Can't We Seize Resources Right Anymore?

(Snark Tag is "On.") There was a time when a US President could call the ambassador of a country on the carpet and say, "%^&@ your democracy, %^&@ your country, and %^&@ you. You're nuthin' but a fly on an elephant's ass." (Quotes are from Lyndon Johnson's chastising of Greece's ambassador, circa 1968, before sponsoring a coup to depose that country's elected Prime Minister over a perceived slight.)

How times have changed. Even after invading Iraq and Afghanistan with our energy reserves firmly in mind, after Cheney's energy task force divvied up the fields beforehand, and after the BushCo Administration openly stated that the new oil fields would pay for the war, we apparently can't even grant our companies pillage rights to one measly little subjugated hell-hole. Maybe it's their hell-hole now that we've withdrawn combat troops, but it's still sitting over a whole bunch of our oil, and we can still bomb the ingrates back into the camel age. What's going on here?

We might be seeing the next stirrings of a free and independent Iraq, and that would be a complete disaster. Saddam himself would've been easier to deal with, and as anyone knows, "free and independent" is just high and mighty wonk-talk for "pain in the ass." Here is how they are resisting sucking up their only valuable commodity:

Only one of the bidders for the eight contracts to run oil and gas fields in Iraq has accepted oil ministry terms.

Six oil fields and two gas fields were available in a televised auction that was the first big oil tender in Iraq since the invasion of 2003.

Iraq has asked the rest of the companies to consider resubmitting bids for the other seven contracts.

In short, Iraq is setting a cap on how much money each oil contract can make, an unexpected wrinkle oil companies don't find very sporting. Oh, they can still make nice money, honest profits, and could treat the fields as a non-OPEC hedge pools, but that's not the point. The point is, nobody gets away with this, and the Iraqi parliament has taken all the fun out of free market oil extraction. They're offering complex government-interference contracts which unfairly limit the upside, and what self-respecting oil company wants to play that?

For this we spent trillions, killed millions, and tortured thousands? Policy Fail!! (Snark Tag "Off.")

Defeatery

Two Iraqi officials say the U.S. and Iraq are close to a deal under which all American combat troops would leave by October 2010 with remaining U.S. forces gone about three years later.

Two Iraqi officials say the U.S. and Iraq are close to a deal under which all American combat troops would leave by October 2010 with remaining U.S. forces gone about three years later.

Almost exactly 16 months after the next President takes the oath of office. Obama, now you need to start talking about a balanced budget, reduced trade deficit, and national health care. And oh, yeah--could you throw in 20 paid vacation days per year, like them Yerpeens get?

iWhack

"America has hardly even begun to repay its debt to Iraq. This is an immoral request because we didn't ask them to come to Iraq, and before they came in 2003 we didn't have all these needs."

Abdul Basit, the head of Iraq's Supreme Board of Audit, an independent body that oversees Iraqi governmental expenditures, after being asked why US forces in Iraq are charged an average of $3.23 and citizens buy it for $1.36 per gallon. Last year, the US spent over $5 billion on petroleum products in Iraq. The Iraqi government is expected to capture $70 billion from oil sales in 2008, with the majority of that windfall being sent to foreign shelters.

Opium Crops Started In Iraq

Should have predicted this one. It will no doubt be used as proof of close al-Qaeda ties between Iraq and Afghanistan:

The cultivation of opium poppies whose product is turned into heroin is spreading rapidly across Iraq as farmers find they can no longer make a living through growing traditional crops.

Afghans with experience in planting poppies have been helping farmers switch to producing opium in fertile parts of Diyala province, once famous for its oranges and pomegranates, north- east of Baghdad. (via Patrick Cockburn, The Independent UK.)

At this point, Al-Qaeda is the least of Iraq's problems. It's only logical that farmers are getting into opium, which if I think about it, is actually a positive step: people who live in failed states need money and jobs, and opium is a great cash crop. It does give some indication of how bad things have gotten for people in the Sunni Triangle. Michael Massing reviewed a book about the Iraqi journalists who work and write for the McClatchy Newspapers, which set up a blog they run called Inside Iraq. He summarizes that Iraq is what the end of the world looks like:

The overwhelming sense [from the McClatchy journalists' blog] is that of a society undergoing a catastrophic breakdown from the never-ending waves of violence, criminality, and brutality inflicted on it by insurgents, militias, jihadis, terrorists, policemen, bodyguards, mercenaries, armed gangs, warlords, kidnappers, and everyday thugs. "Inside Iraq" suggests how the relentless and cumulative effects of these vicious crimes have degraded virtually every aspect of the nation's social, economic, professional, and personal life.

Despite all the mortuary work and make-up, all the sartorial wonders of The Surge, the country formerly known as Iraq is a corpse. As in dead country, not walking. BushCo and Congress, the corporate media and the chattering classes regularly pull up a dolly and pop back a coffin lid, they point out that the thing inside has finely rouged cheeks, a nicely pinned-back business suit, that its limbs (lifted with a complex array of monofilament lines) move so as to appear amazingly life-like, and that it even plays pre-recorded speech. Two non-trivial problems: it's still frigging dead, and it makes everyone who looks too closely at it puke.

As soon as the Shiite and then the Sunni extremists who we paid to fight other Sunni extremists stop getting paid, they'll start blowing up Western troops with greater enthusiasm. Our crusaders are not welcome in Iraq, where opium production now looks like a smart way out. In context, it probably is. At least something is growing.

(With thank-you credits to Empire Burlesque, Inside Iraq, and Cryptogon.)

Al-Sadr Withdraws Support For Iraq's Government

This is the death knell for the nation formerly known as Iraq. Its elected leader, Nouri al-Maliki, just lost his bread-and-butter domestic support, and Moqtada al-Sadr's 32 political representatives won't be attending parliament sessions anymore, or consulting with Dawa, Fadhila, or Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, the parties which made up the Shiite voting bloc. The Fadhila Party pulled out in March of this year, reducing the Shia parliament majority to 115 out of 275 seats.

Previous readings of the tea leaves on this blog indicated this shoe was going to drop, as Maliki obviously has one too many masters and wasn't giving Sadr his due. The most populous section of Baghdad is called Sadr City, after all, and to his millions of followers, Sadr is nothing less than a messianic figure. Perhaps more importantly, Sadr City has Iraq's only effective police force and militia, along with the best medical, welfare, and food distribution systems. (The picture above is of a Sadr resident selling vegetables.)

While Maliki is said to retain a razor-thin majority, it's difficult to see how he can keep the government from formally dissolving or simply falling apart due to lack of interest. When that happens, Sadr City will be the anchor of what is seen as a new Shiite country emerging after tri-partition, known in policy circles as the "Shia Rump" of Iraq. One hopes a less anatomical name may be found before the event occurs.

You have to wonder how much, or if, a de facto partition accelerates the case for a bombing campaign on Iran. Sadr is a religious nationalist who wants peaceful co-existence with Iran, but complete independence. Still, there's a common border and religion, and while it might not be immediate, you'd assume Sadristan would soon be tightly allied with, and eventually folded into, Iran. Arabic nations counted as US allies in the region dread the prospect, and are probably giving a green light to "taking out" Iran's nuclear capability. As if it were only that simple.

Many observers, seemingly utopian Bush apologists, have for some time been preparing a meme like a shuffle of zombies: "the real goal of the invasion was partition." This doesn't square well, however, with the mechanics of oil extraction. One government is easier to control than three, at least two of which will want to hold oil workers and guards for ransom, torture them, blow them up, puncture their pipelines, or seize and re-sell their oil.

The Leader Of Iraq

In a previous post I mentioned that elements of the Al-Mahdi Army (JAM) had clashed with US forces north of Baghdad, and I interpreted it as very bad news for The Surge. Here is a glimpse into Iraq's possible future. This briefing on the Sadrist party, and why it will one day run "The Rump" of Iraq, was written by markfromireland, a former UN peacekeeper who lives in Iraq. It is available in full at Gorilla's Guides, and you won't find better analysis of Iraq's internal situation anywhere, at least not in English. The Sadrists earned the respect of the Iraqi people by delivering security and welfare, and by reaching out to the Sunnis and sending both supplies and fighters. Ironically, Moqtada al-Sadr is a dedicated nationalist who is also anti-Iranian:

"The falling out between the Iraki Shia political establishment represented by green zone government Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and Muqtada al-Sadr’s movement has reopened interest in the Shia nationalist leader. It has been clear for some time the U.S. “surge” has as a major goal the elimination of Al Sadr’s political movement which is backed by an irregular force the “Jaish Al Mahdi” (”Mahdi Militia”, henceforth JAM). )

Muqtada Al-Sadr is is the fourth son of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq as-Sadr, who was assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party in 1999 because of his blunt criticism of its policies. The remainder of his family - including two of his older brothers Mu’mil and Mustapha, his uncle Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr was murdered by Ba’ath Party operatives in 1980.(His other brother now lives as a recluse studying religious texts)

His political movement, or trend, is one of several blocs competing for dominance within the majority community and positioning themselves for when the Americans are forced out of Irak. For present purposes I intend to concentrate upon four trends or blocs.

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(other blocs omitted)

The Sadrists

They have demonstrated considerable ability to mobilise and to assume control of important population concentrations. At present they control Sadr city, some areas of Baghdad, and various population centres in the governorates in particular the southern governorates. They are attempting to establish or strengthen their control of centres such as Samawah, Nasiriya, and Diwaniyah. Thereby striking at the power centres of Dawa and SIIC.

عاجل القوات الأمريكية المحتلة تعتقل الشيخ ناصر الساعدي القيادي البارز في الخط الصدري

قامت قوات الاحتلال ليلة امس الأحد باعتقال الشيخ ناصر الساعدي مع كافة إفراد عائلتة في مدينة شعلة الصدرين ويعد الشيخ من احد قيادي الخط الصدري،ولم توضح القوات المحتلة سبب هذا الاعتقال وهذا الاعتقال ليس الاول من نوعه.كما ويعد هذا الحدث الابرز بعد تصريحات نوري المالكي حول التيار الصدري ، ويأتي اعتقال الشيخ في اطار بركات تصريحات المالكي الاخيرة التي تضمنت اشارات تلغيزية تطال ابناء الخط الصدري ومما يجدر ذكره بأن الشيخ الساعدي كان من مناهضي النظام البائد وممن ذاق مرارات المعتقلات والسجون في مستوطنات البعث العقابية

…:: شبكة أخبار العمارة المجاهدة::… - عاجل القوات الأمريكية المحتلة تعتقل الشيخ ناصر الساعدي القيادي البارز في الخط ال

By taking the initiative in Shi’ite neighbourhoods and cities, establishing militias to maintain order and security after the disintegration of authority, and providing welfare and health services, they have made a strong bid to lead the Shi’ite community in Irak. Additionally they can draw on the rich heritage of political and religious thought created by the late Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq as-Sadr.

The Sadrist trend’s bid for leadership is strengthened by its strongly nationalist stance, which in the eyes of many gives it a credibility lacked by organisations such as the Dawa party and SIIC that are closely linked to Iran. Moreover much of its leadership such as the recently detained (and subsequently hastily released) Sheikh Nasser al-Saadi, can, like al-Sadr himself genuinely claim to have resisted the Ba’athist government when others remained silent or moved out of Iraq. (See sidebar for an example)

Al Sadr is now the major player on Irak’s political stage. He was always going to be prominent but a combination of political skill, American hamfistedness, and successive ruinously ineffective puppet governments in the green zone have combined to ensure that he and the JAM are stronger than ever. In the instability and chaos created by deliberate American destruction of the instruments of government, al-Sadr acted. He sent his followers into the streets to supply residents with food and with water. He sent his militia onto the Baghdad streets to maintain a modicum of social order and security for the populace all the while denouncing the United States invaders in general and the Coalition Provisional Authority (C.P.A.) in particular. Nor was these operations confined to such parts of the capital as Sadr city, Al Shula, and Kadhimiya, similar operations were conducted in, Kut, Amara, Nasiriyah, East Baghdad, Karbala, Kufa, Najaf, Basrah, and Samawa to name but a few.

This prompt and effective action particularly in the vast and densely populated Sadr city earned him and his followers considerable kudos amongst the populace and is the basis of the position of power that he retains to this day. By the time the C.P.A. headed by self-styled “terrorism expert” Paul Bremer recognised that he was a threat to their plans for Irak it was already too late.

Their first attempt to rid themselves of al-Sadr failed as miserably, as completely, and as predictably as everything else the Americans have done in Irak. Like the Soviets in Afghanistan the failure sprang from an attempt to impose an alien ideology onto a people at the point of a gun. Following the “Foolish Bremer” editorial Bremer, who is singularly devoid of amour propre sent American troops on March 28, 2004 to shut Al-Hawza down. The pretext Bremer used was that the paper was inciting the population to violence against the invaders.

The next step was to detain one of al-Sadr’s chief lieutenants on an April 2003 murder charge. This was seen both by the Sadrists and the populace at large for what it was. An attempt to punish Al Sadr. He responded by calling for and getting a civil disobedience campaign reasoning that doing so would provoke the Americans to yet further folly. This calculation turned out to be correct. On April 4th Bremer issued a second arrest warrant this time for al-Sadr himself using the same April 2003 murder charge used against his lieutenant as the pretext for al Sadr’s arrest. Al-Sadr and a large part of his militia fortified themselves in Najaf and al Sadr expedited his fulfillment of promises he had made to the fighters resisting the American rape of Fallujah. JAM fighters and supplies streamed west.

The fighting however was not confined to Fallujah and Najaf, JAM forces engaged Badr brigade (SCIRI) and Kurdish peshmerga “Iraki” soldiers throughout Irak. As predicted by those who had seen them in action against determined opposition they performed miserably and were forced to call upon the Americans for support. - A pattern that has remained the case to this day. This open uprising caught the Americans by surprise and proved, if further proof were necessary, that the military defeat of America in Irak was only a matter of time. The Americans backed down. Despite Sanchez’s bluster that al Sadr would be captured or killed the JAM fought the Americans to a standstill and his popularity surged.

Smarting under their defeat the Americans sought another round. In August 2004 hostilities recommenced throughout southern Iraq, JAM fighters engaged invader troops in Basrah, Amara, Nasiriya, Kufa, Karbala, Najaf, and Sadr City. In Najaf pausing only to take his personally signed pair of Bremer’s Booties® from his mouth Colonel Anthony Haslam, commanding officer of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Najaf announced to a rapt audience of in bedded embedded western journalists that he was preparing to “root out” Al Sadr once and for all and that the forces under his command were;

“making final preparations as we get ready to finish this fight that the Moqtada militia started,”

Those whom God would destroy he first permits to afflict themselves hubris and the good Colonel’s words proved as meaningless as every other piece of flagrant propaganda churned out by the truckload by the U.S. military in Irak.

Given the odds against them the JAM performed surprisingly well a function of their willingness to sustain casualties without running away. All the Americans succeeded in doing was in blooding them and increasing their unit cohesion."

Turkey Masses 150,000 On Northern Iraq Border...And Much, Much More!

It's great to see Turkey finally doing its part to help out with the region's stability. At the preceding link, the Bush Administration claims that there is no build-up, which means they're taking this time-honored imperial diplomatic approach: "Oh, crap! Now what?? What did we promise the Turkeys, again?" Of course, Turkey has been making noise since at least April, noise of the shooting kind, and has been going over the border into Kurdistan to chase the ethnic secessionist Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) militias. That was with only 30,000 troops. If my math is correct, this is something bigger. For some reason, Turkey feels like they're owed some Kurdish oil in exchange for helping out with Gulf Wars I and II, and they think the US welched on the deal. Whether the build-up is gamesmanship or for real remains to be seen, but a Turkish invasion of Kurdistan is much closer to a "for real" than it was a year ago, now backed by 15 combat divisions.

Next, Israel has mobilized its divisions to either get ready to attack Syria or to re-invade Lebanon. How do I know this? Oh, you know...I listen to Hebrew hip-hop, eat at a kosher deli, that kinda stuff. Syria today just warned all Syrians to leave Lebanon ahead of a military "eruption" they think will take place next week. Plus, Israel is outraged that Hezbollah has been preparing defensive positions in southern Lebanon, somewhat like when France built the Maginot Line defenses, it outraged Hitler.

I and others believe Israel plans to attack over the Golan Heights, stomp on the conventional Syrian army, make Assad flee, then wheel around and attack Hezbollah in Lebanon from the rear pay-back style. The Syrians and Hezbollah Lebanese will get to try out all their new Russian weapons, including the world's most advanced anti-aircraft missile systems and more of the same portable anti-tank weapons that took out Merkava tanks. Amazingly, the Israelis, who still fight blitzkrieg-style using WWII armored-column tactics, didn't learn their lesson in Lebanon last summer. They might make it through Syria. But they'll get out-boxed in Lebanon, and worse this time than the last. Their troopers are thoroughly demoralized, and even if their equipment issues are solved, they are ill-led. Highly motivated foot soldiers equipped with heavy-punch weapons can tie down armored columns if they can make the air assets stand off. Especially coming off a popular victory. Last summer, Hezbollah learned it took very few missiles to make Israeli pilots skittish. So they went out and stocked up on them like they were Roman candles.

Finally, rumors of Iraq withdrawal discussions in the White House abound. Yes, there will be an Iraq withdrawal just like there was always going to be: to 3-6 permanent bases manned by 3-4 divisions and @50,000 mercenaries. This is not a "bring the troops home" pull-back. It's a "let's free them up to use somewhere else" strategy. And that won't work either. In other news today, the Mahdi Army clashed today with US forces north of Baghdad last night. The Sadrists are the most numerous, main-stream, and powerful group in the country, and they've been holding back based upon their leader Moqtada's say-so. This blows no good.

As you know, I'm a bit skeptical about the Occupants of the White House ever leaving it. But I neglected to mention another increasingly likely scenario: outright military defeat and devolution into Mid-East regional chaos. This has already been taken as a given by the countries in Iraq's sphere for over a year. Even loyal Saudi Arabia is planning for war. Turkey's build-up is like a vulture edging up to a tourist dying of thirst. The proxies of the surrounding countries which correspond to the dominant domestic interest groups will move in to stabilize the remnants of Iraq whether the US wants them to or not. When, not if. Proximity and intelligence are vast advantages in war's logistics.

It might be the Republican Party which, suffering from Cheney Fatigue, will stop the war. The cabal is the war, so stopping it is congruent to throwing them out of power. In a possibly delicious historical irony, it was George Bush Senior, who, while chair of the Republican National Committee, penned the letter to Nixon asking him to resign for the good of the country. Too hopeful? Maybe. But the military situation on the ground is rapidly coming to a head, it's not developing in our Empire's favor, and a growing number of insiders finally are coming to acknowledge the White House can't control that reality.

(Update: Picture above is of Turkish tank column rolling through a small Kurdish village 40 km from the Iraq border on June 1, 2007. The Guardian article is a good brief, available here.)

"Our Strategy Can Be Summed Up This Way: As Iraqis Stand Up,
We Will Stand Down"

President Addresses Troops
Osan Air Base
Osan, Republic of Korea
4:29 P.M. (Local)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Thank you all very much. (Applause.) Please be seated -- unless you don't have a seat. (Laughter.) Laura and I are so honored to be here. We thought we'd stop by and feel the thunder and the fury of the Mustangs. (Applause.) Thanks for greeting us. It's a privilege to stand with the brave men and women of the 51st Fighter Wing and the 7th Air Force. (Applause.) Our citizens are safer because you're ready to fight tonight. (Applause.) You're serving the cause of liberty on distant frontiers, and I bring a message from home: Your Commander-in-Chief is proud of you, and so is the American people. (Applause.)


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The Iraqi people are proving their determination to build a future founded on democracy and hope, and the United States of America will help them succeed. (Applause.)


The fifth element of our strategy in the war on terror is to deny the militants future recruits by replacing hatred and resentment with democracy and hope across the broader Middle East. If the Middle East is left to grow in bitterness, if countries remain in misery while radicals stir the resentments of millions, then that part of the world will be a source of endless conflict and mounting danger. If the peoples of that region are permitted to choose their own destiny, and advance by their own energy and participation as both free men and women, then the extremists will be marginalized, and the flow of violent radicalism to the rest of the world will slow and eventually end.


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History has proven that free nations are peaceful nations and that democracies do not fight their neighbors. By advancing the hope of freedom and democracy for others, we'll make our own freedom more secure.


Our strategy can be summed up this way: As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down, and when our commanders on the ground tell me that Iraqi forces can defend their freedom, our troops will come home with the honor they have earned. (Applause.)

Al-Sadr Pulling His Representatives Out of Parliament

6 of the 37 seats are being abandoned to protest the lack of a pull-out date, which the Maliki government had tentatively promised. Maybe I'm wrong about the Maliki/Sadr machinations, but it would seem this is the opening salvo in dissolving the Government in order to create a partitioned Shia "Rump" Iraq which is free of Sunnis. Either way the effects and outcome will be the same. This strengthens Iran's hands further.

On the military side: don't forget about the bridges. They are critical to the supply roadnet which runs through the Shia southeast sections of Iraq. When Iran (or Al-Sadr, for that matter) gives the word, those bridges will be blown, and Coalition (mostly U.S.) ground forces will be in deep doo-doo.

The Hard-Hitting Investigative Journalism Of...The New Yorker, Pt. I

After the bushies took office, I began to notice the awesome level of control and control (C&C) they exerted over almost every mainstream media (MSM) outlet. But they couldn't quite get a handle on a few outlets, those which are private, secure, charity-funded, or simply below the radar. So you could still get hard journalism, you just had to go to odd places like the New Yorker, Vanity Fair (why, I don't know), Harper's, and to industry rags like Aviation Week. It's still the case today. The New Yorker's George Packer went to Iraq to do a dynamite piece on what it's really like to live there, to have worked with the Americans, and to have had high hopes for the future of Iraq. Its starts off thusly:

On a cold, wet night in January, I met two young Iraqi men in the lobby of the Palestine Hotel, in central Baghdad. A few Arabic television studios had rooms on the upper floors of the building, but the hotel was otherwise vacant. In the lobby, a bucket collected drips of rainwater; at the gift shop, which was closed, a shelf displayed film, batteries, and sheathed daggers covered in dust. A sign from another era read, “We have great pleasure in announcing the opening of the Internet café 24 hour a day. At the business center on the first floor. The management.” The management consisted of a desk clerk and a few men in black leather jackets slouched in armchairs and holding two-way radios.

The two Iraqis, Othman and Laith, had asked to meet me at the Palestine because it was the only place left in Baghdad where they were willing to be seen with an American. They lived in violent neighborhoods that were surrounded by militia checkpoints. Entering and leaving the Green Zone, the fortified heart of the American presence, had become too risky. But even the Palestine made them nervous. In October, 2005, a suicide bomber driving a cement mixer had triggered an explosion that nearly brought down the hotel’s eighteen-story tower. An American tank unit that was guarding the hotel eventually pulled out, leaving security in the hands of Iraqi civilians. It would now be relatively easy for insurgents to get inside. The one comforting thought for Othman and Laith was that, four years into the war, the Palestine was no longer worth attacking.

The Iraqis and I went up to a room on the eighth floor. Othman smoked by the window while Laith sat on one of the twin beds. (The names of most of the Iraqis in this story have been changed for their protection.) Othman was a heavyset doctor, twenty-nine years old, with a gentle voice and an unflappable ironic manner. Laith, an engineer with rimless eyeglasses, was younger and taller, and given to bursts of enthusiasm and displeasure. Othman was Sunni, Laith was Shiite.

It had taken Othman three days to get to the hotel from his house, in western Baghdad. On the way, he was trapped for two nights at his sister’s house, which was in an ethnically mixed neighborhood: gun battles had broken out between Sunni and Shiite militiamen. Othman watched the home of his sister’s neighbor, a Sunni, burn to the ground. Shiite militiamen scrawled the words “Leave or else” on the doors of Sunni houses. Othman was able to leave the house only because his sister’s husband—a Shiite, who was known to the local Shia militias—escorted him out. Othman took a taxi to the house of Laith’s grandfather; from there, he and Laith went to the Palestine, where they enjoyed their first hot water in several weeks.

Maybe I'll excerpt the whole article in a series.

So Far, So Good!

"US and Iran Hold Rare Direct Talks," reads the headline, a story lead few if any people alive have ever seen before. The opposing king cobras were wisely held in their respective baskets and did not attend, and the meeting was left to the pros. While there are still many reasons to temper expectations and the magic carpets reportedly stayed firmly planted on the floor, this really is Jake-and-Elwood-somersault-fantastic news. It's progress, a thing I've been unable to say regarding the Mid-east for my entire adult life. Rahim's Rules of Order were followed:

The chief Iranian envoy, Abbas Araghchi, said he restated his country's demands for a clear timetable for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces, which he insisted have made Iraq a magnet for extremists from across the Muslim world.

"Violence in Iraq is good for no country in the region," said Araghchi, deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, at a post-meeting news conference.

Araghchi said he did not meet privately with Khalilzad, but that all dialogue "was within the framework of the meeting" — which he said had "very good interaction by all the delegations."

They met their meeting's primary objective, which was to form a plan to meet again to figure out how to get the oil flowing again:

Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, told reporters there were "direct exchanges and meetings and discussions" between the U.S. and Iranian delegation.

He also said the participants at the meeting agreed to take part in future groups to study ways to bolster Iraq's security, assist displaced people and improve fuel distribution and sales in one of OPEC's former heavyweights.

The meeting was nearly disrupted by mortar fire, and it's still unclear whether they'll next meet in Istanbul (for safety) or Baghdad (for PR value). If the Great Eight (G-8) attends, which would be the best, it'll almost certainly occur in Turkey in April:

"(Iraq) needs support in this battle that not only threatens Iraq but will spill over to all countries in the region," al-Maliki said — shortly before mortar shells landed near the conference site and a car bomb exploded in a Shiite stronghold across the city.

The delegates proposed an "expanded" follow-up meeting, which could include the G-8 nations and others, in Istanbul, Turkey, next month. Iraqi officials, however, say they want the next meeting to take place in Baghdad.

The meeting also gives a forum to air a wide range of views and concerns including U.S. accusations of weapons smuggling from Iran and Syria, and Arab demands for greater political power for Iraq's Sunnis.

This means Sunni delegates will be at the next meeting, which at least gives Arabs some hope and provides a means by which to halt the accelerating momentum of violence. As they say in Turkey, "Wunderbar!"

(I borrowed the Persian art graphic from Naj, whose excellent blog, "Iran Facts" I just added to my favorites list at right.)

"He Who Controls Energy, Controls The Nations"

And today the nations meet in Baghdad, between the Tigris and Euphrates. Former empires convene with one which is faltering, as if to form an exclusive club, whose first meeting is to decide who controls the energy. Sharing Iraq's oil equitably amongst its people was the only political solution, the one carrot able to balance so many sticks; a black carrot and a black mustache bound its deep divisions, for a time, into a nation. It was a nation which once did our bidding, and attacked the Iranians for expelling our treasured corporations, those which bring us foreign tribute in the form of cheap, distilled, beautifully combustible Go-Juice. Now Iranians are come unbowed to Baghdad, to discuss how to stabilize Iraq. Addled heads in narrow frames can repeat hubristic sound-bites, but the longer, wider, more perspicacious gaze of history sees all, and its dry whisper will not deny. Iran arrives as victor.

The quote in bold above is attributed to Henry Kissinger, who a dozen days ago finally deliberated his glabrous hulk across the protesting earth to the Foreign Affairs podium, to call for a Time Out:

The international conference should be the occasion, as well, to go beyond the warring factions in Iraq to moving toward a stable energy supply. It would be the best framework for a transition from American military occupation. Paradoxically, it may also prove the best framework for bilateral discussions with Syria and Iran.

American military policy in Iraq must be related to such a diplomatic strategy. Unilateral withdrawal on fixed timetables, unrelated to local conditions, is incompatible with the diplomacy described here.

The willingness of other countries to participate in such an effort depends importantly on their assessment of the balance of power in the Middle East after the end of the war in Iraq. A successful diplomacy requires that American power remain relevant and available in support of a coherent regional policy.

After the Thirty Years' War, the nations of Europe organized an international conference to set rules for ending the war, after the continent had been left prostrate and exhausted.

The world now has a comparable opportunity today. Will it seize it while it still has a margin of decision, or must it wait until exhaustion and despair leave no alternative?

Ironic, and I suppose fitting that a senior mass murderer once again slips the leash on his juniors. Cheney and Rumsfeld absolutely despised Kissinger in their Nixon days, and when they came to run the Ford Administration, it was payback time. And you know what they say about payback, when the chance comes 'round again.

Henry Kissinger is an evil poison dwarf straight out of an unsavory fairy tale, but his view of history is long, and his comparison of the Mid-East to the Europe of the Thirty Years' War is apt indeed. Islam is in the throes of a Great Reformation not unlike what occurred to Christianity after Martin Luther nailed up his 95 Theses in Wittenberg Castle on All Hallow's Eve, 1517. The Christians had the printing press. The Muslims have the Internet. He understands this.

One wonders how the cabal which makes waste lands and calls them democracies is digesting this attempt to head off war. The Baghdad conference is great progress, and I pray it succeeds. Yet I am also aware of who prays it does not, and that they possess means far more immediate, immoderate, and inflammatory than prayer. I wonder about the time and manner in which they'll choose to forestall the diplomacy efforts. Will they use an Iranian missile-mine plunged into the underside of the USS Pretext, a GBU-28, or will they resort to tommy guns like an Edward G. Robinson movie?

Henry Kissinger is able to place the problematic consequences of inconsiderate action into a wide array of context. Whereas, Cheney and Rumsfeld would have little understanding of such analogies, less interest in them. Their view is no longer than dogs when disturbed from licking themselves, suddenly moved to howls by music from a sweet-strung Stradivarius. While the indoor concert plays, if great care isn't taken to chain the bloodhounds and lock them securely into the maintenance shed, they will surely disrupt the evening's proceedings in a most irreparable way.

The ghost of Alexander paces Babylon tonight, re-counting his plunder of Bactrian gold. The forgotten Sumerians, the Hittites, the Chaldeans join the Egyptians and the Ottomans to line the muddy Tigris, singing chants of empire, prayers for prosperity and peace. Let the snake find its deep hole, the scorpion its crevice, and the hyena its exit.

The Warden Of Fallujah

Marine Captain Mike Carson, back from Iraq, is now a creative writing student at the University of Central Florida. Here is the last section of 12 which he wrote about his 7 months in Fallujah, running its jail. His creative writing made it into the LA Times opinion page. Mike Carson can write, as in exceedingly well, and you will want to read his other 11 sections.

You will return to civilian life.

You will be jumpy and vaguely unsatisfied, disconnected from the civilians around you who care only about text messages and gas prices and catty e-mails. Navy doctors will find Iraqi sand trapped in the innermost pathways of your ear canals. Your wife now snores, and all her unfamiliar noises combine to drive you from your bed.

On one such night, you will turn on the television news and see that Anna Nicole Smith's death has trumped the coverage of America's 3,118th fatality, 31-year-old Petty Officer 1st Class Gilbert Minjares Jr. You will note that, at 39, Smith was younger than most of the helicopters flying in Iraq. You will turn off the TV and sit in the dark and feel your eyes water as you think about how you took 55 Marines and sailors into a combat zone and brought all 55 back home, and that no one in America besides you and those 55 really cares or understands what you went through.

You processed 1,230 detainees, without a single incident of abuse, while America sat on the couch and watched girls go wild. As far as you know, you killed no one. This used to bother you, because killing is what Marines are trained to do. But now, after viewing documentaries and reports that paint American forces as Redcoat invaders, you take some comfort in the fact that you never pulled the trigger.

Those numbers — 55, 1,230 and 0 — will allow you to sleep tonight, and the next night, and the next. But each night you will insert a mouth guard made of silicone before you go to sleep, because your dentist informs you that you are always, always, always unconsciously grinding your teeth.

Quadrillage & The New "Gated Communities," Pt. III

By announcing Baghdad as the focus of the surge, Bush has given the insurgents ample time to prepare fixed defenses which feature ambush, fluid withdrawal to the next prepared defenses, and then full withdrawal to the countryside. These insurgents also happened to run army units, and their commanders fought the third-bloodiest war in the twentieth century (against Iran, which had about three times the population of Iraq). Their largely Sunni insurgency has demonstrated ongoing cohesion, with the ability to recruit and strike all over central Iraq. Here is all they need to do to defeat the Surge:

1) maintain communication links
2) avoid annihilation or capture
3) inflict casualties on US and Iraqi patrols within "gated communities"
4) sabotage or otherwise disrupt government services financed by the US
5) maintain safe havens outside Baghdad, and continue ambushes there.

One angle on the Surge which might work would be to say to the insurgents, "We don't care about your weapons. Take them. We'll give you safe passage, and find you new housing that's better. But we need you to move out of this area to where your support is." This would be a non-violent ethnic cleansing approach applied to Baghdad with a "Blood Borders" logic behind it (see Ralph Peters, Armed Forces Journal, June 2006 at link) to speed the inevitable partition along. But I doubt such an approach is politically palatable, and thus it's as good as impossible.

The Surge will probably make things look better in the press for a few months. There may well be talk of milestones met and progress made in Baghdad. Meanwhile the insurgency in the country as a whole will likely gather even more centrifugal force, and the atrocities on all sides will become more unforgivable. The Bush Administration's goal is to create a Western-friendly region. (Bush no longer drinks. Notice how he avoids all mention of nitrous oxide?) The Army's goal is to be able to say, "We followed sound strategy, but were saddled with flawed rules of engagement." The MIC's (military-industrial complex) goal is to keep the whole thing going. Two out of three ain't bad.

It is also possible that the Sunnis keenly sense a "Tigris Offensive" in their grasp, with all intentional reference to the Tet Offensive. The insurgents have amply demonstrated their effectiveness and determination, and if they're willing to strap bombs on their bellies, you can guess they're probably willing to blow up an entire building in Baghdad to take out a squad or two of soldiers inside. If they are able to inflict heavy casualties on either the Iraqi Army or US forces, they can break the will not only of Congress, but the Generals running this grisly horror show and the soldiers unlucky enough to act it out. Vietnam wasn't lost because of a sudden realism or humility on the part of US leadership. It was lost because soldiers and their commanders saw no more point to what they were doing. They just started going through the motions. When asked to drive around in Humvees to search the same roads and houses over and over, all the while waiting for an IED to explode next to them, they must be nearing that epiphany in Iraq. Booby-trapping apartment buildings would be technically much easier than booby-trapping roads. It's the sharpening of a decision already made.

The movie "The Battle of Algiers" is the story of quadrillage, and how the French used brutality to quell a stubborn insurgency in the Casbah for a few years. It ends with the insurgent youth Ali La Pointe huddling in the crawlspace of a house with three younger children who trust him. Having learned not to trust the French, they refuse to heed a French colonel's appeals to come out, and soldiers blow the building to the ground. The movie was considered required viewing among the officer elite, presumably for the harsh measures which must be taken to win. They seem to have overlooked a few things: a few years after the events depicted, the insurgents had won and France was putting down a military coup by the officers who ran the counterinsurgency, which claimed upwards of 10% of the population. Decades later, many of the muslim kids burning cars in Paris suburbs were quite literally the children of counterinsurgency, with parents who came from North Africa. They were shouting "Vive Algiers," and writing "Ali La Pointe" on walls. A main street in Algiers is named for a 19-year old girl, Hasiba ben Bouali, who died in the crawlspace with him. A university is also named after her.

Who will the streets and universities in tomorrow's Iraq be named for? My bet is there won't be a David Petraeus Avenue. Quadrillage isn't a model of what to do in Iraq. Based upon many, many outcomes of history, it's a powerfully proven model of what NOT to do.

Quadrillage & The New "Gated Communities," Pt. II

Remember the Vietnam euphemism "Strategic Hamlet?" It's funny how ideas are recycled in different market-ese. Strategic Hamlets refer to counterinsurgency efforts in South Vietnam which relied on massive population transfers. Peasants were relocated into self-constructed walled forts in order to identify, isolate, and kill Viet Minh insurgents. The program enjoyed considerable initial advantages, including almost unlimited funding and expert leadership under Robert Ker Thompson, who had a record of success against communists in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. 8.5 million peasants were re-housed into more than 7,000 hamlets in 28 months, with CIA-trained death squads killing untold numbers of Viet Minh sympathizers. Except the tried-and-true method didn't work, and Vietnam's President Diem was assassinated in 1963.

So now it's called "Gated Communities." This is a big gamble. If the game were Texas Hold 'Em, it's a bet on drawing an inside straight flush on the last card. Long odds. To recap, the idea behind the "Surge" follows classic counterinsurgency doctrine as re-hashed by the new ground commander in Iraq, the intellectually inclined General David Petraeus, whose name oddly befits a Roman prelate. The idea is to cleanse Baghdad of insurgents by sectioning off its neighborhoods, putting gates around them, then going through them house by house to identify insurgent families. Quadrillage is the term the French used for it in Algiers and early South Vietnam. Insurgents will be isolated, then neutralized by shipping them and their supporters to camps, prisons, or graveyards. A mixed local command is set up of mixed Iraqi troops and police backed by a central core of US forces with responsibility over their gated section. The local command begins to employ people to pick up garbage, make repairs, and put snitches on payroll, in this way winning over the populace, who in turn make the insurgents unwelcome. If anything gets out of control, overwhelming firepower will be called down on the trouble.

In Part I of this post, I promised to explain why quadrillage probably won't work now. It probably would've worked if employed immediately after the invasion, especially if it relied on the Baathists who had run the country for 40 years. At this point, however, it's going up a steep hill, and alerting the insurgents to the strategy 3 months in advance doesn't help. And I said General Petraeus isn't the genius people think he is; for example, he is fond of holding up Tal Afar as a shining example of successful counterinsurgency. Tal Afar was the patrol area of one of the military's leading lights, Colonel H.R. McMaster, who wrote the provocative book "Dereliction of Duty," and is credited for coming up with the template for taming the bad guys. While Petraeus and McMaster are letting people give them attaboys and manly pats on the toosh, here's what Matt Taibbi quotes the mayor of Tal Afar as saying last summer, in his Rolling Stone article, "Waiter, There's A Surge In My Soup" (hat tip to Bruce of The River Blog for surfacing it):

I was in Tal Afar's "genuine success" story over the summer. It was such a success story that the city's neurotic, hand-wringing mayor, Najim Abdullah al-Jubori, actually asked American officials during a meeting I attended if they could tell President Bush to stop calling it a success story. "It just makes the terrorists angry," he said. At the meeting he pointed to a map and indicated the areas where the insurgents held strong positions.

"Here," he said. "Oh, and here. And here. Here also...."

Due to length, I'll follow up with a Part III. Graphic above is of Afrikaner commandos in the Boer War, just as a reminder that not all insurgents are brown-skinned communists.

Denial Of Sunni SAM Offensive: SA-18s In Iraq

The Islamic State of Iraq, an Al-Qaeda (Saudi Arabian) connected Sunni group, has posted video of the Marine version of a US Chinook helicopter crashing. It's the fourth time they've posted a helicopter going down from a SAM hit in a week. I've been following these developments closely for a few reasons, two of which this latest video confirms. As usual, it is up on Live Leak.

First, the footage shows the Sunnis to the northwest of Baghdad almost certainly have the latest Russian-designed SA-18 "Grouse" anti-aircraft missiles. The missiles may originate from China, Iran, Venezuela, or Russia itself, but do not necessarily indicate state involvement; generals and arms dealers in any of these places could supply missiles for cash, a wink, and a nod. While state involvement from those above isn't precluded, the real suspect here is Saudi Arabia, Al-Qaeda's primary supporter.

I am not an expert in current SAMs or counter-measures against them, but on the video, it is remarkable that no flares (to confuse the missile's heat-seeking cone) come from the Chinook before it is hit, and the pilot apparently does not take evasive action until the missile was very close. The pilot and crew must have known they were flying through a "hot" area, so were probably vigilant and employing what protections they had. Their lack of reaction strongly indicates electronic counter-measures either malfunctioned or were almost completely defeated. Collectively, the Law of Averages previously quoted by the top US command in these crashes is no longer an adequate explanation for cause. We get it. So should they. Sunni militants possess highly lethal shoulder-fired missiles.

Second, the attacks on the helicopters and the videos from the "Islamic State of Iraq" seem to be part of a carefully branded and well thought-out propaganda campaign which indicates the partitioning of Iraq is quickening, with a new Sunni battle plan. The videos are definitely intended as "viral" messaging which supports strategic insurgency aims, and are likely connected to offers yesterday by Sunni Baathist leadership to negotiate directly with the US government for peace. I don't speak Arabic, but would guess the messaging in the videos is consistent with a "Don't Tread On Us" theme. This is a new level of propaganda sophistication, and combined with the ability to control local airspace, it's going to be difficult to ignore. The primary US strategy for isolating and quelling Sunni insurgency has officially switched to using the Iraqi (Shiite) Army as on-the-ground muscle and backing it with tactical firepower, usually from helicopter gunships. The Sunni SAM offensive amply demonstrates that strategy has a readily exploitable Achilles Heel. Drive off the firepower, and the muscles will flee.

The US, of course, will not officially respond to these videos or peace demands, but there's a David vs. Goliath element to them which undoubtedly plays well across the entire Mid-East, and effectively promotes the Sunni cause. Many analysts have dismissed the ability of the Baathist Sunnis to influence or dictate events, but their good organization, experience, and weapons can compensate for much. With their SAM campaign, they have already achieved stunning tactical victories and have begun to translate them into broader strategic momentum. With funding coming from external sources for the most advanced weapons, their insurgency may be morphing into an irregular army.

The operational ceiling of the SAM-18 is thought to be 6,980 feet. No army in the world can afford to lose a helicopter every two days flying over a hundred-square mile area, and it seems like many families lost loved ones through the sheer denial of their commanders. If the pilot carrying these 7 Marines was ordered to fly at least 8,000 feet over the SAM-infested area, they'd probably all still be alive. Why was that precaution too much to take?

Update: An hour later, there's a General commentingsomething like this:

"I think people are making too much about this," Cody said, while stressing that he personally and the Army as an institution take each loss seriously and are constantly looking for ways to avoid combat losses.

The Army's vice chief of staff went on to say, "I see no change in trends," and, "I see no credibility gaps," regarding the rash of helicopter losses. Are you kidding me? "Making too much of this?" Tell the families of the dead they're making too much of this. Nonsense. Denial. Dereliction of duty. This general is knowingly spouting politically motivated damage control, or is an icompetent. Three of these incidents occurred in a very small area of Iraq last week, with video taken of each. Also, CNN story concurrently linked to by Yahoo says there's no way to verify the claim a Chinook was shot down by insurgents. Then who launched the missile which hit it?

This is outrageous. It's telling the enemy they should invest in a lot more missiles, because they'll reap bloody returns. General Cody and the US command are begging to get these weapons sucked into the Sunni heartland: Anbar Province. But then, maybe I'm making too much of these incidents, and mere civilians like me can't grasp military matters.

Chinook Downed Northwest Of Baghdad (Video Above)

The map below shows the location of the three helicopters have been shot down in near Taji, a Sunni suburb northwest of Baghdad, in the last two weeks.

An insurgent group which calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq has claimed responsibility for the three attacks, all of which involved shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. The group is said to have Al-Qaeda links. The number of people involved in these incidents is probably quite small. The US military's state of denial over these crashes is really disturbing:

But a senior American military official said the crash appeared to have been caused by mechanical problems. Other Marine aircraft were close enough to see the Sea Knight when it crashed, the official said.Whichever proves to be the cause, American officials have grown concerned that helicopters may now be much more vulnerable to insurgents, even when the insurgents are not armed with the kinds of shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles used against military aircraft in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The other four American helicopters shot down in recent weeks were felled by small-arms fire, not by missiles, according to Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Now contrast the General Thinking with what eyewitnesses reported:

“I looked at the sky and saw this big helicopter with double rotors, and it was hit in its tail and burning,” said the witness, who declined to give his name. He said another helicopter with a single rotor was flying just behind the stricken one.

Who do you believe? Including the Blackhawk which was shot down in Diyala, at least 21 people, amongst them two colonels, one major, one captain, two regimental first sergeants, the Army's first female command sergeant major, and the chief medical surgeon for all of Iraq were lost. Effective leadership would admit there's a problem with SAMs in the area and either secure it, fly high over it, or around it. This would better prepare air mobile personnel in Iraq when and if Iran retaliates by giving SA-18 SAMs to Shiite militias and Iraqi army units.

US Military Admits: Helicopters Downed By Iraq Ground-Fire

An Apache AH-64D gunship was shot down by a man-portable SAM last Friday (February 2nd, 2007) near Taji. But it was hit by something else first, a single shot from some type of large-caliber weapon. It must be something new, as the insurgents have claimed. The raw footage was packaged in jihadist propaganda, so I won't embed it here, having heard enough cries of Allahuh Akhbar for a while. If you wish to view it, it's searchable on Live Leak via the terms "helicopter, iraq, downing." I viewed it very closely to try and analyze what happened. While the incidence of helicopter crashes is still very low, the threats posed by weapons must be respected. There are probably not many SA-18 SAMs in Iraq, and the existence of a super-rifle is unconfirmed, but pilots will probably be directed to maintain much higher altitudes while traveling, to stand off from positions offering obvious ground cover, to avoid travel routines, and to not be as aggressive in investigating fire sources in the absence of ground support. They need to give themselves more time to detect and evade.

The insurgents in the video, of whom there were at least 4, deployed themselves line abreast in a ditch. Of the three visible, one was wearing a light robe and turban, and sat upright. Odd behavior, given the optics and firepower of the gunships--he stuck out like a sore thumb. The others wore dark green fatigues and black ski masks, and lay prone. They appear to have set up at dusk to ambush the helicopters, and one began to remove parts for assembly from a long green box which was new or very well-preserved. Another prepared the ground in front of him, clearing it for some kind of attachment. I have not seen these shipping crates before, but the color and shape of the main rectangular body of the device protruding from it was consistent with pictures and video of other SA-series missiles.

Two Apaches on patrol crossed left-to-right in front of these insurgents approximately 2 kilometers away, after heading north-west. (If it was at dawn, their bearing would've been approximately 135 degrees, or south-east.) Because of the way the video sequence was edited, the light conditions, and withdrawal vectors taken by the pilots, I assume the incident occurred at dusk. As the Apaches drew out of range, they suddenly circled over each other's flight path, and the trail helicopter apparently, but by no means certainly, withdrew.

After its turn, the lead helicopter bore directly toward the insurgent position, but turned to its left after drawing fairly close. It flew roughly parallel to powerlines at low altitude; the insurgents waited until it passed directly in front, less than a hundred meters above ground and probably no more than 400 meters away. There is the report of a single shot at 1:24 into the video, and an impact flash on the right side of the helicopter's fuselage on or near the engine nacelle, at 1:25. This hit is followed by cheers.

Shortly thereafter, automatic small arms fire opens up, and the helicopter withdraws north. It's impossible to tell it's the same helicopter all the way through because there seems to be an edit cut in the video, and visual contact is broken because of trees, but it seems likely. At 1:38-1:39 there is a glimpse of a man holding a tube on his shoulder and pointing in its general direction. At 1:52 there's the distinctive sound of a SAM launch, and at 1:54 there's the sound of an impact and a large flash which half-fills the screen. The Apache immediately begins to retrace its route north-west, on fire and trailing a line of smoke. At 1:59 there is a secondary explosion, and it loses power suddenly and crashes not far from where the two aircraft originally broke formation.

Pilots in Iraq were generally not concerned about missiles until recently. Their use there is still rare, but military spokesmen were quoted as saying that tactics will change appropriately. The Russian SA-18 would appear to be a prime suspect here in defeating formerly effective countermeasures, and Russia has licensed its production of to a number of countries including Venezuela, Iran, and China. But what's really puzzling is the single shot which hit the helicopter prior to the SAM. No weapon I know could do that, unless it was an extremely lucky hit with an anti-tank rifle or a .50-cal sniper rifle. Neither weapon seems capable of hitting a helicopter mid-ship in its engine bay while moving obliquely at close to 100 mph. Not with a single shot. The pilot of the Apache which was shot down broke formation and headed directly for the insurgents, so may have received fire from that area or was lured there by other means. If they had not gotten so close, the crew probably would have made it back.

They Shoot Donkeys, Don't They?

This morning I was thinking about donkeys, why war is so expensive, and why Republicans love it so much. And for a while, I was day-dreaming about how to become rich enough to become a Republican and change the party from the inside. The answer was tantalizingly close and featured a non-profit foundation, Jennifer Connelly before she became an x-ray, and a yellow Lotus Elise. Then Lord Baby cut my perusals short with the application of searing pain. He saw me and thought, "Look, Daddy has that far-away stare again. Quick! I've got to snap him out of it...how far will this Tinker Toy dowel go into his ear? Back to reality, Daddy!" The funny thing is, and I forgot this until just now, I am a registered Republican. It seemed safer, somehow, what with the work camps being built.

So. Why does President Cheney (or as I refer to him, The Greatest Field Marshal of All Time) need 245 billion dollars to prosecute war against third-world menaces like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia? I realize they were about to ride their donkeys across the ocean to invade and subjugate us, but I wonder, where does all that money go?

Well, for starters, the gross unit cost of an AH-64 Apache helicopter is about 57 million dollars. And of course, if you want to actually use one, there's pilot training, maintenance, fuel, and support personnel to pay, all before arming it with prodigious amounts of ordnance. A ball-park for what it costs to field each "unit" for awhile is roughly $100 million dollars, which makes one Apache gunship as expensive as a 400-foot-long yacht the hyper-rich now feel required to build. Given that the world's wealthiest people would find ownership of more than one AH-64 Apache troubling, you'd have to consider the price to be pretty steep. And about four of them went down last week.

Put another way, 245 large is only enough to buy about 2,000 Apache gunships and keep them flying around, shooting at suspicious donkey riders for a couple years. Expressed in terms of "asymmetric warfare," the same amount is enough to buy the donkeys. As in, all of them. The whole supply. On earth. Ten times over. Forever. So that's my counter-insurgency plan. Buy all the donkeys. Militarily, it's a no-brainer. Think I'm crazy? Then just try lugging an 82mm mortar tube, base, and one measly case of ammunition across an alfalfa field or up a 12,000 foot mountain pass without a couple of donkeys. It'll make you a peaceful ex-insurgent in no time.

When you figure all the things you need to find guys who've got explosive charges no bigger than a can of Fanta strapped to their donkeys, Toyota Tacomas, and Vespas, it all starts to add up. There are four-engined planes constantly circling high up in the bozosphere, trying to spot the Fanta can carriers on radar. There are satellites floating by and peering down with night vision scopes, registering every bottle, barrel, and bit of trash as a potential explosive device. There are Blackhawk helicopters (don't get me started on them) carrying bottles of water and diaper wipes to Fobbits (people who never leave their Forward Operating Base), there are F-14 and 15s and 16s and 22s and 117s puking thousands of pounds of half-burned fuel out their behinds every hour, there are tanks treading all over hell burning 5 gallons to the mile, and there are Humvees carrying soldiers on their second illegally extended tours, who have to break into people's houses at night and wait to get blown up by remote control. All this costs tremendous gobspittles of moolah.

When two Iraqis stop by the side of a road at night, there's a chance they're planting a bomb. A bomb which was dirt cheap, or free. Recycled, if you will. Our war machine is spinning faster and faster to figure out whether that's an IED they're planting, or they're having a bout of dysentery. Grandfathers have been blown to pieces by 30mm Gatling guns from three miles away because they stopped for a satisfying piss, and took something from a pack off a donkey. Wedding parties have been wasted by precision-strike JDAMs, farmers have been blown off their terrorist tractors. In terms of logistics, this was very expensive; in terms of morality, we are cowards, and are surely doomed. Our designated enemies merely have to squat on the ground to have The Greatest Field Marshal of All Time racing to ask for hundreds more bankrupting billions. At this rate, they can burn us out by frowning.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll. Ten thousand ships have traveled thee in vain.

No Oil Favoritism To US? Why Not, Goddammit?

If what Iraq's VP says is true, it is an outrage. And it made me spill the battery acid I was about to drink. I mean, can't the US even plunder a country it has conquered and holds in its powerful grasp?? What's all this crap about "unitary executive this" and "dictatorial powers that" if it's not about beating up third world countries and taking stuff they're too poor to appreciate? And if Iraq wasn't invaded to steal its oil, so I can keep my car running, my Amazon deliveries coming, and doing my job as a corporate by consuming like an obsessive-compulsive nymphomaniac strung out on benzedrine, then...what good was it?

DAVOS, Switzerland -(Dow Jones)- Iraq's Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi Saturday rejected rumors that its thorny and long-delayed oil law guaranteed the U.S. access to a share of its oil, adding implementation of the law will happen after it had spent "some weeks" being discussed among Iraq's lawmakers.

"It's absolutely not true" that the U.S. or any other named country had preferential treatment under the proposed law, Abdul-Mahdi said, which is seen as essential to develop Iraq's battle-torn oil industry.

Oh. I see. It's not a law yet. It's "proposed." Ok, heart rate going down. Breathing. Breathing. But geez, now that I think about it, "proposed" could mean trouble.

The official declined to comment on areas where disagreements continue in the law.

The federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government have clashed over the drafting of the law. The Kurds want control of oil resources in their territories and a big share of oil revenue.

Big foreign energy firms are eager to know what form contracts will take in the hydrocarbons law and how much, for example, of a given oil block or field will be owned by the Iraqi government and what level of cost recovery they can expect from the government for investing billions of dollars.

I know, I know. This sounds like a job for Batman. And Robin. And especially Cat-Woman. But there's really no problem with uppity Iraqis passing this law to screw us out of our oil. The Iraqi Parliament hasn't been able to gather enough representatives to vote on a damned thing in over three months. They're all waiting it out in Dubai, Jordan, and London. Let's hear what one of the refugees from parliament, neocon chum Adnan Al-Pachachi, has to say:

“People are totally disenchanted,” Mr. Pachachi said in a telephone interview from Abu Dhabi. “There has been no improvement in the security situation. The government seems to be incapable of doing anything despite all the promises.”

Though the Constitution grants Iraq’s only elected body wide powers to pass laws and investigate, sectarian divisions and the need for a two-thirds majority in some cases have often led to deadlock. Sunni and Shiite power brokers have blocked efforts to scrutinize violence connected to their own sects.

“Parliament is the heart of the political process,” Mr. Mashhadani said in an interview at his office, offering more hope than reality. “It is the center of everything. If the heart is not working, it all fails.”

That's right, Radar. If the heart is not working, it all fails. Just ask Dick Cheney. I don't think we have to worry about Iraqis giving our oil away for a long time. At least not legally.

(Hat-tip to Jesus del Norte over at Church and Empire for catching this story from the excellent Healing Iraq blog. And to the New Yawk Times for doing some reporting once in a while.)