Truth and Responsibility

"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

These are the handwritten words of Dwight Eisenhower, to be read to the world in case the D-Day invasion failed. As the Iraq war drags interminably on, it becomes clearer and clearer that victory, always a vaguely sketched concept with the Bush administration, is not to be. Our army is stretched thin, leaving us vulnerable; the costs are mounting, well beyond what we were first told; sectarian civil war has long since thrown the country into chaos; none of the goals of the latest surge have been met. No democracy. No stability. No WMDs. Al Qaeda in Iraq, where before the invasion they were not a presence, despite some high profile claims to the contrary. This brief sketch can't do justice to the damage done. With our military withering, we simply can't stay there forever. Our continued presence hurts both Iraq and the US, and sets us up for potential intractable conflicts of a different kind down the road. And the prospects for withdrawal look no less grim. Civil war will almost certainly intensify. Iran could become a hegemonic power in the region. Al Qaeda will claim victory. Instability will reign, for a potentially long time. It's not that I think withdrawal will bring rainbows and unicorns to Iraq. It's just that I think that we have no choice (and I am especially disinterested in any claims of "victory" Al Qaeda might make). A full withdrawal is going to have to happen, sooner rather than later. The longer we stay, the worse our position becomes.

In this entire fiasco, I think it is important to remember that the Bush administration and the Republican party have had no serious opposition to any of their Iraq policies at any point. Even after the 2006 elections, the victorious Democrats capitulated on war funding. Before that, Congress was a rubber stamp for whatever the Bush administration wanted to do. The Republicans beat the drums for this war, with the help of the press; they planned it, every step of the way; they executed it in every regard; there was, at no time, a constituency that diverted their plans in any way whatsoever. Every result of this war, and the GWOT generally, is their responsibility alone. Every decision, every one up to this point, has been theirs. This is their war. So, as it becomes clear that their war is the most egregious fiasco since Vietnam, who do conservatives blame?

The Defeatocrats! Of course.

Which brings me back to Eisenhower's letter. Eisenhower was well aware of the risks involved in the D-Day invasion. He considered it his decision to invade, and thus considered it his responsibility if it failed. I'll quote the last two lines again:

"...The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."

The consequences of failure would have altered world history for the worse (worst), yet he considered it his duty to shoulder the blame in that event, because he made the decision to do it. Try, try to imagine anyone in the Bush administration, at any level, taking on that kind of responsibility for their decision to launch this imperial war we have now. I can't do it.

I'm not a pacifist. I know America will have to fight wars in the future. We'll face threats, and we'll have to deal with them. I get that. But in the future, if some fool wants to puff up his chest and rattle sabers about how we have to go to war in some far off place (that he will probably never see), he had better be brutally honest about the consequences of potential defeat. And he had better be ready to shoulder the blame, unconditionally and completely, if we are defeated. If he (or she) is not willing to meet that standard, or talks of cakewalks and shows of power, then I simply will not support that war at all, immediately, because I will know that beneath all of the puffery and tough talk lies the heart of a coward.

140,000 Troops

I hestitated yesterday to jump on with a post about this:

140,000 Turkish Troops on Iraq Border

(BAGHDAD) — Turkey has massed 140,000 soldiers on its border with northern Iraq, Iraq's foreign minister said Monday, calling the neighboring country's fears of Kurdish rebels based there "legitimate" but better resolved through negotiation.

Largely because when read the first reports it seemed implausible. And the sources seem dubious:

In Washington, a Pentagon official disputed the claim by Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd from northern Iraq, and said satellite photos indicated no such troop buildup.

It was unclear where Zebari got the figures. If accurate, Turkey would have nearly as many soldiers along its border with Iraq as the 155,000 troops which the U.S. has in the country...

...But in Washington, a Pentagon official disputed Zebari's assertion that troops were massing, saying no such movement has been picked up by U.S. satellites gathering intelligence there. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak on the record about the subject.

140,000 troops would nearly match our own. I would think that would be worrisome, to say the least, if it were true, even to the Bush administration. I suppose it could be true-after all, I am not there to see any of this, so I only know what I can read-but that would cause a pretty major reaction in Washington, as Turkish troops might come into conflict with our own. Seeing no such reaction, I just don't believe the claims.

Fantasy Debate

This comes as no particular surprise:

Official: Report will say none of Iraq’s goals met

WASHINGTON - A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reform, speeding up the Bush administration's reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday.

This was, of course, utterly predictable, as is the next paragraph:

One likely result of the report will be a vastly accelerated debate among President Bush's top aides on withdrawing troops and scaling back the U.S. presence in Iraq.

Oh yes. Of course, there will be blistering debate about what to do next. The decision to draw down is just around the corner. Just like all of the other times before.

So the myth that "debate" over what to do in Iraq continues, even at this late hour. When a change in direction actually occurs, I'll believe it. Until then, I assume things stay the same because 1) the Bush administration is so tied to this war politically and "historically" they will never change course unless forced at gunpoint and 2) they know if they can simply limp to the end of this term, they can blame the failure on "Defeatocrats" and the press. Much easier to point fingers after they are gone than to admit that the single most important political decision of our time was a failure based on lies. So, despite the press' latest attempt to portray the Bush administration as though they are regular human beings, I loudly predict that this will change nothing, and that the war will drag on unless Congress can force the issue.

UPDATE: Of course, the context of "debate" in that paragraph could be between Bush and Democrats in Congress. If that is what the paragraph meant, then great. Although I am not sure that will lead to anything more concrete than the last Congressional challenge to Bush's war. In terms of internal debate within the Bush White House, that would all be for show, of course.

Fun with Ottomans Volume III

It seems the Turkish military pressure to invade Iraq and take out the PKK Kurds is mounting:

Turkey flirts with the Iraq quagmire
By Hilmi Toros

ISTANBUL - Turkey is beefing up military preparedness against Iraq-based Kurdish rebels as a prelude to a possible cross-border incursion that is opposed by the United States, the European Union and the Iraqi government.

Three Turkish provinces bordering Iraq have already been declared "special security" zones, limiting civilian access in the wake of an increase in bomb blasts in urban areas, including the capital Ankara and Istanbul, and attacks on the military. Although no one has claimed responsibility, official and public condemnation goes
to Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) insurgents slipping in from Iraq.
In addition, troops and military hardware are being amassed in Turkey's rugged and impoverished southeast, in the country's Kurdish-populated areas.

The daily newspaper Milliyet reported on Saturday that Turkish troops were already shelling PKK rebels in frontier areas within Iraq.

So far, despite public outcry for a decisive move against an estimated 3,000 secessionist PKK rebels holed up in Iraq, there has been no major incursion. But it has not been ruled out. And if it happens, it may have serious consequences for Turkey, Iraq and beyond.

Such an incursion is described as a "nightmare" scenario for the U.S. in Iraq:

The risk, analysts said, is that Turkey might become drawn into a wider conflict with Iraqi Kurds even if it initially sought to conduct a small-scale operation, and that other countries, including Iran, might also feel emboldened.

"It could open a Pandora's box for the quagmire -- the fiasco -- in Iraq to turn into a regional quagmire, with regional countries starting to fight wars on Iraqi territory," said Brookings Institution analyst Omer Taspinar.

Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the CSIS think tank in Washington, said, "A complete mess in the North of Iraq creates problems for everything we are trying to do in Iraq. It creates problems for our deep defense relationship with Turkey and it creates an even more chaotic situation in a part of the world where we are desperate for less chaos."

Not only would it put America at odds either with Turkey or Iraqi Kurds or both, it might spread into a couple of other potential sensitive areas:

While the current focus is on the PKK (listed by Turkey, the US and the EU as a terrorist organization), there exists a larger "Kurdish problem". Turkey, Syria and Iran also have sizable Kurdish minorities and have experienced occasional flare-ups of ethnic tensions.

The Laciner report also says that if any Turkish military action goes beyond flushing out PKK rebels to involve fighting with Iraqi Kurds, it may lead to pan-Kurdish solidarity that could spell trouble for Turkey, Syria and Iran, as well as Iraq. The main Turkish concern is that a strong Kurdish entity in northern Iraq, including an independent one in case of an Iraqi meltdown, could embolden its own Kurds to seek similar status.

So the whole situation could open up, in essence, another front in the Iraq war, one potentially more wide ranging and no less intractable.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is, for his part, in no hurry to send in the army. He faces opposition from NATO and America, and Turkey stands to lose economically in the event of an invasion. But the military in Turkey has a very strong hand, seeing itself as the guardian of the secular republic against Islamist or separatist threats. Their military has a long history, dating back to the Ottoman Empire days, of making its own political decisions and walking over (or killing) any political opposition. With an increase in Kurdish terrorist acts and a weak, vacillating, moderate Islamist government at the helm, they are already bolstering their position. Meanwhile, public support for them increases at the expense of the government:

ANKARA: Funerals for three soldiers killed in a roadside bombing set up by Kurdish rebels turned into anti-government protests Monday as thousands of mourners called on Turkey's leaders to resign over their failure to rein in the violence.

Many Turks are becoming increasingly angry over the mounting military death toll from attacks by Kurdish rebels, some of whom are believed to be entering the country from northern Iraq.

The three soldiers were killed Saturday in Sirnak, a southeastern province, and were buried in separate funerals in Istanbul, Ankara and Manisa. Thousands attended the ceremonies, carrying Turkish flags, shouting anti-government slogans and booing ministers and other government officials who were present. Military officials were greeted with applause.

In Ankara, about 10,000 people gathered at the city's largest mosque, shouting "Government resign!" as Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and other officials arrived.

In Manisa, protesters booed the speaker of Parliament, Bulent Arinc, and denounced the United States and Kurdish separatists

Obviously, the situation is in and of itself bad. The surge has hardly clamped down on violence in Iraq as it is, and this is with the Kurdish areas relatively calm and violence free. The Turkish military's defiant position in the face of international and UN opposition to an incursion sounds, to my ears, strikingly familiar. The difference between the Turks and the U.S. in this equation is that while we could merely claim (wrongly) that we had evidence of WMD and that Iraq under Saddam was an imminent threat, the Turks can actually claim a real and current threat, right over their border. Bushco. can huff and puff about the wider consequences of a military incursion all they want, but that won't hold a lot of water with average Turks. The specter of terrorist attacks is no less frightening for Turkish citizens than it is for American citizens, and it is far more immediate. With every attack, it is going to be harder and harder for the already flaccid Turkish government to hold back.

In a wider sense, this is the very predictable consequence of attempting to build an empire. As anyone who has had the misfortune of reading through the PNAC website could tell you, the neoncons wanted to take over Iraq and establish a permanent American "footprint" long before 9/11. This is long established fact. When I put on my little tinfoil hat, I see a direct pipeline from PNAC to the "sea of oil" in Iraq. But even if you take their prattlings at face value and believe their quasi-Wilsonian nonsense about spreading democracy (without all of that wussy League-of-Nations stuff, however) it amounts to the same thing-they are going to impose their will on other sovereign nations for what they see as America's (or really, their) interests.

The problem is that other nations in the region, or anywhere, are going to have interests of their own-interests that probably will not coincide with Americas. In fact, they may be at cross purposes. Furthermore, the citizens of an invaded country will almost ALWAYS be at cross purposes with their occupiers, which makes surrounding countries even jumpier, since there will almost surely be some runoff into their borders. The presence of an outside, interloping military force planting itself permanently in the region is almost guaranteed to invoke hostility all of its own accord.

In the face of hostile natives and hostile nations surrounding our forces, we, or any occupying force, would of course have to make deals with anyone who will do so. But this means that as soon as we do, someone else might see this as being against THEIR interests. In this way, we become entangled with competing allies or allies who are aligned with our enemies. And ultimately, it could be no other way-despite all of the right-wing chest beating and shouting, we simply cannot control people through the force of our will or our military. The days of that kind of physical dominance are over, unless we would like to drop fistfulls of atomic weaponry (I know some on the right would gladly do so), which brings up its own set of problems.

This is ultimately an untenable situation, making our security far worse than even I, a terrible pessimist, could ever have foreseen. And yet, in many ways it was pretty damn predictable-in fact, many people did predict it, and were called traitors for the effort. Many of the self-proclaimed Real Americans who brought us to this point are still in charge. I hope they can find a way to pull us back from a further escalating disaster, but I doubt they even really wish to try. It's not an edifying thought that in this case, for a sane resolution, I have to depend on Islamist Tayyip Erdogan and the PKK to find a way to a ceasefire, but there it is.

More Fun with Ottomans

There was a PKK attack on Monday that left 7 dead. The Turkish army responded by sending some of their army into northern Iraq in pursuit of PKK terrorists and set up a "security zone" in preparation for a potential major incursion. On Thursday, we get this:

Turkish soldiers killed near Iraq

Three Turkish soldiers were killed in a road side bomb near Iraq's border where Turkey's military started a campaign against Kurdish separatists.

The attack on Thursday evening occurred in one of several temporary security zones that the military had just declared along the Iraq border.

Six other soldiers were injured during the bombing, AP reported.

And this certainly looks promising:

The declaration was followed by reports of hundreds of Turkish soldiers crossing the border in to Iraq to pursue the guerrillas, though Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul denied all such reports.

Turkey, as a strong ally of US in the region, has for some time threatened it would strike Kurdish bases in northern Iraq but US officials have argued against it, fearing that it might drag its Iraqi Kurdish allies into the conflict.

There are two things that come to mind as this begins to grow as a crisis. The first is the surge (escalation). Most coverage of the surge deals with Iraq as if it exists in a vacuum. We'll surge, clear and hold in the country and then the Iraqi parliament can take over. Obviously, this is not so. All of the countries that border Iraq-and all of the countries in the region generally-have some kind of stake, from their perspective, in the outcome of the war. For any kind of stability to foment in Iraq, these other countries would have to cooperate. Iran has already shown how troublesome that can be. But a fight between two sets of American allies in the region could usher in a whole new kind of disaster. The idea that we can stabilize Iraq, and thus stabilize the whole region, is a fiction. It depends too much on factors outside it's borders. The Kurd-Turk situation will at some point have to be worked out for a stable Iraq, or else the surge, or any other operation, will end in failure.

The other thing that comes to mind regards the warbloggers. I have already addressed their desire to portray Muslims as one monolithic group with the desire only to destroy the West. This situation brings reality to a head: we are aligned with two different Muslim groups whose support and cooperation are integral to the war. One is the only group of people truly supportive of the American presence, but they are probably harboring terrorists. The other is a NATO ally and one of the only Muslim-based democracies in the world, but they are being attacked by a terrorist group supported and aided by our only friends in Iraq. If you don't understand the potential dangers this situation poses and it's importance, you have no clue about what is happening there. Complete ignorance of these kinds of subtleties might be ok when you're blathering about indoctrinating our schoolchildren into becoming warmongers or yammering about building 10 Gitmos, but it does nothing to deal with the problems as they are.

Fun with Ottomans

I am tired from racing last night, so I have mercifully little to say (for me).

I would think this to be a major developing storyline:

PKK attacks military outpost; 7 soldiers killed

ANKARA - Associated Press


The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party fired rockets and grenades at a Turkish military outpost, killing 7 soldiers in a bold attack that heightened tension at a time when Ankara has threatened military action against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

The army sent helicopter gunships and reinforcements to Tunceli province in southeastern Turkey after two PKK members rammed a vehicle into the military post on Monday, throwing hand grenades and opening fire with automatic weapons, the governor's office announced.

Soldiers returned fire, killing one of them - who had explosives strapped to his body, the governor's office said. Local media said the second attacker escaped injured.

Several other PKK members simultaneously opened fire on the outpost from a nearby forest, the governor's office said. The attack left seven soldiers dead and seven others injured. One of the injured was in critical condition, authorities said.

The attack came as Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül told European Union officials visiting Ankara that "we have every right to take measures against terrorist activities directed at us from northern Iraq."

Turkey's political and military leaders have been debating whether to stage an incursion into northern Iraq to try to root out the PKK bases there.

...and this too:

Turkey says no army operation in N.Iraq just now

ANKARA, June 6 (Reuters) - Turkey said on Wednesday it had no plans at present to send troops into northern Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels there, but it indicated this remained an option in the future.

Media speculation is high of a possible cross-border operation against rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which uses mainly Kurdish northern Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks in Turkey.

Parliament, now in recess ahead of July 22 elections, would have to reconvene to authorise any military operation beyond Turkey's borders.

Asked if the Foreign Ministry was readying documents for such a move, spokesman Levent Bilman told a news conference: "At this time there is no work on such an authorisation, but Turkey is ready for anything at any time."

I especially liked this at the end of the Reuters story:

Turkey is furious with U.S. and Iraqi authorities for failing to crack down on the estimated 4,000 PKK rebels in northern Iraq.

Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people in Turkey since the group launched its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the impoverished southeast region in 1984.

What a great situation. A NATO ally massing troops near the border of Iraq to pursue terrorists associated with the most supportive group in the country we invaded.

This brings up numerous points. The PKK is a terrorist group, based on the most basic definition. If you believe the insurgents in Iraq are terrorists, then the PKK would be as well. Kurds in Iraq may be harboring these terrorists. If Turkey were to follow the Bushian philosophy, they would be within their rights to just go right in and invade. After all, we did just that on far flimsier premises. I have to assume this would be unacceptable to Bush and gang, which means they will have to go out of their way to defuse the situation peacefully. They couldn't just let Turkey go in guns a'blazin' because this would presumably piss off the one real ally we have in the country. They might strike a deal wherein the Kurds give up PKK terrorists. I see this as unlikely, for much the same reason as above. So, here we are. If Turkey invades and we do nothing, this will be bad. If we oppose such an incursion, militarily or otherwise, we basically shelter terrorists, which would also have to be considered bad. Finding some way to weed out PKK members hiding out with Iraqi Kurds and handing them over to Turkish authorities is less bad, but not that great. The Bushies haven't shown themselves to be particularly willing to engage in tender diplomacy, nor do they show any real aptitude for it. Mostly, we have to hope that the Turks will decide not to get aggressive (they have some good reasons not to) and that Kurds will cooperate with us in the meantime to root out terrorist elements in the meantime (I'm not betting on this).

Not to pretend that this growing situation was one of the reasons I didn't support invading Iraq in the first place-Kurds were hardly on my radar at the time-but this is exactly the kind of unintended consequence that you would hope really smart war-planners who want to transform the military and establish a beyond-challenge hegemony super-ultra-massive-power might want to consider before launching a war.

Or, apparently, not.

It seems so obvious to me....

...but then I'm just some guy in a call center.

I just read this:

Baghdad’s Sunni residents battle insurgents
Locals join fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq; mayor hopes U.S. stays away

BAGHDAD - Sunni residents of a west Baghdad neighborhood used assault rifles and a roadside bomb to battle the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq this week, leaving at least 28 people dead and six injured, residents said Thursday.

The mayor of the Amiriyah neighborhood, Mohammed Abdul Khaliq, said in a telephone interview that residents were rising up to try to expel al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has alienated other Sunnis with its indiscriminate violence and attacks on members of its own sect.

Though the Republicans like to paint all Muslims with one broad brush, I have always privately thought that the goals of the native insurgents and Al Quaeda in Iraq were different enough that they might turn on one another. In fact, I am not particularly convinced that Al Quaeda, with it's rigid fundamentalism, is particularly popular amongst Muslims in Iraq, or anywhere. I suspected that Iraqis found them useful, and that if they stopped being useful, they would see them as foreign interlopers and would want them to leave.

Some of the quotes in this story bear this out:

Problems arose on Tuesday when the Islamic Army, a powerful Sunni insurgent group, posted a statement at a local mosque criticizing al-Qaeda in Iraq for killing dozens of other Sunnis in Fallujah and Baghdad "on suspicion only," without sufficient evidence that they had done something wrong, according to a copy sent to The Washington Post. The message warned al-Qaeda in Iraq to stop the practice, which it said could lead to clashes between them.

Late Wednesday afternoon, according to residents reached by phone who would not be quoted by name for security reasons, an armed group scrawled graffiti on a school wall reading: "Down with al-Qaeda, long live the honest resistance." When al-Qaeda in Iraq members came to wipe away the writing, a roadside bomb exploded nearby, killing three of them, residents said.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq then attacked a mosque associated with the Islamic Army, killing the group's leader, Razi al-Zobai, and four other fighters, complaining in a statement that the Islamic Army had become involved in the political process in Iraq, residents said. In retaliation, the Islamic Army attacked a mosque associated with al-Qaeda in Iraq, killing one of the group's leaders, known as Sheik Hamid, and four other members, including Waleed Saber Tikriti, a doctor who treated al-Qaeda in Iraq's wounded, residents said

I don't think this necessarily means we have turned any corners, however. Iraqi insurgents are fighting for control of Iraq. If they see us as a threat to that-and I think it is obvious they do-and Al Quaeda in Iraq seems useful to them, they would almost assuredly strike up their alliance again:

Abdul Khaliq said he hoped U.S. forces would stay out of the fight. "But if the Americans interfere, it will blow up, because they are the enemy of us both, and we will unite against them and stop fighting each other," he said

I won't make the mistake of taking all of this at face value. Loyalties will shift constantly in a paramilitary-led war. Rhetoric is one thing, action is another. It's not like I have some direct connection to work with here-I am a blogger, writing in my spare time, working off of second-hand information from a confusing war zone.

I do think that Al-Quaeda is less popular in a real sense than it might actually seem. There could be many reasons-political, economic, social-that might motivate someone to become a terrorist or insurgent, and a religious believer might make a connection between political and religious domination without believing in rigid fundamentalist doctrine (think Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland). These people might find Al-Quaeda's ability to send zealous soldiers into buildings with bombs strapped to their bodies a usefull tool. It's almost like they're using Al-Quaeda as some sort of proxy army. But this does not mean that all potential Muslim terrorists share the same overall goals as Al-Quaeda's nuttiness, any more than the U.S. did when it funnelled support to the Mujahideen in the '80s.

I think that Al-Quaeda, while definitely not to be underestimated, is a stoppable force. But the Bush administration's constant saber-rattling about regime change plays into their hands in a way that is almost certain to make them more and more powerful no matter how many setbacks like this they might suffer.