Wolfowitz: Up against the wall Paul

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Paul Wolfowitz, whose every failure has been handsomely rewarded, is certainly the most visible, successful and symbolic of the neocons.

Over a half a million Iraqis have died, millions have been displaced. These are people who had never done any harm to the USA.

Their pain, their fear and their blood cry out for justice.

Thousands of Americans have been killed, maimed or crippled by this war, mistakenly believing in good faith that their sacrifice was in defense of their country and its flag when, in fact, they have been led to besmirch and desecrate them.

Their pain, their fear and their blood cry out for justice.

People are sent to prison everyday for stealing a car or a purse...

Until Wolfowitz and the others he represents are brought to trial for war crimes it will be impossible to begin to address the damage that has been done to America's central belief in the goodness of its own nature. DS

Andrew Cockburn: The puppet who cleared the way for Iraq's destruction - Guardian
Abstract: Among those relishing the exposure of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz's manoeuvres on behalf of his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, in recent weeks was almost certainly the former US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld was driven from public life thanks to the catastrophe of Iraq, and for the moment at least lurks in obscurity. Wolfowitz, his deputy until 2005, contributed in almost equal measure to the debacle, yet managed to slide from the Pentagon into the presidency of a leading international institution with every chance to redeem himself. Blame for torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, bungling over troop levels, chaos in Iraq's reconstruction, and the general meltdown in Pentagon management has all too often been laid at Rumsfeld's door alone. However, Wolfowitz was an energetic enabler of these outrages and many other notorious initiatives.(...) Before we conclude that Wolfowitz was the original author of the policies that destroyed Iraq, we should note that his entire career, at least up through his Pentagon service, has been in the service and at the direction of others. His early work in Washington promoting the dubious merits of an anti-ballistic missile programme, for example, was sponsored by Paul Nitze, a powerful insider who devoted a lifetime of intrigue to boosting east-west tensions and US defence spending. Nitze served as godfather to the neoconservative movement in the 70s, correctly calculating that a fusion of the pro-Israel lobby with the military-industrial lobby would create an alliance of unstoppable power. Among the early and most potent recruits was an old friend of Wolfowitz's, Richard Perle, known and feared in Washington as "the Prince of Darkness" for his ruthless bureaucratic skills and commanding position in the neoconservative forces. The relationship flourished into Wolfowitz's sojourn in the Pentagon. Officials who worked closely with him remarked to me on the amount of time Perle, then a close associate of Conrad Black, spent closeted with the deputy secretary. They remained in constant touch, as Wolfowitz's phone logs attest. Other regular recipients of Wolfowitz calls included Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then chief of staff to Vice-President Cheney and now a convicted felon, and Robin Cleveland. Cleveland was in charge of national security programmes at the White House office of management and budget. From that powerful position, according to a former close colleague of Wolfowitz's, she "was one of the most important people in the group that gave us the Iraq war". Late last year Perle and other leading neoconservatives lashed out publicly at Rumsfeld, deriding his mismanagement of the Iraqi enterprise they had worked so hard to set in train. "Interesting they are not going after the puppet," the former colleague emailed me in reference to Wolfowitz's absence from his old friends' denunciations. Given recent sordid revelations, his role in shredding the reputation of the World Bank and the morale of its employees may be harder to obscure. READ IT ALL

Bush, the anti-Midas

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Midas, mythical king of Phrygia was known for turning everything he touched into gold. George W. Bush seems to have the opposite faculty of turning everything he touches into "excrément" (that's French for shit). Bush and his Straussian friends, with their curious celebration of "manliness" have taken America's image of its own masculinity (think: Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart) and trashed it beyond recognition. For his latest trick Bush has managed to convert a genocidal dictator, Saddam Hussein, into the hero of a Hemingway short story; a lion surrounded by jackals. "Grace under pressure" was the Hemingway obsession. In the presence of death, pretense evaporates and what remains is truth. The truth is that Saddam died very well. Bush, poor fool, gave him that opportunity and Saddam had the chops to make the most of it. Are we permitted to doubt that Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney... and yes, even the boy emperor himself, would ever go to the gallows with such stoic dignity, would ever die so bravely and so well as Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti? DS
Hijacking Eid and Hanging Saddam - IraqSlogger
Abstract: Saddam's hanging at the hands of chubby Iraqi men wearing ski masks is likely to be perceived by many as an American execution and as part of a trend of American missteps contributing to sectarian tensions in Iraq and the region. The trial of Saddam was viewed by detractors as an event stage-managed by the Americans. According to Human Rights Watch, the Iraqi judges and lawyers involved in prosecuting Saddam were ill prepared and relied on their American advisers. American minders shut off the microphones and ordered the translators to halt whenever they disapproved of what was being said by the defendants. The important Muslim holiday of Eid al Adha was due to begin over the weekend. For Sunnis it began on Saturday the 30th of December. For Shias it begins on Sunday the 31st. According to tradition in Mecca, battles are suspended during the Hajj period so that pilgrims can safely march to Mecca. This practice even predated Islam and Muslims preserved this tradition, calling this period 'Al Ashur al Hurm,' or the months of truce. By hanging Saddam on the Sunni Eid the Americans and the Iraqi government were in effect saying that only the Shia Eid had legitimacy. Sunnis were irate that Shia traditions were given primacy (as they are more and more in Iraq these days) and that Shias disrespected the tradition and killed Saddam on this day. Because the Iraqi constitution itself prohibits executions from being carried out on Eid, the Iraqi government had to officially declare that Eid did not begin until Sunday the 31st. It was a striking decision, virtually declaring that Iraq is now a Shia state. Eid al Adha is the festival of the sacrifice of the sheep. Some may perceive it as the day Saddam was sacrificed.(...) One thing that is clear, is that the death of Saddam did not bring closure or peace to Iraq. Sunnis are now gathering at Saddam's grave, demonstrators are now showing his iconic image and revenge has been threatened. President George Bush declared his nemesis' death "a milestone" and it may just be the clearest message that is there will be no mercy for Sunnis in a Shia and Kurdish dominated Iraq. READ IT ALL (hat to Juan Cole)

Saddam Hussein: hanged by the neck until dead

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Juan Cole has a masterful piece about the hanging of Saddam Hussein in today's Salon, which contextualizes the execution from a very detailed and coherent Iraqi perspective. What is the American context? It seems to me, that as Juan points out, everything about the way Saddam was tried and executed is counterproductive to bringing peace and stability to Iraq. Therefore the rush to hang him appears to have had more to do with silencing Saddam than bringing him to "justice". Saddam and the USA go a long way back and during the Reagan administration, the relationship became especially intense. Certainly it is about time to examine the United State's policies in the Middle East ... (a fat understatement!) and a lengthy, detailed, "Milosevic in the Hague", type trial of Saddam Hussein, could have really peeled back the carpet under which many a creepy, crawly has been hiding all these years. So although he was hanged, in truth Saddam was metaphorically "gunned down from a moving car". A key witness has been silenced. DS

Impeachment... trying Bush, hanging Saddam

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A reader of this blog has asked me what I think about impeaching Bush. Frankly, I think it would be time consuming and a self-indulgent, feel-good, media circus. There are only two years left to his "reign". What I think would be useful, good for America's image, "healing", if you like that terminology, would be to remit Bush to the Hague to be tried for war crimes when his term is up. Political agitation for his trial by the international court, even if it wasn't successful, would be productive for progressive politics everywhere. The important thing is to clarify how and why this present situation came to be. Impeachment is a political circus whereby by politicians showboat, whereas something like the Milosevic treatment for Bush would really pull back the carpet. Trials can clarify or obscure. For example, there is a great hurry now to hang Saddam Hussein in order to keep him from talking about America's involvement with his regime in the 80s and its complicity with his use of poisonous gas. Obviously in Saddam's case the object of his trial is to silence him. DS

End of an era:Time to Offshore Our Troops - New York Times

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This article from the New York Times will give many a future historian of our period a useful footnote. It marks the end of an era that began when US president Theodore Roosevelt sent the "Great White Fleet" of 16 battleships and their escorts around the world in 1907, to demonstrate America's growing military power. It was never a good idea to land base American soldiers in the Middle East. Their presence near Mecca and Medina after the First Gulf War was a provocation to Muslim radicals that led directly to 9-11. It is very good idea to withdraw them. Keeping them there may lead to unthinkable catastrophes. There is a catch, however: at any time now or in the future, their withdrawal will be seen (correctly) as a military defeat for the US. Just as Roosevelt's "Great White Fleet" announced the arrival on the world scene of a new great power, the inevitable withdrawal of American soldiers under fire signals the end of America's "lone superpower" status. DS
Hillary Watch: The article states that, "Donald Rumsfeld and Hillary Clinton — go further and consider strengthening our forces around the gulf by shifting some troops from Iraq to neighboring countries." Is this the "Murdoch touch"?

Abstract: The Iraq Study Group’s recommendation that the United States withdraw its combat forces from Iraq reflects a growing national consensus that our military cannot quell the violence there and may even be making matters worse. Although many are hailing this recommendation as a bold new course, it is not bold enough. America will best serve its interests in the Persian Gulf by withdrawing its ground-based military forces not only from Iraq, but from the entire region.(...) The bipartisan authors of the report, for example, advocate maintaining “a considerable military presence in the region” including “powerful air, ground and naval deployments in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar” even after the last American combat troops leave Iraq. Others — including Donald Rumsfeld and Hillary Clinton — go further and consider strengthening our forces around the gulf by shifting some troops from Iraq to neighboring countries. Maintaining a large military presence in the region has been the cornerstone of American policy since the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and remains so today. With the Iraq war, we now have tens of thousands of troops elsewhere in the neighborhood. But this strategy is flawed. In fact, many of the same considerations that led the Iraq Study Group to call for withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq suggest that the United States should withdraw its troops from neighboring states as well — leaving only naval forces offshore in international waters. As in Iraq, a large United States military footprint on the ground undermines American interests more than it protects them. Just as our troops on Iraqi streets have provided a rallying point for the insurgency, the United States military presence throughout the region has been a key element in Al Qaeda’s recruitment campaign and propaganda. If America withdrew from Iraq but left behind substantial forces in neighboring states, Al Qaeda would refocus its attacks on American troops in those countries — remember the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia? Worse, the continued presence of our military personnel across the region will continue to incite extremists to attack American cities. Osama bin Ladin repeatedly stated that the presence of American forces on the holy ground of the Arabian Peninsula was a primary reason for 9/11. Our presence also destabilizes our important regional allies. Not only do American bases make these countries a target for terrorists, but many of their citizens bristle at the sight of United States bases on their soil. Indeed, the most serious near-term threat to our energy interests is the overthrow of friendly governments by domestic Islamic extremists, a danger that is increased by the presence of our troops.(...) Terrorists could damage key oil fields and ports, or friendly governments in the gulf could be toppled by anti-American extremists. These concerns, however, do not justify peacetime forward deployment. United States allies play the primary role defending their own oil fields and safeguarding their internal security, and their forces are better suited for the job. If anything, the presence of “infidel” soldiers nearby increases the likelihood of terrorist attacks and political upheaval. READ IT ALL

Mark Danner on the Third Act in Iraq - Tom Dispatch

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What has happened in Iraq cannot be explained as simple ignorance or ideology, incompetence or even plain stupidity. This is criminal. I have thought for some time that Iraq must have been destroyed deliberately. Certainly it could not have been done more thoroughly if it had. Why and to whose benefit are the questions we must ask and answer in order to find the guilty and demand accountability. For we are talking about the most serious war crimes since 1945. A country destroyed? Hundreds of thousands of people killed and mutilated, tortured and humiliated? A region on whose resources the health of the entire world economy depends. The prosperity and future of millions and millions of human beings has been and will continue to be put in jeopardy. Why, for what, for whom? There has to an international investigation and those responsible have to be put on trial... Just like at Nuremberg!!! DS

If for some reason you have never heard of Tom Engelhardt's"TomDispatch" it time you did!!

Excerpts: (...) One can make arguments for a "deep de-Baathification" of Iraq. One can make arguments also for dismantling the Iraqi army. It is hard, though, to make an argument that such steps did not stand in dramatic and irresolvable contradiction to the Pentagon's plan to withdraw all but 30,000 American troops from Iraq within a few months. With no Iraqi army, with all Baath Party members thrown out of the ministries and the agencies of government, with all of Saddam's formidable security forces summarily sacked -- and with all of these forces transformed into sworn enemies of the American occupation -- who precisely was going to keep order in Iraq? And who was going to build that "new and fresh army" that Bremer was talking about?(...) Nearly four years into the Iraq war, as we enter the Time of Proposed Solutions, the consequences of those early decisions define the bloody landscape. By dismissing and humiliating the soldiers and officers of the Iraqi army our leaders, in effect, did much to recruit the insurgency. By bringing far too few troops to secure Saddam's enormous arms depots they armed it. By bringing too few to keep order they presided over the looting and overwhelming violence and social disintegration that provided the insurgency such fertile soil. By blithely purging tens of thousands of the country's Baathist elite, whatever their deeds, and by establishing a muscle-bound and inept American occupation without an "Iraqi face," they created an increasing resentment among Iraqis that fostered the insurgency and encouraged people to shelter it. And by providing too few troops to secure Iraq's borders they helped supply its forces with an unending number of Sunni Islamic extremists from neighboring states. It was the foreign Islamists' strategy above all to promote their jihadist cause by provoking a sectarian civil war in Iraq; by failing to prevent their attacks and to protect the Shia who became their targets, the U.S. leaders have allowed them to succeed. LINK TO TOMDISPATCH

Rummy, we hardly knew ye - Max Boot - Los Angeles Times

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Gee, the neocons are subtle folks, aren't they? Uber-neocon, Max Boot's article in the LA Times is like a transcript from a Stalinist show trial. I'll just give you a few phrases, but to indulge in the full cophragia flavor, follow the link*. (warning: set your chutzpah meter on 'high') DS
*Or try this more nuanced view from The NewYorker

Abstract: For a start, he is primarily associated with a cause — the democratization of Iraq — that he never gave much sign of believing in.(...) From the day that U.S. troops arrived in Baghdad, Rumsfeld was plotting to pull them out. It was this very resistance to a prolonged and massive troop commitment that probably doomed the mission from the start.(...) Another irony: Rumsfeld was a micromanager who took a hands-off attitude on the most important issues.(...) Yet he never accepted responsibility for the biggest decisions made in Iraq. Disbanding the Iraqi army? Talk to Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III. Not sending more troops? See Gens. Tommy Franks and John Abizaid. Rumsfeld won total responsibility for all facets of Operation Iraqi Freedom, but he never accepted the blame, except in the most perfunctory way, when everything went awry. On the other hand, he was happy to accept accolades for the toppling of the Taliban even though the basic strategy — using commandos backed by air power — came from the CIA, not Central Command. A third irony: For a man with abundant experience running large organizations, he proved to be a surprisingly poor manager — one who needlessly alienated generals and congressmen alike with his in-your-face manner. Given his track record, Rumsfeld's departure came at least two years too late. (I first called for his ouster on this page in May 2004.)

War Crimes Suit Filed against Rumsfeld - Der Spiegel

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Isn't this dreadful? I'm shocked. Has anybody told Baltazar Garzón about this? DS
Abstract: A coalition of human rights groups has filed a criminal lawsuit against former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld in Germany, accusing him of war crimes. A first attempt to prosecute him in 2004 failed, but the activists feel they have a better chance this time -- and they have a powerful witness on their side.(...) The coalition, led by the New York-based civil rights group Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), filed a criminal complaint against Rumsfeld on Tuesday at the Federal Prosecutor's Office in Karlsruhe, Germany. The complaint calls on the prosecutor to investigate whether high-ranking US officials authorized war crimes in the context of the war on terror. The complaint is being brought on behalf of 12 alleged torture victims, 11 of whom are Iraqi citizens who were held at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. The twelfth man is Guantanamo detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi citizen identified by the US as a would-be participant in the 9/11 attacks and held at Guantanamo since January 2006. After al-Qahtani did not respond to normal questioning, he was allegedly subjected to a regime of aggressive interrogation techniques, approved by Rumsfeld and known as the "First Special Interrogation Plan," which included severe sleep deprivation, forced nudity, and sexual and religious humiliation. Military investigators concluded in July 2005 that al-Qahtani had been subjected to abusive and degrading treatment, although the Pentagon denied he had been tortured.(...) The human rights groups have not just set their sights on Rumsfeld, though. The suit names 11 other high-ranking US officials, including current US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet, and Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander of all US forces in Iraq. They are all accused of either ordering, aiding, or failing to prevent war crimes. "There crimes are not the work of a few bad apples," said CCR president Michael Ratner. "They were planned and executed at the highest levels of the US government."(...) CCR and its partner organizations filed a similar complaint in 2004, but it was dropped. They claim the US pressured Germany to drop the case, which was dismissed in February 2005 on the eve of a visit by Rumsfeld to Germany.(...) The activists believe that Nehm's successor, Monika Harms, who took office earlier this year, may be more amenable to their cause.(...) And the human rights groups have an ace up their sleeve: Janis Karpinski, the former commander of Abu Ghraib, will appear as a witness on their behalf. "Janis Karpinski is the witness," commented Kaleck. "The plaintiffs can and should testify (about) what happened to them, but on the other hand they cannot testify who ordered and enforced the interrogation methods, and who conducted them. You must have someone from the apparatus, and this is Janis Karpinski."(...) And even if Rumsfeld gets off again in Germany, Kaleck told the Tagesspiegel he is confident the former secretary of defense will get his comeuppance elsewhere: "If not today in Germany, then Rumsfeld will get problems tomorrow in Spain, or the next day in Sweden." READ ALL

An American Turning-point? - William Pfaff

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William Pfaff was born in 1928 and he has been around the track a few times and he has had a few laughs and if anybody, anywhere knows what he/she is talking about it is certainly Mister Pfaff. I recommend reading him every time you get a chance. Here is such a chance. DS

Abstract: The blindingly obvious but unacknowledged idea that stares Washington in the face is that the only, and eventually inevitable, way to end the Iraq war is to free the Iraqis to settle their own fate. Some Americans actually object that if this were done there might be sectarian war and chaos. There might also be an end to sectarian war and chaos, generated by foreign occupation. Instead, the hopeless effort goes on to construct something that fits American models and ideas but has little or nothing to do with Iraqi and Arab society, conventions, ambitions and history. The developments during the 1980s and 1990s that made the United States the sole superpower planted the seeds of megalomania. The 9/11 attacks, as exploited by the administration, installed a morbid fear in America. The result has been an effort to exercise control over everything important in international affairs, supported by a belief that the U.S. is competent to do so. This led Washington not only to invade and unseat the Afghan and Iraqi governments, but to set out to remake their civil and economic systems, replacing the elites, destroying Iraq’s army and apparatus of civil power, trying to install a new political and economic culture: in some sense to create completely new nations, under effective American leadership, and under American supervision. I have never understood why in a country with a strong military tradition, an army that recently fought a decade-long war with Iran (in certain respects comparable to, and longer than, the first world war), which in 2003 numbered 375 thousand men plus auxiliary border and security forces numbering another 100 thousand, the United States should have dissolved that army and tried to develop an entirely new one, under American trainers, with American methods and doctrine, etc. -- an effort still failing. Why not keep the old army, under new generals? The old generals may have been loyal to Saddam Hussein, but generals do not own armies. As anyone who has served in an army knows, armies are owned, trained, and run by non-commissioned officers, with a little help from company and regimental officers.(...) Since 2003 the United States has been stuck at phase one of its program to make a new Iraq. It has all too successfully created a political empty space –- a void, a chaos -- into which the supposedly democratic American substitute for the old Iraq would be inserted. Washington cannot and will not, on present policy, get beyond the phase of destruction. (...) George W. Bush runs the executive branch of the American government, and will do so for another two years, no doubt continuing to assert the novel constitutional claim that he possesses virtually unlimited “wartime” powers, exempt from congressional oversight or judicial restraint once he has, himself, declared a war. Hence what is going to change?(...) Deplorable as Rumsfeld has been, he is only the agent and symbol of a national program that had thousands of supporters in and out of American government and Congress, the American foreign policy community, and the mainstream press. READ ALL