IAP Political Forum

... is actually whorth listening to:


MORE... (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071013/D8S83AD80.html)

We listened to Petreaus and his testimony which was heralded as proof that things are getting better in Iraq. We were told to listen to him because due to his distinguished military career his word was unimpeachable.

I think this man and his assessment are whorth just as much.

You go to war to win, or you don't go to war. dude's spot-on. I doubt you'd like what he has in mind to defeat our enemies.

You mean this Affirmative Action General?

"Dirty" Sanchez?

*preemptive strike in case the right wing doodlebugs are busy smearing other soldiers*

This one is phonier.



(http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5830/toybushxy1.jpg)

I don't think it's any secret mistakes were made. I don't think General Petraeus was saying otherwise.

There is an underlying theme to these stories.....NO ONE has any appreciation of the history of this region...and COMPREHENSIVE UNDERSTANDING of the history of the region and the people CLEARLY demonstrates how and why we fail at OUR goals.

I had written this on IAP 1.0: edited

...............Those with a fairly good foundation on the history of the region will have no problem deciphering the sublties of what is being said.

Excerpts from Face The Nation (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/02/ftn/main3228127.shtml):

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., dismissed the argument that a military push on the part of the United States could by itself ensure the political success of the Iraqi government. "Look, the idea there's going to be a strong, central government in Iraq is not going to happen in your lifetime, it's not going to happen in mine,"....

"It is true things are better where our military is physically sitting. But it's like putting your fist in the water - the minute you take the fist out of the water, you can't even tell it was ever there. That's why there's a need for a political settlement.....

Seems like a brash and subjective statement...I will get to the history in a moment.

The counter to Sen. Biden was Sen. Lyndsey Graham...some things he had to say:

Well, the surge has worked," Graham said. "It's provided a level of security I haven't seen [in Iraq before]. We're finally getting the formula right. Anbar is just not about more troops; Anbar is about the local people, the Sunni Arabs in Anbar rejecting al Qaeda."

Graham pointed to a jump in recruits for the police force in Anbar and a diminishing of al Qaeda's influence in the same area because of the surge. "We can hold areas now because the Iraqi people are getting involved," he said.

I can not overemphasize the highlighted parts above, and I am not sure even Sen. Graham understands the true nature of what he said...taken in a historical perspective...one the Ottomans knew, and one the British knew in trying to govern this region.

The best resource for this I have is "A Peace To End All Peace" (http://books.google.com/books?id=E13DTfEnEmcC&dq=&pg=PP1&ots=PweYyb2xg-&sig=jimc-aDh-9fCwvo5R5BR789s7_s&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fq%3Da%2Bpeace%2Bto%2Bend%2Ball%2Bpeace%26ie%3Dutf-8%26oe%3Dutf-8%26aq%3Dt%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26client%3Dfirefox-a&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title#PPA125,M1)

What the U.S. tries to establish in Iraq has been tried by a European Imperial power already...a powerful Empire which spanned the globe governed by some of the most influential political figures in modern history...Winston Churchill among others.

The British, like Sen. Biden, understood the nature and history of the region, but made mistakes...however they did have a grasp on the nature of the population:

The British thought that Sunnis should lead the Iraqi nation, because the Shi'ite majority was regarded as too volatile to govern due to its largely tribal and nomadic base in Iraq, and hard to assimilate because of an unyielding religious bias for the "Ali" faction of the Muslim schism. "I don't for a moment doubt that the final authority must be in the hands of the Sunnis, in spite of their numerical inferiority," Bell once said. "Otherwise you will have a ... theocratic state, which is the very devil."

The rivalries and differing religious attitudes continue to cause friction within Iraq.

Gertrude Bell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Bell)

Also, from the British occupation:

The inhabitants of these provinces defined themselves as they had done immemorially, by their various tribal and religious and ethnic affiliations. The central schism in Islam between Sunnis and Shia had particular importance in the Mesopotamian provinces. Sunni themselves, the Ottomans had made sure to promote the Sunni Arab minority as a ruling class at the expense of the Shia majority. Shia ayatollahs had long wanted to have a state of their own, but had never been able to break through the Sunni oppression and stranglehold on power. In their holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, the downtrodden Shia masses consoled themselves with religious demonstrations that verged on violence. In the northern province of Mosul, the Kurds also aspired to a state of their own. They are Muslims but not Arabs, and their further division into feuding tribes and clans remains an obstacle to political compromise to this day.

What Britain learned: and how America can build, in Iraq (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_23_55/ai_n13610359)

There are more instances of historical significance that I will share later...but this information has been known for decades and anyone with an appreciation of the history would know that invading and the EXPECTING a central government to form among clans and tribes that have fought for centuries is at best remote, and at worst, a wasted exercise in futility.

What I don't understand is the utter lack of appreciation of the regional history with our current government, and the current crop of those running for President.

Sen. Biden at least has an inkling.

EDIT:

I cannot recommend the book I cite above any higher...I am on my third re-read...When you finish it, you will have, IMHO, the equivalant of a Minor in Modern Middle Eastern History, and will at least be able to intelligently discuss issues that have led to the debacle of the Middle East today.

Excerpt of my post taken from here:1920 and 2007 and the problems we face...IAP 1.0 (http://archive.itsallpolitics.com/-vp448378.html#448378)

There is an underlying theme to these stories.....NO ONE has any appreciation of the history of this region...and COMPREHENSIVE UNDERSTANDING of the history of the region and the people CLEARLY demonstrates how and why we fail at OUR goals.

I had written this on IAP 1.0: edited

...............Those with a fairly good foundation on the history of the region will have no problem deciphering the sublties of what is being said.

Excerpts from Face The Nation (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/02/ftn/main3228127.shtml):

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., dismissed the argument that a military push on the part of the United States could by itself ensure the political success of the Iraqi government. "Look, the idea there's going to be a strong, central government in Iraq is not going to happen in your lifetime, it's not going to happen in mine,"....

"It is true things are better where our military is physically sitting. But it's like putting your fist in the water - the minute you take the fist out of the water, you can't even tell it was ever there. That's why there's a need for a political settlement.....

Seems like a brash and subjective statement...I will get to the history in a moment.

The counter to Sen. Biden was Sen. Lyndsey Graham...some things he had to say:

Well, the surge has worked," Graham said. "It's provided a level of security I haven't seen [in Iraq before]. We're finally getting the formula right. Anbar is just not about more troops; Anbar is about the local people, the Sunni Arabs in Anbar rejecting al Qaeda."

Graham pointed to a jump in recruits for the police force in Anbar and a diminishing of al Qaeda's influence in the same area because of the surge. "We can hold areas now because the Iraqi people are getting involved," he said.

I can not overemphasize the highlighted parts above, and I am not sure even Sen. Graham understands the true nature of what he said...taken in a historical perspective...one the Ottomans knew, and one the British knew in trying to govern this region.

The best resource for this I have is "A Peace To End All Peace" (http://books.google.com/books?id=E13DTfEnEmcC&dq=&pg=PP1&ots=PweYyb2xg-&sig=jimc-aDh-9fCwvo5R5BR789s7_s&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fq%3Da%2Bpeace%2Bto%2Bend%2Ball%2Bpeace%26ie%3Dutf-8%26oe%3Dutf-8%26aq%3Dt%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26client%3Dfirefox-a&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title#PPA125,M1)

What the U.S. tries to establish in Iraq has been tried by a European Imperial power already...a powerful Empire which spanned the globe governed by some of the most influential political figures in modern history...Winston Churchill among others.

The British, like Sen. Biden, understood the nature and history of the region, but made mistakes...however they did have a grasp on the nature of the population:

The British thought that Sunnis should lead the Iraqi nation, because the Shi'ite majority was regarded as too volatile to govern due to its largely tribal and nomadic base in Iraq, and hard to assimilate because of an unyielding religious bias for the "Ali" faction of the Muslim schism. "I don't for a moment doubt that the final authority must be in the hands of the Sunnis, in spite of their numerical inferiority," Bell once said. "Otherwise you will have a ... theocratic state, which is the very devil."

The rivalries and differing religious attitudes continue to cause friction within Iraq.

Gertrude Bell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Bell)

Also, from the British occupation:

The inhabitants of these provinces defined themselves as they had done immemorially, by their various tribal and religious and ethnic affiliations. The central schism in Islam between Sunnis and Shia had particular importance in the Mesopotamian provinces. Sunni themselves, the Ottomans had made sure to promote the Sunni Arab minority as a ruling class at the expense of the Shia majority. Shia ayatollahs had long wanted to have a state of their own, but had never been able to break through the Sunni oppression and stranglehold on power. In their holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, the downtrodden Shia masses consoled themselves with religious demonstrations that verged on violence. In the northern province of Mosul, the Kurds also aspired to a state of their own. They are Muslims but not Arabs, and their further division into feuding tribes and clans remains an obstacle to political compromise to this day.

What Britain learned: and how America can build, in Iraq (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_23_55/ai_n13610359)

There are more instances of historical significance that I will share later...but this information has been known for decades and anyone with an appreciation of the history would know that invading and the EXPECTING a central government to form among clans and tribes that have fought for centuries is at best remote, and at worst, a wasted exercise in futility.

What I don't understand is the utter lack of appreciation of the regional history with our current government, and the current crop of those running for President.

Sen. Biden at least has an inkling.

EDIT:

I cannot recommend the book I cite above any higher...I am on my third re-read...When you finish it, you will have, IMHO, the equivalant of a Minor in Modern Middle Eastern History, and will at least be able to intelligently discuss issues that have led to the debacle of the Middle East today.

Excerpt of my post taken from here:1920 and 2007 and the problems we face...IAP 1.0 (http://archive.itsallpolitics.com/-vp448378.html#448378)

What happens if you are a senior Republican Senator, and you come to realize that due to the history of the region and it's peoples...everything you hoped for in Iraq would never come to pass?

What Senator Chuck Hagel has done may be a clue.

First...his words from an op-ed piece Sun Nov 26, 2006:

There will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq. These terms do not reflect the reality of what is going to happen there. The future of Iraq was always going to be determined by the Iraqis -- not the Americans.

Iraq is not a prize to be won or lost. It is part of the ongoing global struggle against instability, brutality, intolerance, extremism and terrorism. There will be no military victory or military solution for Iraq. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger made this point last weekend.............

Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation -- regardless of our noble purpose.........

We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam...........

 It may take many years before there is a cohesive political center in Iraq. America's options on this point have always been limited. There will be a new center of gravity in the Middle East that will include Iraq. That process began over the past few days with the Syrians and Iraqis restoring diplomatic relations after 20 years of having no formal communication.

What does this tell us? It tells us that regional powers will fill regional vacuums, and they will move to work in their own self-interest -- without the United States.........

 It is not too late. The United States can still extricate itself honorably from an impending disaster in Iraq.................

Leaving Iraq, Honorably (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112401104.html)

Some of you may know he was once running for President....at last...a man who understands the history of the region running the show.

But support for his position would not sustain a run...so what is left for a man who is true to his conviction?

Leave altogether.

Monday, September 10, 2007
Hagel not running in 2008

Chuck Hagel has announced today that he will not be seeking a third term in the Senate and that he will not be running for Presdient.

..."I leave maybe a little wiser, surely a little more experienced and with a very respectable amount of humility."

Hagel 2008 (http://hagel2008.blogspot.com/)

No wonder those running for President fail to acknowledge history or the consequences of ignoring it.

There is an underlying theme to these stories.....NO ONE has any appreciation of the history of this region...and COMPREHENSIVE UNDERSTANDING of the history of the region and the people CLEARLY demonstrates how and why we fail at OUR goals.

I had written this on IAP 1.0: edited

...............Those with a fairly good foundation on the history of the region will have no problem deciphering the sublties of what is being said.

Excerpts from Face The Nation (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/02/ftn/main3228127.shtml):

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., dismissed the argument that a military push on the part of the United States could by itself ensure the political success of the Iraqi government. "Look, the idea there's going to be a strong, central government in Iraq is not going to happen in your lifetime, it's not going to happen in mine,"....

"It is true things are better where our military is physically sitting. But it's like putting your fist in the water - the minute you take the fist out of the water, you can't even tell it was ever there. That's why there's a need for a political settlement.....

Seems like a brash and subjective statement...I will get to the history in a moment.

The counter to Sen. Biden was Sen. Lyndsey Graham...some things he had to say:

Well, the surge has worked," Graham said. "It's provided a level of security I haven't seen [in Iraq before]. We're finally getting the formula right. Anbar is just not about more troops; Anbar is about the local people, the Sunni Arabs in Anbar rejecting al Qaeda."

Graham pointed to a jump in recruits for the police force in Anbar and a diminishing of al Qaeda's influence in the same area because of the surge. "We can hold areas now because the Iraqi people are getting involved," he said.

I can not overemphasize the highlighted parts above, and I am not sure even Sen. Graham understands the true nature of what he said...taken in a historical perspective...one the Ottomans knew, and one the British knew in trying to govern this region.

The best resource for this I have is "A Peace To End All Peace" (http://books.google.com/books?id=E13DTfEnEmcC&dq=&pg=PP1&ots=PweYyb2xg-&sig=jimc-aDh-9fCwvo5R5BR789s7_s&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fq%3Da%2Bpeace%2Bto%2Bend%2Ball%2Bpeace%26ie%3Dutf-8%26oe%3Dutf-8%26aq%3Dt%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26client%3Dfirefox-a&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title#PPA125,M1)

What the U.S. tries to establish in Iraq has been tried by a European Imperial power already...a powerful Empire which spanned the globe governed by some of the most influential political figures in modern history...Winston Churchill among others.

The British, like Sen. Biden, understood the nature and history of the region, but made mistakes...however they did have a grasp on the nature of the population:

The British thought that Sunnis should lead the Iraqi nation, because the Shi'ite majority was regarded as too volatile to govern due to its largely tribal and nomadic base in Iraq, and hard to assimilate because of an unyielding religious bias for the "Ali" faction of the Muslim schism. "I don't for a moment doubt that the final authority must be in the hands of the Sunnis, in spite of their numerical inferiority," Bell once said. "Otherwise you will have a ... theocratic state, which is the very devil."

The rivalries and differing religious attitudes continue to cause friction within Iraq.

Gertrude Bell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Bell)

Also, from the British occupation:

The inhabitants of these provinces defined themselves as they had done immemorially, by their various tribal and religious and ethnic affiliations. The central schism in Islam between Sunnis and Shia had particular importance in the Mesopotamian provinces. Sunni themselves, the Ottomans had made sure to promote the Sunni Arab minority as a ruling class at the expense of the Shia majority. Shia ayatollahs had long wanted to have a state of their own, but had never been able to break through the Sunni oppression and stranglehold on power. In their holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, the downtrodden Shia masses consoled themselves with religious demonstrations that verged on violence. In the northern province of Mosul, the Kurds also aspired to a state of their own. They are Muslims but not Arabs, and their further division into feuding tribes and clans remains an obstacle to political compromise to this day.

What Britain learned: and how America can build, in Iraq (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_23_55/ai_n13610359)

There are more instances of historical significance that I will share later...but this information has been known for decades and anyone with an appreciation of the history would know that invading and the EXPECTING a central government to form among clans and tribes that have fought for centuries is at best remote, and at worst, a wasted exercise in futility.

What I don't understand is the utter lack of appreciation of the regional history with our current government, and the current crop of those running for President.

Sen. Biden at least has an inkling.

EDIT:

I cannot recommend the book I cite above any higher...I am on my third re-read...When you finish it, you will have, IMHO, the equivalant of a Minor in Modern Middle Eastern History, and will at least be able to intelligently discuss issues that have led to the debacle of the Middle East today.

Excerpt of my post taken from here:1920 and 2007 and the problems we face...IAP 1.0 (http://archive.itsallpolitics.com/-vp448378.html#448378)

While I have a captive audience ( ;))....I will have a little more fun with history....trust me, if you read the WHOLE article...you will be fascinated.

Excerpts from a newspaper article....when was it written?

Words in parenthesis have been changed as part of the exercise.
________________________________________________________________________________

The people of (the United States) have been led in (Iraq) into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are to-day not far from a disaster..........

Yet our published policy has not changed, and does not need changing. It is that there has been a deplorable contrast between our profession and our practice. We said we went to (Iraq) to defeat (Saddam). We said we stayed to deliver the Arabs from the oppression of the (Hussein) Government, and to make available for the world its resources of corn and oil. We spent nearly a million men and nearly a thousand million of money to these ends. This year we are spending ninety-two thousand men and fifty millions of money on the same objects..............

Our government is worse than the old (Saddam) system. They kept fourteen thousand local conscripts embodied, and killed a yearly average of two hundred Arabs in maintaining peace. We keep ninety thousand men, with aeroplanes, armoured cars, gunboats, and armoured trains. We have killed about ten thousand Arabs in this rising this summer. We cannot hope to maintain such an average: it is a poor country, sparsely peopled; but Abd el Hamid would applaud his masters, if he saw us working. We are told the object of the rising was political, we are not told what the local people want. It may be what the Cabinet has promised them. A (Senator) said that we must have so many troops because the local people will not enlist. On Friday the Government announce the death of some local levies defending their (American) officers, and say that the services of these men have not yet been sufficiently recognized because they are too few (adding the characteristic Baghdad touch that they are men of bad character). There are seven thousand of them, just half the old (Saddam) force of occupation. Properly officered and distributed, they would relieve half our army there.  (General Patreus) fails to control (Iraqs) three million people with ninety thousand troops......................

We have not reached the limit of our military commitments. Four weeks ago the staff in (Iraq) drew up a memorandum asking for four more divisions. I believe it was forwarded to the (Department of Defense), which has now sent three brigades from (the US). If the North-West Frontier cannot be further denuded, where is the balance to come from? Meanwhile, our unfortunate troops, (American) and British, under hard conditions of climate and supply, are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the wilfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad...............

The Government in Baghdad have been hanging Arabs in that town for political offences, which they call rebellion. The Arabs are not at war with us. Are these illegal executions to provoke the Arabs to reprisals on the three hundred (American) prisoners they hold? And, if so, is it that their punishment may be more severe, or is it to persuade our other troops to fight to the last?............

We say we are in (Iraq) to develop it for the benefit of the world. all experts say that the labour supply is the ruling factor in its development. How far will the killing of ten thousand villagers and townspeople this summer hinder the production of wheat, cotton, and oil? How long will we permit millions of (dollars), thousands of (American) troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on behalf of (the Bush) administration which can benefit nobody but its administrators?
__________________________________________________________________________________





This was written by T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia").....The Sunday Times, 22 August 1920

Substituted:
"Iraq" for "Mesopotamia"
"Britain" for "United States"
"Turkish" for "Saddam"
"Pounds" for "Dollars"

A Report on Mesopotamia by T.E. Lawrence (http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/1918p/mesopo.html)

Another good read for the bigger picture on "democracy exportation" is Stephen Kinzer's  'Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq'. 

"Kinzer’s Overthrow provides detailed accounts of, as the author states, “the most direct form of American intervention, the overthrow of foreign governments,” covering the roughly hundred years from the U.S.-backed toppling of Hawaii’s monarchy in 1893 to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The conclusion that Kinzer arrives at is that “almost every American overthrow of a foreign government has left in its wake a bitter residue of pain and anger.” __ Jason Snart - Z Magazine Online

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/May2007/snart0507.html (http://zmagsite.zmag.org/May2007/snart0507.html)

I've said for a while that I never doubted the militaries ability to at least bring violence down, but this effrot by our troops is completely erased by the total lack of political process in Iraq.


No de-Baathification legislation.

No way to distribute oil and oil money.

No end in Malaki's support of sectarian violence.

No strong representation of Sunnis.

No stable military structure of Iraqis.


And Bush says "we have work to do"? There Parliment took a month off and we offer no criticism?

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?!?!?!?