The Prez, having beaten away the hands that Baker, Hamilton, and and Co. extended to him from their lifeboat, then determined that he would find his own way to swim to safety through the increasingly perilous seas of his Iraq policy.
He “conferred”. He “deliberated”. He tried– without much success– to look “presidential” and “in control” in several tightly controlled public appearances. He wrestled “mightily” with the issues…
And he brought forth–
This pathetic, mewling little mouse of a suggestion:
- As he puts the finishing touches on his revised Iraq plan, President Bush is considering new economic initiatives to go along with a possible increase in troops to help stabilize the country, according to officials familiar with the administration’s review.
Among the steps being considered are short-term jobs and loan programs aimed at winning back the waning local support for the U.S. presence in Iraq…
That, from the WaPo’s Robin Wright and Michael Abramowitz, in Crawford with the Prez. (Where also, Cindy Sheehan just got arrested for sitting down on a public road.)
There are still, apparently, some murmurings of criticism– or at least, concern– from the top military people about the efficacy of sending in the “surge” (or let’s more realistically say, “cosmetic surge-ette”) of additional troops that the Prez still for some reason seems wedded to.
Wright and Abramowitz write:
- One idea gaining currency in the administration is to send between 15,000 and 30,000 additional troops to Iraq, at least on a temporary basis, to help improve security, but there are questions among senior military leaders about how effective this move would be.
The Pentagon has pressed for political and economic plans to complement such a possible surge in troops.
And the president has responded! Namely, he’s coming close to endorsing some totally ridiculous– and by no means new– political and economic “initiatives”.
- The political component of the emerging Bush package would set up benchmarks for long-overdue steps, such as amending the constitution to help address the objections of Iraq’s Sunni minority and dismantling 23 predominantly Shiite militias…
Some U.S. officials think an economic package may be the most promising element of a revised strategy… The economic package now on the table focuses on three elements, and is separate from the long-term jobs-creation program being promoted by the U.S. military… One element, traditionally linked to a counterinsurgency strategy, is to follow up any military sweep with a short-term work program that would immediately hire people in the neighborhood to clear up trash or do other small civil-affairs jobs.
This project would begin within hours rather than days of a military operation and would help signal a return to normalcy. It might also help wean young unemployed Iraqi men from the militias or prevent them from joining any of the armed factions that are fueling Iraq’s escalating sectarian strife.
The second part would be a micro-loan program…
The third part of the package, which has been developed in part by the Treasury Department, would review dormant state-owned industries to try and determine which ones are economically viable and worth reopening….
Does anybody in Bubble-boy’s personal “Green Zone” in Crawford dare tell him how insultingly penny-ante and stupid all these proposals are? Does anyone there dare tell him how truly terrible the living situation now is in Iraq?
All these economic proposals may, just possibly, have made some sense if they’d been implemented, say, back in May and June of 2003. (Instead of which, that was the time when Bremer came in and dismantled the army and the state industries, throwing millions of Iraqi breadwinners into the streets.) Back then, I remember several earnest discussions in which Americans debated whether “economic” or “politics” or “security” issues should take precedence in Iraq. But the Bush people paid serious attention to none of these spheres.
Then– as now– it is politics that needs to be looked at, as the highest priority. And in particular, the politics of national reconciliation within Iraq, allied to the politics of finding a way to negotiate a speedy and total US withdrawal.
Based on those essential elements, the Iraqis themselves can doubtless, sooner or later, figure out a way to deal with issues of public security, and with reviving a national economy wrecked by 12 years of US-UK-patrolled sanctions and nearly four years of US-UK direct misrule. The Bushites’ proposal that– after every military operation they launch against Iraqi neighborhoods– they wade in “within hours” with their dollar bills and pay Iraqi young men to sweep up the carnage from the streets… and that that will help “win” their hearts and minds??? … All that is insulting nonsense.
Almost unbelievable.
Oh wait. It’s the Bush presidential team we’re talking about here. Not unbelievable, at all.
Helena
Does anybody in Bubble-boy’s personal “Green Zone” in Crawford dare tell him how insultingly penny-ante and stupid all these proposals are? Does anyone there dare tell him how truly terrible the living situation now is in Iraq?
Actually yes, there is a young lady in baghdad who tells it like it is.
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
Helena
There is a fault with the formatting of the page starting at JWN Golden Oldies. The post on more lightbhas disappeared.
BBC reports that saddam will be hanged tomorrow morning.
“Does anybody in Bubble-boy’s personal “Green Zone” in Crawford dare tell him how insultingly penny-ante and stupid all these proposals are?”
Are you kidding? This stuff is just to give the press some bones to chew on. You have to keep them busy writing down what the government tells them, so they don’t start snooping around asking questions.
Helena,
Flags were at half-mast over Parliament, the FO, Horseguards, Downin Street, etc. here in London y’day. For all I know they may still be. The reason: Ford’s passing.
I can’t remember if Reagan, LBJ, Kennedy, etc. got the same treatment. I’ll have to check. And for that matter I don’t know if Prime Ministers here get the same treatment.
Be that as it may, I’m writing to my MP, Glenda Jackson, to ask her to table the following question, “can the Prime Minister insure the country that the Union flag will not be flown at half mast to mark George Dubya Bush’s passing, whenever the blessed release comes”.
And here’s a suggestion for “our human community” generally. We need artists to get together and produce a design for a flag representing the “loathe this war and loathe this president” community. Get that design Betsy Ross’d and get that flag produced. And get it flying. All over the place. Flying at half mast. And it stays at half mast until the day that shite leaves office. When it goes up to three quarters mast. And it stays there until he drops dead. On that day – the day of blessed release – we (millions of us) run the sucker all the way up the flag pole.
I’m fairly serious about this. We can’t seem to get people out onto the streets these days. Marches on Washington seem to be more or less a thing of the past. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if a large percentage of the 89 percent of the American population who think Bush has screwed up big time in Iraq (and a large percentage of the nearly 100 percent of the rest of the world who think he and what’s he wrought are an abomination) would be willing to turn the low skies black or whatever color with said flag.
You can’t get near him to demonstrate when he’s in town because “free speech zones” aren’t allowed within a mile of the president – well, how about a half-master flying from damn near every house and building and yard. Nobody’s congregating. Sanctity of private property and all that. Let’s see the MSM sidestep that “visual”. Let’s see the “spin-meisters” get to work on that one. First thing they’d do of course would be to get a loyalist flag up. But the thing is it’d be so badly outnumbered that…well, you’ll get my drift.
Iraq is beyond repair in the short term.
Additional troops are and will be needed for the main course, the confrontation with Iran. May God strengthen our hand and our resolve for that one.
Doris, interesting idea. Do tell me and the rest of the US citizenry a few things, though… Like, why should we have to invest yet more of our country’s financial future its young people in the launching of yet another quite gratuitous war of choice in that region– and that, at a time when the military is already near breaking point, and along with the NATO allies it faces security challenges of undeniable gravity in Afghanistan?
What is the precise issue, dear Doris, over which you’d have us do this?
I don’t deny that the US has several strong security concerns regarding Iran– and so does Iran, regarding the US. Fortunately, however, there are numerous international mechanisms through which these concerns can be discussed and hopefully resolved, without anyone having to go to war over it.
Have you ever lived in a war-zone, Doris? Do you have any idea what warfare actually involves? Do tell us.
Fleeing Iraq NYT 8 Dec 2006
I’m agin it, morally, but he’s a grain of sand compared to what’s coming. Its up to the Iraqis, messy as it is.
The propaganda catapulter, Deputy Dubya Bush, has shot Sheriff Dick Cheney’s wad. More so now than ever, Dubya reminds me of the desperate deadbeat gambler who mortgaged his paid-for home to the hilt on the eve of his-and-his-wife’s retirement, then borrowed aganst his parents’ pension and the kids’ trust fund, just so he could raise a stake to “make a killing” in Las Vegas. Having blown that wad, he then hit up some local Chinese loan sharks for another “sure thing” and blew that stash, too. Now busted twice and fearful of having acupuncture performed without anaesthetic on his eyeballs, he can barely afford a Greyhound bus ticket home to tell the wife, parents, and kids that they’d all better get used to working off-the-clock overtime without pay and benefits for Wal Mart for whatever remains of their natural indentured lives. As I wrote in the concluding couplet to my poem “Profligate Parable”:
Upon his office door he left this scrawl:
“I added nothing; I just spent it all.’
The disastrous voyage of the Pipsqueak hasn’t ended yet, unfortunately, so while in the hosptital recently getting a basel cell carcinoma removed from my right ear I began my latest effort, “Moby Dork.” Trying to take on a monumental subject with such an inconsequential protagonist does upend the usual rules of tragedy, so I guess I’ll have to follow Marx and go with the second-act theory of historical repetition: farce. I’ll post a link to the verse when completed. Happy New Year of the Pig to all.
Helena, please don’t be so pessimistic for Goodness sake!
Of course every young Sunni in Ramadi and young Shi’i in Sadr City would just love to get a $50 US “micro-loan” and become a garbage collector for the occupiers. Especially more so, just hours after his cousins and neighbors were all shot up by the GIs. I think this time he’s really onto something!!
“May God strengthen our hand and our resolve for that one.”
Yes Doris, this will be a good test to see if your God really exists.
As Euripides said: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
As Gloster said in King Lear: “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.”
Hence, as promised (or threatened) previously: “Moby Dork,” the saga (in Terza Rima sonnets) of a monomaniacal simpleton too mad and dangerous to qualify even as a fool.
http://themisfortuneteller.blogspot.com/2006/12/moby-dork.html
Helena, I do not think we have chosen this confrontation with Iran, we seem to be so radically apart with ever growing conflicting interests, and the spectre of nuclear power that a faceoff may be imminent. If that were the case, then troops around the theater would help.
Conflict resolution with the mullas through talk and negotiation? And without force to back things up? If that was a joke it was a lame joke.
As for the military effort I agree that Iraq has strained our resources and our resolve, and that is because we attempted the impossible, to pacify and rebuild. If the mission is just to break, not to fix, the military did that in two weeks in Iraq, and can do Iran in four weeks.
May we have the unity to back our military when time comes.
Do I know the consequences of war? Yes, why?
Doris
I do wonder what you read?
Many of the commenters on this blog would be happy to recommend books that might provide you with food for thought. (Helena Do lets have a Post that is just a readers recommended Must Read book for 2007)
I am on the first few pages of Phil Bobbit Achiles Shield but it is not one I would recommend for a beginner.
For a description of war which is just about defeat and destroy try the Mongol sacking of Baghdad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baghdad_(1258)
The library was a treasure of civilisation.
or Timurlane’s sacking of the beautiful city of Damascus. He piled up the heads of the slughtered in a field where there is still a square called Burj-al-ruus meaning tower of heads.
You might like Juan Cole’s Sacred Space and Holy War which has a marvellous chapter on Iran. Try reading President Khatami on how they are sick and tired of being underdeveloped and then realise that this is what is called signalling in negotiation. Water is one of the biggest problems in the Middle East and the Iranian reactor at Bushehr was originally designed to drive a desalination plant. I (and the IAEA, an agency of the UN) support the development of nuclear desalination as a technology and building the level of trust in countries of the middle east to run such plants is an important activity for the 21st centruy
You have posed all the questions that hit you once you realise that war isnt a video game.
I posted Tim Garden’s speech advocating abandoning anti personnel mines where he talks about some weapons that are too terrible to use as one of the few pieces of good news in 2006.
If we just wanted to wipe the Iranians out it could be done in 24 hours with a massive nuclear strike. Some of the survivors might live on like the survivors of Nagasaki wandering the streets begging pathetically for water for a couple of days.
The only snag, (other than guilt) is that we would destroy the oil and gas infrastructure and the treasures of civilisation, and the place would be radioactive for a while. This would disrupt the world economy and with incalculable results.
The reason I am taking the time to set these things out for you is because you asked a good question on another post. What does who do with so called “Failed States”.
Helena, It is a real problem. I would love to get your take on it.
Doris, with respect, when you say that in Iran the mission is just to break, not to fix that tells me that you have no idea at all about the true nature and consequences of war.
War is not a video game, you see.
The last folks who thought it was were the commanders of the IDF, who thought they could smash up a huge proportion of Lebanon’s national infrastructure and that would somehow “fix” the problem they had with Lebanon and lead to the disintegration of Hizbullah.
Instead of which, it horribly harmed hundreds of thousands of real people, whose suffering continues to this day. As does Hizbullah, with the integrity of its command structure completely intact.
And then, in response to my question as to the precise reason you would see the US go to war with Iran, you write we seem to be so radically apart with ever growing conflicting interests, and the spectre of nuclear power that a faceoff may be imminent
What kind of vapid vagueness is that? “Ever growing conflicting interests”? War is an extremely serious business. (See above.) No nation goes to war over something as vague as that.
Yes, there are reciprocal concerns and fears. US forces are operating alongside Iran’s borders with Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf, which makes for, actually, great reciprocal dependency right now. But in addition, the US leadership is continually threatening Iran, including by emphasizing that “No options are off the table.” And the Iranian leadership sanctions mass rallies at which hateful slogans like “Death to America” are repeatedly shouted. So it is a very complex situation– though one that could be considerably de-escalated through serious diplomatic engagement.
“The spectre of nuclear power”? What exactly are you talking about? Under all the international agreements in the world Iran is fully entitled to develop a nuclear power industry, and this is what its leaders say they are currently trying to do. (There is disagreement over whether they have been abiding sufficiently by the internationally mandated procedures designed to prevent leakage of materials from that program into an alleged– not proven, but alleged– nuclear-weapons development program.)
And why are you so derisive of the idea of negotiating with, as you say, “the mullas…without force to back things up”? First of all, are you talking about the threat of force or the use of force? Actually, the threat of force is much more useful as a negotiating lever than the use of force. (See Lebanon, above.) And the US has plenty of force around Iran right now, to “threaten” with. But the President wilfully continues to refuse to enter into any negotiation with Iran. Using force against Iran won’t make his negotiating position any stronger; it will only, and very considerably, weaken it. (See Lebanon, above.)
Are you a US citizen, Doris? I’m interested, because of the way you spell “spectre.”
If you’re not a US citizen, then I would say you have very little standing to enter, on the pro-war side, into the very, very serious discussion on whether our country should be dragged into yet another, quite optional war. Over the past five years we have had quite enough of the leaders and prominent citizens of a foreign nation helping to drag our people into an ill-considered war. If you’re not a US citizen, I’d be interested to know what nationality you do carry?
Doris, do you believe the “end times” are at hand? I’m coming around to that view myself.
Helena
Interesting to see Shmuel Rosner at Haaretz shares my concern about Somalia.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=807454&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
I rather enjoyed your reference to Pufendorf. I havent read him. He was writing thirty years after the end of the series of interrelated wars known as the Thirty Years war, that I use to understand how unstable systems fail. I might pop along to the CUP shop in town (Cambridge) next week and have a peek into the book. It will be interesting to see what his views are after seeing the horror, starvation and death of the Wars.
If War in East Africa kicks off while the US army is tied down in Mespotamia and NATO are stuck in Afghanistan then we will see yet another of these linked series of Wars Phil Bobbit talks about. As if they didn’t have enough problems with AIDS, drug resistant malaria, and drought.
Life expectancy will decline from its present depressing 47 years.
Helena
I wonder if we have a clue where the US forces in Baghdad might withdraw to, which is the big problem with getting out of Iraq. I wonder if the permanent bases might be in Ethiopia with Djibouti as a resupply port.
Council on Foreign Relations has a rather useful paper on the Ethiopia, Eritrea strife which points out that there are 2,000 Eritrean troops trapped in Somalia in the pocket near the now closed Kenyan frontier. Somalia is seen as a proxy war for Ethiopia and Eritrea
http://www.cfr.org/region/203/horn_of_africa.html
The activities of the soon to be replaced US ambassador to the UN seem designed to stoke the conflict by reducing the UN peacekeepers and inciting foreign troops to cross into Somalia.
The president of Eritrea is making very friendly noises towards the Sudanese.
As usual the Horsemen from Book of Revelation don’t show up singly.
A swarm of locusts is expected to devastate Eritrea in the next few weeks.
Of course, I might be completely wrong.
According to BBC the Islamic Courts line has broken in Somalia after artillery fire and they are are taking to the bush.
Now Mr Mohammed Geli has the problem of figuring out how to get the Ethiopians to go home. As they are the only ones with tanks in the country (even if they are 50 year old T-54s) it is up to them (and General Abizaid)
“I wonder if we have a clue where the US forces in Baghdad might withdraw to, which is the big problem with getting out of Iraq.”
Excuse me Frank? Where the US forces might withdraw to is “the big problems”?
“I wonder if the permanent bases might be in Ethiopia with Djibouti as a resupply port.”
WTF?! What is stopping them from going home? You know, to the United States? Where they belong?
Hi Shirin
We should talk about more recipes. Your delight in the mixture of the ingredients is almost poetry.
You may have noticed that the US Presidential Campaign has started so reason and logic are seriously threatened species. Getting anything to happen needs a bit of subtlety. They have nearly two years to have a mass worry and work themseleves up into doing something really silly.
Loading everybody on ships and sailing off to Afghanistan is not an option because the Kuwaitis and the Saudis and the Jordanians would all get very scared. So would their major investors who have a major stake in the western financial system..
Lets go back to the origin of the problem.
After the first Gulf War in 1991 the US left 5000 troops in Saudi as a tripwire force to reassure the Saudis who had had had the wits scared out of them by the sight of the Republican Guard rolling down the road from Kuwait.
The locals started getting upset at the idea of women drivers and infidels in the Jazeera so there was pressure to get them out. Some of the guys took flying lessons to make the point.
Some bright spark had the idea of capturing Iraq, installing a friendly government and then driving on to Damascus and Teheran and up to Baku and Atyrau. Permanent bases whould provide a home for the bods in Saudi and air cover for the whole operation and a bright shiny future would emerge in the New American Century. It’s Brezinsky’s Checkmate.
The enemy as is usual in warfare refused to comply. Generally if he has three options open to him, he will take the fourth.
Now whatever solution is announced on 10th January has to provide people with a way to get out of Iraq without abandoning the Saudis. The stock market crash and world recession if they went liquid might be quite interesting. If the dollar fell even more the Chinese might call in their loans.
So providing air cover from a base in a Christian country on the other side of the Red Sea and an airmobile division stationed there with prepositioned equipment on the Jazeera like there was in Germany in preparation for Reforger is a solution that could be sold.
You might wonder why the deputy secretary of state is going to Ethiopia as an ambassador.
They can spin the story that the invasion they all voted for was a good idea, they just invaded the wrong place, But that was Rumsfeld’s fault …..
And they aren’t retreating, just redeploying to secure bases. And after the election they can all quietly go home.
Thanks Frank and Helena for your angles. Frank’s points are well taken until he goes into desalination being the reason behind the Iran nukes. At that point he loses all credibility as a poor reader, ill informed or just biased.
Further I never said the US should nuke Iran, I said it can break it four weeks. And of course Helena I prefer the threat of force to the use of force. That is why additional troops to Iraq augments the threat of force. In practice it is impossible to declare if said force is intended for threat vs. use, as a four year would call the bluff of threat only postures. The cultural differneces between the West and Middle East as seen in the first Gulf War make it impossible to predict a rational outcome. Game theory was developed thinking of the Russians not the Arab mind, and anybody arguing that we all think and reason alike is an ignorant do gooder. Culture morphs our thinking.
Whatever my spelling suggests I am pro-American, as all of the other possible outcomes are far worse, and I do not believe in harmony and peace regardless of how many inter-faith pray sit-ins Helena hosts. History is the history of war and conflict.
Hi Doris
Here is one of a great many references to the Bushehr plant being used for desalination.
http://www.uic.com.au/nip74.htm
Algeria is considering a 150,000 m3/day MSF desalination plant for its second-largest town, Oran (though nuclear power is not a prime contender for this).
A 200,000 m3/day MSF desalination plant was designed for operation with the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran in 1977, but appears to have lapsed due to prolonged construction delays.
Wikipedia has a great number of references to desalination at the end of its page on the subject.
Helena asked if you are an American citizen, not if you are pro american.
I asked what you read. History is about change of which War and conflict is indeed a part. This is is accompanied by technological development, societal development and the development of ideas, as well as the emergence of individual people.
For instance Electricity generation gave rise to urban transport systems that allowed cities to grow and have sprawling suburbs that people could get to and from. This allowed large factories to be set up which could mass produce. Mass production gave rise to canned food which allowed armies to wage war all year round. Mass production of aircraft led to the indiscriminate bombing of some of the cities that I love.
You might enjoy ‘Boney’ Fuller: Great Battles of the Western World.
So now I have told you some more, and like Helena wonder where you are and what your experiences are that lead you to reject peace and harmony.
A lot of European cities keep a ruined church as a Remembrance of what happens when people get carried away with flags and uniforms. The Vienese rebuilt the tower of the Stephansdom which was hit by Russian tank fire in 1945. Instead they keep a Russian War Memorial to remind them of the consequences of upsetting people
So east Africa slowly descends into chaos and a new American Adventure begins.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR2007010100293.html
Abdikarin Farah, the Somali ambassador to Ethiopia, said that a long-standing request for U.S. military assistance was also on the table.
“We are pursuing that request, and I won’t be surprised if that comes to light,” said Farah, speaking from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. “We have very close coordination and are in touch with the Americans, and obviously we will continue that kind of contact.”
Though Ethiopian troops have been stoned by protesters in Mogadishu in recent days, Farah said that longtime animosities between Ethiopia and Somalia are “history” now.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said that he will not withdraw troops until he has ferreted out certain Islamic leaders. Farah said that the government would not ask the Ethiopians to leave until the security situation in the country improves.
Shirin
I found this on the Times this morning. It essentially supports my analysis above.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1061-2530313,00.html
Gosh isn’t it interesting to see US foreign policy being driven by Israel and Saudi.
BBC reports that John Negroponte is being appointed as Condoleeza Rice’s deputy.