Descent Into Chaos

'I lost count of the times I rushed out of bed because the hotel had been hit again in a dawn rocket attack; lost count of the charred bodies, the twisted wreckage, bomb craters and flames. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse the video beheadings and mass murders started. Iraq became a place of fear and terror.'

From Stuart Webb, Channel 4 cameraman in Iraq since 2003

Robert Fisk On US 'Drawdown'

When you invade someone else's country, there has to be a first soldier – just as there has to be a last.
The first man in front of the first unit of the first column of the invading American army to reach Fardous Square in the centre of Baghdad in 2003 was Corporal David Breeze of the 3rd Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment. For that reason, of course, he pointed out to me that he wasn't a soldier at all. Marines are not soldiers. They are Marines. But he hadn't talked to his mom for two months and so – equally inevitably – I offered him my satellite phone to call his home in Michigan. Every journalist knows you'll get a good story if you lend your phone to a soldier in a war.
"Hi, you guys," Corporal Breeze bellowed. "I'm in Baghdad. I'm ringing to say 'Hi! I love you. I'm doing fine. I love you guys.' The war will be over in a few days. I'll see you soon." Yes, they all said the war would be over soon. They didn't consult the Iraqis about this pleasant notion. The first suicide bombers – a policeman in a car and then two women in a car – had already hit the Americans on the long highway up to Baghdad. There would be hundreds more. There will be hundreds more in Iraq in the future.
So we should not be taken in by the tomfoolery on the Kuwaiti border in the last few hours, the departure of the last "combat" troops from Iraq two weeks ahead of schedule. Nor by the infantile cries of "We won" from teenage soldiers, some of whom must have been 12-years-old when George W Bush sent his army off on this catastrophic Iraqi adventure. They are leaving behind 50,000 men and women – a third of the entire US occupation force – who will be attacked and who will still have to fight against the insurgency.Yes, officially they are there to train the gunmen and militiamen and the poorest of the poor who have joined the new Iraqi army, whose own commander does not believe they will be ready to defend their country until 2020. But they will still be in occupation – for surely one of the the "American interests" they must defend is their own presence – along with the thousands of armed and indisciplined mercenaries, western and eastern, who are shooting their way around Iraq to safeguard our precious western diplomats and businessmen. So say it out loud: we are not leaving.

Instead, the millions of American soldiers who have passed through Iraq have brought the Iraqis a plague. From Afghanistan – in which they showed as much interest after 2001 as they will show when they start "leaving" that country next year – they brought the infection of al-Qa'ida. They brought the disease of civil war. They injected Iraq with corruption on a grand scale. They stamped the seal of torture on Abu Ghraib – a worthy successor to the same prison under Saddam's vile rule – after stamping the seal of torture on Bagram and the black prisons of Afghanistan. They sectarianised a country that, for all its Saddamite brutality and corruption, had hitherto held its Sunnis and Shias together.
And because the Shias would invariably rule in this new "democracy", the American soldiers gave Iran the victory it had sought so vainly in the terrible 1980-88 war against Saddam. Indeed, men who had attacked the US embassy in Kuwait in the bad old days – men who were allies of the suicide bombers who blew up the Marine base in Beirut in 1983 – now help to run Iraq. The Dawa were "terrorists" in those days. Now they are "democrats". Funny how we've forgotten the 241 US servicemen who died in the Lebanon adventure. Corporal David Breeze was probably two or three-years-old then.
But the sickness continued. America's disaster in Iraq infected Jordan with al-Qa'ida – the hotel bombings in Amman – and then Lebanon again. The arrival of the gunmen from Fatah al-Islam in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian camp in the north of Lebanon – their 34-day war with the Lebanese army – and the scores of civilian dead were a direct result of the Sunni uprising in Iraq. Al-Qa'ida had arrived in Lebanon. Then Iraq under the Americans re-infected Afghanistan with the suicide bomber, the self-immolator who turned America's soldiers from men who fight to men who hide.
Anyway, they are busy re-writing the narrative now. Up to a million Iraqis are dead. Blair cares nothing about them – they do not feature, please note, in his royalties generosity. And nor do most of the American soldiers. They came. They saw. They lost. And now they say they've won. How the Arabs, surviving on six hours of electricity a day in their bleak country, must be hoping for no more victories like this one.

Then and now

3,000 The estimated number of Iraqi civilians killed last year. That's less than a tenth of the 34,500 killed in 2007 but it's still testament to the dangers faced each day by Iraqis.

200 The number of Iraqis known to be still held in US custody – a fraction of the 26,000 held in military prisons three years ago.

15.5 The average number of hours of electricity a day Baghdad receives, a marked impovement from the six hours it got three years ago but still not up to pre-invasions standards, when Iraqi cities could rely on 24-hour power.

Jimmy Reid, Working Class Hero, RIP

I was present at Jimmy Reid's famous 'Rat Race' speech at Glasgow University and had the privilege to shake his hand on a later occasion. A beacon of principle in an age of political pygmies and toerags. Thanks, Jimmy.

Mission Accomplished 2 - Complaint To BBC

I submitted a formal complaint to the BBC today about remarks made by Evan Davis on the Today programme this morning on Radio 4. I expect to receive a response and will post it. Complaint below:

The comparison made by Evan Davis this morning on the Today programme of US forces in Iraq (departing) with the liberation forces in France was grotesque. At least, fortunately for the BBC, Hugh Sykes shot it to pieces on air. However, the comparison and remark was crass and tasteless in the light of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and the displacement of one and half million (conservative estimates in both cases). I will not be the only person to find the remark offensive and in bad taste, I believe.

Mission Accomplished - This Time It's Bullshit 2

Pulling all combat troops out of Iraq? 50,000 will remain there as 'advisers'. Yeah, right. Of course, all troops are trained for combat; calling them “non-combat support personnel” is simply B.S. Obama wants to campaign for Democrats in the mid-term elections by lying about ending combat in Iraq.

More absurdly, the Fox 'News' Channel interviewed an army officer this morning by first congratulating him and his fellow soldiers for “making Iraq a safe and secure place.” Before he said this, the network announced that they could not reveal the location of the interviewer “for security reasons.” The interview took place at a location where they were completely surroundedd by ten foot high piles of sandbags. This is how Fox and the war cheerleaders spell “secure.”

Still Falls The Rain by Edith Sitwell

'Ground Zero Mosque' - An Object Lesson In Ignorance

Mosque Furor Endangers US Troops By Robert Parry August 18, 2010 For years, the American Right and neocons have been quick to accuse critics of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars of endangering American troops – by causing disunity, exposing counter-terror techniques, etc. – but these war enthusiasts are now the ones putting the lives of U.S. soldiers in jeopardy. As American troops are undertaking dangerous operations to win the “hearts and minds” of Muslims – now including flying helicopter missions in flood-ravaged Pakistan – Republican politicians and right-wing media outlets are fueling hysteria over the planned mosque.Indeed, the Right and the neocons may have American blood on their hands because of the ugly histrionics over a plan to build a mosque and Islamic center two blocks from 9/11’s Ground Zero. So, instead of the United States appearing to be a nation tolerant of Islam and all other religions, the world is seeing red-faced Americans screaming at New York City officials who allowed the building plans to go forward. Sensing another useful wedge issue, prominent Republicans, including potential presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, then jumped into the fray, escalating the rhetoric ever further. Gingrich told Fox News that “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington,” thus likening Islam, even the sort practiced by the moderate Muslims involved in the so-called Cordoba House in Lower Manhattan, to Nazism. Gingrich’s metaphor also connected Muslims, subliminally at least, to one of history’s great crimes, the Holocaust, which incidentally was carried out primarily by European Christians. Gingrich, who is portrayed by the mainstream U.S. news media as a deep-thinking intellectual, also played the victim card by casting the mosque as a symbol of Muslim “triumphalism.” Not to be upstaged, Palin, in a Twitter message, called the mosque an "unnecessary provocation" and a “stab … in the heart.” So, the construction of a mosque on privately owned land is not simply an American Muslim group exercising its constitutional and property rights. It is a case of al-Qaeda sympathizers doing something of a victory dance near Ground Zero and further twisting the knife into the American people. After the Right made the mosque an emotional national issue, a poll showed about two-thirds of Americans objecting to the mosque’s construction. The message to the Islamic world couldn’t be clearer: Despite soothing words from Gen. David Petraeus and President Barack Obama (and even from former President George W. Bush), Americans do see the “war on terror” as a war against Islam, not just against a few violent extremists but against all Muslims including moderates who have risked their own lives to condemn Islamic radicalism. Military Concerns While the U.S. press corps has focused on the political implications of the furor – mostly, how it should help the Republicans in November – and, secondarily, on the constitutional issues regarding freedom of religion, there has been little attention given to the military implications of the controversy. Just as Bush’s clumsy remark calling the “war on terror” a “crusade” was a propaganda boon to al-Qaeda, so too is this grotesque demonstration of anti-Islamic bigotry. It makes the work of American troops -- conducting a delicate withdrawal from Iraq and mounting counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan -- all the more hazardous. The nasty mosque debate also undercuts the humanitarian message conveyed by dispatching U.S. military helicopters to flood-ravaged Pakistan and, indeed, the controversy escalates the dangers facing those crews. Further, there is an important strategic factor. In nuclear-armed Pakistan, where the civilian government is fragile and viewed as out-of-touch with the suffering of average citizens, the last thing that pro-U.S. elements need is to be tainted by the anti-mosque Islamophobia being stirred up by right-wing and neocon activists in the United States. Think for a minute about how differently this controversy could have played out: The proximity between Ground Zero and a mosque could have been held out as proof that American leaders mean what they say about welcoming moderate Muslims. The message at home would have reinforced – not contradicted – the message carried by U.S. soldiers and diplomats abroad. The United States would have stood up before the world as a confident nation that lives – not just talks – its principles. The American welcoming of a mosque near the 9/11 site could have represented a propaganda blow to al-Qaeda and other extremists. Instead, the opposite has occurred. The world has seen the United States appearing as a weak, prejudiced and vengeful nation, blaming an entire religion for the actions of a few adherents. Even worse, the Americans most likely to pay for this political posturing are the U.S. troops on the front lines. The Right and the neocons may profit at the polls but the price will be paid in blood, mostly by American soldiers and U.S. allies in faraway places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there.

Saddam and WMD - A Play in One Act

Dramatis Personae:-
George Bush - A doltish middle aged recovered alcoholic
Tony Blair - A sycophantic narcissist
Various other gullible or obsequious national leaders.

ACT 1, SCENE 1

Bush : Even if Saddam has no WMD the Iraqi army has devastating weapons systems, lethal.
Blair : How do you know?"
Bush : We looked at the receipts.

CURTAIN(S)

Blair Donates Memoir Money - Will It Save Him From Hell?

                     NO

Al Megrahi - US Senators Issue Whistleblower Call

In what looks like a desperate act to save some of their miserable political skins in the mid-term elections, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has appealed over the head of the Scottish and UK Governments. They are even asking doctors and lawyers with inside knowledge to come forward with info which might make them look efficient, effective and possibly worth re-electing.

Full sad story here: