Not Sectarian Violence Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

50 people died in clashes in Karbala in the South between the Badr Brigades and the Mahdi Army.  These militias represent the two largest Shi'a political parties in the South, SIIC and the Sadirists.  This will have no impact on the President's measures of violence. As Tony Cordesman explains, the military's numbers don't include what is going on in the South because Shi'a on Shi'a violence is not considered sectarian.

These figures [The military's number] also ignore growing Shi’ite instability in the south, and particularly in the southeast, and a growing threat from Iran

Repeat after me.  Progress.  Progress.  Progress.  Violence is down.....

Comments

[Don Bacon]

Cordesman gives us a partial picture of Iraq in his "Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience" but there are many more variables than the obvious military ones. He indicates that the US does not dominate the events in Iraq, but then rates the odds as 50-50 for success over ten years or so. Will there be any Sunnis left after ten years, or will they become "Palestinians" displaced from their own land? It's a given that the US troops will just keep driving around and getting blown up--will they continue to take it? What about the US main supply route going through Sadrist SE Iraq? And the oncoming attack against Iran? Cordesman mentions the possible supply of shoulder-fired missiles, which could change everything. They drove the Russians out of Afghanistan. Etc.

I think Cordesman, like so many others, has just accepted the inevitability of an ongoing war which, barring outright defeat or a soldier rebellion, nobody can stop without a diplomatic initiative, which Cordesman doesn't even address. Nobody does, since the ISG was washed away by the "surge". Pity, that.

[Saadia]

I think Tony Cordesman is a military analyst so that is what he talks about the most. But his papers do address that there is a need for political, diplomatic, and ideological changes as the real way to make progress in Iraq. He is easy to take out of context so its important to see what he is actually trying to say. He was one of the first people to point out that going to war in Iraq was a mistake to begin with. Now one of the points that he and other people are making is that a quick withdrawal from Iraq can lead to genocide in Iraq and leaving without really caring what happens to Iraqis is irresponsible.

[Don Bacon]

Not caring what happens to Iraqis? Where in Cordesman's report does he show any concern for Iraqis--the hundreds that die every day, the four million crisis-of-humanity refugees? The average American think-tanker cares not a whit about Iraqis--it's merely a crutch for continuing the war as if war, and its genocide, is good for Iraqis.

Cordesman writes that any reasonable withdrawal would take a year--plenty of time for diplomacy--do we still have a state department? Barring military defeat or troop rebellion the war will not end without diplomacy. The US has already had its military victory, mission accomplished, now it's time to pack up and leave because the US military occupation has obviously made things worse, and continues to do so.

We need to hear from a conflict-resolution analyst, not a military analyst. The military option is over. I know, the Pentagon rules, so it's hopeless. Give our "peacekeepers" more time. Ten more years.

[Don Bacon]

How to Redeploy: Implementing a Responsible Drawdown of U.S. Forces from Iraq
By Lawrence J. Korb, Max Bergmann, Sean Duggan, Peter Juul
August 27, 2007

It is time to redeploy our forces from Iraq. An overwhelming majority of the American people and a bipartisan majority of Congress believe that the costs and risks of continuing to pursue the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq outweigh any potential benefits that might be achieved by keeping our military mired in Iraq’s multiple civil conflicts. . .this report will demonstrate that an orderly and safe withdrawal is best achieved over a 10- to 12-month period.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/08/pdf/redeploy_report.pdf

[Samantha Stickers]

Sounds like the surge is working.

[Saadia]

You can read all his reports here:

http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_experts/task,view/type,34/id,3/

In this report, The Uncertain Cost of the Global War on Terror, he addresses the cost of human life:
http://www.csis.org/index.php?option=com_csis_pubs&task=view&id=3999

In this report, The Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience in Iraq, he talks about what you may be referring to:
http://www.csis.org/index.php?option=com_csis_pubs&task=view&id=3999

He is easy to take out of context and seems insensitive, but I don't think its the case. I think you can disagree but a person needs to really be armed with a lot of info first, especially before thinking he is evil. I used to be scared of him when I first started working at the same org for a time and I was very passionate about being against the war. But by the time I left I realized he can just be taken as insensitive but he's not bad.

[Saadia]

I would also agree that there are people in think tanks who don't care about Iraqi civilians. The conversations don't talk about all of those who suffer. But then there are people who do. For example, we had Anthony Shadid come and present his book on how Iraqis have lived through the war from a first hand perspective.

[SolderNoLongerInIraq]

First of all, it's "Sadrist." A better appellation might be JAM, which is the loose confederation of militiamen loyal, mostly by caste, clan and confession, to Moqtadr al-Sadr.

A different group, now called "SIIC" is the latest iteration of al-Hakim-led forces, many of whom originally came from the Badr Brigade based in, and controlled by, Tehran during the Baath years.

It gets tricky with JAM because after Samarrah a great many of these volunteers, even in the Special Group, splintered from the main movement and often operate away from Sadr's formal control, sometimes with Iranian support.

Second, beyond the larger issue of caste and a divergence over nationalism (Sadr's family famously stayed in Baathist Iraq and were killed, sometimes in front of each other), there are some sectarian issues.

Some Twelver clerics have declared Ali al-Musawi's 15,000 Shaykhi Shia in Basra (and the Baha'i and the Azali elsewhere) to be beyond the pale (part of this involves Saudi Arabia, but it's too complicated to go into).

The ongoing mini-civil war in the south is complicated, too. Sadr (who also is believed responsible for the massacre of Sunnis in Tal Afar some time ago) represents a caste-nationalistic challenge to Badrists, many of whom spent their adult years in Iran. When the British occupied Basra, a key policy was to replace the dead or evicted Baath with Bazaar Class reps, many of whom were Badr Corps (SIIC) veterans recently returned from Iran.

So one sees aspect of clan/tribe, caste (dispossessed versus bazaar class), confession (Twelver versus other sects), nationalism, and criminality (between the amazingly corrupt weak central government and its related Badr militias and the equally corrupt Sadrists and the proudly corrupt guild criminal networks that proliferate in lawless areas and serve various militias which are themselves little better than crime syndicates, having a need for money just like every other protracted insurgency).

If the weasel word to avoid is "sectarian," then by all means do so (although there is some of that in Basra). But it is helpful to explain the ongoing violence on the seams of ethnicity when it is, in fact, based on confessional issues.

[SteveB]

Soldier's comment above reminds me of this article by Scott Ritter, in which he basically claimed that anyone who couldn't describe, in detail, the reasons behind the Sunni/Shia schism in the 8th century wasn't competent to comment on Iraq today.

If our goal was to rule over Iraq for, say, the next 50 years, I might agree. Certainly, the British imperialists occupying India had to have intimate knowledge of the petty rivalries of numerous Maharajas, and for good reason: all imperial occupations depend to a great extent on divide-and-conquer, hence the need to know which divisions can be most effectively exploited, hence the need for us, today, to know our Badrists from our Sadrists.

But what if our goal is not to rule Iraq, but to leave Iraq, with a minimum of chaos and civilian suffering? Then, I think, understanding the various doctrinal differences between the groups Soldier is writing about become less important than understanding the one thing that unites them: they (generally speaking) want us the hell out of their country. At this point this may be the only thing worth understanding about Iraqis.

And what's more useful, to understand the things that divide Iraqis, or to understand the things that we have in common with them? Imagine if, before we had ever invaded Iraq, we had asked this simple question: how would we react to such a "liberation"? Asking this one question would have dispensed with the nonsensical happy-talk about our troops being welcomed with candy and flowers, of a "cakewalk", and might, just might, have tipped the balance aganst invasion.

People the world over don't like foreign soldiers kicking down their doors and searching their houses. All else is detail, or as Edward Said would say, Orientalism.

[SolderNoLongerInIraq]

Ahem. That actually was the original plan. One might google "Polo Step" and Franks and see the FOIAd documents available to everyone about the Phase IV planning. Or one could simply call up Gen Zinni and ask him what the initial CENTCOM invasion documents confected in 1998-1999.

But that would require a rudimentary competence in national security issues.

[draftedin68]

.

"Repeat after me. Progress. Progress. Progress. Violence is down....."

And THEN: "Thank you for bringing me into The Collective. I am glad to be assimilated. I will not resist."

.

[SteveB]

Yes, it was the initial plan that the US occupying force get down to 30,000 troops (or less) in less than a year. It was also the plan that the grateful people of Iraq would accept Ahmed Chalbi as their US-installed President.

Obviously, there was something wrong with that plan. What mistake did we make? Was our mistake that we did not understand the complicated ways in which Iraqis were different from each other, and different from us? Or was is that we didn't recognize the simple ways in which they were like us, and that, just as we would reject a foreign-installed potentate, they would do the same?

Here's another example: those calling for a US attack on Iran argue that one of the consequences of that attack might be an uprising by the Iranian people, against their government. Would we respond in the same way, were we attacked? Did we, on 9/11 or after Pearl Harbor? Would the people of any country?

And yet, so-called experts put this forward as a serious possibility. Their mistake, it seems to me, is to think that Iranians are some how fundamentally different from us, and to miss out on the things we have in common.

So what do we need more, at this point - a sophisticated understanding of the various sectarian divisions within Iraq (and Iran, soon) or some basic common sense and an understanding of simple human nature?

[Don Bacon]

Let's get real. Polo Step was a device to limit effective Pentagon war planning resulting in an unrealistic assumption that U.S. forces would be almost completely "re-deployed" out of Iraq within 45 months of the invasion (i.e. December 2006). After the rapid initial defeat of Iraqi forces ("Mission Accomplished") responsibility for Iraq passed to Viceroy Bremer and it's been a fiasco ever since. So for those reasons any "Phase IV planning" was so much useless paper. Bottom line: Generals like Franks and Zinni don't determine US policy, and the US has never planned to leave Iraq. Evidence? Huge permanent bases and an ongoing promotion of sectarian violence which conveniently provides the reason for staying..

[SolderNoLongerInIraq]

Do you mean the real permanent bases in places such as Kuwait, Qatar and UAE that can be easily served by protected LOCs and not the hesca tent cities on our largest "bases" or the IA COP without electricity in which I lived for a year?

For those who don't know, the current "Surge" is designed to follow on experiments we did in Anbar and Tal Afar in 2005-06 that involve combatants living inside COPs in urban neighborhoods and villages. The point is to secure the immediate area, link up with sister units (especially IA and IP security forces), and then bring in social services and redevelopment projects to give MAMs something better to do with their days than implant EFPs.

While a lot of the tail resides in LSAs and FOBs far from our combat tooth, funding has not been earmarked for their longterm comforts, beyond the inevitable tent cities and faux Subways that crop up wherever a REMF can find a rack.

Even in our largest bases, such as TQ which was near my outpost, it's hardly permanent construction. The living quarters are very similar to the trailers used during hurricane relief.

Much of this site seems to suffer from comments betraying any working knowledge about Iraq, its people, the American military and its people there.

From such super-secret books such as "Fiasco" and "Cobra II," even the laziest reader can now plumb the depths of our governmental and military incompetence. Yes, SecDef R really believed we could plop Chalabi (or the CIA's Allawi, take your pick) on the throne and leave. Had the Phase IV planning actually concerned itself with the evil stuff of empire I would've been pleased, because at least it would have shown some sort of planning built on a bedrock sturdier than "hope."

As it was, my battalion had no standing orders on controlling looting; we didn't have enough explosives to detonate all the left-over Iraqi ordnance; we lacked the spare parts necessary to continue long patrols; and the force structure was all dicked up so that armored units were tasked with COIN fights that they were untrained and hardly well-constructed to try.

Everytime I hear someone blather on about some neo-con conspiracy, I have to guffaw. A "conspiracy" must in some way be competent, and it would help if all the neo-cons at OSD shared the same plans, which they weren't and they didn't.

[SteveB]

Soldier:
What if the conspiracy includes plans for the eventual privatization of the US military? Getting into a war and then under-supplying the regular military, thus increasing the reliance on "contractors", would all make sense then, wouldn't it?

It doesn't even have to involve evil neocons (although they certainly are evil) rubbing their hands together and planning how they're going to deny our troops body armor. Just the reallocation of resources from the public to the private military sector would do it.

They've done this for decades now with other public services (starve the public sector to stimulate the growth of a private alternative) so why not with the military?

[Don Bacon]

Here's a couple--there are at least two more.

Balad Air Base is a unique creation, a small American town smack in the middle of the most hostile part of Iraq. While soldiers drive as fast as they can beyond its perimeter to avoid roadside bombs and ambushes, on base they must drive their Humvees at a stately 10 mph, the strictly enforced speed limit. The 20,000 troops based at Balad, home to the major Air Force operation in Iraq and also the biggest Army logistical support center in the country, live in air-conditioned containers. Plans are being made to wire the metal boxes to bring the troops Internet, cable television and overseas telephone access. . . Dinner on the night of Friday, Jan. 27 offered entrees of baked salmon, roast turkey, grilled pork chops, fried crab bites, breaded scallops and fried rice. The smiling servers standing behind those dishes were from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Soldiers who were still hungry could hit the two salad bars, the sandwich line or a short-order stand for a cheeseburger, hot dog or grilled cheese sandwich. There were also two soup offerings and a dessert stand near the exit with chocolate mint and vanilla ice cream, banana pudding, pumpkin pie, cherry pie and yellow cake. For those bored with the mess halls, there are a Subway, a Pizza Hut, a Popeye's, an ersatz Starbucks called "Green Beans" that serves up triple lattes, and a 24-hour Burger King.

The airbase at al-Asad is the biggest marine camp in western Anbar province. It is in the midst of the most rebellious region in Iraq, where thousands of insurgents have been killed in a series of operations over the past year. But get "inside the wire" and this stretch of desert increasingly resembles a slice of US suburbia rather than the front line in a war zone. Its restaurants include a Subway and a fast food pizza shop. There is a coffee shop, football pitch and even a swimming pool. A cinema shows the latest films while the camp's main recreational centre offers special dance nights - hip hop on Friday, salsa on Saturday and country and western on Sunday. There is even a Hertz car rental providing saloons with bullet-proof windows for those wanting to cross the base in something more comfortable than a military Humvee.

Bottom line--if one must go into the service stay close to airplanes.

[SolderNoLongerInIraq]

Gosh, Don, one would've thought that a good example of a "permanent base" would include one where people aren't sleeping in "in air-conditioned containers."

By which they mean, shipping crates.

"It is in the midst of the most rebellious region in Iraq" (not anymore!).

Here's the deal, Don. All of those facilities were taken over by the US. The concrete buildings were built by Saddam Hussein. There's been little "permanent" we added to them, and actually large parts of their fortifications have been turned over to IA formations as the years went on.

In fact, if you want to track the spending on "permanent facilities," it's been for Iraqi Army troops. At a FOB near me the Halliburton contract was for erecting completely new barracks for the division IA HQ.

Our IA battalion got a bad wire plan, some hescas at the gates and no electricity. Most of our time was spent in COPs anyway.

What is truly astonishing about Balad, TQ, Anaconda, et al, is NOT that what you're describing is permanent construction. What's amazing is that it's pre-fab, that someone, somewhere actually had this stuff ready to ship and be assembled (and, presumably with a contract to disassemble it) once a lot of guys showed up.

In reality, Polo Step's Phase IV planning called for a quick invasion, a short occupation, a rapid drawdown, and a total of 6,000 troops remaining in Iraq by 2006.

It's what I term a "non-plan plan," but it's the one they had. "Fiasco" and "Cobra II" would inform you about much of this.

But there's no talking sense to those who want to believe a convenient lie. If you really believe that the US wanted to build a colony in Iraq, permanently occupy a place with a 12-mile shore easily hit by Silkworm missiles, and otherwise encumber ourselves for years in a COIN the bigwigs didn't want to fight, go ahead.

Just don't try to tell anyone who has actually been there how "permanent" the GP tent cities, hescas and ersatz "FOBs" are.

[Don Bacon]

Soldier, there is no doubt in my mind that, barring a troop rebellion , military defeat (e.g. cutting the MSR) or being thrown out (very difficult) we will stay in Iraq forever. You've heard of Germany and Korea, no doubt. It's not the architecture of the buildings that makes it permanent, it's the intention of the occupier. I will continue to call for withdrawal.

For one factor, look at the map and check the proximity of northern Iraq to the oil-rich Caspian basin, including Georgia and Azerbaijan. And then there's straddling Iran, etc etc.

You had to sleep in a GP tent? Well boo-hoo. So did I in 'Nam before you were even thought of. A CONEX with AC would have been luxury-and relatively mortar-proof. And don't give me that "I've been there" BS like you're a big expert on US colonies. All that sand covers our oil, that's all you have to know.

Rumsfeld claims that he had no control in Iraq after Bremer arrived and I have no reason to doubt him. He claims that he was a Garner man, get in and get out, but that he lost control. Doesn't matter what the Pentagon's Phase IV plan was--Bremer was the man and it was stay time. Rummy never knew, or if he did it made no difference. Makes sense to me.

"A COIN the bigwigs didn't want to fight"? Who said this: "America didn't go to war in OIF or OEF; the military went to war." (You know that I hang on your every word.) The US has promoted sectarian conflict in Iraq. It's divide-and-conquer, it's justify a continued military presence, it's keep the pot stirred and the money flowing, the troops be damned. You know that. The troops are pawns to be sacrificed.

The Silkworms (and Sunburns) aren't going to hit the Iraqi shore; I fear that instead they're going to hit one or more US navy ships, possibly next week, and put some squids in the water after a US air attack on Iran. Damn.

[Mark Dorroh]

CNN reports that proof of Iraqi manufacture of chemical weapons continued at least for at least four years after Saddam's government signed instruments of armistice which obliged them to refrain from such activities. The files and samples of phosgene gas were discovered this week in a UNMOVIC building in New York. CNN goes on to explain:

"Phosgene was used extensively during World War I as a choking agent and caused a majority of the war's gas deaths, according to the CDC.

"Phosgene gas and liquid are irritants that can damage the skin, eyes, nose, throat and lungs, the CDC said.

"The material was taken from al-Muthanna chemical weapons plant north of Baghdad. The samples are sealed and have been there since 1996 ...
Inspectors from UNMOVIC and its predecessor agency UNSCOM were responsible for verifying Iraq's compliance with U.N. resolutions requiring it to abandon its pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons."

Now, everyone together, "The Iraqis had no WMD! the Iraqis had no WMD! The invasion was not justified by international law! The invasion was not justified by international law!"

Good. Now rinse and repeat ...

And when you get tired of that chant, try this one: "Two legs bad! Four legs good! Two legs bad! Four legs good!"

Let us never forget that little parable of political insanity was written by a lapsed socialist who saw where the reality of "social justice" was headed ... specifically, the Stalinist purges of the 1930s.

Santayana was right. We either learn from our mistakes or keep repeating them.

Mark Dorroh,
Richmond, VA

[Mark Dorroh]

We are informed that:

"50 people died in clashes in Karbala in the South between the Badr Brigades and the Mahdi Army. These militias represent the two largest Shi'a political parties in the South, SIIC and the Sadirists. This will have no impact on the President's measures of violence. As Tony Cordesman explains, the military's numbers don't include what is going on in the South because Shi'a on Shi'a violence is not considered sectarian."

Funny, that's the same thing they say when Hamas and al-Fatah clash in Palestine and kill dozens of people.

When loony extremists fall out with one another, things get weird in a hurry. Ask Leon Trotsky ... oh yeah, he died in 1940 when a Stalinist agent tracked him to Mexico City and put an ice axe through his skull, so I guess he wouldn't be around to ask, would he?

The good news is, these hate-motivated people will continue to fall out with one another on the merest pretext. This degree of disorganization on the part of those who hate all things Western will be a net benefit to humanity, as it will thin out the loony extremist ranks to a more managable size.

Rejoice! Our enemies are digging their own graves, so let's leave them to it!

As Ayn Rand famously observed, the forces of rationality will eventually prevail, mostly because "reality is on our side."

Mark Dorroh, Richmond VA

[carmen gomez]

My son SRA Civil Eng. Sq is being trained to be send to Balad. Can someone tell me something about the area and possible dangers?I need to know!!!!!!! He's having a baby for jan. will he be able to be present and go back? He does not want to give me answers.

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