I know I’ve been a bit AWOL from watching Iraq/Iran developments this past month. So this post is intended as a quick September’s-end round-up of all the biggest developments in official Washington’s consideration of the (increasingly closely linked?) challenges regarding Iraq and Iran.
“September” was awaited with considerable advance publicity and anticipation. It was a long-awaited rock star of a month. For it was September that was to bring us… (drum-roll)… The Petraeus Report! The showdown in the Senate! The sight of the two big parties going mano-a-mano over the war, with the prospect that maybe enough GOP senators would switch sides as to cause serious embarrassment!
In the end, though, I think September fizzled. The antiwar movement in this country seems noticeably weaker (well, certainly, in noticeably greater internal uncertainty and disorder) than it was a month ago; and I am still trying to figure out why. Here is my preliminary list of reasons:
1. Bush’s strategy of, essentially, “hiding behind Petraeus” largely succeeded.
Petraeus received a much gentler reception from the Democrats in Congress than any civilian cabinet member would have. The Dems– like the antiwar movement in the country at large– has taken to heart as one of the key “lessons” of the Vietnam-era antiwar movement that it’s wrong to demonize the military, since they are “only carrying out the orders” of the civilian leadership. Well, I certainly agree that no-one should be demonized. But still, I think the present general pandering to the military may have gone quite a lot too far. We should remember, after all, that unlike in the Vietnam era, the people in today’s US military are all volunteers. No-one drafted them. They chose to do this job which involves killing and running the risk of getting killed. And (again, unlike in the Vietnam era), many of them get paid quite decently for doing this job.
I also think that Moveon.org made a really stupid mistake in publicly impugning Petraeus’s patriotism. Their ad was childish and counter-productive. Most importantly, it failed to engage with the content of what Petraeus said in his testimony. How much better if they had waited until after his two appearances and ran an ad drawing attention to the admission he was forced to make, in response to Sen. John Warner’s questioning, that he couldn’t actually clearly state that the campaign in Iraq is making the US any safer! But no, they didn’t want to wait till after his testimony and then respond to it– they insisted on designing their ad before he had even spoken, and used up– presumably– huge amounts of their money on that ill-conceived project… which then itself largely diverted attention from the content of what was discussed in the hearings.
2. Discussion of Iraq/Iran affairs has now been caught up heavily in an intense fundraising phase of the 2008 presidential election.
I guess this one caught me by surprise a bit. But basically, what’s been happening is that (a) in both parties there are extremely hard-fought pre-primary contests going on, and at the same time (b) the calendar for the various states’ primary election has been moving further and further forward (i.e. from February 2008 to very early January 2008– and there is still a possibility that Iowa and New Hampshire might hold their primaries this December!)
Of course this latter development is sheer craziness, and brings us closer and closer to the specter of US politics becoming a single continuous election season with no interlude left for any rational governance. But its effect on poor old September has been devastating. Under US election laws, the campaigns have to file reports at the end of each quarter on how much money they’ve raised to date. These reports are seen as important early indicators of the degree of support each candidate has within his/her party. So right now– Sept. 29– the candidates are all screeching to their supporters to “Write your checks now! Now!”
Compiling these reports and getting them published takes a few days. So what is now increasingly clear is that the end-of-September reports will be the last ones published before the primary voting begins.
Now, during the primary process itself, there’s a certain general dynamic whereby the candidates have to appeal to the slightly more radical and/or committed wings within their own parties. But during this pre-primary, fundraising period, the candidates need to appeal overwhelmingly to the well-organized fundraising organizations… And among the very best of these are lobbies like the pro-gun lobby, the Big Agribusiness lobby… and of course, the pro-Israel lobby.
It is this latter player–well, actually, a widely distributed network of staunchly pro-Israel organizations from within both the Jewish and the evangelical Christian communities– that has probably had the most effect of all on the behavior of candidates regarding Middle East-related questions.
AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is the “information headquarters” for this network, publishing calls to action for its supporters nationwide– like this one, titled “Support Sanctions Against Iran”, and then also publishing detailed lists of which senators and Congressmembers voted for or against AIPAC’s favored legislative initiatives.
… And thus, we had 76 Senators voting this week in favor of the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment that expressed the “sense of the Senate” in favor of tightening up the sanctions on Iran. That, despite this eloquent explanation by Virginia’s very own Sen. Jim Webb as to why this was such a reckless act. Sen. Clinton voted FOR the Amendment. Sens. Obama and McCain– who should have voted against it, chose not to vote at all. Biden, to his credit voted “Nay.” (Note: I had gotten that wrong here earlier and am glad to correct it. Sorry about that, Senator.) Only 21 other senators ended up voting against it.
Here by the way is the text of a letter that the Friends Committee on National legislation sent to the 22 bravely dissenting senators. It said,
- We at the Friends Committee on National Legislation thank you for voting yesterday against the Kyl-Lieberman S. Amdt. 3017 expressing the sense of the Senate on Iran.
Although the modified amendment passed by the Senate omitted a section that could be construed as authorizing military action against Iran, the amendment still increases the likelihood of war and undermines efforts to persuade the Bush administration to pursue diplomacy with Iran.
The amendment’s call for the administration to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization reinforces administration policy to provoke and threaten Iran instead of engaging in negotiations. The administration could agree to apply the terrorist label and conclude that it had Senate backing to attack the IRGC, which is part of Iran’s army…
Another distinctly unhelpful amendment passed by the Senate this week was the one that Sen. Biden had proposed, which requested the administration to “encourage” Iraqis to find a “federal” (that is, radically decentralized) formula for the governance of their country.
Note to Biden: The US Senate is not the Senate of Classical Rome, which sought to order the governance structures of distant, Roman Army-controlled provinces according to its own whim! Nor is it the Parliament of Empire-ruling Britain! (And pssst: The Iraqis already have a “Constitution”.)
Biden was, as usual, showboating, trying to “prove” he had something distinctive to say regarding Iraq, and was able to pull around half the GOP senators away from the administration’s position on this (which is the rather sensible position that unwarranted interference on this point by showboating US senators is not helpful to anyone in Iraq.)
Anyway, read Reidar Visser’s excellent commentary on this whole issue, here.
And finally, I cannot let this survey of “This month in Washington-by-the-Persian-Gulf” pass without highlighting this really disturbing report from the WaPo’s Tom Ricks about the positions that B. Obama, H. Clinton, and J. Edwards all staked out during a pre-primary debate in New Hampshire– to the effect that they could not promise to have the U.S. military out of Iraq by January 2013 — more than five years from now.
I was gobsmacked when I first read about that.
What has happened to the passion of the antiwar wave that carried the Democratic Party so high during the elections held just over 11 months ago today? Why are these three– the frontrunners in the Democratic primary process– all being so extremely timid regarding the still-urgent need to bring the troops home and end the occupation?
My big guess is two things have been happening: (a) they’ve been talking to their fundraising people much more than, recently, they’ve been talking to their get-out-the-vote people, and (b) they are all three desperate to “look presidential”– without realizing that, in truth, the way to “look presidential” right now is to adopt bold and clear ideas that stand in clear contrast to the failed policies pursued by Pres. Bush.
Well, more on this later, no doubt. But for my part, I just might have to whip out my checkbook and make a donation to Bill Richardson or Dennis Kucinich. They, along with GOP candidate Ron Paul are the only ones calling straighforwardly for a rapid and total troop withdrawal from Iraq.
“Washington’s month in Iraq/Iran
So the month in WDC look like:
U.S. Needs ‘Long-Term Presence’ in Iraq, Gates Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/washington/27military.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=world&adxnnlx=1191105310-jbQSQwbN88n7gTz9TJne1g
The Puppet Talks Back
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=233815
In the instance of Iraq, Greenspan is actually correcting his own memoir, The Age of Turbulence, which just came out. This weekend, newspapers reported provocative snippets from the book, including this: “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=233482
All above some still think all being so extremely timid regarding the still-urgent need to bring the troops home and end the occupation?
This will happen when the cause of this war is acknowledge and hold those who run the show accountable to their orders to be questioned, other than that the show will run untimid
So all in all whatever who is laying or telling the truth, as for now the truth hidden deep under the land of rich oil, for Washington’s month in Iraq/Iran is keeping Americans got their petrol coupon (start with $50 and now looks come to $150 correct me if its wrong) so keep your coupon handy please.
September 2007 – More than 1,000,000 Iraqis murdered
http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78
Baghdad Harun al-Rashid where the first clock was invented and gifted to Europe’s king Charlemagne, now the city where the time counting is by the number of dead Iraqis bodies per hour!!
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197702/an.elephant.for.charlemagne.htm
What a sad time in Iraq.
Mike Gravel is also calling “straighforwardly for a rapid and total troop withdrawal from Iraq.”
I am surprised that you too ignore this.
I just replied to a “personal” note thanking me for my unwavering support for Barbara Boxer with a strongly worded message that due to her co-sponsorship (with Biden) of a bill advocating the partitioning of Iraq she will get no money, no support and not vote from me, and I will work against her in the next election.
So now California has Diane “Lieberman Lite” Feinstein and Barbara “let’s partition Eyerack” Boxer. Goody!
And in the meantime the top presidential candidates are anticipating keeping combat going in Iraq at least through their first terms, and Hillary Clinton voted in favour of a bill that, despite the lack of a scintilla of evidence, declares Iran’s military a terrorist organization, and stated that she supports Israel’s brazen unprovoked aggression and clear act of war against Syria.
And yet there are still those in this country who insist and desperately keep trying to believe that the Democrats are going to make everything OK.
We really need to understand what war is. Iraq is not a war, it is an occupation, the war ended in 2003 when the Iraq government and army disbanded. When wars become painless and without sacrifice, we forget why they should be avoided, and so don’t.
Bombing Iran would be an act of war, if we do it, and the Dems just signed off on it.
Both Iran and Iraq were/will be a War(s) of Aggression. Something guys like Hitler did. That’s why the world made it a Supreme Internation Crime to do it, so it would not happen again. No sheriff in town though.
That 40% of the American people support an attack on Iran according to some polls is simply astonishing. Thats why the Dems are caving on Iraq, because everyone understands that attacking Iran makes Iraq a permanent occupation.
There will be 70 million hopping mad Iranians after we attack them, and leaving the region will not be an option.
Mission Accomplished.
Oh, and BTW, oil will be at 200 dollars a barrel and plunge the world into a depression after the dollar collapses. That’s part of the plan to get us a new constitution, perhaps a global one that our European and North American cousins will ensorse. Of course this one will be without the “rights”. Disasters=Change.
Bush does disasters well, the changes, not so good.
The big question is what China and Russia do. Did we reach the equivelant of a Stalin Pact with them? If not, well………
Britain and the United States refuse. Reparations, we can’t even talk about; that’s so far from consciousness in the doctrinal system. Well, I think that answers the question. Doesn’t really matter what I think. What matters is what Iraqis think, and I think we know that pretty well. The reason the U.S. and Britain aren’t withdrawing are those I mentioned. You know, the consequences of independence for Iraq would be an ultimate nightmare for them. And they’re going to try to do anything they can to prevent Iraqi democracy, as they’ve been trying in the past.
Noam Chomsky on Iraq Troop Withdrawal,
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/03/1319200
50 States = 1 USA
3 States = 1 Iraq
Isn’t that what the US Senate is saying? I didn’t see them set it in stone. They think it’s the best idea. Obviously it’s not, because the Iraqis don’t want that.
What next?
bill richardson has made an excellent ad capitalizing on the lame comments by hillary and co regarding iraq at that debate.
Also, the PBS / Black caucus debate, which no one watched, was excellent. Even crazy Alan keyes made agood showing.
In an exclusive Shalom TV interview, US Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-DE) emphatically stated his commitment to the State of Israel, calling the country “the single greatest strength America has in the Middle East.”
Senator Biden further stressed that without Israel, one could only imagine how many battleships and troops America would have to station in the Middle East.
Meeting with Shalom TV President Rabbi Mark S. Golub in Washington, DC, the candidate for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination said that it’s insulting for any American to suggest that Israel is somehow the cause of the war in Iraq.
http://shalomtv.org/news_internal/news_21.htm
bring the troops home and end the occupation?
http://blogs.chron.com/nickanderson/archives/051604.Iraq%2C%20Brick%20Exits.jpg
Mark, it is not the United States Senate’s business to even THINK about such things as how the Iraqi state (or states) are configured. And by the way, if the sponsors of that bill don’t know that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are opposed to what they are trying to push, then they are far too ignorant to have ANY right to even talk about it, let alone introduce a bill.
I am ashamed of Barbara Boxer. She used to be a decent, reasonable person – at least I thought so.
The roll call shows Biden voting against Kyl-Lieberman. Carper, Delaware’s other Dem Sen, voted for it.
I think September fizzled.
I would say it did in more ways than one. First, I am cautiously optimistic that no attack will take place on Iran, and an additional important reason for that (other than the usual – ie. US military overstretched, supply lines vulnerable in Iraq, little support worldwide) is this (first on a list of nine):
THE U.S. AND EUROPEAN ECONOMIES are now in a crisis, and it may be protracted. The dollar is falling in value, Gulf States and others may abandon it, etc. A war with Iran would produce economic chaos, because oil would be scarce. There are states, like Russia and Venezuela, who can sell it. In a word, the balance of world economic power is involved, and that is a great issue.
Helena, regarding your point one, it is surely the ABSENCE of the draft which has prevented the anti war movement from gaining traction beyond a certain point? The draft brought the Vietnam War into every American (and Australian) home. But volunteers are volunteers and should know what they are up for?
Also the Dems are just acting politically aren’t they? (as they always have) If public perceptions are shifting from “the war is lost” to “maybe its winnable”, the mainstream Dems will automatically adjust their rhetoric?
What is extremely interesting is that none of the Dem front runners will rule out the likelihood of US troops remaining in Iraq beyond 2013! Where does this leave moveon.org?
This amendment is indeed precarious. What is of further interest is how the amendment split the progressives in the Senate-I.E. Senator Patrick Leahy voted against it, while Senator Feinstein for it…I agree with Senator Webb, that the amendment may have so many regretting their votes.
Iran is such a wild card; Does the amendment have “teeth”, or is it an amendment which has a heavy “scare” factor for the current Iranian regime?
H, what about John Edwards? He has the most sophisticated platform of all candidates, would you not agree?
D. Mathews
A war with Iran would produce economic chaos, because oil would be scarce. There are states, like Russia
America,Hostility and Ducking of Russia and China
It is said that when Gorbachev started its reformism in the Soviet Union, he told Americans that you cannot make use of Soviet Union hostility for your own development anymore. The same was carried out by Chinese. Now after two decades, Russia has re-gained its power. China has captured all the markets of the world and is much more powerful than two decades before but America cannot make any excuse in the name of hostility of China or Russia and cannot make political and economical abuse. However, it still calls Iran his enemy and keeps this topic hot. Inside Iran it is said that Iran is so powerful that America is its enemy but on the other side America does need an enemy which were once China and Russia and now that they have ducked, Iran has replaced them
Mohammad Ali Abtahi
http://webneveshteha.com/en/weblog/
Please see this congressional report (dated October 1, 2007) Re: Blackwater in Iraq. It is pretty telling, despite being very watered down.
http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071001121609.pdf
Shirin, my friend, I must say you “thought so”. Boxer/Feinstein to decency are like Cheney to empathy.
Pentagon Gives Blackwater Mercenaries New Iraq Contract
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/64031
Inside Iran it is said that Iran is so powerful that America is its enemy but on the other side America does need an enemy…
Far for me to try to defend Bush/Cheney (which may be Mission Impossible anyway) but, just perhaps, unrelentingly shouting “Death to America!” for 28 years was not really in the interest of those “inside Iran”.
Truesdell,
your point in place, but what about Iraq before?
It also made to be an “enemy” for lots of reasons but “Death to America!” was not there.
Truesdell,I am reading this I thought its worth to mention for the the point you raised.
Those included conducting financial transactions with Iraq, an enemy nation at the time, and violating a United States embargo on that country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/world/middleeast/02wyatt.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
Josh Marshall has some great background on Blackwater founder Erik Prince
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054744.php
your point…[about Iran is well]…placed, but what about Iraq before?
The invasion of Iraq was one of the greatest foreign policy blunders in American history.
“The invasion of Iraq was one of the greatest foreign policy blunders in American history.”
Attacking Iran will make the invasion of Iraq look like a brilliant idea.
God forbid that we acknowledge that in September fewer people were killed.
God forbid if this repeats in October.
Too little, too late for sure!
But I do not pray for failure to prove it was wrong…and we were right!
September fewer people were killed.
Look it’s Ramadan affect, now Ramadan in all Islamic world., people are less traveling and going to work or other things, let see after Ramadan what’s will happen.
These are just dreams for those shambled with their war, their wishful it will settle to partitioning and grab the Mesopotamia land.
“it will settle to partitioning and grab the Mesopotamia land”
Salah – those who survive will get their land back some day. Gardens will grow again. The rivers will be full of fish instead of corpses. The Americans’ “enduring bases” will crumble into the sand along with Saddam’s palaces.
There will never be justice, there will never be permanent peace, there will never be equal opportunity for all. But the mighty will fall and the people will survive. The meaning of life is in the collective, not the individual. The rich and powerful are never able to grasp this fundamental truth. But you and I can, eh?
In the country which brought the world writing, the first written records, algebra, astronomy, the wheel, the first time piece, irrigation, the first pharmaceutical college, the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” and it is thought, the first university, the universities of Florida and Oklahoma are being drafted in as education “curricular consultants” to take advantage of the “key opportunities in ICT and education.”
It would be interesting to know what the universities can offer to a country which, as with Palestine, prior to the invasion, had the most Ph.D.’s per capita, in the world.
Whose educational system was so exemplary, that UNESCO devised a unique award for Iraq, commenting that it was the only country, in their experience, where a child could be born in abject poverty, of illiterate parents and complete his education to become an architect, engineer, surgeon, or whatever he or she aspired to.
Education was free from kindergarten through university and postgraduate studies abroad.
Panel sessions at the conferences covered the legal environment for conducting business in Iraq, financing the private sector, trade and commerce and private sector banking.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2007/10/137_11431.html
“Education was free from kindergarten through university and postgraduate studies abroad.”
There’s a perfectly good reason for the invasion right there. We needed to liberate the Iraqis from this state-run, socialist educational system, so they could enjoy the same free enterprise system we Americans have and take for granted. You see, poor Arab kids who get theiir university degrees for free just don’t appreciate the value of a good education as much as rich white American kids whose daddies can afford to buy it for them.
Now, assuming things settle down enough for a private Fortune 500 educational consulting company to come in and build some for-profi schools in Iraq, y’all will be able to aspire to the same limited benefits that certain qualifying individuals receive here in the US of A.
Congratulations!
John C.,
I read this few times, this is the recent one by Middle East analyst Dr Mitchell Bard,he is saying in his book:
The idea that the Israel lobby was behind the Iraq war is preposterous. Recent media reports show how Israelis told the Americans that they shouldn’t attack Iraq, that Iran was the main threat. Most US Jews were against the Iraq war.
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3457282,00.html
I appreciate if you or other Americans can confirm if what this guy saying is true or just hot air?
Salah,
Here’s another article elaborating on the same idea.
http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/2006_04_12.htm
Let’s get one thing straight: Israel is a foreign country. The Israel Lobby is a loosely defined American political coalition. They are not the same thing, and they do not have the same interests. American politicians are highly attuned to the preferences of the Israel Lobby, but most of them aren’t really very interested in Israel (which is a nice way of putting it). Israel may have been ambivalent about the Iraq war, but the Israel Lobby was behind it. It was not a time for nuance.
Helena,
I read this bit of news, which really looks to me very odd.
If the Germany did the massacre why this General family take the consequences?
Let deploy this scenario in Iraq with massacres done to Iraqis by US commanders in the feature will bring their families to Iraq to apologizes instead of US administration?
Is it looks a way of skip the responsibility of crimes these governments / administration of massacre they done in past in Africa, ME, and now in Iraq?
The family of a German colonial-era commander who ordered a massacre of Namibia’s Herero tribe in 1904 has travelled to Namibia to apologize for what historians call Germany’s first genocide. Some 65,000 Hereros were killed, but their descendants have scant hope of compensation.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,510163,00.html
“As for O’Sullivan, she has taken a fellowship at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government while she ponders her next step. As she approaches age 40, she wanted “to make room for other things in my life,” including apple-picking with her niece. Harvard asked her to speak at an Iraq forum a few days after her arrival on campus, but she demurred. It was too soon.
“The first thing I’m going to do is recapture my life,” she said. “I’m taking a poetry class here. I’m going to do a triathlon. And I’m going to break all kinds of records on sleep. And then I’m going to devote the time to thinking about what happened, to thinking about the lessons learned.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/06/AR2007100601521_pf.html
They are not the same thing, and they do not have the same interests
John C. this is among the stranger things I’ve heard averred here. For whose interests other than Israel’s does The Lobby ™ supposedly shill? Halliburton’s?
The Israel Lobby is a loosely defined American political coalition
Boy this definition gets looser by the minute. Now it excludes actual Israelis.
Good thing Walt & Mearsheimer were clear on this point. Good thing too that none of their analysis of lobby behavior concerned Israeli behavior, otherwise we’d all be terribly confused.
Salah, you seemed curious whether US jews were generally against the Iraq war. There’s plenty of evidence suggesting just that, eg:
http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=26677
“For whose interests other than Israel’s does The Lobby ™ supposedly shill? ”
Why, for their own interests of course. Or for their particular vision of the Israel they would like to think of as existing somewhere they could go to someday if they chose. The distinction between the lobby and the country shouldn’t be so hard for you to understand. Consider the pre-war “Iraq Lobby” made up of the likes of Kanan Makiya and Ahmed Chalabi.
The distinction between the lobby and the country shouldn’t be so hard for you to understand.
Unfortunately The Lobby(tm) hasn’t been carefully defined by any of the parties who see fit to use the expression seriously. It seems to mean whatever such people want it to mean depending on the circumstances.
Here for example, shown evidence that senior members of Israel’s military establishment did NOT push for war in Iraq, you strip them of membership in The Lobby’s ranks. Suddenly, The Lobby is a US-only fraternity, even though Walt/Mearsheimer (the authors of the silly expression) devote page after page to statements from Israeli politicians past and present, Israeli domestic and foreign policy and soundbites from Israeli newspapers. M&W specifically charge the Lobby with inciting the Iraq war, citing remarks from “Israeli intelligence” and “Israeli leaders” including Sharon and Barak.
Furthermore, M&W dont agree with you that Israel’s interests aren’t contiguous with those of the dreaded Lobby: “Why has the United States been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state? …simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. and Israeli interests are essentially identical.”
Since you clearly don’t agree with the term’s usage as established by M&W wouldn’t more precise terminology ( “the editorial board of the WSJ” , William Kristol” eg) be better, at the very least less confusing? Just a suggestion.
Vadim, your suggestion has merit. But it’s difficult to avoid using shorthand terms when discussing complex subjects in this limited format. I don’t agree with the view that American foreign policy has been hijacked by Israeli agents. I think it has been hijacked by a narrow group of influential Americans, some of whom use their real or fanciful affinity with the State of Israel as cover for the advancement of their own economic interests. I do agree with W&M that this has had tragic consequences for both the US and Israel.
US detains nearly 25,000 in Iraq
BAGHDAD (AFP) — The US military is holding nearly 25,000 people in its prisons in Iraq, 860 of whom are under the age of 16, the general in charge of their detention said on Wednesday.
Eighty-three percent of inmates are Sunnis and 16 percent are Shiite, General Douglas Stone told a press conference in Baghdad.
Egyptians, Iranians, Saudis and Syrians number among 280 foreign nationals imprisoned by the US military in Iraq, he said.
There are two prisons run by the Americans on Iraqi soil: one at their Camp Cropper base outside Baghdad, the other at Camp Bucca near the southern port of Umm Qasr.
These prison receive an average of 60 news inmates each day, according to Stone, while the average length of time for incarceration of a detainee is 300 days.
Since the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in mid-September, the US military has freed around 50 to 60 prisoners every day.
To those who still thinking or believing dividing Iraqis to ethnics with war and hatred between them. Simply it’s a stupid and illiterates thinking about Iraq and Iraqi society.
Read this may you weak up and correct your ill thinking:
“I can’t live away from the kitchen. It’s my peaceful world. We Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds, are all living as brothers and never discuss our sect. We are all Iraqis,” said Abu Saif, a Shi’ite who has worked at the mosque for more than 17 years.
Baghdad soup kitchen feeds Sunnis and Shi’ites
I do agree with W&M that this has had tragic consequences for both the US and Israel.
in addition to the Israel Lobby’s manipulation of US support for Israel since—when is it they actually claim?—1948? Or the 50s? Or the early 60s? Or post-1967? Or merely post-USSR?, the IL must therefore also be responsible for:
1. Manipulating US support for the regime in Egypt.
2. Manipulating US support for the regime in Jordan.
3. Manipulating US support for a Palestinian state (albeit one that doesn’t threaten the existence of the State of Israel….aye, there’s the rub! But since no one in the media or political loop even wants to hint that the Palestinian goal in all this is Israel’s eradication, I’ll have to, similarly, honor that profound commitment to truth and objectivity).
4. (Maybe this should be #1 in the list?) Manipulating US support for a special relationship with Saudi Arabia (though indeed, some might claim that the Saudis and their lobby—the SL?—need no help from the IL to manipulate the US government to favor the House of Saud. And here, one might be forgiven, perhaps, for thinking the Oil Lobby (OL?), the network of former US ambassadors to SA, the Saudi-funded “think tanks” in academia, or the centers of Islamic worship in the US….).
5. Manipulating US support for a Lebanon free of Syrian influence.
6. Manipulating US support for Turkish entry into the EU (though this is, admittedly, a contentious issue).
7. Manipulating US support for freeing Kuwait from Saddam in 1991.
8. Manipulating US support for a unified Cyprus.
9. Manipulating US protection for the Kurds before Saddam was overthrown.
10. Manipulating US support for the protection of the victims in Darfur. (To be sure, this has not yet been all that successful; clearly, the IL has not been pouring their heart and soul into this issue, despite the assertions of some that raising the “Darfur Issue” is merely Zionist interference in the affairs of a sovereign nation, with the unabashed intention of displacing the plight of the oppressed Palestinians from the front pages.)
11. Manipulating, somehow (no doubt by sheer chicanery), the relatively seamless flow of oil from the ME to the rest of the world (one of Martin Kramer’s astute observations, even if there is clearly a certain self-interest in doing this…(but wait! Can the US be said in any sense to have “self-interest” if the IL has taken control over—purported—US foreign policy!!)
12. Manipulating US support for more liberal political environments from Iran to the Morocco.
# posted by Barry Meislin : 12:02 PM
http://oxblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/walt-mearsheimer-is-there-anything-left.html
Looks Iraqi war made us see the unseen and hear unheard thing s from US and about US.
Four years ago while seeing few Americans joined the department as new academic staff, I have chat with AP of the head of department, asking why these guys leaving US universities and come to joining us?
She replay to me confidently, in US it’s very hard and restricts process working with universities and these guys they feel its easer for them to join universities academic staff here than in US.
As far as we know, any one in western world when he apply for a job he should supply three referees with his CV, this is to let the employers to confirm the suitability of the person they heir for their job and give them trusted information that this person honest with skills he can go with the job and adding a value to the company.
Read below this bit of news, it’s really looks ambiguous and doubtful what I heard four years ago.
This man approved he is: 1- Lire, 2- Incompetent in his job, 3- Sneaky and Dishonest ….etc, how on earth university like Stanford university, Hoover Institution accepting and offering him this positions?
It’s hard to believe and struggling this is happing in US.
This is not neocon works, republican Democrats party/politics; this is a university, looks how far the corruptions deepen in US institutions and society! Wonder.
Rumsfeld headed to Hoover Institution
“I have asked Don to join the distinguished group of scholars that will pursue new insights on the direction of thinking that the United States might consider going forward,” said John Raisian, the institution’s director.
The Hoover Institution, a well-funded Republican think tank, has a long list of former officials on its roster. Former commander of the U.S. Central Command, Retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, is serving as a fellow. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has also stated publicly her desire to return to Stanford in 2009.