Dan Feidt's log on Minnesota, Information Operations, spinstorms and latent contradictions.
Juan Cole catches a bitter Muqtada al-Sadr: (UPI)
Young Shiite nationalist leader Muqtada al-Sadr said Monday that Iraq is in a state of civil war. He responded to guerrilla provocations against Sadr City, with bombings and mortars having killed over 50 persons there Sunday, by ordering his Mahdi Militia not to engage in reprisals.
Like many Iraqi and Arab observers, Muqtada was shocked when US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said last week that the US military would not intervene in an Iraqi civil war, leaving that to Iraqi forces.
' "May God damn you," Sadr said of Rumsfeld. "You said in the past that civil war would break out if you were to withdraw, and now you say that in case of civil war you won't interfere." '
The Machine Rages On: Raimondo: Another War for Israel: The amen corner howls for war with Iran, The Shame and the Sorrow. UK Independent: Iraq: The reckoning. (photo via KarbalaNews.net)
Welcome to the Long War: We are moving from the War on Terror®© to the Long War©, a hellish state of perpetual warfare forever, but it will be totally badass according to the Quadrennial Defense Review, a Pentagon planning document prepared every four years. It's called the Long War, and most of the stuff in this article is apocalyptically gloomy and depressing. And they are going to take your money to pay for it too.
On a note that I hope is totally unrelated, from the Antiwar blog, Why are Marines Training in US Neighborhoods? as reported in the Toledo Blade. Let me fetch my tinfoil.
Blunt Honesty Dept: The State Department informs us in "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" of Iraq's many human rights shortcomings: "The following human rights problems were reported:
Other than that, it's peachy. There's a ton of stuff in there, worth glancing at. I like how 'Impunity' has its own bullet.
REALLY, IT'S GOOD: CounterPunch: Neocon Advocates Civil War in Iraq as "Strategic" Policy; Daniel Pipes Finds Comfort in Muslims Killing Muslims:
"The bombing on February 22 of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, Iraq, was a tragedy, but it was not an American or a coalition tragedy. Iraq's plight is neither a coalition responsibility nor a particular danger to the West. Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition's responsibility, nor its burden. When Sunni terrorists target Shi'ites and vice versa, non-Muslims are less likely to be hurt. Civil war in Iraq, in short, would be a humanitarian tragedy, but not a strategic one." .... The fact is that the neocons who control U.S. strategy have no interest in preventing a civil war but only in inciting one. Sectarian tensions were virtually unknown in Iraq before the U.S. invasion. And in fact the Iraqi Shia fought loyally as Iraqis against Iranian Shia in the disastrous Iran-Iraq war. So to avoid an Iraqi civil war, the most important step is to get all the U.S. troops home and thus to terminate U.S. provocations. For it is now crystal clear that the neocon strategy is one of civil war to divide and destroy Iraq; and such a strategy amounts to a crime against humanity.
Which will really be a funny notion when the oil ports in eastern (the suppressed Shiite part of) Saudi Arabia get bombed. A real thigh-slapper.
JPost: India is not Iran. But they are Asians with Nukes, which counts for -10,000 points these days.
Fourth Generation Warfare: I have been saying that this is probably the best model to understand America's current strategic and especially tactical situation. It's gaining more notice now. They even care about the concept in Grand Forks. This long essay by Michael Mazarr, a professor at the U.S. National War College, details a crucial problem with the body of 4GW theory so far: it explains the modes of conflict, but not the underlying causes and motivations.
Libertarian critique of war and socialism: Iraq and the Democratic Empire by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
The US spends money, invades countries, sheds blood, and becomes ever more powerful at home and unpopular abroad. In the end, no matter how powerful its weapons or how determined its leaders, it loses. It loses because people resist empire. It loses for the same reasons that socialism and its central plans always fail. Large-scale attempts to force people into predetermined molds founder on the inability of the state to allocate resources rationally and to anticipate change, as well as the ubiquitous and pesky phenomenon called human volition. Mankind was not meant to live in cages.
Why did the US win wars in the past? Because it fought far poorer governments. Today it loses because it fights populations – people acting on their own, forming their own associations, using their brains to outwit bureaucrats, and cobbling together resources from underground markets. The market always outruns the planners for the same reason that guerilla armies usually win over regular armies. Decentralized and spontaneous associations of dedicated individuals are smarter and wiser and more committed than centralized and planned bureaucrats who follow their rule books.
.....Therefore, [Mises] said, war and socialism are both part of the same ideological apparatus. They both presume the primacy of power over property. In the same way, peace and free enterprise are cut from the same cloth. They are the result of a society with a regime that respects the privacy, property, associations, and wishes of the population. The liberal society trades with foreign countries rather than waging war on them. It respects the free movement of peoples. It does not intervene in the religious affairs of people but rather adopts a rule of perfect tolerance.
I'm sorry, this caught my eye and made me laugh:
Former Teacher Surrenders at French School: Armed Ex-Teacher Holds 23 Hostages, Mostly Students, at French School Before Surrendering:
Vilpail had taught at the Colbert de Torcy High School until two years ago, school officials said. He was armed with a gun that fires rubber bullets, police said, adding that the weapon was nevertheless dangerous. He surrendered after hours of negotiations, said Jean-Luc Prigent, a top aide in the local administration.
Even their crazies surrender!! All right, that's a little crass. But it speaks to a certain less-than-subtle difference in the American character. Our paranoid edge goes all the way to the bitter end -- see Falling Down, Fight Club, Glory, Bonnie & Clyde, Thelma & Louise. That key part of the American narrative where the suggestion of violent subversion is transformed into The Real. It is part of our national psychology. We are proud of it: any proper story tends to go this way. Otherwise it seems half-finished.
In this case, well, the French guy wanted to make a symbolic gesture without quite crossing over into the Real. It appears that he wanted to take a little swipe and then step back like a reasonable European. This is part of the reason that the various apocalyptic segments of the population voted for Bush in droves. It's who we are. No surrender.
Pissed off CIA dudes are cool: I still dig Larry Johnson's No Quarter blog, as well as Pat Lang's Sic Semper Tyrannis. Johnson is on point with tidbits about the Plame case, the 'victory' strategy, Libby's legal tactics, etc.
Misc file: Isaac Hayes quits 'South Park'. Hopefully Chef will have a funny death scene. Top 10 strangest Lego creations. Radiohead's 'Just' video brought to life via London graffiti (QT). This is really pretty sweet.
DC Democrats are Bastards & Chickenshits®™: Greenwald lays it out (via Kos - more here):
With very few exceptions, national Democrats in Washington see the blogosphere as composed of uninformed, ranting, dirty masses who need to be kept as far away as possible. While they are willing to take your money, many of the Beltway Democrats see the vibrant activism in the blogosphere as some sort of an embarrassment, while others see it as a threat to their feifdoms.
Here's a tip for DC: Your methods suck. Your fiefdoms are powerless. You guys have no guts (except Feingold). No one better deserves to put up with Howard Dean than you fuckwits that have absolutely no idea how to tread water, let alone win. Go cry with Joe Lieberman about how no one likes you anymore. Go straight to Hell, do not pass Go.
This was in the context of a NY Times review of "Crashing the Gate", a new book from Jerome Armstrong of MyDD.com and Markos Zuniga of DailyKos. It details how the Netroots can revolutionize the power structure in America and DC, and how it makes the Confused DLC Douche-bag Consultant Class (or whatever you care to call them) a little hot under the collar. Order it here
For his part, Kos has some really good wisdom today on how blogs can generate fundraising seed money for candidates, as well as more on the book & tour.
Oops, I guess [legal] abortion is doomed: "They Mean It" by digby, worth checking.
Posted by HongPong at March 14, 2006 12:12 PM