Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS.
This priceless email report is from Beirut-based Mitch Prothero, of The National:
The President of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council Sayyed Ammar Hakim visited the resting place of martyr Commander Hajj Imad Moghnieh, in Rawdat al-Shahidain cemetery. After placing a wreath of flowers at the martyr's shrine and reciting prayers for all the martyrs at the cemetery, he considered his presence "At this sacred place, a confirmation of solidarity, support and emotional interaction with the martyrs of the Islamic Resistance, who stood, fought, struggled and sacrificed a great deal for Lebanon, the Arabs and all Muslims, for the just cause in this region, manifested in standing up to the Zionist enemy."
Allow a friend of mine to put this in perspective: "So the guy we killed hundreds of thousands of people to put in power just prayed over the grave of the most efficient killer of Americans ever. I mean, other than the Wendy's triple decker bacon cheese burger."
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The report is also to be found -- and was perhaps originally posted -- on the site of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon -- which happens to be called "moqawama.org", a curious name which under the circumstances had me confused for a moment...
In any case -- what can we learn here?
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The report is also to be found -- and was perhaps originally posted -- on the site of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon -- which happens to be called "moqawama.org", a curious name which under the circumstances had me confused for a moment...
In any case -- what can we learn here?
Are you suggesting we attack Wendy's?
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Well at the time, what was the info we had? As it turns out it was being fed to us by Saddam's apparently suicidal psyche, but he pulled a good goof on us with the WMD catch me f*ck me show, eh? Now you see it, now you don't (but it was already gone!!).
Yeah he fooled me. And most of the world.
As it turns out, we did accomplish a couple of other things, like AQ being dumb enough to commit to it even more than we did, and then make even dumber mistakes. And receive a resounding defeat. Then there's the democracy virus being injected into the body politic..with who knows what results.
I think BTW around 100K people died so far in Iraq as a result of violence by all sides.
I think KSM wins the most efficient killer of American's ever award. 2892 > 241. I suppose a formula might change that...but...
Iran: that regime may have strengthened it's position in the region, but they've lost a lot of legitimacy at home. Now they're the Islamic version of Burma, which will probably allow them to keep their power, but ideologically they're crippled in terms of exporting it. There's always money and Hezbollah of course.
Politicians pandering: today he panders to the stronger horse. If the horse changes or the Iran regime falls, he'll sing the praise of someone else. It's a sad part of politics, it doesn't mean democracy is bad. If you need cheering up please review the operatic career of one Andrew Jackson. And we turned out alright. Right?
Good lord Elf.
Even if we stipulate Saddam had WMD and we stipulate he supported foreign terrorists he was no threat to the US.
Ask yourself this; why did Saddam never give WMD to terrorists to attack Israel? Answer; He was scared of the consequences. His WMD programs were to keep Iran in line. Now the United States is stuck with that job.
Saddam was easy to manage, his desires were earthly, money, booze, porn, women would keep him happy. The people wh scare me are the ones who do what they do because god wants them too.
This O/T - other than talk about beating your head against something - post from the Sandbox is too damn funny to let go unremarked...
http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/2010/01/flight-of-tears-amfirst....
Don't be scared by the title, it's a belly laugh not a tear jerker.
I love the 1SG's insights on how to manage re-deployment drinking. Hysterical.
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@Erik,
I don't want to open it all up again, even if AM's guilt at his out of control blogging addiction is driving him to do desperate things - like open it up again. I will simply restate that's not how it looked to many including me at the time. You do have your valid points as well. Such as...
Iran. I have a thought in my widdle pointed head that maybe, just maybe the long view..starting with Bush 2.0 view...is that a nuclear armed Iran isn't entirely a bad thing, it being there's a much more loose cannon Sunni nuclear factory next door in Pakistan. I don't see Radical Hate everyone, no jokes in Islam Version of Islam can last forever. Nor that regime in it's present and conflicted form. You can't really be the moral guardians of virtue when your seen as abjectly corrupt and relying on bribing your IRGC and Baseej Bully boys. The Islamic Republic of Burma. Besides which we know even the regime's opponents and the Iranian people want to be a nuclear power. Ying needs Yang, Sunni nuke needs Shia nuke.
Maybe I just like the angle better than we're powerless impotent pussies who talk too goddamn much about something we clearly aren't going to do anything about.
In reality it is inevitable that Iran (or any nation that really wants them) will get nukes, they are just not that hard to build. The genie is out of the bottle and it is never going back in.
That said... What I think is VERY unlikely is that Iran will be able to engineer a nuke that is light and durable enough to be mated to a rocket. Making a device that works is one thing, making a device that works, weighs less than 2000 pounds, and can withstand 12G's at launch is another thing entirely. (same goes for north korea)
At the end of the day.. even if we are successful in Iraq and Afghanistan.. we will be hardly any safer.. because the financiers of terror have not been addressed. Until we can honestly name our true enemies.. we should never invade another country.. on any pretense.. real or imagined.
Don't act like the US decision to invade Iraq wasn't a good thing for your career prospects
@Visitor 453,
If you are referring to the Dude, he probably was always qualified enough to succeed.
And the rest of us may well not be doing it as a career but as a calling when the nation is threatened. It's not a job for life in any case unless your life is short - which does happen.
Major Scarlet is right about it not being over until the money men are dead...er...my bad...he said "addressed".
Erik I'm not worried about missiles, we'll always have enuf for a deterrent that way. I'm worried about suitcases, shipping containers and nut jobs for God carrying them in. And I worry more that the immediate response of our "elites" will be that we can't respond in kind.
Just finished a great book on Temur the Lame (Tamberlaine). Tamberlaine: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World.
Never think that Afghanistan - for instance - wasn't conquered. He handled it with great dispatch.
Winners always have lesson's to teach us.
To paraphrase Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, Chancellor of the Austrian Empire, "Iraq will astound the world by the depth of her ingratitude."
Mr. Elf,
First, have you seen this report? I don't believe the estimate of civilian casualties can be taken from Iraq Body Count.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMsa0707782
This is not the only report published on this matter, and you can easily find the others if you like. I don't know why these studies are not reported in the news when they talk about Iraqi civilian casualties.
Second, I also believe the Bush administration knew there were no WMD. The evidence for this is circumstantial, but I also remember el Baradei's letter to the Security Council just after the invasion saying that if he had 2 more months, and if Iraqi cooperation continued, he could have certified that Iraq had no nuclear programs, or capability. The idea that we couldn't give him that time as an alternative to war, to me is unacceptable and is only one of the indications that possession of WMD was not a deciding factor.
@Rich S,
I took a look at the study you linked to...I really don't think 600K people died in Iraq as a result of our combat operations, the near civil war and AQ...in short the war.
I don't have sadly the study I referred to at hand here, sorry. On the work PC, and I can't find the study in the dross on the web. I don't believe it was the Iraq Body Count. It was a DOD study. In any case I can't refute or support the figures high or low.
As far as the WMD - that was the lowest common denominator amongst a host of reasons. Briefly I still believe the shelf life on Saddam had expired, as another commenter put it. I also don't believe the Bush Administration lied or that they knew Saddam no longer had the WMD. I think they were taken in by Saddam's very elaborate scheme to convince the world - which succeeded - that he still had them.
This will be beat to death until it looks like warmed over JFK conspiracy theories. I don't see the point of continuing it...Peace out on this one.
The study was a statistical analysis, so plotting probability vs. number of deaths, you get a bell curve. At the left end of the curve you have something less than 100k with a corresponding low probability, and at the right end you get 600k with a corresponding low probability. The high point in the curve, at the greatest probability, you get something like 300k. So ,it is very unlikely that as little as < 100k died, very unlikely that 600k died. The statistical data from this study shows that it is most likely in the 300k area.
I thought the US government policy was to not track civilian deaths? I didn't knw there was DOD data.
Maybe there was some grand geopolitical strategy for taking him out, but the case wasn't made. We got mushroom clouds, and ficticious trips to Prague. I don't think enough evidence will ever come out to form a preponderance, but I think there is some evidence, albeit circumstantial.
In any case, the total incompetence in planning the invasion, and occupation (Phase IV) is a crime in itself. They had the results of the Desert Crossing study that Zinni ran. That said 380,000 troops minimum. Shinsecki (sp?) didn't pull that number out of his ass.
How many more items around the world are nearing the end of their shelf lives? Sounds like we're gonna need a draft if that's the way we're gonna be.
If I find the study when I go to work I'll put it up on this thread. SNLII put it up a couple of years ago.
Phase IV was incompetent, in fact doesn't appear to have been there at all...they wanted to leave after 120 days, with the INC as a Iraqi govt...which was pure fantasy. 120 Days figure - source is General Franks interview with Historian John Keegan in "The Iraq War". I think that was basically corroborated elsewhere. That was wishful thinking and ideology mixed with inexperience. Governing is hard. Democracy is very hard.
As far as this particular shelf life expiring we have to think back to 2002/2003 and how it looked at that time. I sure bought it, more than the Bush administration did, and not for lack of digligence or Kool Aide drinking on my part, or wild internet fantasises. Hell a manhattan district court thought he had some involvement with AQ and 9/11. As far as the WMD; as Saddam himself admitted to his FBI interrogator as the evidence does quite clearly show - now that we have the evidence in hand-he ran a con game to convince his neighbors he had WMD still and it blew up in his face. And ours.
Thanks, Erik, for pointing out that fact about the "threat" of WMDs. Fact is, we WMD analysts in the area knew it was a bullshit reason to invade Iraq, that Saddam's nascent chem-bio program was not an issue even for US troops in Kuwait, but then again, that really wasn't the aim of the Bush administration was it? And anyone who still swallows that story is either naive or willfully ignorant.
But hey, who could have foretold that giving "democracy" to a nation predominately made up of Shi'ite backgrounds and with strong ties with Iran (hi, Mr. Chalabi) would end up creating a more conservative ally of Iran? I mean, it was so unclear...
Cast Lead: The gift that keeps on giving.
PS: "We" have to somehow sort out Gaza. Its becoming a travesty. Talk about giving the enemy points.... Why cant we do Haiti there too? Under international control, but discussed with Hamas in advance?
Well Elf,
This limp-wristed surrender monkey wasn't fooled by the "evidence." Back in 2002 I kind of felt like John the Baptist, a lone voice crying in the wilderness. I wasn't alone, I recall the day we "conquered" Iraq and my neighbor, a man who didn't even finish high school, told me that "now we got it, how long will we keep it." But hey what does some redneck know, not when we've got piles of studies, and lots of Kagan-generated materials about the MidEast. But I get no pleasure out of "I told you so" because my wallet has been hit by operation Iraqi Fiasco as much as anybody else. I'll give you this, at least you admitted that you bought the line. Now my question is, do you think that the nation should start, just perhaps, just perhaps, questioning our leaders when they tell us that death dealt by swarthy men with long beards lurks in every corner or perhaps we should think that when Robert Kagan says that war is the "default state of mankind" he should be committed?
Surely at the Commissariat for the New American Innovation, folks know better than to expect gratitude in politics?
Whatever became of "foreign-policy realism"?
If you wanted M. al-Hakím (or, more to the point, M. al-Málikí) to pay you back for invading by thinking happier thoughts about "the Zionist enemy," you really ought to have told them so in advance. Did you ever?
Happy days.
To clarify:
As of 02/03: I think there was plenty of evidence of a courtship between AQ and Saddam - never consummated as it turned out. That was basically the 9/11 Commission's conclusion as well.
WMD: As of 02/03: There was plenty of evidence that he still harbored WMD - because he was clearly going to trouble to hide something. Turned out he was hiding - that he no longer had it. Well he swung for that one. And yes after much research I believed it at the time as well.
Saddam and terror overall: That was vindicated. He just had no operational role with AQ.
Shelf life over for Saddam after 9.11 - unless he was willing to really roll totally over - which he probably couldn't - still true.
Assault into the heart of the Arab World (we have a point to make) - and the point was made.
Unexpected: moral and military defeat for AQ - since they committed even more than us. And made dumber mistakes.
Long term results for the region: unknown, but the virus of democracy has been introduced. Who knows?
Relationship's with Iran: I am beginning to wonder if our plan for Iran isn't just a bit different than we give out. To wit: a Shia bogeyman to help keep the Sunni bogeyman looking elsewhere than London or NY. And a Shia nuke since the Sunni already have them. I don't see the Mullah's definitely lasting forever with their own young elites disgusted by them, as well as their regime now having all the legitimacy of Burma.
War being the default state of mankind: An ugly statement but not insane - history proves it. We're still savage little primates underneath. Working above the default is what all the effort, building, education, law, civilization is about.
The study was a statistical analysis, so plotting probability vs. number of deaths, you get a bell curve. At the left end of the curve you have something less than 100k with a corresponding low probability, and at the right end you get 600k with a corresponding low probability. The high point in the curve, at the greatest probability, you get something like 300k. So ,it is very unlikely that as little as < 100k died, very unlikely that 600k died. The statistical data from this study shows that it is most likely in the 300k area
Did you read your own source?
I quote: On the basis of the simulation that took into account the sampling errors and the uncertainty in factors for missing clusters, the level of underreporting, and the projected population numbers, we estimated that there were 151,000 violent deaths in Iraq (95% uncertainty range, 104,000 to 223,000) during the post-invasion period from March 2003 through June 2006.
The study you're thinking of is the Lancet study. Which has run into some...how shall I put it...problems as of late.
The decision to invade Iraq made as much sense as deciding to carry out nation-building in Afghanistan.
Well, actually more so. Since the first decision did not have the previous six years of constant lessons.
From the Department of "things I will be chiding the new Best and the Brightest about five years from now."
In 1998, President Clinton declared Iraq had failed its "final chance" and, after the failure of bombing and sanctioning Iraq to compel Saddam's compliance, the only viable solution to the Iraq problem was regime change. 4+ years later ...
We gave Saddam a last ultimatum (a final "final chance", I guess) and then enforced it. Alternative choices. Was Saddam suddenly going to change course and do everything demanded of Iraq by us and the UN? Rather than ultimatum and enforcement, should we have withdrawn our mission in Iraq, essentially admitting defeat to Saddam? Or, post-9/11, should we have tried to maintain the status quo containment and sanctions mission against Iraq forever and continue punting the problem down the line?
All our choices for an increasingly unviable mission in Iraq were poor choices. Opponents of OIF generally don't talk much about what we should have done re Iraq instead of ultimatum and enforcement.
and now they (ISCI) are losing their hold on political power. My toast tasted just a bit better than last week.
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