Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Tarnishing Good Names
Prime Minister Tony Blair, following the disclosure of more prisoner-abuse photos:
No sir! Of course not! We will not allow any of these minor incidents by groups of few bad apples tarnish the good names of the British armed forces, the US armed forces, the British and US intelligence communities, the good offices of army planners or the good offices of US political leadership. No sir!
Nor these acts by other groups of bad apples:
1. Soldiers steeling money from houses they searched.
2. Soldiers, when faced with anything like a threat, firing at random…killing women and children in the process. Hundreds of such incidents!
3. Soldiers forcing open doors of stores and government establishments to looters.
4. Soldiers shooting and killing thousands of innocent civilians in their drive to take over unresisting Baghdad.
5. Soldiers forcing old, retired people and disbanded army officers to stand in line for most part of the day under the Iraqi summer sun and using truncheons to keep them “well-behaved” when receiving their pensions.
6. Soldiers shooting and killing people in a peaceful demonstration protesting against the use of a local school as military barracks… because they claimed they thought someone had fired a shot at them. None of those soldiers was even scratched. They left 13-17 unarmed dead bodies.
7. Scandalous, inhumanely sick behavior by personnel wearing US army uniform, including torture and the rape of women, men and small boys.
Nor those actions by the larger bad apples:
1. The demolishing of much of the holy older Najaf, to fight insurgent and to “bring Moqtada to justice”.
2. Bombing and killing more than 700 people in Fallujah-I (including more than 200 women and children) and injuring many more, in revenge and mass-punishment for an atrocity committed by a handful of villains!
3. The demolishing of some 50,000 houses in Fallujah-II and leaving the inhabitants homeless for most of this cold winter to “break the back” of terrorism and catch M.r Zarqawi – having managed neither. The people are still homeless up this minute.
4. Allowing the looting of the Iraqi museum, despite warnings by reputable American academic institutions of its value and vulnerability.
5. The desecration of the ruins of Babylon, chosen out of all the vast empty areas in Iraq to house a military base.
Nor those actions by the really big apples – operating on a grander scale:
1. False claims and repeated inaccuracies regarding WMD or Saddam’s intentions to buy uranium from Nigeria or his capability to launch WMD within 45 minutes.
2. Continued false affirmation of Iraq’s links with international terrorism. Such links do exist now… after your “successful operation”.
3. Insinuations of indirect responsibility for 9/11 or fear from another 9/11 coming from this corner. To play on the fears of gullible millions.
4. The disbanding of the whole Iraqi army leaving some 400,000 men jobless, seeing their country being raped – and wishing that they would not to do anything about it.
5. Disbanding the whole of the police force, claiming that it was infested by elements of the previous regime and building a new force infested with hardened criminals and “special interest” groups. The result is that criminals are on the loose up to this minute, having a field day! The new police force is busy going after “insurgents”!
6. Leaving open and unguarded the country’s long borders so that anybody can come in to do horrible things to the people or to “fight it out” with you, using the Iraqi people as fodder… and then whining about neighboring countries not controlling their borders.
7. Causing so much damage and destruction of the country’s infrastructure that today, two years after the success of your project, people have to go without basic amenities including water and electricity.
8. Presenting the Iraqi with some criminals, thugs, murderers, embezzlers and lowly characters in the pay of an assortment of powers as people representing them for high office. The “new democracy” we are being asked to support is designed around these people.
9. Putting green youngsters in charge of building and reconstructing a country the size of California and 6000 years older.
10. Managing the country in such a chaotic manner that the number of innocent Iraqi killed can only be guessed at. People in the West are still arguing whether the number is 10,000 or 150,000! A range of 10:1. The difference is only 140,000 lives!
11. Making such a mess of running liberated Iraq that people are still baffled by the unbelievable sequence of events. This has left people wondering in amazement at a possible explanation to end up with the following ugly alternatives:
But we will not let those minor incidents tarnish the good names of Britain or America. No sir!
[I apologize to the Iraqi people for not listing many of the other “incidents”. No list can possibly convey the misery, fear, worrying, suffering and losses that they have gone through over the past two years.]
“I hope we do not allow [our disgust at the photographs] to tarnish the good name of the British armed forces “.
No sir! Of course not! We will not allow any of these minor incidents by groups of few bad apples tarnish the good names of the British armed forces, the US armed forces, the British and US intelligence communities, the good offices of army planners or the good offices of US political leadership. No sir!
Nor these acts by other groups of bad apples:
1. Soldiers steeling money from houses they searched.
2. Soldiers, when faced with anything like a threat, firing at random…killing women and children in the process. Hundreds of such incidents!
3. Soldiers forcing open doors of stores and government establishments to looters.
4. Soldiers shooting and killing thousands of innocent civilians in their drive to take over unresisting Baghdad.
5. Soldiers forcing old, retired people and disbanded army officers to stand in line for most part of the day under the Iraqi summer sun and using truncheons to keep them “well-behaved” when receiving their pensions.
6. Soldiers shooting and killing people in a peaceful demonstration protesting against the use of a local school as military barracks… because they claimed they thought someone had fired a shot at them. None of those soldiers was even scratched. They left 13-17 unarmed dead bodies.
7. Scandalous, inhumanely sick behavior by personnel wearing US army uniform, including torture and the rape of women, men and small boys.
Nor those actions by the larger bad apples:
1. The demolishing of much of the holy older Najaf, to fight insurgent and to “bring Moqtada to justice”.
2. Bombing and killing more than 700 people in Fallujah-I (including more than 200 women and children) and injuring many more, in revenge and mass-punishment for an atrocity committed by a handful of villains!
3. The demolishing of some 50,000 houses in Fallujah-II and leaving the inhabitants homeless for most of this cold winter to “break the back” of terrorism and catch M.r Zarqawi – having managed neither. The people are still homeless up this minute.
4. Allowing the looting of the Iraqi museum, despite warnings by reputable American academic institutions of its value and vulnerability.
5. The desecration of the ruins of Babylon, chosen out of all the vast empty areas in Iraq to house a military base.
Nor those actions by the really big apples – operating on a grander scale:
1. False claims and repeated inaccuracies regarding WMD or Saddam’s intentions to buy uranium from Nigeria or his capability to launch WMD within 45 minutes.
2. Continued false affirmation of Iraq’s links with international terrorism. Such links do exist now… after your “successful operation”.
3. Insinuations of indirect responsibility for 9/11 or fear from another 9/11 coming from this corner. To play on the fears of gullible millions.
4. The disbanding of the whole Iraqi army leaving some 400,000 men jobless, seeing their country being raped – and wishing that they would not to do anything about it.
5. Disbanding the whole of the police force, claiming that it was infested by elements of the previous regime and building a new force infested with hardened criminals and “special interest” groups. The result is that criminals are on the loose up to this minute, having a field day! The new police force is busy going after “insurgents”!
6. Leaving open and unguarded the country’s long borders so that anybody can come in to do horrible things to the people or to “fight it out” with you, using the Iraqi people as fodder… and then whining about neighboring countries not controlling their borders.
7. Causing so much damage and destruction of the country’s infrastructure that today, two years after the success of your project, people have to go without basic amenities including water and electricity.
8. Presenting the Iraqi with some criminals, thugs, murderers, embezzlers and lowly characters in the pay of an assortment of powers as people representing them for high office. The “new democracy” we are being asked to support is designed around these people.
9. Putting green youngsters in charge of building and reconstructing a country the size of California and 6000 years older.
10. Managing the country in such a chaotic manner that the number of innocent Iraqi killed can only be guessed at. People in the West are still arguing whether the number is 10,000 or 150,000! A range of 10:1. The difference is only 140,000 lives!
11. Making such a mess of running liberated Iraq that people are still baffled by the unbelievable sequence of events. This has left people wondering in amazement at a possible explanation to end up with the following ugly alternatives:
(a) At best: gross, criminal incompetence,
(b) A plan that went horribly wrong due to shear incompetence of conception and design
(c) That this was the plan all along to devastate this country for some sick, obscure reason.
But we will not let those minor incidents tarnish the good names of Britain or America. No sir!
[I apologize to the Iraqi people for not listing many of the other “incidents”. No list can possibly convey the misery, fear, worrying, suffering and losses that they have gone through over the past two years.]
# posted by Abu Khaleel @ 8:14 PM 
Comments:
Charles,
I have advised you a couple of posts back to read my previous writings before commenting. That would have helped you look less foolish and uninformed.
I do not rely on propaganda sources. I live here. I have posted more than a dozen articles on these items over the past 7 months. If you to wish to be taken seriously by me and by others, please spend some time reading them.
I have deleted your post and invite you to post again, using a better mannered mode of address.
_____________________________________________________________________
Dear Abu Khaleel,
Thank you for beeing our "Abu Information"...
I publish your post in Iraq War.
Hope this time it will be some comments...
If you want to comment, registration is needed. We took this measure to avoid the trolls. But only a e-mail is needed to register.
Best regards.
Álvaro Frota
_____________________________________________________________________
Excellent post, Abu Khaleel! A summary of why most Iraqis are not too happy about their 'liberation', by now. I'll see if it can be translated into Italian and posted on Italian Websites.
I keep being astounded, though, at the apparent naive ignorance of Bushist posters (those being in good faith, at least; I ignore if 'Charles' above is one of them). Out of perusing the Web on the Iraqi war in these last two years, and the comments pages of other Iraqi blogs in the last year and a half, I have got the impression that their sources of information have got a completely different content from those of the rest of the world. They truly believe, apparently, that in Abu Ghraib just occurred some light mistreatment in the form of 'fraternity pranks' (they never heard about the rapes, and the prisoners killed as a result of torture & beatings); and, just to give another example, that it is the 'insurgents' killing thousands of Iraqi civilians, while only very few of them (maybe 5 or 10) were killed by the 'Coalition' forces by mistake, or by one or two exceptional 'bad apples' in their military. All the while they rant against what they call their 'MSM' (Main Stream Media) they deem too 'anti-war', for not giving enough 'good news' from Iraq. It is strange, because - as far as I can see from the Web - plenty of the info on what actually the 'Coalition' has been doing in Iraq since the invasion comes from American Non-Mainstream Media (but some from their MSM as well). Now I wonder: is it a matter of their choosing their sources of information according to their political biases (so that they are completely blind to reality: self-deluded fanatics, actually), or of some 'soft' totalitarian management of their media, or of a mixture of both?
An Italian.
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Excellent post, Abu Khaleel! A summary of why most Iraqis are not too happy about their 'liberation', by now. I'll see if it can be translated into Italian and posted on Italian Websites.
I keep being astounded, though, at the apparent naive ignorance of Bushist posters (those being in good faith, at least; I ignore if 'Charles' above is one of them). Out of perusing the Web on the Iraqi war in these last two years, and the comments pages of other Iraqi blogs in the last year and a half, I have got the impression that their sources of information have got a completely different content from those of the rest of the world. They truly believe, apparently, that in Abu Ghraib just occurred some light mistreatment in the form of 'fraternity pranks' (they never heard about the rapes, and the prisoners killed as a result of torture & beatings); and, just to give another example, that it is the 'insurgents' killing thousands of Iraqi civilians, while only very few of them (maybe 5 or 10) were killed by the 'Coalition' forces by mistake, or by one or two exceptional 'bad apples' in their military. All the while they rant against what they call their 'MSM' (Main Stream Media) they deem too 'anti-war', for not giving enough 'good news' from Iraq. It is strange, because - as far as I can see from the Web - plenty of the info on what actually the 'Coalition' has been doing in Iraq since the invasion comes from American Non-Mainstream Media (but some from their MSM as well). Now I wonder: is it a matter of their choosing their sources of information according to their political biases (so that they are completely blind to reality: self-deluded fanatics, actually), or of some 'soft' totalitarian management of their media, or of a mixture of both?
An Italian.
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Dear Charles. You said:
Can you say the same for the jihadists and baathists who saw off heads and blow up civilians?
I think you are being paid to write this kind of lies. USA has enough money to pay some guys to make public relations in all Iraqi Blogs.
By the way, the official amount of causalities in the end of Vietnam war is about 6.000. But it turned to be 56.000. And there were more "miss in action" soldiers that public relations like you told American people they were "prisoners of war" despite they were killed too.
In Iraq, the same lies. The 1.300 causalities will turn to be at least 6.000.
Conspiracy Theory? The truth is son of the time, not of the authority.
Best regards,
Alvaro Frota
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Dear Abu Khaleel:
It is very very sad, but true:
2. Soldiers, when faced with anything like a threat, firing at random…killing women and children in the process. Hundreds of such incidents!
How you explain this, Charles? Who are the baby killers, after all?
There are another solution but expel the occupiers by all means?
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Boy oh boy, who got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning! Temper, temper, Abu!
Still, it has produced an excellent summary of the moderate Iraqi perspective. But you’re wasting your time trying to get through to Charles (and his ilk) with reason - just doesn’t work.
Look Charlie boy (you don’t mind if I call you Charlie, do you? You certainly seem to be one!)
could you try answering just one simple question for me.
Now we’re agreed that Iraq had WMD by the trainload, all ready to be fired in all directions:
We’re agreed that Saddam was in hourly conference with Bin Laden, and loved him dearly:
We’re agreed that he was the worst dictator that the world has ever seen, bar none:
We’re agreed that it was vitally and urgently necessary to liberate the Iraqi people from him:
We’re agreed that oil or middle east hegemony were the very last things on our minds:
We’re agreed that the freely published plans of the neo-cons were faked by evil liberals:
We’re agreed that the Iraqi people, being ignorant Arabs, would need the guiding hand of America for years after liberation, and the brotherly assistance of friendly US troops:
We’re agreed that the best way to do this is to hold elections in which the names of the candidates are kept secret from the voters (even Stalin and Mao didn’t think of that one)
We’re agreed on all that, but can you please tell me, why oh why oh why have you MADE SUCH A SICKENING MONUMENTAL BALLS-UP of the whole exercise?
Why, with all your wealth and power, can’t you handle a few thousand guerrillas? Sorry, terrorists? Why is the image of America now terrified homicidal troops blowing away innocent civilians at checkpoints? On the BBC, for all the world to see?
Why is your supposedly great nation now a world-wide laughing stock?
Why have you FAILED?
Circular
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And while Abu’s in a bad mood, I may as well provoke him with an annoying question.
The photos of British prisoner abuse are bad, sure, but I submit that there is actually a qualitative, rather than a quantitative difference between this and Abu Ghraib. This genuinely was a few bad apples, whereas all the evidence indicates that US abuse was directed from the top, as a matter of policy.
I have been unable for months to find any reporting on conditions in the South, but the absence of much negative news from there must surely suggest that the British occupation has gone better than the US one? That there has been a more genuine effort at reconstruction there? And that this has been due not just to the Shia make-up of the area, but to the more professional approach of the British occupiers?
(After all, most of the British officer corps must have had grandfathers who knew about pacifyin’ the natives in Burmah and Indiah and Africah. And Iraq.
"Good God, Carruthers, the natives are revolting!"
"Yes, indeed they are, old boy! Pass the Gin!")
And Blair wasn’t after hegemony, Britain is just another European nation these days, he was just being a good little lapdog and now can’t get out of his master’s lap. But will have to soon.
The point being, would you admit Abu that by and large the other deluded coalition partners, who collectively still number well over 12,000 troops, have in proportion not been accused of anything like the excesses and atrocities of the Americans? Have no Fallujahs to their names?
It seems important to me. Something to do with right actions arising from right intentions?
Circular
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Taking a flight? Or just taking flight?
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Good. Then why don't you just GET OUT AND LEAVE THEM TO IT?
You're not doing any good there, your murderous troops have proved that they're good at winning one-sided battles, but absolutely and completely hopeless at winning hearts and minds, at befriending and helping people.
Why are you there? As you say, you've got rid of Saddam. What right did that patrol have to shoot that family? A perfectly innocent Iraqi family driving around in their OWN city in their OWN country on their OWN roads? Not yours. Failing to slow down sufficiently for an illegal checkpoint manned by illegal foreign troops who, according to you, have no right to be there, this is a shooting offence? Do you shoot everyone who runs a red light in your own country?
Go on, bleat bleat, but there's all these terrible terrorists around. In other words, you can't handle them without killing innocents.
You're like a big clumsly child playing too roughly with your new kitten, then screaming for Mummy when it scratches you.
Great nation? Great farce!
Sorry, Abu, guess I got out of the wrong side of the bed too.
Bloody Circular
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Hello Abu Khaleel,
Lately I have been taking Circular and Alvaro to task for their shrill and tasteless baiting of the red American bloggers, my countrymen. But today I saw the inaugural of Bush-the Enemy of Tyranny, his parade down streets emptied of normal crowds, paroled by military and police snipers. Protesters are held in cages. An iron curtain has descended...upon America. I don't know this country.
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From Circular
Shrill and tasteless? Me? You wound me, Sir! Let’s see you write something as funny, as good-humoured, as penetrating as my "Iraq highway" comment, or earlier my "Liberation of NZ" comment.
Even if I do say so myself - we don’t want any false modesty round here!
I’m sorry but I haven’t been aware of being taken to task by you, because I can’t distinguish one Anonymous from another and therefore haven’t noticed. Have you some religious objection to giving yourself an identifying moniker?
Regarding the country you don’t know, have you meditated on Condi Rice’s statement that the tsunami disaster was "a great opportunity for America?" Presumably, in addition to merely being crass, she meant an opportunity to show that the US was capable of disinterested benevolence. Doesn’t it follow logically that she means that in other instances, like that ME country that got unfortunately blown up, the US acted out of self-interested malevolence?
Or have you considered her additions to the axis of evil? The message going out to these countries, as far as I can see, is "You better shape up, or we will invade you and bog our army down in your territory in a misconceived quagmire for years. Just as soon as we’ve figured out how to get it out of its present morass."
I said to the idiot Charles above that the US is becoming a laughing stock . He evidently didn’t understand what I meant, judging by his incoherent response.
It’s not the streets emptied of normal crowds, it’s the "besieged bully" mentality that emptied them that has made the country you don’t know. And doesn’t that describe the situation of your army in Iraq exactly?
What are you going to do about it?
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I see that the Baathist resistance you champion and support is at it again this morning, targetting collaborators "outside a Baghdad mosque, killing as many as 14 Iraqi civilians and injuring another 40." "The car bomb exploded as worshippers, who had celebrated the Eid al-Adha holiday, were pouring out of the mosque."
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I posted above, I did not mean to imply that you, Abu Khaleel, champion and support the Iraqi-on-Iraqi, the muslim-on-muslim, violence.
Some of your commentators, perhaps you, view the Americans as the worst of two evils. I, like Charles, beg to differ.
Take a close look at the Moscow based website, iraq-war.ru, where Alvaro posted your article.
Willfully Obtuse
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Charles, Willfully Obtuse, & Fathom,
I am a frustrated left-leaning American, who has been following events in Iraq sporadically since the 1980s. I have observed the low level of training in Arabic and Iraqi culture of the American troops, the apparently total lack of interest in protecting Iraqi antiquities (at least at the beginning---I have no way of determining whether or not the stationing of an American base at the ruins of Babylon was an attempt to protect that site from looters), the apparent lack of interest in the Chaldean/Assyrian community and its fears...
I read in an on-line Assyrian magazine accounts where Assyrians and Chaldeans, often targetted by Saddam due to their ethnic leanings, are complaining that things are worse now than they were under Saddam. I read of the near dis-enfranchisement of much of the American Iraqi community, due to the long commutes [100 miles, 400 miles, and up] (and major traffic jams) between their major population centers and the nearest voting/registration location.
I recall with disgust a discussion with fellow Americans in early 2003 (February or March), where the majority held that if we were to rid Iraq of Saddam, we should have a claim to the oil. (It was a small group--perhaps 15 or 20 members of Mensa).
I have seen my fears of a radicalized Islamic movement in Iraq realized, although it's not entirely clear whether the radicals are Iraqi, Syrian, Jordanian, or Saudi. I am reading even today of the targetting of Assyrians by our allies, the Kurds (members of Barzani's group). I read in 2003 of the targetting of Assyrians and Chaldeans in Basra by Badr's Brigade.
I long for a popular secular democratic government in Iraq (my biases, although I'm personally very religious), but it appears to me that such a possibility is receding over time.
I have also found many fellow liberal Americans to be grossly lacking in awareness of Iraqi culture and history. Some have held that Saddam was merely villainized by the US. Some seem to view the Iraqi-American community as the creation of G.W.Bush. Some, in their opposition to current American policies seem almost to prefer Zarqawi to Bush.
In 2002 a number of articles were written stating that Iraq, as an honor-shame society, once subdued by us militarily, would quickly be quite willing to be guided by the American conqueror. How much this material influenced the current administration I can't know, but our behavior in Iraq seems to follow that model. Some of the reference to post-war Japan is based on that model.
These are some of my thoughts and frustrations as an American who has been interested in Iraq for some time. I have no family in Iraq and I have no connections with Iraq, so for me these concerns are 'academic' and not personal. They are only personal in that my nation is involved.
For our host, similar concerns are deeply personal, as he resides in Iraq, and is deeply concerned with rebuilding Iraq as a viable democracy (see his website-Rapid Democracy for Iraq). This blog is his attempt at a dashboard warning-light. It is not intended as a 'bash America' blog, or a 'gosh I need a political ad hominem argument' blog.
Be Well,
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Sorry for the anonymous post. I don't have a blogger account. You can call me rorschach, if any of you decide to respond to this.
Just a brief comment on the whole "the US did it for the oil" rationale. That's an obvious red herring if you do the math. The US has spent about $200 billion on Iraq so far. Another $80 billion is in the pipeline for next year.
Assuming Iraq is able to get back to full oil production at 3 million barrels/day, at a wholesale price of $50 barrel (it was $36 when war started - I'm being generous with the price), the US could have simply bought the full theoretical maximum oil production output of Iraq for about 4-6 years for the price of the war. And could have continued to buy it forever at half the annual cost of occupying the country.
The US administration had pretty good projections on the war cost. They would have known this. Why would they have decided to "steal" the oil using a method that would cost American lives, cause conflict with allies, and cost 2-4x the cost of just BUYING it?
You can debate the motivations, but it wasn't the oil.
--rorschach
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Sorry Charlie - That lil witch gal Sadie slammed dunked you at each point.
She makes good, true, and logical points.
She uses good metaphors.
You start out calling her snide, you imply superior knowledge, you parrot the stupid party line like a good little sheep.
I would bet she read the Winny the Poo Heffalump story as a kid and knew how to put the heffalump trap right in front of you and in you went.
Sucker!
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Sadie B:
In your response to me, you said "Your argument that Bush's War is not about oil because it ended up being more expensive than what the administration projected does nothing to refute any of this."
That's not at all what I argued. Indeed, I argued that the administration knew well in advance what the war would cost. Remember the much-discussed $87 billion that Kerry voted for before he voted against it? That was an initial appropriation. It was widely assumed - by both critics and supporters of the war - that the total cost would run into hundreds of billions.
If they wanted nothing more than oil, they could have just bought it. Pure and simple. My earlier analysis was overly generous, in fact. Prior to the war, Iraq was producing about 2 million barrels per day, and oil was at about $30-36 per barrel. At that price and production level, the initial $87 billion alone would have bought more than 4 years worth of the total oil output of Iraq. The total cost of the war to date would have bought 10 years worth. At the rate that Iraqi oil was coming to the US, it would have bought perhaps 100 years worth.
Actually, by the way, the US economy isn't the only one with a dependency on middle eastern oil. As others here have pointed out, Europe and (increasingly) Asia, particularly China, are extremely dependent on M.E. oil. If you look at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/pgulf.html
you'll find that Japan is more than 75% dependent on ME oil. Since 1985, the US has ranged from 11% about 23 or 24%. That tracks well with Western European demand.
None of that detracts from my initial point, though. The initial war budget request the administration asked for EVEN BEFORE THE WAR STARTED would spend on the war effort would have bought ALL of the Iraqi oil for years. And US consumption accounts for very little of the sales of Iraqi oil.
Oh, by the way, your comment about democracies being "willful" is a bit of a non-sequiteur, as well. Saddam would have taken US money for oil, whether he was feeling "uppity" or not. An elected government, as you point out, might not. So why would it be in US interests to take the time, expense, and difficulty to install one (even one that I'm sure you will contend is a puppet)? Wouldn't it have been simpler for for the US to simply deal with the devil it already knew?
By the way, the "US supports dictators" line never ceases to amaze me. The US is attacked for supporting Saddam against Iran. It's attacked for leaving him in power after the '91 Gulf War (which was, by the way, what the UN mandate required). And it's attacked for taking him out this time around. Meanwhile, most of Saddam's war machine was sold to him by the Russians and the French. The Germans sold nuclear technology to him. Europe sold the guy FAR more weaponry than the US ever dreamed of. Yet no one blasts France or Russia for "supporting dictators". Out of curiosity, why is that?
Anyway, as I said before, it would have been much simpler and cheaper to just buy Iraq's oil. Especially when Iraq was a negligible contributor to US oil imports. Doesn't that make a lot more sense that believe the US chose to "steal" the oil by spending 6x as much in 2 years as it would have cost to buy it?
Like I said in my original post, whatever motivations you want to assign to Bush and company, they didn't do it for the oil.
--rorschach
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Charles,
I have advised you a couple of posts back to read my previous writings before commenting. That would have helped you look less foolish and uninformed.
I do not rely on propaganda sources. I live here. I have posted more than a dozen articles on these items over the past 7 months. If you to wish to be taken seriously by me and by others, please spend some time reading them.
I have deleted your post and invite you to post again, using a better mannered mode of address.
Dear Abu Khaleel,
Thank you for beeing our "Abu Information"...
I publish your post in Iraq War.
Hope this time it will be some comments...
If you want to comment, registration is needed. We took this measure to avoid the trolls. But only a e-mail is needed to register.
Best regards.
Álvaro Frota
Excellent post, Abu Khaleel! A summary of why most Iraqis are not too happy about their 'liberation', by now. I'll see if it can be translated into Italian and posted on Italian Websites.
I keep being astounded, though, at the apparent naive ignorance of Bushist posters (those being in good faith, at least; I ignore if 'Charles' above is one of them). Out of perusing the Web on the Iraqi war in these last two years, and the comments pages of other Iraqi blogs in the last year and a half, I have got the impression that their sources of information have got a completely different content from those of the rest of the world. They truly believe, apparently, that in Abu Ghraib just occurred some light mistreatment in the form of 'fraternity pranks' (they never heard about the rapes, and the prisoners killed as a result of torture & beatings); and, just to give another example, that it is the 'insurgents' killing thousands of Iraqi civilians, while only very few of them (maybe 5 or 10) were killed by the 'Coalition' forces by mistake, or by one or two exceptional 'bad apples' in their military. All the while they rant against what they call their 'MSM' (Main Stream Media) they deem too 'anti-war', for not giving enough 'good news' from Iraq. It is strange, because - as far as I can see from the Web - plenty of the info on what actually the 'Coalition' has been doing in Iraq since the invasion comes from American Non-Mainstream Media (but some from their MSM as well). Now I wonder: is it a matter of their choosing their sources of information according to their political biases (so that they are completely blind to reality: self-deluded fanatics, actually), or of some 'soft' totalitarian management of their media, or of a mixture of both?
An Italian.
# posted by 
: 20/1/05 5:02 AM
: 20/1/05 5:02 AM Excellent post, Abu Khaleel! A summary of why most Iraqis are not too happy about their 'liberation', by now. I'll see if it can be translated into Italian and posted on Italian Websites.
I keep being astounded, though, at the apparent naive ignorance of Bushist posters (those being in good faith, at least; I ignore if 'Charles' above is one of them). Out of perusing the Web on the Iraqi war in these last two years, and the comments pages of other Iraqi blogs in the last year and a half, I have got the impression that their sources of information have got a completely different content from those of the rest of the world. They truly believe, apparently, that in Abu Ghraib just occurred some light mistreatment in the form of 'fraternity pranks' (they never heard about the rapes, and the prisoners killed as a result of torture & beatings); and, just to give another example, that it is the 'insurgents' killing thousands of Iraqi civilians, while only very few of them (maybe 5 or 10) were killed by the 'Coalition' forces by mistake, or by one or two exceptional 'bad apples' in their military. All the while they rant against what they call their 'MSM' (Main Stream Media) they deem too 'anti-war', for not giving enough 'good news' from Iraq. It is strange, because - as far as I can see from the Web - plenty of the info on what actually the 'Coalition' has been doing in Iraq since the invasion comes from American Non-Mainstream Media (but some from their MSM as well). Now I wonder: is it a matter of their choosing their sources of information according to their political biases (so that they are completely blind to reality: self-deluded fanatics, actually), or of some 'soft' totalitarian management of their media, or of a mixture of both?
An Italian.
# posted by : 20/1/05 5:05 AM
: 20/1/05 5:05 AM Dear Charles. You said:
Can you say the same for the jihadists and baathists who saw off heads and blow up civilians?
I think you are being paid to write this kind of lies. USA has enough money to pay some guys to make public relations in all Iraqi Blogs.
By the way, the official amount of causalities in the end of Vietnam war is about 6.000. But it turned to be 56.000. And there were more "miss in action" soldiers that public relations like you told American people they were "prisoners of war" despite they were killed too.
In Iraq, the same lies. The 1.300 causalities will turn to be at least 6.000.
Conspiracy Theory? The truth is son of the time, not of the authority.
Best regards,
Alvaro Frota
Dear Abu Khaleel:
It is very very sad, but true:
2. Soldiers, when faced with anything like a threat, firing at random…killing women and children in the process. Hundreds of such incidents!
How you explain this, Charles? Who are the baby killers, after all?
There are another solution but expel the occupiers by all means?
Boy oh boy, who got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning! Temper, temper, Abu!
Still, it has produced an excellent summary of the moderate Iraqi perspective. But you’re wasting your time trying to get through to Charles (and his ilk) with reason - just doesn’t work.
Look Charlie boy (you don’t mind if I call you Charlie, do you? You certainly seem to be one!)
could you try answering just one simple question for me.
Now we’re agreed that Iraq had WMD by the trainload, all ready to be fired in all directions:
We’re agreed that Saddam was in hourly conference with Bin Laden, and loved him dearly:
We’re agreed that he was the worst dictator that the world has ever seen, bar none:
We’re agreed that it was vitally and urgently necessary to liberate the Iraqi people from him:
We’re agreed that oil or middle east hegemony were the very last things on our minds:
We’re agreed that the freely published plans of the neo-cons were faked by evil liberals:
We’re agreed that the Iraqi people, being ignorant Arabs, would need the guiding hand of America for years after liberation, and the brotherly assistance of friendly US troops:
We’re agreed that the best way to do this is to hold elections in which the names of the candidates are kept secret from the voters (even Stalin and Mao didn’t think of that one)
We’re agreed on all that, but can you please tell me, why oh why oh why have you MADE SUCH A SICKENING MONUMENTAL BALLS-UP of the whole exercise?
Why, with all your wealth and power, can’t you handle a few thousand guerrillas? Sorry, terrorists? Why is the image of America now terrified homicidal troops blowing away innocent civilians at checkpoints? On the BBC, for all the world to see?
Why is your supposedly great nation now a world-wide laughing stock?
Why have you FAILED?
Circular
# posted by : 20/1/05 11:32 AM
: 20/1/05 11:32 AM And while Abu’s in a bad mood, I may as well provoke him with an annoying question.
The photos of British prisoner abuse are bad, sure, but I submit that there is actually a qualitative, rather than a quantitative difference between this and Abu Ghraib. This genuinely was a few bad apples, whereas all the evidence indicates that US abuse was directed from the top, as a matter of policy.
I have been unable for months to find any reporting on conditions in the South, but the absence of much negative news from there must surely suggest that the British occupation has gone better than the US one? That there has been a more genuine effort at reconstruction there? And that this has been due not just to the Shia make-up of the area, but to the more professional approach of the British occupiers?
(After all, most of the British officer corps must have had grandfathers who knew about pacifyin’ the natives in Burmah and Indiah and Africah. And Iraq.
"Good God, Carruthers, the natives are revolting!"
"Yes, indeed they are, old boy! Pass the Gin!")
And Blair wasn’t after hegemony, Britain is just another European nation these days, he was just being a good little lapdog and now can’t get out of his master’s lap. But will have to soon.
The point being, would you admit Abu that by and large the other deluded coalition partners, who collectively still number well over 12,000 troops, have in proportion not been accused of anything like the excesses and atrocities of the Americans? Have no Fallujahs to their names?
It seems important to me. Something to do with right actions arising from right intentions?
Circular
# posted by : 20/1/05 1:24 PM
: 20/1/05 1:24 PM Taking a flight? Or just taking flight?
# posted by : 20/1/05 9:59 PM
: 20/1/05 9:59 PM Good. Then why don't you just GET OUT AND LEAVE THEM TO IT?
You're not doing any good there, your murderous troops have proved that they're good at winning one-sided battles, but absolutely and completely hopeless at winning hearts and minds, at befriending and helping people.
Why are you there? As you say, you've got rid of Saddam. What right did that patrol have to shoot that family? A perfectly innocent Iraqi family driving around in their OWN city in their OWN country on their OWN roads? Not yours. Failing to slow down sufficiently for an illegal checkpoint manned by illegal foreign troops who, according to you, have no right to be there, this is a shooting offence? Do you shoot everyone who runs a red light in your own country?
Go on, bleat bleat, but there's all these terrible terrorists around. In other words, you can't handle them without killing innocents.
You're like a big clumsly child playing too roughly with your new kitten, then screaming for Mummy when it scratches you.
Great nation? Great farce!
Sorry, Abu, guess I got out of the wrong side of the bed too.
Bloody Circular
# posted by : 21/1/05 8:10 AM
: 21/1/05 8:10 AM Hello Abu Khaleel,
Lately I have been taking Circular and Alvaro to task for their shrill and tasteless baiting of the red American bloggers, my countrymen. But today I saw the inaugural of Bush-the Enemy of Tyranny, his parade down streets emptied of normal crowds, paroled by military and police snipers. Protesters are held in cages. An iron curtain has descended...upon America. I don't know this country.
# posted by : 21/1/05 9:29 AM
: 21/1/05 9:29 AM From Circular
Shrill and tasteless? Me? You wound me, Sir! Let’s see you write something as funny, as good-humoured, as penetrating as my "Iraq highway" comment, or earlier my "Liberation of NZ" comment.
Even if I do say so myself - we don’t want any false modesty round here!
I’m sorry but I haven’t been aware of being taken to task by you, because I can’t distinguish one Anonymous from another and therefore haven’t noticed. Have you some religious objection to giving yourself an identifying moniker?
Regarding the country you don’t know, have you meditated on Condi Rice’s statement that the tsunami disaster was "a great opportunity for America?" Presumably, in addition to merely being crass, she meant an opportunity to show that the US was capable of disinterested benevolence. Doesn’t it follow logically that she means that in other instances, like that ME country that got unfortunately blown up, the US acted out of self-interested malevolence?
Or have you considered her additions to the axis of evil? The message going out to these countries, as far as I can see, is "You better shape up, or we will invade you and bog our army down in your territory in a misconceived quagmire for years. Just as soon as we’ve figured out how to get it out of its present morass."
I said to the idiot Charles above that the US is becoming a laughing stock . He evidently didn’t understand what I meant, judging by his incoherent response.
It’s not the streets emptied of normal crowds, it’s the "besieged bully" mentality that emptied them that has made the country you don’t know. And doesn’t that describe the situation of your army in Iraq exactly?
What are you going to do about it?
# posted by : 21/1/05 12:24 PM
: 21/1/05 12:24 PM I see that the Baathist resistance you champion and support is at it again this morning, targetting collaborators "outside a Baghdad mosque, killing as many as 14 Iraqi civilians and injuring another 40." "The car bomb exploded as worshippers, who had celebrated the Eid al-Adha holiday, were pouring out of the mosque."
# posted by : 21/1/05 4:53 PM
: 21/1/05 4:53 PM I posted above, I did not mean to imply that you, Abu Khaleel, champion and support the Iraqi-on-Iraqi, the muslim-on-muslim, violence.
Some of your commentators, perhaps you, view the Americans as the worst of two evils. I, like Charles, beg to differ.
Take a close look at the Moscow based website, iraq-war.ru, where Alvaro posted your article.
Willfully Obtuse
# posted by : 21/1/05 5:18 PM
: 21/1/05 5:18 PM Charles, Willfully Obtuse, & Fathom,
I am a frustrated left-leaning American, who has been following events in Iraq sporadically since the 1980s. I have observed the low level of training in Arabic and Iraqi culture of the American troops, the apparently total lack of interest in protecting Iraqi antiquities (at least at the beginning---I have no way of determining whether or not the stationing of an American base at the ruins of Babylon was an attempt to protect that site from looters), the apparent lack of interest in the Chaldean/Assyrian community and its fears...
I read in an on-line Assyrian magazine accounts where Assyrians and Chaldeans, often targetted by Saddam due to their ethnic leanings, are complaining that things are worse now than they were under Saddam. I read of the near dis-enfranchisement of much of the American Iraqi community, due to the long commutes [100 miles, 400 miles, and up] (and major traffic jams) between their major population centers and the nearest voting/registration location.
I recall with disgust a discussion with fellow Americans in early 2003 (February or March), where the majority held that if we were to rid Iraq of Saddam, we should have a claim to the oil. (It was a small group--perhaps 15 or 20 members of Mensa).
I have seen my fears of a radicalized Islamic movement in Iraq realized, although it's not entirely clear whether the radicals are Iraqi, Syrian, Jordanian, or Saudi. I am reading even today of the targetting of Assyrians by our allies, the Kurds (members of Barzani's group). I read in 2003 of the targetting of Assyrians and Chaldeans in Basra by Badr's Brigade.
I long for a popular secular democratic government in Iraq (my biases, although I'm personally very religious), but it appears to me that such a possibility is receding over time.
I have also found many fellow liberal Americans to be grossly lacking in awareness of Iraqi culture and history. Some have held that Saddam was merely villainized by the US. Some seem to view the Iraqi-American community as the creation of G.W.Bush. Some, in their opposition to current American policies seem almost to prefer Zarqawi to Bush.
In 2002 a number of articles were written stating that Iraq, as an honor-shame society, once subdued by us militarily, would quickly be quite willing to be guided by the American conqueror. How much this material influenced the current administration I can't know, but our behavior in Iraq seems to follow that model. Some of the reference to post-war Japan is based on that model.
These are some of my thoughts and frustrations as an American who has been interested in Iraq for some time. I have no family in Iraq and I have no connections with Iraq, so for me these concerns are 'academic' and not personal. They are only personal in that my nation is involved.
For our host, similar concerns are deeply personal, as he resides in Iraq, and is deeply concerned with rebuilding Iraq as a viable democracy (see his website-Rapid Democracy for Iraq). This blog is his attempt at a dashboard warning-light. It is not intended as a 'bash America' blog, or a 'gosh I need a political ad hominem argument' blog.
Be Well,
Sorry for the anonymous post. I don't have a blogger account. You can call me rorschach, if any of you decide to respond to this.
Just a brief comment on the whole "the US did it for the oil" rationale. That's an obvious red herring if you do the math. The US has spent about $200 billion on Iraq so far. Another $80 billion is in the pipeline for next year.
Assuming Iraq is able to get back to full oil production at 3 million barrels/day, at a wholesale price of $50 barrel (it was $36 when war started - I'm being generous with the price), the US could have simply bought the full theoretical maximum oil production output of Iraq for about 4-6 years for the price of the war. And could have continued to buy it forever at half the annual cost of occupying the country.
The US administration had pretty good projections on the war cost. They would have known this. Why would they have decided to "steal" the oil using a method that would cost American lives, cause conflict with allies, and cost 2-4x the cost of just BUYING it?
You can debate the motivations, but it wasn't the oil.
--rorschach
# posted by : 26/1/05 7:58 PM
: 26/1/05 7:58 PM Sorry Charlie - That lil witch gal Sadie slammed dunked you at each point.
She makes good, true, and logical points.
She uses good metaphors.
You start out calling her snide, you imply superior knowledge, you parrot the stupid party line like a good little sheep.
I would bet she read the Winny the Poo Heffalump story as a kid and knew how to put the heffalump trap right in front of you and in you went.
Sucker!
# posted by : 30/1/05 2:01 AM
: 30/1/05 2:01 AM Sadie B:
In your response to me, you said "Your argument that Bush's War is not about oil because it ended up being more expensive than what the administration projected does nothing to refute any of this."
That's not at all what I argued. Indeed, I argued that the administration knew well in advance what the war would cost. Remember the much-discussed $87 billion that Kerry voted for before he voted against it? That was an initial appropriation. It was widely assumed - by both critics and supporters of the war - that the total cost would run into hundreds of billions.
If they wanted nothing more than oil, they could have just bought it. Pure and simple. My earlier analysis was overly generous, in fact. Prior to the war, Iraq was producing about 2 million barrels per day, and oil was at about $30-36 per barrel. At that price and production level, the initial $87 billion alone would have bought more than 4 years worth of the total oil output of Iraq. The total cost of the war to date would have bought 10 years worth. At the rate that Iraqi oil was coming to the US, it would have bought perhaps 100 years worth.
Actually, by the way, the US economy isn't the only one with a dependency on middle eastern oil. As others here have pointed out, Europe and (increasingly) Asia, particularly China, are extremely dependent on M.E. oil. If you look at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/pgulf.html
you'll find that Japan is more than 75% dependent on ME oil. Since 1985, the US has ranged from 11% about 23 or 24%. That tracks well with Western European demand.
None of that detracts from my initial point, though. The initial war budget request the administration asked for EVEN BEFORE THE WAR STARTED would spend on the war effort would have bought ALL of the Iraqi oil for years. And US consumption accounts for very little of the sales of Iraqi oil.
Oh, by the way, your comment about democracies being "willful" is a bit of a non-sequiteur, as well. Saddam would have taken US money for oil, whether he was feeling "uppity" or not. An elected government, as you point out, might not. So why would it be in US interests to take the time, expense, and difficulty to install one (even one that I'm sure you will contend is a puppet)? Wouldn't it have been simpler for for the US to simply deal with the devil it already knew?
By the way, the "US supports dictators" line never ceases to amaze me. The US is attacked for supporting Saddam against Iran. It's attacked for leaving him in power after the '91 Gulf War (which was, by the way, what the UN mandate required). And it's attacked for taking him out this time around. Meanwhile, most of Saddam's war machine was sold to him by the Russians and the French. The Germans sold nuclear technology to him. Europe sold the guy FAR more weaponry than the US ever dreamed of. Yet no one blasts France or Russia for "supporting dictators". Out of curiosity, why is that?
Anyway, as I said before, it would have been much simpler and cheaper to just buy Iraq's oil. Especially when Iraq was a negligible contributor to US oil imports. Doesn't that make a lot more sense that believe the US chose to "steal" the oil by spending 6x as much in 2 years as it would have cost to buy it?
Like I said in my original post, whatever motivations you want to assign to Bush and company, they didn't do it for the oil.
--rorschach
# posted by : 2/2/05 10:40 AM
: 2/2/05 10:40 AM << Home
