Thursday, November 30, 2006

Tom Hayden: Peaceful Coup Underway In Baghdad? Al-Maliki Is Threatened from Within. A special to the Huffington Post A peaceful coup attempt is being attempted in Baghdad, seeking to replace Nouri al-Maliki with a coalition between the Sunni political leader Saleh al-Mutlak and the Shiite insurgent leader Moqtada al-Sadr. In the background are calls from Iraq's leading Shiite and Sunni clerics for an American withdrawal timetable. Al-Mutlak, an ex-Baathist who heads the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue has eleven seats in parliament which, combined with Sadr's twenty percent bloc, is enough to destabilize or even bring down the regime of al-Maliki. As reported last week in the Huntington Post, secret efforts to strike a deal with the Sunni nationalist resistance have been underway for months. Ex-Baathists like Mutlak, Sunnis in the Muslim Scholars Association, and in particular the revered Sunni cleric Harith al-Dhari, are strongly supportive of a political settlement based on a US withdrawal timetable. But the sudden move by al-Sadr's Shiite bloc, which pulled out of the Baghdad government over al-Maliki's meeting with Bush, provides the anti-occupation coalition with significant, perhaps decisive, power, if they choose to bring down al-Maliki's shaky coalition. US commanders make no secret of their desire to crush al-Sadr's Mahdi Army - indeed they are waging a war of attrition - but they will be frustrated if the new coalition takes hold. Mainstream media has reported that the US has hoped to cajole the Sunnis to align with al-Maliki against al-Sadr, a scenario that seemingly is being rejected and reversed. Instead, al-Sadr's bloc is demanding a US timeline for withdrawal. CNN' Nick Robertson featured an interview today [Thursday morning] with al-Mutlak in Baghdad, describing the unfolding transition plan as having been months in the making. It appeared that a threatened al-Maliki would have to join the call for US withdrawal, or face the possibility of being replaced by an interim government. Wolf Blitzer described the al-Maliki government as "teetering." [Earlier this year, 104 Iraqi parliamentarians, over forty percent of its membership, signed a resolution calling for an American withdrawal timetable; it was tabled under American pressure.] Any of these scenarios would seem intolerable to the Bush Administration. But how would it respond to a demand from a reconstituted Baghdad government for a withdrawal timetable? Send more American troops into Sadr City? Facing a request from Baghdad for withdrawal, American domestic demand for a pullout could become overwhelming, even for Bush. This week's immediate outcome cannot be predicted, depending as it does on al-Maliki's response, the US embassy's role, and above all, the determination of al-Sadr to forge a coalition with al-Mutlak across the sectarian divides. However, al-Sadr is a well-known Arab Shiite often at odds with more pro-Irani Shiite parties like that Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, and has been a critic of the "political quietism" of the elderly Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. His base is the Shiite urban underclass, centered in Sadr City slum. His forces fought in collaboration with the Sunnis during the American siege of Falluja in 2004, and rose against the American forces on two other occasions in 2003 and 2004. They have sent 100,000 people into the streets demanding US withdrawal, and on one occasion collected one million signatures door to door on a withdrawal petition. [for more information, see Ahmed Hashim's Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, Cornell, 2006] I listened to al-Mutlak several weeks ago in Amman during a peace dialogue with American activists. According to my notes, al-Mutlak said: "Our Front for National Dialogue was ahead in many polls, with seventy percent in Sunni areas and thirty percent among the Shi'a. But things changed with all the killings, and we got only 11 positions in the parliament. We lost one hundred campaign workers killed during the election. I lost my own brother. "The whole electoral process is a false thing and we cannot rely on it... "After the occupation, [the US] has been trying to remove the Iraqi identity, and corrupt our morals and ethics, building a totally difference image of the people, one of looters and thieves... "They are pulling Iraq into a new quagmire, that of civilian conflict, Before we thought we would remove the occupation. But as the British ambassador has said, a full-scale civil war is near...Actually, the Shiites suffer as much. "US should realize that some Shiites who cam from iran are trying to create a state within a state... "Death squads have been created so that everyone will believe in the US project as the 'only solution'. Iraqi nationalists have fought hard against federalism [partition]. But death squads are frightening many Sunnis into supporting federalism for their protection...the death squads are to implement the [neo-conservative] New Middle East Project. We must fight together against this...It is based on making our countries smaller and dividing people. Federalism is the start of partition and civil war, starting ethnic conflicts over borders and oil... "My personal view is that the reason for Sunni insecurity is the presence of US troops in Iraq. The Arab Sunnis were the most anit-US occupation, but now the US is trying to take advantage of their vulnerability and wants them to ask the US to stay. Now it is very complicated. We want the US to withdraw its troops but correct all their mistakes before the pull out. There should be a timetable for withdrawing troops plus a parallel timetable for fixing their mistakes." Clearly this was not a call for immediate American withdrawal. Neither was it a request that the occupying forces stay indefinitely. Rather, it was a proposal demanding an immediate public decision to embrace withdrawal within a political solution, perhaps requiring one or two years to carry out. For the Sunnis, those political solutions were identified in the secret documents reported on the Huffington Post last week: a cease-fire [which could be coordinated with the pullback proposed by the Baker Study Group], restoration of Baathist professionals and military leaders in Sunni areas, amnesty and prisoner releases, US financing of Iraqi-led reconstruction, the fair distribution of oil revenues, etc.]. The sticking point would be the deadline for withdrawal, which could be gradual and prolonged, or more immediate. The interim outcome for Baghdad, with its five million residents divided 60-40 between Shiite and Sunni, might be cease-fires in place, while US troops withdraw and services like electricity restoration take priority. For al-Sadr, his bloc would expand further inside government, where he already controls four ministries. His Mahdi Army would avoid another battle with the Americans. He would become, sooner or later, the most popular leader in a reconfigured Iraq. Like it or not, the current Lebanon model comes to mind, where Hezbollah dominates the south and is a major player in a coalition government representing several ethnic/religious groups. Such may be the outcome of the neo-conservatives' grand design for the Middle East. That leaves one question mark, the role of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Until now, representatives of the Sunni resistance have minimized the issue by saying that a cease-fire and withdrawal deadline would drastically shrink the base of the "foreign fighters." But others note that the "foreign fighters" have integrated themselves deeply into parts of the country. Drawing them into a cease-fire would remain a major issue during any withdrawal scenario. Surveys indicate it is unlikely that a continuing jidhad would be supported by many Iraqis if the occupiers were withdrawing and lights were turning on. [For an informative account of Dr. Harith al-Dhari, see Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhilly, IPS report, Nov. 26, 2006. He was received warmly by Jordan's King Abdullah this week, a sign of his rising diplomatic importance.] [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 5:55:39 PM    comment []

Stan Goff: No-knock = License to Kill. On November 21, Atlanta cops serving a no-knock warrant gunned down 88-year-old African American (of course) Kathryn Johnston in her own home. The controversy now is about whether or not a police informant set up the warrant, or was told to lie about it afterwards. Franky, I couldn't give two shits. We already know that cops lie all the time to cover up their own criminal activities. The other bone of contention is that Kathryn Johnston fired at them with a .38 caliber pistol. Again, I don't care... not in the way it's being framed anyway. What the no-knock warrant does is gives the cops the legal right to break into your house without announcing themselves. They say it's necessary to protect the cops. Here's my straight line to the point. Cops take on risk when they take the job, ostensibly to put themselves between the public and danger (I don't believe this for one minute, but that's the conventional fairy tale.). One reason I can't claim pacifism is my firm belief in the right to self defense. Kathryn Johnston never volunteered to take a bullet to protect the fucking police from some hypothetical danger. From her point of view, and the point of view of others to which this has happened, like Ismael Mena in 1999, they are sitting at home minding their own goddamn business, when a bunch of unannounced people start smashing down their doors. Ismael Mena and Kathryn Johnston, in my humble opinion, have every right to shoot violent intruders breaking into their homes. What no-knock warrants say is, no they don't. And when the cops -- who routinely use rats and snitches as their highly reliable sources -- can kill you for defending yourself, because they need to live out their SWAT fantasies to imprison people for using dope (it would be cheaper and safet to just decriinalize it), then the right to self defense is a thing of the past. No-knock warrants are just a license to kill for the cops. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 5:53:33 PM    comment []

David Sirota: Sociopaths Have Taken Over the Op-Ed Pages. Is it me, or in the last year have we seen a shocking rise in the number of major pundits who have acknowledged (perhaps inadvertently) their own sociopathic tendencies? I ask this after reading this from the Washington Post's Richard Cohen: "I originally had no moral qualms about the war...I was encouraged in my belief by the offensive opposition to the war -- silly arguments about oil or empire or, at bottom, the ineradicable and perpetual rottenness of America...In a post-Sept. 11 world, I thought the prudent use of violence could be therapeutic." This came days before the New Republic's Jonathan Chait, a cheerleader for the Iraq War, published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times headlined "Bring Back Saddam Hussein": "Just maybe our best option is to restore Saddam Hussein to power...Yes, I know. Hussein is a psychotic mass murderer. Under his rule, Iraqis were shot, tortured and lived in constant fear." I would be quick to dismiss these statements as the insane blatherings of merely two lunatics who are clearly so embarrassed by their advocacy for the Iraq War, that they have lost all control of their faculties. But such absurd comments have now become a mainstay of today's op-ed pages. Just a few months ago, the New York Times' David Brooks wrote that "voters shouldn't be allowed to define the choices in American politics." Then there was was columnist Mort Kondracke on Fox News saying the veterans health care system "doesn't work" even though by all objective measures, it is the best health care system in the entire country. And of course, we have the New York Times' billionaire columnist Tom Friedman appearing on national television to admit that he regularly uses his space on the op-ed page to push free trade deals that he hasn't even bothered to read. He's the same guy who pushed the Iraq War, then criticized the war, and now, just today, published a piece saying we should consider "reinvading Iraq with at least 150,000 more troops" and staying there for 10 more years. He's also the same guy who has taken to destructive proportions the famous laugh line in the Money Pit about the house being fixed in "two weeks," using his column since 2003 to keep claiming that all in Iraq will be finished in a matter of another "six months." But I must admit, as funny/sad as it is to watch Friedman's house come crashing down as he does his best Walter Fielding impression, nothing is more enjoyable these days than to watch the Wax Figure himself, George Will. His entire column today is about how "uncivil" it was for Sen.-elect Jim Webb to tell President Bush he wants the troops brought home, and how nauseating it is to the Washington pundit class that a U.S. Senator would have the gall to talk about economic inequality. I mean, you need to read this thing - Wax Figure even goes off on Webb for using blunt language, saying he is supposedly "turning out slapdash prose that would be rejected by a reasonably demanding high school teacher." Yes, folks - the sociopaths on the right have been relegated to grammar criticism and demands that everyone in Washington attend Miss Manners. Oh, that is, except for people like Dick Cheney who told other Senators to "f*&! off" and George W. Bush, that world famous master of the King's English. None of this is normal, socially acceptable behavior in the real, non-pundit world. These are the kind of sociopathic outbursts that, outside the Beltway, get people fired from their jobs, expelled to pariah status, and ridiculed as having "lost it." But I guess the laws of regular society just don't apply to these people. That's not all that surprising. As I documented in an earlier post, most of the supposedly "national" opinionmaking apparatus resides not throughout the nation, but instead inside elite circles in Washington and New York City - places that apparently aren't subjected to the normal rules of America, places where sociopathic behavior gets you labeled a Serious Person. But here's the deal, folks - just because you read sociopathic claims on your op-ed pages from the Washington opinionmaking machine about how violence is supposedly "therapeutic," how we should supposedly bring Saddam Hussein back to power, how voters suppposedly shouldn't be able to make choices in America and how new Senators have no right to tell the President they want the troops home - remember, that doesn't make these claims truthful or acceptable out here in the real world, and it doesn't make you crazy for thinking that the people who make these claims ARE crazy. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 10:16:38 AM    comment []

Nora Ephron: Bad Manners. I always love it when people in Washington attack people for bad manners. According to George Will, newly-elected Virginia Senator James Webb was guilty of bad manners when he was asked by President Bush how his Marine son was doing in Iraq, and responded instead by saying that he hoped the troops would be home soon. "That's not what I asked you," said Bush. "How's your boy?" "That's between me and my boy," Webb replied. Will writes: "Webb certainly has conveyed what he is: a boor. Never mind the patent disrespect for the presidency. Webb's more gross offense was calculated rudeness toward another human being - one who, disregarding many hard things Webb had said about him during the campaign, asked a civil and caring question, as one parent to another." This is truly Washington, in case you wonder what Washington truly is. Washington is a place where politics is just something you do all day. You lie, you send kids to war, you give them inadequate equipment, they're wounded and permanently maimed, they die, whatever. Then night falls, and you actually think you get to pretend that none of it matters. "How's your boy?" That, according to George Will, is a civil and caring question, one parent to another? It seems to me that it's exactly the sort of guy talk that passes for conversation in Bushworld, just one-up from the frat-boy banter that is usually so seductive to Bush's guests. George Bush once said to someone I know, "How old is that seersucker suit anyway?" and my friend (who should know better) went for it lock stock and barrel. So finally someone said to George Bush, Don't think that what you stand for is beside the point. Don't think that because you're President you're entitled to my good opinion. Don't think that asking about my boy means that I believe for even one second that you care. If you did, you'd be doing something about bringing the troops home. George Will thinks this is bad manners. I don't. I think it's too bad it doesn't happen more often. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 10:03:51 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2006 Patricia Thurston.