Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Iraq Page 2 of 4

The Consequences of 9/11

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On September 11, 2016

47 Comments

iraqi_girlOn September 11, 2001, I was at work. As the reports came in, the company set up a TV in a large room and work ground to a halt as people watched.

I turned to a friend and said, “I hope America doesn’t attack the wrong country in retaliation.”

He scoffed.

Assuming that Osama bin Laden was behind 9/11, it was a master stroke. Osama was the first great man of the 21st century, the man who changed the course of history in precisely the way he planned. (Remember, “great” and “good” are not synonyms. Plenty of great men and women have been monsters.)

Osama was a smart man and had spent a lot of time considering the Muslim world’s situation.

He believed that the regimes he wanted to overthrow, like Egypt, survived due to the support of an enemy much further away: the US. His thesis was that US support propped up enemy societies.

The usual rule in Islam is to fight the local tyrant, but OBL argued that the US must be fought first: Only once it was defeated, or at least severely weakened, could Islam win the more local battles. He also wanted to prove that US soldiers could be defeated.

What he wanted to do was to draw US soldiers into a killing field. He figured it would be Afghanistan, and America did oblige and attack, but Afghanistan wasn’t much of a quagmire in those first years.

Then, the US decided to attack Iraq, one of OBL’s enemies, as Iraq was run by a secular regime. And Iraq turned out to be a complete mess.

The US walked all over the conventional army of Iraq, then was fought to a bloody loss by irregulars (and it was a loss–US troops had to pay bribes in order to leave the country without being fired upon).

And Islamic groups and revolution spread, and if the US wasn’t defeated, well, all the money, men, and attention spent on Iraq did contribute to the great financial crisis, and Muslims learned that they could beat the US if they were willing to take enough pain doing it.

Osama won. He got much of what he wanted. He must have praised Allah mightily for making his enemies attack Iraq.

As for the US, the “state of emergency” declared after 9/11 is still in effect. The Patriot Act is still in effect. The Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) is still in effect. These are the Enabling Acts of Bush’s republic–and of Obama’s.

US citizens did, in fact, lose many of their freedoms and a great deal of their prosperity as a result of 9/11.

9/11 was a milder form of the Reichstag Fire. No, Bush wasn’t Hitler, but he did change the nature of the US significantly–enough so that it is a recognizably different country than it was before.

Americans ratified those changes by re-electing Bush in 2004, knowing fully that he was torturing and so on.  Then came Obama.

Obama is Bush’s heir. Anything one party does can be undone by the next, but Obama chose to roll back very little of Bush’s republic, and in fact, he extended many of Bush’s policies. He is worse on whistleblowers than Bush (far, far worse). He has performed far more drone assassinations. He has deported far more immigrants.  And he has kept all the enabling acts in place.

I make no claim that the US before 9/11 was “good,” but it was better than the US after 9/11, to the great harm of very many people all around the world–including Americans themselves.

But 9/11? 9/11 was a success. It got the man who planned it about three-quarters of what he wanted.

A very great success. Too bad the US handed that success to Osama. He couldn’t have made you do anything, he had to to take a gamble on you.

Osama understood the US well enough to get the US to do what he wanted. The US did not understand Osama well enough to avoid walking straight into his trap…or they had so much hubris they figured they could walk through it unharmed.

So many dead. So many maimed. So many refugees. So many economically destroyed. So many better roads not taken.

But Osama, Osama at least was happy with 9/11.

That was Bush, and the US’s greatest gift to Osama, which outweighs his death a 1000/1. Men like Osama are not scared of death.

So much stupid, so much evil. But Osama was just evil, not stupid.

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Blair, et al. Committed War Crimes

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On July 6, 2016

26 Comments

So, the Chilcot report is out and it’s not pretty.

Jeremy Corbyn has apologised on behalf of the Labour party for its role in the 2003 Iraq war, and warned that the people who took the decisions “laid bare in the Chilcot report” must now face up to the consequences.

…

The Labour leader’s apology went further than he had earlier in parliament, when he responded to the Chilcot report after David Cameron. At that point, Corbyn called the war an “act of military aggression”, arguing that it was thought of as illegal “by the overwhelming weight of international legal opinion”. (emphasis added)

I very much hope this next man, who has far less worth than the toilet paper I clean myself with, is not a Labour candidate in the next election.

As Corbyn issued his excoriating statement to the House of Commons, he was heckled by his own backbencher Ian Austin, who shouted: “Sit down and shut up, you’re a disgrace.”

When you’re screaming at someone for apologizing for a war crime that is identical to that which many Nazi leaders were hung for, you’re officially a waste of human skin.

Corbyn hasn’t actually called for “war crimes trial for Blair,” but he’s made the case. The European Criminal Court, being also basically worthless, had already said that they would not try Tony Blair, but might charge ordinary soldiers.

I have never had any respect for the ECC, whose mandate appears to involve prosecuting the politically powerless, especially Africans, and avoiding anyone with any influence. Justice as unevenly applied as the ECC applies it is not a step in the right direction, it is actually injustice. Saying that they would not charge Blair even before the Chilcot report was out simply confirmed the primacy of political over legal considerations for them.

Yet again, Corbyn has proved he is one of very few honorable people in a den of scum. May he become Prime Minister and, once Prime Minister, may he ensure Tony Blair and those who aided and abetted him in selling the Iraq war with lies, have the fair trial they so richly deserve.

Oh, and as usual, doing so is not just the right thing to do ethically, it would be the right thing to do politically, keeping Corbyn’s primary enemies completely occupied. Because, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the people who fear actual left-wingers or people of principle the most aren’t Tories, they are Blairites.

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Belief

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On August 12, 2014

59 Comments

The rise of the ISA is a demonstration of the simple principle Napoleon once summarized as “The moral is to the physical as ten is to one.”

We have seen this for years, and the lesson is never learned by the West.

People who believe in what they’re fighting for, who are willing to both kill AND die are far better soldiers (and pretty much everything else) than those who aren’t.

This has been demonstrated, over and over again.  The Chinese in Korea, the Vietnamese, Afghanistan, Hezbollah.

Moreover endless low-grade war is moronic.  I once noted that Hezbollah was the perfect Darwinian organization; it had learned all the lessons Israel had taught.  It was used to fighting while outgunned and outnumbered.  It learned when not to use modern communications, to operate as a secret state, and so on, from Israel.

The modern form of electronic and surveillance warfare that the US practices is all very nice, and it is powerful, but the US and its proxies have been at war with the Islamic world for decades  The West, basically, does not learn. Its militaries are not getting better (though many will claim they are), except in terms of equipment.

The militaries of those who fight the West, on the other hand, are improving by leaps and bounds.  They move fast, give power to local commanders, isolate and destroy enemies, and regularly surprise their foes.  The ISA, to an extraordinary degree, chooses where to fight and when.  Of course they are winning.  The only people in the Middle East who are almost certainly the ISA troops equal are Hezbollah (and I would expect, their betters.  We’ll find out.)

When you fight wars as a superior power, you want to make them quick, over and out.  An America which invaded Irak, stayed in Baghdad for only two months, and installed the Colonel of its choice as the new leader would still be a US which terrified the Islamic world.

The ISA, I suspect, has another great advantage over the militaries it faces.

It doesn’t use much in the way of electronic communication (those commanders who do, get dead.)  This means that once units are given orders, the local commanders are free to execute those orders as they see fit, rather than being micromanaged by generals in the rear line.  No single person, or even staff, can react as quickly as the commanders on the ground can, or as appropriately.

The sheer stupid of Israel, of America, of the West is stunning to behold.  “Here, let us teach you how to beat us by engaging you in years of inconclusive warfare.”

The correct policy, from a hegemonic point-of-view (not what I would prefer), is to let them have their governments, let their elites rule, and if they get out of hand, knock them over.  Maintain the fear.  Let them get a bit soft and fat, let them have something to lose.

Failure to do this, and coddling of Saudi Arabian Wahhabism, has led to the rise of a truly barbaric form of militant Islam, which also happens to be startling effective on the battlefield.

Don’t teach people how to actually fight you.  Don’t support barbaric regimes like Saudi Arabia’s in exporting their loathsome ideology.  If you’re going to be an imperialist, learn how to actually play the game.

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A Transcript of Abu Bakr’s Speech

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On July 6, 2014

147 Comments

Can be found here.

It’s an interesting document, and worth reading yourself.  Contrary to media intimations of evil, and raving, it’s a pretty sane document.

I’ll highlight this bit:

Terrorism is to refuse humiliation, subjugation, and subordination [to the kuffār – infidels]. Terrorism is for the Muslim to live as a Muslim, honorably with might and freedom. Terrorism is to insist upon your rights and not give them up.

But terrorism does not include the killing of Muslims in Burma and the burning of their homes. Terrorism does not include the dismembering and disemboweling of the Muslims in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Kashmir. Terrorism does not include the killing of Muslims in the Caucasus and expelling them from their lands. Terrorism does not include making mass graves for the Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the slaughtering of their children. Terrorism does not include the destruction of Muslims’ homes in Palestine, the seizing of their lands, and the violation and desecration of their sanctuaries and families.

Terrorism does not include the burning of masājid in Egypt, the destruction of the Muslims’ homes there, the rape of their chaste women, and the oppression of the mujahidin in the Sinai Peninsula and elsewhere. Terrorism does not include the extreme torture and degradation of Muslims in East Turkistan and Iran [by the rāfidah], as well as preventing them from receiving their most basic rights. Terrorism does not include the filling of prisons everywhere with Muslim captives. Terrorism does not include the waging of war against chastity and hijab (Muslim women’s clothing) in France and Tunis. It does not include the propagation of betrayal, prostitution, and adultery.

It sort of speaks for itself, in the “you call me a monster?  Look in the fucking mirror” vein that is rather hard to argue against when your leaders have just invaded multiple countries on flimsy pretext leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, minimum and the creation of millions of refugees, the vast majority of whom just happen to be Muslim. And when the leader of the “free” world brags about how great he is at killing, while he force feeds men who, in many cases, haven’t been convicted of a damn thing.

I despise everything ISIS stands for.  But it’s simply impossible to defend what the West has been doing to Muslims for the past 20 years, or to note that ISIS doesn’t exist as a force worth worrying about with George Bush’s illegal invasion of the Middle East.

You look back to the 50s and 60s, to Iraq and Iran, and you see states trying to be democratic, whose version of Islam is mild and moderating; whose women are becoming more and more free and educated (the same is generally true of Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Pakistan goes really off the rails when it starts being used as a throughfare for arms and money to Afghan Mujahadin.)

Prosperity, and democracy, and hope of a better future.  A belief in truly universal human rights, and that Muslims get to have elections and keep the results of them too.  Or that if they have democratic elections and do manage to keep the results (Iran), that they won’t be enbargoed so their children die due to lack of medicine.

If you won’t offer people freedom and prosperity and autonomy; if you won’t respect their democratic decision-making, why would you be surprised if, after bombing them into the ground, they become unpleasant people?  They are only learning the lessons you have taught them, that might makes right, that there are no “human rights” that apply to Muslims which aren’t bought at the end of a gun (perhaps there aren’t any for anyone, but there certainly aren’t for Muslims.)

Abu Bakr is Bush and Blair’s love child. He is the the great grandchild of the CIA spooks who overthrew democratic elections in the middle East.  He is the step-child of the Egyptian police state, which has proved over and over again that Islamists can”t take power peacefully, because the people with guns won’t allow it.  He is the grandchild of Madeline Albright, who throught that half a million Iraqi children were “worth it.”

An evil man, to be sure, Abu Bakr. But a man who does not exist absent the great and extended efforts of men who were, judged by the number of dead and wounded and dispossessed, even more evil than he.

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Developments in Iraq

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On June 18, 2014

12 Comments

1) An official says that three-quarters of the largest refinery in Iraq, in Baiji, has fallen to ISIS.  Maliki claims otherwise.  I’ll believe Maliki when there’s independent confirmation.

2) The Kurds have moved some troops into ISIS’s way.  How committed they are to defending Baghdad remains to be seen.  It’s unclear if they will.  The talk I constantly hear from Iraqi Shia is how they want to gt revenge against the Kurds for cooperating with the Americans.  So—do they help in hopes of ratcheting down the enmity, or do they say “not our problem, given we know you hate us?”  Personally, if were them I’d have a chat with Al-Sistani, along the lines of “if we do, we will you use your influence to make sure we do get credit?”

3) Iran has said that they will intervene to stop destruction of Shia holy sites.

4) Saudi Arabia has warned that “outside powers” (aka, Iran) should not intervene.  After all, ISIS are their proxies.

The problem here, to my mind, is that the status quo has to end even if ISIS is defeated (and I don’t expect it to be allowed to take Baghdad.)  By which I mean, Maliki has to go.  He couldn’t create an army which would fight, and that disqualifies him from his job even leaving aside his other failures.  Perhaps Iraq should just be split up into three areas.  Perhaps a new unit government should be created. I don’t, frankly, know.  I don’t know enough about Iraq’s internal politics.  What I do know, though, is that the current government is a failure.

(Edit: 5) It seems the US official policy is now that they won’t help unless Maliki steps down.  I am amused.)

Military Effectiveness: ISIS, Taliban, Hezbollah

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On June 16, 2014

42 Comments

I think it’s worth emphasizing that what we’ve seen over the past 30 years is a revolution in military affairs.  New model militaries have arisen which are capable of fighting Western armies to a draw in irregular warfare, or even defeating them on the battlefield (Hezbollah v. Israel.)  It’s not that guerrilla warfare wasn’t effective before (ask the Americans in Vietnam), it’s how stunningly cheap it has become and how brutally effective at area denial and attrition warfare.

People completely underestimate the importance of the IED.  With IEDs the cost for occupation soars, and entire areas of a country can be  made no-go zones except for large groups of troops.

But just as bad is the cost-effectiveness.  Western militaries are brutally costly.  Islamic “militias” are cheap.  The Taliban runs on blackmail and drugs, ISIS runs, to a large extent, on donations from rich Muslims along with some state support.  These armies cost peanuts compared to the US or British or Israeli military.  Nothing.  And they are capable, at the least, of tying down Western militaries for years, bleeding them white and eventually winning.  Hezbollah is capable of defeating, in battle, what was (before Hezbollah proved otherwise) widely considered one of the most effective militaries in the world.

Next we have the “won’t take casualties” issue.  Americans just cannot get this, nor can most Western countries. If you are occupation troops, your lives do not come first.  It is better to lose a few troops than kill innocent people in tribal societies. You kill one innocent, and a whole pile of people now hate your guts. Even if they don’t do anything personally, the provide the support the insurgents need to operate.

It is also true that in many military operations the willingness to take losses makes you more effective. Again, Americans just do not get this.  They’re all focused on “making the other guy die for his country.”  It doesn’t always work like that.

The rise of blanket surveillance is a direct response to the last fifteen years.  It also is working less and less well.  ISIS just does not use phones or the internet.  Hezbollah built its own comm network to avoid interception.  This issue is one that solves itself very quickly: people who use phone or the internet get dead.

This has led, most particularly in the case of Hezbollah, to the rise of the secret state: where members of Hezbollah’s military don’t even tell their family members.  If Israel doesn’t know you’re in the military, they can’t assassinate you. More importantly, they can’t drop a bomb on your family and kill your kids, parents and wife.

The willingness to die is complimented by recruitment.  Americans keep thinking they can assassinate their way to victory.  They can’t.  In any actual effective organization, lower level people can fill the slot above them, and the slot above that.  A strong ideology, and strong doctrine means that leaders are replaceable.  Western leaders don’t believe that because as a class they are narcissists, who think that leaders are something super-special.  Almost no leaders are actually geniuses, for every Steve Jobs or Rommel, there are a hundred CEOS or Generals who are just effective drones.  They don’t matter.  Any reasonably bright person with a bit of experience could run their company or army corp just as well and almost certainly better.  (Canadian troops were amongst the most effective in WWI in part because they weren’t professionals. So they did what worked.)

Western societies are hard to run  precisely because we refuse to actually fix our problems.  Temporizing, “managing” is hard.  Fixing problems is a lot easier.  I know, again, that most people don’t believe this, because they don’t remember ever living in a country that actually tried to fix problems, and have never worked for a company that wasn’t dysfunctional, but it is so true.

So the West uses assassination and highly expensive troops who don’t want to die and extensive surveillance.  And the various Islamic militias, on budgets that aren’t even shoestring, survive and grow stronger.  They are evolving: getting smarter all the time.  They are Darwinian organizations: if you screw up, you die.

A military doctrine which is hundreds of times more expensive than its main competitor has problems.  In general, in military affairs, effectiveness is more important than efficiency.  But if your effectiveness doesn’t actually let you win, in the sense of making it so your enemies stop fighting, then efficiency will start to run against you.

The West is not unaware of this: drones are cheaper than planes, for example.  Ground combat robots, which the army is working on hard, may be effectively cheaper than troops, as well as having the advantage of requiring fewer troops, meaning less danger to the elites and more likely to fire in the case of a revolution.

Finally, I note again, that I do not expect drones and the new ground combat robots (about 10 years out) to remain tools of the powerful for all that long.  Competent technicians will be able to make home brew models fairly effectively and quickly.

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Many Sunnis are already returning to Mosul

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On June 15, 2014

9 Comments

It seems that ISIS has emptied the prisons (a popular move); removed concrete barricades (a gesture of confidence); and dropped the price of gasoline, cooking oil and other staples.

See, many Sunni Mosul residents felt that Maliki was oppressing them: that the troops were there to keep them down.

What people don’t get; what they refuse to get, is that people like ISIS believe and that matters.  Like the early Communists or Hebollah, they are far less corrupt that their opponents.  ISIS does what they think is right.  That includes things we don’t like, such as their treatment of women, but it means that they can be trusted more than their opponents.  The Taliban kept the peace, ended the drug trade and so on.

Napoleon said the moral was to the physical as ten is to one.  Only by immense application of power and money can the West keep people like the Taliban or ISIS in check.  The Taliban is winning in Afghanistan on a budget that is not even a rounding error on a single Pentagon appropriation.

We no longer offer a credible alternative which is ethical and which provides prosperity.  We don’t actually believe in democracy, or human rights, or equality for all people. Our actions say we don’t; our troops know we don’t.

We did, once.  Go find pictures of Afghanistan in the 60s. You’ll see women dressed like western women; you’ll read about colleges, you’ll see economic growth and hope.

A hegemonic ideology offers something to people that they can believe in.  We don’t: out western secular philosophy has failed the people of the Middle East and Africa (and large chunks of Asia) for decades now.

Of course many are transferring their loyalty to another hegemonic ideology.

(And note, again, that their armies are FAR cheaper to maintain than ours, and better able to actually maintain order in areas they control.  Only an overwhelming spending advantage allows us to “win”.  That should chill any smart statesman or military strategist to the core.)

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Al-Sistani calls on followers to fight ISIS

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On June 14, 2014

9 Comments

As I said, ISIS will be defeated, if at all, by Shia militias and/or Peshmerga.  That doesn’t mean they’ll retake Mosul, it means they will stop ISIS’s advance.

Heeding the call to arms by Ayatollah Sistani, Shiite volunteers rushed to the front lines, reinforcing defenses of the holy city of Samarra 70 miles north of Baghdad, and helping thwart attacks by Sunni fighters of the radical Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in some smaller cities to the east.

The Iraqi army is worthless.  It will not fight.  Any attempt to use it for more than bombardment, only strengthens ISIS, as it captures the army’s equipment.  The army should just hand any equipment which doesn’t take a lot of training to use over to the militias. (Yes, I know it won’t, and I know why.)

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