's out there somewhere, let me say I have a fullsome sense of the competence of his operation.

Steel.

I note this contrast:
Eight months after receiving the congressional appropriation, however, the CPA had spent less than $500 million of it on reconstruction. The only part of Iraq not subject to the CPA's financial control was Kurdistan, where the regional government received a cash allocation equal to just 6 percent of Iraq's total budget (on a per capita basis it should have received 15 percent), but spent it so effectively that the local economy has enjoyed a boom that, in some areas, outstripped the local labor market. By contrast, unemployoment in Arab Iraq has hovered around 50 percent. The hiring of unqualified staff by the CPA, documented by the Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post, helps to explain why the CPA (known to my Iraqi friends as "Cannot Provide Anything") accomplished so little.

The comparison is not entirely fair, the emphasized section rather is correct.

Now let me highlight this:
The invasion and occupation were highly ideological decisions reflecting the philosophy of the President and his closest aides. What is astonishing is that the conduct of this venture was not left to the military and civilian professionals most qualified to make it work but rather to those most committed to a fuzzy vision of a transformed Iraq. In too many cases, these were people with no knowledge of Iraq, with no experience in dealing with post-conflict environments, with limited experience in making the US bureaucracy produce results, and with little or no expertise in the substantive matters (i.e., finance, trade) for which they were responsible. It is not surprising that so many gave up after relatively short periods in Iraq.
Emphasis added.
I believe this among the clearest indictments of what happened that I have read.

I also draw attention to the contrast Galbraith makes iwth the Bosnian effort
In finding people to fill key jobs in the international administration in Sarajevo as well as the US embassy there, the Bosnia peace negotiator, Richard Holbrooke, scoured the Foreign Service, the military, and the civilian bureaucracy for experts who knew the Balkans, who could speak the local language, and who could do the jobs for which they were recruited. The outcome in Bosnia—where no American has died in hostile action in the nine years since the Dayton Peace Accords went into effect—could not be more different from that in Iraq. Professionalism is at least part of the reason.

There it is. Professionalism.

The most important judgment of the American occupation must be that of the peoples of Iraq. A US government poll conducted just before the handover showed that only 11 percent of Arab Iraqis had confidence in the CPA—down from 47 percent in November. It is not surprising that an occupation that began with flowers and cheers (I witnessed this in April 2003) ended two days ahead of schedule with the US administrator slipping out of Baghdad following a secret ceremony in the highly fortified Green Zone.

A sad statement and an indictment of how badly this has been and continues to be bungled.

I omit a longish discussion on current politics and bungling to note this: Belatedly recognizing the political disaster of having the Americans serve as his iron fist, Allawi announced that he would use Iraqi forces to secure Najaf. Unfortunately for him, the new Iraqi army—the most cherished project of the Pentagon's neoconservatives —is not a serious force. Like everything else undertaken by the CPA, recruitment and training took place largely on paper.

Indeed, on paper. The kinds of things the idjits who lap up agitprop love to regurgitate, thinking it significant.
Now as to the current situ, Galbraith notes:
Neither the US military nor Iraqi forces now enter Falluja, enabling extremists to train for, and plot, attacks elsewhere in Iraq with relative impunity. While there is no similar formal arrangement keeping US and Iraqi forces out of Samarra and Baquba, insurgents and terrorists have free rein in large parts of both cities.

Wonderful, is it not? American occupiers control in many ways less of the country somewhat more than a year after the 'end' of the war than they did in April 2003.

That is progress, is it not.

Now, Galbraith argues:
In the May 13 issue of The New York Review, I argued that the breakup of Iraq seemed more likely than a successful transition to centralized democracy. I suggested that Iraq can be held together only as a loose federation consisting of Kurdistan, a Sunni entity in the center, and a Shiite entity in the south, with Baghdad as a jointly administered federal capital.

As I have argued previously, I think this too neat by half. Central Iraq is simply too mixed to have a workable Sunni entity, and the Federal zone of Baghdad is bound to be a flash point.

In other words, Lebanon, c. 1975.

Now in regards to the analysis of break up, I agree that Subsequent events make such a breakup more likely than ever.

The description of the alienation of the Kurds sounds right, and if they opt for a "Taiwanese" solution of not openly declaring independance (and thus provoking many parties), they just might get away with that.

A note on the probable error on the part of the Administration in being so shy of religious parties: With only marginal positions in the current administration, moderate Shiite religious parties risk being challenged by their more radical coreligionists, both in the street and at the ballot box.

A serious issue, and one that the simple minded "anti-theocrats" seem to miss.

Now, the suggestion that "A loose federation would allow each Iraqi federal unit to have the political system its people choose." sounds fine enough, the problem is where to draw the lines.

All well and fine in the abstract, but to create the federation, one has to draw the lines, and drawing the lines is going to force decisions. Decisions are going to force power plays aimed at maximizing positions, facts on the ground. That leads to... Well does anyone recall a small, multi-ethnic, multi-religious country on the Mediterranean? A small degree of unpleasantness arose from moderately similar circumstances when new lines or power relationships had to be drawn.

The citation to this: "At the end of July, Iraq's three southern administrative districts, or governorates, proposed to form their own Shiite majority region, and specifically asked for the same powers as the Kurdistan region. If this suggests that thinking among Shiites may evolve away from using their majority to impose their rule on all of Iraq, it could be a very hopeful development. is all well and fine, but the real push has not come. It's on the margins where the hard decisions come.

I note this item as well: While insisting that the militias of non-Kurdish parties be disbanded (or merged into a national army), Americans privately acknowledge that this will not happen, and is not necessarily desirable.

Did I not say so months ago?

Finally:
"Realism" has replaced democracy and nation-building as the central concern of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. Unfortunately, it is having trouble defining and carrying out a realistic policy. As with its previous triumphalist policy, the problems with the new, realistic, policy come from ignorance of Iraq's history and society. Even if Iyad Allawi wanted to be a gentler version of Saddam Hussein, he could not succeed. Before the American invasion, the institutions that held Saddam in power—the army, the Republican Guards, the security services —had already become riddled with internal problems. The Americans shat-tered them, and they cannot now be reconstituted.

A truly realistic policy would acknowledge what actually exists in Iraq and work with that reality. Kurdistan operates as a virtually independent state where the central government has no presence. Various Shiite parties and religious institutions are the popularly accepted authority in the south, providing the local administration and having co-opted Baghdad's nominal representatives. Neither the United States nor the Allawi government has the power to change this reality, nor has either made any attempt to do so. Institutionalizing this "ground reality" in a loose federation can help reduce the risk of civil war. Further, a recognized and empowered Shiite entity has a much better prospect of handling its own troublemakers, such as al-Sadr, than an alien central government.

A fair argument, but as I note above, the problem comes with the Center, which is oddly... the margin. It is the margin of Turcoman-Kurdish lands, the margin of Sunni and Shia Arab. It is the place that will be invevitably the heart of darkness.

I grant by the way that a tripartite division of the country on a quasi formal, wink wink nudge nudge level might create breathing room to help calm the center to the point where maybe, just maybe one can avoid having Baghdad become Beiruit c. 1980.

I'll close in quoting this:
The United States faces a near-impossible dilemma in Iraq. If it withdraws prematurely, it risks leaving behind a weak government unable to cope with the chaos that is the breeding ground of terrorism. By staying in Iraq, the United States undermines the legitimacy of the Iraqi government it wants to support....

Catch-22.

Beautiful, no?

Best of all, a Catch-22 created by the very actor that is caught in it.

Willfully so.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 08:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004

France: Muslims and the Kidnapping Issue

From a generally rather silly article in the Washington Post
See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54215-2004Sep1.html

Some reflections on the potential results:
As a result, said Antoine Sfeir, director of Cahiers de l'Orient, a journal of Middle East affairs, "it is possible that the French line will come closer to the American, in the sense that what is being fought is a globalized war. Even if the French perception of itself is different, France is still part of the West and therefore a target."

But Olivier Roy, an author and expert on Islam, said he believed that French policy would remain unchanged. If anything, France is demonstrating an ability to mobilize Arab Muslim governments and popular opinion in its favor over the crisis, he said.

Actually my read would be Roy's read is the right one. I don't believe anyone in French governmental circles saw the stance on Iraq as "immunizing - they've dealt with the Algerian issue and generally the Middle East and North Africa to have quite such a stupid and simplistic take, but rather a good call given the situation. Realpolitik.

And it was, mind you.

Leaders of France's Muslim population of 6 million, many of whom had protested the head-scarf ban, roundly condemned the kidnapping. The official French Council of the Muslim Faith originally opposed the ban, but in the wake of the kidnapping, it said the ban should be observed for the time being. On Wednesday, the group dispatched envoys to Iraq in hopes of winning the reporters' release.

"The goal is to mark French Muslim history by showing we are fully and respectfully a French community . . . and to tell the extremists they do not resolve our issues by doing this," said Mohamed Bechar, the council's vice president.

Such attitudes prompted the French newspaper Le Monde to declare a kind of triumph of French identity. "It all demonstrates that the Muslim community has seized the occasion to express, more than it ever has, its attachment to France," the paper said in an editorial.

At the Grand Mosque in downtown Paris, the sense among some worshipers was less effusive. "First, the law on head scarves is useless. Some Muslims will simply refuse to obey and separate from the French," said Ben, who described himself primarily as Muslim and secondarily French Algerian. He declined to give his last name.

Ben and Miram, another worshiper who also gave only her first name, speculated that the kidnapping was an American plot to change French opinion about the war in Iraq. "Still, I oppose kidnapping of any sort," Miriam said. "It is not Islamic."

Of note, two things. Mosque goers strike me as the most likely to express the above sentiments, second, n.b. that while the two French Muslims noted supra condemn the kidnapping, note the tendancy to externalize. It's not us, it's some outside plot.

Nasty tendancy in Arab circles, cultural habit to do that. Mind you, it's a univeral human habit as well, but my sense is that the Arab world's present cultural habits tend to reinforce rather than mitigate.

I find the issue of externalizing and denying responsibility - one which plays on many levels - to be among the societal issues that needs to be addressed badly in education in the region, for it plays negatively in the economic field in terms of being able to correct errors.

Posted by The Lounsbury at 01:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filed Under: Aug-Dec 2004