Harry's Place

The “response to Imperialism” argument is slightly flawed, given that the bombings in Baghdad are almost certainly part of an attempt to get US troops back on the streets.

Optimistic view take 2:

By attacking a democratic Muslim country, the Islamists are demonstrating the evil in Islam and creating hatred of Islam among the very people who have the power to marginalize Islam.

The jihad is not just against us either. It is being fought almost all over the world, and in the main civilians are the victims.

The cause is inherent within islam, and can’t be blithely assigned to any external circumstance.

Islam is a Religion of Peace and if Al Qaida are killing Muslims it MUST be because they are the ones who want to follow peace and so must be killed.

Hang on, that don’t make sense!

Isn’t this the “If you don’t keep telling us we use violence to achieve our aims – we’ll kill you” dilemma?

I feel truly sorry for these deaths and all the others in Iraq. I go back to the General Patton “There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wound, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time.”

It is only the devastation and destruction of Al Qaida that will change things. If they are hiding in mountains then raze the mountain!

The optimistic view is that suicide bombings are nihilistic acts by people who know they’ll never live to see see their will imposed on others.

The optimistic view is that suicide bombings are nihilistic acts by people who know they’ll never live to see see their will imposed on others.

Hardly, those bombings aren’t nihilistic at all. Those bombers weren’t suicides, they weren’t hopeless. On the contrary they thought they were going straight to the greatest honor and reward possible and that God will honor them forever and lavish them with rewards.

They died ecstatic and their massacre was a celebration.

If you refuse to understand our enemies, you will lose this war or make it much more brutal than it has to be – there is no substitute for knowledge and understanding.

Brett identifies AQ war aims and tactics accurately. Although, while he correctly describes a constituency that believes what he calls the “optimistic view”, that view is just nonsense with no correspondence to the facts.

The real optimistic view is that they’re going to lose because they have no real support among their target constituency. Very few people in the Islamic world have any interest in being ruled by the jihadis.

But the pessimistic view is that, swayed by defeatist, moral relativists, the liberal democracies might find a way to lose first.

“what’s in between?”

hmmm well how about we send enough troops over to those countries to fight the Taleban and Al Qaeda without actually making that force strong enough to beat them in the field?

Maybe we should send a tiny garrison of 5500 with inadequate equipment and watch them get killed while paying homeage to our idea of fighting global terror

Why does there always have to be a fucking in between?

The US and its allies will continue to withdraw from Iraq, no matter what happens because public opinion in all western countries including the United States is overwhelming in favor of doing so. The main question is will the Iraqi govt be able to supress the the remaining Bathists and their Al Qaida allies or will Iraq slip into a Shia-Sunni Civil War which might well become a proxy war between Sunni Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading source of terrorism, and Shia Iran.

Hmmm. The current state of the Russian North Caucasus (now well beyond, and in fact, mostly beyond) Chechnya – where suicide bombings, albeit not (usually) on this scale – have been commonplace for the last five years plus, and where assassinations of police and government officers (and not as frequently, but not infrequently), government ministers, have become, in some regions, almost weekly occurances, for several years now, doesn’t provide any reason for optimism.

And, as in Iraq, it might well be argued that much of the insurgency in the North Caucasus has, indeed, and in part (and of course with help from Our Friends The Saudis), been generated in response to heavy-handed military action from the respective “colonial power”.

The nearest thing to optimism I can muster (which is important) is that these various extremist groups for the most part aren’t, presently, interconnected, and aren’t a monolithic mass able to operate in unison.

I am more and more convinced with every passing day (and must admit that I foolishly supported the invasion at the time) It is pretty clear now, that invading Iraq was a really stupid idea, however well-intentioned. Yes, the Saddam regime was utterly vile and brutal, and truly awful to its people. But somehow what has been unleashed in its place, in the power vacuum ensuing, seems to have the potential to be very much worse, and a real threat well beyond the borders of Iraq, which Saddam had not been since 1991 and containment. (Yes, that leaves open the question of how Iraq should have been dealt with post-2003, I know: But there were other options available)

Of course this is irrelevant: if you were going to Dublin you wouldn’t start from here: but at any rate let it be a very very very strong warning indeed against any further western-led or -supported military action of any significant scale (as opposed to smart intelligence-lead low-key operations) in the region, almost regardless of the excuse of ostensible justicifcation thereof.

I can’t help but not wonder if this is not a tit-fot-tat response from Iran for the suicide attack on its Revolutionary Guard Leadership last month. It may be that the squad for that attack came from Iraq.

Super-Pessimistic View – it is all the work of the Je^H^HZionists.

Or more likely, the extremism and violence of these nutters is ruining their cause. No one in their right mind supports these kinds of acts. There is a small but declining group of fans at CiF for instance but even Inayat has turned on the Islamists, or at least says he has. Many more such bombs and most people would be happier to admit to a shoe fetish than being a Muslim.

The jihadis have got no chance of taking over Iraq – the bombing was simple revenge against the people for embracing the political system of the hated infidel crusader. Why the fuck would anyone think an outrage like this is going to help Al Qaeda in Iraq? It will just make the Iraqi Security Forces hunt them down more ruthlessly.

The fact is that the dire predictions made in 2006 about an impending civil war, a disintegration into anarchy, control of the country by militias and terror organisations did NOT happen. That’s because President Bush held his nerve rather than flouncing and throwing up his arms in despair, which gave the Iraqi Security Forces a breathing space to build up their strength. Same policy required in Afghanistan.

I thought the Iraqi government was blaming Baathists? Anyway, leaving aside how costly in terms of human lives a slowly crumbling Saddam regime (and possible civil war) might have been and whilst taking onboard Robert D. Kaplan’s reservations about the use of counterfactuals I still think he hits the nail on the head here and still think it would have been a stupid idea NOT to invade:

Had we not invaded, the sanctions regime against the Iraqi dictator would soon have crumbled, without the oil-for-food scandal being exposed. The French, Russians, and Chinese would have swept in with lucrative deals for Saddam, even as he restarted his weapons program. The arms race between Iraq and Iran would have grown fierce, with many, especially the Iranians, believing Saddam already possessed weapons of mass destruction. Israel would have been the big loser in this arms race, feeling less secure and consequently more trigger-happy than ever. Saddam’s grip on power would have surged with the price of oil. Drowning in oil wealth, Saddam would have, among many other nefarious deeds, increased his payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. In a larger strategic sense, the success of Saddam Hussein, an implacable hater of the West, in forcing President George W. Bush to stand down his troops and beat the sanctions, too, would have had a radicalizing effect on the entire Moslem world. He would have emerged as the new Nasser of the Sunni faithful, from Morocco to Pakistan, even as he continued to murder in desultory fashion thousands of people per month in his police state. As a footnote, sooner or later an American Navy or Air Force aviator would have been shot-down patrolling the no-fly zones, paraded through the streets of Baghdad, thus providing immense propaganda value. Truly, a world with Saddam still in power is awful to contemplate, as I can personally attest, having visited Iraq several times in the 1980s, the worst years of Saddam’s tyranny.

Of course, the Taliban and al-Qaida weren’t murdering and blowing up people before the UK and US their countries, so obviously it must be “imperialism”.

Keep exposing these apologists for terrorism and fascism.

Live long…

I just read that Iraq has requested a UN investigation into the role of neighboring states.

Specifically suggested in the article: Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, depending on the type of insurgent.

In other news, Pakistan and Iran are apparently getting edgy with each other, there are anti-American demonstrations in Afghanistan, Abbas says he’s going to quit (Ha’aretz) and of course there’s the latest on the Temple Mount.

I am getting nervous.

Graham 12.15am. Spot on.

this attack so depressed me, horrific. Intelligence on the ground needs to improve in Iraq, to catch these scum before they carry out their horrific attacks. But with so many parliamentarians and govt workers killed and wounded from just that attack, that job just got a lot harder.

Agreed with Moonsong. It makes you scared activity outside!

You disgusting imperialist rabble. The Iraqi people must liberate themselves by whatever means necessary. This exquisite bombing was another knife to the heart of the rampaging American beast.

Those killed were raping their own country and got what they deserved. As their life blood seeped into the sand I hope they contemplated their collaboration. Stop the war!

Lindsey, “Make Love Not War”. In your case the options are limited, I’ll bet!

Graham,

much the same analysis can be made for the continuing rule of President Hu in China – when are we going to invade?
Al Qaaeda is a response to local elites as well – lets remember, Osama bin Laden was a capitalist, he criticised the Saudi Regime for handing over lots of profits to America, and squandering it’s wealth, he’s just a freebooting mercenary out for a share of the spoils with a sick note from God to justify it.

Such things will continue to happen as long as wealth takes the form of commodities and competition for surplus value – gangsters will always reach for their guns.

You disgusting colonialist reptile! I’ll have you know that today my two Johns are coming to my anti-imperialist enviro- bunker to ravish me.

Gamey is bringing a DVD to get us in the mood: ‘The Very Best of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’, because nothing gets me going more than the sight of market places full of capitalist running-dogs being blown into bits. Start the screaming and Stop the War!

How exactly did the Saudi Regime hand over lots of profits to America?

Bob-b,

by allowing American firms to take oil profits – he believes Suadis should make those profits instead – bunkum, I know, but it’s a motivating force…

American firms (like all other firms) would not operate in Saudi Arabia if they couldn’t make profits. So was the idea to manage without American (and other foreign) firms)? How would that have worked?

Bob-b,

don’t ask me, I’m not the profit mad swivel eyed bomber, but the critique of the Saudi Ruling elite is part of Bin Laden’s schtick…

So basically as well as everything else he is economically illiterate?

I saw the ‘Stop the War’ demonstrators in London received a prompt answer from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

How easy it is to confuse or combine several strands into one single narrative of ‘War on Terror’. How much the detail this obscures – not seeing the wood for all the trees.

The greatest illusion is that there is some ‘middle way’ between absolutes. It is a notion conceived – just conceivable indeed – only in liberal democracies and has force, even if weakly, there and no where else.

Maybe the ‘Stop the War’ people could organize a ‘Stop the Bombings’ demo in Baghdad.

Maybe the ‘Stop the War’ people could organize a ‘Stop the Bombings’ demo in Baghdad.

They’re in favor of the bombings in Baghdad. Those bombers are “writing their names in the stars!”

My dream is that Wighty will do something with my star.

Haven’t followed this too much, but I think they said on the radio this morning that this has been claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq, a coalition of Sunni groups which includes al-Qaeda but amongst other domestic ones. Rather than seeing this as part of a global Jihadist conspiracy, is this not more about Iraqi Sunnis aggrieved at not getting a big enough share of post-Saddam power.
There is a problem in the discourse which sees Iraq as democracy vs foreign Salafis. What the invasion has done is fundamentally altered the balance of socioeconomic power in Iraq, and possibly the region, and when the most conservative body count puts the civilian death toll at over 100,000, I have to disagree with Kaplan.

someone should make a website counting shiites slaughtered by sunnis just for being shiites each year. It must number in the 10’s of thousands. Or at least did recently.

Mike S
Perhaps you know better than people ranging from Pilger and his cronies to Madeleine Albright, who all believed that sanctions were killing many hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Pilger thought this was a crime against humanity. Albright thought it was a price worth paying. Regardless of who was right, and there’s no in-between, the choice was to either maintain sanctions, or to invade. Unless you think that lifting sanctions, and the genocide on multiple fronts that would have ensued, was a price worth paying.

What lies in between Brett’s interpretations is more pessimistic than either account: terrorists don’t need a country to plan attacks, even to develop weapons of mass destruction, Allah forbid. All they need is to be perceived by a sufficient number of ordinary people as better than the alternative. Opinion-makers such as Pilger are responsible for allowing terrorists to be perceived in this way.

How about the ultra optimistic view – that Iraq threatens war on Syria and if the attacks don’t stop with Western help destroys the Baathist scum for ever.

Josh
“someone should make a website counting shiites slaughtered by sunnis just for being shiites each year. It must number in the 10’s of thousands”
I think after the Samarra mosque bombing in 2006, the nutters on the Shiite side redresssed the balance somewhat.

Angus
The point on sanctions is an apposite one. The effect on Iraqi society was devastating to a degree that it never was on say South Africa, and was one of the reasons why I reluctantly supported the invasion at the outset. I can’t honestly tell you what the answer is, although I don’t believe that “genocide on multiple fronts” would have been the inevitable result of relaxing them.

MMN
“How about the ultra optimistic view – that Iraq threatens war on Syria and if the attacks don’t stop with Western help destroys the Baathist scum for ever.”
Your definition of the term “ultra-optimistic” is a little different to mine, but in any case have you given any thought as to what would replace Ba’athism there? The bookies would probably have the Muslim Brotherhood down as favourites.

Isn’t it a case in all these tinpot countries that thieves fall out? I just wonder what the attitude of China and India is to all this bloody nonsense. If the jehadis take over in Afghanistan or Iraq (not totally likeely, it seems to me that they want to exercise power without responsibility), then what will those states think or do?

In the first instance an unstable Afghanistan poses more risk to Iran than it does the west. Will be interesting to see whether the current government can wake up to this, and start working at least tacitly with NATO.

much the same analysis can be made for the continuing rule of President Hu in China

I neither think China is a disintegrating state nor that it is likely to invade Iran in the near future.

when are we going to invade?

Just as soon as I get these darn pips sewn on.

David Ignatius says that Iraqis Can Take It!

Read “A resilient Baghdad on a day of horror” at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/25/AR2009102502033.html?hpid=topnews

Hat tip for the link to Iraqi Mojo who writes about this atrocity and the Arab World’s reaction or lack of it with his post, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” at http://www.iraqimojo.blogspot.com

The point on sanctions is an apposite one. The effect on Iraqi society was devastating to a degree that it never was on say South Africa, and was one of the reasons why I reluctantly supported the invasion at the outset. I can’t honestly tell you what the answer is, although I don’t believe that “genocide on multiple fronts” would have been the inevitable result of relaxing them.

Indeed – that is quite an assumption to make. Regarding the sanctions, surely one option would have been to at least try to fix them so that Saddam was still contained while minimising the adverse consequences for the rest of the Iraqi people.

Andrew Adams,
Did you do anything to try to “fix” sanctions while they were in place?
Did you do anything to try to “contain” Saddam, for instance by protesting against the brutality of his regime or against the complicity of western politicians who worked behind the scenes on his behalf?
Unless you can answer yes to either question, then explain why your concern for Iraqi people is expressed only after the fact.

Mike S, on one level you’re right, there is no way of ascertaining whether a certain event would have been 100% inevitable, had circumstances been different. But I don’t think many Kurds or Iranians or Kuwaitis or Saudis or Israelis or Shiite Iraqis would be persuaded by your argument.

Mike S,
If genocide was not the inevitable consequence of lifting sanctions, why did you reluctantly support the invasion “at the outset”?
The invasion only lasted a few days, did you support it for less than one?

“Perhaps you know better than people ranging from Pilger and his cronies to Madeleine Albright, who all believed that sanctions were killing many hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Pilger thought this was a crime against humanity. Albright thought it was a price worth paying. Regardless of who was right, and there’s no in-between, the choice was to either maintain sanctions, or to invade. Unless you think that lifting sanctions, and the genocide on multiple fronts that would have ensued, was a price worth paying.” – angus appleseed 12.53 p.m.

A point often overlooked, well made.

“Indeed – that is quite an assumption to make. Regarding the sanctions, surely one option would have been to at least try to fix them so that Saddam was still contained while minimising the adverse consequences for the rest of the Iraqi people.” – Andrew Adams 6.18 p.m.

Andrew, sanctions were tried for a decade and the only result was to entrench Saddam Friends and Family. How many Iraqis died during this period as a consequence? I do not know, but no one says ‘none’. I think most foreign governments were able to put up with that – particularly the ones that were not spending time enforcing sanctions compliance. But by 2001 – 2002 it was obvious this situation had to be resolved. Sixteen UN resolutions could not do it.

Angus Appleseed,

Well I certainly did argue at the time the sanctions were having a terrible effect on the Iraqi people. As for personally trying to fix the sanctions or contain Saddam, well that’s rather beyond my somewhat limited powers but then I thought that the issue here was what the best course of action may have been in order to assist the Iraqi people, not what I may or may not have done at the time.

Angus
We’re into the realm of alternative histories now, but I don’t think Saddam would have launched another war after being firmly put back in his box in Kuwait (we could even go back further and argue that if Saddam had got a firm “don’t” from the US Ambassador he consulted prior to the invasion, he would have held back).

In terms of the peoples you mention, only the Iraqi shiites were in any danger from Saddam post-Kuwait, and their casualty rate since 2003. (OK, they now have the country, but how much benefit the average guy on the street sees from that is a moot point).

I don’t honestly know whether it’s the sheer incompetence and leadership of the US’s political leadership from invasion to Petraeus, or whether the very doctrine of liberal interventionism is inherently flawed, but the Iraq adventure is a disaster and it’s not done yet.

Thanks for correcting me.