The Iraq Thing vs The Ukraine Thing vs All The Other Things

There are stories going around that "Iraq is falling apart..." No doubt. It was never all that cohesive to begin with, and the severity of the British and then the Ba'athists to make it cohere was clearly the work of the demented. The American invasion and destruction of what had been cobbled together was insane. Even more so was the occupation of the ruins.

To see some uprisings taking place against the puppet regime in Baghdad is no surprise. To see them somewhat successful is even less of a surprise. The Maliki puppet regime has never been much more than a Baghdad figment in any case, hiding behind blast walls and pretending to rule a fractious and proud people who pay them no respect and and in many areas, little mind. Like so many other installed regimes, the Baghdad goon-show is a kleptocracy which is unable -- and obviously unwilling -- to provide basic public services, something that even at their lowest ebb, the Ba'athist/Saddamists were able to.

No, Iraq isn't falling apart, it was torn apart and left in tatters by an Anglo-American invasion and occupation and forced "restructuring" that destroyed an entire functioning civil society and prevented its replacement with anything Iraqis would recognize. So, there was nothing in place of the Ba'athists, just murder, warlordism and a vile non-functioning and misrepresented "democracy" that no one on earth can understand or operate according to its alleged rules.

Some of the people have decided to take their country back, and in the process they are reverting to an earlier form of Iraq, before there was an Iraq, when there were only provinces within the Ottoman Empire, the three that would come to constitute Iraq being headed in Mosul, Baghdad and Basra.

Apparently, the Kurds have taken Kirkuk (a subdivision of the Mosul province), the rebel Arabs (variously called ISIS and ISIL) have taken Mosul itself and all of the territory west into Syria, there is allegedly a march on Baghdad by said rebels, a march being repelled by Valiant Iraqi  Forces (or someone) while the vast American Embassy -- so they say -- is being evacuated toute suite.

Death squads are rumored to be re-deployed to the region with calls for more, more, more from congressional delegates like Graham and McCain, while airstrikes from US forces are being prepared.

Destroy Iraq all over again. Sounds like a plan. Except for the doubts...

Doubts that what is said to be happening is actually happening at all, and doubts that the intentions of those involved are anything like the news reports would have it. It has been suggested that the House of Saud is manipulating events behind the scenes with the intent to diminish the power of the Iraqi Shi'a and enhance the power of the region's Sunnis (Kurds are Sunnis, too, they tell me) so as to recreate Iraq -- and Syria -- as a bulwark against the Persian Hordes who have been in control in Baghdad since the first re-establishment of civil governance there after the American invasion.

In other words, what's going on in Iraq -- whatever is actually going on -- is all part of the Great Game being played by Israel, the US/EU/NATO aka or the Anglo-American Neo-Imperial Project, and the House of Saud, against... who, exactly? The Persian Hordes are -- or were, prior to the Ukraine Thing -- claimed to be the Greatest (Hitler) Threat in All of Human History. Did you see The 300? Well Did You???!!!! Now that Putin-Hitler-Stalin has emerged as an even greater threat thanks to his invasion and take over of Ukraine and his March on Paris or Brussels or Berlin, or whatever the propaganda mills are churning out now, the Persian Hordes are less of an Existential Threat than they once were. The moves now are intended to contain the Russian Hordes and move the boundaries of the West eastwards over the steppe.

It's summertime too, time for stories of sharks and missing white women, or great gobs of NSA exposure by missing white boys, the sharks in the water in that case being the inescapable panopticon, the Apparat That's Watching You!!!!™

As I try to make sense of all of this, my focus is somewhat closer to home. The issue of police abuse in Albuquerque has come to a head, and more and more signs point to a resolution of some sort, but just what form it will take remains to be seen.

There are all these stakeholders, after all, and many signs point to the fact that the APD as it is cannot be reformed. The only way to make the necessary changes are to abolish it and start over from scratch. That's what the signs say, and they say so because the system is too corrupt and corrupting, and any reform would be immediately co-opted or defied. The game being played is one of protecting the force -- and the system -- as is and convincing a skeptical public it's a good thing.

The activists in Albuquerque seem to me to be a very capable group intent on focusing public attention and forcing change in what many of them see as a fragile and nearly collapsed system of policing. Some are intent on systemic change, essentially overturning the whole apparatus and beginning anew, but the system itself is fighting back, and there is little overall support for such a move, even if it is necessary.

How to accomplish the kind of change that's necessary? It means having a vision of the future as it ought to be, and I'm not sure that vision has quite jelled among the activists and the general public.

More that I thought want the kind of justice that is founded in revenge rather than restoration or repair, and I'm not convinced that approach will lead to anything better than what's in place now. Lord knows, I understand the impulse for revenge, but given the overall situation, "closure" can't come that way.

There is apparently evidence, though I haven't seen it, that APD's problem of violence is tied directly to deep-seated, pervasive corruption that runs throughout the department and courses like a river through civic politics and administration. If this is true -- and for now I can't say -- it means that any reform effort that doesn't include criminal prosecutions on a major scale will be little more than cosmetic.

From appearances at any rate, the DoJ and the city administration are seeking means to protect the status quo. The activists are pushing for real change and fundamental reform.

While this is a localized movement, it has ramifications for reform efforts throughout the country, and it is -- it seems to me -- related to the upheavals elsewhere in the world and movements of radical, fundamental changes in the way governments operate.

Iran To Rescue Iraq From the Sunni Rebels?

Now there's something to contemplate, though it's hardly surprising. As much as the corrupt Shia regime in Baghdad is a client of the United States, it's long been known to be a spiritual and cultural client of Tehran.

So. There's a Sunni uprising -- again -- in Anbar and attacks are being launched in Baghdad itself, and Iran is apparently sending reinforcements to prop up the tottering Maliki regime. American airstrikes are being planned. Panic is nigh. What a clusterfuck. Again. (And don't take Amy's reportage as gospel.)

News is somewhat sketchy -- as all eyes are on Virginia and the Teahadist overthrow of Bohner's #2 -- but even NBC's intrepid Richard Engel, war reporter, recognized why this was happening. The Sunnis have been excluded from Iraqi leadership and politics since the stupid Bush-Cheney engineered invasion that overthrew The Devil Saddam. The Sunnis never accepted it. They have been fighting back ever since.

It's not rocket science, but the only thing the various powers that be can contemplate is total victory or total surrender. The idea of finding accommodation has never entered their minds. They're mad. As in "insane."

How much worse is this fresh hell going to get?

An Example of Propaganda in its Pure State, No Competition At All

 
"Al Qaeda" on the Loose, Fallujah, within memory. Video from UK Daily Mail (Online).

The recent Fall of Fallujah to "Al Qaeda" is one of the most interesting propaganda efforts I've seen in some time. This time, there is no counter-propaganda or competing propaganda involved. Well, unless you accept the several staged and posed "Al Qaeda on the loose" videos and images as counter-propaganda. I see them as part of the original propaganda message, not "counter" at all.

Apparently, this most recent Fall of Fallujah has shaken Washington to its core. That's what they say, anyway. And further, most of the discussion and debate around this issue has to do with all the "sacrifices" Americans made back in the day to "secure" Fallujah from "Al Qaeda" and how all of that was being "thrown away."

They even trotted Old Man McCain out and his MiniMe Little Lindsey to piss and moan about it, and how Obama has once again shown how ineffective he is in battle with The Enemy.

Wait.

Do any of us, including Old Man McCain, have any idea what actually happened? Who the players are? What any of it has to do with "Al Qaeda?"

Of course, there are stories buried on the back pages that tell of all the years of uprisings and torment of the people of Al Anbar province, of the repeated assaults on Fallujah and Ramadi, of the rounds and rounds and rounds of death and destruction wrought on the cities and towns and farmsteads of the region, in a futile effort to "pacify" the region (shades of Vietnam) and destroy rebel strongholds, yadda, yadda.

The stories are out there, but the propaganda assures us that the capture of Fallujah and Ramadi was a demonstration of the power of Our Enemies, ie: "Al Qaeda" -- sometimes with qualifiers, but usually not -- and how all the "work" we did -- American Troops, Glorious and Triumphant, did -- in Iraq has been frittered away by the No-Account Negro in the White House.

Sorry, but there can sometimes be a heavy racist tilt to the propaganda, which is often a clue to where it originates.

I saw a report that featured an image of the Masked Rebels in front of the Old Iraqi Flag, the one that Saddam flew. The report said the Rebels were flying the Flag of Al Qaeda (which I'd never seen, not that I could recall.) But they were standing in front of the flag of the Republic of Iraq (under Saddam), and what the rebels have to do with "Al Qaeda" (assuming there is such an entity) is nebulous at best. Non-existent, probably.

The propaganda machine is telling us ("us" being the peoples of the Anglo-American Imperial sphere of influence) that any successful rebellion is by definition an "Al Qaeda Terrorist" operation, as is the case with Fallujah in Iraq, where so very many Americans fought and died to secure the city when time was. "We" must be ever-vigilant against such rebels and "we" must seek revenge. Again. And again. And ever again.

Never mind -- or even acknowledge -- the Iraqi losses. They don't matter, and for propaganda purposes, they don't exist.

It is all about the Empire, failed pacification efforts, sacrifice of Our Valiant Ones (for Nothing) and seeking revenge.

If you've ever seen or read Starship Troopers, you know exactly what this is about...

A Wounded Vet's Letter to the Neo-Con Punks Who Engineered the Iraq

clusterfuck:

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

—Tomas Young

 Thanks to NeonLX at another site for pointing me to it.

---------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE:

Tomas Young appearing on Democracy Now! March 21, 2013:

 

Enroning Iraq and America

Ten years on, yes. Ten years since the Bushevik invasion and aborted occupation of Iraq. The question raised in the aftermath should be: "Was it right?" Instead the question raised throughout the media, including most of the New Media, is: "Was it worth it?"

Ie: did the interests that rule the United States of America and its allies in the Mesopotamian Adventure gain from the exercise of Imperial power, and if so, was it enough to outweigh the losses? Let us examine the Balance Sheets of Empire.

There is no doubt the interests gained enormously, they gained by the trillions of dollars, and their risk in the adventure was practically nil. I remember back in the day that there was a single voice on the Internet, one Bartcop who some may recall, who was saying about the looming war, "This will mean trillions for the corporate interests," and he was right. He was I think the only one at the time who had a real and comprehensive understanding of what this adventure would cost (trillions), who would be paying (you and me) and who would benefit (the corporate powers that ruled us.)

It was obvious as sin to Bartcop because of Enron.

Nothing that's happened in domestic or world affairs since 2000 makes any sense without understanding the influence of Enron on changing the course of American and ultimately world events. Once that change was made, Enron could be made to go away. Poof! As if it never was. But like an incubus, its influence remained -- and remains -- as strong as ever. You could almost say it is a spiritual thing.

Ken Lay, after all, was a preacher's son who was always after the salvation of souls -- by robbing them, plundering the commons, and forcing people to believe in some clap-trap about "rewards" in the end.

Oh, there was much more clap-trap than that. Enron was built on a tissue of lies, fabrications, and fantasies of "rewards" that would come -- in the end -- from faith in the goodness of the Company and its leadership. It was no different in its own peculiar way than an evangelical church run by an entrepreneurial pastor -- of which the United States has been abundantly supplied from the get.

The Prime Directive of Enron was robbery. Fleecing of the sheep, if you will. In a way that the sheep like it and come back for more.

It worked like a charm -- for just as long as it was necessary. And then Enron... vanished. But it never really went away. Its Way became ingrained in the day to day ethics ("") and operations of the Highest of Our Mighty. Enron became the model. Surely someone should be able to make it work in perpetuity.

And I would argue that we are very close to that point now, if we haven't actually passed it.

As some wags have been able to fathom recently, the whole -- and really the only -- point of the Iraq invasion and occupation was for the money, not so much what could be stolen from the Iraqis (they didn't have that much after all), but for what could be pried out of the US Treasury -- all our pockets, individually and in toto -- for the sole and complete benefit of certain favored corporate interests. It worked like magic.

Within a few years, trillions and trillions were looted from the pockets and stored wealth of Americans, not to pay for the Imperial War of Aggression in Mesopotamia, but simply to take the money, to have (see), because it could be taken. The sheep were ripe for fleecing after the trauma of 9/11, and they willingly went to the shearing. Some, of course, went to the slaughter. That was the point.

The Imperial War of Aggression, still hasn't been paid for, and in realistic terms it never will be.

Was it worth it? For those who collected the riches and the rent, of course it was.

They never dreamed they could have such easy money so fast, money for nothing in many cases, and yea verily, all the chicks and cocaine they could consume at the same time. It was magic.

I've long been fascinated that the Imperial War of Aggression in Mesopotamia and the mindset -- as well as all the looting -- that went with it is almost never considered as a fundamental part of why the rest of us -- but not the Imperial Elite -- are in a permanent economic recession from which there appears to be no exit.

This disastrous war doesn't figure into the equations, apparently not at all, any yet it was and is fundamental. The economic tribulations most Americans (and many, many people around the world) are facing are supposedly the result of systemic financial collapse due to poor regulation, leading to real estate bubbles, and so on. Uh, there's more to it than that. Everything that led to the global financial collapse is to be found presaged at Enron, and the lies, the frauds, the violence, and the looting that was fundamental to Enron was played out on the battlefield that was Iraq.

It all links together. It's derived ultimately from cultic religious beliefs that require certain events be played out -- apparently in certain locations -- for the fulfillment of Prophecy.

One of the things that was so striking about the Iraq invasion and occupation was that the soldiers and the American people had no idea where this drama was unfolding and who the people were "we" were at war with. None whatsoever. Mesopotamia is not just some dusty corner of creation, after all. The whole of Iraq is filled with Biblical sites, from the Garden of Eden, to Ur of the Chaldees and Sumer/Shinar to Babylon and Nineveh and all the rest. The troops didn't know this (at least they didn't learn it from their leaders) and Americans by and large still don't know it. Mesopotamia was where civilization as we know it began; the people of Iraq are at least in part the descendants of the Sumerians, the Babylonians, Assyrians and so many of the others who were the very peoples of the Bible.

Even more striking to me was that there was -- and is -- absolutely no interest in learning any of this remarkable history, at least no interest by Americans. American troops set up camp outside the walls of Babylon, for example, with apparently no idea where they were, nor any interest in finding out, and during their stay, they destroyed a significant part of the archeological record without a concern in their heads. How much of the overall archaeological record in Iraq has been looted or destroyed as a consequence of the invasion and occupation is still being assessed, but it is not slight at all. When the museums were looted in Baghdad and elsewhere following the invasion, Americans -- led by Rummy -- simply shrugged. "Oh well!"

It was bizarre to witness this complete obliviousness to the people, the culture, and the history of Iraq during the American blitzkrieg and occupation -- that seemed to me to be more an echo of the German invasion of Poland than anything else -- and the murderous contempt with which the invading troops regarded the natives. It was shocking to learn of the casual way our valiant troops murdered Iraqi civilians with complete impunity simply because they were in the way, or as often happened, because the troops were... afraid. Even some of the troops were shocked at casual murder they witnessed, the utter disregard for the lives and property of the people they had conquered. Some knew deep in their souls that what was going on was wrong. Fundamentally wrong.

But as horrifying and disgusting as the behavior of the troops often was, it was matched and frequently exceeded by the behavior of the mercenaries brought in for "security." Casual murder and worse were the order of the day. And when the natives rebelled, the Death Squads were deployed, just as in Central America, and before that in Vietnam.

If there hadn't been a civil war before, the invaders made sure there would be one. The invaders' mindless cruelty made the horrors all that much worse.

The arrogance, the cruelty, the mind-numbing ignorance, and the greed that characterized the Iraq War and occupation can all be found in analog running like a river through Enron and all its projects and works. There is no way to separate the Busheviks -- and especially G W Bush himself -- from the corruption that was Enron.

Ten years on, our rulers have learned no positive lesson at all from either Enron or Iraq. The only lessons they've learned are negative: specifically how to manage the looting of the masses and Imperial Wars of Aggression with more finesse....

Surely these lessons can be put to the test with a nice and tidy obliteration of Iran, yes?

Disturbing

James Steele, Operator

Well, not in the sense that one didn't know that these things -- and much worse -- were going on during our continuing warriorism in the wastelands of the former Turkish Empire, but in the sense that another name and face have now been put to a throughline of atrocity that characterizes so much of the American Imperial Ambition. From the get go.

Many Americans, of course, will claim not to have known about any of it, and not to believe it now, for the simple reason that America is Good and Doesn't Do These Things -- unless necessary. You understand.

Therefore, the Wogs (Must) Deserve It.

What I saw, though, in this BBC/Guardian co-production (apart from the use of so much unrelated and uninformative video) was something I doubt many Americans are even remotely conscious of:

Steele and his ilk are operatives throughout the American corporate-government realm. So far as I can tell, they don't actually run things themselves; they carry out the directives of and report back to their Betters -- who are actually in charge. It was very obvious who was who during the Bushevik Reign, but it's not so much so now.

The exception to this rule is in the American prison industry and their gulag offshoots -- where the ilk does run things, and in many cases, they are free to do whatever sadistic shit they want. And they'll lie about it, too.

While it doesn't touch on America's domestic imprisonment industry, focusing instead on the development of Iraqi interrogation centers and death squads modeled on previous counter-insurgency wet work done in the fields of Vietnam and Central America under the guidance of Steele and people like him, Americans should long ago have come to the realization that this sort of thing comes from domestic American experience with prisons and prisoners. It has never been confined to "over there" somewhere in wartime.

Brutal interrogation -- torture -- has long been routine in America's domestic law enforcement practices. False confessions. Summary execution. Round ups of the innocent. Intrusive and constant surveillance. Property seizures. For all I know, "disappearances" as well. This is going on domestically and has been going on for many years. There has long been a synergy between what goes on domestically and how these things are done overseas by client states. None of it is happening in isolation or in a vacuum.

It's all linked together.

What's revealed in the BBC/Guardian production is actually not that much, and strangely a name that is strangely never mentioned in it is John Negroponte, perhaps the pre-eminent American Lord of Darkness, of torture and death squads. Once he was assigned to Iraq, the wet work commenced in earnest. Everyone knew it, too. Many cheered.

But putting other names and faces to what was happening Over There is useful. The bloody business of the day wasn't some aberration, it was intentional. Considered necessary. Effective. For a time at any rate.

The scale and the style may be somewhat different domestically. There are far more domestic prisoners, after all, most of whom are simply warehoused and rarely used for interrogation purposes since few of them have any information the government needs or wants. There have been exceptions, however. Round ups and street justice ("") are typically confined to particular jurisdictions and wards therein, generally neither witnessed nor even recognized by most people. Out of sight, out of mind.

Unless of course the Authorities want their cruelties and brutalities and their occasional street executions to be seen and appreciated by the rest of the herd -- in which case very public displays are made. This happens all the time, but many people don't seem to understand the deliberate nature of these displays. They are intended to induce fear leading to submission and cooperation. They generally do it well.

The problem is that eventually people become so inured on the one hand and fed up on the other that they revolt. Revolts that can lead to revolution. Ultimately, for example, even the client officials in Iraq revolted against the American intrusion, just as the Afghan clients are doing. Empire done so bloodily and brutally cannot last. The British should have learned this back in the day, but apparently they still believe they can impose their rule by main force forever, particularly if it is done through their far more brutal and bloodthirsty American proxies.

It doesn't work.

Adam Curtis Explains It All For You -- Counterinsurgency, That Is

Counterinsurgency -- COIN as it's known -- is the next big thing. In fact, it is being practiced globally by American and mercenary forces and no doubt by others in a kind of cat-and-mouse game constantly churning in the background of more and more people's everyday lives.

Adam Curtis explores the modern and historical versions of COIN in the following film-and-essay for the BBC. It's illuminating and yet strangely antiseptic.

For one thing, Curtis fails to mention the counter insurgency programs including notorious death squads conducted in Central America by various outfits connected with the United States Government during the 1980's. They are generally believed to have been under the direction of John Negroponte (who of course denies everything). Those operations, I would say, were the direct model for the counter insurgency actions undertaken in Iraq under Stanley McCrystal and General St. David Petraeus (who now heads the CIA).

However, Curtis's earlier history of counter insurgency theory and operations as developed by the French and expanded by the United States in Vietnam is fascinating and horrifying. Being aware of the Algerian counter insurgency and Operation Phoenix in Vietnam is one thing, seeing it all laid out the way Curtis does it is something else again.

Another point that Curtis doesn't touch on is that counter insurgency tactics are being employing domestically in the United States and elsewhere in the suppression of political dissent, what's said to be drug crime, and to some extent even in political campaigns.

In other words, doctrines of counter insurgency -- which ironically grow out of Maoist revolutionary concepts -- have become so commonplace as to be taken for granted.

There are lessons to be learned...

HOW TO KILL A RATIONAL PEASANT

AMERICA'S DANGEROUS LOVE AFFAIR WITH COUNTERINSURGENCY

At the beginning of this year one of the weirdest characters ever to become involved in the present Afghan war died. He was called Jack Idema and he was a brilliant con-man. For a moment, during the early part of the war, Idema persuaded all the major TV networks and scores of journalists that he was some kind of special forces super-hero who was using all kinds of "black ops" to track down and arrest the terrorists.

In reality, before 2001, Idema had been running a hotel for pets in North Carolina called The Ultimate Pet Resort. He had been in prison for fraud, and had tried to con journalists before about being some kind of super-spy. But September 11th gave him his chance - and he turned up in Kabul dressed like this.

Continues at the link in the title. Well worth some time to explore.

And in conclusion, Curtis points out what many others suspect, that General St. David Petraeus has been groomed to be Our Next President But One. Though Curtis doesn't mention it, there are rumors circulating now that Petraeus will be Romney's #2, which would mean -- if previous patterns hold -- that if Romney gets to the White House, Petraeus would be in effective charge (much as Cheney was) and would be ruling through Romney.

The North Africa, Mid-East, Arabian Peninsula Business

Fallujah, Iraq -- 2004


Misrata, Libya -- 2011

Things have been bloody and awful for many throughout the Rebellious Lands of Libya, Syria, and the Yemen for months now. This isn't like 1989 at all. No Prague Spring here, I think.

No, this is down and dirty, autocratic regimes "killing their own people."

Yet the descriptions of the attacks by the dictators' armies on rebel enclaves read astonishingly like the American attacks on Fallujah (some may remember that one), or the episode at Najaf, both in Iraq.

In other words, what the dictators are doing apparently follows the Siege Protocols that were handed down by the Americans. You cut off electricity and water, set up sniper posts, kill randomly, bomb and rocket at will, use whatever "unconventional weapons" you like (white phosphorus being one of the most popular among Americans and Israelis) and you cause as much havoc and destruction among the population as you can. The objective being to punish and crush all resistance.

That's how it's done.

And when the Arab Dictators do it, it is a violation of Human Rights, Laws of War, etc, etc. And when the Americans and Israelis do it, it is a sign of Valor and Manhood.

As long as that's understood.

Fighting the Power in Baghdad

From FDL

This is great.



Watch to the end. They actually break through the blast wall put up by the Authorities to prevent them from reaching the Green Zone.

They still have a "Green Zone" in Baghdad? Why?