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"...even the wicked get worse than they deserve." - Willa Cather, One of Ours

Thursday, May 27, 2004

Europeans say the U.S. cannot leave Iraq

Philadelphia Inquirer
Despite strong opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and a continued nervousness about a European presence there, few European foreign-policy experts believe the United States can withdraw its troops from Iraq without creating global chaos.

Asked recently what the United States should do about Iraq, expert after expert repeated one assertion: Whatever the result of the U.S. presidential election in November, Americans must be prepared to stay in Iraq, perhaps for years.

Even as popular pressure mounts in ally nations Britain, Italy, Poland and Denmark to remove troops from Iraq, and though Spain has withdrawn its troops, the foreign-policy experts said the United States could not leave. Why? Because while the war has always been unpopular, the notion of a chaotic Iraq is terrifying.

[...]

A spokesman for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs predicted that if the U.S.-led coalition pulled out at once, "Iraq would be in civil war within 24 hours."

..."Can we turn our backs on the Iraqi people? I'm afraid that would be bad for [Iraq], bad for the people, bad for the region, and bad for the world. It would, however, be good for the terrorists."

How European experts feel about the United States' presence in Iraq might not boost their countries' willingness to send more troops. There is virtually no popular support for dispatching European troops to Iraq...

[...]

..."Signs of disarray only encourage the terrorists. They must now believe the West is losing its will. There could hardly be a surer recipe for anarchy, victory for al-Qaeda and even more turmoil in the Middle East."

[...]

"The military element is essential, and will be for a couple more years," he said. "But the troubles are only going to increase in the coming months...
There is exactly zero chance that Germany or France will ever contribute troops to Iraqi peacekeeping operations, even under a UN umbrella. It is just too late to internationalize security operations in Iraq. The European public would not stand for it.

I hope that Kerry realizes that his proposal to get troops from other countries to relieve the burden on the US is not going to happen. I also hope that his stated policy here is just campaign rhetoric. Because if Kerry really believes what he is saying about internationalizing the security burden in Iraq, then he is clearly an idiot and shouldn't be President of the United States. (We already have an idiot in the oval office. We don't need two in a row.)

I am confident that this is just campaign rhetoric designed to keep his Democratic base happy. He couldn't be stupid enough to believe what he is saying.
Posted by: Zayphar / 5/27/2004 08:35:00 PM 1 comments

Even Paranoids Have Enemies

Opinion Journal (WSJ editorial)

The thing about conspiracy theories is that sometimes they turn out to be true.

Take for example the prison abuse scandal. For over a year we have been hearing outrageous stories of abuse in US detention facilities. I, like everyone else, treated them as the usual Arab penchant for wild conspiracy theories. If it wasn’t for the pictures, I would still think this way. Now we know that those stories were true. In fact, now when I hear a story of abuse, I tend to think it is more likely to be true than not. Although now I may be trusting these accusations too much.

In these days it is hard to know what is true, and which sources you can trust. I would have thought that I could dismiss the statements of the detainees and trust the statements of the Pentagon. In this case that was an error.

Another wild accusation has been ringing in my ears for a year or so. The Pentagon has been telling us that Saddam’s intelligence people were connected with Al-Qaida. I have always believed this to be complete nonsense. I have not rejected the possibility that, someday in the future, if enough pressure had been placed on Saddam, he might have entertained the idea of such a relationship. But at the time of the invasion I was certain that no such relationship existed.

One of the strange things you learn about life as you get older is that some things are true, even when your ignorant, contemptible enemies believe in them.

To paraphrase the wise fool: "It’s not what people don't know that can hurt them. It's what they do know that just ain't so."

These days I am less inclined to automatically dismiss accusations like the one below.
One thing we've learned about Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein is that the former dictator was a diligent record keeper. Coalition forces have found--literally--millions of documents. These papers are still being sorted, translated and absorbed, but they are already turning up new facts about Saddam's links to terrorism.

We realize that even raising this subject now is politically incorrect. It is an article of faith among war opponents that there were no links whatsoever--that "secular" Saddam and fundamentalist Islamic terrorists didn't mix...If the CIA was wrong about WMD, couldn't it have also missed Saddam's terror links?

One striking bit of new evidence is that the name Ahmed Hikmat Shakir appears on three captured rosters of officers in Saddam Fedayeen, the elite paramilitary group run by Saddam's son Uday and entrusted with doing much of the regime's dirty work. Our government sources, who have seen translations of the documents, say Shakir is listed with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

This matters because if Shakir was an officer in the Fedayeen, it would establish a direct link between Iraq and the al Qaeda operatives who planned 9/11. Shakir was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9/11 attacks were planned. The U.S. has never been sure whether he was there on behalf of the Iraqi regime or whether he was an Iraqi Islamicist who hooked up with al Qaeda on his own.

[...]

That's not the only connection between Shakir and al Qaeda. The Iraqi next turned up in Qatar, where he was arrested on September 17, 2001, six days after the attacks in the U.S. A search of his pockets and apartment uncovered such information as the phone numbers of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers' safe houses and contacts. Also found was information pertaining to a 1995 al Qaeda plot to blow up a dozen commercial airliners over the Pacific.

After a brief detention, our friends the Qataris inexplicably released Shakir, and on October 21 he flew to Amman, Jordan. The Jordanians promptly arrested him, but under pressure from the Iraqis (and Amnesty International, which questioned his detention) and with the acquiescence of the CIA, they let him go after three months. He was last seen heading home to Baghdad.

[...]

U.S. officials believe that American civilian Nicholas Berg was beheaded in Iraq recently by Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, who is closely linked to al Qaeda and was given high-level medical treatment and sanctuary by Saddam's government. The Baathists killing U.S. soldiers are clearly working with al Qaeda now; Saddam's files might show us how they linked up in the first place.
Posted by: Zayphar / 5/27/2004 07:59:00 PM 2 comments

Fallujah: Inside the Safe Zone

Winnipeg Free Press
With U.S. marines gone and central government authority virtually nonexistent, Fallujah resembles an Islamic mini-state - anyone caught selling alcohol is flogged and paraded in the city. Men are encouraged to grow beards and barbers are warned against giving "western" hair cuts.

"After all the blood that was shed, and the lives that were lost, we shall only accept God's law in Fallujah," said cleric Abdul-Qader al-Aloussi, offering a glimpse of what a future Iraq may look like as the U.S.-led occupation draws to a close. "We must capitalize on our victory over the Americans and implement Islamic sharia laws."

[...]

With the departure of the marines, the position of the U.S.-appointed civil administration has been weakened in favour of the clerics and the mujahedeen who resisted the U.S. occupation...

[...]

Women rarely appear in public and when they do, they are covered from head to toe in accordance with Islam's strict dress code for women...

[...]

...the mujahedeen are clearly profiting from the hero status they acquired during the April battles against the marines.

There is even talk of building a museum dedicated to the "struggle" against the American occupation. Money has been collected in recent weeks to help the families of those who died in the fighting, said by the locals to number 1,000 "martyrs."
The Shia moderates are likely to win control of the government after in the election. When they do they are unlikely to allow an independent city-state like Fallujah to continue to operate outside the control of the central government.

The Fallujah brigade and the fedayeen are likely to resist forcefully the reimposition of control over their city by the central government. If people thought the 4 days the Marines were fighting in Fallujah were bad, just wait until the Iraqi army storms the city.

The US just kicked this inevitable confrontation down the road; shifting the cost from the Marines to the Iraqi army. This is good for us, but is likely to lead to a greater number of Iraqis being killed.
Posted by: Zayphar / 5/27/2004 07:41:00 PM 2 comments

War casualties

Calendar of US Military Dead during Iraqi War

Here is another site with detailed information on war casualties.

Thanks for the heads up Russell.
Posted by: Zayphar / 5/27/2004 07:37:00 PM 0 comments

It's not what you know


"It’s not what people don't know that hurts them. It's what they do know that just ain't so."

Will Rogers

Posted by: Zayphar / 5/27/2004 12:28:00 AM 0 comments