Sunday Food for Thought: 'Nattering Nabobs of Negativism'

As much as I hate to borrow a phrase from a Spiro Agnew speech (written by right-wing propagandist William Safire), in this case, it truly fits.

Edward Wong writes in the NYT:

Iraq’s Curse: A Thirst for Final, Crushing Victory

PERHAPS no fact is more revealing about Iraq’s history than this: The Iraqis have a word that means to utterly defeat and humiliate someone by dragging his corpse through the streets.

The word is “sahel,” and it helps explain much of what I have seen in three and a half years of covering the war.

It is a word unique to Iraq, my friend Razzaq explained over tea one afternoon on my final tour. Throughout Iraq’s history, he said, power has changed hands only through extreme violence, when a leader was vanquished absolutely, and his destruction was put on display for all to see.

"Sahel" in Arabic means shore, border or coast of the Sahara desert) [and] is the boundary zone in Africa between the Sahara to the north and the more fertile region to the south, known as the Sudan (not to be confused with the country of the same name)." I wasn't able to find any online reference to it in relation to that purported Iraqi definition that Wong provides, so I guess I'll have to take him at his word.

Regardless, Wong then goes on to detail Iraq's history in a very abbreviated form to provide support for this conclusion:

“One day we’ll find that we’ve returned back to 1917,” said Sheik Muhammad Bakr Khamis al-Suhail, a respected Shiite neighborhood leader in Baghdad, referring to the installation here of a Sunni Arab monarchy by the British after World War I. “The pressure of the Arab countries on the American administration might push the Americans to choose the Sunni Arabs.”

Sitting in the cool recesses of his home, the white-robed sheik said he was a moderate, a supporter of democracy. It is for people like him that the Americans have fought this war. But the solution he proposes is not one the Americans would easily embrace.

“In the history of Iraq, more than 7,000 years, there have always been strong leaders,” he said. “We need strong rulers or dictators like Franco, Hitler, even Mubarak. We need a strong dictator, and a fair one at the same time, to kill all extremists, Sunni and Shiite.”

I was surprised to hear those words. But perhaps I was being naïve. Looking back on all I have seen of this war, it now seems that the Iraqis have been driving all along for the decisive victory, the act of sahel, the day the bodies will be dragged through the streets.

So, how do you think a blogger who labels himself as a progressive, liberal, Democrat would react to that idea?

Like this?

It gives me no pleasure to agree with this sheik. I wish it were not so that Iraq needs a ruthless leader, a Hitler or Franco or Muhbarak [sic], to restore order. But, it is either that, or it is this. And this isn't working.

And, as too many Democrats are prone to do these days, the hope falls on an imaginary scenario that is never going to happen:

We'll keep defeating politicians that support this war until there are no politicians that support this war left in office.

So, going back to the first choice which Booman thinks the Iraqis "need" : a strong-arm dictator who is supposedly going to bring order to Iraq by "killing all extremists". Well, that assumes numerous unsaid myths.

- that the Iraqis are completely incapable of fashioning their own peaceful, democratic state.
- that continued militarism is the solution.
- that Iraqis have absolutely no imagination, intelligence or hope and are people who must be ruled with an iron fist in order to be kept under control.
- that it's even possible to kill all extremists which, as we already know, is Bush's grand idea.
- that the solution to Iraq's current nightmare involves just Sunnis and Shiites. Kurds? Christians? Outside influences? What exactly would the new dictator do about them?
- that the US will actually leave Iraq at some point, physically or politically, leaving it to sort out its issues on its own. (One word: oil. The US isn't going anywhere until it bleeds the country dry.)

On it goes...

That attitude shouldn't be surprising though. Take a look at the top 3 Democrat candidates' foreign policy positions and their unflinching support of the military-industrial complex. They all prefer to see militarism as an Olympic sport: who can be better, stronger, faster.

John Edwards

Via Meet the Press, February 2007:

I had internal conflict because I was worried about what George Bush would do. I didn’t have—I didn’t have confidence about him doing the work that needed to be done with the international community, the lead-up to a potential invasion in Iraq.

I didn’t know, in fairness, that he would be as incompetent as he’s been in the administration of the war. But I had—there were at least two things going on. It wasn’t just the weapons of mass destruction I was wrong about. It’s become absolutely clear—and I’m very critical of myself for this—become absolutely clear, looking back, that I should not have given this president this authority.

Those 2 highlighted words are an extremely important clue to his thinking - not that Edwards hasn't been quite open about the fact that he supports military intervention.

Barack Obama. Just see if you can distinguish his position from Bush's.

And Hillary? Are you going to trust a politician who voted for the AUMF on Iraq when she didn't even read the NIE before she uttered her "yay" - sending over 100,000 American troops into harm's way - to be your next commander-in-chief?

Earlier this year, on the presidential campaign trail in New Hampshire, Clinton was confronted by a woman who had traveled from New York to ask her if she had read the intelligence report. According to Eloise Harper of ABC News, Clinton responded that she had been briefed on it.

“Did you read it?” the woman screamed.

Clinton replied that she had been briefed, though she did not say by whom.

The question of whether Clinton took the time to read the N.I.E. report is critically important. Indeed, one of Clinton’s Democratic colleagues, Bob Graham, the Florida senator who was then the chairman of the intelligence committee, said he voted against the resolution on the war, in part, because he had read the complete N.I.E. report.

Graham said he found that it did not persuade him that Iraq possessed W.M.D. As a result, he listened to Bush’s claims more skeptically. “I was able to apply caveat emptor,” Graham, who has since left the Senate, observed in 2005.

Beyond what any of these Democratic candidates might actually do to end the Iraq war (and they rarely, if ever, speak about the Afghanistan war anymore - as if that's running itself) or to bring their troops home (which will not happen for many years to come with permanent bases established in Iraq), the truth is that the current top 3 picks can ensure their supporters of one thing: continued militarism or "New & Improved Militarism Lite".

Interventionism. Exceptionalism. Continued arms sales (overt and covert). Refusals to participate in international treaties or the ICC (International Criminal Court). Plundering of "American interests" (ie. oil) around the world. Extraordinary renditions, torture and kidnappings (do you really think they're going to end covert CIA programs?). Continued, unconditional support of Israel via money and arms. Supplying weapons to whichever government of the day is an ally against some perceived American "enemy". Proudly proclaiming supremacy from the mantle of "The Leader of the Free World" while further dismantling the civil, legal and human rights of their own citizens and others around the world that they deem to be "enemy combatants" or potential threats to US security while leaving open gaping holes in domestic security by not properly funding necessary protections (which enables whoever is in power to perpetuate the fear meme endlessly, thus always necessitating the need for a mythic saviour/hero/heroine in the form of "a strong leader").

"Nattering nabobs of negativism".

I see no hope or optimism in the idea that the disease of militarism can be cured by being even more or more efficiently militaristic and violent or in believing that some strong-armed dictator is going to save Iraq by killing more people.

There's a reason that people who are antiwar are seen as being on the fringe. That lesson was learned by the illumination of the fact that most Americans turned against the Iraq war because it wasn't 'winnable' - not out of any desire to reverse the damaging affront that US military might has wrought upon the world or to stem its future ambitions. The Democrats know that and they have no reason to change their stripes. They're just trying to come across as the kindler, gentler warmongers.

If Wong's interpretation of the word "sahel" is to be taken at face value, it certainly can't be seen as a concept that is in any way foreign to the United States military or its supporters. They may not literally drag their "kills" through the streets for all to see but they certainly do so metaphorically via gung-ho speeches and the dehumanization of the victims whom they can't even bring themselves to assign anything more than numbers too. And, as far as that's concerned, they can't even be honest about just how many corpses they're really claimed except to proclaim that at some future point "victory" will be at hand and this will all have been just a blib on the radar screen. There's always collateral damage, you see. How unfortunate.

I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma...
- George W Bush

The Democrats have had their chance to storm the gates of congress. They've failed. And it's not just because they hold a "fragile" majority in the senate. The real reason is that there just isn't much difference between the two major parties on foreign policy issues. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to think long and hard about that.

And when you have a so-called progressive, liberal, self-identified Democratic blogger caving to the defeatism that says that Iraqis are too weak to understand anything but more tyranny and killings, I think it's safe to say that he is probably speaking for perhaps millions of Americans who have just given up on either party being able to provide a rational outlook on the future of a country their president illegally invaded and turned into a rotting nightmare.

But, as far as I'm concerned, no American has the right or luxury to give up at this point. This war belongs to all of you.

Get your troops home, but don't abandon the spirit and will of the Iraqi people who stand for peace and justice. They deserve far more than that.

Iraq is not cursed to have a future of "extreme violence" and neither are its people.

h/t to Marisacat for her posts on Edwards and Hillary.
 

Canadian Troops in Afghanistan Until 2011?

Via AFP:

MONTREAL (AFP) - Canada may keep soldiers in Afghanistan to help stabilize the worn-torn nation beyond February 2009, its current commitment, it was reported, citing military documents.

The French-language Montreal daily La Presse said 235 million Canadian dollars (200 million US) has been budgeted to maintain Canada's military presence in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011, according to files obtained through access to information legislation.

And the DoD response:

Defense department spokeswoman Carole Brown told AFP that planning for a longer stay was undertaken.

"This plan details what units will make up our first and second line of operation until 2010. But the fact that we have identified particular units in no way implies that we will necessarily be using them in Afghanistan after 2009," she said.

"It does not mean that its going to occur. It's part of our normal process of prudent and contingent planning."

Last week during question period, an opposition member questioned Harper about Canada's commitment to NATO in Afghanistan beyond 2009. His answer was that a decision on that couldn't be made until we approached the deadline for this mission. In other words, he's in favour of extending the commitment past the deadline if he thinks circumstances warrant it and has obviously already made budgetary plans to do so.

But is that what Canadians want? There's already growing unease and a lack of support for our participation in that war and I highly doubt that's going to change this year, next year, or in 2009.

According to a November, 2006 Environics poll, only 10% of Canadians favoured extending the mission past 2009.

8. In your opinion, should Canadian Forces %
Stay in Afghanistan past the year 2009 10
Stay in Afghanistan until 2009 and then return to Canada, or 23
Return from Afghanistan before 2009? 59
Depends –
Don't know/No answer 8

If Harper is still the PM by the time that decision needs to be made and has a majority government situation to do it, I'm convinced he'll keep our soldiers in Afghanistan for years on end regardless of what Canadians want. The opposition parties need to grab onto this issue during the next election to promise that once our current mission is done, our troops will be coming home - if not before then.

I'm a part of that 59% that thinks they should be brought home before 2009.

Canada lost its 45th soldier, Corporal Kevin Megeney, in Afghanistan this week.

How many more will die in this war?

Poll: Canada Comes Out on Top in Image Poll

And, let's make sure we keep it that way.

Via the AP:

LONDON (AP) -- Israel, Iran and the United States were the countries with the most negative image in a globe-spanning survey of attitudes toward 12 major nations. Canada and Japan came out best in the poll, released Tuesday.

The survey for the British Broadcasting Corp.'s World Service asked more than 28,000 people to rate 12 countries - Britain, Canada, China, France, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, North Korea, Russia, the United States and Venezuela - as having a positive or negative influence on the world.

Israel was viewed negatively by 56 percent of respondents and positively by 17 percent; for Iran, the figures were 54 percent and 18 percent. The United States had the third-highest negative ranking, with 51 percent citing it as a bad influence and 30 percent as a good one. Next was North Korea, which was viewed negatively by 48 percent and positively by 19 percent.

Canada had the most positive rating in the survey, with 54 percent viewing it positively and 14 percent negatively. It was followed by Japan and France.
[...]
Pollsters questioned about 1,000 people in 27 different countries, including the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, India, Brazil, Mexico and Australia; as well as four predominantly Muslim countries: Egypt, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia; and two countries with large Muslim populations: Lebanon and Nigeria.

As the pollster's researcher pointed out, countries that prop themselves up based on their military might had the most negative images. Let that be a lesson.
 

Yes, it IS all about Iraq's oil

Alas, there you have it. The Guardian reports that the Iraqi government is under pressure from the US and UK to hand over oil contracts to multinational companies.

It's no longer just a rumour or conspiracy theory: the invasion of Iraq was all about the oil.

Iraqi trades unions have called for the country's oil reserves - the second-largest in the world - to be kept in public hands. But a leaked draft of the oil law, seen by The Observer, would see the government sign away the right to exploit its untapped fields in so-called exploration contracts, which could then be extended for more than 30 years.
[...]
Foreign Office minister Kim Howells has admitted that the government has discussed the wording of the Iraqi law with Britain's oil giants.

In a written answer to a parliamentary question, from Labour's Alan Simpson, Howells said: 'These exchanges have included discussion of Iraq's evolving hydrocarbons legislation where British international oil companies have valuable perspectives to offer based on their experience in other countries.' The talks had covered 'the range of contract types which Iraq is considering'.

It's colonialization and exploitation all over again.

The law, which is being discussed by the Iraqi cabinet before being put to the parliament, says the untapped oil would remain state-owned but that contracts would be drawn up giving private sector firms the exclusive right to extract it.

'There is this fine line, that the wording is seeking to draw, that allows companies to claim that the oil is still Iraqi oil, whereas the extraction rights belong to the oil companies,' says Kamil Mahdi, an Iraqi economist at Exeter University. He criticised the US and Britain, saying: 'The whole idea of the law is due to external pressure. The law is no protection against corruption, or against weakness of government. It's not a recipe for stability.'

And neither was the war to begin with.

This oil grab has been planned for a very long time.

...the need to dominate oil from Iraq is also deeply intertwined with the defense of the dollar. Its current strength is supported by OPEC's requirement (secured by a secret agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia) that all OPEC oil sales be denominated in dollars. This requirement is currently threatened by the desire of some OPEC countries to allow OPEC oil sales to be paid in euros.

The Internally Stated US Goal of Securing the Flow of Oil from the Middle East

As early as April 1997, a report from the James A. Baker Institute of Public Policy at Rice University addressed the problem of "energy security" for the United States, and noted that the US was increasingly threatened by oil shortages in the face of the inability of oil supplies to keep up with world demand. In particular the report addressed "The Threat of Iraq and Iran" to the free flow of oil out of the Middle East. It concluded that Saddam Hussein was still a threat to Middle Eastern security and still had the military capability to exercise force beyond Iraq's borders.

The Bush Administration returned to this theme as soon as it took office in 2001, by following the lead of a second report from the same Institute. <2> This Task Force Report was co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, another group historically concerned about US access to overseas oil resources. The Report represented a consensus of thinking among energy experts of both political parties, and was signed by Democrats as well as Republicans. <3>

The report, Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century, [.pdf file] concluded: "The United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a de-stabilizing influence to ... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/ diplomatic assessments."

Yes, that's the same James Baker (R) of the Iraq Study Group, the recommendations of which were largely rejected by the Bush administration and which some viewed as simply providing damage control for Bush's disastrous policies - an offer he seems to have refused as he sticks with the more familiar course of militarism and threats.

War is good for business, especially those connected to Bush's inner circle. The longer the war rages on, the more money contractors like Halliburton soak up. However, there is also a need to provide increased security to Iraq's oil fields so the multinational oil companies can swoop in and grab their slice of the pie as well. Who is Bush's so-called surge supposed to benefit then? The Iraqi people or the energy companies?

When Cheney held his secretive energy task force meeting in early 2001, he had good reason to refuse to disclose the participants as it was later revealed in 2005 that Cheney was courting big oil. The wheels had been set in motion years before that to take control of the Middle East oil reserves. They already had the Saudis on side. Iraq and Iran were proving to be non-compliant and 9/11 gave the administration the excuse it needed to pump up the war sentiments towards Iraq.

The neocons and those who wanted this war may be disillusioned that it's taken this long to finally see their oil dreams come true but all they have to do now is to convince al-Maliki that it's in his government's best interests to play ball. He can easily be replaced if he doesn't cooperate and the Bush administration has a vested interest in making this deal happen before al-Maliki cozies up even more with Iran's government to form a Shi'ite bloc in the Middle East - which would defy more US intervention. The stakes are very high.

So here we are, five years later. Hundreds of thousands dead. A raging civil war. Two million displaced people. A humanitarian crisis. And for what? Just as many of us have said all along, "It's the oil, stupid".
 

On Iran: Mind Your Sources Pt 3

The conservative British newspaper The Daily Telegraph is running a story about the Israeli government supposedly negotiating with the US military for permission to use Iraqi air space in an eventual attack against Iran, according to anonymous sources. The Israeli government was quick to issue a denial.

Asked if Israel had turned to the U.S. to use Iraqi airspace in any possible attack, Ephraim Sneh [Israel's deputy defense minister] told Israel Radio: "No such approach has been made -- that is clear."

"Those who do not want to take political, diplomatic, economic steps against
Iran are diverting attention to the mission we are supposedly said to be conducting," Sneh said.

"(They) are anxious to spread the idea that we are planning to attack Iran in order to absolve themselves of the need to do the things that have been requested of them," he added.

As I've written before in Mind Your Sources (April 2006) and Mind Your Sources Pt 2 (January 2007), this public saber-rattling against Iran through the use of anonymous sources is nothing new. (Remember the recently bizarre Baghdad briefing that the Bush administration had to back off from?). Neither is the "publicize, deny" method of taunting ones enemies.

There is no doubt that the US and Israel have drawn up war plans against Iran. They've both said that all options are on the table. Cheney reiterated that position on Saturday in Australia.

This was the Iranian government's response:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran said Saturday the United States was not in a position to take military action against it and urged Washington and its allies to engage in dialogue.

"We do not see America in a position to impose another crisis on its tax payers inside America by starting another war in the region," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has prepared itself for any possibility, but insists on constructive cooperation, Mottaki said.
[...]
Mottaki said negotiations, not threats, were the only way left to resolve the standoff over Iran's nuclear activities and urged the U.S. and its allies to return to dialogue when they are scheduled to meet in London next week.

"The only way to reach a solution for disputes is negotiations and talks. Therefore, we want the London meeting to make a brave decision and resume talks with Iran," Mottaki told reporters during a press conference with Bahrain's visiting foreign minister.

There is an obvious push/pull relationship between the US and Israel that is often played out in the media - just as it has been between the US and the UK. It doesn't take much to plant a story in a newspaper, forcing your ally to respond, all the while working in tandem to apply pressure to a third country like Iran. And while the Bush administration will call for tougher sanctions against Iran this week, it will have an uphill battle convincing other countries that do business with the regime to endorse such measures.

As for military attacks, the US and Israeli governments know that they don't have much to stand on in the international community. The wars with Afghanistan and Iraq have already drained allies' resources and the idea that so-called surgical strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities would be a quick and easy fix unmet by Iranian retaliation is a fool's dream. Militarism has not worked in Afghanistan or Iraq. Both situations require political remedies - a fact sorely missing from the neocons' empire-building playbook.

So, whether or not the government of Israel is seeking US cooperation for Iraq overflights is beside the point. There is war planning going on. Everybody knows that. What's important to focus on when unsourced stories like these come up is the propaganda value behind them and there certainly has been no shortage of coordinated efforts on that front pertaining to the situation with Iran. That's one of the few things the neocons actually do well: spreading the message of fear and intimidation. What they don't seem to realize, however, is that very few people are actually buying what they're trying to sell anymore. Bush would do well to set aside My Pet Goat to start reading The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Related: 26.02.07 New Evidence of Iranian Weapons in Iraq? Not Exactly.