The Expanding (and Failing) War or Terror

As the twilight of the failed Bu$h presidency comes to a close, the war of terror that is his legacy is spinning out of control. We can see cross-border raids, counter to international law in Syria (and analysis);

The Bush administration seems to be ratcheting up action against Syria during its last days in power. The cross border raid undertaken on Sunday, which killed eight people, seems to fit into a broader pattern of the Bush administration initiating cross boarder attacks into countries that it is not officially at war with.

In Pakistan, in an attempt to prop-up the failing war in Afghanistan;

[In] Afghanistan another 33,000 embattled American troops (and tens of thousands of NATO troops), suffering their highest casualties since the Taliban fell in 2001, are fighting a spreading insurgency backed by growing anger over foreign occupation. The disintegration seems to be proceeding apace in that country as the Taliban begins to throttle the supply routes leading into the Afghan capital of Kabul, while the governor of a province just died in an IED blast. "President" Hamid Karzai was long ago nicknamed "the mayor of Kabul." Today, that tag seems ever more appropriate as the influence of his corrupt government steadily weakens....In the meantime, in Pakistan, a new war, no less unpredictable and unpalatable than the last two, develops, as American strikes fan the flames of Pakistani nationalism. Already the Pakistani military may have fired its first warning shots at American troops. Part of the horror here is that much of the present nightmare in Afghanistan and Pakistan can be traced to the sorry U.S. relationship with Pakistan's military and its intelligence services back in the early 1980s.

Possibly in Iran:

I think it is too late now for the 'bomb Iran' networks that are deeply dug into various portions of the US political elite to launch an 'October surprise,' i.e. a military action against Iran designed to escalate tensions in the Gulf region-- and also, crucially, toincrease the climate of fear within the US in a way that would push voters to rally round John McCain....However, it is not too late for an 'inter-regnum surprise', that is, a military attack against Iran designed to escalate tensions in the Gulf region to the point that that region and the whole world system become a chaotic stew of catastrophe that would then be handed to President-elect Barack Obama to deal with, come January..

All this in the face of the former head of MI5 pointing to the war in Iraq bringing MORE nor LESS security:

She challenges claims, notably made by Tony Blair, that the war in Iraq was not related to the radicalisation of Muslim youth in Britain. Asked what impact the war had on the terrorist threat, she replies: "Well, I think all one can do is look at what those people who've been arrested or have left suicide videos say about their motivation. And most of them, as far as I'm aware, say that the war in Iraq played a significant part in persuading them that this is the right course of action to take." She adds: "So I think you can't write the war in Iraq out of history. If what we're looking at is groups of disaffected young men born in this country who turn to terrorism, then I think to ignore the effect of the war in Iraq is misleading."

All this while the media are busy with the financial crisis made in part by the cost of the war of terror and the leaders who fostered it.
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The Failure of the Surge

There seems to be more media reports coming out of Iraq about how things are 'turning the corner' or somehow getting better - 'better' being 'lass that loads of people are dying each day'. The problem is that it seems the U$ forces have re-classified how they count their dead and wounded, the Iraqi government also does not count the dead and it is still too dangerous for reporters not surrounded by armed brigades to see what is really going on. But this excellent article tries to get to the root of the matter;

In entering these strongholds, the U.S. military won tactical victories, chasing surviving militia members off the streets or even out of neighborhoods, which, without their local police and defense forces, were suddenly vulnerable to sectarian attack.

This vulnerability was all-too-vividly illustrated in Sadr City, the stronghold of the Sadrist movement. As the home base of the Mahdi Army, this city-within-a-city had not experienced a car bomb attack in two years until American troops sealed it off, set up check points at key entrance and exit points, and began patrols aimed at hunting down Mahdi Army leaders they suspected of participating in death squads and of kidnapping an American soldier. Local residents told New York Times reporter Sabrina Tavernise that the operation had "forced Mahdi Army members who were patrolling the streets to vanish." Soon after, the first car bombs were detonated.

The violence reached a crescendo in November 2006, when a coordinated set of five car bombs killed at least 215 and wounded 257. Qusai Abdul-Wahab, a Sadrist member of parliament, spoke for many residents of the community when he told the Associated Press that the "occupation forces are fully responsible for these acts."

Such events generated immense bitterness among Shia, who took them as proof that the Americans and the Iraqi government were concerned only with attacking the Mahdis, not suppressing jihadist attacks. This encouraged their support of the death squads, which sought to exact retribution on the Sunni communities they believed were harboring the bombers.

Another quote;

As early as May of 2006, Nir Rosen, one of the most informed and insightful journalists writing about Iraq, presciently described the American military's unenviable position in this way: "[T]he American Army is lost in Iraq, as it has been since it arrived. Striking at Sunnis, striking at Shias, striking at mostly innocent people. Unable to distinguish between anybody, certainly unable to wield any power, except on the immediate street corner where it's located… [T]he Americans are just one more militia lost in the anarchy." This description was never truer than today in Baghdad.

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The Downward Spiral of the War on(of) Terror

I guess you will have heard the news of the murder of Benazir Bhutto. It is a sad day but, unfortunately, just one more unravelling part of the war of terror. The U$/UK administrations, flush with military power and dreaming of a neo-liberal compliant Middle East have set about doing everthing they could to make a bad situation worse. The War of Terror is a monumental cock-up of conspiratorial levels:

Pakistan: "The Pakistani authorities are blaming Muslim militants for the assassination. That is possible, but everyone in Pakistan remembers that it was the military intelligence, or Inter-Services Intelligence, that promoted Muslim militancy in the two decades before September 11 as a wedge against India in Afghanistan and Kashmir."

Afghanistan: "The Americans have a way of painting this black and white," said one European official. "For them it's like a cowboy film - you're either a good guy or a bad guy. But anyone with any experience in this country knows it's not that simple."

Somalia: The Islamic Courts Union driven from power a year ago by Western-backed troops is regrouping and planning a large-scale attack and the government can do little to stop it...

Palestine: "Are you wondering about the Annapolis meeting that will open this week? Will the meeting exceed the low expectations that now embrace it? The confab has already been downgraded from a 'conference' to just a 'meeting.'"

Iraq I: "The rate of attacks in Iraq (for all types) has stabilized at the levels of 2004/2005, which were prior to the bombing of Askariya. During this earlier period, Iraq's open source insurgency was highly decentralized. A good way to quantify this is through the analysis of Oxford's Neil Johnson, who plotted the number of attacks against casualties per attack. He found that the equilibrium point for Iraq's conflict (as well as the long running war in Colombia) was a power law with a coefficient of 2.5 . A conflict with a coefficient of 2.5 looks more like intensive terrorism than conventional warfare. It is also likely, given Colombia's experience, a level sustainable over decades of conflict."

Iraq II: Myth: The Sunni Arab "Awakening Councils," who are on the US payroll, are reconciling with the Shiite government of PM Nuri al-Maliki even as they take on al-Qaeda remnants. Fact: In interviews with the Western press, Awakening Council tribesmen often speak of attacking the Shiites after they have polished off al-Qaeda.

Still, one bright spot, one the Native American nations is planning to go independent of the US; reminds me of what Ward Churchill said, that for the whole planet to survive we need to first end the US occupation of America.

PS. Bristol Indymedia has a review of 2007 online....
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Iran: From Axis of Evil to Super-Evil

That bastion of liberal democracy, the Guardian, ran a startling story this week on how Iran is the real bogey-man in Iraq. An 'unnamed US official' (dodgy!) stated that Iran is backing everybody in the region against the US. Iran we are supposed to believe is backing the Shia resistance (ok, I can see this, but not every Shia faction is pro-Iran), the Sunni resistance (so now they are backing people who are attacking their allies?) , al-Qaida (they are backing people who consider them to be heretics?) and now the Taliban (who, again, Iran is ideological opposed). I think all this is unlikely. So, ok, the U$ might believe all this, but the article presents no evidence of this at all. So, ok, an 'unnamed US official' might suggest this, but you would expect a journalist to talk to other people, offer counter opinion and so on – nope, it's all there uncontested on the front page.

Meanwhile the 'surge' continues to fail:

Alas, the bad news is that sectarian death squad attacks, which produce bodies in the street every morning, have crept back up. Sudarsan Raghavan of WaPo discovered that more people have been killed that way so far in May than had been in all of January, before the new security plan (the "surge") was implemented.

And fail...

Farmers in southern Iraq have started for the first time to grow opium poppies in their fields, sparking fears that Iraq might become a serious drugs producer along the lines of Afghanistan.

Iraq Update

There is an interesting update on the UK sailors who were kidnapped from Former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, as reported by Juan Cole:

Former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray called for the immediate release of the British sailors, but admitted that the Iranians had a legal case for objecting to their activities. They were in disputed waters and checking for smuggled automobiles. Murray can't figure out how automobile smuggling in the Persian Gulf is any of the business of the British navy. He says it would be different if they had been checking on arms smuggling.

The violence, far from being stopped by the 'surge' seems to be spreading as the cops, previously being limited to death-squad actions, just go on the rampage. Which this in mind, Hana Abdul Ilah Al Bayaty writes;

In struggling against military-imperial powers, Iraqis fight in defence of values around which a majority in the world gathers in consensus. In contrast, the sheer level of force to which Iraqis have been subjected by imperial powers — from systematic murder and rape, the desecration of religious and cultural sites and the destruction of Iraq’s historic heritage, the poisoning of Iraq’s landscape and rivers by radioactive weapons that will mark the lives of its future generations for hundreds if not thousands of years, the terrorising of a whole national population and its attempted division along lines leading to all out civil war, the plunder of its resources — prove the decadence and utter immorality of the neoliberal/neoconservative agenda. The struggle of Iraq is a struggle for civilisation, for culture, for justice, and for not reducing human life to mere production and consumption or the conquest of others. Indeed, the present uprising of Iraqis is not only a part of the wider struggle against savage globalisation and 'free' capital, it is its forefront battle. It is because the Iraqis refuse to surrender their sovereignty to multinational corporations that Iraq is being destroyed so viciously...We must retrieve recognition from any entity imposed by the United States and that claims to represent the people of Iraq. Long live the Iraqi people and its sole representative, the Iraqi Resistance.

He is asking the question, who's side are you on? The murderous genocidal side or the resistance? First you think of the carnage the resitance have also left behind, the face of some of the resistance like al Queda in the Land of the Two Rivers and thier hateful ideology. Walden Bello tried to address this point;

But there has never been any pretty movement for national liberation or independence. Many Western progressives were also repelled by some of the methods of the Mau Mau in Kenya, the FLN in Algeria, the NLF in Vietnam, and the Irish Republican Movement. National liberation movements, however, are not asking for ideological or political support. All they seek is international pressure for the withdrawal of an illegitimate occupying power so that internal forces can have the space to forge a truly national government. Surely on this limited program progressives throughout the world and the Iraqi resistance can unite.

Food for thought.

Surge to Fail

Great article...

The first prong of this new policy is doomed. No area in Baghdad, or for that matter in Iraq, has been successfully pacified in this manner. That includes Falluja and Tal Afar, where this very strategy has been applied and has failed. About 1,000 American soldiers, supplemented by Iraqi (Shia) troops, have been in Falluja for 27 months since the city was "cleared" (that is, largely destroyed). They have established a particularly harsh form of martial law and yet the insurgency in the city, without ever having disappeared, has slowly grown again in strength. Falluja is not pacified and the Americans have never actually initiated a real program of reconstruction there. In other cities, with less comprehensive occupations, the insurgency is even more robust, and there isn't even talk of reconstruction.

SurgeWatch - The Beginning of the End in Iraq

Here is another good article from UKWatch on the so-called 'surge' in Iraq and how it is doomed to fail:

The Bush administration's additional deployment of troops to try and bring Baghdad under United States military control is still in its early days....For Sunni insurgents, though, temporary retreat has been far from the uniform reaction. One astonishing example is a direct assault on 19 February on a heavily protected American military position in the town of Tarmiya, north of Baghdad....In this incident, a coordinated attack involved three suicide-bombers who drove car-bombs straight at the US position, killing three US soldiers and injuring seventeen..

Direct frontal assault! Fuck, that is not normally the way an insurgency goes. Normally the insurgents avoid this type of attack as they are weak in firepower. This is a serious development. its shows the insurgency are developing faster and more intuitively that the forces fighting them. A worrying development if you're a squaddie on the ground implementing Bu$h and Bliar's policies.

Next:

The insurgents have developed two new anti-helicopter tactics. The first involves the firing of modern Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, either the SA-14 or SA-16 (see Ann Scott Tyson, 'Copter Attacks in Iraq May Indicate New Battle Strategy' , Washington Post, 21 February 2007). These have a longer range than the previously employed Vietnam-era SAMs, and are also able to overcome some of the defensive systems on US helicopters. One was used to bring down a marine corps CH-46 helicopter on 7 February, killing the seven people onboard.

The second tactic has been used before but is being developed further. It involves careful preparation and coordination in order to direct multiply-sourced, simultaneous ground fire (including from heavy machine-guns) at a particular helicopter. Between 20 January and 21 February, eight US helicopters were shot down ; a Black Hawk and an Apache helicopter have been among the targets, with twenty-people altogether being killed.

Again, this shows an interesting development. During the troubles in Northern Ireland, the IRA were always after a means to take out British Army helicopters as they believed it would tilt the balance in their favour, as they could often control an area of ground, even take out military or RUC bases, the the British could chopper in more forces very quickly. Thus air support became the issue and the main target. The situation is the same in Iraq – the insurgents can control the streets and palm groves, but while the US has eyes-in-the-sky, they will always be able to concentrate firepower and resources quickly. Well that supremacy is now under threat...

Surge Breakdown

There is an excellent article on TomDispatch.com about the early signs of the surge and how it has made the situation worse. The article has a quote by a guy from the Association of Muslim Scholars that says it all really; "The American president said in 2003, 'Mission accomplished.' Now in 2007 he uses jetfighters a few meters from the Green Zone."

Check it out: Surging into Catastrophe in Iraq

More on the Surge

Here is an amazing article on the surge planned by Bu$h - what makes it so powerful is that its author, former special forces solider Stan Geoff, knows a thing or two about war;

For those who are susceptible to the personification of war, that is, the reduction of whole populations to a single leader—as in, “we are going to take out Saddam”—I will remind readers that Sadr City is half men and half women, with 40 percent of the population under 14 years of age. A million children. Sadr City is approximately 33 million square feet. That is a population density of one child per 33 square feet—less than a 6-foot-by-6-foot room. The very smallest lethality radius from so-called precision weapons delivered by aircraft is about 20 meters.

Do the math.

In Fallujah, a mass evacuation was organized before the general assault on the city. The mandatory mass evacuation went through checkpoints in the American cordon sanitaire. While women and children and very old people were allowed out, all “military-aged males” were turned back into the city, which, once the assault started, became a free-fire zone, and those men were dealt with like the Jews of Warsaw. Thousands of people refused to evacuate for a variety of reasons. They were subsequently caught up in the general slaughter. This is the likely operational template for Sadr City.

There is another calculation associated with these kinds of “surge” operations: the aftermath. Muqtada al-Sadr has been effectively demonized in the U.S., but he is wildly popular and influential in Iraq, especially in southeastern Iraq, which has heretofore shown the least resistance to the Anglo-American occupation. In an attack on Sadr City, according to powerful rumors, Kurdish peshmerga troops will be used to do some of the fighting, an insane political gambit. If the Americans proceed with what appears to be a cruel and mindless plan (surely emanating from Dick Cheney’s lair) there will be a possibility of igniting the Mother of All Tactical Nightmares for the U.S.: a general armed Shiite uprising in the southeast.

A must read.

Surge to Victory

For the third time in Iraq, Bu$h is going to try the 'surge' option. I can't see why this time it will work. Here's a good essay on why it is going to fail;

In fact, there is no way forward that does not lead out. This, because the mission itself is founded on strategic error. The error resides not simply in the administration's "strategy for victory" in Iraq but, more broadly, in its national security strategy. It is evident as well in the President's rejection of what is best in the Iraq Study Group report: the proposal to diplomatically engage Syria and Iran regarding the Iraq prospect. Indeed, the President's proposal to pump-up Operation Iraqi Freedom with more money and troops is a direct counter-point to the diplomatic path.

So how will it end?

...it will be the Iraqis who end the war. It will be the Iraqis who eventually kill enough Americans to break the U.S. political will, and it will be the Iraqis who sweep away the ruins of the Maliki government to replace it with an anti-American, anti-U.S.- occupation government in Iraq. That is basically how the war in Vietnam ended, and it wasn't pretty.

But, perhaps, just perhaps, the surge and the recent raid on the Iranian Consulate, is just part of the plan to widen the war into one with Iran in the hope that will end the war in Iraq? Sounds crazy, but then the surge is!