One more version of events from Iraq
"The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. … We are today not far from a disaster."
- T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia), The Sunday Times, August 1920
Dahr Jamail, one of the few western reporters who has worked unembedded in Iraq paints a different picture of recent US military activities in Iraq. In the Adhamiya event I was writing about yesterday, Jamail claims that the US was fighting with the Interior Ministry forces and Sadr militias against the local Sunnis.
At the end of this article, he also offers a evidence that the US is reengaging in Fallujah and quotes this email from one of his sources in the area. (This supports what I was getting at by looking at the US casualty data on Sunday.)
"Resistance [in Fallujah] is very active and all the destruction to the city by American soldiers did not succeed to stop them. You know the city was totally destroyed in the November attack and is still surrounded and closed for anyone other than citizens of the city. What is going on now is that the Americans are trying to conceal their failure here by not letting anybody in. There were at least five explosions today and more than one clash between resistance fighters and U.S. soldiers. So all the military procedures, together with the thousands of casualties, were in vain. In short, the American Army seems to be losing control in this country and God knows what they will do in revenge. I expect the worst to come."
posted by mikevotes at
9:02 AM
11 Comments:
A couple of weeks ago I watched Lawrence of Ariabia, one of my favorite films. It's stunning how little has changed, both in the level of Western jingoism and Arab infighting.
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-epm, at 10:01 AM
The Financial Times noted last night that there is a shift in tone on the part of the combatants from an "insurgency" to a "neighborhood defense".
It reminds me of the Provisional IRA on steroids. And American platoons are stumbling into it.
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Bravo 2-1, at 11:02 AM
It is a long and sordid history of lies and double dealing. The west have never really bothered to understand the region properly because they are too bloody arrogant.
But you think about your reaction if the Iranians or others in that region were in the position of playing chess with the Americas.
T.E. Lawrence, mad as he was, is a great starting point to at least get some idea of the dynamics which are still in play. At least he got in and tried to understand.
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Cartledge, at 11:23 AM
I just thought the Lawrence quote was an interesting add on. I honestly know no more than the movie which I'm assuming was perfectly accurate, right?
There is a greater issue of understanding, but I also think that the western powers don't repect the Muslim world; they view them as non-thinking objects to be manipulated, really a remnant of colonial and cold war thinking.
And, Copy editor, for the Sunnis in the neighborhood watches and the one's targeting the Shia militias in a battle for control, I think the prov IRA is pretty good analogy, but there are Sunnis further off the scale who are externally backed, not only Alqaeda but other countries in the region, who are attacking the Shia for some broader goals.
That's the whole problem with Iraq now is that there are so many groups with so many different affiliations and goals that there's no way to establish a negotiated peace. Because the prov IRA had a structure, some control over their people and could be negotiated with, Who do you talk to as a spokesman to control the Sunni violence, or the Shia? Sure, you could talk to the largest bloc leaders, but that's not going to stop all the different groups. If you got Sadr to pull back for instance, alot of his group's violence might stop, but all the other Shia groups would demand settlements of their own.
Mike
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mikevotes, at 11:34 AM
...a shift in tone on the part of the combatants from an "insurgency" to a "neighborhood defense".
And when's the last time you heard about "foreign terrorists?" With each passing day, denying there is a civil war in Iraq becomes more and more the rantings of the delusional. Maybe not as bloody, organized and geographically divided as the American Civil War, but a nation (what nation?) violently and entrenchedly divided none the less .
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-epm, at 12:04 PM
Mike, it is all true enough with regards to Lawrence. He brokered deals in the Middle East, for the Brits, which might have yeilded a more stable region. But 'scared promises' were, in the end, just trampled for the sake of convenience, Israel and oil.
I'm reading Brit book at the moment where the old cop says "the three Ls of murder - Love, Lust, Loathing and Lucre. The greatrest of these is lucre." Seems to me the litany rings true for western foriegn policy too.
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Cartledge, at 12:09 PM
Seems to me the litany rings true for western foriegn policy too.
I couldn't disagree more. Just look at all the work the US government has done in Africa to prevent war, secure peace, and irradicate desease and poverty...
Oh, wait a minute... Maybe you have a point.
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-epm, at 12:29 PM
EPM, I'm thinking its more like Bosnia. There weren't the clean geographical divisions initially, but after a period of violence caused refugee migration, then there was geographic separation. That's one of the reasons I keep talking about the "displacement camps." There are a critical step in the worsening situation. A sign that things are preparing to get much worse.
Cartledge, premediated murders are usually neither love or lust, but either money or to prevent someone from taking a certain action.
Mike
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mikevotes, at 1:19 PM
Mike, you make it seem even more to the point and relevant.
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Cartledge, at 1:30 PM
Mike, You're right. Bosnia is a more fitting example. I must remember: Think first, then comment! :)
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-epm, at 1:54 PM
epm, bulls**t.
This is not a formal forum. Just throw out whatever's running through your mind. I generally don't think before I post, that's why the longer posts always end up on a different topic than where they started. That's the beauty of this medium, as a collective entity, an evolutionary mechanism, all sorts of ideas get thrown in, then those that gain interest get propagated. If everybody thinks carefully and limits themselves it doesn't work.
Just like evolution(they still taught that when I was in school) some mutations are propagated and some aren't, but you can never project what will happen until they actually hit the ecosystem. It's a beautifully robust model that doesn't function without occasional errors.
Some of my most developmental shifts in thinking have come because of errors, either mine, accidentally saying something I didn't think I meant to, or in rebutting someone else's statements. It's the interactive nature of the blog that gives it value to me. If it was just me writing what I thought was important, I wouldn't get anything out of it.
Ideally, I use it as a real time peer review of my thinking.
See, this comment started in one place and ended up somewhere else. Didn't intend to talk about evolution or what I get out of blogging, but I introduced a few ideas to the stream.
So, don't think or guard your comments. I believe this blogging mechanism works better when everybody just talks and listens without real judgement of themselves or others.
Just my opinion. Feel free to critique.
Also, specific to examples, I don't think Bosnia is going to end up being a perfect fit comparison either. It's looking more and more likely that there will also soon be several other foreign actors involved for their own goals, the Turks against the Shia, the Iranians, obviously, the Saudis trying to tamp Iranian influence, the Israelis trying to do the same, the Jordanians, the Syrians. It's only going to get more complicated whereas former Yugoslavia was basically the factions of the area and the Serbians(and maybe the Russians depending on your history.)
Mike
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mikevotes, at 2:12 PM
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