Matthew Continetti Tells Us How Well Things Are Going Posted by David Shorr

Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard was on NPR's On Point yesterday. One exchange with host Tom Ashbrook was hilarious, if it weren't so sad (at around 21:45, for those who'd like to listen). Continetti was reporting that local sheiks all over Iraq, not just in Anbar, are joining the fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq. What's more:

Once these sheiks flip, many of the Sunnis who live in these areas, they join the Iraqi security forces. So in a sense, this is a way in which the grassroots political developments help strengthen the central government of Iraq by joining the national Iraqi army.

When host Ashbrook pushed back, asking whether these forces aren't just arming themselves for civil war, rather than integrating into the national army, Continetti replied:

The Army takes its orders from the central government in Baghdad, so of course it's integrating with that government.

All of which delivered in a how-could-you-be-so-dense tone. I mean, why would anybody pretend to be regular forces, and at the same time secretly doing mischief on behalf of their own tribal kinspeople, rather than the government in Baghdad?? (Hearing this, and imagining my 6th grade daughter saying it, rolling her eyes and doing that head-wiggle thing.) Like, duuh.

Comments

[Don Bacon]

Let's take a look at those points.

1. Some, not many, Sunnis may join the Iraqi Ground Forces, which as we know is an unreliable force. The reason that more won't be admitted is because the Shia governemnt is reluctant to do so. Here's Major General Rick Lynch, Multinational Division Center Commander with his "ifs and whens", Aug 24, 2007:

"There are concerns in some sectors that by encouraging the growth of security at the local level, we are undermining the authority of the Iraqi government. I don't see that to be true at all. Local and provincial leaders are implementing grassroots governance and with our help are improving their lives and the lives and the lives of their citizens by resolving the problems they can solve locally. And that doesn't weaken the Iraqi government; it strengthens it. Because of this, the will of the people in action, when the politicians in Baghdad actually come together, they're going to find out they got a stable base from which to build on. . . Everything here takes time, you know. And I'm not even pretending that the idea of concerned citizens is being welcomed with open arms by the government of Iraq. They're concerned about the idea of these members of the Sunni population becoming members of a security force. There is some concern. But I see progress."
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4028

2. The Iraqi Army doesn't take its orders from the central government but from the US military. A year ago the "sovereign" Iraqi President was made, by his US masters, Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces, to include the Air Force, the Navy and one Ground Division, the Eighth Infantry Division located in a safe area 120 miles south of Baghdad in the Polish Zone. This is exactly why President Maliki (1) relies on his Badr Brigades for security and (2) doesn't want Sunnis in an army he doesn't control.

So much for Matthew Continetti. And no, he's not like your daughter, she would be smarter than that I'm sure.

[Dan Kervick]

Well perhaps the good people at the Weekly Standard aren't quite as dumb as they appear, but simply aren't very concerned about the prospect of a civil war, and have no long term, or even short term interest in the survival of the Iraqi government or the solvency and integrity of the Iraqi army.

It's interesting. A news report this week stated that 85% of the Iraqis being held in detention are Sunni Arabs, which is not surprising given that it is mostly Sunni Arabs who have been making war against the Iraqi government, blowing up innocent civilians at a revoltingly consistent pace and ... you know ... killing our soldiers, while the Shia have mainly sought only to fight back, and simply prevent the return to power by the same minority coalition of brutal thugs who oppressed, humilated and terrorized them for decades. Have we heard any stories of Shia truck bombers blowing up Sunnis in Anbar province? I've missed these stories. And yet just about every day some Sunni Arab terrorist butcher slaughters non-combattants.

Yet that doesn't seem to matter much to the scoundrels on the US neo-right who have effectively switched sides in the war, and are now pushing to arm our enemies and topple the elected government, all so that some Saudi quislings can stick it to Iran and roll back the Great Shia Menace, to the delight of Israel and its American stooges.

[Don Bacon]

re: Shia -- they are fighting the US military as well as the Sunni.

quoting from General Lynch again, after he was asked "who's the enemy":

"We are in combat operations against Shi'a extremists, Sunni extremists and marked Iranian influence [he's gotta get "Iranian" in there--but he drops it later], and since we've been fighting this fight, since the 4th of April, we've lost 71 magnificent soldiers.

"About half the attacks we're experiencing are from Sunni extremists and about half the attacks we're experiencing are from Shi'a extremists, depending on where you are. The two big fights we got in the Tigris River Valley and the Euphrates River Valley are those who are against [sic] Sunni extremists, and they're fighting back, and in the middle of my battlespace -- Iskandariyah, Mahmudiyah, Latifiyah -- there's a lot of Shi'a extremism there, as well.

"So I couldn't say one or the other. I just got to tell you, we got a lot of bad guys in our battlespace and we're working to kill or capture them all. And as I told you, we've killed or captured about a thousand of them."
---------------

Note that the enemy are Shia and Sunni extremists, not al-Qaeda, not insurgents and not terrorists. "Extremists" is a pretty good term, actually, meaning people who are extremely upset that their homeland is being brutally occupied by a foreign military force. "Bad guys" reveals something, I think, about how a general sees war as a morality game, the good guys against the bad guys, truly American.

[Don Bacon]

re: How Well Things Are Going
background: General Betrayus is arming the Sunni groups, "flipping" them, to "fight al-Qaeda". Some say it's really part of a new strategy to side with Saudi Arabia to contest the expansion of Persian Shia-ism that the US has abetted, but that would imply that the US has a strategy.

from Iraq:
"A Sunni insurgent group we’ve been battling for months, responsible for the death of my friend and numerous attacks, agreed to fight Al Qaeda alongside us. Since then, they’ve grown into a much more organized, lethal force. They use this organization to steal cars and intimidate and torture the local population, or anyone they accuse of being linked to Al Qaeda. The Gestapo of the 21st century, sanctioned by the United States Army."
http://armyofdude.blogspot.com/

[Dan Kervick]

Don, take a look at Glenn Greenwald and Juan Cole today.

General Lynch may be spinning us. The only specifics he gives about actual confrontations all seem to have to do with battles with Sunni insurgents, and the numbers of detainees argue that the Sunni insurgency is responsible for most of confrontations with US soldiers. But Lynch claims its about 50/50, and at the end adds, seemingly as an afterthought, "there's a lot of Shi'a extremism there, as well". I think the General was just correcting himself because he realized he had drifted off message, and was veering dangerously near the truth.

The US government has been trying to engineer a collapse of the Baghdad government, and has been engaged in a propaganda campaign against Shia and Iran, with prominent Republican lobbyists running the game. I simply don't believe the recent claims that seem to suggest that, even though the insurgency has clearly been a fundamentally Sunni operation from the beginning, suddenly the Shia are an equal part of the problem.

What's being engineered here is a big time stab in the back. Washington pressure on the Baghdad government is allegedly aimed at encouraging some sort of "even-handedness", and forcing them to share more power and make more concessions to Sunni Arabs. But the government in Baghdad knows that the ultimate aim of these Sunni groups is the destruction of the elected government, and the restoration of Sunni power to its pre-war status. The US is now trying to help the Sunnis get in through the windows and the back doors, and is supplying them with arms that are eventually going to be used on the government itself.

The neo-right is the main mover behind all this, because for them it is all about Iran now, and they don't care whom they have to screw over to challenge Tehran. But Democratic stooges like Hillary Clinton, Carl Levin and Diane Feinstein are helping to lift the knife.

[Don Bacon]

Dan,

I think that we can look at Iraq two ways, on its own and, as you suggest, as a precurser to Iran, keeping in mind that none of this, really, makes any sense.

1. Regarding Sunni: Cole: "I read 85 percent of detainees being Sunni as meaning that most attacks were in Sunni Arab neighborhoods and so those arrested were from that community." If the US is promoting the Sunni cause, why are most of the now 24 thousand detainees Sunni? These are usually military-age men picked up in night-time house raids in Sunni areas and are bound to, and do, increase occupation resistance by Sunnis.

Regarding Shia: Muqtada al-Sadr has been a sworn enemy of the US for years (that's how Casey Sheehan lost his life) and he controls most of Baghdad and southern Iraq including Basra, along with other sects. The US military has been fighting the Mahdi army, really a collection of armed sects, for over three years--there's nothing sudden about it. Hating America is an equal opportunity program! General Lynch: "And this idea that we've taken down 16 division high-value targets, of that, half of those were Shi'a, Shi'a leaders of Shi'a networks -- EFP networks, rocket networks; we've detained them or captured them or killed them, we have them under custody, now we're doing interrogation." General Odierno: "We have been able to liberate the major population centers, provide more security, and what we will do now is conduct quick operational strikes all around the country to go after these remaining small pockets that are still remaining out there of al Qaeda [i.e Sunni] and also Shi'a extremists. . . al Qaeda/Sunni insurgents, which we believe most of them still operating in the Sunni insurgency are moving towards al Qaeda -- created about 52 percent of the violence across Iraq, and Shi'a extremists created about 48 percent of the violence across Iraq, based on our figures for July.

Regarding Sunni/Shia civil war: It has been US policy -- divide-and-conquer -- to foster civil war in Iraq. Patrick Cockburn: "So, far from preventing civil war (a main justification for continued occupation), the US is arming [Sunni] sectarian killers engaged in a murder campaign that is tearing Iraq apart. . .The hidden history of the past four years is that the US wants to defeat the Sunni insurgents but does not want the Shia-Kurdish government to win a total victory. It props up the Iraqi state with one hand and keeps it weak with the other. . .The US is trying to limit the extent of the Shia-Kurdish victory, but by preventing a clear winner emerging in the struggle for Iraq, Washington is ensuring that this bloodiest of wars goes on, with no end in sight."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2841425.ece

2. Iran: Greenwald: "President Bush, in a news conference, issued swaggering, tough guy threats to Maliki due to Maliki's increasingly friendly posture with Iran. . .As always, everyone in official Washington plays their roles in order to carry this out." No question that the generals are hyping the Iran involvement on Iraq. General Lynch even becomes more amusing than usual: "We assess that there are 50 or so Iranian and Iraqi operatives working for Iran in our area, about 20 of which who we are actively targeting. . .In the near future, 2,000 Republic of Georgia soldiers will secure six checkpoints, allowing us to thoroughly inspect every truck crossing [from Iran] along the main westbound route towards Baghdad." Make any sense? If this weren't so tragic it could be a new musical comedy--Georgia on my mind.

[kalonline Geons]

My friends and I like to buy kal geons, because the kal gold is very useful to upgrade equipment. Only your equipment becomes better, then you can win this game. In kal online geons, you can buy everything you want in this game. Yesterday is my birthday, so my friends bought me some kal online gold as gifts. I am so happy.

[Rolex Day Date replica watches]

we don't think it is reasonable to spend hundreds thousands dollars to buy a decorating watch. you can use those money to invest in other industry which will return you good profit.
here you just need to spend 100-200 dollars to buy a replica rolex watches.
Rolex Day Date replica watches are made by the rating 1:1 according to the original watches, and you can't distinguish the original and the fake watches when you look at the surface of the watches.

[cheap silkroad gold]

It is the silkroad gold which make me very happy these days,

[wow gold]

Once I played wow, I did not know how to get strong, someone told me that you must have wow gold. He gave me some cheap wow gold .