The Calculus of Miscalculated Human Misery

Good commentary by Larry Johnson

Behaving Like A Superpower in Iraq

By Larry Johnson

One critical dilemma we confront in Iraq is the burden of our status as the Superpower. All people in the region--Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, and Persians--assume that we have a secret plan that we are pursuing unilaterally. The majority of these folks accept that the sectarian violence unleashed in Iraq is a consequence of U.S. incompetence. They assume that the rising sectarian violence is something we want because we are a Superpower. By virtue of our status as a Superpower it is inconceivable that we would allow such violence unless it suited our ``hidden`` purposes.

The fact that Baghdad still suffers from chronic shortages of electricity, polluted water, broken sewers, and incompetent police is viewed by many in the region as prima facie evidence that we are deliberately and purposefully dismantling every vestige of what was the most secular Arab state in the Middle East. How could it be otherwise? We are a Superpower and a superpower, like any super hero, can do anything it wants.

The picture gets more complicated when viewed thru the sectarian lens of the various groups.

The Iraqi Sunnis by and large believe we are working in concert with the Shia to destroy the Sunni people. The notion that the Shia are the majority of the population is irrelevant. As the Sunni know, the Shia are incapable of governing or organizing without the support and direction of the Superpower.

The Shia keep waiting for the other shoe to drop because they know, in their heart of hearts, that we do not want them to control Iraq. They know we have designated their Iranian benefactors as part of the Axis of Evil and they read and hear news reports that the United States, perhaps with Israel acting as proxy, is going to attack Iran. Remember, we are the Superpower. Nothing happens, good or bad, without us pulling the strings behind the scenes.

The bottomline for us is that our use of military force is not going to win us the hearts and minds of the various Iraqi sects. Our current tactics are aggravating longstanding grudges and vendettas and creating new enemies in the process.

The neocons, and their ilk, continue to rattle sabers and beat their chest like an impotent gorilla. But their threats are empty. They are not pressing their sons and daughters to enlist in their ``glorious 21st century`` crusade. They want to stay safe at home in the United States and encourage the sons and daughters of other folks to make this ultimate sacrifice.
The choices we make in the coming months will help determine whether or not we are worthy of the moniker, ``Superpower``. We cannot quell the sectarian civil war overnight. But, we must try to show that we can improve the delivery of public services to the Iraqi people on a non-sectarian basis. If we can do that we can help erase the impression that our hidden plan is to humiliate and occupy the Arab people. Otherwise we will continue to be caught in the middle of a civil war that we are unable stop. That`s not super.

#53 by ranjit

“US has done its level best to institute a democracy including the creation of a constitution, interim government and then a final government based on universal suffrage”

This is all non-sense; the minute the US armies leave, the whole thing would come down like the house of cards that the US built in Vietnam in 1974. You cannot establish democracy by placing the armies in the heart of a nation. It has never happened in the history. It is all a joke. Now please don’t come back with Germany and Japan non sense. Germany was a democracy before the US got there and in Japan, it was done after the Japanese had surrendered and acquiesced with the US occupation after the US dropped two nukes on Japanese civilians. The Iraqis are still fighting and the war is still on. The US is almost defeated in Iraq and whatever it did in Iraq resulted in bloodshed and not democracy.

“Iraqis should have whole-heartedly pursued the opportunity to create a real democracy.”

Why? Why should they take orders from anyone? It is their choice. If they don’t want democracy no one can or should force it on them.


“They have missed the opportunity of a lifetime to replace Saddam with a democratic, prosperous Iraq”

You really have some ridiculous notions. Iraqis did not remove Saddam. The US army removed him and the US appointed a US civil servant to run Iraq. Did the US give power to Iraqi people after it removed Saddam? Did the US leave after it had removed Saddam and after it found no WMDs in Iraq?

You just don’t know what you are talking about.

There was no ethnic or sectarian violence before the US occupied Iraq. Why Should the US not take the blame for failing to provide the security after placing its army in the country? That is simply crazy to assume that the Iraqi are now responsible for every thing when it was the US army that anointed itself for providing security and governance to the country.

The whole thing is mute now. The issue is the US needs to get out of Iraq. Faster would be better...

The warmongers repubs have completely lost their heads over the war in Iraq.

The idiot William J. Stuntz writing in the weekly standard is actually asking for more troops in Iraq, McCain the new con man, too is proposing more troops, Kristol of the weekly standard is calling for the “double down” ( a blackjack term). The question is where the troops to send to Iraq are or does the lame duck president already badmouthed by his intellectual think tank neocons like Pearl and Furm and others, have the cojones to double down? Doubling down takes balls and Bush’s balls have been cut off by the US public and now they are on full Public display on Penn ave.

Like Friedman sometime ago said, send just enough troops to lose.

Just like you don`t throw good money after bad, you don`t reinforce defeat. Where the US is losing and where US has a shot is dependent on actually reacting to events, as they are, not where the doofuses wanted them to be. That sending more troops is even a point of argument post 11/7 shows just how far the neo-fantasists dragged the debate, and the US hard and soft power, down the proverbial toilet.

Re:HP#50

[...Are you really this simple minded?....]

No, I am not. I agree with you that the US was completely wrong in initiating this military blunder. It should have left things just the way it was.

Nevertheless, in the past few years, US has done its level best to institute a democracy including the creation of a constitution, interim government and then a final government based on universal suffrage. Also it is more than eager to quit Iraq if the situation becomes stable.

The Iraqis had every right to fight against occupation. However, once the departure of US forces was a given, Iraqis should have whole-heartedly pursued the opportunity to create a real democracy. Their rejection of that option, in favor of savage sectrian bloodshed is the ultimate failure of the Iraqi people. They have missed the opportunity of a lifetime to replace Saddam with a democratic, prosperous Iraq. Now the only option is that US will leave and Iraq will descend into further chaos, civil war, perhaps have a bloody partition, large-scale sectrian massacares like in the Balkans, become a failed state with terrorist groups dominating the landscape etc. This mindless descent was absolutely avoidable if better sense had prevailed.

On `Politics of the Mid-Term Elections by Mohammad Gill` board I had posted that no matter what the election results are, the US will now have to change its failed policy in Iraq.
The disaster in Iraq is so gigantic that the future historians would probably call it the beginning of the end of the American hegemony over the world affairs.

As I have said in my post #18, there should be major investigations as to find out how the US was led to this fiasco by some incompetent politicians, Generals, and the political analysts.

The failure in Iraq is more significant than Vietnam. In the end, Vietnam was still a regional matter and the US fought a nation that was supported by two nuclear powers with a capacity to sustain a long-term regional war. However, in Iraq, the US was bloodied by the ragtag armies of street urchins and untrained guerilla fighters who perhaps had no outside support to fight for three and half years. They finally broken the will of the of mightiest government in world to the extend that now the US president is clutching on straws to figure out how to get the US out of this mess.

This administration knew that there was not much time left. Knew that time was a factor to success. Then they waited until after an election, while Iraqi, Americans, and Coalition were dying, to make a change they knew they had to make.

That stinks of a (morally) high crime to me!

There is no end to my admiration for the American public and the common person. As soon as they figured out they have been conned by the some slick politicians/analysts sitting behind a short attention span President, they acted and voted to change the policy.

We need to have investigations and very public investigations to figure out how this great nation was sullied by some incompetent warmongers.

#33 by ranjit

Sorry ranjit but your post is ridiculous and childish for me to respond but I will take this opportunity to educate you a bit.

“How many times have we heard that the US cozys up to dictators in the middle-east?”

Always… There has never been any democratic government in the ME with a possible exception of Israel and now perhaps Lebanon in the last fifty years the US has been active in the ME.

“What the US did not estimate was how backward and primitive Iraq really was as a society.”
Are you really this simple minded?

The US has been dealing with Iraq for over fifty years. The US signed a defense treaty with Iraq in 1955-56 known as the Baghdad pact. Later on, this treaty expanded and was called CENTO. Do you know any thing abt the CIA facts book that is published every year updating info abt pretty much every country in the world and you think that the US did now know how Iraq society was. Compared with Iraq, before the 90s, the Indian society would come out as primitive, decadent, and really poor( which it still is).

Please spare me this mumbo-jumbo from the faux channel and get the facts before you comment on my posts.

#40 by iron_mask
“Incompetence upto a point. But would also consider the point, that the west tried to do a Eastern Europe, and japan Germany before that, on Iraq.”

I am somewhat surprised why Khasis cannot get education and read up stuff before they start commenting here. The US went in Iraq to find WMD and remove Saddam. Did the US go to the countries you mentioned to look for WMD or to remove their leaders? In fact, in all the above cases, the US was responding to an already existing military conflict. This was not the case in Iraq, which the US actually attacked based on lies. Then they just kept lying to cover up for their initial lies and here we have nincompoops with a barely two hour memory to quote some completely irrelevant events to support their stupidity.

Why are you Khasis so stupid?

Re: # 50
HP you are so true and myopic that you cannot see further than your paunch will let you.
Okay that is what they went in for - to get saddam by his balls and they used any old excuse. BUt then they tried to repent for their sins. You ave to give this to the west.

That is the west is willing to learn and change tac is something you idiots in the cesspit bondooks of pakistan and ME should learn. A classic example is palestine. And idiots like you and your ilk sit on high talking of realpolitic when the real-politic is different in the world around us. TYpical head in sand attitude thinking the whole world is full of stupid people and you are the only guys with intelligence.

BTW for the record I am not a khassi joker like you. Thank you for your interaction.

Reply to #42 by queen_cut&paste on November 13, 2006 8:38am PT
lets face it. The whole of the Islamic World is full of G_phattoos. Full of hot air and really doesnot amount to much. Even the so called ``more civlised`` islamic nations like Pakistan are a bunch of civilisational no-hopers. They have had a chance and they pissed into the winds. Educationally backward. Economically backward. Civilisationally backward.

Queen I am not sure where are you from but I guess you are from India. In that case how is India, Sri Lanka or the rest of South Asia better than Pakistan or the Muslim world? Our exchange rate to the dollar is the same. Pakistan gets its sophisticated technology from China and the West, India gets it from Russia and the West. IMO the difference is not between Muslim world and the West, its between East and the West and North and the South.

Re: # 47 nauman72, let add to Hamidm2`s post.
If I were an Indian I would be proud of my country being open - internally and externally. Being able to study and analyse its good things and bad things and come up with solutions which help (example the muslim reservation issue, Kargil fiasco, development issues). Trating issues as human development issues rather than religious issues and sweep them under the carpet. If I were an Indian I would be proud of the fact from ship-to-shit days of PL480 India is now able to feed itsself in the matter of a few years - by being open getting technology and making good use of it. If I were an Indian I would be proud of the fact that India is today producing something which the world wants and is willing to pay the price for it.

You might snigger and say prostitution of the mind and denigrate the people as code coolies. But that belittles you, since thre is something called dignity and Indians are able to hold atleast keep their heads on their shoulders without the faux bravadachiio of my fellow people.

It is always easy to suggest to someone, ``I presume you are from India`` and let loose your diatribes, when the uncomfortable truth is shown to you, and try to reflect someother image. But does no take away anything from the cess-pit world (thanks to Iron_mask for this) you and we all exist in. All it says is my cess-pit is better and more deeper than yours!
Hope you get my drift friend.

Re: # 47

nauman,

....... i hate to point this out, but we pakis need to wake up and smell the chai .......... the market capitalization of the karachi stock exchange is about 47 billion dollars; the mukesh ambani group which consists of reliance industries and a few other groups has a market cap of about $45 billion ..........mukesh ambani`s net worth is almost $15B............ wipro has a market cap of about $20B ............ do the math yourself (that is, if you can)

........... as much as you might want to ignore it, the horrible hindoos are on the march while the paki fools have their heads stuck up their mullah-ravaged keesters ..............

Muslim clerics fighting polio in India

By BISWAJEET BANERJEE, Associated Press Writer Sun Nov 12, 5:47 PM ET

LUCKNOW, India - Farzaan Siddaqui beat up the last health workers who visited his home to vaccinate his children for polio. Like many Muslims in India, he thought the program was an infidel plot to make his community infertile.
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Local health workers tried again Sunday, this time led through Siddaqui`s Muslim neighborhood by a local cleric, one of scores of community leaders volunteering for an anti-polio campaign in India`s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh.

The campaign aims to vaccinate some 50 million children across the impoverished state, which has seen 438 polio cases this year, 25 of them over the past week. A smaller number of cases have also emerged in some other states, raising fears of a widespread resurgence of a disease once nearly wiped out in the country.

Sunday`s campaign focused on Uttar Pradesh`s Muslim neighborhoods, where many residents have routinely stayed away from polio immunization programs.

As the health care workers approached Siddaqui`s house in Lucknow, one of them whispered, ``This is a negative locality for us.
Polio vaccine is a big no for them.``

Siddaqui assaulted health workers in August as they tried to persuade him to immunize his 3-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter.

But this time, Wajhat Valdi — a cleric who would normally spend the day preaching at a local mosque — walked in while the health workers stayed outdoors.

It did not take him long to win over Siddaqui, who came out smiling some 15 minutes later. A vial of polio vaccine was handed to Valdi for Siddaqui`s children.

Within moments, others in the neighborhood joined in.

``I am so happy that they have listened to me,`` Valdi said. ``It was the will of Allah that I should come here.``

Polio infects children younger than 5, spreading through contaminated water and attacking the nervous system. The disease can cause paralysis and deformation or be fatal.

Three years ago, India almost wiped out the disease after an intense nationwide vaccination campaign, but a combination of factors — including illiteracy and superstitious beliefs — kept many children from receiving immunizations.

Nearly three-quarters of new polio cases in Uttar Pradesh were in Muslim families, said A. K. Mishra, the top bureaucrat in the state`s health department. Most Muslims in the state are poor and illiterate.

In the past, banners and posters were put up in villages warning Muslims against allowing health workers into their homes. Propaganda spread that polio vaccines were a form of sterilization and a Western ploy to reduce the Muslim birth rate.

On Sunday, clerics and community leaders appeared on local television channels, urging Muslim families to vaccinate their children.

``Polio drops are safe and do not affect the health of your children,`` said Khalid Rashid, also a cleric, in a television appeal made in Urdu.

How does the rest of humanity deal with these people ?





`Taleban law` passed in Pakistan

Pakistan`s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has passed a bill setting up a Taleban-style department under a cleric to enforce Islamic morality.
It gives the new department the power to use the police and media for the promotion of Islamic values.

Re: # 43 like this

Re: # 44

............. i think daisy cutters work better with this breed .......

lets face it. The whole of the Islamic World is full of G_phattoos. Full of hot air and really doesnot amount to much. Even the so called ``more civlised`` islamic nations like Pakistan are a bunch of civilisational no-hopers. They have had a chance and they pissed into the winds. Educationally backward. Economically backward. Civilisationally backward. Inept. Incapable of producing anything worthwhile the world needs (okay Dubai seems to be fast becoming a notable exception), and yet crying out loud about neo-colonialism and blaming the world for their own internal ills. Shear laziness of the mind I say.

This article is an excellent case in point. There is nothing in there which makes me think, okay here is something which is workable. Its another jobsworthies pourings.

I am looking forward to an article or a series of articles, which looks at the troubles in the eye, and doesnot blame the west, colonialism, and neo-colonialism for the troubles. Once you start doing that you will find solutionsinternally for the problems. Till then the west will march ahead and all you will here from on ahead is sayonara.

To the author:

I agree that Muslims have some genuine greivances but many others also have genuine greivances against Muslims as well. This ``Bechara Musalman`` sob story won`t serve any constructive purpose. Have you analysed how Muslims have hurt others? As the Hindi saying goes, ``taali kewal ek haath se nahin bajti`` (you can`t clap with one hand).

You talk about the Pope`s comments against Islam. The Pope is without a doubt a bigoted jerk who has made derogatory references to Hinduism and Buddhism as well. However, while the entire Muslim world was riled up about the Pope`s remarks, I have not heard anything about the textbooks taught in Pakistani primary schools that teach kay se kaafir and show a Hindu Pandit or zay se zaalim and show a Sikh. Or that Hindus pray in dark, narrow places. Or textbooks in Saudi Arabia and many other Arab nations that teach Jews as pigs. You were all worked up when a Danish newspaper cartoon published Mohammed cartoons. How come you were all silent when a Muslim painter, MoFo Hussian, painted nude paintings of Indian goddesses? When a group of Hindus destroyed Babri Masjid at a disputed site it led to riots killing thousands. How come the entire Muslim world was silent when the Muslim Taliban blew up centuries old Bamiyan statues despite an offer by Japanese and others to buy them? Contrast this with the attitude of the Buddhists who did not hurt a single Muslim in retaliation.

A couple of years ago France banned the wearing of Hijab, turban or other religious objects in school. Something I disagree with but besides the point. However, there was protests over it and there was a Muslim demonstration outside a French consulate in Canada. One of the Pakistani chowkies had written an article where he stated that he went up to one of the protestors and asked if they planned to hold a similar protest outside the Saudi embassy since it does not allow non-Muslims to wear their religious objects. The guy said no and refused to answer when asked why not?

So the bottom line is that if the Muslims want peace and friendship then they will have to make an attempt to meet half-way.