Dan Lyons

BLUNDERING 'RECONSTRUCTIONS':
Prof. B.Wyatt-Brown has published (in DENVERPOST31AU) a brilliant comparison of our 'Reconstruction' fiasco after the Civil War with our impending fiasco in Iraq. Here is my version of the comparison.[Descriptions of the 19th-century fiasco in BOLD here.]/
Using superior resources, we (the North) won the Civil War decisively, leaving the South in ruins. We despised the Southern culture rightly, because of their slavery-endorsement----/
we rightly despised the Saddamite tyranny;/
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--and we assumed that with the slaves emancipated, the Southern landowner-class would fade into poverty and ineffectual nonresistance;/
-We assumed that after the almost-instant collapse of visible Saddamite rule, resistance would fade immediately in Iraq.
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But our shameless, commerce-minded leaders in the North reckoned without the Southern elite's tradition of 'HONOR', which insisted that ESPECIALLY in the humiliation of defeat--they must continue to resist the slob-conquerors./
Americans actually said before the recent invasion: "Arabs admire power; when we show our overwhelming military power "[which we certainly did] "they will accept us as superior, and submit to our plans--which after all, are for their benefit as well as ours (the oil)."
One is reminded of Wile E. Coyote, who offered Bugs Bunny a card that read, "I am bigger and stronger and faster than you; please simplify things by surrendering immediately!" (Bugs didn't.)
We are taking on one billion Muslims, worldwide, who are more humiliated than before by the puny Iraqi resistance to the Great Satan; many are determined to wreak revenge for this Dishonor.
(In the funeral march of the bombed Shiite leader, one cry would have been puzzling to Americans, insensitive to honor-tralk: "We will not be humiliated; we will humiliate Saddam and Bush!")
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There is also--what was lacking in the U.S. South--the force of Islamic religion, which a) abhors any Infidel control of Muslim lands--Iraqis say, "As bad as Saddam was, he was at least a Muslim!"-- and (b) (in some influential versions) thinks that Allah will reward martyr-murderers, suicidal bombers resisting the Infidel 'crusaders'. (Incredibly to Americans, who have no sense of history, Muslims are still seething over their version of the Crusades, centuries ago!) /
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The Northerners fondly assumed that the Southerners would have to accept the real liberation of the slaves;/
The U.S. now assumes that the Iraqi Muslims will have to accept the liberation of women, and the protected status of the Christian minority, which they reluctantly accepted under the ruthless rule of Saddam--even though our regime in Iraq is not ruthless enough and certainly not informed enough [we don't even understand the language!] to enforce these worthy goals effectively./
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After the Civil War, our occupation forces at least SPOKE THE SAME LANUAGE as the locals; our present occupation is even more feckless!
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Northern leaders, obsessed mainly by commerce, soon lost interest in the ideological Reconstruction, in protecting the ex-slaves, in squashing the guerilla movements of Southern resistance./
The Bush-team was never really interested in, or informed about the price of, continued occupation--except for controlling the oil-exports. Right-wing thinkers are now dismayed over the puny resources we are devoting to the Occupation. /
It seems clear now that we cannot quickly restore the oil-exports (with FIVE sabotage-fires wrecking the crucial Northern pipeline to Turkey just in the last month or so); oil-exports will not, for at least several years, finance the 'reconstruction'. (The Bush-team fantasizes that the nations whose advice they scorned before the invasion are now going to contribute the tens of billions needed for reconstruction--while we keep control of the oil!) /
In short, the effective reconstruction of Iraq will not be properly financed by us or by anyone else--so it will not take place! Similarly, we're letting Afghanistan sink back into the anarchic chaos which made even Taliban tyranny attractive./
However, if another tyrant like Saddam seized ruthless control to pacify the place, then the big Oil Companies would rush in to rebuild Iraq--and many Iraqis would heave a sigh of relief.
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The Northern POPULACE quickly lost interest in the Southern Reconstruction, and resented any human or money costs involved.
The American populace don't really see the outside world as real, except when they are roused from their myopic apathy into blind, murderous rage--for short periods of time--by government propaganda--(and by 9/11).
So already 60% resent the $1 billion per week we spend for military occupation (which experts say is ludicrously short of the money needed for reconstruction!) They are far more concerned with domestic unemployment (why shouldn't they be? !!) and the national Deficit growing like a cancer.
Also, they are constantly frustrated by the continuing GI casualties each day, each week.
Also, our homeland is incredibly vulnerable to dozens of ways that terrorists could attack.And about 40% of Americans now see that the invasion has INCREASED this vulnerability--so they are finally seeing through the identification of the invasion with the War on Terror.
In all these ways, the typical American is less and less supportive of our continuing occupation. And Bush faces an election in 14 months.
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The North finally bugged out of the South completely, leaving the rich racist monsters to run the place.
It looks as if we will bug out eventually of Iraq, leaving its bones to be picked over by whichever tyrant survives the civil wars between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.
Given that likelihood: the sooner we bug out, the better for our wretched GIs; the later, the worse./
BRING 'EM HOME!

INTELLIGENCE BLUNDERS: U.S. Intelligence officials now say they may have been misled by double-agents sent by Saddam to pose as defectors. /INDEPENDENT30AU/.......DUH!
To base an invasion on informants who are self-selected, when you don't have any real informants in the country itself,
was just nutty.

JOHNSON'S VIET SPEECH: at WWW.INFORMATIONCLEARINGHOUSE.INFO you can read a 1965 speech by Pres. Lyndon Johnson justifying our heartless, brainless, luckless Vietnam campaign. It sounds uncannily like the Bush-team speeches justifying our invasion of Iraq! /
Johnson said later that he knew all along we couldn't win in Vietnam, but he was afraid he'd be impeached if he pulled out. HE WAS A TRAITOR!

CUTE, DEADLY ROBOTS: NYT28AU,in its CIRCUITS section, told of ingenious robots that will vacuum your living-room.
On TV recently, you could see ingenious 'humanoid' robots from Japan that could ape human behaviour in an astonishing way. They now have robot 'puppies' for sale. Recently, on TV you could see robot FOOT-SOLDIERS that could climb stairs, with a cannon for a nose and cameras for eyes, so they could go through a city blasting any opposition without any danger to our soldiers./
The Pentagon is trying to do its military magic with a minimum number of humans involved directly. (One colonel bragged: "We can fight overseas without any American having to leave our country!")/NYT magazine/20JY//
But Americans have been slow to realize that this means the Pentagon could take over in America quite easily. We've always discounted any 'takeover' fears because we figured that American soldiers would never fire on Americans./
BUT AMERICAN ROBOTS WOULD NOT HESITATE. And our handgun admirers, who promise to 'defend us from tyranny' ,would be as completely helpless as if they were armed with 'BB guns' !

STARTING & FINISHING: Condoleeza Rice said today, about Iraq, "When Americans start on a noble cause, we finish it!"/AssocPress/30AU/
ANOTHER BLATANT LIE !
We bugged out of the defeated Confederacy after the Civil War, leaving the awful racists to run things./
We didn't finish in Vietnam; we bugged out. We also bugged out of Lebanon and Somalia./
Indeed we got out of the Korean conflict without victory--now we face perhaps another, devastating war with North Korea./(We're getting ready to bug out of South Korea, to their great relief.)
We have more or less bugged out of Afghanistan; holed up in Kabul, we pretty much let warlords and resurgent Taliban run the rest of the country./
It's not that Americans are usually quitters (though they were after the Civil War!) ; it's that our rulers keep getting us involved in nutty conflicts--our people are slow to wake up to such folly--but the leaders know that once our people wake up, then they'd better back out of the foolish involvements. /
Probably we'll eventually back out of the Iraq quagmire--the sooner the better; the later the worse.

"WAR CRIMINALS HIRE WAR CRIMINALS TO CATCH WAR CRIMINALS ! " On 23AU, the WASHINGTON POST told of our hiring members of SADDAM'S TERRIFYING SPY TEAM to catch present guerillas. (The headline above is the take of MOSCOW TIMES.COM on this strange move.) It looks even stranger today; after the horrific mosque bombing to get the top pro-US Shiite leader, 4 men were apprehended running from the scene--4 men carrying ID as part of SADDAM'S SPY TEAM !/nyt30au./
What assurance do we have that these turncoat spies won't secretly HELP the guerillas instead of nabbing them ?? !!
We are a blind tyrannosaurus rex in Iraq, helpless but destructive.

NUMBER WOUNDED? The Lehrer News Report(29AU) just quoted Pentagon as saying 1400 GIs have been maimed or wounded in Iraq (the number wounded by enemy? or the total number including accidents, friendly fire,etc.?) [This is the first war where the number wounded has not been issued regularly along with the number killed. The Pentagon is counting on US tendency not to count the wounded--even though many of the maimed may face a fate worse than death./
ON THE CONTRARY: One colonel says there have been THOUSANDS of maimed/wounded GIs air-lifted through Andrews AF Base./GUARDIAN 4au.
[To read this story: under Archive at left, go down and click on week 8/03 -8/09, then move down to 8/04.] /
450 GIs were maimed or wounded just in August!/ INDEPENDENT11SEPT.

A PROWAR PHILOSOPHER: (interview in FinTimes29AU)
Michael Ignatieff is one of the most perceptive philosophers writing in English. Yet he has endorsed the invasion of Iraq. [below, I's points in bold.]
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He says Blair and Bush had to lie to their people 'in a great cause', because their people wouldn't tolerate attacking Iraq (as they should have) just because 'Saddam was a foul blot on the reputation of the world community'. |
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Lyons: There are other weapons against tyrants besides attack; for instance,the oil-sanctions IF they had been applied honestly and intelligently, with generous humanitarian exceptions. Then it would have been obvious that any suffering was caused by Saddam--which, as things actually took place, many observers do not think is so obvious.
If we start bombing every nation whose ruler is such a foul blot, where will it end? Attacking the Bush-team? Or do we have to have a threshhold of foulness to justify attack? Who defines that threshold?
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IGN: 'Blair couldn't say the reason to invade was that S. was a tyrant and a 'strategic menace'.|
Lyons: that last part, slipped in smoothly, is the issue: was he in fact a menace to the world--not in intent, but also in capability?
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IGN: "S's intent was beyond question."
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Lyons: His WISHES (to strike out at Israel & America ,Iran & Kuwait) were perhaps beyond question: but fear of retaliation would remove Israel and America & Kuwait from the list of potential victims;and he lost a huge war with Iran..there is no reason to think he'd try THAT again./
To know that he INTENDED to attack other countries would be to suppose that he was so CRAZY (not just wicked) that he didn't care about issues like retaliation. And his being crazy was never established. (A defender of the invasion must BE SURE (not just feel sure)--and give reasons for his certainty--about Saddam's intentions. The burden of proof is always on the DEFENDER of ruthless war. )
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IGN: Saddam would have nukes in 5 years. |
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Lyons: So? HOW MANY? Could he secretly develop long-range missiles to deliver them to his enemies? Russia and China have lots of nukes, as do India and Israel (which has shown a penchant for ruthlessness.) And Pakistan has nukes, whose govt. sponsored the Taliban, whose govt. is fragile, so the nukes could be taken over by fundamentalist rebels. (And outsiders would say that US, with thousands of nuke-missiles, is not overly-rational or overly-scrupulous.)
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IGN: Opponents of the invasion didn't care what's best for Iraqis.|
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Lyons: PRESUMPTUOUS of him to know all the motives of war-foes! Ask the Iraqis! Most of them are glad to see Saddam out of power, though the 30,000 civilians killed or wounded (and their relatives) might see the PRICE of his ouster as too HIGH!*\/* ...Also the hundreds of victims of the lawlessness which followed his ouster, which the Americans have been unable to stop. The US occupation has been so blundering that many may think they're worse off now--at least, before, they could refrigerate their food and have clean water to drink./
50% of Iraqis, THE WOMEN, are now worse off--Saddam was quite tolerant of women's liberation. Now the Shiites, (who would rule in a Democracy) AND the Sunnis are ready--indeed already beginning-- to squash these uppity women. /
Saddam was also unusually protective of Christians for a 'muslim'. Iraqi Christians might regret the tyrant's passing, when the liberated Muslims go after them--as they have in Pakistan and Indonesia.
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Ignatieff: we have to think of the rights of individuals, not just the rights of States.|
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Lyons: yes, but legitimizing preemptive strikes at sovereign states promises to unloose even more anarchy on the world scene. For one thing, every sensible country with resources will now try to develop nukes [as North Korea and Iran are now doing] or war-germs as a second-strike deterrent against America, to make them able to maim us 'even from their grave', to stop us from launching a vigilante First-Strike on them to 'make their people better off' (in our judgment).
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Ignatieff had little new to say; he just gave the same justification as every hawk has done.
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I would respect the Pope's opinion more than Ignatieff's: he is an authority on Just War; also, he has intelligence agents in every nation (the Catholic clergy) and so is very well informed about factual situations everywhere. Even after Bush sent prominent US Catholic right-wingers to lobby him into supporting us, Pope John Paul II summed up his moral assessment of the invasion as IMMORAL, ILLEGAL AND DISASTROUS.
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*/\* The Wanniski Report cites an Iraqi official in a minority party as saying that THIRTY-SEVEN THOUSAND Iraqis have been KILLED in this campaign! (The Village Voice, cited in TRUTHOUT.ORG) Usually one figures that five to seven people are wounded for each person killed..that would make over TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND Iraqis dead, maimed or wounded. Since all such estimates are more or less precise guesses, we could say the number of civilian casualties is somewhere between 30,000 and 200,000./
Hawks often ask sarcastically, "Don't you think the Iraqis are better off without Saddam?!"/
Well, THESE thousands of Iraqis are not better off!

EVALUATING PROFS: A study (NYT28AU,c2) showed that more attractive profs get higher evaluations. That fits my experience: when I was young and beautiful, I was more popular than when I got old and distinguished-looking--and more exacting./
Also, adjunct profs with no tenure prospects were rated higher, probably because they are younger and also mark easier--why not, when they have no job security, and are rated just by their students' approval? I would too.
A cynical prof said, "It's bad enough that universities have ruined academic publishing by rating profs by pages published; now they ruin teaching by rating profs by popularity with students."
More and more students are seen as consumers; universities sell degrees, and in return, students demand easy grades..and they get them! Even so, half of starting students don't finish--to maximize income,the universities admit obviously unqualified students; what's more, no matter how easy the standards, some students can't resist doing even less work than required.
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In a consumer-model society, all clients are seen as customers--even churchgoers--and the customers are always right. In the movie MASS APPEAL, an easygoing suburban pastor is chewing out a strict gospel-preaching deacon: "You're not going to preach any kick-ass sermons in MY church! The collection follows soon after the sermon, and that's no accident: it's like a Nielsen rating."
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The difference is that any shortcomings in churchgoers aren't revealed till the Last Judgment; but defects in college graduates show up in problems in hi-tech industry and even in the hi-tech military, where college graduates can't read instruction manuals.
Students who care about their futures had better set their own standards, not congratulating themselves for getting a no-work 'B'.

TALKS END ABOUT NORTH KOREA'S NUKES: North Korea sounded sensible: "US won't compromise until we are completely disarmed..indicating an intent to attack us once we are disarmed."/Reuters29AU/
The Bush hawks set the bar so high that N.K. could be expected to balk./ A U.S. general said in 1994 that a new Korean war would cause 1 million casualties including tens of thousands of Americans(!) and would cost U.S. over $100 billion. / And even if we destroyed Kim regime, the next regime might 'go nuclear' also: the nuke plants are likely hidden under mountains, and could survive another saturation bombing like the one we inflicted 50 years ago./NYTIMES/2S
The Chinese head-negotiator at the talks said afterward that U.S. was the 'MAIN PROBLEM ! /RockyMtnNews2S/
Not only does that show the bad faith of the Americans--it also suggests that China(& Russia) would not cooperate in trying to destroy N.K. regime by a war-measure embargo./
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It's said that one main danger from N.K. nukes would be pushing South Korea and Japan and Taiwan to 'go nuke'.
But these countries might be well-advised to 'go nuke' in any case, given possible future threats from 'heavy-nuke' China./
Could they expect US to protect them? US has shown little concern for their safety, provoking N.K., seeming to hope that N.K. will strike first, bringing apocalypse to So.Korea and much destruction to Japan./
Indeed, these countries might want nukes as a 2d-strike deterrent vs. rampaging U.S. imperialists (they might want to be able to 'maim us from their graves'/
It's puzzling why the Bush-team, already involved in Afghan/Iraq quagmires, would feel they have to go to war with North Korea! Surely they don't think N.K. would launch a first-strike at U.S. !! Perhaps they fear that nuke-proliferation would increase the number of countries who could defy our imperial threats by counter-threats to 'maim us from their graves'.

SHOCKED BUT NOT SURPRISED/
We've all been horrified to find out that a significant number of female cadets at the AirForceAcademy say they've been raped. But we shouldn't be that surprised./
Here's an organization whose main function is bombing people; one might expect that many candidates for this role are not very morally sensitive, and that the officers running the school are not easily shocked./
The new AFA commandant brought out a symbolic sword to represent AirForce Honor, and said the bad conduct of some cadets had stained that sword, that Honor. However, when one thinks of the B-52 crews who mounted their steeds in Kansas, bombed the hell out of Afghanistan from a very safe distance--without removing binLaden!--then came home to play with their kids after supper--one wonders what kind of Honor is involved.
Someone has said, "Modern War is a demented enterprise, with personnel and policies corresponding."

BALANCED VIEWS? HELL, NO! /
These pieces don't pretend to give an objective, balanced view. I'm out to show how goofy and ruthless AND RECKLESSLY RISKY are the militaristic policies of the present WhiteHouse and Pentagon.
I don't rejoice at the chaos in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the horrific human costs involved. On the other hand, no sensible observer wants the Bush-team to SUCCEED in these goofy enterprises; if they did succeed, they would rush on to other imperial madnesses..indeed, they're even now trying to start a war with fearsome North Korea! One of their spokesmen, sounding a little like Hitler, said, "WE ARE ON THE MARCH!"
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DELAY IN WRITING AFGHAN CONSTITUTION:/
The commission writing the Constitution has called for a two-month delay, partly because of the deteriorating security situation (increased guerilla attacks)./FinTimes28au/
Hundreds of Taliban are running loose in Afghanistan, killing lots of our allies./Reuters29AU
But few Americans care, as long as almost no GIs get killed there. Or rather, as long as the media play down any US casualties: in fact one GI was killed & one wounded on 29AU/Reuters./ 4 GIs were killed in week before 1 Sept.
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After all, Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, has no oil--only, under our regime, lots of opium to export!

COMPROMISE? WHAT ABOUT THE OIL ? ! There's talk of some compromise between Pentagon stubbornness about sharing any power in Iraq and the determination of other nations not to give (desperately needed) aid to US unless power is shared somehow. /
One plausible proposal is that US continue to run military matters completely (with US casualties continuing indefinitely), while UN manages the civilian reconstruction. Now IF the Bush-team agreed that the UN would control the revived OIL EXPORTS, that might surprise everyone by showing that the US govt. was NOT mainly concerned with the oil after all--OR it could show that the Bush-team is so desperate to be bailed out of its quagmire that it's now willing to give up control of the oil.

ANOTHER BLACKOUT! An electric power blackout, just after the NW US blackout, hit London during rush-hour, leaving people stranded in public-transit tunnels, affecting for a short time half a million people. /Reuters28au/ It was said there was no sign of terrorist involvement--though the two blackouts so close together seem quite a coincidence. But the 2 incidents remind us of what terrorist attacks could involve. /
We need to spend far more money on Home Defense, and far less money on military measures to bomb, invade, and occupy other countries. (Pentagon spending, already gross, rose 45% in 3 months!)

LABOR DAY REFLECTION: LAMENT OF A MAMD: /
When they moved industries to Alabama, to break the damn unions , I approved. When they moved them to Mexico, I said nothing. When they replaced humans with computers & robots, I approved of the progress. /
I voted Libertarian; why should we productive people be taxed to support those shiftless, unemployed losers ? /
But NOW they're wiring OUR techie jobs to INDIA ! And they're bringing in low-paid, well-trained foreigners to compete with US. I used to be a YUMPIE (young, upwardly-mobile person) ; now, alas, I'm a MAMD (middle-aged, moving down). /
And now there's almost no Labor Movement left to stick up for me.
from Dan Lyons (7 yrs. seniority in Teamsters Union).

IT'S NOT FAIR ! Here's a puzzle: $1200 MILLIONS go to Pentagon each DAY...and much of this then goes to a relatively few billionaire weapons-makers--e.g., the guys at Lockheed. /
But what about the other super-wealthy? They have to use some other scams--which are far more trouble--to get attached to the government teat. /
Why don't they raise hell about these few guys getting far more than their share?
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STRIKE! STRIKE! BUT WHERE? Bush's latest speech told how we would 'strike' at the enemy, presumably now the guerillas. But while we could strike at Baghdad easily enough, with bombs & missiles galore, the problem with guerilllas is "Where do we strike?" /
The generals launch strikes at suspected guerilla sites in Iraq and Afghanistan; and they announce great successes--but these announcements are subject to suspicion--just as all our triumphant strikes in Viet War turned out to be irrelevant./
The U.S. forces have very few translators or reliable informants; they don't really know how reliable is their info about these guerilla sites. (In desperation, they're hiring Saddam's former spies to spy on guerillas, for God's sake!/WashPost23AU/ Which side are THEY loyal to ?
US Gen.Sanchez admitted that more troops wouldn't help--when he lacks reliable INTELLIGENCE and real COOPERATION from the Iraqi people. Assoc.Press28au/
Contrast our blind blundering with Israeli strikes. They seem to know just which cars the Hamas leaders are in; thus they can strike WITH MISSILES, killing very few innocent bystanders.
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Nobody will know how successful our strikes are, until guerilla activity withers or dies. /
And this is not happening yet. A few GIs still die every week, and far more are wounded (how many? they won't tell!);
and the crucial oil-pipeline to Turkey was just set ablaze again today, when the last 2 ruptures haven't yet been repaired./ABCNEWS27AU/
Another pro-U.S. Shiite leader was car-bombed on 29AU./REUTERS/ Observers have said that IF anti-US leaders turn the Shiites in the South against us, to match the Sunnis harrassing us in the North, we are in very great trouble indeed./
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'King" Bremer just admitted we have a serious guerilla problem. "We need better information about where these terrrorists are", he noted sagely. /Reuters2S/ DUH!

NO MENTION OF OIL? /letter to USATODAY /
Amitai Etzioni's article on Iraq (27AU) made good sense. We should pull our troops back out of daily contact with enraged Iraquis and let them remake or destroy their society on their own. The American public is rapidly turning against the whole occupation project./
However, it was fascinating to note that Etzioni never mentioned the 'sea of oil' Iraq is sitting on, as a factor in our decisions. We're cheerfully letting Afghanistan sink back into warlord-anarchy and Taliban guerilla attacks on its own--because few GIs are getting killed, and Afghanistan has no oil. /
It looks now as if, in the near future, we can't restore Iraqi oil-exports (that were supposed to pay for the occupation); in the meantime, we'll have to go on paying $1 billion per week OR MORE to preserve the ego of the Bush-team. Only when Congress shows spirit matched with sanity, and resists Pentagon nuttiness, will our policy make sense.

WHAT CHANCE OF SUCCESS IN IRAQ?/
--HOW MANY TROOPS NEEDED? James Dobbin (a special Bush envoy to Afgh, experienced in stabilizing postwar Yugoslavia) says 526,000 troops needed, 3 times as many as are now on the ground. No chance, unless U.S. yields control to UN to get foreign troops. (And maybe we won't get many foreign reinforcements then.) /
U.S. now hints it might accept nominal UN 'control' over troops, as long as an American is UN commander./cnn26au
Can we expect other countries to contribute 300,000 extra troops to serve under a US commander? Little chance!
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--WHAT KIND OF RULING GROUP? Not Bremer's team, says INTERNATIONAL CRISIS CENTER. And not the present puppet 'Council'.
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--WHAT KIND OF MONEY? $60 BILLION needed right away, as a down-payment, says right-wing U.S. intellectual journal THE STANDARD./GUARDIAN26AU. /
'King'Bremer says that 'tens of millions' will be needed next year. In fact, he says, the costs are "almost impossible to exaggerate!" He says the oil-income won't match expenses even at the end of next year.[Radio Liberty, a US govt. outlet/28AU]/
That's PLUS the $1 billion a week for military expenses. A legislator says "They seem to be out of money, but they won't be frank about how much they'll need."/WashPost27AU.
However, 60% of Americans already object to spending even $1 billion each week on Iraq. (NEWSWEEK poll). / Polls show that Americans (a) are concerned about the skyrocketing Deficit, (b) they're not confident about Bush's handling of this problem, and (c) they think the Iraqi costs are aggravating the deficit problem.
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About the Council; a leading member resigned, saying that their role basically is to answer their telephones.
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At first the bombing of UN HQ (aimed accurately at De Mello) seemed irrational, since Iraqis (we think) know that the UN is a force for good, helping the Iraqi people. But it turns out that de Mello was also acting as liaison between 'King' Bremer and some Shiite leaders who would not work directly with Bremer. Now this liaison is gone, and cooperation between Bremer's team and the Shiites is more difficult--a rational (if wicked) goal for the guerillas./TIME19AU

A 'JOBLESS RECOVERY' IS NO RECOVERY AT ALL: When you read that the stock market is rising, or that 'consumer confidence is up' or that 'durable goods orders have risen' or even that 'gdp has risen'--remember that none of these improvements means that the number of people unemployed for a long time is going to fall. Some increase in demand will be made up by automated production; some will be made up by farming out jobs overseas./
Pay attention only to the number of nonmilitary American jobs being offered here; only when that figure rises considerably will the typical American be better off. (Over 2 million such jobs have DISAPPEARED in the last 2 years of Bush's reign!)
This typical American may be now employed; but his pay and benefits may be lower; and his job security is certainly wobbly--he must compete with the 'reserve army of the unemployed', plus the computers, plus the cheap-waged foreign workers.
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In the last quarter, Pentagon spending rose at an astounding 45% pace!! But, unsurprisingly, this did NOT lead to more jobs. Indeed, jobs have dwindled by 30% over the last 2 months./Reuters28AU
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Pres. Bush cited signs of improving economy, including rise in PRODUCTIVITY (i.e., industry's ability to produce more goods with LESS human input, with less chance of cutting unemployment!/) NPR news/30AU
However, when the whole world is considered, 3 countries are ahead of ours in worker-productivity-PER-HOUR, the amount of value added by one hour of human input. Productivity-increases ANYWHERE harm our workers; but productivity advantages overseas are especially threatening!

INACCURATE & IRRELEVANT COUNTS OF ENEMIES 'DESTROYED':
During the Viet war, U.S. commanders constantly offered glowing estimates of all the VietCong we had defeated and killed--till the public really believed the VC threat was nearly eliminated; then in the Tet offensive, it became clear that the VC was up and bushy-tailed. The public then saw they had been deceived, and U.S. support for the war sagged fatally.
Similarly, our commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq tell us constantly of all their attacks on the enemy guerillas, of all the weapons seized, etc. But none of that will matter UNTIL THE GUERILLA ATTACKS DIMINISH or disappear. (Some observers have said that the successful bombings of the Jordanian embassy and--especially--of UN HQ, have shown up our generals' optimistic blather just as the Tet Offensive did earlier.) And in spite of our overwhelming firepower, attacks by the Taliban on Afghan 'collaborators' are increasing. Keep your eye on the ball, and ignore the chatter.
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The number of GIs dead in Iraq SINCE Bush announced "Mission Accomplished!" on the aircraft carrier--this number now EQUALS the number who died during the 'actual war'. That's not so important as is the likelihood that a few GIs will GO ON DYING each week, with many more maimed or wounded. That's what will turn the average American against the whole project.

INTERVENTIONIST LUNGE BASED ON ISOLATIONIST IGNORANCE:
Thos.Friedman comes up again (in NYT) with familiar absurdities in hawk propaganda: he feels free to
speak for our opponents in Iraq : [F's claims paraphrased in bold]
-- he says they know the war is not over oil, but over ideas;
He doesn't say why we're letting Afghanistan relapse into anarchy and Taliban guerilla-warfare; one possible reason is that, while ideas are at stake, there's no oil there.
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..it's about Western powers,helped by the United Nations, coming into the Muslim world...
But America is alone in its meddling. It wants money and troops from the UN, but to get these, it won't yield any power, because the power is over oil.
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--to promote decent, tolerant, women-friendly, pluralistic governments..
Under Saddam, women were almost as free (or unfree) as the men; under our regime, women don't dare go out alone or without head-covering, or have careers. We'd gladly sacrifice all the rights of women if we could just get the primitive male-chauvinist Shiites on our side. In Afghanistan, under our puppet government, schools for girls get burned--just as they do in Pakistan, our ally..and in our ally, Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive cars!

/..Pluralist? The Kurds are fighting the Turkomen. Sunnis and Shiites are sometimes cooperating
now to throw out the Americans; but everyone knows that eventually there will be a death-struggle between the 60% Shiites and the minority (but militarily trained) Sunnis. In Afghanistan, we're paying off the warlords who are carving up the country./
Saddam actually tolerated Christians better than almost any other Muslim ruler. And he turned most viciously on the Kurds and Shiites only after they were foolish enough to let the Americans talk them into attempted revolt. (The Americans of course double-crossed them, didn't back them, and let them be slaughtered.)
--------------
These opponents of ours, says Friedman, know what's at stake:Beat American ideas in Iraq & you beat them in the whole region...
..it's not American ideas--which are indeed puny and in short supply--but American brute firepower, that they're out to beat..it's true that if Americans 'bug out' of Iraq (as they probably will do) then American dreams of controlling all Middle-East oil and castrating the foes of Israel will probably wither.
/
--lose to Americans there, lose everywhere.
..This is an absolutely PREPOSTEROUS claim. If Americans do 'win' in Iraq, the 1 billion Muslims worldwide will fume in humiliated rage; already there are more terrorists willing to blow themselves up with their foes than there are available bombs; soon there will be even more volunteers; plans to attack the American homeland will be ginned up even further.
/
Friedman does see the grim-but-laughable incompetence of the Bush-team being displayed in
this war. He notes that we don't even have enough translators..
..well, he should have seen all along that we could NEVER supply enough translators ! !
Americans generally--including our elite youth--simply don't care about the outside world; they
especially don't care about the 'Martian-alien' Middle East. In the year 2000, years after we had reason to fear Arab terrorism, only 6 Americans in the whole country majored in Arabic. On 9/11, only 6 people in the FBI understood Arabic. A Brit historian said he saw the need for an American Empire to police the chaotic world--UNTIL he moved here and came to understand the Americans; then he realized that, once the empire was conquered, the government couldn't persuade qualified young Americans even to LIVE in the new colonies!
/
--Friedman also deplores the Bush-team's refusal to spend realistically on our new ideological
empire. But the one thing Americans are agreed on--by a 60% majority--is that our present spending of $1 billion a week must be cut back (the NEWSWEEK poll). And over 50% say we should pull out if U.S. casualties continue-- as they certainly will.
Americans enjoyed the whoosh of missiles in the war, on TV, but they have no intention of paying the Price of Empire. Why should they, when only the transnational corporations would benefit?
-------------
Poor Tom--he doesn't understand Islamic martyr-murderers, and he CERTAINLY doesn't understand the childish American public, manipulated by the crooked, greedy, and ignorant Bushies. (A State-Dept. official said that "King' Bremer's knowledge of Iraq could fit in a thimble.)
Tom's dreams of a U.S.-renovated Middle East never had any reality. BUT HE HELPED TO LEGITIMATE AN INVASION THAT WAS 'ILLEGAL,UNJUST, AND DISASTROUS' (in the Pope's terse phrase). Let him live with that memory.
Tom is like the naive British clergy who justified the crass Empire by chatter about 'the white man's burden; the need to bring Christianity to the heathen."
And even now he dreams that the Bushies can be shamed into reform; he doesn't see that our
inevitable 'bug-out' should be sooner rather than later.

USING ENEMIES'WEAPONS: In Viet War, we were incredibly rich & VC enemies were dirt-poor. We dumped so many tons of weapons on the country (land-mines, shells, bullets) that the VC, working in tunnels, retooled these weapons to use against us.
Now we're in Iraq, richer than ever! [$1 billion per DAY to Pentagon, PLUS an extra $1 billion per week for the Iraq campaign.] However, our soldiers DON'T HAVE ENOUGH RIFLES !! So they're permitted to use AK47s that have been confiscated from our 'enemies' (or from someone--most Iraqis have a weapon like that.)/AssocPress25AU
Satire is dead; the antics of our nincompoop rulers go beyond the material any comic writer could invent.
-----------------
HYSTERICAL HYPE: U.S. Gen. Myers said that Iraq is an important venue for our foreign enemies. But here's the hysterical part: 'This is the biggest threat to our country's existence that I can remember." /LondonDailyTelegraph25AU / Perhaps he has Alzheimer's; he apparently doesn't remember Pearl Harbor, when our country was actually attacked..though our existence was not then threatened.
In any case, the Iraqi guerillas pose NO THREAT AT ALL TO OUR COUNTRY'S EXISTENCE ! /
/
We do face awful threats, from terrorists who will attack our Homeland, which is vulnerable in dozens of ways--our Homeland which the Bush-team is making little attempt to defend. But these will be A DIFFERENT SET of terrorists. (They don't threaten our physical existence, even if they can muster up a couple of nukes and some war-germs.) /
However, they do pose an awful threat. There are some germs that are not lethal in themselves; but they overstimulate the immunity-system of the organism; this immunity system then attacks its own body, perhaps fatally./
Analogously, if we suffer another terrorist attack or two, our citizens (not too rational at the best of times) may well go mad with fear and rage, and move over completely to fascism. We could very well perish as a 200-year-old Republic./
Considering how 9/11 bolstered the power of the Right-Wing, the Bushies may not regret another attack.

TRUST OR SAFETY? OR NEITHER? The 3 Brit soldiers just killed were riding in a Nissan, not an armored car. This was because the Brits (unlike Yanks) are determined to earn the trust of Iraqis in their section. But then the troops are even worse SITTING DUCKS than are the Yanks.
A top Tory just said "In the long run, we might have to reevaluate the entire strategy." Pull out? go to fully armored?/
INDEPENDENT25au

"COLLABORATORS" TARGETED:
A tape from guerilla groups promised to kill the 'collaborators' on our puppet Council even before Americans are killed./Reuters26AU This tape was unnecessary; guerilla tactics have always tried primarily to undermine and destroy any local collaboration with invaders./
People and groups in Iraq [native or foreign] who cooperate with U.S. (as translators or informants or technicians,etc.) are specially targeted for attack. (They are 'softer targets' than the GIs themselves.)
The recent bombing of SCIRA (a Shiite group cooperating with U.S.)--after the spectacular bombings of UN HQ and Jordanian Embassy (Jordan endorsed the invasion)--have left potential cooperators very nervous./FinTimes25AU/
U.S. will have to offer strong money incentives PLUS EFFECTIVE PROTECTION if it is to get the Iraqi cooperation it so desperately needs./
The Red Cross personnel in Iraq have been cut back/GUARDIAN25AU/ Obviously they don't trust the level of protection they'd get from U.S./
Hundreds of Shiites blamed U.S. for not protecting SCIRA better./Christ.Sci.Monitor25AU

PRIVATIZING WAR: Rumsfeld's dream is to cut down on needed soldiers by substituting civilian contractors for noncombat jobs. But in a war, civilians do not feel obliged to serve in dangerous ways.
Goto HACKWORTH.COM. Col.David Hackworth was a heroic commander in Viet war who turned against militaristic lies, and has campaigned ever since vs. Pentagon. On this site, goto THE BASTARDS! (Newhouse News.svc) on chaos of Pentagon's relations with civilian contractors, and the lousy provisions for U.S. soldiers in Iraq--e.g., insufficient DRINKING WATER!/
The truth is BUSH DOESN'T SUPPORT TROOPS! They may think they can get away with this because few of top 25% (economically/educationally) of American families enlist in the military. FROM NOW ON, I'd guess, few of the bottom 75% (at least few of the small subset of this cohort who are trainable to use military hi-tech) will enlist/reenlist in the Army!
========
Rummy thinks we can HIRE private security forces to thwart the guerillas! U.S. is also hiring FORMER SADDAMITE INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS to snoop on guerillas.Christ.SciMonitor25AU (That doesn't fit Bremer's claim that the core of guerilla movement is former Saddamites--who's to guarantee that these hired spies and turncoats won't covertly be siding with the guerillas?!

PRICE OF IRAQ SUCCESS: The Pentagon's assumptions were really stupid about how the reconstruction would proceed. For instance, they budgeted $229 million for rebuilding the electricity grid; now they estimate that will require $13,000 millions! The water-system will take $16 billion.
Bremer says the reconstruction total will be $100 billion for next 3 years. Others say that reconstruction, plus military costs, will total $80-120 billion EACH YEAR. (Right now costs are running at $1 billion per week--but at that price, we're visibly failing.) And Americans now concede that there is no chance that the oil industry will be built up as quickly as the Pentagon projected (to pay for our occupation).
Some experts say that 400,000 troops will be needed.
----------------------
Obviously the Bush-team will have to give up some real power in Iraq (to an elected Governing Council and to UN), to get the outside help that they have to have, for any chance of success./ Will Hutton in OBSERVER24AU./ But will Bush & Rumsfeld see that necessity soon enough?
--------
There is no reason to think that the American Public are willing to pay the price of this project, in money or in GIs killed/maimed/wounded. [see NEWSWEEK poll below.]

HERE OR THERE? THERE AND HERE ! The White House has re-issued their usual tired slogan:
"We'd rather fight the terrorists abroad, with the might of our military..than here in America, with emergency military personnel and fire-fighters."
2 comments:
--Fighting terrorists abroad in no way makes our homeland safer, (we'll face different terrorists here--there's no shortage worldwide of Islamist fanatics!) in no way makes it less likely that we'll have to rely on emergency medical personnel and firefighters !
--Of course they want to pretend that 'our military' (the Pentagon) has an important role in fighting terrorism. But the danger is from INDIVIDUAL terrorists, NOT from Nations--which are the only foes our Pentagon is designed to fight./
We give $1200 millions per DAY to the useless Pentagon, but the Bush-team won't properly finance the vitally needed medics and firefighters. Even before the first bioterror attack, we already face an urgent shortage of nurses--which the govt. is doing nothing to mitigate!

FOREIGN GUERILLAS: U.S. finally admits that the main guerilla threat in Iraq is not from 'Saddamite remnants' but from Islamist fanatics infiltrating into Iraq. Of course they're claiming that most come in from Iran, because they want to attack Iran.
But 3000 males just 'disappeared' from Saudi Arabia..where could they have gone?/
We should have foreseen that invading Iraq would trigger rage among fanatic Islamists (some unknown proportion of one billion Muslims) all over the world, and that they would pay no attention to borders: they infiltrated Afghanistan to fight the Soviets; they have infiltrated Chechnya to fight the Russians; they infiltrated Kosovo to fight the Serbs. These small cells of guerillas are often led by men trained elsewhere in combat./
Ordinary Iraqis must recognize these people as foreigners; if they don't turn them in, that means they don't disapprove of the guerilla project./ On 28AU, 4 GIs were wounded by a bomb near Faluja. A crowd marched praising Saddam, denouncing Bush, and waving a charred piece of cloth they said was clothing from one of the GI casualties! /Reuters.
Gen.Myers just said sensibly that, facing these 'random attacks' against GIs, it wouldn't help to bring in more troops; that would just mean providing more targets. We must either accept the continuing deaths of a few GIs each week, along with FAR MORE GIs wounded..or else we should BRING 'EM HOME.

'SHRUB' IS WITHERING: TREMBLE, O 'W': AMERICANS ARE (SLOWLY) WAKING UP!
|
--40% in U.S. are 'very concerned' we'll get bogged down in Iraq;29% more are 'somewhat concerned.' [total 'concerned':69%]
--Only 18% are confident we'll produce a stable,democratic Iraq (37% 'somewhat' confident).
--Only 13% say we've done 'very well' in Iraq since 1 May (39% more say 'somewhat well'.)
|
--47% are very concerned about the cost of the project, worrying about its effect on our Deficit & our Economy.
60% say $1billion per week for occupation is too much; we should scale back. [Lyons: experts say we'll have to spend a lot MORE to have any hope of succeeding.]
--56% OK keeping GIs in Iraq for 2 years or less. [Lyons: It's sad that they seem more concerned about money costs than about human costs to GIs!]
--45% say our invasion has weakened alQaeda & terrorists; 38% say the invasion has HELPED terrorists recruit Muslim youth.
---
--54% approve of Bush's handling of Iraq situation (down from 74%).
[LATER RASMUSSEN POLL/28AU: Only 44% (down from 62%) say B. is handling Iraq well. ]
--"Does B.do better vs. world terrorists than Democrats?" 'Yes' down from 75% to 57%,
"..vs. terrorists at home?" 'Yes' down from 74% to 57%.
|
--49% of registered voters say NO to Bush 2d-term. /NEWSEEK POLL 23AU
---------------
Pew poll shows that those thinking our military campaign in Iraq is going 'very well' has dropped from 61% in April to 19% in July./FinTimes24AU/
----------
Zogby poll (of 'likely voters') shows 52% proBush, 49% anti-Bush./Reuters26au
------------
Scripps-Howard/Howard U. poll of opinion in U.S. South (traditionally the capital of militarism & war-approval):
--42% now ask, "Was the war worth it?' /Approval of Bush is down from 69% to 57% in 2 months./ 72% of Southern blacks now disapprove of the war; this is up by 20% since May./quoted in GUARDIAN25AU.
--------------
--55% (vs. 40%) of Americans say 'DON'T SEND MORE TROOPS!" (even though many experts say we MUST send in MANY more troops!/ As noted above, 60% say "We're spending too much money.", even though experts say we must send much more.
--An OVERWHELMING MAJORITY say we must work with UN, ceding power in order to get their help--even though Bushies say, "NEVER!"/Chr.SciMonitor26AU
------------
The Bushies were successful for a while in claiming that the Iraq war was part of our 'War on Terror', to make us safer at home. But now only 39% say the war has made us more safe (down from 50%), while 41% (up from 32%)say it has made us less safe./Rasmussen Report28au.
-------------------------
Even when U.S. support for war was quite wide, it was always thin..Americans don't want to pay the price for our fledgling Empire.

HALF OF IRAQIS FAR WORSE OFF NOW! /
A secular dictator like Saddam might be better for 50% of Iraqis, the women ! / Women were surprisingly liberated under the Baath regime./
If we did manage to work a 'democratic' deal with the Shiites (the majority of Iraqis), to let them rule as long as we control the oil, they would immediately and ruthlessly subjugate the women--as is the case with our old oil-ally, Saudi Arabia./ Muslim men in Iraq already moving to do that./
For a heartrending description of this danger to hitherto-'liberated' Iraqi women, go to RIVERBENDBLOG.BLOGSPOT.COM
Also read '5 women confront New Iraq.' in CHR.SCI.MONITOR26AU
==========
ORDINARY IRAQIS' ATTITUDE TOWARD GUERILLAS: 22% polled say attacks are triggered by GI misconduct. Another 25% describe the guerillas sympathetically as 'resistance forces'./ A nameless senior intelligence agent in D.C. says that our failures re: security and basic services are eroding popular support for U.S. & for our puppet 'Council'/Knight-Ridder22au/
----------------------
WHY SO LITTLE IRAQ OUTRAGE OVER BOMBING OF UN HQ?
-----The UN was the official sponsor of a decade of sanctions against Iraq; perhaps many believed Saddam when he said the suffering they endured was fault of UN.
------The UN Security Council unanimously approved of a mealy-mouthed resolution which the Americans interpreted to endorse their invasion.
-------Such wobbling has ended up enraging many Americans at the UN; perhaps it also enraged many Iraqis.
==========
'King" Bremer says perceptively that we need more intelligence and more cooperation from ordinary Iraqis, not more troops. He says the guerillas are fighting against the civilized world./news.google.com24AU/ WHY DIDN'T THEY FORESEE THAT THESE WOULD BE THE TOUGH THINGS TO GET: MORE INTELLIGENCE AND MORE IRAQI COOPERATION ?!
They might have seen that these things would be IMPOSSIBLE, and therefore cancelled the invasion/occupation.
Has he consulted 'the civilized world' to find out whether they side with U.S. against, possibly. the Iraqi people?
The Pew International polls seem to show that most people in most countries have turned against us.

DANGER IN PROVOKING WAR WITH NORTH KOREA: N.K. has 700 missiles, able to strike 800 miles. the AmerFed of Scientists says it has a chemical warfare capability. It's also said they have biological war potential./ Also, there is an armada of artillery pieces concealed in caves near Seoul: 11,000 artillery guns.
John Bolton, Rumsfeld's pit-bull, says that postponing elimination of N.K's nuke program will enable them to amass more WMDs and to develop longer-range missiles./Assoc.Press 23AU (B. is notifying the world of imminent U.S. attack.) James Woolsey, a top Bush-team consultant,published an oped in WALLSTREETJOURNAL calling for us to bomb and invade N.K. within weeks or months! /
U.S. keeps provoking N.K., seeming to hope they'll strike first (causing apocalyptic damage in So.Korea (Seoul, using natural gas for everything, would 'turn into a fireball' [USATODAY27au] ) and to thousands of GIs there) so we can nuke them good and proper. (There are still 37,000 Americans right up by the DMZ, within artillery range of N.K--and they can get off 4000 shells per hour..thousands of GIs would be slaughtered before our B-52s arrived to destroy the artillery./
Apparently the Bushies simply don't care about the millions of people in Seoul OR these Gis!
Nobody in So.Korea thinks N.K. would strike first--UNLESS N.K. rulers feel sure that U.S. is imminently ready to attack them. But continued U.S. provocation is alarming to South Korea
---------------------
Word was leaked by some Americans from the 6-nation conference that N.K. said it might soon proclaim itself a Nuclear Power and begin testing its weapons--and that it had missiles to deliver the bombs.
But FINANCIAL TIMES reporters said this info might have been MADE UP by U.S. hawks who are determined to oust the Kim regime, presumably by war, and therefore want to sabotage the talks./FinTimes28AU/

DECLARE VICTORY & COME HOME: U.S. belief that 'our invasion has been a success' has dropped from 85% in April to 63% in July. Still, that's a strong majority: "Americans are incurable optimists."/
But more and more are saying, "Bring 'em home!"
Pol. seers are discussing the unthinkable possibility that in Nov.'04 'natl.security' issue might work against Bush./ WashingtonPost23au

OPTIMISM/OR/PESSIMISM? The Chinese foreign minister just said he's optimistic about the coming talks between U.S. & North Korea (& 4 other countries) over the N.K. nuke program. But he just told the Phillipines premier that U.S. & N.K. are 'poles apart' on the issue; that N.K. had made a proposal, and U.S. had already rejected it, before the talks even begin!/Reuters23au
---------------------------
Those who think economic pressure alone will collapse the Kim regime, without needing bombs/invasion had better think again. A member of Clinton's 'think-tank' on N.K. said "everyone in the room thought the Kim regime would collapse within 2 years. We were all wrong."/FinTimes28 AU.
Or perhaps the D.C. hawks hope the econ. pressure will provoke N.K. to strike first (with apocalyptic consequences for South Korea AND FOR THE 37,000 GIS THERE WITHIN N.K. ARTILLERY RANGE !!) so the Pentagon can nuke North Korea good and proper.
---------------
The U.S. just forced into retirement,Mr.Pritchard, one of its 'doves' on North Korea, a man who tried to pacify N.K. after Boulton's crass insults./NYT26AU/ That is a signal to the world that we don't intend to compromise at the multi-party conference./
Some observers say that, since they're in big trouble in Iraq & Afghanistan, and they face an election next year--the Bush-team would hardly want to start a war with N.K. But those observers are assuming that the Bush-team are sane.

WHO WILL CONTROL THE OIL? The toadying-to-U.S. Parliament leader in Turkey wants to send troops to Iraq, to serve as 'peacekeepers, not as occupation'. (That presumably means they will combat the guerillas; that means they'll be identified with, and killed with, the occupiers. 3 British soldiers were just killed and a 4th seriously wounded in Basra, in the supposedly quiet Shiite sector!/Reuters23au/ )
Will Turkish Muslims stand for that?/ Also, some Turkish Muslim troops might covertly HELP the guerillas! )/
The toadying Spanish leader Arias describes a possible compromise in the U.N.: the U.S. will continue to direct the orchestra, but will give the violins a stronger voice./Assoc.PRess22AU /
Does anyone think France & Russia, able to veto any resolution, will stand for being merely louder violins? I'd bet they'll insist on UN control of the whole enterprise, especially control of the oil. That the Bush-team will never give up, not even to save GI lives--which is not an especially high priority for them anyway.
Secy.Amman said revealingly,"We mustn't confuse the UN with the US. The Security Council did not authorize the invasion of Iraq."/
The UN HQ explosion has raised the odds against any troops coming in from India or Pakistan./ FIN.TIMES23AU
===============
UN RESISTANCE TO U.S. PROPOSAL: There is so much resistance vs. our silly proposal that UN nations should share the burden in Iraq, while we should retain all the power--that flunky Armitage now says it's not certain we'll even OFFER such a proposal! /Assoc.Press26AU
==================
MOMENTUM BACKWARDS. / Letter to ROCKYMOUNTAINNEWS
Mona Charen(23AU) opposes our pulling out of Iraq (as the respected CATO Institute has suggested). She says we'd lose the momentum our invasion has built up in the war vs. terror; but actually that invasion, and the occupation, have set back our anti-terror campaign: we have roused even more of the one billion Muslims worldwide to volunteer as terrorists.; we have alienated allies that might have cooperated in the hunting down of terrorists; and the
$1 billion per week wasted in Iraq means less money for homeland security. The only momentum we're building is toward bankruptcy and terror attacks for America and human disaster for our GIs./
Charen admits we can't turn Iraq into another Indiana, but she hopes we can turn it into another Turkey. In Turkey, of course, the military can overturn parliament at will--an ideal U.S. puppet. But our meddling has roused the huge Muslim majority in Turkey; we're turning the place into another anti-U.S. Islamist country./
-------------
Colin Powell, about the new UN faceoff, says, "We'll meet the challenges and then face new opportunities."
The FINANACIAL TIMES comments drily, "For the immediate future,the challenges and the controversies (over the lies that led to war) seem to outweigh the opportunities."/23AU
==========
OUTSIDE HELP? U.S. would like troops from Pakistan, Turkey, India to put a 'more Muslim face' on our occupation.
But these and other countries are holding back, for several reasons:
--without a clear UN madate, their intervention would not be legitimate--and the UN won't bless the occupation unless the US gives up some power..not likely.
--Their domestic population strongly opposes the American Occupation. (In Pakistan, several prominent Muslim clerics have issued a 'fatwah' forbidding the sending of troops.
--Middle East governments are upset at the Bush-team's brags that their success in Iraq would enable them to topple regimes all over the region.
--In Europe, people are beginning to think that the world is in for a long, awful 'war between civilizations' (modern West vs. Traditional Islam)./Chris.SciMonitor25AU/ They're not at all sure that it's prudent to get involved in this particular cat-fight.

GOOFY EITHER/OR /letter to DENVERPOST
Your silly cartoon on 22Au shows men cleaning up a bombing ruin in Baghdad; one is saying "Better here than in New York, I guess." The implication: that our occupying Iraq is warding off an attack on New York./
That's really foolish. With one billion Muslims (worldwide) enraged further by our invasion and occupation, there are plenty of terrorists available, besides the ones operating in Iraq, to attack New York./
And the $1 billion per week we're wasting in Iraq leaves even less money for our grossly underfunded Homeland Security efforts. The continuing occupation makes an attack on our Homeland, if anything, more likely./
Pres. Bush, combat-avoider that he is, said BRING 'EM ON--he finds quite bearable a few GIs killed, and far more wounded, each week. But sensible Americans agree with the respected right-wing CATO INSTITUTE:
BRING 'EM HOME!

NATION-BUILDING ON THE CHEAP: Thos. Friedman said (NYT21AU) that one big trouble with our occupation is that we're trying to rebuild Iraq 'on the cheap'. This is just incredible, when the Pentagon gets $1200 MILLIONS each DAY ! But of course those billions are all 'spoken for' by the weapons-makers who bribe legislators and officials in D.C.
/
A recent NEWSWEEK poll showed the strongest agreement among Americans on this point: 60% say that we're spending too much ($1 billion a week) on Iraq; we should cut back. That means that there is little domestic backing for the costs of succeeding in Iraq--and of course, even if we spend more, there is still no assurance that we will succeed!--so the sensible course is to BRING 'EM HOME !

WMDs STILL THERE? Richard Butler, a prestigious expert on Iraq's weapons program, said he feels sure there are some WMDs (gas & germs) around somewhere in Iraq./FinTimes22AU/
There obviously were no WMDs in a quantity to threaten other countries--not enough to justify an invasion.
But Saddam would have been a fool not to have enough to punish invaders (reason NOT to invade!) This was the only type of weapon he could have had to counter invasion. Nobody knows why it wasn't used; perhaps the U.S. bought off his generals not to fight back (the only smart move our govt. made).
This stuff may still be there, and it may be available to terrorists (as old Saddamite munitions were available to concoct the truck-bomb at UN HQ). Though Iraq has started to cool off, it's still too hot for GIs to don their protective 'space-suits' (which an independent audit earlier found defective anyway..a GI medical officer said recently that even their gas-masks are defective!)/
The GIs in Iraq (and Kuwait) may experience some real horror. The Bush-team are willing to risk GI lives on a large scale, just to stay there to keep control of the oil.

HOPELESS ANTI-GUERILLA WAR: The STRATFOR intelligence service is quoted at
www.informationclearinghouse.info/ (21AU)
on the enormous difficulty the U.S. faces combatting native guerilla fighters in Iraq:
The U.S. lost to guerillas in Vietnam; Russia lost to guerillas in Afghanistan.
Very likely we'll lose in Iraq--and also in Afghanistan, once the Taliban gets reorganized.
/
In Vietnam we didn't face natives plus outside infiltrators, fanatics willing to die in explosions, as the fellow did bombing
the UN HQ in Baghdad./
What is the tactical advantage accruing to martyr-murderers? They don't have to plan a getaway!
-------------
WHOM TO TRUST? One problem with a guerilla war is that the foreigners practically have to enlist natives to help with security measures. But the guerillas may easily infiltrate the native 'police',etc. Americans suspect that some of the Iraqi guards hired by UN might have collaborated with the bomber.

BUSHIES' DREAMS: The Bush team is meeting to formulate a resolution for UN Security Council that would authorize international help for U.S. occupation of Iraq, but without U.S. yielding any power or control. [Annan warned explicitly that this project would be 'uphill')./Reuters22AU/ Understatement!/ NOT LIKELY!
They dream that the attack on UN HQ will rally other nations to our side, as the 9/11 attack did. But Secy.Annan has said politely that the UN attack was partly U.S. fault for poor security./The UN is withdrawing part of its staff from Iraq (they said the staff would be down to 30%-50%); the World Bank & IMF have withdrawn completely.GUARDIAN21AU / Other aid agencies have withdrawn some/all of their personnel.
One Spaniard was killed in the bombing; the Spanish govt. has acted like 'tame poodle' for U.S., even though most Spaniards opposed the invasion all along. Now political pressure to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq is building strongly./
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE21AU/
Likewise, Japanese govt. offered troops, over opposition from its people--but since the UN bombing, even govt. officials say there will probably be no troops sent this year./UPI21AU
The Polish govt. also rushed to curry favor with U.S. by offering a division of troops, with Polish commanders for the dribbles of troops from other countries. But since the bombing, the Poles are withdrawing to a safer part of Iraq.
A Polish general & strategic expert said the attacks were increasing, and could give rise to a 'new Vietnam'. /INDEPENDENT21AU./
The U.S. media have not told this, but the Aussies pulled out right after the invasion!/
The Iraq sage Robt. Fisk asks in INDEPENDENT, "Would anyone now want to invest in Iraq ? !!"

FIN.TIMES(21AU) says:
--Cato Institute: The war on terrorism doesn't justify higher 'Defense' budget--(the Pentagon is pretty irrelevant to the campaign vs. thousands of individual terrorists)./
--Iraqis are more and more retreating into ethnic identities, not national identity./
--Non-government aid agencies in Afghanistan are on the horns of a dilemma: a) Without military protection, they are vulnerable to increasing Taliban attacks; (b) with military protection, they are identified with resented U.S. occupying troops, and may therefore be vulnerable to Taliban attacks.
--After a lot of chatter about when we could withdraw some/all of our troops (e.g., if foreign peace-keepers showed up),
now Gen.Abizaid says that even if they do show up in Iraq, that doesn't mean GIs will be taken out. They'll withdraw from internal security measures, but perhaps stay on, for instance, for border control./
Perhaps also to guard the oil installations & pipelines!/
So any youth who is foolish enough to enlist now will know he might very well end up for an endless year in Iraq.

MUSCLE-BOUND WEAKLING: The noted Iraq authority Robt.Fisk says that we have managed to spawn a home-grown Iraqi guerilla army capable of humbling "the greatest Power on earth." /Independent20Au/
But U.S. is NOT a great Power at all. Plato noted 2500 years ago that the power to destroy as such is NOT a notable power, because it is so easy (as long as you don't ask what benefit the destruction made possible). And St.Augustine, told by a bruiser that he could kill a man without needing weapons, retorted, "So can a bad mushroom. You're no stronger than a bad mushroom."/ Augustine also said, "Any fool can burn a grain-field; it takes brains to cultivate one."/
U.S. has one notable set of capabilities--we can dump incredible amounts of explosive on any place in the world, with reasonable accuracy, from a safe distance. So what? Terrorists spreading war-germs could wreak just as much havoc on humanity. What positive goals can we promote by this dumping? Our disastrous Iraq occupation shows our complete impotence in that line--and that is the line that counts! /
We can't even defend our Homeland from terrorist attack. We are indeed a giant weakling.

MORE TROOPS? NOT BLOODY LIKELY!/ Sen.McCain (that doughty amateur warrior) says more troops are needed in Iraq for security (we can't even defend the oil pipeline!)/Reuters20AU/
The question is not whether they're NEEDED, but whether more troops are available--when families are calling for the return of troops that are there! More reserves and national guard could perhaps be called up--but enlistments in these forces are already falling. We're running out of suckers.
A former Bush rep.to Afghanistan says we need up to one-half-million troops to make Iraq secure./nyt21AU/ But Rumsfeld says we don't need ANY MORE troops./Reuters21au (Translation: we don't have any more troops available, and we'll NEVER yield control in Iraq in order to persuade other nations to provide troops--and France & Russia will likely not approve of any Security Council resolution inviting foreign troops to come in UNDER U.S. COMMAND. Britain is willing to yield some actual control to U.N.--but who cares what British think?/Reuters21au
Bush hoped that the UN explosion would rally other countries to our aid, without our yielding any control. But Annan reproached U.S. for not making U.N. Hq. secure (especially after earlier warnings of an attack pretty similar to the one that actually happened.) World Bank & IMF workers have been withdrawn. What foreign aid-workers will volunteer to work in Iraq now?
The story is that we're going to count on our newly created Iraqi police-forces and army to guard, say, oil pipelines.
But how do we know these people aren't infiltrated by guerillas? Or they may be less than conscientious, volunteering just for the money.
This much is true: either we must put in far more troops (forget any significant number of foreign troops volunteering to be sitting ducks)--OR WE PULL OUT OUR TROOPS ALTOGETHER.
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DECENTRALIZED GUERILLAS: A mideast specialist says we needn't infer some alQuaeda spider managing things--Iraqui tribes have a long history of fiercely hating outside domination. (They drove out the English earlier).
We might get troops from other nations, but they won't serve under American command. And the Pentagon so far is nowhere near ready to accept any other solution. "They haven't been reacting to the situation in Iraq for some while,"says an observer..in other words, they're ignoring the problems.
"We need EXPERTS sent over there, not more soldiers," said another expert./Christ.Sci.Monitor20Au.
Where will we get such experts? At least they'd have to speak Arabic! (6 U.S. degrees in Arabic in year 2000, after we'd known for years about alQuaeda dangers.) One recalls that a nameless State Dept. Official said of "King" Bremer: "What he knows about Iraq, you could put in a thimble."
The probable truth is, we need more troops AND more experts. Neither addition is likely.

SOLDIER ON--RIGHT OVER THE CLIFF!/
Letter to USATODAY: Thank God you printed, for the first time (20AU) a counter-editorial explicitly suggesting we should pull our troops out of Iraq (as the respected CATO INSTITUTE suggested some time ago). But your own 'stay-in' editorial was really foolish./
Your headline: SUCCESS IN BROAD TERROR WAR REQUIRES U.S. RESOLVE IN IRAQ. What do you mean by success? Deterring thousands of individual fanatics worldwide from attacking U.S. and Western institutions all over the world? We won't succeed in that enterprise, whether or not we stay in Iraq. Protecting our Homeland? Staying in Iraq wastes one billion dollars a week, money that could be spent on grossly underfunded Homeland Defense.
/
Iraq is now a terrorist center. "That fact renders senseless the claim that continued military action in Iraq detracts from the war on terrorism." But our military action is what MADE Iraq a new terrorist center! /
"Iraq is becoming a central terrorist haven because it is rich with U.S. targets." So continuing to provide OUR GIs as these targets, continuing to attract fanatics from many different countries, eager to kill Americans--this is helpful in our 'war' vs. terrorism?!! There are thousands of terrorist-volunteers left, world-wide, after many go into Iraq. (After all, Russia 'absorbed' many terrorists by its stupid and brutal campaign in Chechnya, yet there was no shortage of guerillas, from many countries, to volunteer in Iraq.)
/
"[Pulling out] would signal..that the U.S. is not prepared to stay the course when the going gets tough." We should show ourselves too stubborn to change course when the present course proves pointlessly disastrous? The longer we stay, the more helplessly foolish we'll show ourselves. Maybe we should have stayed a few more years in Vietnam, incurring a few hundred thousand more U.S. casualties, just to show we can 'stay the course' ! /
People who talk of 'soldiering on' in impossible situations like this remind one of the General who came to a bad end; an acquaintance remarked:"The weakness of his intellect was matched only by the Firmness of his Will."/
/
"[Pulling out] would threaten the success of the U.S. war against the remants of the Saddam regime." We could pull our troops into friendly Kuwait, threatening to attack again if the Baathists take over in Iraq. But then we'd have to give up our dream of controlling Iraqi oil, which the Bush-team would never do! /
/
"For now, we're committed to using all our firepower to root out Saddam's loyalists and their terrorist allies." Indiscriminate firepower is counter-productive in a battle against guerillas; the only hope is to persuade the average Iraqi to turn in the guerillas..a project not helped by shooting and shelling innocent civilians. /
/
"Involving other countries...can build Iraqi confidence"--yes, because it's obvious that the Yankee effort is failing. "..and reduce our costs. So far few other nations have agreed to help.." In fact NO other nation is willing to offer significant help! /
"Some..say that donors can be lured by [offering] lucrative oil contracts and other business deals." But future sovereign Iraqi governments need not honor contracts signed by occupation forces; and no investors will be lured in when we can't even protect the pipelines necessary to export oil. /
/
"Our approach is showing some success...Iraq is already exporting significant amounts of oil."
Significant Amounts? Relative to the $1 billion a week the occupation is costing? That seems to be a flat lie. /
/
(Most incredible:)"Tuesday's bombing shows clearly...that [success in Iraq] could mark an important victory in the U.S. war against global terrorism."
a) We're not going to succeed in Iraq, and
(b) even if we did, that would not deter in the slightest any fanatic attacks against our homeland. By the way, how could our failure to protect the UN headquarters show anything optimistic?! Especially when we were warned earlier that an attack just like this was very likely! /YahooNews20AU
/
This editorial is valuable: its silly arguments, in a prominent national newspaper, show the desperation of the defenders of continued occupation./
BRING 'EM HOME!

NOT REJOICING AT DISASTER: I may seem to be enjoying the Bush-team fiascos, but I'm not. I mourn for the civilians slaughtered, maimed or wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq; I mourn for the GIs killed, maimed or wounded--and I anticipate that more civilians and more GIs will end up as casualties./
Nevertheless, ridicule is appropriate for this insane project. The situation is critical, but not serious. A situation can be the subject of black humor even while it is tragic. 'Dr.Strangelove' is the emblem of our government. We should, perhaps, laugh during the day, and weep at night. /
/
I do hope these invasion/occupation projects fail; if they succeed, the Pentagon dreams of Empire will be implemented further; we can expect them to invade or at least bomb Iran, Syria, perhaps Saudi Arabia, (perhaps even Egypt, acc. to their madman Woolsey!) And these loonies may well stumble or plunge into a pointless, apocalyptic war with North Korea./
If these two bombing/invasion/occupation projects fail spectacularly (and we have to 'bug out' as we did from Vietnam) then the grey men behind the military-industrial complex might dump the 3 Stooges (Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush) and install a more plausible and attractive militarist in charge: say, Gen.Wesley Clark. /
With the 3 Stooges, one would hope, would go the 'neocon/sharonista/imperialists' like Wolfowitz and Woolsey. One would hope that the awful Sept.02 document ("You are all at our mercy, and we will keep you there!") would be repudiated. Then perhaps we could start the long process of getting the rest of the world to trust us again./
Things could hardly be worse under such a new regime than they are now.

UN BOMBED: UN HQ was blown up by a huge explosion from a suicide-trucker in Baghdad, killing the top UN representative in Iraq./Reuters19AU/ The guerillas are obviously counting on the average Iraqi not realizing that the UN is there to help them; they figure that killing any foreigners will be approved of.
The Americans are not protecting any places but their own bases. More and more, that will become their main concern; rebuilding Iraq will be as neglected as is rebuilding Afhanistan.
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SAUDI FANATICS IN IRAQ? Three Thousand Saudi men have 'gone missing'. It's thought they might be in Iraq, to escape Saudi govt. crackdown, and also to fight the Yanks./FinTimes19AU./
Ordinary Iraqis can easily recognize these foreigners. If they don't turn them in, that means they approve of the guerilla project./
We must bear in mind that in invading & occuping Iraq & Afghanistan, we have gone to war with all the devout Islamists in the Middle East, perhaps all of them throughout the world.

NO STRUGGLE HERE! / Letter to ROCKYMOUNTAINNEWS /
"State struggles to meet needs of kids' says an RMN headline on 19AU, about federal findings
that Colorado fell short on 6 of 7 standards for caring for foster children. But the truth is that
our State Government is falling short because they are NOT struggling to meet these needs.
Struggling to meet the needs would involve adequate funding for the agencies involved. But our
past tax-cuts (and our present allocations of what state money is left) have made this impossible. /
Our governor justified these cuts by saying, "You know how best to spend your money." It turns
out that most Coloradoans think their money is best spent on SUVs, not on children; presumably
our governor and legislators agree with those priorities. A nice, relaxed consensus, involving no struggle at all.

STATE-TOLERATED TERRORISM: 4 large attacks in the last week on pro-U.S. Afghan forces, causing dozens of casualties, seem to be by terrorists coming across from Pakistan. One attack featured many TRUCKS. One gang numbered 400 fighters! Observers say all this could weaken even further any trust in our puppet government in Kabul. /FinTimes18AU/
(Pres. Kharzai is called cynically 'the mayor of Kabul' because his writ runs no further; he still needs GI bodyguards, because no Afghans can be trusted tos come near him!)) The house of Kharzai's brother was just bombed. /AssocPress19AU
So--let's bomb this uncooperative Pakistani government, who in Rummy's words 'didn't stop the terrorist strikes'. Of course the terrorists operating in Pakistan would love to see the central government weakened even further.
The Bush-team needs to chatter about striking out at 'state-supported terrorism' because the muscle-bound Pentagon can strike only at nation-states; it is helpless before the thousands of individual terrorists who are the real threat./
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GI PROVOCATIONS: One big cause of the renewed terrorist attacks may be the brutal (though understandable) conduct of the 'tall, blue-eyed' (baffled & frustrated) GIs in Afghanistan, coming after suspected Taliban fighters. "On the slightest suspicion..they treat us like animals. We think of joining Tal's jihad against them. Women are searched and houses broken into. Anyone with a beard or turban is counted as Tal." 50 families have fled into Pakistan. A Tal. chieftain called American journalists from a secret phone:"We are fulfilling our religious obligation by making jihad vs. Americans and their stooges."/Reuters19AU
There are fewer than 2000 GIs in Afghanistan, mostly in Kabul. So far that has meant fewer targets; so far no GIs have been killed--which is all Americans care about. But as Taliban attacks grow bolder, and as indiscriminate bombing along the Pakistan border doesn't work (or as helicopters get shot down by shoulder-missiles)--sooner or later GIs will get killed and wounded. Then Afghan.will be like Iraq: after the invading dog catches the truck, what does he do with it?

STRANGE EMPIRE: If it looks like a duck(an empire) ...& quacks like one..it probably is one. (says the prestigious right-wing ECONOMIST14AU). But it's actually a dead duck, because the subjects of the Empire don't like it (no one nowadays goes for 'benevolent' foreign rule) and, more importantly THE AMERICANS DON'T LIKE IT EITHER (because--ignorant of and indifferent to the outside world--they don't go for the long-run commitment of money and blood that an empire requires.)/
The article says the only chance for this strange empire (ruled by a bankrupt nation, says FINANCIAL TIMES) is from financing by European money; but our inability to secure Iraq pipelines,etc., does not augur well for such investment. (A rise in crude oil prices worldwide shows that traders don't expect a lot of oil to be coming soon out of Iraq.) /GUARDIAN18AU/
The article quotes a new book by respected British historian Niall Ferguson, endorsing the idea of an American Empire. But after he wrote the book, Fergusson then said in NYT that he despaired of such an empire after he moved here and came to understand Americans. He talks about the dedication of the 19th-century British colonial personnel, and then says, by contrast, that he doubts that the U.S. government could even persuade qualified U.S. youth to LIVE in the new colonies!/ (There is little evidence that xenophobic young Americans are now avid to study foreign languages and alien cultures.)
And that was before our nasty experiences with our colonies in Afghanistan and Iraq, which seem likely to encourage traditional U.S. isolationism. Robert Fisk (who speaks Arabic, and has long experience in Iraq) tells of a U.S. vehicle blown up in Baghdad; one soldier is killed--and the local shopkeepers rejoice that the wounded GI will probably die ! /
Such experiences of seeming ingratitude from the people we liberated would tend to make Americans say, "WHO NEEDS 'EM? LET'S GET THE HELL OUT AND LET THEM GO TO HELL ON THEIR OWN!"
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After the new Blackout, it's obvious we'll have to spend like mad to update our electric grid; estimates are $100 billion.
This will aggravate our bankruptcy, and make an expensive empire even more absurd.

ENLISTMENTS: 1) Youths are enlisting at a healthy clip, partly because the alternative may be unemployment; (2) ...but not in Army reserves or Natl.Guard; (3) Enlistments might fall if Iraq casualties continue, and if people decide Bush led us into war by lies./
Enlistments in AirForce reserves is higher than needed; why not, with glamour of dumping high explosives from a safe distance? However, Army Reserve and Natl.Guard enlistments are short of the number needed, because former reserve/Natl.Guard enlistees are in a terrible situation in Iraq./GannetNewsSvc18AU /
Of course we don't know enlistment-situation just from raw numbers. Uneducated, unemployable youths can always be signed up..but the new hitech army needs bright, technically-trainable recruits. (The abnormally-high rate in this war of 'friendly-fire' incidents-- GIs killed by Americans!--and other accidents could be a result of untrained personnel operating hitech war-machinery./ NYT said that few of the top 25% of U.S. youth enlist./
Also relevant will be the number of RE-enlistments. The military would of course prefer men already trained (more or less). Does anyone think that the many of the GIs now in Iraq, telling their relatives at home of their horrible situation, are going to reenlist?
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COMPLAINT ABOUT ENLISTEES: "Some of them seem to have enlisted for the duration of the Peace" says a Pentagon source /ChristianSciMonitor28Jan. /Why not, when enlistment ads only mentioned money, training, and sweaty glamor--not losing a leg, your face, or your life?

N.KOREA TOUGH-TALK: N.Korea says that in the coming 6-parties talks, they will likely inform the world that IF America doesn't change its belligerant attitude (See piece on Boulton, below)--including a promise not to embargo N.K'.s export trade, then N.K. 'can't' stop its move to develop '2d-strike deterrent' nukes./Reuters18au
It looks like an apocalyptic war is coming--the only question is whether WE will strike first (with 4000 missiles) or whether we can provoke THEM to strike first: this would involve disaster for Seoul and for thousands of GIs stationed in S. Korea--but it would justify our nuclear strike at N.Korea! (Perhaps this won't eliminate their 'under-the-mountains' nuclear plants; and N.K. was bombed literally flat by us 50 years ago and came back out of the caves--they may come back fighting again, even after our nuclear strike./
No U.S. media are telling our people about the thousands of GIs who are vulnerable to N.K. attack or counter-attack.
[See earlier piece on N.K. crisis on 8/11, & even earlier pieces in INDEX, 8/10]

DANGEROUS SUNNI/SHIA ALLIANCE? It has been said that America's only chance to prevail in Iraq is to get the Shiite majority on its side. There is an ancient history of hostility between Shiite and Sunni forms of Islam. (Saddam's Sunni backers trampled on Shiites.)
Now a renowned Sunni cleric has asked for common prayers with Sadr, a rabble-rousing, U.S.-hating Shiite cleric, and has perhaps donated $50,000 to Sadr's movement./WasPost18Au/ If many Sunnis line up with many Shiites, America's troubles in Iraq will get much worse.

TURKS DEPLORE GI CONDUCT: A story in an Israeli paper (Haaretz/18AU)quotes an unnamed Turkish official who says the U.S. strategy in the Middle East is being undermined by the ignorant, hostile conduct of individual GIs.
The respected British journalist Robert Fisk (who speaks Arabic and has been long in Iraq) tells of an attack on GIs where the local shopkeepers rejoiced that the wounded GI would probably die! /23Jy/ Such hostility seems to be a response to the arrogant slob-conduct of our GIs./
What would be expected of lower-class Americans driven pretty wild by their harsh living conditions, facing alien and hostile Iraqi crowds, with children screaming at them--no longer believing in the justice of their cause or in the benevolence of their leaders in Washington? The only solution is to cut contacts between GIs and Iraqis, perhaps by withdrawing our troops into friendly Kuwait. From there we could block any attempted Baath return to power./
Of course the lawless chaos in Iraq might then even increase. THey need a ruthless, home-grown dictator.
In fact such a strongman has been called for explicitly by Daniel Pipes, a 'Sharonista' on the Bush-team. He says Iraq needs a 'democratic-minded autocrat' (DON'T YOU LOVE IT?) who is 'politically moderate' (i.e., a U.S. puppet) but 'operationally tough' (willing to use torture, etc, which the Americans are afraid to get caught using.)/from a report by Robert Fisk, 2AU./

THEY DON'T MUCH CARE: Isn't it unreasonable of the Iraqis to turn against America because of petrol and water shortages? After all, we're trying to remedy those problems./
But we're not trying very hard. Iraqis noted that the only really serious anti-looting procedures were to protect the Ministry of Oil. They've noted how hard we're trying to restore the oil-exports--even while not enough petrol is getting to the Iraqis to run their generators so they can refrigerate their food. They've noted that our top brass are living in Saddam's cool palaces while they swelter./
Understandably, they think that an invader who can manage fantastic attack techniques, but is falling down on provision of basic necessities for civilians--such an invader simply doesn't care much about the people. So the ordinary Iraqi is ready, at least, not to turn in the hundreds of fanatic guerillas..and that's all that's necessary for disaster./
In fact, it's becoming obvious that the top brass don't care that much for the welfare of the U.S. soldiers either. Complaints are about terrible sanitation, defective military equipment,the continuing diet of MREs (while neighboring Italian troops eat real food), usually no air-conditioning, and--most awful in 130-degree heat--NOT ENOUGH DRINKING WATER! These troops are calling home(I talked yesterday to a woman whose son had called that morning, to describe their awful conditions) and sending e-mails--the relatives back home are beginning to raise hell. /
The Rumsfeld gang didn't even plan for a successful occupation; they seemed to think other nations would take over that task..even though we enraged other nations by the invasion so that they wouldn't cooperate with us at all. One gets the feeling that they are so entranced by their nifty gadgets that go 'boom', that they don't think much about related issues--e.g., the problem of now getting youth to enlist (in army or reserves or national guard) or getting any enraged, exhausted veterans to re-enlist. That's what Col. Karen Kwiotkowski says, after her tour of duty in the top echelons of Pentagon 'planning'./
They may be planning a completely robotized army--and they may be able to mass-produce such 'foot-soldier' robots (prototypes have already been produced). But they don't have them yet !--so this project seems doomed to ignominious failure: "Vietnam Trauma" Number Two.
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ATTACKS ON BAGHDAD: Devastating (& perhaps irratonal) guerilla attacks on Baghdad included another explosion in the Northern oil-pipeline , blowing up a water-line (thus directly harming Iraqis) and mortaring a U.S. prison (killing criminals and suspected guerillas). More sabotage hit the Southern pipeline. /
'King' Bremer complained that the pipeline sabotage was costing $7 million a day, money that could be spent on reconstruction. He also said that billions would be needed next year from non-American donors, just to keep the economy barely afloat. /Reuters17Au/
He just assumes that America will NOT come across with the needed money--even though common-sense says that the nation that wrecked the Iraq infrastructure should pay for its reconstruction. WE JUST DONT MUCH CARE. Eventually, when it's obvious that the oil-exports won't come across soon enough to 'pay off', we'll likely just 'bug out' as we did shamelessly in Vietnam./
/
Actually, this 'bug-out' may not be so harmful to Iraq in the long run. More and more, we'll have to concentrate on protecting our troops, not reconstructing Iraq. (A group of experts just said we'll have to build heavily-protected fortresses, as the guerillas get bolder and bolder in attacking Americans.)/
Iraq probably needs another ruthless 'Muslim' dictator like Saddam to smash the guerillas (just as Yugoslavia needed ruthless Tito to hold it together, just as the ruthless dictator smashed the fanatics in Syria.) Then the international oil companies will come in gladly to rebuild Iraq in return for getting at the 'sea of oil' Iraq is resting on. They're not going to invest heavily while the feckless Americans are 'in charge'./
The Iraqis won't much care; they're used to living under a ruthless dictator..under Saddam, they at least had water and electric power--without these supplies, life in Iraq is pretty unbearable./