at-Largely

On Official War News, Caveat Emptor

Posted By Cernig

Across the pond, today, news that the Ministry of Defense lied to the British public about the reason for a crashed Hercules military transport plane is causing a stir.

The Ministry of Defence covered up the full truth about the destruction of an RAF Hercules aircraft by Iraqi insurgents to stop the enemy claiming a high-profile propaganda victory, a new report discloses.

The C-130J transport aircraft was struck by two bombs planted by militants as it landed on a temporary runway in Maysan Province in south-eastern Iraq on February 12 last year.

All 64 people on board escaped to safety but the Hercules was so badly damaged it had to be destroyed by coalition explosives experts.

At the time the MoD said the aircraft had been involved in an "incident on landing", telling some journalists there were no immediate signs of enemy action.

But a formal Board of Inquiry report, published on the MoD's website, makes it clear that planted improvised explosive devices were suspected within an hour of the blasts.

The report praises senior defence officials' "sound and well-reasoned approach" to releasing information about the incident.

It notes that this resulted in "minimal media interest" and "denied the enemy the opportunity to exploit the situation for the benefit of their IO (information operations) campaign".

Britain has no statute such as that in the US preventing the military, government or intelligence agencies conducting domestic psyops and disinformation campaigns on their own populace. But it may as well be the case that the US doesn't either. In the modern information age, a lie can travel around the world before the truth can get its boots on.

There's no statute against the military or the administration conducting psyops campaigns in Iraq - and if the media then decides to take that information as gospel for reporting in the US then that's their lookout. There's no law against using shills like Phil Sherwell at the Telegraph or Sarah Baxter at the Times to publish "anonymous US sources" saying all kinds of stuff - and if rightwing internet pundits then decide to link that report as gospel truth then that's no fault of the US governments. There's no law - technically - preventing the pentagon from keeping a stable of pet military analysts in the loop on its preferred talking points - and if those analysts then choose not to reveal their insider status when using those talking points, then that's hardly the Pentagon's fault, is it? There's no law against a military flack in Iraq sending an email to a blogger to push a preferrred narrative - the internet is international and the sender is in a foreign country where US psyops are allowed. There's no law against pressuring intelligence analysts into giving your politically-preferred answers then pushing those answers as the consensus findings of the intelligence community. There's no law against publishing to the press "information" gained from offshore torture without revealing the methods used to gain that information. In other words , there are loopholes in the US statute you could drive a tank through - and the Bush administration have, repeatedly.

Thus Pat Tilman, the whole WMD-in-Iraq fable, umpteen tales in the British press of US administration "sources" telling reporters about the perfidy of various members of the "Axis of Evil" that later turned out to be untrue, the various lurid "confrontations" with Iranian speedboats in the Gulf, the evolving tale of those "EFP's from Iran", cover-ups of friendly fire incidents and cover-ups of the military's lack of action in preventing such incidents...

There are those who will argue that giving up the psyops/disinformation weapon in the War on Terror would hamstring those fighting against barbarism. there are those who would argue the counter that if democratic, supposedly-open, nations use such tactics then we are willingly giving up one of the most important things we are supposed to be fighting for. That's an important debate and we should have it, but it remains true that the current British and American administrations have already made their decision to mislead their publics by indirect psyops - they may well feel they're doing it for the best of reasons and motives but they are doing it nonetheless - and that therefore any information from official sources about events in foreign lands are prima facie exactly as reliable and credible as the versions presented by Al Qaeda, the sadrist movement, Iran or any other "enemy". We should always mistrust and verify where we can.

Caveat Emptor - let the buyer beware.

Bush "manifesting the Zionist vision"

Posted By Cernig

Yesterday, I wrote that while a by-blow of Bush's Knesset speech may well have been to attack Obama and other Democratic rivals, the main purpose was to give a "wink and a nod" to Israeli hardliners that in the closing days of his presidency they can do no wrong - including attack Iran, should Israel wish to, or scuppering any chance of a Palestinian peace process.

Reports in the Israeli media say that Israel got Bush's message, loud and clear.

"We are on the same page. We both see the threat ... And we both understand that tangible action is required to prevent the Iranians from moving forward on a nuclear weapon," Olmert spokesman Mark Regev said.

Regev described diplomatic efforts so far to exert pressure on Iran as "positive", but added: "It is clearly not sufficient and it's clear that additional steps will have to be taken".

Asked about the option of using military force, Regev said: "Leaders of many countries have talked about many options being on the table and, of course, Israel agrees with that."

Senior officials in Jerusalem said Thursday that Israel is fully satisfied with the results of Bush's visit, including policy on Iran's nuclear program.

"In talks with the president of the United States during his visit it was made clear that Bush's statements on the subject of Iran's nuclear program are fully backed in practice," a senior official said.

One Zionist member of the Knesset even suggested Bush's next job should be to replace Olmert as Israeli PM.

As a former Knesset speaker, MK Reuven Rivlin, put it Thursday, "I wish our leaders would make speeches like this." Rivlin described Bush as "manifesting the Zionist vision."

Contrary to the applause Bush received for his address, the speech by Prime Minister Olmert was less popular and stirred considerable controversy.

Olmert promised that when there is a peace agreement it "will be approved by a large majority in the Knesset and it will be supported by the vast majority of the Israeli public."

Two MKs from the National Union, Zvi Hendel and Uri Ariel, left the plenum in protest, complaining that the event was "used to promote a political agenda that is opposed by most of the Israeli public."
Hendel issued a statement calling on Olmert "to learn from the president of the United States what Zionism is."

MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) called out during Olmert's speech, "in your dreams."

He later proposed that Bush should replace Olmert.

Olmert mainly drew criticism for parts of his speech concerning the Palestinian peace process, saying that "we will bring before the Knesset an agreement that is based on the vision of two states for two peoples. This agreement will be approved by a large majority in the Knesset and the entire nation." That's when Hendel and Ariel walked out.

Perhaps they should have been more patient. Today Olmert made it clear he wanted no peace process at all, as he denied to Palestinians what Israeli Jews have held themselves had all these years - a right of return.

Six months into negotiations sponsored by Bush in the hope of a deal before he leaves the White House, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman used some of the toughest Israeli language yet to insist that President Mahmoud Abbas abandon 60-year-old refugee claims if he wants to establish a Palestinian state.

"This demand, which does not exist under international law, for right of return, is the ultimate deal breaker. You cannot have peace and this demand at the same time," Mark Regev said.

Some 700,000 people, half the Arab population of Palestine in May 1948, fled or were driven from their homes when Israel was created. Letting them and their families live in Israel now would undermine its nature as a Jewish state, Israel argues.

It also disputes the legal basis of the right of the return first set out in a United Nations resolution of December 1948.

There's no doubt in my mind that Bush's speech - which described Israel "the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham, Moses, and David - a homeland for the chosen people in Eretz Yisrael," has given Olmert all the political cover he needs to torpedo the Bush administration's own hopes for a deal. Needless to say, Palestinians are not happy.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters: "He should have told the Israelis that, 1 mile from where he was speaking, there is a nation that has lived in disaster for 60 years. He should have told the Israelis no one can be free at the expense of others. He missed this opportunity and we are disappointed."

...In the Palestinian newspaper al-Ayyam, columnist Samih Shabib wrote: "Bush is blind to the right of return.

"The U.S. administration's attitude towards Israel inherently promotes hostility and deepens hatred towards the United States and its policy. Is this hostility, and its consequences, in America's interest? I don't think so."

You can see why Bush likes to think that diplomacy and negotiation are weak and "appeasing" - he's so bloody bad at them. He's much better at bringing violence and war through tough talk and ill-judged adventures.

A Wink And A Nod

Posted By Cernig

Today I read Bush's speech at the Knesset and thought "Aye, there's yet another another 'wink and a nod' to Israel for an attack, if they want it."

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

...America stands with you in breaking up terrorist networks and denying the extremists sanctuary. And America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

Most American pundits want to see Bush's remarks as an attack on Barrack Obama but folks - it's not always about your country and your political races. For one thing, as Brian Katulis adroitly notes, if negotiating is appeasement then the Bush administration has done an awful lot of appeasement itself over the last seven years. And Brian doesn't even mention working with Sunni Awakening members in Iraq who not too long ago were terrorists attacking US forces! For another, if Bush's remarks were really intended to help John McCain, the latter wouldn't go shooting himself in the foot like this:

“Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain,'’ Mr. McCain told reporters on his campaign bus after a speech in Columbus, Ohio. “I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.'’

Need I say that "Iran-Contra" and "appeasement" really do belong in the same sentence together?

No, (probably) even Bush's speechwriters aren't so crass as to make such a blindingly partisan move in the American electoral race when their dummy is acting as Head of State of both Democratic and Republican Americans at a major international event. We need to look beyond purely domestic motivations - and we'll find them in the aspirations and dreams of the neoconservative lobby and their Very Serious Person enablers in the media.

Yesterday, University of Columbia journalsim Professor Todd Gitlin had a very timely post at Talking Points Memo which, I think, points to Bush's real agenda.

I'm attending Shimon Peres' President's Conference on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel... for two days now, so many speakers have been preoccupied with Iran, and talking rather casually about the prospect of a preventive strike.

The sense of threat here is vivid, it is deeply felt, it is completely comprehensible, and it rises occasionally, or more than occasionally, to a well-nigh hysterical pitch--so much so that the Amerian strategist Edward Luttwak arose Monday night at a banquet at Peres' house to warn assembled luminaries against fearing annihilation at the hands of an Ahmadinejad who, after all, was not Hitler but Mussolini, and an inept one at that. It is not lost on any Israeli that Ahmadinejad, in his usual delicate manner, last week called Israel a "stinking corpse."

Weirdly, at a Wednesday afternoon workshop, the selfsame Luttwak declared that Iran's reformers would actually welcome a sharp outsider's attack on their nuclear facilities. No other panelist disputed his suggestion, which was greeted with much applause from a largely Israeli audience.

Which explains Bush's thinly-veiled threats of regime change in his speech.

After Luttwak's proclamation, and a game but much less applauded attempt by UCLA Professor Steven L. Spiegel to speak up for an alliance-negotiation approach to Iran instead of a mlitary attack, the session moderator, Israel's former ambassador to the US, Itamar Rabinovitch, somehow intimated--I'm sorry I didn't take down his exact words--that Israel's government would put it to Bush that if he didn't take action, Israel would.

Just outside the hall, I ran into a friend, also a liberal Jew, who had attended the same session, wasn't sitting with me but heard the same implicit threat. Alarmed (can one be too alarmed about such matters?), and assuming that Rabinovitch would be well informed, we checked out our dire impression with a sober, well-connected European official. This person isn't quite sure what's up against Iran but also worries that such an attack might be in the offing even if no government in Europe would be onboard.

And veteran British political reform campaigner Anthony Barnett adds in comments to Gitlin's post:

I have heard the same concerns in London. The 'urgency' is that the Russians are providing significant ground-to-air systems which apparently are likely to be operational by September and could be relatively effective given the distances and the need for more than one strike and therefore the lack of surprise. It seems that the Bush administration is regarded as too weak and the US military too opposed for an American strike to be considered - so it has to be an Israeli one permitted by Washington over the summer.

Bush, in his speech to the Knesset, signalled clearly that his administration will quietly support Israel if it decided to take direct action against Iran - as it did recently against Syria. It's worth noting that any Israeli attack on Iran would almost certainly have to transit Iraqi airspace.

Liquid Lunching With Rummie

Posted By Cernig

Audio segments from the Pentagon's document dump reveal that fun and games were had by all at a Christmastime 2006 luncheon hosted by Donald Rumsfield for the Pentagon's pet military analysts:

As documented by Newsvine, it all went down at a valedictory luncheon Rumsfeld hosted for those analysts on December 12, 2006. Many of the "message force multipliers" named in the original New York Times piece were in attendance, including David L. Grange, Donald W. Sheppard, James Marks, Rick Francona, Wayne Downing, and Robert H. Scales, Jr. They were treated to an extraordinary conversation (Newsvine has highlights, the hour-long clip of which can be found here) with Rumsfeld, that included many jaw-dropping moments, such as Rumsfeld admitting that in Iraq, the U.S. "can't lose militarily, but...can't win by military means alone," an agreement that Iraq could use a Syngman Rhee-type dictator (because that's what democracy smells like!), and a lengthy passage where Rumsfeld jokingly offers a bottle of champagne to anyone who could kill Moqtada al Sadr. You sure don't see too many people joking on al Sadr these days!

But by far the most extraordinary part of this luncheon is the antipathy the gathered members exhibit toward the American people for having the temerity to vote the Democrats back into power. When Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong bemoans the lack of "sympathetic ears" on Capitol Hill, Rumsfeld offers that the American people lack "the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats." What's to be done? According to Rumsfeld, "The correction for that, I suppose, is [another] attack."

Germany Declines To Copy Rice's NSC "Failure"

Posted By Cernig

How long do you think America's reputation will take to recover from the Bush administration's ineptness?

Germany's foreign minister has rejected plans by Chancellor Angela Merkel's party to set up a U.S.-style National Security Council to oversee foreign policy, saying the body proved a failure in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a speech in Berlin on Monday that the U.S. NSC, which was run by Condoleezza Rice when the United States launched its invasion of Iraq, had "suppressed all counterarguments" to the war in 2003.

"This cannot be the model for us," said Steinmeier, a member of the centre-left Social Democrats, who under former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder staunchly opposed the Iraq war.

Decades, that's how long. For as long as the U.S. is in Iraq, and a while after that, America's reputation will be that of the superpower that started a war by fixing the intelligence around the policy, just because it could.

Meddlers!

By Cernig

We've heard a lot recently about US allegations that Iran is interfering in Iraq, aiding insurgents with weaponry and training, but Iran has also long said that both the US and Britain back insurgents inside Iran and we hear rather less about that.

That might change if Iran goes ahead with a lawsuits, as it claimed today, against both nations for aiding terrorists who allegedly blew up a mosque.

Iran's judiciary said on Monday it would file international lawsuits against the United States and Britain, accusing them of providing financial support to those behind a blast in a mosque that killed 14 people.

Iran's intelligence minister last week said Iran had arrested five or six members of a terrorist group with links to Britain and the United States who he said were involved in the explosion that also wounded 200 in the southern city of Shiraz. Iranian officials had previously said the April 12 blast, during an evening prayer sermon by a prominent local cleric, was caused by explosives left over from an exhibition commemorating the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

Judiciary spokesman Ali-Reza Jamshidi told state television the terrorists behind the bombing were agents of the U.S. and British governments in Iran. "The relationship of those who planted the bombs in Shiraz with the U.S. and Britain was identified and they were being financially supported and in fact they acted as foreign agents in Iran," he said. "In view of the documents obtained the judiciary in cooperation with the government and the Foreign Ministry will file lawsuits with international authorities against their supporters, who on the one hand claim to fight terrorists and on the other hand provide them with equipment," he said.

He was clearly referring to Britain and the United States, but did not give details on how Tehran would take legal action against them. Iran has in the past accused the two countries of trying to destabilize the Islamic Republic by supporting rebels, mainly those in sensitive border areas.

The British government recently failed to prevent judges from ordering the removal of the main suspect in foreign-backed meddling in Iran, the MeK, from being removed from the UK's terror list. Iran isn't too happy about that, summoning the British ambassador to protest the removal - and in truth the British government didn't try too hard to keep the MeK on the list. Neoconservatives and rightwing regime-change advocates have given the MeK heavy political backing in the last few years in both the US and UK and it seems likley that the US State Department will follow suit when it next reviews the MeK's inclusion in October.

Just Another Militia

Posted By Cernig

Would anyone like to speculate how long the newly-agreed truce between Maliki and Sadr will last?

Not Long. Especially given this video to inflame tempers. The London Times describes it:

A humvee military vehicle idles on a broad avenue as an Iraqi army soldier walks nonchalantly past without so much as a glance at the body slung across the bonnet.

The dead man’s trousers have been pulled down to his ankles, exposing white underwear below a torn T-shirt drenched in blood from wounds to his chest and side.

Behind is a second Humvee with another body sprawled over the front, arms and legs outstretched. On his white shirt, a large bloodstain indicates the wound that may have killed him. A soldier sitting on the roof dangles his legs over the windscreen and seems to prod the corpse’s stomach with his boot.

As the vehicles roll slowly forward, the tooting of car horns rises to a crescendo in apparent celebration of victory in battle and the sound of whooping and gunshots can be heard.

A police officer in a blue uniform drives alongside, smiling as the Humvees are waved forward by a pedestrian in civilian clothes and head towards two large arches that span the road. The bodies are being paraded like prize stags after a hunt.

The film, which appears to have been made with a mobile phone, was passed to The Sunday Times by a senior official close to Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi’ite cleric who leads the Mahdi Army militia.

The official said it had come from Basra and showed the bodies of two Mahdi fighters who died after the Iraqi army launched an offensive in the southern port city in March with the aim of liberating it from the grip of warring militias.

There was no way to corroborate the official’s information or to identify the dead men as Mahdi fighters, but the vehicles bear Iraqi army markings and the arches glimpsed in the film resemble a Basra landmark.

It doesn't take much brights to correctly predict Sadrist reactions:

Mahdi sources said the parading of corpses would increase distrust of Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, and his army, which is largely trained and supported by the United States.

“The Mahdi will not surrender its weapons to such an army,” said one commander. “They say we are outlaws but this video just goes to prove that Maliki’s forces are nothing more than a militia. They will never take Sadr City unless they wipe out each and every one of us.”

...An Iraqi lawyer who has advised Maliki’s government said the two videos showed soldiers and police in serious breach of the law. “Desecrating a corpse is prohibited in law, even if he had been the worst criminal on earth,” said Maen Zaki, a former member of a government committee that handled legal issues arising from operations to restore order in Baghdad.

I suspect that the video is genuine and that the perpetrators are members of the ISCI's Badr Brigade which was largely folded into the Iraqi Army so that it could be re-defined as not a militia anymore. It's worth putting the blood-feud between the Sadrists and the Badrists into a wider historical context here, and as James Glantz points out, the new book by veteran UK reporter Patrick Cockburn does just that:

In late March, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki threw nearly 40,000 Iraqi Army and police forces, backed by American air support, into an assault on the southern city of Basra, figuring it would take him a few days to smash the Shiite militias in control of many of the city’s neighborhoods. Instead, the Mahdi Army, the militia led by Moktada, initially fought the government to a standstill.

There was probably not a single adult Iraqi who missed the strong historical resonances of that confrontation, and few Americans who did catch them. Understandably so: not even a Trivial Pursuit champion is likely to know that it was Moktada’s father-in-law, Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, who formed a Shiite religious party called Dawa, or “the Call,” under the nose of Iraq’s last king. Dawa not only outlasted the king, who met a bloody end in 1958, but became so influential that it threatened the regime of a later Iraqi head of state named Saddam Hussein.

...For Prime Minister Maliki, one positive outcome of his inconclusive assault on the Mahdi Army in Basra is that the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a crucial part of his coalition that is led by another noted Shiite family, the Hakims, has warmed to him considerably after years of regarding him warily.

That isolated fact means little until you know that during years of exile in Tehran, Damascus and elsewhere, the Hakims continually accused Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr of being a collaborator with the Hussein regime. The rivalry between the Hakims and the Sadrs has never died, and in Iraq it won’t soon be forgotten. The prime minister may have depicted the operation in Basra as purely a matter of clearing armed bandits from the streets. But the fact remains that whoever those gunmen were, they withdrew only when Moktada ordered them to.

Sadr Surrenders? Nope

Posted By Cernig

An article from McClatchy today reports a "big concession" from the Sadrist movement which it says is "a surprising capitulation that seemed likely to be hailed as a major victory for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki"

Followers of rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr agreed late Friday to allow Iraqi security forces to enter all of Baghdad's Sadr City and to arrest anyone found with heavy weapons...

In return, Sadr's Mahdi Army supporters won the Iraqi government's agreement not to arrest Mahdi Army members without warrants, unless they were in possession of "medium and heavy weaponry."

The agreement would end six weeks of fighting in the vast Shiite Muslim area that's home to more than 2 million residents and would mark the first time that the area would be under government control since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003.

Rightwing pro-occupation bloggers in America are positively gloating at the news, claiming all kinds of victory for Maliki's government.

But not so fast. Who gets what out of this deal? For once, Jules Crittenden has it almost right.

Al-Maliki gets a win. Big power broker stops the killing, Mahdi Army rolls over and everyone goes how. Al-Sadr gets one. It was all about Sadr City residents leaning on the Sadrists. Al-Maliki to the resuce.

Al-Sadr gets a big win. His private army lives to extort, intimidate, murder another day. But Iran could have the biggest win.  Heat’s off.  Maybe that U.S. drawdown continues. Lower election season profile.

News reports and statements from Iraqi government members say that once again Iran played a big role in getting Maliki to back off from wiping out his main political rival, through pressure on Sadr as well as on the ISCI and Dawa parties. The deal thus consolidates Iran as the main Big Brother neighbour for Iraq's Shiite majority and makes it's influence there well-nigh unshakeable. Witness Maliki's back-pedalling on U.S. claims of Iranian weaponry.

As to Sadr, winning an armed conflict with the U.S. and the Iraqi central government was never an option for him. He's succeeded in splitting the Iraqi Army off from U.S. aid against his movement - thus neutralising the threat to his militia, as Crittenden notes, because the Iraqi Army on its own cannot defeat the Mahdi Army despite U.S. spin to the contrary. Maliki has backed off from earlier demands that the Mahi Army be dissolved and there will, it seems, be a four day ceasefire before the Iraqi Army begins to search the teeming slum for heavy weapons. Best of luck to them with that, after giving the militias so much time to hide everything.

But far more important for him is that he now keeps his political hopes alive, with elections where his movement can expect to make considerable inroads against his ISCI rivals looming. That was always the prize, and he has taken it.

As I wrote on April 22nd, the outlook from now is what Anthony Cordesman described: "both sides become locked in a lingering intra-Shi’ite power struggle that mixes violence with political power plays." As my colleague Eric Martin noted at the time, that dim outlook was Cordesman's best case scenario. So now we have the best of all possible "victories" in Iraq, with a Sadrist "capitulation" that is really nothing of the sort but instead prolongs the low-scale Shiite civil war in both the military and political arenas.

Yes, We Do Body Counts

Posted By Cernig

Over at Salon today there's a disturbing story of the kind of hyperkinetic and ultimately harmful counter-insurgency tactics which are being driven by a top-down demand for results in Iraq. The article explores the events surrounding the murder of an Iraqi farmer by a U.S. sniper team and relates it to pressure for body counts by commanders who then walk away untouched by the legal fallout of their subordinates' actions.

A review of thousands of pages of documents from the legal proceedings obtained by Salon shows that in the months prior to [the Iraqi farmer, Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi]’s death, the young snipers, already frustrated by guerrilla tactics, were pressed to their physical limits and pushed by officers to stretch the bounds of the laws of war in order to increase the enemy body count. When the United States wallowed in Vietnam’s counterinsurgency quagmire decades ago, the same pressure placed on soldiers resulted in some of the worst atrocities of that war.[…]

The pressure from above for more bodies was also toxic in Iraq, where the isolated, outnumbered and outgunned snipers of the 1st Battalion had to make split-second life-or-death decisions. When those decisions landed them in a military court, it was the lowest-ranking soldiers, not the brass, who paid the price, and a sergeant who said he was pushed into taking a fatal shot who wound up with a long prison sentence. It was battalion commander Lt. Col Robert Balcavage, who pushed for a higher body count, who initiated the prosecution of three of the battalion’s snipers.

The original article is several pages long and bears reading carefully. Matt Duss at The Wonk Room observes:

I think we’ve seen this “dead bodies=success” mentality bleed out into pro-war blogs as well, where the numbers of insurgent dead are credulously relayed and uncritically reported as progress, irrespective of the collateral damage incurred in those deaths and of the galvanizing effects that this has on support for insurgency. (Of course, if you’re someone who believes that trying not to create more insurgents is irrelevant to the task of counterinsurgency, then no big deal. I suppose one could always apply the Bush Doctrine on the ground in Iraq, and justify the murder of Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi on the theory that he might, one day, have joined the insurgency. But then you’d have to kill his son, and then all his friends, too. Nice war we’ve got going here, huh?)

The murder of Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, and the atmosphere in which it occurred, is reminiscent of the Abu Ghraib abuses. In both cases, a high-pressure environment, hazy rules of engagement, and pressure from above to produce usable intelligence/dead “insurgents” led to atrocity. In both cases, the lowest men down were punished for carrying out the directives of their commanders (and Commander-in-Chief), while those commanders were left untouched.

It appears that the Vietnamization of the military is inevitable whenever the officer corps is decimated by principled junior officers quitting after multiple stressful tours, leaving too many tough guy/big ego/inferiority complex guys in command who are unfit for leading COIN operations. The moral is to not get into wars of choice in the first place, but the damage may take a generation to repair.

The Sound Of Closing Windows

Posted By Cernig

Over at Vet Voice, Brandon Friedman has a graph:

He writes:

To be certain, people don't plant IEDs randomly.  Planting roadside bombs in the first place is incredibly risky, and insurgents don't take the issue lightly.  Thus, when IEDs and VBIEDs (car bombs) suddenly start going off west of Baghdad again, it's for a reason.

While I do not profess to know exactly what change in the political climate precipitated this specific spike in violence, I do know that General Petraeus was correct when he said that the placidity in Anbar Province was reversible.  What most have failed to realize thus far is that, while al Qaeda is deeply unpopular in Anbar, U.S. forces are equally despised.  So it seems that those who've repeatedly used Anbar's relative peacefulness as a sign of impending U.S. success in Iraq know little about counterinsurgency and less about Iraq.

Success in Iraq is something that will be brought about by Iraqis--not the American military.  As long as we're there, the best we can hope for is extreme violence broken by periodic lulls--such as what we've witnessed in Anbar over the past seven months.  As long we remain in Iraq, the violence will remain cyclical.  It will rise and fall, contingent on the latest deal we've cut with tribal leaders or the latest deal that someone has brokered within the Iraqi government.  But our military will never completely solve this inherently Iraqi problem.  We're watching that unfortunate fact unfold before us in Anbar this month.

The "successes" of the Surge, we've been told, only opened a window for political reconciliation which would rapidly close if the Iraqi central government didn't act. I would suggest that Brandon's graph is of a window that is well-nigh closed.

Recent intra-Shiite faction fighting has only served to slam the Sunni Awakening window closed more quickly.  Matt Duss points to a podcast from New York Times reporters Alissa Rubin and Stephen Farrell:

You have the people who rule the street and the people who run the government. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many Iraqis who would wholeheartedly side with the idea that somehow the official democratic clean honest wonderful government is bringing law and order to an undisciplined rabble. I think most people, certainly most Sunnis that you talk to, would see this as a fight between a militia [ISCI/Badr] which happens to have turned itself into the government army and a militia [Sadr’s Mahdi Army] which hasn’t. The insiders and the outsiders.

After the Basra operation, Maliki suddenly found room for 10,000 new Badrist recruits to the security forces - after saying for a long time that there was no room in those forces for more than a fraction of the 90,000 Sunni Awakening members. The rest, they were told, would be turned from warriors in to streetsweepers and garbage collectors. Even then, the central government is balking at taking over paying the Awakening's wages (some $30 million every month) from the U.S. military. Maliki and others from his ruling axis are on record as saying they will not tolerate the lengthy existence of the Awakening as an armed group and thus it is attempting to transition itself to a movement much like Sadr's, where there is a political wing as well as an armed one. But the existing Sunni parties already in power in the Green Zone will massively lose support thereby - and are already, by some accounts, preparing to have the Iraqi Army do to the Awakening what the ISCI had done to the Sadrists.