VOICES FROM THE RESISTANCE
July 12, 2005
Voices of Resistance
An Interview with Dr. Mohammad al-Obaidi of Iraq’s Peoples’ Struggle Movement
By LAITH al-SAUD
The mainstream media’s attenuation of information regarding Iraq has now rendered public discourse about US policy in Iraq incoherent and incomprehensible. In spite of rising death and tragedy in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claims “progress”. Instead of debating the criminality of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, the New York Times and Washington Post are discussing what Dick Cheney actually meant by “last throes.” And, of course, instead of finding a way to end the destructive campaign that the Bush administration inflicts on the Iraqi people, Americans are being asked for open-ended commitment to war. Completely obliterated in all this is the suppression by the tmainstream media of an entire side of the issue: the opposition. Opposition is always a check on hegemony, and the domination of the Bush administration’s point of view in the mainstream media has induced complacency on the part of American officials-to the point they do not have to make sense or speak the truth.
Clearly, opposition to the occupation of Iraq does not consist only of Iraqis, but many others . But with all due respect to the global moral support that the Iraqi people have in their resistance, we are concerned with here are what actual Iraqi intellectuals, professionals and community leaders who are connected to Iraq have to say of the situation.
What follows is an interview, (in what is hoped to be a series of interviews of individuals and groups,) with someone actually connected to Iraq and those opposed to the American occupation. I should add that while I make no secret of my moral and political support for the Iraqis’ right to defend themselves convincing the reader to adopt the same position is not the intention of the following discussion. It is simply to provide more information regarding one of the most important issues of our time.
Dr. Mohammad al-Obaidi is a member of the People’s Struggle Movement, more information on this group can be found at www.kifah.org in which links are provided to their political communiqué, available in English.
FULL at Counterpunch
Thomas Uelmen:
Excellent article.
12 July 2005, 11:40 pmThe simplicity of this statement in the interview is striking:
“It is difficult for any sensible person to believe that the US would give up its domination of Iraq after spending billions of dollars and sacrificing the lives of hundreds of its soldiers.”
One would have to be very naive indeed to believe that our government has only altruistic motives towards Iraq.
Ed:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5139025,00.html
13 July 2005, 8:41 pmmike:
@Ed
The link you have posted seems to be one way of looking at it.
Here’s another:
source:
14 July 2005, 10:00 pmhere
Ed:
An insurgent suicide bomber made a deliberate decision to kill 35 Iraqi children. No amount of spin by you can change that raw, brutal fact.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=66934&d=14&m=7&y=2005
15 July 2005, 9:57 ammike:
I found it interesting that the Guardian omitted what the locals thought about the event. The report in the pioneer press is probably heresy right?
15 July 2005, 6:34 pmHaving said that, what would the spin be on all the innocent Iraqi children killed by occupation troops Ed? I guess they were just ‘collateral damage’ yes? I guess when that happens because it isn’t ‘deliberate’ it’s somehow less important. Spin is reporting one side of the story. Spin would be making a frontpage article of dead children for biased political gain. All lives count. Isn’t that what you believe Ed? Alas, if it doesn’t serve the purpose of power, it doesn’t count at all. But hey thanks for your altruistic ‘freedom through death’ campaign. I mean, that’s a new one now isn’t it?
Charlie:
Well the sanctions killed over one million children and the war has killed over thirty thousand civillians and not amount of spin can change that. The longer we stay and fight a war that has already been lost, the more people will die.
Insanity is just doing what we have always done and expecting a different result.
15 July 2005, 11:33 pmEd:
Today an insurgent suicide bomber killed 60 people at a fuel stop in Karbala. Other suicide bombers killed 8 people inside a Mosque in al Hilla.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/085B657A-5221-498A-9CB5-EA76A93F27FF.htm
The insurgents deliberately attack and kill civilian non-combatants every day. This is no accident; it is their strategy. These are the people you support.
16 July 2005, 11:46 pmmike:
your jedi mind tricks won’t work on me Ed
17 July 2005, 12:09 pmEd:
This bombing was clearly a war crime and an act of terrorism. At least 71 civilians killed intentionally, without any pretense of a legitimate target.
Your glib dismissal of insurgent crimes greatly detracts from any legitimate critique of US behavior you may have.
17 July 2005, 10:56 pmStan:
No one is dismissing anything. The characterization of any and all actions by any and all resistance (conflated in your world as ONE evil) as “crimes,” and all occupation actions that result in (37,000 +) civilian deaths as “errors” is symptomatic of the problem here. You want to reduce this whole war to a series of separable, decontextualized events in which we try to assess individual moral responsibility. This is the misdirection of the magician that steers our eyes away from the question of the occupation itself… which is the SOURCE of these events.
You can not determine what it the basis of legitimacy for anyone’s argument, Ed. My own view is that reduction (of the resistance into one undifferentiated mass, and the war to your own spun definition of it) detracts from our analysis.
Moreover, we do not know what happened with many of these attacks, and both Centcom and the obedient media have long ago discredited themselves.
I will say this, that Centcom needs to implement a policy right now that soliders do not pass out candy to children when these soldiers know damn well they are targets. This kind of hit-and-run hearts-and-minds operation is eyewash anyway.
18 July 2005, 7:17 amCharlie:
Ed, there is a difference between support and calling it what it is. All wars are crimes. We cannot possibly differentiate every act of violence and then say this one is okay and this one is not. None of these attacks would have occured if we had used a legal foreign policy. Many of these attacks would not have occured if we had not disgraced the Iraqi people by occupation and then not letting the average civillians rebuild their own nation.
As Stan pointed out, we don’t know what is going with each of these attacks. I suspect that if we looked more deeply at who and where is being attacked we would find that these attacks are sectarian, Suni v. Shia or tribe v. tribe. In other words it is a civil war that we have done little to prevent.
18 July 2005, 9:19 amEd:
MIKE: “your jedi mind tricks won’t work on me Ed”
ED: “Your glib dismissal of insurgent crimes” (referring to Mike’s comment)
STAN: “No one is dismissing anything.”
18 July 2005, 10:08 amStan:
In fact, al Sadr today said the resistance is legitimate. the signficance of this is that Iraqis themselves are highly suspicious about who has the biggest stake in fomenting civil war, given that the result of the election - which the Bush administration wanted to “fix” according to reports out in the last couple of days - is that the “government” is now cozying up to Iran - as are Russia, India, and China in an Asian condominium that could serve to make Iran the most important power in the region… the law of unintended consequences hits the administration with the force of a tsunami.
Iraqis think the CIA is behind some of the attacks, though I don’t. The CIA has been eclipsed for some years by DoD for covert operations. Certainly the shadowy militias of the former Badr Brigades, the peshmerga, and others are busy busy busy behind the scenes with their new buddies from P2OG.
Islamists do not incline to blow up mosques, for example.
The Americans have the biggest stake in a civil war, but even that is a Phyrric victory. The US will lose this war, and it richly deserves to, even though, as always, the price is not paid by the most deserving - that nest of rattlesnakes in DC.
That’s why even some of the most unabashed imperialists in the country, like Deutch and Bzrezenski, are saying that this is a disaster we should extricate ourselves from as soon as possible. Deutch says NOW.
At least we know that all this talk of “democracy” was a sham, unless Ed or someone can explain why this same government attempted a coup against a democratically elected government inVenezuela and succeeded in a coup against the democratic government of Haiti.
Ed will say I cannot besmirch our government this way without proof, but I did dirty work for this government for a long time, and the scoundrels I worked for, including that simple-minded felon, Reagan, are small potatoes compared to this outfit for plain rich-boy bully meanness and grandiose self-delusion.
The danger they represent makes the danger of a few suicide bombers pale to insignficance.
18 July 2005, 10:21 amEd:
Aristotle defined analysis as “illumination through disaggregation.” In other words, figure things out by breaking them down; dissect and examine the available facts in detail. You must do this before you turn around and reassemble those facts into conclusions. You must also be mindful of your own biases and negate them as much as you can.
You want to skip directly to resynthesis, combining multiple assertions into one broad conclusion that supports your preconceptions. But you never individually test your arguments, so your final conclusion has no foundation. Where you do examine details, it’s only to confirm what you already think. It’s like making a house out of noodles. It may look sound, but the components have no strength and the result doesn’t stand up.
Arguing with you and your readers on broad conclusions is pointless. Like most inhabitants of both the far left and far right, you are wedded to your positions come hell or high water. However, I will continue to challenge the factual basis of your underlying assertions.
STAN: “the obedient media have long ago discredited themselves”
ED: As far as I’m concerned, the media as a whole has far more credibility on Iraq than you do. They are out there in a good faith effort to find the facts, with reporters putting their asses on the line on the ground to get the truth. The reporting of individual outlets may be suspect, but there are enough different media organizations of various orientations to prevent any point of view from monopolizing the narrative. For instance, the link I posted above was from Al Jazeera, hardly a cheerleader for the USA. The professional media have far more credibility as a primary source than bloggers sitting on the sidelines and booing.
18 July 2005, 12:30 pmEd:
Stan, your use of the imaginary “P2OG” is symptomatic of the weakness of your analytical method. Whenever you lack a strong linkage between two established nodes in your conspiracy theory, you draw a dotted line with the P2OG or some other supposed behind-the-scenes actor. At this point you are one step removed from the elaborate theories of the past involving Freemasons, the Queen of England, and Area 51. And the Mossad, of course.
18 July 2005, 12:49 pmmike:
Honestly Ed I don’t know why anyone wastes their time (and I’ll waste some more here) responding to you. It’s fairly transparent; you’re either doing this merely to be an instigator or you don’t care to think things through. My critique is completely legitimate and furthermore its veracity is confirmed by your own ’standards’ of what constitutes an abhorrent act. However, it’s all just apples and oranges to you for you view everything the occupation does as legitimate and all deaths caused by said occupation as either ‘enemies’ or ‘accidents.’ I would like to see you explain that type of legitimacy to the parents of a murdered child. Why should one act of murder be excused and not another?
So, instead of addressing any of the positions I stated you respond with an all encompassing, pulled out of your ass ad hominem (These are the people you support).
So if you don’t mind the pot calling the kettle black, boxing yourself in with your own logic and not even being decent enough to admit it is bad form and it shows you to be somewhat limited in your thinking or as I said, you just want to stir shit up. Hell, that would make everything you say glib.
18 July 2005, 4:43 pmConsumer:
A story from CNN International on a report released by Iraq Body Count. You know those body counts, right Ed? The ones our military doesn’t do…?
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/07/19/iraq.bodycount/index.html
The US and its allies “…try to avoid civilian casualties, whereas the terrorists target civilians and try to kill as many of them as they can.”
Right. The punitive strikes against, say, Falluja triggered by the murder of US mercenaries is well documented. Keeping military-aged males from fleeing, shooting ambulances and unarmed civilians, targeting hospitals, and using heavy artillery in a dense urban environment does not constitute even mild attempts at trying “to avoid civilian casualties”.
It’s institutionalized, it’s systemic, it’s racist, and it’s way in your face. I would offer that your justifications of US crimes greatly detracts from any legitimate critique of insurgent behavior you may have.
19 July 2005, 2:57 pmEd:
No Mike, I don’t do this just to stir things up. I do it to correct the factual basis of these articles and discussions. So much of the “evidence” cited on this blog is either outright fabrication or misinterpretation of events.
For instance, in Stan’s post: there was no coup in Venezuela, there is no P2OG, Sunni Islamists blow up Shiite mosques in Iraq on a regular basis, and in the same statement Sadr said that he did not endorse violent action against US or Iraqi government forces.
And in Charlies post: there was no “punitive action” in Fallujah, only a military imperative to clear out insurgents who had made that town a base area to export suicide bombings. The US forces went to great efforts to get non-combatants out of the town before the assault began, unlike the insurgents who deliberately hid behind the population.
However, I do enjoy watching people like you melt down when someone dares question the prevailing point of view. Thanks for the show.
I don’t respond to rhetoric. There’s just too much of it, on the internet in general and on this blog in particular. If you want to make some factual assertions, I’ll be glad to address them. See the discussion on press killings for an example.
The only thing substantive you raised is the distinction between an accidentally murdered and an intentionally murdered child. Obviously you don’t understand the term murder. Murder requires intent. Accidental killings are not murder. That is why every legal system in this country and most others makes a distinction between manslaughter and murder, with the penalties much higher for murder. If you cannot understand that and how it applies to military operations, you are not thinking very hard. But that’s what you get when you only read stuff you agree with.
Ed
20 July 2005, 5:26 pmmike:
Ed-
I capitulate to your infinite wisdom. Any man who can make a semantical argument of murder is far better versed in rhetoric than I. Godspeed to your memes.
20 July 2005, 10:50 pmConsumer:
Ed, here are the “factual assertions” you requested.
Fact: Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that’s why we had to go in and take him out.
Fact: The US is desperately trying to create a democracy, that’s why we have to stay there and not get out.
Fact: There is absolutely no systemic abuse and torture and all the guys locked up are bad guys, that’s why we can’t let them out.
Fact: Oil and privatization had absolutely nothing to do… oh wait, these aren’t factual assertions anymore, are they? The only thing that’s factual about them is the fact that they’ve all been proven to be complete bullshit.
So you’ll forgive me when the same group of fact asserters (i.e., Iraqi Ministry of the Interior a.k.a. CIA et al.) doesn’t sound too convincing in denying the claims such as “US-led forces were sole killers of 37 percent of civilian victims.”
Love the distinction you make between murder and accidental murder too, btw. “Gosh, I’m sorry, I didn’t think the 500-lb bomb dropped in a crowded city would kill any non-combatants after we prevented them from fleeing. It was an accident.”
The only thing that’s obviously melting down on this site is your attachment to some nostalgic, outdated (not to mention completely contrived) image of the USA and its intentions.
Now THAT’s a fact.
21 July 2005, 12:48 pmOmar:
Okay, I’ll bite…
Ed-
For instance, in Stan’s post: there was no coup in Venezuela…
I don’t get it, what was this then?:
Venezuelan coup attempt of 2002
Venezuela coup attempt ‘foiled’
?
21 July 2005, 2:47 pmEd:
My statement was in response to Stan’s argument “…this same government attempted a coup against a democratically elected government in Venezuela …” I should have been more precise: there was no coup by the US in Venezuela.
As usual, this thread is devolving into a pissing contest. For a bunch of presumably liberal-minded people, some of you are remarkably intolerant of dissent to your world view.
But in the spirit of getting back on the analysis track, here’s a question for the crowd: how does the conflict end if the US withdraws? Nowhere on this blog have I seen a coherent case made for what happens if the US occupation ends now, as most of you advocate. How does a government arise? Who stops Al Qaeda from bombing Shia targets to instigate a civil war? How do the people who are fighting each other reconcile? I challenge anyone to make a case for how it ends better than the current process. Lay out the chain of events and actors that takes Iraq to peace and stability.
21 July 2005, 5:36 pmTom in Sydney:
Omar, I don’t think Ed meant that there was no coup in Venezuela (he may correct me if I’m wrong on this). I think he meant that the US didn’t carry out a coup there.
If this was his point, I agree. The US didn’t carry out the coup. It did, however, facilitate it by the provision of material and diplomatic support and political interference.
Hey, just like Yugoslavia.
22 July 2005, 8:45 amTom in Sydney:
Ed,
You really are so blinkered in your views that you can’t see what is clearly obvious to the vast majority of the world. The US created the current crisis by invading. The US cannot make the situation better. What it’s doing at present is creating a new Saddam-like regime, slightly more legitimate in some peoples eyes because there’s at least a veneer of democracy, but equally as thuggish. Is that going to create a better, stabler Iraq? Yeah, right. What a joke.
How ending the occupation will help is that it will take one of the beligerents out of the equation. It will take out the belligerent that is fighting only for material gain (despite the reasons you believe you’re fighting for), and leave those that are fighting for their homes. Al-Queda will lose what support it has amongst the Iraqi population once the reason for that support, the occupation and the associated violence, thuggery, and wholesale rape and pillage on both a micro and corporate level, are ended.
As a first step towards resolving the inter-ethnic/religious conflicts, the countries responsible for the destruction of Iraq should be made to pay reparations, just like the Germans were after WW1 & WW2, and just like the Iraqi’s were after GW1.
It’s not likely to be a bloodless period, or even less bloody than the current state of affairs. But it has to happen at some stage and it can’t start until the occupation ends.
But why the apparent historical ignorance? You seem to think that the creation of a frankly illegitimate government, and the subsequent creation of an illegitimate constitution (apparently to be based on islamic law, but that’s not why it’s illegitimate) will mean that the old social and cultural structures and relationships will cede their interests to that central authority. Maybe when the US finally bugs out all those military bases can be converted into prisons, and filled with recalcitrant ‘Saddamists’.
Sheez, are you living in cloud cuckoo land.
23 July 2005, 6:35 amComandante Gringo:
Excuse my ignorance:
24 July 2005, 6:30 amDoes anybody point out regularly here to the cognitive-impaired that we have at least 2 groups at work here: the actual iraqi Resistance — and whoever is being paid/maniplulate to foment civil war (to ‘guess who’’s benefit)..?
Consumer:
Ed asks, how does the conflict end if the US withdraws? Tom’s take on the matter looks about right to me, especially the very important point that the US started the whole mess to begin with. His chain of events makes sense too, although we should all keep in mind that we still have trouble predicting this week’s weather with accuracy, much less the outcomes of complex conflicts.
Nonetheless, I think we could help shape the outcomes considerably if the following steps were taken:
1) US withdraws instantly and completely from Iraq.
That includes dismantling the dozen some odd bases currently being built and yanking all mercenaries and Halliburton cronies. Effectively, the US presence in the region is limited to its embassies, where if any CIA activity is going on at all, it is strictly limited to information gathering ONLY.
2) US pays reparations for all damages incurred.
This is, of course, pre-empted by repeated apologies to the Iraqi people and the world community.
3) Al-qaeda switches to new theater.
Operations in Iraq are scaled down considerably as the organization restructures itself and watches the surprising recent events with interest and caution.
4) Popular leaders form a government.
People like Sistani and Moktada call for an immediate end to inter-ethnic strife, and reestablish their peacekeeping/police force militias. The leaders rethink their relationship with the Iranians and, having been traumatized by the recent attack, decide to work to forge closer ties.
5) US announces rethinking of pro-Israeli policies.
Although the basic premise of supporting the Israeli government is not changed, all aid and military sales to the Israelis hinge on the degree to which inhumane practices are curbed. For example, the US joins the world community in demanding that the wall be torn down and reparations be paid to those whose houses were demolished, etc.
All of this is, of course, highly unlikely seeing as it requires drastic changes in longstanding US policies. But if some miracle were to occur and we were to do the right thing, I think the argument could be made that popular leaders would expand their influence and bring order to the country.
Give peace a chance.
24 July 2005, 6:49 amm.c.:
Today’s Doonesbury is great: Mike’s Summer Daydream.
24 July 2005, 5:46 pmEd:
LOL, Tom. How did you know I was thinking of you when I wrote “some of you are remarkably intolerant of dissent to your world view”? You were so busy being sarcastic that you didn’t bother to answer the question. Basically, you have no idea how to fix things, you just want the US out, and somehow it will all magically end after that.
Consumer, on the other hand, wrote an excellent, detailed, specific proposal. It contains specific assumptions and tenets that can be considered and weighed against the evidence. It is largely free of the gratuitous rhetoric that too often plagues one-sided forums like this one.
I would question the validity of assumption #3, though. What aspect of Al Qaeda’s past behavior leads you to assume they will suddenly have an attack of reasonableness?
You are overlooking the deep strain of anti-Shia thought that underlies their ideology. The roots of Al Qaeda idology lie in Wahabbi theology, which holds that Shiites are apostates, worse than infidels. Bin Ladin himself has said so, and has released statements saying that he will never tolerate a Shia-dominated government in Iraq. Since the Iraqi population is 60% Shia, that would put Al Qaeda in violent opposition to ANY remotely representative government in Iraq.
To assume that Al Qaeda will stop attacks if we leave would require you to completely ignore the hundreds of AQ and AMZ attacks against Shia civilian targets over the past 2 years. The aim of those attacks is clearly to provoke a Shia backlash leading to a civil war.
#4 is already happening, by and large. Sistiani is by far the most influential Shia leader, and he has been steadfast in supporting a process to hold elections, write a constitution, and form a legitimate government. He has also continually called for restraint against those in the Shia community who want to retaliate against Sunnis for supporting AMZ’s attacks.
Sadr is a petty potentate who will cooperate as long as his interests are protected. Since we dropped the murder charges against him for killing al-Kohei, he has been relatively quiet and there has been little or no fighting between coalition forces and the Mahdi Army militia.
Terrorists are not blowing up Shiite civilians just because the US is there. Any proposed solution which fairy dusts over this aspect of the conflict has no chance of success.
25 July 2005, 3:19 pmConsumer:
Ed questions assumption #3, please note the above implied that AQ operations might be “scaled down considerably” as part of a restructuring of resources in light of US withdrawal. No mention of sudden reasonableness.
Although, my ignorance on Wahabbi theology notwithstanding, I think it is reasonable to assume that if the US pulled out, AQ would consider that a victory against the US (rightly so) and then focus their energies on the next target(s), e.g., Saudia Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, US mainland, Poland, Japan, whoever. Were #5 re: Israeli policy to also be implemented, AQ might shift focus from US to US-supported puppet thugs (e.g., Musharraf). Again, these points are totally moot seeing as without significant domestic pressure, US policy will never change. (Which is what’s inspiring about Mr. Goff’s work, it provides alternatives to the GI Joe/Cobra Commander take spun by Fox “News”, NYT, ad nauseum…)
All of this is getting away from the original point, that being that the US govt has no business causing the suffering it does while stroking itself to reckless corporate-empire fantasies. The first step is to get our troops out right now, so we can go about the business of dragging Bush et al. in front of a war crimes tribunal.
Re: #4, on a microcosm scale it might already be happening but any meaningful local moves towards sovreignty require removal of all occupying troops. (See #1 above)
25 July 2005, 7:40 pmTom in Sydney:
Ed,
Let me answer you another way, seeing as you can’t comprehend anything which is wrapped in ol’ glory.
The US has no right to, nor can it, decide Iraqi history. What’s happening in Iraq now isn’t Iraqi history, it’s US history. Until the US gets the flock out of Iraq, Iraq will not be able to progress towards resolving it’s internal conflicts.
On Sistani supporting a process of holding elections, this is a misleading statement. The elections were ONLY held because of Sistani. Without his pushing for them there would not have been any election. What’s more, you omit the most important point which was that his coalition of parties and all other players in the election, stood on a platform of ending the occupation. Even the US puppet Iyad Alawi had to call for it to get anybody to vote for him.
The specifics of what will happen after the occupation is ended is none of your business. Stop imposing your will on the rest of the world, you jackbooted totalitarian.
How ironic that you would accuse me of being intolerant of dissent to my world view. You’re the one goose-stepping around the middle-east, imposing your ‘world view’ on a country that wants nothing to do with it.
25 July 2005, 10:34 pmEd:
TOM: “The elections were ONLY held because of Sistani. Without his pushing for them there would not have been any election.”
ED: That is a false statement. The US always supported elections. The disagreement with Sistani was over the timing and form of the elections. The US wanted the elections in 2005, while Sistani wanted them in 2004. Sistani also wanted a direct election to choose a nationwide transitional parliament, where the US wanted regional caucuses to choose factional representation proportional to their population share, followed by direct elections a year later.
In the end, the UN mediated and both sides compromised. Sistani accepted a delay until security could be established, and we accepted his preferred form of representation. In essence, the US worked with Iraqi leaders and the UN to devise a plan that had the best chance of success. Our initial negotiating position is irrelevant; all that matters is the solution which we implemented and the results it achieved, results I personally witnessed at a polling station.
You can toss all the insults you want. It just highlights your inability to argue using facts and analysis.
26 July 2005, 11:58 amConsumer:
Ed, it’s possible that the US always wanted fair elections and that they weren’t trying to manipulate the outcome. Highly unlikely, I believe, but possible, I’ll give you that. It’s also possible that what you witnessed at that polling station was the fruits of Sistani’s successful non-violent pressure on a very unwilling US. I was reading articles from all different sites and papers across the spectrum and it seemed clear to me that the US did not want truly democratic elections to happen. Unlikely, you say? Maybe. But it is possible, right? I mean, we don’t know all the facts, not by a long shot.
It seems you’re taking each event and looking at it piecemeal instead of considering the big picture. Take, for example, your polling station. I can understand that you actually being there and seeing people line up to vote must have been quite an experience. Especially since all rumors indicated that the insurgents were going to make it hell for anyone trying to participate. I don’t know under what capacity you were there but I assume that you’re affiliated with the US military and that you were there guarding the polling station, in which case I admire your service and bravery and I’m very glad you survived the process.
I will not question your sincerity in being at that polling station and trying to make it work. But your sincerity at the microcosm level doesn’t necessarily reflect the sincerity of the US at a macrocosm level. That’s the sticking point, and I think that’s what draws your indignation. Criticizing, say, the US role in the election process does not equal criticizing YOUR role in the election process. Please understand this, as it is key to meaningful discussion.
The short of the long is, people are sick of the US fncking with other people’s countries in the name of “democracy”. They’ve been doing it for years and years all across the globe, and now they’re doing it in Iraq.
Basically what draws the indignation of people like me is that that drooling @sshole in the White House is sending sincere people into harm’s way for insincere reasons. This war had nothing to do with WMD. It had nothing to do with Hussein being a threat and had nothing to do with 9/11. Similarly, it has nothing to do with democracy, and the US needs to pull out immediately and unconditionally.
That’s the big picture.
27 July 2005, 7:09 amTom in Sydney:
Ed,
1/ Insults. What insults? If you were insulted by something I wrote, perhaps you’re feeling guilty about some of your actions, or the actions that you continually ignore or provide apologia for.
2/ Facts and analysis. Don’t make me laugh. I gave you plenty of facts and analysis on another thread and you ignored them, utterly and completely, because to have addressed them would have meant you would have had to confront the total contradiction between your moral certitude and the slaughterfest that you bear responsibility for, even if it is only indirectly.
3/ Sistani. Nice piece of spin there. Debate an insignificant point and IGNORE the important one, which was that ALL of the parties in the election want you out of Iraq.
But then the bit I found really revealing. It doesn’t matter what the US wanted to do, only what they did!!! Welcome to Ed’s world of delusional self-rationalisation. With that one crackpot statement, which I utterly reject but you seem to believe, you’ve indicted the US for any number of genocides. It doesn’t matter what the intent was, it’s what they ended up doing that’s important. The fact that millions of people were killed as a result of US actions is the important point. And if claims of 8,000 killed in Srebrenica justify accusations of genocide, where do millions killed put you.
So then Ed, which is it? Are you a holocaust denier or apologist?
27 July 2005, 9:21 amStan:
Iran-Contra redux: Bush White House ran “off-the-books†covert operation for
Iraq elections
By Patrick Martin
26 July 2005
An article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh last week in the New
Yorker magazine reveals that the Bush White House authorized a highly
classified covert program to funnel financial and material aid to its
favored slate in the January 30 Iraqi elections, an operation that may have
included ballot-stuffing and other means of directly manipulating vote
totals.
Hersh’s exposé underscores both the bogus character of the “democracy†which
the American government has established in Iraq and the severely eroded
character of democratic forms of rule in the United States itself, where the
Bush administration feels free to override legal restrictions, congressional
oversight and even objections from within the military-intelligence
apparatus itself.
According to the New Yorker account, the White House decision to intervene
covertly in the election was driven by concerns that the Shi’ite religious
parties would so thoroughly dominate the vote—because Shi’ites comprise a
majority of the Iraqi population, and the minority Sunnis were
boycotting—that Washington would have no choice but to acquiesce in the
installation of a regime in Baghdad heavily influenced by Iran. The Shi’ite
religious parties have extensive ties to Iran, which is predominantly
Shi’ite, and many of the leaders of these parties, including the new prime
minister, Ibrahim Jafaari, went into exile in Iran during the dictatorship
of Saddam Hussein.
The decision on covert aid came after an extensive internal debate within
the Bush administration, in which the State Department was deeply divided
over whether to provide direct financial and material aid to then-prime
minister Iyad Allawi. Thomas Warrick, an official at the Bureau of Near
Eastern Affairs, proposed to use $40 million in funds appropriated by
Congress to support the electoral process and divert it into the coffers of
Allawi’s party, the principal secular opposition to the Shi’ite religious
front.
The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, however,
opposed the plan, as did three front organizations long financed and
directed by the CIA to conduct political operations overseas: the National
Democratic Institute (associated with the Democratic Party), the
International Republican Institute (associated with the Republican Party),
and the National Endowment for Democracy.
According to Hersh, the three quasi-governmental groups and their State
Department allies believed that crude manipulation of the election would be
both ineffective, because the Shi’ite parties were sure to win anyway, and
dangerous, since it would almost certainly be exposed and discredit the
official US propaganda about bringing democracy to Iraq.
Warrick’s plan for support to Allawi was abruptly dropped in the early fall
of 2004, Hersh claims, but was replaced by a covert program that was kept
secret, not only from the Iraqi and American people, but from the State
Department as well.
Hersh writes: “former military and intelligence officials told me, the White
House promulgated a highly classified Presidential ‘finding’ authorizing the
CIA to provide money and other support covertly to political candidates in
certain countries who, in the Administration’s view, were seeking to spread
democracy. ‘The finding was general,’ a recently retired high-level CIA
official told me. ‘But there’s no doubt that Baghdad was a stop on the way.
The process is under the control of the CIA and the Defense Department.’â€
Hersh continues: “A former senior intelligence official told me, ‘The
election clock was running down, and people were panicking. The polls showed
that the Shi’ites were going to run off with the store. The Administration
had to do something. How?’â€
First there was extensive material support for the Allawi slate. Hersh
quotes Les Campbell, regional director of the National Democratic Institute
for the Middle East and North Africa, describing this support: “It became
clear that Allawi and his coalition had huge resources, although nothing was
flowing through normal channels. He had very professional and very
sophisticated media help and saturation television coverage.â€
Then came Election Day, universally hailed in the media as a triumph of
democracy. Citing “current and former military and intelligence officials
who spoke to me about the election operation,†Hersh writes that his sources
“said they heard reports of voter intimidation, ballot stuffing, bribery,
and the falsification of returns, but the circumstances, and the extent of
direct American involvement, could not be confirmed.â€
Polls conducted in the fall of 2004 showed the Allawi slate at only three
percent, but with US financial support and media coverage, he stood at nine
percent on the eve of the vote. The US-backed slate jumped to 14 percent in
final returns, just enough to deny the Shi’ite coalition a clear majority
and thus diminish its control of the assembly.
Hersh notes at least one eye-opening discrepancy in the returns: in the
eight provinces where Allawi’s party ran provincial as well as national
candidates, his list received only 177,678 provincial votes, compared to
452,629 national votes, even though voters cast ballots for both races at
the same time. With considerable understatement, Hersh writes: “Most
election experts I spoke to found the deviation surprising and difficult to
explain.â€
Under federal laws enacted after the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s,
presidential findings authorizing covert operations must be submitted to the
House and Senate intelligence committees, or at least to the Republican and
Democratic leaders of those committees, as well as the Republican and
Democratic leaders of the House and Senate. House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi, a Democrat, reportedly objected to the covert operation, and her
opposition stalled its implementation for several months.
However, according to Hersh, “Sometime after last November’s Presidential
election, I was told by past and present intelligence and military
officials, the Bush Administration decided to override Pelosi’s objections
and covertly intervene in the Iraqi election. A former national-security
official told me that he had learned of the effort from ‘people who worked
the beat’—those involved in the operation. It was necessary, he added,
‘because they couldn’t afford to have a disaster.’â€
The operation was run “off the books,†Hersh adds. It was “conducted by
retired CIA officers and other non-governmental personnel, and used funds
that were not necessarily appropriated by Congress. Some in the White House
and at the Pentagon believed that keeping an operation off the books
eliminated the need to give a formal briefing to the relevant members of
Congress and congressional intelligence committees, whose jurisdiction is
limited, in their view, to officially sanctioned CIA operations.â€
Hersh comments: “In my reporting for this story, one theme that emerged was
the Bush Administration’s increasing tendency to turn to off-the-books
covert actions to accomplish its goals. This allowed the Administration to
avoid the kind of stumbling blocks it encountered in the debate about how to
handle the elections: bureaucratic infighting, congressional
second-guessing, complaints from outsiders.â€
The US manipulation of the Iraqi election has many parallels to the
circumstances leading up to the Iran-Contra affair. In the early 1980s,
congressional Democrats enacted a series of legal restrictions on US covert
operations against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua (the two Boland
amendments, named after their House sponsor, Congressman Edward Boland).
In order to evade congressional oversight, the Reagan White House and
then-CIA Director William Casey organized what they described as an “off the
shelf†program of supplying arms to the contras, using retired CIA and
military personnel and Cuban fascists—including the convicted terrorist
bomber Luis Posada Carriles—and directed by Lt. Col. Oliver North of the
National Security Council. Financing came from sympathetic foreign
governments—US client states such as Saudi Arabia, the sultanate of Brunei
and Taiwan.
When word of this operation finally reached Congress, and Oliver North was
asked to testify about his relations with the Nicaraguan “Contras,†as the
right-wing guerrilla terrorists were called, he lied under oath, declaring
he was involved only in obtaining “humanitarian aid†for the Contras and
that the White House was scrupulously observing the strictures of the Boland
Amendment.
This perjury was only exposed after two events overseas: the crash of a
CIA-chartered airplane flying arms to the Contras from a US base in El
Salvador, with the capture of an American crewman, Eugene Hasenfus; and the
report in a Lebanese newspaper about secret US arms shipments to Iran in
exchange for the release of US hostages seized in Lebanon by Shi’ite
militants allied with the Iranian regime.
A damage control operation mounted by Reagan’s attorney general, Edwin
Meese, focused on a relatively minor aspect of the Iran and Contra
operations—North’s decision, backed by National Security Adviser Admiral
John Poindexter, to use profits from the sale of weapons to Iran to pay for
weapons shipped to the Contras in Nicaragua.
This “diversion†of funds was played up by the Reagan administration, the
media and the congressional Democrats as the major offense committed by
North and Poindexter, although it actually represented only an incidental
connection between two covert operations—the Contra arms shipments and the
arms-for-hostages swaps with Iran—each of which involved massive violations
of US and international law.
The Iran-Contra affair also brought to light evidence of secret preparations
by the Reagan administration to impose martial law in the United States in
the event of a decision to carry out an open US military intervention in
Nicaragua or El Salvador, then the principal areas of concern to Washington.
Oliver North had participated in the drafting of plans for an exercise,
Operation Rex ’84, to test the readiness of the Pentagon to round up
hundreds of thousands of Central American immigrants, as well as others
expected to oppose a US war in that region, and incarcerate them in
mothballed US military bases.
The current Bush administration carries forward the tendencies revealed in
the Iran-Contra affair—reckless military adventurism and conspiracies
against democratic rights—in a much more advanced form. It also incorporates
among its leading personnel many of those who played important roles in
Iran-Contra.
Elliott Abrams, convicted of perjury before Congress in the Iran-Contra
affair while serving in the State Department, is now a deputy director at
the National Security Council—the position held by Oliver North. Admiral
John Poindexter, the former national security adviser, served for two years
in the Pentagon running a special program to accumulate data on the American
people. Otto Reich, who ran a State Department disinformation program as
part of Iran-Contra, was Bush’s top Latin American adviser.
The latest Iran-Contra recruit to surface is Robert Earl, an Army lieutenant
27 July 2005, 12:33 pmcolonel who admitting stealing and shredding secret documents while working
for Oliver North at the National Security Council during Iran-Contra. He was
appointed earlier this month as chief of staff to Gordon England, Bush’s
nominee as deputy secretary of defense, who is to replace Paul Wolfowitz, a
principal architect of the Iraq war. After the Iran-Contra conspiracy was
exposed, Earl was granted immunity from prosecution in return for his
testimony against North and other superiors.
Consumer:
Having read Mr. Goff’s post, what’s your response Ed? In light of its content, do you think it’s possible that the US had and acted upon a hidden agenda with regard to the Iraqi election?
28 July 2005, 3:08 pmEd:
Tom - As I’ve said before, I’m not going to get in a pissing match on the internet. You want to personalize things, go right ahead and argue with yourself. I’ll respond when you have something substantive to say.
Consumer - Thanks, but I’m just a has-been deskbound staff officer, and it’s not about me. I only mention it as an illustration that the nationwide media reports largely corresponded with what I saw at one spot. By the way, that polling station was in a Sunni section of western Mosul, so it’s doubtful that Sistiani had any sway with the voters there.
You make a good point about microcosm vs. big picture. It would be significant if the evidence suggested that the polling station in Mosul was an isolated occurence. But in fact the same thing happened all over the country. 8 million voters came to the polls, risking their lives to take part in an election that US, coalition, and Iraqi soldiers risked their lives to make happen. In this case the microcosm was an accurate reflection of the big picture.
I don’t know what President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld think about late at night, so I have no idea what they want. The only evidence I have of what the US wants is what we do as a country and a government. In this case, I can tell you that the single most important mission for every soldier and every government employee in Iraq from November ‘04 until January ‘05 was making that election happen and protecting it. Based on that, I’d say it’s patently obvious that we wanted the election to happen.
I’ll address Stan’s article later tonight, after I’ve gotten back my copy of the New Yorker and reread the original Hersh article.
28 July 2005, 4:07 pmTom in Sydney:
No Ed, you won’t reply when I’ve got something substantive to say. You’ve consistently ignored every substantive issue I’ve raised. The one issue you responded on was Srebrenica in which case you called me a Holocaust denier. I responded to that. You can’t respond for the reasons I’ve previously stated.
If you had the slightest shred of integrity, you’d confront this basic contradiction in your beliefs. That you dob’t is a major indictment of your credibility.
28 July 2005, 7:25 pmEd:
1) Here’s the actual article by Hersh in the New Yorker. Read the original article, not someone else’s selective synopsis.
2) Hersh has had some good finds, but he’s put up some real bogus stuff too, like his totally incorrect account of the raid on Mullah Omar’s compound. He has gotten really lazy in his reliance on “unnamed former intelligence officers”. He’s also highly biased to the left. So an article by Hersh is not at all conclusive proof of anything.
3) To the extent the Hersh article is correct, my response is “so what?” When you boil down his allegations, basically he says the US gives money to support democratic politicians in the middle east, including Alawi. Big deal. The Iranians have dumped untold millions into Iraq to support Dawa, SCIRI, and the Badr Corps. We’d be fools not to level the playing field a bit.
I don’t really view this as manipulation, and I certainly don’t view it as fraud or “rigging”. It may not be the brightest move, but it in no way negates the outcome of the election, the legitimacy of the resulting government, or our own part in making that election happen. Some of you are transparent in your desperate attempts to discredit the election, because it is such a powerful rebuttal of all your arguments against US intentions. Calling a government elected by 8 million of 14 million eligible voters a “puppet government” is absurd.
4) A comment on one item: don’t get the impression I’m opposed to the US leaving Iraq. I agree with everyone else that we should leave, and soon. But just packing up and leaving now is foolish and stupid, which is why only the far fringe left even considers it.
We can’t leave until there is a legitimate government in place to accomplish our goal of implanting democracy in the heart of the middle east. There is a process to do just that. Write a constitution by August, ratify it in October, national elections in January. Once that’s done, and the resulting government can take over the fight against Al Qaeda and the remaining insurgents, we can start leaving. But not before.
5) Two groups realized they screwed up during the last election. The Sunnis realized their boycott was a huge mistake, and they won’t repeat it. We’ll see much greater participation in the upcoming constitutional ratification and national election. The insurgents also realized they screwed up by not disrupting the election more. They are making plans now to pull out all the stops, because they know that another successful election will probably spell the end of their chances. So we’ll see.
28 July 2005, 7:40 pmConsumer:
Everyone has their own interpretation of the election. My own interpretation is that the US didn’t want the Shiites to win and took several steps to ensure that. Ed says, so what? and indicates that it doesn’t negate the outcome of the election. Well, I would venture that the US covertly supporting Allawi, an ex-CIA operative who apparently has the dubious distinction of being behind the first car bombs set off in Iraq, isn’t exactly conducive to the spirit of “democracy”, which is, by one definition, “government by the people, esp: rule of the majority”. As Pelosi noted, did we send our troops to die for democracy only to provide the Iraqis with a rigged election?
Further, the fact that many people consider the elections largely valid does not necessarily reflect well on the US. In fact, we know that the US was interested in seeing an Allawi government take place. That’s not the same as being interested in a democracy.
Re: Leaving Iraq, I understand the US has built and is in the process of building 14 “enduring bases”.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/040323-enduring-bases.htm
I think it’s pretty obvious that the US isn’t going anywhere. They are way too interested in being “forward deployed” in Iraq. Sure, the bulk will get out someday but there’ll always be plenty of clout around. It’s depressing and telling that the mainstream press won’t touch this story with a 10-foot cattle prod.
28 July 2005, 10:33 pmmike:
Ed, I’m a little short on democracy. Seeing as you’re such an alturistic and compassionate type I was wondering if you could spare a few billion. It’s for a good cause I promise. Besides, God told me to ask you for it.
29 July 2005, 12:45 ampeggy:
Ed and everyone - I’ve been following this debate without jumping in so far, because I think it is pretty much pointless. Ed has his point of view, which is at odds with the points of view of everyone else who posts to this site, and that polarity between Ed and everyone else here is not going to change. So I’ve felt like saying, “Drop it already.” We all have better things to do than argue back and forth here forever.
But the second paragraph of Ed’s item 3 above prompts me to comment. Here we have an acknowledgement that in an electoral democracy, it is common practice for the rich and powerful, at home or abroad, to do all they can to sway an election in the way they want it to go. So Iran or the US or whoever “contributes” to the coffers of a certain candidate for the purpose of getting the election to go the way they want it to go. And if they do not succeed, if in Iraq the US does not succeed in making the elections go the way the US wants them to go, it looks like we will have continued war on our hands.
To the extent that we accept this practice as part of the (so-called) democratic system, I think we’ve kind of lost the plot. This is not rule by the people. It is something else.
The idea that the US remains in Iraq for the purpose of enabling democratic elections, in which a government will be elected that will “fight … the remaining insurgents” is somewhat oxymoronic. Because … what if the majority of people **support** the insurgency? It may not be to our liking, and the insurgents may well be awful people - who am I to say? - but if it is the majority opinion, well that is democracy in a nutshell, eh?
Who was it - Churchill or somebody? - who said something like, Democracy is a horrible form of government, but it is better than the alternatives. I wonder if the second half of this sentence is really true, in all circumstances, for any and all forms of democracy. That word has become just another catch-word, like freedom, that nobody questions or examines anymore. So in the name of democracy, as in the name of freedom, or God, or mother-and-apple-pie, one can get away with just about anything.
29 July 2005, 3:43 pmConsumer:
Peggy, re: this debate being pointless, it is anything but. This forum allows all types of people worried about these events to discuss their views and concerns and to exchange information. I have little to no hope of convincing Ed that US capitalism and militarism are the problem, not the solution. And it is similarly unlikely that Ed will convince me that he’s right about US “democracy” (noticed you jumped in there, btw). But we are all concerned regardless of our views and if anything, we need to all be communicating. So not only is it not pointless, it is, in fact, THE point.
On a different note, did everyone catch Al-Zawahiri’s recent message? Here’s an excerpt:
“Didn’t Osama bin Laden tell you that you would never dream of peace until we actually live it in Palestine and before all the infidel armies withdraw from the land of Mohammed?”
Which, however you feel about the content, was a lot more eloquent than our peerless leader, the Simian-in-Chief, who retorted with this gem:
“Zawahiri doesn’t want them to live in a free society, and that’s the clash of ideologies: freedom versus tyranny. We’ve had these kinds of clashes before, and we have prevailed. We have prevailed because we’re right, we have prevailed because we adhere to a hopeful philosophy and we have prevailed because we would not falter.”
Whew! Glad he prevailed in getting that out without Rove and a hidden earpiece.
Both camps are “staying the course” in repeating their oft-repeated messages. But fer chrissakes, at least the AQ crazies don’t sound like complete chimps everytime they open their mouths.
5 August 2005, 6:09 am