Civil War in Iraq

The conflict in Iraq has become an all-out civil war. The Bush administration may deny this, mostly because calling it so would further disillusion the American people and cast further doubt, in the public mind, as to Mr. Bush's ability to bring this catastrophic adventure to a timely and justifiable end.

The map on the left (click on image to enlarge) is a breakdown of the religious and ethnic divisions in Iraq, and their geographical locations. These ethnic and religious divisions define the interested sides in this civil war.

While the Iraqi people are divided amongst themselves, and armed groups from the Sunni and Shia sides are engaged in a bloody cycle of revenge killings which claims thousands of Iraqi lives every month, most of the Iraqi people believe that life will get better once the occupiers have pulled out. But this cannot happen as long as Mr. Bush and his administration cling to their "We'll succeed unless we quit" policies.




This map on the left (click to enlarge) shows the ethnic and religious breakdown of Baghdad. Names like Sadr City, which have become everyday terms to millions of people around the world, are brought into focus by this map.

The ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods by armed militias, and the endless and bloody cycle of revenge attacks that claim hundreds of lives everyday in Baghdad, is nothing short of anarchy and civil war.

The Iraqi government, crippled by a non-existent civil service and and an ineffective judicial system, undermined by security services with mixed loyalties and separate political agendas, is in no shape to govern...nor will it ever be so. Mr. Bush is in denial if he thinks that staying the course until this Iraqi government can stand on it's own constitutes a strategy for winning this war. Iraqification is, in fact, a recipe for interminable occupation.

It is inevitable that the only "outsiders" that may be able to arbitrate a peaceful solution to Iraq's current problems are it's immediate neighbors. Countries like Iran, Syria, and Turkey all have a better chance of bringing the warring factions to the table and forging any long-term resolution of this conflict. It is not only in the interests of the Iraqis that these nations will participate, but it will be in their own vital interests to see a peaceful end to both the occupation of the Americans and the civil war that that has been the direct result of that occupation.

It is time to leave Iraq. The occupation of that country by Western troops is not going to make things better, in fact it is exacerbating the situation. The long-term interests of the West amount to little more than the supply of oil, and the damage that has been done, to both the Iraqi people and the world at large, in the pursuit of those interests is criminal.

Civil War In Iraq

Dubya Learns A Lesson

I know I might be a little late, but better late than never I always say, in congradulating our "War Time President" for finally making an appearance in Vietnam. Although Dubya and I are of the same generation, 37 long years seperate our visits to that particular country.

I was among the 2.7 million men of that generation that served in Vietnam, Dubya, and his "War Time Vice-President" were among the ones who didn't. Dubya was at Yale at the time, and it was there that he decided on a course of action that would enable to avoid Vietnam.

"I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment," Bush told the Dallas Morning News in 1990. "Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes." The fact that Dubya's service in the Guard was marred somewhat by his long and unauthorised absences should tell us something about just how much Dubya bettered himself.

Dick Cheney, on the other hand, while being vetted for service as George H.W. Bush's (Dubya's daddy) Defense Secretary by a Senate committee, is quoted as saying that he had "other priorities" at the time than fighting to Vietnam.

So Dubya has made it to Vietnam at last. That's nice. And not only did he finally get there, he managed to learn a few lessons from Vietnam that will enlighten us to his present stance on Iraq. After some simplistic statements about history being a "long march", and relationships "constantly being aletered to the good", and some platitudes about "hope" and "freedom", his final lesson from Vietnam was this:

"We'll succeed, unless we quit."

I, like many others, find this lesson a little confusing. Isn't this the same lesson that the Vietnamese learned from their experience of the war? Isn't Vietnam's present peaceful and prosperous existence due to the fact that America did indeed finally end the war by "quitting" it's disasterous policy of "Vietnamization" and pulling out?

This "War Time President", with his limited grasp of the lessons to be learned from history, and his comical grasp of international relations, never ceases to amaze me. This week our intrepid and globetrotting world leader is in China visiting with Chairman Hu. Good luck Dubya!

Spaced Out Sunday

Today is Sunday. I am taking a day off from politics, religion, and war. While the state of the world is very important to me, there are other things that interest me as well, and I would like to take the time, occasionally, to add them to this blog.

Today I am going to post two short videos that are of particular interest to me. It is hard to explain my fascination with the cosmos. Perhaps it all began with John Glenn orbiting the planet when I was in the third grade and the whole school was listening to the radio over the loudspeakers and praying for his safe return. Then there was JFK talking about the "New Frontier", quickly followed by satellite launches and moon landings.

Television brought space, the final frontier, into our homes, our hearts, and our imaginations. Science fiction, a favourite genre of mine since childhood, had evolved from the impossible to the possible, from fiction to fact. The great writers of this genre have paved the way for our generation to imagine, and achieve the scientific breakthroughs that define, in the most positive way, our potential as human beings.

Today science is working to answer all the question that the Universe presents us with. From the sub-atomic to the truly cosmic, all barriers are being broken. We have been allowed, through science, to gaze at the wonder of it all. We have been allowed, through science, to place ourselves into cosmic proportion, and to appreciate not only our own insignificance in the Universe, but our own extreme importance.

I am not a religious person, as some of you might have guessed, but there is something of the "miracle" about humanity. We have the capacity to look at the Universe, measure it, understand it's workings, and perhaps, one day, to traverse it's great expanse. We have it in us to cast off the lines that moor us to this small, beautiful, and troubled planet and explore the galaxies.

So I will let Politics, Religion, and War off the hook for today and post two very interesting and inspiring videos.

The Hubble Deep Field: The most important image ever taken




Mapping the Universe: Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS 2)

Ouch! Shhhh...That's Classified

Mr. Bush, and the forces of darkness that occupy the offices of his Attorney General, have reached new heights (or is it lows?) in their pursuit of destroying the justice system, throwing out the Bill of Rights, and twisting legal logic to bizarre extremes in order to justify their despicable actions in the so-called "War on Terror".

The latest twist is this: A prisoner who has been the subject of "alternative" interrogation techniques (torture to those of us without law degrees), has, by virtue of being tortured, come into possession of classified information. Because the "alternative" interrogation techniques are classified, the prisoner finds that he is prohibited from disclosing anything about his treatment without being subject to arrest and imprisonment for revealing classified information.

This is the situation:

You are sleeping in your warm and cozy bed. Suddenly men with guns and masks burst in and throw a hood over your head. They bind your hand and legs together and whisk you off to who knows where? You find yourself beaten, starved of nourishment and sleep, forced to assume uncomfortable and painful postures for long periods of time, and you are not allowed contact with anyone you know and love. Your family and friends have no idea where you are. You have become, like many thousands before you who lived under the dictatorships of such as Pinochet, one of the Disappeared.

You are subjected to waterboarding, made to believe that you are being drowned. You are asked questions to which you have no answers. But you want to answer. You want to tell them what they want to hear. You want them to stop the torture.

Years of this treatment goes by. Then, one day, you are allowed to return to the outside world. But there is one condition: You are now privy to classified information and must not reveal anything about your treatment....that would be breaking the law.



George Dubya Bush, and the gangsters, ideologues, and fanatics with which he has surrounded himself, have not only purposefully led his nation, and others, into an unnecessary, unwinnable, and unjustifiable war, he has set about undermining the international treaties that define the proper conduct of war. He has also set about undermining the Constitution of his own country. Rights that were fought for and not easily won, have been rendered impotent by his usurpation of power.

Mr. Bush's legal advisors have put forward the argument that, because he is the Commander in Chief, and the country is at war, he has what amounts to absolute power. Congress has no right to interfere with his conduct of the war. If he wants to order torture, then he has every right to do so, and to keep those orders secret from the American people and the Congress.

But now his secret is out. So now he wants Congress to approve his conduct and make it legal. Secret prisons, incarceration without charge or trial, torture of prisoners, and no one held responsible or accountable for their actions.

This is America, beacon of Freedom, the bright and shining city on the hill that hopes to lead the world for the betterment of all humanity. What the fuck is wrong with the American people, that they would tolerate this atrocious and demonic assault on decency and law? I know that most of the Congress are lawyers, and therefore used to justifying anything for money. Perhaps there are no limits to the arguments that can be made in favor of Mr. Bush's diabolical decisions, but surely there are limits to the arguments that must be accepted.

Pretty Much Of A Disaster

I was very surprised to hear that Mr. Blair had characterized the war in Iraq as a "disaster".

During an interview with David Frost on the Al Jazeera English channel, Mr. Frost put it to Mr. Blair that events in Iraq had been "pretty much of a disaster".

Mr. Blair replied: "It has, but you see what I say to people is why is it difficult in Iraq?

"It's not difficult because of some accident in planning, it's difficult because there's a deliberate strategy - al-Qaeda with Sunni insurgents on one hand, Iranian-backed elements with Shia militias on the other - to create a situation in which the will of the majority for peace is displaced by the will of the minority for war."

Mr. Blair puts forward a profound argument, one worthy of Mr. Bush himself, for the chaotic state of affairs in Iraq. The enemies, because there are more than one, won't stop fighting. The invasion was a great success, Saddam was overthrown, and that should have been the end of it. Everyone should have gone quietly home and celebrated their liberation. But then the nasty sectarian militias and those rotten insurgents with their foreign fighters emerged from the ruins of the collapsed Iraqi state and continued to fight. Not only do they fight each other with great enthusiasm, they all fight the invaders as well.

But the greatest violence done to the Iraqi people comes not from the Western troops that occupy the country, but from the sectarian fighters that are engaged in a daily ritual of killings and revenge.

"The problem is that every time there is a sensational event, that starts the whole sectarian cycle again." Said Major General William B. Caldwell IV, Chief spokesman for the American command in Iraq. "If we could stop the cyclical nature of this in Baghdad, we could really change the dynamics here."

Now one might argue that the post-Saddam situation was not properly assessed by the planners of the invasion and that the sectarian and ethnic divisions in Iraq were completely ignored. It would seem that the intelligence that justified the war was not only faulty it was incomplete to the extreme.

But surely Mr. Blair, head of a British government which has many years experience of sectarian violence and political discord, would be able to extrapolate the possibilities of the post-Saddam Iraq. Northern Ireland, with it's own religious and political divisions, has long tormented and troubled the British government. The many years of sectarian violence, including revenge killings and gross atrocities, are still a sore point, and have yet to be completely resolved. Even now, all these years since the violence has all but ended in Northern Ireland, there is still little or no agreement from both sides of the sectarian divide on power sharing and self rule.

What makes Mr. Blair so bold as to think that he might be able to calm the troubled waters of the Tigres, establish a peaceful and long-lasting government of compromise, and bring the war in Iraq to a successful and amicable end, when even his own house remains divided?


One would like to believe that Mr. Blair would have offered his government's many years of experience to Mr. Bush, and by doing so have tempered the fires that Mr. Bush was intent on fueling. Bush's lack of international experience, and complete ignorance of diplomatic technique, would probably have benefited from Britain's long experience in such matters. But Mr. Blair just cuddled up with Mr. Bush and the madmen in the Pentagon and comforted himself inside the "special relationship" that is the myth of Anglo-American politics. Shame, shame, shame.

Now he is reduced to blaming the "disaster" of the Iraq war on the fact they (the other guys) just won't stop fighting and killing.



The Oxford Research Group, a British think-tank, published a report this week stating that the "war on terror" will last for 30 years. It also stated that recent political changes in America would make little difference to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The report goes on to say that the fundamental mistake was to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein's regime by force. This single action turned out to be a gift to groups like Al Qaeda. But, it goes on to say, now we can't pull out or this would allow extremism to operate without restraint...and we would lose control of Middle-East oil.

Pretty much of a disaster? I think so.

Deja Vu

I have been away for a few days. I took a short trip abroad with some friends. It is good to be back home. I am something of a recluse these days and it is good to be back to the peace and quiet of my life.

Sitting here at my computer, reading the news from around the world, it would seem that little has changed in the few days that I was away ( or has it been years?). Mr. Blair has admitted, on the Al Jazeera news network of all places, that the war in Iraq has proven to be a "disaster". Mr. Bush has taken a short trip to Vietnam and congradulated them on their new capitalism. Mr. Kissinger has ruled out any possibility of a military victory in Iraq. The Republican party is planning a two year attack strategy on Hillary Clinton and Democrats in general. There will be a bill put before Congress that would reinstate the draft in the USA. Senator McCain has criticized the "Iraqification" policy of the military as a genuine war strategy. During the end years of the war in Vietnam war there was a strategy called Vietnamization. This was a policy of staying in Vietnam long enough for the Vietnamese government (USA backed) to insure it's own defense capability aginst the insurgency of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese.

A disasterous and seemingly endless war, confused and incompetent political and military leadership, thousands of innocent lives tragically ended, all for what?

For those of us who remember Vietnam, or were there, here is a little video for you.

Deja Vu

Bush: With Little or No Dick to Guide Him

Rumsfeld is gone. He won't be back. He will probably spend a large part of the next two years testifying before Congressional committees. But the president is not alone, he still has his uncle Dick to lean on.



It was under the influence and advisement of Mr. Cheney, that little Dubya decided to go to war. It was Mr. Cheney who filled the Pentagon with Neoconservative think-tankers like Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr Wolfowitz, demanded the politicization of intellegence, neutered the State Department, and led the media campaigns of misinformation against the American people in order to fear-monger their support for the Neocon dream of waging preemptive war in order to establish American world political, military, and economic dominance for the next century. So the president is not quite alone, even though it may feel that way because he no longer has a rubber-stamping, money-grubbing, Congress to follow blindly wherever he (and Mr Cheney) leads.

But, if the new Democrat controlled Congress keeps it's promise to make administration officials answer for their actions over the last six years, Mr. Cheney could find himself seated next to Mr. Rumsfeld and answering questions before Congressional committees. And he has quite a few questions to answer. There is the whole secret ENRON led energy commission thing, and the no-bid Haliburton war profiteering thing, the misleading the American people and the Congress with false intellegence thing, and the whole tear up the Constitution and cut the nuts off Congress thing. So, with any luck, Mr. Cheney will be too busy to pull little Dubya's strings for the next two years. But I am sure that, if the worst happens and he is indicted for any wrong doings, there will be a speedy presidential pardon waiting...in fact it wouldn't surprise me if just such a pardon was one of the conditions under which he accepted his party's nomination for VP in the first place.

But, without Cheney and Rumsfeld to guide him, and the Democrats nipping at his golden heels, how will little Dubya cope. Who will be there to guide him during the last two years of his so-far misguided presidency?

Guess.

Lame Duck Congress: Will They Finally Stand Up For Americans?

According to the New York Times, President Bush wants to take full advantage of a Republican led Congress, while he still has one, to pass his domestic wiretapping program. The Democrats, who will control the Congress from January, have promised to investigate the program.

For years Mr. Bush hid this program from Congress and, once it was discovered that the administration had authorised wiretaps on American citizens without legal or judicial oversight and approval, now wants Congress to pass legislation that will make such activities legal. This program, along with the secret prisons, torture, and incarceration without trial, are some of the extra-legal programs that Mr. Bush would like to legitimise before the Democrats begin their investigations.

But will the Republican led Congress, in the last days of it's corruption ridden life, pass this bill? Will it allow this president, and future presidents, the right to listen in on the everyday lives of American citizens, cart them off without trial, torture them and hold them incognito forever, and all because the "president", and no one else, has determined that they constitute a threat to national security? Let's hope not.

But don't be surprised if you come home one day to find something like this waiting for you.

Time to Re-define Victory

Donald Rumsfeld, one of the main architects of the war in Iraq and very much a power-behind-the-throne in Washington, has resigned his post as Defense Secretary. Mr. Bush made the announcement just hours after the Democrats gained control of the Congress. Politicians from both parties had been calling for Mr. Rumsfeld's removal for some time, but the President was adamant that he would keep his Defense Secretary in place until his term of office was over. But all that changed yesterday when, in an exercise of bipartisanship and face-saving, Mr. Bush announced Mr. Rumsfeld's departure.



Mr. Bush admitted during his news conference that He and Mr. Rumsfeld had discussed the change of leadership weeks prior to the elections. There will be more personnel changes to follow as soon as the new regime at the Pentagon is in place.

Meanwhile Mr. Bush will be busy interviewing and assessing new applicants for the various positions as they become available.

Mr. Bush is left with no excuse for not re-thinking his "strategy" in Iraq. Ideas and proposals aimed at resolving the conflicts that torment that troubled nation will be no doubt be forthcoming. He may even have to re-define the term "victory", engage in diplomatic discussions with Iraq's neighboring states, and finally abandon the Neocon dream of controlling the Iraqi oil reserves until the wells run dry.

But I would take this moment to remind Mr. Bush and his newly elected and loyal opposition of one thing: The war in Iraq is fuelled by hatred and intolerance, waged by fanatics on all sides, and anarchy and chaos have evolved beyond the point of containment and control by any government, foreign or domestic. Thousands of people are dying every month in Iraq. While allied casualties are increasing daily, their numbers are dwarfed by the number of civilians that are murdered and massacred by the various groups that vie for power.

The only real victory to be found, and the only one worth searching for, is the victory of the Iraqi people over the violence that surrounds and destroys them.

Forgotten Souls: Tribute to the Iraqi innocents

Democracy in Spirit and Action

The results are in, at least most of them are. As of this writing there are still two Senate seats that have yet to be determined. But the Democrats have gained the upper hand in the House of Representatives and, if they win the Senate seats in Virginia and Montana, they will also have gained a majority in the Senate. This will go a long way to restoring the system of checks and balances that the founding fathers of the United States of America envisioned.

Congress has, for too long, failed in that mission. They have aided a despotic gang of thugs in undermining the Constitution and allowing the President to assume powers to which he was not legally entitled. Without a proper oversight of the Presidency in place and actively engaged, the Congress has rubber-stamped a usurpation of authority by Mr. Bush and his cronies that can only be characterized as criminal.

But the elections yesterday have provided Congress with the opportunity to once again fulfill its' role in the Constitutional scheme of things. By empowering Congressional committees with proper oversight into the actions of the administration, Congress will be able to hold administration officials accountable for their actions, decisions, and shortcomings.

Launching a preemptive war in Iraq, based on false intelligence and imagined threats and without proper strategic planning, this administration has blindly led the American people, and their allies, into a long-term and disastrous military quagmire that rivals and echoes Vietnam.

When natural disaster struck the Gulf Coast of the United States and almost completely destroyed the city of New Orleans, the administration revealed the incompetency that has come to define it in the eyes of millions of Americans and many others throughout the world.

By undermining the civil liberties of it's own citizens and negating the rule of law, both domestic and international, this admistration has revealed itself duplicitious, despotic, and completely untrustworthy.

And the Republican led Congress, sinking ever deeper into a culture of corruption, has surrendered its' institutional integrity and purpose by allowing the arrogance and incompetency of this administration to go unchecked and unquestioned.

By voting as they did, the American people have set an example for all other democracies, new and old, in showing that the voice of the people can still be heard, and not only if they are being wire-tapped. And the American people have also sent a clear message to both the Republican party and the President with this election.

It is time for a change!!

The Democrats have promised to restore the system of checks and balances, and to hold the administration accountable. But they have also said that they would not pursue an impeachment agenda. Some of the arguments for this magnanimity are set out in the illustration below.

America Votes

The elections are upon us. The issues are clear. Will the American people decide to send a message to the present administration to change it's reckless and blinkered policies? Or will they decide to accept more of the same from these unscrupulous scoundrels? Or will their votes even be counted fairly? Gore Vidal has this to say:

Good Luck America!!

Election: Cheney Says It Doesn't Matter

The mid-term elections are drawing near. The polls seem to indicate that the Democrats will gain control of the House of Representatives and, perhaps, even the Senate. The president's approval rating is at 34% with the general public and few citizens now fully support the war in Iraq.

The Republican party, who rode into power on a reform platform, have managed to embroil themselves in one scandal after another. Bribery, sex, and corporate greed have seen numerous Republican politicians indicted, convicted, and kicked out of office in the last few years. Billions of tax dollars have been funneled into the corporate coffers of firm like Haliburton, once run by Vice-president Cheney, with little or no competition or scrutiny.

The war, the cause for which was built on lies and deception, has cost hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of casualties. Iraq has been propelled into chaos and civil war by the mismanagement and incompetency of the incumbent American administration. Many people who supported the President are now re-thinking that support, and rightly so.

The administration has taken the line that anyone who doesn't support their policies is aiding and supporting the terrorists. They also are quick to blame the media for not reporting "all the good news" that's out there...and blah blah blah.

So what happens if the Democrats gain control of the Congress? Let Mr. Cheney answer that question.


Cheney: Nothing Changes



A quick look at the papers:

Saddam Hussein was sentenced to hang today by a court in Iraq. He will appeal that sentence no doubt. He also faces more trials for more crimes so don't be in any hurry to send condolences.

Ted Haggard, the evangelical pastor embroiled in a gay sex and drugs scandal has been dismissed from his office by a board of fellow pastors. After a series of denials, Reverend Haggard finally admitted his indescretions. This, to me at least, gives new meaning to the phrases : turning the other cheek and blowing someone to Kingdom Come.

Allies Get Polled

The results are in: America is considered a danger to world peace by her closest allies.

The Guardian newspaper in London has carried out a survey, along with major newspapers in Mexico, Canada, and Israel.

69% of those polled in Britain said that US policies has made the world more dangerous since 2001. This was complemented by 57% polled in Mexico and 62% polled in Canada. The results from those polled in Israel were somewhat different. 36% polled in Israel felt that US policies had made the world more dangerous, while only 30% felt that the world had been made safer.

89% of Mexicans felt that the invasion of Iraq was unjustified. This feeling was also reflected by 73% of Canadians and 71% of Britains. The poll results from Israel were, again, somewhat different with 59% of Israelis in favor of the war in Iraq.

The results of the poll also put George W. Bush in the same league as Osama Bin Laden, Kim Jung-Il, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when it comes to being considered a cause of global anxiety.

Well done George. Not only have you managed to frighten your own citizens into allowing you to undermine the Constitution and set up a secret security apparatus that Stalin would envy, you have managed to put the frighteners into the hearts and minds of your closest allies. With friends like you...who needs enemies?

Closer and Closer to Chaos

(click on picture to enlarge)

The chart above was prepared by the United States Central Command for a classified briefing. The chart, presented on Oct 18, shows that the Military Command considers that Iraq is edging closer and closer to outright chaos. It also details several factors involved in coming to that conclusion.

Mr. Bush, scrambling around the USA drumming up support for Republican candidates, paints a rosy picture of the war in Iraq. He tells all and sundry that the allies, hand in hand with the government of Iraq, are making great progress. The war is being won. Iraq is well on the way to becoming a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. But, according to the Military Commanders in Iraq, this is not the truth. The truth is that the government in Iraq cannot, or will not, govern. The Iraqi government cannot, or will not, take action against the militias, nor is it in control of even it's own security forces. The allied commanders are thwarted by a sectarianism that is rife within both the government of Iraq and it's military and police forces.

The fact is that the war in Iraq is not being won, but is fast being lost to chaos, anarchy, and ethnic and religious apartheid. The Sunni/Shiite divide is driving the forces of ethnic cleansing, mass murder, and political breakdown.

But Mr. Bush is determined to paint his rosy pictures. He is happy to portray anyone who questions his leadership of the war, or his "strategy" to win that war, as the enemies of freedom. Mr. Bush is determined to divide the American public into two opposing camps. Rather than being able to unite the American people, he is purposefully trying to frighten and intimidate them into following his questionable lead in all matters. But those who chose not to follow blindly are portrayed as being soft on terrorism and short on patriotism.

Mr. Bush is fighting a losing battle, and he is being advised and encouraged in his bumbling efforts by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rove, and all the other neocons that dragged the USA, and what is left of her allies, into this misbegotten, misplanned, misguided, and unnecessary war.

Perhaps someone close to the president might show Mr. Bush the chart above and explain it to him....slowly.